Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 Next
Comments 96201 to 96250:
-
Bjarne Mikael Torkveen at 08:47 AM on 13 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Kudos for the math. But the numbers are even more cruel to the climate deniers when you take into account that not everyone on the Oregon Petition is an actual scientist or even an actual person. The same goes for the PopTech list where not every paper is published in a peer reviewed journal. The all too familiar name "Energy & Environment" pops up quite often on that list. -
RickG at 08:40 AM on 13 February 2011There is no consensus
muoncounter, Yes, I'm well aware of the lack of credibility of the "petition project" list. That's why I asked the question in light of the statements in #281. I wanted to see if he supported the "petition project" but not the Doran study. Or perhaps I misunderstood what he was suggesting. -
Marvin Gardens at 08:15 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
If this six weeks of extreme weather events in 2011 is an indicator of AGW, then could we assume that six weeks or more of relative inactivity indicates the opposite? It's a fair question. -
muoncounter at 08:11 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
#18: "Conversely it has to increase the CO2 response for the last 30 years." Of course it has to increase. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is a strongly concave up function of time. CO2 concentration drives radiative forcing by the log of the ratio of current year CO2 to a reference level (usually the 'pre-industrial' 280 ppm). Some have argued (see Monckton #3) that warming must slow because the log function is concave down, but CO2's upward concavity trumps. So even after taking the natural log of this ratio, we still see a concave up temperature vs. time. Hence the slope of the temperature graph increases. See sample graphs here. -
muoncounter at 07:35 AM on 13 February 2011There is no consensus
#282: "concerning the "petition project"... " See the thread on the very same petition project. When the petition first came out, I checked some of the names: Quite a few dentists, pediatricians, astrologers, people who had taken a science degree and then gone on to business school or law school ... even some who were deceased at the time. -
Rob Painting at 07:18 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Johnd @ 30 - and a notion that it all can be analysed through a number of formulas or graphs What do you have in mind to replace it?, chicken bones and tea leafs?. Actual analysis shows extreme events are increasing in Australia. It would be nice to have information further back in time, however until someone invents a time machine, we have to use what is available. I constantly had to point out that Australia in fact, was not getting drier, but instead getting wetter And of course you were constantly wrong. Northern Australia is indeed getting wetter: Weather Extremes Are Growing Trend in Northern Australia, Corals Show and A Combined Climate Extremes Index for the Australian Region - Gallant & Karoly 2010 but that isn't the case for other regions of Australia, as the last decade of drought should have made obvious. And when this La Nina is over?. Back to drought again for many regions. -
Kevin C at 07:08 AM on 13 February 2011Climate Data for Citizen Scientists
Nice work Caerbannog! I had one interesting idea on a variant of the baselining technique: Calculate a baseline on the whole period rather than 1950-1980 (which will therefore be poor), then calculate the geographically averaged monthly anomaly. Then go back and recalculate the baseline for each station subtracting the monthly average to get a better set of baselines. Calculate the monthly anomaly again. Calculate baselines again. Iterate until stable. The result should be a poor-man's approximation to Nick Stokes' TempLS algorithm. -
Rob Painting at 06:53 AM on 13 February 2011Climate Data for Citizen Scientists
Caerbannog - I liken "skeptics" to dogs that chase after cars. They get all excited and noisy, but when the car stops they have no idea what to do. Same with skeptics and the raw data. -
Eric (skeptic) at 06:37 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Here's a 2003 paper that supports a broad perspective on Australian climate change impacts: http://www.edo.org.au/edonsw/site/pdf/subs/climate%20change%20review.pdf A 2000 paper shows that a simple index like "total rainfall" may not be as illuminating as indexes that show rainfall events decreasing while the intensity of the events increases: http://www.vsamp.com/vsamp/resume/publications/Haylock_Nicholls.pdf My inclination is to cherry pick some advice from the first paper to emphasize impact mitigation (instead of emission mitigation). -
caerbannog at 06:00 AM on 13 February 2011Climate Data for Citizen Scientists
Thought that the citizen-science thread would be a good place to post this. Not enough material to justify a full guest post, so I'm just leaving a little note here. I've added some new features to my "Quick and Dirty" global temperature anomaly app. It now performs a simple gridded average (geospatial weighting) that produces results that are remarkably similar to NASA's "Meteorological Stations" temperature index (NASA results here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ -- scroll down to the Global Temperature (meteorological stations) plot). The app now allows you to generate urban vs. rural results side-by-side (it reads the GHCN v2 metadata file to extract rural and urban stations separately). You can now debunk the "Urban Heat Island" talking-point in real-time. The all also allows you to generate ensembles of results, each computed from a different set of randomly-chosen temperature stations. You can throw out 90 percent of the temperature stations and still get results that are quite consistent with the results you get when you process all of the data. Here's a plot of the program's output vs. NASA's equivalent results (note: I used GHCN "raw" monthly-mean data):
For those who are interested, the latest source-code can be found here: http://forum.signonsandiego.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8142&d=1297529025
(Run the app without any arguments to get a semi-helpful "usage" message).
Now, back onto the soapbox for a bit:
It was surprisingly easy to implement the gridding/geospatial-weighting routine (much easier that I originally thought that it would be). The result posted above is what popped out on my first "full-up" run -- i.e. not tweaking or data-fiddling required. Only a few modest changes to my app would be required to perform all the temperature-data analysis/processing that Anthony Watts has been promising (but has failed to deliver) for years!
Getting a crude version of this app up and running took something like a weekend in my spare time -- the bulk of the time spent was cleaning it up and getting it into a form where others might find it useful.
The one major thing that I learned from this project is how breathtakingly inane and brain-dead the denialists' campaign against the surface temperature record has been. A major part of the "climategate" campaign against the CRU was based on the claim that nobody could verify the CRU's global temperature results because the CRU supposedly was "hiding" a small fraction of the data used in their global temperature calculations.
That, of course, is completely absurd -- what my exercise demonstrated is that someone with basic programming skills and the ability to read documentation should have no trouble validating the CRU's results with just a weekend's worth of effort. There is enough public temperature data and plenty of free software tools to enable any technically competent person to debunk the entire basis of the so-called "climategate" scandal with just a couple of days worth of effort.
The "climategate" campaign truly has taken "stupid" to unprecedented heights.
I'm keeping my app handy so that the next time some loudmouth starts spouting off to me about NASA's/CRU's "cooked" data, I'll be able to whip out my laptop and shut him up. I've found that having someone see me generate results "on the fly" from my own app makes a bigger impression than handing him/her a link to a NASA web-page.
Hopefully, others can find this app useful in the same way. I've given it a fair bit of testing, so I don't think that there are any "showstopper" bugs (but no guarantees!).
Moderator Response: [DB] Converted URL's to links. -
dana1981 at 05:54 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
mozart - I recommend you look over the 'Climate sensitivity is not specific to CO2' section here. I discussed the 'efficacies' of various climate forcings - how effective they are in changing global temperatures. If anything, solar irradiance has a lower efficacy than CO2, so comparing the response to solar irraidance to the response to CO2 is a reasonable thing to do. -
Same Ordinary Fool at 05:31 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
#9 Marcus and #17 dana 1981..........There's a lesson here. I wasn't researching Monckton, I was just browsing through the blogrolls on several websites. "We are a service for journalists and the online climate community. Our team of researchers will provide a rapid response service for climate science stories. We go straight to peer-reviewed science and the relevant scientists to get their opinions. Right now we are in the early stages of developing the site." "We (at carbonbrief.org) are a project of the Energy Strategy Centre." "The Energy Strategy Center...is the communications unit at the European Climate Foundation." "(The) Energy Climate Foundation aims to provide climate and energy policies that greatly reduce Europe's greenhouse gas emissions, and help Europe play an even stronger international leadership role in mitigating climate change." And, there's a second lesson here. Some of what is said in Europe, stays in Europe...when just doing standard googling, stateside. -
johnd at 04:26 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Daniel Bailey at 02:08 AM on 13 February, 2011, it often amuses me how the 30 year period is used by some to make a point about climate trends. A few years ago when Australia was in the midst of a drought, time and time again alarmists would trot out a graph showing the decline in rainfall over the preceding 30 years. As I argued back ad-infinitum, the beginning period, the mid 1970's, was likely the wettest period Australia wide since first settlement. I constantly had to point out that Australia in fact, was not getting drier, but instead getting wetter as indicated by comparing the second half of the 1900's to the first half, and that in turn to the entire 1800's. Now I expect the see the 30 year period being trotted out again, probably by the same people, to support arguments that Australia is now getting wetter given both the current conditions and the fact that 1982 was a bad drought year. :-( -
mozart at 04:15 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
Oops...and "site" should read "cite". I'm humbled. -
johnd at 03:58 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Ken Lambert at 23:36 PM on 12 February, 2011, I agree, one of the problems with climate analysis is the reliance on a relatively short data set, and a notion that it all can be analysed through a number of formulas or graphs. In Australia there exists a much larger "data base", that being the unofficial information that has been accumulated by both anecdotal evidence and personal records, especially in the agricultural sector. This information is relevant and should be accurate as it documents how the weather and climate manifested itself where it really matters, in the production of food. Historic crop production records are very good proxies that covers broad areas, but more importantly are indicators of whether we are capable of adjusting to any changes the climate has visited upon us now or in the past. With regards to the Brisbane floods, whilst there seems to be discussion about the effects of cyclones or otherwise, the bottom line is that it is the terrain that is the ultimate determining factor, and it is irrelevant whether the next flood will be cyclone induced or otherwise. Interestingly, the first "extreme" weather event apparently occurred when the first fleet arrived at Botany Bay. Whilst still on board the vessels, the arrivals were subjected to a week of 100 degree temperatures. -
johnd at 03:58 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Albatross at 15:39 PM on 12 February, 2011, perhaps you need to go back and carefully read my post that you were replying to, in particular the second last paragraph, and you will see that my post was in fact a response to your comment "Yes, something very different is going on alright." As I indicated, I find it prudent when considering any such analysis that compares trends over specified time frames, especially very short time spans such as the one in question, to consider the prevailing conditions at both ends of the surveyed period, and if those conditions were in a state of oscillation, give careful consideration as to whether similar outcomes would be achieved by adjusting the survey period forward or back to a point where the oscillating conditions had changed. Rather than passing judgment on the paper itself, I instead indicated the state of the IPO and ENSO cycles at the relevant points, and that doing a due diligence rather than blindly accepting the results, you, or anyone, would be better able to evaluate the value of any conclusions reached. If you want to discuss aspects of the paper referred to by you then perhaps one of those aspects that I am giving some thought to is the use of percentiles in determining extreme events. In itself it would normally be acceptable, however in the case of precipitation, and specifically precipitation over Australia, as you may or may not be aware, there are large areas with minimal rainfalls as well as areas with tropical rainfalls, and as is well documented, whilst the higher rainfall areas are generally subject to a reasonably regular pattern, in the marginal areas rainfall is both sparse and irregular with long completely dry cycles. Whilst it is often made as a joke that there have been kids 10 years old that had never seen rain, it needs to be considered that it is based on fact. Getting back to precipitation percentiles, does identifying the extremes from large areas with say a historically irregular 5" rainfall with those from a regular 40" rainfall allow a valid analysis to be made regarding extreme events, and even it was acceptable for the purpose of the analysis, could any worthwhile conclusions be drawn as to what is actually occurring over such a large and diverse land mass? -
RickG at 03:53 AM on 13 February 2011There is no consensus
@281 Interesting! with that in mind, what is you opinion concerning the "petition project" signed by some 31,000 scientists stating, "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere"? -
mozart at 03:51 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
Apologies...."Maybe a 0.35% rise" should read "Maybe a 0.35 degree rise". An edit function would be helpful. -
mozart at 03:47 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
Thanks dana I appreciate that answer, and it makes sense. But I guess the net of all of that is the 20th century relationship CO2 to temperature is somewhat weaker than a 23.7% rise in CO2 produces a 0.57 degree C rise. Maybe a 0.35% rise? Conversely it has to increase the CO2 response for the last 30 years. Muoncounter my only problem with the link you site is the solar response is in fact derived from an assumed CO2 response. Given that's the variable most in dispute....the reasoning seems a bit circular. "So now to calculate the change in temperature, we just need to know the climate sensitivity. Studies have given a possible range of values of 2 to 4.5°C warming for a doubling of CO2 (IPCC 2007), which corresponds to a range of 0.54 to 1.2°C/(W-m-2) for λ. We can then calculate the change in global temperature caused by the increase in TSI since 1900 using the formulas above."Moderator Response: Also use the Search field to find the Post "Climate time lag." -
dana1981 at 03:40 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
SOF #8 - nice article, thanks. Good to see Monckton Myths mentioned there! Mozart - two things. 1) The solar radiative forcing over the past century has been about 10 times smaller than the CO2 radiative forcing. A smaller forcing means thermal inertia causes less of a lag. 2) Solar irradiance hasn't increased in over 60 years now. Even with a radiative forcing as large as CO2, most of the warming is realized within that timeframe. But with changes as small as the solar irradiance increase, most of the warming is realized within 5-10 years. -
SamPatt at 03:20 AM on 13 February 2011There is no consensus
The study mentioned in this article, Doran and Zimmerman 2009, is a very poor study. The survey questions asked are so crafted that nearly everyone, regardless of opinion on AGW, would answer yes. To prove it, Dr. Lindzen and Dr. Michaels both answered positively to the survey, even though they are routinely considered 'deniers'. Details are in this article: Study claiming ’97% of climate scientists agree’ is flawed -
Bob Lacatena at 02:14 AM on 13 February 2011Coral Reef Baselines
'Type'? Looks like a misteke to me.Moderator Response: [DB] Gud wun. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:08 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
KL @ 24 wants to have his cake and eat it too. The established length of time series for climate significance is typically 30 years or more. With a robust enough dataset, shorter periods may also be significant. Numerous times on various threads here at SkS he has proclaimed about the lack of oceanic warming since 2003, but never has that trend risen to the level of statistical significance. Now he would have us ignore the results of a dataset going back 100 years for...why, again? I would humbly suggest, Ken, that you refrain from characterizations of other people's comments as you have just done with that of Albatross (note the 2nd "s"). That tends to get you in trouble here, as you well know. The Yooper -
muoncounter at 02:00 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
#15: "To simply ignore the effects of solar... " No one is ignoring the effects of solar (where did I hear that before?) See How we know the sun isn't or any of the threads that show all the forcings are used in warming calculations. "As always, a little reading and research shows that climate scientists aren't ignoring these obvious questions." -
mozart at 01:48 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
I'm referring to the relationship between CO2 and temperature for the 20th century. The 0.57 degrees centigrade rise, is linked to a 23.7% rise in CO2. But the solar irradiation number in 2000 was higher than in 1900, which should account for some of the rise? So is the basic relationship weaker? To simply ignore the effects of solar, because it doesn't correlate well in the last 30 years seems unwise....particularly as it was solar irradiation fluctuations that took us in and out of the little Ice Ages. Let me pose the question in a different way. If a new Carbon level has a delayed response, do we believe a step to a new plateau level in solar irradiation is played out immediately, over ten years, over 50 years? -
JMurphy at 01:46 AM on 13 February 2011It hasn't warmed since 1998
protestant, you need to look at Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino to learn more about the different datasets and how global their coverage is. You also need to look at Are surface temperature records reliable?, before backing up your accusation of "unjustified interpolation". -
muoncounter at 01:35 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
#25: "the indigenous reports of flood high levels" Something suggests to me that if those indigenous reports were to the effect of "It never used to flood here," KL would be discounting them entirely. -
muoncounter at 01:27 AM on 13 February 2011Ten temperature records in a single graphic
#131: "look only at data for the past 15 years, there is no statistically significant trend ..." Ah, the fine art of the cherrypick. Something about the statement "When I look at data only for this statistically insignificant period, I find no statistical significance," should give you pause. See Global warming stopped in ... and any of several threads about statistical significance. And here's a most excellent graph by Tamino, which should change your outlook:
That's about 0.17 degrees C/decade.
-
adelady at 01:18 AM on 13 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
kl Did anyone check whether the indigenous reports of flood high levels were associated with cyclones? afaik, none of the highest water events recorded before 2011 occurred in the absence of a cyclone. -
Kevin C at 01:14 AM on 13 February 2011Climate Data for Citizen Scientists
How about adding predicted sunspot numbers for the next cycle? Data here: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict.txt Given that the next maximum is currently looking to be very weak indeed (ssn of 58 vs 118 in 2000) this is very relevent to climate over the next 5-10 years. -
muoncounter at 01:14 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
#10: "Why has this rise in solar levels ... not played a part in the rise of temperatures over the last 200 years? " It did play a part. See It warmed before 1940 and Human fingerprint in the seasons, among other threads dealing with solar warming. As always, a little reading and research shows that climate scientists aren't ignoring these obvious questions. -
mozart at 00:34 AM on 13 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
I'm simply referring to the total solar irradiation number, which is still well above 1900 levels. Because of the breakdown in correlation between this number and temperature in the second half of the century, "something else" had to be causing the warming. That something else is CO2, and the argument is made here that we have more to come from the existing CO2 increase. But in calculcating the base temperature increase for the 20th century,which creates the parameter for CO2 response, is it really reasonable to assume the solar effect is zero? Put another way, is it more likely that the solar effect is being amplified and/or supressed....or is it more likely changes in solar irradiation are simply irrelevant. -
Ken Lambert at 23:36 PM on 12 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Johnd #16 and albatros#18 Good points Johnd. Albatros has gone right over the top in his piece at #18. I have read a fair bit of Karoly's stuff over the last 18 months and would put it in the 'advocacy science' part of the library catalogue. Back to 1911 is too short a period to establish any robust background noise level for climate variation, I would humbly suggest. -
Ken Lambert at 23:28 PM on 12 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
Bern #17 Brisbane 2011 surely was a major event - the question is whether it has happened before and with what frequency. I would have thought 100-200 years is too short a period to define the range of flood events - and if no-one is prepared to discount the report of John Oxley's 12m as unreliable Aboriginal folklore - then 12m in the last 200 years is the best estimate of the range of natural flood height in the Brisbane river. Wivenhoe and Somerset dams were not around in 1893 - so this remains the worst measured 'natural' flood height at about 8.2m - although the overall 1893 rainfall event might have been smaller than 2011. 1974 had different aspects - there being much higher creek flows in greater Brisbane itself, and less from upstream. The point remains that all these events are unique, chaotic and periodic manifestations of the climate system (particularly La Nina) and very difficult to prove are driven outside the range of natural variation by GW or AGW. -
rhjames at 23:24 PM on 12 February 2011Ten temperature records in a single graphic
Bibliovermis - to be fair, I must admit that when I check Hadcrut and RSS, and look only at data for the past 15 years, there is no statistically significant trend up or down that I can find. That's not to say that global warming has stopped - we need another 15 years of no trend before such a claim could be made. However, we can't just draw a straight line through curved data, in the hope that extrapolation will follow that line. Basically, we really don't know what it's doing - the hottest year based on most data sets was 1998, and there's the chance that it may have peaked - only time will tell. 2011 is certainly off to a colder start. -
John Bruno at 23:13 PM on 12 February 2011Coral Reef Baselines
Thanks MattJ and isn't it Rob! Kind of like looking for warming by starting in 1998. -
Bibliovermis at 22:51 PM on 12 February 2011Ten temperature records in a single graphic
"It's cooling" is currently the #4 argument because enough self-proclaimed skeptic are still asserting that the warming stopped at some point; e.g. 1998. -
protestant at 22:51 PM on 12 February 2011It hasn't warmed since 1998
"2005 was the hottest year globally, and 2009 the second hottest." According to majority 1998 was warmest on record (Hadley, RSS, UAH) and 2005 not even close. 2010 was the second warmest and tied only in UAH. GISS record years are just artifacts due to homogenization and unjustified interpolation. Again, "Skeptical" Science does cherry picking and pickes the only dataset which shows any warming on this ENSO-neutral interval which is 1998-2010.Moderator Response: [DB] Incorrect. According to the WMO, which uses data from NASA,NOAA/NCDC and MET/UEA, the year 2010 was jointly ranked with 2005 and 1998 as the warmest year on record. Hansen 2011 indicate we have reached the levels of the Holocene Maximum/Altithermal. Removing ENSO and other exogenous factors from the records yields (using monthly averages) this, from Tamino:
And now this, using annual averages:
-
Bibliovermis at 22:39 PM on 12 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Are you claiming that what we cannot observe trumps what we can observe? -
Ken Lambert at 22:28 PM on 12 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Gentlemen The essential point to this discussion is whether or not there is energy added to the whole Earth system (oceans, atmosphere, land, ice melt, evaporation). This is then an 'external' energy imbalance. Exchanges between oceans and atmosphere etc within the system are 'internal'. Thermal inertia is only relevant to the Temperatures showing in various parts of the system. The overal energy added or subtracted from the system is the time integral of the forcing imbalance 'prior' to the point in time we are considering - which in this discussion is NOW. There might be temperature rise in some part of the system from heat energy already absorbed there or transported there by circulations from elsewhere. However future rise in temperature of the whole system can only come from future energy gain from a forcing imbalance. The heat energy 'in the pipeline' is in fact in the 'time tunnel' looking forward, assuming there is an ongoing imbalance (currently claimed as about +0.9W/sq.m). But if this heat keeps eluding researchers in the measurement of ocean heat content for too much longer, we might conclude that the imbalance is small or non-existent. -
MattJ at 21:26 PM on 12 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
The failure to deal with climate change is THE massive failure of democracy. Why? Because though China is denying it too, it is the 'democratic' nations of the world, the US, UK and others, who are leading the charge into denialism, and giving free reign to denialists under the -cover- of "freedom of speech" and "freedom of commerce" -- even though this is destroying those freedoms along with more basic freedoms for all those who have to grow up in that ruined world full of war, famine and pestilence. -
RSVP at 20:16 PM on 12 February 2011Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
Marcus #40 "That's not word-play or contradiction-that's scientific FACT." I find it very unfair to qualify a spirit of open mindedness as word play, especially only as applied to ideas that might appear contrary to the status quo, or using the more popular, "peer consensus". And there may actually be some level of "greenhouse" warming associated with elevated CO2 levels, in other words, this may also be having some effect. What I find going on here, as also seemed to bother Crichton, an attempt to establish scientism as opposed to science. Wordsmithing is not word play. Words are the means to convey ideas, and sometimes it is necessary to invent new words to better understand what is going on. It might be very true that CO2 is affecting climate to some degree, but to stop short there, entrenched in only one idea seems very limiting indeed, especially in times as complex and dynamic as the one we are living in. -
Marcus at 19:18 PM on 12 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
Also, Mozart, sunspot data shows that the highest average sunspot numbers were actually around the 1930's to 1950's. Every decade since has seen lower average sunspots than at this earlier time. -
Marcus at 19:15 PM on 12 February 2011Monckton Myth #10: Warming in the Pipeline
@ Mozart-all I can suggest is that you look at a comparison of 20th century sunspot numbers vs 20th century temperatures. You'll see that sunspots & temperatures match extremely closely for at least the 1st half of the century, then get increasingly separate as you proceed into the 2nd half of the century. Fact is, if we were going to see any thermal inertia from the sun, we would have seen it around the 1950's & 1960's-after sunspots peaked-yet warming during this period was relatively slow. The rate only picked up *after* the period where we'd expect that thermal inertia to no longer be in effect (about 10 years). If I've got this wrong, then I hope someone will correct me. -
Rob Painting at 19:06 PM on 12 February 2011Coral Reef Baselines
Fancy that, GBR coral cover was in it's pristine state when the AIMS survey began. What a lucky coincidence!. -
Marcus at 18:58 PM on 12 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
@ farrowed. Wow, that's *really* scary. Given WA has also seen a significant drop in their aquifers as well, it makes you wonder how much longer WA will be able to sustain its current population-let alone expand. South Australia is eventually going to run into problems too-though maybe later than Western Australia. Though we definitely got some excellent rain in late 2010, it doesn't really compensate for the more than 30% decline in Autumn rainfall that we've seen since the 1970's. -
MattJ at 18:39 PM on 12 February 2011Coral Reef Baselines
'Palontological'? Looks like a type to me. -
farrowed at 18:36 PM on 12 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
In addition to the extreme weather on the Eastern seaboard, this graph of stream flows in the west is worth a look. -
rhjames at 17:23 PM on 12 February 2011Ten temperature records in a single graphic
I agree - more data showing much the same thing (though GISS is a bit out from the others) is better, rather than trying to average it all. But, as I said, warming isn't really in question anyway - it's the cause of the warming. -
nigelj at 17:13 PM on 12 February 2011Guardian article: Australia's recent extreme weather isn't so extreme anymore
It certainly is a remarkable year or so in Australia and globally, I tend to think too many events to dismiss as purely natural variability. Scientific scepticism in every area of science seems to go thru several phases: Robust and often compelling. Necessarry but difficult to quite maintain Missleading, tedious, whining, and desperate Stupid and despicable. What stage are we at with cimate change I wonder?
Prev 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 Next
