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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 103851 to 103900:

  1. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Philippe: Your post seems to be a good justification for always releasing the data and software. If they never do anything with the data anyway, why not disarm them with total disclosure? Full disclosure increases credibility with other scientists, and with the general public. Chris Shaker
  2. actually thoughtful at 16:05 PM on 20 November 2010
    Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    Batsvensson - you continue to claim it cannot be solved. And yet. And yet people all over the world are solving it - house by house, business by business. With current technology. Without the necessary price signal via a carbon tax. If we address the political/economic issue by imposing a carbon tax, things get significantly easier. The work is vast, but we have a few decades (so long as we START now). While you might wish that Skeptical Science stay restricted to only stating the obvious (that global climate disruption is happening now); I applaud John for taking this respected site to the next level - dealing with the known problem Denier class skeptics would prefer that this site just continue to trumpet the obscenely obvious facts that climate change is well underway. Progress calls for turning up the heat and getting real about solutions.
  3. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Karamanski, without much of an atmosphere, the Moon lacks the Earth's 26% reflected and scattered by atmosphere and clouds. So during the day, the Sun has little impediment to heating the surface.
  4. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Why should greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduce diurnal temperature range (DTR)? Yes, the sun warms the earth's surface during the day, but some of the heat is radiated into space. GHGs reduce that radiation loss both day and night. It's not obvious to me that the effect of GHGs should be greater at night. None of the three papers cited presents an argument that greenhouse gases should reduce DTR. Braganza's simulations predict a much smaller change in DTR than has actually been observed. See his Figure 2. The same claim is made here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Empirically-observed-fingerprints-of-anthropogenic-global-warming.html, "Climate models predict that as a consequence of anthropogenic global warming, the planet should warm more at night than during the day." This argument needs more support and a reference or two.
  5. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Daniel: I would be happy to read URLs from reputable sites saying that the data they were seeking was available to them from the source countries. I have not yet read that, but would be interested in doing so. Those of us in the general public don't get a very good picture of climate scientists. We read about things like this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html "Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Chris Shaker
  6. Philippe Chantreau at 16:01 PM on 20 November 2010
    The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    cjshaker, letting "hostile" (strange terminology really) researchers use data and code is not the problem. The problem is hostile bloggers and a crowd without the qualifications or even the desire to do real research with the data and code. That crowd's only intentions is to distort, cherry-pick, misrepresent and twist the data to reach predetermined conclusions, without the burden of peer-review. This has now been going on for years. I note that the likes of McIntyre or Watts are the only ones compaining about data availablility, whereas real researchers do not seem to have that problem. How come? Watts has had for a long time the data to verify if the basic premise of his web site's existence is valid. Still no data analysis to date. McIntyre is notorious for having complained about Briffa not releasing data to him, while he had already had access to these data before. He simply forgot that at the time he was making his rethorical complaint, whose only purpose was to fire up his crowd. Many were all fired up about GISS code and foaming at the mouth about how Fortran didn't phase them. They were all over it the moment GISS code was made public, and what happened? Nothing, zilch. Having learned his lesson, Michael Mann had both data and code available with his latest reconstruction. How many publications were submitted by skeptics following that? The truth is that skeptics quickly loose interest when there is real work to do. The most they produce with data and code will amount to a little cherry picking here and there with a blog post about it. It's more productive for them because they get more public attention anyway, especially considering that what they put out there would never pass review, except perhaps at E&E. Climate researchers are in a "damned if you, damned if you don't" situation. If they do release, all sorts of unqualified ill-intentioned characters try to use it in the public media to undermine their results, and their reputation. If they don't, the same characters accuse them of all the world's evil. After watching skeptics complain about this for years, it is obvious to me that the skeptics' complaints about data and code are made for the sake of rethoric and amount mostly to hot air. In fact, in the majority of instances, the data is available, they just don't bother looking carefully.
  7. actually thoughtful at 15:51 PM on 20 November 2010
    Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
    Gestur - re-analysis is always useful. I don't think Waxman would be front loaded, as they were trying to pass it, which inevitably means put the pain off. However, when we had $4 gas in Bush's last year - it sure seemed like there was a tipping point achieved and the gas guzzlers were seen as a HUGE liability. I doubt this can be modeled, but somewhere between $4 and $5 gas this country will start to pay attention to fuel economy, and switch from marketing for excess (SUV) to marketing for usefulness (this vehicle converts a set amount of fuel to a further distance traveled/weight hauled). One could look at Europe - they have figured out how to tax energy (and grow their economies. Also, are those figures restricted to transportation? Anytime you reduce coal your numbers look pretty good because coal is so CO2 rich. So the big documented savings may be in the electricity side.
  8. Antarctica is gaining ice
    Chris Shaker @ 53 It claims that we reached temperatures 4.5C warmer than today during the previous warm phase. If that is true, why would we not reach similar temperatures during this warm phase, with or without man's CO2? Because the orbital and rotational parameters of this interglacial are different from the last, the Eemian. Changes in the Earth's orbit (less eccentricity, greater perihelion distance) and rotation (lower obliquity & precession) mean the Earth won't heat up as much during this interglacial from solar radiation. Relying only on Milankovitch cycle forcing, the Earth should be cooling: Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages "A model of future climate based on the observed orbital-climate relationships, but ignoring anthropogenic effects, predicts that the long-term trend over the next several thousand years is toward extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation."
  9. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Regarding the post from whomever 'The Ville' is, I provided the link to an article which talked about the reported failure to follow FOI laws, and the deleting of emails. I'll provide it again for you: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/27/uea-hacked-climate-emails-foi "The University of East Anglia flouted Freedom of Information regulations in its handling of requests for data from climate sceptics, according to the government body that administers the act. In a statement, the deputy information commissioner Graham Smith said emails between scientists at the university's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) that were hacked and placed on the internet in November revealed that FOI requests were "not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation". Some of the hacked emails reveal scientists encouraging their colleagues to delete emails, apparently to prevent them from being revealed to people making FOI requests. Such a breach of the act could carry an unlimited fine, but Smith said no action could be taken against the university because the specific request they had looked at happened in May 2008, well outside the six-month limit for such prosecutions under the act." As for your claims that their breaking FOI laws is none of my business, I disagree, and I don't know why I should care that you think it is none of my business. Chris Shaker
  10. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Karamanski, see the post How Much Did Aerosols Contribute to Mid-20th Century Cooling?.
  11. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Karamanski, daytime temperatures on Earth are not decreasing, they are increasing. They just aren't increasing as fast as nighttime temperatures are. The cooling of daytime temperatures from the 1950s to the early 1980s was not due to increasing greenhouse gases, but to reflective aerosol pollution.
  12. The Climate Show #2: Merchants of Doubt and Twitterbots
    It is very regrettable that Poptech conflated two very different things. I think that Singer misrepresented Revelle and Lancaster and Oreskes and Conway correctly describes the affair. On the other hand, the interpretation by Oreskes and Conway about actions of William Nierenberg before he joined G.C. Marshall Institute seems prejudiced based on his action after that, and in this aspect the account by Nicholas Nierenberg (his son) seems relatively more reliable. The latter issue is discussed by William Connolley of Stoat several times the most recently in August 2010, and a little by myself as comment to Brian Angliss's review of the book. I do not want to discuss it here against the will of the moderator, so I just show pointers.
  13. CO2 effect is saturated
    I see the skeptics argument differently. What I see they are preaching is not that GHGs are saturated with energy, but are at or near peak absorption for the energy available. This is quite different from saying the molecules themselves are saturated. They are not. Why increases in GHGs do little to add to atmospheric warming is due to the fact that there is no additional energy available, it has already been used up. With this argument, the skeptics say any increase in any or all GHGs will cause little meaningful warming by citing the example when the Earth had 10x to 15x the amount of CO2. No runaway warming! Since CO2 is a GHG, increases in any GHG will not increase global warming. Humph! Because the GHG are at maximum warmth already. Finally, they state that the energy in the GHGs are in a sort of equilibrium with the atmospheric humidity. So, if more CO2 is added, the atmosphere rains out the moisture and re-equilibrates by noting an observed drop in upper atmospheric humidity.
  14. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    It does make sense that the stronger the greenhouse effect, the smaller the difference between daytime and nightime temperatures. But it doesn't make much sense why the moon, which doesn't have a greenhouse effect, has daytime temperatures of 118 degrees celsius. Why is it very different on Earth when it experiences global warming? Why aren't daytime temperatures decreasing as the greenhouse effect strengthens, like on the moon?
  15. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Re: cjshaker (77) You miss the point: the data that the Hadley CRU people used to produce their products was publicly available - from the originating countries. Something the "hostile parties" were well aware of, long before their endless FOI onslaught. If you have an issue with the originating countries withholding the datasets, then take up your beef with them. CRU was legally bound to not release data subject to the nondisclosure agreements. Several independent parties have replicated CRU's work, including the investigating Muir Russell Commission (which they accomplished in a mere 2 days, saying it wasn't hard to do and was something that any competent researcher could have done similarly). So ask yourself, if it's true that replication of the work can be done in 2 days and wasn't hard to do, as the Muir Russell Commission did and said, why haven't any of the "independent" or "hostile" parties clamoring for glasnost/openness done so? So the science CRU was accomplishing was only controversial in the sense that certain parties exist with a vested interest in making it so. Anyway, I think AGW would be a lot easier for the public to accept if it wasn't constantly obstructed by an active disinformation campaign. The Yooper
  16. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    One can question the wisdom of using data that isn't available to hostile parties for science research. If you're doing science, don't you usually expect your work to be examined and questioned? If it is based on proprietary data, say from researchers in China or in France, who don't want to give their data out to hostile parties, how can that verification happen? I'd expect people to think about that, especially if your science is at all controversial. I'm a retired computer scientist. My work was peer reviewed, by other computer scientists. In spite of our best efforts, our code always has some undetected flaw in it, either by design, because we didn't fully understand the problem before we started out trying to solve it, or by accident, because of some interaction with other code that we didn't know about, or by simple coding error. I don't know why these computer models of the climate would be any different. I would find the AGW premise a lot easier to buy if it wasn't accompanied by a political machine that tries to ram it down our throat by any means possible. That political machine, and the religious frenzy of the true believers make the science look bad. Chris Shaker
  17. Antarctica is gaining ice
    For interested parties, a recovered copy of Tamino's post Sea Ice, North and South, Then and Now (from the Further Reading section at the end of the post above) is available here. The Yooper
  18. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    cjshaker... If you read a little further as well, you discover that not all the data was theirs to hand over. The data was provided to the CRU by other organization under license. It was NOT their data to just give out. McIntyre and his minions knew that, had ample access to the actual data they were filing FOI requests for, but continued to barrage the CRU to release the data. This is a time honored legal trick. You bury your opponent in paperwork so they can't get their job done.
  19. Antarctica is gaining ice
    It was interesting to learn about the GRACE satellite, the shrinking land ice mass, and the growing sea ice mass. Thank you, Chris Shaker
  20. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    cjshaker... I hope you not missing these parts: The Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry reported on 31 March 2010 that it had found that "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact". The emails and claims raised in the controversy did not challenge the scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity". The MPs had seen no evidence to support claims that Jones had tampered with data or interfered with the peer-review process. and The report of the independent Science Assessment Panel was published on 14 April 2010 and concluded that the panel had seen "no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit." It found that the CRU's work had been "carried out with integrity" and had used "fair and satisfactory" methods. and In July 2010, the British investigation comissioned by the UEA, chaired by Sir Muir Russell, and announced in December 2009, published its final report saying it had exonerated the scientists of manipulating their research to support preconceived ideas about global warming. The "rigour and honesty" of the scientists at the Climatic Research Unit were found not to be in doubt.
  21. Antarctica is gaining ice
    Oh, sorry, I already asked that question... Chris Shaker
  22. Antarctica is gaining ice
    During a glacial warming phase, like we're still in now, shouldn't it be getting warmer everywhere? It seems to be hard to find accurate information about the ice age cycle, but I assume that this National Geographic article should be fairly accurate. It claims that we reached temperatures 4.5C warmer than today during the previous warm phase. If that is true, why would we not reach similar temperatures during this warm phase, with or without man's CO2? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070705-antarctica-ice.html Chris Shaker
  23. Antarctica is gaining ice
    cjshaker - Sorry, missed replying to part of your post. You asked: "If the ice cores were taken from ice on water, the inverse temperature relationship should still hold?" See Figure 3a at the top of this page. The inverse temperature relationship does not currently hold.
  24. Antarctica is gaining ice
    cjshaker - I'm referring to this article by John Cook, listing a number of peer-reviewed papers indicating overall mass loss in Antarctica. The increasing sea ice is a bit more complex - it appears to be due to changes in Antarctic winds and ocean circulation, most likely caused by (wait for it) global warming.
  25. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Yes, I did read the 'reports' section "The committee criticised a "culture of non-disclosure at CRU" and a general lack of transparency in climate science where scientific papers had usually not included all the data and code used in reconstructions. It said that "even if the data that CRU used were not publicly available—which they mostly are—or the methods not published—which they have been—its published results would still be credible: the results from CRU agree with those drawn from other international data sets; in other words, the analyses have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified." The report added that "scientists could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by aggressively publishing all their data instead of worrying about how to stonewall their critics." The committee criticised the university for the way that freedom of information requests were handled, and for failing to give adequate support to the scientists to deal with such requests.[101]" "The committee chairman Phil Willis said that the "standard practice" in climate science generally of not routinely releasing all raw data and computer codes "needs to change and it needs to change quickly". Jones had admitted sending "awful emails"; Willis commented that "[Jones] probably wishes that emails were never invented," but "apart from that we do believe that Prof. Jones has in many ways been scapegoated as a result of what really was a frustration on his part that people were asking for information purely to undermine his research."[8] In Willis' view this did not excuse any failure to deal properly with FOI Act requests, but the committee accepted that Jones had released all the data that he could.[8] It stated: "There is no reason why Professor Jones should not resume his post. He was certainly not co-operative with those seeking to get data, but that was true of all the climate scientists".[82]" I've got a big problem with people claiming to do science, then not making their data or methods available to other researchers for verification. If it can't stand up to a hostile researcher, it is not science. And it also talks about their efforts to avoid providing data according to the Freedom of Information laws. Chris Shaker
  26. It's the sun
    Regarding claims that CO2 is the dominant driver of the current global temperature, I don't even see the IPCC making that claim. I haven't seen them claim over 1 C temperature rise from man's CO2. The glacial cycle would seem to have made a much bigger difference than that over the past 14,000 years. Chris Shaker
  27. Economic Impacts of Carbon Pricing
    I found this blog post very interesting, well presented and valuable. It doubtless took a ton of work as well. Thank you, Dana! I guess I’m having a hard time believing that these large reductions in CO2 emissions by 2050 from Lieberman-Warner and Waxman-Markey (70% and 83% below 2005 levels) are capable of being achieved with such small increases in gasoline prices. The gasoline price increase by 2030 (not the 2050 end-point of the emissions reductions estimates) given is just 42¢/gallon from Lieberman-Warner (MIT model estimate); and only 22¢ - 35¢/gallon from Waxman-Markey (EIA model estimate), again by 2030. Of course, these should be considered more or less equilibrium gasoline price level increases (i.e. one can assume many long-term adjustments have been made by consumers). And another part of the problem is that we don’t have estimated CO2 emission reductions for either bill by 2030, but rather for 2020 and 2050. Assuming a simple linear trend between 2020 and 2050 would give a 33% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030 from Lieberman-Warner; and a 39% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030 from Lieberman-Markey. Clearly these aren’t up there at those high 2050 endpoint reductions, but neither are they trivial in size. A couple of meta-analyses of the price elasticity of demand for gasoline in the US give estimates around -.58 to -.64, meaning that a 10% increase in the price of gasoline would lead in the long run to a decline in the demand for gasoline of around 6%. As we are given that these 2030 estimated increases in the price of gas are in the neighborhood of 9% -12% (relative to BAU), with our elasticity of demand (long run) estimates we would expect a 6% to 8% reduction in demand for gas (Markey and Warner respectively). The only way I can reconcile the difference between 22-42¢/gallon price increases in gas and reductions in CO2 emissions by 2030 of 33% to 39% is if there were some very large short-term price increases in gasoline between 2012 and 2030 that induce some very significant changes in efficiency of cars (especially, since they would persist) and/or driving habits. And then these changes in efficiency (especially) and driving habits reduce demand and dampen down the rise in gas prices by 2030. [Of course, the percentage reductions in CO2 emissions across different sectors like automobile transportation, housing and manufacturing may vary substantially from proportional as I’ve assumed here.] Finally, I guess it’s possible that some psychological factors like heightened concern for the impacts of ACC could come into play to induce people to reduce their demand for gasoline from a given price increase by more than standard estimates suggest. But those are the kinds of things I would not want to bet too much of my lunch money on. More to the point, I would think that modelers would find these too hard to quantify to take these into account, but I may be wrong here. Anyone have any other thoughts on this? BTW, I’m about as far away from being a skeptic as concerns ACC as one can get in this world. I’m just puzzled by the relative size of the estimates of the impacts of these proposed CT bills on CO2 emissions compared to intermediate outcomes like gas prices.
  28. Solving Global Warming - Not Easy, But Not Too Hard
    If confirmed, Carbon Capture and Storage is not going to be part of the solution: The end of cheap coal
  29. Antarctica is gaining ice
    I'm fully aware that the climate appears to still be warming. I'd still like to know how that warming is incompatible with the natural glacial cycle. According to this National Geographic source, we reached temperatures of 4.5 C warmer than today during the previous glacial warming phase http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070705-antarctica-ice.html Why would we not expect to reach similar temperatures during this warming phase? Thank you, Chris Shaker
  30. Antarctica is gaining ice
    I assume that you are talking about the article about mass measurements from the Grace satellite? If so, yes, I read the article. Are the ice cores taken from ice on land, or taken from ice on water? I don't know the answer to that, but it would seem to be important if sea ice is growing, but land ice is melting? If the ice cores were taken from ice on water, the inverse temperature relationship should still hold? Chris Shaker
  31. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    cjshaker... I hope you read the "reports" section on wiki as well.
  32. It's the sun
    cjshaker "CO2 believers" do not "squash consideration of solar forcing". Unfortunately, it's bad news for our friends living Down Under: "As a result, the effects of possible synergies occurring between global warming and solar maxima on atmospheric circulation over extra‐tropical regions could result in severe drought becoming the typical climate state in regions such as southeast Australia."
  33. Antarctica is gaining ice
    cjshaker - Have you actually read the article at the top of this topic? The one with the seven (7) article references, by my count? You might also want to look at Is Greenland gaining or losing ice. Both Antarctica and Greenland are currently losing ice due to warming.
  34. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    I found the Wikipedia on Climategate interesting reading as well. Gives a good description of the event, and what we've learned about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climategate Chris Shaker
  35. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Clean up my own act? I just posted comments from sources, and included the actual sources. So far, I have not yet found your post where I assume you do the same. Your main intellectual activity seems to be name calling. It is not very flattering. Chris Shaker
  36. Antarctica is gaining ice
    I would appreciate it if you would provide pointers to data to back up those claims, because so far, all I've seen is data agreeing with the inverse. Chris Shaker
  37. We're heading into an ice age
    It appears to me that most of the warming we have seen over the past 14,000 years is from the natural glacial cycle. I'm posting some references about what we know about the glacial cycle, from the proxy temperature record extracted from the ice cores, in hopes that someone will be able to provide me with better ones. I remain dismayed at how hard it is to find accurate descriptions of the glacial cycle. Over the past 800,000 years, we've had at least 8 glacial cycles, each about 100,000 years long, consisting of roughly 90,000 years of advancing ice followed by roughly 10,000 years of warmth. Sometimes, the warm period has been up to 23,000 years long. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/5486/1897 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/289/5486/1897 This National Geographic web page mentions that the highest and lowest temperatures obtained from analysis of the ice cores spanning the past 800,000 years occurred during our most recent glacial cycle. The hottest temperature was 4.5 degrees Celsius warmer than today. That was 130,000 years ago. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070705-antarctica-ice.html It seems interesting to me that record high and low temperatures, and the glacial maximum, for the past 800,000 years were set during this most recent glacial cycle! According to some sources, we're about 14,000 years into this warming phase. Given that the maximum temperature during the last warming phase was about 4.5 C warmer than today, it seems likely that we'll continue to see much warmer temperatures and sea levels during this warm phase, just due to the natural glacial cycle. This source gives a history of the science behind our understanding of the past glacial cycles. http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm It seems to show that the end of this warm period is fairly near. Chris Shaker
  38. Antarctica is gaining ice
    It used to be so. Not anymore apparently, we are seeing warming both in the north and in the south. Something different is going on, guess what?
  39. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    cjshaker: "Squeaky clean white knights they are NOT!" Clean up your own act before criticising others. As I pointed out the article you referred to was published immediately after by the Wall Street Journal. An analogy would be to quote a news article about someone arrested a year ago by the police for murder on the day after the event. Ignoring the fact that months later the arrested person was found to be innocent and more recent news articles publishing updates. It is pretty dumb to quote old news.
  40. It's the ocean
    h-j-m - See Trenberth 2009. My numbers are drawn from that. 80 W/m^2 evaporation, 17 W/m^2 thermals, 396 W/m^2 IR from the ground, with 161 W/m^2 solar and 333 W/m^2 back IR. (Sorry about the inexact numbers before, I was typing from memory) Warmer air will hold more water vapor - the same relative humidity at different temperatures leads to different absolute humidities. So warmer air over water at an unchanged temperature will end up with more absolute humidity, more H2O in the air column, more greenhouse effect. And warmer water can raise the relative humidity in the air above it, again raising the amount of H2O in the air column. So these effects interact. Increasing H2O therefore acts as positive feedback upon CO2 driven global warming.
  41. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    cjshaker: "In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with" OK this is quoted from a Wall Street Journal article not long after the event in 2009. It is interesting to note that cjshaker is to lazy to reference the article directly via a link. Poor research and cherry picking. It has little valid relevance now, although is of historical relevance to see how media hype something and speculate immediately after an event. The CRU had problems with source data licensing. Not all data is open and public, even public data has licensing agreements. For instance, in the UK the public weather data and national weather forecasting is run by the Ministry of Defense, there is a good reason why much weather data is historically held by military authorities. This causes issues in licensing, since some countries still see it as militarily sensitive. In the same article the American Association for the Advancement of Science is quoted as saying: The association believes "that climate change is real, it is related to human activities, and the need to counteract its impacts is now urgent," eg.they were unfazed by the thefts.
  42. It's the sun
    cjshaker - Regarding the cosmic ray argument you presented here, you should read the Could cosmic rays be causing global warming page. No statistically significant correlation between cosmic rays and global temperature has ever been established, unlike the clear correlation between temperature rises of the last 150 years and CO2 concentrations. Dr. Shaviv is expressing a viewpoint not supported by the data. The link you present here, on solar forcing, discusses the last 6500 years, not the present, and states "We present evidence to support physical links between variability in solar irradiance and change in the hydroclimate of southeast Australia and suggest that the effects of global warming and solar maxima on atmospheric circulation over extra-tropical regions may exacerbate these impacts" (emphasis added). This is hardly a critique of AGW. You should read CO2 is not the only driver of climate - CO2 has a dominant effect now, but hasn't been the driver for most climate changes in the past.
  43. It's the ocean
    KR, somehow your statements seemed odd. So I looked and found this Diagram. It gives the numbers in percent of total radiation and shows that your numbers can hardly be correct and I sincerely doubt that NOAA counts as a discredited source here. As to evaporation it seems you are seemingly mixing up possibility and reality. Warmer air can hold more water vapour therefore warmer air will lead to more evaporation. That seems to me the line of reasoning and it is a logical fallacy. Let me explain with the case at hand, evaporation. It should be obvious that the conditions governing the process need to be in place where the process takes place. Now I think it is no deep secret that the bulk of evaporation takes place over tropical ocean during daytime (when sunshine warms air and water). Unfortunately the bulk of warming occurs at far higher latitudes and during the night. Therefore it is quite unlikely that evaporation will significantly increase. The correct conclusion that can be drawn is that higher atmospheric temperatures may influence (diminish) the conditions that govern condensation (and precipitation in consequence) which by the way gives a perfect explanation for the ice loss of alpine glaciers in permafrost regions.
  44. Antarctica is gaining ice
    I don't see anyone pointing out that Ice core temperature proxy data shows that as Greenland warms, Antarctica cools. As Greenland cools, antarctica warms. They seem to have an inverse temperature relationship http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/nov06/WebExtra111006.html Chris Shaker
  45. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    cjshaker: "They also subverted Freedom of Information laws by deleting information like Ollie North did." Totally incorrect. Where is your evidence that any data was deleted? Data was not deleted, some source data was not archived, but the data was held by the nations authorities that supplied the data. The CRU wasn't an archive facility, so it was happy for sourcing authorities to keep their own archives. BTW the UK has it's own FOI laws, they have nothing to do with the US. So to be honest it's not really any of your business! I doubt if you actually know what is in the UK FOI legislation. I know Tony Blair has said that the FOI legislation in the UK was never intended to be used the way it was, aggressively against the CRU. The CRU were spammed by deliberate repetitive requests by a bunch of techie nutters. As a result of the emails theft, the CRU now have the money to archive data. The point being that the issue was a management one, not a science one.
  46. It's the sun
    CO2 believers attempt to squash consideration of solar forcing, while other scientists keep raising its validity. This one is from Australia, and was actually published by the AGU: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042918.shtml Chris Shaker
  47. It's the sun
    If you're interested in reading the opposing viewpoint, Nir J. Shaviv, Isreali Astrophysicist, writes about Solar Forcing. He is quite readable. Carbon Dioxide or Solar Forcing? http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar Chris Shaker
  48. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    fydijkstra refering to e-mail 0983566497 Chris Keller: "Well, they did not explain this, but calculated averages of different series so that the variations were masked." Where is your evidence that any variations were masked? As has been pointed out many times, emails are not much use when understanding an issue. The discussion in the email is a genuine ongoing discussion about proxy timings, regional variations and various issues you would expect in an ongoing analysis.
  49. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Fydijstra's first example of scientists doubt is claiming that the last decade is not the warmest in the past thousand years. In Schmidt and Mann's response to Mcshane and Wyner, they calculate a 99% probability that the 1990's were the warmest decade using the lasso technique of MW. If 99% is uncertain then what does Fydijstra think is certain?? Mann et al discount the 99% in the end, but that is the calculated result of MW's technique. Since the 2000's have been warmer, where is any doubt left? If that is the best doubt you can find you need to get a new argument.
  50. The question that skeptics don't want to ask about 'Climategate'
    Climategate emails showed the climate researchers suppressed dissenting views, even if that meant getting editors fired, or redefining what peer reviewed literature meant. They also subverted Freedom of Information laws by deleting information like Ollie North did. "The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others. In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with." ... "In another, Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Neither man could be reached for comment Sunday." ... "John Christy, a scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville attacked in the emails for asking that an IPCC report include dissenting viewpoints, said, "It's disconcerting to realize that legislative actions this nation is preparing to take, and which will cost trillions of dollars, are based upon a view of climate that has not been completely scientifically tested."" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125883405294859215.html The statute of limitations prevents them from being prosecuted, but they broke the Freedom of Information law, deleting data that had been requested under FOI "In his statement, Smith said that Holland's request was not dealt with correctly by the university. "The emails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland's requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information." But he added that it was now too late to take action because the legislation requires that sanctions are imposed within six months of the offence. "The ICO is gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law. It is important to note that the ICO enforces the law as it stands – we do not make it."" http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/27/uea-hacked-climate-emails-foi Squeaky clean white knights they are NOT! Chris Shaker

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