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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 98201 to 98250:

  1. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    I remember years and years ago my lecturer telling us about the data stream from the Voyager spacecraft having a huge number of error correction bits because the signal was so weak and the noise levels were expected to be high. Also the time to request a repeat transmission is very long, so it is preferred to have it correct the first time. The alternative would have been to send the same data hundreds of times automatically so that the base station on Earth could work out the data from the background noise. However it is done, you end up using more bits of data (12 bits of real data may require 24 bits transmitted) than would be the case with a cleaner signal. The point being that to get to the actual signal, you need to sample more data (years in the case of climate) to filter out noise.
  2. The Queensland floods
    Ken, What makes cyclones a particularly potent source of rainfall is the massive convection cell driven by latent heat draws moist air in from a very large surrounding area. When the cyclone dissipates, that moist air (which has not already released its moisture in rainfall) procedes to do so. In contrast, a normal rain depression will not have concentrated the moisture in the first place, so while they are potent sources of rain, they do not have the shere abundance of available moisture that an ex-cyclone will carry with it. They do draw moisture into the center from the surrounding area, but having never been as intense, they never draw in as much. I don't think there is any such thing as "over due" in climate science, but certainly the conditions are ripe for a bumper cyclone season this year.
  3. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    MarkR, Love your last paragraph! Very nice image, a guy walking around with a handful of hay saying, 'See? There's no such thing as needles!' Perhaps this author doesn't realize that it would be stunning indeed if the noise actually correlated with the signal. Perhaps this 'journal' is so desperate to produce more fodder for their cattle-in-denial to ruminate over. With this kind of research in their hands, the anti-needle crowd will next conclude that magnets are a part of another science scam. 'You can't trust 'em -- sometimes they attract, sometimes they repel. W@tts up with that?' We touched on the Soares paper in Zombie graphs, starting with this comment. An actual statistical analysis by G.T. Wilson is worth another plug here. He reaches the exact opposite of Soares' conclusion. The most significant and best estimated effect is the dependence of temperature on the rate of increase of CO2, i.e. the change in the current value of CO2 from its value the previous year.
  4. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #53: "thousands of square km can be represented by 3 weather stations when it is obvious that there is great variability in weather stations within a radius of 150 km?" Because the variability within short distances averages out. This is climate, not weather. No one would suggest that two locations 150 km apart have different climates unless they are separated by some huge physical feature. Your posting of a dozen sites doesn't specify that. When I looked at the first of your 'flat' 1950-2010 locations in #45, I saw this, which has a clearly increasing trend since the mid 50's. At close to 0.2 degC/decade, we do not call it 'flat'. But let's not have a blizzard of of individual station records, this is about trends over large areas.
  5. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #58: "Averaged out, 2010 was normal." Must be a new definition of 'normal'. The graph in #43 demonstrates clearly that not only is the snow extent trend still down, but 2010 was well below the trend line. But your statement reads as if you think the entire year was normal. The year that's tied for the hottest ever. But maybe you're right and that is the new normal.
  6. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    MarkR it's the same old trick, use changes in something (i.e. derivatives) to mask the long term trend and amplify short term noise. Indeed, he fails to do the simple direct correlation between the two quantities. Really no surprise that noise (variability) in CO2 concentration and noise in temperature are not correlated. Statistics is a useful tool but, quoting from Berliner's comment on McShane and Wyner paper,
    The problem of anthropogenic climate change cannot be settled by a purely statistical argument. [...] Rather, the issue involves the combination of statistical analyses and, rather than versus, climate science.
  7. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Berényi Péter the arctic window opens up during winter due to the very low temperatures and dry air. Warming will partially close it, the standard water vapour positive feedback.
  8. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    "The code isn't really very useful for serious analysis work, but I think that it might make a good teaching/demonstration tool." Good idea. With emphasis that it is for demonstration purposes. Perhaps make it available on say Freshmeat or SourceForge. That way if you should make refinements to the code you can offer updates.
  9. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    In reply to #38. 2010 http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php You provided a link to 2011 high latitude Northern temperatures. Click on 2010. No anomalously high temperatures. Was December in Europe cold or warm? 2010/2011 http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php Click on 2010. What are you observing? Why the sudden change in ocean temperatures? Ocean temperature anomaly http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2011/anomnight.1.13.2011.gif How does the temperature at the high arctic change? Why? 1972 http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110114/sc_livescience/currentlaniacouldbestrongesteverrecorded Current La Nina Could be Strongest Ever Recorded Satellite images of the Pacific Ocean reveal La Nina stayed strong in the final two months of 2010. "The solid record of La Nina strength only goes back about 50 years and this latest event appears to be one of the strongest ones over this time period," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
  10. Not a cite for Soare eyes
    Please let me know if anyone here has understood how his conclusions come from his analysis. From my understanding I'm absolutely stunned that any journal, even an obscure one, would publish this. My biggest problem was forcing myself to ignore most of the mistakes in it to concentrate on the main point which made this article very difficult to write!
  11. The Queensland floods
    Tom Curtis #77 I was looking at Cape Moreton from Caloundra on the Friday before the deluge - and wind gusts of 40-45 knots were being experienced. There was a fairly intense low winding up but it never reached cyclonic wind speeds. It is common for cyclones to have less rainfall when the wind speeds are highest, with the major rainfall occurring after weakening into a more or less intense rain depression. Interestingly enough - the latest Standards Australia Wind Code notes that wind speeds for the Region C up the Qld Coast should be arbitrarily uplifted because of the lack of measurements from Qld cyclones in the last 30 years. The action seems to have shifted to the north west of WA, where Cat 3, 4 and 5 cyclones have been much more prevalent. Qld is overdue for a 1960's-70's (eg. 1967 and 1974) season where 4-5 cyclones cross and the odd one runs down the coast - even as far as Maroochydore.
  12. Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    Anne-Marie Blackburn #22 And what do "all the studies on upper-ocean temperatures, the studies which look at ocean heat content to a depth of 2000 metres, the studies which look at changes in abyssal heat content, and the studies that look at sea-level rise and energy imbalance" show?? Suggest you look at 'Robust warming of the upper oceans" thread in this blog. In short summary: latest Willis finds less than 0.1W/sq.m warming equivalent in the deep oceans, von Schukmann chart has bumps which indicate impossible heat transfer rates, Lyman composite is pretty flat after full Argo deployment circa 2003 with a probable offset in the XBT-Argo transition rendering the warming trend line unreliable; and in fact all the data prior to 2003 Argo is probably highly unreliable to the point of being useless. And to cap it all Trenberth's travesty is that the energy balance is far from closed, and SLR is predominantly ice melt (up to 2mm) which absorbs comparatively little heat energy so the energy imbalance worsens.
  13. Seawater Equilibria
    Re. #83 Oops. I wrote 1/(1+5.2d) where I should have written 1/(1+5,2f) where f=d/3790.
  14. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Or maybe some have done the work but don't like the results so are keeping quiet.
  15. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    "why don't you guys roll up your sleeves, get to work and start crunching some data?" - because they have absolutely no interest in the result!
  16. Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
    #38 Sphaerica "In that period you can easily see the trend for greater warming in the winter and spring" From the image you include the same phenomenon seems to be true for the ETCW period (1930s and 1940s). The stronger anomolies seem to be clustering towards the edge of the image. Yet the ETCW period is meant to be a product of solar forcing while the recent is meant to be GHG. Isn't this observation meant to be a fingerprint of GHGs?
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] As you well know, there's a thread for human fingerprints in the seasons.
  17. Berényi Péter at 22:30 PM on 16 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #50 villabolo at 15:11 PM on 16 January, 2011 it's the ocean that warms up the air, not the air cooling off those warm waters The point is the heat sucked out of the ocean by the colder atmosphere above by whatever means (evaporation, radiative transfer, conductance). This excess heat that makes Arctic air let's say -10°C instead of -40°C has nowhere to go but space. As there are always extremely dry patches of air around the Arctic in many locations the so called "Arctic window" (16-30 μm) is also open, making direct radiative transfer of heat from near surface regions to space much more efficient irrespective of the exact width of the narrow CO2 absorption band in between.
  18. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Maybe "quick & simple" would be even better.
  19. The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award
    I would like to nominate for the B.S award Climate: the counter consensus By Robert M Carter For comments such as: 1 Climate has cooled since 1998 2 No increase in the rate of sea level rise. 3 Increase in level of CO2 maybe due to natural causes such as volcanoes. 4 The chance of producing an accurate weather forecast is the same as flipping a coin. 5 Enough strawmen arguments to feed a herd of elephants.
  20. funglestrumpet at 21:21 PM on 16 January 2011
    Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
    #25 DH, thank you for your comments, and I have to admit that you are probably correct. However, I cannot think of a better option. I really don’t think that we can continue along the track we are currently on. Perhaps Professor James Lovelock is correct when he says that we are in for a cull, he certainly has a better grasp of the whole situation than most, and certainly me. However, I refuse to give in to the Murdochs and Monctons of this world without a fight. Let me make a prediction. The human cause of global warming will cease to be important as the actual effects of Climate Change become more apparent. The public will demand action to combat it and will turn to the scientists for guidance action. The “scumbag scientists” attitude will be seen as a dangerous one to adopt. They will accept the science and support the action that scientist advise. They will probably refuse to let America off the hook and a world on one side and America on the other can only have one outcome, regardless of America’s military might. I have previously compared on this site a refusal to act because of the belief that Climate Change is not of human origin as akin to refusing to steer round an iceberg because it too is not of human origin. The task for all of us on this side of the fence is to force the debate forwards so that the public at large becomes aware of the danger it and especially it descendants are in. Only then will they see the just how foolish it is to argue the cause as a reason not to act, and anyway, with scientists being relied upon, they will also believe what they said in the past. When you have a tank at the end of your street firing into the houses, destroying the tank is the only object worth going for. It matters not what nationality the crew. To continue as we are is to delay action and that is one thing should not be allowed to happen. If my suggestion of a Nobel Prize directorate is a non-starter then we should try to think of other means to push things along. John Cook and his colleagues do an excellent job, but in truth we need something several orders of magnitude greater if we are not to sleepwalk into a situation where it becomes too late to do anything meaningful. I suspect that that time is not far off.
  21. A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
    Nice work, Caerbannog! There is a lot of fuzz about climate data, bad ground stations and so on. Your analysis not only shows that a layman (your words, I'm not sure...) with avarage programming skills can get matching results, but also shows that cooking the data does not lead to higher temperatures, on the contrary. The title 'quick and dirty analyses' should be changed, however: 'quick and clean' would be better.
  22. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    GC @ 55 - GISS and GHCN have experienced a great loss of thermometers since 1975. The appropriate thread for your comment is here: Why are there fewer weather stations and what's the effect?
  23. What is the Potential of Wind Power?
    "gpwayne at 18:09 PM on 14 January, 2011 Anyone fancy inviting Prof. MacKay to respond to the remarks about Without Hot Air?" I put these calculations to MacKay before he published his book in hard copy form, but he seemed unable to respond to them! This is hardly surprising since most of his base figures, particularly the fuel usage, seems to be dragged out of ‘thin air rather than hot air’ if I may borrow a pun. Instead our discusson focussed more aircraft efficiency, which he insisted could not be improved significantly. I have detailed this on the same link.
  24. What is the Potential of Wind Power?
    "actually thoughtfull at 12:07 PM on 16 January, 2011 I am having trouble with the heat pump diagram in the original post. I think you are suggesting localized CHP (sort of)? A better use of the same CO2 cutting money would be 1) Reduce building losses. R30 minimum walls/floor, R-50 roof 2) R-8 windows or better 3) ground source heat pump 4) solar thermal for cheap winter heat" Well first of all I am not suggesting that we have exhausted other more cost effective options such as building standards and thermal insulation. However, bear in mind that windows have a large carbon footprint, and we still need to generate energy however much energy we conserve. So what is the best method of doing this? No it isn't just a CHP system that would be missing the point completely, see the title 'heat pump'? it could incoporate item 3) on your list. This is an energy strategy which enables the cost of high penetrations of wind to be reduced, by avoiding expensive storage options so the cost of wind needs re-evaluating anyway. However, it still isn't a zero carbon system unless Bio-gas is used as back-up.
  25. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    William (#32), "It is cold in North America as well as in Europe. The Arctic is not anomalously warm." It was cold in Europe. Quite mild now (overnight double-figure minima for parts of the UK, for example). During the cold late November-December period, which this piece is more concerned with, the Arctic was indeed anomalously warm. For an extreme example, on the morning of November 27th, the area of Wales where I lived went down to a November record-breaking -18C. At the same time, Kangerlussuaq (Greenland, within the Arctic Circle) was at +9C. Crazy stuff! I had a look at the recent literature too: http://www.geologywales.co.uk/storms/winter1011a.htm The climate stuff is halfway down the page past all the snowy photos! Cheers - John
  26. The Inconvenient Skeptic at 20:09 PM on 16 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Moderator, Actually 2010 is over. If you had looked at the data I linked to it would be clear that the calendar year 2010 had normal snow extent for the year as a whole. It was exactly +0.15 million square kilometers for the northern hemisphere. Statistically it is dead on normal. Therefore the claim that 2010 was abnormal is factually incorrect. The jury is not out on the year as a whole. Spring was low, Fall was heavy. That is weather. Averaged out, 2010 was normal. That is what the data says very clearly.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] My comment referred to this winter, 2010/2011, as not being over. My graphic from Rutgers was clearly labeled as being Spring NH Snow Extent. Meteorological winter is DJF. Thus the graphic has the latest published info available from official sources, which are the preferred sources. I avoid "skeptic blogs".
  27. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    On another note-Hadley Climate Research Unit has *fewer* weather stations than GISS, yet they have a smaller warming trend for the period of 1980-2010 than GISS does. So there really is little or no correlation between number of stations & the so-called "warming bias". If anything, the correlation seems to work in the opposite direction implied-that more stations will show a *steeper* warming curve than fewer stations!
  28. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Gary Thompson & Gallopingcamel-could you please provide decent links to back your claims? When I go to this site: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data/ & look at *all* the available data, I don't see your claims backed up at all. All the evidence suggests that GISS has roughly 80% of the NH & 75% of the SH covered by weather stations-which is pretty huge. Also, when I click on the map provided, I'm taken to a list of at least a dozen weather stations in each area-even in places like Greenland & Russia. Of course there are going to be more weather stations in areas like the US & Western Europe-though-because they're more densely populated-making these weather stations less costly to man. I really do recommend that people check their *facts* before dragging out boring old conspiracy theories.
  29. gallopingcamel at 18:08 PM on 16 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    garythompson (@53), GISS and GHCN have experienced a great loss of thermometers since 1975. The losses have been spectacular at high latitudes even though we are told that climate change should be easier to measure near the poles. Some see this as a plot to introduce a "warming bias" into the ground station records. Personally I doubt this kind of conspiracy theory. More likely it is the result of human fallibilities such as laziness, incompetence and changing priorities. James Hansen (GISS) has pointed out that there is a good correlation between stations separated by over 1,000 km and my own studies of raw data confirm this. However, one still wonders why there should be huge numbers of stations in the USA while much larger land masses such as Russia and Canada have diminishing representation. Here are a couple of links that discuss these issues: http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/the-station-drop-out-problem/ http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/the-station-drop-out-problem/ain-part-1/
  30. What is the Potential of Wind Power?
    @ actually thoughtful. Its abundantly clear to me that shifting to a low to zero CO2 economy is going to require changes at both the Demand & Supply side of the energy supply equation-some local (like locally sourced bio-gas, photo-voltaic electricity & wind power) & some multi-national (like the idea to use equatorial-based solar power to meet significant amounts of the electricity needs of Europe & Africa. What I definitely do *not* believe is that these shifts will do medium to long term damage to our economies-that's just a myth put about by those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
  31. gallopingcamel at 17:07 PM on 16 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    You folks who think that 2009 was a cold winter and that 2010 may be even colder fail to realize that the climate has (thankfully) warmed over the last two centuries. The last really cold winter in the northern hemisphere was in 1814 and before that 1795, 1788, 1776 (a year to remember) and 1740. The winters I list make our current "cold winters" look positively balmy.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] "Thankfully"? You've been pointed to this before but seemed to have ignored it, so here it is again: The negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health, economy and environment far outweigh any positives. Please try to read it - and understand it - this time.
  32. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #49 muoncounter my point was.....GISS makes a large area deep red (as shown in the upper left of the figure on this post) but they do this based on 3 weather stations. my analysis of my local area shows great variability in the trends in various weather stations. so why does GISS assume that thousands of square km can be represented by 3 weather stations when it is obvious that there is great variability in weather stations within a radius of 150 km?
  33. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    ....Oh Yooper, that is *hilarious*-it really highlights the alternate universe inhabited by the majority of contrarians. Weather does *not* equal climate. Yet funny how the contrarians only accept that simple fact when *heat* records are getting broken!
  34. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    All the jabber-jawing about weather events and micro-climates is very tiresome. As muoncounter points out, absent a crystal ball and a detailed analysis vetted by peer-review (which takes time, unlike anything published by the day in a SCIRP pub), continuing to focus on the winter of 2010/11 is ruminating on the weather. To illustrate this myopia: The Yooper
  35. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    Berenyi Peter @46: "Cold caused by warmth is..." I'm not a physics major but I know that cold is not caused by warmth. In the case of NAO the warmth is simply relocating the cold. "Those red-hot areas in the Arctic are still well below freezing, therefore it cools any open water that may be there..." Water is a thousand times thicker than air therefore it can absorb and release a lot more energy than thin air. Therefore it's the ocean that warms up the air, not the air cooling off those warm waters. If the ocean water is at 0 Celsius it's going to be transferring heat to the air even if that air is -10C. Temperature is not the same as total energy.
  36. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #45: "an equal number of stations that exhibit warming as those stations that exhibit cooling and flat trends" Not sure what your point is, but you might look here for a continent-wide warming trend.
  37. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #43: "the winter was nothing unusual." Winter is DJF, so its hard to make such a statement without a crystal ball. But if your prediction does prove correct, that would make a very unusual summer with a no-big-deal winter. Where's that new ice age, or the much promised cooling trend that we hear so much about?
  38. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #46: Not all these red hot areas are below freezing. Parts of western greenland (north of the Arctic circle) were well above freezing until just a few weeks ago. Same for areas in the Barents sea like Bjørnøya, at 75degs latitude thas has been above freezing for extended periods in December. Temps dropped in the first half of January, but are headed above freezing again. http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Svalbard/Bjørnøya_radio/ 8 day forecast is not very chilly either: http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Svalbard/Bjørnøya_radio/long.html Average temp for January is -8.1C.
  39. Berényi Péter at 14:17 PM on 16 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    "That harsh winter that we are experiencing, it is not proof that global warming is not happening, but rather serves as proof that it is indeed happening, and even a bit faster than we might like to think." Cold caused by warmth is called a negative feedback. It slows down warming a bit more than you might like to think. Those red-hot areas in the Arctic are still well below freezing, therefore it cools any open water that may be there and transfers the heat to outer space as that's the only heat reservoir around which is colder than the currently "hot" Arctic. I guess Dr. Trenberth would miss this heat extracted from the ocean badly. Also, there's not much sunlight in the Arctic winter, but there is some in lower NH latitudes covered by record snow extent. Most of this light is simply reflected back to space without having a chance to get thermalized - another negative feedback. On top of that this winter is not even particularly unusual, I can remember both much worse and better in the past.
  40. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    i had a typo in post 44 - the next to the last sentence should have stated 3 stations instead of 2. to further my question - in my little corner of South Carolina (USA) you can see that in a range of 150 km there is a great deal of difference in weather stations. For the most part, there is an equal number of stations that exhibit warming as those stations that exhibit cooling and flat trends. below i'll paste a few links to demonstrate this. and to clarify, i'm looking at trends from 1950 to 2010, the following links show warming trends here, here, here and here the following links show cooling trends here, here, here and here the following links show flat trends here, here, here, here, here and here
  41. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    i love the GISS website as it allows a lay person to plot graphs while manipulating the various time periods. that big red blob of dark red in the upper left of the figure in this post is interesting. i picked a point in the middle and found all the weather stations that were within 1400 km of the center that have recorded temps from 1950 to 2010. i got a total of 3. how can we reasonably state that that entire region can be characterized by 2 weather stations? here is the link to the list of stations in the center of that blob.
  42. Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
    Should be "much of the heat transfer occurs during the day." from atmosphere to oceans. But I'm reaching beyond my ken with these details. Any help appreciated.
  43. The Inconvenient Skeptic at 12:56 PM on 16 January 2011
    Global Warming and Cold Winters
    The Rutgers snow lab data has 2010 right at the statistical average for the period that there is accurate data. That would indicate that the winter was nothing unusual. http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/01/snow-extent-for-2010/
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] The jury is still out on this winter. Per your Rutgers link, the long-term trend is still down:
  44. Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
    Daniel: Many thanks for crediting that graphic to me at CEJournal. Through the use of color, that modification of the NASA GISTEMP graphic dramatically conveys what's happening, at least to me.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Thanks for sharing it. I've used it to great effect with several denying friends and relatives. The visual impact is staggering, once they realize what they're looking at.
  45. Coral: life's a bleach... and then you die
    Albatross - Re your sea urchin question. Ran across this by chance: Sea Urchins Destroy Reef Building Algae in Overfished Sites on Kenya's Coast The relevant portions: The authors found that reefs with large numbers of grazing sea urchins reduced the abundance of crustose coralline algae, a species of algae that produce calcium carbonate. Coralline algae contribute to reef growth, specifically the kind of massive flat reefs that fringe most of the tropical reef systems of the world. Overall, reefs with more sea urchins grew significantly slower than ones with more complete fish communities.
  46. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    #41: "If the ocean is naked it gives up heat by convection" Yes, that's the heat that the open ocean absorbed during that time when there wasn't as much ice as there used to be, what's it called? Oh, summer. Warmer water -> warmer air. And that says nothing about 'bypassing' CO2, whatever that means. Apparently there's something about the numbers attached to that ominous red that you're not seeing? "once again another good graphic showing ... " Graphic? Showing CO2 not a big player? Must be a verrrry tiny graphic, 'cause I don't see it.
  47. actually thoughtful at 12:07 PM on 16 January 2011
    What is the Potential of Wind Power?
    I am having trouble with the heat pump diagram in the original post. I think you are suggesting localized CHP (sort of)? A better use of the same CO2 cutting money would be 1) Reduce building losses. R30 minimum walls/floor, R-50 roof 2) R-8 windows or better 3) ground source heat pump 4) solar thermal for cheap winter heat All of the above are cheaper than a site built wind tower, with incentives equal (ie everything incentivized, or nothing). The options are presented in order of their economy. Items 2&3 are roughly equal in payback times. Item 4 moves above item 2 in a heat only climate, stays where it is when you are dealing with heating and cooling loads. So once all that is done, add wind. Now, because the ground source heat pump is taking advantage of your average, year round temperature, you can match your ANNUAL wind generation to your ANNUAL building load and save the local natural gas backup generator (extra pieces are expensive). And it is noisy. And a local device is not going to be as efficient as a centralized device (I am forgiving our history of coal here...). Unless you find yourself very frequently putting energy into the grid at a low point in demand (ie producing power when no one needs it) you will be better off having your wind power reduce coal than you will replacing your natural gas boiler with a natural gas generator, which then uses another device to deliver heat. I bring it up because design is important. It is easy to gloss over details that make renewable proponents look silly. Please let me know if I have missed something in the analysis.
  48. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    I've been watching the models this winter. Seems like warm air is being sucked up from farther south especially around the Sahara. Solar heating of the Arctic can't happen in winter. There is no sun. If the ocean is naked it gives up heat by convection bypassing the effect of CO2 in removing heat to space. And once again another good graphic showing that CO2 is not as big a player as imagined. @7. A good call on the distortion in area due to the projection used to depict a sphere. NASA should use an equal area projection.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Try this one then:
  49. A detailed look at the Little Ice Age
    Showing that use of the phrase "recovering from the LIA" is meaningless does not prove that warming is caused by man-made carbon dioxide (as your post implies). And your hand-waving speculation that human die-offs may have caused the LIA doesn't counter the fact that no-one knows why there was a LIA or why it ended, nor what caused the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages Cold Period, and the Medievel Warm Period. Studies done by reputable scientists conclude that the RWP and the MWP were global and warmer than today (yes, I know that other scientists disagree; that's the nature of scientific debate). If we don't know what has caused the major climate cycles of the near past, how can we now say that the warming of the last 20-50 years can only be caused by mad-made CO2? I know this doesn't prove AGW wrong; but it raises enough doubt--reasonable doubt--to tell me that the debate is far from over. So, as any good scientist should be, I am skeptical.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Please provide links to those studies you refer to that indicate the RWP and MWP were global and warmer than today, as I'm not familiar with them. The last part of your comment basically devolves into "it's not us" so I would suggest reading The human fingerprint in global warming, spending time perusing all 3 versions of the post there to get your answer to that. Thanks!
  50. Global Warming and Cold Winters
    "The heat from the warmed ocean flows upward into the polar air, creating a high pressure system." This bit in the article needs rewriting. Warmed air rising creates a low pressure system. When that air comes back down again it then creates a high pressure system (in a different location).

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