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Comments 107501 to 107550:

  1. How do we know CO2 is causing warming?
    TTTM #157 I find it strange that the RealClimate article you refer to makes the conclusion that: "To conclude, it is perfectly physically consistent to expect that increasing greenhouse gas driven warming will heat the oceans – as indeed is being observed." Which is the opposite of yours. It appears to me from a fairly superficial reading that you are misinterpreting the quasi-experiment. Cloud cover is used as a covariate with CO2 in order to control for the effect of greenhouse gasses on ocean heating. This is in the absence of being able to do a real experiment. As a result you seem to be describing the behaviour of the "control" condition (to the extent that a control condition can exist in this type of experimental work) to make your conclusion. However this is not my area of expertise and I will defer to others with a better understanding of this part of the science.
  2. How do we know CO2 is causing warming?
    The RealClimate article to start with is this one The upshot of this is that they acknowledge that CO2 doesn't directly heat the oceans and theorise that instead it causes them to cool more slowly. So they devise an experiment to show how increased downward LW radiation changes the temperature of the ocean's cooler skin with the suggestion that will result in decreased heat flux. Their experiment does indeed measure a change in skin temperature but uses the much larger effect of cloud induced downward LW radiation which is of the order of 100W. Compare this to CO2 increase which might account for a few Watts. And their result was a small but measurable effect with the 100W cloud effect. So what hasn't the science covered? Firstly the effect explored was more than an order of magnitude greater than the effect of CO2 and secondly the change in skin temperature wasn't attempted to be related to changes in LW heat loss from the ocean at all. So basically "science" has come up with a theory for ocean heat loss decrease due to increased CO2, showed that in principle an effect exists...and stopped. It has no idea whether the effect of CO2 is sufficient to explain the accumulation of heat in the oceans. At least none I ever found...
  3. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    I've taken the response to one of TTTM's deleted comments (that was still in my RSS reader) over to the appropriate thread. Please redirect discussion of the role of CO2 over there.
  4. How do we know CO2 is causing warming?
    TTTM wrote on another thread: "I cant explain this issue [that we should be able to make a direct causal link between CO2 levels and ocean heat content?] easily. It involves a lot of background knowledge and anyone truely interested in this can take it from the initial references I've provided. By "the rate observed", I'm talking about the increases in OHC observed over the last few decades. AGW theory attributes this heating to the radiative imbalance caused by Anthropogenic CO2." Actually the scientific literacy on this blog is quite high, so the fact that you can't explain it "easily" is not a problem. Except perhaps with the quality of your explanation. Please give it a go.
  5. How do we know CO2 is causing warming?
    In another thread, TimTheToolMan said this: "If a year or especially six years are cool then that needs to be explained because if it cant be explained within the framework of AGW theory then AGW theory is broken." ...or, as the recent P&J study shows, OHC as it's currently measured doesn't show the whole picture. I don't see any reason to think a single year is indicative of any kind of trend. On the contrary (as CBD pointed ou), it is a shining example of cherry-picking, and no amount of out-of-context quotes from Ternberth is going to change this.
  6. CO2 lags temperature
    What about the ever increasing presence of water vapor? Where are the charts showing its increase over the last 500,000 years?
    Moderator Response: Here's the appropriate thread for that topic: Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
  7. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    TTTM #86: One year? Five years? I refer you to the article above and its explanation of the term 'cherry picking'. If you are truly basing conclusions on just two to six data points you're effectively making decisions based on random noise.
  8. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    Karamanski #56: "Even though warming may continuing the rate of global temperature increase is steady and is not accelerating." Again, the data suggests that the rate IS increasing. In addition to the up-slope of the quadratic fit note that the linear trend line has been consistently below the actual results for 15 years (since 1995). With a steady trend you see the random 'noise' causing the actual results to frequently fall both above and below the linear trend. When actual results start to fall only on one side of the linear trend line it is a clear indication that the actual trend is NOT linear (or 'steady' as you suggest), but rather curving in the direction of the variance. "For instance, they did not predict the halt in the increase of methane concentrations over the past decade." The slight slowing in the rate of increase of atmospheric methane levels a few years ago was generally attributed to changes in human emissions... humans are somewhat difficult to predict with climate models - which is why they are generally run with a range of different GHG emission assumptions. That said, methane levels have resumed rising more quickly and there is some indication that this is becoming a positive climate feedback rather than primarily an issue of human emissions. See here. "Arctic sea ice predictions by climate models are 40 years behind real observations." The IPCC tends to be fairly conservative. Some other examples of this can be found here and here. In the case of Arctic sea ice extent the primary factors not taken into account seem to have been increased ice export out of the Arctic region as the ice breaks up and greater than expected 'melt from the bottom up' as ocean temperatures increase. "I find it diffult to think that we will have a temperature increase of 3 degrees celsius by 2100." It should be noted that the 3 C estimate is not just a matter of models... the positive feedbacks assumed for that figure (primarily increased atmospheric water vapor and decreased Arctic ice) are evident in direct observations of current conditions. The figure is also consistent with paleoclimate reconstructions. So... past (paleoclimate), present (observations), and future (models) analysis are consistent with the 3 C figure.
  9. It's the sun
    Regardless, the solar change is dwarfed by the impact from the extra heat trapped by CO2 alone since 1750: an additional 1.66 watts per square meter, Pure supposition.
  10. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    @TTTM: As kdkd eloquently put it, heat is heat. It doesn't matter what percentage of that heat is from CO2 forcing, or water vapor, or if it comes straight from the sun. Heat from one source is not fundamentally different than heat from another source. I don't see why you can't "explain this easily." You should at least try.
    Moderator Response: But not on this page. I just performed a mass swathe of deletions of comments below this one. This will continue until the discussion is taken to the appropriate place.
  11. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    If in the cool phase of the PDO, the northeast pacific is cool and the central north pacific is warm, and in the warm phase of the PDO its vice versa, how does the PDO affect global surface temperatures? According to figure 2, the PDO seems to be exerting short-term influences on global surface temperatures superimposed on a long-term warming trend. Because of the correlation between the PDO index and global surface temperatures, it seems like the negative PDO contributed to mid-century cooling, was the PDO alikely a culprit in mid-century cooling? And, since it went back to a cool phase a few years ago, could this cause global temperatures to rise less quickly over the next few decades? Could the PDO be a factor in determining who fast global surface temperatures rise on a decadal a timescale even though the long-term is obviously up? Please explain this to me.
    Moderator Response: Your question is exactly what is addressed in the post at the top of this page. Your question, and other questions you have asked on other pages, seem as if you have not actually read the posts, but only the posts' titles. Or maybe that you have read only the Basic version when there is also an Intermediate version and sometimes an Advanced version. I sincerely apologize if I am incorrect; I most definitely do not want to discourage you from asking questions or raising points for discussion. But it is difficult to answer your questions without simply repeating the contents of the posts at the tops of the pages.
  12. Melting ice isn't warming the Arctic
    Arctic amplification is an expected (and now observed) result of an enhanced greenhouse effect, but not a unique 'fingerprint' of such. Actual 'fingerprints' specific to the enhanced greenhouse effect can be found here, here, and here.
  13. Melting ice isn't warming the Arctic
    Where did you see that polar amplification was a "fingerprint of greenhouse warming"? The article doesn't seem to make that case.
  14. Melting ice isn't warming the Arctic
    I'm confused, why is polar amplification considered a fingerprit of greenhouse warming, if the amplified warming is the result of sea ice loss. Almost every radiative forcing that causes global warming would be acompanied by polar amplification, because sea ice would melt regardless of whether the warming was caused by greenhouse gases or another positive radiative forcing. So why is amplified warming in high latitudes considered a fingerprint of greenhouse warming? Could please explain this?
  15. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    KL #71 "Looks like BP #49 has gob-smacked the Sea level debate again." Not realy. His analysis is pretty naive. here's a nice blog post on how to process sea level rise data.
  16. 2009-2010 winter saw record cold spells
    Could the deep solar minimum that we had for the past few years have been the cause of the extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation? Because I read paper(I don't recall the name) suggesting that low solar activity lowers the Arctic Oscillation index. Or could it have been Arctic warming that triggered the extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation? A paper that I came across, Francis et al(2009)suggests that reduced sea ice extent weakens the equator to pole temperature gradient and lowers the Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation indexes, allowing arctic air to spill into mid latitudes. If so, will the Arctic Oscillation index trend more negative in coming decades, and could this outstrip the influence that stratospheric cooling from increases in greenhouse gases have on the Arctic Oscillation index(which tends to raise the Arctic Oscillaion index)? Do you have any answers?
  17. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    TTTM #80 Well you've certainly not managed to explain the issue (if it exists) with any coherence. It seems that you're suggesting there's some issue with the laws of physics as they're presently understood, but that could just be your poor quality explanation of "the issue". In any case, it's off topic for this thread, I suggest that if you want to follow it up, then take it to how do we know co2 is causing warming.
  18. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    Might help to clarify "the rate observed," TTTM.
  19. The first global warming skeptic
    Well done. The basic mechanism was never better explained in a sentence than by Tyndall, who said CO2 acts like a dam that raises the water level behind it. At whatever level the radiation escapes into space--pretty high up, it turns out, for the affected infrared--the temperature has to rise until the energy can escape. (By the way, that's Planck, not Plank).
  20. Skeptical Science housekeeping: Comments Gluttony
    Further to Roger's suggestion, kind of like a rejection notice with an implicit invitation to revise and resubmit.
  21. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    You're way off the mark with that comment kdkd. The suggestion is that science simply hasn't worked out whether CO2 has the capability to warm the oceans at the rate expected because the actual mechanism is anything but a simplistic one. Most people dont even know there is an issue.
  22. Roger A. Wehage at 09:19 AM on 9 October 2010
    Skeptical Science housekeeping: Comments Gluttony
    Each commenter has provided an E-mail address. It would be helpful if software could be developed that would send each deleted comment back to its originator for post analysis. Unless a commenter saves the text in another application before submitting, there is no way to recover a deleted post. Maybe some folks can remember the contents of their posts, but I certainly can't. Must be my age.
  23. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    TTTM #77 I think the moderator answered your question (with faulty premises) there. You're implying that heat retained by CO2 should go to a different location than heat caused by water vapour, or by the sun alone, which is clearly an insane position. The different components of the greenhouse effect have been quantified, but once they're heat, that's it, it's all ultimately going to end up in the same place. No need for flashy scientific papers to demonstrate that, it's just basic physics.
  24. It's the sun
    Worth noting, the solarimeter used to measure radiation as shown in John's graph is located at the bottom of the atmosphere, an important detail.
  25. It's the sun
    pbjamm at 05:44 AM, this may have some relevance. The chart below came from a link another poster provided in another thread and relates to changing rice yields under warming conditions. The article is available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC454199/ Does anyone want to comment on the significant upward trend as indicated in the bottom graphs which track radiation measured at the different trial sites and put it into perspective.
    Moderator Response: Just to be clear, let's not talk about rice yields on this thread.
  26. Global warming is accelerating the global water cycle
    Johnd@35, I was referring to evapotranspiration, ET. That is, the actual latent heat flux from the terrestrial surface. ET is also what the NWP models and GCMs simulate with varying degrees of sophistication.
  27. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    Berényi Péter at 01:00 AM on 9 October, 2010 #69 TimTheToolMan at 21:11 PM on 8 October, 2010 Thats my bad, i was talking about surface interactions with solar and back radiation, as to why the oceans dont accumulate energy faster(as in a really sunny day), so by deep ocean i was talking 100s o meters, not thousands.
  28. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    I am saying the is no quantified science to verify the downward LW radiation due to increased CO2 has the capability to heat the oceans at the rate observed. Instead the assumption appears to be warming is observed and therefore must be attributable to CO2 If you disagree with this then find a paper that quantifies the effect described in the RC article.
    Moderator Response: Well, if you're disagreeing with the basics of "GHG" warming, you'll need to shift to another thread. Suggestions:

    Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming

    and in particular

    How do we know CO2 is causing warming?

    Spencer Weart's chapter "The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect" is an excellent source for becoming familiar with the theoretical case for C02's role in Earth's energy budget.
  29. Global warming is accelerating the global water cycle
    Albatross at 04:08 AM, firstly my comment of pan evaporation exceeding P being self evident is based on the understanding that the conditions that cause moisture to evaporate in the natural environment do not cease once all available moisture has been consumed. I too view E as determined by pan evaporation as being a measure of the evaporation potential, and there I see it's value as being able to understand and quantify the components that drive evaporation, as well as track any trends, thus allowing any modeling formulated to be validated against standardised physical measurements. Fully understanding and quantifying those driving forces is important if the reasons for declining pan evaporation rates are to be found, and only then will it be able to be determined how those changes are manifesting themselves in other ways. So I do see that the trends in pan evaporation as being relevant, as well as important. Obviously the raw data produced by pan evaporation should not be used in any climate modeling because the moisture that it indicates as having been evaporated is not necessarily in the atmosphere. BOM use other terminology to define actual evaporation and that is why I wanted to know whether the E you referred to earlier was the same E as defined by others. The BOM definitions follow:- Evapotranspiration (ET)...is a collective term for the transfer of water, as water vapour, to the atmosphere from both vegetated and un-vegetated land surfaces. It is affected by climate, availability of water and vegetation. Areal actual ET ...is the ET that actually takes place, under the condition of existing water supply, from an area so large that the effects of any upwind boundary transitions are negligible and local variations are integrated to an areal average. For example, this represents the evapotranspiration which would occur over a large area of land under existing (mean) rainfall conditions. Areal potential ET ...is the ET that would take place, under the condition of unlimited water supply, from an area so large that the effects of any upwind boundary transitions are negligible and local variations are integrated to an areal average. For example, this represents the evapotranspiration which would occur over a very large wetland or large irrigated area, with a never-ending water inflow. A "large" area is defined as an area greater than one square kilometre. Point potential ET ...is the ET that would take place, under the condition of unlimited water supply, from an area so small that the local ET effects do not alter local air mass properties. It is assumed that latent and sensible heat transfers within the height of measurement are through convection only. For example, this represents the evapotranspiration which would occur from small irrigated fields with a never-ending water inflow, surrounded by unirrigated land. Point potential ET may be taken as a rough preliminary estimate of evaporation from small water bodies such as farm dams and shallow water storages.
  30. Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
    A simple experiment to see the effect of CO2 in high concentrations is to put dry ice in a box and take a quick breath of the result. CO2 dissolved in water creates an acid, which in the oceans is already is having a detrimental effect on animals which use calcium in their shells or exoskeleton. Larger concentrations will create serious problems in the fish population. I believe this meets the definition of a pollutant. It is fairly simple to calculate the amount of CO2 created by burning fossil fuels, and how this correlates to the mass of the recent increase of CO2 in the air. It is clear that the burning of fossil fuels creates sufficient CO2 so that the oceans must be absorbing a good portion. This is large enough to account for the measured increase in the acidification of the oceans.
  31. The value of coherence in science
    Eric, I still don't quite understand how we've got MEC from what you describe. The role of convection and circulation of air and moisture at the tropopause as a radiative feedback has been explored for decades and it does not seem there's a conclusion in agreement with your hypothesis, or that is to say, the role of convection at the tropopause does not appear to affect surface sensitivity in a way that precludes (for example) substantial and swift ice sheet negative mass balance (trying to avoid the freighted term "collapse") at the surface. You did inspire me to go digging, where I found a myriad of interesting stuff on convective overshoot and the like. This paper by Hartmann seems to have had considerable knock-on effects: An important constraint on tropical cloud climate feedback Here's a useful general roundup: Radiation balance of the tropical tropopause layer
  32. It's the sun
    I heard about this news from a skeptic I know on IRC. Skeptic is being generous since he believes AGW to be a cult/conspiracy and has more than once referred to me as a "useful idiot" for not agreeing. Demonstrably false will not matter. Expect to see reference to this on all the usual sites.
  33. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    TTTM - now I am really at a loss. You are saying that increased downward LW would not cause more heating and cite the RC article as evidence? What do you see as the "issue to explain"?? BP - ocean mixing operates on 800-1000 year cycle. You claim geothermal heating exceeds mass heat transport. Can you substantiate that? (I'll try to find time to feed that into my thermal modelling next week).
  34. Eric (skeptic) at 06:28 AM on 9 October 2010
    The value of coherence in science
    Doug, there are some model experiments where variables are modified independently of others (although dependent variables will change too). A bunch of abstracts are here: http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/publications/PhD%20and%20Masters%20Theses.htm such as #3088067 where the increase in concentrated convection yields a drier upper troposphere and thus cooling or less warming. Drying is noted part of the time in 9948702 and the MJO activity is trending up in real world measurements. On the other hand, 3071048 shows stronger convection reducing aerosols which would be generally warming. It's not a simple issue, but although the concentrated convection can push more moisture to a higher altitude, the general effect of higher altitude convection is drying due to the subsidence starting from a higher altitude, see http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer-Braswell-97-BAMS.pdf It also makes sense looking at an IR satellite of a hurricane. The cloud tops in the hurricane are very cold (so globally warming if there are more of them), but the subsidence zone around the hurricane is generally much larger and it is globally warming if there is more of it. The caveat is the hurricane is over warm ocean which sends out lots of IR to space in subsidence areas, the same might not be true in extreme storms over land.
  35. Global warming is accelerating the global water cycle
    CBDunkerson (#27): Excuse me for not answering all of your questions. Water vapor content of air contacting sea surface follows Clapeyron-Clausius relationship. It is not guaranteed that total water vapor content in the atmosphere is proportional to it (i.e. average relative humidity is constant), but it seems to be valid in good approximation. It is something like an exponential function of temperature. On the other hand, evaporation is limited by energy available at the surface. I am confident that enhanced greenhouse effect yields more evaporation. Partly because increase of downward longwave radiation at the surface results in larger amount of energy potentially available for evaporation. Partly because higher temperature shifts the partition of the energy between latent heat flux of evaporation (LE) and sensible heat flux (H) more favourable to evaporation (i.e. lower Bowen ratio H/LE). But the increase by these two process combined is more like a linear function of temperature than exponential, so it is slower than the increase of water vapor content. So far I have been discussing global mean quantities. The variable shown in Syed's figure is the amount of flow of water from land to ocean. It is possible that the logic about global mean quantities applies here as well, but it is also possible that partition between land and ocean is more important than global mean.
  36. It's the sun
    pbjamm - Nope, it appears (as commented upon here by CBD and here by muoncounter, that "the possible range of variation here is more than an order of magnitude less than GHG forcings." Oh, I guess someone could make the argument - but they would be demonstrably wrong at the start. Orders of magnitude, folks, orders of magnitude. They make a difference...
  37. It's the sun
    Prepare for a new argument front: Study: energy increased instead of decreased during lull in (solar) cycle The study finds that during the most recent lull in the sun's weather cycle, the amount of energy that reached Earth increased, instead of decreasing as predicted. The planet may have experienced a slight warming effect as well, researchers said.
  38. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    #75 was a case of hitting submit before typing. Please delete. From Peltier 2009, Closure of the budget of global sea level rise over the GRACE era: the importance and magnitudes of the required corrections for global glacial isostatic adjustment The net rate of sea level rise is therefore predicted to be: 2.54 mm/year +/- 0.52 mm/year or 2.32 mm/year +/- 0.31 mm/year Clearly both of these estimates are consistent with the net rate of global sea level rise of 2.5 mm/year that has been measured by the altimetric satellites over the GRACE era.
  39. The value of coherence in science
    Eric, it partially depends on what the definition of 'catastrophic' is. For arguments sake, let’s accept the basic idea of your MEC (thanks Doug) premise – so that more storms and heat waves mean less sea level rise; that still doesn’t mean that both won’t be catastrophic. For example, let’s assume we can expect weather extremes like those seen this year every X years and Y meters of sea level rise by 2100 – even if changing X to 2X means Y goes to Y/2 doesn’t mean that both X and Y won’t be catastrophic. Were the floods in Pakistan and the heat wave in Russia catastrophic? I think the people effected would say ‘yes’, and the people of Bangladesh would probably say that even ½ a meter of sea level rise would be catastrophic.
  40. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    @Karamanski: "Even though warming may continuing the rate of global temperature increase is steady and is not accelerating." CBDunkerson's graph seems to suggest otherwise. Instead of restating your original argument, you should respond to that counter-argument. "For example, thermal inertia might be much larger and slower than expected." It seems we would have observed this already. Do you have any scientific article that suggest this may be happening?
  41. Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
    By the way, BP, thanks for damping somewhat a reverberating misconception concerning how heat reaches the abyss. Understanding heat transport in the ocean is impossible without at least a glancing look at thermohaline circulation. Regarding geothermal flux, it helps to keep the numbers in context: Another neglected energy source is the geothermal heat flux through the sea floor. This trickle of heat, which is due to the slow cooling of the solid earth, is estimated to have a typical value of 50 mW m−2 (1 mW = 10−3 Watts) on abyssal plains and up to 200 mW m−2 on mid-ocean ridges [Sclater et al., 1980; Kadko and Baross, 1995; Stein et al., 1995; Murton et al., 1999]. Even these peak values are small compared to typical values of air-sea heat fluxes, which are of order 100 W m−2. Impact of Geothermal Heating on the Global Ocean Circulation (full text, pdf)
  42. The value of coherence in science
    @Eric: let's assume, for the sake of argument, that you are right, and such MECs exists (I'll be eagerly awaiting your detailed explanation of this as well). What you don't seem to understand is that having multiple possible outcomes is not being incoherent, as these are future probabilities, not statements on past events. Saying "there is no warming," then claiming "the warming is natural" is being incoherent, because it describes things that have allegedly already happened, but which are contradictory.
  43. Global warming is accelerating the global water cycle
    Johnd @22, "Note that it is E as measured by pan evaporation that is charted. I think that pan evaporation should exceed rainfall is something that should be self evident." Actually, it is not self evident that pan evaporation should exceed P. Pan evaporation is not the same as ET, in fact it is is more of a measure of the potential evaporation or atmospheric demand-- a theoretical measure which is very rarely achieved. So, again, it is best to use actual ET. Making the rather dangerous concession that pan evaporation can be used as a proxy for ET, we see (as you note), that in semi-arid areas (which large swaths of Australia are), P-E << 0. In contrast, in more moist climates, such as over extreme southeastern Australia, P-E ~ 0 or P-E > 0. See this paper for a more thorough discussion. Some researcher use the difference (or ratio) to identify semi-arid areas, for example. Or to distinguish between drought (P-E < 0) and pluvials (P-E > 0). See here for an example.
  44. It's the sun
    @Ken: ""In fact, there is a continuous range of TSI values, any one of which can be balanced by a corresponding OLR value, leading to some particular stable temperature." Question: And can you guess what that particular temperature of interest is? " There is no such fixed temperature, it's a relative value. This theoretical equilibrium temperature would be determined by the sum of all forcings. Again, you're looking for an absolute reference point that doesn't exist.
  45. The value of coherence in science
    Eric - There are whole ranges of negatives associated with global warming, particularly at the rates we're seeing. Assuming that there are MEC's (mutually exclusive catastrophes, excellent acronym) is a False Dichotomy; an oversimplification of the consequences.
  46. It's the sun
    @Ken - I completely agree with archiesteel, he's stated it perfectly. You are taking graphs showing deltas (changes) from a baseline, and claiming that absolute values you derive from them (which are not present in just those graphs) are inaccurate. This is quite simply an incorrect use of the data on your part, completely without basis. Your insistence on continuing to do this over 50-60 posts on this thread indicates to me that you need to step back, and reconsider your approach.
  47. The value of coherence in science
    Eric, I don't follow your reasoning on MEC (mutually exclusive catastrophes, :=) ). Would you please sketch that out a little more fully?
  48. Global warming is accelerating the global water cycle
    Johnd and LukeW, Luke: "Pan evaporation rates have been reported to be decreasing not increasing, a reduction in windiness being a key driver" It is important to note that it has been demonstrated that pan evaporation can not be used to infer ET from the terrestrial land surface, especially vegetated surfaces. Brutsaert and Parlange (1998) showed that "although these studies are valuable, pan evaporation has not been used correctly as an indicator of climate change." Golubev et al. (2001, GRL) used parallel observations of actual evaporation and pan evaporation at five Russian experimental sites to callibrate the pan evaporation data. From their abstract "....we recalibrate trends in pan evaporation to make them more representative of actual evaporation changes. After applying this transformation, pan evaporation time series over southern Russia and most of the United States reveal an increasing trend in actual evaporation during the past forty years. " IMO, the take home message here is that pan evaporation data, while useful for some applications, should be used with caution when inferring trends in actual ET. Also, it is likely, that when handled properly, the pan data suggest that actual ET has actually been increasing. I cannot access the GRL paper by Roderick et al. (2007), so I am not sure if they considered or allowed for Golubev et al's or Brutsaert and Parlange's findings.
  49. Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
    ...before going after CO2, why not first target the processes that are creating unwanted amounts of CO2 such as combustion of petrolium and coal? How exactly do we "target" these processes without identifying why we'd be doing so? Ignoring the very reason why we'd make changes in processes obviously leaves the question of rationale hanging in the air. Coal-fired generation plants liberate C02 as part of their operation, emissions which have been found detrimental to the continued desirable functionality of the atmosphere. Failing acknowledging the C02 itself, there's no reason to add expense and reduce efficiency of coal-fired generation plants. Short of a rationale, nobody is going to tamper with the economics of coal-fired generation plants. Once a rationale has been established and acknowledged, the operators of coal-fired plants are not going to act unless compelled by regulation. The comment is rhetorical... Yes, I think we're clear on the rhetoric part, considering that's all that's on offer.
  50. It's the sun
    @Ken, why are you looking for absolute values in graphs that show relative changes?

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