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Comments 101801 to 101850:
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Eric (skeptic) at 07:17 AM on 8 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
#96, muoncounter, there is a lot of supporting evidence that all the factors I have mentioned (and more) affect clouds. The evidence that is lacking is that these factors persist for a period of time long enough to affect climate. Also the link from cloud changes to climate is uncertain and tenuous in some cases. What is speculative is predictions. #97, Albatross, the decadal and centenial rates of warming are caused by the same factors. Obviously you are right that decadal doesn't scale to centenial due to short term factors like PDO. My point was just that sensitivity varies in addition to terrestrial weather like PDO based on external factors like GCR. One example is the high degree of blocking from local stratospheric warming from GCR spikes. That doesn't necessarily cause warming or cooling globally but it does alter the climate's sensitivity to CO2 warming for the period of time of the event. #98 Rob Honeycutt, thanks for the comment. Tipping points are local, the ice can't melt unless the local temperature is warm. So they rely on a variety of local analyses, not "3C global" which means nothing locally. Last study I read, there were several plausible tipping points, mostly arctic. However, none of them would significantly affect worldwide temperature. #99 Dana1981, my statement was a crude but realistic approximation based on the doubling of CO2 in a century. So if sensitivity is 2C and doubling takes a century, then the temperature increase is 0.2C per decade. I can very simply compare that estimate to various temperature measurements with the weather variation caveat above. -
Rovinpiper at 06:44 AM on 8 December 2010It's albedo
Hi Ned, There's something I don't understand in your explanation of Kirchoff's Law. You say that emissivity is equal to absorptance at any given wavelength, yet the Earth absorbs light in visible wavelengths and then emits that energy as infrared, doesn't it. How can the emissivity be equal to absorptance at the visible wavelengths if the energy is getting converted into infrared? Thanks again. -
dana1981 at 06:31 AM on 8 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
Eric #95 - you seem to be misunderstanding the concept of climate sensitivity. You're referring to it as 'warming per century', but that's not accurate - it's warming per a certain amount of radiative forcing. For example, if we double atmospheric CO2, the planet will warm approximately 3°C in response to the radiative forcing caused by the increased CO2 and associated feedbacks. So the role of the feedbacks (mainly clouds and water vapor) are the issue at hand. But the climate sensitivity is pretty well constrained to 2–4.5°C for a doubling of CO2. The Lauer study I focused on in the article suggests that based on their cloud observations and model, it's more likely to be on the high end. But when you're talking about warming per century, the factor you need to focus on is CO2, because it's the main determining factor regarding how much warming we'll see. If we double CO2, the feedbacks and sensitivity will tell us if the warming is 2 degrees or 4.5 degrees or something in between, but it's very likely to be somewhere in that range. To use Richard Alley's phrasing, CO2 is the main temperature control knob. -
muoncounter at 05:38 AM on 8 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
#129: "What happened in Moscow in July was and example of a heat pump" I've posted this comment from How warm was this summer? in a number of places, but IMHO the content is so important I repeat it here: Weather in a given region occurs in such a complex and unstable environment, driven by such a multitude of factors, that no single weather event can be pinned solely on climate change. In that sense, it's correct to say that the Moscow heat wave was not caused by climate change. However, if one frames the question slightly differently: "Would an event like the Moscow heat wave have occurred if carbon dioxide levels had remained at pre-industrial levels," the answer, Hansen asserts, is clear: "Almost certainly not." The frequency of extreme warm anomalies increases disproportionately as global temperature rises. "Were global temperature not increasing, the chance of an extreme heat wave such as the one Moscow experienced, though not impossible, would be small," Hansen says. -
Albatross at 05:13 AM on 8 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
Rob @30, That is surprising. However, Curry's defense of Pat Michael's misinforming/deceiving at her blog is surprising. Hang on, then again, maybe it is not entirely surprising given her odd behaviour of late... -
The human fingerprint in the seasons
Norman, Keep in mind that global climate is quite stable, even while local weather can be chaotic and unpredictable as shown by your Moscow example. What you are suggesting would require a global scale shift in pressure zones and circulation patterns; a catastrophic change compared to the effects predicted by the IPCC. At the very least, we would be able to detect if such a change was taking place. -
Alexandre at 04:10 AM on 8 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
Mike #29 Or: "Your honor, people have died from natural causes for millions of years! Therefore, my client can't possibly have killed the victim!" -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:08 AM on 8 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
Interesting. I wandered over to WUWT (something I am usually loathe to do) to find out what their take was on the hearings. I was expecting long winded cheering for Lindzen, Michaels and Curry. But there is almost nothing. -
Phila at 03:37 AM on 8 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
Alley's patience is remarkable, especially given Rohrabacher's rudeness and schoolyard-bully smirk. -
Ned at 03:26 AM on 8 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Discussion of sunspots, TSI, etc. should probably go on the thread It's the Sun. I just posted a brief reply to Norman's comment over there. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:26 AM on 8 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
To add to what Albatross said above... That 3C we get for a nearly assured doubling of CO2 puts us in uncharted territory with regards to tipping points. We will be well beyond the MWP. Well beyond the holocene maximum. We start having to look back millions of year, instead of thousands, for clues to what we may face. You think there are uncertainties about how pronounced or extensive the MWP was just 1000 years ago? The Eocene is going to be a real bear to wrestle! -
Daniel Bailey at 03:20 AM on 8 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Re: Norman (130) It might be helpful to think of sunspot number as a surrogate marker for TSI. When lacking TSI data from modern measurements, sunspot number is a useful metric. But in this modern instrumental era, TSI is much more valuable. And as such, TSI shows at best a 5-10% attribution of the warming measured over the past 30 years. In the absence of CO2 forcing from anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions, such as in the paleo record, changes in TSI can act as a significant forcing (up or down) on global temperatures. As do Milankovich cycles. No observable mechanism other than the rise in CO2 explains also the rise in temperatures we've measured since 1980. So it's not the sun. It is what it is. The Yooper -
Ned at 03:18 AM on 8 December 2010It's the sun
In another thread, Norman writes: From information I had, it was not the TSI that effected the Earth's climate but Sunspot number (from the Maunder minimum). They were not measuring the TSI at that time. I was looking for information on sunspot number to correlate with Global temps and that sight had the graph I was looking for. Obviously, the sunspot number itself doesn't influence the earth's climate -- it has to be modulated through some physical process. So if you're not using sunspots as a proxy for solar irradiance, how do you suggest that sunspots affect the climate? -
Albatross at 03:03 AM on 8 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
Re #95, "Right now we might be 2C per century, but maybe just 1C (considering that 1998-sized El Nino might have gotten us 0.1C above current temps)." Sorry Eric but your line of thinking (i.e., extrapolating instantaneous rates of warming/cooling to the centennial scale) is just flat out wrong. In fact, the presence of transient internal climate modes and internal climate variability, solar cycles and volcanism are the very reasons why scientists look at long-term trends. Barton Paul Levenson has done some work on this and demonstrated that the standard deviation of the global temperature series plateaus when averaging over about 45 years, see here. The WMO and other groups use 30, and one could possibly get away with 20. There is no magic averaging window, because that itself in part depends on the nature of the data. For example, the time required to obtain statistically significant warming is shorter for GISTEMP than it is for CRU. Lastly, even if we were trapped in a permanent El Nino, it would at most add +0.2 C to global temperatures each year, but that additional warming would not be integrated year-over-year-- ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) does not represent a net gain of heat in the climate system, but a redistribution of heat within the system. It is possible that the additional warming of 0.1 to 0.2 C over and above the underlying warming trend may accentuate the warming by accelerating or enhancing positive feedbacks..... If one looks at probability distribution functions of climate sensitivity (from multiple, independent sources), they are quite skewed towards higher temperatures, with a rapid drop off below 2.5C. Now that long tail to the right (higher sensitivity) is not necessarily an artifact of models, because it is present even for estimates of climate sensitivity derived using paleo and other data. The surprises that may lurk in that tail of the PDF should be very sobering and very much reason for prudence and taking action. Fortunately, there is some relatively good news, Annan and Hargraveas estimate that the likelihood of climate sensitivity for doubling of CO2 (although we will very easily exceed doubling) exceeding about +4 C is highly unlikely, with other research by Annan indicating that +3 C is the most likely value. -
Norman at 03:01 AM on 8 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
#123 Daniel Bailey, Thank you for your research on Terracycles website. I will avoid this site if I continue to post on Skeptical Science. From information I had, it was not the TSI that effected the Earth's climate but Sunspot number (from the Maunder minimum). They were not measuring the TSI at that time. I was looking for information on sunspot number to correlate with Global temps and that sight had the graph I was looking for. -
Norman at 02:59 AM on 8 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
#128 Tom Curtis, I don't think you included the other possiblilty. More energy into the system can create stronger flows between Tropics and Poles, warming the poles and cooling the tropics. What happened in Moscow in July was and example of a heat pump that would not move (High pressure). It pumped warm air to Moscow from the South but did also pull cooler air down from the North to cool Eastern Russia. Picture of this activity on this link... Russia July. More energy into the system (say from the Sun) maybe could intensify High and Low pressure systems so they act as more powerful pumps which can act to cool the Tropics and heat the poles at a higher rate than the norm. I could be wrong with my thinking, I will keep working on it, many years ago I did take a college level meteorology class, wish I still had the textbook. -
muoncounter at 00:42 AM on 8 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
#95: "... doesn't say a lot ..." We are dealing with scientific answers to scientific questions. Statements like this or that could happen, or they could cancel or they might be a factor or they amplify or they damp or they do nothing are all mere speculation that may be dismissed in the absence of any supporting evidence. And a long list of speculation does not increase the uncertainty associated with a scientific hypothesis. -
Tom Curtis at 00:41 AM on 8 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Norman, I believe that weather is just the structure placed on thermodynamic heat flows by the rotation of the Earth, the effects of convection (itself a thermodynamic process), and be geographical features. As such, the net effect of weather processes will be to move heat from hot to cold locations, at a rate approximately dependant on the temperature gradient between them. However, I am by no means expert enough to assert this as more than a hunch. What I am expert enough to assert is that you cannot have it both ways. If the rate at which heat is moved from tropics to poles is unaffected by the temperature differential between them, then because that rate is effectively constant, it will not act as a negative feedback on differential heating rates due to diferent mechanisms. So, either: 1) My observation is correct, in which case your objection @120 is rebutted; or 2) Heat flows are not effected by temperature differential at the poles; in which case those heat flows will not mask the difference in heating patterns of solar and greenhouse forcing; or 3) Heat flows between tropics and poles become less as the temperature difference increases; in which case heat flows will constitute a positive feedback, and accentuate rather than masking the difference in heating patterns between solar and green house forcings. -
Ned at 23:18 PM on 7 December 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel, I offered three explanations in my comment. The first one (1, 2, 3, 4) was addressed to you, in response to your comment that "The idea that planetary temperature is affected by its albedo is quite mistaken" and all the subsequent comments in which you've spread confusion about the relationship among albedo, temperature, and radiation balance. The second explanation I provided addresses the subject of this thread -- the (erroneous) claim that the greenhouse effect violates the second law of thermodynamics (a claim that you make, e.g., here). The third part of my comment above goes into more detail about why the greenhouse effect doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics. That part of the comment is not addressed directly to you because even after seven pages of mostly incoherent commentary it's hard for me to be sure what exactly your claim is. The most common (and indeed, the only) skeptical argument I've seen re: the second law is the one discussed in this thread -- the claim that radiation from a colder atmosphere cannot flow to / reach / be absorbed by a warmer surface. See, for example, this comment at Science of Doom, which includes the following: “Does this radiation from the colder surroundings “reach” the solid body in the middle of the diagram?” Answer: No, the colder body radiation cannot reach and be absorbed by the warmer solid body causing the warmer solid body to heat-up. and Trenberth clearly shows the colder Atmosphere Back Radiation of 324 w/m^2 being ABSORBED by the warmer Earth’s surface. Anytime a body absorbes heat energy it’s temperature has to increase, the warmer Earth’s surface was warmed by the colder atmosphere. A CLEAR Violation of the 2nd Law. and AGW theory and the Greenhouse Effect has been proven to violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and the Law of Conservation of Energy. [...] If Back Radiation actually reached and heated the Earth as Trenberth shows, then Parabolic Mirror Solar Ovens would produce heating Day and Night! and so forth, ad nauseam. If you can see the flaws in that person's argument, then congratulations! We have some common ground to work from. However ... if you still think there's some problem with the second law of thermodynamics, you need to be much clearer and more coherent in explaining where you think that problem lies. Your comments in this thread have tended to wander diffusely from one incoherent remark to another (e.g., the entire digression about albedo). If you're unhappy that I or others are failing to correctly restate the subtle nuances of your views, you could help out by being a bit more straightforward about what those views are. -
Norman at 23:08 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
#124 Tom Curtis, " the rate at which heat flows in a given medium depends on the temperature gradient. Consequently, while increased temperature in the tropics will result in greater heat flow to the poles" This is true with thermodynamics but atmopshere will alter the normal flow. Instance. A Low pressure system is moving across the US. In Omaha the temperature (depending on the strength of the low) will rise maybe 10 F above normal temps as the low draws up warm air from the Gulf. After the low passes the area it will pull down cold air from the north and drop temps below normal. The temp gradient effect you described does not stop the warm air from flowing into an area at a very rapid rate. The temp gradient (normal temp in Omaha vs New Orleans) has no determination of the rate of heat transfer, the strength of the Low pressure is the primary cause of the heat flow. I know of this effect directly and speculate that the same process can be taking place to transfer heat to the Arctic. Stronger Low pressure at the 60 degree lattitude would pump more warm air to the arctic and pull down more cold air, cooling the south and warming the north. -
Eric (skeptic) at 22:47 PM on 7 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
My unexemplary example of GCR is now sleeping ferociously. As I pointed out over and over, there are many such factors, celestial, lunar (tide shifts), solar (UV, x-ray, electric field effects, etc). Most of these affect clouds and weather. All are ignored by models. All are ignored by paleo studies. All can be individually shown to have no linear effect on temperature over the last 30 years. That leaves CO2 which is a very adequate explanation plus/minus PDO. But this thread is about sensitivity and the role of clouds. The analysis of the last 30 years doesn't say a lot about sensitivity except that it varies. Right now we might be 2C per century, but maybe just 1C (considering that 1998-sized El Nino might have gotten us 0.1C above current temps). The sensitivity depends, in great measure, on those external factors. They could align and amplify CO2 warming, or damp it or do nothing as a whole. They are not very predictable. They are the wild card over the long run (with ocean cycles causing the short run fluctuations). Also they are independent of Lindzen/Spencer weather sensitivity. -
Paul D at 20:45 PM on 7 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
Actually, the biggest give away is the inquisition nature of Rep Dianas questions. They sound and feel like a lawyer interrogating a witness with biased questions. He was stating skeptic arguments as fact. A nasty piece of work. -
Tom Curtis at 20:19 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
babelsguy @125, I refer you to Patrick 027's comment @99, and my responce @102.
As shown at Science of Doom, the concentration of water vapour is between 3 and 5 ppm in the stratosphere, while that of CO2 is, of course, around 380 ppm. If the water vapour was as heavily concentrated in the stratosphere as is CO2, then it also would contribute to stratospheric cooling. But because it is so thin, it contributes little to the energy balance of the stratosphere, and so has little effect on either heating or cooling.
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damorbel at 20:17 PM on 7 December 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #323 Ned you wrote: "Generally, these involve asserting that the second law doesn't just mean that the net flow of radiation has to be from the surface to the atmosphere," In particular:- "but that there can be no radiation at all flowing in the opposite direction." I don't assert what you write, nor have I seen it in any serious text on thermodynamics. The idea is completely absurd; but it has often been said by those, like yourself, defending the concepts of AGW/GHE. Further you write:- "When people claim this, they think they're preserving the second law." That is what you say, do you have a link I can follow? And futher you write:- "but they're actually going far beyond what the second law says, and breaking some other part of physics in the process (perhaps the Stefan-Bolzmann law, perhaps the first law of thermodynamics, or perhaps something else)." Now I would like to think you are not just asserting some kind of ignorance on my part by describing my arguments in such an absurd way, this of course would a classical 'straw man' argument. I would like to discuss the matter properly, I suggest that is the intention of the founders of www.skepticalscience.com but surely trying to make my contributions look absurd is not the best way forward. -
babelsguy at 19:35 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
#39 Tom Curtis wrote: "Fourth, water vapour is largely confined to the troposphere, so the water vapour feedback will not result in stratospheric cooling." This must be wrong? Isn't it so that the stratosphere is cooling because less radiation escapes the optically "thicker" troposphere in the presence of increased GHGs? So it also cools with more water vapour, just in other wavelengths. Or am I missing something? -
swieder at 19:34 PM on 7 December 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
For spinning reserve, my understanding is that new electrical storage will help (no matter what the technology for electricity production is). It was demonstrated for example in the BESS project in Alaska already 2003. Remaining work will of course have to address scalability. For example, company Younicos is currently working on related things. @quokka: My understanding from the discussions in Germany/France is that the ability for load follow operation for NPP is principally given but that the number of cycles it "should" be used in this way is rather limited (to about 1000 or so before material fatigue might compromise safety - I need to find references in English). In Germany, there is a acknowledged scientific dissent about this question. Hence, an official evaluation is currently performed, commissioned by the German Bundestag - results should be presented in April 2011. The "TAB" is the "German office for evaluation of technology effects". The underlying (German) discussion is: Do NPP "hinder" fast introduction of renewables or not? Is NPP and renewable a conflict or not? I am not sure myself how dogmatic that discussion is currently held. -
Riccardo at 18:50 PM on 7 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
dana1981 the ferocity, as you call it, is due to the fact that GCRs are the only way to have a sensitivity low to GHG but large to the sun. There are several good reasons why it can hardly be the case; the latest and largely unnoted is that the CLOUD experiment had contamination problems in the clean and controlled environment of their vacuum chamber. Immagine the dirty and uncontrolled real atmosphere ... -
Tom Curtis at 17:38 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Norman @120, the rate at which heat flows in a given medium depends on the temperature gradient. Consequently, while increased temperature in the tropics will result in greater heat flow to the poles, it will only do so while the temeperature difference between tropics and poles is greater than in the original condition. Consequently, it cannot result in the temperature gradient being less, ie, the poles warmer relative to the tropics. Further, the same effect applies in reverse. Increased warming at the poles relative to the tropics will reduce heat flow from the tropics to the poles. That means a given increase of temperature at the poles relative to the tropics requires an even larger prefferential heating of the poles to sustain it. Therefore the large relative increase of temperature at the poles compared to the tropics can only come from a forcing with a distinctive bias towards heating the poles - ie, a Green House Gas. -
Philippe Chantreau at 17:34 PM on 7 December 2010A basic overview of Antarctic ice
Thanks for clarifying that SRJ. Bill, the fact that the maximum extents for each pole are asynchronous means that any calculation putting the 2 together does not correspond to any physical reality. When looking at global coverage, there is a certain amount of coverage at any given time. That amount is the physical reality and is what should be studied. As for Arctic albedo, it is obviously negligible at and above the polar circle for any time between the fall and spring equinoxes. One reason why the decrease in Arctic sea ice is significant is because the lower summer coverage allows for large amounts of energy to be absorbed by the ocean. -
quokka at 17:07 PM on 7 December 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
@371 archiesteel I beg to differ. I was setting the record straight on the issue of if nuclear power plants can, and in fact do load follow. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact. It is perfectly clear to me that the alleged "inflexibility" of NPPs is cited without investigation and without any real thought by anti-nuclear activists. Terms such as "wasteful" and "inflexible" are used in a pejorative sense as part of a political argument. No science or engineering needed. The way electricity markets work is that baseload demand attracts the lowest price, intermediate the next lowest and peaking demand the highest. Prices in the Australian NEM can be seen charted nicely here Scroll across to build up a picture of what is going on. It seems perfectly obvious that it may be economic to run NPPs at something less than their maximum capacity factor, because the operators would be compensated by the higher prices. Market specific modeling would be needed to determine the economics. It should be noted that this may not necessarily be "wasteful" if from a system point of view it removed the need for other capacity to meet intermediate demand. Extra consumption of nuclear fuel would likely be insignificant. -
archiesteel at 16:55 PM on 7 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
@Camburn: "Hadcrut data is the source. No.....I will change my statement. Statistics are important. Either you work within the error bars or you don't." That doesn't even make any sense. Look, it's simply. You claimed temperatures from 1995 to 2010 didn't show any warming. I clearly demonstrated you were wrong using the very same data set and web site. There is no wiggling out of this one: you made a incorrect statement, I corrected you on it, and now I expect you to acknowledge you were wrong. Failure to do so will simply illustrate how you are not debating in good faith, but in fact are here to push junk science in order to further your political agenda. Prove me wrong. Admit you made a mistake. -
archiesteel at 16:49 PM on 7 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
@Climatewatcher: way to miss the point. First, why do you show a graph on that time scale when talking about the HCO? Could you even place the HCO on that graph? Second, we are talking about global temperatures, not NH ones. Last, the current warming trend, which will likely exceed HCO temperatures before the end of the century, is *not* due to milankovitch cycles. Enough with the propaganda already. -
dana1981 at 16:42 PM on 7 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
Oh geez Camburn, you're really getting ridiculous now. Several people have showed you that HadCRUT data has a warming trend (about 0.12°C per decade) over the past 15 years. By now it's probably even statistically significant at the 95% confidence level, given that the quote from Jones was at the start of 2010, which has been the hottest year on record. And your insinuations about GISTEMP are just ludicrous. I know "skeptics" want us to just ignore the Arctic since it's experiencing the highest rate of warming, but I hate to break it to you - the Arctic is part of the globe too. As others have noted, the evidence is mounting against a significant GCR impact on the climate. And frankly it's rather aggravating that people who want to be considered "skeptics" latch onto the GCR theory with such ferocity. The AGW theory has mountains of supporting evidence. The GCR warming theory has little supporting evidence and mounting contradictory evidence. A true open-minded skeptic would be able to see that the former theory is far more credible than the latter. Frankly anyone who rejects AGW and supports GCR warming forfeits the 'skeptic' label in my book. -
Daniel Bailey at 16:37 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Re: Norman (121, 122) From your terracycles website you refer to:"The Aether Physics Model reveals the physics for generating new matter. Just as the Casimir effect generates new electron-sized photons from Aether, a similar process (mistakenly called fusion) generates new proton-sized photons from Aether. The proton-sized photons convert to protons within the nucleus of atoms, thus transmuting the elements and adding mass to the Earth (and Sun, Mars, Moon, etc). The transmutation of atoms further causes a continual change in the Earth's chemistry."
Um, Norman, you may want to exert a little more discretion in your source selection. If you want to be taken seriously, anyway. Just sayin' The Yooper -
Norman at 16:08 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
corrct link for Sunspot number vs Global SST.Response: Norman, you'll notice the graphs at your link are very old. The reason for this is because the latest data indicates solar activity and climate have been moving in opposite directions in recent decades. For instance, that graph uses a 1991 graph of solar cycle length compared to temperature. Since that paper (now nearly 2 decades old) came out, one of its authors have updated their data and found solar cycle length and temperature diverge when the recent global warming of the last few decades began:
The top figure compares temperature to solar cycles. The bottom figure plots the difference between temperature and solar cycle length, showing a strong divergence in the mid 1970s (Lassen 1999).
Similarly, solar activity as calculated from sunspot numbers and direct satellite measurements have found sun and climate have been moving in opposite directions in recent decades:
You have to wonder about a webpage that uses 2 decade old data when more recent data by the same author refutes their argument. Are they aware of the updated data and intentionally excluded it? Or merely ignorant? -
Norman at 16:05 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Most the posts seem to feel that the TSI is the only important item to look at when determining if the Sun is a climate forcing agent. What about Sunspot number? You can see in the graphs that Sunspot numbers have increased in our century. Very cold periods were noted during times of low sunspot number. Graph of Sunspot number. In the graph below, Sunspot number Vs Global SST, is this correlation even if one does not know the cause?. -
Norman at 15:57 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
I think some of the lines of thought are oversimplified in this thread. "Solar warming should result in the tropics warming faster than the poles. What we observe instead is the poles warming around 3 times faster than the equator." Why form this conclusion. This would be a true statement if the air did not move heat around. The reason the Poles do not get as cold as the Darkside of Moon is because warmer air moves to the colder areas and moderates the temperature. With heat being a moveable quantity on Earth, it is too simplistic to assume the Equator would warm faster. Here is another possible explanation. If the Sun was hotter and adding more heat to the Equator, what could happen, the added heat goes into water evaporation. This process keeps the measured temperature from rising much even though the area has more total heat energy (an assumption this is a thought experiment). Now this warm moist air rises, cools and rains. The condensation returns the evaporation heat back to the upper troposphere, the rising air is in the form of a Hadley Cell and moves until it starts to sink where it is dry and warms via adiabatic heating. Through this process a heated equator can move the excess heat to the poles warming them more than it is warmed. Chinook winds. "As moist winds from the Pacific (also called Chinooks) are forced to rise over the mountains, the moisture in the air is condensed and falls out as precipitation, while the air cools at the moist adiabatic rate of 5°C/1000 m (3.5°F/1000 ft). The dried air then descends on the leeward side of the mountains, warming at the dry adiabatic rate of 10°C/1000m (5.5°F/1000 ft).[4]" -
Norman at 15:34 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
115 Daniel Bailey, I have read some things by Barton Paul Levenson. Here is something from NASA on this line of thought. Cause of Stratospheric Cooling. Quote from this page: "The stratosphere gets warmer during solar maxima because the ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet light; more ultraviolet light during solar maxima means warmer temperatures. Ozone depletion explains the biggest part of the cooling of the stratosphere over recent decades, but it can’t account for all of it. Increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the troposphere and stratosphere together contribute to cooling in the stratosphere." The claim is that ozone depletion explains the biggest part of the cooling. In post 55 by HumanityRules I checked up on the article he linked to and it explains that a very active Sun cycle will destroy some ozone so an active Sun can cool the stratosphere by damaging the ozone layer. -
muoncounter at 15:04 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
#117: Yooper, Your theory regarding the WotEF is clearly junk science as it is not falsifiable. Evidence is mounting, on the other hand, for competing theories: a. The WotEF was caused by a catastrophic accidental load shift (CALS) in its cargo of hockey sticks intended for a WhiteFish Bay area youth hockey league. b. The WotEF was caused by a catastrophic release of methane from the previously uncharted clathrate deposits of Gitchigoomie. You will note as well, that according to the noted Canadian climatologist G. Lightfoot, "the snows of November came early". Clearly there has been no warming since 1975. Personally, I blame it on El Nino. -
Ned at 15:04 PM on 7 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
Chemware, CW was referring to the Holocene thermal maximum, on the order of 8000 years before present. So your point is a good one for addressing the claim that Ursus maritimus must have been able to survive warm periods in the more distant past, but it doesn't answer CW's comment above. -
Chemware at 15:01 PM on 7 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
#18, ClimateWatcher: "But either way, the polar bears survived ..." Err, actually, no. Polar bears only evolved about 150kY ago from brown bears. Probably due to climate change :D -
Ned at 15:00 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Daniel, that comment made my day. Thanks. -
caerbannog at 14:43 PM on 7 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
ClimateWatcher said, Further, orbital variation is going impose Arctic melting greater than present for nearly all of the next hundred thousand years anyway. Add ClimateWatcher to the long list of skeptics who don't understand the concept of dT/dt. -
Daniel Bailey at 14:19 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Re: muoncounter (114) Actually, the warming of Lake Superior is in fact caused by waste heat slowly rising from the warmer deeps to the colder surface from The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Recent revelations from Wikileaks have finally unveiled the truth: that the Fitzgerald sank on its maiden voyage to sea test a prototype thorium reactor. Unfortunately, what should have been a three-hour cruise to the Soo and back was interrupted by a violent storm initiated by the galactic cosmic rays attracted to the emissions from the thorium reactor. The captain said 'let's put this one to bed' before the waves turned the minutes to hours. Officially, there's no consensus as to the cause of the sinking. Replicators from the NTSB have so far been unsuccessful in determining the actual cause. Feelin' Lucky to be a Yooper -
kdkd at 14:16 PM on 7 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
ailrick #90 after Camburn ""After all, GAGW is still in the hypothosis stage and has not advanced to theory stage." I'm not a scientist, but the way I understand the distinction is, that a theory is a hypothesis that has withstood the scrutiny of peer review. That would make every idea, the skeptics have, a hypothesis, and AGW a theory." Something like that. Camburn clearly has a very limited understanding of what science is. What it clearly isn't is a linear progression of discrete ideas from hypothesis, to theory, to law. That would be silly. Silly enough that if that proposition were true, much of the infrastructure of modern civilisation would not work as it is based on scientific theory rather than scientific laws, of which there are remarkably few, especially outside of the domain of experimental physics. -
Marcus at 14:02 PM on 7 December 2010How to explain Milankovitch cycles to a hostile Congressman in 30 seconds
ClimateWatcher, the warming that occurred during the Holocene Climatic Optimum occurred over *thousands* of years-& actually occurred at a Glacial Rate (if you'll pardon the pun). What we're currently seeing is a similar warming rate-only measured in *decades*, rather than millenia. You reckon anyone is going to get through that OK? -
sailrick at 13:55 PM on 7 December 2010A Cloudy Outlook for Low Climate Sensitivity
Just watched a video last night, featuring Spencer claiming - since CO2 is such a small part of the atmosphere................. yawn. No I wouldn't bet on him being right. Camburn "After all, GAGW is still in the hypothosis stage and has not advanced to theory stage." I'm not a scientist, but the way I understand the distinction is, that a theory is a hypothesis that has withstood the scrutiny of peer review. That would make every idea, the skeptics have, a hypothesis, and AGW a theory. "Climate Scientists Defend IPCC Peer Review as Most Rigorous in History" by Stacy Feldman - Feb 26th, 2010 at Solve Climate dot com "Nicholls, a professor at Monash University in Victoria, Australia, said the IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment report was subjected to several rigorous tiers of review. The study cites over 10,000 papers from the scientific literature, "most of which have already been through the peer-review process to get into the scientific literature." "The report went through four separate reviews and received 90,000 comments from 2,500 reviewers, all of which are publicly available, along with the responses of the authors, Nicholls said." by Stacy Feldman - Feb 26th, 2010 at Solve Climate dot.com -
Henry justice at 13:24 PM on 7 December 2010CO2 is coming from the ocean
Nice article. This one and "CO2 Pollution and Global Warming" by Barbalace represents real science. This really shows where the carbon is coming from. Since O2 has decreased, then the oceans have not warmed very much (O2 should be out gassed as well as CO2). So, the 100 ppm increase in the atmospheric CO2 may really be from fossil fuel burning from the industrial age. Nice work everyone. -
Daniel Bailey at 13:09 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
Re: Norman (113) Barton Paul Levenson, an atmospheric physicist, covers that pretty well here. The Yooper -
muoncounter at 13:05 PM on 7 December 2010The human fingerprint in the seasons
#112: "it seems the El Nino effect has something to do with... " Hi Norman, Or maybe its a longer term thing: Lake Superior summer (July–September) surface water temperatures have increased approximately 2.5C over the interval 1979–2006, equivalent to a rate of (11 ± 6) 10-2C /yr, significantly in excess of regional atmospheric warming. This discrepancy is caused by declining winter ice cover, which is causing the onset of the positively stratified season to occur earlier at a rate of roughly a half day per year. Remember this little ditty from a few years back?
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