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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 96251 to 96300:

  1. Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
    Steve L, Billyjoe, Clonmac, villabolo, others, If I may- Ambiguosityologist (am-big-U-osity-olo-gist); someone who makes a practice of intentionally manipulating vague or unclear terminology, or someone who misuses highly technical terminology, with the intent of misleading for propaganda purposes. E.g. the Viscount Monckton.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed text per request.
  2. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    These are terrific slides. I think your point about disguising information as fun especially good. I would change the volcanoes question to: How much more CO2 is due to human activity than volcanoes? I find your wording hard to read. I would change the sea level rise question to emphasize the cost more. $25,000 billion doesn't mean much to me. Perhaps 25-28 Trillion dollars would work. The cost is so phenominal that it is difficult to convey properly.
  3. Dikran Marsupial at 02:49 AM on 10 February 2011
    How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    apiratelooksat50@78 That is precisely the point I was making! It was not correct to assert that Spencer's challenge was valid simply becuase the definition of "natural internal cycles" was left unspecified, so the hypothesis was impossible to falsify. Essentially it is fine as rhetoric, but it isn't valid science. If you try and specify what "natural internal cycles" actually means and specify mechanisms to the point you can actually define what is and what isn't consistent with the hypothesis, you will end up with somthing rather like a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM). At which point the experiment has already been done and it has been shown that the observered warming is not consistent with natural cycles, see the post by Daniel Bailey. Dr Spencer ought to be well aware of this, as it is "Frequently Asked Question 9.2" on page 702-3 in the most recent IPCC WG1 Scientific Basis Report. The spread of the model runs tells us what is consistent with our current knowledge of "natural variability" and the current warming lies outside the spread of the model runs if anthropogenic forcings are excluded, which means that the observed warming can't be explained by our best understanding of natural variability. P.S. If you think Spencer's challenge doesn't require a well-defined hypothesis, you do not understand Popper at all. Falsificationism requires as well define hypothesis, that much ought to be obvious to anyone who has even dipped into his writing, never mind a big fan!
  4. Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    Oxygen 209,460ppm and CO2 398ppm. Could RSVP give some 'scientific' soutces for oxygen running out? To give someone their due respect, sometimes = pointing and laughing.
  5. apiratelooksat50 at 02:08 AM on 10 February 2011
    How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Dikran, First, we would need to define and agree what constitute "natural internal cycles". Otherwise we would be arguing semantics. I see your point about using the scientific method and agree with it. I'm a big fan of Popper. Perhaps Spencer should define a hypothesis, though I am not sure his challenge requires a hypothesis to be formed.
  6. Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    Re: SteveS (18) As Albatross has stated previously, RSVP has set up a straw man argument (the implicit unspoken statement is twofold: that plant uptake will offset rising CO2 emissions and that if we burn it all then the oxygen will be consumed). The statement clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding of the physical world and the carbon cycle. As to the trace gas depleting a non-trace gas statement: we can actually measure this and it is happening (this graph sums it up nicely): Further discussion on that here. The Yooper
  7. Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    @ XPLAIN (8) Sounds better than most of the drivel coming out of Hollywood these days. Is there a part in it where they find a thriving colony of denialasauri lomborgasi on a remote island (and do they nuke them from orbit)? I'd pay money to see that. Well, only if the popcorn was good. The Yooper
  8. Dikran Marsupial at 01:32 AM on 10 February 2011
    How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    apiratelooksat50@76 Sure. For Spencers challenge to be valid, rather than merely rhetorical, the "null hypothesis" that the majority observed warming is due to the natural variability of the climate, must be a valid scientific hypothesis. A requirement of a scientific (rather than a non-scientific) hypothesis is that there exists at least the potential to disprove the hypothesis should it be false. This is a well established part of scientific method, stemming from the work of Karl Popper. It is my contention that the hypothesis of "natural variability" is unfalsifiable, simply becuase the mechanism of "natural variability" is left unspecified, which means there is no means of establishing which phenomena are consistent with the hypothesis and which are not. Thus *anything* we actually observe can be blithely attributed to "natural variability". It would be easy to prove my contention wrong, by giving an example of an amount of warming that is not consistent with the theory of "natural variation" and that was my challenge - specify a condition that is definitively excluded by Spencer's hypothesis. I am happy to clarify further any of these points, if required, but please try to specify exactly what it is that you don't understand.
  9. apiratelooksat50 at 01:14 AM on 10 February 2011
    How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Dikran Can you please rephrase your question?
  10. Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    #16 RSVP: "As far as your comment on the oxygen supply, plants and algae. If CO2 ppm is going up, you must assume that oil combustion is outpacing plants and algae." One of the comments I continually get from someone where I live is that CO2 is a trace gas. I fail to see how increasing a trace gas will deplete a non-trace gas in any appreciable way (unless you believe we're going to be raising the quantity of CO2 to non-trace levels). Do you have any numbers for this?
  11. Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    @RSVP
    On the otherhand, there are also things that do not require science to be known. For instance, even if the petrolium should never run out, the oxygen will. So at some point, regardless of global warming, alternative forms of energy will take over.
    I'm confused as to why we don't need science to know this. Using "science" to examine this question shows that we could burn through all known fossil fuel reserves without making much of a dent in atmospheric oxygen. We have far greater problems than the non-problem of oxygen supply.
  12. Voicing values and climate change
    Phil, the obvious answer to the "natural cycles" bit is to compare with tides. Tide comes in, tide comes out, all's good. But what if, each time the tide came in, it was a little higher up the beach? And each time it went out, it didn't go out quite as far as last time? Surely that would be an issue worth worrying about? I hope this new blog comes up with good discussions of possible approaches to fixing the problem of CO2 emissions. Many 'solutions' are net-cash-positive in the long term - such as energy efficiency - I've heard of industrial cases where a $150,000 cost is recovered within two years, and after that it's all gravy (and how many businesses would say no to an extra $50k-$75k profit every year?)
  13. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    Moderator #6 One point. From the graph 2010 seems to start at -700 and end at -1150, that's more like 450 Gigatons. I think what you mean is that 600 Gigatons was lost during the melt season, some weight was put on either side of this period.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Fair point. Net losses vs peak losses in a noisy time series (thank you for pointing that out). But the system is displaying signs of increasing de-linearity and needs further monitoring.
  14. Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    #15 MichaelIM "If you are going to make stuff up " Sorry if science is second nature to me, as I cant distinguish from what I know and what you call science. As far as your comment on the oxygen supply, plants and algae. If CO2 ppm is going up, you must assume that oil combustion is outpacing plants and algae. Maybe you can "make up some stuff" to explain how this is not so.
  15. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    I printed the PDF to put in the Kitchen at my workplace but printing double sided means that the answers are on the front and the questions on the back of the previous page ! I printed out pages 2-25 and then 1 and 26 separately. It would be nice to include the Skeptical Science URL in it too
  16. Voicing values and climate change
    Look forward to the UWA blog too. Just one comment about Mark Edwards' post. While a majority of Australians may think privately that CC is a serious issue, I am not certain that everyone is actually convinced that 1)the impact is going to be significant 2) that we need to do something about it now. Even the recent natural disasters that we had in Queensland did not seem to raise that awareness. I had actually many people telling me " Oh, you are going to say that it's all related to climate change, but it isn't really, it's all about natural cycles..." I think that there is a bit of the "head in the sand " attitude here. People sense that may be our activities are harming the environment, but if we took the science seriouisly we would have to change the way we live and we don't really want to change. This is like someone who is addicted to junk food, who is getting overweight because of it, knows that this habit is likely to cause problems in the future, but still doesn't want to modify their diet because they love junk food so much! This attitude to the CC issue is certainly compounded by the fact that some powerful corporate interests and conservative ideologues work hard to spread doubts about the science. But their attempt at disinformation wouldn't go very far if it did not resonate somehow with private attitudes.
  17. Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    RSVP: It's telling that your ideas seem to be based on a thorough misunderstanding of scientific principles. Oxygen: it's generated all the time by plants and algae. "My idea here does not represent science, nor pretends to, nor needs to." It does need to. If you are going to make stuff up as a means of arguing it does become rather pointless and tedious for all concerned.
  18. Dikran Marsupial at 20:58 PM on 9 February 2011
    Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    RSVP@13 Ah I see, word games. You are indeed free to buy an idea or not; however that freedom doesn't make your choice rational. As this is skepticalscience it is probably best to stick to ideas that are intended to represent science and leave the word games to one side.
  19. Climate Change Impacts on Ocean Ecosystems
    #12 dorlomin, that's a good question. I can only guess reasons for that, one might be the exchange of water between atlantic and other oceans is less in amount than that between indian and pacific. That would be because of the antarctic circumpolar drift, but I'm only guessing here.
  20. Crichton's 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'
    #11 " "even if the petrolium should never run out, the oxygen will" interesting suggestion, care to expand? " Combustion depends on oxygen. For all practical purposes oxygen is free "fuel" that is slowly getting consumed, and without oxygen, petrolium becomes quite useless. (I suppose the airlines will be the first to notice this problem.) The point of all this was to illustrate that an idea can have its basis in an understanding of scientific principles (or some notion thereof), as opposed to claiming to represent science. My idea here does not represent science, nor pretends to, nor needs to. If the information is useful, its no different than knowing what the price of bread is in local grocery store. You can buy it or not, embodying a concept called freedom, etc.
  21. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    I have been interested in climate change for nearly a year now. It seems it's paying off with all correct answers in the quiz :D Thanks to Real Climate and Sceptic Science. :)
  22. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    HR 'changing the flow rate between the two vessels while I alter the flow rate into the whole system.' That isn't the case. The flow through the system is reduced when we first constrict the valve. This is the initial change in the flow into/out of the entire system. This then starts to produce an accumulation of water in the 2 tank system. This imbalance can only be restored when the level of the smaller tank rises enough to force an increased outflow. However, the smaller tank cannot reach this new balance level until the larger tank also reaches this level. So most of the accumulation is actually going into filling the larger tank - around 90% in the case of the climate. Until then, the flow into the largert tank artificially limits the rise in the smaller tank. Only at equilibrium does it all come back to level
  23. Dikran Marsupial at 19:02 PM on 9 February 2011
    How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    apiratelooksat50@67 Good, we both agree that CO2 can be a temporary driver of climate. The next question is how long is temporary. The reason volcanos have a short lived effect is that the aerosols they eject into the atmosphere are short lived, and are gone in a couple of years. CO2 however is much longer lived, the adjustment time of CO2 is several hundred years, and full equilibriation takes tens to hundreds of thousands of years (because full equilibriation requires geological weathering to permanently remove the excess CO2 out of the active carbon cycle and into the lithosphere). There is a good book by David Archer called "The global carbon cycle", which explains the mechanisms involved in detail. The equilibriation from the PETM took on the order of 100,000 years - which is not very temporary from a human perspective (although it is a blink of the eye in geological terms). See Archers book, page 45 for details. Essentially, in your ice in a pan analogy, you need to take into account how long it takes to melt the ice. Sure the effect of CO2 is temporary, but that doesn't mean it is not relevant as "temporary" on a geological timescale is a very long time for us. However, you are continually refusing to answer the question I posed earlier. This sort of evasion is generally an indication that someone is not taking the discussion seriously and making a rhetorical argument rather than a scientific one. If you are not interested in the truth and only want to win a rhetorical debate, then perhaps this is not the site for you.
  24. Voicing values and climate change
    A fantastic idea. But oh my God - how do you moderate it to keep everything OT. Discussions of solutions Only, not the Climate Science itself. One insight, if it hasn't been considered already, is separating the different streams of 'solutions'; Technical like energy technologies, Economic, Political, Social, Psycholocal, Advocacy and Outreach. Keep us posted.
  25. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    @Eric L Thanks for your feedback (and finding yet another typo!). I'll collect suggestions and will then re-upload the modified files. The quiz originated in connection with a 350.org activity which is why I included a question about 350 ppm. The individual questions are not numbered so any print-outs can obviously select suitable questions and/or re-arrange them as needed. @Daniel Bailey Thanks for the pointer about Greenland ice in 2010! A general "problem" with questions like the one about the Greenland ice is that they are moving targets. Ideally, these types of questions should be updated whenever new data (plus the corresponding graphics!) become available.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] You're very welcome. A graphic expressing the Greenland mass-loss growing quadratically (which it is) would be nice, if achievable. A 3D version of this graph, but showing the loss growing instead of the mass declining, if you will.
  26. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    To further help inform people you could try a question of this form: What percentage of its ice was lost by Greenland last year? A) 5% B) 1% C) 0.1% D) 0.01% Answer: 286 Gigatonne or 0.01% of ice was lost by Greenland last year. _____________________ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet Total Greenland ice (ice sheet plus glaciers) ~= 2.85 megagigatonnes (2.85 E15 tonnes) 2.86 E9 / 2.85 E15 ~= 0.01% If all ice melt was considered to be land based ice, consequent sealevel rise would have been about 0.7 mm. Not a trivial amount in absolute terms. IF melting from this source continued at this rate for 100 years it would cause about 70mm (almost 3 inches) sea level rise. SME
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] A couple of points: 286 Gigatons was the 2009 amount. The corresponding 2010 value was 600 Gigatons. The latest research suggests future Greenland and Antarctic ice losses will be anything but linear, with multiple-meter rises in sea level possible in decadal timescales.
  27. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    [ -Snip- ]
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] If you insist to continually be off-topic, the moderators will have no choice but to intervene. You persist in your focus on record highs and lows in spite of everyone here trying to help you. Discussion of highs and lows should take place on the dedicated thread for it. No one wants to stifle dialogue. But it needs to be channeled into the appropriate venue for it. Thanks for your understanding!
  28. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    This is great. I would note: you mispelled "decade" on page 17. Also, I would have another question introducing the issue of CO2 acidification, as it is not a problem many are aware of and I suspect many would be confused by the question or find it ridiculous. Also, and this is just my feeling, but I think the 350 question is kind of subjective for a quiz to teach people the facts (that isn't to say it's not correct), and also given the following question may give people the impression that the damage is already done and there's not much point in trying to fix it now.
  29. watchingthedeniers at 15:38 PM on 9 February 2011
    Voicing values and climate change
    This is a terrific initiative, and I look forward to the forth coming blog. It is a much needed voice.
  30. How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    You continue to neglect physics. To be precise, he continues to neglect physics that people here have repeatedly taken the time and trouble to explain to him, in this thread and others. Which is beginning to seem somewhat rude, as well as irrational.
  31. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    Also, Michael Tobis has had some good puzzlers, on In It; though I'm not sure how to find them again though. And Yulsman's What are you looking at? "mystery image"
  32. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #154: "providing no support for the view that a shift has occured." Your daily records analysis makes no sense whatsoever. Climate change is about trends established over many years and large areas. The GHCN temperature trend in the 5x5 degree lat/long grid in the Chicago area (40-45N lat, 85-90W long)? Up 0.22 degrees C per decade since 1970. The shift has occurred, whether you can see it out your window or not.
  33. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    I should clarify that the quiz over at the Warming101 post (link) has a lot of Qs different from Baerbel's quiz (though they do overlap). Baerbel's is much more beautiful, with the images...
  34. How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Marvin - fossil fuels are artificially cheap because we don't pay for the climate change or associated damages their co2 emissions cause. That's what economists call an "externality". Pirate - the whole reason the planet is warming is because it isn't in equilibrium, because of the ever-increasing co2 forcing. You continue to neglect physics.
  35. How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    #67: "equilibration comes into play (i.e., after a major volcanic eruption) and temps go back to their normal phase" It might be wise to check your facts, especially if you intend teaching this idea. Robock 2003 provides a thorough and definitive analysis. The June 15, 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption was a large but relatively shortlived shock to the Earth’s atmosphere. Temperature and CO2 records conclusively show that a brief cooling and temporary reduction in the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 were done with within 2-3 years of the eruption. So no, there's no 'equilibration,' whatever that is supposed to mean. But your right, temps went back to their normal phase -- increasing due to the forcing of anthropogenic CO2.
  36. How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Pirate, just an addendum. Volcanoes make short-lived contribution (your ice-cube) because the aerosols are quickly gone. CO2 is not quickly gone.
  37. How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    I've considered that CO2 can "drive" climate and rejected it. So what psuedo-skeptic nonsense did you fall for? Got some peer-reviewed science to back your conclusion. What do you mean by your reference of "artificially cheap fossil fuels"? Fossil fuels are subsidized. That makes them artificially cheap. IEA estimated subsidies worldwide to be US$557B in 2008. See IEA report for the details. Ending subsidies is a good way to get an different energy structure started, but bad for fossil fuel company shareholders.
  38. How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Pirate - and if you continue to add ice cubes? CO2 is eventually removed by geological processes but at geological rates. Meanwhile, we keep adding CO2. What concerns me is that you can postulate all kinds of nonsense if you don't do the maths. Doing the maths means comparing the relative strengths of forcings and the effects on temperature. (That we you don't get the "recovering from LIA" nonsense).
  39. Articgate: perpetuating the myth that Arctic sea ice has recovered
    Rhjames is the very definition of a "concern troll" (google that if you're not familiar with the term). Note his hilarious use of "We" to open three paragraphs. Hence, I don't expect him to return, or to read the reasonable responses people have written if he does. Nonetheless, in case someone else was taken in ... I'll expand on Phillippe's response a bit. The global sea ice plot at Cryosphere Today shows a clear downward trend. All studies of land ice on Greenland show significant mass loss (see elsewhere on this site) and recent studies of Antarctica are showing the same sort of decline (also referenced on this site). That's all the "polar ice" so, yes, total polar ice is decreasing. As for the NW passage, there was exactly one single-year passage before recent years (when there have been many, some in very light craft that couldn't take any serious impact with ice). That historic passage was of course commanded by Henry Larsen in the St. Roch, which was a heavily reinforced schooner. The St. Roch was able to squeeze down leads in ice that would look solid had there been satellite images back then. So really, the passage wasn't "open" in the sense that we use the term - meaning clear blue water on the satellite images. Larsen was a brave man who got lucky. Considering his one other passage took 3 years, we can say he averaged 2y per passage. In 2010, some Norwegians did the EW passage and the NW passage in a couple of months, using an ultralight fiberglass trimaran. There's just no comparison.
  40. Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
    As if we did not need more evidence. From a paper to appear very soon in the prestigious Journal of Climate: "The role of human activity in the recent warming of extremely warm daytime temperatures Nikolaos Christidis, Peter A. Stott, Simon J. Brown Met Office, Hadley Centre for Climate Change, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK Abstract Formal detection and attribution analyses of changes in daily extremes give evidence of a significant human influence on the increasing severity of extremely warm nights and decreasing severity of extremely cold days and nights. We present an optimal fingerprinting analysis, which also detects the contributions of external forcings to recent changes in extremely warm days using non-stationary extreme value theory. Our analysis is the first that attempts to partition the observed change in warm daytime extremes between its anthropogenic and natural components and hence attribute part of the change to possible causes. Changes in the extreme temperatures are represented by the temporal changes in a parameter of an extreme value distribution. Regional distributions of the trend in the parameter are computed with and without human influence using constraints from the global optimal fingerprinting analysis. Anthropogenic forcings alter the regional distributions, indicating that extremely warm days have become hotter."
  41. How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Pirate @66, You continue to be disingenuous with your flippant and unsubstantiated remarks. People have repeatedly directed you to the science which demonstrates that the planet is experiencing a net positive energy imbalance on account of the radiative forcing from GHGs and that the majority of warming is attributable to the rapid increase in GHGs from human activities. From a paper to appear very soon in the prestigious Journal of Climate: "The role of human activity in the recent warming of extremely warm daytime temperatures Nikolaos Christidis, Peter A. Stott, Simon J. Brown Met Office, Hadley Centre for Climate Change, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB, UK Abstract Formal detection and attribution analyses of changes in daily extremes give evidence of a significant human influence on the increasing severity of extremely warm nights and decreasing severity of extremely cold days and nights. We present an optimal fingerprinting analysis, which also detects the contributions of external forcings to recent changes in extremely warm days using non-stationary extreme value theory. Our analysis is the first that attempts to partition the observed change in warm daytime extremes between its anthropogenic and natural components and hence attribute part of the change to possible causes. Changes in the extreme temperatures are represented by the temporal changes in a parameter of an extreme value distribution. Regional distributions of the trend in the parameter are computed with and without human influence using constraints from the global optimal fingerprinting analysis. Anthropogenic forcings alter the regional distributions, indicating that extremely warm days have become hotter."
  42. apiratelooksat50 at 12:50 PM on 9 February 2011
    How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Dikran @ 64, From what I've read, I am in tentative agreement that large releases of CO2 can have a temporary effect as a driver of global temperature. But, equilibration comes into play (i.e., after a major volcanic eruption) and temps go back to their normal phase, whether rising or falling. Start a pot of water boiling and drop in one ice cube. What happens? The rate of reaching boiling slows down temporarily until that ice cube is gone. But, then it rapidly goes back to the original trend.
  43. So, you think that learning about climate change needs to be tedious?
    This is a really good tool for public communication...fantastic job. I am wondering if a dynamic online format, similar to your PowerPoint animation idea, would be good. People could go to SkS and take the quiz without having to download anything. I think an online form of the quiz would be fun, and not too hard to code.
  44. Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
    Agnostic @15, As you know, getting data from the Russian authorities is not easy. For this reason the estimates of the deaths vary wildly, from 15000 to 56000. The latter number (56000) is from this United Nations press release. In my earlier post I could not remember the exact number that I read originally, so I gave a range and erred on the conservative side. Whatever the final number of fatalities actually was, it was very likely in the tens of thousands. 2010 was a grim year for natural disasters.
  45. apiratelooksat50 at 12:42 PM on 9 February 2011
    How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Temp, CO2 and human population. Kinda tied together ain't it? In what order - who knows?
  46. Marvin Gardens at 12:26 PM on 9 February 2011
    How We Know Recent Global Warming Is Not Natural
    Dana @ 63 I've considered that CO2 can "drive" climate and rejected it. What do you mean by your reference of "artificially cheap fossil fuels"?
  47. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    "These record highs and lows are from a city which has just been impacted by Arctic cold" Can only hope that is was simply "affected" by the cold-- "impacted", ouch. The point that you seem to keep missing Mozart is that the loss of ice can lead to strongly negative models of the NAO/AO which leads to the so-called 'warm Arctic, cold continents' phenomenon-- i.e., unusually strong cold Arctic outbreaks. I do not think anyone is seriously suggesting that these excursions will last the entire boreal winter, nor are they suggesting it will lead to a trend in boreal winters. Europe was cold in late November and most of December, but has been mild ever since, the meteorological winter 2010-2011 (DFF) for Europe could end up being near normal. IMHO, this pattern suggests much larger wings in temperature and precipitation over the northern continents during the Boreal winter. Time will tell.... Mozart at 156 starts to show his/her true colours. You will probably think otherwise, but people have actually been very patient with you Mozart, and have repeatedly tried to guide you as to how this site works. It works for other 'skeptics' who frequent the site, so no reason that it cannot work for you.
  48. Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
    Albatross @ 3 …. the Russian heat wave that killed an estimated 40-50 thousand. At the time, Russian authorities estimated 15,000 premature deaths. Have they revised that estimate?
  49. Monckton Myth #9: Monckton vs Monckton on heat waves
    KR @11, Thank you -- that was the point I was trying to make! This blog post states "increase in record high temperatures". I don't think that's accurate, and so other wording should be used. As for the ratio of record lows to record highs ... I actually prefer numbers that sum to 1, and therefore percentages could be better. For example, I think projections for the future should be: "by 2050 5% of record temperatures will be cold; by 2100 that will drop to 2%." But this is just semantics.
  50. Philippe Chantreau at 11:17 AM on 9 February 2011
    Articgate: perpetuating the myth that Arctic sea ice has recovered
    Rhjames' Arctic sea ice has decreased a lot more than Antarctic sea ice. Global sea ice is clearly in the decline. Picking 2007 to try to suggest that the ice decline has stopped is as misleading and wrong as suggesting that temperatures have been flat since 1998. Both claims are equally wrong, the data shows that very clearly. In fact, the decline in summer Arctic sea ice shows an accelerating decline up to 2010. If you can not understand that this does not necessarily mean that every year will be lower than the previous one, you have some serious catching up to do with the basics. The very significant decrease in Arctic sea ice in the Arctic summer opens up large areas of ocean to absorb sunlight. The Northwest passage has never been reported to open as much and as long as in recent years. All Northwest passages crossings in more distant history took several years. There has never been in recorded history so many days when both the NW and NE passages were open at the same time as there was in the past few summers. All this has been explored earlier on this site, proper research here or on Google will take you to all the sources and data you need.

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