Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 Next
Comments 98301 to 98350:
-
Berényi Péter at 22:30 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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.
-
nealjking at 22:10 PM on 16 January 2011A Quick and Dirty Analysis of GHCN Surface Temperature Data
Maybe "quick & simple" would be even better. -
mars at 21:46 PM on 16 January 2011The 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. -
funglestrumpet at 21:21 PM on 16 January 2011Monckton 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. -
jpvs at 21:18 PM on 16 January 2011A 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. -
Rob Painting at 21:12 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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? -
perseus at 20:57 PM on 16 January 2011What 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. -
perseus at 20:41 PM on 16 January 2011What 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. -
John Mason at 20:35 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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 -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 20:09 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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". -
Marcus at 19:23 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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! -
Marcus at 19:19 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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. -
gallopingcamel at 18:08 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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/ -
Marcus at 17:13 PM on 16 January 2011What 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. -
gallopingcamel at 17:07 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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. -
garythompson at 16:42 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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? -
Marcus at 16:32 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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! -
Daniel Bailey at 15:24 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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
-
villabolo at 15:11 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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. -
muoncounter at 15:00 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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. -
muoncounter at 14:58 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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? -
Esop at 14:56 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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. -
Berényi Péter at 14:17 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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. -
garythompson at 14:09 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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 -
garythompson at 13:39 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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. -
barry1487 at 13:35 PM on 16 January 2011Climate 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. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 12:56 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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:
-
yulsman at 12:27 PM on 16 January 2011Northern 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. -
Rob Painting at 12:19 PM on 16 January 2011Coral: 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. -
muoncounter at 12:14 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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. -
actually thoughtful at 12:07 PM on 16 January 2011What 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. -
TOP at 12:02 PM on 16 January 2011Global 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:
-
pteranodon at 12:00 PM on 16 January 2011A 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! -
Nick Palmer at 11:30 AM on 16 January 2011Global 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). -
dhogaza at 10:18 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
#32 William: "It is cold in North America as well as in Europe." We're having a pineapple express here in OR/WA. (hint: pineapples don't grow in cold climates) -
Esop at 09:58 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
#32 (William): No, it is not cold in Europe. Temperatures in most areas well above average with major flooding as the result. The Arctic above 80 degs is way above average: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php Please provide links for your other claims -
muoncounter at 09:50 AM on 16 January 2011Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
New 2005: Arctic climate change with a 2 degC global warming The geography of the Arctic (land-sea distribution) and snow/ice albedo feedbacks, along with minor changes in cloud and ocean heat transport, lead to an amplified regional warming over the Arctic that ranges from between 3.2 and 6.6 degC for a global change of +2 degC. ... The Arctic temperature change amplification means that these rates of warming are likely to be between 0.45 deg to 0.75 degC/decade, and possibly even as large as 1.55 degC/decade. I suppose the good news is that with these rates, we won't have long to wait. -
Eric (skeptic) at 08:00 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
Re: Gavin Schmidt's paper listed in #30. The interesting and relevant part of the paper is the linkage from lowered TSI to low AO/NAO through increases in planetary wave propagation and a warmer polar stratosphere. Seems that they found same "wave feedback" as the paper in #25 except in the other direction in their model. Conclusions from #30: lower TSI (although not relevant to today) and corresponding drops in SST (also not relevant) caused weather changes resulting in increased planetary wave propagation and polar stratospheric warming, thus negative AO/NAO. Useful part of those conclusions: AO sign is determined by factors that change planetary wave propagation into the Arctic and factors that vary stratospheric temperatures in the Arctic (and both of those effects are linked through some feedback). AGHG warming cools the stratosphere and increases AO, but that is only a long term, broad effect. That may be offset in the short term by Arctic hot spots that force ripples in the polar jet and corresponding wave penetration, warming stratosphere (probably very uneven warming) and negative AO (cold winters, etc). Natural factors are also at work in both directions. The "solar" link is interesting and I've speculated on other threads about "solar" factors, but solar TSI factor from the paper in #30 is not relevant to today's situation (present TSI change is too small). -
David Horton at 07:47 AM on 16 January 2011Monckton Myth #1: Cooling oceans
#23 funglestrumpet Great idea but I will make an instant prediction. Within hours, probably within minutes, of the announcement of such a body, the attacks would begin. "Nobel laureates" what would they know, scumbag scientists? Computer hackers would go to work discrediting the group and the individuals. The disinformation campaign by Monckton and the rest would continue and continue to be given equal if not more than equal weight in the media (Murdoch will not permit any action on CO2 while he lives, and, I suspect, beyond the grave). And while the Hague is a nice idea America (where so much of this disinformation campaign originates) does not recognise the International Court and would certainly not allow its citizens to be tried there. In short, whatever new body was created (and a body created by the UN would have seemed above the lies and smears originally, in the same way as your suggested "Nobel Committee" does) the campaign to prevent action on global warming would continue unabated. Perhaps might gain new vigour with a new target. This is a war for the future of the planet that we are in - it has nothing to do (on one side) with science, facts, analysis, authority, credibility. -
tobyjoyce at 07:24 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
If I looked out my window a month ago, it would have been a snowy, white carpet, at about -5C. Today, we have a warm, wet, south-westerly gale, and I measured a 13C in early afternoon. After the December snows in Ireland and the UK, January has crept up to average, and now there is a definite hint of early spring as we enter its second half. Green is starting to show through fields that were a pale, wasted yellow a week ago. The point is that the "coldest winter for 1,000 years" has turned into a pussycat. Well, ok, it is too soon to say, but the signs are good. Feb 1st (2 weeks away) is the first day of the Celtic Spring. I know there are global warming theories that "explain" the weather phenomenon - but there are alternative theories also. There are the solar minimum theories, and there is natural variability. There is also solar minimum, natural variabiity and global warming all acting together. While there may be more than one plausible explanation, we need a scientific evaluation ... and that is not quick and simple. Here is an article from today's Irish Times that tries make sense of it, by a UCD Professor of Meteorology. Icy Winter -
muoncounter at 07:23 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
#30: "the current happenings are caused by the sun" Camburn, oh Camburn: The article you cite in #30 is from 2001, entitled Solar Forcing of Regional Climate Change During the Maunder Minimum, says nothing about either 'current happenings' or AGW. -
muoncounter at 07:17 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
#32: "look at all of the observation." Just wondering if we could get a look at where your observations are coming from: -it's not anomalously warmer in the Arctic? -low ice extent due to late freezing in only Hudson's Bay? -Arctic ice thickness doubled? If you have sources for these, please post them. -
muoncounter at 07:10 AM on 16 January 2011Northern hemisphere warming rates: More than you may have heard
#44: Peter, Thanks, those are beautiful graphs. "enhanced NH Ocean/atmosphere heat exchange, as well as Arctic amplification" If the NH heat flow cycle is dependent on tropical heat moving north in the oceans and Arctic waters are growing steadily warmer, does this result in amplification effectively spreading into the lower latitudes? It would be interesting to know if anyone has modeled that effect. -
Mila at 06:57 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
#30 If you are really interested in attribution, Gavin Smith's RC article On attribution is a very good one. The article Abstract: We examine the climate response to solar irradiance changes between the late 17th-century Maunder Minimum and the late 18th century. Global average temperature changes are small (about 0.3° to 0.4°C) in both a climate model and empirical reconstructions. However, regional temperature changes are quite large. In the model, these occur primarily through a forced shift toward the low index state of the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation as solar irradiance decreases. This leads to colder temperatures over the Northern Hemisphere continents, especially in winter (1° to 2°C), in agreement with historical records and proxy data for surface temperatures. Science 7 December 2001: Vol. 294 no. 5549 pp. 2149-2152 10.1126/science.1064363 and a few citations: Both paleoclimate reconstructions and the GCM thus indicate in a remarkably consistent manner that solar forcing affects regional scales much more strongly than global or hemispheric scales through forcing of the AO/NAO. and conclusion These results provide evidence that relatively small solar forcing may play a significant role in century-scale NH winter climate change. This suggests that colder winter temperatures over the NH continents during portions of the 15th through the 17th centuries (sometimes called the Little Ice Age) and warmer temperatures during the 12th through 14th centuries (the putative Medieval Warm Period) may have been influenced by long-term solar variations. -
William at 06:14 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
It is cold in North America as well as in Europe. The Arctic is not anomalously warm. Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent is low due to the late freezing of the Hudson Bay ice, however, Arctic sea ice thickness (at high latitudes) has doubled. This La Nina is unusually strong. My point is look at all of the observation. I do not understood how a polar blocking mechanism can explain what is observed. A polar blocking mechanism cannot cause a strong La Nina. I agree with Camburn's comment. Solar cycle 24 is unusual. It should be considered as possible explanation. -
villabolo at 06:06 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
"If you were to look out most windows as of this writing, there is a good chance that you would be presented with an image of winter." There is a fly in what is otherwise a superb soup. That opening line unknowingly reinforces the solipsistic concept that what is going in our backyards or outside of our windows is a measure of reality. Is it really "most windows" on Earth that this spectacle is visible from; especially in the November Anomaly image? I would rephrase the perceptual bias in terms of media coverage versus global occurences. I would do so in a way that tells the reader in the first paragraph that what he sees outside of his window is a very limited portion of what's going on. I would also delete the second paragraph's mention of phraseology as well as any mention of proof until the anomaly image is presented. A better introduction would be: If you were to look at your television as of this writing you would be presented with an image of a cold winter. More than a few of you might be asking yourself, "What happened to global warming?" Would it surprise you to know that only 15%(?) of the Earth has experienced cooler than average temperatures while the other 90% was warmer than average? Greenland, most of the Arctic and east Siberia were up to 10C warmer than average. -
Camburn at 05:48 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
It would appear that the current happenings are caused by the sun rather than agw. At least Mr. Schmidt thinks so. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/294/5549/2149.abstract -
Camburn at 05:44 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
An interesting paper on solar cycles and holocene. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/294/5549/2130.abstract -
hfranzen at 05:17 AM on 16 January 2011Seawater Equilibria
I have redone my calculation and found that a better (perhaps more careful) calculation yields a result that is not quite so discouraging. The result depends upon how deep the surface is taken to be, i.e. to what depth the ocean is in equilibrium with the surface, and the time allowed for eqilibration. Since the numbers are generally considered on an earth-year basis I think that is the relevant time scale. For the ratio of actual ppm decrease that would occur to the decrease that would result from a decrease in our production in the absence of the ocean I get the relation 1/(1+5.2d) where d is the depth (in meters in the ocean of average depth 3790 meters (from Wikipedia)). This yields a 22% return for a depth 200 meters. Of course there will be other response mechanisms as well, but this is one that is easily calculated. This result also means that 22% of our current increase in production is going into the surface ocean if it can be taken to be equilibrated to a depth of 200 meters. Since 22% is in the right ball-park I would guess that 200 meters is not too far off the mark. -
ClimateWatcher at 05:07 AM on 16 January 2011Global Warming and Cold Winters
"The heat from the warmed ocean flows upward into the polar air, creating a high pressure system." This statement is egregiously in error and does not reveal an understanding of meteorology.
Prev 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 Next
