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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 103601 to 103650:

  1. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Could it be, fydijkstra, that the truth is NOT in the middle? It's actually a well-known fallacy, the golden mean fallacy. Your "inattentional blindness"-link is also irrelevant to the point you are trying to make. The investigations specifically payed attention to supposed problems. Inattentional blindness disappears when one pays specific attention to the initial blind-spot. Note also that none of the criticisms and investigations claimed uncertainties were hidden (no, the IAC review did not do so either), nor was their criticism of not being open to alternative explanations.
  2. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Marcus #81 There is a simpler explananion: After 1960, the tree ring data did not fit the rising thermometer record - so the tree ring 'decline was hidden' by truncation. Of course thermometer temperatures have been around since about 1860 (100 years prior to 1960) so why should the tree rings from 1860 to 1960 be included at all? Well clearly the reason is that they formed one of those 'multiple lines of evidence' right up until 1960 - when ...well they didn't any more so were simply discarded. All this shows is that tree rings were probably unreliable proxies - all through the time series and that they were used only to support the narrative of increasing warming up until they started to diverge. That is the dodgy part of the 'Nature' trick. The argument then goes - if one bit of this 'science' is dodgy - how do we know that the rest is rock solid - it is called credibility - and that is what all the Climategate fuss is about.
  3. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    #34: "a colder climate is more dangerous than a warmer one. " Spoken from one point of view. Here's another: European heatwave caused 35,000 deaths European heat wave have doubled
  4. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    The discussions about ClimateGate on this site show an interesting feature: observations and interpretations of facts are never objective. Our interpretation of the facts is always coloured by our frame of reference, our theoretical background. There are people who believe, that human activities have changed the global climate, that the present global temperature is unprecedented in at least 1000 years, and that climate change will have dramatic consequences in the next century, unless we immediately stop using fossil fuels. Let’s simply call them warmists. This is not name calling, it’s just the use of a word to characterize a group. There are also people who believe, that the climate has always changed, that human activities do have a certain influence on the climate, but that natural climate fluctuations are dominant, and that we should not be too worried, because mankind has shown to be able to adapt to climate change during at least 100,000 years. Let’s simply call them sceptics. This is not name calling, it’s just the use of a word to characterize a group. Warmists and sceptics have a very different perception of the significance of the ClimateGate documents. We see it in the reactions on the 4 parts of this ClimateGate serial. Warmists claim that the 4 independent investigations of ClimateGate have fully exonerated the group of climate scientists around Jones and Mann. No conspiracy, no perverting peer review, no fraud. Nothing. And the message stands upright: the climate has changed unprecedentedly and will change dangerously, if we don’t act now. The evidence has become even stronger since ClimateGate! Sceptics consider the independent investigations as white washing. The investigations yielded some heavy critics on climate scientists and the IPCC, but this was hidden in very polite recommendations. Maybe nothing illegal has been done, but the hidden critical comments confirm that climate scientists should not hide uncertainties, and should be open for alternative explanations of the facts. Exactly what sceptics have been saying for two decades! And what is that evidence that has become stronger in the previous 12 months? Which paper has definitely confirmed the warmist view? The different perceptions of the facts that could be observed in the slipstream of ClimateGate are well-known in cognitive sciences. It is called ‘inattentional blindness:’ seeing only what you expect to see, or what you wish to see, because your frame of reference steers you in a special direction and makes you blind for other interpretations. Could it be, that both sides of the ClimageGate debate suffer from this kind of blindness? And could it be, that the truth is in the middle?
  5. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re: gallopingcamel (34) To tag onto Marcus' comment at 35, common sense tells you that people try to adapt to change; my point was that, while you could use the referenced study to say that cold kills more people than heat, that that's not why the study was done. Did you even read the study? I did, 3 times. Which is why I had to edit my comment to avoid...having to make comments like this one. Welcome back, by the way. Also, Google climate change+maximum wet bulb temperatures. Interesting report out there (2010). Aw, heck, here it is. The Yooper
  6. Climategate a year later
    Albatros #66 "what do you believe the equilibrium climate sensitivity to be for doubling CO2?" Anywhere from 0.6 to 3.0 degC.
  7. Climategate a year later
    Albatros #66 "all 'skeptics' by association will be guilty of misconduct and cannot be trusted etc." A bit of an ambit claim there Marco. Anyone who knowingly assists or colludes with the malfeasance surely could be charged with scientific misconduct and rightly so. The act of reading and quoting from a dodgy paper in the belief that it is correct can hardly be guilt by association.
  8. Climategate a year later
    Marco #65 "Regarding your view of AGW: what are your credentials to be able to claim with such certainty that "there is great doubt about the relative contributions of the various forcings - their accuracy of measurement and particularly the future trajectory of the TOA imbalance and the OHC measurement" All I rely on Marco is the argument itself. Happy for you to refute the technicalities of my arguments rather than claim authority from a moniker. By the way I am an engineer (applied scientist) with a working knowledge of thermodynamics (first & second laws) and heat transfer.
  9. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Is that so gallopingcamel? From my experience, I've found that as it gets too cold, I simply wrap myself in more layers of clothing, & I know longer have a problem. When it gets too hot, though, there is a severe limit on what I can do to mitigate it. Sure you can get completely naked but, if you're still too hot, what then? Also, based on my knowledge of First Aid-& Human Physiology studies at Uni-my recollection is that the number of degrees C, below room temperature, that the human body can withstand without detrimental effects is much greater than the number of degrees C *above* room temperature. So no it isn't as "common sense" as you claim. As to what conditions were like 20,000 years ago, how is that even relevant to the conversation? Back then the planet was also further from the sun, & it will probably be many more millenia before it gets that far away again (probably another 10,000 to 20,000 years). Are you, then, suggesting that we should warm the planet so as to avoid a *highly* unlikely ice age?
  10. Climategate: Keeping Skeptics Out of the IPCC?
    Intriguing highlighted quotes there James. They certainly show that there was no blind pushing by Keith Briffa of unsupported statements into the AR4. Briffa's comment about the 'hockey stick' is certainly reasonable, and shows a truly scientific version of scepticism. Funny that we didn't hear about these quotes from the vocal 'skeptics' about this time last year...
  11. CO2 is not the only driver of climate
    Hot off the press from the Journal of Climate. Cloud data supports the higher end of the estimates of climate sensitivity :-/
  12. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #61 Tom Dayton you wrote:- "I think your comment 56 is okay up to the next to last paragraph where you wrote "...incoming (hot) photons from the star," and the last paragraph's "... a few high energy photons from the hot star or a lot of lower energy photons from a much cooler planet...." " And then:- "You might have a misconception that all the photons coming from a source have the same energy, and that single energy is higher when the source is hot than when the source is cold." No misconception here, the average energy of the photons from a hot source is higher than the average energy of those from a cooler source. But you must recognise that the power (W/m^2 or J/s/m^2) in a stream of photons is proportional to the number of photons/s times hv, their energy. For example the photons from the Sun come from a high temperature source (5780K) these have enough hv to split O2 molecules and thus allow the formation of ozone. The power in this stream of photons from the Sun is 1370W/m^2, which averages to 342.5W/m^2 over the surface. This average power, when converted to heat, produces a temperature in the region of 280K. The Earth then radiates photons with an average energy based on this 280K, keeping the Earth's temperature stable while being bombarded with photons from a high energy photon source at 5780K. The photons radiated from the Earth also have a thermal (Planck) distribution which also allows a very small probability of splitting O2 molecules but the proportion of photons emitted by the Earth at 280K with sufficient energy to do this is very very small, many times smaller than the proportion in sunlight
  13. The Skeptical Chymist at 19:13 PM on 24 November 2010
    The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Ken @ 148 "Address the main points of my comment" - I already did at 122, 141 and then again at 146. Now you are just changing the topic and pretending it is what you were talking about. "I did not claim that Dr Trenberth's opinions were gospel" - It is interesting that when you thought Trenberth's email/opinions could be used to cast doubt on the link between humans and global warming, he was very quoteable. But since I called you on that, now his opinions aren't "gospel". Ken, if you want other contributors to this site to take you seriously and have a thoughful discussion about unresolved areas in climate science, then you need to be able to admit when you are wrong. Not only is this good for your credibility, but it shows other posters (such as myself) that although we may disagree there is no intellectual dishonesty occuring and engaging with someone is actually worthwhile. Now to be clear, I am not saying you are being dishonest, it is just that, if you can't admit to being wrong, what's the point is going beyond repeating "multiple independant lines of evidence"?
  14. We're heading into an ice age
    "Blue represents an anthropogenic release of 300 gigatonnes of carbon - we have already passed this mark" Can you please tell me what time frame is this referring to?
  15. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #71 Tom Dayton "And your reply seems to be gobbledygook." The bit about lasers having photons with the same energy? Or something else?
  16. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #60 Daniel Bailey You wrote:- "you should go back to the drawing board: Learn the basics of climate science" But 'Science of Doom' write weird things like:- "What’s entropy? How does this relate to candles? Candles can’t warm the sun, so I guess the second law has just proved the “greenhouse” effect wrong.." Of course a candle can warm the Sun if the candle's temperature is high enough, difficult to achieve I know but not impossible. It won't warm it much because the energy available from any reasonable candle is rather small compared with the Sun. But if the candle is hot enough and you have a large enough (very large!) number of them there will be a visible effect! Perhaps this is not found in the 'basics of climate science' but nevertheless it is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
  17. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Daniel Bailey (#32), You don't need peer review papers to tell you that a colder climate is more dangerous than a warmer one. All you need is common sense. 20,000 years ago the temperature was just a few degrees lower than today with the result that the Laurentide glaciation reached down to where New York city is today.
  18. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel, you completely missed my point. And your reply seems to be gobbledygook.
  19. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #66 Tom Dayton You wrote:- "Now you need to understand that a photon of a given wavelength can come from a range of different-temperature sources." That is true but misses an important factor, a thermal source has a broad spectrum that is determined by the temperature. We are all familiar with the Planck spectrum, the amplitude of which is a function of the temperature, But taking one photon (with energy a function of frequency), or even one spectral component, does not represent the entire spectrum thus the temperature is not defined. Although a single photon has energy it does not have a temperature. You can say the same for a laser, a laser's beam may contain a great deal of energy which is all squashed into one frequency, all its photons have the same energy. If the laser beam is absorbed its single frequency energy is converted into thermal energy with its characteristic temperature dependent Maxwell-Boltzmann energy distribution.
  20. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Ned #152 If I stick my aluminium foil hat on, I reckon that I could produce an argument to say that the sattelites are calibrated on the surface and ocean measures from thermometers, so strictly speaking they may not be completely independent. But that is a stretch and does require a bit of a captain paranoia approach to climate data to justify. However the other stuff I mentioned has absolutely nothing to do with temperature measures at all, but somehow validates the temperature record anyway.
  21. actually thoughtful at 17:40 PM on 24 November 2010
    Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
    Wombie - incremental price increases signal to businesses and home owners that this is real, and not going anywhere. That solar project that just didn't pencil w/o a tax suddenly pencils out. People choose the fuel efficient vehicle over the gas-guzzler. We already know it works - it has been studied to death (and this ignored the likely outcome of major innovation. A carbon tax is s simple, effective, path to reduced carbon emission.
  22. Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
    Your sort of right Rob. I was trying to illustrate the price elasticity [or more precisely the lack of] for petrol. When the price dropped or went up [+/- 50%] demand stayed constant. Incremental tax/price increases for carbon emitters will not do anything to slow/reverse global warming.
  23. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Why the censorship?
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey} You ended your comment with a political/ideological conspiracy theory statement. If you wish to resubmit your comment without the offending phrase/paragraph, please do so. However, you may first wish to read the comment at 28 above. Please keep the Comments Policy in mind and everything will be hunky-dory. Thanks!
  24. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re: adrian smits (32) Um, Adrian, you may want to take a closer read on that article (PDF here), wherein they say:
    "Adaptation measures have prevented a significant increase in heat-related mortality and considerably enhanced a significant decrease in cold-related mortality. The analysis also suggests that in the absence of any adaptive processes, the human influence on climate would have been the main contributor to both increases in heat-related mortality and decreases in cold-related mortality."
     and
    "With regard to heat-related mortality, projected future increases in the frequency and intensity of heat waves may exert a stress beyond the adaptive limits of the population."
     Seems to be another sign of a warming world: cold-related deaths decreasing and heat-related deaths flat, but that human adaptation to temperature changes currently accounts for the observed reduction in cold-related deaths and the lack of observed increase of heat-related deaths. It also signals a warning that expected increases in heat wave intensity and frequency may be too much to adapt to. Interesting report; says a lot. But nowhere in it does it say that cold kills more people than heat. [Edit: On p. 543 (Fig 1) of the study are a bunch of graphs. Cursory inspection of the graphs make it seem that cold waves kill more people than heat waves, but the graphs themselves are based on rates and say nothing of the lengths of time spent in each type of wave or the total mortalities of either. In short: the graphs are not to be used to determine if cold waves actually kill more people in England and Wales than heat waves do. Cold waves may actually kill more people than heat waves do, but determining that was not the purpose of this study. End edit] The Yooper
  25. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Ken Lambert writes: Last time I checked there were two independent sets of temperature data. Surface (GCHN) and Satellite (UAH and RSS read same raw data). All the Surface temp reconstruction corrections (HADCRUT, GISTEMP etc) draw from the same data sources. There's also the satellite sea surface temperature record -- also from satellites, but using a completely different wavelength range and sensor design. And there are experimental surface temperature reconstructions using using an alternative set of stations, not GHCN. So even if you ignore all the stuff that kdkd mentions, there are at least three completely independent sources of temperature data, and a fourth semi-independent one (GSOD vs GHCN surface station analyses).
  26. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Christidis, N., Donaldson, G.C. and Stott, P.A. 2010. Causes for the recent changes in cold- and heat-related mortality in England and Wales. Climatic Change 102: 539-553.I got this at co2 science.
  27. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Oh, and 's' is the Stephen-Boltzmann constant, which scales this relationship. Sorry about that...
  28. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    h-j-m - I read your last post, and spent some time thinking about it. I think you are approaching the issues with a great deal of common sense, but not much technical background. That is a reasonable first approach, but leads to the Common Sense logical error - applying day-to-day reasonable responses to problem domains outside that experience. The Stefan–Boltzmann law (also here) is one of the more established properties of thermal radiation - it applies to all objects with a temperature above absolute zero. But it's not intuitive - it required detailed spectroscopy to establish this basic behavior. In direct response to your post, temperature sets the amount of thermal radiation, as per P=e*s*A*T^4 (Power, emissivity as a ratio to a theoretic black body [always 1 or less], Area, and Temperature). The thermal mass, and hence the total energy, are set by the particular object in question. But the amount of radiation is set by emissivity, area, and temperature. Nothing else. That's why everyone talks about temperatures in regard to climate. Thermal mass and total energy affect how fast temperatures change. But temperatures and emissivity differentials (primarily temperatures) affect how total energy changes - at whatever rate. And the direction of change is directly dependent on energy emission/absorption, not total heat content. We really worry about the directions, although we're also interested in the rate of change. I hope these comments are helpful. I would suggest looking into the Science of Doom site as a resource - search on "greenhouse", "2nd law of thermodynamics", etc. He has a good way with explaining these issues. Also look at Dr. Roy Spencer (noted 'skeptic'), here and here
  29. roger_rethinker at 14:51 PM on 24 November 2010
    Greenland ice mass loss after the 2010 summer
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/confirm.php?u=3541 This is a link to an adjustment of the estimates of ice loss (especially in Greenland), in which the authors say that a more accurate assessment of the change of the baseline rock under Greenland (due to rebound from the last ice age) is locally anomalous, with the effect that ice mass loss from Greenland has been overestimated. Could someone who really understands this post some explanation?
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Roger, you'll have to fix your URL provided. That one points to you (your Skeptical Science ID). Thanks!
  30. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Ken #150 You're restricting yourself to temperature data - the field is much much broader than that. Off the top of my head we can think about glaciers, ecosystems, greenhouse accounting, snowfall (some of the data here is counter-intuitive, which is useful in the messy sciences, because counter-intuitive data supported by theory is strong validation), seasonal onset, change in animal breeding times and behaviour. There are bound to be others. So the "multiple independent lines of evidence" is much much broader than you are claiming. This time I'm glad to clear up another of your scientific misconceptions.
  31. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    oamoe - Actually, a better link might be this one on thermal radiation. I think that's more complete than the emissivity link I provided in the last post.
  32. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Almost; CO2 will (dependent on particular rotational and vibrational states prior to emission) emit photons over the full emissive spectra of CO2. There's sufficient variation in thermal states to cover the entire spectra, with the particular bands (aside from doppler effects and Lorentzian broadening) determined by the electron shell structure of the CO2 molecule. At thermal equilibrium emissivity equals absorbitivity - the energy, the spectra of photons going out equals that coming in. Or rather total energy in (convection, latent heat, absorbed radiation) will equal outgoing energy (convection, latent heat, emitted radiation). So the atmosphere will reach (or follow, if conditions are changing, as they currently are) an equilibrium state where incoming energy equals outgoing energy.
  33. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    kdkd #149 Last time I checked there were two independent sets of temperature data. Surface (GCHN) and Satellite (UAH and RSS read same raw data). All the Surface temp reconstruction corrections (HADCRUT, GISTEMP etc) draw from the same data sources. My point is that we are relying on a very few people (and their teams or post-grad students) to get right this basic data interpretation. For example Willis was wrong (found cooling), then right (found warming) and now is maybe right again (found very little warming). I(and BP) are pretty sure von Schuckmann got it wrong. This does not suggest any lack of good faith the part of these scientists - just that the story can be conflicting and the data just not good enough to draw a strong conclusion due to poor measurement, flawed instruments, or poor design of experiment.
  34. Newcomers, Start Here
    Re: Mythago (96) Ball ceased to have credibility long ago (geography professor gone emeritus, as they say). BTW, Barton Paul Levenson removed Ball's main thesis off the playing field 3 years ago with this post. Mythago Wood...read that a long time ago. Any connection to you? The Yooper
  35. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    I just looked up the science of doom page that scaddenp referred to and noticed the same trick. But a bit bolder as the author eliminates the term temperature and speaks of amounts of energy instead. Unfortunately temperature is not a measurement of energy amounts. It is a measurement of energy intensity. Firstly, SoD is text-book stuff. Secondly, I am sorry but I fail to understand your comments on temperature. Temperature of say a gas is linearly related to average kinetic energy of the gas particles. Energy in those diagrams isnt measured - its derived from temperature. Can you express what you mean by "energy intensity" in mathematical terms and relate it to temperature please?
  36. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re adrian smits (26)
    "Has anyone seen the peer reviewed study that seems to indicate that cold weather is way more life threatening than warm weather! "
     Ok, I'll bite (well, I do have an enquiring mind): What is this 'peer reviewed study' of which thou dost speaketh? Verily, dost thee haveth a link? Out with it man, forthwith! The Yooper
  37. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    The "station drop off" that affected Canada was clearly shown in Peterson & Vose, 1997. While this paper shows the extent of the drop off it does not explain why it occurred. Last month I visited NOAA in Asheville. One of the questions I asked related to the decline in the number of stations at high latitudes. A major factor was organizational changes at Enviro Canada. I was assured that things have settled down and the number of Canadian stations reported in the GHCN is likely to rise again.
  38. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    Re: WHATDOWEKNOW (13) Taking theories from some "skeptical" website run by an ex-British merchant marine dude vs Climatologists who have spent a lifetime studying and advancing the science itself? Gee, hmm, tough choice... Sorry, man. Checked my incredulity at the door. BTW, you should really double check your sources some. 1998 was perhaps the hottest year in the HadCRUT3 dataset, but the GISS and the NCDC have 2006 as hotter (see here). Smart money's on the professionals. That's what we've come to know. The Yooper
  39. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    FYI: Anyone wondering about the GHCN station dropout issue and if that dropout adversely affected the accuracy and outcome of the temperature products based on it: Tamino already has done that (analyzed the station drop-out from the GHCN datasets) work for you here. The result (drumroll please, Maestro)? Dropping out of some stations introduced a slight cooling bias into the resulting temperature trend (Cha-Ching!). For a pleasant read and a ton of easy-to-digest analysis, go here wherein Tamino shares his personal analysis into, well, just about every climate-related dataset you could thing of. The Yooper
  40. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    KR, Thank you. So the re-emission b y CO2, then, will be of lower energy than the energy originally absorbed? And the energy from the thermal radiation from the surface that is absorbed is almost completely transfered to the higher atmosphere as heat? Am I correct on those points? Thanks again.
  41. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    It is well known that the PDO cycle is directly related to the sun's torque cycle. (there is no correlation in this case, only a relation: the sun doesn't respond to the Earth's ocean or atmosphere; that be ridiculous. Hence, since there's only one way to relate; it's a relationship and not a correlation.) Since the solar torque cycle is thus also and of course independent of the Earth's atmospheric CO2 levels, the strongest causation is that the Earth's atmosphere (temperatures) respond to the ocean temperatures and not the other way around. Need additional proof? Look at the global atmospheric temperatures and how they responded to the strongest el nino in 1997/1998 (ENSO cycle, that in turn is dependent on the PDO and solar cycle too). That El Nino lasted from march 1997 to march 1998, peaking nov-dec 1997 through jan 1998. In addition, a la nina was already official in may 1998. However the global temperatures lag 6 months: peaking jun-aug 1998 ... Hence global atmospheric temperatures respond to global oceans temperatures. Now that causality has been established we can dig some more: I've been looking at the NOI data (SST for EL nino region 3.4) from NOAA available since 1950 and what is striking is that since the el nino from 1958, each peaking el nino has been stronger than the previous one, until the 1997/1998 el nino: 1958: 1.7, 1973:2.1, 1983: 2.3, 1998: 2.5, (2010: 1.8, trend reversal! more about that later) Doing simple linear regression; the peaks increase by 0.0017/month with an R-square of 0.97. That said, looking at la ninas since the 1950s; these increased in strength until the one in 1974 1950: -1.7, 1956: -2.0, 1974: -2.1 and have since then decreased (the peak la ninas that is) until the most recent one in 2008: 1989: -1.9, 2000: -1.6, 2008: -1.4 Interestingly, the decrease in la nina peaks is also 0.0017/month with an R-square of 0.97. The fact that both the el nino and la nina peaks increased and decreased, respectively, with the exact same slope is due to an underlying causation: the PDO. Adding PDO events (warm to cold reversals, vice versa, phase shifts, etc) to the NOI data we instantly see the following: The 2008 la nina coincides exactly with the PDO GPTC The 1998 el nino coincides exactly with the PDO phase shift from warm to cold The 1988 la nina coincides exactly with the highest PDO (LPTC) since 1934 The 1977/78 el nino coincides exactly with PDO phase shift cold to warm The 68/69 la nina coincides exactly with PDO's phase reversal The 55/56 la nina coincides exactly with the lowest PDO value since 1900 In addition, between 1950 and 1977 there were 126 la nina seasons (months) and 75 el nino seasons: PDO was cold Between 1977 and 1998 there were 53 el nino seasons and 27 la nina seasons: PDO was warm Hence, it is obvious that the enso cycle is highly correlated with the PDO which in turn is highly correlated to the sun's torque cycle. In addition, we've entered a trend reversal in ENSO strength; the 2009/2010 El Nino was less strong than the 1997/1998 one. Although it's only one data point to confirm this, it makes all sense using the above. Hence, the ocean and atmosphere is going from an el nino dominated 40 yr period that ended in 1998 to a la nina period of several decades that started in 2008. Now back to the global warming issue. 1998 was the year with the highest recorded temperature: +0.57 and global atmospheric temperatures have dropped since... See a pattern? Follows the PDO exactly. Now 2010 is on track to at least equal 1998, and is currently at +0.54. However, for October the global temperature anomaly is +0.42 deg, which is the lowest monthly temperature anomaly seen in what has been a very warm year: the atmosphere is starting to respond to the developing La Nina and is still in "El Nino mode". Just like I illustrated with the year 1998! In addition, I am sure if we subtract the el nino effect of the warming for 2010 we'll be left with little net warming if any at all.
  42. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    KL #148 "Surely short term error would be compounded when extended over longer periods." No, this is incorrect. As the sample size increases, given a reasonable signal to noise ratio the signal component will become more apparent as the signal component is non-random, while the noise component will be at best random, or at worst, systematic in some correctable way. This is of course provable in a mathematical sense, although at present I can't chase up a suitable reference for you, for two reasons. Firstly it's a basic fundamental that's not covered in detail in introductory text books on statistics, rather will be able to be chased up in the primary literature dating from the late 19th century or early 20th century. Secondly I'm not doing much applied statistical work at the moment (beyond some simple support for my colleagues), so my resources for chasing this stuff up is limited at the moment. "Drill down into these lines and you will find much cross referencing and the same prominent sources - Hansen, Trenberth, Willis, Mann, Jones, Briffa et al. They are travellers in this story too - not beyond criticism or close examination. " Here you're too fixated on names, and insufficiently fixated on measurement domains. The 'multiple lines of independent evidence' refer to measurement stystems that are independent of each other, not multiple independent researchers (although differing areas of expertise and interest mean that often this is also the case). I'm glad to clear up these fundamental misunderstandings about the scientific and statistical process for you.
  43. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Goodness, adrian smits : such cold temperatures in Northern Canada in November ! Who would have thought it ? Anyone would think that Winter was coming. Never mind - weather often surprises some.
  44. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Living in northern Canada all I can say is thank goodness its warming.33 below Celsius this morning with a wind chill of 44 below brrrrrr. That is dangerous cold. Will kill you real quick if your not dressed for it.Has anyone seen the peer reviewed study that seems to indicate that cold weather is way more life threatening than warm weather!
  45. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    h-j-m, I'm glad you wrote that two photons are equals if their wavelengths are the same. Now you need to understand that a photon of a given wavelength can come from a range of different-temperature sources. Imagine those two identical-wavelength photons hitting their target. The target absorbs them identically, because as you wrote, they are effectively identical. Which means the temperature difference between the source and the target is irrelevant.
  46. Newcomers, Start Here
    Hi John, For want of a better place to put this I came across yet another foolish individual who firmly believes that sunspot activity is responsible for the climatic changes and he even goes so far as to advocate doing nothing about temperature rising but more about temperature falling. The web item is at this location under the heading of GM (Genetic Modification) believe it or not: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/30098 Anyway if you can make some use of it then feel free to let me know. As for Tweeting responses or even tweeting I haven't got a clue so I am not even able to get started on that line of communication. Only just getting the hang of writing:) Yeah if you believe that you'll believe that climate change is a scam. But seriously this tweeting lark is beyond my skills. Thanks for the resources. Got the app on my new android phone and it has already put a few folks straight within 24 hours of me having it. I recommended it to everyone with an Android or i phone
  47. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    KR, sorry, I did not know that meanwhile our technology is advanced enough to observe directly what happens when photons hit matter or are emitted by it. I'd really like to see that. Then I will gladly accept that your notions about emissivity and absorptivity. That a photon is a photon regardless of it's origin is outright wrong unless they are at the same energy level (wavelength). But the wavelength of a photon depends on the temperature of their source (hence different black body radiation curves for different temperatures) and yes, so to speak, they do carry their ID cards (sort of). No, I do not confuse between energy movement and heat flow, I just state that temperature plays a dominant role. While you seemingly argue that taking temperature out of the game will leave no room for the violation of thermodynamic laws. I just looked up the science of doom page that scaddenp referred to and noticed the same trick. But a bit bolder as the author eliminates the term temperature and speaks of amounts of energy instead. Unfortunately temperature is not a measurement of energy amounts. It is a measurement of energy intensity. CBDunkerson, if you would read more carefully and reply to what I wrote you might be able to get a point. And yes sunlight can never reach the earth if its source is cold and empty space, but if it's source is the far hotter sun, I think that might change things a bit.
  48. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    The Skeptical Chymist #146 "Ken, you used the "Trenberth Travesty" email to suggest Trenberth would question that "human caused global warming is as solid as ever". He wasn't then and doesn't now and his own words confirm it, you were wrong.' Well I did not claim that Dr Trenberth's opinions were gospel - just that he is probably the best of the bunch. Address the main points of my comment: 1)Dr Trenberth: "Our observing system is inadequate.” Now, if the observing system is only inadequate to 'effectively monitor the energy flows associated with short-term climate variability' then why would it be adequate to monitor longer term climate change? Surely short term error would be compounded when extended over longer periods. and 2) So this TOA imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m is found from Hansen's 2005 model, not really supported by Willis 2004-05 OHC analysis, then used to correct the massive 6.4W/sq.m CERES TOA flux measurement, to match the **estimated global imbalance** which was taken from Hansen's model in the first place. A circular science argument!! This line of "multiple independent lines of evidence" is also getting tiresome. Drill down into these lines and you will find much cross referencing and the same prominent sources - Hansen, Trenberth, Willis, Mann, Jones, Briffa et al. They are travellers in this story too - not beyond criticism or close examination.
  49. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel - Your last post left me a bit stunned. If you honestly feel that SoD "does not seem to be very well informed on the matter", then you are suffering from what is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. You need to go back and review the basics - you've certainly been directed to them repeatedly. Until you do, the points you raise won't even be wrong.
  50. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    @HumanityRules: rather than imply that the data is inaccurate, why don't you find out for yourself? Find how much more Arctic stations are added by including the Environment Canada figures, or compare other areas than the Arctic. The data is available for you to prove the author wrong.

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