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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.

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Comments 108701 to 108750:

  1. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    chriscanaris: I would far rather a civilisation based on love and respect for one's fellow human beings preferably grounded in humble acknowledgment of our dependence on a loving God 'in whom we live and move and have our being' as the Greek poet Menander famously put it. 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. What "scientism" is telling us, again and again, is that what we choose to do affects people and the environment in ways that are potentially irrevocable. I can't respect any ethics, let alone any religion, that ignores these facts, or posits some sort of supernatural "Get Out of Jail Free" card that will save us from the logical consequences of keeping our heads in the sand, and I hope you can't either. At this point in human history, it's very hard to see how one could "love and respect one's fellow human beings" without understanding, in scientific terms, how our actions are likely to affect them. Echoing Doug @36, we've got some growing up to do.
  2. A detailed look at galactic cosmic rays
    The basic problem is that cosmic ray seeded CCNs are not the only aerosols that can seed clouds.
  3. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    This is not really a significant physical sciences mystery, it's now a behavioral puzzle. When I was in high school there was a fellow I think would've been unanimously elected as a model of responsibility and maturity for his age group, a person who not only got straight A grades in what was then the equivalent of AP physics and maths but also seemed to -understand- physics, was not just regurgitating his lessons. Did that stop him from rolling over his brand-new VW Thing at the gates of the school, ejecting 5 occupants who despite all of their intellectual wisdom did not have the visceral, animal connection to facts necessary for their seatbelts to have been fastened? Did this boy stop and check those belts, were his high spirits overridden by his cold facts? No, and no. We've got some growing up to do.
  4. We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
    I'll take a punt but you need to ask over what timescale so I will look at post-1975 out to now. For natural effects TSI very slightly down since 1975. Milankovitch forcings are obviously dependent on latitude but glacial cycle tracks NH effects which are very very slowly going down. Aerosols slightly up. Overall barely perceptable change with maybe some cooling. Of course this is in AR4 WG1, FAQ 9.2, Fig 1.
  5. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Revenue under threat? That's where I get flummoxed. Revenue comes from profitable activity - any profitable activity. I just don't see why a large organisation wouldn't grab with both hands at new opportunities to make money hand over fist. They're very good at extracting subsidies from governments for their current activities, what's to stop them arm-twisting for even more subsidies for newer activities? I have a suspicion that for all their money, glamour and presumed sophistication, these leaders of industry are much like peasants who won't move from the sides of a seething volcano. They just can't see the opportunity for a better, more profitable, life with less danger.
  6. We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
    adelady "Eliminating anthropogenic influence is the first issue. Do you mean all the changes since the land use changed by the introduction of agriculture, or the whole of the industrial revolution, or just the last 60 odd years of accelerated industry, land use and population changes? It makes a difference, you know." Of course it does. Lay a number on it.
  7. We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
    Eliminating anthropogenic influence is the first issue. Do you mean all the changes since the land use changed by the introduction of agriculture, or the whole of the industrial revolution, or just the last 60 odd years of accelerated industry, land use and population changes? It makes a difference, you know.
  8. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    What's so different with this issue? Maybe some positive feedback? Maybe these examples are all positively correlated w/revenue under threat? $2.2 trillion per year for the top eight petroleum extraction/refining/marketing firms alone. Concerted public relations efforts along these lines: "For everyone who has voiced a 2050 greenhouse gas goal, we need 10 people and policy bodies working toward the goal of broad energy access. Only once we have a growing, vibrant, global economy providing energy access and an improved human condition for billions of the energy impoverished can we accelerate progress on environmental issues such as a reduction in greenhouse gases." Peabody Energy Chairman Greg Boyce Important shareholder value trends:
  9. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    CBW, I'm not so sure. I think it's a continuing anti-elite (or something) strand in society. The Nobel Prize granted to Einstein was specifically chosen to avoid the controversy over relativity. People in cafes would challenge him over this stuff - people who had much less chance of understanding relativity at all than people have now of understanding the generalities of climate science. The sociological project would probably be more along the lines of delineating which particular kinds of ideas people find uncomfortable and how that affects them personally and their interactions with the wider society. (Why do people who live on the sides of volcanoes resist the idea that they'd be better off moving somewhere safer? And a million other topics.) As for the 'alarmist' stuff on climate disruption, I'm really interested in why this is so much harder than dealing with acid rain or the hole in the ozone layer. Those ideas and eventual solutions took some time, but raised nothing like this level of antagonism and resistance. What's so different with this issue?
  10. We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
    @cruzn246: "Archie, explain it to me." "Why should I? You'll only ignore what I say and/or change the subject yet again. You've proved time and time again you're not interested in learning. Here's a hint for you, though: equilibrium is not a "hard thing to achieve" in a system, it's what a system naturally tends to. Also, a thermal equilibrium isn't necessarily livable. Venus is in a thermal equilibrium (i.e. it's temperature is stable), but it's the closest thing we have to Hell." 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. 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?
  11. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    Does anyone have any estimates of how warm September currently is. Wait for a few days. How about some anecdotes to tide us over? It was 113 degrees Fahrenheit today in Los Angeles, California, an all time record. Up here in Seattle last night the minimum was 61 versus normal of 49. Just weather...
  12. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    CBW @ 31 That anti-science denialists have gained so much power in a civilization built upon science is a remarkable thing. Actually, the notion of a civilisation built on 'science' worries me deeply. Science has its rightful and important place but I don't go for 'Scientism.' I would far rather a civilisation based on love and respect for one's fellow human beings preferably grounded in humble acknowledgment of our dependence on a loving God 'in whom we live and move and have our being' as the Greek poet Menander famously put it.
  13. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    Does anyone have any estimates of how warm September currently is.
  14. Hockey stick is broken
    GC - perhaps indeed. To clarify. You made this statement. "The first test of any paleo-climate reconstruction should be whether it portrays past climate in a plausible way. Any set of proxies that disagrees with history should immediately be discarded." The implication was that the papers you listed did indeed disagree with history. I pointed you to data, relevant to those papers which show you are wrong. The proxy record is consistent with history. Feel free to point to other papers and the historical records that invalidate them. I have no reason to think Alley's temp reconstruction for central greenland is substantially flawed. I am intrigued to know what historical records you have for central greenland to compare it with.
  15. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Getting back to the topic at hand, I find it really interesting that all of this meta-science is being done these days. The climate change "debate" has gotten so off kilter that it is actually a sociological/psychological phenomenon worth studying in its own right. That anti-science denialists have gained so much power in a civilization built upon science is a remarkable thing. That ideology now trumps reality is utterly bizarre. I will leave you with a quote from the patron saint of the conservatives, Ayn Rand: "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."
  16. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Adelady @ 27: One of those early USSR famines was the result of dustbowl conditions very like the USA and Australian dustbowls. And for the same agriculturally idiotic reasons. More like war communism and deliberate forced requisitions of grain and produce coupled with forced collectivisation. The famines affected the 'black soil' regions of the Ukraine - arguably the world's richest agricultural land.
  17. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    It's funny to read that some ascribe the pollution in the USSR to a lack of private ownership when the problem was a government that was not accountable to its people. Here in the US, private companies were rampant polluters in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s until they poisoned enough of the landscape (and the people who lived there) that people demanded protection via government regulation, and they got it. It had nothing whatsoever to do with who owned what, and everything to do with a accountable government. Unfortunately, in the case of climate change, by the time the people are up in arms enough to demand action, it will be too late to fix the things they are up in arms about.
  18. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    I for one am perfectly happy to agree that the USSR's environmental (and agricultural) policies were a disaster. If we were talking about whaling, I suppose we could all criticize Japan. For women's rights, we can point to Saudi Arabia (and unfortunately dozens of other nations where misogyny is the norm). And so on. Unfortunately, on the issue at hand for this website (climate change) the USA is the worst offender, with a number of other Western countries vying for second place. If people are convinced that the free market will solve all environmental problems, then they should get on board with the market-based proposals for emissions reduction (cap-and-trade, or carbon taxes). Those are more closely compatible with a "small-government" worldview than the alternative approaches to dealing with climate change (complex and unpredictable regulatory oversight, or massive government-directed geoengineering schemes).
  19. Hockey stick is broken
    apeescape (#43), It seems I misinterpreted your "link Dump". Please accept my apologies. Thank you Ned, once again. Scaddenp, it seems we are having communications difficulties. I will try to rephrase my arguments more clearly tomorrow when there is no Monday night football. While I am doing that, what is your opinion on Alley's temperature reconstructions for central Greenland? Plausible or not?
  20. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Camburn, you've got it a bit backwards, 180 degrees really. In the P&J study salinity itself was derived from CTD: "Salinity was calculated from CTD conductivity, temperature, and pressure data and calibrated to bottle samples standardized with International Association for the Physical Science of the Oceans (IAPSO) Standard Seawater using the 1978 Practical Salinity Scale (PSS-78). Some interesting background information on conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) samplers here, including dynamic dampness: Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) Sensors Photos of systems, deployment As to whether P&J employed "models" in their analysis, you probably ought to read more carefully, starting w/section 3 on page 10. The techniques described therein might be described as a model though it certainly does not resemble what most of us understand when thinking of that term. You're of course perfectly free to quibble over the semantic employment of "model" but if you've got a problem with the research you'd do better to show specifically how the authors' methods might be improved lest you convey the impression you're just saying "I doubt it." Fortunately P&J are exactingly detailed in describing their techniques so you should be able to understand and then tell us precisely where they've gone wrong, if indeed they have done so and you've got the skill to make productive remarks.
  21. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    One of those early USSR famines was the result of dustbowl conditions very like the USA and Australian dustbowls. And for the same agriculturally idiotic reasons. As for the famines. The comparison there would be with the Chinese who also had lunatic plans and devastating outcomes. And I'm personally convinced that North Korea's continuing failure to produce or acquire sufficient food for its population is similarly based on ideas that are so foolish that they are wicked.
  22. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Adelady @ 4 The USA produced dust bowls - the YSSR several famines which killed many millions. Phila @ 14: The saying in Soviet era Poland was, 'We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.' Not much responsibility for anything there. Yes there were some idealists but the society was deeply permeated by cynicism. Doug; Abstinence education - a touch off topic - yet I never cease to be amazed at the casual way in which people will entrust their safety to a thin rubber sheath which slips off eveer so easy and carries a 10% failure rate in field conditions.
  23. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    Not a lot, JB. The simple fact is that all these contributions and variations associated with biological processes within the carbon cycle are totally swamped by us burning materials that are supposed to act as carbon sinks. These materials sequestered their carbon little by little during many millions of years of carbon cycling through these processes and we're releasing them in a couple of dozen decades.
  24. Hockey stick is broken
    gallopingcamel writes: What is this "link dump" thing? I think apeescape was referring to the bunch of links that she/he included immediately below that line. It wasn't a remark about your own comment.
  25. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    archiesteel, I really don't think one should accept CW's misleading framework of judging warming projections for 2100 based on linear extrapolation of past warming trends. All the models show warming starting slowly, then accelerating over the first half of this century. In the second half of the century, warming either continues to accelerate (under "business as usual") or slows down again (if we successfully manage to reduce emissions early enough). In neither case, however, is a linear extrapolation of pre-2010 warming a reliable guide to the projected evolution of global mean surface temperature over the remainder of the century.
  26. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    Sooooo.... with CH4, from Agriculture, how is that different? The carbon atom has come from photosynthesis, and its basically doing the same thing, and with the life cycle o CH4 being 7/8 years, wouldnt an equilibrium be reached in that time frame from a growth in the total biomass, and subsequent changes require an increase in total biomass? What am i missing here?
  27. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    CW: 1. CRU indicates a warming rate that is very near the best estimate, and completely in the margin of error. 2. GISS indicates a value that is exactly the best estimate, therefore countering your point. 3. That is completely irrelevant. At least you agree with a 1.8C/century increase. That's cause for concern, don't you think?
  28. Hockey stick is broken
    I am also still interested what paper you think Tamino mounted an inappropriate defense.
  29. Hockey stick is broken
    GC - This thread started elsewhere with the claim you didnt like Tamino because he supported papers that were in conflict with the historical record. The papers you objected to only cover the last 1000 years. I am not selling history short (as rest of comment indicates), only that objections to those particular papers are for events of last 1000 years. If you have other papers that you think imply conflict with the historical record, then name them. Your comments so far ignore my objection to this. Further you claim that Mann inferred global climate from only Yamal tree rings. Also not true - the paper used a variety of proxies from many location; that was what was new. The first multi-proxy reconstruction. I am not clear whether you are agreeing that climate science view of YD in concordance with history (no problem then) or not.
  30. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    BP, that's all more or less totally irrelevant to anything in this discussion. You've suggested that a "Principle of Maximum Entropy" means the climate must have "strong negative feedbacks" that would presumably prevent anthropogenic climate change. That claim is incompatible with the numerous episodes of climate change that have occurred during the past couple of million years. I take it that your new comment means that the previous one is no longer operational ...
  31. Hockey stick is broken
    skywatcher (#42), You are right to be wary about applying measurements from a small area to the entire globe, so get your blinkers off and acknowledge that is exactly what Mann tried to do. He took measurements on spruce trees from a few sites all in high latitudes and tried to draw conclusions relating to the entire planet. Take a look at the Yamal peninsula studies that came down to a few carefully selected trees. I won't send you the links as that might offend "apeescape".
  32. Hockey stick is broken
    apeescape (#43), What is this "link dump" thing? Scaddenp asked for data so I sent a NOAA ftp link. Then I try to help by sending a reference that has pre-digested the data into a series of charts. I will read your links; perhaps you will be kind enough to read mine unless you are afraid of being confused by facts.
  33. Hockey stick is broken
    scaddenp (#44), Starting at the end, the Younger Dryas is relevant because it is another example of Alley's ice cores being in synch with history/archeology. You are selling history short if you think it only goes back 1,000 years. There is no merit in multi-proxy studies if most of the proxies are junk science. Mann's tree rings should have been thrown out the minute they failed to model the warm and cold periods over the last 1,000 years.
  34. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Berényi Péter short wavenlegth does that because they are more similar in size to the droplets (hundreds of nm). At long wavengths you loose the dependence on size. The vertical distribution of clouds does matter, but it's another story. Water vapour concentration rapidly falls with altitude anyway.
  35. Philippe Chantreau at 08:17 AM on 28 September 2010
    The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Chriscanaris "For my part, I'm more surprised by the relative lack of traction of contrarian arguments..." It is not surprising at all that they are almost absent from the litterature, considering that these arguments' grounding in reality ranges from tenuous to non existent. They do, however, enjoy a traction in the media that is out of proportion with their validity.
  36. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    BP - "even with the present insolation & CO2" care to back that up please? It doesnt match the opinion I heard from Tom Crowley on the subject and with CO2 heading to pliocene levels, it doesnt match paleoclimate indication. Why did we enter the ice age cycle in first place? Milankovitch cycles still happened in Miocene/pliocene. The total solar output has been steadily (if slowly) increasing? Changes in the atmosphere due to steady low of CO2 is best bet. A reset to pliocene means all bets are off. However, somewhat beside the point for humanity for the next 10,000 years.
  37. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    #117 Riccardo at 06:22 AM on 28 September, 2010 Absorption coefficient depends on the total water column, not on the size of the particles It is not so. It may not depend on size of droplets and ice crystals much (SW absorption does), but plain water vapor distribution is also very uneven as it depends on history of individual air parcels, not just local parameters. The distribution is uneven both along lateral and vertical directions and as temperature is not uniform either, outgoing radiation depends on the fine details of it, not only the column integrated value.
  38. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    "As I indicated, if you use 1975 as your start point (25 years, a nice round number) then you get trends that are higher than the low estimate." Very well, since 1975 (35 years), Least squares fit, nearest tenth degree per century: 1.7 CRU 1.8 GISS We may note that: 1. the CRU indicates a century warming rate below the best estimate for the most optimistic scenario 2. the GISS indicates a century warming rate right at the best estimate for the most optimistic scenario 3. both rates indicate DEceleration from the 1975 to present period to the 1979 to present period.
  39. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    #115 Ned at 02:08 AM on 28 September, 2010 Obviously the climate has changed radically in the past. Yes, it did. However, the ice albedo feedback is really a strong positive one, you don't need rocket science to see this. If ice cover reached 30° latitude somehow (and there are hints it could during the next glacial cycle), Earth would enter a "permanent" icehouse state ("snowball Earth") even with the present insolation & CO2. As sea ice extent grows tremendously, evaporation diminishes and the so called "arctic window" (IR wavelengths above the 14 μm CO2 absorption line) opens up. With decreased SW absorption and increased LW outbound losses, the cold state is stabilized beyond repair for tens of million years. Due to the present configuration of continents the climate system is a bistable one with a considerable hysteresis between the two possible (cold vs. warm) states. As you can see during the last several million years the amplitude of glacial cycle keeps increasing while its frequency is decreasing, which is a sure sign of a would-be phase change in chaotic systems. As long as sea ice extent does not grow too large, the process is self-limiting, because as soon as elevation of ice sheet surfaces above continental masses become too high, they cease to be effective radiators, for while their surface temperature is very low, potential temperature of air masses above them is still relatively high. It means as air is cooled above the surface and descends along the slope (so called katabatic wind) it is heated adiabatically, along a 3 km high slope by as much as 30°C (because this air is very dry). It means on the plateau radiative losses relative to sea level temperature of the air parcel are 40-50% lower. On the other hand if even the sea surface at mid latitudes freezes over, radiative losses are not limited this way while most of the incoming short wave radiation is reflected back to space. The extreme cold coming out of the Antarctic region during southern winter (like the recent cold spell above South America) is generated this way, above floating ice, not the elevated ice sheet. Come the next glaciation, sea ice can easily extend to the tropics, as it has happened several times in the deep past. It would be a true disaster for both humanity and nature. During the present epoch ice albedo effect is asymmetric. The extent of low lying snow covered surface is limited and it can only decrease so much, while it has considerably more room to increase. Insolation on lower latitudes is also higher on average, so it has a more pronounced effect should it get reflected. Still, anything that decreases snow albedo (like soot pollution) has an immediate warming effect right at the surface, even if the sky is covered by low clouds. Clean snow is a special stuff. It is white in the visible portion of the spectrum, but pitch "black" in IR (hence an effective radiator at low temperatures due to Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation). Winter snow cover on the vast low lying continental areas of the Northern Hemisphere can act the same way. As soon as anthropogenic soot pollution gets limited, the multidecadal growing trend of NH December/January snow cover would extend well into springtime, bringing severe cooling into the region.
  40. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    muoncounter #38: "Why are we talking about breathing as a CO2 source?" Sometimes it isn't enough to simply disprove a 'skeptic' argument with one line of reasoning. If you show it is ludicrous five different ways, stamp it into the ground, set it on fire, and bury it in the mud then maybe they'll consider that it isn't ABSOLUTE proof of the rightness of their opinion. Another fun fact... the UPPER estimate of CO2 emissions from volcanoes is about 300 million tons per year. Which is only 1/10th the emissions from humans breathing each year... which is itself only 1/10th the emissions from human industry each year.
  41. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    ClimateWatcher - That's the entire point of this topic. Asymmetric societal forcings and media representation tend to dumb down the science.
  42. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    "assessment of new scientific findings to show that the climatological consensus is insufficiently pessimistic." I'm not sure that pessimism ( or optimism for that matter ) are at all part of the scientific method.
  43. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    ClimateWatcher quotes the IPCC: A temperature rise of about 0.2 °C per decade is projected for the next two decades for all SRES scenarios. That "about 0.2 °C per decade" is a rough approximation of the middle of the distribution of model runs through 2020, not the "Best estimate of the low scenario as of September 2010". Please stop posting misleading claims about the IPCC projections. Again, here is the actual comparison of observations to the range of model projections:
  44. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    @ClimateWatcher: also, you should stop using the MT values since the IPCC predictions do not deal with that area of the atmosphere.
  45. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    From 2000-2006, the population of China increased about 3% (eyeballed from the graph here). During that same period, China's CO2 emissions from fossil fuels more than doubled (see xls files here). Why are we talking about breathing as a CO2 source?
  46. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    @Ned: thanks for the precise figures. I confess I was eyeballing (Wood for Trees should update their tool to provide numerical values on a mouseover...) @ClimateWatcher The trend since January 1979 is indeed slightly under the low scenario estimate (by 0.2C, or 11%), but that estimate is not based on that time period. It is based on data sets (such as GISS and HadCRUT) that go further back, and thus provide a better statistical basis to establish trends. As I indicated, if you use 1975 as your start point (25 years, a nice round number) then you get trends that are higher than the low estimate. Cherry-picking to make a point isn't the right way to test theories.
  47. Same Ordinary Fool at 06:59 AM on 28 September 2010
    The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    This is one of those papers that is best read backwards. Look at the results first to better understand what is being argued. The paper itself: http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/0/9/1/9/pages309195/p309195-1.php The Asymmetry of Scientific Challenge argument uses an empirical assessment of new scientific findings to show that the climatological consensus is insufficiently pessimistic. The empirical assessment by the four newspapers (despite a bias in general articles and editorials) is that new scientific findings are 'worse than expected'.
  48. Hockey stick is broken
    GC - your initial accusation is that MBH and later reconstructions supported by Tamino etc do not honour the historical record so for starters that should limit you to the considerations of the last 1000 years, NH only, as earlier climate events are outside the scope of the papers supposed ignorance of history. Fig 6.10 in AR4 WG1 has summary figure of the various reconstruction, and Box 6.4, Fig 1 shows the individual temperature proxies for different parts of NH. And what do these show? Well for starters, where is the mismatch with history? The proxy records for sites in the area of historical records match what you can infer about temperatures in the pre-thermometer age. That things like the "medieval warm period" occurred at different times in different places is established from the historical records for Greenland, Europe, Russia and China. The NH reconstruction do indeed show a LIA which may be global (you would expect it to be from what we know of forcing at the time). I find no evidence of a problem here though I do certainly accept that MBH, being the first attempt at a multi-proxy reconstruction, needed improved methodologically and has been. I dont think its substantial conclusions has changed much with later reconstructions. Perhaps you could also point out which defense of a paper by Tamino you find so objectionable. Looking back further for evidence that climate science and history are in opposition also produces a blank. Was it warm in the Bronze age? Almost certainly warmer than now is what the climate science says (see WGA 6.5.1.3 for papers). Solar production proxies globally and orbital forcing for NH point to an expectation of warmer temperatures which is borne out in historical and paleoclimatic record. There is evidence of warming similar to now in SH as well. Just as well we dont have that solar forcing now on top of our CO2 concentrations. Younger Dryas - I am not sure why you brought this up as for life of me I can see why you think there is a conflict with "historical record" - perhaps you could explain? I cant see that archeological record is much easier to interpret than the paleoclimate one and boy does it have fun with YD. Be aware that YD is area where techniques are being refined, better time calibration is coming and so watch for new papers in next couple of years. Also note that events like YD are features of glacial terminations and thankfully we lack evidence that interglacial periods are prone to such rapid climate shifts. Time for a quick reset of the respect-o-meter perhaps in face of all that data?
  49. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    In some sense, breathing removes carbon! A typical human contains ~18% by mass C, or about 13 kg for a 70 kg person. So since my birth, I have been recycling tons of carbon (for no net change), but also sequestering about 13 kg of C. If I wasn't there to eat those plants, they would more quickly have rotted and returned the CO2 to the atmosphere. As long as I am breathing, I will continue to sequester my share of C. When I stop breathing, that C will be returned to the atmosphere. The more people, the more C is sequestered in our collective bodies! (6 billion people) * (0.06 tons/person) --> about 0.1 billion tons of sequestered C. Basically, any net global increase in biomass will sequester C (for example, the annual variations in CO2 as the plants in the N Hemisphere grow during the spring and summer). Since I personally am 80 kg of biomass, I am sequestering my share of carbon for ~70 years. (Of course this is a bit simplistic. If people were not around, then other animals would increase to take advantage of the food supplies, and those animals would sequester the C in a similar manner. And people have cut down forests around the world, returning that sequestered C more quickly. I suspect this effect greatly outweighs the increase in human sequestered C. And both of these are presumably greatly outweighed by the burning of fossil fuels over the last century.)
  50. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    "if anything, global climate disruption may prove to be significantly worse than has been suggested in scientific consensus estimates to date..." That is completely contradicted by the IPCC. The IPCC AR4: 1. "Low scenario" refers to B1, the most optimistic scenario family." 2. "Best estimate for a 'low scenario' is 1.8 °C" ( per century ) 3. 1979 through Aug 2010 least squares fit ( deg C per century to the nearest tenth): 1.0 RSS MT 0.5 UAH MT 1.6 RSS LT 1.4 UAH LT 1.6 CRU 1.7 GISS 1.4 Hadley SST All temperature trends are below the 1.8 best estimate for the "most optimistic scenario" Where else has anyone read that global warming is less than even the most optimistic scenario?
    Moderator Response: You are simultaneously posting virtually identical comments in another thread (The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC). Please try to avoid starting duplicate versions of the same discussion in multiple threads.

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