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Albatross at 04:39 AM on 3 February 2011Monckton Myth #7: Snowjob
Agnostic @24 and 25, "While the melt might be coming sooner, it could be balanced out by snows arriving sooner meaning no net (or very little) change, so it perhaps not enough just to concentrate on just spring compared to winter." and "There doesn't seem to be a very strong trend, but it does look to be downwards." I think that you are missing the point of the post. It is Monckton who is cherry-picking. Dana81 has placed the tendencies in context, not to mention exposing the flaws with Monckton's assertions. Please read this page from the IPCC AR4. Inparticulare look at Table 4.2-- it shows N. Hemisphere snow extent showing statistically significant decreases between March and August (excluding May), with negative trends between January and October. They also state for Eurasia and Europe that: "Lowland areas of central Europe are characterised by recent reductions in annual snow cover duration by about 1 day yr–1 (e.g., Falarz, 2002). Trends towards greater maximum snow depth but shorter snow season have been noted in Finland (Hyvärinen, 2003), the former Soviet Union from 1936 to 1995 (Ye and Ellison, 2003), and in the Tibetan Plateau (Zhang et al., 2004) since the late 1970s. Qin et al. (2006) reported no trends in snow depth or snow cover in western China since 1957." Monckton is focusing on Winter (well at least November and December are) because those data are showing a small, statistically insignificant increase)and ignoring the other data which do not support his ideology. "Would it be not reasonable to suspect that there was some kind of change in data collection?" I do not think so, Brown and others do mention it. If there was going to be a step change then is should have been in the late 60s when the first satellite data became available. Other observations platforms have come online since then, but non of them seem to coincide with the step change in 1989. You must also remember that so much snow has has been lost in summer in recent decades that there really is not much more to melt anymore. So that contribution to the overall trend in recent years has dwindled. Yet, Dana's figure shows a marked downward trend in annual N.Hemisphere snow cover. Research has also shown that the the length of the melt season in the Arctic (and Greenland)is increasing. If you fit a quadratic to the annual N. Hemisphere snow cover data data between 1989 and 2010 (which provides a much better fit than an linear model), you get an inflection point around 1996, with a negative slope thereafter. All this presents a consistent and coherent picture. Your questions about uncertainty in the data are answered in Brown and Robinson (2010). The Rutger's data are not wrong. The model's have underestimated the loss of Arctic sea ice. Regarding "by how much did climate models 'expect' snow extent to decline?" Read this. You might also find this paper by Brown and Mote (2009) interesting, it speaks to the anticipated complex response of snow cover to warming and increased precipitation. And last, bit not least, this paper by Dery and Brown (2007), which concludes: "To summarize, strong negative trends in weekly SCE over the period 1972–2006 are observed in the NH, North America and Eurasia. The largest declines occur during spring over North America and, to a lesser extent, over Eurasia. Persistence both on weekly and annual times scales influences trends in North American and Eurasian SCE. The similar response of the North American and Eurasian snow covers, including their co-variability, persistence, and amplified trends during spring, provide evidence of the snow albedo feedback as a possible mechanism contributing to recent changes in observed SCE." -
kar at 04:36 AM on 3 February 2011The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
Thanks for a really, really nice, condenced and easy to read small document. It is a good hope of getting lesser educated or missinformed friends and colleagues to read this on such and important subject. I've got a comment on page 4, where the upper right figure is showing the amount of build up of the Earth's total heat content. I think that either the text: "Ocean Heating" should have said: "Glaciar Melting and Ocean heating", if that is the case. If that is not part of the graph, the accumulated heat made by Glaciar Melting could be added as another factor? When knowing that the heat energy needed for melting 1 kg of ice, could otherwise increase the temperature of 1 kg of water with nearly 80 degrees Celsius (if I got the numbers right?) the spent energy (heat) for melting thousands of km3 of glaciers during the same periode is enormous. If I'm remember right, the netto ice-loss on Greenland alone is more than 100 km3 annually? -
RickG at 03:55 AM on 3 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
RSVP 33: "the sky is a long way off from falling" There are pieces that have already begun to fall as has been discussed in other threads, which include ocean acidification, changing agricultural areas, sea level rise, increased albedo, increased chaotic weather and more. How much has to fall before you are willing to recognize those facts? -
Albatross at 03:28 AM on 3 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
RSVP, Please, this thread is about Monckton myths. I am reading a lot of words from you, but seeing very little content or substance. This is how threads get derailed. What is your position on Monckton's campaign of cherry-picking, misinformation and distortion? So far you have not stated your position regarding these actions. Please do so. -
kar at 03:15 AM on 3 February 2011Norwegian translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
Fantastisk! (Fantastic!) The whole document is so nice and perfect for presenting to actually anyone. I've must send my congratulations to Bjarne Mikael Torkveen, which have done a really good job. Great Bjarne! :-) It could be nice to have his Email to contact him of minor changes which I might spot... The first one I've spotted is "en blått kirseærtre" which should been spelled: "et blått kirsebærtre". -
MarkR at 01:42 AM on 3 February 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice calculations
That's an apples-to-oranges comparison! If we consider the ~0.9 K change seen so far and assume we started at 288 K, then you can compare the linear model response to the 'full' Stefan-Boltzmann response. You also need to consider atmospheric emissivity, which I assume is constant at 0.8. The linear feedback response model expects a blackbody feedback for the 0.9 K warming of about 2.926 W m-2. The 'exact' model calculates 2.939 W m-2. The fractional error in changes seen so far from linearisation is 0.46% or 0.013 W m-2. Absolutely tiny compared to the full fluxes, and effectively impossible to measure to that precision in the climate anyway. Full models include the 'exact' version, this simple linear model appears to be a good approximation according to them. For the blackbody feedback it's very good, for the others it seems to be reasonable. -
Dikran Marsupial at 00:49 AM on 3 February 2011It's not us
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 ocurred 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. 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). As to your question, to understand the ratio if isotopes that you should expect to be in the atmosphere, there is a more important consideration, namely that vast quantities of carbon are recycled between reservoirs annually. If you look at the figures for the fluxes, you will find that the oceans and terrestial bioshphere exchange about 160GTC (IIRC) with the atmosphere each year. This is about a fifth of the atmospheric reservoir, so the residence time (the amount of time a molecule remains in the atmosphere before being taken up by the oceans/biota etc.) is only about five years. This rapidly replaces carbon with "fossil" isotopic signature with carbon of a "natural" isotopic signature, so the change in 12C is not as great as you might expect. However this has nothing to do with the rise in atmospheric CO2 as it is only an exchange of carbon, that is if anything opposing the rise. Thus even though CO2 has risen by about 40% due to anthropogenic emissions, only about 4% of atmospheric carbon is of directly anthropogenic origin (due to the effects of the large exchange fluxes replacing it with "natural" carbon). 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. 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 distincion between residence time and adjustment time and hence the conclusion of the paper is incorrect. -
agnostic at 00:30 AM on 3 February 2011Monckton Myth #7: Snowjob
I should add (forgot to mention this in the first post) that if winter melt is happening earlier because the world is warming, it should show up on yearly averages. Longer snow-free periods is really what John is driving at at surely? While the melt might be coming sooner, it could be balanced out by snows arriving sooner meaning no net (or very little) change, so it perhaps not enough just to concentrate on just spring compared to winter. If this is not the case, then I would be interested to know how scientists have come to the conclusion that "a new study by Flanner et al. (2011) has found that so far, snow cover is declining more rapidly and causing more global warming than climate models expect." given that the annual extent from the figures John posted don't appear to have changed much. And by "much" I must qualify that with not knowing whether the 2-3% difference is a lot or little, within natural variance or cause for concern because of man-made effects. For example, by how much did climate models 'expect' snow extent to decline? How much of the decline do they expect natural variance to account for? How much from anthropogenic forcing? Or are the figures from Rutgers wrong? What are the margins for error? -
RSVP at 22:37 PM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
JMurphy #35 "you just have to think about a life which doesn't involve exploitation, waste and spoilation of land, energy and the environment" It is "patently obvious" that you are asking me to think about the answer you did not provide. At least nothing concrete. Just more words. -
Ken Lambert at 22:33 PM on 2 February 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice calculations
MarkR #31 Is the effect really tiny when 0.25W/sq.m is compared with the net warming imbalance claimed to be 0.9W/sq.m. That is about 30% of it unless I am missing your meaning here. -
agnostic at 22:33 PM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myth #7: Snowjob
Hello, First time i have posted here. This stuck out a little because it looked a little like the graphs rebutting Monckton were guilty of the same 'cherry-picking' you were accusing him of - if you are pointing to spring extent declining, were he was pointing to winter extent increasing (or staying the same). It might be argued that year-round extent is highly variable but averages out in the long run. I was curious, so i downloaded the data you linked to and did my own graph. The first thing I noticed was that the data was incomplete: http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/moncov.nhland.txt In 1968, July is missing. In 1969 June to October is missing. In 1971 July to August is missing. Since these were the warmer months, creating averages without accounting for these would create a declining bias. What i did was substitute figures from preceding years and where July was missing in the preceding year I substituted it with July from the following year. Not exactly exacting but maybe enough to see if a trend would show. My graph is here:
The graph is from 1967-2010 whole years only - no partial years with substituted data where data was missing.
There doesn't seem to be a very strong trend, but it does look to be downwards.
That said, at around 1989 the averages jump to a lower level and then remain very consistent, with possibly a tiny trend upwards. Would it be not reasonable to suspect that there was some kind of change in data collection? Especially since the averages in the preceding 20 or so years jump around a lot and then ones that follow are much more consistent?
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Julian Flood at 22:02 PM on 2 February 2011It's not us
I've seen the balance argument before and I find it makes me uneasy, not least because there are assumptions unspecified. U_n and E_n may both vary, for example, depending on total emissions and e.g. pollution. Could you follow my logic below and point out how it is in error? Mostly I just follow your reasoning, simply adding an unknown additional input. Civilisation emits CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, disrupts the natural mechanisms by which uptake occurs and may also cause an increase in 'natural' emissions -- deforestation, methane consumption in permafrost by bacteria as acid rain effects wear off, etc etc. The loss of uptake and the increase in emissions can be lumped together into a single figure, the equivalent of an emission increase(of positive or negative sign), which we will call indirect anthropogenic emissions. We have, for the purposes of my argument, no knowledge of the size or isotopic composition of indirect anthropogenic emissions. The size also seems to be internally unconstrained as U_n, E_n and E_ua may cancel each other out. For conservation of mass, we know that dC = (E_a +E_ua) + E_n - U_n where dC is the annual change in atmospheric CO2, E_a is fossil fuel emissions, E_ua is indirect anthropogenic emissions, E_n is "natural" emissions, and U_n is "natural" uptake. Of these, we can directly measure only dC and E_a. Rearranging, we have E_n - U_n = dC - (E_ua +E_a) Now, we know that the level of atmospheric CO2 is not rising as fast as it would if all the fossil fuel emissions were causing the rise, let alone including the indirect emissions. So the natural environment is a net sink and the increase in atmospheric CO2 must be due to (E_ua + E_a). It would seem likely that the sinks will treat E_a and E_ua in the same way, and atmospheric CO2 will therefore contain a proportional amount from each. Question: does the isotopic composition of the dC indicate that the the fossil fuel CO2 addition U_a is sufficient to explain the change in 12C amount, or does the 12C proportion indicate another source of CO2 which is rich or depleted in 12C? It is unlikely that the isotopic proportions of E_ua would match E_a and it may be that a mismatch can give us some indication that there is more going on than your first explanation suggests. I will think about your second post and the explanation there. Are there any papers on this? The difficulty of applying atmospheric CO2 levels to the export from upper to deep ocean reservoirs I would have thought precluded this sort of analysis, but presumably someone must have overcome this. JF -
sime at 21:24 PM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
Hi citizenschallenge @ 11 He had a go at the BBC just last week, alas for his Lordship he er well... Lost http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bbc-wins-battle-over-climate-show-2199930.html -
Sean49 at 20:59 PM on 2 February 2011Skeptical Science iPhone app now with blog posts
Have just loaded the update and now the app wont load can you fix it pleaseResponse: The new version seems to work on some devices but fails to load on others. I've let Shine Tech know of the glitch, they're working on it. Thanks for the report.
I'm told if you delete and reinstall the app, then turned your iPhone all the way off and back on again, that does fix the problem. -
MarkR at 20:31 PM on 2 February 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice calculations
Alternatively, a more obviously mathematical way to do it is to take the differential dF/dT to see the relative change in flux (i.e. the 'feedback parameter') at different temperatures like Riccardo did. Then get the fractional change evaluated at each temperature you're interested in. i.e. T23 / T13 gives you the fractional change in feedback factor from T1 to T2. For 288 K to 291 K it's a change of ~3% so linear feedback isn't a bad approximation here. -
Esop at 20:05 PM on 2 February 2011Norwegian translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
Most excellent! Even though most Norwegians have a decent grasp of English, having a technical document like this written in Norwegian certainly helps. Climate change denial has grown at a tremendous rate over the past two years, due to a couple of cold winters and the MSM, like major newspaper Aftenposten, almost exclusively relying on deniers for comments on climate issues. -
JMurphy at 19:59 PM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
RSVP, I suppose, realistically, no-one could possibly adequately answer a rhetorical question for which you already have a preconceived belief. However, it is patently obvious that humans can work "symbiotically in favor of the environment" - you just have to think about a life which doesn't involve exploitation, waste and spoilation of land, energy and the environment. Don't be like Monckton and believe somehow that nature will take care of the problems we cause. -
RSVP at 19:05 PM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
JMurphy #21 This is the kind of answer I expected, showing that the question was not understood. The idea behind the question is whether it is possible by some definition for human activities to work symbiotically in favor of the environment. Not whether patches exist, or ways of detaining or minimizing environmental damage. If the answer to this question is negative, it then implies that human environmental damage can only be "mitigated", and therefore population numerics are an issue. -
RSVP at 18:56 PM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
David Horton #32 There are all kinds of charts out there that tabulate which year was good for each wine region, etc. (at least going back 15 years or so). Normally these charts resemble a used Bingo card, such that results appear totally random, implying no general (or obvious) trends in climate change. If not the best proxy for climate, at least a good measure of how well plants and consumers are able to adapt, (and for most, as long as it's between 12.5 to 13%, the sky is a long way off from falling). -
Glenn Tamblyn at 18:31 PM on 2 February 2011Norwegian translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
John You never do ANYTHING before your morning coffee. -
David Horton at 15:32 PM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
John, it might be worth having a wine grower write something about all this "grapes at Hadrian's Wall therefore the planet isn't warming in spite of anything indicated by any scientific measurement" rubbish. jhudsy asks "I do wonder, following your comment, if wine quality, or wine growth records, can be used as yet another temperature proxy (if they exist)." My understanding is that grapes would be very poor "past climate indicators" for a number of reasons. First there are an almost infinite number of varieties, all with genetic variations resulting in them having particular needs in terms of day and night temps, seasonal changes, soils, rainfall, drainage, topography and so on. In addition, as far as I know, it would be very difficult if not impossible to identify which variety might have been growing in a particular place in the past. But it might well be possible for an enterprising wine lover to find a variety that might just grow on a particular hill slope at a particular time where no other would grow before or since. The Romans in particular, being wine lovers extraordinaire, may well have given grape growing a go no matter where they were, with mixed success in particular years. But all very haphazard, of absolutely no use in describing past climates In addition, as others have remarked, just because grapes will grow doesn't make the wine drinkable (even by the rotgut standards of the wines that Roman soldiers might have drunk), so I don't know how you would quantify what might class as a particular success story in grape growing. Unless someone had conducted an experiment over the past, say, 2000 years, in which exactly the same variety was simultaneously planted all over Europe and the results in terms of yield and palatability recorded, year after year, systematically, I would forget grapes as an indicator. Far better to use a naturally occurring species (plant or animal) and look at its distribution changes over time using pollen records, and perhaps tree rings. Oh, that's right, they do do that don't they? Grapes, I think, are another red (or white) herring of Mr Monkton's. But I'm no expert, and it might be useful to find one. -
grypo at 15:28 PM on 2 February 2011Animated powerpoint of the Indicators of Warming
I did a youtube powerpoint video partly based on the indicators and "fingerprints" -- with JS Bach http://gryposaurus.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/bach-and-owning-climate-disruption/ -
muoncounter at 14:59 PM on 2 February 2011Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
#226: "I don't even see what is being debunked here." That's actually a good thing. To look at the Vostok graph, spanning 400000 years, and claim to see a 'lag' on the order of less than 1000 years makes this one a pathetically thin argument. But that's the hand that deniers play: cherry-picking here, over-interpreting a trend there and forcing a one-size-fits-all conclusion. Pay no attention to any other independent evidence and ignore the physical mechanisms. Sprinkle liberally with 'of course its natural' and 'it can't be us' or 'you can't trust those scientists' and you see the full picture. How these guys can convince anyone with an open mind that they are right is absolutely stunning. -
actually thoughtful at 14:25 PM on 2 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
HR "Yep you actually did make me scream this time." Just to be clear - that is not a response based on fact or logic. It appears to be your emotional response to the fact that global warming is a threat to our civilization. In some circumstance, I too would scream - but I don't think you meant your scream that way. Are you going to stick with the emotion? Or try to structure an argument, based on facts and logic, that attempts to counters the fact that the threat exists? -
scaddenp at 14:20 PM on 2 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
HR - do think that projected climate change poses no threat to food production? Is that your beef? -
Karamanski at 14:16 PM on 2 February 2011Animals and plants can adapt
Hydrogen sulfide is thought to have been a major player in the Permian mass extinction 250 million years ago, because CO2 emissions from the Siberian Traps warmed the atmosphere and oceans, causing the oceans to lose oxygen. With less oxygen, the anaerobic bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide that spreads through the ocean and into the atmosphere and poisons most of the animals on the planet. When we hear about the potentially dire consequences of global warming, why don't we ever hear about hydrogen sulfide emissions from the warming oceans as a result of decreasing oxygen? -
curiouspa at 14:15 PM on 2 February 2011Understanding the CO2 lag in past climate change
When I look at this graph, for most warming periods, I don't see much of a lag between temp and co2. The explanation of the lag during warming seems reasonable enough, but it seems unnecessary. There doesn't seem to be much of a lag during warming. I don't even seem to get the basic argument you are debunking here. Most of the time, the two seem to rise fairly concurrently. The lag seems to occur when there is a general cooling long-term trend. CO2 is the longest lasting GH gas from what I have read, and so may take longer to decrease as temps decrease from other causes. Overall, I must be really lost. I don't even see what is being debunked here. -
HumanityRules at 13:45 PM on 2 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
49 actually thoughtfull Yep you actually did make me scream this time. 48 dana1981 I didn't say it was cooling I described it as unrealised. The cooling was in relation to aerosols in the way you use it. But no worries I look forward to the post. -
robert way at 13:40 PM on 2 February 2011Norwegian translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
John I only noticed cause I went to email it to one of my norwegian friends (so she could make fun of me for being a climate nerd of course) and I noticed it was in spanish lol -
John Hartz at 12:44 PM on 2 February 2011The Fake Scandal of Climategate
In August 2010, the Project on Climate Science produced a white paper on this topic, "Scientific Foundation of Climate Chage Remains Sound: Independent Studies Reject 'Climategate'" This white paper covers some of the same ground as James Wright's article. The two works are mutually reinforcing. -
actually thoughtful at 12:41 PM on 2 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
Scaddenp - I think you understand that we are all part of that experiment right now -whether we want to be or not. I restate it because I am not sure my post at 49 was clear. The CO2 injections into the atmosphere are an experiment with our biosphere, with no control, and no undo button in our lifetimes. -
scaddenp at 11:54 AM on 2 February 2011What would happen if the sun fell to Maunder Minimum levels?
Being worried that variations in irradiance dont fit with the magnitude of the changes is only a problem if there is a reason to exclude all feedbacks (which skeptics would dearly like to do with CO2). Meanwhile back in the world of real physics, the variations in solar radiance, amplified by feedbacks do a very good job of explaining past climate variation. -
scaddenp at 11:49 AM on 2 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
Every civilization has been based on food production capable of supporting specialists. However, I think it is exceedingly difficult to quantify how much damage to the food production system a civilization can take without it collapsing. Past examples are very hard to extrapolate to present day so from a science point of view, this is a hard problem. On the other hand, I accept that the risk exists (..and I wonder why HR apparently thinks it does not...), and I certainly don't to be part of an experiment to quantify that risk. -
Eric (skeptic) at 11:26 AM on 2 February 2011CO2 limits will harm the economy
Chris G, it looks legit, the owner of the domain is Thomas Stokes who seems to be reputable. Having just read Hansen's writings more carefully here http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/ I agree with the tax and dividend approach. If it were proposed with a decent phase-in period (since I also believe there is no urgency), I would support it over cap and trade because cap and trade is much harder to measure and enforce. -
robert way at 10:42 AM on 2 February 2011Norwegian translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
The Norwegian copy didn't appear and when i clicked on the image i got the spanish copy?Response: This is what happens when you blog before your morning coffee :-( All fixed, thanks for the tip. -
Chris G at 10:41 AM on 2 February 2011CO2 limits will harm the economy
Cap-and-trade offers no incentives for reducing emissions beyond the set limits. To me, it looks like a shell game, CO2 emissions aren't reduced and the carbon credit brokers are the only ones to make money. I was pleased to discover some time ago that James Hansen and others had reached the conclusion before I did, that a revenue-neutral, phased-in carbon tax was the most sensible way to reduce emissions. I hope this site is on the level http://www.carbontax.org/ It appears to be, but sometimes it's hard to tell. -
hank at 09:42 AM on 2 February 2011Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
More from Spencer, who appears to be doing for his blog the sort of data-fiddling that Statistics 101 teaches against. I wonder if he's submitting this to a journal? "....The “best fit” I got after about an hour of fiddling around with the inputs is represented by the blue curve in the above chart. Importantly, the assumed feedback parameter (5.5) is solidly in “negative feedback” territory....." You know how to find it: ~2011/01/update-further-evidence-of-low-climate-sensitivity-from-nasas-aqua-satellite/ -
Tom Curtis at 07:27 AM on 2 February 2011OK global warming, this time it's personal!
Rob, thanks for the pitch :) In responce to Marvin Gardens original question, the important graphic is this one, which shows the heights various historical floods would have reached if the current dams had already been built.
For comparison, the 2011 flood came to a level of 4.48 meters.
If you allow for the effect of Somerset dam alone, only four floods in the 1890's would have shown up as significant floods, 1841, the two largest floods of 1893, and possibly 1824. With the exception of 1893, which was exceptional in many respects, the record in the 19th century is not much different from that in the 20th. (Note, flood levels were lowered even before the construction of Somerset Dam by the dredging of the Brisbane River at around 1900.)
If you allow for the effects of both Somerset and Wivenoe Dams, only one flood since settlement would have qualified as a major flood, that of 2011 (although 1974 comes with 2 cm's of qualifying).
1893 was a freak year because Brisbane was impacted by the effects of two cyclones in less than a month. Although neither of the 1893 floods would have been as bad as 2011 by itself, the combined effect probably still makes 1893 the worst year for Brisbane flooding, even once the effects of the dams are included.
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muoncounter at 07:13 AM on 2 February 2011What would happen if the sun fell to Maunder Minimum levels?
#105: "variation in solar energetic particles should be used instead" What relationship between solar energetic particle (SEP) events and earth climate do you expect to see? The Svensmark models haven't stood up to scrutiny (see the thread KR linked, It's cosmic rays). SEP events are transients. The last one of substance (Jan 2005), lasted approximately 36 hours. It's difficult to see this as a driver of climate. -
BKsea at 06:24 AM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
One thing I find curious about Monckton and skeptics of his ilk is that they seem to be drifting in the direction of AGW. It used to be that CO2 was not increasing, temperatures are not increasing, sea level is not rising. Now it has changed to acceptance of C02 rising, with effects on temperature and sea level, but its not too bad. It seems that this can be turned back against the skeptics - "Even Lord Monckton has had to admit that AGW is real." -
dorlomin at 05:45 AM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
jhudsy at 15:27 PM on 1 February, 2011 Apart from the fact that there is a winery at "Accomb, Yorkshire, within 5km of Hadrian's Wall." (according to http://www.winelandsofbritain.co.uk/book.htm) I think you will find that it is in Northumbria not Yorkshire, a mile or so north of Hexam. And us sweaties are going into the wine business now. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/02/08/scotland-s-first-homegrown-wine-set-to-be-launched-86908-22027207/ Part of the issue with wine though is that bad wine can be grown in places where you would not be able to grow a comercial wine, but back in the middle ages with the sacrament so important they were not looking for quality. Sameul Pepys famously had some London grown wine and he was around in the 1660s, the depths of the little ice age. Wine growing the UK died off in the 1800s mostly through the arrival of cheap imports and what Riccardo would call the 'comparative advantage', better for the English to grow wool to sell and buy wine with. -
actually thoughtful at 05:43 AM on 2 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
HR - 44 "threat to civilization" is a fact. Facts are wonderful because they can be proved true or false. You appear to doubt the fact. What is your evidence that we can continue to dump 26.7 billion tons per year of CO2 into the atmosphere and NOT trigger natural events that threaten civilization through famine, floods, droughts and wars over resources (food & water being particularly important ones)? I fear you are running pretty hard into the logical razor blade of the null hypothesis. This is a scientific experiment we DO NOT want to be part of! Source for CO2 tonnage: http://www.hydrogen.co.uk/h2_now/journal/articles/2_global_warming.htm -
dana1981 at 05:06 AM on 2 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
HR - the 0.6°C isn't cooling, it's delayed surface warming, and it's due to the thermal inertia of the oceans. On top of that, there's the cooling effects of aerosols. You'll see the numbers in the upcoming article. I'm hoping to publish it this weekend - trying to stay focused on Monckton Myths right now. actually thoughtfull - I just needed a label for those of us who accept the scientific evidence behind AGW. "AGW camp" was the best I could come up with. -
What would happen if the sun fell to Maunder Minimum levels?
ssilvie - Cosmic rays and solar particles (theorized to link to climate via cloud formation) don't show a correlation either; in fact, they show less of a correlation with recent warming than the small scale solar irradiance variations. Irradiance and orbital variations do have an effect, albeit on much longer timescales such as in glacial cycles. -
ssilvie at 04:22 AM on 2 February 2011What would happen if the sun fell to Maunder Minimum levels?
Hi, I thought that irradiance was only a minor variable and that the variation in solar energetic particles should be used instead (Landscheidt etc). Surely the variability of irradiance hardly worth plugging into the models as it can't explain the variations in global climate that are seen to accompany the variation in solar cycles. -
jhudsy at 04:09 AM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
JMurphy@22 Thanks for that link. -
MarkR at 03:45 AM on 2 February 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice calculations
It is, indeed, an approximation. But run it up on a function plotter for the range of temperatures 288-294 K and you'll see that a straight line is a very good fit indeed! R^2=0.9999 Take the residuals to check - fit a quadratic to see that the real results do accelerate faster than the linear fit, but the effect is tiny - the range in residuals is 0.25 W m-2 from an average of over 400 W m-2. So we are looking at mathematically 'small' changes, and the approximation is good. -
JMurphy at 02:59 AM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
What I don't understand is this : when Monckton is asked by the Republicans to testify for them (the last time, I think he was their only so-called expert ?), why don't the Democrats challenge him on his credentials. Are they not able to ask (such) questions ? It does, though, show the bankruptcy of the Republicans when their best witness is not even a scientist, let alone a Climate Scientist. Why don't they go for Lindzen, Carter, Christy or Spencer more often ? -
Dennis at 02:18 AM on 2 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
Lou @26 -- the problem with deniers like Monckton is that they get an audience where it matters. Monckton can expect to be invited to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives (now that the deniers run the House) and be presented before the cameras as alegitimate scientist. A collection of Monckton Myths like these needs to be made available and publicly presented to the Members of Congress who are willing to give Monckton a megaphone. It won't change the deniers' opinion, but some in the media might pick up on it. -
Riccardo at 01:59 AM on 2 February 2011A Flanner in the Works for Snow and Ice calculations
Ken Lambert the change in the S-B radiative flux is ΔF=εσ(T4−To4) for ΔT=T−To small compared to To you can write it as ΔF=4εσTo3ΔT=YΔT with Y independent on temperature. Similar approximations apply to any other feedback, you can always linearise something if changes are small.
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