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Comments 93001 to 93050:

93001. Rob Honeycutt at 08:44 AM on 13 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       Camburn @ 9... There are definitely differing opinions on Bonds events. That's why I linked that last paper, Maslin 2009. That's the most recent paper I could find on the topic, which suggests that Bond events are there. My biggest takeaway from this topic is that the planet often redistributes temperature around the planet. And the difference with today is that we see nearly all indicators of temperature going in one direction. I believe that is the unprecedented nature of warming this past century.
93002. Phil at 08:30 AM on 13 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       Camburn and Daniel #9 and #10 This is the syntax exactly: <a href="http://geography.cz/sbornik/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/g08-4-1wanner.pdf">http://geography.cz/sbornik/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/g08-4-1wanner.pdf</a>
93003. Paul D at 08:25 AM on 13 March 2011
       Wrong Answers dot com
       Chemware@1 One of their investors (Redpoint), invests in 'green' research and technology: http://www.redpoint.com/portfolio/energy-and-environment/
93004. Camburn at 07:04 AM on 13 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       Moderator: I am somewhat frustrated. I have tried to do the link correctly, but it seems to disappear. DB: Your eplanation was good, but I must be missing a step.
       Moderator Response: [DB] See my response to you in the previous comment. You'll get it. Without the interior label, your link (though constructed properly) would not echo back to the screen (the interior label serves as a graphical placeholder for the link).

       I figured it out, eventually. If I can, anybody can.

93005. Camburn at 07:02 AM on 13 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       Took me some digging, but I finally found this again: Relates to the validity of Bond cycles. Are they real or imaginary correlations? http://geography.cz/sbornik/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/g08-4-1wanner.pdf
       Moderator Response: [DB] You were almost there. The html tag string has an interior set of right-and-left arrows, between which goes the name of the link or whatever you're calling whatever you're linking to, which was missing. Here's the string with no arrows, substituting the number 1 for the left arrow (shares the same key as the comma on my keyboard) and the number 2 for the right arrow (shares the same key as the period on my keyboard):

       1a href="http://geography.cz/sbornik/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/g08-4-1wanner.pdf"2http://geography.cz/sbornik/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/g08-4-1wanner.pdf1/a2

       or

       1a href="http://geography.cz/sbornik/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/g08-4-1wanner.pdf"2Here's a link to an interesting study I found1/a2

       Which (substituting the appropriate arrows back in for the 1's & 2's) yields:

       Here's a link to an interesting study I found

93006. KR at 05:22 AM on 13 March 2011
       Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
       johnd - You handle long term changes such as that the same way we handle the aerosols in the 1950s-1970s: you note the active factors and look at long term trends in light of them. Long term shifts do not introduce noise, they introduce long term slope changes. And the 30-year averaging is intended to average out noise, variability that we don't have a handle on due to chaotic factors and details of local interactions. I'll note that I have yet to see a 60-year cycle actually extractable from the data; many have tried, but it just doesn't hold up under numeric analysis as periodic events.
93007. muoncounter at 05:02 AM on 13 March 2011
       It's the sun
       Rob, I often see this in students. They take a position based on something they've heard (or, sadly, been told by a parent or prior teacher) and cling to it no matter what. If, after a little Socratic give-and-take, you can see their doubt level rising, you can make a difference. However, some are afraid to simply admit that they've been misinformed or are just plain wrong. In the case of some of the most ardent skeptics, clinging to a pre-conceived notion frequently results in highly unscientific thinking -- and down goes credibility. In a case like this, realizing that net radiation is what matters leads to the next logical step: if we reduce the earth's outgoing radiation, the planet must warm. But that requires a greenhouse effect ... and that violates the pre-conceived notion. Illogical, does not compute!
93008. johnd at 04:34 AM on 13 March 2011
       Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
       KR at 12:30 PM, we know from research that the climate in various regions has regularly alternated between wet phases and dry phases, with the corresponding effects on temperature, for periods up to double the 30 year standard. Please demonstrate how the 30 year standard would provide usable data in such circumstances. The projections made whilst in the midst of such periods are going to yield different results. This can be a problem for forecasts produced by statistically modeling. Most of this identification of such longer term cycles has only come about through recent research, thus is unlikely to have been taken into account when discussions on this subject were taking place a century ago.
93009. Camburn at 04:25 AM on 13 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       Rob: The Byrd ice core is interesting in itself because it does show continued warmth during the Holocene. This is in direct contrast to some of the proxy literature of lower latitudes. I have to thank you for posting about the Bond events. These events allow good discussion about world wide climate without the "political" flare. I appreciate this.
93010. Camburn at 04:20 AM on 13 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       From the papers I have read it seems to me that the regional hydrological cycles have more information in them than "temperature" cycles. To change regional hydrocycles, such as the Sahara changing to desert, or Western NA having 400+ years of drought and then turning to a wet cycle show global circulation changes. These events are tied to temperature, but temperature does not always lead to these events occuring. There are indications that temperature shift are a result of these hydrological shifts, rather than the hydrological shift being a result of a change in temperature. Bond events from the past are tied to the suns strength. I am not only talking about TSI, but rather isotope data showing the changes in UV etc. TSI is not always a predictor of temperature. There have been several long term basin studies done throughout the world showing the correlation between solar cycle strength and precipitation over a large area. One thing that is certain, when a Bond event occurs, hydrological cycles throughout the world change very very quickly and this is off concern as we are about due for a Bond type event cycle wise. If we could only be sure what causes this event it would certainly make it easier to understand its scope and total dynamics.
93011. Rob Honeycutt at 04:19 AM on 13 March 2011
       Wrong Answers dot com
       cloa513 @ 21... That's a fascinating perspective. Do you have anything at all to back you up on that position other than just saying it?
93012. Rob Honeycutt at 04:17 AM on 13 March 2011
       Wrong Answers dot com
       hengistmcstone... That is really fascinating! Did you document it at all?
93013. Rob Honeycutt at 03:55 AM on 13 March 2011
       It's the sun
       It's so clear what is happening with TIS, and I see it in so many others who hold his position. They are in this constant process of confirmation bias. They start with the conclusion that AGW can't be correct and waltz through their way through the science locating the points that support that position. What they don't do is push past any of those points to fully understand the science because that endangers the conclusion they want to find.
93014. muoncounter at 03:44 AM on 13 March 2011
       It's the sun
       Another observation re TIS' comment: "Explain the warmer July to me without using geography. ... if accurate, it does prove that geography plays a very strong role in global temperature." That's hardly an adequate 'proof.' But let's play with it anyway. Here's something that doesn't appeal to geography: Your statement 'the earth gets more energy in winter than in summer' clearly refers only to incoming solar radiation. It is certainly true that the peak value of solar insolation averaged across all latitudes at the time of perihelion (winter) is 7% greater than at aphelion (in summer), but isn't that primarily because the earth is closer to the sun in winter? However, basic Physical Geography (the name of textbooks, not part of the explanation) gives the control on temperature as the net radiation: the sum of incoming (daytime) and outgoing (nighttime). For example, this is London: --from physicalgeography.net During the winter months, outgoing longwave radiation actually exceeds incoming insolation producing negative net radiation values. The linked page gives examples for several other locations. So when length of day is taken into account, the 7% additional energy 'received' in winter is radiated away during those long winter nights; winters are colder than summer.
93015. Rob Honeycutt at 03:34 AM on 13 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       Camburn @ 5... I think you are correct, to an extent. I believe that, in general, Vostok is actually considered to be more representative of the planet as a whole. Reading through a bunch of papers on ice cores I find that the Byrd ice core is used as often Vostok for comparing NH/SH. The interesting thing you find there is that Byrd shows an overall warming trend over the Holocene, and also shows the same D-O and Bond antiphase events you see in Vostok. I'm currently trying to locate the actual data for Byrd during the Holocene. All the data at NOAA ends prior to the Holocene.
93016. Rob Honeycutt at 03:27 AM on 13 March 2011
       It's the sun
       TIS... (From previous thread) What you are missing saying that the planet warms and cools 4C during the year is the trend. Take that same monthly series that I linked from NOAA and plot it on a graph. You see the series rise and fall the ~4C that you state. But read the rest of the page. This data is the basis for the anomaly. As the the planet warms that same series you plotted is moving upward. All the datasets plot this. UAH, RSS, GISS, CRU... They are all taking this annual cycle into account.
93017. Rob Honeycutt at 03:19 AM on 13 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       TIS... I'm posting a response to #45 on the proper thread per the moderator response above.
93018. Camburn at 03:17 AM on 13 March 2011
       Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
       I don't know what in the world I am doing wrong, but I can't seem to get the fancy direct link working. Anyways, here is another link concerning soybeans and elevated levels of co2: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/uoia-hcb020609.php
93019. Camburn at 03:15 AM on 13 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       pbjamm: I am not sure that it is all in one direction. The ice core data from Volstock is for Volstock. An isolated area with a small change in actual temperature verses the lower latitudes. Comparing Greenland to Volstock is not a fair comparison, but must be taken into consideration and evaluated further to a more regional perspective and then graduated out to a global perspective. I am more interested in the hydro cycles that accompany a Bond type event. There are large shifts in that cycle that occur when a Bond event happens and they take 100's of years to move back to "normal".
93020. Camburn at 02:59 AM on 13 March 2011
       Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
       Back to co2. This research confirms that soybeans respond very positively to higher levels of co2. http://farmtalknewspaper.com/crops/x1327129664/Research-looks-at-crop-response-to-CO2
93021. hengistmcstone at 01:30 AM on 13 March 2011
       Wrong Answers dot com
       Hmmmm I just corrected an answer on Answers.com and it took less than 3 hours to be reverted back to it's original.
93022. les at 00:01 AM on 13 March 2011
       It cooled mid-century
       12: Dikran Marsupial

       However, I suspect this should be discussed further on another thread.

       and, indeed, was touched on previously in the Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame where Giles didn't understand it either. Someone might do an intro to modeling, simulation, log-likelihoods and MC methods...
       Moderator Response: (Daniel Bailey) Are you offering...?
93023. adelady at 23:06 PM on 12 March 2011
       Wrong Answers dot com
       cloa513. A "meaningless unmeasurable quantity with no scientific value"? The same thing could be said about the average weight of 10 year olds or the average family size. No family has 2.3 or 1.8 or 4.5 children. However, scientists (and policy-makers) concerned with =average= =trends= in family size or health of school age children find numbers representing such trends very useful. The fact that they don't represent anything we can see or feel is entirely beside the point.
93024. adelady at 21:53 PM on 12 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       Thanks for that Tom. I cannot see how geography is of any interest in climate calculation length periods. It doesn't change - or at least until Australia's 5cm a year northward movement gets us nearer the equator it won't. One degree of latitude is over 100 kilometres. At 200 years per metre, 200,000 years per kilometre, this is not of any relevance, let alone interest, except to seismologists and a very small subset of geologists. And I really cannot understand how seasonal temperature effects are of any more concern than tidal or diurnal effects. They're all just cycles. Climate is about whether future cycles will be the same, temporarily different (ENSO for example) or permanently different as in ice ages or warming. Permanent is a human generations word here not a geological period word.
       Moderator Response: [muoncounter] TIS has veered off-topic. This is a thread about a CO2-free atmosphere. Discussion of seasonal solar radiation belongs on It's the sun. Comments there can link back here by including an HREF="" with the URL of the originating comment between quotes.
93025. cloa513 at 21:14 PM on 12 March 2011
       Wrong Answers dot com
       The real scientific answer to has the global mean temperature changed is the global mean temperature is meaningless unmeasureable quantity with no scientific value. You can't just take a massive list of numbers and take and think its a representative number. Those numbers have a physical meaning which can't be averaged. A boulder of rock at 30C has far more energy than a similar size amount of gas. Supposing it did exist by somehow calculating the internal energy of the climate system (a very tough task) and dividing by the mass- there is no way we could reasonably derive before decent array of temperature measuring satellites was available. Before that very large errors getting worse back in time- basically some time in early history could only be able say its hot or cold.
93026. Tom Curtis at 21:08 PM on 12 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       Inconvenient Sceptic @22, 37, and 45: First, you plainly do not understand how the greenhouse effect works, as is shown by your comment @22. The GHE is a consequence of the difference between the energy of the IR radiation to space from gases in the atmosphere, and the energy that would have radiated to space from the surface at those same frequencies has those gases not been present. Because it is the energy balance between radiation to space and radiation from the sun, the energy balance for energy transfers between atmosphere and surface is of only minor interest. Certainly increasing those transfers will not increase the greenhouse effect by itself, and nor will changing the form of the energy transfer. The simple fact that should convince you of your error is the fact that energy radiation from a gas is a function of the gases temperature. Therefore, cooling the atmosphere will reduce the energy radiated by green house gases in the atmosphere, and hence increase the difference between that radiation and that from the surface in the same frequencies. In other words, simply warming the atmosphere weakens the greenhouse effect, not increases it as claimed by you at your blog. Finally, the difference between July and January global temperatures is due to the high proportion of land in the NH, whose low heat capacity results in much faster temperature rises for a given forcing, and much faster falls if that forcing is removed. So much is obvious. What is also obvious is that this is irrelevant to your original and false claims.
93027. Dikran Marsupial at 20:32 PM on 12 March 2011
       It cooled mid-century
       Giles@11: (a) No, the use of multiple models is not "really strage", it is not even unusual. There is uncertainty in the details of the physic is involved and in the parameters, the use of multiple models captures some of that uncertainty. Secondly if different models give similar results, that indicates that the uncertainty in the physics is small and the climate projections are not greatly sensitive to them. That is a good thing from the modelling point of view, not a bad one. If anything it actually means the data do constrain the models relatively tightly as it constrains them all to say the same basic thing. As to scientific validation, you obviously don't understand there is no such thing as scientific validation, only scientific invalidation. You can't prove a theory right, only disprove it. (b) Complaining that bad models are not selected is pretty daft, if the model is inconsistent with reality it means the assumptions underpinning that model are incorrect, so why should we look at it. The CMIP ensemble were not selected in that way, it is an ensemble of models from leading modelling groups, so your objection is incorrect anyway. Complaining that the black line doesn't go out of the corridor is basically saying "the models must be wrong because they give the right answer"! (c) The models should not expect to produce temperatures that precisely match the observations, that comment shows a complete lack of understanding of Monte Carlo simulation methods. We can't predict the chaotic weather, so the model runs will always be different. The model mean won't match the observations either as it is an estimate of only the forced component of climate, not the unforced response - the observed climate has both components so there is no reason to expect that close a match. "That is not, by far, what I would call an accurate fit of data" well possibly that is because you don't understand the effects of the major sources of uncertainty. Given internal climate variability (which models cannot be expected to be able to model), the hindcast is pretty impressive. However, I suspect this should be discussed further on another thread.
93028. Gilles at 18:53 PM on 12 March 2011
       It cooled mid-century
       I agree , that's the point. And if I look at the comparison between models and data, I'm not convinced again that the agreement during the first half is so good Of course at first glance it seems that the match is almost perfect. But if you look carefully at the first half of the century, and if you look also carefully at the methodology used to produce these curves, you will notice that a) curves are generated by a variety of different models, which is really strange, since it means that different modelling can produce the same kind of visual output - this really means that observations are only LOOSELY constraining models - which is the opposite of a scientific validation. b) the models contain parameters , especially for clouds, so there is an obvious selection bias due to the fact that bad models are simply not selected here. In other words, adding a superposition of approximate models with a selection of parameters giving results close to the data, will ALAWAYS produce an interval, a corridor , containing these data - it's almost certain and doesn't prove much. Note how curiously the black observed curve travels throughout the corridor and never crosses the border : is it not surprising that a unbiased set of models just reproduces exactly the range of natural variability, without any "lost space" in the yellow interval or without the black curve goint out of it? this cannot for sure be obtained without a selection of the sample. c) models produce temperature that are not precisely matching the reality in absolute. What is displayed here is ANOMALIES. Anomalies with respect to which baseline ? you have to read carefully the report to find the answer : with respect to the 1900-1950 period. So the agreement at least on the central point of the first half is automatically insured - no surprise here. So the real test of the preanthropic period is not the average value, but the details of the shape around this value. Is it well reproduced ? not so much. The break around 1940 is NOT reproduced in models - it just the width of the interval that blurs out the comparison. The only break in the models are in major volcanic eruptions - first Agung in 1963. Note also that volcanic eruptions are NOT so conspicuous in data. Actually if you look only at data, you couldn't say when these eruptions occured, contrary to the models. So it seems that models "play" with eruptions to try to reproduce breaks that are not really at the right place - playing with a whole interval of parameters to blur out the disagreement. That is not, by far, what I would call an accurate fit of data.
93029. angusmac at 18:30 PM on 12 March 2011
       Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
       Albatross @99 the paper I refer to is Hansen (2006) which is not too old. Your diagram @63 from realclimate appears to be quite impressive; however the temperature data does not look quite so impressive when used in context with AR4. Figure 1: IPCC Scenarios A1B, A2 & B1 Compared with Measured HadCRUT3 Temperature Data (after AR4, 2007) Figure 1 is based on IPCC AR4 Figure TS.26 on to which I have plotted the latest HadCRUT3 data. The black dots in the original diagram appear to be HadCRUT3 data but they are slightly misaligned with actual HadCRUT3 data (my blue dots). Therefore, I offset the HadCRUT3 data by adding 0.018°C to achieve a reasonable fit with the individual data points shown in AR4. The blue line with white dots is the smoothed HadCRUT3 data. It is evident from Figure 1 that the smoothed HadCRUT3 curve give an excellent fit with observed data presented as the solid black line in AR4. It is also evident that the observed temperature trends are significantly below the "likely" warming/emission scenarios presented in AR4. Indeed, the current trend is similar to the emissions-held-at-year-2000-level scenario. I would appear that Mother Nature is putting the brakes on for us.
93030. The Inconvenient Skeptic at 17:44 PM on 12 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       Rob and Alb and Muon, I do understand what global warming is about..... Really. Thanks for linking the NOAA site. I hope people will accept that as not made up. I believe that Jones himself did the study that provided the NOAA the data. Also, the average temperature of the Earth does not change during the day. Half is cooling, half is warming. It stays constant over the course of a day. It does change over the course of the year, by 4C. Here is my question. A serious and legitimate question. Define a forcing mechanism that causes July (lowest solar forcing) to be warmer than January (maximum solar forcing). Forcing doesn't fit. Describe to me a mechanism that causes the minimum energy point to be the warmest time of the year. By CO2 models January should be warmer than July. Please check. In January the Earth gets ~7% more energy than it does in July, but July is also ~4C warmer. Explain the warmer July to me without using geography. It cannot be done, not matter how hard you try. If you don't think that matters, that is fine. But if accurate, it does prove that geography plays a very strong role in global temperature. Convince yourselves that I am either right or wrong on that point. Then we can talk more.
93031. pbjamm at 15:37 PM on 12 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       Camburn, I think the point is (and I am sure I will be corrected if wrong) that the Bond Event may be a global temperature variation but it is not all in one direction. So the net change is neither positive nor negative, more flat.
93032. Camburn at 14:50 PM on 12 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       Thank you DB. I tried to convert the link but still have not figured out how to do that. What the paper shows, at least to me, is that there is an obvious link to the hydrological cycle world wide and Bond events. The changing of the thermocline in the Northern Hemisphere that happens during a bonna fide Bond event affects not only the Western NA continent, but also South America. Even tho the temperature may cool in the NH and rise in the SH, the overall affect is a world wide phenomenon.
       Moderator Response: [DB] If you go here, you find tips on how to do that. For links or documents like pdf's, copy the first indented line of html string (everything between the leftmost-arrow and rightmost-arrow, including the arrows), replacing the text between the double-quotes with your desired source url plus giving some kind of description/name of the linked page/source.

       For images, look under the section that says IMPORTANT. Copy the html tag string that appears there into your comment box, insert your desired url string for your link source between the double-quote marks and then Bob's-your-uncle (you're ready-to-go).

93033. muoncounter at 14:48 PM on 12 March 2011
       Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
       "The winter weather is weather... " That's just half of NOAA's conclusion; I'll repeat the remainder: ... we can make probabilistic statements about future climate, given a long data record and a good understanding of the state of the forces that drive the system. This is not inconsistent with statements made by Zwiers: ... human influence is now affecting the frequency and intensity of high impact events that put people and their livelihoods at risk. Moreover, studies of two specific events (the European 2003 heat wave, and flooding in the UK in the autumn of 2000) have shown that the odds of those events had been increased substantially relative to the world that would have been in the absence of human induced increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases. Nor is it inconsistent with the statements made here: Weather in a given region occurs in such a complex and unstable environment, driven by such a multitude of factors, that no single weather event can be pinned solely on climate change. In that sense, it's correct to say that the Moscow heat wave was not caused by climate change. However, if one frames the question slightly differently: "Would an event like the Moscow heat wave have occurred if carbon dioxide levels had remained at pre-industrial levels," the answer, Hansen asserts, is clear: "Almost certainly not." The frequency of extreme warm anomalies increases disproportionately as global temperature rises. "Were global temperature not increasing, the chance of an extreme heat wave such as the one Moscow experienced, though not impossible, would be small," Hansen says.
93034. Camburn at 14:36 PM on 12 March 2011
       Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
       muoncounter: Thank you for reading the link and commenting on it. The winter weather is weather and not in any way tied to AGW. The only reason I brought this up is that Mr. Zwiers brought it up in his testimony.
93035. Camburn at 14:33 PM on 12 March 2011
       Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
       DB@46: I didn't know that the site in question was a skeptic site. The graph came up in another discussion and when I saw that it was NOAA data including the link I deemed it credible. I have not been to the site in question so I can't comment on it one way or the other. The graph only confirmed other research that I have read concerning hydrological cycles in the US. This is something that I am keenly interested in as it directly affects what I do. Thank you for letting me know about that site.
       Moderator Response: [DB] A kindly word of advice: always seek out the source of any graph or data that interests you on blogs. Even well-meaning persons make honest mistakes. There are those less well-intentioned whose presentations lose fidelity when compared to the sources they claim to cite. The originating source is typically most credible. When even a credible source, such as NOAA, cites a study that interests you, check the original study (where possible) and those that cite it as a basis for further research. The true skeptic follows that route.
93036. muoncounter at 14:19 PM on 12 March 2011
       Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
       Camburn, "I posted a link from NOAA concerning the winter of 2009-2010. Has anyone actually read it?" Yep, especially when I got this far: Still, bitter cold temperatures and blizzards of historic proportions prompted the questions: Why were there so many historic snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic region this winter? Are they evidence that global warming isn’t happening? No, the globe is warming. But the real story behind the mid-Atlantic’s winter isn’t about climate change, it’s about climate variability. Climate variability, the term scientists use, explains why record-breaking snowstorms and global warming can coexist. In fact, many of the weather events observed this winter help to confirm our understanding of the climate system, including links between weather and climate. ... predicting any single weather event is inherently difficult and why we don’t base our assessments of climate on any single weather event. And it shows why we can make probabilistic statements about future climate, given a long data record and a good understanding of the state of the forces that drive the system. --emphasis added Once again, the message is that specific weather events have disparate causes; but the overall warming pattern makes what were once infrequent and unlikely events more likely. Whoever first said, 'If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes' knew what he was talking about.
93037. muoncounter at 13:57 PM on 12 March 2011
       Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
       "Rain is a normal part of them is it not? Is not the destruction caused by the energy of the hurricane? Which is bore out by wind speeds etc? The destruction is caused by the winds. " This discrepancy is discussed on the hurricanes and global warming thread. Large rain events, also very destructive, are not included in the ACE index.
93038. muoncounter at 13:51 PM on 12 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       "Where the energy of the sun strikes causes more "feedback" than any of the GHG's. The location of the long term insolation changes matter most, not the magnitude." I find this mystifying. The comment starts with seasonal variation, then morphs to 'long term insolation change.' This is not the first time a 'skeptic' has attempted to interpret seasonal temperature change as an argument against AGW. But it makes no sense: All of that system has been in place for a long, long time. Pardon me for asking, how does that have anything to do with recent warming - or anything else in recent history other than the seasons themselves?
93039. Camburn at 13:45 PM on 12 March 2011
       Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
       DB: NOAA, at least to me, is a credible source. The University of Florida is also credible. As far as a disinformation site, you have lost me.
       Moderator Response: [DB] In your comment in question, your second link was from http://c3headlines.typepad.com, which serves up disinformation. Example: "NOAA February Data Confirms U.S. Has Been Cooling The Last 15 Years: -1.9°F/Century Trend" = Hokum. I applaud using credible sources such as NOAA or Florida State University, but to put those fine institutions on a par with the like of c3headlines is to de-value the contribution of your entire comment. You can do better (and you have indeed done so in other comments).
93040. KR at 12:30 PM on 12 March 2011
       Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
       johnd - I agree that local and regional weather and longer term climate will be vital to the impact and response of climate change on everyone. But you have not, as we were discussing, made the case that the 30 year averaging of variability to identify statistically significant trends is invalid.
93041. Camburn at 12:26 PM on 12 March 2011
       Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
       I am curious. I posted a link from NOAA concerning the winter of 2009-2010. Has anyone actually read it? It disputes Mr. Zwiers assertion that the recent winters are tied to AGW in the US. As far as hurricanes/cyclones. Rain is a normal part of them is it not? Is not the destruction caused by the energy of the hurricane? Which is bore out by wind speeds etc? The destruction is caused by the winds. Florida State University has a site that shows intensity and numbers.
       Moderator Response: [DB] That comment also contained material taken from a denialist disinformation site, so I personally stopped reading at that point. Material taken from original, peer-reviewed sources is best for building a credible, science-based argument here.
93042. Marcus at 12:20 PM on 12 March 2011
       Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
       John D, if you *honestly* think that I'm going to risk exposing myself to abuse & intimidation by your "skeptic" friends, by revealing more about myself than I already have, then you're sadly mistaken-especially as you still remain unwilling to do so yourself.. The only reason I said as much as I did was to disabuse Camburn of any illusions that I don't have working knowledge of current day agricultural practices (heck, my Mum & Step-Dad own a farm, for Pete's sake). Still, the fact that you've chosen to cast aspersions on my credentials reveals how weak the arguments you & Camburn have presented *really* are. Though its not my actual field of expertise, I have taken the time to read up on the literature regarding enhanced CO2 levels on crop plants, & they simply do *not* paint the incredibly rosy picture that you & Camburn try to do-even when the studies ignore all the other negative impacts that will be associated with CO2 induced climate change. I also have to love how you place so much *faith* in untested hypotheses, when you think they might support your AGW skepticism, yet you still show an unwillingness to accept more than 100 years of accepted science regarding the impacts of increased CO2 in our atmosphere. I guess your "skepticism" is very selective.
93043. adelady at 11:50 AM on 12 March 2011
       Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
       This item at Tamino's gives a very nice analogy for the "it's not very much" line of thinking. At least I like it.
93044. NewYorkJ at 11:42 AM on 12 March 2011
       Examining Hansen's prediction about the West Side Highway
       Chrisd3, I haven't lived in NYC since the 1980's, so I'm not sure what changes have been made. Persistent flooding would seem to depend on a number of factors, including elevation and regional sea level rise (the global rise isn't distributed evenly). HR: "But what's more important speculation by an influential climate scientist who's helping to shape the IPCCs position or a blogger?" Watts is not shaping the IPCC position or the science. I think the blogger would argue that he's helping to shape public opinion, perhaps more so than the IPCC. He and others certainly want to be seen as credible sources, taken as seriously as the scientists. It would be nice if the public (and politicians for that matter) could distinguish between objective science and his brand.
93045. Camburn at 11:11 AM on 12 March 2011
       The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
       This paper shows a correlation between Bond Events and precip in Peru/Bolivia http://eas.unl.edu/~sfritz/pubs/BakerJQS05.pdf
       Moderator Response: [DB] (Converted URL to Link) Personally I think it's great that you're referencing primary source literature. But your description of it lacks an evaluation of whether you think it supports the topic of this post or serves to undermine it. Perhaps if you could add some further characterization of the study you reference it would serve to better enhance the discussion here. Thanks!
93046. johnd at 10:23 AM on 12 March 2011
       Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
       KR at 09:26 AM, collectively, regional weather is our both our means of being able to quantify global climate, and being able understand how it manifests itself at any point in time, past, present or future. Ocean heat content is central to global climate and thus anything that plays into that by altering the conditions that drive the heat flux at the surface is most relevant. Systems such as the IOD have both a "front" and a "back" and given the physical world is neither uniform nor symmetrical across it's surfaces, the frequency of the oscillations and the time spent in each phase does not necessarily mean that everything balances out once a complete cycle has occurred. As you noted the IOD is very relevant to Australia, and it is only since being identified that it has become realised that some of what had previously been attributed to ENSO was in fact due to the IOD. I believe that some studies have, or are being carried out, taking the IOD into account may mean the influence of ENSO is not as great as presently thought. Even without such studies we now know that to be the case for Australia, especially where droughts are concerned, and perhaps floods as well. Time will tell.
93047. Albatross at 10:21 AM on 12 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       Rob @40, He is probably referring to the range in mean global UAH lower tropospheric temperature as shown on Christy's site, which by my reckoning has an amplitude of 3 K, not 4 K. I would like to see what RSS shows though. BUT, again, given the attempts of TIS to obfuscate, I can only conclude that he agrees with Lindzen's erroneous number, because he certainly has not said nothing to have us believe otherwise-- in fact he seems to suggest a lower number (unless lindzen was referring to Fahrenheit and not Kelvin). So instead, he ties to detract from Lindzen being out by an order of magnitude. The physics and science simply do not support Lindzen's number. Anyone, who argues differently must be arguing from a belief system or ideology, and not science, or worse yet, distorting/mangling the science the fit their belief system. And I look forward to TIS submitting a paper to science to refute Lacis et al......... These are desperate days for "skeptics" and contrarians and is showing in the quality of their posts, and their desperate attempts to detract from the failings of their "heros". In recent months Lindzen, Spencer, Michaels, Carter and Christy have been (for the umpteenth time) exposed for what they are-- disinformers and obfuscators intent on confusing the public, who are seemingly driven by ideology and not science. The really scary thing is that, given their training, they must know better-- it is hard to believe that they are innumerate (to borrow a term used by Gareth Renowden in a similar situation) given their training. As you can tell my patience with these disingenuous abusers of science and people who talk though their hats has long run out. I hope readers following SkepticalScience not the vacuity of physics and science in arguments used by "skeptics". I suggest TIS submits a paper to science trying to refute Lacis et al. (2010).
93048. Rob Honeycutt at 10:19 AM on 12 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       I actually found the data TIS is referring to here at NOAA. But TIS is still missing the very basic point of what global warming actually is.
93049. dana1981 at 10:13 AM on 12 March 2011
       Wrong Answers dot com
       wingding - I agree, the site certainly isn't set up to provide accurate answers to scientific questions. However, it's important to make people aware of that fact. As long as they're going to attempt to answer scientific questions, people should be aware that the quality of those answers is poor.
93050. wingding at 09:59 AM on 12 March 2011
       Wrong Answers dot com
       You are wasting your time trying to correct it. My guess is answers.com was created to provide answers to trite general knowledge questions like "which band sung XYZ" etc. Not scientific questions. Q. Co2 produce by human? A. Humans make a bunch of Co2, no seriously: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Co2_produce_by_human

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