Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings

All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Mastodon MeWe

Twitter YouTube RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Recent Comments

Prev  2166  2167  2168  2169  2170  2171  2172  2173  2174  2175  2176  2177  2178  2179  2180  2181  Next

Comments 108651 to 108700:

  1. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    I posted a link to a peer-reviewed article about denialism to which Anthony seemed to accept. His problem is with the use of "denier" is in the pejorative sense, where AGW denier is like holocaust denier. Although I usually don't see this connection made, except to show that the underlying psychological reaction to information that goes against one's preferred reality is similar (no racism or attempt to downplay the holocaust). I can see why this is bothersome to Anthony, but I doubt this is what John Bruno was attempting. The awkward thing is that Watts' blog is full of the examples shown in the article I posted.
  2. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    ...now zoom in to that graph to see what the data really shows by joining the two known points. And that is a much lower rate of temperature increase over the period. This paper says trends are "evidence". They're just not. Only artual measuments are evidence and they simply dont have enough to say anything about 2005-2010
  3. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Nonsense. Look at the one data point that has two readings in the period of interest. P18. This is the one that they choose to graph in figure 3. You can see what they "want" to show by the way they've trended it back to the early to mid 90's. No zoom in to that graph to see wha
  4. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, F03026, 15 PP., 2010 doi:10.1029/2009JF001522 Ocean regulation hypothesis for glacier dynamics in southeast Greenland and implications for ice sheet mass changes Ocean regulation hypothesis for glacier dynamics in southeast Greenland and implications for ice sheet mass changes T. Murray
  5. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Posted by doug_bostrom on Thursday, 23 September, 2010 at 04:40 AM in amusingly prosaic terms: the newly located reservoir of energy is akin to what would be liberated by loading every man, woman and child on Earth with five 1,400 watt hairdryers each and running those appliances continuously for the 20 year interval between measurements That's about 8.4×1012 W. As surface of oceans is 3.6×1014 m2, this newly discovered heat flux is 23 mW/m2. Average geothermal heat flux at ocean bottom, which is usually considered negligible, is four times that much. In other words it would take about twenty thousand years for mankind to increase ocean temperatures by 1°C using hairdryers. Amusing, indeed.
  6. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Berényi Péter, did I say that WV is not a gas? Did I say it does not absorb IR? Did I say that its distribution is not related to the possible phase changes in the atmosphere? No, obvisously, I was pointing out the opposite. I also warned to treat the various phase separately and that the liquid easily absorbs thermal IR throughout the relevant frequency range. The liquid phase, I'm sure you'll agree, is one the larger uncertainty in many respects and needs a much larger point of view. Finally, no one I'm aware of has calculated the WV effect as a well mixed gas. That local inhomogeneities significantly affect the estimates has yet to be proven.
  7. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    Do the majority of people really care if Greenland is losing a little ice and the oceans are rising a few centimeters and it's getting a little warmer? The people I know have air conditioners for when it's too hot, and more days for the beach, golf, and tennis than before. I've sent them links to Skeptical Science, but they've trashed them. They don't understand all that technical stuff. They don't care whether this or that paper has errors or not, they just know from watching TV, reading magazines and newspapers, and experiencing the weather, that global warming research has been inconclusive. Skeptical Science would have more impact if the topics and discussions swung around to introducing and describing real-world environmental and economic scenarios that will unfold in the wake of climate changes. Write scripts for those disaster movies, but make them realistic. Global warming is not going to bury the Statue of Liberty or send tidal waves over cities. Turn all those meaningless warnings written in technical papers into realistic scenarios the average Joe can understand and interpret, and maybe he will start to notice and reason. Otherwise he will continue along the paths set by big business and the oil industry.
  8. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    TimTheToolMan, it shows that the graphs on which the 'no OHC increase from 2005 to 2010' claim are based are wrong. Those graphs would only be correct if there was minimal warming of the deep oceans on a decadal time scale. However, this study proves that is NOT the case. Portions of the ocean below 4000 m have warmed significantly. Thus, the claim that there has been no increase since 2005 is based on data we now KNOW to be erroneous... and the claim is now PROVEN nonsense rather than merely the OBVIOUS nonsense that it was before. No, we do not have a complete time series for every cubic kilometer of the oceans and thus still cannot produce an accurate OHC measurement graph. But we now have conclusive proof that the previous graphs were leaving out a significant amount of heat. Which, of course, was obvious to begin with since we knew that observed sea level rise matched the heat which we knew SHOULD have been generated by observed radiation fluxes... but the measured ocean heat buildup was inconsistent with both.
  9. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    I know what you mean dorlomin, but it really is a matter of the one way thin skin. Happy to brand people as watermelons or eco-fascists or worse. Shocked horror pulling the skirts away if anyone mumbles the 'd.....' word in the next street.
  10. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    @Ned, #11 "the black line is from Velicogna, some of the green triangles are from Luthcke, and the other green triangles are from ..." Thanks for the info, but that's not my question. The various green triangles have relatively small vertical black lines, drawn in the manner which is usually used to denote error bands. These bands are relatively small, indicating that the various authors of these estimates believe that they have a relatively precise, accurate measurement. Unfortunately, it appears that these multiple, relatively precise measurements are inconsistent with each other. Am I interpreting the graph incorrectly? For example, if two simultaneous measurements of some parameter are expressed as -220+/-10 and -90+/-10 is there not an obvious underestimation of the error of the measurements?
  11. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    No Roger, I'm very much afraid the 'intelligent' thinking is I'm all right, Jack. Someone else can clean up my mess. Attitude much like the 14 yr old kid in the bathroom and the scattered wet towels. More money, more power, more mess. Same attitude.
  12. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    I dont think you understand the problem CBDunkerson. The claim is that there is OHC increase between 2005 and 2010 and the evidence is not from measurement but from extrapolation from a time when there WAS measured warming. The research doesn't ACTUALLY show warming at all. It assumes it.
  13. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    #8 Falcon, there is a slight difference between "on average -101 Gt/yr" and "-101 Gt/yr". The former allows for acceleration and the latter doesn't. From the Geoscience publication: "[..] for the period spanning April 2002 to December 2008, Wu and colleagues find an average annual ice-mass change of −104 ± 23 Gt yr−1 for Greenland and −64 ± 32 Gt yr−1 for West Antarctica."
  14. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    RSVP@44: The people referred to in Roger@43 use their intelligence, but for their own personal gain. The news media is controlled by oil companies and big businesses, and the news media controls conservative actions. Climate change mitigation will cost oil companies and big businesses "trillions of dollars," and no one wants to see their taxes and prices increased to pay for that. Even though several recent surveys have shown that the majority of people in the United States and the world believe global warming is serious and something should be done about it, very little is being done. I guess the intelligent thinking is, "God made the world, let Him fix it."
  15. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    Charlie A: As you might have noticed from the previous comments in this thread, there has been some disagreement among different groups processing the GRACE data (though all show declining mass balance). The different green diamonds (and the black line, too) come from different groups working with the same GRACE data. I don't have the Jiang paper in front of me, but IIRC the black line is from Velicogna, some of the green triangles are from Luthcke, and the other green triangles are from ... someone else I don't remember.
  16. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    TimTheToolMan, whether you find it convincing or not is irrelevant. The research shows that there has been warming of the deep oceans. This disproves the (frankly ridiculous to begin with) claims that previous OHC graphs were capturing all ocean warming. We have found significant warming which was not accounted for in previous results... ergo we now know that some of the "missing OHC" is to be found in deep ocean warming. Precisely where everyone who isn't completely ridiculous thought it must be.
  17. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    How does this paper answer the question of missing OHC between 2005 and 2010 when fewer than half the stations have readings during that period? And almost all of those have but a single reading? What they've done is extrapolated constant warming over the 20-30 year period of the data beyond that which it was actually measured. Very unconvincing.
  18. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    #130 Riccardo at 20:33 PM on 28 September, 2010 you treatment assume a condensed phase behaviour No, it does not. Water vapor is a gas, transparent in the visible portion of the spectrum (with some absorption lines in the near IR though) and lots of absorption in thermal IR, even in the so called "atmospheric window" between 8 and 14 μm (see the slightly mysterious "water vapor continuum"). In its gas (a.k.a. "vapor") phase water is a perfectly legitimate GHG quite independent of its condensed phase ("cloud" or "fog") behavior. It is its atmospheric distribution which is not independent of the fact it can have multiple (gas, fluid, solid) phases under ordinary meteorologic conditions. As soon as a parcel of air gets saturated (due to adiabatic cooling) and precipitation is formed, the air exiting at cloud top is left with very low specific humidity (and high potential temperature). As it enters a cloud free region, it starts to cool radiatively to space, descending slowly. In this process it can get turbulently mixed with other air parcels with different specific humidities, but due to multi-scale properties of turbulent 3D flows this mixing seldom have the chance to complete its job, that is, before homogenization could get down to the molecular level, another saturation episode occurs, resetting the clock once again. Therefore water vapor (gas phase) distribution is very far from being uniform most of the time and under most meteorologic conditions, even under clear skies. So average specific humidity alone can never tell the whole story of its radiative properties, much less column integrated water content. Humidity distribution above the boundary layer is pretty much decoupled from surface temperatures below, reflecting history of air masses involved.
  19. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    Can someone explain the meaning of the error bars in the graph. The various, almost simultaneous, estimates of mass loss by the Grace system have relatively small error bars, but many of them are non-overlapping. It seems that the error bars reflect only statistical sampling error and grossly underestimate the true potential error of the measurements.
  20. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Berényi Péter, to add to my previous comment, absorption coefficient of water is relatively high throughout the infrared and all light is fully absorbed in a few tens of microns. Just a few droplets in the water column will suffice to block all the outgoing radiation.
  21. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Roger A. Wehage #43 God gave us our intelligence. It's up to us to use it.
  22. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    They took exception to your use of the word 'denier'. I would suggest, given the oeuvre of Johns blog, that people writing the posts should be hypersensitive to the sensibilities of the 'other side of the mirror' so as not to afford them opertunities to ignore the content and focus on the style.
  23. A detailed look at galactic cosmic rays
    Argus (d) Fortunately rather than being ignorant and subject to argument by arbitrary assertion, we can use facts to check our understanding of the world.
  24. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Berényi Péter you treatment assume a condensed phase behaviour. As I said before, unless you call water vapour micron size liquid droplets it does not apply. Probably it's just a misunderstanding, you include clouds under the term water vapour. In this case, I agree with you, distribution does matter. By the way, it's included in any model.
  25. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    #7 cynicus I hadn't seen Luthcke et al 2007, thanks for that. In my view it reinforces the need to point out and quantify the uncertainties rather than unintentionally marginalise them.
  26. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    Whether the rate of loss is increasing is an important issue. Don't forget this article claims that "that these losses have drastically increased since the year 2000" Velicogna et al (2009) concluded that the mass loss increased from 137 Gt/yr in 2002–2003 to 286 Gt/yr in 2007–2009. However, Wu et al (2010) cite mass losses between 2002 and 2008 of 104 +/- 23 Gt/yr which would suggest that there is little evidence in the data that the rate of melt has been increasing. I suggest it won't be long before someone jumps all over the way this article has summarized the issue.
  27. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    #3 Falcon, we reference the same paper but we disagree in details: 1. I have not found any reference that the paper disputes acceleration of the losses. 2. The paper does not "less then half" all other GRACE-based estimates: Luthcke et al 2007 used GRACE data and applied a method with greater spatial and temporal resolution to come up with -101 Gt/yr between 2003 and 2005 which seems to correlate perfectly with the Wu et al paper. Perhaps Luthcke has found a way around the isostatic rebound and mass redistribution using the greater spatial and temporal resolution. It sounds plausible to me but I'm not qualified to judge that.
  28. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    I read (and re-read) this post but I don't understand what has Anthony and the "skeptic" community so upset about it. It seems pretty bland and light-hearted; certainly not a hit piece. Maybe the promotion of fact-based sources for information about climate change (many of which are run by scientists) is what is so threatening? The post itself obviously isn't peer reviewed (nor is any post on any blog) but most of the science covered in these blogs/outlets certainly is. The arguments and evidence in every one of these sources is based on extensive peer-reveiwed science and the citations/sources are very clear. Yes, I am a different John, and to be totally clear on who I am and what my scientific credentials are, where my funding comes from, etc., go here
  29. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    Too early to say really. The writers of the earlier papers based on GRACE data believe they got the isostatic rebound correct. A new paper by Wu suggests it is a larger factor. Frankly, the jury is still out. One issue with the Wu analysis is that if significantly less ice has melted than previously thought then we have a bigger problem explaining the observed sea level rise. Any decrease in ice loss must be made up by increased expansion due to heating. In any case, given that they confirm the increasing rate of ice loss the magnitude isn't really a major issue... the rate has been doubling every few years, so if the current rate is half what had been thought then we'd still be back up to the previously estimated rate within the decade. The long term difference is negligible.
  30. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    I think it should be noted that the mass balance estimates based on GRACE might be a bit exaggerated in some literature (Velicogna et al 2009 and Chen et al 2009). The linked paper argues that redistribution of the mass of the ice loss around the globe and isostatic rebound due to unloading is not fully accounted for in a number of papers which use GRACE data. However, while this papers disputes the magnitude of the loss in some literature, it does not dispute the acceleration of the loss. (A more elaborate summary is here.)
  31. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    The graphs probably need to be updated, incorrect accounting for post glacial rebound is probably doubling the figures given there!
  32. We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
    cruzn246 #36: As usual, you seem to be basing your conclusions on fiction. "The carbon data is all over the place clearly showing the Little ice age big time, but hockey stick Mann claims it wasn't a NA event. Please." Mann doesn't say that the LIA was a non event. It is very clearly evident in the Mann 2008 reconstruction; "WHY? Are they afraid to show what happened with carbon 14 after that? I would say yes." Congratulations, your official wacky conspiracy theorist tin foil hat is in the mail. Carbon 14 ratio was a reasonable proxy for solar irradiance prior to the point that we started putting tons of fossil carbon into the atmosphere and releasing bursts of radiation with atomic explosions. Of course, we've been able to measure solar irradiance directly for decades so we don't need proxies any more. We've been in a pronounced solar minimum for a few decades now... while temperatures have been going through the roof. "I know this is not a carbon 14 measure, but this closely follows the same of pattern carbon 14 readings." Ummm... what? They aren't even close. Total atmospheric carbon levels barely changed at all between 1000 AD and 1800 AD while Carbon 14 ratio was going up and down like a roller coaster along with TSI. Since then total atmospheric CO2 has risen at a steadily increasing rate while Carbon 14 has continued to roller coaster.
  33. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    The world needs fixing fast, and God isn't helping.
  34. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    The article fails to mention that a new paper, Wu et al. (2010), has concluded that that losses have not in fact accelerated as claimed. Although the ice-sheets are losing mass, the losses estimated by the authors represent less than half of the other GRACE-based estimates, which undermine the collusions the four papers cited in Wray's article. Wu et al. conclude that "a significant revision of the present estimates of glacial isostatic adjustments and land-ocean water exchange is required". Reference: Wu et al (2010) "Simultaneous estimation of global present-day water transport and glacial isostatic adjustment" Nature Geoscience 3, 642 - 646 (2010)doi:10.1038/ngeo938 (Link to www.nature.com)
  35. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    archiesteel #125 Ned and I did some forensics on BP's failed statistical analysis (i.e. would get him a fail grade as a first year university assignment) in this thread. We determined that the analysis suggested that if his estimate of the urban heat island effect was reasonable (and it's far more likely to be an overestimate - but we can't say if it is or by how much because he hasn't released his methodology) then his estimate for climate sensitivity is bang-on 3 degrees Celsius once corrected for the urban heat island effect. Which is entirely consistent with the mainstream climate science estimate. BP's current tangent appears to be a variant of the 'models are inaccurate' argument. It seems to me to be without merit as it uses the "if we can't know everything then we know nothing fallacy.
  36. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    #127 Riccardo at 16:44 PM on 28 September, 2010 So, although it is indeed relevant for clouds (fractal or not), it's not for water vapour. In case of water vapor radiative properties in the thermal IR range it is not scattering, but absorption and emission. Let's consider a thin horizontal slab of air loaded with a fixed quantity of some "greenhouse gas" (one which has a nonzero absorptivity in thermal IR). For the sake of simplicity let's suppose absorptivity is independent of frequency in this long wave range (the stuff is "grey" here). Let molar density of this GHG along the surface of slab be d(x) where x is any point on the surface of the slab, expressed in mole/m2 units. Integral of d for the entire surface is clearly the total quantity of stuff, so it is constant as it is said before. However, otherwise d is allowed to vary along the surface. Opacity at point x is clearly 1-e-c·d(x) with some positive constant c. If |c·d(x)| is small everywhere (absorptivity of stuff is not too high and/or the slab is thin), second order approximation of it is c·d(x)-1/2·c2·d2(x). Overall specific opacity of the slab can be calculated by integrating this expression along the entire surface and dividing by area. Integral of first term being proportional to average molar density, as long as the second term is negligible, you are right, only the quantity of stuff counts, not fine details of its distribution. However, as soon as second moment of d gets significant (distribution is "rough"), it is no longer true. You can also see that integral of the second term is always positive, therefore if it's got subtracted from integral of the first one, specific opacity is always decreasing. It's also possible that second order approximation is not good enough. In this case higher moments of distribution also come into play. Specific opacity is a nonlinear (concave) function of molar density, so departures from uniform distribution tend to decrease opacity. For well mixed GHGs it is not an issue, but water vapor is not one of them.
  37. A detailed look at galactic cosmic rays
    No Argus. It's fortunate that we live in the times that we do with all the advantages of scientific instruments unimaginable to earlier generations. It's worth reminding ourselves of that from time to time. It's not just dentistry and antibiotics that make this a good time for us. There's a whole infrastructure of scientific endeavour which we don't bother to look at most of the time. When we need it, it's there.
  38. A detailed look at galactic cosmic rays
    "Fortunately we have empirical observations against which we can test these requirements." Somehow I stopped to think about the connotation of this sentence from the prolog. Question: Why is the word 'fortunately' appropriate in this context? (a) Because it is such a joy to be able to 'debunk' all skeptic arguments? (b) Because it would be terrible if somebody holding opinions other than ours would ever be right, plus it would be so embarassing if main stream climate scientists were ever wrong?? (c) Because if our climate was governed by outer space, there would be nothing we could do about it - now, all we have to do is stop burning coal and oil? (d) Because of other reason (please specify!) (Check one)
  39. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    Hilariously, Anthony Watts uses the above guest post as an example of John Cook 'embarassing' himself. Watts 1. Uses a misquote of Mr Cook from Sourcewatch to impune John's scientific credentials. A quick Google would have revealed that the SW quote was wrong or out of date. Each of his points is quickly debunked by a search of SS. Quality journalism! 2. Posts a link to the wrong article - he wanted to link to New Scientist on solar, he linked to Nature on Ocean Cycles. 3. From the tone of the original article it is clear he believed the guest post was by John Cook, he later resiles from this once it is pointed out, harrumphing instead about blog owners being responsible for their content. 4. Complains that this guest news roundup is not 'peer-reviewed science'. Straw Man, the science here IS peer-reviewed, nobody claims or expects news and editorial to pass a review process. 5. Doesn't like the word 'denier'. Ho hum. Some people, not me you understand, might find the hilarious string of gaffes rather more embarrassing to the gaffee than his target......
  40. Is Greenland losing ice? (psst, the answer is yes, at an accelerating rate)
    I believe so, check the following links from the post - Khan et al 2010, and the paper cited in the graphic caption, Jiang 2010.
  41. Positive feedback means runaway warming
    hadfield: This article is intended to illustrate a mathematical fact, not to describe the dynamics of the real atmosphere. Please read the Note that has been there from the beginning: "Note: This model incorporates a number of features of the actual feedback mechanism for the enhanced greenhouse effect, in particular the dependence of radiative forcing on the logarithm of CO2. However, it is definitely not intended as a full model for the effect. It's only intended to illustrate the point that there is no contradiction for a system to have positive feedback, while maintaining self-limiting behavior. "
  42. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Berényi Péter, the fractal structure (if any) is irrelevant as far as absorption and scattering are concerned. The different scattering properties of a uniform vs an unven distribution of particles is due to a concentration effect which, at some point, starts to produce multiple scattering. Even an uniform distribution may produce multiple scattering if concetrated enough. So, although it is indeed relevant for clouds (fractal or not), it's not for water vapour. Unless you call water vapour micron size water droplets.
  43. We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
    As I stated, my comments about what the natural trend should be were from 1975 to now. However the figure I referenced shows the natural forcing from 1900. If you are trying a "its the sun" argument, argue it in the right place but also note all the detail there about it isnt. You wont find a C14 past 1950 that can tell you anything about solar - the atmospheric nuclear test regime overprints everything else, but now we have direct measurement of TSI anyway. Please try to stick to peer-reviewed science - that way you avoid the people who trying to fool you.
  44. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Daniel Bailey @ 41 '...that does not preclude our being able to destroy the creation in the act of subduing it. Which we are busily engaged in doing.' As we have also been doing to one another since we first arrived on this planet. I've no argument on that one with you, Daniel.
  45. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Re: chriscanaris (39) I believe in a loving God who made creation according to ordered principles and logic; a God who also endowed us with the free will to choose to overcome His creation and subdue it. However, that does not preclude our being able to destroy the creation in the act of subduing it. Which we are busily engaged in doing. The dark side of the free will thingy: You can't always get what you want. The Yooper
  46. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    snapple #12 "There is an important article in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty about how the Russian energy companies are projecting their political power into Europe and "cultivating" politicians who will serve them. " What is the difference between that and multi-national oil companies (like BP) buying support in the US Congress?
  47. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    #122 Riccardo at 08:18 AM on 28 September, 2010 The vertical distribution of clouds does matter, but it's another story. Water vapour concentration rapidly falls with altitude anyway. It's the same story. General shape of clouds is a fractal right because distribution of water vapor was like this in the first place before condensation started. It is this way in both lateral and vertical directions. If opacity is distributed unevenly in a medium, in most cases transparency is increased. You can see through a lattice, but can't do the same with a plate.
  48. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    @BP, you have not presented a convincing case that climate sensitivity is lower than 3C. There is no strong indication that soot on snow, the UHI effect or ocean redistribution cycles are responsible for a significant temperature change (in fact, the UHI effect has tended to introduce a *cold* bias, not a warm one). Furthermore, you have repeatedly failed to address the criticism regarding your statistical analysis on a different thread. Until you at least attempt to clear your name, I cannot take anything you say at face value - if you can't admit making a mistake, then we can't assume that *any* of your analyses are correct.
  49. We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
    @cruzn246: "Well, with Venus you have a completely different situation. It's like comparing apples and oranges. That type of equilibrium, static, is next to impossible in our atmosphere system . We have what is called a dynamic equilibrium." Okay, now it's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about. "I'll ask you the question that Tom doesn't seem to want to answer. Naturally, without anthropogenic influence, should we be heating up or cooling now?" Cooling, most probably. The fact temperatures are still increasing tells you how large the anthropogenic influence is. "The funny thing is it really took off in the latter part of the 19th century. that pretty much coincides with the warm-up from that time till the mid 40s. It says the graph stops in 1950. WHY? Are they afraid to show what happened with carbon 14 after that? I would say yes." Are we back to conspiracy theories, now? The evil scientists are hiding the data, is that it? "I know this is not a carbon 14 measure" In other words, it is completely irrelevant. You just wanted to add a graph to give your innocuous post some credibility.
  50. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Phila @ 37: 'Presumably, if you believe in "a loving God," you also believe in a God who gave us the ability to make intelligent decisions based on what science tells us about the world, and to take responsibility for our actions.' I absolutely concur. And 'scientism' represents human pride and its refusal to acknowledge our limitations as a species to which so many readers have eloquently alluded on this thread. 'Scientism' is not science any more than religiosity is religion.

Prev  2166  2167  2168  2169  2170  2171  2172  2173  2174  2175  2176  2177  2178  2179  2180  2181  Next


The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us