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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 99701 to 99750:

  1. Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
    How about this one-sided moderation, Huh? You made my point about one sided review ...
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] And your point is...? Only comments in violation of the Comments Policy get deleted. Stay on topic, accept responsibility for the content of your comments and bring a strong logically constructed argument with links to peer-reviewed supporting sources to lend credibility. Blaming moderators, being off-topic and saying inflammatory things about others mandates moderator intervention. That's life.
  2. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Strangely (as an AGW sceptic) I agree that it is the science that divides us on AGW. Firstly the raw temperature data from around the planet does not support the claim that there is ANY warming going on. Only after NASA or the UEA have "ahem" adjusted the data does warming appear. Secondly even if there WAS a consensus on the scientific basis for AGW (which I do not agree exists) it would be irelevant. The science suggesting that man is warming the planet and that this is happening through increasing Greenhouse gases is theory, it is not tested/proven experimentally/empirically. Fortunately the planet has actually done the xperiments for us so we do not need to worry about the current theories until they agree with the empirical evidence.
  3. Eric (skeptic) at 12:20 PM on 1 January 2011
    NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Albatross, my goal is to explain causes of blocking. Ice free Arctic is at best only a partial cause, or perhaps a factor in lengthening or deepening the blocking. I agree with the rest of your summary regarding the role of CO2 warming in making heat waves worse. As I pointed out in 51, 56 and earlier, record highs are not corrected for UHIE like average temperatures are, so the numbers of record highs is higher and record lows is lower because of UHIE. Muoncounter, a theory of blocking requires more than just a powerful forcing from CO2. The theory proposed in your link in 149 is a reinforcing, not a cause. On another thread you mentioned something about how skeptics are treating winter differently. It is different although some underlying mechanisms might be the same. In winter it might be that the lack of sea ice determines the placement of highs and lows and performs a reinforcement like warmer sea surfaces in summer (from 149). Still that begs for a causal explanation that was present before AGW played any role. NAO is one measurement of blocking, the lower the NAO, the more the blocking. There are other measurements. UV heats the stratosphere, see http://www.springerlink.com/content/h0q4h17u4632671v/fulltext.pdf Low UV cools the stratosphere along with GHG increases, that gives the potential of reinforcing by AGW. Seasonally the solar role would be greater in NH summer. Cooling of the stratosphere and blocking are both cause and effect (see http://ams.confex.com/ams/16Fluid/techprogram/paper_124458.htm) so it seems that the spatial variation in stratospheric temperature plays the greatest role in producing and sustaining blocking events.
  4. Philippe Chantreau at 11:45 AM on 1 January 2011
    The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award
    I lost interest half way through Monckton convoluted excuse for claiming to be what he's not. I'll take the word of the House of Lords vs his any time. However, this has no bearing on the vacuity of his arguments, which has been thoroughly exposed, nor does it lend more credence to the gross misrepresentation and deception that he has made his trade.
  5. It's cooling
    @101, thanks a lot, albatross. I've been a bit down lately with the amount of persistent rot-postings here. Inviting another one looks almost like masochism. Back to Chris's problem. The friend seems not to have provided names or references for this assemblage of learned persons. My response to this on other sites is to ask for names - I can do the scholar and general google searching thereafter myself. Chris cannot possibly deal with the mindset or the ideology or the paranoia. The strategy is simply to focus on specifics. And show a proper regard for facts - "I found this paper by A Williams, is that the one you meant?" Remember, you're not looking for a road to Damascus moment for this particular person. You're looking to chip away at the edges of their certainty about particulars, a.n.d. , to display to any observers of the exchange which of you has a better grasp of the correct way to find and interpret facts about science.
  6. It's freaking cold!
    #73: See earlier comments. Interesting how the deniers use the jetstream to 'explain away' summer heat waves, but in the winter, they call it 'climate astrology'. How do you spell 'double standard'?
  7. It's cooling
    Chris @ 100 - where's the evidence from those scientists that the Earth is cooling?. Not the UK or parts of the US in winter, the Earth.
  8. A Positive Outlook For Clouds
    The goal of my calculation was to test whether the consensus 3ºC climate sensitivity figure for a doubling of CO2 (~0.75ºC per W/m²) is reasonable. Forcing (E) and Temperature (T) are interrelated (E = εσT^4). Time does not play a part in this relationship at the planetary level. Time is only needed to allow equilibrium to be reached so we can see the new temperature properly reflected in surface measurements. A 36-year period should allow that to happen. If one adds one W/m² of forcing in a single day and sustains that forcing until equilibrium is reached, or one adds the same forcing gradually over a period of 100 years, the end result is the same - the measured temperature of Earth will be ~0.75ºC warmer. The continuous warming that occurs over the much longer period is constantly radiated away into space leaving 0.75ºC for us to measure at the end of that period. The time for which the forcing is applied is not relevant to the calculation. As I stated earlier, other non-CO2 forcings neutralize each other (by chance) so they don't really need to be accounted for separately in my rough calculation, and 0.75ºC per W/m² is assumed to reflect all feedbacks, both positive and negative, well-defined or unknown. It is this assumption that I'm testing against reality. In all likelihood, the period for which I calculated the expected warming of 0.67ºC had/has both 0.5ºC of committed warming in the pipe at the start and end of the period, effectively allowing me to see a clear CO2 effect in surface temperatures without waiting for equilibrium to settle in and reflect what's still in the pipe at the end (i.e. the two cancelled). I'm not saying my calculation is proof of the consensus 3ºC climate sensitivity figure. I'm just showing that applying that figure in the standard forcing calculation gives an expected result that's consistent with the observed result. Had the results been wildly different, then I'd be wondering if our scientific understanding is correct. I'm sure if I tried the same calculation with shorter periods or periods before 1975, the result would not match so well. My explanation for that would be to say that CO2 needs to be the dominant driver of temperatures to see the effect clearly. My understanding is that CO2 has been dominant since 1975.
  9. It's cooling
    Chris @100, IMHO, this is a no win for you. Your friend has clearly made up his/her mind that some conspiracy is afoot; so no matter how much science, data and reason you provide, s/he will just keep moving the goal posts or arguing strawmen or claiming there is a conspiracy going on. I my experience, people like this never concede a thing, and have no interest in the "truth", but only the "truth" as they perceive it. I sense a lot of bluster and extremely little, if any, substance in his/her rant. Rather it is just another long list of common (and predictable) misinformation being parroted from places like ClimateDepot. I might regret this, but perhaps the best thing to do is to urge/challenge him/her to post here. That way we can address each and every misguided, unsubstantiated and incorrect assertion they make. Also, it will force him/her to put their money where their mouth is.
  10. We're heading into an ice age
    Dorianmc forgets (or is unaware) of the multiple layers of the atmosphere and that at the level of the TOA, convection is largely non-existent and radiative transfer rules. And that at no point in the last several interglacials did CO2 concentrations ever approach what they are today, heightening the importance of back radiation. Also remember that the zero baseline of Petit 2000 was 1950. Let's take a look at that whole timeframe, extending it to today's CO2 levels: A re-watching of Alley's talk would be instructive here. The Yooper
  11. We're heading into an ice age
    Dorianmc, Firstly, who said we were undergoing runaway temperature increases? So far warming has been very tightly controlled, doing pretty much what climatologists said it would do in reaction to increasing CO2 levels. Secondly, we're in the middle of an interglacial period that should be cooling according to natural forcings, but it isn't. Temperature is spiking rapidly on a geological timescale. Thirdly, exactly how do you know that radiative transfer is "meager"? And what gives you the bizarre idea that convection isn't taken into account? Which model states that only radiative effects are taken into consideration? Your previous post is a rambling mess of assertion.
  12. We're heading into an ice age
    Have any of those individuals pointing to the “Petit 2000” graph actually bothered to look at it and study what it means? According to the graph if you move backward through time to "now" you see a rapid increase in temperature - consistent with other ice ages - but the highest temperature reached, during the present temperature increase period, never reaches the same high it reached in previous ice ages. The high in previous periods is over 3 deg above the baseline whereas it is less than 2 deg above the baseline for the present. How can anybody interpret this as a temperature rise that’s out of control? If we’re in the middle of a glacial warming period it stands to reason that each year will be warmer than the next until the warming trend ends. BTW: The most efficient way to transfer thermal energy is by convection. If you remember your physics there are three ways to transfer thermal energy – radiation, conduction and convection. Why does the GW model only consider the meager role of radiation heat transfer when convection heat transfer is far more efficient?
  13. It's cooling
    Thanks for the responses Archiesteel & Bipliovermis. I directed my friend to this thread and this was his response: "Well, I followed the link you provided to the Skeptical Science site and I read what they had to say about the assertion that the earth is in a current cooling trend. I really don’t see what you see in the site? I provided you with a long list of scientists who are in agreement that the earth is cooling and skeptical science writes: “Whilst it’s natural to start with air temperatures, a more thorough examination should be as inclusive as possible; snow cover, ice melt, air temperatures over land and sea, even the sea temperatures themselves.” Yes … they thought of that! In fact it was a thorough study of temperatures from the sources listed that brought the list of scientists to the conclusion that the earth is in a cooling trend. This is a good example of the “Straw man” arguments put up by many Global Warmers. The Skeptical Science author implies that people who believe the earth is cooling just haven’t thought of measuring things like ocean temperature. Then he steps in and provides the easy answer to the ravings of the lunatic scientific fringe, “They only look at air temperature! They need to check the oceans!” Ahhh, thank you oh wise one! Of course, anyone who actually looked at the research being conducted by vast numbers of scientists all over the world would understand that their temperature data was amassed from a wide sampling. Also, and I mention this only in passing, anyone who even casually read the emails from the University at East Anglia would know that a major concern that the top Global Warming scientists had (Their research went directly to the U.N.) was that they had no data showing a heating planet and therefore conspired to destroy the data they had. They did in fact destroy and manipulate their data, ultimately resulting in a number of firings. I’m absolutely loving watching Global Warmers explain the current cold snap. The problem, of course, is that Global Warmers had been predicting heat …hence the name, Global “Warming.” So now Global Warmers must emphasize that hey, a few years or even a decade or longer means nothing, what really counts is the long term trend! Here’s how Skeptical Science put it: “For climate change, it is the long term trends that are important; measured over decades or more, and those long term trends show that the globe is still, unfortunately, warming.” Now, go to the site that Chris linked to and drop down to the graph. Click on anything, Ocean heat Content, Sea Surface, etc. (Strangely, no matter what you click on you’re taken to the same story from the government agency NOAA but remember, “There is no political connection between government and Global Warming scientists” …keep repeating that) Look at the title of the NOAA story, See the word “Decade”? Now I don’t see any Global Warmers criticizing the government agency NOAA for irresponsibly reporting how the earth’s temperature increased over a decade when real science looks at the long term picture. Why is this? Why is it that we see Global Warmers jumping up and down and frothing at the mouth to explain away relatively short term cold spells when a simple Google search will reveal that Global Warmers use ANY sort of heating trend from a lake that appears to be drying up to a hot week in November to try and prove their theory that mankind is dooming the planet? Long term trends are indeed all that are important and real scientists know this. Global Warmers, on the other hand, play both sides of the fence. When things are hot, it’s a sign of the coming apocalypse, when it’s cold, it’s just “weather” that really doesn’t mean anything."
  14. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    @TÖP #49 At most AGW and GW are different "agendas" to people who only have a life with those. AGW is GW with an specific cause. You know it and you also know you were playing with the ambiguity in your words. Just in case you "won't understand", this is an analytical site that has developed a number of different argumentative lines not only for the sake of analysis but also as a way to neutralize the insidious tactic of the self called global-warming-skepticism, that of "throw(ing) everything at the wall a see what sticks". Following that lines this post offers a depiction including some GW evidence. You simply tried to make the causes of it the argument -a complete offtopic-. You later included Hansen in your plea, what dispels any doubt one can have, methinks.
  15. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    Hugo, "GWPPT6" is the clearest description of GHG forcing that this scientifically literate non-expert has ever read. Thank you.
  16. Hyperactive Hydrologist at 07:20 AM on 1 January 2011
    It's freaking cold!
    Article from JGR that people might find interesting JGR article I think the reduction of Arctic sea ice may be having an impact on atmospheric circulation.
  17. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    #150: "Temperature causes things, not delta T." Sorry, I just noticed that. Delta T (temperature anomaly) is just the difference between a given measurement and the average for a standardized period; ie, a measure of temperature. A +0.8C deltaT means a higher temperature - which leads to unusual weather events. However, we are looking for the cause of the continuing trend of increasingly positive deltaT; for that, we cannot use cyclical variations. We must have causes that include a largely increasing component. Until the 'natural causes' you want to rely upon can be shown to have that characteristic, they are not part of the story.
  18. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Norman, The Northern Hemisphere snow cover in summer has declined so far that there is little room left for decline. The snow is essentially all gone. I conceed that you are correct that in 1988 there was almost no snow and that the current years are not significantly lower (since it is impossible to go lower than zero). I will also conceed that there is no longer retreat in those glaciers that have completely melted. I do not think that the disappearance of the snow cover in summer means it is not getting warmer. Argue however you want. The data is clear.
  19. Did Global Warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?
    Archie and Argus, Argus, I cannot understand why you would blindly follow BP's bizarre reasoning and unsubstantiated claims. OK, own up-- who abducted the good old BP and where is he? Please bring him back, we miss him. UAH (ch 5) data show that December 2010 is going to come in slightly above normal. Anyways, since when did 'skeptics' become obsessed with regional, monthly temperature departures when they fit their ideology? Oh right...never mind ;) Anything to detract from the fact that 2010 is likely going to be the warmest, and almost certainly the second warmest on record. 2009 was the previous second warmest year on record in GISTEMP. It is also lost on Argus that BP is contradicting himself, agreeing that there is a warming trend on another thread, while here claiming that the earth is 'cooling itself' and that global temperatures in December are below average. The contradictory, incoherent and inconsistent arguments made by so-called "skeptics" continues unabated, but thanks to SS, not uncontested.
  20. Antarctica is gaining ice
    Expalain this. Is there a pattern? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Do you see a pattern? Please elaborate more on what your question is, as I don't have enough specifics to go by. Thanks!
  21. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    #150: The reconstruction of UV you cite (Haberreiter 2005) is for the period 1975-2002. It shows peaks in the wavelengths 115-400nm that follow a roughly 11 year cycle ('80, '90 and '01). But the amplitude of these spectral irradiance peaks is a mere 0.004 W m-2 nm-1. To put that in perspective, the TOA peak around 500 nm is 2 W m-2 nm-1. I'm astounded that anyone -- especially the same folks who deride CO2 forcing 3 orders of magnitude higher -- put any credibility in that. The word 'blocking' does not appear in this paper. Then there is the NAO link in #147: The '80 UV peak is NAO negative, the '90 UV peak is NAO positive and the '00-01 peak is in between. To go two steps further, summer '03 NAO is near zero, summer '10 NAO is big negative. What is the correlation between UV, NAO and blocking? Isn't it a stretch to even consider this relationship 'crude'?
  22. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Eric, Anything but GHGs eh? The UV hypothesis may well be a valid one, but correlations is not causation, especially in the absence of a credible and physical mechanism. Anyhow, what you say does not change the fact that record highs, at least in the USA, are being broken twice as often as record lows. The planet is warming, and heat waves are on the increase. The actual point of me including Trenberth's quote is that every weather event now has both a natural and anthropogenic component. You just agreed to that--and there is no way that what he says applies only to WV. These extreme events do not happen in isolation form the rest of the climate system, it is a continuum. So if one does have a major blocking event in the summer, especially over a large land mass, there will be an anthropogenic signal/component superimposed on that because of the underlying long-term warming trend, which is going to exacerbate the situation. Worse still, the higher night time minima (an AGW fingerprint) reduce the time people have a respite from the heat stress, and that too makes matters worse. There is also something called the "Humidex", and as Trenberth noted (and you agree), there is more moisture out there, which can also potentially increase the apparent temperatures. Now as to exactly what causes blocking events to happen where and when they do, well now that is an interesting area of research.
  23. The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award
    Here is Monckton's explanation of his membership, from the footnotes in Wikipedia: The House of Lords has firmly rejected Monckton's explanation, and I suspect they're a bit more knowledgeable about their rules of membership than he is. It suddenly strikes me that Monckton is basically the person many "skeptics" accuse Al Gore of being. The tireless self-promotion, the baseless claims to have invented this or that, the overheated alarmist rhetoric, the padded resume, the unconcealed elitism and snobbery...Monckton is the hard-right caricature version of Gore in the flesh, and far too many "skeptics" seem to love him for it. Or they did, anyway. He doesn't seem to get the respect he used to, thank heavens.
  24. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Given that the 'skeptics' are too lazy to actually back up their assertions with some numbers and to crunch some numbers, I have done it for you. Mean N.Hemi snow cover extent (SCE; data from Rutgers) for March-May (Boreal Spring) is not explained by a simple linear model (the fit is not statistically significant, with R^2 =0.01). The cherry-picked data are, as predicted, explained pretty well (R^2 = 0.345) by a quadratic function, with an inflection point in 1998. So, "skeptics", please allow us then to pick 1998 as the start point for a rapid decline in N. Hemi. SCE? ;)
  25. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Billj, The graph is a schematic. With that said, the baseline typically used for global SATs is 1951-1980--of course the window used does not affect the long-term trend. My take of these data is that they obviously are intended to reflect the warming that has been observed during the instrumented record, say circa 1850 (HadCRUT) or 1880 GISTEMP.
  26. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Baseline for changes is readily accepted in other scientific disciplines.I would have thought that a simple annotation to the graphic would make the point of this post really clear.I'm surprised by the lack of this data here and the rather childish response of 'go look for it somewhere else'.
  27. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Billj, That information is readily available. Newcomers, start here What is the basis for presuming there was an optimum decade?
  28. Eric (skeptic) at 05:27 AM on 1 January 2011
    NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Albatross, yes, and that canyon just got wider. I presented real world data which shows a correlation (albeit imperfect) between the external UV and one internal measurement of blocking. Your response is that a probability distribution from a model can be used as a likelihood estimator. That is a huge difference in how we are deriving attribution and a big difference in understanding of statistical attribution (from measurements versus assumptions). The Stott powerpoint says "Human influence has very likely at least doubled the risk of European summer temperatures as hot as 2003". The "very likely" seems to come from the statement that "most of the observed increase in GAT is very likely due to the observed increase in AGG". Next, we need to find a connection from the observed increase in GAT to the blocking pattern in 2003. There is obviously no such connection as GAT is not an input to any process in any model (it is derived from model results only). The model output probability distributions are entirely dependent on input variable distributions and model dynamics and I have seen no indication that model results of blocking events are validated. In fact they tend to underestimate blocking which indicates missing factors such as solar UV that I pointed out. http://www.springerlink.com/index/RDQ5DJ9LQAGPE7LB.pdf (an old study). I agree with Trenberth, the extra water vapor is going to have a big effect, but it doesn't relate to the blocking patterns we are talking about.
  29. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Norman why cherry-pick 1988? What is so special about that particular year, are we missing something? Why not look at all the data? Well, a quick inspection of the data betrays your intent. Anyhow, N. Hemi. snow cover in the warm season is decreasing, stop trying to claim otherwise by eye-balling and cherry-picking. It didn't work with SATs and 1998, and it is not going to work now. PS: Actually, I bet that if you cherry pick 1988, a quadratic will give you the best fit (vs linear), with an inflection point around 1996.
  30. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    in science when you report an increase or a decrease, you would normally be required to state 'from when', at least in my experience ?
  31. The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award
    Here is Monckton's explanation of his membership, from the footnotes in Wikipedia: Monckton, Christopher (2020-07-15). "Questions from the Select Committee Concerning My Recent Testimony". Science & Public Policy Institute. Monckton said: "The House of Lords Act 1999 debarred all but 92 of the 650 Hereditary Peers, including my father, from sitting or voting, and purported to – but did not – remove membership of the Upper House. Letters Patent granting peerages, and consequently membership, are the personal gift of the Monarch. Only a specific law can annul a grant. The 1999 Act was a general law. The then Government, realizing this defect, took three maladroit steps: it wrote asking expelled Peers to return their Letters Patent (though that does not annul them); in 2009 it withdrew the passes admitting expelled Peers to the House (and implying they were members); and it told the enquiry clerks to deny they were members: but a written Parliamentary Answer by the Lord President of the Council admits that general legislation cannot annul Letters Patent, so I am The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (as my passport shows), a member of the Upper House but without the right to sit or vote, and I have never pretended otherwise."
  32. The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award
    memoryvault: FIRST PLACE goes to anybody who dares to suggest that maybe whatever was happening as far as warming went, has now stopped and maybe things are starting to cool off. It's very easy to wallow in sarcasm, and to treat people who are going out of their way to make demonstrably false claims as somehow "daring" (or better yet, "oppressed," no matter how big their megaphone is). It's very easy to say "I doubt it," and when presented with facts, say it again and again, louder and louder. What's more difficult is making a coherent scientific argument for "cooling," and backing it up with plenty of solid, non-manipulated evidence. My guess is that if you were capable of doing this, you wouldn't be wasting your time and ours with childish sarcasm of this sort. Feel free to prove me wrong (on the correct thread, please).
  33. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Bibliovermis (51): the Optimal Decade gambit is clearly a straw-man, logic-fail argument.
  34. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    #47 michael sweet I looked through all the monthly anomalies for snow cover. It does appear that in May, June and July snow cover has dropped in the Northern Hemisphere since 1988 but not the other months. The 12 month running mean shows no decrease in snow cover from 1988 to 2010. The graphic indicates only snow cover has decreassed. It does not make the specification that summer snow has decreased so the arrow is still not valid. Snow cover has not gone down in NH in any meaningful trend since 1988 (22 years), it should be horizontal. In your Tamio graph of summer snow cover, what would your red trend line look like if you started at 1988 instead of 1967? Would it still be going down? Or would it be a flat-line?
  35. Did Global Warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?
    #73:"Come on, energy and heat are not interchangeable concepts. Energy can go every which way, back and forth, provided it is conserved (first law), while heat only moves in one direction, from warm to colder reservoirs (second law). So called "back radiation" is an obfuscation, it does not change the direction of heat flow if air above is colder than the surface, as usual. It can influence the rate of heat loss, but that's all." This entire paragraph needs to be rethought. -What distinctions are you making between energy and heat? Can you explicitly define what you are saying here? - Can you define clearly your understanding of net heat, heat flux, and heat current? - Are you claiming that thermal radiation is "target-aware" and will not radiate in the direction of any body that is "colder"? Can you clearly describe how that mechanism works? And is there a limit to the distance by which object one's thermal emissions will be "aware" of a "colder" body that might be in the path of its thermal radiation?
  36. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    Why should there have been an optimum decade?
  37. Did Global Warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?
    @argus: "The average daily high in December is -3" That's for the entire month, Argus. The average for December 30 is closer to -7 and -8C. You seem to have as few arguments to support your position against AGW theory as you did back on Digg. In fact, you still seem to be arguing that it isn't really warming (I thought contrarians were past that?) Anyway, in the spirit of the season (and because my GF is telling me to get off the computer and start packing the gifts), I'll wish you, and everyone else on this great site, a Happy New Year. Cheers!
  38. Did Global Warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?
    Argus: I am waiting for you to provide data on a location that has lower than normal temperatures. I know that the temperatures are not -25C in Nuuk, the point is that they are currently substantially above normal, supporting my position. Looking at the NOAA anomaly chart I linked before shows it is 5-15 C higher than normal over most of Greenland yesterday. 10C over average for months is a lot of heat. That supports the claim that the globe continues to warm.
  39. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    If you take all the 'indicators' in the graphic ( and ignore the debate about some science being settled and some science being 'moved-on'?),which decade do we consider as the baseline period for each of the indicators or, when was the optimum decade for the earth?
  40. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    To add emphasis to Albatross' excellent Trenberth quote, people generally have little appreciation for just how much extra moisture that 4% actually is. The total moisture in the Earth's atmosphere in Trenberth's baseline is conveniently close to the volume of North America's Lake Superior. Lake Erie (another of the Great Lakes of North America) is about 4% of the volume of Lake Superior. So it may help to visualize that extra 4% moisture as the equivalent to having Lake Erie added to the air's "gas tanks" - extra moisture capacity to precipitate out. Witness the Pakistan floods of this year or the current and ongoing flooding in Australia... The Yooper
  41. Did Global Warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?
    @BP: Who are you, and what have you done with Berényi? Heat is the transfer of energy by thermal contact. The surface at the poles, even though it is below zero, is still warmer than the air higher up (IIRC, around -70C at 30,000 feet). So even if we were only talking about heat transfer, your statement would be incorrect. This is talking about convection warming only - we're not even talking about greenhouse gases ability to capture and re-release IR photons. Also, in addition to your cherry-picking, you make unsubstantiated claims about the current weather, saying the world is currently cooler than average. Please provide the data that supports this. Thanks. Argus: I know you share BP's positions, but you should be careful not to jump to conclusions, lest you look as foolish as the n00b that seems to have taken BP's place. Also, you are the one who started with the cherry-picking, but ironically, you just proved msweet's point: all the temperatures you provide for the south and west coasts of Greenland are above average.
  42. Did Global Warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?
    #79, Apparently you are against the laws of thermodynamics. Your +14 in Nuuk is a rare high (if it is true). It is not a record, though, the highest reading for December is +15.4, in 1980. The average daily high in December is -3, so Nuuk is not such a 'cold hole' as you seem to think. Above 0 is hardly "boiling hot" in the south of Greeenland! That's for you to "realize" now.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] You need to read up on thermodynamics a bit more. Skeptical Science has some great posts on the subject here and here (be sure to read the Intermediate version as well).
  43. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Eric, I'm sorry, but this is where a wide canyon opens between us, and between you and the science. Muoncounter and I gave you peer-reviewed papers. You are railing against some very smart people and suggesting/insinuating that they have got it wrong when you say "I would also be careful about using model runs to derive a standard deviation to use to suggest a probability of an event" sounds very Dunning-Kruger-like to me. Actually, I do not think that you read the Stott et al. paper properly or that understand Fraction Attributable Risk (FAR)-- a process originally developed in the medical field IIRC. In fact, you seem to be hand waving to dismiss some inconvenient findings. The inescapable fact is that there has been an increase in heat waves in recent decades and recent major heat waves are consistent with that trend. We can expect more of the same. Maybe people will, hopefully, find the interesting interview with Santer helpful which was featured here. Or this presentation by Stott (partly garbled on my Mac though). Scientists are sincerely doing their best to understand what has happened and what will happen. And as Trenberth said recently: “I find it systematically tends to get underplayed and it often gets underplayed by my fellow scientists. Because one of the opening statements, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard is “Well you can’t attribute a single event to climate change.” But there is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.”
  44. Did Global Warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?
    BP at 73 has added nothing to the discussion of "did Global Warming stop in --". His claim that high temperatures are good because they result in more heat being dissipated into space are a joke (I cannot use the words that fit best). The fact that you think they are worth reading shows how "skeptical" you really are. I linked the Canada weather maps for the past week in my post. They summarize the last weeks climate in the upper corner. They unfortunately do not include Greenland, but they cover the rest of North American Arctic. They run mostly 10 to 20C above normal. I graphed the last months weather worldwide at #48 in case you missed. Don't accuse me of cherry picking when I provided the global weather for the past month- after you falsely claimed that it had been cold. You need to look at some data before you make such wild accusations. As for your forecasts of the Greenland coast, my question is: what is the normal weather in those locations? I provided you with the climatology of Eureka (and six other locations in the Arctic) in my post. I see that it is normally -25C in Clyde, if we figure the locations you provided have the same temperatures they are all about 20-25C above normal (thats 40F for Americans). The weather stations in the north are normally -33C, like Eureka, so they are only about 8C above normal. If there are any locations in Greenland that are above 0C in December that is boiling hot for them, don't you realize this basic fact? Why don't you see if you can find some locations that are colder than normal to illustrate your point instead of hot areas (which support my position)? Hint: areas under the giant red blotch in #48 are bad places to look. Since I provided data showing 20C above normal for the past week I expect your data to match or exceed my anomalies. Good luck with your data search.
  45. Eric (skeptic) at 01:59 AM on 1 January 2011
    NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Albatross, the explanation to the public should include possibilities and suggest likelihoods, but then should include all possibilities including the natural causes. I would also be careful about using model runs to derive a standard deviation to use to suggest a probability of an event. There are a lot of input parameter probability distributions and internal model relationships that control the probabilities of those events that need to be calibrated and/or validated. Muoncounter, in your original post I didn't answer whether SST anomalies are a cause or an effect. The first part of the answer is that the anomaly itself is not the issue, it the absolute temperature that matters. Temperature causes things, not delta T. The second part is that throughout history and the instrument record, blocking events have occurred with natural causes. Putting those two together, we get the possibility that natural factors cause the overall stratospheric cooling most often associated with blocking but the specific positioning of the resulting jet stream is determined through terrestrial factors including SST. After that, SST becomes another effect like any other. The UV connection to blocking is an inverse relation, with less UV creating the possibility of more blocking as represented by negative NAO. UV is both measured and reconstructed such as here: http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/natalie/PAPERS/jasr-haberreiter.pdf and comparing their graph of solar UV to my link in 147, we see more positive NAO with higher UV and more negative NAO with lower UV. The relationship is crude which means terrestrial factors are involved.
  46. Did Global Warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?
    michael sweet, #75, Apparently straight science is hard to digest for someone who wants everything to agree with AGW. Are you against the laws of thermodynamics? Read #73 again and try to learn something, instead of accusing the writer of "detraction, obfuscation, fabricating faux debate". As for your obsession with Greenland day-to-day weather, I would like you to look further than to one selected place, favorably situated in the southwest (ever heard of 'cherry-picking'?). The temperature forecasts for tomorrow at noon, for 11 villages along the south coast of Greenland, range from -2 to +4. For 23 villages along the west coast, the temperature forecasts range from -5 to +2. Four weather stations in the north are supposed to have -25, -26, -27, -27, respectably. Along the east coast there is great variation for the 8 listed villages, from -26 in the north down to -5 further south.
  47. The Physical Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide Absorption
    I think #21 has a point - maybe not the one intended or maybe. The article, when calculating the final result, switched from energy to temperature. Certainly some of the (extra) energy trapped increases temperature but not all. Energy can also go into melting ice or vaporising water (no change on temp at the phase transition), wind, waves etc. I feel that to quote the change energy balance is enough for a p. chemist; and leave details of where the energy goes to the geophysicists..
  48. The 2010 Climate B.S.* of the Year Award
    A marvelously crafted post on a truly depressing state of affairs. Here's to a Happier New Year for all in 2011! Many thanks to John and the SS team.
  49. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    #44 Alec Gowan Yes, you said it. If you wanted to say otherwise, you would've written nonA-GW. Huh? Didn't know you could hyphenate AGW that way and don't know why I would want to. Roger D in post #43 also hyphenated the way I did. And you say "would've". I don't know you and you don't know me well enough to make such a statement. "could've" would have been more civil. AGW and GW are two different concepts. The first places man as the controller of the environment, both good and bad and the other is just an observation that the planet's surface is getting warmer. #4 Daniel Bailey (who, sadly, has now removed his name from the response) Sadly, there are still many people who still deny global warming is happening. All it takes is a snow storm somewhere for the knee-jerk reaction "aha, global warming has stopped". But if you're able to take a step back, peruse all the evidence for a warming world and acknowledge that yes, the planet is building up heat and warming, then all credit to you. Don't use me as a foil for something I never said. I am not "many people". GW and AGW are two different things. The term AGW carries a lot more baggage than GW.
    Response: [Daniel Bailey] A point of correction here. The comments by the moderators are in a darker shade of green than John's. John quite rightfully offered up a moderating comment in number 4 that is more appropriate than mine. While I did not remove my name from the comment space (like in Highlander, there can be only one) I support his action in this regard. The remainder of his comment you object to was a more general observation on the state of denial at play. The science has accepted the world is warming with a greater than 90% likelihood that manmade CO2 releases are its causative factor. Feel free to deny that attribution all you want. But the science has moved on past the denial (which, really, is all that it is: denial).

    [John Cook] Sorry for the confusion, I did overwrite Daniel's moderator response. From now on, I'll do what I'm doing here - append any additions to existing moderator responses so there's less confusion.
  50. The many lines of evidence for global warming in a single graphic
    #47: "winter maximum snow area has not changed, but the spring and summer areas are much decreased." That requires something many fail to notice: If each year's snow season (from summer min to winter max) starts lower but ends at about the same area, there must be more (and thus heavier) snowfall during each successive season. And if each year's melt season (winter max to next summer min) starts at about the same area, but reaches a deeper minimum, there must be more (and thus more rapid) melt during the season. Can a cooling world produce more snow? Perhaps. But it cannot melt more rapidly. However, a warming world does melt rapidly and also has a higher evaporation rate - which leads to more precipitation as snow. Look at it from an energy point of view: There is more energy in the climate system to both evaporate water and melt ice. An oscillator with a higher energy state has higher amplitude.

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