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Comments 103751 to 103800:

  1. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    damorbel: "...they both are consequences of the kind of bad science done at CRU." Which produced temperature anomaly results nearly identical to those of AGW skeptics Spencer & Christy at UAH. Therefor AGW skepticism is clearly all a vast conspiracy of nonsense with no scientific basis! Thank you for introducing me to 'skeptic' logic. With this tool at the ready I can 'prove' ANYTHING!
  2. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Wow, this thread has turned into a textbook example of the gish gallop! It includes the full gamut of long-debunked skeptic arguments, including the 'it's not warming', 'it's not CO2', 'it's the Sun', quotes from non-experts pretending to be experts, nearly all the utterly debunked 'climategate' memes, and a collection of others. Each time one argument is patiently debunked (by Rob, Tom, Daniel, Philippe and the many other excellent contributers here), either by reference to material avaialble on this site, or at other reputable sources, then another allegation is thrown in and no acknowledgement is made to the failure of the previous skeptic argument. And of course each long-debunked argument, often relating to research/events/data >5 years old is presented as if it might be new or controversial, when the simplest research shows it not to be the case. So, skeptics... is that really all you have? Nothing new to add to the mix? No new research or data that changes the consensus on AGW? Just perpetual gish galloping? Looks to me awfully like the OP's point is demonstrated valid!
  3. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    I think HR's point is that theoretically Canadian stations could have doubled in the CCC dataset, but there might only be only say one additional station in the Arctic region represented by the graph above... thus making the close correlation a result of almost no change in the data and the whole 'doubling' bit a red herring to mislead people. Remember... it's ALL a conspiracy. Is it sad that I'm starting to understand how they think? I'm vaguely worried. Any way to find out the extent of station increase for the region covered by the temp anomaly graph?
  4. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Thanks, Riccardo. Robert, thanks for the link, though I'd point people towards the actual Clear Climate Code blog rather than ClearScience. I would just reiterate this comment. The point of this post is to address the claim that commonly cited temperature reconstructions are biased due to missing stations in Canada. Clear Climate Code replicates one of the most widely used of those reconstructions (GISSTEMP). As shown at CCC and as discussed in this post, doubling the number of Canadian stations has no effect on the GISSTEMP product (high latitude northern hemisphere land temperatures) that would be most strongly affected by changes in the number of Canadian stations.
  5. The Fake Scandal of Climategate
    Reporting of Wegman's plagiarism (and possible other issues) has finally made it into the 'mainstream media' with this piece from USA Today. Has been picked up by a few non-climate blogs and there are also pieces in Salon and UPI. Nothing compared to the 'Climategate' furor of course, but when all is said and done all those accused in that brouhaha have been cleared and Wegman... USA Today's independent experts say he's shockingly guilty.
  6. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Re #66 Albatross, you wrote:- "the splicing refers to the front cover schematic from a single obscure WMO report back in 1999. It has nothing to do with the IPCC assessment reports as you falsely claim". If that is the case, why does paragraph 23 of the Muir Russell Report read as follows:- "in respect of a 1999 WMO report figure .... we find that, given its subsequent iconic significance (not least the use of a similar figure in the IPCC Third Assessment Report)"? Oh yes, I have the patience of a Saint too!
  7. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Here is the relevant comment where Nick points this out... http://clearscience.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/just-a-small-note/#comment-36
  8. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Ned, I guess it should be pointed out that the warming shown is for the Arctic from 64 N to 90 N rather than for Arctic Canada. I saw on another blog that Nick Barnes posted a note about how it wasn't just Canada.
  9. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Re #65 JMurphy you wrote:- "All you have to do is look at the report," Since I have already cited paragraph 23 (p13) of the report (cited in the OP) as the main thrust of my contribution, I think you will agree that for me to do a search based on your recommendations would be wasting my time; but then I have no objection to reading the results of a search done by you using your own recommendations. You have of course read the relevant paragraph as cited in the OP?
  10. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    The Skeptical Chymist #141 I find it is always useful to let the experts argue their own case and if it is consistent and plausible then I tend to believe it until better or stronger cases are presented, or it collapses from internal inconsistency. In the case of Dr Trenberth, his Aug09 paper was a comphehensive roundup of the state of the science and measurement of global warming. He accounted for only about 55% of the purported TOA imbalance (145E20 Joules/year) by sequestration in the oceans - with wide error bars. The residual unaccounted amount of heat was 30-100E20Joules/year. The TOA imbalance of 0.9W/sq.m (145E20 Joules/year) was not directly measured - it was modelled. Fig 4 of his paper reconciles the individual forcings - IPCC AR4 Fig 2.4 with the climate responses. Some of those forcings (particularly cloud albedo) have wide error bars, and the solar forcing is wrong compared with other IPCC data. BP and I have argued that the OHC charts which have been used splicing XBT to Argo data are also wrong due to impossible jumps which are likely offsets - so the linearization of 1993 to 2010 OHC increase is bogus and in the last 6 years OHC has been flat. Better Argo measurement is showing less (or small) ocean heat takeup. Therefore the OHC bit of Dr Trenberth's story I find less plausible. There is a bit missing in his website statement. What he added to the original 'travesty' phrase was: "The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. 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 the other bit which is somewhat obscured in Dr Trenberth's paper is that the TOA imbalance is not 'Observed' or measured drirectly at all. Read the statement carefully: "The TOA energy imbalance can probably be most accurately determined from **climate models** and is estimated to be 0.85 ± 0.15 W m−2 by Hansen et al. (2005) and is supported by estimated **recent changes in ocean heat content** (Willis et al. 2004; Hansen et al. 2005). A comprehensive error analysis of the CERES mean budget (Wielicki et al. 2006) is used in Fasullo and Trenberth (2008a) to **guide adjustments** of the CERES TOA fluxes so as to **match the estimated global imbalance**." (**Emphases mine**) This is 2004-2005 OHC change he is referring to, which is subject to the offset XBT-Argo errors. The latest Willis analysis finds the equivalant of only 0.1W/sq.m of OHC increase. 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!!
  11. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    JMurphy, You have the patience of a saint. Thank you for your efforts!
  12. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Damorbel, My last post to you-- then as far as I'm concerned you can keep yelling about conspiracies into space. Please very carefully read the post by JMurphy here. The critique has been acknowledged. The splicing refers to the front cover schematic from a single obscure WMO report back in 1999. It has nothing to do with the IPCC assessment reports as you falsely claim. Why do 'skeptics' have such a horrid time applying the correct context and with fact checking? Please actually read some of the scientific literature published on the divergence issue with certain dendro chronologies in the last 20th Century (e.g.., Yamal). I provided a hyperlink for a Google scholar search here. Actually your attempts here to fabricate a 'debate' on a non-issue (the WMO cover schematic) and insistence on making multiple unsubstantiated accusations of wrong doing continues to undermine what little, if any, credibility most self-professed 'skeptics' have. So perhaps I should be encouraging you to continue....either way you are wasting both your time and that of others. Sorry for the terse comment, but I've simply run out of patience.
  13. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    The decline of the number of station argument is wrong per se. If the remaining stations (although gridded) are not representative of the temperature of Canada, they could be wrong either side; no one could tell if the bias would be on the high or low side before actually check the numbers. I'm sure scientists are clever enough to know and check before publishing the data. Thank you Ned for sharing these results for future reference.
  14. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    HumanityRules writes: If that's the case then your title is a little mis-leading. The doubling of Canadian sites and the result in Fig1 are two unrelated facts. I think you're missing the point. Nobody (outside Canada) is particularly interested in a new reconstruction of Canada-only temperatures. The implied claim that people make is that the decline in the number of Canadian weather stations in GHCN is distorting temperature reconstructions like GISSTEMP or HADCRU or what have you. The region where this effect would be expected to be most extreme would be in the high latitude northern hemisphere (i.e., the Arctic). If there were any region where doubling the number of Canadian weather stations would show any effect, it would be this region. The fact that there's essentially no detectable change in Arctic temperature trends tells us that the original claim (missing Canadian weather stations are biasing GISSTEMP) is clearly mistaken.
  15. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    damorbel wrote : "Perhaps my copy and past isn't working! Do tell me what I should have seen." All you have to do is look at the report, do a search for the word 'unacceptable' (or any similar word) and see how the results relate to your claim that Muir Russell says that "substituting the instrumental (thermometer) record without identifying the substitution is unacceptable". What do you find ?
  16. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Thank you, drj! Your blog and your work on Clear Climate Code have made an incredibly valuable contribution to people's confidence in the results of global surface temperature reconstructions.
  17. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    5.Ned HumanityRules writes: I see the whole Canada station number has doubled but there is no mention in the station number change for the Arctic. Ned writes: Yes, that's true. If that's the case then your title is a little mis-leading. The doubling of Canadian sites and the result in Fig1 are two unrelated facts. (Just to clarify drj over at the CCC website has pointed out that Fig1 isn't even arctic Canada but "the entire Arctic zone")
  18. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    damorbel #63 I believe that you are insinuating that the use of the 'Nature trick' has major consequences for the conclusions that we should draw from the larger body of scientific knowledge. Do you have evidence for this, or is this just more pointless bluster from a so-called sceptic?
  19. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Damorbel wrote: "Energy can only flow from a high temperature place to a lower temperature place." Interesting. How exactly do you explain sunlight traveling from space (very cold) to the Earth (much warmer) in your world? As explained before, the greenhouse effect acts like insulation. Think of a house in winter. If you've got a heating system (the Sun) but no insulation (greenhouse gases) then the heat escapes quickly and the house (planet Earth) stays cold. If you add insulation then the heat can't escape as fast and the maximum temperature which the heating system can maintain increases even though the amount of heat it puts out hasn't changed. No violations of the laws of thermodynamics... just an every day phenomenon that we have all experienced.
  20. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Re #62 JMurphy you wrote:- "Muir Russell,which says nothing like what you claim." Perhaps my copy and past isn't working! Do tell me what I should have seen.
  21. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    damorbel wrote : "I am not providing new evidence of temperature trends, just drawing attention to the Muir Russell Review which says that substituting the instrumental (thermometer) record without identifying the substitution is unacceptable." You are certainly, though, providing new interpretations of Muir Russell, which says nothing like what you claim.
  22. The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
    KR, “Multiple vector”. A fluid dynamics example. A gas at rest is only macroscopically at rest as the molecules keep on their fluctuations around the center of mass of the particle that includes them. Indeed, the vectorial sum of the all velocities relative to the center of mass of the particle, is statistically zero because the velocities, also if chaotic, are really isotropic. The agitation motion of molecules only causes the local equipartition of macroscopic characteristics as pressure, density, temperature (in practice of energy density) within the particle, and it don’t cause any transfer of energy or of mass. The macroscopic transfer of mass (mechanic energy) occurs only if the pressures between two different parcel of the gas are different. With different temperatures there’s always a transfer of thermal energy and at given conditions also of mass. This transfer is measurable (and indeed exists for real world that we feel) only at macroscopic scale. You cannot lump microscopic an macroscopic things together.
  23. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    damorbel wrote : "One isolated instance? So why did the IPCC when adopting this flawed data use just one isolated instance as a major argument in its Assessment Reports?" Two assertions there (concerning the data and the IPCC), neither with any proof. Perhaps you don't need any ? Until you back up your 'arguments', you are just blindly repeating whatever you've read elsewhere.
  24. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    damorbel #58 I've seen much worse in the peer reviewed literature. This doesn't seem to be a damning inditement to me, more a side issue that the so-called-sceptics can (as usual) blow up out of all proportion to its importance.
  25. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Thanks for the post and the links Ned. Readers may be interested in the map I made of the Environment Canada stations (using ScraperWiki). It's a bit slow to load, and you need to scroll North to see all the stations.
  26. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Re #57 No, tobyjoyce, no need to for "the enquirers be themselves enquired into", just read what they write!
  27. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Re #56 kdkd You wrote:- "Even if we take the idea that the "Nature trick" was dodgy, you have to ask the question: what material difference to the scientific conclusions would be made by discarding this data analysis?" I take it you are referring to the CRU substituting thermometer measurements for tree ring measurements for the 20thC section of the 'hockey stick' temperature graph? This 'unidentified' substitution avoided disclosing the fact that the tree ring record does not show the temperature rising in the 20thC. I am not providing new evidence of temperature trends, just drawing attention to the Muir Russell Review which says that substituting the instrumental (thermometer) record without identifying the substitution is unacceptable.
  28. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    After all the enquiries, it is astonishing to find deniers demanding that the enquirers be themselves enquired into. Or, "let's keep having enquiries until they reach the conclusions we want".
  29. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    damorbel #55 "this is nothing to do with conspiracy theories or dogged determination but everything to do with scientists employed at public expense trying, however sincerely, to make the evidence fit the hypothesis and an all too gullible international quango being lead by the nose. " Even if we take the idea that the "Nature trick" was dodgy, you have to ask the question: what material difference to the scientific conclusions would be made by discarding this data analysis? The answer to this question is none at all. Unless you have some evidence to present, rather than just opinionated assertion with no basis in evidence.
  30. Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
    Wombie - In New Zealand the price of petrol has doubled in the past two years with no drop off in demand. I live in New Zealand, and assure readers no such thing has happened. Several years ago, prior to the full impact of the global financial crisis, petrol got up to $2.20 per litre. It plummeted, and has steadily risen up to $1.88 per litre (give or take a few cents for regional pricing variations).
  31. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Re #44 JMurphy wrote "it was all a big conspiracy (along with all those other enquiries, which came to the same result), but you have exposed the hidden truth by your dogged determination." Oh dear! Oh dear! In the OP this thread cites the Muir Russell Review as saying:- "We do not find that it is misleading to curtail reconstructions at some point per se, or to splice data, but we believe that both of these procedures should have been made plain — ideally in the figure but certainly clearly described in either the caption or the text.” [1.3.2]" And then tries to defend this by saying :- "But this was one isolated instance that occurred more than a decade ago. The Review did not find anything wrong with the overall picture painted about divergence (or uncertainties generally) in the literature and in IPCC reports." One isolated instance? So why did the IPCC when adopting this flawed data use just one isolated instance as a major argument in its Assessment Reports? No, JMurphy, this is nothing to do with conspiracy theories or dogged determination but everything to do with scientists employed at public expense trying, however sincerely, to make the evidence fit the hypothesis and an all too gullible international quango being lead by the nose.
    Moderator Response: The IPCC did not use the same graph that appeared on the cover of the 1999 WMO report. They used a similar graph which the Review apparently had no problem with. - James
  32. Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming
    Here's somewhere it might be worth keeping an eye on (NCAR) Attribution of Climate Events It appears to involve Peter Stott, Myles Allen, Martin Hoerling and Kevin Trenberth, so I'm guessing they know what they are talking about. So far they largely seem to be highlighting the need for more cohesive research "A clear conclusion of the meeting was that there are important research needs in developing an attribution service sufficiently reliable and timely to be applied routinely."
  33. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    so when tree ring data diverges from the predicted theory or instrument data we throw out the tree ring data and overlay the instrument data. i've always had an issue with that. if the proxy data is not valid then don't use it for prior periods. that is the essence of cherry picking. there is no way to gloss over the 'hide the decline' statement in my humble opinion. if we throw out proxy data in the recent period because we think there was a drought condidtion then how do we know the prior proxy data were also not influenced by climate issues that we can't verify since they happened before instrument data? we still can't explain why the past decade has shown no increase in temperatures even though CO2 continues to increase at a linear rate. the following website shows that temperatures and OLR are not following the predicted models. something else besides CO2 is driving our climate.
    Moderator Response: It is not true that "the past decade has shown no increase in temperatures." See (and please comment on one of these threads, not this thread, for that topic): "It's Cooling," "It Hasn't Warmed Since 1998," "Global Temperatures Dropped Sharply in 2007," "Keep Those PJs On: La Nina Cannot Erase Decades of Warming," and "European Reanalysis of Temperature Confirms Record Warmth in 2010." Regarding temperature's correlation with CO2, see "There’s No Correlation Between CO2 and Temperature," and if you want to discuss that topic, do so on that thread.
  34. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    KL #51 "A spot of sloppy record keeping is only to be expected of those promoting 'the greatest moral challenge of our age'. " You know, this is really tiresome. I think I'll take what is and isn't acceptable record keeping for scientists from scientists, rather than from an ideologically fixated engineer with a terminal case of confirmation bias.
  35. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Re: Ken Lambert You know, if "repeated ideological rants" were added to the Comments Policy, then perhaps you'd have no comments left on threads anymore. The Yooper
  36. Climategate: Hiding the Decline?
    Albatros #48 Ideological Rant? dear dear - a perfectly reasonable comment I would have thought. Phila #49 In other words Prof Jones did lose the original data (was it something about not enough hard disk space back then?) - but if anyone cares to back-engineer all his documented corrections to it from the current result (back to the 1980's), then it can be resurrected. Sounds like a job for M&M. A spot of sloppy record keeping is only to be expected of those promoting 'the greatest moral challenge of our age'.
  37. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Camburn 63. Maybe you have a point. GHGs emit 50% of their radiation _towards_ the ground. Most importantly, there's a substantial quantity of GHG and non-GHG molecules in the atmosphere to intercept, absorb, emit this re-radiated energy. In both directions. And those molecules do the same thing. In both directions. Which is why less of the radiation can exit at TOA and why there is more energy retained and circulating within the atmosphere-ocean climate system. Temperature is a good indicator for the process. Ice melt is also a good indicator - which can itself be related to temperature.
  38. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Camburn - I'm sure I'm not the first to point this out, but you should read Does Urban Heat Island effect exaggerate global warming trends. The answer, in short, is no. I did say "~", by the way. It's just under 50% in the bands where CO2 and other GHG's are fully saturated, with increasing levels of GHG's broadening those bands. Heat content, yes, that's an important part of predicting rates. But that's really not relevant to what climate changes will occur - resulting temperatures are. The temperature at which crops change zones, where sea level affects coastal cities through thermal expansion and ice cap melt, etc. And the models, including the feedback amplifications that so greatly affect the final result of our CO2 output, are based upon temperature. Because temperature and GHG concentrations determine the IR output at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), determine whether we're at equilibrium or in an energy imbalance that will change that temperature. Our measurements of total energy budget are not as accurate as we would like, but our temperature measures are accurate, redundant (multiple ground station networks, multiple satellite data), and those tell us that we're in energy imbalance, with rising temperatures. Even if we don't really know thermal mass values (and we do, you've ignored that) or the exact energy imbalance, the rate of temperature change (anomalies) indicates where we are going, and to a large extent how much of a problem we're going to have. Not heat content. I really hate to say this, Camburn, but you appear to be searching for an out - looking to find some explanation that won't make rising temperatures true. I've seen people playing 'ostrich', burying their heads in the sand (yes, yes, I know they don't actually do that); you're giving me that impression. You've certainly not proposed anything not already accounted for in climate models, data sets, or our understanding of how our world is changing.
  39. The Fake Scandal of Climategate
    fydijkstra at 19:57 PM on 22 November, 2010 dhogaza (#49): What planet do you live on? The S&B paper was the first in a series of papers that questioned the attempt by the hockey team to rewrite history, denying the Medieval Warm Period. In 2003 that was so shocking for the climate community that six editors of the journal resigned. Many other papers, books, reports and political inquiries later, there can be no other conclusion than that S&B had a valid point with their pioneer work... fydijkstra, Have you read the S&B paper? The problems with their methodology should be obvious to anyone who has a college freshman level of expertise in basic statistics and Earth science. If you are unable to identify at least one or two "showstopper" blunders in S&B's methodology, then that means that you are in way over your head here. The S&B paper would not pass muster as a passing-grade undergraduate term-paper at any reputable university. Google it up and read it for yourself. And like I said, if you can't identify one or two of the painfully obvious blunders in the paper's methodology, then you don't have the technical background needed to debate this topic productively.
  40. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    #8: "UHI was NOT taken into account in the graphs" Trends. If UHI wasn't taken into account, it still gets subtracted out when you look at trends. Once an area becomes urban, it can't get any more urban. And where's the UHI at a place like Libby, Montana (population 2880), with a summer min temperature increase of 0.85F (0.47C)/decade since 1958? See here and here for prior discussion and comment there if you like.
  41. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    muoncounter: UHI was NOT taken into account in the graphs, so the projection is right on par without adjustments.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Tamino also looked at UHI recently in his post Urban Wet Island? If you still have questions on UHI, please post them on one of the threads muoncounter has kindly provided. Thanks!
  42. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Not to be outdone, the Washington State Climatologist has a very slick temperature trend visualization tool covering Wash, Oregon, Idaho and a little BC. Not to mention, they have a State Climatologist! Similar in 30-50 year trends to Canada, although you'd have to convert deg F/decade to deg C/decade. And they have a State Climatologist!
  43. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    KR: correction. The GHG's do NOT send more than 50% back to the ground. In fact, it is less than 50% because of the sperical shape of the atmosphere. I care what the thermal mass values are because those values are a true measure of heat content. Models deal daily with heat content, not temperature. That is the metric in climate science that is important. I would love to have layman's availability to the measured heat content variances. The heat content exerts a large forcing in temperatures affecting urban island heat effect. Without knowing all the dynamics it is impossible to accurately portray how much effect UHI really has.
  44. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    "The slope of the 30-year trend" Here are some graphs from the Environment Canada data. One in particular: Looks like 2.25 degrees in 45 years or 0.5C per decade. Oh the cherry-picking, that's just winter temperature. It must be the summers that are cooling!
  45. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    oamoe - That's a good summary of the effects. GHG's absorb and emit thermal IR at Earth temperatures, sending ~50% back to the ground, reducing the energy leaving the atmosphere. Camburn - First, a humid night cools slower than a dry one because water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and slows the IR cooling of the ground. Secondly, quite frankly, I don't care what the thermal mass values of air, water vapor, or the ground are. What's important is the temperature, since that's what affects crops, pest ranges, weather, ice mass, sea level, etc. Exact values for thermal mass are useful for predicting rates, but actual temperature observations do a pretty good job of that too.
  46. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Actually, oamoe's summary looks pretty clear to me, whereas Camburn's attempt at a correction doesn't really seem to add anything useful.
  47. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    #58: "worried about net heat gain or loss?" If there is no net gain or loss due to water vapor, then it is merely a cycling agent. In climate change we're interested in long term trends; apparently you are saying that water vapor doesn't contribute to climate change? "holds a lottttttttt of heat." Well, that might be worth looking into, to see if this is much ado about not that much heat. "a humid night cools much less than a dry night" Agreed. If evaporation stores latent heat in the atmosphere, does the condensation of said humidity in the cool morning release that heat? What happens to that thermal energy from that point on? Suppose a desert area showed long term atmospheric temperature increase. Low humidity all of the year. How does that fit into your 'temperature isn't a measure of heat' paradigm?
  48. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    oamoe: 2) This is wrong. The N2 and O2 recieve the kinetic energy at the expense of the co2. Once that collision has occured, the co2 is much less excited because it has lost some of its energy. You can't create energy, only consume energy. The sun is the source of most of the energy on earth. The earth contributes a small amount of heat from the core to the surface. It is not a source of consequence tho.
  49. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    muoncounter: Who is worried about net heat gain or loss? I was indicateing that we have the tools to measure the heat content of the atmosphere and are not using them. As far as the content of a few hundred meters of h2ovapor. It holds a lottttttttt of heat. How much, I don't know. I do know that a humid night cools much less than a dry night because of the retained heat.
  50. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    In another comment, h-j-m also writes: A lot of chemical processes need energy. Last, but not least is the biosphere of this planet depending on energy. All these energies won't show up at outgoing radiation. Well, all the processes that you mention were occurring in the past, too. Unless there's some change that's caused the biosphere or the oceans or whatever to suddenly start storing more energy than they were able to do so before, you wouldn't expect this to have any effect on the observed energy balance of the planet. In any case, though, this isn't really relevant to the question of whether the greenhouse effect is somehow a violation of the second law of thermodynamics (it isn't) or of whether greenhouse gases must have the same effect on incoming and outgoing radiation (they don't). If some mysterious chemical or physical process were discovered to have soaked up a lot of additional energy within the climate system, it would just imply a larger planetary radiative imbalance. The observed warming of the surface and atmosphere would still be a concern ... and in fact we'd have to worry about what would happen if your mysterious process X ever stopped absorbing excess solar radiation.

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