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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 109301 to 109350:

  1. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Nice post! Oftentimes we get bogged down discussing one of the many pieces of evidence behind man-made global warming, and in the process we can't see the forest for the trees. Using another optical analogy, no depth of field.
  2. Philippe Chantreau at 09:47 AM on 24 September 2010
    A detailed look at Hansen's 1988 projections
    I can recall so many previous instances of BP unambiguously accusing scientists of fraud without any evidence (for instance see Ocean acidification, when such accusation stemmed from his misintepretation of the papers), it's becoming obvious that this has become an obsession of his. As for discussing scientific evidence: in the interest of the discussion, I advocate for the the moderator to strike any and all future posts that even remotely suggests fraud if there is no supporting evidence, not only that the accused scientists/papers actually are wrong, but that they deliberately are so with an intent to deceive. Skeptics like to talk about burden of proof but it's something they gladly dispense of on too many occasions.
  3. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Nice work Dana! This puts everything nicely into perspective. I've wondered about creating a list of different aspects of climate change and putting them into categories in a simple graphic like: 1) Basic physics 2) Settled science 3) Observations 4) New research 5) Uncertainties (or something like that). I think the average person tends to think of science as being black and white. It either is or it isn't. Good guys and bad guys. Us and them. Etc. And I know science is just not about absolutes. If there were a way to help people understand this basic aspect of climate it might go a long way toward opening some eyes and changing some minds.
  4. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    BTW: I suppose I should add: if the models still rely on "fudge factors", then the claim that the conclusion is based on "our fundamental understanding of physics" simply does not hold water.
  5. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Overall, I think this is an excellent article. But there is still room for improvements in a few spots. The split infinitive, for example, has to go. Now don't get me wrong: I am not one of those sticklers who believes that every split infinitive is wrong. But THIS one really grates on my ears! I am referring to: "It's important to every so often take a step back and see how all of those trees comprise the forest as a whole." While we are fixing the split infinitive, another slight change of wording also makes a marked improvement. I suggest: "It's important to take a step back every now and then to see how all of those trees form the forest as a whole." A more substantial point: I -wish- it were as easy as simply asserting, that falsification "would require that our fundamental understanding of physics be wrong, because that's what the theory is based on." If it were that simple, I doubt that Freeman Dyson would still be objecting to the evidence. And indeed, there is a lot of data collection and interpretation added on top of that "fundamental understanding of physics" to reach the conclusion. As long as such a prominent physicist as Dyson objects, we cannot expect to get very far by claiming "the theory is based on our fundamental understanding of physics". Now don't get me wrong, I do not agree with Dyson, and am I mystified and disappointed that he objects. But I do share at least a little of his skepticism concerning the models. It really IS hard to know if the model is correct. Especially when the rebuttal on this very website does not even address the objections Dyson raised: it says nothing about whether or not the new models still rely on 'fudge factors', whether or not they now take into account dust and clouds, etc. IOW: both this article and that could use some strengthening in similar ways. But this one is already very good, and needs little more to reach perfection -- especially if the other is strengthened as well.
  6. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Re: Baz (339) Neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog is frequented by some of the most knowledgeable and veteran Arctic Ice watchers around. Numerous posts monitoring this year's melt season, with comparisons to previous years' along with running commentary. Several offer up thoughts about next & coming year's ice cover. See also Romm's Climate Progress post from the other day on the demise of the Arctic Ice. And this one. Tamino has several posts on this as well (ice loss following a "quadratic fit"). The Yooper
  7. Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
    muoncounter, your analogy should work. Add that you lower (or rise) the voltage in steps or continuosly and you need to integrate the response over time. The climate response to a varying forcing is basically similar.
  8. Positive feedback means runaway warming
    I'm sorry, but I think this post (I'm looking at the intermediate one) is very confused and does more harm than good. It should be pulled until it can be improved. First, it ignores the fast feedbacks (water vapour, snow) and goes straight to carbon cycle feedbacks, which is slow and relatively uncertain. Second, the logarithmic nature of the greenhouse effect is a red herring, at least for small perturbations. Chris Colose's recent guest post[*] on RealClimate explains the primary reason that positive feedbacks don't *necessarily* cause a runaway: "Feedback behavior The ultimate constraint on climate change is the Planck radiative feedback, which mandates that a warmer world will radiate more efficiently and therefore provide a cooling effect. For a blackbody, the emission goes like the fourth power of the temperature. So the question of how the other feedbacks behave is really of how they modify the Planck feedback." [*] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/09/introduction-to-feedbacks/ Now, when I stated the same thing on another comment thread on SkepticalScience recently, I was told I was wrong because the Earth is not a black body. This is true, but it is still an object in space that can lose heat only by infrared radiation, and this radiation depends strongly on its temperature. Or, more precisely, on the temperatures of a whole range of different levels in the atmosphere and/or at the surface, each of which affects a different IR frequency band. Mark
  9. It cooled mid-century
    GSwift7, if you're looking for pre-cooked anti-AGW informations, you're in the wrong place. If you're not interested in the science, again you're in the wrong place. And given that you definitely are in the wrong place, I do not understand why you ask questions.
  10. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Re: Badgersouth, GFW FBM's and attack subs are indeed designed for near-surface ops. Newer class subs will have a classified capability beyond that publicly revealed. "Research" vessels (not necessarily nuclear) exist with deeper dive capabilities. Temperature, pressure and salinity data are all acquired during normal sounding operations (to get an accurate corrected depth) and should all have a time-stamp with a GPS accuracy-equivalent lat/long. I utilized a number of sounding datasets that I was able to pass San Board review & incorporate in various mapping products for the military (classified & unclassified) and the merchant marine (unclassified). While there thus exists extensive datasets with good spatiotemporal resolution, security constraints will probably keep it from full utilization for OHC research purposes. A FOIA request from a connected Congressman or Senator, properly worded to degradate the true resolution and comprehensiveness of the datasets, could be used to obtain coverage to fill in any "gaps" in the Argo grid. I'll close with this: every US sub commander is intimately acquainted with the story of the Thresher. The Yooper
  11. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    No one has mentioned this yet but I'm assuming this has implications for Dr Pielke's recent statement that "global warming has stopped" while referring to OHC.
  12. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    GFW: I do recall that the US Navy released data about the thickness of the Arctic sea ice collected from nuclear subs, but I do not recall anything about ocean temperatures.
  13. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Baz (@331)... I believe what the scientist sees in such a graph is all the underlying information and has a strong understanding of the mechanisms at work. If the scientist is looking at the chart and saying this is expected noise in the data, that's most likely what it is. If the average Joe says in contradiction that it's cooling he's doing little more than playing extremely long odds. Think of it this way: The scientist hears a strange sound coming from the engine of his car. Not being a mechanic he makes an uneducated guess that it's really nothing important ("Eh, older cars just make funny noises."). A real mechanic who listens to the car understands all the parts under the hood and has a good sense of whether this is a sound to be concerned about or not.
  14. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Apparently the Seawolf class can go deeper The Ohio class is probably in-between.
  15. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Yes, some Arctic data from the US Navy has been carefully released. If I recall correctly, Al Gore was involved in convincing them to do it. Indeed military subs don't operate very deeply. They're optimized for their military missions, which only require that they can hide below the thermocline, not go super deep. However, one can assume that they can go deeper than the military publicly admits. The following link claims 300m max operating depth with likely hull collapse at 450m (again, somehow I suspect that hasn't been precisely tested with a billion+ dollar boat, so it's probably conservative, but it reinforces the point that another term for max operating depth is "never-exceed depth"). http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/uswpns/navy/submarines/ssn688_la.html
  16. Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
    "With 40 years between cause and effect, it means that average temperatures of the last decade are a result of what we were thoughtlessly putting into the air in the 1960’s." I think it was this statement in the post that gave me a case of cognitive dissonance, especially when juxtaposed with: "The Earth’s average surface temperature has already risen by 0.8 degrees C since 1900. ... there is at least another 0.6 degrees “in the pipeline”." So there isn't a full T+40 delay to see the onset of warming; its T+40 to see the full effect. Would it therefore be correct to say that the warming we see now is the sum total of the onset of warming from recent emissions, the tail end of warmings from older emissions and some fraction of everything in between? So that the 'lag' mentioned, which I took to be a delay time, is more like a 'storage time'? A good analogy would then be a circuit with large inductance; it takes considerable time for the current to diminish to 0 after the driving voltage is shut off.
    Moderator Response: Author: Your understanding of climate lag is now almost correct. Your observation that "warming we see now is the sum total of the onset of warming from recent emissions, the tail end of warmings from older emissions and some fraction of everything in between" is a helpful way to put it. The only thing you need to realise is that technically, the full effect is never reached, only approached asymptotically. The climate model in which I place most faith projects the temperature rise for 1500 years, at which point it regards equilibrium as having been reached. We need to be practical. The 40 years in the lead article is the time from the onset of warming for the temperature rise to reach 63.2% or (1 – 1/e) of the full effect. See my comment # 54.
  17. It cooled mid-century
    These both seem to be pro-global warming stories, so it doesn't really matter which one is right as far as I'm concerned. The matter of increased night-time temperatures also seems to be inconsistent with an actual drop in sea temperature. I actually wonder if the guys in the new story are serious. The theory here on this site seems to make more sense and seems to be more supported by known facts.
  18. It cooled mid-century
    from this site, above: "As a final point, it should be noted that in 1945, the way in which sea temperatures were measured changed, leading to a substantial drop in apparent temperatures. Once the data are corrected, it is expected that the cooling trend in the middle of the century will be less pronounced." From the other, newer story: "The international team of scientists discovered an unexpectedly abrupt cooling event that occurred between roughly 1968 and 1972 in Northern Hemisphere ocean temperatures. The research indicates that the cooling played a key role in the different rates of warming seen in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres in the middle 20th century" That seems prety much mutually exclusive to me.
  19. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    @Dorlomin: I didn't realize that the maximum operating depth of a nuclear submarine was that shallow. Has the US Navy shared with climate scientists the temperature data that has been collected by nuclear submarines operating in the Arctic Ocean? For obvious reasons, the Argos buoys have not been deployed there.
  20. It cooled mid-century
    GSwift7, that paper may add something to the mechanism illustrated here, they're not mutually exclusive.
  21. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Badgersouth at 04:05 AM on 24 September, 2010 Since the launching of the USS Nautilus in 1954, nuclear submarines have plied the depths of the world’s oceans = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = The maximum operating depth of the Los Angeles class is usualy given at around 200m. Very very shallow operation compared to the depths of the ocean.
  22. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Doug Bostrom - Excellent article, it's extremely informative. I have to admit I was stunned to hear that part of the Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) actually reaches the Northern Hemisphere. Given the time frame of the Trenberth missing heat, are there indications of changes in circulation over the last decade that might be increasing transfer of heat to the bottom waters, away from what is currently measured by the ARGO program?
  23. Does Climate Change Really Matter?
    @Arkadiusz "Heat waves in the NH (2003, 2006, 2010) are associated more with violent beginnings of La Nina - cooling of the oceans, fewer algal NPP - cloudiness (CLAW hypothesis). " Only 2010 was begining of "violent" La Nina as i think. http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
  24. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Since the launching of the USS Nautilus in 1954, nuclear submarines have plied the depths of the world’s oceans. My working assumption is that these vessels collected a wealth of information about the temperature of the lower layers of the global ocean system. I also acknowledge that the data collected by the fleets of nuclear submarines is highly classified. Notwithstanding the classified nature of the data, wouldn’t it make sense for the IPCC to establish a special committee to discuss this matter with the governments of those countries with nuclear submarine fleets? Perhaps there is way for the data to be made available without compromising national security concerns. The stakes are high!. It’s worth a try.
  25. Does Climate Change Really Matter?
    The carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have melted the Arctic sea ice to its lowest volume since before the rise of human civilisation, dangerously upsetting the energy balance of the entire planet, climate scientists are reporting. "The Arctic sea ice has reached its four lowest summer extents (area covered) in the last four years," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado. The volume - extent and thickness - of ice left in the Arctic likely reached the lowest ever level this month, Serreze told IPS. "I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It's not going to recover," he said. Source: “Arctic Ice in Death Spiral,” IPS, Sep 20, 2010 http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52896 I encourage everyone perusing this comment thread to read this article in its entirety. The predictied changes to the Arctic climate system that is already built into the system will have profound effects on the global climate system.
  26. Does Climate Change Really Matter?
    Arkadiusz you haven't responded to a remark I have made. It doesn't even relate to your own previous comment. Instead you have gone off in some unrelated tangent.
  27. Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
    slightly off topic: there is a typo on your web page, climate answers org: you 2080 to 2089 should be 1980 to 1989, in the first page. Quick review, your site looks like a good contribution and rsource. (I did not see how to email alan_marshall directly)
    Moderator Response: Author: Thanks Peter. I have now fixed the typo.
  28. It cooled mid-century
    How does this relate to this recent article? http://www.physorg.com/news204381778.html The story suggests that sea temperatures actually did decrease sharply around this period of time, if I'm reading it right. I haven't read the details in Nature, so I haven't seen the details. It seems to contrast with some of what you have here.
  29. A detailed look at Hansen's 1988 projections
    Suggestion - further posts regarding the tropospheric hot spot should move to the appropriate threads, such as There's no tropospheric hot spot, as it's off topic here.
  30. A detailed look at Hansen's 1988 projections
    Of note in regards to the Douglass et al 2007 paper BP referred to is the rebuttal by Santer et al 2008, which states: "Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations."
  31. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Re Arctic Ice. Okay will read what is on this site and come back. But what I really wanted to know was opinions on 'future' ice (next year, year after, etc.).
  32. Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
    Since the launching of the USS Nautilus in 1954, nuclear submarines have plied the depths of the world’s oceans. My working assumption is that these vessels collected a wealth of information about the temperature of the lower layers of the global ocean system. I also acknowledge that the data collected by the fleets of nuclear submarines is highly classified. Notwithstanding the classified nature of the data, wouldn’t it make sense for the IPCC to establish a special committee to discuss this matter with the governments of those countries with nuclear submarine fleets? Perhaps there is way for the data to be made available without compromising national security concerns. The stakes are high!. It’s worth a try.
  33. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Baz, where did you pick up that it's a "tenet" of AGW theory that malaria will get worse with rising temperatures? It's certainly possible, but I've actually never seen a source make such a claim. I'm not saying such a claim isn't possible, but the fact that I've been digging around climate science for a while and haven't seen it suggests that it hasn't reached "tenet" status. Ugh, strawpeople.
  34. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    @Baz: "However, that said, I would struggle to show a tenet of AGW that is provably false. I could always run with: 'Malaria will get worse with rising temps'! Oft stated, not provable!" That is not a tenet of AGW theory. It's a possible result of rising temperatures, i.e. a potential consequence of AGW theory being true. It is not in itself part of AGW theory. As for Confirmation Bias, KR summed it up nicely. Confirmation Bias is not something you accept as part of one's outlook on science, it's something you try to minimize and avoid as much as possible when engaging in scientific thought.
  35. A detailed look at Hansen's 1988 projections
    @BP: "Consistency is only found at the surface, but we do know how surface data are picked & adjusted ad nauseam on the one hand while the very selection criterion for model set used in this study was consistency with surface temperature datasets on the other hand, so no wonder they match on this single point." You shouldn't be accusing others of scientific fraud when you are yourself suspected of the same thing. I personally will be ignoring any argument you put forth until you've convincingly addressed the glaring errors in your previous (and contentious) analysis.
  36. Global warming and the unstoppable 1500 year cycle
    @Daniel Bailey (#28): excellent response. I join the others here in asking the Danster to lower the rhetoric and stick to science. I myself have seen a (long) post deleted recently because I started to get personal with Baz. I did not complain about it because I recognize I went too far, even though Baz was being frustratingly obtuse (in my humble opinion). Those are the rules of this forum, and we all have to respect them.
  37. Global warming and the unstoppable 1500 year cycle
    Danster #29, you seem to be arguing that the resolution of proxy records is not sufficient to determine the timing of Dansgaard-Oeschger events sufficiently to rule out current warming being such an occurrence. Has it not occurred to you that this argument is inherently self-defeating? The very EXISTENCE of D/O events and the '1500 year cycle' is DERIVED from those proxy records. If the dating of the proxy temperature records were as inaccurate as you suggest then the D/O pattern could never have been identified in the first place. So, even if we were to accept the idea that scientists (on BOTH sides of the debate, since Singer is a big D/O proponent) have been involved in a massive conspiracy to produce a false proxy temperature record... that would remove all foundation for D/O events. Certainly not establish them as the cause of current warming.
  38. Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
    #47 Arkadiusz Semczyszak If, however, and they have such fundamental questions ...(And that was my goal - to submit questions - I hope not omitted any of their doubts - because only then - if I ignored this question - it would be "cherrypicking"). Of course it's cherrypicking. In addition to ignoring the authors' conclusions, you also ignored the fact that the "uncertainties" to which they refer at the beginning of their paper are precisely what their paper tries to address. That's why they say, "Here we address these questions [i.e., these uncertainties] by presenting an observationally based reconstruction of the spatially resolved, time-dependent history of anthropogenic carbon in the ocean over the industrial era." In other words, you're treating the paper's initial acknowledgment of existing uncertainty as the take-away message of their paper, which is an absurd way to approach the matter. Scientists are trained to communicate in a measured way, and there's nothing clever or rigorous about the "skeptical" stunt of using this basic convention of scientific discourse as a weapon against science itself. The intellectual pathology that sees uncertainty about AGW as positive is a whole other matter. (Where uncertainty exists, things can also be worse than we expect.) So yeah, that'd be cherrypicking, undertaken in defense of a position that's logically incoherent.
  39. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Baz - There's quite a lot on this site regarding Arctic ice: see here, here, and here as starters. It appears to be in fast retreat, but I would suggest asking questions on the appropriate pages (lest the moderators swat me with rolled-up newspapers). Actually, just go to the "News Archives" page and search for "Arctic" - lots of topics. As to the accuracy of a "Regular Joe" - I'd have to strongly disagree. If an actual downturn shows up, it will be evident from the measurements and statistics. If a dip in current temperatures appears and is not statistically significant, well, then the "Regular Joe" is quite simply mistaken, i.e., wrong. It's just noise - and (as in 2010 with near-record highs) we're likely to see swings in the opposite direction. An insignificant apparent trend isn't actually a trend! This "Regular Joe" reasoning is a prime example of a "Common Sense" logical error, Baz - one of many ways to be incorrect. Last but certainly not least - confirmatory bias involves rejecting arguments that disagree with your beliefs, while accepting anything that supports your beliefs, regardless of the strengths of the arguments - sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "La la la la la...." when someone disagrees. That's quite different from evaluating the strengths of various arguments and deciding which ones hold up, which is what science is all about. Make certain you know what you are saying when you admit to confirmation bias!
  40. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    CBD. I see a confirmation bias as a leaning toward finding truth in a position that confirms what they already believe. (and I don't want to get hung up on 'belief' in science!). I Googled it and got someting very close to my definition on wiki: "A tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true." However, that said, I would struggle to show a tenet of AGW that is provably false. I could always run with: 'Malaria will get worse with rising temps'! Oft stated, not provable! Anyways, what's your opinion on future Arctic ice?
    Moderator Response: If you take a look at the upper left of the Skeptical Science home page, you'll see a box containing the word "Search..." Plug "arctic ice" into that box and you'll be presented with several better threads for taking up a discussion of the future of Arctic sea ice.

    In the interest of maintaining coherent discussion, please avail yourself of this advice.
  41. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    @Baz: "Hello again! Ned, I didn't say that I am speaking for other people (did I?). " Yes, you did. You claimed to be Joe Average, to represent a majority of Americans, and you used "we" in that context. "What I think I said was that I am indicative of the vast majority of people out there." That is *exactly* the same as saying you speak for others. "I am sceptical (like very many) and don't fully understand the science (like very many!)." The problem is not that you don't fully understand the science, is that you cling on to fallacious notions even when people who *do* understand the science explain to you why you're wrong. If you want to learn the science, you'll have to start *listening* to those who know it. "No one is going to tell me that any of you would go to a Creationist website without your confirmation bias!" You don't understand what confirmation bias is. I suggest you start here for a simple explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias "Could I take this opportunity to ask for your views on future Arctic ice? It's something I've been reading about for the past couple of days and I would like opinions." There are other threads on this site about this, but the short story is: it's declining rapidly, both in extent and density. "The regular Joes might turn out to be correct!" That is highly unlikely. If you don't care about statistical significance, then why not just look at the last three years, and see that the warming has restarted with a vengeance? :-)
  42. Philippe Chantreau at 02:00 AM on 24 September 2010
    Climate scientists respond to Monckton's misinformation
    Climate skepticism is like the Gold Rush. There is so little gold to be had that it's truly not worth the effort. But then there are the clever ones, who do the cooking and the laundry and sell the booze to the miners. They're the ones getting rich. There are some very clever climate skeptics out there cashing in on the rush. Steven Mosher with his climategate book. Loehle, who wrote a book titled, believe it or not, "How to be a successful scientist." Yep, from the guy whose publication record is (almost?) exclusively in E&E... Then there is Watts, and all the ads he gets on his site, plus the exposure transferred to his electric car project. And Monckton with his speech tour. They're all working hard for the miners and raking in the dough. Quit wasting your time on a blog Ken, there is a large public out there ready to pay you to continue telling them what they want to hear. No data analysis required, no fancy statistics, no headache-generating line by line radiative transfer model, no Rossby Waves, just some good ol' talk in a book with a shocking title. Have at it, it's free money.
  43. A detailed look at Hansen's 1988 projections
    BP, Pardon my skepticism, but it really does not help your cause presenting a paper co-authored by Singer and Douglass. Regardless, you continue to argue a straw man BP-- this post is not about the tropospheric hot-spot, and I am surprised that John has not deleted your posts for being OT-- if you want to speak to that, please go to the appropriate thread (see Riccardo's post for links). Second, several papers have recently come out which have superseded the Douglass paper (see my post @78). Why ignore those and cherry-pick Douglass? And why include Douglass et al's paper above when you know that there data and analysis had significant issues? And as for your comment about the inability of GCMs to simulate convection. Well, yes that was a tad difficult for Hansen et al. with a 1000 km grid spacing. One can use a good CPS (e.g., Kain-Fritsch) at smaller grid spacing (say, 50 km), and explicitly model convection at grid spacing <3 km. They are running the operational ECMWF global model at about 16 km horizontal grid-spacing right now, so it is going to be some time yet before modelers can address the deep, moist convection issue. In the mean-time the planet continues to warm at a rate very close to that predicted in the various IPCC reports. One final note, one does not need a climate model to infer ECS to doubling of CO2. Many proxy records which implicitly include all the feedbacks and processes point to a EQS of +3 C. You know that, yet you posts on this thread seem a determined effort to convince the unwary that the models have no skill and will predict too much warming based on issues surrounding both the observation and modelling of the tropical hot spot feature.
  44. Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
    @Arkadiusz: first, you should really stick to simple sentence, as your English does not appear to be strong enough to form complex sentences without making them confusing (non-English speaker, here). Second, you make a couple of puzzling statements: "For example, does the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase - for whatever reason - an additional 20 or 200 ppmv in the XXI century must be the great importance - what specific actions we take. Being a huge difference - in the context of chaos theory - "the wings of a butterfly" - indeed fundamental." Chaos theory and the Butterfly effect have little to do with long-term trends and the clear effects of additional CO2 in the atmosphere. You seem to be implying (I may be wrong, for that paragraph is unclear) that more CO2 simply means more uncertainty in the resulting effect. That is not true, and seems to be a misunderstanding of what Chaos Theory is about. "These questions show that it really practically nothing (sufficiently accurately) do not know what will happen - for 40 years - from "our" CO2." Quantify "sufficiently accurately", please. Just because we don't have exact predictions doesn't mean we can't say it will be warmer using a climate sensitivity value of about 3C. "Instead, there are serious reasons for that, not only in the Himalayan glaciers will melt by at least 300 years. In one word: "clock" - almost certainly - “not ticking "." I don't know what you're trying to say, here. As I said earlier, keep to short, factual sentences. Are you implying that there is no cause for alarm and therefore we shouldn't be worried because we have plenty of time to wait and see? That sounds terribly irresponsible. "If the latter is true, then more warming could see greater decreases in water vapour" I know this is quoted from an article, but it's important to note this isn't directly attributed to Solomon. In fact, it seems to be an extrapolation made by the journalist, and one that appears extremely unlikely. Warmer world = more water vapor over the long run. "Rather than pay for the synthetic tree CO2 removes, I will pay for research such as thermo-nuclear fusion, or efficient energy storage in solar and wind power (in the periods when they do not produce energy) - it is always useful (for example, here is an interesting use of the thermal inertia of the usual molten salt)." Okay, I first thought your mention of the synthetic tree was a image representing all CO2 mitigation efforts, but now you seem to say it is a real artefact? I'm confused. Efficient energy storage for solar and wind (using molten salt, for example) *are* ways to mitigate CO2 emmissions by lowering our use of fossil fuels. As for nuclear fusion, I'm all for it, but it may still take decades to get something that requires less energy to control than it produces...however, there's nothing preventing us from pursuing that research *in addition* to mitigation efforts, right? Again, sorry if I misunderstood some of your post.
  45. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Baz #330: "No one is going to tell me that any of you would go to a Creationist website without your confirmation bias!" 'I do not think that term means what you think it means.' Disagreeing with a position does not perforce mean that you have a confirmation bias against it. Rather, 'confirmation bias', indicates that you ignore evidence against your position and/or accept 'evidence' in favor of it... even if that 'evidence' is factually untrue. So, for instance... when creationists say that there are no 'transitional fossils' showing the evolution of wings (which they claim are 'irreducibly complex'... so complicated as to have to have been created in that final form rather than evolving over time) and steadfastly ignore the existence of Archaeopteryx (or 'flying' squirrels as a LIVING transitional form of the kind of wings evolved by bats) they are displaying confirmation bias.... believing something which is demonstrably untrue because it supports their underlying opinion. Show me one thing which 'those who accept the existence of AGW' believe which is provably false and we'll talk. Until then the confirmation bias is on the other foot so to speak.
  46. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    If the change in heat measured were due to natural cyclical processes you would expect that some areas would go down in heat content while others went up. This would be the case unless the process was very long. If it was long we would not see a large effect like what has been observed. Perhaps the few areas where heat content went down were due to a long term mechanism. The fact that most areas went up suggests a common mechanism--AGW. Doug, excellent post as per your normal stuff. If people find two pages too long to read they can just read the introduction and the conclusion.
  47. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    According to reasonably scientific inquiries as opposed to dubiously worded opinion polls (there's a difference) Baz is pretty much flat wrong in claiming to be part of a "vast majority of people out there." See this: Yale Project on Climate Change "Six Americas"
  48. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Composer99. I'm not saying that ordinary mortals could overturn scientific consensus opinion, what I'm saying is that a scientist would look at a graph and not see anything to be concerned about, and put it down to noise or variations, whereas a 'regular Joe' might see a downturn in temperature. The regular Joes might turn out to be correct!
  49. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Hello again! Ned, I didn't say that I am speaking for other people (did I?). What I think I said was that I am indicative of the vast majority of people out there. If you read the post you'll see what context that was placed in. I am sceptical (like very many) and don't fully understand the science (like very many!). I (we) look at a graph, I (we) see exactly what we see - we don't look at datasets. Do you see? That's the context in which I was trying to explain my choice of 10 years of data. As for confirmation bias, perhaps I might suggest people be a little more honest - with themselves and with others on here. No one is going to tell me that any of you would go to a Creationist website without your confirmation bias! Anyway, I really enjoyed the conversations and learned some things (especially from some of the links provided). Thanks to all. By the way Ned & CoalGeologist, I'm actually English, not American. KR, Points taken, that's what I like about this site, as there appear to be many knowledgable contributors. Could I take this opportunity to ask for your views on future Arctic ice? It's something I've been reading about for the past couple of days and I would like opinions. Many thanks.
  50. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    I also ought to lighten up my dismal perspective on instrumentation by mentioning NOAA's plans to equip a subset of Argo buoys for deep operations as well as their scheme to deploy some lurking benthic samplers that will run on the bottom for an extended period of time before emerging to report back.

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