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Comments 106551 to 106600:

  1. Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
    You also might want to consider whether CO2 or "the Sun" is a better fit for the temperature trend, especially post-1970s: Ignore the PDO line for now, and just focus on temperatures (RSS, GISS), CO2, and TSI (solar). ------------- PDO data from University of Washington. Surface temperatures from GISS land+ocean. Satellite temperatures from RSS. Law Dome CO2 from NOAA NCDC. Mauna Loa CO2 from NOAA ESRL. PDO and temperature data shown in monthly and 120-month LOESS smoothed versions. Law Dome CO2 dating based on "air age" with 20-year smoothing. Mauna Loa CO2 (monthly) are seasonally adjusted. Both CO2 data sets were log-transformed (base 2). Data sets with differing units (PDO, temperature, log[CO2]) have been scaled to fit on the same graph. Solar irradiance data from University of Colorado, shown annually and with a 22-year LOESS smoothing function.
  2. Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
    Ned, for solar radiation to manifest itself as a forcing it must first be absorbed. In this case I am referring to that portion of the solar energy that is absorbed at the skin of the water and is immediately transferred to the water vapour so transformed and becomes part of the atmosphere. The solar radiation that is not absorbed at the skin, but progressively at further depths then goes on to manifest itself, and be measured, in different ways.
  3. Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
    oxymoron, you might want to look at the following: CO2 is not the only driver of climate What happened to greenhouse warming during mid-century cooling?
  4. Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
    Does he have a point about wind though? If warming temperatures caused less mixing, the absolute humidity at the surface could rise, while falling at greater altitudes, thus introducing a negative feedback. I suspect that warming temperature _won't_ cause less mixing, and there's probably already data on whether it will/does, but at least it seems like there's a scientific possibility in there. (Not that anything really defeats the paleo evidence for a sensitivity around 3, so any discovery of previously overlooked feedbacks is like showing your work when the answer is known.)
  5. Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
    archiesteel: CO2 concentrations began rising significantly around 1940, but temperatures dropped from 1940 to 1970, so it definitely is not CO2.
  6. Increasing southern sea ice: a basic rebuttal
    Philippe @ 12 Figure 7 in Verdy, Marshall, & Czaja suggests overall cooling since the 1980s. However, ice loss is ice loss until proven otherwise.
  7. Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
    @oxymoron: sorry, but it's definitely not the sun. Arctic air temperatures have been going up in the past decades, like CO2 concentration, while TSI has been going down.
  8. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    chriscanaris, what am I supposed to be seeing in that quote? I'm afraid I'm not getting it. Volcanic aerosols are a forcing. Anthropogenic aerosols are also a forcing, but cloud albedo is a feedback. The terminology is important, but even with that aside I'm still not quite following what you're trying to say. Maybe if I sign off for the night and get some sleep it will be obvious in the morning...
  9. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    Ned @ 69: Take a look at this excerpt on climate impact of volcanoes. 'Volcanic aerosol particles scatter and absorb a fraction of incoming solar radiation, as well as absorbing a fraction of outgoing terrestrial radiation. The change in global temperatures caused by the aerosols from El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo is estimated to be 0.2¡C and 0.5¡C. However both these values lie within the natural variability of temperature.' Volcanic forcings don't seem to behave differently from aerosol and cloud albedo forcings though undoubtedly they are presumably nearly entirely independent of temperature whereas the relationship between aerosols, clouds, and temperature eventually becomes very complex and, somewhat to my regret, confusing partly because of the uncertainties around the feedbacks.
  10. Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
    No, johnd. If increasing solar radiation were warming the planet, then solar radiation would be the forcing and increasing humidity would be one among several feedbacks. Likewise, if increasing CO2 leads to an increase in humidity, CO2 is the forcing and water vapor is the feedback. On Earth, water vapor is basically never seen acting as a forcing.
  11. Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
    Sorry, it's the sun. Arctic air temperature is strongly correlated with total solar irradiance over the period 1880 to 2000 [Soon, W. (2005) Geophysical Research Letters 32, 2005GL023429, and Hoyt, D. V. and Schatten, K. H. (1993) J. Geophvsical Res. 98, 18895-18906]. What is NOT correlated with arctic air temperature is hydrocarbon use [Marland, G., Boden, T. A., and Andres, Ri J. (2007) Global, Regional, and National CO2 Emissions. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, TN, USA]
  12. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Your [Peter's] carefully researched postings really raise the level of discussion. Yes. This is a really nicely done post. Like michael sweet, I really look forward to new comments or posts by Peter Hogarth.
  13. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    chriscanaris writes: Moreover, I did *not* at any time suggest that 'one creates policy based on assuming that the true value of an estimate is at the extreme negative value of a very wide error bar.' I agree, you didn't suggest that. This is a busy site and when the comments get flying it's easy for us all to misinterpret each other. I know it's very annoying when people misunderstand me, or attribute someone else's views to me, or whatever. In kdkd's defense it gets a bit tiresome being repeatedly confronted with an argument that appears to be, in essence, "Well, there is a large uncertainty band around the best estimate for [whatever], so maybe things won't be as bad as those doomsayers claim." Your comments have much more nuance than that, and all of us should probably do a better job of being alert to nuances in others' comments. It's difficult when one's patience is worn down by some of the more unreasonable and unhelpful commenters here. More chriscanarises among our SkS "sceptic" contingent would be a distinct improvement, IMHO.
  14. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Peter Hogarth: I was linking to Dr. Hansens' web site to defend the GISS data. My position is that both DMI and GISS are good records and can be used for the purpose you use them in this article. I dislike people who choose one record and distort another, especially since they cite blogs (or personal opinion) and not peer reviewed papers. I am glad to see you back. Your carefully researched postings really raise the level of discussion.
  15. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    archiesteel writes: You seem to be missing the obvious: the DMI data shows a dramatic warming trend. In fact, as I indicated at the beginning of this comment trend, the DMI agrees with the dramatic warming of the arctic over the last decades. To be precise, the 50-year trend in DMI's temperature is just slightly higher than the trend in GISS (0.37C/decade vs 0.35C/decade), though this difference may be accounted for by the slightly different areas included in the two. See Peter Hogarth's excellent Figure 3 from the top of this thread.
  16. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    Goddard is just trying to get attention, and should probably be ignored. The comment here by Albatross is just great. I too had read through the van Hoof 2005 paper but didn't get around to commenting, and I'm glad I didn't waste my time because Albatross's response is better than mine would have been. Once again BP is making strong claims that don't really stand up under close examination. This is IMHO unfortunate because many of the papers or sources that BP cites in his comments on this site are very interesting and could probably lead to some good discussions if he could just stop making these exaggerated claims that every one of them conclusively disproves AGW. A more modest approach to interpreting the evidence would probably do wonders for BP's credibility on this site, IMHO.
  17. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    chriscanaris #75 Can you please point out where you perceive my language was incautious? If you're not advocating policy based on assuming that the true value of an estimate is at the extreme negative value of a very wide error bar, then that's fine. However you haven't made this clear. What would climate sensitivity be with strong negative feedback from clouds assumed by the way?
  18. Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
    The article seems to overlook the relative importance of solar radiation and wind as being the two main drivers of evaporation, translating as the skin temperature of the evaporating surface rather than ambient temperature, and the airflow over it, which in the case of solar radiation would make water vapour more of a forcing than a feedback. This paper details the calculations and the various inputs that are involved BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY REFERENCE EVAPOTRANSPIRATION CALCULATIONS
  19. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    @FLansner: "We have only the choice between data measured in the area (DMI) or data projected from land far away. I think you need biiiig globalwarming glasses not to see what data source is most reliable." You seem to be missing the obvious: the DMI data shows a dramatic warming trend. In fact, as I indicated at the beginning of this comment trend, the DMI agrees with the dramatic warming of the arctic over the last decades. Who should I trust on what the DMI data says? Web contrarians or the DMI itself?
  20. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Can someone fill me in on a question that bothers me about air temperatures above ice/snow? The heating of surface is radiative and from AGW point of view the interest is LW radiation. For ice-free land/sea then I would expect the air temperature 2m above ground to reflect this warming of the ground surface. But above ice/snow? Unless there was evaporation/sublimation going on, how much heat transfer is there into the air above? If surface warms from say -20 to -10, is that going to be reflected in the cold dry air above it?
  21. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    Phila @ 70 What may be confusing people is the apparent implication that this somehow makes you different from anyone else, or that this view is some sort of alternative or corrective to what the what of us think. Sorry to confuse :-) I've long shed any pretensions to any unique status. KDKD: With respect, your language was certainly neither conservative nor cautious. I've been reading scientific literature principally in my field for as long time - I do have some passing familiarity with academic writing. Moreover, I did *not* at any time suggest that 'one creates policy based on assuming that the true value of an estimate is at the extreme negative value of a very wide error bar.' Ned: You're right - I genuinely do find the notion of the apparent mutual exclusivity of high climate sensitivity and negative feedback from clouds difficult to grasp. Give me time - and I'll certainly go hunting around the Internet for ideas.
  22. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Something else to consider. Here are surface temperatures (not air temperatures) for northern high latitudes derived from satellite data between 1981 and 2003. Sourced here.
  23. It's the sun
    KL #705 "Hence rising temperatures with 'flat' non-zero forcing are quite consistent with the 'Temperature vs. Solar Activity chart on the Basic version of this thread'" That may be the case, if we didn't have additional data showing that the role of CO2 has been strong for the past 60 years. However we do. If you omit key information, then your hypothesis would appear credible. However omitting key information is not justified, so your hypotheis is not credible.
  24. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Frank, The impacts of the UHI are taken into consideration, see Tamino's recent post on Tokyo's temperatures. Anyhow, I am not sure what your argument is. Is it that the warming may be less than observed b/c of the alleged impact of the UHI? If so, then that can be discussed on the appropriate thread. There are very few skeptics even who consider the various SAT records and satellite records to be compromised-- that argument is usually made by "conspiracy" theorists. Anyhow, the Arctic is warming. ERA-interim data show warming, GISS shows that, and satellite data to 82.5 N show that. There is no reason to believe that there would be some rapid change or discontinuity in the temperature anomalies north of 82.5 N-- especially give that we know the correlation length-scale of anomalies is on the order of hundreds of km. I have a huge issue with people (including you) claiming that the "Arctic" is not warming when they are not even talking about temperatures north of the Arctic circle, but rather north of 80 N. The Arctic, of course, starts at the Arctic circle, which is much further south than 80 N, and that is an important difference. Do you disagree with the excellent agreement between GISS and DMI shown in Ned's post @31? So I'm not sure what kind of glasses you are wearing when you look at that graph. I also find it odd that "skeptics" ridicule the models, except that is when they think the output supports their point of view. Well, in this case the ECWMF reanalysis data do not support the claim that the Arctic has been cooling since 1958. Increase in mean near-surface temperature (°C) from (1989-98) to (1999-2008) "The lower figure is the ECMWF analysis which uses all available observations, including satellite and weather balloon records, synthesised in a physically- and meteorologically-consistent way, and the upper figure represents the same period from our HadCRUT record. The ECMWF analysis shows that in data-sparse regions such as Russia, Africa and Canada, warming over land is more extreme than in regions sampled by HadCRUT. If we take this into account, the last decade shows a global-mean trend of 0.1 °C to 0.2 °C per decade. We therefore infer with high confidence that the HadCRUT record is at the lower end of likely warming." DMI really needs to generate a product that is representative of the Arctic circle, not just north of 80 North.
  25. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    FLanser, Are surface temperature records reliable? (argument #6)
    The warming trend is the same in rural and urban areas, measured by thermometers and satellites.
    Does Urban Heat Island effect exaggerate global warming trends? (argument #21)
    Urban and rural regions show the same warming trend.
  26. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Hi Peter! Its true, GISS has mostly 2 "products", its only in one they use the projections. Non the less, these projections are seen not rarely when argumenting for global warming, for instance in this NASA graphic used to show that the Arctic is going crazy: http://hidethedecline.eu/media/arctic%20temperatures/nasa2005.jpg But to make the Arctic look Sooooo dark red as on the NASA site here, they used start year 1955. But as you see in comment 46 above, start year 1937 would have shown something else. And using DMI/ERA-40 data would have shown a more nuanced picture. If you say that both GISS and DMI is only so-so useful, then i think they should make the area grey. K.R. Frank
  27. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Hi Albatross, The resemblance or lack of same between different sources of temperature data i have written a lot about: http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/the-perplexing-temperature-data-published-1974-84-and-recent-temperature-data-180.php Here i would focus on PART 4, where for example this graphic appears: http://hidethedecline.eu/media/PERPLEX/fig78.jpg Here, notice how UAH OCEAN temperatures rather nicely follow the SST (called CSST, an average of different hadley and NOAA sources to SST). But the UAH LAND temperatures does not match the different sources of land temperatures, being GISS, GRUTEM3, Vinnikov and NCDC. The overall difference between UAH and the land based readings are not so easy to see when land and ocean are combined, but difference for land is clear. This indicates that something makes land temperatures (mostly taken from cities) are too hot, and this could be explained by UHI. But this general idea you have that all the different sources just shows the same is very wrong. Even the individual balloon sources dissagre (!) RATPAC has one story, ERA-40 another for example. But to get back to the Arctic area near the North pole 80-90N: We have only the choice between data measured in the area (DMI) or data projected from land far away. I think you need biiiig globalwarming glasses not to see what data source is most reliable. K.R. Frank Lansner
  28. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    FLansner at 08:28 AM on 21 October, 2010 As I understand it, GISS has access to relatively high spatial resolution land and ocean measurements over most of the globe, and they have no need to extrapolate unless station data is actually not available (as over much of the very high Arctic) or SST data and local air temperature are very different (as near the "boundaries" of the high Arctic sea ice).
  29. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Berényi Péter at 01:53 AM on 21 October, 2010 The first data you cite is ocean flux buoy data (ocean temperature data) which is not quite relevant to surface temperature, but the second linked data set is recent and pertinent. The snippet of data in the link very nicely shows the Summer 0 degrees C clipping effect. I will try to get the complete high resolution time series updated (given time) as I have the earlier buoy data. If we look at slightly less up to date buoy data as in Polyakov 2002, where: “The datasets of monthly surface air temperature and sea level pressure used in this study contain data from land stations, Russian NP stations, and drifting buoys operated by the International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP)”. We see again GISS correlates well over the buoy data period. Below I have plotted the Polyakov Arctic annual values with publicly available GISS annual Arctic zonal values. The buoy data is used from around 1950 onwards in Polyakov.
  30. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    RSVP, Any object with a temperature above 0K never stops radiating - ever. Finding an object that does not radiate, or a process to make any object not radiate, would unsettle our most basic understandings of the physical universe. DSL, RSVP is trying. He's trying to force the accumulated scientific knowledge to conform to his preconceived notions.
  31. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Hi Frank (re #44), Could you please explain to us why then there is such excellent agreement between the surface temperature data and those from the satellite MSU data, not to mention the balloon data and OHC data? And note that the MSU satellite data are not calibrated against the surface temperatures. Your concerns have been addressed on this very site and elsewhere. The surface SAT records (GISTEMP, HadCRUT, JAMA, NOAA-NCDC), despite their known limitations, are robust. The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the globe-- that has been determined from multiple, independent data sets, and is explained by a phenomenon called "polar amplification". It is no artifact.
  32. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Hi Peter Hogarth! Im very positively surpriced by your kind tone and welcome indeed. One could hope the climate debate was like this in general. I am answering questions on 3 blogs now on this issue, so i hope you can forgive im a little late, here. As I understand you, there are trouble for GISS projections in regions near pacific equator. Well... :-) Why do GISS then do this? But very important: What I showed in my original article was, that GISS projections for SST has problems all over the world. May i remind you this important graphic from the article: http://hidethedecline.eu/media/ArcticGISS/fig6big.jpg I have made many areas black so that only GISS projected SST are shown in the UPPER graphic. And then the corresponding HADLEY SST is shown in the lower graphis. The match in the whole world [SNIIIIP] aerm... is not good. Its not just the Arctis, its not just somewhere we see a terrible mismatch. Its everywhere. If such a match is good enough for a method to be used by NASA, its really incredible. K.R. Frank Lansner
  33. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    Chriscanaris #61 "What false premise?" The one where one creates policy based on assuming that the true value of an estimate is at the extreme negative value of a very wide error bar. "However, your suggestion that I should be more careful in how I express myself lest I be seen as trotting out sceptical talking points does test my patience." Sorry, I should be more clear here. Scientific language is generally very cautious and conservative. Much of the 8 year or longer training process for practicing scientist involves getting practitioners used to this aspect. It's not a personal attack, or a search for heresy, it's an observation about the conventions that allow us to use scientific data to draw conclusions.
  34. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    RSVP, wth? You aren't even trying anymore. So it's not true that any object above 0K will radiate? You should win the Nobel for this one. Tell me something, though: how does the nugget know when it's surrounded by ground? Is there a God particle involved? Does the nugget somehow magically 'sense' that it's surrounded by ground and stop radiating?
  35. Increasing southern sea ice: a basic rebuttal
    See the intermediate version of this article. The Zhang paper looks at SST 1979 to 2004 showing significant warming all around antarctica.
  36. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Berényi Péter at 01:53 AM on 21 October, 2010 If you go to the "advanced" post linked at the beginning of this article, you'll see some actual buoy data. You can assume most published work on Arctic surface temperatures in the ten years since 2000 (such as Polyakov 2002) will reference this. GISS are of course well aware of the satellite and buoy data, and DMI incorporate buoy data. I cover this briefly. michael sweet at 06:34 AM on 21 October, 2010 The "analysis" link is not connecting? Although the DMI data is from a model, the model is loaded with actual measurements, and quite a lot of them from satellites to get the high spatial resolution necessary for "weather forecasting".
  37. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    doug #92 Simpifying... the answer to your question... A hot nugget will radiate, but not when buried in a hole in the ground. As for the rest, take a break. See you tomorrow.
  38. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Why is BP posting data that does not show the last 13 years of warming? Those years are when the Arctic warmed the most.
  39. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    Oh that precious Steve Goddard. After ranting about how John's graph shows more recent warming than the Hadley land+ocean data, he adds an update. "Reader “robert” tells me that Cook is using land-only northern hemisphere data in his “northern hemisphere” graph." No freaking duh. Past temperature reconstructions are based on land proxies (mainly in the Northern Hemisphere), and thus represent land-only NH temps. So that is the appropriate instrumental data to use. As usual, Goddard spends an entire blog post criticizing somebody who's correct. What a joke. Goddard also claims that John "goes on and does climate sensitivity calculations based on bogus data from a cherry-picked hemisphere." Aside from the data neither being bogus nor from a cherrypicked hemisphere (anyone even slightly familiar with temperature reconstructions should know they're usually done for the NH, from which more proxy data is available), John doesn't do any climate sensitivity calculations at all in this post. It amazes me that somebody so completely ignorant about climate science could be so utterly oblivious as to write a climate science blog.
  40. Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
    I see you have rattled a cage over with Steve Goddard who is claiming your Moberg graph is 'a new level of BS'; http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/cooks-hokey-stick/
  41. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    BP, Adrian, Flansner, Where is the data from 30 years ago to compare the current bouys to? GISS has published an analysis of this data and have shown that their estimates are closer to reality than using the global average. HADCRU has published a paper stating that they underestimate the arctic temperature rise due to their use of the global average. Can you produce peer reviewed papers that support your claim that the GISS estimates are inferior to your proposals? Without data you are just suggesting you are smarter than GISS. The DMI data comes from a model, not actual measurements. Can you suggest why it is better than the GISS model? Provide data please, not just opinions. The data Peter shows here shows that the two analysis are similar. Perhaps the bias introduced by DMI changing models is the only problem.
  42. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    RSVP honestly your perceptions are so muddled or at least dysfunctional in the mechanical sense that it's very hard to understand what you're intending to convey. What your words rather clearly implied is that certain tangible things on Earth can emit IR while others may not. If you were referring to surface area as opposed to volume or more precisely specific heat times mass being a measure of ability to store energy, find a way of saying so that is articulate. Elsewhere on Skeptical Science you've demonstrated a clear inability to discern between orders of magnitude, or at least you're unable to admit how you do understand such a thing as 10 X 1 = 10. This is consistent with such confused remarks as "We experience delays in communication systems daily. These may last two seconds at the most. Are you trying to say that two more seconds of lingering heat after the Sun sets is causing global warming?" Our (or my) understanding of what you know is based on what you say; with your track record of misunderstanding I'm simply going to read what you say and not attempt to use x-ray vision to tease out whatever cogs are seized up and stripping on their axles in your brainbox. All this would ordinarily be fine and dandy; it's a fact that people here are usually amazingly kind and patient. Some of us (me, again) become irritated with you when you express your inner fog with assertions implying your perspective is more useful, such as the embarrassingly tangled "AGW folks are the real unprepared optimists, because they think this problem will go away when CO2 emissions are reduced, when in fact the level of stored energy has no reason to drop without a significant radiative forcing also dropping off."
  43. It's the sun
    @KL: I don't dispute your capacity to make mathematical operations. I simply think you're not very apt at clearly presenting your arguments, hence the impression that you obfuscate issues by throwing around of math. Your inability earlier to understand such as simple matter as relative deltas instead of absolute values seems to confirm this hypothesis. If you truly understand an issue, you should be able to explain it to non-technical people like me. The fact you cannot seem to make a clear argument with all those equations is telling, and that's all I'll say on the matter before getting even more off-topic.
  44. It's not bad
    hapivibe, There is a lot of discussion of AGW because the science is being actively debated (I would say more like attacked) by a large and influential group of skeptics. Breast cancer for example does not require this discussion, as nobody seriously doubts that it is real and thus there is no discussion to be had. If you find AGW so unworthy of discussion, then tell me, why are you here adding to it? If you would rather discuss overconsumption, then visit a blog about overconsumption, or better yet, start your own. If you can generate some interesting and compelling discussion then your pet issue will attract more attention, and more power to you if it does.
  45. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    An image illustrating the GHG notches from Has the greenhouse effect been falsified: Integrating under the curve of the top image gives you the total energy radiated to space. Without GHG's the spectra would be a smooth curve (lacking notches), and a lower temperature would give an equal amount of energy radiated to space.
  46. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    And, very importantly, a planet and an atmosphere with GHG's has a very different emission spectra than one without GHG's - it has notches where ~half the IR gets re-emitted back to the surface. In order for the integrated thermal spectra leaving the atmosphere to equal the energy coming in as sunlight (where the atmosphere is essentially transparent), a planet with GHG's (notched spectra) must have a higher temperature than one without (close to blackbody spectra), when both are at equilibrium.
  47. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    RSVP, The travel time of emitted photons is not the only thing determining delay. There is also a delay between absorption and subsequent emission of said energy. The rate of this emission is bound by the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. Also consider that we aren't talking a single round trip transmission like in your communications example. The energy could be "bouncing around" many times.
  48. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    My apologies, I was incorrect in my last post. The figure as represented on the summary web site shows white from -1.0 to +0.5, but the originals from the paper show a light blue from -1.0 to -0.5, and white from -0.5 to +0.5. Looks like some color fidelity got lost when putting together the summary website.
  49. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Huh, that's weird. In any case, a better copy of the image from the original source;
  50. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    Examining the image (having copied it into an image processing program from the original site), the -1.0 to +0.5 region is entirely white. There's an apparent contrast over the -0.5, but that's an optical illusion. Poor choice of image colors, in my opinion.

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