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Gilles at 03:36 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
"Lou - thanks. Agreed, I think "sensitivity is low" will become the go-to "skeptic" argument, because frankly there's just no other way to argue that we shouldn't reduce CO2 emissions. And the refusal to support CO2 emissions reduction measures is the basis for almost all global warming "skepticism"." I disagree with that, Dana. There are at least two other possible reasons for arguing that we shouldn't reduce CO2 emissions, even with a 2°C sensitivity. A) that the amount of fossil fuels that we can really extract is far below most of SRES scenarios and that CO2 levels will never reach dangerous levels anyway. B) that even if some dangers are real, they do not exceed by far the wealth brought by the fossil fuels, and that mitigation is still a better choice. Just as we accept the casualties of car crashes, or a reasonable amount of pollution, or even we do not forbid the sale of alcohol or tobacco. Of course, this is not climate science - but it is still relevant to the public debate. -
Gilles at 03:31 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
KR : well , on the other hand, simple inspection of the Fig 2 in this post shows a scattering of almost a factor 10 in the estimates. So what's your definition of a "reasonably well known factor" ? I doubt that any of the paleo records you are citing, that are essentially LOCAL, can give an accurate estimate of the global forcing. Aerosols and clouds are ill known, even now, I doubt very much that they are much well constrained hundreds of thousands of years ago. On average, I am not very comfortable with a general feeling of "well, of course, there is much scattering and a lot of unknown factors, but still everything is pretty well constrained". The issue I see is that IF natural, unforced variability is important , it will generally lead to overestimate the sensitivity. But excluding an unforced variability is very difficult just because you have no way of knowing if it is unforced or not - so by making the assumption that everything is due to forcings, you will end up with a figure, which will be always biased to high values. Then the statistical analysis of "how many studies show that the figure is above X" will also be biased as well. Is it not kind of an issue ? another issue is that the average forcing is by far not enough to define the temperature. During the northern summer, the Earth is farther away from the sun than during the southern summer (orbit ellipticity). But the averaged temperature is higher - because there are more land in the northern hemisphere. So if you take the basic definition of the sensitivity, it is actually NEGATIVE. In principle you could deal with that with averaging over a long period - but then you're facing the problem of possible long term changes in a series of factors (oceanic circulation, land coverage, and so on..). -
Albatross at 03:29 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Dana, Thanks. Keep at it-- the "skeptics" have nothing but obfuscation and it shows. Typo first line , second para (see bolded text below): "One of the most pAropular "skeptic" arguments is..." -
dana1981 at 03:28 AM on 3 March 2011No Illusions podcast interview (and elocution lessons from an 11 year old)
Maybe your daughter can give you some interviewing lessons!Response: I'm picturing a sequel to "The King's Speech"... "The Blogger's Interview" :-)
She was obviously buoyed by her speaking skills as last night, she challenged me to a "rematch" where Wendy would interview both of us and the first person to "umm" lost the competition. Unfortunately she won again! I'll be challenging her to a 3rd contest tonight - can't let an 11 year old get the better of me! -
dana1981 at 03:25 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Lou - thanks. Agreed, I think "sensitivity is low" will become the go-to "skeptic" argument, because frankly there's just no other way to argue that we shouldn't reduce CO2 emissions. And the refusal to support CO2 emissions reduction measures is the basis for almost all global warming "skepticism". -
Lou Grinzo at 02:51 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Very nice article, and, as always on SkS, the comment section is "interesting". My guess is that we'll be seeing much more of this argument that sensitivity is conveniently (for the deniers) low. The simple fact is that as real world events and scientific advances keep piling up not just evidence that ACC works exactly as we currently understand it, but evidence that's painfully clear to non-experts, the deniers will increasingly fall back on sensitivity. The fact that this argument leads to contradictions among their various positions and that it requires them to come up with other explanations for observed phenomena won't stop them. Such logical issues haven't been a hindrance in the past, after all. -
Lars Karlsson at 02:49 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
The Inconvenient Skeptic, Where do your temperature data in the link from 4 come from? To me, it seems like they have been detrended. -
JMurphy at 02:38 AM on 3 March 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
mikea01, the "IPCC experts" you mention don't actually exist as a body : the IPCC is an aggregation of thousands of scientists and their work. The IPCC Reports are the agreed output of much scientific input, agreed to by not only those who worked on the Reports but also by the vast majority of science and scientists from all branches. What is it that confuses you, and which bits (and why) do you consider to be "poor science" ? -
KR at 02:33 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Gilles - Actually, many of the factors are reasonably well known. Ice cores record plenty of information; CO2 levels, aerosols, local temperatures, proxies for solar activity, etc. The Milankovic forcings are tied to orbital dynamics, and those are predictable for millions (if not billions) of years into the past and future. I suggest that a look at the Climate Sensitivity is low/How Sensitive is our climate page might be useful. The intermediate version of the page points to a dozen or so separate papers estimating climate sensitivity in various ways, and the advanced version graphically shows the results they got. -
Gilles at 02:21 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
thank you, bern, but this is still a little bit puzzling : how can you measure a sensitivity in the past if many ill-known factors contribute "significantly" to the forcing ? -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 01:39 AM on 3 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 2
@From Peru „I suspect an ideological, right-wing common root on both positions.” Such thinking is the road to nowhere. Professor Z. Jaworowski radiologist, and V. Klaus economics professor, in his books "proving" that has Hitler and Stalin were in favor of clean environment - their leftist views formed the basis for the theory of AGW. It's absurd conspiracy theories. Skeptics are split into much more than we imagine supporters of AGW. Eg I do not agree with R.S. that is ENSO - PDO (internal climate forcing) decide on changes in cloud cover - and those of the ENSO-PDO (feedback). I agree that determines the nature - the sun (not AGHG), but in a much more complicated - and not chaotic. After the publication of the IV report, many papers on AGW supporters - who say they generally agree with the theory of AGW - rebel against allegations that the IPCC models did not appreciate, for example: QBO, volcanic effects on ozone, the effect of ozone on a pair water in the stratosphere and vice versa, lunar cycles, the newly discovered solar cycles, cycles of changes in UV solar magnetic cycles of geo-solar, ENSO impacts on phytoplankton (and vice versa) ..., that the respiration of peat is twice the pandas than estimated in the IPCC report, that are not reflect changes in regional Q10 reduces the actual amount of respiration by 25%, etc.. ... Recently for example, Mike Lockwood said that a slight change in the UV (energy - compared to RF CO2) has a huge impact on the jet stream - causes that I am in Poland for 3 weeks I have from 1030 to 1040 hPa and "suffer" from the arctic cold ... Though it shows the “feet of clay” and can be based on the great theory of AGW. R. Spencer (also R. Pielke) is certainly right in one thing: we know too little about natural climate variability. Really about how many regions we can say: “... strong late 20th-century warming (during the warm season) in western North America may have a considerable component of natural climate variability in the signal.”? (Tree rings and past climate in the Arctic, Juday et al., 2010). P.S. And evolution has much in common with the climate - for millions of years in practice it was not - occurred only a short time of rapid climate change. -
Bern at 00:42 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Gilles at #10: if you look at Dana's Figure 1 in the article, you'll see there are a number of different factors that can influence climate in quite significant ways. There's no reason why all of these should react similarly to Milankovic forcing - indeed, some of them (such as aerosols) are depending entirely on other sources, such as volcanism. It's the combination of all these, the total net forcing, that determines how the planetary climate responds to Milankovic forcing. For example, this SkS post explains how the additional CO2 we're dumping into the atmosphere may well over-ride the Milankovic forcing for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. When climate scientists look at how the planetary climate reacted to Milankovic forcing in the past, and try to predict how it will react in the future, they need to take all these other factors into account. -
les at 00:35 AM on 3 March 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
114 mikea01. 1/ "experts (or at least those who are knowledgeable about the science) do not agree on very much." you might conclude that if you like, but I'd suggest it's possible to draw another conclusion - there is a high level of consensus in the broad trends, but science always has room for improvement and clearing up details. 2/ " poor science in many of the arguments" - yes, but most the poor science and, indeed, argumentation, is confined to people motivated not to accept what's going on for one reason or another. - on a personal note, your posts contains a chain of assertions and non-sequitors, that I feel it may come under the umbrella of poor-argumentation it's self. 3/ you might be inclined to go for an "ultimate solution" of population reduction... but most governments would feel that that sounds to much like a "final solution". However, on that topic, the best means of getting population growth under control known to man is increasing the standard of living. The only exception to that seems to be the US to a small degree and in extreme cases. Improving wealth, by not using developing countries to dump our pollution in and evening out consumption between the rich and poor is a grand and very difficult strategy, however. -
Bern at 00:32 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
It seems clear that TIS is cherry-picking data - choosing a period for examining temperature rise that starts in an abnormally warm year (the "1998 of the 50's", looking at the chart) and ending on a moderately cool one. It looks like exactly the same technique used by 'skeptics' to argue there has been no warming since 1998, and by a certain ex-astronaut to argue there's more arctic sea ice than there was 20 years ago... Others have touched on the other erroneous assumptions in TIS' posts - assuming that CO2 is the *only* driver of climate, for example. But all this is off-topic to this post (apart from the common thread of denying reality)... -
mikea01 at 00:22 AM on 3 March 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
I am a lay environmentalist and I have to admit that I'm confused about the issue of Climate Change and specifically Global Warming. It seems to me that the comments on these pages are testament to the fact that the experts (or at least those who are knowledgeable about the science) do not agree on very much. Amongst the IPCC experts, we are told that there is a general concensus that it is definitely happening, yet there seems to be poor science in many of the arguments. Perhaps both sides of the debate are guilty of misinformating to some degree or other. I am inclined to think that in order to tackle most global issues, including Climate Change and polution, the ultimate solution is to significantly reduce the human population. Yet we never hear governments banging on about this, do we? All we hear are rather trivial suggestions about reducing use of plastic bags and putting flourescent bulbs in. Some arguments for and against are included in past issues of Nature MattersModerator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Welcome to Skeptical Science! In addition to the sage advice given by both les and JMurphy below, there is an immense amount of reference material discussed here and it can be a bit difficult at first to find an answer to your questions. That's why we recommend that Newcomers, Start Here and then learn The Big Picture. I also recommend watching this video on why CO2 is the biggest climate control knob in Earth's history. Further general questions can usually be be answered by first using the Search function in the upper left of every Skeptical Science page to see if there is already a post on it (given the plethora of posts [I get paid extra for using big words and alliteration :-) ] odds are, there is). Or you can search by Taxonomy. If you still have questions, use the Search function located in the upper left of every page here at Skeptical Science and post your question on the most pertinent thread. Remember to frame your question in compliance with the Comments Policy and lastly, to use the Preview function below the comment box to ensure that any html tags you're using work properly. I'm afraid parts of your comment are simply incorrect. The warming of the globe is an accepted fact. That humans are causing a good part of it is accepted at over a 90% scientific certainty level. Only the anthropogenic contribution (which did not exist in the paleo record) completes the picture, explaining the warming we can empirically see and measure in the absence of other forcings. Else we would be measuring a decades-long cooling trend, which we aren't. -
les at 00:22 AM on 3 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
10, me.. "armies which are not fully destroyed" should, of course have been "armies which are not fully deployed" -
Alexandre at 23:29 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
TIS #4 It's nearly a Gish Gallop, but addressing only this paragraph: Since CO2 levels were 310 ppm in 1950. It was only after 1960 that the CO2 levels started to significantly increase. I assume you consider a 10% increase (280-310ppm) "non-significant". Then the "significant increase" of CO2 after 1960 is considered to have happened after the significant increase of temps that began in the 70s. It's quite a feat to compress so many unsubstantiated claims in such a small text. -
Marcus at 22:44 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
So, to sum up The Inconvenient Skeptics technique. Make a number of ludicrous, unfounded claims then-when people point out how they're clearly *wrong*, dismiss it all with a trite "I don't find that convincing"-without ever needing to provide a shred of evidence to back that claim. What does he think this is, WUWT? -
Marcus at 22:42 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
TIS, to be honest, none of your claims to date have been very convincing to me. I've checked all your claims, & found them *all* to be wanting. See, TIS, I can dismiss your claims without proof just as easily as you. Fortunately, though, I *Have* provided proof of what a load of rubbish most of your claims are-you still haven't provided a single shred of *evidence* to back your claims-which puts you squarely in the same category as "Lord" Monckton. -
Marcus at 22:34 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Ah, TIS, I see that your "skepticism" is extremely selective. So because a few short years don't fit your "expectations" of what CO2 should have done-in spite of the fact that it can be easily explained by the fact that the bulk of the planet's 2.5 billion people didn't even *have* electricity at that time-or cars-& at least half of the remainder were off fighting a war in foreign countries. As has already been pointed out, the fact that most of Europe's economy was constrained by *rationing* is a *known* *historical* *fact*. As to your other claim, it's a load of rubbish. In spite of an overall decline in sunspot activity for the period of 1961-2000, temperatures rose at a rate of almost +0.12 degrees per decade. By contrast, when the rise in CO2 was a lot smaller, but sunspot numbers were rising extremely quickly (1901-1940), temperatures warmed at a rate of only +0.08 degrees per decade. How do explain that if sensitivity to CO2 is so low-or is this another claim made by "skeptics" that can't be backed up by hard facts? -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 22:32 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
#15 Marcus, Solar activity (I assume you mean sunspots) has never really been too convincing to me. I have run plenty of comparisons, but it always seems weak. Some of that poor correlation you refer to is high activity with low temperature. If the activity in the 1938 caused the warm 1940 period, then the peaks in the 50's and 60's should have caused more. The 1956-1960 sunspot activity might be the most active period in thousands of years, but the temps were not high. That is poor correlation. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 22:14 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Shoy, A few data points on a video are not convincing that WWII had no impact on CO2 levels. Regardless, there is little temperature rise from the start of monthly CO2 data until the 1990's. CO2 did rise a great deal in that same period of time. -
Riccardo at 22:09 PM on 2 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 2
As for the problem of the rising of the emission level above the tropopause (Peter Offenhartz #8), the height of the tropopause depends on temperature. An increased GHG absorption will move both the tropopause and the emission level upward. In equilibrium and at wavelengths where the atmosphere is optically thick, the emission level will roughly be that corresponding to the effective temperature of the planet of about 220 K. In reality, the absorption coefficient depends on the number concentration of CO2 (number of molecules per meter squared), not relative concentration (ppm), and hence on pressure and altitude. Detailed calculation are required. -
Marcus at 21:55 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
TIS-there are studies that shows an 80% correlation between solar activity & temperature variation for the period of 1900-1950. For the period of 1950-2000, that correlation fell to less than 40%. This drops to less than 20% for the period of 1980-2000. Put another way-sunspot numbers rose significantly during the first half of the 20th century, causing a relatively slow rise in global temperatures over this period. In the second half of the 20th century, sunspot numbers have remained either static-or have fallen-yet temperatures have risen *faster* than in the first half of the century. -
les at 21:51 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
3. HuggyPopsBear "I recognize pollution is a problem of mankind and something needs to be done, but CO2 is not necessarily a pollutant as it has many benefits for sustaining life and plant growth." There is nothing which is necessarily a pollutant. Things are just pollutants when they are in the system in such quantities as to cause harm in some way. Noise and light are not necessarily pollutants but we're quite happy that they can be polluting. Equally many heavy mettles are more clearly pollutants but exist all over the show in small quantities. It's an oft used fallacy that because something is required for life it can't be a polluting; and even if, to some degree, more is better - it doesn't follow that to a higher degree, much much much more is better. Sure CO2 is required for life and, to some degree, more CO2 is good for plants directly. That makes no difference to it's impact on the climate and overall environment! Same's true for oxygen. We - and most animals - need it. To some degree we can perform a little better with a bit more. However we can't use more than our blood can carry on the one hand; and on the other hand oxygen is extremely dangerous and our bodies have to work very hard to avoid being harmed by it. You really have to understand the system under consideration to understand pollution! As for your previous comment "tax a probability" - really? Most countries have armies which are not fully destroyed, because there's a probability the'll be needed or a probability they will deter aggression. Many people have health insurance - and many countries have compulsory health insurance - at a level based on the probability of getting ill, with the impact of illness factored in. etc. etc. Finally, as for "governments greed" ... who knows - certainly not the arctic ice. It doesn't know whether your or my government is greedy or not, it just keeps on melting... -
shoyemore at 21:48 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
TIS #12, Surely you exaggerate the "massive quantities" of CO2 released in 1937-1950. The world economy was far smaller than it is now - heavy industrial production was largely confined to a few countries in Europe, and to the US. The late 1930s saw a resurgence of depression in the US. That was reversed in the war, but the latter end of 1939-45 saw total devastation of German and Eastern European industry. Britain was still under rationing until the late 1940s. BTW, I though ice cores gave an accurate picture of CO2 levels prior to recorded observations from 1957 or so. Getting the data in this video should help Visualizing the History of CO2 -
Tom Curtis at 21:29 PM on 2 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 1 - addressing J Storrs Hall
Charlie A @37, I'm sorry, I missed that part of Hall's article where he said, "Although I am using a regional temperature only, I am comparing it to a global temperature. Global temperatures show much less variation than regional temperatures because different regions of the world will be warming while others cool. Therefore any comparison between global and regional variation is essentially meaningless. But here goes..." I also missed that part where he said, "Although nineteenth century temperatures are much cooler than 20th century temperatures, I am treating the final temperature in this series, from 1855, as though it was representative of late twentieth century temperatures for rhetorical reasons." I especially missed that part where he said, "It is known that temperatures in the last decade are at least 1.44 degrees higher than the last point on this graph at the location of the ice core. This makes the late twentieth warming one of the most abrupt on the record, with the distinction that it, unlike the others on this record, was global rather than regional in extent." In fact, the only bits I noticed was where he persistently compared local to global temperatures as though that was a reasonable thing to do. If he had wanted to do an honest analysis, his graph would have looked like this:
(With thanks to Gareth Renowden.)
The reason he didn't actually draw modern local temperatures on the graph is because it would have made it perfectly clear how utterly laughable is his entire argument.
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dorlomin at 20:08 PM on 2 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 1 - addressing J Storrs Hall
Dr Hall shows us temperatures up to 100 years ago and demonstrates that local temperatures had been at least 3C warmer than it was 100 years ago therefor global warming is 'poppycock'. This is why they are skeptics. "If it can be shown to have been warmer at some point during the holocene than it was 100 years ago, atmospheric physics is a con job." Lets not forget Wattsup is the website that described all those paleoclimatologists who they describe as 'The Team' as belonging to a "Marxist orginisation". -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 20:07 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Kevin, I have plenty of annual data, but imagine if I tried to interpolate monthly data with the annual variation included. In addition I strongly doubt that accuracy of the CO2 data you linked between 1937-1950. I struggle with the idea that there was no increase in CO2 during that period. There was enormous production during that period with massive quantities of CO2 released. Every production facility in the world was working at maximum capacity for portions of that time. I do appreciate the link though. Insolation changes over the past 100 years should be warming the winters and reducing the temperature difference between the poles and the equator as the tilt is very slowly decreasing. -
nigelj at 20:03 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Huggy Pops bear #2 A definitive answer is impossible as you cant put the planet in a laboratory. Its really that simple. All you can get is probabilities. Modelling is a substitute for not being able to put the planet in the lab. Its frustrating but thats the reality, and you just have to live with it or risk the ruin of the planet. -
Dikran Marsupial at 19:55 PM on 2 March 2011Prudent Risk
RSVP@23 No, of course I am not saying that. Some ecological niches require longevity to fully exploit, so fitness for a particular environment/niche is a compromise of many factors, longevity and evolutionary adaptability are only two of them. We don't need to use evolution as a measure of environmental change, there is plenty of direct evidence that the environment changes. We all know that, and it is entirely uncontraversial. BTW, if we lived forever, there would be no evolutionary adaption to viral and microbial pathogens (which don't live forever). So even if the environment were unchanging, we would not survive as a species if we lived forever, so your argument isn't even logically consistent. -
nigelj at 19:49 PM on 2 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 2
Im intrigued about this claim that natural causes havent been investigated. I have just waded through the summaries on sceptical.science.com of 20 odd papers on the affects of the sun, and read some of the originals, and I still have a headache from it all as my maths is rusty. Did I hallucinate all that? Isnts 20 papers enough? How many does Mr Spencer want? What planet does he live on? -
Gilles at 19:47 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
I have some trouble with the concept of "unique" "equilibrium sensitivity" : if there were such a quantity, shouldn't the average global temperature follow very closely (within a relaxation timescale, which is supposed to be short if the current 30-years increase is supposed to be linked with an increase of radiative forcing) the global forcing ? so shouldn't we expect the temperature curve to closely follow, for instance, the milankovitch cycles? well, there is an obvious correlation with astronomical parameters, but nothing very close to them. Why ? -
Kevin C at 19:31 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Incovenient Skeptic: Here is a table of annual CO2 levels from 1800, with 50 year values back to 1000: Link. It also gives CH4 levels. If you need monthly values, then interpolation (with an annual profile superimposed if necessary) should give you a good estimate. I could help you in preparing such a file. However as you know if you want to attribute temperature changes over the 19th/20th century you don't just need CO2 and CH4 - you will also want to take into account the variation in insolation (and possibly aerosols). -
shoyemore at 18:56 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
HuugyPopsBear #2, The relationship beween CO2 and global warming is not solely based on modeling. The equations connecting CO2 and IR radiation hve been well understood and dmeonstrated for many years. They form the basis for the operation of devices like CO2 lasers and air-to-air heat-seeking missiles. If the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere had NOT been accompanied by temperature rise, physicists would be questioning thir understanding of basic radiation physics. If you search the Skeptics Arguments you will find answers to your points on CO2 lagging temperature, and CO2 as a plant food. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 18:38 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Bern, If you have CO2 monthly data earlier than March of 1958 I will gladly use it, but since it was 315 ppm in March of 1958 and the previous 50 years prior to that showed little CO2 increase it is a safe to assume that the rate of CO2 increase prior to 1958 is lower than since then. As for the temperatures, if I use your same source, the period from 1908-1958 shows more warming than the years I used and clearly the CO2 was not increasing at the same rate. If you are arguing that the CO2 increase from 305 to 310 caused more warming than the jump from 310 to 360, that is a different argument though. -
RSVP at 18:31 PM on 2 March 2011Prudent Risk
Marcus #22, Dikran Marsupial #19 "the only reason viruses, bacteria & insects develop such rapid resistance is because of their extremely short life-cycles-which allows for the rapid accumulation of genetic mutations" So you are saying then that a short life span favors survival of the species. If so, animal kingdom life span is a proxy for environmental stability, and the fact that we dont live forever (and have "evolved") means the Earths environment has always been changing. I thought evolution was a good thing? Please clarify. -
Bern at 18:22 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Oh, and nice article, Dana - well written & clear. I think it illustrates well that the 'skeptic' position re sensitivity is a very weak one, at best. -
Bern at 18:18 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
I'm sure others will address some of the other issues in the comments above, but I'd like to address this one: "no significant trend in global temperature from the 1958-1995" Well, TIS, this graph [woodfortrees.org] suggests there's been plenty of warming from 1958-1995. It's even more interesting when you increase the time range to 1955-2000. You get to see that 1958 was a particularly warm year, for the 1950s, and that 1995 was an average-to-cool year for the 1990s. Has there been some cherry picking going on? -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 17:49 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Since CO2 levels were 310 ppm in 1950. It was only after 1960 that the CO2 levels started to significantly increase. The claim that warming prior to the increase in CO2 levels is caused by CO2 levels is incoherent. Since more than half of the warming in the past century took place before 1950 I see a flaw in your argument that CO2 has caused all the warming. There was also no significant trend in global temperature from the 1958-1995 while CO2 levels in the same period increased from 310-360ppm. The early date is used only because that is the start of reliable CO2 data. http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/CO2-1958-1996.png No temperature trend for almost 40 years while CO2 was climbing. There was significant warming after the 1998 El Nino and there was warming in the 1930's when CO2 was low and stable. But the period that showed the most change in CO2 did not show warming. That shows an interestingly low climate sensitivity to CO2.
Response:[dana1981] First of all, the global average surface temperature has increased 0.8°C over the past century, and almost 0.6°C since 1970. So the claim that "more than half of the warming in the past century took place before 1950" is factually incorrect. As the link above shows, the claim of "no significant trend in global temperature from the 1958-1995" is also factually incorrect.
Unfortunately these factually incorrect statements led you to an incorrect conclusion.
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AuntSally at 17:17 PM on 2 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 2
Responding to (3), (7), and (11)... I concur that the tone of SkepticalScience has been and continues to be exemplary -- all credit to John Cook who has created something truly valaubel here. However... I do think we need to concede something of a special case in the case of Roy Spencer and his book. Roy has -- on his blog, in numerous public talks (one of which I witnessed personally) and now in his book -- not only put forth scientific arguments, but also directly accused his colleagues of deliberate malfeasance ["I find it difficult to believe that I am the first researcher to figure out what I describe in this book. Either I am smarter than the rest of the world’s climate scientists–which seems unlikely–or there are other scientists who also have evidence that global warming could be mostly natural, but have been hiding it. That is a serious charge, I know, but it is a conclusion that is difficult for me to avoid." (p. xxvii)] I fully concur that our primary purpose here must be to improve understanding, and of course that involves taking a tone that does not immediately put off those who are resistant to the information. However, in addition to clear exposition of the science, I think it's also important to help folks understand that there are people like Roy out there exhibiting a level of obtuseness over decades. Roy's work, as I believe Dr. Bickmore and others have demonstrated, is simply not intellectually honest. If one needs to be a bit more direct in making that point, I think in this case it's warranted -- and indeed beneficial to effective communication. I think Dr. Bickmore has successfully walked a very fine line. -
gallopingcamel at 17:12 PM on 2 March 2011Visualizing a History of CO2
Loved the music. Scientifically, why not include the "Big Picture"? http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm -
HuggyPopsBear at 17:03 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Sorry did not finish. Or is it a fact and not a probability. I recognize pollution is a problem of mankind and something needs to be done, but CO2 is not necessarily a pollutant as it has many benefits for sustaining life and plant growth.Moderator Response: See "CO2 is not a pollutant," and comment further there, not here. -
HuggyPopsBear at 16:59 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Since being on this site and reading all the bits and pieces coming up, everything reads that CO2 is forcing global warming. Mostly from modeling which can only translate data put in by human effort. It cannot predict with infinite reliability future events as nothing is constant. I have always been of the belief that CO2 increase was a direct result of warming, hence why Co2 has continued to increase for a period when cooling came into operation. Once land masses were refrozen then the CO2 would drop and continue to drop even when warming again began to increase. So surely there must be another factor that is not being factored into the equation or modeling? Why can neither side come up with a definitive answer that would satisfy the masses and destroy governments greed for wanting to tax a probability.Moderator Response: Then you need to read more than "bits and pieces." Start with "Models are unreliable," "CO2 lags temperature," "There’s no correlation between CO2 and temperature," "CO2 is not the only driver of climate," and "The science isn’t settled." -
r.pauli at 16:54 PM on 2 March 2011Climate Sensitivity: The Skeptic Endgame
Thank you so much for referring to "skeptics" in quotes. They act like purposefully cultivated disinformation campaigners. But so called "skeptics" says it OK. But none-the-less, by addressing the specifics of the science issues - you do a great service. Thank you. -
Charlie A at 16:49 PM on 2 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 1 - addressing J Storrs Hall
Rob Honeycutt -- I'm trying to understand your article. In particular, I'm trying to figure out the source of your Figure 1, with your caption of "GISP2 as presented on Watts Up With That, conflating a local record with a global record." The only source I have found for that is the link you provided, http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif In that link, however, the chart is clearly labeled "Data Source: GISP2 Ice Core, Central Greenland". It seems like you removed the "Central Greenland" label, and then accused Watts of conflating local and global records. Did you indeed do this? Please identify the source of your Figure 1, so your readers can judge for themselves what sort of conflation is going on. The other WUWT link you provided also very clearly talks about this being for 1 point on the earth. -
Tom Curtis at 16:24 PM on 2 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 2
Peter Offenhartz @26, the blue plot on the graph (CO2) is just the radiance spectrum for 287 ppm CO2 - that for 584 ppm. The area under the blue curve is then change in forcing for that change in CO2 concentration. If you compare wavelengths on that diagram with the wavelengths with the diagram linked by KR, you will see that 15 microns lines up with the center of the main trough produced by CO2 in the spectrum. The two large peaks at approximately 13.5 and 16.5 microns on the diagram I posted then line up with the "wings" of the CO2 trough. Here is that KR's linked image for easy comparison. You will notice the wave lengths are marked along the top of the diagram.
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Phila at 16:08 PM on 2 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 2
HR: So far you have managed to skillfully avoid it. This seems uncomfortably close to an accusation of dishonesty. In some respects this is part of the problem with the plethora of recent 'skeptic bashing' articles on this website. It's more concerned with point scoring and discrediting the individuals than it is about understanding their concerns. That's an odd thing to say. Surely concerns should be based on hypotheses and data that can withstand critical scrutiny? And if they aren't, surely that says something about their validity? Some "skeptics," when confronted with errors they can't defend, resort to insinuating that their opponents are wrong in some obscure moral sense, despite being correct on the facts (e.g., they're "point scoring," which is somehow shabby and disreputable). I hope you're not trying to take that approach here. -
Peter Offenhartz at 15:16 PM on 2 March 2011Roy Spencer’s Great Blunder, Part 2
@apsmith (19) I'm afraid I have to agree with Tom Curtis (20). It is possible to assign a temperature to a specific wavelength/frequency. As for the central spike in the CO2 absorption, that simply reflects a different temperature/altitude for that particular wavelength region. One cannot assign a uniform temperature for a broad band, and the T^4 rule applies always. not just to the overall integral. But that's an awfully small point. The main point I was trying to make is that if the temperature/altitude point for the main-band CO2 upwards emission lies at an altitude that coincides with the knee of the lapse rate (as it apparently does), rising CO2 concentrations won't affect global warming. But the wings will. As for Tom Curtis (18), I will have to take a look at your references (I find the graphic you provided confusing), and I will try to find time to get back to you. But I doubt that increasing CO2 concentrations can affect the emission temperature at the center of the CO2 absorption band. But the wings (and maybe even that blip in the middle of the band) surely are important. Thanks for your help. I think I am learning! -
Charlie A at 15:07 PM on 2 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 1 - addressing J Storrs Hall
scadenp says "Charlie A, put your serious skeptical hat on and closely read that post yourself. Spot the switch from absolute to anomaly?" OK. I followed the link in top of this Skeptical Science post over to the WUWT post Hockey Stick Observed in NOAA Ice Core Data. I see the ice core O18 isotope ratio data described as "It gives us about as close as we can come to a direct, experimental measurement of temperature at that one spot for the past 50,000 years." That sounds like a reasonable description. Hmmm. Perhaps the article here on SkepticalScience is tilting at windmills are strawmen. OK. Then there are a series of graphs for the central Greenland Ice core data. Varying lengths of record are looked at, but they are ALL in plots of estimated temperatures. The maximum length of data for that ice core is plotted. He then says "This next graph, for the longest period, we have to go to an Antarctic core (Vostok):" and shows that graph of temperatures. This one in with vertical axis being the temperature anomaly. The graph covers the entire period. Do you have some problem with using a plot of temperature anomoly when switching to another location? Why does that present a problem? Adding in a fixed offset to all of the graphs for the central greenland ice core would not, IMO, make any difference in the presentation.
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