Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings


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.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Mastodon MeWe

Twitter YouTube RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Recent Comments

Prev  2124  2125  2126  2127  2128  2129  2130  2131  2132  2133  2134  2135  2136  2137  2138  2139  Next

Comments 106551 to 106600:

  1. Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
    THe difficulty I find is that there are lots of predictions of tipping points such an ice free Arctic in the summer which will be the thing that convinces everyone that the models of climate change are correct. The problem with this is that when year after year it does not happen, the warning begin to look like one of these chaps walking around with a billboard saying "the end is nigh" and it has the opposite effect on peoples perceptions. The other issue is that although the long term trend is obviously down, the short term trend is up from the 97 low. If this continues for another year or two the graph will start to look curiously like a hockey stick.
  2. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    gpwayne "Some climate change skeptics dispute the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’, which keeps the surface temperature of the Earth approximately 30 degrees C warmer than it would be if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." Hmmm. No water vapor means no clouds. So with an open sky consisting only of N2 and O2 after millions of years of steady sunshine, you are saying that the oceans would remain frozen? No water vapor also means no snow or rain, so the land is now a dry powder as on the Moon. The dry air in contact with the dry land would receive heat via convection and rise and mix. This air has no GHG, so it cannot radiate heat... only accumulate it via convection with the surface, or release it back via convection to cooler locations on the surface. But this convection is limited to only the cooler air that has circulated downward. The hot air would rise and the stratosphere would get warmer and warmer. All this may sound like nonsense, yet it is no better than the picture you have painted.
  3. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    @HR: do you have figures that would justify this change in terminology to show us? After all, "Very Few" is more precise than "Some", so you must be basing this on some kind of empirical evidence, right?
  4. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Shouldn't "Some climate change skeptics..." be "Very few climate change skeptics..."
  5. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    TIS: However, this article is inaccurate as I am not aware of anyone claiming that the atmosphere doesn't have an effect. Logically speaking, your (admitted) ignorance does not and cannot make this article "inaccurate."
  6. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Roger A. Wehage, The relationship between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the effect it has in terms of direct retention of energy is logarithmic. A fair number of 'skeptics' become aware of this and try to argue that it means that the effects will be minimal. However, it's no secret to anyone who knows anything about the science. Remember, the central prediction is that, with feedbacks included, there will be a roughly 1% change in the earth's absolute temperature with doubling of CO2. That's 3 Kelvin / ~300 Kelvin which in about 1%.
  7. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Bibliovermis "she has over a decade of peer-reviewed field research under her belt" eh? Care to elaborate?
  8. It's the sun
    KL #693 The multiple regression on the climate karaoke confirms your analysis rather nicely - after the mid-20th century, co2 is the main driver of warming (as expressed in that case by temperature anomaly as the dependent variable). I can't remember offhand what the precision of the prediction is, but it was reasonable, although regression assumptions were violated somewhat. Who'd have thought - convergent evidence. I can't see this supporting your 'sceptic' argument at all though. It more confirms the opposite.
  9. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    AHHH 12C or 20C
  10. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    I shall clarify my position. During a hot house period, where the average surface T may be 20k, or a glaciation when the surface T maybe around 12k, at equilibrium, the amount of energy leaving the top of the atmosphere will be the same, and equal to the amount of energy entering the system. During transitions between these states there will be an imbalance between incoming and out going, with more leaving than entering during a decline in T, and more entering than leaving during a rise in T. The difference in the surface T is a result of the amount of energy contained in the system at their respective equilibriums, and is a result in a shift in the amount of energy in the system, but the "quantity" of energy leaving the system, on its own, is not necessarily representative of the energy contained in the system(T o the climate).
  11. Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
    Peter Can you tell me how you made your detrended HADCRUT series. I looks like AMO leads HADCRUT in some cases, lags in others. I'd like to reproduce your chart and take a look at how they vary.
  12. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    doug_bostrom at 09:04 I dont disagree, equilibrium can and does change, its the first sentence that just reads to me as though its saying proof of the GHE is that less energy leaves than enters the system... The proof is in the amount of energy contained in the system. Im being pedantic, i admit it, but that first sentence is misleading.
  13. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Some net amount of energy is trapped or lost over time, Joe, or the collective ocean/atmosphere system could not become warmer or cooler over time.
  14. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Good to the point article, but being a bit pedantic, i would agree with alkemist in regards to this paragraph. "By comparing the Sun’s heat reaching the Earth with the heat leaving it, we can see that less long-wave radiation (heat) is leaving than arriving (and since the 1970s, that less and less radiation is leaving the Earth, as CO2 and equivalents build up). Since all radiation is measured by its wavelength, we can also see that the frequencies being trapped in the atmosphere are the same frequencies absorbed by greenhouse gases." The climate may never be in perfect equilibrium, And the instrumental record certainly does suggest a build up of energy in the system, but energy in will equal energy out approximately . Energy is not trapped, its path length out of the atmosphere is increased, increasing the amount of energy in the system... Just with the way thats written it sorta comes across as suggesting that proof of the GHE is that less energy leaves than comes in... only during transition to a higher equilibrium is this true, and in something as chaotic as climate, its more a case of on "average".
  15. Tai Chi Temperature Reconstructions
    #69 Peter Hogarth at 08:01 AM on 19 October, 2010 Thanks for the comments- I am fully aware that your originial post isn't supposed to withstand much scrutiny. Neither are my reconstruction here. As a side note, I was able to replicate your plots to a satisfying eyeball degree. I wanted to highlight that Ljungqvist 2010 is using a much more simple approach than e.g. Mann 2009. I would like to try and redo my global reconstruction using some kind of gridding or area weighting, but to do that I need some tips on how-to-do. Even better some Matlab code. By the way, how did you use those proxies given as z-scores? I just run them through the same averaging process as the temp proxies. For baseline I use the years, 1000-1900, as Ljungqvist 2010.
  16. Tai Chi Temperature Reconstructions
    SRJ at 22:24 PM on 14 October, 2010 Thanks for this work. On first read through the Ljungqvist 2010 paper I would have to agree with you, but I would have to spend some time checking. The 2010 work is decidedly Northern Hemisphere above 30N whereas the Ljungqvist 2009 data has a fair proportion of tropical and Southern Hemisphere data also. I suspect that gridding will make some difference, but my original post wasn't meant to be a reconstruction that would withstand too much scrutiny! Your chart above is very interesting, and in my view further supports the idea of enhanced variability of the higher latitude Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies, compared with the global average. There is some evidence of this high relative variability in paleo data going back through the ice ages.
  17. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    For the benefit of those who aren't familiar with Dr. Marohasy, her PhD is in Biology from the University of Queensland and she has over a decade of peer-reviewed field research under her belt.
  18. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    # 166 See my comment another thread here elaborating on this.
  19. Tai Chi Temperature Reconstructions
    To elaborate on myself in #67: Peter Hogarth's approach is mostly similar to Ljungqvist 2010 except that Ljungqvist matches the variance of his composite series to the variance of the instrumental record. But there is no gridding or area weighting, all proxies contribute with equal weight. I have implented Ljungqvist approach and made a reconstruction using all proxies from Ljungqvist 2009 - note since the original post was written a few more have been added, the total number is now 71. The resulting graph is below, plotted together with Ljungqvist 2010. This graph allows one to compare the Tai Chi approach of the original post with the result of Ljungqvist, 2010. Disclaimer: I have also used my implementation of Ljungqvist 2010 approach on the original data from that article (data kindly provided by the author). I don't get a perfect match so there must be some small differences in the methods of me and Ljungqvist.
  20. Despite uncertainty, CO2 drives the climate
    #24 Obviously this graph is way out of date. The reactors they have under construction already would exceed that number. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html The article expects 80GWe by 2020, but since I started following the Chinese energy issues this number keeps getting revised upwards every month or two. If you scroll downward they have detailed information on the plants under construction, scheduled and proposed. The 80GWe only includes planned and under construction plants. It takes the Chinese about 48 months to build a reactor, so anything started by 2016 should be online by 2020. The Chinese government is projecting their carbon emissions to flatten out by about 2040. From what I can see they are totally serious about meeting that goal. Understanding these points is vital. IPCC projections are no better than the economic models they use for inputs. The science can be perfect, but with a bad economic model it is GIGO.
  21. Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
    The Inconvenient Skeptic at 01:49 AM on 14 October, 2010 It seems I may have pre-empted your potential comments on Arctic temperature here. I also responded to a comment you made on AMO there. To add to what D Kelly O'Day has done I will re-post the chart below for readers of this post, to save some effort for once. The AMO is de-trended North Atlantic SST from NOAA ESRL and I have de-trended the HadCRUT3 surface temperatures also to allow comparison. It is easy to see correlation, as we might expect from coupled Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Surface Air Temperature (SAT), but causation (sea to air) is not evident from the relative phases.
  22. Despite uncertainty, CO2 drives the climate
    Joel #25: The baseline used in the graph is, in this case, completely immaterial to the point being made by the graph. Should it also have specified the data source? And the full details of the compilation methodology? And all of the base temperature station results? The fact that more information exists does not mean it is "misleading" to cite only the information relevant to the point being made. Again, your objections are picayune.
  23. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    bgood2creation at 16:02 PM on 18 October, 2010 Yes, latent heat is the reason the air temperatures reach a plateau just above melting point rather than rising further in Summer. Some more references on increasing melt season over the last thirty years: Markus 2009, Howell 2009, Rodrigues 2009.
  24. Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
    @Inconvenient Skeptic I followed your link and found "The All Natural Cause of Global Warming". Here's my critique on your AMO - Global Warming post. Since you are commenting on this site, I thought that other Skeptical Science readers would like to comment on your AMO - Global Warming conclusions. Kelly O'Day
  25. Despite uncertainty, CO2 drives the climate
    #18 You need to google the term Capacity Factor. If you want to compare Wind to Nuclear, take the Wind number and divide by 5. In the U.S., at least, wind turbines run at 20% of capacity and nuclear plants are in the high nineties.
    Moderator Response: Reminder to everybody, please do not delve into issues of competing energy technologies here on Skeptical Science.
  26. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    TOP, JMurphy linked to the section of this site that answers your question, but here it is more explicitly. Links for 'Greenhouse effect has been falsified' One of those links is to Jennifer Marohasy's blog where she talks about "fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects".
  27. Despite uncertainty, CO2 drives the climate
    #21 As I have already said (#12), the problem was with dana1981 reproducing the graph without the caption explaining in the first sentence that the baseline was 1950-80. Dana1981 made the graph proofy by using Figure 3 instead if Figure 1.
  28. DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
    muoncounter, regarding, "Lots of red except in the summer, where one would have expected the most red. " You'll want to be careful not to confuse temperature anomaly with absolute temperature. If the baseline is -30 C, a plus 5 C anomaly is still colder than a +1 anomaly on a -1 C baseline. I would expect the Arctic to show a greater anomaly in the winter than the summer. The frozen Arctic Sea has a very high albedo; this means that less of the light in the visible spectrum and above will be converted to infrared in comparison to other, non-ice-covered parts of the world. CO2 acts on infrared (and a some microwave), not visible and UV. Albedo means nothing in the dark. You might also consider that an enhanced greenhouse effect results more in higher relative nighttime temperatures than in higher daytime temperatures, and the arctic winter is more or less one long night.
  29. Despite uncertainty, CO2 drives the climate
    @muoncounter: considering there are 8760 hours in a year, 150 billion KWh (or 150 TWh) gives approximately 17 GW or power, not 17 MW. 150,000,000,000,000 ÷ 8760 = 17,123,287,671.23
  30. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Also: "The sun's powerful high frequency ultraviolet radiant energy can easily pass through the windows to warm the house" Not all windows let through UV rays. However, since a lot of the radiated energy is transmitted through visible light, your overall point still stands.
  31. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    @Roger (20): "Why are nearly 75% of Americans, American news media, and American politicians deniers?" Take comfort in knowing that, outside the US, the proportions are pretty much reversed.
  32. It's the sun
    I'm sorry, Ken, can you explain this to me in layman's terms? This site does a great job at explaining concepts in everyday language, you should follow that example.
  33. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Just out of curiousity, who is disputing the Greenhouse Effect to point where it is in dispute?
  34. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    "By comparing the Sun’s heat reaching the Earth with the heat leaving it, we can see that less long-wave radiation (heat) is leaving than arriving (and since the 1970s, that less and less radiation is leaving the Earth, as CO2 and equivalents build up). Since all radiation is measured by its wavelength, we can also see that the frequencies being trapped in the atmosphere are the same frequencies absorbed by greenhouse gases." This is not accurate. One needs to compare the sun's and the earth's radiant intensities across their respective spectra. I can imagine the earth as a converter of higher frequency, shorter wavelength solar photons into lower frequency longer wavelength terrestrial photons.
  35. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    It seems a simple question, but teh question of the Moon's temperature does come up. It usually takes the form: "You tell us that without the greenhouse effect, Earth would be -18C average temp. But the moon has no atmosphere and is roughly the same distance from the sun. Its temperature varies wildly from extreme cold to extreme heat. Earth would be the same if it had no atmosphere, so the greenhouse effect must be false". SoD has a long explanation involving averages and heat capacity. Is there a shorter explanation for the non-physics major?
  36. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Overall, this is a good post. Yet oddly, after making its basic point so well, the post suffers from a fit of diffidence that deprives it of much of its potential vigor. I refer to the 'might' in "What the Earth might be like without an atmosphere that sustains the greenhouse effect". 'Might'? Isnt' the whole point of the post that the greenhouse effect has NOT been falsified? Isn't the whole point that there is no serious doubt about it? For this reason, it should read 'would' not 'might. Look yourselves at how much more vigorous it is with this change (and a minor tense change, too): "We only have to look to our moon for evidence of what the Earth would be like without an atmosphere that sustains the greenhouse effect. While the moon’s surface reaches 130 degrees C in direct sunlight at the equator (266 degrees F), when the sun ‘goes down’ on the moon, the temperature drops almost immediately, and plunges in several hours down to minus 110 degrees C (-166F). "
  37. Despite uncertainty, CO2 drives the climate
    Joel, I have the opposite problem from you. I think the baseline should be set at 1850 so that the rise reflects all the temperature increase from the start of the idustrial era. We can compromise by choosing the time frame when the graph was originally started, say 1950-1980. That corresponds to when I was a child so it makes sense to me. Oh wait, that is what they did.
  38. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Strangely enough, one of the best resources on the greenhouse effect is on Dr Ray Spencer's blog. He is a skeptic, but only on feedbacks, not on the greenhouse effect. See here
  39. Roger A. Wehage at 01:56 AM on 19 October 2010
    Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    My subterranean house has no furnace or air conditioner, but relies on natural means such as solar heating and energy storage to maintain comfortable temperatures year round. Its many south-facing windows have high incoming solar heat gain and high resistance to outgoing heat flow. What does that mean? The sun's powerful high frequency ultraviolet radiant energy can easily pass through the windows to warm the house, but the house's and my low frequency infrared radiant energy cannot easily pass back out through the windows to make us feel cold. Since a significant percentage of energy transfer is by radiation, how can one teach energy transfer concepts without introducing the radiant energy concept? Maybe replacing "radiation" by "energy transfer through electromagnetic wave propagation" would be useful. The whole issue is, what happens as different electromagnetic waves propagate through mass. Most of us know what a microwave oven does to water. It's electromagnetic energy excites the H2O molecules and warms them and the food containing them. Other electromagnetic waves are no different. Higher frequency/higher energy ultraviolet waves from the sun have little effect on CO2 molecules, but they do excite most solid and liquid atoms and molecules in the earth. These excited atoms and molecules, in turn, emit lower frequency/lower energy infrared waves that do excite CO2 molecules, causing them and the atmosphere to heat up. The real issue for debate ought to be, does every CO2 molecule have the same chance of being heated by the outgoing infrared electromagnetic waves? That is, if 10% more CO2 molecules are added to the atmosphere, will 10% more energy be absorbed with a similar change in atmospheric temperature, or will a smaller or larger percentage of energy be absorbed with less or more effect on temperatures? The answer to this question might hinge on the percentage of infrared energy currently being absorbed by CO2. If that percentage is low, then one might expect increasing CO2 levels to have a higher impact on atmospheric temperatures. If that percentage is high, then increasing CO2 levels would likely have a smaller impact on atmospheric temperatures.
    Moderator Response: The "real issue" you raised is addressed in the Argument CO2 effect is saturated.
  40. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    The Inconvenient Sceptic, have a look at two of the pages on Skeptical Science here and here (as suggested by Tom Dayton) - although the second page appears to have quite a few spurious links, for some reason. Read the so-called skeptical 'arguments' and wonder. Also, see this paper from Gerlich & Tscheuschner, and this blog post from Roy Spencer.
  41. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    An underused feature of this Skeptical Science site is the collection of links to claims for and against the existence of anthropogenic global warming, categorized into Pro, Skeptic, and Neutral. Click the "Links" link in the blue horizontal bar at the top of this page. The red numbers are the number of skeptic articles linked. Additions to the list are very welcome.
  42. Greenhouse effect has been falsified
    Tom #65 The Mythbusters experiments sufferers the same problem than invalidates many Mythbusters experiments. The lack of replication and randomisation of placement of the treatments. I'd love to see someone do the experiment properly, but none that I have seen on the internet so far come close to a properly controlled, replicated and statistically analysed experiment. It's odd really. You'd think that every natural history museum in the World would have this sort of thing as a permanent installation.
  43. It's the sun
    archisteel 3691 "TSI is warming the planet. How could radiated energy cause the planet to cool?" Its called IR cooling from S-B equation proportional to T^4. In 2005 at about minus 2.8W/sq.m. due to a 0.75degC warming since AD1750. IR radiating temp is currently about 255degK. Which was 254.25 degK in AD1750. The sum is roughly (255/254.25)^4 x 240 = 242.8W/sq.m where 240W/sq.m is the original IR outgoing from the planet. Hence IR outgoing increases proportionally with (T2/T1)^4.
  44. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    I teach climate change science to college undergraduates, and give climate change presentations to interested public groups. I have had success explaining the 'Greenhouse Effect' as the 'blanket effect'. Most people understand that blankets impede the movement of heat from your skin to the cold room and raise your skin temperature, and making the analogy between carbon dioxide levels and the thickness of a blanket seems to provide many people with a mental image they can work with. Also, I have found it useful when explaining the greenhouse effect to avoid the word 'radiation', as in 'solar radiation', as anyone not a physical scientist is likely to associate 'radiation' with nuclear decay, and not electromagnetic radiation. As soon as you say 'radiation', you have lost a large part of the audience. I am a great fan of Skeptical Science's work to present complex scientific concepts in a way that makes those concepts accessible to a wider audience. I steer people to this website often. My thanks to John and all the contributors to this site.
  45. It's the sun
    KR #692 I pulled out a chart of CO2 concentration from AD1750 and used the IPCC quoted equation to calc the forcing F.CO2 for a range of dates: F.CO2 = 5.35ln(CO2*conc/280) W/sq.m where CO2*conc is the well mixed global concentration in ppmv at any point in time. F.Solar in W/sq.m is from IPCC 2007 Fig 613. Here are the numbers: Date/CO2*conc/F.CO2/F.Solar AD1850 / 290 / 0.18 / 0.2 AD1900 / 295 / 0.28 / 0.1 AD1950 / 310 / 0.54 / 0.4 AD1975 / 335 / 0.96 / 0.4 AD2000 / 370 / 1.50 / 0.45 AD2005 / 382 / 1.66 / 0.4 (estimated) Until circa AD1950 the F.CO2 did not overtake the F.Solar and in AD2000 it was 3x and only in AD2005 had it reached 4x. Again it is the area under the curve which represents the total available energy from both sources and both add together as I have calculated elsewhere back to AD1750. S-B radiative cooling has grown to -2.8 W/sq.m to date as a climate response to 0.75 degC warming.
  46. The Inconvenient Skeptic at 00:39 AM on 19 October 2010
    Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Craig, I apologize for causing you to feel insulted by my feeling insulted. :-D I suppose that this website would see plenty of claims that the GHE isn't real. I accept the need for articles like as a result. Three cheers for Calculus!!!
  47. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    TIS #3 A quick Google search pulls up 31,000+ pages with people claiming that the greenhouse effect is bunkum because (they claim) it violates the second law of thermodynamics. I feel insulted by your pretence at feeling insulted.
  48. Despite uncertainty, CO2 drives the climate
    #18: See the graph here. Projection for China's nuclear energy in 2020 is given as 150 billion kwH; this works out to 17 MW of generating capacity.
  49. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    TIS #3: Your lack of awareness of people who deny the greenhouse effect is not the same as them not existing. It is an exceedingly common claim amongst 'skeptics'. Indeed, I thought you'd been on some of the threads where people were claiming that the greenhouse effect contradicts the first and/or second law of thermodynamics. If not, just do a search on 'thermodynamics' and you'll get more than your fill. Might have been something to try BEFORE accusing the author of making up an "inaccurate" straw man argument that no one really uses.
  50. Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
    Thanks for the excellent example: MOON ... it is just striking, and actually it would be nice to know about the distribution of temperature on the surface of the moon. Does anybody know where to find those data? What is the heat capacity of the rocks of the moon? Anybody knows??

Prev  2124  2125  2126  2127  2128  2129  2130  2131  2132  2133  2134  2135  2136  2137  2138  2139  Next



The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us