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Comments 103501 to 103550:

  1. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Daniel Bailey (#52), The Christidis, N., Donaldson, G.C. and Stott, P.A. 2010 paper says: "The decrease in CRM [Cold Related Mortality] far outweighs the moderate increase in HRM [Heat Related Mortality] after 1976." This is what CO2Science is saying and it is contrary to the IPCC position. The quote you cited as a refutation relates to causation. Is the observed effect (CRM >> HRM) a result of temperature alone or is adaptation an important factor?
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Read the Christidis paper for that answer.
  2. Philippe Chantreau at 15:56 PM on 25 November 2010
    Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    I wonder how Wegman would respond to a barrage of FOIA requests akin to that used against UEA...
  3. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    It might be instructive to read Atmoz' take on PDO: On the Relationship between the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Global Average Mean Temperature. [Edit: After much searching, I finally was able to resurrect a cached copy of this post on PDO by Tamino: Exclamation Points !!! as well as this one: PDO: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. End edit] The Yooper
  4. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    52: "CO2Science should change its name" The principals behind CO2Science have a rap sheet at sourcewatch, including a name on the good ol' Oregon Petition. At Arizona State, they did some early research into urban CO2 domes -- Phoenix had 200ppm more than Mauna Loa back in 2000 -- and they maintain a nice collection of urban CO2 dome papers. See the human fingerprints thread for some examples.
  5. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Daniel Bailey (#52), You said, "PS: My understanding is that we're in an interglacial of an ongoing ice age. Kinda like remission from cancer (with CO2 being the "cure")." Are you saying that changing CO2 concentrations caused the glaciers to recede?
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] My comment was half-based in fact (technically we are still in an ice age; see here) and half-throwoff-humor. However, mankind does have it within its power to keep the return of the glaciated portion of the ice ages at bay by (in the absence of changes in other forcings) keeping atmospheric CO2 levels elevated. And no, I'm not saying that changing CO2 concentrations caused the glaciers to recede; that one was you.
  6. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re: gallopingcamel (51) Thanks for the link to CO2Science's take on Christidis, N., Donaldson, G.C. and Stott, P.A. 2010. This is CO2Science's position on the paper:
    "Warming is highly beneficial to human health, even without any overt adaptation to it. And when adaptations are made, warming is incredibly beneficial in terms of lengthening human life span."
     Cross-referencing back to Christidis, N., Donaldson, G.C. and Stott, P.A. 2010, this is what they have to say:
    "The need for a formal statistical tool when one attempts to make attribution statements that link impacts of climate change to possible causes is clear. A less stringent approach could be very misleading. For example, it would be easy to compare the recent decrease in cold-related mortality with the increase in temperature and make the seemingly logical assumption that fewer people have died because of milder winters. Our work, however, shows that this is not the case.
     Underlining and bolding added. I think it's quite clear that we have a "skeptical" spin on an attribution study that is at odds with its conclusions from those of the authors of the study. Based on CO2Science's miss-take of the attribution study in question (which doesn't conclude what CO2Science says it does, according to the study itself), CO2Science then states, based on one study, that:
    "Clearly, the IPCC's "very-high-confidence" conclusion is woefully wrong.
     The conclusion I draw is clear: CO2Science should change its name to CO2CrapScience. PS: My understanding is that we're in an interglacial of an ongoing ice age. Kinda like remission from cancer (with CO2 being the "cure"). The Yooper
  7. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    WDWK #21 I've done this type of regression analysis on a range of variables (solar variation, volcanic activity, ENSO and CO2 from memory. I found the only statisticaly significant predictors were CO2 and solar variation for annual mean temperature data. The effect of ENSO was miserably small, even in the context that it was not statistically significant, indicating that it's involved in the redistribution of heat, not a sink/store phenomenon. In the early 20th century, solar accounted for the majority of variance, and in the late 20th century, CO2 did. There were also some interesting non-linearities in the system indicating poorer predictive power (underestimating anomaly) with increasing CO2 concentration. Happy. Feel free to replicate it. The data and some of the R code I used for analysis is here. Disclaimer: I used the methods I'm used to as a social scientist rather than more 'correct' (or convention bound to your taste) methods that an earth scientist would use, so my results, while in good agreement with the peer reviewed literature, are only really worthwhile as an impressionistic analysis. However, given that limitation, they are in good agreement with the published literature.
  8. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    KL #88 "So it is fine going back to say AD1560, or AD1060 or however old these trees are? And how do we know that?" Good agreement with ice core data and other proxies. More recently (pre-1960) you can show that the thermometer record and the tree ring proxies are in good agreement, but after that there's a decline in reliability of the proxies. So hiding the decline refers to this. "Hide" in this instance is a shorthand for "producing a graph that is straightforward for the reader to view and interpret". I suspect that given that there is good independent validation with other records, reverse engineering the original raw data would be seen as an ineffective use of limited resources. If the CRU had realised that the data set was going to be so important, they would have curated is better in the early days (I hit that problem from time to time with my work too, although these days I have a very effective process).
  9. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Daniel Bailey (#36), Thanks for the welcome! I have been too busy to blog lately even though my visit to NOAA was very informative with regard to what is going on at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Yes, I did read all the links on this thread but was not persuaded. The weighing of extreme cold vs. extreme heat depends on who is doing the weighing. Taking the big picture, by which I mean "Ice Age" vs. "Interglacial" there is nothing to debate. North America was a very inhospitable place during the last ice age owing to the extent of the Laurentide glacier. Looking at the present day things are not so clear cut as there are plenty of studies that support Ned's thesis. However, for a contrary point of view take a look at this: http://www.co2science.org/articles/V13/N46/B1.php
  10. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Albatros #85 "Nothing nefarious is going on here; really there isn't. And the data were not "simply" discarded as you claim. As you and others have been told multiple times, several papers have been written on the "divergence problem" going back to 1998." Oh, OK so the divergence problem is something peculiar only to the 20th century and only after 1960?? So it is fine going back to say AD1560, or AD1060 or however old these trees are? And how do we know that? Furthermore - we all seem to agree that Jones 'lost' the original raw data - and we could reconstruct it by taking CRU's reconstruction and 'back-winding' it using Jones' documented correction methods in the published literature? Has anyone done that in order to verify what the raw data was, and whether it had been 'corrected' correctly?
    Moderator Response: The divergence from temperatures since the 1960s is seen in only some tree ring series, in particular those at high northern latitudes. However, both the diverging and non-diverging tree rings are in good agreement back to the Medieval Warm Period. – James
  11. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    Warming only since 1970... You can't simply draw a straight regression line through any data that has a trend... you need to detrend it first! 1) First of all you need to de-trend the global temp since it has a has an annual cycle. 2) you then need to de-trend it based on the PDO and ENSO long term cycles (which are multiple cycles in it self and by it self) 3) after that you need to do a trend-reversal analsys to make sure that your data isn't experiencing different signs of slope for certain periods of time. 4) Finally, you can then do simple linerar regression through all the data with the same slopes (so if global temperatures have changes of sign-of-slope, then you can't run linear regression through the entire data set. That's just plain wrong, but done so frequently it's amazing. 5) Now please go and do that and please then come back and tell me how much of the increase in temp since ~1970 can be explained by any and each of the variables: PDO, ENSO, CO2 etc. ps: even the oceanic heat content has a cycle. Can you calculate it? All the data is freely available and all these statistics are relatively easy to perform for an expert. It will take some data transformation, blood, sweat and tears, but only by doing it yourself can you trust your own analysis. Please note that I've never said that there is no global warming/climate change (due to excess anthropogenic CO2 emissions). I am only conveying the importance of oceanic long term cycles on the little over a hundred year of direct observations. These cycles should not be dismissed and in fact can only help in explaining the observations. The better we understand our observations, the better we can act if necessary. Any of the trends in ENSO, PDO and global temperatures I've presented so far are solid and a fact! Still they don't say there is no human induced global warming, that's a deducted PERCEPTION. See the difference?
  12. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    WDWK #18 The PDO merely redistributes heat. It is not a heat input into the earth's atmosphere. It's action is complex and/or chaotic. With the state of our current knowledge of the PDO it's very difficult to say what it's behaviour will be as a consequence of climate change, but it does seem to help create temperature extremes (high and low), so is an important noise component in the system. When I looked at the statistical behaviour of the PDO compared to temperature anomaly, I could not draw any conclusions from the simple methodology I employed.
  13. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    I'd like to see a post on the general CRU hack incident that simply states what should be obvious to anyone that takes a step back: if ANYONE had most of the emails that they wrote (presuming they use email regularly) over the past 10+ years stolen and placed in the hands of individuals badly wanting to embarass them, those individuals would almost surely find something. Aside from being able to easily take things out of context, forming a "greatest hits" to support a certain narrative, I doubt that many of us who use email regularly can honestly say we've never written anything via email that we at least moderately regret or believe could have been worded differently or more clearly. Eric (#30), "BTW, it appears that Wegman has been instructed to not comment" He had been. No longer I guess. http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-11-21-climate-report-questioned_N.htm His email correspondence related to the Wegman Report have mysteriously disappeared at GMU. What happened to that transparency he claimed to advocate?
  14. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    WHATDOWEKNOW, are you looking at the Intermediate version of this thread ? Have you also read this thread ? Do you see the figure which shows "the contrast in trends between PDO and global temperature. Obviously the PDO as an oscillation between positive and negative values shows no long term trend. In contrast, temperature displays a long term warming trend." And, despite what you may believe, the warming is continuing.
  15. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Anyone who still doubts that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation should see this demo. A picture ... worth a thousand words. A video ... must be a thousand pictures!
  16. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Tom Dayton, because the clothes constitute the isolation I mentioned!
  17. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Phila, yes while "factual" is neutral, my charge of "politically motivated" is not neutral.
  18. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re: adrian smits (43) Since Albatross and JMurphy have ably dealt with the majority of your comment, let me then say this: it is a matter of historical fact that I remember the specific part of the 70's that was so horribly cold that you refer to. The part called winter. ;) OK, enough of the fun stuff. Serious time. Do you have anything you'd wish to discuss on the topic of this thread? You do? Good! Tell us, what is your concern and what led you to think other than what the post shows? What was that source? If your concern was not in line with this thread, but about some other area of climate science, please use the search function in the upper left of every page to search for a more appropriate thread to submit your concern. Thank you for flying Skeptical Science Airlines, where we live to help educate the public on climate science related matters. Please make sure your tray tables are in the upright and locked position before deplaning. Have a great day! The Yooper
  19. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    h-j-m, how do you explain the clothes staying cool when there is a warm body underneath them?
  20. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Phil, what is to explain there? The picture clearly shows a heat source (human body) emitting less heat where it is isolated. Unless you consider the earth to be it's own source of heat it has nothing to do with what needs discussed here.
  21. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re: JMurphy (48) Thank you! I was having dinner with the family and then undertook the pre-Thanksgiving preparations for the big feast tomorrow. BTW, someone by the name adrian smits has been commenting on other sites (RC was one, IIRC). Same MO, starts off slow, gives the idea he is just misunderstanding things, then pulls you in. The "adjusted data/raw data" bit is the dead givaway. The Yooper
  22. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    I am pretty sure you know what I mean, so don't take things word for word, I am talking about scientific objectivity; scientific discussions drive science forward, not (forced) agreement. Of course those matters you point out are absolute facts that cannot be argued with (though some still like to debate evolution...). Nevertheless if somebody PERCEIVES a circle as a square, and is absolutely convinced about that; you can bring any fact to the table proofing the circle is indeed a circle, but that person will only become more steadfast in the opinion that it's a square! That's called reducing dissonance: our human mind has a very hard time agreeing with the fact we actually might be wrong and will do almost anything to stay in consonance. And by the way, it's not about being wrong; it's about not always having to be right... Not until the person actually accepts he/she is not right; then her/his mind opens up for arguments. But only then. Hence, bringing different facts to the table need to be embraced 100% objectively, open-minded and scientifically. Not instantly dismissed or ridiculed due to opinion. Continuing, since Biblio and Murphy can only comment on my phrasing and word choice; I assume they agree ENSO and PDO affect to a large extend global atmospheric temperatures. Jeee, the oceans cover >2/3 of our planet... if anything is important to understand climate change it are the oceans. So the fact thus stays that the global atmosphere responds to PDO and ENSO cycles. More proof needed? Looking at the GISS data: PEAK monthly index temps since 1990 shows that January 2007 had the highest temperature index (0.89) since 1880, again I apologize for making the mistake of claiming 1998. Almost each and every peak coincides with pre-occuring el ninos. The GISS temperature peaks between 1990 and 2007 actually increase with 0.0159C/month; exactly the same increase for el nino peaks between 1973 and 1998 (0.0159C/month) when the PDO was in it's warm phase ('77-'98). The last el nino of 1.8 already shows the trend reversal and with a PDO having shifted from warm to cold in 1998, and the peak 2010 temp is (therefore) also lower than that in 07. Why isn't it much lower? Well, since the 09/10 el nino was 2nd to last in strength since NOI records began in 1950 and since PDO has shifted to cold. Simply because we've been in an el nino dominated phase for the last 40yrs: more net-release of heat than there was heat adsorption (la ninas). Given the latent response properties of the GLOBAL atmosphere this makes perfect sense. Now this theory will be challenged rather soon with the current developing la nina (still not official since 5 consecutive seasons haven't been below an SST of -0.5C yet).
  23. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel, previously I was explaining to you merely that "net" means "difference." Now here is what the second law says for objects A and B, complementing the picture muoncounter provided. "Net" in this case means the difference in the flows between the two objects: Given: HeatFlow(from A to B) - HeatFlow(from B to A) = Net Heat Flow, If A initially was hotter than B, then Net Heat Flow has a positive sign. (A cools and B warms.) If B initially was hotter than A, then Net Heat Flow has a negative sign. (B cools and A warms.) If you want to nitpick about the word "heat," substitute "Energy." Example: A Flow To B = 100 units B Flow to A = 80 units Net Flow = 100-80 = 20 units from A to B. From A's perspective, A gets 80 units and emits 100 units, so A ends up with 80 - 100 = -20 units relative to its initial state. From B's perspective, B gets 100 units and emits 80 units, so B ends up with 100 - 80 = +20 units relative to its initial state.
  24. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    h-j-m and damorbel. You might like to explain the temperature distribution illustrated here
  25. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    KR, Thanks so much. So, is the thermal emission spectrum of planet earth characteristic of the surface temp or of some temperature in the troposphere? If so, approximately what temp does the emission spectrum correspond to.
  26. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    adrian smits wrote : "yooper I'm not talking about the adjusted data. Just the raw please.Then you will see the 70s where very cold and there was a lot of famine.Historical fact by the way." Just in case Daniel Bailey is busy, I believe you will find raw data here. Can you use it to prove your assertion about the "very cold" 70s ? Also, as Albatross mentions, WIKIPEDIA shows that the only large famine I can see in the 70s was in Bangladesh - ranked 21 out of 22. Could you provide links to the "historical fact" you mentioned ? Generally, will you actually reply or will you divert onto something else ? I wonder...
  27. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Adrian, Please direct us to the official data source which leads to believe that "Then you will see the 70s where very cold and there was a lot of famine." Please also provide sources to support your claim that "there was "a lot of famine" in the seventies. I found this list, and it doesn't support your claim. And agin I fail to see what any of this has to do with "Twice as much Canada, same warming climate"
  28. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Muoncounter is right, Adrian. The temperature anomolies are based off the average temperatures for 1969-1990 (which includes the 1970's, obviously). Most of the 1970's were no more than -1 degree C below this average, whereas its clear that the bulk of the 1900-1930 period was closer to -1 to -2 degrees C below this average.
  29. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    There were also drought-related famines across the bulk of Africa during much of the 1980's & 1990's Adrian-so what's your point? Global Warming is expected to accelerate Hydrologic Cycles-which essentially means more severe droughts & more severe flooding-neither of which spells a bright future for expanding agriculture. I also wouldn't pin much hope on the unlocking of Northern Tundra to make up for significant losses of prime agricultural land closer to the equator. Most of the Tundra regions lack sufficient soil nutrients & also don't get enough sunlight to grow the crops needed to feed 6 billion people. This suggests that future famines will make anything from the 1970's-or the 1980's-look like a walk in the park!
  30. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    #43: "a lot of famine. Historical fact" Here is a database of sorts of global famines. Take your pick as to which decade was worse. As far as the 70s colder than the teens? Every climate data says not!
  31. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    WHATDOWEKNOW wrote : "If everybody in the room agrees and all nod there heads; now that's when I, as a scientist, get scared, really scared." A room full of people agree with the theory of evolution and nod their heads when someone states that the theory is correct. WHATDOWEKNOW gets scared, really scared...
  32. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    #97: "'seriously not understand the basic concept of net change?'" I just don't recognise any other." Perhaps that's the problem. Here is a summary of 2nd Law statements from a class at MIT. Note the figure below, which appears under the statement: No process is possible whose sole result is the transfer of heat from a cooler to a hotter body. The key word is sole, which appears in bold in the original for good reason. The caption states for T1 less than T2 this is not possible. However, we know that both objects radiate, albeit at different wavelengths. Some of the cooler object's radiation is absorbed by the warmer; however, more total energy is transferred from warmer to colder. The 2nd Law is satisfied and the greenhouse effect still works. As for the rest, you can talk QED if you like, but that will not help you answer any of CBD's excellent points.
  33. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    yooper I'm not talking about the adjusted data. Just the raw please.Then you will see the 70s where very cold and there was a lot of famine.Historical fact by the way.
  34. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    Whatdoweknow, Different datasets provide different results due to having different base reference periods. The global temperature rise has not halted. The 2000s were the warmest decade on record, and all indicators show that the Earth is still accumulating heat. Is global warming still happening? (argument #4) Would you be scared of an entire room of scientists nodding in agreement that the Earth is a distorted spheroid?
  35. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re: adrian smits (40) Sir, not to downplay your personal experiences nor the death of perhaps millions to various causes, but there is much in your comment that is in error. I won't delve deeply into any of them so as to not go too far off-topic, but briefly: 1. The 70's were not the coldest decade in the past 80 or 90 years. Not even close: Temperatures over a period of time are tracked via anomalies (to reduce the noise in the data to natural variability and to see the signal, if any, emerging from the background). We've experienced a 0.8 degree C rise over the past century. We're committed to about another 1.4 degree C additional rise (short term) no matter if we cut CO2 emissions to zero (which ain't happening anyway). Long term feedbacks maybe an additional 2+ degrees C beyond that (after we're both dead, so who cares exactly how much). Here's a nice graphic shows both temperatures and CO2 (in case anomalies are too funky). 2. CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas because it is the control knob for the worlds' thermostat. 3. We know it's coming from us. 4. It'll do more harm than good. The Yooper
  36. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    I stand corrected on the two other data-sets with 2006 as the warmest year on record. On the other hand, why aren't these 3 data-sets pinpointing the same year? Nevertheless, the solar torque cycle and PDO coincide beyond a shadow of a doubt, as well as the ENSO cycle. The "dude" (calling researches that present other valid arguments "dudes" and not climatologists: those that suite your thinking... is nothing but self-justification: now go and look that up!) forecast every single la nina and el nino event correct to the month when each peaked. Using his work, this can be done years in advance. The developing la nina was already in the books... sorry but just a hard fact! It is also beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sun influences the oceans and atmosphere and not the other way around. It is also beyond a shadow of a doubt that peak el ninos and la ninas have increased and decreased respectively with the exact same and absolutely linear rate; as I have shown, paralleling the PDO cycle. It is also beyond a shadow of a doubt that ENSO events influence global temperatures. Considering that the ENSO cylce and PDO cycle's events coincide, as I clearly pointed out in my earlier comments, PDO therefore also influences global atmospheric temperatures. It is also beyond a shadow of a doubt that global (atmospheric) temperatures have increased since the 1970s but that since (1998 or 2006 as you may will) this increase has at least halted. The most important question is thus: what has caused this increase and what has caused the stabilizing to declining trend in the last several years? Given the above, PDO, ENSO and solar (torque) cycles need to be taken into account when trying to answer these questions. Once taken into account, the impact of ever increasing CO2 levels may maybe not be as dramatic as some make/may believe, which in it self is nothing wrong with. Finally, what makes you believe I am not a professional? Are you? And in science it is absolutely normal to have utterly different opinions about the same research topic! That's what drives science and our understanding forward. If everybody in the room agrees and all nod there heads; now that's when I, as a scientist, get scared, really scared. But then again self-justification is all about: don't confuse me with the facts, I've already made up my mind. Or as Lord Molson said it best: I will look at any additional evidence to confirm the opinion to which I have already come. Better yet, Richard Feyman puts it like this: "It doesn't matter how beautiful the guess is, or how smart the guesser is, or how famous the guesser is; if the experiment disagrees with the guess, then the guess is wrong. That's all there is." And that of course goes for the skeptics as well as the non-skeptics!
  37. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Adrian @40, I think it wishful thinking to hope that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will alleviate droughts. Please watch this: Source here. OK, so you say that is just a projection. But observations show that the area affected by droughts has been increasing. Anyhow, what has this got to do with the fact that the high latitudes are warming rapidly, and with the fact that the station drop out over Canada, if anything, underestimates the degree of warming?
  38. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #96 Bibliovermis, you wrote:- "Do you seriously not understand the basic concept of net change?" I just don't recognise any other. BTW I have had a copy of Tyndall's articles for some years now and I see no fault in them, although there have been many developments in thermal physics since he wrote them. In particular the roles of kinetic theory, quantum theory and thermodynamics in thermal physics; all three of these emerged because older theories did not explain experimental observations. Kinetic theory resolved the behaviour of heat in gases and lead to more efficient heat engines; thermodynamics not only extended kinetic theory to the general problems of heat in solids and liquids but also to chemical reactions. None of these resolved the observations of radiative heat transfer, it was Max Planck who opened that door, it is best explained these days by quantum electrodynamics (QED). You will need to understand QED if you wish to get a grip of the efficiency of energy processes in lasers.
  39. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    During the 1970's we had some fairly serious famines around the world. Milions of people starved to death.It also happened to be the coldest decade in the last 80 or 90 years.I was a farmer back then and remember reading stories about crop failures across the northern hemisphere.Both drought and cold weather where taking there tole.I am only to happy in fact praying that the little bit of extra co2 we are putting into our atmosphere will prevent another decade like that one,although I doubt we can make that much of a differece
  40. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel, I see that I made a mistake on this object A vs. object B point. Object A would be warming (i.e. receiving a net flow of energy) from energy flowing from a relatively warmer object, object C. It would be receiving energy from the cooler object B, but would be emitting more energy to it. Again, that is what "net" means. Do you seriously not understand the basic concept of net change?
  41. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    KL # Various I see you still can't get over the idea that you've got to look at more than just the temperature data.
  42. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel, It does not matter where the energy flows in from. Energy is energy, regardless of the temperature of the emitting object. Energy flowing from cooler object B to warmer object A does not contradict the 2nd law of thermodynamics, because more energy flows from warmer object A to cooler object B. That is what "net" means - more energy flows to relatively cooler objects than flows from them. I am still wondering if you had never heard of Tyndall's work before I referenced it here.
  43. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    BP #83 If you're going to post conspiracy theory nonsense, at least either present evidence, or make it clear that you're "joking"
  44. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Eric, My concern about your remarks re: Wegman is that plagiarism is something that can actually be demonstrated pretty easily to laypeople, and is generally agreed to indicate dishonesty or incompetence. Everyone ought to be able to recognize plagiarism, and to understand the problems with it, regardless of where they stand on AGW. A kneejerk defense of the WR, at a time when plagiarism experts have found serious grounds for concern, is not "skeptical" as I understand the term. Neither is calling these concerns "politically motivated"; whatever the various motivations may be for the various investigations into the WR's sourcing and attribution, the evidence produced so far goes to the heart of Wegman's credibility and can't simply be ignored or downplayed. Attempting to dismiss the accusations (and the evidence) on this basis amounts to an ad hominem argument, at best. More to the point, you claim in #27 that it's good to be "neutral" about the WR, despite having previously insisted that the report is "factual" and the attacks on it are "politically motivated." That's a bit of a double standard, isn't it?
  45. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #89 Tom Dayton, between two places there is no other kind of energy flow than net energy. You write:- "Object A's net energy gain/loss is a gain of 100-80=20, so object A warms" But you do not mention where the 'in flowing energy' comes from, I do not wish to suggest you think it comes from an object B or place B at a lower temperature, which of course would conflict with the 2nd Law
  46. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    #84: "Take a balloon full of O2/N2 mixture and measure its temperature ... add some CO2," Those experiments are done, although usually with bottles; you can see them on youtube if you look. When you put both an 'air' bottle and a bottle with extra CO2 under a source of external radiation, the CO2 containing bottle attains a higher temperature. "Replace all the O2/N2 mixture with CO2, do you expect a temperature gradient anywhere?" That's just nonsense, as your PS2 required temperature equilibrium.
  47. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Eric... You're right. I have no evidence that Wegman would not respond. It is purely an assumption on my part. None-the-less, it's you who is dragging me into a conversation that I did not initiate nor previously participated in. I'm merely saying that I think you're coming to rash conclusions about Briffa's work without knowing the full details. My experience is that scientists generally have extremely good reasons for presenting their material the way they do.
  48. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Daniel Bailey, thanks I will look into it further. BTW, it appears that Wegman has been instructed to not comment "When contacted by phone, Wegman said, `I'm very aware of this report, but I have already been asked by this university to refrain from commenting on this issue..." http://thebrilliantstories.com/prominent-climate-science-critic-investigated-at-varsity/452234/ So I withdraw my suggestion above, but I still ask that people try to be neutral.
  49. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    fydijkstra: "Our interpretation of the facts is always coloured by our frame of reference, our theoretical background." Interpretation of the facts?? You start the sentence with a statement that means nothing. What people do is interpret the texts, they then 'colour' what they have read using their frame of reference. But what you have left out, is that the author is the person that knows the original meaning in the texts.
  50. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Re: Eric (skeptic) (27) Look up the USA Today article. The USA Today contacted 3 independent experts on plagiarism & published their thoughts on the Wegman Report. I won't further colour your opinion on it; look it up, make up your own mind. The Yooper

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