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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 102851 to 102900:

  1. A visual depiction of how much ice Greenland is losing
    @82 paulm % doesn't really do the job for the Antarctic at least. Most people have real difficulty with big numbers so you need to make it really really plain. 1% of Samoa is _not_ relevant in any meaningful way to 1% of China. Antarctica is the home of the unbelievably big number. If you wanted to use %s you'd be much better off comparing Antarctica ice losses to more familiar "units" like how many/much Sydney Harbours or Lake Superiors.
  2. There is no consensus
    Re: muoncounter (273)
    "Yooper, I also have some earth sci degrees somewhere in my distant and checkered past. Knew there was something I liked about you."
     Early 80's, Central Michigan University. Diploma can be found somewhere in the paleo record. :) Appreciate the sentiments; likewise. Based on many of your comments, you received a better grounding in energy budgets than I did. My instructors taught me other things, like shotgunning whiskey into (many) beers... The Yooper
  3. There is no consensus
    Re: StyleDoggie BTW, consensus is an ever-evolving narrative, adapting (one way or the other) to emerging understanding over time. Much has become known since 2008. That makes the study you cited dated. As my one lone example showed (had you read the link). The Yooper
  4. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    An ice shelf is by definition largely afloat. Large ice shelves are stabilized by pinning points where the ice shelf is supported, see Fleming Glacier. These can be along the margins of the ice shelf such as against an island or underneath the ice leading to an ice rise. As an ice shelf thins through basal melting or increased flow, it is less buttressed by either, which can lead to enhanced rifting, calving and flow rates. Each glacier is different but clearly ice melt as Robert points out is not the main issue even on the Antarctic Peninsula. Take a look at the footage from NASA's operation ice bridge . Take a look at Pine Island Glacier
  5. It's not bad
    Response to Argus taken to 2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
  6. 2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
    (From Positives & Negatives of Global Warming) Argus wrote, quoting from WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM : "In the middle of the month, the German Weather Service quietly acknowledged that the country was experiencing record cold: some 3-5 degrees Celsius below the long-term averages." "Quietly acknowledged", as in notified by press release by the German Met Office : Germany weather in May 2010 - Very cool, very wet, and how rarely the sun shone. Deutscher Wetterdienst Meanwhile, the rest of the highlights for May show why the odd low temperature was of less interest : The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for May 2010...the warmest such value on record since 1880. For March–May 2010, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was...the warmest March-May on record. The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for January–May 2010 was the warmest on record. The worldwide ocean surface temperature for May 2010 was the second warmest May on record... The seasonal (March–May 2010) worldwide ocean surface temperature was the second warmest such period on record... The global land surface temperatures for May and the March–May period were the warmest on record... In the Northern Hemisphere, both the May 2010 average temperature for land areas, and the hemisphere as a whole (land and ocean surface combined), represented the warmest May on record. The Northern Hemisphere ocean temperature was the second warmest May on record. The average combined land and ocean surface temperature for the Northern Hemisphere was also record warmest for the March–May period. State of the Climate Global Analysis May 2010 Why do some not seem to see the difference between a cold record which goes back maybe two or three decades (at most, normally - since 1991 in this German case), and warm records that are the warmest or second warmest in records going back 130 years ?
  7. It's not bad
    #85: "It depends on what you want to see. " Here is a rather objective way to portray this question of hot vs. cold. The high temp anomalies (marked at right) appear in more recent years. I've been playing with this type of display for GISSTemp data; its quite revealing. There's no dependence on wanting to see one thing or the other; its there in plain sight.
  8. It's not bad
    Hi Riccardo, Yes-- Joe Romm at CP has been featuring some of the results. Hopefully some of the papers will be discussed here at SS. They are pretty sobering papers in the special issue, and telling that they are now looking at a warming of +4 C or higher by 2100 and focusing on some of the high-end emission scenarios as BAU continues. It looks like AR5 is not going to make for "fun" reading.... PS: John Cook, sorry for wandering off topic.
  9. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    #199: "Convection is a bit special because it won't work 'downwards'" Oh, dear. I guess plate tectonics, thermohaline ocean circulation and onshore/offshore breezes, among other things all just stopped because damorbel says 'it won't work downwards'.
  10. It's not bad
    A special issue of the Philosofical Transactions of the Royal Society may be of interest. It's free through Tuesday 30.
  11. It's not bad
    Argus @85, You, it seems, do not wish to "see" the warming, and to that end latch onto every cold record to convince yourself that the warming is not occurring. Doing so is cherry-picking. The data and the scientists are not lying or deceiving you, nor are the scientists cherry-picking, they are looking at all the data. This is what Dr. Meehl had to say: “Despite the increasing number of record highs, there will still be occasional periods of record cold, Meehl notes. "One of the messages of this study is that you still get cold days," Meehl says. "Winter still comes. Even in a much warmer climate, we're setting record low minimum temperatures on a few days each year. But the odds are shifting so there's a much better chance of daily record highs instead of lows." Now that is the truth. You can choose to ignore it or distort it, but doing so does not change the facts nor the truth. And the cold weather currently affecting parts of Europe, is very much in the news.
    Moderator Response: Argus and everybody else, please put further comments about cooling on a more appropriate thread--even if you are responding to a comment on this thread.
  12. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Thanks for the responses to my question above (Albatross must wonder how someone could be confused by an article that already "deals with an issue in an over-simplified way"!!!). If this article is ever revisited, I think that there are 3 issues than ought to be teased out more clearly in its exposition: (a)the business of quantifying changes to land and sea-ice at the poles - i.e. what's happening; (b) explaining the causes of these changes (especially the differences between changes in Antarctica and the Arctic) in terms of warming/ozone etc.; (c) quantifying impacts (or feedbacks) of these changes especially in terms of albedo-loss to the planet. Another question comes to mind now: Is there a graph anywhere showing theoretical albedo changes for the Arctic, the Antarctic, the Earth generally over the past few decades (to match ice-extent in the graphs of Muoncounter and SRJ above)? Such a graph would be a very useful illustration of issue (c) which, to me, makes that other issue (about whether SH ice-extent increase is statistically significant or not), appear rather minor.
  13. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Sigh. If you thought greenhouse effect was energy transfer from atmosphere to surface by conduction, then that WOULD be violation of second law. However, this is not what is happening as people repeatedly tell you. No incoming radiation, no GHG effect. You cant take the sun out of it. If you are determined not to learn physics, then we are wasting our time trying to teach you.
  14. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Damorbel wrote: "The balls will slowly approach a temperature dependent only on the distance of and the power emitted by your UV source." As I understand it: If the source is a star, and both balls are receiving UV energy, then yes--even though the balls will still exchange radiation at equilibrium. However, that's not what I said. The second ball is not receiving UV radiation. It has been given one time heat by some unknown source. It is cooler than the first ball. My argument is that such a ball is an energy source for the first ball, in addition to the UV source, and it will continue to be an energy source because it receives radiation from the first ball. In this analogy, the second ball is the atmosphere. It receives radiation from the surface, and even though it is cooler than the surface, it radiates some of that energy back toward the surface. Eventually, some of the "backradiation" is absorbed by the surface and turned into work, but most of it gets hung up dancing from molecule to molecule in the troposphere, where convection and conduction also bring it into contact with the surface or bring it to the stratosphere. The point, though, is that the upper troposphere can indeed act as an energy source for the surface and for the lower troposphere (where surface temps are measured), even though the upper troposphere is concurrently cooler. GHGs basically redirect certain frequencies of longwave radiation. The more GHGs, the more LWR is redirected, and the more time LWR stays within the system (heating, doing work, being a nuisance, etc.).
  15. It's not bad
    Albatross (#79) and Daniel Bailey (#80), I like the wording in the article: "When, however, actual temperature readings reveal record cold, this apparently is not news. " The cherry-picking goes for hot temperatures as well as cold. It depends on what you want to see.
  16. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #196 scaddenp you wrote :- "continuing to talk about what happens and how the 2nd law works in conductive energy transfer is not helping you understand how it works in radiative energy transfer." Energy transfer by photons is amazingly similar to that in gases, both exchange momentum in collision processes; in gases it is by inelastic collisions and with photons it is by elastic collision.
  17. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    #197: "you'd be in a warm bath of air at 14C, 1/2 surrounded by radiation from the ground at 14C; 1/2 from deep space at 2.7K." Damorbel, did you just say that radiation from space at 2.7K contributes 50% to keeping that 'warm bath of air' at 14C? What would Clausius say to that?
  18. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #192 CBDunkerson you wrote :- "Warmer objects can indeed absorb radiation from cooler objectsYet you insist that this re-emitted radiation can't possibly warm the planet." If it is cooler than the planet, yes. Then you wrote :- "So... what exactly do you think happens to it? It somehow 'knows' the relative temperatures of the matter it was emitted from and the matter it is about to impact and 'changes course' to avoid any matter which is warmer than the previous?" In #200 I wrote:- "Look at it this way. Emitted power is proportional to T^4, thus the warmer object emits most power. Both objects absorb power indpendent of temperature thus the warm object cools down and the cool one warms up, they are in thermal contact as if they were touching each other if the two objects are isolated they will slowly arrive at the same temperature, somewhere between the two original temperatures." Which explains why the cold troposphere cannot raise the temperature of the Earth's surface. You wrote :- "How do you imagine microwave ovens work?" Read #189 3rd para. Microwaves are not 'thermal' like a grill; they have a magnetron inside wich makes single frequency (monochromatic) radiofrequency (RF) power at about 2450MHz, this power is absorbed by water molecules which get hot in consequence. This is quite different from a 'thermal' oven which uses thermal radiation to grill and hot air to bake. In #193 you wrote: "it should be pointed out that 0K has never been observed. It's a theoretical minimum. Nothing that cold is actually known to exist. Therefor your contrast between one thing which 'only' happens above 0K and another which happens regardless of temperature is really two things which happen regardless of temperature." Oh alright then, not 0K, lets put 0.00000000001K.
  19. There is no consensus
    #270: "if you're going to use consensus as argument" The consensus in question in this article is "demonstrated by the number of scientists who have stopped arguing about what is causing climate change – and that’s nearly all of them." Thus there is general agreement among serious scientists that global warming is happening and we are causing it. "you have to have consensus on the important part of the issue - what to do about it" That's a separate question and wildly off-topic. The Hansen op-ed you linked in #270 calls for stronger measures than cap and trade: "There is a better alternative, one that would be more efficient and less costly than cap and trade: 'fee and dividend.'" However, in the US, conservative talking heads have basically killed any hope for any action with their 'cap and tax' hot air. Don't conflate lack of consensus on what to do, which is mired in political rhetoric, to consensus over what is happening. If you want to continue discussing what to do, go to Solving global warming. "the consensus breaks down the more you dig into it." No, it does not. First of all, the survey is older than the Hansen article, so 'the more you dig into it' doesn't make sense. But more importantly: Based on current trends, 41% of scientists believe global climate change will pose a very great danger to the earth in the next 50 to 100 years, compared to 13% who see relatively little danger. Another 44% rate climate change as moderately dangerous. That's 85% in the moderate to very great danger camp. Makes you think that the folks shouting down any ideas for change are the ones causing the problem. Which side are you on? Yooper, I also have some earth sci degrees somewhere in my distant and checkered past. Knew there was something I liked about you.
  20. Renewable Baseload Energy
    This might be interesting for those who have not heard about this project on the topic of baseload energy with renewables Control of Virtual Power Plants with 100 % Renewable Energy Sources background paper unfortunately just a summary and a citation to corresponding procedings. Rohrig got the "german climate protection award" 2009 - not that this means anything, just to indicate that he is not a nobody in this topic. This is the (german) project site and some english descriptions. The basic finding is that by virtually combining 36 existing wind, solar, biomass and hydropower installations spread throughout Germany, you get a baseload-viable powerplant. It is just as reliable and powerful as a conventional large-scale power station.
  21. There is no consensus
    Re: StyleDoggie Interesting position to take. If you're positing that... 1. It's the total bolus of carbon slug injected into the Earth's atmosphere that matters and 2. Human nature means the cessation of burning of fossil fuels will happen when cold, dead hands are pried off the pumps ...then I'm of a similar mind. I've always liked Hansen's position on fee & dividends, but I suspect it too doesn't go far enough to forestall CO2 emissions quickly enough. Your STATS survey of climate scientists is a bit dated now. In light of current events, most on the fence will be re-thinking just how uncomfortable that position has become. But what the heck do I know? Not a climate scientist. Just some guy on a blog with degrees in the Earth Sciences... The Yooper
  22. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #191 DSL you wrote :- "Warmer objects can indeed absorb radiation from cooler objects." Look at it this way. Emitted power is proportional to T^4, thus the warmer object emits most power. Both objects absorb power indpendent of temperature thus the warm object cools down and the cool one warms up, they are in thermal contact as if they were touching each other if the two objects are isolated they will slowly arrive at the same temperature, somewhere between the two original temperatures. Further you wrote:- "If you shine a steady UV light... ... once again reaches an "equilibrium" temp." Let us assume these balls are planets and the UV source is a star. Wavelength is unimportant. The balls will slowly approach a temperature dependent only on the distance of and the power emitted by your UV source. The temperature they reach is not dependent on how shiny they are, that only affects the rate they approach this 'equlibrium' temperature You wrote:- "Your snowman example is not good, because A) you're working primarily with conduction and convection and B) the naked person has an internal engine. There is still radiative transfer, though, between the snowman and the naked person." Temperature rules in all thermal tranfers, be it conduction radiation or convection. Convection is a bit special because it won't work 'downwards' but both radiation and conduction will tend to equalise the temperature in an isolated convective (e.g. gravitational) system. Radiative transfer is not influenced by gravity.
  23. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel - And once more, you miss the point in several respects. You've been pointed to Trenberth 2009 several times. Convection and evaporation together represent only 1/4 the energy involved in IR from the ground. The backradiation at 333 W/m^2 is twice the energy of incoming sunlight. The greenhouse effect does not heat the Earth; it slows cooling, by providing a warmer background than outer space, reducing the ability of Earth to dump the energy from incoming sunlight. This is basic radiative energy balance - the Earth radiates to space with P = e*s*A*T^4, and when greenhouse gases decrease emissivity 'e', as per The greenhouse effect and the 2nd law of thermodynamics (intermediate), with an emission spectra like this: Notches in graph A show greenhouse gas bands, where IR is sent back to the ground, as seen in graph B then there is an energy imbalance (more coming in than going out), and the temperature will rise until 'P', the energy radiated to space, equals the sunlight coming in. At this point, damorbel, I'm coming to the conclusion that you are deliberately misunderstanding the point. You've ignored repeated pointers to the physics involved, and brought up multiple straw-man arguments. I don't believe it's worth debating with you unless you are willing to engage in an actual discussion of the science.
  24. There is no consensus
    #268 - Here's another reference for you - the consensus breaks down the more you dig into it. http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
  25. There is no consensus
    Muoncounter #269 - what did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? You know any climate scientist that thinks Kyoto or Cap and Trade will stop global warming? My point is that if you're going to use consensus as argument, than you have to have consensus on the important part of the issue - what to do about it, not that it's happening. Here's a reference for you - James Hanson and Cap and Trade. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07hansen.html
  26. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #187 KR you wrote :- "IR at greenhouse frequencies gets absorbed and re-emitted within about 100 meters. That means the surface is facing an atmospheric IR emitter at 14C, not -50C. The -50C is reached through atmospheric lapse rate temperature drop, until the altitude where lowering pressure reduces IR absorption enough to radiate to space" To a considerable extent you are correct. On Earth the density of atmospheric GHGs is very low and low level absorption of IR is a very small % of the thermal input to the atmosphere. Much more atmospheric energy comes from the evaporation of water, water heated by the direct input of the Sun's radiation. The atmosphere is also heated by direct convection from the surface. Water evaporation becomes spectacular in hurricanes, violent air convection is the corresponding phenomenon over land, sometimes called tornados; neither extreme form is required for convection to take place. You then wrote:- "Now, realize that without the GHG absorption and emission at 14C we would instead be radiating those bands directly from the surface to space, which is (if you include microwave background radiation) at -269C?" Well? Is this going to change the average temperature? The answer depends on how thick the atmosphere is. Atmospheres are held in place by gravity, the effect of this is to make a temperature profile that increases (at the "lapse rate") with depth. Such an increase gets very high with the very deep atmospheres of planets like Jupiter; relly massive gas objects like stars reach nuclear fusion temperatures in their core, that is where their energy comes from. Earth has a surface pressure of 1 bar and its surface temperature is not much above the equilibrium temperature of 279K. Venus has a much higher surface pressure about 92bar and a surface temperature of 735K. You wrote:- "without the GHG absorption and emission at 14C we would instead be radiating those bands directly from the surface to space, which is (if you include microwave background radiation) at -269C? " Erm. no you wouldn't, you'd be in a warm bath of air at 14C, 1/2 surrounded by radiation from the ground at 14C; 1/2 from deep space at 2.7K. The thing that would finish you off would be the complete absence of H2O, you would be dead before you knew. With water and no CO2 you would only die of hunger because without CO2 nothing would grow, there would be no plant life.
  27. A visual depiction of how much ice Greenland is losing
    would be interesting to monitor the % of volume that Greenland and Antartica are losing on a yearly basis. Very vivid to show any acceleration.
  28. There is no consensus
    #268: "The majority of climate scientists I've heard opine on the issue of the effectiveness of any of the proposed solutions" Sounds like you already have your own answer to the question you posed. Is a difference of opinion sufficient reason for doing nothing? You could consider looking into the question here and here to learn something about it. If you want to engage in a serious discussion, you should also give specific references to the 'climate scientists' whose opines you are following. Helps to know what your sources are.
  29. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel - continuing to talk about what happens and how the 2nd law works in conductive energy transfer is not helping you understand how it works in radiative energy transfer. People are trying to help you understand this. As a matter of interest what do understand the relationship of temperature to energy to be?
  30. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    h-j-m, well patience of both is tried. Your "evidence" and "counter-examples" simply revealed a flawed understanding of the physics. People have responded by trying to help you understand the physics.
  31. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Agnostic @43, I agree with most of what you said, except this part, "The Ross and Rönne ice shelves are not floating." I could be wrong, but this papershows that most of the Ross shelf is floating.
  32. There is no consensus
    Isn't the important consensus the following: That the earth is warming, man is a significant cause, *that the problem will be serious if nothing is done about it AND the proposed actions (e.g. Kyoto protocol, Cap and Trade, Copenhagen agreement) will prevent the problem from happening?* What % of published climate scientists would answer yes to that question? The majority of climate scientists I've heard opine on the issue of the effectiveness of any of the proposed solutions is that they won't stop the problem from happening.
  33. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Kaj L wrote: "Yes, because currently the waste is a mixture of fission products, uranium and plutonium with a half life of 35000 years. The waste from a “Integral Fast Reactor” is only fission products with a half life so short that the radioactivity disappears within three hundred (300) years." So... the waste from a type of reactor which is not in actual use for commercial power generation anywhere in the world is only radioactive for three hundred years? Oh, well then. Problem solved. :]
  34. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    The article deals with a complex issue in an over-simplified way. Firstly, there are two quite different ice sheets the EAIS and WAIS. The EAIS covers the Antarctic continental land mass and, based on GRACE measurements is loosing ice at a net rate of ~57 giga-tonnes/year. The skeptic argument that this is compensated for by heavy precipitation high-up on the ice sheet is unsupported and contrary to the very low precipitation of East Antarctica. The WAIS is separated from EAIS by the Trans-Antarctic Mountains and is largely a marine ice sheet anchored on the seabed and rising high above the ocean surface. It is not floating. Other parts of WAIS cover the land of a scattered archipelago, the “peninsula” being the largest of the islands. The WAIS does not cover a land mass extending west of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains to the Peninsula as shown at Fig 1 of the article. That part of the WAIS covering land is subject to rising air and sea temperatures which are responsible for retreat of hundreds of glaciers and causing floating ice shelfs, such as Larsen B, to break away from coastal land. This enables glaciers previously blocked by ice shelfs to discharge ice into the ocean at a much faster rate. Relatively warm ocean water is also responsible for the retreat and speeding up of glacier flows, eg. The Pine Island and Thwaits glaciers discharging into the Amundsen Sea. The part of the WAIS which is a marine ice sheet is particularly vulnerable to waters of the Sothern Ocean which is being warmed by currents flowing from equatorial parts. Parts of this ice sheet, notably the massive Ross and Rönne ice shelves show signs of melting where they are in contact with the Southern Ocean. The Ross and Rönne ice shelves are not floating. They rest on the sea bed and are highly susceptible to seasonal surface melting and to relatively warm water melting their underside. Should the latter occur and should large sections of them break their connection to the seabed and the rest of the ice shelf, they would suddenly become floating ice, displacing water equivalent to their mass. This would cause a relatively sudden and significant rise in sea level. GRACE data shows that the WAIS is currently loosing over 132 giga-tonnes ±26 giga-tonnes of ice per annum and that the rate of loss is accelerating. Is this analysis wrong? Is it alarmist or merely raising issues that should be of concern and might have got a mention in the paper under discussion?
  35. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Rob Honeycutt@107 - “Waste is not a problem? It seems to currently be a problem.” Yes, because currently the waste is a mixture of fission products, uranium and plutonium with a half life of 35000 years. The waste from a “Integral Fast Reactor” is only fission products with a half life so short that the radioactivity disappears within three hundred (300) years. That, I think, is not a problem. IFR power plant of 1000 MWe needs one thousand kilograms (1000 kg) of natural uranium as a fuel in one year. The volume of 1000 kg uranium is about 50 liters. Think about it. That produces the same 1000 kg of waste, with have to be stored for 300 years. Spent fuel from light water reactors is suitable as fuel. So is plutonium for dismantled weapons, and depleted uranium left over from uranium enrichment is suitable as fuel. There is plenty of fuel in LWR waste so you don’t need uranium mines for a long time. You never need enrichment any more. Never. There are other types of reactors that can use Thorium as fuel. MSTR is breeding Thorium to Uranium-233 which is fissile. No plutonium at all in the process. So, the fourth generation of nuclear power offers an infinite energy source. It will solve the nuclear waste problem we are now facing. “I gotta say, anyone who claims that ANY solution is a panacea is not serious.” I didn’t claim that. Nuclear power is only good for replacing coal and natural gas in stationary heat and power production. It is capable to replace them all if we allow it. There are still a bunch of other problems to be solved. Professor Barry Brook has an excellent collection of articles in his blog Brave New Climate. If you want to know more, you can start here: http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/16/ifr-spm/ I you just want an easy overview, please watch this two videos: http://blip.tv/file/4198688 http://blip.tv/file/4199148
  36. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    So, the increase of Antarctic sea ice is also antropogenic? This looks like immunization of the AGW-theory. It does not matter which new evidence is found, it always supports the theory.
    When the evidence roughly fits predictions made by the theory, well, yes, of course it supports the theory. Unless you live in the denialsphere. Your problem is that you assume climatologists have been predicting that sea ice in Antarctica would decrease rapidly as has been predicted for the Arctic. You're wrong.
  37. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    "I daresay there will be further discussion when the Information Commissioner publishes their Decision Notices relating to appeals." Yeah, it will be another "whitewash", eh? :) Actually, I'm sure they'll point out the obvious, that UEA could've handled things better (isn't that always true?), but that nothing illegal was done ...
  38. It's not bad
    @Argus: we're used to such freezing cold here in Quebec (temperatures here are on average colder than in Sweden, even though we're more to the South), but so far the late Autumn has been quite mild. Nowhere near record cold here, despite being the land of Snow and Ice... :-) @SRJ: that's insane! There was a *25C* degree difference between Greenland's center and its western coast.
  39. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    @damorbel: "A diagram without any temperatures?" Yes. It's a diagram about energy flow. it serves its purpose, no matter how much *you* misunderstand it. "I am curious to know how you find a diagram without any temperatures on it AT ALL "serves a [useful] purpose" in this regard." Because it shows energy transfers. What's your problem with it, apart from the fact that you don't understand what it's used for? It seems that, like many deniers here, you are consciously trying to muddy the waters and create confusion about AGW science. Too bad (for you) the level of knowledge on this site is so high...
  40. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel wrote: "Now this soil, water, atmosphere etc. only emits radiation when it is above 0K, whereas it absorbs radiation regardless of its temperature." BTW... it should be pointed out that 0K has never been observed. It's a theoretical minimum. Nothing that cold is actually known to exist. Therefor your contrast between one thing which 'only' happens above 0K and another which happens regardless of temperature is really two things which happen regardless of temperature.
  41. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Paul, yet another rewording/explanation; More sunlight strikes the Earth during summer than winter... especially at the poles. Ergo, a change in summer ice area is going to have a greater impact on the amount of sunlight reflected by the ice (and thus not warming the surface) than an equal change during the winter. Taking that into account we can then see that since the sea ice melts away almost entirely each summer in Antarctica there has not been any significant change in the amount of sunlight absorbed. Nor does the slight increase of Antarctic sea ice in winter have a major impact given the decreased sunlight during that time of year. So, you are correct that the amount of ice always impacts the amount of sunlight absorbed vs reflected, but the relevant bit here is that there is little sunlight at the poles in winter and Antarctic summer sea ice hasn't changed much while Arctic summer sea ice has decreased sharply.
  42. Renewable Baseload Energy
    dana1981, thanks for the info. It is interesting that they only check once a year. I think ultimately real time pricing with smart metering will extract the most value from your energy resource.
  43. 10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
    There is some additional progress reported here on identifying a specific human fingerprint to extreme weather events In their biggest success, climate scientists led by Peter Stott of the British Met Office analyzed the 2003 European heat wave, when the mercury rose higher than at any time since the introduction of weather instruments (1851), and probably since at least 1500. After plugging in historical and paleo data, and working out climate patterns in a hypothetical world without a human-caused greenhouse effect, they conclude that our meddling was 75 percent to blame for the heat wave. Put another way, we more than doubled the chance that it would happen, and it’s twice as likely to be human-caused than natural. That’s one beat shy of “Yes, we did it,” but better than “There’s no way to tell.” Scientists are now applying the technique to other extreme weather, especially deluges and droughts. They have reason to be optimistic. One of the signal successes of climate science has been identifying the “fingerprints” of the culprits behind rising temperatures, fierce storms, and other signs that a 10,000-year-old climate regime has been knocked for a loop. Fingerprinting has shown that the rise in global temps follows the pattern you’d expect from the greenhouse effect and not an increase in the sun’s output, for instance. A hotter sun would heat the upper atmosphere more than the lower, but in fact the upper layers have cooled while the lower have warmed, Santer explains. Fingerprinting has also nailed the greenhouse effect for warming the oceans. Natural forces such as El Niño warm some seas and cool others, but every major ocean is hotter than in the 1950s. Similar analyses have been done for today’s extreme rainfall patterns (drought followed by deluge, not precipitation spread out evenly) and the retreat of arctic sea ice. “Natural causes alone can’t explain any of these,” Santer says. “You need a large human contribution.” http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/27/can-we-blame-extreme-weather-on-climate-change.html
  44. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Michele I wouldn't venture to disprove (ignore?) statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics in one shot. This is what that paper does.
  45. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel wrote: "Do you know that GHGs also radiate IR? The most common explanation for the GH effect is that this radiation causes the surface to get warmer somehow" So, you accept that GHGs absorb and then re-emit IR. Yet you insist that this re-emitted radiation can't possibly warm the planet. So... what exactly do you think happens to it? It somehow 'knows' the relative temperatures of the matter it was emitted from and the matter it is about to impact and 'changes course' to avoid any matter which is warmer than the previous? How do you imagine microwave ovens work? After all, as the food gets warmer the microwave photons can't possibly travel from the cool walls of the microwave to the warm food... they must be repulsed away from anything warmer. Therefor, a frozen dinner might be warmed up to room temperature, but a microwave oven could never make anything warmer than room temperature because the radiation can only travel into colder objects. Ditto sunlight, lasers, radio and television broadcasts, remote controls, and dozens of other aspects of everyday life. All of which demonstrate that your position is gibberish. Seriously. How can you not see that you are spouting completely ludicrous nonsense?
  46. A basic overview of Antarctic ice
    Something else of possible interest.
  47. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    "It is rather like claiming that if you are cold (+10C) you can get warm by taking your clothes off and hugging a snowman at -3C but much, much worse!" Good grief, damorbel: you really don't get it, do you? Warmer objects can indeed absorb radiation from cooler objects. If you shine a steady UV light on a spinning steel ball, the ball will eventually reach a specific temperature. True? If you then place another steel ball nearby--a steel ball below the temp of the first one but above 0K--then I'll bet you lunch that the first steel ball's surface temperature will increase slightly until it once again reaches an "equilibrium" temp. Allow this to take place in an atmosphere that does not support convection or conduction--only radiation. The total incoming radiation for the first ball will have increased due to the second (cooler) ball's radiation (and subsequent re-radiation of the first ball's radiation). In your model, does the radiation from the second ball just "bounce off" the first ball? Or does the second ball magically know not to radiate toward the first ball? Your snowman example is not good, because A) you're working primarily with conduction and convection and B) the naked person has an internal engine. There is still radiative transfer, though, between the snowman and the naked person.
  48. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    Michele - There is a quote from Carl Sagan, that "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Your article (by a Claes Johnson) attempts to overturn Planck, the Stephen-Boltzmann law, and quantum effects on radiation, returning to classical wave mechanics by arguing for finite precision math and small scale diffusion effects. And without proposing any experimental differences between these two interpretations that could be used as a test. If this is the case, and your author is correct, by all means, he should submit to Science and everywhere else. But he's going to have to have rather extraordinary evidence to throw out the last 100 years of quantum physics. I consider it much more likely that Claes Johnson is completely wrong, and is in fact indulging in wishful thinking. Until and unless Johnson proves his amazing theories, I'm going with the greenhouse effect. As should you.
  49. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Eric #154 - yes, there are some state (California) subsidies. I'm not sure how much - the solar company took care of that paperwork and incorporated the subsidies into the quoted cost. After a year of the lease, the electric utility (PG&E in my case) checks the meter - if it's negative (more produced than used), they pay me, I believe somewhere in the ballpark of 10-12 cents per kWh. I've only had the panels installed since August - it was very negative in summer, and has been positive in winter. Overall I've got just about zero net use from August through November.
  50. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel "It is rather like claiming that if you are cold (+10C) you can get warm by taking your clothes off and hugging a snowman at -3C but much, much worse!" No, it's rather like claiming that 10 °C is better than -3 °C. Your clothes are colder than your body on average, at almost the same temperature inside and colder outside. But they reduce the heat fluxes due to both conduction and convection and you feel warmer. The point here is that whatever reduces heat dispersion (heat flux) makes you feel "warmer", even if it is colder than yourself. And even if the prevailing mechanism is radiative instead of conductive or convective. Please note the flux from the atmosphere to the surface is not a heat flux but an energy flux, the former being the net energy flux at the surface. So, the heat flux does not revert upon increasing the greenhouse effect as required by the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

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