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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 96851 to 96900:

  1. It's a natural cycle
    Another illustration of why its not 'natural cycles.' -- Figure 4 from Dr. Thomas Karl's testimony to US Congress, July 2006 (originally IPCC, 2001) As an example of how models are used to detect human influence on the climate system Figure 4 shows that without including all the observed forcing mechanisms the models cannot replicate the observed global temperature changes.
  2. It's not us
    Julian Flood wrote : "Argument from absence is a new one on me." I haven't come across any papers that demonstrate that the Theory of Evolution is false : is that an "argument from absence" or a demonstration of the facts ?
  3. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Arrhenius's finding that more CO2 causes more warming is incorrect and not scientifically valid. More CO2 does not mean more warming. In the Greenhouse Effect (GHE), you must add photons to get the warming. Shut off the photons and our nights are still colder than our days despite adding more CO2. It's the photons that create the warming, not the CO2. With such an excess of water vapor and other GHGs, the reality is, because CO2 temperature increases are logarithmic, there are not enough photons available for absorption by CO2 to cause a meaningful increased warming above about 100 ppm. Warming during the day and cooling at night is still a reality. Check out this site: http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/01/noaa-confirms-recent-global-temperature-change-is-historically-small-warming-is-decelerating.html The NOAA/NCDC dataset chart shows the annual global temperature change from 1880-2010 vs. the rising levels of CO2. Note that these rising levels of CO2 have no impact on the annual global temperatures. To claim unprecedented global warming for the last decade is wrong when, clearly, the temperature changes are within natural variability.
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] This is your 3rd posting of a link to a total misinterpretation of basic data. Repetition serves no purpose other than to undermine your own credibility.
  4. Dikran Marsupial at 03:20 AM on 6 February 2011
    It's not us
    Julian@35 wrote "Nice try! Argument from absence is a new one on me." Experience has told me that when genuine attempts to explain the science in a friendly and open manner get a response such as the one given above, it is not worth the bother continuing. This is especially true of those who (a) don't give answers to questions intended to clarify someones position (you did not answer the questions posed in post 31) (b) do not acknowledge when evidence is presented that answers an argument that they have presented (for instance the Canadell paper that demonstrates that the airborne fraction has been pretty constant at about 45%) and (c) do not pay attention to key issues (for instance that the volume of fluxes are irrelevant, whether atmospheric CO2 rises of falls depends only on the difference between total emissions and total uptake). You have done all three of those things in this discussion. If you don't understand the mass balance argument, you may want to consider that perhaps the problem might be at your end of the discussion. BTW, you wrote: "No, you can't assume that." - I didn't assume that, it is a direct (and rather obvious) consequence of the principle of conservation of mass.
  5. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    The link to Ramanathan's paper provided under the Further Reading's tab does not work.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] The free abstract can be found here.
  6. Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
    HR @64 "It would have been near impossible to predict global food production thru the 20th century maybe even 30 years in advance given the non-linear development of agricultural practises and global distribution. Why should we hold anymore belief in present future predictions? These predictions have to assume a passive role for humanity in this process because there is no way of predicting where future generations will take these. Consider migrating climate zones, especially in commercial agricultural areas. As they move are they going to move into areas where agriculture can be conducted or will those areas already be in use for other purposes? Also factor in the growing world population which not only demands more food but land area use as well. Your scenario seems to suggest that climate change is chasing food production but will never catch it. To me it looks like they are running at each other rather than one after the other.
  7. Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
    56 Bibliovermis If you accept that we are dynamic problem solvers then you should also accept that some sort of predictable descent into barbarism is complete folly. It would have been near impossible to predict global food production thru the 20th century maybe even 30 years in advance given the non-linear development of agricultural practises and global distribution. Why should we hold anymore belief in present future predictions? These predictions have to assume a passive role for humanity in this process because there is no way of predicting where future generations will take these. War - where to start? All the dirty little wars of the late 20th century can't be explained from within their national borders never mind anything to do with their national climate statistics. They're all proxy wars serving the interests of powerful nations, the cold war period is an obvious example. You won't find the cause of 21st century civil wars and border disputes by limiting your analysis to anything that is happening on a local level, that includes looking at climate. It would be a simple observation that societal problems do not have to be resolved through war, including those future predictions presented by the IPCC. What makes me want to scream is that 'naturalizing' the cause of war is letting the warmongers off the hook. Phila we might agree that social problems should be solved thru rational action. But first we have to agree the cause of those social problems before we can come to some agreement on the path we should take. I happen to think that the politics of climate change is a continuation of the irrational aspect of society that we both possibly dislike. I don't mean that we have rationalists and irrationalist, I mean both sides are using the issue to argue their own particular interests. In the wider world, outside John's blog, climate change is about politics not science. My response to AT isn't based on emotion it's based on a recognition that we have different views of human nature and social relations. As I said that particular aspect won't be solved by trading science. A "threat to civilization" is basically a political position not a scientific one.
  8. Marvin Gardens at 00:53 AM on 6 February 2011
    Climate's changed before
    Clearsight @ 152 Why are the plankton living deeper? Doesn't make sense for them to try and live somewhere they can't. With all your degrees and smarts you should be able to spell Stanford. ;)
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] This offers up a good summary of the 40% decline in oceanic phytoplankton since 1950.
  9. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    HumanityRules Trenberth's missing heat and the heat in the pipeline are two completely different things. The formes is already here and we are not able to track it; the latter is what will be here to restore the radiative balance.
  10. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    #6 KR "I keep seeing skeptics yelling about the "in the pipeline" heating, as if the energy discussed were somehow already here, hiding under a bush or something" I thought it was Trenberth who first started yelling about the energy hiding under a bush. If by bush you mean the abyss or arctic ocean. If Trenberth has to look under bushes to find the energy to make his calculations work then where is this fraction accounted for in Dana's calculation?
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] See here for context, provided by Trenberth himself, on the quote so many use out of context from the stolen emails.
  11. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    #43 Agnostic: "Why? Do feedbacks already contribute to global warming? Will that contribution increase significantly as a result of on-going global warming?" It's quite complicated. Many models (AOGMs etc) don't include a proper carbon cycle but you determine expected CO2 levels from a carbon cycle model based on expected emissions and then prescribe them in the model. New models (so called ESMs) often include a carbon cycle model. But they often don't capture features which we suspect are there but haven't managed to constrain. Most don't capture how the Amazon became a net CO2 source in '05 and '10 or tell us with good confidence if and when other stores or sinks might 'fail'. That's why we can't be sure that models are doing a good job here. And measurements of carbon cycle feedbacks now are unlikely to be representative of carbon cycle feedbacks in a world with 1200 ppm CO2 and 5 C higher temperatures. So that's why recent measurements don't capture them.
  12. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    The heating we are experiencing now is definitely due to what happened in the past. This is the same reason why the radiative imbalance we're experiencing now will affect temperature for many decades. Just to put a number, if the response time is 50 years, what we see now is due to what happened in the last 50 years and the radiative imbalance we see still now will affect temperature for another 50 years. Reality is much more complex than my trivial example. The oceans respond on several different time scales and it's impossibile to reduce them to a single accurate response time.
  13. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    KR #47 Quote "You appear to be claiming that "in the pipeline" energies are not evident, and hence GW is false". endquote. I did not claim that at all. I said in #45 that "The energy absorbed from future forcing imbalance will cause 'future' temperature rise as KR#6 correctly says." I think that the lack of understanding of the 'terms' is in your court if you can't follow plain language. My piece does not deny GW up until now - nor that the current purported imbalance of anywhere from 0.4 up 0.9W/sq.m will not cause future warming if it continues. I criticised dana1981's original piece because he made errors which finally suggested that 1.1W/sq.m of warming was lurking somewhere 'in the pipeline' IN ADDITION to the 0.4- 0.6W/sq.m already claimed to be measured in the oceans. Clearly incorrect.
  14. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    My prediction is this article will be quotemined by some. I'm not going to comment this more.
  15. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    johnd - "Unrealized heating" is my term; one of a number I proposed as a replacement for the easily mis-interpreted "In the pipeline" phrase. It's the heating required to cancel out the radiative imbalance currently seen. Nothing more, nothing less. The timeframe is primarly determined by the thermal inertia of the oceans with regard to the (rather small by comparison) radiative imbalance. No hand waving whatsoever.
  16. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    johnd - The question (are current variations due only to recent heat content changes) is reasonable. The assertion (that there are >100 year OHC changes) is unreasonable given a lack of evidence. If you have an alternate explanation, please provide it. If you have no evidence of such an alternative, why are are you asserting it's possibility?
  17. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    dana1981 at 17:07 PM on 5 February, 2011, precisely, and it was the hand waving about some indeterminate "unrealised heating" "in the pipeline", two unknowns, that I was seeking to be clarified by an explanation of the mechanism involved which should include a timeframe, both looking forward, and looking back to the origins of what is supposedly yet to be expressed.
  18. 2010: A Year of Record Warmth and Weird Weather
    johnd - My apologies; I was going from a "Recent Comments" listing showing a graph of Southern Australia rainfall. That's not appearing now; I suspect an error on my part. Mea culpa.
  19. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    KR at 17:09 PM on 5 February, 2011, it can't be considered both a fair question and a strawman argument. It is indeed a fair question to seek clarification as to that if "unrealised heating" has been identified as presently being "in the pipeline", what evidence is there that it hasn't always been "in the pipeline" After all, I am responding to your earlier statement "I have spent a fair bit of time point out that "in the pipeline" means unrealized heating that will occur given current circumstances, but hasn't yet."
  20. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    OK, in the absence of vertical circulation ocean warming (based on thermal conductivity) would have a time constant of 230 years. But we know there's vertical circulation, there's already benthic heating, it's on the order of 75-100 years from what we've seen. Again, johnd, please don't make assertions without evidence. It's the equivalent of "crying wolf", and does not dispose anyone towards taking subsequent statements seriously.
  21. 2010: A Year of Record Warmth and Weird Weather
    KR at 16:55 PM on 5 February, 2011, KR, if you go back through the thread, you will find that your questions are not relevant in the context of the matters being discussed.
  22. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    johnd - A fair question. Do you have evidence, a physical model, or other indications of a >100 year thermal inertia? After all, we do understand where global warming is going, and the cycle time is <100 years as far as anyone can tell. After all - "Assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" (Christopher Hitchens) Please don't post such strawman arguments.
  23. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    johnd #48 - warming requires a mechanism. And thermal inertia acts on timeframes of decades, not centuries. Waiving your hands around and saying "maybe global warming is just the result of a centuries-long lag due to some unknown cause" is not scientific.
  24. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    KR at 16:11 PM on 5 February, 2011, regarding "in the pipeline" energies, what evidence is there that any of the warming experienced in the most recent past, say 100 years, is itself not unrealised heating from a time even further back. Given that the heat content of the ocean is yet to be adequately quantified, and that of past centuries is even less sure, how can we know that the unrealised heating anticipated looking forward, is not already constantly being expressed from some time back?
  25. 2010: A Year of Record Warmth and Weird Weather
    johnd - Two questions for you. How does the area of South Australia compare to the surface are of the globe? What are the global figures on precipitation? Given that we've had ~4% increase in specific humidity since 1970?
  26. 2010: A Year of Record Warmth and Weird Weather
    Tom Curtis at 10:01 AM on 31 January, 2011, Tom, the precision of definition you require may be appropriate in the world of laboratory experiments and formulas, but when applied to the real world and weather in general, then terms such as below average are well understood, as well as self evident, as is the term "similar period". Real world weather by nature is not commanded by clocks or calenders, or even precise formulations and statistics, even though some observers seem to imagine it is. Perhaps the map below courtesy of BOM will illustrate how the terms "below average" and "similar periods" express themselves in real world observations, be it over short terms in decadal time frames, or over the longer period of a century if you draw a line through at 383.32mm which is the average rainfall for the period displayed.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Fixed URL link.
  27. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    Ken Lambert - Nooooo, I don't agree. You appear to be claiming that "in the pipeline" energies are not evident, and hence GW is false. I have spent a fair bit of time point out that "in the pipeline" means unrealized heating that will occur given current circumstances, but hasn't yet. Your statements to the contrary seem to indicate that you don't understand the terms. I do not agree with you in any fashion regarding your post here, and disavow your claims thereof. If I agree with someone, I'll say so. I have not said that I agree with you.
  28. It'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?
  29. A 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.
  30. A 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.
  31. Monckton Myth #8: Rising sea levels
    KR @47 -- thanks. Somehow I imagined it would be more than that.
  32. A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
    KR#6 In other words you agree with what I have said in #4.
  33. A 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?
  34. A 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.
  35. A 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.
  36. A 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.
  37. 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.
  38. A 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?
  39. A 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).
  40. A 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.
  41. Monckton 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")
  42. CO2 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.
  43. It'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.
  44. It's not us
    Julian Flood - It's also well worth looking at IPCC AR4 for a collected discussion of the isotopic data.
  45. A 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.
  46. 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.
  47. A 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.
  48. It'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
  49. 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.
  50. A 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.

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