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scaddenp at 15:04 PM on 5 February 2011It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Worth noting too, that everything we know about climate says that UAH will plummet this year (La Nina) and it will go down further than land record. However if you want to know about climate rather than weather then please compare UAH now with UAH in past periods which have La Nina index of the same magnitude. If it comes to that, compare the minimum temperature of the coming La Nina cycle with the MAXIMUM of El Nino temperature 30 or 40 years ago. Want to guess what UAH will show in the next El Nino of 1.8 or more? -
adelady at 14:54 PM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
protestant " there are two good guesses what causes DO's. It is either internal oscillation, where 'the earth is trying always to reach its equilibrium' ..... " Perhaps this is part of the problem. The earth doesn't, and it can't, try to do anything. The earth is just a planet. That is, it's just a biggish rock with certain features which allow biological as well as simply physical processes to influence conditions at its surface. And that is why it is entirely appropriate to discuss those various features individually. Radiative transfer equations, ocean chemistry, photosynthesis, the physics of glaciers, fossils are all part of the various processes. In this case, the interaction of several processes feed into certain calculations is the process in question. And that is what the discussion is about. It is not like throwing everything into a food processor to mix a cake. It's like carefully assembling a 20,000 piece jigsaw. When you're helping someone assemble the tree in the middle of the picture, it is *not* helpful to offer a piece from the edge. That piece should be offered to the person (thread) looking at that part of the picture. -
Ken Lambert at 12:24 PM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
ChrisG #13 What you (and others) might be confusing is energy conservation (first law) with temperature equilibrium. If heat energy (the warming imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m) is added to a vast mass of water from the top and sides (we are not suggesting that the 0.9W/sq.m enters from the ocean bottom yet are we?), then the thermal inertia of water means that it will take a long time for the temperature of the whole mass to reach equilibrium (if ever). There will be warmer water at the top and sides. The DeltaT x specific heat of sea water x mass subject to that DeltaT will equate to the heat energy absorbed (less that absorbed in ice melt or evaporation). Dana1981 #15: "Ken Lambert #4 - sorry, you are incorrect. See KR #6. Also I suggest you read the Lindzen E&E paper I linked in the article. He explicitly states that there is warming in the pipeline from the ocean thermal inertia. He just neglects it because he feels it's too small to make much difference in the calculation, but unlike yourself, doesn't deny that it exists" You are confusing warming temperature in the system somewhere, with external energy imbalance already absorbed. Once the ocean has absorbed heat imbalance energy up to time NOW, then complex circulations move it around - change temperatures and exchange it with the atmosphere via ENSO, AO etc. The energy is still conserved - temperature is an artifact of where that energy is showing up spacially in the system. The energy aborbed from future forcing imbalance will cause 'future' temperature rise as KR#6 correctly says. KR#6 agrees with what I have said in #4 - it is NOT incorrect. We must get this terminology right. 'Energy' is what is added or subtracted via 'external imbalance' or redistributed by internal oscillation. Broadly, 'Temperature' of water, land or air is a measure of the energy already absorbed spacially in the system. -
Steve L at 11:47 AM on 5 February 2011Monckton Myth #8: Rising sea levels
KR @47 -- thanks. Somehow I imagined it would be more than that. -
Ken Lambert at 11:40 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
KR#6 In other words you agree with what I have said in #4. -
Riduna at 10:21 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
MarkR @ 2 …. most estimates of climate sensitivity do not include carbon cycle feedbacks. Why? Do feedbacks already contribute to global warming? Will that contribution increase significantly as a result of on-going global warming? -
protestant at 09:58 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
"Since this article is about the warming from 1750 to Present, arguing that some small fraction of the warming since the 1970s could be due to natural oscillations is not relevant here. Nobody claimed otherwise." Not just a small tiny weeny fraction but a huge part, more than half. [quote]I'm also going to ignore the unsubstantiated and absurdly wrong statement that there's no correlation between CO2 and temperature. "[/quote] I never said CO2 and temperature do not correlate. Yes they do. I said CO2 doesnt correlate with the AMO index. It was maybe 5th or 6th time in this short discussion where my arguments are completely misread. So I suppose there is no reason trying to reason with you. Goodbye. -
protestant at 09:53 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
#39: Physics of radiative balance? Which physics do you mean? You mean those physics, which require a _LINEAR_ regression fit with a 2% R^2 to determine feedbacks (Dessler), right? I'd rather call those assumptions. Nature is highly nonlinear and complex. Have you _read_ the paper I linked you on my first post? Of course it is possible to build any kinda houses of cards to explain the recent observations, but the models which have these what you call 'physics' still cant replicate a) the 40's b) the MWP and LIA (dont give me a hockey stick with Mannian smoothing please). AMO (and other, even centennial cycles , who knows?) is a tricky devil for the climate modelers, for sure. Those estimates ALSO require, that the 'accelerated' (similar to 1910-1940) warming from 1970-2010 is man made. Some of it is, but most of it isnt. The effective trend is still the same as in the first part of the 19th century if the natural variables, which can be almost definitely be attributed as natural, are removed.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] You are continuing to go further and further off-topic. Find the appropriate thread(s) or your scattershot-style comments will start disappearing. Replies, please ref these comments in the appropriate thread. -
dana1981 at 09:48 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
In addition to the rather bizarre question as to why we haven't seen more warming when the article showed that we have seen as much warming as expected, I also refer you to Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming, which also discusses how much future warming we expect to see and when. Since this article is about the warming from 1750 to Present, arguing that some small fraction of the warming since the 1970s could be due to natural oscillations is not relevant here. Nobody claimed otherwise. I'm also going to ignore the unsubstantiated and absurdly wrong statement that there's no correlation between CO2 and temperature. We're starting to get into a Gish Gallop situation here. Please restrict comments here to issues that are discussed in this article. -
A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
protestant - "But still, 0.72K/century and we have been forecasted 4-8x more. When will the accelerated warming start?" I sincerely have to ask - have you read the article at the top of this thread? We're right along predicted temperature rises given our emissions track, thermal inertial of the oceans, and the physics of radiative balance. Your question is not even a strawman - it's nonsensical. -
protestant at 09:31 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
#37. I never said those could explain the detrended part. But they certainly explain some part of the 1970's -today at least. But still, 0.72K/century and we have been forecasted 4-8x more. When will the accelerated warming start? Any bets? -
protestant at 09:25 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
#34. I said: they dont contribute on MAX-to-MAX intervals. Which in this case is around 1940-2000's. From 1900-to2010 there is a min-max interval which means they contribute some, and at least half from 1970-today. And you dont have the necessary OHC data to make any longer comparisons than to 2003 which is a ridiculously short of a period. Even the XBT's (which are worth another discussion) dont cover a full. We havent even begun to understand how the OHC behaves during these (short and long term) oscillations. Even if what you propose (external forcing at work) about AMO is true, it would mean at least its not human forcing, since there is no correlation there can also be no causation. Human forcing makes a "hockey stick" while AMO makes not. Thus the explanation would be cloud changes, which would be the nail in the coffin for CAGW. Actually, according to a very recent study by Spielhagen et al, the N Atlantic temps they present follow the solar curve presented by Solanki et al so external forcing is definitely one plausible explanation. #35. I've read it and a load of other carbage he has written. I've even tried commenting but he just keep snipping all of the arguments and only leaving the "frustrated parts" of the messages, or even completely deleting the posts. Other skeptics and non-skeptics have had a similar fate when disagreeing with him. But: If the nonlinear GW signal is removed from the AMO with an alternative analysis (by substracting global SST without NA, from NA), the result is the same. There is no GW signal leaked in it. Tamino also doesnt give any references at all, that why the current scientific view of AMO would be wrong. I hope you both #34 and #35 take your time to look at the references (Otterå about AMO and Rial about nonlinearity, at least). -
Tom Curtis at 09:15 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Protestant @33, I cannot help but notice that in your graphic you detrend the HadCRUT3 temperature index by 0.72 degrees K per century. If you remove that trend in order to get a correlation with your combined AMO/PDO index, then that index and the associated oscillations cannot explain the trend. It's that simple. And of course, 0.72 degrees K per century is well within the range of predicted temperatures (given uncertainties)calculated above. In other words, your argument here is a complete non-starter. Even if we allow that Tamino and others grave objections to treating the AMO and PDO as being genuine oscillators independent of various forcings are wrong, and it is not clear that we should. relative position in the AMO/PDO cycles explains at most 0.08 degrees of the trend in the short term, and because they are oscilators, none of the trend over longer periods. -
neilrieck at 09:13 AM on 5 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
How does Monckton make his money? Is it only through speaking engagements? (remember the Watergate movie titled "All The Presidents Men"? Deep Throat said "follow the money") -
muoncounter at 09:12 AM on 5 February 2011CO2 is not increasing
Reply to comment here. "is it about 40% absorbed, 5.23*(0.4) ~ 2.0?" Actually, the most recent increase is back up to 2.3 ppm/year, a sure sign that the recession is ending. And the ~40% absorption is an average; it will vary by several points from year to year. Take the world's annual CO2 emissions in Gtons, convert to ppm by volume and divide. You can't make this increase -- and the inescapable fact that we are its source -- go away by a few back-of-the-envelope calculations. -
muoncounter at 08:53 AM on 5 February 2011It's not us
#25: "The difficulty of applying atmospheric CO2 levels to the export from upper to deep ocean reservoirs ... presumably someone must have overcome this." See Physical Chemistry of CO2 Absorption for a very detailed analysis. #30: "Where we disagree is in the relative importance of the various components of anthropogenic CO2. They are unquantified ... ." This seems to be on the verge of becoming a strawman. Is what you are really questioning the reality of anthropogenic contribution to increasing atmospheric CO2? Or are you searching for a means to quantify its magnitude? In either case, data exist to resolve the questions to a reasonable degree of certainty. We can track local atmospheric CO2 concentrations against seasonal fuel use patterns (several authors have done this at various locations in Europe); we can see weekly and diurnal traffic patterns in urban environments (multiple papers on urban 'CO2 domes') and a prior thread noted that land sources of CO2 can be tracked via CO and black carbon deposits. #37: "Sum effect is meaningless in this arfgument ... ." Perhaps you should spend some time looking through EIA CO2 emissions data before making that claim. But on the whole, I must agree with KR; the sum is greater than any individual part. -
It's not us
Julian Flood - It's also well worth looking at IPCC AR4 for a collected discussion of the isotopic data. -
Albatross at 08:45 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Protestant @33, Please read this thread which discusses the following graphic by Tamino.
The above figure shows the underlying warming for different temperature datasets (including satellite) after "remov[ing] the estimated impact of el Nino, volcanic eruptions, solar variation, and the residual annual cycle."
And the AMO has huge issues because as it turns out, it is defined in such a way that "Variations in the forced signal do leak into the AMO definition. Correlations with the AMO index do alias effects of global warming." (Tamino), and from the same post "Of course there are better ways to do this, but it still illustrates the point: that when you look at AMO correctly, the possibility that it’s much of the cause of global warming vanishes."
These oscillations can only temporarily amplify or dampen the long-tern underlying warming trend from increased radiative forcing as GHG levels increase. They would not be referred to as oscillations if they were not transient.
That said, they are not ignored by climate scientists and have been the subject of many papers by climate scientists. Some days, like today, I wish that I could yell that fact from the roof-top...
Please read AR4 Chapter 9.4.
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It's not us
Julian Flood - The earlier link I provided to How do human CO2 emissions compare to natural CO2 emissions has that information, specifically references to Ghosh 2002. That's an excellent reference with a good discussion of the isotopic balances of various sources and sinks. As to the mass balance point - we actually know the size of our contribution: 29GT/year to the list of sources. We see 15GT/year increases in the atmosphere, indicating that 14GT/year of our contribution to the CO2 balance are absorbed by natural sinks. How can our contribution possibly be clearer than that?!? How can it not be us causing the increase? If the CO2 increase was larger than our emissions, then there would be plenty room for discussion as to which part of that CO2 rise was due to us. But it's not - it's much less than our emissions. We cause all of the rise in CO2. -
dana1981 at 08:36 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
protestant #33 - it's pretty straightforward. If PDO/AMO/etc. were responsible for the long-term surface air warming trend, then there would be a long-term ocean cooling trend. The opposite is true - both air and oceans are warming, which means there must be an external forcing at work. You're effectively trying to argue that correlation equals causation. And your correlation argument is extremely sketchy. To paraphrase - "PDO and AMO correlate with global temperature as long as you remove the long-term trend". I agree - PDO and AMO cause small short-term surface temperature changes. But they don't cause the long-term trend, and I hope you're not trying to argue otherwise by comparing them to detrended data. -
Julian Flood at 08:24 AM on 5 February 2011It's not us
Re KR quote Isotope changes correlate with fossil fuel consumption. unquote At last, some facts that mean something. Where's the reference please? I've been looking for a paper which calculates that the isotope changes are caused by, and only caused by, fossil fuel emissions. Your other assertions.... could you work through the logic for me? I can see no way from the mass balance argument that you can assert anything other than very weak arguments: our emissions have contributed some increase to atmospheric CO2; if we stopped burning fossil fuel there would be some decrease in atmospheric CO2; fossil fuel burning is one contributor of unspecified size to our climate problem. Sum effect is meaningless in this arfgument because without attribution you do not know relative quantities. That's why the isotope measurements and attribution matter. Incidentally, your first post simply restates the mass balance argument which you may have noticed does not contribute anything other than the 'some of the CO2 from fossil fuel burning remains in the atmosphere.' As, of course, does some of the CO2 from all the sources. JF JF -
It's not us
Julian Flood - I think you're being rather disingenuous here. Our well known emissions represent twice the well measured atmospheric increase. Isotope changes correlate with fossil fuel consumption. It is entirely, completely irrelevant what the various sources other than fossil fuel emissions are - our emissions are making the difference in changing CO2 levels, up 115ppm since the beginning of the industrial era. CO2 levels are rising, and without our emissions they would currently be falling. The isotope evidence is no more than a supporting (albeit very interesting) character in this play. Arguing (as you continue to) about attribution, rather than sum effect, is just a pointless distraction. -
protestant at 08:03 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
#26: So what? What causes em? How do you explain nonlinear behaviour of the climate (for example see reference: http://www.biology.duke.edu/upe302/pdf%20files/jfr_nonlinear.pdf). The climate oscillates. It has always done that. And whenever you draw a line from max to max the influence will be near zero, but any other interval they contribute. Just because they "dont have a long term trend" doesnt mean they couldnt cause shorter term (<~65 years) fluctuations. Or then you also should also need to explain what causes ENSO and that why that CAN make some years colder and some warmer. Unless you have an explanation for the DO's which is also consistent with the current GHG-theory then I guess you just dont have it. I have been looking for this evidence but havent found it. We dont even have the needed OHC numbers to really see how the OHC behaves during these oscillations: None of the datasets cover a large enough period of time, and XBT compared to ARGO is mostly useless. What you also dont have an explanation for the 1940 blip, and what causes for example North Atlantic to switch to cool and warm modes. Do you know how AMO index can be calculated (hint: by removing the GW signal either by detrending or substracting the global SST anomalies, both give virtually the same result)? Here is a comparison with 'eyeballed' AMO+PDO and detrended (-0.72K/century) HadCRUT3 anomalies:
Multiple regression fit gives similar results.
You also should take a peek on this Norwegian climate scientis who is an ocean modeler:
http://www.bccr.no/acdc/filer/242.i3yGAl.pdf
In short: there are two good guesses what causes DO's. It is either internal oscillation, where the earth is trying always to reach its equilirium (actually multiple equiliriums which makes it even more complex). The second good guess is cloud changes (internal or externally forced).
Btw, why is it always here people are trying to splice the discussion into multiple threads? Because everything relates to everything, or are you just trying to dodge the fact that some of us skeptics' also have a lot of coherence in our thoughts? The straw-man of #25 sums it all, first splice up the discussion and then create strawmen like that. It's a killing of a proper discussion of the climate.
This is what bothers me a lot in this site. I have been a regular reader for 2 years now. But what becomes more and more clear, is that the regular posters arent really familiar with the uncertainities and unknowns of the current climate science. "What science says" is just a meaningless oxymoron, just the way YOU see it, but only a little to do with the truth.
(and yes, the most foil-hatted 'skeptic' arguments are properly refuted but who needs that? It is the proper questions which needs answers, and this site does NOT answer to them properly, comprehensively nor properly.)
Response: [muoncounter] You're going wildly off-topic with this scattergun approach. As requested above, please use the appropriate threads for subject-specific discussion - and refer to the Comments Policy. -
Julian Flood at 07:58 AM on 5 February 2011It's not us
quote If enough calthrate deposits were released that the natural environment became a net source of CO2 into the atmosphere, the annual rise would be greater than anthropogenic emissions. But we know this is not the case. unquote No, you can't assume that. All you can say is that the sources are greater than the sinks by .45 of the fossil fuel emissions: this says nothing about the amounts released by the various sources because you have not quantified the sinks. Which is why the mass balance argument gets you no further than the fact that anthropogenic CO2 is a contributor to atmospheric CO2 rise. The proportion due to fossil fuels is unquantified. The sinks are unquantified. Many of the sources are unquantified. You do not have enough data to say anything other than 'fossil fuel CO2 contributes to atmospheric CO2 rise, proportion unquantified.' quote I've not done the calculations myself, but if they didn't match there would be a paper demonstrating that they didn't match, and I'm pretty sure we would have heard about it. unquote Nice try! Argument from absence is a new one on me. "Raupach et al." Thanks. JF -
It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
thepoodlebites - I saw that item about the UAH January temperature. It hasn't shown such a monthly low since, lets see, 2009, much of 2008, 2006, 2005, or 2001. All part of the warmest decade on record. Are you trying to make a climate related point from a single month's data? You haven't indicated in your post as to why you consider that datum important. It has been said time and again, by lots and lots of people - you cannot make a climate estimate (~30 year trend) from short term (in this case, one month) data. There's too much short term variation to consider trend extraction from the short data set; you're talking about roughly 1/360th the data needed. -
thepoodlebites at 07:34 AM on 5 February 2011It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
This just in, Jan. 2011 UAH, -0.01 C. -
Marco at 07:18 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Alexandre #25: it's not mine, though! Please do not attribute it to me, and I'm afraid I do not know the author either.Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] AFAIK, it's paternity is here. -
villabolo at 07:13 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
KR: I would propose describing it as "expected warming", rather than "in the pipeline". Perhaps "delayed warming" would be a better term. The word "expected" gives the subtle impression in the layman's mind that perhaps it may not happen since not all things held in expectation happen. -
Dikran Marsupial at 06:20 AM on 5 February 2011It's not us
Julian, if you want a peer reviewed paper with the mass balance argument, try Raupach et al., it is on section 2.1 on the first column of page 2. -
actually thoughtful at 06:02 AM on 5 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
The poodlebites @58, (continued in 62). I didn't realize you were replying to me. You seem to be continuing the misguided notion that the null hypothesis in climate science is something like this: "If we dump 26.7 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually, natural variability will cover our tracks." What a bizarre way to think about the climate! In what legitimate school of scientific method do you take the control knob for what you are testing (temperature sensitivity to greenhouse gases) and twist it as hard as you can and call THAT your null hypothesis?! No, the null hypothesis for climate and climate is this: Climate variability explains climate in the absence of climate forcings. If you could get the word to Dr. Spencer about this basic aspect of posing scientific questions I am sure the level of debate will be greatly elevated. It is a shame to see so much effort spent on pretending this isn't an issue (and there are many legitimate scientific areas for learning, not the least of which is solving Trenberth's tragedy.) (That you respond by attacking the number/weight/amount of CO2 (which, sure is probably NOT 26.7 billion. Let's say there is a 10% error bar on either side) speaks volumes about the quality of your argument) -
dana1981 at 05:33 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Badgersouth #28 - I added this:The amount of unrealized warming is dependent upon the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (or other radiative forcing causing the energy imbalance) and the thermal inertia of the oceans (which causes a lag before the warming is realized).
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Daniel Bailey at 05:30 AM on 5 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
I think that this bit by Moth Incarnate kinda sums up TVMOB:
The Yooper
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Dikran Marsupial at 05:27 AM on 5 February 2011It's not us
Hi Julian, "Does the isotope change in the atmosphere match that expected from the amount of fossil fuel CO2 produced and not taken up by the enhanced sink? If not, does the discrepancy give us any hint as to the source of other inputs or changed exit fluxes?" I've not done the calculations myself, but if they didn't match there would be a paper demonstrating that they didn't match, and I'm pretty sure we would have heard about it. "So, as it is elementary, there is a breakdown of the method in a text book? Even so, I'd like something more than a hat tip to increased carbon dioxide automatically keeping the 45% in balance. It seems unlikely." See the paper by Canadell et al in PNAS the bit about the ariborne fraction being 0.45 is about half way down the second column on page 2. The AF is changing slightly but it has been about the 0.45 mark for a long time. "Here we disagree. Deep ocean clathrate deposits are quite capable of belching methane directly into the atmosphere (where they rapidly oxidise) or CO2 from methanophage digestion. In your initial crude equation this does not matter, as everything just gets lumped into the same number." If enough calthrate deposits were released that the natural environment became a net source of CO2 into the atmosphere, the annual rise would be greater than anthropogenic emissions. But we know this is not the case. Prof. Essenhigh is indeed a gentleman, however that particular paper is flat wrong. He makes no distinction between residence time and adjustment time and says there is a confusion in the 1990 IPCC WG1 report. However, if you look at the report, you will find the terms are well defined (Table 1.1, page 7) and in section 1.2.1 there is a paragraph that explains why it is the adjustment time that is relevant to a discussion of the change in atmospheric concentration not the residence time. Prof. Essenhighs calculation of the residence time is essentially correct, it is the corrollory that is incorrect. -
thepoodlebites at 05:17 AM on 5 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
#59 Um, er, replying to #49. It took time to look up appropriate sources, no alarming trends that I can see. And the website CO2 tonnage seemed out of date. I checked "Are CO2 levels increasing," thanks. I'll continue the CO2 airborne fraction over there but I was wondering, is it about 40% absorbed, 5.23*(0.4) ~ 2.0? #49's website was a bit confusing too.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Fixed broken link. Further replies to specific atmospheric CO2 concentration questions should go here. -
actually thoughtful at 05:14 AM on 5 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
Humanity Rules- You have stumbled upon the deep irony. It is, indeed, those who accept climate science (and the necessary fellow-traveler, AGW) who, as a rule are the "dynamic problem solvers." Indeed, I make my living as a very, very dynamic solver of the global warming problem (sadly I own/operate but one small company - the need is great)! So, I certainly understand you not wanting to debate the science - as global warming is so far on the fact side of the theory/fact spectrum as to be an embarrassing discussion for those with your view. Anytime you want to stop playing the passive victim and jump in and work towards positive change on this issue, I will certainly support you (for whatever small value that has). As for me I am optimistic that we can forestall catastrophe (can-do, dynamic problem solving at your service!), but I am becoming pessimistic that we WILL forestall catastrophe - too many people (you among them, as far as I can tell from your posts) would like to minimize this, or ask for more research, or any level of sophist arguments that, in the real world, force humanity into the position of passively accepting nature's response to human emissions rather than make relatively minor adjustments to avoid nature's inevitable response. I can't do anything but fight it. It is in my nature. -
It's not us
Julian Flood - Isotopic ratios are indeed falling (see here in How do human CO2 emissions compare to natural CO2 emissions). And that rate of change correlates to our emissions. Given the rather massive exchange of the natural carbon cycle, direct attribution is going to be a challenge either way. But the mass balance issue (that we're emitting ~29 GT/year of CO2, and that atmospheric concentrations are rising at 15 GT/year) indicate that we are making a difference in the balance. You've presented no arguments against the total mass balance points other than arguing uncertainties in the natural carbon cycle - we have no such uncertainties about our emissions and the rate of atmospheric increase. Even +/- 50 GT/year uncertainties (balanced) in the natural carbon cycle makes no difference to the fact that we emit 29 GT and only see 15 GT staying in the atmosphere, indicating that nature acts as a sink for the additional 14 GT/year. And that's supported by the ongoing changes in isotope ratios. Your argument against mass balance calculations doesn't hold up. If we were to stop emitting CO2 tomorrow I would expect ~2ppm/year decreases in CO2 for a while, slowing and then halting somewhere above the 280ppm preindustrial level when carbon cycle exchanges balance out with the pulse of CO2 we have contributed over the last 150 or so years. -
Alexandre at 05:10 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Marco #25 Great table, I'll keep it for reference! -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:08 AM on 5 February 2011It's not us
Hi Julian, I'll deal with the first bit as it is fundamental "Yes, but this means you have no knowledge of the sizes or even composition of the various sinks and sources." Knowledge of the size or composition of the sinks is not necessary to establish that as a whole, the natural environment is a net sink. This fact is established by the fact that the difference between total environmental emissions and total environmental uptake is equal to the difference between the increase in atmospheric CO2 and anthropogenic emissions. If the natural environment is a net sink, i.e. it takes more CO2 out of the atmosphere each year than it puts in, how can it be the cause of the observed increase? Do you agree that the mass balance argument demonstrates that the natural environment is a net sink? If not, can you explain why? -
John Hartz at 05:01 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Dana: Perhaps the point made by Riccardo #15: "The thermal inertia of the oceans is the cause of the "expected warming", using KR's terminology. Rememebr that this expected warming refers to a constant forcing, i.e. keeping CO2 concentration and everything else but temperature constant. In reality, it will be larger." should be woven into the the text of the "Thermal Intertia" section, or added as an explanatory footnote. -
Julian Flood at 04:57 AM on 5 February 2011It's not us
quote The argument is about what is observed to have happened, and makes no assumptions about what values U_n and E_n actually have, and does not make any assumptions about the sources or whether they vary. Think of U_n and E_n as being the total natural uptake and emissions from natural sinks and sources that actually occurred in a particular year. We don't know their individual values, we can't directly observe them, but we don't need to know their values, the key point is that we can infer the difference between them and know if the natural environment is a net source or a net sink. unquote Yes, but this means you have no knowledge of the sizes or even composition of the various sinks and sources. In particular you have no knowledge of the proportion of the atmospheric component which is due to fossil fuel. Without that knowledge you cannot know if decreasing, or even eliminating, fossil fuel emissions will have much impact on atmospheric CO2. quote Your definition of indirect anthropogenic emissions is unworkable. Firstly issues such as deforestation are already included in anthropogenic emissions as it comes under "land use change". Secondly, the main way in which our emissions have changed the carbon cycle is that there is now far more *uptake* because the atmospheric concentration has risen. The whole reason the natural environment is currently a net sink is due to its response to our emissions. If you want to increase the anthropogenic emissions by including an "indirect component", it just means that the natural environment must be an even stronger net carbon sink than the basic mass balace argument suggests, in which case it remains the case that man is responsible for the observed rise in CO2 (i.e. we agree). unquote Where we disagree is in the relative importance of the various components of anthropogenic CO2. They are unquantified and give no guidance on the best course ahead. Lumping any particular flux into 'land use change' or whatever does not improve the situation, it just makes the assertion a tautology. [snip re fluxes] My question was whether isotope changes fit in with the 45% addition to the atmosphere. Perhaps I can ask the question again. Does the isotope change in the atmosphere match that expected from the amount of fossil fuel CO2 produced and not taken up by the enhanced sink? If not, does the discrepancy give us any hint as to the source of other inputs or changed exit fluxes? quote The export from upper to deep ocean reservoirs is entirely irrelevant. The mass balance argument only involves fluxes into and out of the atmosphere, and only the difference in total emissions and total uptake matters. unquote Here we disagree. Deep ocean clathrate deposits are quite capable of belching methane directly into the atmosphere (where they rapidly oxidise) or CO2 from methanophage digestion. In your initial crude equation this does not matter, as everything just gets lumped into the same number. However, in the real world whether the atmospheric CO2 rise is due to a pinch of fossil and a peck of something else matters enormously. The simple mass balance equation gives us no useful knowledge. Is the MWP deep water warming clathrates? A fraction of a degree would do it, and enormous fluxes of light isotope carbon would be released, handily just at the 800 year point which seems to be the lag between warming and CO2 increase in the historical record. quote As to papers on my second post, I haven't seen any papers that use a model of the carbon cycle that is so rudimentary that the result is easily obtained. Anyone who works on the carbon cycle will find it too obvious to publish a paper on, and instead are working on more complex models that take into account things like upper-deep ocean fluxes. The one paper I have seen that uses such a model is the one by Essenhigh (2009), but in that paper Essenhigh fails to understand the distinction between residence time and adjustment time and hence the conclusion of the paper is incorrect. unquote So, as it is elementary, there is a breakdown of the method in a text book? Even so, I'd like something more than a hat tip to increased carbon dioxide automatically keeping the 45% in balance. It seems unlikely. Thanks for the reference to Essenhigh, I've had correspondence with him re his paper on albedo. A gentleman with an engineer's grasp of reality. I'll read that paper with interest and any refutations you can reference. TIA. JF Re your last post: this just reiterates the mass balance argument. It tells us nothing of attribution. Which is why I ask about expected isotope ratios. Ferdinand Englebeen (I think it was in his WUWT posts) mentioned that the ratios are not as expected. Have I remembered that correctly? -
John Hartz at 04:53 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Dana: Given the number of referalls to other SkS rebuttals in this comment thread, I suggest that you add a "Related Arguments" tab. -
dana1981 at 04:46 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Thanks Marco #24. I didn't bother to look at the paper because AMO/PDO/etc. are a red herring. Like I said, they just move heat around from oceans to air and vice-versa. They don't cause long-term warming. I'm not surprised that protestant misrepresented the study's findings. -
Marco at 04:44 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
P.S., could not help myself after seeing that first Figure
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Marco at 04:42 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Dana + protestant: the Delsole paper is nice; "nice" as in cherry-picking galore for protestant. Delsole et al point out that the AMO may contribute 0.08 K/decade in a 30-year period (and hence also 'remove' 0.08 K/decade in a 30-year period). Those are the oscillations around the trend in SST that Delsole et al also mention: 0.1 K/decade. Note the SST here: they talk about SST only. -
dana1981 at 04:30 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Pete #22 - that's specifically the indirect aerosol effect via seeding clouds. There's still a lot of uncertainty regarding this effect - I don't think recent research has changed the value or reduced the uncertainty very much yet. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 04:23 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
The graph of radiative forcings shows a substantial cooling from cloud albedo effect. How does this compare to recent research? -
muoncounter at 04:21 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
#15: "The thermal inertia of the oceans is the cause of the "expected warming"," This was addressed on the thread The 40 year delay between cause and effect. How about 'observed warming' for the part we've already seen and 'committed warming', as suggested by Wetherald et al 2001? Better still might be 'unavoidable warming,' as suggested by Matthews and Weaver 2010 -
Eric (skeptic) at 04:16 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
FWIW, my choice of wording would be "lag in atmospheric warming as the ocean warms much more slowly". You will have to address KL's arguments with numbers, you can't just sidestep it with terminology like "expected by equilibrium equation" which begs the question "when?". If, for example, deep ocean turnover is large enough to keep cooling the atmosphere by cold bottom water, then there could be a long lag. Quantifying is difficult but the argument is sound (it answers KL). -
dana1981 at 04:14 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
KR #17 - I like "unrealized warming". This term suggests that the warming will indeed be realized, which is true. I'll edit the article to incorporate that terminology. -
Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
thepoodlebites - Spencers challenge should probably be discussed on It's a natural cycle. Interestingly, several regulars here (including me) are finding their comments in reply to his challenge not showing up on his blog. They don't seem to be making it through moderation. In the meantime, 40 new replies have shown up since I tried to post there...
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