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Comments 108201 to 108250:

  1. Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
    @NETDR: that is almost the exact same message you posted in a different thread, repeating the same erroneous affirmations which were thoroughly debunked in that previous thread. At this point, I think it's fair to say you're not interested in learning, but only in regurgitating the talking points you've read on contrarian sites. Trolling, in other words.
  2. Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
    Sounds as though you have a hypothesis about a cooling ocean, NETDR, a hypothesis you prefer because (as your last sentence suggests) it fits your political perspective. You're touting a scientific case for what seems a political reason, only your case is incredibly thin compared to that offered by the IPCC. For my part, I'll go on listening to the scientists. Lest anybody be confused by NETDR's rarefied treatment of ocean heat, here's a synopsis of the latest thinking on OHC measurements, "Robust warming of the global upper ocean" where the matter can further be discussed. Regarding surface temperatures, see Did global warming stop in 1998?.
  3. Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
    As I ***understand*** it... (Fingers too fast, eyes too slow.) :-)
  4. Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
    NETDR... Can you please inform us which scientists are using the 6C rate? As I understanding it everyone is fairly well in agreement on 3C being the best fit. Your argument seems a bit of a straw man.
  5. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    @ Ken Lambert, 93 "What does that mean SRJ?? Does it mean no statistically significant warming at all in either time period??" No it means a ten year period is too short a time to see a linear trend in the monthly data - given the size of the trend and the annual variability. To get a statistical significant trend one needs around 14 years of monthly data. See Taminos article "How long". And by the way, the trend for the period 1990-2010 is statistical significant: 0.0206 K/yr +/- 0.0033 K/yr (AR1 corrected) Double the probable error to get 95% confidence interval. "No different from a random walk perhaps??" I think usually when one examines statistical significance of a trend, it is against the alternative of observing that trend in a series of white noise numbers. When using the AR1 corrected probable error, that changes to testing against a series of numbers with a similar AR1 structure. So I guess one could say for 10 years of monthly data we could find as large a trend as I did if we had a series of numbers of the same length with similar AR1. This is off topic for the thread so if you have more questions you need to find an appropiate thread to take the discussion to.
  6. Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
    The article states: "The decade 2000-2009 was, globally, around 0.15 °C warmer than the decade 1990-1999." Make of that what you will. . OK I will! That is a long way from the 6 ° C warming which some scientists have lead us to believe will occur in the next 100 years. Why should we believe the rate will accelerate? . So far the warming has been far below the 6 ° C rate the scientists want to use for a doubling of CO2. Since we have had 1/3 of a doubling of CO2 we should have had more than 2 ° C warming we haven’t had this. [.7 ° C is the accepted value and less than ½ of that is from CO2 in the best case.] The relationship is logarithmic so this understates the expected warming. . To get around this scientists have speculated that the ”missing heat” is stored in the oceans ! The problem is that since 2005 both the atmosphere and the ocean have been cooling. http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/ http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2005/to:2009/plot/uah/from:2005/to:2009/trend Some have SPECULATED that the missing heat may be in the deep parts of the ocean but since they haven’t measured to test this speculation they don’t know. One article claims to have found 20 % of it. . The most important and ignored part of the missing heat controversy is when the heat will return. ? The surface area of the ocean is orders of magnitude greater than the slight polar warming the article seem to find. When will the missing heat return to the surface where it can cause substantial warming ? . Since we are only speculating where the heat has gone and have only speculation about how it got there how can we predict how long it will be until it returns ? Answer: We can’t ! We have a theory of CAGW which DEPENDS upon the “missing heat ” returning in the next 100 years and we don’t know where the heat is and don’t know if or when it will return. Since we cannot find it we cannot measure it so we don’t know much of it exists. . Despite all of this “the debate is over” and we should throw ten’s of trillions of dollars at the nearest politician to make it go away.
  7. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    KL #98 "Do you start at (0,0) in AD1750? To do that you must assume that Solar forcing was zero in AD1750. To do that you must assume that the Earth was in equilibrium -no heating or cooling from Solar forcing and of course no AG forcings exist." Thanks for demonstrating another fundamental flaw with your analysis which has been pointed out to you previously. There is no assumption of equilibrium here - the figure of 0 is merely a baseline, which has nothing to do with equilibrium at all. The logic underlying one of your fundamental assumptions is wrong, and there's absolutely no getting around that. Although you could continue to ignore the problems with your argument and continue with the same old repetitive rubbish.
  8. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    JMurphy #99 Happy for you to point out the parts of my post #98 which are wrong JMurphy. Where do you want to start?
  9. Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
    I'm not sure "self selected “skeptics”" means anything. If you mean Anthony Kelly and Alan Rudge as the two individuals they don't seem to be authors. The authors are listed under "Working Group The Royal Society would like to acknowledge the members of the working group that produced this document" While the two above are listed under "Contributors The Royal Society gratefully acknowledges the contribution of individuals who have commented on the document at earlier stages of its preparation. These individuals were not asked to endorse the document." Commenting on and not endorsing is very different to authoring.
  10. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    Ken Lambert wrote : "Maybe all those 'scientists' out there who are working on their complex specialties miss the simpler minded basics." Of course ! That must be it. Not only are none of them proper scientists (they are 'scientists') but they are probably not reading these threads (especially the ones you are posting on) and thereby missing all the basic stuff that they have obviously forgotten about. I think we should all make it our duties to contact as many of them as possible and pass on your details so they can be made aware of what they are stupidly missing. They are SO going to kick themselves...;-)
  11. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    Ned #77 "Ken, that's just handwaving." Handwaving - a new scientific or engineering term Ned? Forcing is an unscientific term for energy flux or power with the units W/sq.m. These values are instantaneous at any point in time. Total energy transferred is the time integral of the forcing - and temperature change beween times T1 and T2 is a measure of the total energy transferred to or removed from the mass in that period. By definition all the AG forcings were zero in pre-industrial times (set at AD1750 by IPCC AR4). If you plot the AG forcings (heating and cooling) in W/sq.m on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis, you will start at (0,0) in AD1750. Integrate the Forcings WRT time and you will get the area under these curves (positive or negative) and the sum of these areas will give the total energy balance in Joules added or removed from the Earth system due to AG forcings. CO2GHG should be positive and Aerosol albedo should be negative. Throw in volcanic aerosol cooling as well if you like. Now do the same chart with 'natural' Solar forcing with W/sq.m on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis and plot the curve. Do you start at (0,0) in AD1750? To do that you must assume that Solar forcing was zero in AD1750. To do that you must assume that the Earth was in equilibrium -no heating or cooling from Solar forcing and of course no AG forcings exist. With me?? Now we have already seen that the areas under all the AG curves when summed give the total energy applied to the Earth system since AD1750, so similarly the area under the Solar forcing curve will give the Solar energy applied to same. If the Solar forcing curve were to start not at (0,0) but say (0.1W/sq.m, 0) - a slight positive forcing, then the extra area under the curve would be offset positively by 0.1W/sq.m x 260 years x 365 days x 24 hours x 3600 seconds x surface area of Earth; which equals approx 4190E20 Joules. At Dr Trenberth's current 145E20 Joules/year imbalance -that equals 29 years warming at todays full rate and 56 years warming at half rate, which alone would account for a big chunk of 20th century temperature increase by energy imbalance, without the rest of the curve which we know is also positive. Now do you see the importance of a non-zero Solar forcing in AD1750?? Maybe all those 'scientists' out there who are working on their complex specialties miss the simpler minded basics.
  12. Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
    Are the GWPF reading the same Royal Society report that everyone else is ? I understand that WUWT also like the report. Are the so-called skeptics so desperate that they will avidly feed on any crumbs no matter how illogical to their own stance (see also the recent Loehle belief about the Ljungqvist paper) ? Or do they really see reality in a different way, for some strange reason ?
  13. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    Even more than the point that a long time frame with statistically significant warming will likely not show that warming at the same confidence level when carved up into smaller sub-durations, I think the telling part of this analysis is that the supposed 'extreme warming' of the 90s and 'cooling' of the 00s are not statistically different from each other. In short, people are assigning different perceptual significance to things which are mathematically NOT different. The reality is that both decades show apparent warming, but it falls short of 95% confidence until the longer combined period is considered.
  14. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    KL #93 "No different from a random walk perhaps??" Another piece of so-called sceptic misanalysis of the instrumental record you've latched onto. Yes, quite different from a "random walk" when the analysis is done properly, according to the respectable analysis I've read in the past. But with abuse of the assumptions, as ever it's possible to "prove" anything using statistics - the trick is knowing when the assumptions have been abused. In the case of the WUWT crowd (where I think the 'random walk' idea came from) this seems to be pretty much any time they do statistical 'analysis'.
  15. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    It might be helpful for Ken to consider the following set of questions: Is the temperature trend during the first week of spring significant? Is the temperature trend during the second week of spring significant? ... Is the temperature trend during the last week of spring significant? If your answer to each of the above questions happened to be "No", would that mean that there's no temperature change between winter and summer?
  16. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    Getting excited there, Ken? Guess what? The warming in the 1980s is not statistically significant on its own. The warming in the 1990s is not statistically significant on its own. The warming in the 2000s is not statistically significant on its own. But the warming from 1980-2009 is very highly significant. Can you explain what that means, Ken?
  17. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    SRJ #92 "Correcting for AR1-noise, they are not statistical significant on their own." What does that mean SRJ?? Does it mean no statistically significant warming at all in either time period?? No different from a random walk perhaps??
  18. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    batsvensson, let's say an apple grows on a tree. To do so it had to absorb carbon out of the atmosphere. That carbon is now in the apple. However, this carbon will eventually be returned to the atmosphere... whether it passes through a human who ate the apple or the apple simply falls and decomposes on the ground all of the carbon that the apple eventually puts into the atmosphere came FROM the atmosphere in the first place. Thus, neither increasing nor decreasing the number of human 'producers of CO2' would have any impact on total atmospheric CO2 levels... we can't increase the atmospheric CO2 level when all of the carbon in our bodies came from the atmosphere. We're just 'temporary storage'.
  19. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    Quit interesting argument that a producer of something doesnt contribute with anything. How does this argument logical account for the possibility of the removal of a producer?
  20. Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
    adelady at 22:46 PM, I don't think that there is any viable alternative to feeding the masses other than the way agriculture is heading. Advances in technology now has twice as many people being fed off half the area of land compared to not so long ago, and that trend is still continuing. Where the really BIG advances can be, and MUST be made is to reduce the waste. Modern lifestyles means that only about half of the nutrients stripped from the soil and converted to food are actually utilised, the rest being lost as wastage along the way or simply being thrown out. Virtually none of that wastage, or any of the waste byproducts produced even if the food is consumed wisely, make it back to the point of origin to be recycled. I think it is a nonsense to expect that the problems can be fixed by changing farming methods when all such changes will do is allow the mindset that is oblivious to all the wastage to perhaps waste even more. In recent years we saw such mindset when Victorian politicians congratulated capital city dwellers on reducing water consumption by X litres per day. That left many country dwellers wondering what the city dwellers were doing with what they, the country dwellers, considered a precious resource, as their own normal daily consumption was somewhat less than the X litres supposedly being saved. Now that it has rained, the water saving measures are being relaxed and people are again free to quickly resume the wasteful usage of water once again.
  21. An underwater hockey stick
    Moberg not Mobert haha
    Response: It's been a long week :-( I fixed that error and while I was in there, I anti-aliased the text (it really bothered me that I'd missed that) and added some descriptive text to Figure 1 in case someone copies and pastes it out of context onto some other website.
  22. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    I thought checking the qualifications of the writers of paper on GW was one of the methods that was used to discredit various people's opinions on GW. Monckton comes to mind. For example this quote from the abstract:
    The analysis considers two time periods — one during the time when the papers were found to be overstating challenges to then prevailing scientific consensus, and the other focusing on 2008, after the IPCC and former Vice-President Gore shared the Nobel Prize for their work on climate disruption, and before opinion polls showed the U.S. public to be growing more skeptical toward climate science once again.
    This sentence could be written in a more neutral and informative way by stating the dates for the control period and another set of dates for the after period. The next few sentences could state the events that set those dates and the names of the papers used. Are winter and summer and 1998-2002 and 2008 and on so hard to write? Are New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and WST so hard to write? My comment is no more vacuous than that of Freudenberg and Muselli:
    Instead, Hirt emphasized that organized industrial interests -- often in alliance with relevant governmental agencies of that era, most notably the U.S. Forest Service-- tended not just to support lines of research that indicated higher levels of logging to be "sustainable", but also to hire the most skillful experts available to challenge or attack any research that might have suggested the need to reduce logging rates.
    Muselli comes to mind as fitting this bill for environmental interests.
  23. Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
    Way back yesterday, chriscanaris wrote: 1) CO2 has been rising 2) Temperatures have been rising 3) (1) very likely has made a substantial but not exclusive contribution to (2) As you know, I'm always grateful to see sceptics agreeing with these points. It's nice to know there is some common ground here. I will try to reciprocate (at least a little!) below. continuing... 4) We're not as confident that temperature rise is unprecedented - ie, we have some doubts about the palaeoclimate proxy record when it is 'spliced' onto the modern record I'm pretty confident that this is the warmest it's been in the past few millennia (and that unless we act soon we will exceed the peak warmth of the previous interglacial). But, from your perspective, can you explain why this question of "precedents" is important? I can see two possibilities. Some people seem to believe that if one or more previous intervals were as warm as today (for presumably "natural" reasons, ignoring Bill Ruddiman), then that would cast doubt on the anthropogenic origins of modern warming. An alternative reason for focusing on "precedence" is the idea that if societies and ecosystems survived an equally warm period in the past, the impacts of modern warming can't be too serious. IMHO there are obvious, serious flaws with the first alternative and more subtle issues with the second. (It's also possible you have some other reason for placing importance on the question of "precedents" that isn't obvious to me...) OK, back to chriscanaris: 5) We don't want to overlook the role of other feedbacks which may be important whether as exacerbating or mitigating factors I appreciate the way you worded this. It's important to keep in mind that the range of values for climate sensitivity (2 to 4.5 C per doubling) is intended to cover the uncertainty on both the high side and the low side, around a best estimate of 3 C. It is frustrating to me that so many sceptics focus exclusively on one half of this range of uncertainty while ignoring the other half. That seems like a dangerous (if all too human) irrational mindset. It is very easy to justify a low value for climate sensitivity if one hunts for all possible lines of reasoning that would support a low value while (not necessarily deliberately) avoiding thinking about those that would support a high value. This, to my mind, is a rather common theme in the writings of a great many "sceptics" on this site. chriscanaris continues his list: 6)We're not as confident of catastrophic outcomes even if temperatures and CO2 rises more or less as projected This, I think, is your strongest point, at least if you can guarantee that we don't switch over heavily towards burning coal or tar sands when the conventional oil starts to run out. The uncertainty on the question of impacts (economic and environmental) is real. To be perfectly honest, the tendency of many (most?) sceptical commenters to reiterate easily rebutted claims (yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas; no, the CO2 rise is not coming from the ocean; no, there is no way that solar irradiance can explain modern warming) lets us supporters of the "mainstream climate science" position off the hook -- we get to provide easy answers, rather than discussing the more murky questions of impacts & consequences. I don't think the outcomes of a middle-of-the-road emissions scenario will be uniformly "positive" or "negative", but rather a mix of both depending on your location and your viewpoint. And although I use it myself from time to time, I'm not convinced that the "precautionary principle" argument is a really solid one. In balance, I think the costs of 21st century climate change will be greater than the benefits, but I recognize this is a purely qualitative interpretation on my part. Of course, there has to be a limit somewhere. We've burned around 300 GT of carbon since 1750. I agree that the impacts of this are likely mixed. The business-as-usual scenario would see us burning around 2000 GT carbon. If we burned all the reasonable coal reserves available, this would be 5000 GT carbon. I cannot imagine the impacts of the latter scenario being anything short of disastrous. Returning to chriscanaris's comments: 7)Even if our reservations in (4),(5), and (6) prove to be correct, becoming much less dependent on fossil fuel and decarbonising our economies and our emissions is a very good idea anyway for lots of other reasons. Thank you for including that. I think it would be really helpful if our society could focus on identifying common grounds for at least some action, and go ahead with those actions while we debate whether concerns about climate change justify further action. 8)However, we're much more likely succeed at (7) if we avoid a panicky response and scare the proverbial horses whilst triggering the laws of unintended consequences. I'll have to remain agnostic on this, I guess. We don't have parallel Earths to experiment on, so I guess we'll never know whether some hypothetical (different) approach to dealing with the energy/environment/climate nexus would have worked better. There is certainly a part of me that would like to believe that we've just handled this all badly and that our failure to take any significant steps on this issue is not a sign of inherent failings in human nature. Who knows? Anyway, thank you for your comments, chriscanaris -- as always they are a bit of a breath of fresh air after reading too many frankly silly dispatches from strangely unsceptical "sceptics" here and elsewhere.
  24. It's not bad
    'Severe consequences for over 60 million people dependent on ice and snow melt for water supply (Barnett 2005, Immerzeel 2010)' It's good to see that you update things, JC, but now you've understated the problem. Immerzeel et al's 60 million is related to ice-melt alone (not ice and snow) and is for only five river basins. Adding the inhabitants of the Tarim oases in NW China might take the number that'll eventually be threatened with food insecurity because of vanished glaciers up to 70 million. (I've never found a reliable number for the western China component. Thanks to Barnett et al, many sources say that 23% of China's population - all in Western China - relies on glacial melt but that's hooey. I suspect the claim originated with a journalist's ambiguous padding of a 2004 newspaper interview with Yao Tandong.) Adding a quota for ex-Soviet Central Asia might take you to... 100 million? The small populations outside Asia... Dunno, but a wild guess: 150 million in all. Or you could stick with ice *and* snow melt and reinstate Barnett's (dodgy) 1 billion. But at the moment you're using a partial number for ice and ascribing it to ice and snow, which is no better than the earlier problem (Barnett's billion all down to ice).
    Response: Thanks for the feedback. I've gone for "at least 60 million people dependent on ice melt" which is as weak as dishwater but Immerzeel is really the best estimate we've got so far, even if it only covers 5 river basins. Where does your figure for NW China come from?
  25. An underwater hockey stick
    The Ville, Yes, slow down!! But, maybe not. I keep leaving aside interesting posts to read later, but never get to them because another post just as interesting comes up!!! Congratulations, John, this side is easily the best climate science resource on the web.
  26. IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    The Ville, I wouldn't say Spencer is indecisive so much as 'conflicted'. He has religious ('creationism is more logical than evolution') and political ('environmentalists want to wreck the economy') beliefs which are at odds with observed reality. Over time the scientist in him has given more and more ground to reality, but he still clings to core beliefs in any case where he can construct possible doubt in his own mind. That said, his calls (along with others) for a sort of 'anti IPCC' which would receive large amounts of funding to 'find evidence against AGW' is inherently anti-scientific. It is a continuation of the 'skeptic' myth that AGW findings are all due to scientific bias and efforts to get funding. They suggest that without funding 'scientists' dedicated to the view that AGW is false we can't get an accurate picture. Which is nonsense because true scientists look at reality and make conclusions... not make conclusions and then try to fit 'reality' to them. This is why climate scientists are constantly finding things which don't immediately add up; the area around Antarctica is warming... but sea ice there is increasing, sea levels are rising... but the measured increases in ocean heat content and land ice melt are too low to explain this sea level rise, earlier OHC measures actually showed cooling... until errors in the instruments were discovered, et cetera. The REAL skeptics are already reporting contradictory findings and searching for alternative explanations... within the bounds of consistency and reason. Spencer straddles the line... drifting back and forth between skeptic and 'skeptic'.
  27. Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
    chriscanaris, you know very well that there are many so-called skeptics out there (including self-appointed auditors) who are obsessive about proving a global MWP. Why do you think that is ? And, don't forget that another self-appointed blog expert has only this year brought out a book referring once again to the 'hockey-stick'. Finally, you have only to read the threads about the 'hockey-stick' on this site, to see so-called skeptics claiming that Mann has been 'proved wrong' (which seems to suggest that, therefore, AGW is also proven false) and that McIntyre, etc. are heroes who have proved...well, who knows, but they keep coming up for adoration by some on here. Why the obsession ?
  28. An underwater hockey stick
    Nice post, John. Also, I like the use of the francophone spelling in the Y-axis of the graphs.
  29. An underwater hockey stick
    The Ville, John Cook is trying to show what overwhelming evidence means ;)
  30. New temperature reconstruction vindicates ...
    @80 Mathew and 85 kdkd Regarding the trend for 1990-2000 vs. 2000-present: I made a plot showing the trend for the last period August 2000-August 2010 and for the period August 1990- August 2000, with confidence intervals (with and witout AR1 correction) for the trendlines: It shows that the trends are not different from each other in a statistical signicant manner. Correcting for AR1-noise, they are not statistical significant on their own.
  31. An underwater hockey stick
    I can't keep up with all the posts on this site. Slow down! (not).
  32. IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    Actually on a similar note, the Royal Society here in the UK has been forced to change it's document about climate science by a minority of members that suggested it didn't make clear what the uncertainties are. Some of the members complaining are members of Nigel Lawsons political climate change skeptic group. Lawson is pro fiscally neutral taxation regimes, so he doesn't like the idea of 'green' companies getting tax breaks. eg. it's a case of the science having to fit his political ideology.
  33. IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    Spencer is really naive in my opinion. It is irresponsible to just effectively say 'science should just be a direction-less talking shop'. The IPPC was set up to assess the science and give advice. The 'goal' would change as the science changes. Maybe his indecisive personality is reflected in the fact that he mixes religion and science. Really his whole philosophy is that people can choose what to believe. Does he actually get things done? Or does he argue with himself all day trying to decide whether to mow the lawn or not?
  34. Newcomers, Start Here
    It isn't just adaptation to climate that is a problem. Changing climate also results in changing diseases and vulnerabilities to other changes, which are indirect issues. eg. species of tree may be able survive a changed climate, but they may be susceptible to a disease that climate brings with it or other invasive species. Polar bears have led a relatively isolated existence, warmer conditions may wipe them out because of a lack of immunity to invasive disease carried by other species that migrate into Polar bear territory. Humans have a high track record of introducing invasive species that wipe out complete populations of native species. Climate change can do the same thing.
  35. IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    Let me repeat myself: Despite strong political reasons for them not to endorse, the following countries endorsed the IPCC 2007 reports because the science was undeniable: United States of America - Fossil fuel-based economy, strong lobby efforts opposed to regulating fossil fuel emissions Saudi Arabia - World's largest producer/exporter of oil China - Rapidly industrializing using coal-fired power plants India - Rapidly industrializing using coal-fired power plants The IPCC WGI Report (2007) concluded: “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” 130 countries endorsed the reports, and since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion. Politics? Hardly. Spencer, as a scientist, should know that one cannot make such grand claims without supporting evidence.
  36. Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
    As for "a clear MWP hotter than today", that *would* be the final nail in the coffin of the idea that climate sensitivity is a small or manageable number. The last thing anyone wants is this or any other confirmation that climate sensitivity is on the much higher side rather than the lower.
  37. Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
    Chris, the discussion was about agriculture. I very much doubt anyone with any brains would use goats for anything but reclaiming degraded growing areas. They're particularly good for areas within a farm infested with blackberry and the like. (Though I personally think pigs are better for this.) I know of no grain crop that grows under forest cover, especially not native forest.
  38. Newcomers, Start Here
    johnd, the word adaptation is used both in the sense of evolutionary adaptation or of adaptive capacity of the individuals. The former is a very slow process, it is passed to offspring and it takes many generations for small gradual changes; fast reproduction and short lifecycle would be an advantage. The latter is much faster but it is not passed to offspring. Polar bears cannot count on evolutionary adaptation, it's much too slow. Also, they are a very specilized and occupy a narrow ecological niche. Theese facts strongly limit their capability to adapt. In any case it's a race with time, the faster the change the less the odds that a specie will survive a change. And don't forget that climate change adds to other stresses.
  39. Newcomers, Start Here
    It seems to me that the problem facing polar bears is not so much their supposed inability to adapt to a changing, warmer climate, but trying to maintain an environment, any environment, that puts some distance between themselves and humans. I don't think those who fear the inability to adapt fully appreciate just how rapidly most species can adapt to new completely different environments. Unless there is some special genetic makeup within the polar bear DNA that gives it an inability to adapt, it should be able to adapt as many other species have adapted in the past, and are still doing so, moving from one region to another transported over land or shipped by sea, or now days at times by air. Is there any accumulated evidence where the polar bear has demonstrated a special inability to adapt to different climatic conditions or is it just supposition?
    Response: "...it should be able to adapt as many other species have adapted in the past"

    This seems to be a common misconception - that animals will simply adapt to climate change. Throughout Earth's history, there have been periods where climate has changed so abruptly, animals have not been able to adapt quickly enough. These periods are known as mass extinctions. In the Permian mass extinction, between 80–95% of all marine species went extinct. In the Triassic mass extinction, around 80% of all land quadrupeds went extinct.  Virtually no large land animals survived the Cretaceous mass extinction 65 million years ago (this is famous for the demise of the dinosaurs). Our current period is being described as the 6th mass extinction in Earth's history.
  40. Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
    Doug's right, we are off topic but adelady @ 27 writes: Goats are brilliant at clearing weed infested land, but finding enclosures that are both movable and secure enough would be an issue. Goats are brilliant at clearing weed infested land because they rip plants out by the roots, ie, they literally eradicate. Consequently, they can be a huge problem with regard to deforestation. Coming back on topic, JMurphy @ 29: Identifying a clear MWP hotter than today would not be the final nail in anything. While it would change the parameters of our debate around climate sensitivity and forcings, I'd like to think that most of us who participate in these discussions do so not to score points but to come to a better understanding of the fascinating intricacies of the workings of the world in general and climate in particular. AWG may have been the catalyst to our musings but the science is never *settled* if you are a genuine scientist! :-)
  41. Models are unreliable
    Tom, thanks, and that link does appear to work for us in the Great Unwashed Masses. Vardi makes an excellent point.
  42. IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    I heard somewhere else that a good amount of the "old" or year to year sea ice within the arctic has recovered some since 2007. Is that true?
    Response: There was a slight rebound in the 1 to 2 year old ice but a continued drop in the 2+ year old ice:



    The result is that Arctic sea ice volume (eg - the total amount of ice) reached record low levels in 2010:

  43. Newcomers, Start Here
    What the "polar bears will just adapt" crowd seem to not understand about evolution, is that adaptation to a changing environment is far from guaranteed. The major mass extinctions in the past have all occurred when environmental change was too rapid and/or environmental stress was too strong. This is what we're seeing today. Plus, mass 'extinction' is perhaps a misnomer, as some events are marked by extinction rates dramatically elevated above background levels, while others are marked by dramatically reduced speciation rates. I think our double wammy of human encroachment and environmental change is causing both to occur at the same time.
  44. Models are unreliable
    A good, short, essay on the role of computer models in science is in the journal Communications of the ACM, the September 2010 issue, page 5. I can see it on line for free, but I don't know if that's because I'm an ACM member: Science Has Only Two Legs.
  45. Newcomers, Start Here
    @CW: that's your rebuttal? Weak. Changing light bulbs (preferabley to LEDs) and driving hybrid/electric cars is just smart, regardless of the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting AGW theory. Oil is too valuable to use as fuel.
  46. Newcomers, Start Here
    Ignoring Doug's correction, what you say is right, CW: we should go ahead and take these poor ------s out in the next 50 to 100 years with our paltry 3-7 C warming, because there's no way they could continue to evolve over the next 20,000-30,000 years as insolation slowly creeps toward max. Why stretch it out for them? Indeed, let's go ahead and make that choice for all the other species we couldn't possibly be affecting by our slight changes to the biosphere. Who needs em? What a work is man! How infinite in reason! Or was it density or greed or something like that . . .
  47. Newcomers, Start Here
    I believe you're mixing up BP w/AD, CW.
  48. ClimateWatcher at 11:23 AM on 1 October 2010
    Newcomers, Start Here
    By the way, if you can repress the memory of the HCO ( the peak just prior to the blue dot which marks the present ), and are still convinced that changing your light bulbs ( or as Nissan would sell you, driving a 'Leaf' ) will have any bearing whatsoever on the Ursus Maritimus ( polar bears ), do reflect that nature is going to irradiate the Arctic with greater summer sunshine than present for most of the next fifty thousand years:
  49. IPCC Reports: Science or Spin?
    Yes, nicely done Graham. Worth noting too that whatever "political pressure" may be operating on the IPCC in a general sense is operating in the direction of toning down warnings, as a result of countries such as the US and Saudi Arabia being determined that nothing will be allowed to slow down the profit stream from oil. And that there will be none of this regulation nonsense getting in the way of [polluting] business as usual. Since there has to be consensus this results in only the lowest threat levels being acceptable to all. Whenever individual climate scientists are able to speak without political pressure (and this pressure operates within countries too, again the US being a prime, though not the only, example) their real views are much more gloomy than the IPCC consensus position.
  50. Newcomers, Start Here
    CW's chart is from NOAA, Rob. They've got an interesting discussion of paleoclimate information available. It's a little long in the tooth, last updated 2006. For some fresher Arctic paleo information, see History of sea ice in the Arctic (Polyak et al, 2010) and Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic (Miller et al, 2010)

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