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AWoL at 07:48 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
Replying to ASteel Yes I take your points. Nevertheless that which has taken place,whilst not condemning outright AGW and its proponents, is however at odds with mass media output. ie we haven't had any glowing reports of this (benign) change in the Sahel. When brought to the attention of Joe Public, invariably his first utterance is "Why haven't we heard of this?"(because he still depends for the most part, but increasingly suspiciously, on the mass media for his information) I think you may have problems like this in the future. Time is wearing on, after all.Time was always a bit of a problem for soothsayers and fortune-tellers. -
archiesteel at 06:35 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
@AWoL: I think Doug said it best. Climate models do disagree on N. Africa, and the article acknowledges this: "Even so, climate scientists don't agree on how future climate change will affect the Sahel: Some studies simulate a decrease in rainfall. "This issue is still rather uncertain," Haarsma said. Max Planck's Claussen said North Africa is the area of greatest disagreement among climate change modelers. Forecasting how global warming will affect the region is complicated by its vast size and the unpredictable influence of high-altitude winds that disperse monsoon rains, Claussen added. "Half the models follow a wetter trend, and half a drier trend." Whether it is increased desertification or a greening of some of its regions due to increased hydrological activity, however, it's hard no to see the effects of AGW at work. Obviously, the best outcome would be sustained greening, as this would introduce a vast new carbon sink, however it's unwise to count on this happening. Here is the direct link, if anyone is interested. -
Animals and plants can adapt
AWoL - Here's the link to the Sahara Desert Greening Due to Climate Change article in National Geographic. The article appears to be based on Hickler et al 2005, "Precipitation controls Sahel greening trend". The article also (indirectly) points to Haarsma et al 2005, "Sahel rainfall variability and response to greenhouse warming" indicating increased Sahara rainfall of 1-2mm/day. -
wanyden at 06:30 AM on 17 October 2010Climate Change Impacts on California Water Resources
This is not just a problem of the future: For several years I have driven on Interstate Highway 5 past Mount Shasta (14,179 ft / 4,322 m) in Northern California. Until recently the mountain was covered in snow year-round, and could be seen as a white cone from much of the Sacramento Valley north of the city of Sacramento. In the past few years this has not been the case. In August, 2009, the mountain was bare with only a couple of patches of snow near the summit (as seen from the south and west). Two weeks ago there was more snow, covering the top half of the mountain except for some large areas of bare rock. With the current La Niña event, we may hope for some precipitation this winter, but it is likely to be rain rather than snow in the Sierra. -- Bill, getting thirsty in the SF Bay Area. -
AWoL at 06:12 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
Sorry ASteel, haven't provided a direct link but if you refer to my earlier post on this subject I do give instructions as to how to reach it. Just checked it.Up and running.Don't go to the kids section for it ain't there. Yes it is probably massively compressed, but by a climate researcher who has been working in the region for 20yrs.....which was why I brought the matter to the attention of this forum. Google National Geographic, type "satellite greening" in the search box, then select title with "Sahara" in it. -
Doug Bostrom at 05:57 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
A reasonable thing to do would be to read articles by researchers rather than a massively compressed synopsis in a kid's magazine, AWoL. It's worth noting that climate models have a tough time w/predicting precipitation in N. Africa. If you read the literature, you'd know that. You'd also have some idea of the ease with which decadal natural variation can slew precipitation in the region of the Sahara. By the way, are you having some sort of trouble with your caps-lock key? -
archiesteel at 05:35 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
@AWoL: it is common practice here to provide links to your sources. Do you have the link handy, so we can evaluate how accurate the NatGeo Kids article really is? -
AWoL at 05:16 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
Replying to Doug Bostrom, Like most folks I generally accepted that a battle against the encroaching sands was being lost, so the evidence of a reversal, especially in a magazine(kiddies?) as pro-AGW as Nat Geographic, came as a surprise. I am familiar with the PROJECTIONS and PREDICTIONS, and very plausible they sounded too. HOWEVER.....this report as to what is ACTUALLY happening on the ground, is at odds with that which was predicted. What would be a reasonable attitude towards people that make predictions, in your opinion, that don't come to pass? -
Doug Bostrom at 04:27 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
Africans will move to the Sahara? Problem solved? Rather than rely on some quotes from National Geographic Kids, better to delve into the literature and get the big picture, as usual. Here's a continental-scale review for Africa, a little long in the tooth but a good starting point: African climate change: 1900–2100 Continental-scale scenario for surface water: Changes in Surface Water Supply Across Africa with Predicted Climate Change Meanwhile, it's best to take changes on the timescale mentioned in National Geographic w/a grain of salt because of course there's always natural variability in play: The impact of decadal-scale Indian Ocean sea surface temperature anomalies on Sahelian rainfall and the North Atlantic Oscillation -
Doug Bostrom at 04:01 AM on 17 October 2010Climate Change Impacts on California Water Resources
Fascinating, thanks! There's a journalist by the name of John Fleck who makes somewhat of a specialty of water resources in the SW United States. His blog is worth checking in on from time to time. -
AWoL at 03:02 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
Good news,Adelady. Snippet from National Geographic:- "Desertification, drought, and despair—that's what global warming has in store for much of Africa. Or so we hear. Emerging evidence is painting a very different scenario, one in which rising temperatures could benefit millions of Africans in the driest parts of the continent. * Ancient Cemetery Found; Brings "Green Sahara" to Life * Exodus From Drying Sahara Gave Rise to Pharaohs, Study Says Scientists are now seeing signals that the Sahara desert and surrounding regions are greening due to increasing rainfall. If sustained, these rains could revitalize drought-ravaged regions, reclaiming them for farming communities. This desert-shrinking trend is supported by climate models, which predict a return to conditions that turned the Sahara into a lush savanna some 12,000 years ago" More info available at Nat Geographical website. Use their search button and key in"Satellite greening". Acacias spreading and thriving in Sudan. Nomads in Western Sahara say "We've never had it so good." As for rapidity of evolution. Check out Howard Bloom's website and in the black column on the left, click on"Instant Evolution:the effect of the city on human genes" He cites some thought - provoking examples of rapid evolution. -
HumanityRules at 02:51 AM on 17 October 2010The sun upside down
Joe there seems to be heaps of stuff coming out of Colorado State about Stratosphere-Troposhpere interactions. See http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/ao/ResPapers/index.html Also I can't get my head around what "could also be having, uncontributed effects." means? -
dana1981 at 01:51 AM on 17 October 2010Climate Change Impacts on California Water Resources
Thanks Roger. I don't think California is a canary, I think it's a miner. We can't afford to lose California's agricultural productivity, which is just massive. There is a very good chance that climate change could lead to another Dust Bowl in the SW USA. And groundwater resources will no doubt be depleted in areas facing significant droughts. It's hard to say how California will be impacted, since the state will still receive a similar amount of precipitation. It depends on whether we manage to capture it successfully. -
adelady at 01:00 AM on 17 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
#4. New beginnings? Just look at much of the Middle East. Large areas were once fertile crop producing lands supporting substantial populations in cities. Now the deserts, mostly caused by abandoning age-old water management practices, barely support an assortment of goats and lizards. Not a fruit tree or a grain crop in sight. There are similar places elsewhere in the world. Once lost, always lost. As for evolution taking care of the problem. Evolution for changed climate consitions takes many generations - maybe centuries, maybe millennia, maybe millions of years. The big difference for substantial impact on species this time round is the lack of places to go. Even where human population is sparse, the lands in question are surrounded by urban or agricultural developments inimical to the free movement and re-establishment of existing or changing species. Change *is* natural - when it occurs on natural time-scales. This time we're changing things in the space of a few human generations rather than a few thousand or million years. -
muoncounter at 00:20 AM on 17 October 2010Despite uncertainty, CO2 drives the climate
These two recent articles are sure to stimulate confusion: From Lacis, Schmidt et al: Noncondensing greenhouse gases, which account for 25% of the total terrestrial greenhouse effect, From Schmidt and Reudy et al: water vapor is the dominant contributor (∼50% of the effect), followed by clouds (∼25%) and then CO2 with ∼20% The other side doesn't bother with such detail; hence they can do a far better job of homogenizing their message. -
Roger A. Wehage at 00:18 AM on 17 October 2010Climate Change Impacts on California Water Resources
Canary in the mineshaft? This is an excellent article. One might say that as California goes so does most of the western half of the United States. And let us not forget how the dust bowl of the 1930s impacted drought and heat in much of the United States. Could global warming be heading us into such conditions again? In addition to snowpack runoff, much of the country depends heavily on groundwater for irrigation and domestic use. What effect will increased drought and heat associated with global warming have on groundwater usage and replenishment? -
JMurphy at 00:16 AM on 17 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
Berényi Péter wrote : "OK, the Goracle is finished." I invoke the equivalent of Godwin's Law (Gore'dwins Law ?), which means that BP has lost the argument - whatever he was trying to argue ! -
SRJ at 00:02 AM on 17 October 2010New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
I have read Ljungqvist's 2010 article and I think the approach is very similar to what Peter Hogarth did in the post Tai Chi Temperature Reconstructions I am curious to know if other people think the same? -
Paul D at 22:56 PM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
Sorry, I take that back! John did mention Marc Morano. But John just quoted Morano. The problem I have with some of these Basic rebuttals are the Tone of the first paragraph or two. They often seem to be out to provoke before even getting to an explanation.Moderator Response: [Graham] Not provoke, but expose. Since my analysis (such as it is) consists of a single line in which I identify Morano's method - and since I believe that identification is strictly accurate - I believe it is both helpful and informative to expose the generic methods and agenda that lie behind specific examples. There is a constant trend by so-called skeptics to downplay or minimise the predicted effects of climate change, and these methods inevitably distort the science, or ignore it completely. By exposing both, I hope the open-minded reader will not only appreciate Morano's attempt to deceive, but be better equipped to recognise the greater pattern of deception in its many guises. -
Paul D at 22:52 PM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
The problem is that some authors that are creating the basic rebuttals are bringing their own personal feelings into the articles, usually in the first paragraph or two. John Cooks original intermediate article did not mention Marc Morano and most people around the world don't care about him. There is a lack of discipline IMO in the review process. -
eco-kowana at 20:33 PM on 16 October 2010Climate's changed before
You know how everyone is talking about if climate change is natural or man made, in both cases (or even in the combination of both) don't we need to adapt? Because isn't that what our ancestors (most of them) did when the climate changed?Moderator Response: See the Argument "It's Not Bad." -
eco-kowana at 20:28 PM on 16 October 2010Animals and plants can adapt
When there is a end, there is always (mostly) a new beginning. -
RSVP at 19:40 PM on 16 October 2010Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
Chris G #47 "Please put a thermometer in a glass of ice water, stir continually, and record the temperature every minute. Plot the temperature over time. The temperature will stay right at freezing, neither cooling nor warming, until the ice is gone. I'm not sure that I'm here to teach you basic physics." Where is your glass? In a steam room? In the oven? Definitely not in the freezer. If the ice is melting, the "system" is not in equilibrium, and therefore ambient heat must be entering the glass, the liquid water (a fluid) provides a path for convective heat exchange. Just for fun, lets turn the problem around and ask what conditions would be necessary to allow the ice in your glass to never melt as you are stirring it? Is this even possible? And as far as how this relates to the Artic... moving water should not help ice formation, even if that water is near freezing. -
Riccardo at 16:23 PM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
Berényi Péter I'm not sure why you come out with Ljungqvist here and not in the appropiate post, but at least you shoud have shown the original figure. You showed a modified verion of Ljungqvist fig 3 dropping the instrumental record. Showing the original would have been better. Alternatively, you could have shown how Mann's reconstruction has been "deconstructed" by showing them together, as can be found here. The relevant figure is this:Hiding the incline was not a good job, Péter, and not much deconstruction can be seen.
Moderator Response: Everybody, please take this to the appropriate thread that Riccardo pointed to. -
robert way at 13:14 PM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
BP, you know the hockey stick is so 10 years ago... I think its well accepted now that the flatness of Mann's hockey stick was not the best representation of the world. That being said Mann hasn't done a hockey stick reconstruction in about 7 years so why don't you stick to current arguments instead of dragging up old ones. Yes there is climate variability on the millennial scale and yes there is undoubtedly some natural contributions to the warming since 1850 but to ignore the plethora of evidence which suggests (including empirical evidence) that we are amplifying the greenhouse effect to the point where it is/will have an affect on the climate, is at best disingenuous. Perhaps educate yourself by reading the following http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-regarding-the-hockey-stick/ And on Soon's paper http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/peer-review-a-necessary-but-not-sufficient-condition/ -
archiesteel at 12:54 PM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
BP, the more you defend Morano, the more your opposition appears political instead of scientific. -
archiesteel at 12:52 PM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
@BP: "Ah, you mean the Southern Hemisphere was cooler during the MWP than in the LIA?" No, I don't. I don't compare apples to oranges, either. By the way, Ljunqvist 2010 has this to say about Mann: "Our temperature reconstruction agrees well with the reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008) with regard to the amplitude of the variability as well as the timing of warm and cold periods, except for the period c. AD 300–800, despite significant differences in both data coverage and methodology." Also, why did you feel you needed to change the original graph? You didn't like how it showed instrumental record temperatures in 2000 already reached higher than the RWP and MWP? Could you elaborate on these points a bit more? -
Doug Bostrom at 10:58 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
It is actually possible to see quite a bit of daylight between Morano and Gore. Equating the two doesn't really wash. Here's an example. Morano: Why does Eilperin fail to note that a top UN IPCC scientist, Mojib Latif of Kiel University in Germany told a UN conference earlier this month that he is now predicting global cooling for several decades and he admitted he was unsure how much the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) had impacted global temperatures in the past three decades. Latif: In an interview today, Dr. Latif told me “we don’t trust our forecast beyond 2015″ and “it is just as likely you’ll see accelerated warming” after then. Indeed, in his published research, rapid warming is all-but-inevitable over the next two decades. He told me, “you can’t miss the long-term warming trend” in the temperature record, which is “driven by the evolution of greenhouse gases.” Finally, he pointed out “Our work does not allow one to make any inferences about global warming.” That's transcendent spin on Moraon's part. He's got a long history of this sort of thing, necessarily so because it's his job to do produce hyperbole. Read more about Morano and Latif here. Morano's expertise is not only confined to climate science: "Morano, who worked as a producer in the mid-90s for radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, was also among the first reporters to write about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign scrutinizing Kerry's Vietnam War record. And earlier this year, Morano penned an article questioning the Purple Heart medals of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a leading critic of Bush's Iraq policy." Read more about Morano here at SourceWatch and then ponder if he and Al Gore are equivalently reliable. -
Berényi Péter at 10:25 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
#21 archiesteel at 10:19 AM on 16 October, 2010 Ljungqvist 2010, which is about the Northern Hemisphere only (whereas Mann's "hockey stick" is about global temperature) Ah, you mean the Southern Hemisphere was cooler during the MWP than in the LIA? Interesting conjecture. Could you elaborate on it a bit more? -
archiesteel at 10:19 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
@BP, words like "Goracle" do nothing to help your flagging credibility, nor does brining up Ljungqvist 2010, which is about the Northern Hemisphere only (whereas Mann's "hockey stick" is about global temperature). I agree with others on this site. It seemed that once you were able to provide thoughtful analysis. Now, it's as if you're not even trying anymore. -
Berényi Péter at 10:08 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
OK, the Goracle is finished. He just had such a tremendous influence on the public mind with statements about as definite like "if you put this stuff on your hair it could get up to 23.5% thicker", that this Morano guy could not help but attack him. And if Gore has neither responsibility, claim nor blame, neither has Morano. #12 Robert Way at 01:32 AM on 16 October, 2010 you cited Soon and Baliunas (2003) eventhough the aforementioned paper is widely discredited and resulted in the resignation of half the editorial board because it was published Now, let's be accurate. It was Morano who brought up Soon & Baliunas, not me. And it was gpwayne who brought up Morano. But you make me curious. How was this resignation story? And exactly what is wrong with that paper? Is there a sensible rebuttal? BTW, these MWP papers just keep coming, deconstructing Mann's broken hockey stick further. Geografiska Annaler Series A, Physical Geography Volume 92, Issue 3, pages 339–351, September 2010 DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0459.2010.00399.x A New Reconstruction of Temperature Variability in the Extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere During the Last Two Millennia Fredrik Charpentier LjungqvistInstrumental record removed, spaghetti graphs are awful.
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archiesteel at 09:33 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
@BP: actually, Gore is right. *If* East Antarctica was to go, sea levels would go up dramatically. He's not predicting it will in the near future, but simply states what such an extreme scenario would entail. Is it manipulative? A little, sure. Is it false? No, it isn't. -
JMurphy at 08:55 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
The only rational response to Berényi Péter's latest descent into skeptical irrelevance is the last sentence of the thread he links to : To invoke Gore is a way to obfuscate about climate science, for which Gore has neither responsibility, claim nor blame. To anyone who doesn't know the whole story, New Scientist goes into more detail : Gore does not explicitly say that Greenland's ice will disappear in the immediate future, merely that coastal areas will be dramatically flooded very soon. That point aside, there is...some debate over how quickly the ice caps and Greenland in particular could melt. -
Berényi Péter at 08:32 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
#14 KR at 01:46 AM on 16 October, 2010 Strawman arguments about 20ft theoretic rises from complete melting that nobody is predicting Of course. No sane person would predict such a thing. But watch this (starts at 1:42), directly from the guy who used to be the next president of the United States."The Arctic is experiencing faster melting. If this were to go [points to map of East Antarctica], sea level worldwide would go up twenty feet. This is what would happen in Florida. Around Shanghai home to forty million people, the area around Calcutta sixty million. Here is Manhattan. The Word Trade Center Memorial would be under water. Think of the impact of a couple of hundred thousand refugees and then imagine a hundred million. [caption: NOTHING IS SCARIER THAN THE TRUTH]" One should ask Is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth accurate? Dr Stott, the Defendant's expert, is right when he says that: "Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate." (Rebuttal written by gpwayne. Last updated on 7 October 2010) Yes, twenty feet is broadly accurate. If a strawman says so, it must be true. It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme. Al Gore is a successful politician who presented a film, his training and experience suitable to the task. To invoke Gore is a way to obfuscate about climate science, for which Gore has neither responsibility, claim nor blame.
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ClimateWatcher at 07:35 AM on 16 October 2010Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
Sorry, better links to the above references: MPG animation of Arctic sea ice PDF of the published research paper -
ClimateWatcher at 07:28 AM on 16 October 2010Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
To understand the Arctic Sea Ice, follow the multi-year ice ( the whiter shaded areas ): http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/IceAge&Extent/Rigor&Wallace2004_AgeOfIce1979to2007.mpg Notice how the Multi-year ices is flushed out into the Arctic. The paper is here: http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/IceAge&Extent/Rigor&Wallace2004.pdf -
ScienceIsAwesome at 06:37 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Science housekeeping: Comments Gluttony
I know this is somewhat off-topic, but given that this isn't a topical thread, I'll risk it. I just had to register to let you know what a fantastic site you have here. I love the multiple levels of explanation that enable us laypeople to get succinct answers, and then dig deeper into the issue to whatever extent we can. -
Philippe Chantreau at 05:27 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
Digging in these references does not bring up much support for Morano's confused denial, except perhaps from the Soon/Baliunas or Morner pieces... Although his influence on the public is significant, I don't see why would anyone interested in the real science of the climate pay attention to what Morano says. He is a political operative, not of very high level, with an understanding of science in general that is strictly limited to how it can fit in his political designs. That much is obvious from his selection of references that actually lend little or no support to his argument but can appear, on the surface, to run counter to the consensus model of Earth climate. They were selected based on that superficial appearance. His argument is transparent and of no interest whatsoever. It has no place in any kind of scientific debate. Morano's opinion is null and void as far as I'm concerned. -
Joe Blog at 04:00 AM on 16 October 2010The sun upside down
My link didnt work, try this one -
Joe Blog at 03:50 AM on 16 October 2010The sun upside down
giancarlo at 02:22 AM What this paper is suggesting, if these trends are not anomalous, is that the solar effects on the stratosphere maybe what is driving the cyclic climatic responses to the solar cycle, Riccardo has linked two papers on the subject at 19:12 PM on 13 October, 2010 , and i also linked one at 09:15 AM on 12 October, 2010 . But the stratospheric effects themselves are not new, Ramanthan and Dickenson 78 This could potentially be far reaching, if the dynamical responses from stratospheric cooling from UV have been having a greater effect than believed, it could also mean that anthropogenic O3 destruction, and co2 cooling of the stratosphere could also be having, uncontributed effects. This is wild speculation, but thats what blogs are for ;-) -
Riccardo at 03:38 AM on 16 October 2010The sun upside down
giancarlo no one could have thought in terms of what if it's true. There's no answer at the moment to the question of how to explain much of what we know about the solar influence on climate. My guess is that people will look harder at the impact of UV, apparently the only thing left in phase with the total solar irradiance (TSI). But it's just a guess, I'd better say I don't know. The TSI has been directly measured only in the satellite era. There are proxy for it, sun spots, radio frequency emission, magnetic field, radioactive nuclei formation, etc. None of them has spectral capabilities, it all stands on what we know about the link between the proxy and the spectral changes of the sun irradiance. The answer to the spectral changes issue will probably come from future measurments more than from reconstructions of the past. -
archiesteel at 03:18 AM on 16 October 2010Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
@RSVP: "this difference of opinion would be tolerable if humanity didnt have to make some important choices." Actually, humanity needs to wean itself of fossil fuels anyway. There is tremendous economic opportunity in renewable energy. Why do you think China is already becoming a leader in that area, while the US lags behind due to the Oil interests muddying the debate? -
Doug Bostrom at 03:14 AM on 16 October 2010Antarctica is gaining ice
Actually Slimboy it would be better if you sourced your entire comment. You do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, lay out a bunch of speculation and expect to be persuasive? Not up to snuff. -
Doug Bostrom at 03:12 AM on 16 October 2010Antarctica is gaining ice
Slimboy, how about redoing the last paragraph of your comment except this time w/sources? -
Doug Bostrom at 03:03 AM on 16 October 2010Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
RSVP this CO2 affair is really not so much a matter of population dynamics as it is the unfortunate physical dynamic effects of our quite naturally seizing and using what appeared to be a eerily wonderful and even anodyne tool, one with several faces, a substitute energy source that I'll note in many places helped somewhat to arrest our breathtaking destruction of forests. Lately we've learned that certain physical side-effects of using this tool are incompatible with the systems over which our culture is draped. Now we need another substitute energy source. This is just part of growth, it's inevitable, really, and we should actually welcome it. The question is, will we use the ever-shrinking and increasingly hazardous lever we found in the 19th century to lift us to where we need to be in the 21st century? A topic for another thread, I think... -
Mikko Virtanen at 02:47 AM on 16 October 2010Climate scientists respond to Monckton's misinformation
"Why wasn't this done years ago?" I'd like to remind you of the existence of Complaint to Ofcom Regarding “The Great Global Warming Swindle” from 2007, which was "organised by three concerned citizens and was co-authored and peer reviewed by a group of 20 people. Some of the world’s most respected and experienced climate scientists, including former IPCC chairs and co-chairs, were involved, as were distinguished experts in epidemiology, entomology, economics, the media and renewable energy." As we know, “The Great Global Warming Swindle” was full of denier arguments, and this response goes through the film line by line, graph by graph, lie by lie. I still consider it a very nice resource. It's great that there is this new effort, but the old one is still worth remembering too! -
giancarlo at 02:22 AM on 16 October 2010The sun upside down
Hi evrybody, I am Giancarlo, this is my first post. Even though I am an astronomer, and I worked, among the other things, on chromospheric activity in solar-type stars, there are many things on the topic I have no idea of, I hope my question is not too naive. If the data from the satellite confirm the "upside down effect" on the long period of time, that would be quite puzzling, wouldn't it? How could you explain the results by Solanki, of a correlation between cycle-averaged solar activity and the temperature? I read somewhere in this website that the global warming of anthropic origin characterizes itself as the time in which solar energy input and earth temperature start following different trends, constant the former and increasing the latter. But before a few decades ago the two quantities were closely related. Did I get it right? How did they measure the solar energy input in the optical range in the past time? And how could you explain the fact that, on top of the golobal warming trend, there is a cycle that closely match the solar activity cycle? http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-cycles-global-warming.htm In this case, there would be a delay in the effect that solar energy has on terrestrial temperature. This was also mentioned in #9 -
Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
Looking at the Morano post puts me in mind of the Most Used Skeptic Arguments - it's like a rundown of the most common denials. * "It's not warming" * "Climate has varied before" * Stating that Greenland survived the last interglacial without noting that even a fraction of Greenland melting would cause considerable sea rise * Strawman arguments about 20ft theoretic rises from complete melting that nobody is predicting * "Models are unreliable" Not to mention the poor scholarship from Mörner and the discredited Soon/Baliunas article, as Robert Way points out. -
Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
Berényi - Never mind, I see that you've just copied the Morano references to this thread. -
robert way at 01:32 AM on 16 October 2010Skeptical Logic Can't Save Greenland Ice - for that you need to stop climate change
I'm sure he had reasoning to feel the way he did but lets be honest here, you cited Soon and Baliunas (2003) eventhough the aforementioned paper is widely discredited and resulted in the resignation of half the editorial board because it was published. Is this the evidence that Morano was using to support his thesis? Awful convenient of you to bring up that study.
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