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Comments 98201 to 98250:

  1. gallopingcamel at 16:19 PM on 19 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Phila (#88), Climate change can be very sudden as you can see in Richard Alley's study of the "Younger Dryas": http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.html You may have a point when you say that the climate could warm "too much". How much warming would be too much? I won't try to answer the question as it would only attract another "Yellow Card" for being "Off Topic". Dragging myself "On Topic" again, on average there is at least one cold winter in the UK every 13 years. These cold winters are just "Weather" in the sense that they do not disprove what all the instrumental data is telling us. The climate is growing warmer.
  2. We're heading into an ice age
    @ 221 You mean...they had their own waste heat thread? One is enough to do in any civilization, apparently.
  3. We're heading into an ice age
    #220: Ha! Even the Puppeteers were done in by what could only be called PGW The Puppeteers had to make some drastic alterations to their home system, during their history, as waste heat due to overindustrialisation was rapidly making their planet uninhabitable. They moved their planet further from their sun, to lessen the effects of global warming ...
  4. We're heading into an ice age
    @ 219 I hear General Products was founded by Koch Industries... The "Louis Wu" Yooper
  5. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    #55: KL, These guys have lots of gold just waiting to support some enterprising climate science; you could always apply for a grant.
  6. We're heading into an ice age
    #218: Biblio, Maybe we could build a Ringworld. It would be cooler (from a scifi point of view).
  7. Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 14:08 PM on 19 January 2011
    OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    Very good article, John. I can relate, feeling a bit punch drunk myself after our area has been hit by drought bringing heat extreme records, more major fires than ever burning vast areas (I don't think there's a patch of forest within 300k of here that hasn't been burnt by bushfire since 2003 and we're on the edge of the heavily forested Great Divide). Now two floods in as many months with some major highways damaged and not fully open since September (nothing like Qld or north and west Vic). @ Ken Lambert, this site is brilliant and provides an excellent service in explaining the complexity of climate. It's mainly for people who want to learn about climate and related matters, how and why the climate is changing and what effect it's having more broadly. However, even someone having similar attitudes to yours would be able to learn about climate from exploring this site, if they wished.
  8. We're heading into an ice age
    Even if there was eminent danger of mile-high sheets of ice sitting on Minnesota, such as in 'Fallen Angels' by Larry Niven, we have already drastically overshot the mark.
  9. We're heading into an ice age
    Re: Mr_Pants (215) Welcome to Skeptical Science!
    "Please excuse my ignorance, but are you saying that the increased CO2 levels responsible for global warming have kept us from entering into an Ice Age?"
    I'm not saying it is or isn't in the definitive sense, but the emerging evidence would seem to indicate that.
    "Shouldn't we be glad of that?"
    Dunno. Personally, I'm glad to have a job and a family that loves me.
    "Or is it the case that this global cooling period/Ice Age wouldn't have affected us in our lifetime, or the lifetimes of future generations and as such wouldn't have been of concern anyway?"
    Absent the warming effects of the CO2 bolus we've injected into the air, then the understanding is that the Earth would've continued its gradual cooling trend from the Holocene Optimum for at least the next several thousand years before any onset of an ice age would've become worrysome. But that's neither here nor there. Of bigger and more immediate concern is what damage the warming still in the pipeline will do to our climate and crop production:
    "I'm just a little confused now."
    Been there, done that. The Search function in the upper left corner of every page is your friend here. If you have questions, type in a few keywords & search away. Odds are there's a thread or three here covering that topic. For some good background on Skeptical Science and climate science in general, go here and here. Enjoy! The Yooper
  10. We're heading into an ice age
    The current interglacial would have ended in about 10 thousand years based on the natural cycles. Hence, not really a concern for humanity.
  11. We're heading into an ice age
    Please excuse my ignorance, but are you saying that the increased CO2 levels responsible for global warming have kept us from entering into an Ice Age? Shouldn't we be glad of that? Or is it the case that this global cooling period/Ice Age wouldn't have affected us in our lifetime, or the lifetimes of future generations and as such wouldn't have been of concern anyway? I'm just a little confused now.
  12. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    #159: "the temperature drop over the last decade?" It's been clearly established on numerous threads that a decade is an insignificant time period. This is climate, which most of us understand to encompass a 30 year time frame. Expand the link under 'Climate definitions' to see "Normals are generally averages of climate elements such as temperature or precipitation over a 30–year period". But let's look at the last decade: --from Science Daily 2000-2009, aka the warmest decade on record. As for your 0.12F 'trend', every credible temperature reconstruction finds 0.13-0.3C/decade, as illustrated here. -- Assessing surface temperature reconstructions Once again, you really would benefit from doing some reading here at SkS as well as reading some actual research. If nothing else, your arguments would improve. I mean that sincerely, because at the current level, they haven't been very interesting.
  13. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    Moderator #54 Thanks Daniel Bailey. If you read the many threads on this blog concerning OHC - you will find ample workings from me(calculations in layman's terms) and detailed explanations. In fact I have been accused (probably by you too) of flogging a dead horse more than once. A good understanding of Dr Trenberth's Aug09 paper and his subsequent variations on its theme is needed by those who want to engage in a discussion on warming imbalances and OHC. I have referred to it countless times. I run two businesses and try to design and make things during the day - so time is limited for doing more voluntary work. If some intelligent SS contributor could access me to a river of climate science gold - I would be happy to engage as a professional paper writer.
  14. Monckton Myth #4: Climate Sensitivity
    Ah yes but the Iris Effect, specifically, is about a reduction of the cloud canopy in the tropics which-in turn-was supposed to have a net *negative* forcing effect-by releasing heat out to space. What Ceres showed was that (a) the amount of heat released had been overstated & (b) it was outdone by the amount of radiation being let in (which, of course, means more heat trying to get out)-thus Ceres shows the Iris effect will *not* protect us from increased warming-because it's a net *positive* forcing. Hence Lindzen has made a fatal error!
  15. Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming
    #34: "the rate of warming increases linearly, which is equivalent to a quadratic function of temperature in time." Exactly. Linear forcing equates to an increasing rate of temperature increase, which matches observation: see the graph attached to the comment here.
  16. Monckton Myth #4: Climate Sensitivity
    The deniers believe that clouds refection energy to space and the more clouds=more energy going to space. Marcus the research from Ceres satellites shows that not to be so...
  17. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    HFranzen. I have read your article, thank you. I have a question though, Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, which are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers. Which means that only a small amount of available IR is actually absorbed by the atmospheric CO² as I understand this. Have you taken this into account with your figures, and have you accounted for the fact that increases in Noctilucent Clouds may impact these figures as they increase the Albedo of the planet. I know these clouds are poorly understood at this time.
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Fixed open link
  18. CO2 was higher in the past
    I think everyone needs to be careful about inferred data based on models that are unproven, even if peer reviewed. Discussing the possible increase in Solar output is fraught with problems. Solar models are not complete, our understandings of the inner workings of stars is far from ideal and certainly not complete. There are problems with the SSM (Standard Solar Model) and this may or may not impact our model of the evolution of Stars in general, but especially those with similar properties to our sun. Many papers have been written on this subject in recent years. I would direct anyone interested to this article, Problems for the standard solar model arising from the new solar mixture. by J.A.Guzik 2008 http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2008MmSAI..79..481G Whilst I think it is important and helpful to look at climate data in the past, 400My is taking it to extremes as anything we say about that time is largely guesswork based on assumptions and statistical modelling. Anything more than about 5 million years old, in which we have lots of inter-related indicators of climate in the real world is largely pointless, and I would aim that at both sides of this debate. Wasting time on what may or may not have happened 400My ago is not helpful to anyone IMHO.
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Before you issue a general, unsupported 'be careful' about models, see the debunked argument Models are unreliable; read and digest the content, further comments go there.
  19. Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming
    RE: 29 Dikran We need to keep an eye on Monckton's sleight of hand as well. If CO2 did grow exponentially (which it isn't, it's growing faster than exponentially, Monckton simply went for the biggest lie he could - 'linear', to try and distract people from actual analysis), such that C = A exp (Bt) Then radiative forcing would be F = 5.35 ln (C) = 5.35 ln (A exp(Bt) ) = 5.35 ( ln(A) + Bt ) So the radiative forcing increases linearly with time, but that does not have to mean that temperature increases linearly with time... Consider the case of a very quick change in temperature to illustrate. Change in temperature rate = dT/dt = (1/C) dQ/dt where C is the heat capacity. Let's say you raise dQ/dt linearly very quickly (over a period of weeks, say) such that the system doesn't have time to warm up fully. If the system doesn't warm, it can't dump the heat, so dT/dt increases linearly. i.e. the rate of warming increases linearly, which is equivalent to a quadratic function of temperature in time. This should help illustrate how easy it is to pack in sleights of hand to lie to people.
  20. Monckton Myth #4: Climate Sensitivity
    Yes - it is one of those bizarre pieces of denier logic to simultaneously believe that (a) clouds will roll in to save us all and (b) there is nothing to worry about because the current climate change is less than the great changes of the past, without understanding that those two propositions are totally contradictory.
  21. Monckton Myth #4: Climate Sensitivity
    According to direct observation of tropical clouds, by the CERES satellite, the Iris effect has a net *positive* effect on the energy balance of the tropics. i.e., though it does release a *small* amount of thermal energy, it lets in *more* energy from the sun. So there is a definite, fatal flaw right there. At least, that is how I read it.
  22. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    @e #15 You said in your post. In fact, the key to the greenhouse effect is that CO2 doesn't readily absorb solar radiation, but does absorb infrared. You should read up on the greenhouse effect and thermal radiation. Whilst I understand what you mean, your statement is incorrect due to the terminology you used. Solar Radiation combines all types of radiated energy from the Sun, from Gamma Rays, through the visible range, into Infra-Red, into Microwaves and radio. Of course your comment about CO²'s interaction with IR is correct, but I would urge caution in how it is worded as it could be misleading, and some may jump on your comment and twist it in an attempt to suggest your saying something your not.
  23. Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming
    @19 Dikran Marsupial: OK, have had time to have a play, and here are the results with "simple" equations:
    RankRsqDOF Adj RsqStd ErrorF-statisticEquation
    10.99958380.99953850.47308052.822e+04Quartic(a,b,c,d,e)
    20.99939020.99933830.56663072.622e+04Cubic(a,b,c,d)
    30.99937500.99933590.56777843.917e+04Quadratic(a,b,c)
    40.99210750.99143582.03850482011.2298Exponent4(a,b,c,d)
    50.98904980.98836542.37649812212.8954Exponent3(a,b,c)
    60.98740940.98689552.52268083921.2121Line(a,b)
    I have ignored monster equations like 10th order Chebyshev's and Fourier polynomials. Both 3 and 4-parameter exponentials: y = A0 + A1*Exp(A2*(X+A3)) ) are a poor fit, both visually and statistically. Monckton's beloved straight line is very poor. Using the calibrated eyeball™, it is impossible to tell the difference between the three polynomials. Tamino's log plot simply tells us that it's not an exponential rise in [CO2] - which this comparison confirms. I would suggest you have a play with TC2D: it is quite surprising how well a quadratic fits the data, especially given the limited degrees of freedom of a quadratic.
  24. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    (Re: my comment #31) Excuse me. The last link should be this. The intermediate rebuttals of No. 28 "Oceans are cooling".
  25. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    (Re: my comment #27) Here are some references about interannual variability of CO2 flux and its relationship with El Nino. (Excuse me I cannot provide more up-to-date ones.) C.D. Keeling et al. 1995 R.A. Feely et al. 1999 (Re: Leland Palmer's comment #29) The results of Knox and Douglass paper is essentially Willis's analysis of Argo data, which has already been discussed in The intermediate rebuttals of No. 28 "Oceans are cooling".
  26. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    archiesteel (RE: 104), The evidence is that the cloudy sky has smaller transparent window than the clear sky, and the cloudy sky covers about 2/3rds of the earth's surface. Beyond averages though, I think areas completely covered by low clouds have almost no transparent window - meaning virtually all the emitted surface power is absorbed by the clouds. If the clouds are absorbing most or nearly all of the surface power already, more CO2 will have little effect.
  27. Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino
    WHATDOWEKNOW, I forgot... see here for clear and indisputable evidence of the two month lag between temps and MEI.
  28. Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino
    WHATDOWEKNOW, Close, but no cigar. Please provide a cite for your "strength" numbers. Everything I have seen (and a quick glance at this confirms it) says that the El Nino was moderate, while the La Nina is very, very strong. In fact, the multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) peaked at 1.502 in Feb for the El Nino, but hit -1.99 in Oct for the La Nina. In contrast (because the two values, positive and negative, do not directly compare) the 1998 El Nino hit a value of 2.677 for two consecutive months (and was 2.4/2.5 for the preceding and following months), while the previous comparably sized La Nina was -1.906 way, way back in Jan 1973, and there is no value (not one!) back to 1950 that beats the strength of the current La Nina. 1.5 for one month in 2010, versus 2.4-2.7 for four consecutive months in 1998. -1.99 for one month in 2010, versus -1.9 all the way back in 1973, and nothing else all the way back to 1950. Another indicator, the SOI, is now the highest (positive correlates to La Nina conditions) it's been since 1973, and you have to go all the way back to 1917 and 1904 to find values that are more pronounced (see here). So, again... a citation for your claims about relative El Nino/La Nina strength, please. The statements about the temperature lag are almost accurate, except that the lag relative to the MEI is only two months, not four. You can apply a four month lag to the SOI, but that flips two months sooner than the MEI. So by your logic the year was influenced by 5-6 months of the tail end of a moderate and relatively brief El Nino, and 6-7 months of the start and heart of a very powerful La Nina.
  29. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    Unless I am missing something, and I am not an expert in any field relating to climate science or statistics, even if it is correct, isn't Soares paper essentially irrelevant to the AGW hypothesis? Saores finds that there is no short term correlation between CO2 and temperature. The AGW hypothesis never claims that there will be such a correlation, in fact it expects this by using a measurement methodolgy (moving averages) to account for such short term variability.
  30. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    @RW1: "This is mainly because CO2 has little effect in between the surface and the clouds, because the clouds would absorb virtually all the infrared surface power anyway." Please provide evidence that would support this assertion. Thanks.
  31. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    @pirate: "I did not reference the LIA in that post. I referenced only the ice age, and it stands to reason the Earth warms coming out of a cold period." We are way past the Holocene Optimum. Temperatures should be cooling now, according to the paleoclimatic record. They aren't.
  32. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    MrAce (RE: 101), "I've got the feeling that clouds are of some importance here. Since they absorb a wide spectrum of IR and radiate a blackbody spectrum depending on the temperature of the cloud. If more CO2 does not change the temperature/height/amount of the clouds, we expect the surface to warm even more, because it can only lose extra energy where there are no clouds. Is this reasoning correct?" No, I don't think so. This is mainly because CO2 has little effect in between the surface and the clouds, because the clouds would absorb virtually all the infrared surface power anyway. Where more CO2 has the highest potential to increase the surface power is also where heat most easily and quickly escapes out to space (i.e. in dry, cloudless areas).
  33. Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming
    @NETDR: it would have been simpler if you were capable of admitting when you're wrong. Here is another version of the graph you linked to. The long-term and short-term trends have been offset to be more visible. It is clear, looking at the short-term trends, that the rate is accelerating.
  34. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    WDWK @162, To be honest I really do not know what you are trying to suggest with your posts. It seems that you agree with the main thrust of the OP, so why then reiterate your straw man argument? You are raising a moot point. Tsonis et al. (2005) purport that: "Thus, in a warming climate El Nino events will be more frequent than La Nina events. That transition, if it comes to be, would act to further enhance the long-term underlying warming from the escalating radiative forcing from anthro GHGs.
  35. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    #162: "I show how the ENSO pattern has changed the last 35 years and even more so the last 10 years, shifting from la nina dominated to el nino dominated events" And why do you think that is? What has happened that could shift a fairly regular oscillation so dramatically? From Yeh et al 2009, el Nino in a changing climate: Recent studies show that the canonical El Niño has become less frequent and that a different kind of El Niño has become more common during the late twentieth century ... the central Pacific El Niño (CP-El Niño; ... ), differs from the canonical eastern Pacific El Niño (EP-El Niño) in both the location of maximum SST anomalies and tropical–midlatitude teleconnections. ... we find that projections of anthropogenic climate change are associated with an increased frequency of the CP-El Niño compared to the EP-El Niño. ... the occurrence ratio of CP-El Niño/EP-El Niño is projected to increase as much as five times under global warming. -- emphasis added So given that you agree that AGW exists (ref #158); what was once a 'natural cycle' may no longer be so natural.
  36. Klaus Flemløse at 07:57 AM on 19 January 2011
    A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    I will be pleased if someone could tell me how to the read the GHCN-data using the R-program. Could not find it on the internet !
  37. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    #161. Why did they use MEI? That's a ranked-value, based on 6 variables many of which not related or only indirectly related to temperature. MEI is not an actual measurement. MEI is not a temperature anomaly, such as NOI or SOI. hence, I don't see how subtracting a rank from a temperature anomaly produces anything meaningful. Please explain if it does.
  38. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    #160, thanks but I am not saying climate scientists are ignoring or denying these cycles. I am referring to this original post that claims: "As we can see, "it's just a natural cycle" isn't just a cop-out argument - it's something that scientists have considered, studied, and ruled out long before you and I even knew what global warming was." which I find to be a strong argument and therefore I am saying "Just because there may be AGW doesn't mean global natural cycles have no influence on global temperatures anymore. They always have and always will." I am saying nothing more, nothing less with that statement. I am not accusing anybody with that statement either, it's simply open and true. I am sorry you misinterpreted it and perceived it the way you did. Of course does an el nino alone or all el ninos combined for that matter not explain the current temp anomalies. I never stated that either. But we agree that el ninos and la ninas significantly affect global temperatures. That said, please look again and my comment #137 where I show how the ENSO pattern has changed the last 35 years and even more so the last 10 years, shifting from la nina dominated to el nino dominated events. How does that fit in is my question.
  39. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    muoncounter at 03:22 AM on 18 January, 2011 re "after the flood, first come the home repair scam artists, then the cheesy lawyer commercials" The changes AGW have wrought! In earlier times it was astute stockmen that came after the flood, bringing large cattle herds to fatten on their way to market, grazing the prolific grasses that grew as the flood waters receded from the natural flood plains, leaving newly moistened and nutrient rich soil that early fortunes were made upon.
  40. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    WDWK @ 158 - You should read this Tamino piece, which Daniel Bailey noted here. Accounting for and correcting the various known cycles, the underlying trend is very clear.
  41. Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming
    NETDR: "I am only looking at 90 years because we will have transferred to renewable fuel by then" If there is no problem with continuing to pump CO2 into the atmosphere at the current, accelertaing rate, why would we switch to renewables?
  42. OK global warming, this time it's personal!
    barry at 23:39 PM on 17 January, 2011, perhaps the best of all handy references that enables rainfall Australia wide to be put into perspective at a glance, is a wall chart published by Queensland Natural Resources and Mines. Pictorially it displays annual rainfall Australia wide relative to historical records 1890 - 2004 with updates available for each succeeding year to present. Unfortunately it is no longer available as a wall chart as it would be of great assistance to those trying to interpret recent events in relation to historical records using graphs or statistics which don't convey the full picture and can easily be misinterpreted.
  43. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    WWDK @158, "Just because there may be AGW doesn't mean global natural cycles have no influence on global temperatures anymore. They always have and always will." You are making a classic strawman argument there. Nobody int he know here is denying that the climate system has internal modes (e.g., ENSO, AMO), nor are they denying that they do modulate global SAT record to some extent. What these transient internal climate modes (which are cyclical by nature) do not explain is the sustained, long-term warming that is observed in the SAT record. An El Nino alone does not explain the current global SAT anomaly of +0.63 K (GISTEMP) relative to the 1951-1980 baseline, nor does it explain the +0.85 K warming observed since circa 1880. ENSO perturbs global annual SATs by about +/- 0.1 K, and at most about +/- 0.2 K for a strong event (Trenberth et al. 2002). From Tsonis et al. (2005): "Note that the contribution of ENSO to the long-term temperature trend in the last 50 years is about 0.06 C or 10% of the overall trend [Trenberth et al.,2002].However, as Figure 2a indicates, after a time scale of the order of 16 (5 + 11) months, El Nino’s role is to reverse that tendency." So much for the (false) claim made here and elsewhere that natural cycles are being "ignored" by climate scientists. To suggest so is incredibly patronizing to climate scientists.
  44. Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino
    The response lag-time between atmosphere and ENSO events is well-known to be 3-4 months (e.g. here). Hence, one has to look 3-4 months ahead in time to see how global temperatures start and end to respond and not compare month to month values. That said, the previous el nino started officially June 2009 (month 6 of 2009) and lasted until April 2010 (month 4 of 2010). The current la nina started officially July 2010 (month 7 of 2010). Let's take a look when the global atmosphere started to respond to both events using first the lower bound response: 3 months and then the upper bound response: 4 months. 3 months lag El Nino: atmosphere started to respond September 2009 (month 6+3=9) 2009 and ended to respond July (month 4+3=7) 2010. La Nina: atmosphere started to respond October (month 7+3) 2010. 4 months lag El Nino: atmosphere started to respond October 2009 (month 6+4=10) 2009 and ended to respond August 2010 (month 4+4=8). La Nina: atmosphere started to respond November 2011 (month 7+4=11). Now these are lower and upper bound assumptions, but it shows that 2010 was influenced between 7-8 months out of 12 by the previous el nino and between 2-3 months out of 12 by the current la nina. Hence, it is safe to say that 2010 was mainly influenced by the previous el nino and not the current la nina. Taking also into account that the past el nino had a peak strength of 1.8, whereas the current la nina's peak is -1.4, it is even more save to say that the el nino had both a longer and stronger effect on 2010 than the current la nina.
  45. apiratelooksat50 at 06:12 AM on 19 January 2011
    Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    Muon @ 146 I know the difference between C and F. Apparently you failed to follow my link. I plainly referenced I was using the NOAA website and provided the link. It uses Imperial units. The website allows you to look at data from 1895 to 2010. I used their software to generate graphs and data pertaining to each decade by using the most recent 12-month period for rankings. Go check it out. "BTW, we 'came out of the LIA' decades ago, so you can stop repeating that. Besides, its a topic for another thread." I did not reference the LIA in that post. I referenced only the ice age, and it stands to reason the Earth warms coming out of a cold period. Are you going to answer about the temperature drop over the last decade? The decadal average is 0.12 F over that time period for a total rise of 1.26 F.
    Moderator Response: If you actually read the original post of this thread, you will see "the Milankovitch cycles that drive glaciation show that we should be, in fact, very slowly going into a new ice age (but anthropogenic warming is virtually certain to offset that influence)."
  46. Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming
    NETDR i've tried to reproduce your data but i couldn't. I was able to reproduce only the same linear trend when using alog10 of concentration instead of the natural logarithm, but a different offset. Could you please give more details on what you did? By the way, using the correct logarithm I was able to reproduce Tamino's results (no surprise here); I can confirm that the coefficient of the quadratic term is statistically significant. Definitely CO2 is rising faster than exponential, let alone linearly.
  47. keithpickering at 05:23 AM on 19 January 2011
    Monckton Myth #2: Temperature records, trends and El Nino
    To be fair ... El Niño and La Niña are known to lead global temps by 6 months or so, which means that the 2010 temperature year should be most correctly compared to the SOI year of 7/2009 to 6/2010, which is fairly strong El Niño throughout. Using the same technique, one can also predict that early 2011 temps will be quite cool compared to recent years, as the current La Niña seems to be a doozy.
  48. Could global warming be caused by natural cycles?
    #152. if it is equally OK to say that it's a tie because of the la nina, it is equally OK to say that it's a tie because of the el nino. Actually it is more correct to say the latter due to the 3-6 months lack in response in global atmospheric temperatures to ENSO events and since the el nino was during fall-winter '09 through spring '10, whereas the la nina didn;t start until june/july '10 this delayed response caused '10 to be obviously mainly affected by the el nino and not the la nina. Please stop tap dancing to your own little drum and also accept facts that do not (always) support your thoughts and theories. Just because 2010 was a tie with 2005 and since it was an el nino year doesn't mean there is no AGW, it simply means that it was warmer because of an el nino (and AGW?). Just because there may be AGW doesn't mean global natural cycles have no influence on global temperatures anymore. They always have and always will. Please remember: no matter how beautiful the guess is, or how brilliant or famous the guesser is. If in the end the experiment shows the guess is wrong than that's all there is to it.
  49. Dikran Marsupial at 05:18 AM on 19 January 2011
    Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming
    NETDR@26 The log of an exponential function is a linear function, regardless of what the "acceleration" is. Say we have an exponential function f(x) = A*exp{B*x} The second derivative (or acceleration is) f''(x) = A*B^2exp(B*x) Note the "acceleration" depends on the constants A and B. Now if we compute the log of f(x) we get g(x) = log(f(x)) = log{A} + B*x which is a linear function, whatever the values of A and B, and hence whatever the acceleration (which depends on A and B). I hope we agree so far. Now the radiative forcing due to CO2 is a logarithmic function of atmospheric concentration Forcing = C*log(f(x)) = C*log{A} + C*B*x This is also a linear function, but the slope depends on the rate constant of the exponential (B), but it also depends on the constant C which represents climate sensitivity. Thus whether the acceleration in the growth of CO2 is important depends on climate sensitivity, so you can't just dismis it without mentioning climate sensitivity. I appologise if making the argument in such basic mathematical terms appears condescending, but I couldn't think of any other way of demonstrating the flaw in your argument.
  50. Monckton Myth #3: Linear Warming
    Dana1981: "It's bad enough to cherrypick UAH, but even worse to cherrypick it over a timeframe during 25% of which it didn't even exist!" Speaking of cherry-picking UAH, I've noticed that over the same time period as the RSS, UAH trends significantly lower (though still upwards). I don't know why that is and it'd be presumptuous of me to speculate, but it seems to make UAH more attractive as a source for the obfuscation of temperature trends.

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