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CBDunkerson at 23:36 PM on 21 October 2010There is no consensus
Roger #244: Several of your assumptions are false. 1: Even taking the high end estimates of future population and economic growth fossil fuels would not run out within 50-100 years. If we squeezed out every last bit we might get 200 years of continual expansion. Prices might rise (barring more cost efficient extraction technologies) to the point that these energy sources would be replaced by others, but they aren't going to run out any time soon. 2: Ditto nuclear power. We'd get less than a hundred years of power in 'once through' type reactors, but with more modern breeder reactors nuclear power could last for thousands of years. 3: Most projections DON'T have population and energy use growing continuously. Indeed, the mainstream view is that both will level off sometime during this century. 4: It is simply false that 'green technology' cannot match the power generated by fossil fuels and uranium. Indeed, potential wind power dwarfs all of those others combined and potential solar power makes wind power look minuscule. Thus, once we have dispensed with the fictions we have considerably more options than 'die off' or 'institute population controls'... aka 'kill off'. -
Roger A. Wehage at 23:10 PM on 21 October 2010There is no consensus
The world is faced with two dilemmas...Moderator Response: This is the stump of what became an extended discussion about various alternative energy technologies; very sorry that so many people had their time wasted by a challenging question in the wrong place.
The topic of the thread is scientific consensus on the reality of climate change. -
Lassesson at 22:37 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
I recently saw a similar cherry picking event here in Sweden. A couple of professors emeriti (in chemistry and solid states physics) had read a new article by Spencer and Braswell and concluded from that article that the climatet sensitivity must be at (exactly) 0.6 degrees C for a doubling of CO2 and therefore there was no rush in reducing our GHG emissions, since it wouldn't make any significant difference anyway. Spencer and Braswell, however, did not say that in their article. They said that they had found a short term climate sensitivity that seemed to be around 0.6 degrees C. What "short term" means in this subject I'm not sure, but I believe they were talking about days or weeks. At least it seemed like that when I looked at their data. Spencer and Braswell pointed out on several occasions in their article that they had no intention of pointing out what the long term climate sensitivity would be, but that was just what our cherry picking professors emeriti did. They drew a conclusion from one single article, ignoring all the rest, despite the fact that the writers of the article themselves pointed out that this conclusion could not be drawn from their results. Maybe I should have written this in the "climate sensitivity is low" argument instead, but i thought the cherry picking was too similar. I just had to tell it here. -
CBDunkerson at 22:29 PM on 21 October 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
RSVP #240: As has been explained to you MANY times the statement that AWH "can only be accumulating" is simply false. If I light a match the energy released by that action does NOT remain present in the climate system for the next 50 years. Indeed, it won't even last the day. The same principle applies to all heat generated by human industry. This is evident in ACTUAL maps of UHI effects (as opposed to your fictitious 'long tail' versions). It is evident in the fact that if your theory of heat not escaping the atmosphere were correct then the planet would have been baked to a crisp by sunlight long before life ever had a chance to evolve. Again, it defies the laws of physics and simple logic to insist that heat originating from human industry must behave differently than all other heat in the climate system. If heat generated by sunlight and back radiation from greenhouse gases leaves the planet efficiently then heat generated by human industry leaves the planet at exactly the same efficiency level... and since those other two sources of energy are orders of magnitude larger than heat from human industry there is no possible way that AWH is causing a significant (or even measurable) fraction of the warming attributed to AGW. It's just nonsense. Still waiting on those maps BTW. -
Eric (skeptic) at 22:09 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
Since the article is about upper atmosphere humidity, shouldn't it talk about convection? Surface moisture ought to increase with CO2 warming (C-C relationship), but then that moisture has to rise. Does convection change on average based on CO2 warming? Mostly I am interested in the nature of the convection, concentrated or not, as well as the overall amount. -
RSVP at 21:56 PM on 21 October 2010Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
doug_bostrom #92 As I was asked to take my comments about waste heat to the the Waste Heat thread, I have taken the opportunity and even dedicated my post to you based on your remarks in #92. -
RSVP at 21:21 PM on 21 October 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
This is especially dedicated to doug_bostrom. In the thread... Monday, 18 October, 2010 Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect Some ...I have been directed to continue with any remarks I might have about "anthropogenic waste heat" here. 238 posts apparently hasnt been enough, but there is a lingering question, which comes from the following idea... Let us consider the history of the Earth's temperature over the last 2000 years or so, and for the sake of this argument, ignore for one moment any natural fluctuations such as those produced by volcanos or any observed "little ice ages" etc., and assume going backwards before the start of the Industrial Revolution you have a perfectly flat line where the average global temperature is constant. I understand this is not real, but let's for one moment consider the "perfect" hockey stick with a perfectly flat handle and an exponential puck striker rearing its ugly head starting around 1850 or so. The perfectly flat line represents perfect thermal equilibrium due to perfect radiative equilibrium. Putting unitless numbers on this, if, for example I have on the average 100 coming in, and 100 going out ("forever"), I end up with zero overall. So on the average nothing ever changes. Now I come along and every year add 0.1, a very small and "irrelevant" number by comparison to the summings up and down of a value like 100. But as small as this may be, on the average, and over the course of 200 years or so, this itty-bitty, annoying, but very real undeniable positive energy flux can only be accumulating, as it has absolutely no where to go (in terms of pure accounting... remember, 100 - 100 = 0, and of course .1 x 200 = 20). And 20 may be significant next to 100. The theory of course only holds if all other things were equal in terms of the overall radiative balance for this period, or if for the effects of CO2, heat was having even more difficulty escaping as touted by AGW supporters. Furthermore, the central meaning of comparing avearge temperatures to a hockey stick is to point out that temperature was in relative equilibrium up to the modern era. (Aside... it may well be that things have not been equal during this period due to other forms of pollution, and that aerosol's were "helping" things at some point. But we will ignore this for the sake of examining the merits of this theory. Please.) Given reactions expressed on this website for seriously considering the significance of anthropogenic waste heat (AWH), I can only surmise it comes out of a fear in losing inertia for dealing with the problem of CO2 as an environmental pollutant, given that whatever heat could be attributed to AWH, is that much heat that must be subtracted from the effects of AGW, (understanding AGW as the radiative imbalance setup by excess CO2), and vise versa. So it all comes down to the following questions. If AWH is not the main cause of global warming, where exactly is this energy supposedly going? And how is it possibly not accumulating somewhere on planet Earth? Implied in my comment in the other thread, "Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect", once you admit to the significance of AWH, there is the daunting problem about how to deal with it. That is, how to get rid of this heat now that it is here, and that it isnt only a matter of cutting back on CO2 emissions. -
kdkd at 20:39 PM on 21 October 2010Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
chriscanaris #81 Probably all you need to do is to provide an unambiguous, justifiable set of conclusions at the end of your post. This is standard practice in the scientific literature, and prevents misunderstanding. -
FLansner at 20:27 PM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
And again about UHI: Im sorry to say it, but one of the WORST arguments I have seen against UHI is here from Skeptical science, im sorry. I saw an article where they have chosen a little area where the whole area is a UHI area, and then compared the data! In places like southern california, Rhein Ruhr in Germany, and central England, there are so many big cities, that these regions as a whole are affected but the UHI from the cities. There fore the WORST place to make a comparison between "rural" and city is in such an area. But this is im afraid what skeptical science did, they used south central England. And worse: UHI shows up because cities normaly changes size radically from 1900 till today. And there is very very few cities in the world that where already multi million cities in year 1900, and a such is London... Skeptical science shows a "Non-UHI" argument by comparing London temperatures with its sorrounding subburbs to London in the southern England. I simply dont know why anyone with an wish to study UHI would do like this. K.R. Frank LansnerResponse: You are probably looking at the Basic Version of the UHI page. That's the problem when you try to explain things simply - there's always the danger of oversimplification (which I was warned about when we embarked on the basic rebuttals). In the Intermediate Version of the UHI page, we begin by looking at the London area but then point out, just as you do, that we need to look at developing areas. So we compare rural to urban trends in China which has shown much economic growth over the last 30 years with a dramatic increase in its city areas. And what we find is, well, I don't want to spoil the ending, check it out for yourself... -
FLansner at 20:15 PM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Hi Bibliovermis. For all subjects in the climate debate one can find a link with any viewpoint. But you just bring the links and I have to figure out myself WHY you think that this link has the best answers, WHAT arguments you where thinking of when bringing the links. So for now, I will just bring you a short description of why i believe that UHI is a very important part of the rising "global" temperature measured mostly from cities and airports. In my viewpoint, the best and biggest UHI research was made by Thomas Carl in 1984. Like it or not, but there are different opinions on the temperature adjustments done after 1984, and therefore the early dating of Thomas Carls work - 1984 - simply omits the claimed problem of temperature adjustments that makes UHI harder to see in data. Thomas Carl used 4-500 pairs from USA of rural vs. city measurements, and since USA holds around half(?) of the worlds temperature series all the way back from year 1900, then a total USA study is a very good approach. Thomas Carl Finds a systematic strong relation ship between city size and artificial UHI heat in data: http://hidethedecline.eu/media/city%20heat%20IPCC/aau.jpg What could Thomas Carl have done wrong?? Its so simple, compare rural with not rural. I have to trust these results. Many other results suggests UHI, here from all over the world, this list isnt even updated: http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/urban-heat-island---world-tour-155.php Then, the global warming side came up with Petersons results. He found just 0,05 K UHI, but when finally Steve McIntyre got his hands on Petersons data to see how on Earth Peterson could get this result, something quite else turned up. When Steve did a simple check of Petersons calculations, he found 0,7 K... and not 0,05K And worse: It turned out, that Peterson had put city stations in the rural category and vice versa. In another study - pro global warming - a guy (parker??) had NOT done the obvious and simply compared the temperatures of city vs. rural. For some unexplained reason, this guy had chosen not to do the obvious. This lack of explanation itself casts a shadow over the study. In stead he had done some rules of what he expected to find when looking at winds from cities. And then a team (wang ??) had examined UHI in China, getting again practically no UHI, but when they where asked to deliver their data, they failed to fully explain how they got their result. As far as I know they are actually under official accusation for faul play. Then later a new team including P.Jones came with the result that UHI in China actually accounts for 0,5 K of the warming. Then the CRU approach to UHI: As we saw in Carls data, practically all cities show UHI warming polution in data. But to come around this, CRU has simply omitted i think 30 - 35 cities in the world, and used the rest without any UHI correction. Again, there is not much in the warmists approach to UHI that gives me the impression that they treat UHI as it should be treated. ANd then i showed you guys, that UAH satellite measurements fully agree with conventional SST, but do NOT match temperatures from land, that is, temperatures from cities: http://hidethedecline.eu/media/PERPLEX/fig78.jpg I think this last argument is very strong. Unless of course UAH satellite temperatures only work over the oceans :-) K.R. Frank -
CBDunkerson at 20:10 PM on 21 October 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
RSVP #238: "So instead of the effect you describe, as seen from a map, there is typically a large smudge or plume that emerges around an urban center that tapers eastward... heat that is gradually dispersed but never lost" Great. Show me such a map. I had always been under the impression that UHI effects were extremely localized, hence the term 'island', and disappeared within just a few miles outside the city limits. It will be fascinating to see the long trails of increased temperatures stretching out from urban centers. Of course, that still wouldn't explain your claims about the Arctic... where there are no major cities. Do all the 'heat trails' (in the map you are going to show any time now) collect in the Arctic for some reason? -
RSVP at 20:00 PM on 21 October 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
CBDunkerson "the area in and around New York City should show tremendous temperature anomalies with decreasing amounts radiating out from there and other industrial centers" Here is a link I recommend you visit... http://www.epa.gov/heatisld/ In North America winds predominate from the west in a continuous fashion with the notorious "jet stream" where the flow is most accentuated. So instead of the effect you describe, as seen from a map, there is typically a large smudge or plume that emerges around an urban center that tapers eastward... heat that is gradually dispersed but never lost, as per RSVPs theory, which I will describe once more in my next post. -
FLansner at 18:42 PM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Hi all: Thankyou for very good argumenting. My problem is that "there are too many of you" :-) so it will take time to answer all. So far, its my impression that Peter Hogarth himself actually sees where im getting at at some points. If you have the patience, i will answer you all, so please keep coming back to this discussion later. Many of you gives many opinions of which I totally disagree and I will take it in the order they came in. I wish i was full time oil payed to have all the time in the world :-). But I think that your tone and seemingly wish to make honest debate is SUPER, and that why I will answer all. Coming soon :-) K.R. Frank -
Bern at 18:35 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
Thanks for the new article, John. It's an interesting read. I caught that Q and A show earlier in the week, too, and was surprised by Marohasy's statement about humidity - it appeared Tim Flannery was too, although it was almost amusing to watch him twitch at some of the more outrageous statements she was making. He displayed admirable restraint, though - keeping it polite even when giving her a dressing down for interrupting! I note she also quoted Roy Spencer, but more than a few of her talking points might have been easily rebutted by a reference to this website... -
chris1204 at 16:40 PM on 21 October 2010Increasing southern sea ice: a basic rebuttal
Much appreciated :-) -
archiesteel at 15:55 PM on 21 October 2010Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
@oxymoron: what Ned said. In one word: aerosols. -
Ari Jokimäki at 15:50 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
By the way, there's also a new paper out from Dai et al. who make an effort to homogenize the radiosonde humidity records: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010JCLI3816.1 (I haven't found full text, sorry.) Their conclusion: "The DPD adjustment yields a different pattern of change in humidity parameters compared to the apparent trends from the raw data. The adjusted estimates show an increase in tropospheric water vapor globally." -
Increasing southern sea ice: a basic rebuttal
chris, Not sure about anything later but the figure here runs up to 2007. -
chris1204 at 15:10 PM on 21 October 2010Increasing southern sea ice: a basic rebuttal
E @ 15: I'm happy to stand corrected. However, I'd be interested if you have any data for 2004 -> roughly now. -
chris1204 at 14:53 PM on 21 October 2010Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
I guess we should leave it alone, Ned - sometimes communication fails with the best will in the world. I supect the fault (for want of a better word) lies much more with me than with you. The AR4 graphic in your comment @ 8 refers to forcings only seemingly including cloud albedo under that rubric. Maybe that has contributed to the confusion. Thanks for trying :-). -
Stephen Baines at 14:47 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
BTW. This is a nice summary by John. I learn something again. I also want to agree with Ned. This discussion of insolation and skin temperatures is a distraction. All other things being equal (insolation included), evaporation and water vapor should increase if the earth and atmosphere warm. -
scaddenp at 14:43 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
JohnD - how can wind be a forcing? -
Joe Blog at 14:29 PM on 21 October 2010Throwing Stones at the Greenhouse Effect
RSVP at 20:30 PM on 20 October, 2010 says "IR travels at the "speed of light", some 3 x 10E8 meter per second. Maybe you can explain where the delay is coming from?" Ok... all matter radiates, a rock dosnt just radiate at its surface, it is radiating according to its temperature all the way through its center, but rocks are extremely opaque to both LW and SW. So what this means, is that the energy transfer through radiation, through its center, is indistinguishable from conduction, its a differential in T that allows a flow of heat, if something is extremely opaque to LW radiation, the difference in T between molecules will be very similiar, limiting the amount of energy able to be transmitted, which will be a result of its boundary conditions, at what rate it is absorbing, or emitting energy. With a temperature gradient necessary to allow a flow of energy through radiation (or conduction, or convection, but rocks dont convect very well at normal terrestrial T's). The reason is simple, if its neighboring molecule is at the same T, it will be emitting the same as it is absorbing. Essentially meaning no change in energy. Or local thermal equilibrium LTE. So by increasing the opacity of a gas, you are essentially restricting the distance energy can travel via radiation. Making it behave more like a solid, in regards to the passing of energy through LW radiation. The temperature gradient, will restrict the flow of energy out of the system, because it is only the net difference between layers that is being transmitted. And the more opaque a gas is, the shorter the distance between the emitting and absorbing molecule will be, the smaller the difference in T will be between molecules, the smaller the amount of net energy flow will be. And thats why. -
Increasing southern sea ice: a basic rebuttal
chriscanaris, The figure you just cited does not plot SST temperatures directly, please read more carefully. It is plotting the variability of SST's, which is a measure of how "spread out" the data is. A plot of variability is not going to tell you whether the data was going up or down, just that it was changing. Ironically, that paper is using the same raw SST data series (NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data) as the Zhang paper that scaddenp referred you to. If you are interested in actual SST trends in the antarctic, take a look at that paper. It is linked in the intermediate version of this post (or just look at the figures duplicated from that paper in the intermediate post). -
Stephen Baines at 14:14 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
Johnd, are you suggesting that the most solar radiation is absorbed by the skin of the ocean, rather than by layers beneathe the surface? The citation you refer to is for calculating evapotranspiration on land, where light does not penetrate beneathe the "skin", at least not far. Water is actually fairly transparent to light so the very thin "skin" accounts for little of the absorbance, although eventually most incoming light is absorbed at depth. The skin temperature of the ocean (where the vast majority of evaporation on earth happens) is largely a function of mixed water column temperature as a whole, which reflects the balance between inputs (solar radiation, incoming IR radiation) and outputs (outgoing IR radiation, evaporation, convection, mixing)of heat energy. As the earth's temperature increases that heat balance results in higher mixed layer temps, which leads to high skin temps and greater evaporation. -
johnd at 14:06 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
Ned, I feel it is both relevant and important enough to clarify given the statement in the article "Water vapor provides the most powerful feedback in the climate system. When surface temperature warms, this leads to an increase in atmospheric humidity." I feel that is not conveying a sense of the correct drivers that are most relevant to how water vapour enters the atmosphere in the first place. There is a need to be sure that the foundations any discussion is built upon are fully understood and solid. -
Ned at 13:57 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
This doesn't seem like a particularly relevant or useful start to the discussion of this topic. John's done some nice work looking at humidity trends wrt the water vapor feedback, and it would be a shame to divert the discussion right from the start into a lot of wrangling over minutia. -
Ned at 13:42 PM on 21 October 2010Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
You also might want to consider whether CO2 or "the Sun" is a better fit for the temperature trend, especially post-1970s:
Ignore the PDO line for now, and just focus on temperatures (RSS, GISS), CO2, and TSI (solar).
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PDO data from University of Washington. Surface temperatures from GISS land+ocean. Satellite temperatures from RSS. Law Dome CO2 from NOAA NCDC. Mauna Loa CO2 from NOAA ESRL. PDO and temperature data shown in monthly and 120-month LOESS smoothed versions. Law Dome CO2 dating based on "air age" with 20-year smoothing. Mauna Loa CO2 (monthly) are seasonally adjusted. Both CO2 data sets were log-transformed (base 2). Data sets with differing units (PDO, temperature, log[CO2]) have been scaled to fit on the same graph. Solar irradiance data from University of Colorado, shown annually and with a 22-year LOESS smoothing function.
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johnd at 13:39 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
Ned, for solar radiation to manifest itself as a forcing it must first be absorbed. In this case I am referring to that portion of the solar energy that is absorbed at the skin of the water and is immediately transferred to the water vapour so transformed and becomes part of the atmosphere. The solar radiation that is not absorbed at the skin, but progressively at further depths then goes on to manifest itself, and be measured, in different ways. -
Ned at 13:36 PM on 21 October 2010Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
oxymoron, you might want to look at the following: CO2 is not the only driver of climate What happened to greenhouse warming during mid-century cooling? -
GFW at 13:22 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
Does he have a point about wind though? If warming temperatures caused less mixing, the absolute humidity at the surface could rise, while falling at greater altitudes, thus introducing a negative feedback. I suspect that warming temperature _won't_ cause less mixing, and there's probably already data on whether it will/does, but at least it seems like there's a scientific possibility in there. (Not that anything really defeats the paleo evidence for a sensitivity around 3, so any discovery of previously overlooked feedbacks is like showing your work when the answer is known.) -
oxymoron at 13:17 PM on 21 October 2010Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
archiesteel: CO2 concentrations began rising significantly around 1940, but temperatures dropped from 1940 to 1970, so it definitely is not CO2. -
chris1204 at 13:13 PM on 21 October 2010Increasing southern sea ice: a basic rebuttal
Philippe @ 12 Figure 7 in Verdy, Marshall, & Czaja suggests overall cooling since the 1980s. However, ice loss is ice loss until proven otherwise. -
archiesteel at 13:11 PM on 21 October 2010Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
@oxymoron: sorry, but it's definitely not the sun. Arctic air temperatures have been going up in the past decades, like CO2 concentration, while TSI has been going down. -
Ned at 13:09 PM on 21 October 2010Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
chriscanaris, what am I supposed to be seeing in that quote? I'm afraid I'm not getting it. Volcanic aerosols are a forcing. Anthropogenic aerosols are also a forcing, but cloud albedo is a feedback. The terminology is important, but even with that aside I'm still not quite following what you're trying to say. Maybe if I sign off for the night and get some sleep it will be obvious in the morning... -
chris1204 at 12:54 PM on 21 October 2010Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
Ned @ 69: Take a look at this excerpt on climate impact of volcanoes. 'Volcanic aerosol particles scatter and absorb a fraction of incoming solar radiation, as well as absorbing a fraction of outgoing terrestrial radiation. The change in global temperatures caused by the aerosols from El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo is estimated to be 0.2¡C and 0.5¡C. However both these values lie within the natural variability of temperature.' Volcanic forcings don't seem to behave differently from aerosol and cloud albedo forcings though undoubtedly they are presumably nearly entirely independent of temperature whereas the relationship between aerosols, clouds, and temperature eventually becomes very complex and, somewhat to my regret, confusing partly because of the uncertainties around the feedbacks. -
Ned at 12:51 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
No, johnd. If increasing solar radiation were warming the planet, then solar radiation would be the forcing and increasing humidity would be one among several feedbacks. Likewise, if increasing CO2 leads to an increase in humidity, CO2 is the forcing and water vapor is the feedback. On Earth, water vapor is basically never seen acting as a forcing. -
oxymoron at 12:47 PM on 21 October 2010Do 500 scientists refute anthropogenic global warming?
Sorry, it's the sun. Arctic air temperature is strongly correlated with total solar irradiance over the period 1880 to 2000 [Soon, W. (2005) Geophysical Research Letters 32, 2005GL023429, and Hoyt, D. V. and Schatten, K. H. (1993) J. Geophvsical Res. 98, 18895-18906]. What is NOT correlated with arctic air temperature is hydrocarbon use [Marland, G., Boden, T. A., and Andres, Ri J. (2007) Global, Regional, and National CO2 Emissions. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, TN, USA] -
Ned at 12:47 PM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Your [Peter's] carefully researched postings really raise the level of discussion. Yes. This is a really nicely done post. Like michael sweet, I really look forward to new comments or posts by Peter Hogarth. -
Ned at 12:41 PM on 21 October 2010Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
chriscanaris writes: Moreover, I did *not* at any time suggest that 'one creates policy based on assuming that the true value of an estimate is at the extreme negative value of a very wide error bar.' I agree, you didn't suggest that. This is a busy site and when the comments get flying it's easy for us all to misinterpret each other. I know it's very annoying when people misunderstand me, or attribute someone else's views to me, or whatever. In kdkd's defense it gets a bit tiresome being repeatedly confronted with an argument that appears to be, in essence, "Well, there is a large uncertainty band around the best estimate for [whatever], so maybe things won't be as bad as those doomsayers claim." Your comments have much more nuance than that, and all of us should probably do a better job of being alert to nuances in others' comments. It's difficult when one's patience is worn down by some of the more unreasonable and unhelpful commenters here. More chriscanarises among our SkS "sceptic" contingent would be a distinct improvement, IMHO. -
michael sweet at 12:20 PM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Peter Hogarth: I was linking to Dr. Hansens' web site to defend the GISS data. My position is that both DMI and GISS are good records and can be used for the purpose you use them in this article. I dislike people who choose one record and distort another, especially since they cite blogs (or personal opinion) and not peer reviewed papers. I am glad to see you back. Your carefully researched postings really raise the level of discussion. -
Ned at 12:20 PM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
archiesteel writes: You seem to be missing the obvious: the DMI data shows a dramatic warming trend. In fact, as I indicated at the beginning of this comment trend, the DMI agrees with the dramatic warming of the arctic over the last decades. To be precise, the 50-year trend in DMI's temperature is just slightly higher than the trend in GISS (0.37C/decade vs 0.35C/decade), though this difference may be accounted for by the slightly different areas included in the two. See Peter Hogarth's excellent Figure 3 from the top of this thread. -
Ned at 12:16 PM on 21 October 2010Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
Goddard is just trying to get attention, and should probably be ignored. The comment here by Albatross is just great. I too had read through the van Hoof 2005 paper but didn't get around to commenting, and I'm glad I didn't waste my time because Albatross's response is better than mine would have been. Once again BP is making strong claims that don't really stand up under close examination. This is IMHO unfortunate because many of the papers or sources that BP cites in his comments on this site are very interesting and could probably lead to some good discussions if he could just stop making these exaggerated claims that every one of them conclusively disproves AGW. A more modest approach to interpreting the evidence would probably do wonders for BP's credibility on this site, IMHO. -
kdkd at 12:10 PM on 21 October 2010Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
chriscanaris #75 Can you please point out where you perceive my language was incautious? If you're not advocating policy based on assuming that the true value of an estimate is at the extreme negative value of a very wide error bar, then that's fine. However you haven't made this clear. What would climate sensitivity be with strong negative feedback from clouds assumed by the way? -
johnd at 12:09 PM on 21 October 2010Climate cherry pickers: Falling humidity
The article seems to overlook the relative importance of solar radiation and wind as being the two main drivers of evaporation, translating as the skin temperature of the evaporating surface rather than ambient temperature, and the airflow over it, which in the case of solar radiation would make water vapour more of a forcing than a feedback. This paper details the calculations and the various inputs that are involved BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY REFERENCE EVAPOTRANSPIRATION CALCULATIONS -
archiesteel at 11:57 AM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
@FLansner: "We have only the choice between data measured in the area (DMI) or data projected from land far away. I think you need biiiig globalwarming glasses not to see what data source is most reliable." You seem to be missing the obvious: the DMI data shows a dramatic warming trend. In fact, as I indicated at the beginning of this comment trend, the DMI agrees with the dramatic warming of the arctic over the last decades. Who should I trust on what the DMI data says? Web contrarians or the DMI itself? -
scaddenp at 11:56 AM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Can someone fill me in on a question that bothers me about air temperatures above ice/snow? The heating of surface is radiative and from AGW point of view the interest is LW radiation. For ice-free land/sea then I would expect the air temperature 2m above ground to reflect this warming of the ground surface. But above ice/snow? Unless there was evaporation/sublimation going on, how much heat transfer is there into the air above? If surface warms from say -20 to -10, is that going to be reflected in the cold dry air above it? -
chris1204 at 11:05 AM on 21 October 2010Do critics of the hockey stick realise what they're arguing for?
Phila @ 70 What may be confusing people is the apparent implication that this somehow makes you different from anyone else, or that this view is some sort of alternative or corrective to what the what of us think. Sorry to confuse :-) I've long shed any pretensions to any unique status. KDKD: With respect, your language was certainly neither conservative nor cautious. I've been reading scientific literature principally in my field for as long time - I do have some passing familiarity with academic writing. Moreover, I did *not* at any time suggest that 'one creates policy based on assuming that the true value of an estimate is at the extreme negative value of a very wide error bar.' Ned: You're right - I genuinely do find the notion of the apparent mutual exclusivity of high climate sensitivity and negative feedback from clouds difficult to grasp. Give me time - and I'll certainly go hunting around the Internet for ideas. -
Albatross at 10:50 AM on 21 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Something else to consider. Here are surface temperatures (not air temperatures) for northern high latitudes derived from satellite data between 1981 and 2003. -
kdkd at 10:16 AM on 21 October 2010It's the sun
KL #705 "Hence rising temperatures with 'flat' non-zero forcing are quite consistent with the 'Temperature vs. Solar Activity chart on the Basic version of this thread'" That may be the case, if we didn't have additional data showing that the role of CO2 has been strong for the past 60 years. However we do. If you omit key information, then your hypothesis would appear credible. However omitting key information is not justified, so your hypotheis is not credible.
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