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Comments 10251 to 10300:

  1. Daniel Bailey at 08:40 AM on 25 July 2019
    97% consensus study hits one million downloads!

    From a science perspective, the most-important sound-bite of that Guardian article is this:

    This paper should finally stop climate change deniers claiming that the recent observed coherent global warming is part of a natural climate cycle. This paper shows the truly stark difference between regional and localised changes in climate of the past and the truly global effect of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions,” said Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London.

  2. 97% consensus study hits one million downloads!

    In this Guardian article posted today, Jonathan Watts extensively quotes John Cook about the consensus in a light of three new peer-reviewed papers published in Nature. The article:

    No doubt left’ about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts by Jonathan Watts, Environment, Guardian, July 24, 2019

    Two relevant paragraphs from the article:

    A 2013 study in Environmental Research Letters found 97% of climate scientists agreed with this link in 12,000 academic papers that contained the words “global warming” or “global climate change” from 1991 to 2011. Last week, that paper hit 1m downloads, making it the most accessed paper ever among the 80+ journals published by the Institute of Physics, according to the authors.

    The pushback has been political rather than scientific. In the US, the rightwing thinktank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CPI) is reportedly putting pressure on Nasa to remove a reference to the 97% study from its webpage. The CPI has received event funding from the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Charles Koch Institute, which have much to lose from a transition to a low-carbon economy.

    On one hand, that the Competitive Resource Institute and its powerful conservative backers are pressuring NASA to remove its page on consensus messaging from its website is indeed disturbing. On the other hand, this effort reveals how powerful the consensu messaging is because the climate science denier community is working hard to suppress it.

  3. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    billev - I can only assume that you havent bothered to read any of the references that people have provided to you. I provided direct measurement of the increase in irradiation from the increase in CO2. The change in irraditation is measured in instruments on the surface at stations all over the world. (eg see here). I cannot see how you can deny what is measured. Since GHGs block outgoing radiation, the change in irradiation can also be measured by satellites.  Eg see Chen 2007. Furthermore, the change in radiation measured, matches the calculated result of the change GHG is extraordinary degree. These measurements directly support the claims made.

    You seem to struggle with idea that 400ppm could have an effect. Perhaps you should consider how far a photon would travel on average (mean free path) through an atmosphere with 400ppm of CO2 before it hit a CO2 molecule? Write down your intuition, and then calculate it. I suspect the answer will surprize you.

  4. Daniel Bailey at 07:08 AM on 25 July 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    Ah, yes, the Black Knight defense.

  5. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    I have based my submissions on the measurement of atmospheric CO2 level by the reporting station at Muana Loa, temperature at altitude measurement by the U.S. Weather Service and global annual air temperature meaurement and computation by NOAA.  All of the replies to my submissions contain no reference to any measurement to support their stated or implied claims for the role of atmospheric CO2 in the rise of global air temperature.

  6. Daniel Bailey at 02:47 AM on 25 July 2019
    Michaels Misrepresents Nordhaus and Scientific Evidence in General

    "At what degree does the Arctic lose it's ice during the summer months?

    Because I can assure you that once that happens, there will be no stopping Global Warming.
    Does it happen at 2°C or less?
    "

    Fortunately, scientists have looked into the effects of an ice-free Arctic.

    Pistone et al 2019 - Radiative Heating of an Ice‐free Arctic Ocean

    "Here we use satellite observations to estimate the amount of solar energy that would be added in the worstcase scenario of a complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice throughout the sunlit part of the year. Assuming constant cloudiness, we calculate a global radiative heating of 0.71 W/m2 relative to the 1979 baseline state. This is equivalent to the effect of one trillion tons of CO2 emissions. These results suggest that the additional heating due to complete Arctic sea ice loss would hasten global warming by an estimated 25 years."

    Takeaways:

    1. "Of the 0.71 W/m2 of globally-averaged heating, 0.21 W/m2 is estimated to have already occurred between 1979 and 2016. Approximately half (0.11 W/m2) of this realized heating occurred during the CERES observational record (2000-2016), with the other half occurring between 1979 and 1999 as estimated based on the observed relationship between satellite-derived sea ice concentration and albedo."

    2. "we cannot exclude the extreme possibility that the Arctic could become annually ice-free during the coming decades"

    3. "even in the presence of an extreme negative cloud feedback, the global heating due to the complete disappearance of the Arctic sea ice would still be nearly double the already-observed heating due to the current level of ice loss"

    4. "The present study focuses on the additional radiative heating from the complete loss of Arctic sea ice, but it does not estimate the amount of global warming that would be associated with this level of ice loss"

    5. "even under conditions in which the Arctic Ocean becomes ice-free only in September, the additional radiative heating may likely be driven largely by the associated midsummer sea ice loss"

    6. Arctic sea ice will continue to re-form in Arctic winter for the foreseeable future even after the loss of summer sea ice (the sun-lit portion of the year the paper primarily deals with)

    Money section:

    "This heating of 0.71 W/m2 is approximately equivalent to emitting one trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. As of 2016, an estimated 2.4 trillion tons of CO2 have been emitted since the preindustrial period due to both fossil fuel combustion (1.54 trillion tons) and land use changes (0.82 trillion tons), with an additional 40 billion tons of CO2 per year emitted from these sources during 2007-2016 (Le Quere et al., 2018). Thus, the additional warming due to the complete loss of Arctic sea ice would be equivalent to 25 years of global CO2 emissions at the current rate.

    This implies that if the Arctic sea ice were to disappear much more rapidly than in current climate model projections, it would drastically shorten the time available to adapt to climate changes and the time for achieving carbon neutrality."

  7. michael sweet at 22:17 PM on 24 July 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    Billev,

    At 21 you ask about " the periods of pause in temperature rise".  In the upper right of the page on every page on SkS is the graph of the Escalator.  The Escalator shows that there are natural periods of lower rise interspersed in the overall rise in temperature. (I do not know how to attach the graph here).

  8. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    billev @21,
    You have up-thread set out your arguments for CO2 not being able to operate as a GHG (@7 - CO2 concentrations of 0.04% are too small to have any effect. @10 - Air does not insulate hot water pipes well enough. @13 - The atmosphere gets colder with altitude suggesting some form of heat loss with altitude.) and none of these have been accepted as valid here with reasons properly given in-thread for that lack of validity. As you fail to present counter arguments, it suggests you are happy with that lack of validity.

    This then must constitute what you refer to as being "what you all are saying," so in direct answer to your question @21 I would say that none of it "applies" or is relevant to the "periods of pause in temperature rise shown in the graphs of the history of air temperature change since 1880."
    Rather, the GHG effect resulting from atmospheric CO2 levels, which have been increasing over the period in question (1880-to-date), is the driving force behind the rise in temperature over the period. The pauses within the temperature record you ask about have other causes (as decribed @22 & @23).

    Is there any particular part of the 1880-to-date temperature record that you feel requires more specific consideration?

  9. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    I would add two things.

    1/ The actual surface temperature year to year is strongly affected by internal variation. ie heat sloshing around in a wet, unevenly heated planet. ENSO is the dominant component of this. For this reason, climate is defined as 30 year average. Arguably, Ocean Heat Content is a better metric than surface because most of the heat goes into the ocean and the total energy varies less (the little wobbles are ocean/atmosphere exchange). However, we have only been able to measure this with confidence relatively recently.

    2/ Climate changes in response to net forcing. Changes GHGs are only one element (though the dominant one in recent history), but aerosols either man made or from volcanoes are also important (especially mid 20th century, and after really big tropical volcano eruptions). Changes in solar input and albedo are the other important inputs into calculation of forcings.

  10. Michaels Misrepresents Nordhaus and Scientific Evidence in General

    At what degree does the Arctic lose it's ice during the summer months?

    Because I can assure you that once that happens, there will be no stopping Global Warming.
    Does it happen at 2°C or less?

    Think you can stop the Arctic from melting?
    I don't and neither do many US oceanographers.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/16/warming-of-oceans-due-to-climate-change-is-unstoppable-say-us-scientists
    There is a severe flaw in the logic here.
    Care to explain it?

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Fixed link. Please learn how to do this yourself with the link button in the comments editor.

  11. Rob Honeycutt at 06:59 AM on 24 July 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    billev... Well, there are lots of reasons for the variations in global temperature. The most dominant one would the El Nino Southern Occilation (ENSO). Most of the accumulated heat is going into the world's oceans, and that heat goes through phases of gaining and releasing that energy into the atmosphere, and that affects the annual global temperature.

  12. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    And what you all are saying applies how to the periods of pause in temperature rise shown in the graphs of the history of air temperature change since 1880?

  13. Daniel Bailey at 02:47 AM on 24 July 2019
    Climate's changed before

    I'll address a portion of that, now that scaddenp and MA Rodger already weighed in on the rest.

    "The irrefutable scientific evidence also shows that in all 8 recorded Inter-Glacial Periods, the sea levels rose 3 meters to as much as 14 meters, even when CO2 levels were 260 ppm to 280 ppm CO2."

    Again, saying that there is irrefutable evidence pretty much ensures that he's making that claim up.  If he had such "irrefutable scientific evidence", he'd have cited it.

    Part of the fallacy on display here is the presumption that interglacials are interchangeable and equal.  They are not.  They are the confluence of orbital factors and the "memory" of the climate over time (climate memory has been demonstrated to extend some 800,000 years or more, depending upon the metric in question).  A consilience of studies point out that the best analogue for the modern Holocene Interglacial is MIS (Marine Isotope Stage) 19 (per Giaccio et al 2015, Yin and Berger 2015, Vavrus et al 2018, etc).

    Looking at the 5 most recent interglacials, we see that sea levels are not identical (from Grant et al 2014, Figure 2):

    Grant 14, Fig 2

    From Dutton et al 2015, Figure 1, we see that sea levels from previous interglacials are tightly tied to temperatures...and we know from innumerable studies that global temperatures are tightly intercorrelated with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels:

    Dutton 15, Fig 1

     However, emerging evidence (from Grant 2019) for that Mid-Pliocene sea level on the very right-side of Dutton 15, Figure 1 above is that sea levels associated with an atmospheric composition of carbon dioxide like today saw a contribution of about 20 meters just from the Antarctic Ice Sheet by itself.  I believe Rob DeConto is coming out with a similar paper soon on that subject.

    Grant 2019, Fig 6.10

    Figure 6.10 The Whanganui RSL record on the left with the precession-paced MPWP and obliquity-paced late Pliocene sections highlighted with different GIS, AIS and NHIS configurations and SLE illustrated for interglacial and glacial extreme conditions relative to present-day Antarctica (0 m; central figure). The anti-phased 15 m amplitudes of the MPWP are interpreted as 5 m from GIS offset by ~20 m from AIS present day to peak interglacial. Higher amplitudes would then include larger-than-present AIS (nearing LGM; Clarke and Tarasov, 2014). While the late Pliocene amplitudes include increasing NHIS contributions and smaller interglacial configurations.

    To sum for this portion, previous interglacials are as unique as are your fingerprints, but contain similarities constrained by physics, with sea levels of the time correlated with global temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

    At present, the human burning of fossil fuels is driving an atmospheric composition and temperature associated with a time when sea levels were over 20 meters higher than at present, imperiling coastal port cities around the world and threatening areas where over 2 billion people currently live.

  14. Skeptical Science New Research for Week #29, 2019

    Clicking on two links I wanted to read just returned the whole page.  Neither opened.

    Moderator Response:

    Thank you for pointing that out, Synapsid. The links should now be working. 

  15. Daniel Bailey at 01:58 AM on 24 July 2019
    CO2 is not increasing

    "1) if CO2 emissions stopped today, what global average temperature would we eventually reach, and 2) how soon would we reach it?"

    Good questions.  Looking to the most recent summary at hand, Canada's Changing Climate Report for 2019:

    Section 3.4:

    "Global temperature change is effectively irreversible on multi-century timescales. This is because the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted over time is the main determinant of global temperature change and because carbon dioxide has a long (century-scale) lifetime in the atmosphere."

    And

    "In summary, many aspects of climate change are irreversible on multi-century timescales. CO2 persisting for a century or more in the atmosphere is the main determinant of global mean temperature change, and global temperature will remain elevated even after emissions cease. GMST could be reduced only if human intervention could remove CO2 from the atmosphere over a sustained period."

    Section 3.5:

    "The difference between observed temperature and the multi-model average from roughly 2000 onward has been extensively analyzed (e.g., Fyfe et al., 2016) and is due to a combination of small errors in the observational record, decadal timescale internal variability, and incomplete early 21st century volcanic forcing in the models."

    Figure 3.9 shows the persistence of elevated temperatures after emissions cease:

    CCCR 2019

  16. Rob Honeycutt at 23:57 PM on 23 July 2019
    Climate's changed before

    Here's a question I've often thought of related to past climate... In periods of a hothouse Earth, like the cretacious, what would the weather have been like? All we ever see are illustrations of dinosaurs in lush tropical landscapes. There would have been a helluva lot more energy in the climate system and so many more extreme weather events.

  17. CO2 is not increasing
    Michael SweetNice to hear from you again. Thank you for the references.
  18. michael sweet at 22:54 PM on 23 July 2019
    CO2 is not increasing

    Ritchieb1234,

    Searching at RealClimate using the keywords "temperature change emissions stop" gives several interesting hits.  The first three or four are advertisements.

    This OP from 2010 seems to describe what you seek.  The original letter is here.  Follow the citations at Google Scholar to get more recent ideas.

    They have covered a lot of material in the old posts at Realclimate.  They are probably at a technical level that you would like.  Currently they post less because they have already covered so many issues.

  19. CO2 is not increasing
    Sorry if this is the wrong comment string. I am having trouble finding quantitative answers to questions related to how temperature increase lags behind CO2 concentrations. Specifically: 1) if CO2 emissions stopped today, what global average temperature would we eventually reach, and 2) how soon would we reach it?Thanks
  20. Climate's changed before

    TVC15 @760/761,

    It is a smorgasbord of denialist assertions you present.

    ☻ The "Antarctic was warmer 1,000 years ago" assertion looks a little difficult to uphold in any way. There are reconstructions from ice core data (for instance Ciais et al (1994) fig 7) which shows Antarctic temperatures over the last 10,000 years waggling about by a maximum of about a degree centigrade. (Note the Ciais et al graphic is sensibly using an 'average-over-the-last-5,000-years' as a datum.) The thermometer record (eg Berkeley Earth) shows recent warming of a similar amount (although there is a lot of variability in the warming depending where you are in Antarctica) so this evidence suggests it was colder in Antarctica 1,000 years ago. The image below is gleened from a posting on the planet Wattsupia and appears to be based on data from Marcott et al (2013). The 1,000 years ago temperature again is shown as being colder.

    Antarctic holocene temperatrure

    ☻ The interglacial sea level has been discussed before, introduced up-thread @715. It was shown that only two of the last 8 interglacials had higher SLR than today, not all eight. The SLR will mainly depend on how much of Greenland & Antarctica melts out, a process that stopped in this present interglacial 8,000 yers ago, and AGW is the process that is doing that melting today.

    ☻ The "Earth is always warmer and wetter, never warmer and drier" assertion isn't correct. The missing word word is 'atmosphere' which will be, as scaddenp @765 points out, wetter under the CC relationship. So if we have more wet in the atmosphere, will that translate firstly into more rain always falling on the earth beneath. Globally apparently not. This NOAA graphic shows global temperature and global rainfall are not well aligned. (The graph is from here and is for precipitation over global land)

    Global Land precipitation anomaly graph

    And secondly, as scaddenp @766 describes, even if rain and temperature were inexorably linked, that warmer atmosphere is demanding to be always wetter than it was when cooler and will thus be sucking more moisture right out of that very same land to re-charge its wetness.

     

  21. Climate's changed before

    And for science - eg observations and models, try here. The Palmer drought index looks at both precipation and evaporation.

    However, I doubt your denier will open any evidence that might contradict what they would like to believe. If someone isnt prepared to let data inform their opinion, then it isnt worth arguing.

  22. Climate's changed before

    Warmer and wetter is true - CC relation requires it. However, the very broad pattern (with lots of regional exceptions) is that the wet get wetter, dry get dryer. There is no guarantee of more arable land where you want it. Does mean he now accepts global warming? More like "I will believe any nonsense that can justify sitting on our hands". More likely latter and as we said before, you are wasting your time.

    Warmer in Antarctica 1000 years ago? Umm, let's see that evidence.

  23. Climate's changed before

    @ 762; 763 Daniel Bailey 

    Done!

    I look forward to your responses!

    Thank you!

  24. Daniel Bailey at 11:52 AM on 23 July 2019
    Climate's changed before

    He claims to have irrefutable evidence.

     

    Make him damn well show it.

  25. Daniel Bailey at 11:51 AM on 23 July 2019
    Climate's changed before

    I'll have more to say tomorrow, but as a preliminary answer, you're chasing the dog's tail.  Stop.

    Demand evidence for their claims, including source citations.

    Pretty much every single item you quoted is a baldfaced lie or untruth.

  26. Climate's changed before

    Also is this accurate?

    Antarctica was warmer 1,000 years ago, long before the industrial revolution and before there has been an increase in CO2 attributed to man.

  27. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    Just in case billev still misses out on the roles radiation and convective mixing play in atmospheric temperature profiles, he might want to look at this old thread. In particular, the diagram I show that compares what the temperature profile would look likein a purely radiative equilibrium, contrasted with at atmosphere with convection.

    https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=23&t=1114&&a=164#69161

  28. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    Billev then goes on (comment #13) to attribute the decrease in atmospheric temperature with height as being the result of distance from the heat source.

    Not true. Billev seems unaware of (or not remembering) the universal gas law, which relates temperature, volume and pressure of gases. He needs to find an elementary meteorology text that can explain adiabatic cooling to him, so he can understand what happens to rising air. (HInt: pressure also decreases with height...)

    If billev was correct, then the stratosphere would be even colder than the troposphere. It isn't. If billev were to look at his entire U.S Standard Atmosphere, he would see that this is the case. Why is the stratosphere warmer? That pesky radiation absorption again (UV, this time).

  29. Climate's changed before

    Thank you so much Daniel Bailey!

    A denier is claming these things:

    The irrefutable scientific evidence is that Earth is always warmer and wetter, never warmer and drier. That will increase the amount of arable land and also increase food production. That's good news for farmers in foreign States, but not good news for American farmers who will have difficulty competing globally.

    The irrefutable scientific evidence also shows that in all 8 recorded Inter-Glacial Periods, the sea levels rose 3 meters to as much as 14 meters, even when CO2 levels were 260 ppm to 280 ppm CO2.

    So, whether CO2 levels are 260 ppm or 400 ppm makes no difference, because the sea levels are going to rise 3 meters to 14 meters no matter what happens.

    Are these claims accurate?

  30. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    It's sad when someone makes confident, broad, sweeping statements that are pretty much completely wrong, such as those from billev in this thread.

    Starting with comment #7, billev bascially makes the "CO2 is a trace gas" argument, which is debunked here.To further elaborate on why this is a bogus argument, let's consider a few aspects of radiation transfer:

    • The absorption of radiation is, with minor secondary effects, solely a function of how much of the absorbing material there is between the radiation source and the detection point. A thin, compressed layer is no different than a a wide, dispersed layer.
    • Filling the space between the widely-dispersed absorber with other materials that have no radiative effects will not change how much radiation is aborbed by the absorber. Dilution is irrelevant, to a first (and probably second) approximation. (Eventually, pressure does start to play a role, well-known by radiation modellers.)
    • Expressing CO2 as a fraction of the abundant inert atmospheric gases is just plain wrong, when it comes to calculating radiation transfer.

    Let's do a thought experiment.

    • Consider a plate of perfectly clear glass, 1mm think. Light (AKA radiation) passes through completely.
    • We then coat one side of the plate with a 0.1mm thick layer of something that absorbs visible light. The light trasmitted through the plate is reduced. (How much depends on the properties of that material.)
    • If we mix that 0.1mm coating into the clear glass, dispersed evenly across the 1mm thickness (well, let's assume it is now 1.1mm thick), the effect on light transmission will not be changed.
    • If we put that 0.1mm absorbing layer on a 10mm thick plate of clear glass, the effect is the same as it was  on the 1mm plate.
    • If we put that 0.1mm absorbing layer on a 100mm thick plate of clear glass, the effect is the same as it was on the 1mm plate.
    • If we disperse that 0.1mm of absorbing material across a 1000mm plate of glass, the effect is still the same.
    • The ratio of absorbing material to clear glass plate is irrelevant.

    Billev needs to learn more about radiation transfer.

  31. Postma disproved the greenhouse effect

    Dear Nhqjo5kgDyNtNJLX683t:

    This has come up recently on this thread:

    https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=18&p=26#132128

    Radiation in or out of a horizontal surface is expressed as W/m2 (flux density) because douibling the area doibles the energy involved. Yes a Watt is a Joule per second - you get a total in Joules if you sum over time.

    The division by four is correct, though: IR is emitted vertically, i.e., perpendicular to the earth's surface. To get total IR in Joules you multiply by the entire earth's surface (4*pi*r3).

    Solar radiation is not received vertically at all points on the earth's surface, though. In fact, at any instant in time, there is only one location on earth where the sun is directly overhead. Everywhere else, the sun's rays strike at an oblique angle. The solar intenstity, as measured per unit area of the earth's surface, is reduced according to the cosine law - by a factor of 1/cos(z), where z is the angle between the sun's rays and the local vertical.

    If you like calculuis, you could integerate the 1/cos(z) relationship over the entire surface. If you prefer trignonometry, the total sunlight received by the earth is proprtiional to the area of a circle of radius r - area=pi*r2.

    The ratio of the two is 1/4, not 1/2.

    To visualize the sun's reduced intensity, imaging trying to read a book by candlelight. You can probably manage if you hold the book perpendicular to the light coming from the candle, but as you turn the book obliquely, the light intercepted by the book's page will decrease. By the time the page is parallel to the candle's beam, the page captures no light at all. Think of the sun the same way" at sunrise or sunset, a book lying horizontally gets no direct sunlight at all - only the skylight.

  32. Nhqjo5kgDyNtNJLX683tv at 08:10 AM on 23 July 2019
    Postma disproved the greenhouse effect

    How can the watts per meter squared by divided by four when watts are a measure of energy per second (related to joules)? If the area is increased from one meter to the whole earth then the time interval must be increased to one whole day. If one wishes to know how much the whole earth receives from the Sun in one second then one should divide by two. Because the area of a sphere is 4 pi r^2, and one hemisphere is 2 pi r^2 the solar input averaged over the whole Earth would be half that of one hemisphere and not divisible by four. Then, what justification is there for dividing the watts per meter squared by four? If the light is treated as if spread (due to the curvature) from one cross section to twice that area on one hemisphere it is (to use Postma's word) "diluted" by 2 and not by four.

  33. Models are unreliable

    rupisnark @1117/1118,
    In reverse order.
    1118
    "Your website ... already do(es) that job." Firstly, SkS is not my website. Secondly, SkS addresses distortions that are prediminantly of 'denialist' origin, not "non-denialist". The non-denialist distortions would be a more interesting subject, if you know of any.
    ♣ Whether you have the time to cope with all the nonsense served up by Christy, or not. We haven't got very far with the content of this Christy talk in more than one iteration. And there is the question of whether I (or others) could be fussed to continue untangling the garbage fo you into chunks you will understand.
    NINO1+2 & NINO3.  Note these Sea Surface temperatures (which C&M 2017 appears to say it uses to subtract ENSO from its TLT record) are not de-trended (as for instance the AMO is) so they do still have an AGW signal. Subtracting the NINO signals will thus also subtract some AGW signal.
    ♣ Does C&M(1994) repeat the method of C&M(2017)? The implication is that it does (note that I have not access to C&M1994) but one difference is the UAH TLT v5.6 record was not used in 1994 as it didn't exist. The corrections to the UAH data set (mainly not the result of work by the UAH team) would have made significant changes to the 1994 result. So it is strange that C&M(2017) only finds a very small difference.
    ♣ Christy was one of six lead authors of Chapter 2 of IPOCC WG1 TAR (1990). Note the prmary finding of that chapter "The warming rate since 1976, 0.17°C/decade." This contradicts the primary finding of both C&M(1994) and C&M(2017).
    ♣ The GWPF are anti-scientific to the point of being bare-faced liars. I will be happy to demonstrate that fact if you are interested. If Christy is happy to give the GWPF the time of day, he will get no respect from me!!!
    1117
    ♣ Have you understood correctly? What we can call Slide 1 of Christy (2019) is saying AGW is trivial to the point of insignificance. That is not borne out by the science. And denying the energy imbalance is pretty unforgiveable. You bat the "~750 Million Units" into the long grass but there is also the "6 trillion" which is part of the talk transcript While the 750M quantity could be considered as the rough total (that's total as in down to absolute zero) heat content of the atmosphere per sq metre of the planet, the 6T quantity would be 80 times more than the equivalent for the oceans (which are usually considered the largest thermal pool the climate has to cope with). So what the 6T quantity is supposed to be, I know not. I assume it is just meant to appear very very big.
    ♣ Slide 1 of Christy (2019) says it takes the values from AR5 Fig 2.11. It is Christy's comparison, not mine.

  34. Models are unreliable

    MA Rodgers @ 1116
    Using terms like “climate change denial” does not help my understanding of what is going on, instead it undermines my trust in the people who use the term. I started out with the view that the consensus was probably right about global warming happening and being man-made, but that the solutions so far implemented and being proposed were not terribly good and, in my cases, counterproductive. The tone of this website should be to encourage questions and let people work out for themselves whether people like Christy know what they are talking about or not. “I bring a hum-dinger of climate change denial.” Throwing mud at a former IPCC lead author is more likely to bring into question the whole IPCC process than to make people reject arguments without understanding the issues.


    “Christy & McNider (2017) attempts to expunge ENSO & volcanic effects from the UAH TLT satellite temperature record but in doing so also manage to expunge much of the warming signal of AGW.”


    Does this paper follow the same methods that they used in 1994? Was Christy trying in 1994 to argue that Global Warming was not occurring (or was occurring at a lower rate)? Did the 1994 paper suggest this?


    “Certainly their use of NINO1+2 and NINO3 as an ENSOsignal is one possible cause as these two SST series do contain an AGW signal.”


    I do not understand this. Please give me the appropriate background reading and I will get up to speed on it.


    “I could continue down the many arguments he makes but how long have you got?” I will look at all the arguments you put up.


    And if you wish to check out "distortions of information from both sides", perhaps addressing the apparent distortions on the other non-denialist "side" would be a better appraoch.


    Your website and many others already do that job.

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] I hope you don't mind, I added line breaks between your paragraphs to make them a little easier to read. Thx.

  35. Models are unreliable

    MA Rodgers @1113
    The substantive criticism you made was relating to the his first graphic. You compare that to the linked graphic. The two appear to me to be saying similar things (but see below), at first glance Christy’s is simpler to read (which would make sense as it was based on a talk to laymen); the use of units puts numbers into percentage terms which makes everything simpler. Since the 750 million units is not mentioned in the text, it seems irrelevant to spend time making conjectures over what you or I think it might mean. I may try to contact Christy or GWPF to understand if it seems important later (not sure if I will get any answers).


    Then there are the issues that are worth discussing. The imbalance of 0.6W/m2 (0.18 units?), the statement that at the surface it is in balance, and the claim that 0.5 units is caused by extra CO2 whereas 100 units is caused by H20, clouds and aerosols (and not mentioned but presumably also existing CO2). Have I understood this correctly? What are the errors in what Christy has said?

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Same.

  36. Rob Honeycutt at 23:56 PM on 22 July 2019
    IPCC is alarmist

    Take note that these are very large reports that take years to compile, write, and publish. Thus, the latest research will be several years prior to the published date of the final report.

  37. Models are unreliable

    rupisnark @1114,

    You must forgive me my intolerance of those in the scientific & political community that remain imprisoned in climate change denial. Yet you do bring a real humdinger of climate change denial here for comment. Christy makes many many 'points' in that GWPF talk and he is pretty-much wrong it all of it.

    I could continue down the many arguments he makes but how long have you got?

    Consider the second point (The nonsense of the first point I dealt with up-thread @1113.), the graphic "What's happening at the surface?"

    This second graphic shows a very small "Extra CO2" effect. This likely makes sense only if this tiny box represents the imbalance in the surface energy flux which is causing AGW. If it is meant to represent the impact of the AGW-induced warming, the box should be roughly the size of the cooling "Heat Flux" box and also have a cooling box the same size to balance.

    The second graphic as-presented is scientific nonsense. But as that is really only repeating the incompetence of the first graphic, perhaps I should consider the third argument set out by Christy.

    So graphic number three which makes sense to also consider graphic number four. This bring quite a lot of stuff into the discussion - Christy & McNider (1994) and Christy & McNider (2017) as well as Hansen et al (1998). But without getting too deep into all this, the bottom line is that Christy makes two crazy mistakes. Firstly Christy grossly misprepresents Hansen et al (1988) both in his GWPF talk and in  Christy & McNider (1994).  Hansen et al did not predict a +0.35ºC/decade temperature trend as Christy states (see this SkS post).  Secondly Christy & McNider (2017) attempts to expunge ENSO & volcanic effects from the UAH TLT satellite temperature record but in doing so also manage to expunge much of the warming signal of AGW. Thus a trend of +0.16ºC/decade in UAH v5.6 is converted into +0.095ºC/decade. Exactly how Christy & McNider achieve this would require some detailed analysis. Certainly their use of NINO1+2 and NINO3 as an ENSO signal is one possible cause as these two SST series do contain an AGW signal.

    ---

    Certainly I would concede nothing regarding Christy's work without first checking it out. His work is totally untrustwothy.

    And if you wish to check out "distortions of information from both sides", perhaps addressing the apparent distortions on the other non-denialist "side" would be a better appraoch.

  38. michael sweet at 21:21 PM on 22 July 2019
    IPCC is alarmist

    Cozumelito:

     From the title page of the report you cite:

    "This chapter should be cited as:
    Seneviratne, S.I., N. Nicholls, D. Easterling, C.M. Goodess, S. Kanae, J. Kossin, Y. Luo, J. Marengo, K. McInnes, M. Rahimi,
    M. Reichstein, A. Sorteberg, C. Vera, and X. Zhang, 2012:" my emphasis

  39. michael sweet at 21:16 PM on 22 July 2019
    Models are unreliable

    Rupisnark:

    John Christy and his scientific positions were discussed at Skeptical Science in 2011 here.  His position has not changed since then.  

    I note that the globe has warmed sigificantly since 2011 in contradiction to Christy's position.

  40. IPCC is alarmist

    I've downloaded the 2018 IPCC report 

    Changes in Climate Extremes and their Impacts on the Natural Physical Environment https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/SREX-Chap3_FINAL-1.pdf

     

    I've perused the References section and I can find no research that takes place later than 2011. I guess there's a possibility  the report is for 2013 but the link indicates that it's 2018 (No explicit mention of the date of the report in the text. Why?)

    If in fact it's 2018, why the delay in examining research?

  41. Models are unreliable

    MA Rodger @1113.  I am trying to work out for myself the truth and have little time for personal attacks. You may not like Christy's opinions but he was a lead author on one of chapters of one of the previous IPCC reports and has a distinguished academic record. He has doen imprtant work in relation to satellite data and worked to correct errors that he admitted he made. Are lead authors of IPCC reports not to be trusted? He may be wrong, but please stick to evidence not personal attacks. 

    I will review in detail the criticisms of the points you have made. I would like to understand which of his points you are willing to conceed, where he is exaggerating and where he is downright wrong.  

    My limited study so far has found distortions of information from both sides. Please help me to ascertain whether the distortions come from both sides equally or 90% from one side.

  42. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    It is interesting that the lapse rate is being wielded by billev @13 as in some way a proof of the absence of a greenhouse effect.

    "The Table of U.S. Standard Atmosphere Heights and Temperatures shows a uniform loss of temperature for each one thousand feet of height from the Earth's surface beginning at the surface. This would appear to show that the only determinant of the heat loss from the Earth's surface is the distance from the surface."

    The atmosphere is, of course, effectively static vertically, with the air rising at the equator in the Hadley Cells and taking over a week to rise from the surface to the top of the atmosphere (tropopause). This slow movement prevents large levels of global cooling through convection and the reason it is so slow is because the atmosphere is very much in balance. As the air rises it expands with decreasing pressure and thus cools. The process is so leasurely because it is so close to being an adiabatic expansion. The Lapse Rate that billev @13 describes as disproving the greenhouse effect is in truth an essential part of the insulation process, holding the atmosphere in place so it can act like a greenhouse.

    Ironically, the role of the lapse rate in preventing heat loss is exactly like that polyurethane foam that hold air in place against hot water pipes, the previous argument cited by billev @10.

  43. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29

    Regarding "New sun-driven cooling period of Earth ‘not far off’, Alan Jones interviews Nils Axel-Mörner, Sky News Australia, June 2019"

    More rubbish from the climate denialist Morner. Reading this article Nils Axel Morner makes some astonishing claims about climate change, I mean he doesn't hold back. Its hard to reconcile somebody who is apparently talented with maths and physics making such outrageous and nonsensical and easily rebuted claims. Perhaps he does it to fulfill some strange inner need.

    This is interesting and amusing: How not to take on climate change deniers. 

  44. michael sweet at 16:00 PM on 22 July 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    Billev:

    This video demonstrates how ink at 280 ppm in water visibly is much darker than pure water.  390 ppm is visibly darker htan 280 ppm.  Your claim that 400 ppm CO2 insignificantly effects that absrbtion of IR light in the atmosphere compared to 380 ppm is demonstrated to be incorrect.

  45. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    And our point, is that if you stop convective heat losses, then air is a very adequate insulator for your heat pipes but that has nothing to do with the radiative properties.

    You are making assertion "isn't enough of it in the atmosphere to measureably effect the loss of heat from the Earth's surface as distance from that surface increases." which is demonstrably false. See paper on how it observed. You are not understanding how the GHE works and drawing invalid conclusions from things like the laspe rate. Temperature drop with altitude till the tropopause. The lapse rate is pretty much ideal gas law - as pressure drops so does temperature. However, the effect of adding GHGs raises the tropopause. See here for considerably more detail on why.

    See here for observations of change in tropopause height, and here looks to be further validation this year.

  46. Rob Honeycutt at 12:07 PM on 22 July 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    billev... It seems to me that you're starting from an assumption that there is no effect and are attempting to position arguments that you think confirm that conclusion. That's motivated reasoning, or confirmation bias.

    You have to understand that this basic science regarding CO2's effect on the Earth's temperature has been understood pretty much since the 1850's. Without some form of additional radiative effect in the atmosphere our planet would have a surface temperature 33°C colder than it is. Thus there has to be a radiative effect related to various atmospheric gases.

    John Tyndall did the experiments in the 1850's to show which gases have these properties. Nitrogen? Nope. Oxygen? Nope. Argon? Nope. CO2? Yep. Methane? Yep. Water vapor? Yep.

    Even though these gases are small in concentration, their affect on the surface temperature is significant.

  47. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    My point is that without insulation the air is an insufficient barrier to excessive heat loss.  My larger point is that regardless of CO2's properties there isn't enough of it in the atmosphere to measureably effect the loss of heat from the Earth's surface as distance from that surface increases.  The  Table of U.S. Standard Atmosphere Heights and Temperatures shows a uniform loss of temperature for each one thousand feet of height from the Earth's surface beginning at the surface.  This would appear to show that the only determinant of the  heat loss from the Earth's surface is the distance from the surface.

  48. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

     If you didnt have the air enclosed in something (eg the foam cells or the fibre of wool etc), then you would have convective transfer of heat away from pipes, which is the more effective than conductive or radiative transfer. Air has very low conductivity and so limits conductive energy transport from your pipes.The GHE affects radiative transport and would not have a measurable effect in the thickness of the lagging. Foil is used as well to reduce radiative losses from your pipe.

    If you need a primer of energy transfer, try here.

  49. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    billev @10,

    And any self-respecting engineer will tell you that hot water pipes are indeed encased in air to better insulate them. The air is held in place by such materials as a polyurethane foam which being filled with a matrix of air has perhaps ten-times greater an insulating effect than does solid polyurethane.

  50. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

    And that's why engineers use the surrounding air to retain the heat in hot water pipes, right? 

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