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Alexandre at 06:58 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Jay #35 Ok, so NOAA is not reliable and reputable enough to provide this kind of data (please tell me if I unvoluntarily misrepresent you). I do not agree, but that's rather personal. NCAR seems to endorse the same data (Albatross' ref). From which much more reliable source than these did you get the information that that period was warmer? -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Moderator/DB - I believe damorbel's last comment actually was on topic, if wildly incorrect in it's implications: multiple assertions have been made that the photons from cooler objects hitting warmer ones do not reach / don't get absorbed / are turned away by a restrictive bar-room bouncer after being carded, in violation of the 1st law of thermodynamics and the physics of absorptivity for individual photons. So while (as I said) quite incorrect, it is somewhat relevant - if only to highlight the errors made by "2nd law" objections.Moderator Response: [DB] Apologies then. My initial read found context for his linked reference lacking in his comment. Sometimes one because conditioned to expect certain things... -
Bob Lacatena at 06:37 AM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
2, Mike, 3, Rob, The authors of the study used (emphasis mine) "larvae grown under near pre-industrial CO2 concentrations (250 ppm)"... that is, the statement isn't that pre-industrial levels were 250 ppm, but rather that 250 ppm were used as the benchmark to simulate growth at about pre-industrial levels. Reading the materials and methods section of their paper, it seems that coming up with a sea-water-CO2 "soup" is not as simple as mixing ingredients in the right proportions. They got a medium which they considered suitable, then measured the CO2 levels in that medium (in fact, the actual levels were 247 ±6 and 244 ±4) to see what they were working with. Futzing around to get it to exactly 280 ppm probably wasn't worth the time and effort, nor truly relevant to the study. -
Daniel Bailey at 06:17 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Adding to the current discussion, one can look at the current trend in Arctic Sea Ice cover in several ways: 1. By trend in winter sea ice thickness:
Image courtesy ICESAT/NASA 2. By trends in ice extent and area by month:
Image courtesy LHamilton@Neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog 3. Or by looking at trends in ice edge by month by latitude:
Image courtesy LHamilton@Neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog (Edit) To sum: 1. Arctic sea ice thickness is in a multiyear decline, led primarily by the loss of multiyear (old & thick) ice 2. Arctic sea ice extent and area have declined in every month of the year 3. The southernmost ice edge has retreated northward in every month of the year. The trend (the dwindling of the Arctic sea ice is like an ice cube melting away in your favorite drink) should be clear by now to all with eyes that see (and ears that hear)... (end edit) The Yooper -
Rob Painting at 06:14 AM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
Mike, no idea why the authors chose that value, and (without checking) how far back in time that would be. Older papers had immediately pre-industrial at 260-280ppm. But whatever the case may be, the experiments indicate things have already taken a turn for the worse. -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel - Your reference clearly demonstrates that identifying the temperature of an emitting object requires a statistical analysis of a spectra of photons, meaning that an individual photon does not by itself identify the temperature of the source. Which therefore indicates that your assertion here is incorrect. See my earlier post on photon absorption in that regard. Photons, unlike Arizonan citizens, do not carry ID cards indicating their origin. Do you have any comments on the actual issue of this thread, the (observed) exchange of energies between cooler and warmer objects and the implications thereof toward the radiative greenhouse effect? -
climatewolf at 06:09 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Hi dana1981, "You're basically saying that even though what Muller said was wrong, he was right about the underlying science" Nope, I am not saying this at all. What I am saying is that in the presentation from Muller he used this WMO cover graph and a paraphrase of Jones email to demonstrate what HE sees as a distortion of facts. I personally have not at this point drawn a conclusion. My issue with this particular OP is that in presenting the full and complete facts, it doesn't support the statement that Muller has his facts wrong. Nothing in Mullers statements is factually innacurate, just biased. Mr Cook even agree that this particular graph was rightly criticised for not making it clear which data was reconstruction and which instrumental. So to clarify for me as I am failing to understand your point. Please can you explain when Muller is refering to this specific graph and this specific email where Jones cleary states he has used the graphing "trick" of Mann to add the instumental records to the Briffa reconstruction from 1961 AND removed the reconstruction data from that point on, did Muller incorrectly state the facts? Please note, I am not defending Muller for his bias or fairly obvious attack on Mann, I just think if we are going to hold ALL scientists in this debate up to scrutiny on facts, it must be applied equally. I think Muller is making a valid point in regards that graph ALONE. The fact that he uses it to score "points" is pretty low as far as I am concerned, and the fact he doesn't put this graph into context with other or talk about the divergence problem in any detail makes this a one sided presentation. In fairness, in the 2nd link, he does at least point out that his view is one sided and there is no "fair trial" as such. Anyway to be clear dana1981 et al. I am not suggesting the use of this "trick" was in any way wrong, or undocumented, I am debating the semantics of this single particular post. Regards Wolf -
coolaun at 06:08 AM on 31 March 2011Skeptical Science now an Android app
It's great to have all these arguments at my fingertips. The next time a climate change denier annoys me, I can actually pull the facts out of my pocket. The app is well designed, but here are two things I hope you can change: - It's very annoying that the app doesn't remember the text magnification: each time I open an article I must click again on the "magnify" icon to set the text at a size I can comfortably read. - It takes up a lot of space on the internal drive. There really should be an option to move it to the SD card. -
damorbel at 06:03 AM on 31 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re 885 Philippe Chantreau you write:- "I'm still waiting on how the energy of a photon is affected by the temperature of the source." I think it is sumarised inWien's displacement law -
Bob Lacatena at 06:00 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
37,You may know, that arctic sea ice has a high recovery capacity: some colder years are enough to restore it, because thin ice grows faster than old ice.
By the way, you made this up. Specifically: "You may know..." -- No, we don't know, because it's not true. "High recovery capacity" -- a citation please? You base this on what? "some colder years are enough to restore it." -- Really? Can you provide a single example when this has actually happened? Not just surface area... that's easy, and will happen even in a warm winter, because the sun goes away for months on end. But has it actually recovered thickness as well as area? Is the ice robust, or just a flaky crust that will vanish with the first kiss of the sun? "...because thin ice grows faster than old ice" -- So what? Thin ice also melts faster than old ice. That's the whole problem. You'd need decades of much colder weather to rebuild the Arctic back to a state which is harder to melt in the summer. -
Bob Lacatena at 05:54 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
37, fydijkstra,You may know, that arctic sea ice has a high recovery capacity: some colder years are enough to restore it, because thin ice grows faster than old ice.
This demonstrates a total and complete lack of understanding of the problem. No one really cares if ice "recovers" or even quintuple recovers during the winter. Big deal. The sun goes down, it's dark for months on end, the temperature plummets and ice forms. Yay. What we do care about is what happens in the summer months, when the ice melts. When this happens, instead of nice, shiny, reflective ice redirecting the summer sun back into space, open, transparent, high specific-heat water absorbs that radiation and warms, above and beyond the warming which triggered the too-great summer melt and was in turn caused by the greenhouse effect and CO2. Thirty years ago, the ice melted back to here:
Twenty years ago, the ice melted back to here:
Last year, it melted all the way back to here, exposing that much more lower latitude open water for that much longer time to absorb heat:
Even after the year comes when it melts back to nothing, things will still get worse, because the game then will be predicting how much sooner in the spring/summer the ice melts completely away. And every day sooner is that much more heat absorbed by the planet.
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johnd at 05:46 AM on 31 March 2011Weather vs Climate
Alexandre at 02:35 AM, if we are to accept that two trends determined from each data base as absolute, then obviously either the temperature at one, or both, ends of the time period used are different. If it is such that the error range of each data base is so large that they overlap, that would make any discussion involving such small temperature differences meaningless. So which do you think accounts for the differences? On the matter of the energy imbalance, what you are referring to is something different. The energy imbalance is so small it cannot be directly measured at the TOA. Instead it is inferred by trying to account for all the heat within the system. Unfortunately the bottom line only balances with a portion entered as missing. Without being to accurately quantify all the heat, the baseline remains unknown. (perhaps a bit like the matter regarding the trends mentioned above) This has been discussed in a number of threads,"Tracking the energy from global warming" being one that you could reference. -
MP3CE at 05:33 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
@#37 fydijkstra: Another nice topic about AGW and observed changes is available here: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/how-likely/ -
dana1981 at 05:28 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Wolf #88:"So I'm afraid your points are incorrect from my understanding."
No, my points are correct. I clearly demonstrated where Muller's comments are factually incorrect. You're arguing something different entirely. You're basically saying that even though what Muller said was wrong, he was right about the underlying science. That's a different issue which we have discussed elsewhere. Muller appears to focus on an obscure WMO report cover, which we agree was not well documented. However, the divergence problem was well documented in academic research, and in the IPCC reports. Frankly nobody even knew about this obscure WMO report until the Climategate emails were stolen, and I don't particularly care about it. I don't know why Muller is so focused on this obscure report cover. Regardless, it's beside the point. Muller made numerous incorrect statements, period. The fact that there's some sliver of truth behind them does not make his incorrect statements any less wrong. And as we'll see in future Muller Misinformation posts, Muller has this pattern of taking a sliver of truth and distorting it with misinformation, as he did here. -
johnd at 05:14 AM on 31 March 2011A Plan for 100% Energy from Wind, Water, and Solar by 2050
Bern at 22:54 PM, you are exactly right. The market price of coal at the mine mouth is somewhat different to the market price FOB or CIF on a bulk carrier. As CBDunkerson at 23:43 also correctly points out, transport costs will constitute a increasingly sizable portion of the market price depending on where the transfer of ownership occurs. The market is presently demand driven in favour of the seller, however in times when the market is balanced or in favour of the buyer, coal delivered at a mine mouth could have a market price more resembling that of gravel where mining conditions allow low cost operations. Back in the 1990's, I recall learning that coal that was being mined in Wyoming's Powder River Basin and being loaded onto trains at the mine mouth for about $3/ton, or perhaps less, was still dearer landed at ports on the Gulf of Mexico, than similar coal mined in South East Asia landed from bulk carriers even though mining costs in SE Asia were higher. Such is the transport component of the market price. -
shawnhet at 05:07 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Albatross, per 75, 1. Probably not, but this could've just been a misreading of the line I quoted to Phillippe above 2. Not sure as I don't know for sure what his point is. 3. I don't think Muller was talking about the techniques of either one being exactly identical. He was talking about their altering graphs in such a way as to make their overall message misleading. Comparisons here are legitimate IMO. As I have previously said, I find this whole issue to be trivial. Cheers, :) -
Bob Lacatena at 05:07 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
35, Cadbury, You do need to read a paper more carefully before you cite it, to be sure that it says what you claim it says... this one doesn't. But, that aside, I'm not sure that I agree with their methodology. They limited their analysis to 8 stations with complete temperature records back to 1880, but in so doing... the only stations which fit that criteria were one in Iceland, 4 in Scandinavia, one around Archangel, 2 in Siberia, and one in southern Greenland (that's nine, and a discrepancy in their paper). First, this distribution clearly (and they say so) is the "lower arctic". Second, there is a preponderance of stations in the same area -- many in Scandinavia within a very small region, then others in nearby Russia/Siberia. They completely missed North America, most of Greenland, anything near the Pacific, and anything further north than 70˚ and so missing the "true" Arctic... where the ice is melting. Third, the primary area they used happens to show a local, regional cooling trend, so it is hardly a good sample on which to base any such study (approximate station locations are black circles):
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climatewolf at 04:56 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Hi dana1981, I agree with you and the OP that Muller paraphrased the actual email and in doing so added some potential bias to it, however that in and of itself does not invalidate his statements. The Briffa reconstruction showed a decline in temperature post 1961. As has been shown, there is a very good argument that this data was unreliable and so was not included and instead was substituted (in the graph) with instrumental data (as were the other reconstructions from 1981 onwards). So I'm afraid your points are incorrect from my understanding. It is entirely fair to say that Muller has presented his facts with a slant/bias, however he is still presenting facts. If the OP were worded in such a way as to point out this bias and paraphrasing, I would have no problem with it. I merely feel from a straight forward use of English point of view, to say Muller makes errors is not correct. I am completely open to any discussion of actual facts in these presentations that were incorrect and look forward to subsequent posts here, but in this instance I think the OP crosses the line in calling these errors rather than bias. Regards Wolf -
KeenOn350 at 04:47 AM on 31 March 2011Acidification: Oceans past, present & yet to come
Scary, isn't it? -
Albatross at 04:41 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
fydijkstra @1 and @37, Actually, CW did not address Arctic amplification in his/her posts. They simply stated what is already known about winds and currents in the region. And if the strength of the polar vortex is affected by polar amplification, and the recent wild swings in the AO index suggest it is, that will translate into changes in the winds and ocean circulation. So advection of sea ice is/will be affected by polar amplification-- as I said up thread, "The climate system is a continuum and a myriad of intertwined factors/processes modulate its behaviour.". There is also evidence that warmer ocean water from lower latitudes is now entering the Arctic (Spielhagen et al. 2011), water that is the warmest in the past 2000 years. "Here, we present a multidecadal-scale record of ocean temperature variations during the past 2000 years, derived from marine sediments off Western Svalbard (79°N). We find that early–21st-century temperatures of Atlantic Water entering the Arctic Ocean are unprecedented over the past 2000 years and are presumably linked to the Arctic amplification of global warming." Perhaps the present situation can be best be placed in context by the findings made by Polyak et al. (2010): "The current reduction in Arctic ice cover started in the late 19th century, consistent with the rapidly warming climate, and became very pronounced over the last three decades. This ice loss appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years and unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities." And yet "skeptics"/contrarians in their delusion are still trying to tell us everything is just fine. The 2011 Arctic melt season is going to be yet another interesting one...and not necessarily "interesting" in a good way. -
dana1981 at 04:20 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Wolf #84 - here are the examples of factually wrong statements from Muller outlined by John in the post above: 1) "That's the words, "let's use Mike's trick to hide the decline"." Those weren't the words in the email. He didn't just get the words wrong, he repeated the misrepresentation and claimed it was a direct quote. 2) "Mike's trick consisted of erasing that data, calling it unreliable, and then substituting the temperature data from thereon." "Mike's trick" does not involve erasing any data, calling any data unreliable, or substituting the instrumental temperature record. It merely involves plotting the instrumental record along with the proxy record. -
fydijkstra at 04:16 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Honeycutt (3) and others: I stated, that the melting of arctic ice has little or nothing to do with the greenhouse effect. You asked: 'Isn't Arctic amplification a predicted result of an enhanced greenhouse effect?'. This question has already been dealt with by Climatewatcher (7 an 14). My additional answer: yes, the warming at high latitudes has been predicted as a result of the greenhouse effect. But that's the only point where the sea ice melting has something to do with the greenhouse effect. ( - Off-topic Gish Gallop snipped - ) You may know, that arctic sea ice has a high recovery capacity: some colder years are enough to restore it, because thin ice grows faster than old ice.Moderator Response: [DB] Many other threads exist covering the topics snipped. If you wish to discuss those, place individual on-topic comments on those other threads please. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:04 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Jay... Please note that in the abstract of the paper you post they say, "...the Arctic warming from 1910–1940 proceeded at a significantly faster rate than the current 1970–2008 warming..." That is not saying that the Arctic was warmer in 1940. You said, "Note that from 1935-1945, arctic temperatures were much higher than today" which would be inaccurate. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 03:59 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
@AlexandreDo you think NOAA did a very good job updating the public about the BP oil spill?[muoncounter] Above is off topic. http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2009/2009GL038777.shtml Sorry, this links only to the abstract, I think this is a pay journal but it says in the abstract the arctic warmed faster 1910-1940.Moderator Response: [DB] I'd recommend reading a bit more closely. The abstract clearly speaks of rates of warming, not absolutes. And those rates are relative to the global average, which we know today is much higher globally than during the earlier time period in question. In any case, an open copy is available here. -
Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
climatewolf> I agree, by specifically calling out Manns name and not that of Briffa and Jones, the statement could be misinterpreted, however I don't see where he was factually incorrect in this area. Muller's rhetoric seems to rely on implication more than direct factual statements. I don't think that should let him off the hook, especially when he's arguing that the work of all these authors is essentially worthless. -
Albatross at 03:49 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Alexandre @33, Re the unsupported claim made by Cadbury @30 that: "Note that from 1935-1945, arctic temperatures were much higher than today" The data plotted below also agree with the NOAA figure that you posted.
Source here.
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Albatross at 03:41 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Shawn and Arkadiusz, I think part of your frustration is arising from the fact that you still appear not to grasp the intent of the OP. Daniel and others have tried to point out the intent of the OP to you, so it is now getting a little old to suggest that there is some "trick" or "conspiracy" going on to stifle your opinion (although this is a story about Muller mangling facts and words, and is not opinion or interpretation). Shawn, I asked you questions @75 to try and focus the discussion on the pertinent issues and move it forward. You are quite free to answer "no" (i.e., disagree with the OP) and explain why you disagree. But You have not taken advantage of that opportunity. You are also free to post on the relevant thread/s to discuss other issues further. Let me be frank, CA and WUWT or Air Vent would almost certainly not afford you the same courtesy, or even the polite exchange in this type of situation. As Dana says, there is probably more in the works documenting Muller's propensity to mangle his facts and to engage in rhetoric on this important issue--this was just a taster. Now that behaviour by someone of Muller's standing should concern you, whether or not you are a skeptic or contrarian. And, you can still be a "skeptic" or contrarian and agree with John Cook et al. from time-to-time you know :) -
Chris Colose at 03:36 AM on 31 March 2011Understanding Solar Evolution Part 2: Planets
Bern, The extremely high Deuterium-Hydrogen ratio on Venus suggests that there was a lot more water in its early stages than is now (and it still has some trace amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere) although there's good indication it was never within the last billion years or so, so it must have been earlier. The timeframe over which water was lost is rather unknown, and if Venus went through a "moist greenhouse" phase could remain habitable until the timescale of hydrogen loss (in this case, an ocean can still be at the surface). -
climatewolf at 02:57 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Hi All, I will start by openly admitting I am a complete layman in this subject, and continue to read this and many other sites to try and improve my knowledge. Whilst I have found a lot of useful and interesting information on this site, I do have an issue with this OP As I understand it, "Mike's nature trick" is merely a graphical tool for adding instrumental temperature readings to the end of a proxy series. "I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline." So Phil Jones email reads plainly that he is saying for the Briffa reconstruction he is moving this addition of instumental data back 20 years, to remove what is considered outlier data (hide the decline). So I agree that the use of this "trick" in Mann's Nature graph did not (as far as I am aware) involve removing outlier data from his study. However Muellers paraphrasing and presentation when looked at in this context do not appear to be factually incorrect. He did not say the method used by Mann in his paper involved erasing data, he said the use of this method by Briffa Jones did. This is factually correct (if somewhat irelavent). I agree, by specifically calling out Manns name and not that of Briffa and Jones, the statement could be misinterpreted, however I don't see where he was factually incorrect in this area. Please correct me if I have missed the point or misrepresented anything here. I continue to look forward to more informed articles here. Regards Wolf -
shawnhet at 02:56 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Phillippe, This looks like one sentence to me:"I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline." He may've just thought that hiding the decline referred to both Mike's trick and what Briffa did. Cheers, :) -
pbjamm at 02:54 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Philippe@80 it does rhyme with 'misreading' though. -
dana1981 at 02:51 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
No, Muller didn't just misread a single line. He combined several different statements about different subjects into one. He then claimed that he was providing a direct quote - "That's the words, 'let's use Mike's trick to hide the decline'." Those are not the words. He then incorrectly characterized "Mike's trick". Really, there are just so many wrong statements Muller packed into just a couple of sentences, it's pretty mind-boggling. As we'll see in future installments of Muller Misinformation, this appears to be common behavior for Muller. -
Alexandre at 02:51 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Jay #30 Arctic temperatures higher between 1935-1945 than today? NOAA seems to disagree:
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Phila at 02:45 AM on 31 March 2011Understanding Solar Evolution Part 2: Planets
BP: "Not necessarily. It depends on how hard posterity is willing to work." You seem blissfully unaware of the ironies here. -
Philippe Chantreau at 02:42 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
"he misread a single line" Total BS. He gathered several lines and put them together in a certain way, so as to create a certain mental image in the listener. There is a name for that. I do not understand how one could call it "misreading." -
Alexandre at 02:35 AM on 31 March 2011Weather vs Climate
johnd at 13:23 PM on 30 March, 2011 You say: Rahmstorf used a rise of 0.33°C in the global mean surface temperature over the 16 years whereas JAMSTEC using NCEP would have used 0.22°C based on a trend of 0.14°C per decade determined over the period 1982 to 2008. This part of your answer (along with a few other bits) makes me wonder if you understood what that Rahmstorf paper is all about. He's not projecting anything, nor is he hindcasting. He did not "use the upper areas" of uncertainty nor the lower ones. He just juxtaposed observations and projections, with the whole uncertainties, and compared them. And the observations match those projections pretty well. My untrained eye would even say that global temperatures are closer to the upper limit of uncertainty ranges than the lower (of course, so are emissions as well). So, if the IPCC (not Rahmstrof) had used an even lower projected warming rate, as you suggest, it would yield poorer results. Have a look:
Of course, 16 years is not long enough for such a noisy signal, but so far, so good. And if you add the 3 last years, the projection is still just as good. We should keep watching this, but nothing here suggests the IPCC should have thought it would warm less.
About your other point:
The current understanding is that there is an energy imbalance at the TOA, and the surplus is , well, missing.
Maybe you are confusing energy balance at the TOA with the climate heat content?
The radiative difference is not missing. It's radiating back down, as predicted and observed.
Moderator Response: [mc] fixed image width -
Rob Honeycutt at 02:21 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Yes, Jay... Citation. If you're going to make statements like that you need to be able to back them up. That standard gets applied to both sides of the debate here at SkS. -
Bob Lacatena at 02:18 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
30, Cadbury,Note that from 1935-1945, arctic temperatures were much higher than today...
Citation, please. -
Philippe Chantreau at 02:18 AM on 31 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Damorbel keeps digging while trying to impress by citing Einstein (in German, for added effect). "every time you get corrected, you change the subject." You reckon KR? I'm still waiting on how the energy of a photon is affected by the temperature of the source. I'm not counting on a quantum theory revolution any time soon. Damorbel knows just enough vocabulary to impress and confuse the gullible but he has repeatedly demonstrated the lack of understanding of his own words. I am unmoved with both him and LJR. So far, in a lot less than the 850 posts contained in this thread, I've seen the howler I cite here, the one you addressed above and LJR asking what the Earth emissivity is in the SW. But they're ready to give lessons to everyone and caution against the bold "hypothesis" of an atmospheric GH effect. What a farce. It's almost as if they are in disguise, on a campaign to completely discredit the ridiculous GH effect skepticism launched by G&T. -
shawnhet at 02:06 AM on 31 March 2011Muller Misinformation #1: confusing Mike's trick with hide the decline
Albatross, if I wanted to play gotcha, I could point out that anything except the issue raised in the OP is OT ;) Perhaps, Muller is wrong about everything in his presentation, but on the specific issue raised by this thread there is no evidence of anything except that he misread a single line. This misreading didn't affect his larger point IMO. Perhaps, at some point I will address dhogaza's concerns on the relevant thread, but frankly this whole exercise has been pretty frustrating and I am soured on the whole thing. Cheers, :) -
Philippe Chantreau at 02:00 AM on 31 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
TonyM, the confusion and conflation of issues and non issues in your post are so dense that I will not even bother to begin adressing them. All the answers are out there and easy to find if you actually want to look. As for why it is important to show that a consensus exists in climate science, that is because the assault on it is of a scope and ferocity that are unprecedented. Even the tobacco campaigns pale in comparison. The merchants of doubt have managed to create a perception that there is lack of agreement among scientists on the basics tenets. There is not. It is important to point that out. Science is not done by consensus and never was, that applies to climate as well. The consensus is one of research results. Climate scientists working on various aspects of the science reach similar or identical conclusions through different means. These conclusions impose themselves to anyone studying the science seriously. That is what consensus means. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 01:51 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
adelady, 32 years of data isn't enough to make such an ( -snip- ) prediction. Note that from 1935-1945, arctic temperatures were much higher than today, and dropped from that peak until about 1960. This tells us that the arctic can sustain greater warming.Moderator Response: [DB] Actually, this is well-documented and studied. See here for background information and studies. -
TonyM at 01:46 AM on 31 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Bern, thanks for your comments. I will leave the issue on consensus open as it would need to also canvas possibilities other than the one you have focussed on. I suggest if the science is so robust it does not need a survey on consensus. I have never heard of such a survey in the hard sciences even if its intent was to educate the public. So I guess what you are telling me is that the temperatures we experience today reflects CO2 of perhaps 200-1000 years ago. This sounds like a strange consensus science community when the controversy surrounding hockey sticks, hidden data and ocean rises is all so contemporary but the real cause is somewhere in the past. No wonder Gore is reported to have bought a property on the coast. In addition the CO2 we are spewing out now will have an effect in 200-1000 years. But, non mixing oceans right now are causing faster temp rises so that many of our pollies wrongly attribute it and some extreme natural events to CO2 rises rather than, say, God. As the last half million years have seen no runaway effect with CO2 increases (and there is plenty of it available in the oceans etc) why would I want to worry about the level of CO2 rising now. Besides technology will have caught up sufficiently and energy, say from fusion, will be so cheap that we can sequester all the CO2 we want in a few hundred years if that is required.Moderator Response: You've wandered across quite a few topics other than the one that this post is about. Click the "Arguments" link in the horizontal bar at the top of this page, and skim the resulting list for appropriate posts. Further off topic comments on this thread will be deleted. -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel - I generally do not respond to your postings, as they seem to follow 'trolling' principles (lots of red herrings, for example), but I will on the following howler. I apologize for my tone, but this has gone on far too long. "Measuring the 'downwelling radiation' tells you almost nothing because you are far from sure about what kind of material (pressure; density; temperature etc. - for a gas) is emitting this radiation (thus you don't know its emissivity) and where it is." Measuring downward IR at the surface tells you exactly what you need to know - the amount of energy coming down from the atmosphere at the air-surface interface, and hence the appropriate values for the energy budget. That's 333 W/m^2 downward IR, repeatedly and accurately measured. Your quibbling does not change the data! Your objections are really just red herrings, damorbel, a pattern you have repeated over and over and over again on this thread for multiple months - every time you get corrected, you change the subject. We know the energies, we know (as per Tom Curtis's post) where those come from in the atmosphere, we know the upwelling radiation, and we really really do know what the IR absorptivity/emissivity of water, sand, dry and wet dirt, etc., are. And we know the physics of CO2, EM, and thermodynamics. The radiative greenhouse effect is fully supported by all of this - no other viable explanations have been put forth. ---- Back to the actual thread: The "2nd law" objection to the greenhouse effect is based upon a mistaken notion (As per Gerlich et al) that a cool object cannot add energy to a warmer object, since net energy transfer is in the other direction - a classic Fallacy of Division, as net transfer is a statistical effect, not a restriction on individual photons. Hence the "2nd law" objection is false. Are there any actual issues with this that are on topic? Moderators, might I suggest that topic adherence be strongly enforced, as we're at >850 postings on this topic, many of which are serious digressions?Moderator Response:[DB] "might I suggest that topic adherence be strongly enforced"
Agreed. In the words of the King:
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Stu at 01:36 AM on 31 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
"In the case of water, evaporation is by far the dominant heat loss mechanism for incident radiation, even Trenberth's diagram show's this. You can easily discover the figures for yourself by checking world wide rainfall; the heat needed to evaporate water is deposited in the atmosphere when it condenses. Yes evaporation is a big consideration, but I'm not sure why it trumps radiation. Locally (or indeed regionally), the latent heat flux can be massive, especially where cold air flows over warm water, but Trenberth's schematic shows evapotranspiration having an average value of 80 W/m2, compared to 396 W/m2 radiation:
Indeed if you take water to have an emissivity of 0.95 at 300 K, then it's emitting 436 W/m2 at that temperature. And regarding that value of emissivity for water:
"True, but the link doesn't say that or give any figures for different wavelengths, so I do not understand what you are driving at."
The problem then is just that you didn't read the part of the page that says "As a guideline the emmisivities below are based on temperature 300 K"
A substance at 300 K will have its peak emissive flux in the thermal infrared.
"I have read the paper you linked plus the description of the radiometer used and it merely confirms what I wrote in #875. To summarise, the energy associated with heat is constantly being exchanged between (adjacent) molecules both mechanically by (elastic) collision and electromagnetically by absorption and emission of radiation; somewhere there is a link to a paper by Einstein in this connection.
I know this sounds pedantic but it has to be said. What the radiometer used in your paper measures is the radiation from gases that emit electctromagnetic radiation because they have T>0K. What the radiometer doesn't do is measure the 'upwelling' radiation from the same gases. If you could measure the 'upwelling' radiation from the same gases then you would be able to determine how much energy was being transferred and in which direction; only then would you be able to work out what was happening to the temperatures at the various locations of interest."
When you say 'energy associated with heat is... exchanged... by absorption and emission of radiation', you need to qualify it with the fact that only greenhouse gases do any absorbing or emitting. Again, it's not just that gases emit because they have T>0K. N2 and O2 do next to no emitting and their energy has to be transferred by collision to a GHG in order to be radiated away.
Also, radiation is emitted isotropically; if you measure a certain downward flux, you can be sure that the 'layer' of the atmosphere you're measuring is emitting the same flux upwards.
I think Tom Curtis has answered your other points nicely.
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adelady at 01:28 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Rats, it's past my bedtime. If someone wants to do the link properly, go ahead. I'm off. -
adelady at 01:27 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
drjc, I don't know about "safe, but it would be reassuring if we were to see 3 out of 5 years above the 2 standard deviation range rather than below it.
Moderator Response: [DB] Hot-linked image. -
adelady at 01:16 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
Ken, I find it handy to think of the Arctic as a bottleneck for heat. Atlantic currents drive warm water northwards which just happens to be towards a smaller and smaller area because of the NH land mass. So all that warmth has to find somewhere to go. For a few decades it's been more or less invisible because the ice has been soaking it up from underneath. But all good things must come to an end. So much warmth has gone into thinning the ice that it is finally giving up. It's breaking up into slush in many places, it's not forming the former massive slabs it used to. And those smaller, thinner pieces of ice are more vulnerable to winds, tides and currents that formerly used to circulate around, over and beneath the ice shifting and compressing most of it and moving just the edges away. Now those "edges" are all through the no-longer-packed ice and the winds and currents have free rein to move damaged ice further and faster out of the Arctic area. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 01:04 AM on 31 March 2011Arctic Ice March 2011
So there has been a lot of concern about arctic ice, what level of ice would be considered a safe amount. -
Bern at 00:45 AM on 31 March 2011Understanding Solar Evolution Part 2: Planets
BP: technically possible, but would it ever happen? Given the warnings given by scientists about problems a century hence due to global warming, and the marked lack of action by world governments, I hold grave doubts that they'd work to prevent a problem a few hundred million centuries down the track. :-P I recall a Larry Niven novel (Ringworld, I think) where a species of aliens was moving their entire solar system out of the galaxy due to some impending catastrophic wave of supernovae... that's probably beyond us at this point in time, but a billion years from now, if we're still around?
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