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Comments 97601 to 97650:

  1. It's freaking cold!
    Tom, "So, cooling of the stratosphere and the mesosphere proves global warming". Proofs occur in mathematics, not science. This, however is clearly not the least of your confusion. 1) CO2 gets pulled out of the air by ocean aborption and rock weathering. Biomass doesn't have the capacity to draw down sufficient CO2 to cause an ice age. 2) more moisture in the air means more heat, because water vapor is a greenhouse gas. 3) More snow in Antarctica won't reflect more sunlight into space because the whole freakin' thing is already white! 4) Your repeated references to scientists and the goverment "spinning" and "spending" in favor of Milankovitch Cycles is really, really weak. The fact that you resort to making political statements ruins any credibility you may have had. 5). If Joe Bastardi has a serious analysis indicating major negative feedbacks, let him publish them in a peer-reviewed journal. His videos are assertions, nothing more. 6) "Do you agree that I don't agree with AGW"? What does that even mean?
  2. It's freaking cold!
    Sphaerica, all of that last post of yours appears to be an attempt to deride my character. You suggest that you wont look at Bastardi's presentation of satellite data and yet you claim to know his stance exactly.
  3. It's freaking cold!
    Tom Loeber wrote : "I think the recent evidence that melting of the caps immediately preceeded major swings of the climate into major ice age conditions is another thing suggesting that warming leads to cooling." I'd be interested in reading about that. Got any references/links ?
  4. It's freaking cold!
    Tom Loeber, #87,
    ...the data is in his video blogs that prove you mistaken a number of times in your characterization of Bastardi.
    I think not. As requested, please provide a cite rather than a vague reference to statements buried somewhere in his video blogs (which I promise you I will never waste my time watching).
    But does it prove that the climate will only continue linearly to warm?
    Strawman distraction. Other evidence proves warming. My statement merely proves that your reference to the mesosphere cooling as evidence of a coming cooling period is silly.
    I understand Italy recorded...
    Yes, yes, yes, and it still snows in the winter etc. etc. etc. This is all covered elsewhere and is evidence of and an argument for nothing. Global mean temperatures are rising. Anecdotal evidence of places and times with low temperatures are meaningless.
    I am attempting to look at the evidence myself ...
    No, you're not, your spreading a great amount of disinformation under the guise of scientific statements and (according to you) reputable sources. Little of what you've posted is true, but it looks just erudite enough to confuse the unwary.
    ...you are deluded.
    But at least I'm educated, I understand everything you wrote and every place that it wanders from merely false into laughably silly. My position, whether or not you think it is a delusion, is based on reason, science, observation, and understanding. You, and anyone who is reading your posts and nodding in agreement, would be well advised to hit the books. Reaching a false conclusion based on the best possible evidence and effort is one thing. Reaching a false conclusion because one refuses to learn, study, or reasonably try, or because one has a predetermined conclusion which they are desparate to support... that's self-delusion.
  5. It's freaking cold!
    Tom Loeber, #85, Whoa, that's quite a great example of gish-gallop. The number of false statements, misinterpretations, innuendos, leaps of logic and unjustified conclusions, not to mention the subtle back-handed pleas to try to make yourself seem reasonable ("Hmmm, I see that the concept of it being natural is considered contemptible by some") are too numerous to take the time (and space!) to debunk. It's quite a collection. Your understanding of ice ages, glacial ice formation and the like is extremely weak. You need to study that a lot more before making your proclamations. When you get to this:
    I think you are just continuing with the misinformation.
    Wow. Just wow.
  6. It's freaking cold!
    Sphaerica, the data is in his video blogs that prove you mistaken a number of times in your characterization of Bastardi. So, cooling of the stratosphere and the mesosphere proves global warming. I don't doubt it. But does it prove that the climate will only continue linearly to warm? I understand Italy recorded an all time record low something like yesterday. I think Florida just recorded record lows for at least the lower half of the state. I'm not trusting any one, actually. I am attempting to look at the evidence myself and formulate an on-going subject to change opinion. Again, I suggest if you think that you KNOW exactly what is going to happen, whether or not it is your own opinion or taking the opinion of others, you are deluded.
  7. It's freaking cold!
    Tom Loeber, Um... I'm not sure how you can present Joe Bastardi as in any way reasonable. He is very much the opposite. It looks very much like you're simply trying to build him up as reasonable and scientific to get people to keep reading, only to reach his personal punchline, which is that AGW is a hoax.
    I know some folks find anything that is alarming should be met with much skepticism.
    That was your tag line to make it seem like you're on the AGW side of the fence.
    Bastardi seems to base his understanding only on quite substantially verified evidence.
    Um, sorry, no, he bases it on the same, old, tired denial arguments that this site exists to debunk.
    I learned he doesn't appear to totally discount the idea that our influences on the planet might somehow be involved.
    Um, sorry, no, he is in complete denial about AGW, and there's no way of arguing otherwise (if you honestly think you can prove otherwise, please provide a cite).
    ...he states the need to go green or carbon neutral is more necessary to avoid greater destruction by cooling than by warming...
    Funny how quickly we flipped from AGW to AGC, while making him seem like a reasonable chap because you claim he wants to "go green" and "carbon neutral"... again, a cite to this would be nice.
    He appears to be ... valuing honesty and openness as well as have an understanding of basic logic and sound theorizing
    No, no, and no. He uses the same dishonest denial positions that are used elsewhere. Casting him as valuing honesty is itself dishonest.
    ...that seems to fit in with Bastardi's observations and predictions, on-going global cooling for the foreseeable future...
    And this is where you start running wildly, totally off the rails with jibberish.
    There is a recent finding that the mesosphere within the last couple of months was measured as having reached the lowest temperature ever recorded.
    This is a beauty. This actually is evidence of GHG induced global warming. The mesosphere is a vast area above the stratosphere. GHG theory predicts that CO2 will warm the troposphere and cool the stratosphere. Observations support that this is in fact what is happening. The mesosphere is only warmed by the stratosphere, so if the mesosphere is cooling, it is further evidence that the stratosphere is cooling, which is further evidence in support that greenhouse gases are warming the planet. Here's a tip: Don't get your climate science from meteorologists, whether they be named Bastardi or Watts. Trust climate scientists, not snake oil salesmen.
  8. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    The sentence at the end of third paragraph (see below in italics) does not provide the reader with the information to agree or disagree. You would need to provide the total area or state what percentage decline that is. If it is a 0.10% decrease most would agree with Monckton; if it 10% most would agree with you. The net result is a statistically significant global decrease of more than a million km2 – would you agree with Monckton that this is “virtually no change”? Keep up the good work!
  9. It's freaking cold!
    Hmmm, I see that the concept of it being natural is considered contemptible by some. I think the evidence that remineralizing soils greatly increases the amount of carbon dioxide sequestering biomass is probably a part of the cycle. I wonder as to the use of the term "natural" and suppose it only holds to something that is not man-made though I think we can argue that humans are a natural phenomenon and their actions on the planet consequentially natural but, seeing ourselves as somehow separate from the equation, isn't that what the deniers are claiming? I think the recent evidence that melting of the caps immediately preceeded major swings of the climate into major ice age conditions is another thing suggesting that warming leads to cooling. Think about it. What provides the energy to put great amounts of the planet's water onto the land masses in mile thick glaciers? Are ice ages where there is more biomass tying up carbon dioxide or might they be the result of more green house gases in the atmosphere, more moisture driven into the atmosphere that leads to more turbulence driving moisture so high and more methane release as to create those noctilucents? I think the Milankovitch cycles are less damning of humanity's actions and why there is evidence that money was spent to spin the evidence in their favor, absolving human activities of any influence. How about that hit piece on noctilucents? Should I go dig up the pdf linked to earlier by another so you could take a closer look at it? i suppose you are aware that much money has been spent to provide research favorable to discounting humanity's influence on climate and weather. I think I could dig up the references to the analysies that suggest millions of dollars have been spent meant to keep us nonchalant and discounting of AGCC, read that as Anthropogenic Global Climate Change. Trueofvoice, I was with you until you presented not understanding what Mr. Bastardi published, with reference to possible cause but at the same time he stated he did not buy into the sun's output lessening himself as being the cause. He did offer that though counter to your claim. As far as referring to Riccardo and Daniel arguing from sound scientific principles, I think you are just continuing with the misinformation. Do you agree that I don't agree with AGW? I mean, it is quite obvious that was not a scientific conjecture of any plausibility and just a simplistic straw-man argument approach. I don't know. It's too bad only those who seem to cater to the idea that there is more than just theory seem to have the temerity to post here. I do hold that us humans as relatively recent biological systems are quite naive and we tend to lend credibility to our organization experiments beyond any sense or reason even to the extent of considering this message board as beyond error, beyond censoring or bias. I know that is not truth though many have countered that it is not so.
  10. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    My drinking buddy, Morde Lockton, insists that it is all cosmic rays. He read that scientists in India studied and measured increased Galactic Cosmic Rays. http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/newdelhi/Ramesh-backed-paper-questions-another-IPCC-claim/Article1-652754.aspx So it must be.
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] They measure GCRs in other places on earth as well, so maybe they are secretly a Martian genetic engineering weapon (see HG Wells). However, they are off-topic for this thread. Go to Its cosmic rays for further discussion of fiction vs. non-fiction.
  11. It's freaking cold!
    Tom, Actually it would be great if you would elaborate. Exactly how will global warming reverse itself into a cooling trend? What negative feedbacks are powerful enough to accomplish this? If Mr. Bastardi is aware of such a mechanism, why hasn't he published his findings? Daniel and Riccardo are arguing from sound scientific principles, while your working assertion that climatologists can't see past averages and surface temperatures is utterly false. You're going to have to do better than that.
  12. It's freaking cold!
    Tom Loeber it's really hard for me to understand how you can think I don't like observing the data. It's also hard to understand how you can think he proved anything wrong when he just threw a few insignificant facts, claiming they're conclusive. As for the "grand over-all reaching theory" I don't understant what you're referring to, I don't know any. It may just reflect your perception of the knowledge in climate science accumulated for over two centuries.
  13. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    Ron #6 - we'll be discussing Flanner et al. 2011 in an upcoming post, probably early next week. I'll also touch on it in Monckton Myth #7 (regarding snow cover), which is also in the works.
  14. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    #67: "7-8 years of Argo is hardly a short period" Seven-eight years is a short period in any climate context. The length of the data record doesn't change that.
  15. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    What is visually most striking in this post is the fact that the summer sea ice extent in 1980 is the same as the winter extent in 2010.
  16. It's freaking cold!
    #81: "staying open with questions as to the possibility of AGW leading to AGC is so much of a no-no" An idea is only a 'no-no' if you can't support it with some credible evidence. Do you have any for 'AGW leads to AGC'? Or is that a natural cycle?
  17. The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
    #8: "Note the last sentence of the abstract." The Huntington paper, with its "should not be taken as evidence that further warming will not lead to such changes in the future" was accepted for publication in July 2005. Ironic that a mere 6 weeks later, Katrina arrived and the remainder of the 2005 Atlantic tropical storm season was one of the worst ever. Pretty good prediction of the future after all.
  18. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    Camburn @ 8... But that phase is well understood in terms of obliquity. The north pole was pointing more directly at the sun some 6-8000 years ago. On the other hand we are currently looking at ice free summers in the arctic in the coming decade or two, something we have NOT seen on this planet for a much longer period of time.
  19. It's freaking cold!
    Yooper, I totally agree with everything you state there and I too am a believer that we have AGW. I guess though staying open with questions as to the possibility of AGW leading to AGC is so much of a no-no that straw-men arguments are seen as worth while. Ah, thank you Riccardo. i see you maybe don't like analogies nor observing the data but would rather there be some kind of grand over-all reaching theory presented as knowledge? You know that guy? Care to elaborate? I tend to like that he seems to not hold certainty but is only looking at confirmable data and what we know from the past to conjecture about the future. The fact that he suggests great alarm at being proved wrong should show that he is not suggesting he knows what the grand scheme is. I wonder as to your wherewithal if the major criticism you have to offer is that he doesn't offer or adhere to any grand theory.
  20. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    The ice declined a lot during the early Holocene as well. http://gizmo.geotop.uqam.ca/rochonA/Fisher_et_al_Eos_2006.pdf
  21. It's freaking cold!
    Re: Tom Loeber (78) The Big Picture you are missing is that the part of the atmosphere where humans happen to live is the part warming the most. And that the cooling of the stratosphere and mesosphere is an integral part of that warming signal so characteristic of rising levels of CO2. Recent events, both in terms of temperature and precipitation, are being shown to have a causal relationship consistent with AGW. To say that we cannot have a level of understanding deeper than that you've demonstrated is simply incoherent. The Yooper
  22. It's freaking cold!
    Tom Loeber "He appears to be relatively free thinking" a little too free, in my opinion; free from the influences of the physics of climate, in first place. He goes on and on with analogies and eye-balling correlations while I was waiting for some insight on the mechanisms leading to his predictions. I wasted my time. Not a surprise, though, I know this guy. "Maybe though we are missing the big picture if we only consider surface temperatures and averages." I agree that if one considers only surface temperatures and averages is missing the big picture. I wonder who's doing this. This post was written exactly to counter such kind of over-simplifications. I think we may agree on the simple fact that the globally average surface temperature is the end result of much more complex processes which determines it. No surprise that it took 1000 pages and a lot of scientists time to just summarize in the IPCC AR4 the most recent science. But this end result is what has a direct impact on our lives, so I'll keep watching the surface temperature trend.
  23. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    Eric, I have not seen data with error bars on them. Even if the error bars are large, it still indicates a substantial decrease in the ice area before 1980. The scientists at the NSIDC would know what the error is. The flatness, especially in the Antarctic, is certainly due to lack of accurate data. On the other hand, that does not mean that there is no data. You have to work with what data you have. And the data after about 1940 is more detailed. Your ice edge data is consistent with the Arctic data from Cryosphere Today. The ice declined a lot from 1900 to 1980. That needs to be kept in mind when we look at the ice situation today.
  24. It's freaking cold!
    Gee, I've gone through the past couple months of these videos by the meteorologist Joe Bastardi of Accuweather.com . This latest one is alarming. I know some folks find anything that is alarming should be met with much skepticism. Bastardi seems to base his understanding only on quite substantially verified evidence. I learned he doesn't appear to totally discount the idea that our influences on the planet might somehow be involved. In one of the other recent video blogs he states the need to go green or carbon neutral is more necessary to avoid greater destruction by cooling than by warming. He appears to be relatively free thinking, coming off the top of his head and valuing honesty and openness as well as have an understanding of basic logic and sound theorizing. Boy, that hit piece on noctilucents that only used 36% of their spread in time to discount their influence appears to have done the trick to keep the alarm of their appearance and increase apparently in step with the increase of carbon dioxide on the planet from consideration. That seems to hold greater impact on the climate, basically via Earth's albedo, than sunspots. As far as I can tell, the sun is still only within one tenth of a percent of its observed output. To have first surface mirrors coat the planet in the mesosphere reflecting perhaps as much as one percent of the incoming sunlight back into space, growing in frequency and duration, that seems to fit in with Bastardi's observations and predictions, on-going global cooling for the foreseeable future. There is a recent finding that the mesosphere within the last couple of months was measured as having reached the lowest temperature ever recorded. Please. Yes there has been record heat. Maybe though we are missing the big picture if we only consider surface temperatures and averages. It is the idea that we are experiencing unpredicted anomalies in the weather AND climate that suggests interpretation of global warming as only increasing and proceeding linearly as quite non-causal. Meteorologist Joe Bastardi discusses satellite evidence of a cooling atmosphere. I don't know, really. I do think that any one who pretends to know is misleading themselves as well as others.
  25. The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
    Albatros@11: Personally, I am not comfortable with satillite data indicating rain, or its intensity. As a farmer, I watch the satillite/radar data with great interest. South America does not have a very good radar system, so one has to rely on satillites for hints of their precip pattern. Cloud temp etc will indicate that rain should be falling, and a lot of times it isn't. The satillite maps are useful in that one can see what should be happening, then find the local meteorlogical office for that potential event to see what emperical evidence of rain etc is there.
  26. The Climate Show #5: Green roofs and Brisbane floods
    Camburn, Thanks for the link. Huntington (2006, J. Hydrol.). From his conclusions: "Consistency in response among multiple variables lends observational support for theoretical arguments and GCM predictions that warming will likely result in further increases in evaporation and precipitation.The theoretical hydrologic response to a warming-induced intensification as manifested in an increasing frequency and intensity of tropical storms and floods (Knutson and Tuleya, 1999; Tuleya and Knutson, 2002; Karl and Trenberth, 2003) is not supported by the preponderance of evidence to date. Because of the long-term return intervals and stochastic nature of the occurrence of extreme events, however, it may require substantially more time before a change in frequency can be detected (Free et al., 2004). The lack of detectable trends in the frequency and intensity of tropical storms during the 20th century should not be taken as evidence that further warming will not lead to such changes in the future, particularly as the rate of warming in the 21st century is expected to be several times greater than in the 20th century (Cubasch and Meehl, 2001)." The Huntington paper is actually in closer agreement with the findings papers I cited than his abstract suggests. The paper cited referring to tropical storms and floods are quite old, from 1999-2003. The Allan et al. (2010) paper uses satellite data (which provides continuous spatial and temporal coverage) and reveals a different picture regarding tropical storms: "The SSM/I data indicate an increased frequency of the heaviest events with warming, several times larger than the expected Clausius–Clapeyron scaling and at the upper limit of the substantial range in responses in the model simulations."
  27. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    Don't forget the albedo. Flanner et al 2011 "We estimate mean Northern Hemisphere forcing at −4.6 to −2.2 W m−2, with a peak in May of −9.0±2.7 W m−2. We find that cyrospheric cooling declined by 0.45 W m−2 from 1979 to 2008, with nearly equal contributions from changes in land snow cover and sea ice. On the basis of these observations, we conclude that the albedo feedback from the Northern Hemisphere cryosphere falls between 0.3 and 1.1 W m−2 K−1, substantially larger than comparable estimates obtained from 18 climate models."
  28. We're heading into an ice age
    LandyJim, "Dominance" isn't a relevant term in regards to Milankovitch Cycles. MC's are forcings, meaning they initiate a change. CO2 and other greenhouse gases begin to accumulate in the atmosphere in response, which is why we call them feedbacks. Once those gases reach a certain concentration, they exert a greater influence on climate than the relatively small change initiated by the change in Earth's tilt toward the sun. Let me say this again: Milankovitch Cycles do not "dominate", they initiate.
  29. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    fydijkstra @36, your objection shows a misunderstanding of the effect of thermal lag on green house warming. When the level of greenhouse gasses increase, that creates an imbalance betweeen incoming and outgoing energy at the top of the atmosphere. The balance is restored primarilly by the surface of the Earth, including the surface of the ocean, warming until the increased IR radiation from that surface compensates for the imbalance. Now suppose the ocean warms to that temperature, but then some of the heat flows to the deep ocean, cooling the surface. Well, then the surface of the ocean will no longer be warm enough to compensate for the imbalance anymore. Consequenlty the surface of the ocean will warm some more. Until the temperature required to restore the imbalance is reached, and heat transfers in the ocean are in quasi-equilibrium so that the surface does not cool again, it will keep on warming. You are wrong, by the way, about both Mann and Santer. Mann did not do anything untoward in his first papers on temperature reconstruction. He did not do it perfectly, but that was because he was the first to do it, and nobody knew what was the best technique. It was only after a few attempts were made that it became clear which were the best techniques, and what pitfalls to avoid. McKittrick has tried to take some minor and inconsequential flaws and try and blow it up into a case for fraud, and and indictment of everything that has followed in the field regardless of how disimilar the techniques used. He is a con artist who is trying to keep you preoccupied with his flashing hands so you don't see the mountain of science that demolishes his position. I'm sure Dana can redirect you to a thread which is better for discussing this topic, and Santer.
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] There is a thread for the ocean heating/cooling discussion here. Comments re thermal inertia of the oceans should go there.
  30. It's the sun
    LandyJim, We are well aware of ongoing efforts to better understand solar astronomy. Did you have point beyond asserting we just aren't as up-to-speed as you?
  31. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    Ron Crouch, I certainly agree that hydrocarbon emmissions will not stop by 2020. I think that was really my point - that while the FEU made an error in timing, the scenario they envisaged is still, almost unavoidably in the pipeline.
  32. CO2 lags temperature
    Hurleybird, You need to be more specific in your argument, as your last post contained not a single science-based refutation. "I don't believe it" is not an acceptable response to the role of CO2 as a forcing or feedback, nor does it address the validity of our understanding of Milankovitch Cycles. The Earth's tilt towards the sun changes. The planet warms. Warming oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere accelerating the warming process. What part of this do you have a problem with?
  33. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    #23 Tom I've seen those arguments thrown around, but believe me, hydrocarbon emissions will continue to grow well beyond 2020. Despite the gnawing fact that Exxon/Mobil is playing both sides of the field at once, I must commend them for their current stance and studies into Global Warming. 2020 is unrealistic in that replacement technologies can't and won't be in place by that time to even make a dent in emissions. I can't say that during my lifetime that I have seen any improvements in the direction that humanity has chosen. It's an economy that is driven in large part by consumerism, and greed. There is in general no longer any concern among the world's citizenry for the state of the planet. It certainly is not a priority for the poor who have little understanding of science and who's lives are consumed with trying to stay alive. Meanwhile in the developed part of the world the concern is lacking due more to apathy than anything else. There are simply too many people who think that when Global Warming lands in their back yards that they only need to pick up the phone and dial 911 to seek relief. I wish I were an optimist when it comes to humanity's future, but based on all the scientific data that I've poured over during the last 30 years, I have reached a totally different conclusion. And when Exxon Mobil's annual report comes out sometime in the next few weeks it's going to contain some shocking revelations that have been largely silenced in the rest of the scientific community and ignored by governments. I know I risk being labelled a pariah by talking about the dangers of abrupt climate change (but really climate change is just one player in the total scheme of things). Someone has to keep that portion of the discussion alive. So pariah I am. There is a write-up on that coming report here. My apologies if I'm way off topic, but it annoys me that the future of all our children is being held for ransom..
  34. Back from the Dead: Lost Open Mind Posts
    FYI: Tamino has added this effort to his blogroll at Open Mind. Thanks again to all who have contributed. Missing a few scattered posts here and there but, except for January and February 2010, all now accounted for (remainder of 2010 to present still linked at Open Mind). The Yooper
  35. Eric (skeptic) at 01:56 AM on 23 January 2011
    Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice

    This is figure 8 from Historical variability of sea ice edge position in the Nordic Seas which shows that the current decline is steeper than the long term decline but that there is a long term decline.
  36. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    Darn it. It didn't auto-hyperlink: Combined Summer Sea Ice Extent Minimum Months Chart
  37. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    A couple of months ago I put together a chart of the combined summer minimum months here: http://snowhare.com/climate/charts/global_summer_minimum_sea_ice_extent_1979_forward.png
  38. Eric (skeptic) at 01:31 AM on 23 January 2011
    Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    #1, are there error bars available for the charts above? There are considerable fluctuations, for example in this dataset http://nsidc.org/data/g02169.html in local areas that suggest that the flatness in the early curves is incorrect.
  39. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    michael sweet #65 7-8 years of Argo is hardly a short period in the context of a 16-17 year timeline on the Charts of OHC we are talking about. I have suggested in many threads about OHC that tethered buoys all measuring one tile of ocean at one time is the ideal system to get accurate OHC changes. I do not know how well Argo approaches this 'ideal' system, however 3500 now deployed has to be vastly better than the poor spatial coverage of XBT and preceding methods.
  40. Spanish translation of The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
    Great job! I confess I will use some of their work to help me in some tricky bits of the translation. Portuguese is quite close to Spanish. MattJ #1 - Actually it means "the lie" - ironic all the same...
  41. Monckton Myth #6: Global Sea Ice
    James, I like your post and it makes good points. I think you should discuss the sea ice extent prior to 1979. The satelite data is best, but a lot of sea ice data exists before that time. People lived and drilled for oil in the Arctic before 1979. ->The Alaska oil pipeline was built in 1975. They needed to know the ice extent before they started drilling. The deniers like Monckton like to avoid this data since is shows that the ice is much worse off than it looks if you only look at the last 30 years. As John says: look at all the data. The data from the arctic is available at Cryosphere Today: Up until 1950 the summer ice extent was 11 million km2. That had decreased to 9 mkm2 by the start of the satelite era. Why let the deniers get away with ignoring this 20% decrease? The winter extent decrease is much less, but still significant. In the 30's and 40's they took pictures from airplanes and the extent data is pretty good. The extent in 2007 was only 50% of the historic sea ice extent. This graph from Tamino shows the ice extent in Antarctic: The data from the Antarctic is not as good as the Arctic- no-one lives there so there is not as much interest. Still the data from 1950 on is reasonable and shows dramatic decrease in both the summer and winter before 1979 when they launched the satelites. The current "increases" in Antarctic sea ice do not come near the historic sea ice data. In addition, this year the Antarctic sea ice area anomaly is -300,000 km2 (as of Jan 20). It looks like the trend line will be even closer to zero unless the ice stops melting in the Antarctic in the next week. The final measurements will be in about 6 weeks. We need to consider all the data and not let the deniers get away with ignoring the dramatic decrease in sea ice extent that is well known to have occured in the time before satelite measurements were started. AGW did not start in 1980, why start the sea ice measurements then?
  42. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    fydijkstra @36:It's true that the oceans absorb a huge amount of heat. The oceans are the buffer system of the earth's climate. Yes. Why would the oceans give this heat back to the atmosphere? 1. Because, on occasion the atmosphere is cooler than the ocean and 2. Because evaporation from the ocean resulting in precipitation over land results in the transfer of latent heat. But this is missing the point, see below. After freezing the greenhouse gasses,... I assume here you mean human emissions of greenhouse gases going to nearly zero so that the atmospheric concentration stays the same rather than freezing like that which happens to CO₂ at Mars' poles in winter. :-) the oceans will transfer the heat to colder places, i.e. the deep ocean, Yes. However, this is a slow process as most of the ocean is stable with the denser water at the bottom so most of the transfer of energy to the deep waters happens by circulation at the poles. This is beside the point, though. When equilibrium is reached, by definition, the ocean isn't doing this any more. Even with equilibrium with only the surface waters or the surface and deep but not abyssal waters the story doesn't change that much, I think, because the circulation is such a slow process. but not back to the atmosphere (second law of thermodynamics). As noted above there's no reason for heat not to move back to the atmosphere. However, what is important is that as the ocean reaches equilibrium it doesn't transfer heat back any more than it was before but it does stop absorbing heat from the atmosphere resulting in the temperature of the atmosphere increasing as a result of the net input of heat from the Sun. This is net input which has been happening since the GHGs were emitted but which previously was going to the ocean. Absent the ocean heat sink the temperature of the atmosphere and continents will increase until the radiation balance is re-established.
  43. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    That of course, besides the mistake already spotted in the main article, which demands a little more thinking, and therefore is "less obvious" to the layman. He assumes the effect is immediate, and ignores other influences that offset the greenhouse warming. Certainly not an excusable mistake coming from a working scientist like him.
  44. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    fydijkstra #38 says the FEU error seems more obvious than the Lindzen's statements. Not really so. Even a layman can spot gross incorrections in Lindzen's statement. He says, for example, that larger sensitivities are based on models. Maybe a working climatologist like him is unaware of all the senstivity calculations based on empirical evidence?
  45. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    RW1: 1) thermal linkage between the atmosphere and the ocean is fairly weak so seasonal variability of the atmosphere can be much larger than that of the ocean (though seasonal variability would be greater on a planet with no oceans). 2) thermal linkage between the atmosphere and the ocean is fairly weak so the time taken for atmospheric changes of temperature to bring the ocean to equilibrium are long. These facts don't contradict each other, they are complementary.
  46. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    This post may be right, in that the reaction of the global warming community to the FEU error was more appropriate than the reaction of the sceptic community to Lindzen's supposed error. However, the FEU error seems more obvious than the Lindzen's statements. It's true that the oceans absorb a huge amount of heat. The oceans are the buffer system of the earth's climate. Why would the oceans give this heat back to the atmosphere? After freezing the greenhouse gasses, the oceans will transfer the heat to colder places, i.e. the deep ocean, but not back to the atmosphere (second law of thermodynamics). The effect of this heat distribution through the oceans on the climate is unpredictable with the current state of knowledge. Lindzen can be right or wrong. The sceptic community could have reacted more critical. So, this case study does not end in 1 to 0 for warmists/sceptics but merely 1 to 0.5. But there are other cases, where the scores are opposite. I just mention two: (1) in the controversy between Mann and McIntyre the integrity score of the warmist community against the sceptic community is at the highest 0.2 to 0.8. (2) in the controversy about the hot spot (Douglass versus Santer et al) the score is about 0.5 to 0.5. The issue is still undecided, although the warmist community insists that Santer et al proved the existence of the hot spot.
  47. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    Hey, how come Watts is backing up Lindzen's claim? Now he says the observed warming is almost the full effect of doubled CO2? Wasn't it just an illusion due to ill-placed thermometers?
  48. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    RW1: Another way of explaining what is going on: A cyclical variation in temperature gets propagated into the ground according to the heat equation. The solutions to this equation are: a) sinusoidally varying in time, with the same frequency as the driving temperature; and b) exponentially dying as you proceed into the ground. The faster the frequency, the more quickly the wave dies out; conversely, the slower the frequency, the more slowly the wave dies out. The result is that for higher-frequency variations (diurnal and seasonal), the penetration of the wave (and thus the involvement of the ground) is much less than for the long-period (multi-decadal) variations. In the special case of the straight linear increase in temperature, there is no limit to the depth of the entailed layer: it goes on forever. The situation with the ocean is similar, although fluid mixing confuses the temperature profile and can also entail further water at deeper depths. So your observation that temperature changes follow the driving sunlight doesn't negate the fact that the deeper layers of the ground and ocean participate much more fully in "thermal inertia" at lower frequencies.
  49. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    RW1 @29, you seem to alleging that because a seasonal cycle which results in a 200+ w/m^2 variation in insolation at mid latitudes causes an appreciable change in temperature within a year, that therefore an approximately 4 w/m^2 forcing will heat the ocean to the equilibrium temperatue in less than a year. You allege this despite the fact that the lower the difference between net energy in and out, the lower the rate of heating; and you allege this despite the fact that even for seasonal variations the ocean never reach the equilibrium temperatures associated with the maximum and minimum of insolation. Your argument transparently does not follow.
  50. A Case Study in Climate Science Integrity
    Nice work Dana - as usual.

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