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John Hartz at 02:53 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Re #6 KR's concerns about the phrase "in the pipeline". I note that the header title of the section of the article where this term appears is "Thermal Inertia." My question for Dana: Are the terms, "in the pipeline" and "thermal inertia" synomonous? If they are, perhaps the term "in the pipleine" could be followed by (i.e., thermal inertia). -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:24 AM on 5 February 2011It's not us
My posts on that thread have now also started to be "waiting moderation", which is very indeed very dissapointing. If his hypothesis is falsifiable it should be straightforward for him to have answered my question directly. If it is not falsifiable then the challenge is meaningless. My most recent was timestamped "February 4, 2011 at 8:36 AM". -
muoncounter at 02:16 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
#3: "I recall a sentence from the study ... many aspects of indirect effects of solar activity on climate is poorly assessed" I also recall a sentence in the Gray et al study you cite: Despite these uncertainties in solar radiative forcing, they are nevertheless much smaller than the estimated radiative forcing due to anthropogenic changes and the predicted SC-related surface temperature change is small relative to anthropogenic changes. This is the sentence immediately after the first one you quoted. Shouldn't the 'skeptical' statement 'there are many uncertainties' also include the qualifier 'but those uncertainties are small'? -
A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Arkadiusz - "Almost each of the data given above is questioned by skeptics." Quite true, Arkadiusz. In fact, there are uncertainties in all the relevant quantities. But as a climate scientist, Lindzen is not justified in using that uncertainty they way he does, claiming for example that aerosols have zero effect - when that falls outside the 95% confidence interval for them. Acknowledging uncertainty in various factors means accounting for it, not using uncertainty to somehow justify ignoring those factors completely. -
Alexandre at 01:50 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Arkadiusz #3 says "Almost each of the data given above is questioned by skeptics." Oh yeah, no news there. Everything is questioned by "skeptics". They claim it's not warming, but the observed warming is caused by the sun but it's caused by PDO or NAO. And they also claim it's caused by CO2, only the climate sensitivity is lower than usually accepted (like Lindzen). Of course, some "skeptics" also claim that averything the IPCC said is fine and correct, it's just that giving up fossil fuels would be disastrous (like Lomborg). They question everything. Even the concept of temperature itself is brought into question if that would help their "argument". The funny (or sad) thing is how many people go along with such a contraditory mess. Right Arkadiusz? -
It's not us
Julian, Dikran - Odd thing, that; I tried posting there too, my post apparently did not survive moderation. It showed up as "awaiting moderation", but never made it to the blog comments. I'm saddened by that approach, when Dr. Spencer had issued the challenge in the first place. If he wants to issue such quixotic challenges, he should accept responses too. -
A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Dana - Excellent post, very clear and it covers the issues/obfuscations quite well. I have, however, always hated the "in the pipeline" terminology. What this refers to is energy that hasn't accumulated yet, but is expected to given the current imbalance. Conditions are such that we expect further heating to occur before the imbalance is removed. However, 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, and our supposed inability to point to it represents to them a failure of science. I would propose describing it as "expected warming", rather than "in the pipeline". -
Alexandre at 01:37 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Linzen repeatedly claims that his climate sensitivy is based on observations, whereas all other higher sensitivities are based on models. How can a climate scientist say something like that and get away with such a grossly "uninformed" claim? -
Ken Lambert at 01:16 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Original Post #dana1981 There are several things wrong with your piece. Firstly your point: "Due to the fact that much of the Earth is covered in oceans, and it takes a long time to heat water, there is a lag before we see the full warming effects of an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases (this is also known as "thermal inertia"). In fact, we know there remains "warming in the pipeline" from the greenhouse gases we've already emitted because there is a global energy imbalance" It takes a long time for heat energy to warm a large mass of water to a uniform temperature, however the first law mandates conservation of that heat energy. If that energy is absorbed in the oceans then it will be represented by higher temperatures in some portion and lower temperatures in other portions with complex circulations generally driving heat from the warmer to cooler portions over time. The heat energy is already here - not 'in the pipeline'. There is no other major storage device other than the oceans so what is here today must show up as temperature increase (or ice melt or evaporation) somewhere RIGHT NOW. Secondly, your point: "Data from about 1 million ocean temperature profiles show that the ocean has been taking up heat at a rate of 0.6 W/m2 (averaged over the full surface of the Earth) for the period 1993–2003 [21]. This rate must be subtracted from the greenhouse gas forcing of 2.6 W/m2, as actual warming must reflect the net change in heat balance, including the heat flow into the ocean." Rahmstorf references Willis et al. (2004), which found an oceanic warming rate of 0.86 ± 0.12 watts per square meter of ocean. Given that approximately 70% of the Earth's surface is ocean, this becomes approximately 0.6 ± 0.07 watts per square meter (W/m2) of overall ocean heat uptake. Schwartz et al. (2010) put the value at 0.37 ± 0.12 W/m2. For our purposes, we'll put the figure at 0.25 to 0.67 with a most likely value of 0.4 W/m2." endquote The ocean heat uptake of 0.6W/sq.m (1993-2003) is in serious doubt due to the step offset efect of the XBT-Argo transition extensively debated elsewhere on this blog. Even accepting this figure, your claim that: "This rate must be subtracted from the greenhouse gas forcing of 2.6 W/m2, as actual warming must reflect the net change in heat balance, including the heat flow into the ocean" This is simply wrong. The oceans account for more than 90% of the heat storage capacity of the Earth system - so if they are absorbing 0.6W/sq.m then the whole system cannot absorb more than about 0.66W/sq.m. You do not subtract 0.6 from 2.6 and say that is the warming 'imbalance'. Where is that 2.0 'imbalance' showing up?? It cannot be stored anywhere because we have already accounted for the 0.6 absorbed in the oceans. Similarly your point: "On top of that, as discussed above, ocean heat uptake accounts for between 0.25 and 0.67 W/m2. Therefore, subtracting the ocean heat uptake, the total net anthropogenic forcing over this period is somewhere between -0.07 and 2.15 W/m2, with a most likely value of 1.1 W/m2." - is meaningless without a net figure including cooling and climate responses. The total net forcing (warming imbalance) MUST be represented by the heat energy stored in the earth system at ANY point in time. This is accounted by Dr Trenberth at +1.6 (net anthropogenic) -2.8 (S-B radiative cooling) + 2.1 (WV + ice albedo feedback) = +0.9W/sq.m imbalance. The oceans can account for only 0.4 - 0.6 W/sq.m with high uncertainty - so the balance of the 0.9 - (0.4 to 0.6) is Dr Trenberth's missing heat of 'travesty' fame. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 01:12 AM on 5 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
Almost each of the data given above is questioned by skeptics. For example, I recall a sentence from the study: Solar Influences on Climate, Gray et al., 2010.: „A value of 0.24 Wm-2 solar radiative forcing difference from Maunder Minimum to the present is currently considered to be more appropriate than the 0.12 Wm-2 estimated by IPCC (c.f. the range of 0.16-0.28 Wm-2 ...)” According to this study - paper, many aspects of indirect effects of solar activity on climate is poorly assessed by the IPCC models (so far): “Periodicities, trends, and grand minima are features of solar activity which, if detectable in climate records, can be used to attribute climate changes to solar forcing (Beer et al. 2000; Beer and van Geel, 2008). However, one must be aware that this may not always work well because there are other forcings as well and the climate is a non-linear system which can react in a variety of ways.” “... the majority of climate models employed to date ... ... represent primarily the ‘bottom-up’ TSI mechanism and have a very poor, or no, representation of the ‘top-down’ mechanism that requires spectral variations in solar radiative input and ozone feedback effects. Only a few have an adequate representation of the stratosphere and even those do not generate a complete representation of stratospheric effects such as an internally consistent quasi biennial oscillation." -
John Chapman at 01:09 AM on 5 February 2011More animations of the Warming Indicators
National Geographic have prepared a variation of this theme, shown on a global map. It can be found at http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-impacts-interactive/ The site also links to what we can expect as a result of the warming. -
Berényi Péter at 00:17 AM on 5 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
Dr. Roy Spencer's rebuttal is also linked at the RC Wiki page. It is a bit funny, because he starts by misquoting Dr. Miskolczi. “for..two regions (or bodies) A and B, the rate of flow of radiation emitted by A and absorbed by B is equal to the rate of flow the other way, regardless of other forms of (energy) transport that may be occurring.” From a logical point of view it looks like a proposition, does not it? However, if the full context is included, it is clearly a definition (of the term "radiative exchange equilibrium"). “It will be convenient here to define the term radiative exchange equilibrium between two specified regions of space (or bodies) as meaning that for the two regions (or bodies) A and B, the rate of flow of radiation emitted by A and absorbed by B is equal to the rate of flow the other way, regardless of other forms of transport that may be occurring.” Now, in logic there is a difference between propositions and definitions. One does not even have to be a climate scientist to see it. Propositions can have a truth value assigned to them, while for a definition it simply does not make sense. Shortly afterwards he admits he does not understand a couple of the claims he [Dr. Miskolczi] makes. The actual situation looks worse than that. He does not even seem to be able to tell claims and definitions apart. But let us elaborate on the concept "radiative exchange equilibrium" (defined above) some more, just to see how much sense it makes. If regions both A and B have uniform, well defined temperatures, radiative exchange equilibrium simply means thermal equilibrium, that is, their temperature is the same (TA = TB). It is not particularly interesting, but neither is it the case for the climate system. Although below about 50 km mean free path of air molecules is short compared to their coupling strength to EM radiation background (plenty of collisions occur between absorption/emission events), that is, local temperature is pretty well defined everywhere, temperature distribution is usually far from being uniform. One can still define average temperature for regions like that, even if it does not make much sense to compute averages of intensive quantities. However, it looks like a standard practice in climate science and at least for the time being let's go with it. Now, for subsystems A and B not in thermal equilibrium themselves it is perfectly possible for them to have the same average temperatures while maintaining a steady nonzero net radiative heat flow between them. It is also possible of course for the two subsystems to have different average temperatures while being in radiative exchange equilibrium (in the sense defined above by Dr. Miskolczi). One can not emphasize enough how sharp is the difference between equilibrium and steady states. Unfortunately they are quite often mixed up in climate discussions (even in some peer reviewed pieces). I do not know what the actual net radiative heat fluxes are inside the climate system, much less their global averages, but I do see Dr. Spencer attacks a straw man he himself created. It would be his personal problem, were his misguided analysis not linked by RC Wiki with no comment whatsoever. This fact alone shows the blog community there is more interested in appearance of debunking than in thorough understanding and well formed argumentation. -
MarkR at 23:11 PM on 4 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
dorlomin: most estimates of climate sensitivity do not include carbon cycle feedbacks. Models don't include them properly, nor do observational estimates based on observations we have now. However, some palaeoclimate estimates implicitly include them (because they kind of look at total temperature change divided by total forcing over a long enough period for carbon feedbacks to kick in). There has been some new research into this but I'm not up to date. I'm pretty sure most old estimates and the CMIP3 models (IPCC AR4 ones) don't. And calculations based on the time constant, or heat balance data, or changes over the past century or so don't properly include them either since they're slower than that and we can't predict any quick changes yet. -
dorlomin at 22:18 PM on 4 February 2011A Case Study of a Climate Scientist Skeptic
One of the best posts on the blog. Great to see so much put together in one piece. Do the sensitivity calculations take into account possible realeses of natural sources of carbon gasses as feedbacks or is it purely on atmospheric physics? -
Albatross at 16:22 PM on 4 February 2011More animations of the Warming Indicators
Grypo @1, Nicely done (and same for Chemware and Martin)! Grypo-- I found that I did not have quite enough time to read the text on many of your slides. Maybe shorter versions in larger font, or keep the slides up longer? -
muoncounter at 15:52 PM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
#241: "because there is so little evidence from direct observations to support the framework" Oh, that's rich. There's so little evidence. Any doubts about the total lack of credibility of the editors of E and E? -
chris at 15:44 PM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
Berényi Péter at 12:04 PM on 4 February, 2011"I do realize it is a community of climate policy makers who try to do some science in their spare time, as they are posting there regularly in office hours. Check the timestamps."
Oh dear Peter, your prejudices are showing! The RealClimate "community" are extraordinarily productive scientists. We could look at the first two on RickG's list just above, for example, and find that Gavin Schmidt has published since 2005 more than 40 papers (in real science journals) which have been cumulatively cited well over 1000 times, and that Michael Mann has published over 40 papers since 2005 that have been cited around 800 times.... these are truly impressive records of scientific productivity during the period they (and others) have been running RealClimate.org. I wonder whether you misunderstand the nature of science in the modern world. Every grant application we write, for example, must include descriptions on how our research results will be disseminated, and the enhancement of public understanding is a fundamental element of the scientists role. Schmidt and Mann and the "community" at RealClimate illustrate how a straightforward and honest application to obtaining and disseminating knowledge go hand in hand. And while their "timestamps" indicate that they may fulfill some of their public understand roles during office hours (and why not?) you can be sure that like most scientists that work in the public sphere, they will be doing science outside of office hours too! Peter, do we really want our scientists to be "office drones"? Of course not...we want them to be insightful and productuve and their work to be useful and influential....rather like the "community" at RealClimate -
Clearsight at 15:34 PM on 4 February 2011Climate's changed before
It seems that you have alot of scientific information that mis-intreperted, could result in mistaken understanding. I believe that is what is going on in the world today. The simple facts are that 70% of our oxygen comes from phytoplankton found in the ocean. Coral reefs remove about 33% of the world's carbon dioxide. Temperatures have been steadily increasing for the past decade. They are finding that the plankton are living deeper than before. The photic layer of the ocean only extends so far, if we loose the plankton, 70% of the world will die. Coral reefs are bleaching (temporarily dying) at an alarming rate. I have worked outside for 30 straight years and I know it is getting hotter. I have 4 college degrees, two science minors, one B.S. in Zoology, and an IQ of 136. I fininshed in the top 8% of all of my military and college analytical classes. In junior high on the Standford Achievement Test I scored in the top 8% of the entire state in both mathematics and english. I finished top of my critical logic and reasoning class. I am convinced with every fiber of understanding in me that global climate change is happening and if left unchecked, there will be catastrophic events. -
calyptorhynchus at 14:35 PM on 4 February 2011Kung-fu Climate
Unfortunately the MWP isn't as much of a comfort for denialists as they'd like to think. When it ended, social chaos (including the Reformation and wars of religion) erupted across Europe and millions died. If that's what happens when it cools, we can expect something similar when it warms. To the denialist argument "but the climate changes all the time" we should always add "and when it does species go extinct". -
Tom Curtis at 14:35 PM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
Berenyi Peter @244, I'm just wondering how much peer review you need to recognize that a well known physical law is completely misstated? Better yet, what type of peer review can't even recognize the misstatement of a well known physical law? -
Bibliovermis at 14:29 PM on 4 February 2011Renewable Baseload Energy
Very interesting and definitely worth keeping an eye on. University of Central Florida Researchers Confirm Battery Breakthrough Developed By Planar Energy -
Eric (skeptic) at 14:08 PM on 4 February 2011Renewable Baseload Energy
Solid state batteries with 2-3x the energy per weight, 10's of thousands of charging cycles, 1/3 the cost. http://www.economist.com/node/18007516?story_id=18007516&fsrc=rss -
scaddenp at 13:56 PM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
BP - Nonetheless the assertions by Nick Stokes are easily checked in a text book. The lack of peer-reviewed rebuttal may have something to do with those who do atmospheric science having better things to do. Get back to me when there is peer-reviewed research (other than E&E) that builds on his paper with empirical results. The "peer-review" of E&E allows it to fulfill the function of tobacco science journals. It would be career damaging to publish there and you would be mad to publish a real scientific result there. Pseudo-skeptics strenuously argue that this should not be true, but that is the reality, like or not. -
RickG at 13:15 PM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
244 Berényi Péter: I do realize it is a community of climate policy makers who try to do some science in their spare time, as they are posting there regularly in office hours. Check the timestamps. So, Gavin Schmidt, Michael Man, Caspar Ammann, Rasmus Benestad, Ray Bradley, Stefan Rahmstorf, Eric Steig, David Archer, Ray Pierrehumbert, Thibault de Garidel, Jim Bouldin and many others are just climate policy makers. Well, I'm glad we cleared up that bit of information. As for E&E it is not listed by ISI as being a peer review journal and Scopus lists Energy & Environment as a trade journal. Again, what do you specifically disagree with in the "hasty debunking"? -
Phila at 13:09 PM on 4 February 2011Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
Humanity Rules: I see us as dynamic problem solvers. It's not either/or. We accomplish amazing and inspiring things, and we're also guilty — frequently — of incredible stupidity and shortsightedness and brutality. To be "problem solvers," we have to be able to acknowledge that a problem exists. Currently, you seem to be trying to avoid doing so, for reasons that you yourself acknowledge are largely emotional. My feeling is that if this problem can be solved, it will be solved by people who are capable of looking it in the face, accepting it rationally, and taking personal responsibility. In the absence of that commitment, your platitudes about "humanity" seem more like some conscience-numbing narcotic than an expression of true optimism. -
Berényi Péter at 12:04 PM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
#239 RickG at 10:17 AM on 4 February, 2011 You do realize that the "RealClimate.org community blog" is a community of practicing climatologists don't you? I do realize it is a community of climate policy makers who try to do some science in their spare time, as they are posting there regularly in office hours. Check the timestamps. As for E&E, it is my understanding that it is not a peer review journal It is. However, neither the Nick Stokes rebuttal at RC Wiki from Jun 2008 nor Rebuttal of Miskolczi’s alternative greenhouse theory by Van Dorland & Forster are peer reviewed publications for sure. Therefore citing them here somewhat goes against the rules at this site. -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:45 AM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
Albatross... " Lindzen's iris hypothesis remains that, a hypothesis. " One could easily qualify that and say that Lindzen's is a hypothesis in tatters. -
Albatross at 11:13 AM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
Bibliovermis @241, Very interesting (and revealing )post. Regarding this from E&E: "The voices of well known scientists opposed to this dominant paradigm (e.g. Lindzen, Spencer, Singer, Christy McIntyre, Pielke, Khandakar)". McIntyre is not a scientist. And Singer is, well, a scientist for hire it seems, and seems to have some intriguing ideas on climate science. Khandakar is not a prominent climate scientist and of late his reputation has fallen into disrepute in the scientific community. Lindzen's iris hypothesis remains that, a hypothesis. The "skeptics" do love to hammer away at the models, forgetting that Pielke, Lindzen, Spencer etc. all use models in their research. Not to mention that one doesn't require a model to estimate climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2. And look at all those pejorative words "paradigm", "protagonist", "dominant".... -
John Hartz at 11:01 AM on 4 February 2011It's not bad
Is it possible for someone to clean-up the formating of the "Cites" bibliography in the Notes section? PS -- I favor a space between each cite. -
John Hartz at 10:55 AM on 4 February 2011It's not bad
Is it just me, or did the comment thread for both the basic and intermediate versions of this rebuttal become intertwined? -
Bibliovermis at 10:47 AM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
The guest editorial speaks to the credibility of the journal in general.The voices of well known scientists opposed to this dominant paradigm (e.g. Lindzen, Spencer, Singer, Christy McIntyre, Pielke, Khandakar), and backed by their own research, have been less clearly heard. ... Doubts about the mainstream "CO2-paradigm" arise because there is so little evidence from direct observations to support the framework that has been constructed from computer model studies/experiments. ... However, so far, we can see no sign that the protagonists of the IPCC line on expected Dangerous Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) are willing to consider any alternative to the CO2 paradigm.
Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, Editor, Energy & EnvironmentI myself have argued the cause of climate 'realism' - I am a geomorphologist by academic training before switching to environmental international relations - but do so on more the basis of political rather than science-based arguments. As far as the science of climate change is concerned, I would describe myself as agnostic.
Over a hundred years of empirical research by thousands of independent scientists merits the term "AGW hypothesis", while a single work that is contradicted by observational records merits "Miskolczi theory"? This is a prime example of a political rather than science-based argument. It's amusing that Miskolczi's work, a model based on simulated effects, is being pushed by those who decry the vast bulk of climatological research as invalid for being nothing more than models & simulated effects. -
muoncounter at 10:31 AM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
#238: "the rather hasty debunking" Even Spencer shoots FM down. I have spent many hours examining it and thinking about it, ... I disagree with his explanation of why the atmosphere’s total greenhouse effect should remain the same, particularly his use of Kirchoff’s Law of Radiation. Doesn't sound hasty. -
RickG at 10:17 AM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
Berényi Péter #237 Hasty debunking? What part of the hasty debunking do you disagree with? You do realize that the "RealClimate.org community blog" is a community of practicing climatologists don't you? As for E&E, it is my understanding that it is not a peer review journal and has a rather dubious reputation of publishing less than scholarly science? -
Berényi Péter at 09:49 AM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
#237 scaddenp at 06:31 AM on 4 February, 2011 Bibliovermis - Miskolczi is a crank. You can see a quick summary of what he postulates here Some may want to check what Dr. Miskolczi (and others) actually say about a possible upper bound on atmospheric IR optical depth due to IR absorber (a.k.a. "greenhouse") gases in a planetary atmosphere with practically infinite potential supply of IR opacity instead of accepting at face value the rather hasty debunking provided by RC Wiki (a supplement to the RealClimate.org community blog). Energy & Environment, vol. 21, num. 4, 2010 ISSN 0958-305X Special issue - Paradigms in Climate Research Guest Editor: Arthur Rörsch Dr. Miskolczi's paper is on page 243, but one may be interested in other papers in the same issue as well. -
Rovinpiper at 08:25 AM on 4 February 2011The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award
As I understood it the argument was that there are more transient warm events than transient cold events. The cold temperatures come with nightly low temperatures and the like. They happen gradually. Whereas, you can have daylight spikes in temperature that are much more sudden. Such as when the sun comes out from behind a cloud. I think this line of argument ended with the post that pointed out that poleward and upward migrations of organisms cannot be explained by this, nor can sea level rise, or glacial retreat. -
scaddenp at 06:31 AM on 4 February 2011CO2 lags temperature
Bibliovermis - Miskolczi is a crank. You can see a quick summary of what he postulates here -
JMurphy at 06:30 AM on 4 February 2011Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
Don Schneider, there are plenty more pages on here that will give further information as to the cause of our current warming. Try these two for a start : Newcomers Start Here The Big Picture Also, while I understand that parts of America are experiencing lots of snow and cold temperatures, that isn't the case for the rest of the Northern Hemisphere - as far as I'm aware. Temperatures in Europe, at least, are normal for the time of year, although they are going up and down all the time. And, the last I heard, Canada and the Arctic were pretty mild, comparatively ? All that snow digging will keep you fit ! -
Don Schneider at 06:09 AM on 4 February 2011Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
JMurphy, thanks for your response and the links. It is seldom that I have such a quick turnaround in thought, so I find this astonishing. While driving somewhere just a few minutes ago, and mulling over the point I just made on this forum, I had an epiphany of sorts. How ironic I found it to be that the very first comment posted at the first link you provided—a comment made by one ProfMandia—was exactly the thought that hit me! How strange it would seem that if the tree ring proxies were somehow wrong in the prerecorded temperature times of the Mann chart that they should be both wrong and so closely correlated with other reconstructions using various other proxies as opposed to tree rings. As ProfMandia points out, what are the odds of that? What are the odds that they should all be not just inaccurate, but so closely so in the same way? Therefore, unless the skeptics can somehow prove collusion on the part of all these researchers who have presented temperature reconstructions based upon various proxies, then at least the part of the theory that we are living in an anomalously warm period has been proven to my satisfaction. Being convinced that we are responsible for this, and that the result will be necessarily deleterious to a significant extent, might take me some more time Perhaps I shall mull over these latter points while shoveling out of yet our next snowstorm! (G) By the way, I realize it is hard to sell this theory while so many people in the Northern Hemisphere have been enduring two brutal winters in a row; thus the falling poll numbers as to how many take the theory seriously right now. However, adherents do have a point about warmer air causing more evaporation from lakes and such and thus more snow. It hasn’t been, by and large, the temperatures that have been so brutal, just the snow and sometimes ice. When I was a teenager and young man in the 70s here in Philadelphia, I can recall it was not at all uncommon for the temperature in the winter to frequently dip to single digits and even hit zero (F) occasionally. We haven’t experienced too much of that for many years and the ponderous amount of snow we have been getting has largely been (backbreaking!) wet snow as the temperatures unfortunately have a penchant to remain just below freezing. So you might be right on this point as well, as odd as it might seem to others and me. If AGW is true and we must endure it and its potential consequences, I just wish it could at least get us over 32 here! I wasn’t expecting the 70s in January. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:39 AM on 4 February 2011It's not us
Julian, I tried to reply to your question on Dr Spencer's blog, but it wouldn't accept it, so hopefully you will find it here at some point: If you get hold of a copy of the 1990 IPCC WG1 scientific basis report and go to page 14, you will find it gives the mass balance argument there about three quarters of the way down column 2 (only in rather less detail than I provided on skepticalscience). Its says "Second, the observed rate of CO2 increase closely parallels the accumulated emissions trends from fossil fuel combustion and from land use changes. Since the start of almospheric monitoring in 1958, the annual atmospheric increase has been smaller each year than the fossil fuel input [DK the difference is even bigger if you include land use changes]. Thus ocean and biota together must have been a [DK net] global sink rather than a source during all these years" So it is in the litterature, just that it doesn't merit much discussion anymore as it is so well known (I have seen it given a similarly brief mention in a paper or two). If there is one observation where natural variability can be ruled out, this is it. We know for sure that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic, as the theory that it is from natural sources is 100% falsified by the observation that the annual increase is smaller than fossil fuel emissions. -
muoncounter at 05:24 AM on 4 February 2011We're heading into cooling
#30: See comment on thread suggested. Spoiler alert: utter nonsense. -
muoncounter at 05:23 AM on 4 February 2011There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature
From here. "NOAA/NCDC Annual Global Temperature Change vs CO2 dataset clearly shows ... rising CO2 had little impact" Utter nonsense. The graph shows annual temperature change, ie T(now) - T(last year). This removes any long term trend and therefore cannot be compared with the long term increase of atmospheric CO2. Any conclusions taken from the website you reference are therefore also utter nonsense. Surely you can do better than a misapplication of basic math and science? -
dharam at 04:27 AM on 4 February 20112010: A Year of Record Warmth and Weird Weather
very nice information given on climate change. humanity will have to shed the greed for exploitation of nature for survival of the earth and comming generations Dr D P ABROL -
Dikran Marsupial at 04:26 AM on 4 February 2011What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
NETDR@95 It is a bit of a strawman, have a look at the IPCC WG1 report and you will find that virtually all claims made there are accompanied by a statement of the (un)certainty with which the claim was made. If the mainstream position were that these things were proven, then such equivocation would not be necessary. There is a reason for this. It is fundamentally impossible to prove any proposition regarding the real world by means of evidence alone. We have known this since the work of David Hume, who argued that we can't observe causality. Instead, knowledge of the real world has to be based on assumptions as well as observation. That is why much of the philosophy of science is based on falsification rather than proof (proof is for mathematics). However, proof is not required for a scientific theory to be accepted as fact. Nobody has every proved that the theory of evolution is correct, yet most scientists accept it as fact. So why do we accept evolution as a fact rather than "merely a theory", simple, becuase it is a relatively simple theory that explains a wide range of observations rather well; rather better than competing theories. This illustrates an important point about scientific method; when there are competing theories that have not been ruled out by observations, you don't rule out any of them and instead assign a degree of belief in the plausibility of each theory according to how well it explains the data. how much of the data it explains, and the strength of the argument and reasonableness of the assumptions on which it is based. For those that accept AGW, it is not that it is proven, or merely assumed, there is a lot of research which suggests it is the most plausible explanation for the observed facts, not just for the climate of today, but also for paleoclimate. Now on to the challenge - has anyone proved that the species we see today are not the result of purely random mutations and was not driven by evolutionary pressure? No. Does that cast any doubt on evolution? No. The reason is that such a falsification is impossible, even though the theory of purely random chance is almost certainly incorrect. Did SPencer say what would constitute a falsification of the "theory of natual variation"? If not, he is asking for the falsification of an unfalsifiable theory, and unfalsifiable theories are non-scientific (Popper). Essentially the challenge works nicely as rhetoric, but it suggests a rather "atypical" philosophy of science. P.S. I saw the "null hypothesis" thread on WUWT, it was incorrect there as well, for much the same reason. Scientific theories are not equally plausible just because neither has been falsified; in that situation science has used the "weight of evidence" for a long time. As David Hume says "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." (he could also out-consume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, so he was someone worth listening to!) -
JMurphy at 04:16 AM on 4 February 2011Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
Don Schneider, start by reading Hockey Stick or Hockey League, then look at this RealClimate Wiki, then look at this RealClimate Thread. After that, you should find that Mann's reconstruction is not at all the only reconstruction that gives those results. If you don't like Mann's, what's your problem with all the rest ? -
Albatross at 03:36 AM on 4 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
RSVP, Sad that you just cannot bring yourself to answer a simple question and admit that Monckton is horribly wrong. -
Albatross at 03:31 AM on 4 February 2011Monckton Myth #7: Snowjob
Scaddenp @30, That is funny. Thanks for that. Lindzen should read that post too. -
Bob Lacatena at 02:25 AM on 4 February 2011More animations of the Warming Indicators
Well done. My next request would be an "indicators of a climate sensitivity of 3˚C or higher" graphic... with links to Skeptical Science pages, as well as to the individual peer-reviewed papers supporting each indicator. IMO, we are letting the deniers "win" when we let them focus too much of the debate on the obvious and undeniable (whether the world is warming, what is actually causing the warming, whether greenhouse gases actually work as understood, etc.). The relevant debate, at this point in time, is "how warm are things going to get?" Lindzen and Spencer know this is the only battleground they have left, so they put their energies into the magical properties of clouds, despite a severe lack of evidence supporting their position. On the other side, there are myriad proxy studies, simple physics based mathematics, model results, and more that point to 3˚C or higher. Every time I look, it seems like another study points to 3˚C+ warming. -
NETDR at 02:25 AM on 4 February 2011What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
This may be O.T. so please direct me to the proper topic. I used the search function already and this is as close as I came. I would be interested in your readers response. Roy Spencer made the following challenge. What most people don’t realize is that the vast majority of published research on the topic simply assumes that warming is man made. It in no way “proves” it. If the science really is that settled, then this challenge should be easy: Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out natural, internal climate cycles as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record. Studies that have suggested that an increase in the total output of the sun cannot be blamed, do not count…the sun is an external driver. I’m talking about natural, internal variability. The fact is that the ‘null hypothesis’ of global warming has never been rejected: That natural climate variability can explain everything we see in the climate system. -
Henry justice at 02:04 AM on 4 February 2011We're heading into cooling
Check out this site: //www.c3headlines.com/2011/01/noaa-confirms-recent-global-temperature-change-is-historically-small-warming-is-decelerating.html NOAA/NCDC Annual Global Temperature Change vs CO2 dataset clearly shows the big picture: Rising levels of CO2 have had little, if any at all, impact on annual global temperature changes. The global annual global temperature changes are within normal variability.Moderator Response: The appropriate thread for this comment *and for all responses* is There’s no correlation between CO2 and temperature. -
RickG at 01:53 AM on 4 February 2011Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
Eric (skeptic) 48 "You would have been better off ignoring him (Monckton)". I disagree. Demonstrating the countless deliberate misrepresentations and out-right false claims by Monckton and others who claim to be skeptics is essential in revealing to others just how determined and corrupt the denial machine is. Most skeptics/deniers I encounter have little if any idea how science works or the value of the peer review process. Rather, their knowledge is based entirely on what their preferred political sources tell them. In other words, they cannot separate science from politics nor do they wish to do so.
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