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wingding at 09:59 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong 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 -
RickG at 09:56 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
# 37 ICS, Could you please post a source for that 4C range? I would like to see the arithmetic. -
Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
johnd - I spent some time looking into the IOD; it's not something I was familiar with. You're quite right, the IOD has been mostly positive for years now, and may be exiting the "quasi-periodic oscillation" category for a more persistent pattern. But quite frankly, the IOD is regional weather, not global climate. Wind patterns move warm water to the west, with resulting colder upwelling near Sumatra. The overall effect is a redistribution of warmth, but not a global trend - an increase or decrease in energy retained. The shift to a more persistent pattern appears to be an example of regional climate change, like the northern movement of the equatorial rain belt, which will probably begin to raise coffee prices in coming years as Central American (among others) precipitation shifts and the southern US dries out. The IOD appears to be more persistent due to climate driven wind changes. The IOD is a huge influence on Australian weather - but does it affect long term global temperature averages??? Perhaps it will result in a 'step change' if it stops varying, although I can only see that if the long term shift changes absorption of solar energy, rather than redistribution. But if it stops varying due to long term wind shifts, it's certainly will affect temperature variance even less than it does now. The 30 year running average may have a change like the one around 1945 or 1975. But the time required to extract a statistically significant trend from varying data will actually reduce if the IOD ceases to vary. -
WheelsOC at 09:25 AM on 12 March 2011The name is Bond...Gerard Bond.
Thank you, I've been looking for more information about the "Roman Warming." Usually data presented is only from the northern hemisphere, but it's used to allegedly put the current global climate "in perspective." -
Rob Honeycutt at 09:24 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
TIS... I have to say, I'm having a hard time finding this signal of 4C global average temperature swings in the data. -
sidd at 09:22 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
The second graf in the article and the one posted by Mr. Colose remind me of the PV curves with the van der Waals correction and the Maxwell construction. -
Phil at 09:20 AM on 12 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
Dana's main article says: "The authors' second conclusion is that if we continue on our present course, we could be headed towards a mass extinction event within a timeframe of just a few centuries. Therefore, it's very urgent that we steer away from our mass extinction course immediately." (My italics) LandyJim #46 complains saying that "extinctions of the overwhelming majority of species in the last 400 years is nothing to do with climate change" (my italics) I find that it's always worth reading the article before commenting on it. -
Rob Honeycutt at 09:15 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
TIS... What you seem to be missing is this is not about absolute temperatures. In a given day the temperature rises and falls vastly more than the most dire global warming predictions. This issue is that we are nudging the distribution curve out one direction producing warmer average temperatures and greater extremes. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 08:33 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
To those that continue to argue solar forcing.... Between January and July of each year the average temperature of the Earth increases ~4C. Between July and January the average temperature of the Earth drops ~4C. The maximum energy from the sun is opposite of that cycle. The Earth receives maximum energy in January and minimum in July. The factor that causes that behavior is the differing geography of the two hemispheres. If they had equal geography then Jan-Feb would be warmest and Jul-Aug the coolest. The geography of the Earth causes more of a temperature change each year than even the IPCC's most dire predictions. 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. That is why the "arithmetic" is not believed. It does not explain the annual temperature cycle. -
johnd at 08:19 AM on 12 March 2011Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
KR at 07:41 AM, you are looking at it more from a weather perspective by ignoring how ocean heat content becomes a function of these longer term cycles. With regards to the IOD, you've also overlooked the most recent history where it remained in a positive or neutral phase from 1992 until it's present negative phase, which was the longest period of it's kind since records began in the late 1800's. However, from an Australian perspective, and by extension all other regions on the ocean's rim, it's the fact that it oscillates differently to adjoining systems. This current situation of a -ve IOD coinciding with a La-Nina last occurred in 1975 bring a similar extended wet period to Australia and no doubt having a similar effect on the ocean heat flux. Other years where they have also coincided could include 1942, 1933, 1917, 1916, 1909 and 1906, however that depends on how different agencies classify the occurrence. Apart from the most recent coincidence, 1975 is the only other year that is common to all. -
scaddenp at 08:15 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
" If you compare those figures I believe you're going to see that an enhanced greenhouse effect is going to overwhelm any orbitally forced cooling." This has been pointed out to TIS before but so far as I can see he doesnt believe arithmetic. -
dana1981 at 07:56 AM on 12 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
LandyJim #46 - you're free to think whatever you like. I merely reported on a study in which the scientific experts disagree with your beliefs on the subject. Agnostic #47 - good summary. As you say, there are clear signs (the rapidly accelerating extinction rate) that we're on a very dangerous path.
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From Peru at 07:55 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
During the exit from a snowball event, one essentially goes from a completelely ice covered planet to an iceless planet as the CO2 content of the atmosphere reach 10%. The temperature in the snowball aftermath reaches between 40ºC and 50ºC. Oxygen isotopes of cherts 3.5–3.2 Gyr (Archean Eon) indicate temperatures of 70 +/- 15 ºC, indicating that temperatures then may have been even higher in earlier times. My question is: in the Ancient Earth, during periods when temperatures where between 40ºC and 70ºC, what would the atmosphere be like? In particular, given the enormous atmospheric water vapor content due to the high temperature, would the planet be completely covered by clouds, like today is the planet Venus? (I mean clouds made of water droplets of course, unlike the Venusian clouds that are made of H2SO4 droplets) And what net radiative effect can have a 100% cloud cover, that is, what dominates, the reflection of shortwave radiation (the cooling effect of clouds) or the cloud greenhouse effect on longwave radiation (the warming effect of clouds)? -
Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
johnd - You're quite correct, our understanding of things like the ENSO have improved tremendously over the last century. That means we can now account for them in normalizing temperature records, as Tamino has done. And that therefore there is justification for using shorter time periods to detect trends with such variations removed. Not justification for longer periods. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD, which you had not clarified) cycles about four times every thirty years, similar in period to the ENSO. And hence the 30 year averaging should encompass the IOD as well. The initial 30 year average came out of looking at long term temperature records, variation and noise, and numerically looking at how long a period was required to detect a statistically significant trend against that variation. The statistics haven't changed - 30 years is still the right time period, although if we back the ENSO and other detectable variances out we have a chance to identify trends with shorter periods. Unless you have identified a 15-40 year or greater cycle that isn't being accounted for? You might then want to look at Tamino's recent post on identifying unknown cycles and relationships. I'm still not hearing a justification for a longer time period for climate estimation - but rather a shorter one if properly calculated. -
johnd at 07:32 AM on 12 March 2011Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
JMurphy at 01:40 AM, given your anxiety about this matter and subsequent urging that "perhaps we should leave it to the particular experts in that particular field", let me assure you that it is unlikely that such changes will be implemented in this thread, at least not today, and certainly not without your consent. Perhaps the moderators can suggest a more suitable thread where it can be implemented. -
johnd at 07:18 AM on 12 March 2011Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
KR at 01:49 AM, it was with such as the ENSO in mind that has long had me considering this question. Our understanding of weather and climate has undoubtedly expanded somewhat since this "standard" was adopted, tracking our ability to measure all the parameters. Identifying ENSO, let alone understanding it was still yet to come, so ENSO could not have been in their minds at the time of the adoption. The various indexes that track the phases of the atmosphere/ocean systems are all recent advances, the IOD only about a decade ago. They all have become most relevant to our understanding, yet we still are yet to understand how they interact fully. Identifying the IOD was of particular relevance to Australia allowing some order to be bought to the cycles of drought and flooding rains. Therefore confining ourselves to averaging over a couple of ENSO events is akin to averaging the weather over a couple of day night cycles as opposed to averaging it over a couple of annual cycles. My thoughts are that whatever period is used should as a minimum cover a couple of complete cycles of those oscillations that have so far been identified and thus able to be measured, because ultimately it is not about simply measuring temperature fluctuations, but about accurately tracking heat in and out of the oceans which is where the length and frequency of such cycles becomes most relevant. Some paranoia seems to exist about making any changes, as it always has done so. In this case it seems the fear is that by extending such periods the graphs will have to extend from paper edge to paper edge which could lead to one falling off the edge of the paper whilst trying to explore the extremities. sigh-- some things never change. -
dana1981 at 07:13 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong Answers dot com
Good point perseus. The original model of Answers.com was useful. Once they started relying heavily on WikiAnswers though, that seems to be when it started going downhill. And yes, the site's treatment of all opinions as equally valid on a scientific issue is simply inexcusable. I doubt they would approve of Creationists answering evolution questions with their opinions. -
RickG at 07:10 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
RSVP: The job of a teacher is to teach people how to think, not "having things explained". No, it involves both. -
RSVP at 07:00 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
michael sweet 26 The job of a teacher is to teach people how to think, not "having things explained".Moderator Response: [DB] There are those that regrettably force us to do the latter because they refuse to do the former. -
perseus at 06:50 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong Answers dot com
Chemware Be aware that Answers.com (the non-user edited part of the same site) actually uses direct copies of Wikipedia articles as well as other sources. This was their original business model. Contributors on wiki.answers are advised to research their answer using this tool. However, without rigorous supervision by a scientifically literate supervisory board it quickly degenerates into a political opinion board A serious problem with the wiki.answers part of the site is their policy on AGW: "… On the site, we consider Global Warming to be as debatable a topic as Politics or Religion. This is why we allow for multiple viewpoints and opinions…." we have attempted to change this without success -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:31 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
TIS @ 31... But you can quite easily look at the radiative forcing associated with insolation and see how that relates to the radiative forcing of GHG's. If you compare those figures I believe you're going to see that an enhanced greenhouse effect is going to overwhelm any orbitally forced cooling. -
scaddenp at 06:31 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Camburn - are you listening to anything? Firstly, the concern about climate is what the future will bring. If climate modelling predicted particularly bad things happening to US now that arent, then you would have a point. The concern is that climate models are doing well at predicting climate and those future consequences look ugly. Secondly, your also seem to be saying that no matter if US emissions are causing a problem for rest of planet, so long as they dont trouble the US, then no reason to take action. You expect us to respect this view? You arent convinced there is a problem, and your posting history suggests you search out reasons for believing that. Okay, but assuming that you are prepared to have your decision-making informed by data, what is the data that cause you to change your mind in the future? What indicators would look at 20 years down the track where you would think, "whoops, got it wrong". On the other foot, for me climate science is putting out a lot of predictions. If they turn out wrong beyond the levels of uncertainty, then I would accept (with great pleasure as an oil and coal man) that science was wrong. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 06:22 AM on 12 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
#27 Chem, That has been discussed here and here. #29 Ark, One frustrating aspect of the debate to me is that I would prefer that CO2 cause warming because the alternative is cooling. Despite arguments that the Holocene is comparable to the Hoxnian Interglacial, the insolation curves are very different. I am not convinced (no need to link to the papers, I have read them) that CO2 will cause warming, but I am convinced that the orbital cycle will cause cooling. So preparing for warming when cooling is more probable is a very bad response. -
dana1981 at 05:53 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong Answers dot com
Yes, there's the psychological aspect that people will tend to find ways to believe what they want to believe. However, for open-minded people who simply aren't sure which "side" to believe, the appeal to the authority of the scientific consensus is a valid approach. -
dana1981 at 05:51 AM on 12 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
FYI, this aritcle has been re-posted on TreeHugger. -
Philippe Chantreau at 05:36 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
I've seen many deniers accusing Tamino of cherry picking 1975 as the start of the modern global warming period. The accusation has no merit. That year is the pivotal point where the behavior of the temperature time series changes in a totally unambiguous fashion, thus the choice is perfectly legitimate. It is justified by statistical analysis, not other considerations. Tamino has explained this a number of times and even showed the mathematical details. -
Chris G at 05:28 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong Answers dot com
Dana, I agree; though Dunning-Kruger effects come into play. I guess that in those situations, the appeal to authority (consensus) is still about the only option. Of course that leads directly to the "There is no consensus." "Yes, there is." that we see play out so many times. Or, "Science by consensus isn't science." "The consensus was reached after the science, not before." Which leads to conspiracy theories, etc., which often degrade to something like, "So, your position is that Al Gore created the concept of global warming in order to increase taxes and create a world government more than 50 years before he was born? Hmmm." -
dana1981 at 05:11 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
protestant #38 a) Tamino didn't subtract the AMO because there's no reason to. Christy didn't subtract it either. Like ENSO, it's just another oscillation which has no impact on the long-term global temperature trend. You provided no evidence to support your "cherrypicking" accusation, so I'm just going to ignore it. b) As Rob said in #39, if you want us to consider specific papers, you'll have to reference specific papers rather than just throwing out random "skeptic" names. c) Yes, I wrote an article on Dessler (2010) which is linked in this post. d) I didn't dismiss anything. I responded to Christy's testimony, which specifically talked about cloud feedbacks. Moreover, Spencer's 'internal forcing' hypothesis is based on nothing more than correlations. e) Christy was the one who brought up the consensus. If you don't like it, take it up with him. -
muoncounter at 05:08 AM on 12 March 2011Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
Here's a link to the original GISS statement about the summer 2010 heat wave from the extreme weather thread. Add in the fact that there were severe European heat waves in 2003, 2006, 2007, 2010; it's hard to shrug that off as 'natural variation.' -
dana1981 at 05:00 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong Answers dot com
Chris G - that's certainly a challenge, and why the climate disinformation campaign has been so successful. It can be very difficult to figure out who to believe when being told two opposite things. At the Congressional hearing, it would be difficult to know if Christy was right or if Sommerville was right, without first having some basic understanding of climate science. That's where the consensus comes in. Sure, unless you actually learn about the science first, it's an appeal to authority. But we appeal to authority all the time. There are "skeptics" like Christy telling us that global warming is nothing to worry about, but reality is that they're in the vast minority. For people who are unwilling or unable to learn basic climate science, I think it's hard to justify rejecting the consensus expert conclusion on the subject. If 9 out of 10 doctors say you need surgery, you'd probably be smart to get the surgery. -
RickG at 04:59 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Protestant, None of what you posted. appears to have anything to do with this topic. However, I will comment one of your notes. e) Science isn't about the so called "consensus". It is about testing hypothesis. Consensus is related to politics, not science. The consensus in science is what the majority of published peer review literature supports. It has nothing to do with politics. -
Albatross at 04:58 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Protestant, So to detract from inconvenient truths and defend Christy's misconduct you start making a long list of accusations against others. I can only assume that means that you agree with Christy misleading congress and lying by omission. I'll let Dana address your red herrings and strawmen. AGW is supported by consilience, which goes way beyond consensus. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:58 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
protestant... Regarding"b", you need to point out which papers from these people. What about which papers were not accounted for. Just dropping names is pretty meaningless. -
Albatross at 04:52 AM on 12 March 2011Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
TOP @29, Sigh, please carefully read my post again @2. Note that I conclude by saying "It is a little too soon to speak to the role of AGW in the Russian heat wave that killed an estimated 40-50 thousand , but early indications are that it too was exacerbated by AGW." And that bolded part is where Monckton misleads people and gets it wrong. For goodness' sakes meteorologists have known for a long time that there is a relationship between strong ridging and blocking events and heat waves (and drought) in the mid-latitudes (see for example Lyon and Dole 1995, J. Climate). What Monckton claims is nothing new. Also, the 2003 heat-wave event that I referred to was associated with blocking, for at least a portion of its duration. Yet, you and Monckton forget the findings made by Stott et al. (2004) which I link to in my post @2. Blocking events superimposed on an underlying warming trend will be worse than otherwise, and there was an anthro signal/contribution in the 2003 European heat wave. Again, please read Stott et al. (2004). I'm pretty certain that journal papers published on the Russian heat wave will find an anthropogenic contribution, albeit it (probably) of secondary importance to the blocking. And as muoncounter showed, you misrepresented the preliminary NOAA report. As muoncounter mentioned, research has found that as the planet as warmed, so too has the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events in Europe (e.g., Klein Tank and Konnen, 2003, J. Climate). Monckton (and you TOP) are trying to play (way you think) is a very clever sleigh of hand to confuse lay people and muddy the waters, but it is not going to fool those in the know. A far more interesting scientific question than Monckton's uninformed musings is how the warming and associated changes in precipitation etc. might affect the location, frequency, intensity and blocking events in the future. -
protestant at 04:36 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Some notes: a) Tamino didnt substract AMO (but made straw men against it), and cherry picked the trend which is most positive. b) The "hot spot" rebuttal you have linked into doesn't account several papers, which it should have (like Christy et al, Klotzbach et al, McKitrick et al). c) Have you actually taken a careful look in the Dessler paper? His R^2 is 0,02 which means either that the relationship is not linear or there is not enough observations (propably both). He had nothing to publish. d) You dismissed Spencers arguments about forcing vs feedback with pure arm-waving (Clement et al also suffers from this spesific point), S&B 2008 and 2010 not cited and not accounted for. e) Science isn't about the so called "consensus". It is about testing hypothesis. Consensus is related to politics, not science. -
Chris G at 04:29 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong Answers dot com
I was at a talk given by Dr. Jack Kaye of NASA not long ago and one of the questions afterward was something like, "Some people tell us one thing, and others tell us something else; how do we know which is right?" I've been thinking about that question off and on ever since. If you don't have a pretty good understanding of the physical sciences, how do you know? It all comes down to an appeal to authority, doesn't it? And the majority doesn't seem to have a good grasp of what makes a good authority and what doesn't. They've no idea of the difference between a research article published in Nature and someone's blog. Sometimes I dismay at people's inability to see through someone's argument when they make some assertion, someone else counters it with evidence, and they change the assertion and carry on. How do you convince someone of something they don't want to believe if they don't have any understanding of the subject, don't recognise what makes a good authority, and don't even have reasonably good skills at judging debates? I don't know that it is possible. -
Albatross at 04:20 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
RickG @35, Hmm, I could only find two papers (out of the 15), which to my knowledge were written by actively-publishing scientists and did not include Christy. And only one of those was by reputable climate scientists. By my count, Christy was an author in 8of the 14 peer-reviewed papers he cites. There is an Energy and Environment paper in there which I included being as peer-reviewed, but we know the debate surrounding that particularly dubious "journal". Christy did not reference Spencer and Braswell properly, it is incomplete. -
Albatross at 04:10 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
RickG @35, Good question. I will have a look-- I suspect fellow contrarians and "skeptics". -
RickG at 03:49 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Albatross: "Also interesting is that Christy was a co-author on 60% of the references in his written testimony." Wonder who the other 40% were by. -
Albatross at 03:32 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Dana @33, "Also interesting is that Christy was a co-author on 60% of the references in his written testimony." Interesting,so much for considering all opinions and all of the scientific understanding. It really irks me that "skeptics" (falsely) point the finger at the IPCC for allegedly excluding "dissenting" views and then go and do stuff like this. -
dana1981 at 03:31 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong Answers dot com
logicman #7 - actually the link you provide is a good example of what I'm talking about. Yes, there were several terrible answers to that misleading question, including the "best answer" chosen by the asker. But there were also several very good answers which can still be read. On Answers.com, only one answer would have survived the process. Anne-Marie - indeed, due to the sheer volume of questions on Answers.com, and the site's flawed system in answering them, many are never fact-checked. That's exactly the problem. Plus the systematic abuse by the Supervisors, and the fact that they treat climate science the same as religion and politics, so frankly they seem to think facts don't really matter. WSteven - thanks. All we can do is highlight and debunk some of the misinformation that's out there and hope people will listen. -
dana1981 at 03:24 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Albatross - yes, see comments #13 and #14 regarding Santer's take on Christy's testimony. I agree it's very misleading to present the flawed findings of the Douglass paper without even mentioning the fact that the paper has been refuted. Also interesting is that Christy was a co-author on 60% of the references in his written testimony. -
Albatross at 03:20 AM on 12 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Angus, As shown by the moderator's comment, your post in itself is misinformation Angus. The intended message of your post--that Hansen was wrong then and therefore whatever he does now too will be wrong or inaccurate. That is disingenuous, because the reasons for the discrepancies with Hansen's forecast (made way back then in 1988) have been discussed on the relevant thread-- so repeating it here without context and without a discussion of the reasons is misleading and amounts to perpetuating misinformation. You also fail to mention Hansen's more recent work which has superseded those early efforts = misinformation. You are living in the past and it is misleading (and misinformation) to suggest to readers here that the current generation of AOGCMs have not improved in leaps and bounds since those early days of climate modeling, as evidenced by the impressive figure shown in my post @63. The models will never be perfect, but as you see @63 they are doing very well considering the complexity of the climate system. Further, observations show that the IPCC estimates for sea-level rise and Arctic ice loss (amongst other metrics) have been too conservative. You paint a picture of alarmism by omission-- that is misinforming readers here. It is time to start applying the breaks. -
Albatross at 02:56 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Dikran @31, Camburn seems to be trying very hard to derail this thread-- so I do not want to entertain his attempts to do so. But, if you look at the CEI (Climate Extremes Index) that I link to a 22, it shows a distinct increasing trend since the early 70s. Now what I am more concerned with is the fact that Christy deliberately, knowingly mislead congress. Funny how that fact is ignored by the 'skeptics'. These findings are troubling and do not reflect at all well on the tactics, ethics and science of a prominent 'skeptic', so I can understand that the 'skeptics' want to distract form that very real problem too. -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:31 AM on 12 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
"I have shown by link from NOAA that precip patterns in the US have not really changed." ah well, that is O.K. then! ;o) "This is not denial, this is accepting what the data is showing." No, it is accepting what some of the data is showing, which is consistent with denial. Is there any reason to prefer the FSU study over any of the others? -
Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
johnd - The 30 year period was chosen based on the data; a period long enough to cover several cycles of variations such the ENSO, in order to filter out observed variability and look for long term trends. Since the inherent variability time-scale of the climate appears not to have changed much in the last century (although there is some evidence that the amplitude of weather extremes may be increasing, variation times have not), 30 years is still an entirely reasonable trend averaging. It's just simple statistics. What justification do you have for proposing changing that averaging length? I don't see that it could be shortened (after all, you want to average a couple of ENSO events to see trends outside the variation) - do you have any evidence showing that it should be longer? -
JMurphy at 01:40 AM on 12 March 2011Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
True enough, RickG, but the so-called skeptics would like to extend that to hundreds, thousands, etc. so that they can then say that we won't know, until that amount of time is over, whether AGW is happening or not. However, from the WMO link I gave previously, they do state that less than 30 years can be used to determine certain trends, but that is even worse news for the so-called skeptics : first, because it means we know now how AGW is affecting the globe, and secondly, because they will get very confused from year to year to decade - proclaiming global cooling one year/decade; 'flattening' temperatures the next year/decade; uncertaintly the next year/decade, etc. as they try to use whatever time-period they can to try to make different claims depending on what they think they can get away with. Oh, they already do that... Anyway, perhaps we should leave it to the particular experts in that particular field (i.e. those at the 'coal-face', so to speak, who know what they are talking about) to determine what they consider the best time period to use. It won't please the minority in other fields, who like to claim some sort of right or self-proclaimed expertise but who are on the outside looking in, but such is life. -
WSteven at 01:18 AM on 12 March 2011Wrong Answers dot com
Dana, I applaud your efforts. Denialists can't be allowed to carry on unchallenged with their misinformation campaign. The few people undecided on the issue must be disgusted by the whole "Debate", but at least you give the scientific facts a fighting chance. As I discuss Climate Change with more and more people it's becoming apparent, at least to me, that most people are polarized on the issue. There's no point trying to convert a denialist or vis-a-vis for them as it just ends in a shouting match. I think that it's more important that laypeople and scientists alike try to make our voices heard to our political representatives. The work that you and others do on sites like SkS will be important in carrying our message to our political representatives. Continue the good fight and maybe we will be able to give the up-and-coming generations a fighting chance. -
muoncounter at 00:52 AM on 12 March 2011Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
TOP, "Monckton was apparently right." Not so much. Let's look at the rest of the NOAA report: While a contribution to the heat wave from climate change could not be entirely ruled out, if it was present, it played a much smaller role than naturally occurring meteorological processes in explaining this heat wave's intensity. The researchers cautioned that this extreme event provides a glimpse into the region’s future as greenhouse gases continue to increase, and the signal of a warming climate, even at this regional scale, begins to emerge more clearly from natural variability in coming decades. Prior analysis showed that climate change increases the probability of these extreme events; as this report conflicts, why do you arbitrarily buy this one? -
RickG at 00:46 AM on 12 March 2011Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
johnd: "I was hoping for some genuine comments on whether 30 years was still relevant or not...... I think the important thing to understand about the 30 year period is that it is a minimum period of time needed in order to establish a recognizable trend which filters out the noise, especially those of oscillations which are known not to be drivers of overall trends.
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