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It's the sun
Ken Lambert - "Where the Solar irradiance forcing crosses the axis is where TSI is neither warming or cooling the planet, in the absence of other forcings. Any disagreement with that?" In short, Ken, I absolutely disagree with that. You seem to have missed what I (and others) have said in many ways, on many posts. In particular, "with all other variables held constant". Is the temperature the same as the baseline starting point? Was the temperature trajectory at the start of this baseline period zero, with sufficient time at zero for time constants of ocean heating and secondary feedbacks to stabilize? (No on the last two points, incidentally.) Let alone the question on the other forcings, which have not held completely constant over this period. This is not a single variable system! Ken, do you understand that the GHG forcing changes over the last 150 years are an order of magnitude greater than the TSI changes over that period? Please answer that question. -
Ken Lambert at 10:40 AM on 13 October 2010It's the sun
archisteel #683 Oh - you mean THAT chart KL....the one for the last 1000 years. I find no problem with the concept of looking at each forcing component separately in order to ascertain the importance of each. We know that they all act in concert at any point in time. I am perfectly happy with GISS Fig. 613 reproduced from #631 in the absence of something better. Where the Solar irradiance forcing crosses the axis is where TSI is neither warming or cooling the planet, in the absence of other forcings. Any disagreement with that? This is what KR said at #650: "Ken Lambert - I would agree, there is one TSI for one equilibrium temperature of the Earth, with all other variables held constant" You have my permission to leave now archisteel if that is your desire. -
Bibliovermis at 10:33 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
If we are going to stray off topic into the realm of "what should be done about it" policy, do you agree that net anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a pollutant? Arguing against a solution does not invalidate the problem. -
DaveMcRae at 10:24 AM on 13 October 2010The value of coherence in science
Just caught this on the Irregular Climate podcast e12. I had to register and say how wonderful that podcast was - it's worded so well and accessible. My mum asked a few years ago about this global warming thing. So I started out a lit. survey and found that Oreskes already had done it for me and published her finding in late 2005 Science. Job done as far as me and mum were concerned. But then on my gaming forum, deniers kept making odd claims that every time I investigated their claims, they would move onto other claims often contradictory to their previous claims but they could not see that. The contradictions they thought covered more ground thus they were more right. I tried to classify their points into 1)Earth is cooling 2)Earth is neither cooling or warming or we can't say for sure. 3)Earth is warming but not due to CO2 4)Earth is warming, due in part to CO2 but not our CO2 5)Earth is warming and it is CO2 but CO2 is plant food and warming good for us I assert that holding more than 1 of these positions at the same time is impossible for a sane person. They claim additional mutually exclusive points make a bigger net. The apples and sheep kill this claim like I could not. Thanks -
David Horton at 10:19 AM on 13 October 2010SkS Housekeeping: right margin
John, you might want to add some feeds from relevant/interesting sites as I have done on my blog. It would be a service to SkS readers wondering if there was something new up at, say, Deltoid, and a quick pathway to check it out. -
kdkd at 08:42 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
BP #178 So as well as refusing to accept the bulk of scientific evidence that CO2 is causing global warming and has the potential to gravely harm the infrastructure of civilisation ... You imply that chronic pollution is not a valid form of pollution, and that only acute incidents should be considered. And that government should have no role in the provision of infrastructure. What an absurd set of positions! -
Berényi Péter at 08:23 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#172 KR at 07:27 AM on 13 October, 2010 Prevention of harm is worth a huge amount. Indeed. If there's harm done it is. But the money belongs to those who have suffered and it is surely not government sponsored projects that are exposed to loss of life, health and property. -
muoncounter at 08:11 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#176: "Fossil fuel has given us a lot ... I don't think it's unreasonable to deal with the consequences of what we've gained." Unfortunately, that's exactly what we seem incapable of dealing with as a society. An economy fueled by generations of relatively cheap energy, with no thought of the cost of disposing of the waste product -- CO2. And now we have an industry dedicated to labeling any form of cost recovery as a "carbon tax" and thereby destroying it. Exactly the same mindset that allowed dumping of medical waste in the oceans until Title 3 was law - in 1991; exactly the same EPA doing the regulating. -
Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
CoalGeologist - It's unfortunate, but the very topic of this thread is tied to legal and social issues, not just science. Defining a "pollutant" has the effect (in the US) of placing significant portions of the economy under controls that they did not have before, with social, legal, enforcement, and economic consequences. Fossil fuel has given us a lot, as you point out; I don't think it's unreasonable to deal with the consequences of what we've gained. As many have noted, however, the semantic games regarding "pollutant" are quite silly - the US legal definition is clear, and it would require a rather impressive re-definition of terms to change that. -
JMurphy at 07:49 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Berényi Péter wrote : "Consider for example the Doñana National Park mass-pollution in Southern Spain, committed by Canadian-Swedish owned Boliden Mineral AB on April 25, 1998. Cleanup cost $270 million so far (taxpayer's money of course), company payed nothing, filed for bankruptcy to avoid a meager $45 million fine." How easy it is to find the odd example that gives you what you want, if you are so pre-disposed. How easy it is to find more examples, and ignore them if needed, if they don't give you what you want : Bhopal - Union Carbide paid $470 million Gulf Oil Spill - BP covering the costs Love Canal - Oxy paid $129 million Minamata Bay - Chisso paid $80 million Abidjan - Trafigura paid $198 million Ok Tedi - BHP paid $28.6 million Exxon Valdez - Exxon paid $2.1 billion -
CoalGeologist at 07:41 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
This is an interesting discussion. However, I am reminded, once again, that questions and issues related to what should be done to address problems related to anthropogenic CO2 emissions lie within the domain of politics, the law, and personal values & priorities, not science. This site specializes in, and focuses on, issues of science. Although the definition of "air pollutant" we've been discussing is admittedly a legal one, there are relevant scientific issues related to it, which I feel we have largely resolved through dialog. Questions related to response and remediation are much more complex and difficult and, to my understanding, are outside the domain of this site... or at least this specific topic. I would only add that although the underlying scientific theory of AGW has been around since ca. 1895 (Arrhenius), the hard data to prove it has been available only within the past 10-15 years. During the intervening time, the fossil energy industry has contributed substantially to improvement in the quality and longevity of life for billions of people. Admittedly, there have been negative consequences that have come along with this, some of them unforeseen, and certainly unintended. AGW is a problem we jointly face as a human population, as is the issue of energy supply. "Pointing fingers" will only complicate efforts to find solutions. -
Bibliovermis at 07:41 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Amelioration of the issue to prevent as much future harm as possible is giving it to "those who are supposed to be harmed", i.e. everybody. -
Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Berényi - Aside from the agricultural/habitat elements (mitigation of climate change) I listed as directed monies, moving away from CO2 pollution does "give it to those who are supposed to be harmed". To all of us, by preventing future harm. Unless you think preventing a meter of sea rise over the next century or so, increasing numbers of record heat waves (recall Europe 2003 - 40,000 dead? 2006?), agricultural disruption, etc., isn't worth anything??? This is exactly the (correct) reasoning behind the Clean Air Act and other anti-pollution measures. Prevention of harm is worth a huge amount. -
Berényi Péter at 07:07 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#170 KR at 06:41 AM on 13 October, 2010 Why not give it to those who are supposed to be harmed? -
kdkd at 07:00 AM on 13 October 2010It's the sun
KL #680 Limitations for accuracy of absolute measurements across different measurement systems and or devices is pretty much universal, although we do an OK job with things like thermometers in the lab these days. Anyway, it's a problem that limits our ability to make conclusions, it's not evidence showing falsification. "The TIMS people also produced an energy balance based on 1361.5W/sq.m which Dr Trenberth said was wrong in spades." Could you explain this in a little more detail please. -
Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
"How would you spend the money collected this way?" - Development/conversion to renewable and carbon-neutral power generation (wind/solar/nuclear, fusion research) [primary expenditure]. - Infrastructure, such as the proposed US East Coast power backbone, making variable supplies such as wind/solar manageable by incorporating spread sites over large areas. - Agricultural subsidies to aid in zone change and pest/invasive species issues. - Conservation work on habitats affected. A major motivation for such taxes, however, would be to penalize CO2 emission, providing an economic incentive for current power companies and industries to individually (i.e., not by state-directed mandates or methods) transition away from CO2 heavy methods, and over to profitable alternatives. -
Bibliovermis at 06:37 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
* Carbon capture & sequestrations (CCS) programs * Alternative energy (e.g. solar, novel fusion) R&D * Subsidizing the implementation of alternative energy generation, both residential & industrial * Rebuilding the electric grids to be capable of handling the mass-distributed generation that the previous point will lead to * etc... Back on topic, a pollutant does not cease being such when its release becomes continuous rather than a tragic incident. -
Berényi Péter at 06:22 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#166 KR at 06:10 AM on 13 October, 2010 taxes can be applied continuously as the damage occurs Fine. How would you spend the money collected this way? -
Bibliovermis at 06:13 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
BP, You are focusing on acute incidents of pollution to the exclusion of chronic pollution and claiming that chronic pollution does not exist. What insurance company will cover the general health care expenses of a person who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day? -
Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Berényi - Compulsory liability insurance is fine for individual occurrences, like the horrible Hungarian toxic sludge issue. It does not work for ongoing ongoing pollution like CO2, however - taxes can be applied continuously as the damage occurs, whereas insurance payouts require an event. As to apportioning tax liability - we know exactly how much CO2 industries and power generation put out. But this (social structures for imposing costs on polluters) is a bit off-topic. This thread is about the classification of CO2 as a pollutant, in reference to the US, and here CO2 legally falls under EPA guidelines by the very definition of "pollution" under US laws. Regardless of monied interests attempts to redefine terms. -
Berényi Péter at 05:42 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#162 KR at 02:51 AM on 13 October, 2010 In terms of legal attribution, did you read my post on the subject? Yes. But you still don't get my point. Consider for example the Doñana National Park mass-pollution in Southern Spain, committed by Canadian-Swedish owned Boliden Mineral AB on April 25, 1998. Cleanup cost $270 million so far (taxpayer's money of course), company payed nothing, filed for bankruptcy to avoid a meager $45 million fine. Cases like this abound. The only reasonable way to make those responsible pay full cost of reparations is to impose a compulsory liability insurance policy by law on companies trading in a business prone to wreck havoc on the public. However, the fuzzy attribution scheme you are advocating makes rational calculations impossible for insurance companies, therefore they'd refrain from getting involved. Also, as long as a major power like the US keeps sticking to this legal madness, in this gravely demodularized world it's quite impossible to implement the concept in international law (by a multilateral treaty of course). In absence of such an agreement each state unilaterally introducing these measures only forces companies to move out to countries where they are still allowed to harvest public money. This scheme would have the additional benefit of lifting most of the supervision burden off of government bureaucracies (making them way cheaper for taxpayers and less prone to corruption), since it would be the prime interest of insurance companies to do a full audit then keep monitoring sites like toxic sludge dams for their safety while providing liability insurance. Unfortunately it does not work if anyone can be held liable for anything - even if individual cases can't be causally linked to it. -
CBDunkerson at 03:43 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Setting aside the specific case with the EPA, which set off this whole 'it is not a pollutant' nonsense in the first place.... it doesn't matter. Barring that this is pure semantic flim flammery. BP wants a definition of 'pollutant' where the damage is "immediate and undeniable" (though I think we've seen that some people will deny ANYTHING). Fine. BP likes that definition of 'pollutant' - which just happens to exclude CO2 since he denies the damage it causes. However, any remotely reasonable person must acknowledge that different people sometimes have different concepts in mind when using the same word. In this case it is very clear that others (like say... the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Oxford English Dictionary, and the US Government) have different definitions of the word, which would include CO2. Without a specific frame of reference (e.g. 'for purposes of EPA action') arguing over which definition is 'correct' is completely meaningless. -
Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Berényi - You might also re-read the definition of "pollution" from Encyclopedia Brittanica mentioned in the topic of this thread. That's a language definition, not a legal definition in one country. CO2 is accumulating faster than it can be dispersed/absorbed without harmful effects. Sounds like pollution to me, and I would suggest to anyone without an interest in redefining terms. -
Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Berényi - I would have to agree; lawsuits such as the Comer v. Murphy Oil case you mentioned here are inappropriate. Murphy Oil is far from the only CO2 contributor (just one legally available for Mississippi residents to sue), and singular events (Katrina) are difficult to attribute. That's why I believe that carbon taxes or cap/trade efforts are far more appropriate. There are definite costs involved in agricultural zone shifts, sea level rise, pest migrations (the beetle infestations in Western USA, for example), precipitation changes, etc., and extracting those costs from ALL contributors is really the only fair way to approach the issue. In terms of legal attribution, did you read my post on the subject? In the USA at least, there is significant precedent under the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement for recouping those costs, including attribution of social and statistical harms and costs to the population. One-to-one attribution and liability is not always appropriate - an individual cancer case, for example, might be genetic or due to environmental toxins. But if the statistics show that the majority of cases are due to environmental problems, that is attribution on a group scale. This is what we're dealing with in regards to climate change. -
Daniel Bailey at 02:30 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Re: Berényi Péter (160) So...your position is that you object to the world's biggest emitter of greenhouses gases is finally trying to clean up its act? Pretty contorted logic. The Yooper -
Berényi Péter at 02:16 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#157 CBDunkerson at 22:23 PM on 12 October, 2010 However, by the definition of the term in the legal documents binding EPA action carbon dioxide IS a pollutant. That particular legal definition found in documents binding EPA is valid for the US of A, especially after that silly Supreme Court decision. However, the last time I've checked US jurisdiction was not extended beyond the internationally recognized borders of said entity yet. So please let the rest of us take our liberty to keep impugning if it is expedient to include carbon dioxide under the same umbrella term as other substances where the connection between polluter and individuals suffering actual damage from said pollution is immediate and undeniable. The legal path taken by the US of A leads to preposterous cases like Comer v. Murphy Oil."The plaintiffs, residents and owners of lands and property along the Mississippi Gulf coast, filed this putative class action in the district court against the named defendants, corporations that have principal offices in other states but are doing business in Mississippi. The plaintiffs allege that defendants’ operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the United States caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming, viz., the increase in global surface air and water temperatures, that in turn caused a rise in sea levels and added to the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina, which combined to destroy the plaintiffs’ private property, as well as public property useful to them. The plaintiffs’ putative class action asserts claims for compensatory and punitive damages based on Mississippi common-law actions of public and private nuisance, trespass, negligence, unjust enrichment, fraudulent misrepresentation, and civil conspiracy."
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Ned at 02:15 AM on 13 October 2010Temp record is unreliable
TIS writes: I think it is a more useful method than all skeptics using satellite only and the AGW crowd using CRU only. I don't know where you get that impression. I tend to use the satellite record if I'm making a point about recent years, and the instrumental record if the topic is longer term. You can find nice examples of comments where I used the satellite temperature record here and here. Note also that if you click on the "Advanced" tab at the top of this page, then scan down to figure 7, you'll see a comparison of temperature reconstructions in which I averaged the various instrumental records to get a "surface" record, and averaged the satellite records to get a "lower troposphere" record. -
Doug Bostrom at 01:32 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Full circle eh, GC? Reality check on "anti-scientific nonsense": Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act (PDF) (52 pp, 308K) Technical Support Document for the Findings (PDF) (210 pp, 2.5MB) Beyond its immediate findings, EPA bent over backwards to entertain a vast number of comments and criticisms. I'm willing to bet the word "nonsense" may be found in the compilation of this interaction but more to the point, lots of people devoted more effort than launching a single adjective to attacking the regulation of C02 by EPA, only to be found less than compelling. There are 11 volumes of comments and responses in all, but the key discussions from the perspective of vistors to this site are probably mostly to be found here: Volume 1: General Approach to the Science and Other Technical Issues Volume 2: Validity of Observed and Measured Data Volume 3: Attribution of Observed Climate Change Volume 4: Validity of Future Projections Volume 9: Endangerment Finding -
archiesteel at 01:26 AM on 13 October 2010It's the sun
@Ken: Also, aerosols and land use also had an impact. The forest that once covered much of Europe was more than half gone by 1750. This likely had an impact, even if it was relatively small. I still fail to see what the point is of this entire discussion. -
archiesteel at 01:12 AM on 13 October 2010It's the sun
@Ken: "Looks pretty close to 280ppmv for the last 1000 years or so." I'm sorry, were we only talking about the last 1000 years? I must have missed that in your latest attempt at obfuscation. The point is that climate is not static, and there is no ideal reference point. You still miss the most basic element: the graph you have wasted so much time talking about shows relative values, not absolutes. But please go on imagining, you actually have a solid argument... -
Daniel Bailey at 01:01 AM on 13 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Re: gallopingcamel (155) More of your "anti-scientific" nonsense, I see. The Yooper -
Doug Bostrom at 01:00 AM on 13 October 2010It's not us
Ptbrown31, the shrinking differential between day/night temperatures is entirely implicit in the mechanism of GHGs. You might ask yourself, how could it not be true that more "efficient" concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere could leave evening temperatures unchanged? As to finding papers, you'll find plenty of links by via : Google Scholar -
It's the sun
One more note from the Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) website: " The de-facto redundant, overlap TSI monitoring approach that has provided a contiguous record since 1978 resulted from the deployment of multiple, overlapping TSI satellite experiments. The traceability of this database is at the mutual precision level of overlapping experiments. ... A carefully implemented redundant, overlap strategy should therefore be capable of producing a centennial TSI record with traceability of ~ 500 ppm, providing a useful signal to noise ratio for assessing climate response to TSI variation. • A redundant, overlapping TSI measurement strategy using existing ‘ambient temperature’ instrumentation can provide the long term traceability required by a TSI database for climate change on centennial time scales." They seem very confident in their ability to establish accurate TSI information. And even more confident in their ability to measure changes in TSI. -
It's the sun
I found an interesting comparison at the Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) site of various TSI's over time, using different satellites:
This states that:
"The results of TSI monitoring experiments are reported on their 'native scales' as defined in SI by the ‘self-calibration’ features of their sensor technologies. Systematic uncertainties in the metrology used to relate their observations to SI caused the ± 0.25 % spread of results during the first decade of monitoring. The tighter clustering of results after 1990 is attributable to dissemination of more accurate sensor metrology among the various experiments and national standards labs. The causes of the ~ -0.35 % difference between the ACRIM3 and VIRGO results and the SORCE/TIM results are not presently understood in this context."
It does appear that different satellites measuring TSI have inter-platform calibration issues, Ken - you are correct in that. I would encourage you to look at that site, though, and consider the work done on composite TSI time series, where this is addressed to some degree.
So perhaps an absolute TSI number is not as fixed as we would like.
A major question here, though: Do the absolute value of TSI, IR radiation, etc., matter? Or can we determine what's having an effect by looking at well established changes of these values? We know the history of TSI changes pretty well over the last 800,000 years, between satellite measurements, sunspot observations, isotopic analysis of ice cores, etc. - the correlation of these measures to absolute values isn't as good as we would like, but the ability to track changes is excellent.
The situation is rather a lot like tracking the carbon cycle. We have a rough idea of total carbon sources (natural and manmade), we have a rough idea of carbon sinks (ocean/vegetation/weathering), but we have a really really accurate measure of how atmospheric CO2 changes, and how that relates to man-made CO2. Thus we can state that man-made CO2 is contributing ~2ppm/year to atmospheric CO2. We know how it's changing.
So, while we may not know absolute TSI as accurately as we like, we know how it has changed, and it's clear that it has not changed in a manner sufficient to account for late 20th century warming.
We know accurately how the inputs to the climate system have changed over quite a long period. We also know accurately how the outputs (temperature) have changed as well. Even the simplest black-box model of climate will then tell us which stick has poked the box inducing those correlating changes. Your "absolute value" issues are really not valid.
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Daniel Bailey at 00:24 AM on 13 October 2010Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
Re: jadesmith (21) CO2 is a well-mixed gas; it's greenhouse effects takes place primarily well above the surface layer, so any localized concentrations near emitter sources get redistributed fairly quickly. See Comment 1 at this thread for some nice animations showing the mixing effects of CO2 over time. The Yooper -
Ken Lambert at 00:12 AM on 13 October 2010It's the sun
kdkd #678 "The value will decrease if you use it to promulgate your sceptical agenda though - save that for a different post." Is that a banned political comment kdkd? May I only play in this sandpit with you as gatekeeper of pure AGW thought? Regarding TIMS - this illustrates the point that BP has made many times - satellites have high precision but low accuracy. Good for day to day or month on month variation but not for absolute values. The earlier satellites were reading TSI at around 1366W/sq.m - TIMS is 1361.5W/sq.m. Which is right? Now notice how no-one is trying to splice TIMS to the earlier satellites because the TSI would have a huge offset correction yet SLR satellites are being spliced eg TOPEX-Jason with a claimed zero offset due to extensive intercalibration. The TIMS people also produced an energy balance based on 1361.5W/sq.m which Dr Trenberth said was wrong in spades. It does seem strange that while up to date TSI charts are on the SORCE website - the comment on the minus 4.5W/sq.m discrepancy has not been updated since 2005. 5 years seems a long time for the "difference being studied by the TSI and radiometry communities" without some resolution. -
Ken Lambert at 23:53 PM on 12 October 2010It's the sun
archisteel #675 Here is the Wiki chart for CO2 concentration for the last 1000 years and last 400000 years: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png When was it last at 180ppmv archisteel? Looks pretty close to 280ppmv for the last 1000 years or so. Happy to argue on a baseline which gives no warming or cooling of the Earth for any forcing. Warming and cooling in pre-industrial times was caused by Solar variation - output and orbital exposure of the Earth to the sun. CO2 lagged Solar warming as a feedback mechanism on interglacial time scales. Of course at some point warming was arrested by IR radiative cooling and a cooling phase followed. -
muoncounter at 23:44 PM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
#13: "There should be such caveats in all climate science papers. I'd encourage people to be sceptical about papers that don't know their limitations." Wouldn't it be nice if that rule applied in deniersville? Imagine reading the headline 'Its cooling and Arctic ice is at an all time high!' followed by the caveat: 'readers should recognize that our use of only 3 data points leads to 100% uncertainty in our conclusions'. -
jyyh at 23:35 PM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
I hope they realized the thing was going to space when calibrating it... anyway an interesting set of data. I actually tried to find the piece from univ library only to find out they put out the papers on a later date. -
adelady at 23:21 PM on 12 October 2010Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
And then there's all those arguments I've seen elsewhere about more concrete and other urban land use changes increasing local albedo. There may be particular places where there is a definite effect one way or the other, but the graphs in the post tell us that for these researchers and these regions, the swings and roundabouts have apparently balanced each other. -
Daniel Bailey at 22:40 PM on 12 October 2010It's freaking cold!
Re: Tom Loeber I do want to step back and issue a general, heart-felt compliment to you, Tom. Your ideas about noctilucent clouds, tipping points and sudden ice ages is certainly one of the most unique and interesting ideas I've heard in a while. You should really try to present it in a more formal fashion here, with cited sources, etc. I think you'd find a much better, dialogue-based, discussion of what you bring to this table. I would look forward to reading such a presentation. The Yooper -
CBDunkerson at 22:23 PM on 12 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
GC #155: I find it depressing that so many 'skeptics' play semantic games (e.g. ignoring the common usage and legal definitions of 'pollutant' to come up with one which excludes carbon dioxide - which they then argue should be used in place of the legal definition when making legal decisions, insisting that 'acidification' only applies once the pH drops below 7) rather than addressing the actual science. The EPA is going to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. 'Skeptics' say they can't because it isn't a pollutant under 'definition XYZ'. However, by the definition of the term in the legal documents binding EPA action carbon dioxide IS a pollutant. So this redefinition nonsense is just a shell game. The relevant definition for the EPA is the definition in the law. That should be obvious. So why do skeptics continue to make an argument that is obviously wrong? -
skywatcher at 22:02 PM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
HumanityRules... haver you read any academic papers lately? They are liberally spread with uncertainties and caveats, it's part of the job. Can you point out climate science papers that do not indicate uncertainties in results? Uncertainties tend to get filtered out, invariably to the detriment of the paper, when media report on science issues. -
kdkd at 21:57 PM on 12 October 2010Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
BP #24 (again) My hypothesis is that the urban heat island effect will cause an increased variance of local temperature rather than an increase in absolute value due to decreased heat capacity and reduction of the capacity of vegetation to buffer temperature changes. -
kdkd at 21:49 PM on 12 October 2010Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
BP #24 Pretty much a duplicate of my post #23, except you seem to be implying that the effect size must be large and significant, whereas I enquire about the empirical evidence that there is an effect, and what it's magnitude is. See how the two approaches differ? Which do you think is more likely to provide an objectively correct answer in the long run? -
Berényi Péter at 21:18 PM on 12 October 2010Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
#22 adelady at 18:19 PM on 12 October, 2010 If an urban area is always or usually a degree or two above a neighbouring rural area, that's fine. What matters is not whether one or the other is higher or lower, but whether the temperature increase or decrease is similar or wildly different. Keep in mind each urban area started off as a rural one some time in the past. Let's consider two nearby sites, one is urban the other is rural, the urban one being a degree or two warmer, as you say. If trends are the same at both sites all over their history, even if we go back in time until both sites are found to be equally desolate, the would-be urban site is still a degree or two warmer. How can that be? I bet weather is not endowed with precognition, therefore the only remaining possibility is the urban heat island effect has nothing to do with land use, man made structures and the like but people simply prefer natural hot spots for settlements. Is that what you claim? -
Riccardo at 21:11 PM on 12 October 2010The sun upside down
HumanityRules the first impact I see is on solar science. Haigh 2010 and Lean 2000 cannot be both right unless in the former the new phenomenon just happens sporadically. Having said this, I'd invite you to consider the magnitude of the effect. As in my comment #6 above, it's quite small in the visible range and the impact on forcing should not be exceedingly large. Though, it could make a difference (several %, not tens) in the stratosphere where UV is absorbed. -
Riccardo at 21:02 PM on 12 October 2010The first global warming skeptic
RSVP yes, the emission spectrum will be broader too, and that's why it will more easily go through regions with narrower absorption. -
RSVP at 20:48 PM on 12 October 2010The first global warming skeptic
I assume it can be allowed that as the absorption spectrum broadens, so in turn does the emmision spectrum. Angstrom may have been the first, but definitely not the last skeptic. -
JMurphy at 20:42 PM on 12 October 2010It's freaking cold!
Tom Loeber wrote : "2/3 of Peru under state of emergency for cold not widespread enough for you?" Once again, you are caught up in the type of argument/belief where you see only part of the answer (the answer you WANT to see) and ignore everything else. With regard to Peru, you also have to bear in mind that it wasn't simply the cold weather that led to the state of emergency - it was also due to the effects of that cold on a poverty-stricken people who had previously suffered from everything from extreme downpours to extreme drought. The deaths were largely respiratory infections in children, sadly, but such deaths (and, therefore, such a state of emergency) would not have been so widespread in a wealthier country with a more effective health system. Tragic and extreme but not as doom-laden or prophetic as you seem to think - at least, not unless it becomes a regular occurrence in future. You obviously need to become more aware of something you yourself stated previously : "I think more important than depending on hear-say and the like,..." ...and become less keen to be led along too quickly by the rest of that sentence of yours : "...attempt to get a grasp of the data yourself and draw your own conclusions." Drawing your own conclusions has led you to your 'coming ice-age' belief. Why not step back, look at all the evidence (and in more detail at the stories you are using to 'back-up' your assertions), and see what the reality is as it stands at the moment - cold weather, even very cold weather, is still possible (perhaps more likely in certain areas) in a warming world which isn't heading towards an ice-age. Oh, and you would look more credible if you were to post less of your conspiracy-theory/censorship thoughts.
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