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Comments 97001 to 97050:

  1. CO2 lags temperature
    #231: "there still seems to be strong scientific debate over the issue" It's not really a debate; that would imply some sort of parity between the two sides. If you look around this site for any length of time (and you should), you will quickly realize that most denier positions fall flat on their face. "despite being told that 'the science has been settled' by the majority of the media" What media do you watch? Most of the media ignores climate change as a political hot potato -- and those who do talk about it feel compelled to pretend it needs a 'fair and balanced' presentation. "the work of Dr. Ferenc Miscolzi" Very convincingly shown to be false here. Before falling for a fringe theory, it would be best to read up on the basics here at SkS. Start with the newcomers guide, then read through the rebuttals to the common skeptic arguments.
  2. It's not bad
    eric. that's nice. I'm not expecting Apocalypse tomorrow, or even in my lifetime. However, the papers by Matthews and Weaver, and Hare and Meinshausen for instance lead me to conclude that even if we start making changes now, it will take a long time to turn the climate ship around. There are significant risks associated with change that becomes too rapid as well - instability from climate refugees, effects from failures in food production, in particular - that I suspect will effect everyone on planet however isolated from direct effects they may be.
  3. CO2 lags temperature
    hey guys, i am an engineer so i am no expert in the field of climate science however i am deeply interested. i take quite a neutral position on whether CO2 is driving the climate, there still seems to be strong scientific debate over the issue despite being told that 'the science has been settled' by the majority of the media. I was just wondering have you guys seen the work of Dr. Ferenc Miscolzi? he has published quite a few papers. His conclusions are that there is a constantly maintained green house gas factor that cannot be changed with further emissions alone. He claims that there would be an equivalent amount of water vapour withdrawing from the atmosphere as the CO2 rises. I'm interested to hear standpoints on his work. Thanks
  4. Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    That is the paradox of addressing purveyors of misinformation. Ignore them and they can spin that as proof of how they are correct and there is indeed a conspiracy to suppress The Truth. Cuckoo Science
  5. Eric (skeptic) at 14:05 PM on 3 February 2011
    It's not bad
    David Horton, you noted in the other thread that I am in your shoes because I live on earth. I live in Northern Virginia, a climate somewhat moderated due to the Appalachians to the west, but still can be cold and dry in the winter. In the summer it can be hot and humid. I think about winter cold a lot, so I have plans for that: a southern exposure on which I already use passive solar: foundation painted black, with some acrylic (a mistake) covering and warm air intakes. I have heat mass in the crawl space. I heat with wood. There's a lot more I could do and will as I have time. I also think about summer heat and have started five shade trees. I don't worry about drought, my well is 200 feet below the river and the river will never go dry. I don't worry about floods on the river 80 feet below. My summer electric bill peaks about $50 / month with central air so I haven't done much. There simply isn't as much to do about heat except perhaps water some plants, put up shade cloth, etc.
  6. Eric (skeptic) at 13:50 PM on 3 February 2011
    Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    Actually I am not in your shoes (more details on an appropriate thread). But I was referring specifically to Monckton obsession. This is how far you have come in a little over 4 years: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/nov/14/science.comment You have turned Monckton from a typhoon of errors into a flood of much more clever misinformation. You would have been better off ignoring him.
  7. Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    Eric "Y'all seem to take it much more personally than I would in your shoes." You are in our shoes. Or do you have another planet lined up somewhere, and a deal with Virgin Space for a trip?
  8. Eric (skeptic) at 13:03 PM on 3 February 2011
    Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    Tom, that is true, politics follows the path of least resistance and Monckton puts on a good performance. I am on the other side politically on this (because I believe we have time on our side), but in the long run it hurts the skeptical cause to have so much misinformation out there. Anthony Watts is also in the entertainment business as are many weathermen. I don't think the popularity of his blog is due to a yearning for scientific truth. When I started my research in the late 90's I took things more seriously. But I can't anymore so that is why I don't care what Monckton says. I just do the little bit I can to correct the more outrageous falsehoods that I see (mostly on conservative forums).
  9. Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    When skeptics invite Monckton to adress Congress, we are forced to take him more seriously; and skeptics less so. Until skeptics rebut and repudiate the likes of Monckton themselves (and that includes the likes of Anthony Watts), any suggestion that scientists should take their views seriously are laughable.
  10. Eric (skeptic) at 12:20 PM on 3 February 2011
    Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    Climate sensitivity is something I have written about on other threads. What Monckton says: "Most of the few dozen scientists worldwide whom Prof. Richard Lindzen of MIT estimates have actually studied climate sensitivity to the point of publication in a learned journal have reached their results not by measurement and observation but by mere modeling." That is wrong, paleo estimates do not use models. I haven't written about sea levels, but Monckton says "Professor Niklas Mörner, who has been studying sea level for a third of a century, says it is physically impossible for sea level to rise at much above its present rate, and he expects 4-8 inches of sea level rise this century, if anything rather below the rate of increase in the last century." Also wrong, greater sea level rise is certainly physically possible. The former above is distortion, the latter is cherry picking of scientists or both can be considered misinformation. The reason I've never commented about Monckton is I simply do not care what he says. Y'all seem to take it much more personally than I would in your shoes.
  11. Monckton Myth #7: Snowjob
    And if future when submitting graphs, please use the appropriate scale for the axes, in you case the y-axis. For an excellent article on the appropriate scale for axes and other important graphing techniques, please see How to cook graph skepticalscience.com style (Cat and coffee warning. His latest is very funny too).
  12. Monckton Myth #7: Snowjob
    "Springs may be coming earlier, but if autumn is too then there would be no net difference." The data and literature I provided do not support your (unsubstantiated) assertion. Please demonstrate for us here, using the literature and appropriate data, that the snow in the fall (September-November) has been arriving sooner. You made the assertion, it is up to you to substantiate it instead of musing hypotheticals. Agnostic, you may not realise it, but you are presenting as a concern troll...and this discussion is getting tiresome, especially when I hunt down numerous papers to back up my point and your retort is essentially full of "what ifs". Monckton misled, that much is unequivocal. He chose that part of the picture which fit his agenda. Dana (and I) provided seasonal and annual data.
  13. Monckton Myth #7: Snowjob
    Agnostic, "I'd really love to know why the ANNUAL average is not being shown..." I fail to see how you keep missing this graph from the above post: Do you not see the title of that Figure? "Northern Hemisphere Annual Snow Extent" And if future when submitting graphs, please use the appropriate scale for the axes, in you case the y-axis. Thanks.
  14. Monckton Myth #7: Snowjob
    "I think that you are missing the point of the post. It is Monckton who is cherry-picking. " No i have not missed the point. I can see that John makes an excellent general point that we would not necessarily expect to see a reduction in winter snow extent, especially initially, but that spring would arrive sooner. He then goes onto to create a graph depicting how springs have had trending smaller extent. Well that is also cheery-picking. Springs may be coming earlier, but if autumn is too then there would be no net difference. If autumn comes at the same time, and spring earlier then there would be longer periods of the year with reduced ice extent. That would show in the Annual average as a decline. But if autumn starts earlier then it means the seasons are not respecting our notions of when they should start. That might possibly indicate some change to the climate, just not necessarily warming. (NB I am not disputing that there has been warming!) So I took the data he posted and made my own graph - taking care to ensure that the missing data was patched. ""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." Hmm. My plot points bounce around, then suddenly drop a bit and remain pretty consistent thereafter. Never-the-less I scanned the article you linked regarding uncertainty and they seem to think it is not unprecedented - something like it occurred in the 20's. I suppose it's possible but you have to admit it really looks suspicious. "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" Why just between March and August? In my experience mother nature does not always rock up on cue - surely the safest way to be sure that you account for different starts to the seasons is to take an annual average? If there is a trend it should still show up. I will look at the links you posted carefully, some I have already scanned before, but nothing there leaps out at me in answer to the questions I posed. If the Rutger data is as reliable as you suggest (and I have no reason to suppose otherwise), then simply comparing percentage differences of annual averages seems more striking in their consistency than as a clear trend - apart from that big jump at 1989. "All this presents a consistent and coherent picture. " Well to you may be, but I can't see one yet. I'd really love to know why the ANNUAL average is not being shown...
  15. Bjarne Mikael Torkveen at 08:34 AM on 3 February 2011
    Norwegian translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
    Thanks for the nice comments. Sorry about the small typo. Tunnel vision, I guess.
  16. CO2 lags temperature
    Alleagra, Wow, Spencer is doing a merry dance...and the goal posts keep shifting so much and so far that it is a wonder anyone can keep up...perhaps that is the point. How about this Spencer....you please show us a peer-reviewed paper (published in a reputable journal please)which demonstrates that most of the observed warming to date is from natural forcing. I do know of a paper off the top of my head which addresses his loaded question (sounds like a similar situation to Lindzen cherry-picking 1995 in the HadCRUT record), but I will have look. I suspect Spencer has scoured the literature and carefully formulated his question so as to try and claim a "gotcha". We'll see... Oh, already found one, Schwartz et al. (2010): ".....and cooling by natural temperature variation can account for only about 15%." And "The standard deviation of the difference in temperature over 150-yr intervals for the period (1000–1850) based on the synthesis reconstruction of Juckes et al. (2007) yields 0.2 K, which is 25% of the observed increase in GMST (Fig. 2). Somewhat smaller changes in GMST were found in simulations of the twentieth century with coupled ocean–atmosphere global climate models using estimated natural forcings only (as reported by Solomon et al. 2007, see their Fig. 9.5), which for 19 runs with 5 models yielded a temperature increase of 0.09 K (standard deviation is 0.19 K, maximum is 0.49 K)" Spencer might also want to try and explain what is causing the planet to be in a net positive energy imbalance (see Murphy et al. 2009). One cannot blame that on internal climate variability, nor can one blame it on solar. Also from Murphy et al. (2009): "After accounting for the measured terms, the residual forcing between 1970 and 2000 due to direct and indirect forcing by aerosols as well as semi-direct forcing from greenhouse gases and any unknown mechanism can be estimated as −1.1 ± 0.4 W m−2 (1σ). This is consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's best estimates but rules out very large negative forcings from aerosol indirect effects." Then there is Foster et al. (2010), in which they state: "Trenberth et al. [2002] found a residual global mean surface temperature trend of 0.4°C over the period 1977–1998 after ENSO impacts alone are removed. More recently, Thompson et al. [2008] removed an estimate of global temperature variations associated with both ENSO and the so‐called cold ocean/warm land or “COWL” pattern of extratropical temperature variation, and found a residual global mean surface warming of 0.4°C over the 1950–2006 period. In all of these previous analyses, ENSO has been found to describe between 15 and 30% of the inter seasonal and longer‐term variability in surface and/or lower tropospheric temperature, but little of the global mean warming trend of the past half century." Where the residual refers to the anthropogenic component. Trenberth et al. (2002) found that: "For 1950–1998, ENSO linearly accounts for 0.06 C of global surface temperature increase." And there are more where those came from....what does Spencer think he is trying to pull here? These games being played by those in denial about AGW/ACC (and it seems now that Spencer is officially in denial about AGW) disgust me. Spencer is just providing fodder for the "skeptics", who will lap anything up it seems so long it fits their preconceived (and misguided)ideas.
  17. CO2 lags temperature
    "Show me one peer-reviewed paper that has ruled out unicorn farts as the cause of most of the recent warming in the thermometer record." They can't! It's a conspiracy!
  18. CO2 lags temperature
    #224: "Show me one peer-reviewed paper ... " How about Santer 2003: Our study shows that the increase in tropopause height over the second half of the 20th century was predominantly due to human activity, and provides independent support for claims of recent tropospheric warming. And Hegerl et al 2011: we find that external forcing contributes significantly (p<5%) to the reconstructed long-term variability of winter and spring temperatures and that it is responsible for a best guess of 75% of the observed winter warming since the late seventeenth century. This warming is largely attributable to greenhouse-gas forcing. A more appropriate thread for this fish-in-a-barrel is It's not us.
  19. CO2 lags temperature
    The It's the Sun argument discussion provides links to 17 more peer-reviewed papers on this topic.
  20. CO2 lags temperature
    argument: It's not us Geophysical Research Letters Attribution of regional-scale temperature changes to anthropogenic and natural causes Science Penetration of Human-Induced Warming into the World's Oceans argument: Models are unreliable Nature Geoscience The equilibrium sensitivity of the Earth’s temperature to radiation changes
  21. CO2 lags temperature
    Alleagra, Wow, Spencer is doing a merry dance...and the goal posts keep shifting so much and so far that it is a wonder anyone can keep up...perhaps that is the point. How about this Spencer....you please show us a peer-reviewed paper (published in a reputable journal please)which demonstrates that most of the observed warming to date is from natural forcing. I do know of a paper off the top of my head which addresses his loaded question (sounds like a similar situation to Lindzen cherry-picking 1995 in the HadCRUT record), but I will have look. I suspect Spencer has scoured the literature and carefully formulated his question so as to try and claim a "gotcha". We'll see...
  22. CO2 lags temperature
    I have just noticed this site and will read submissions on it with interest. I have a simple question. Dr. Roy Spencer [ http://www.drroyspencer.com/about/ ] who I am sure, needs no introduction, has just posted a comment "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." http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/02/a-challenge-from-dr-roy-spencer/#more-33053 Any offers for him?
  23. Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    Astounding is it not JMurphy...and the hypocrisy and double standard they live by is equally astounding.
  24. Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    RSVP, Please just answer the question, it is a simple one. A "yes" or "no" will suffice.
  25. Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    How come so-called skeptics can't even criticise someone as obviously false as Monckton ? Or, if they do, they try to make out that those doing the criticising are worse ? There can only be one explanation : denial.
  26. Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
    Albatross #38 "What is your position on Monckton's campaign ...So far you have not stated your position regarding these actions. Please do so. " I guess I do see the mote in Monckton's eye, but I also see a few beams here and there.
  27. Skeptical Science iPhone app now with blog posts
    I was just updated to the new version on an iPod Touch (3rd Gen) running version 4.2.1 of iOS. The application starts, shows Loading... and then closes. I tried turning the iPod off and then on again, but the application fails in the same way.
  28. Monckton 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."
  29. The 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?
  30. Monckton 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?
  31. Monckton 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.
  32. Norwegian 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".
  33. A 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.
  34. Dikran Marsupial at 00:49 AM on 3 February 2011
    It'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.
  35. Monckton 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?
  36. Monckton 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.
  37. A 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.
  38. Monckton 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?
  39. It'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
  40. Monckton 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
  41. Skeptical Science iPhone app now with blog posts
    Have just loaded the update and now the app wont load can you fix it please
    Response: 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.
  42. A 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.
  43. Norwegian 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.
  44. Monckton 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.
  45. Monckton 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.
  46. Monckton 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).
  47. Norwegian translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
    John You never do ANYTHING before your morning coffee.
  48. Monckton 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.
  49. Animated 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/
  50. Understanding 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.

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