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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 109601 to 109650:

  1. A South American hockey stick
    @Sealcove: if confronted with this, turn the question around, i.e. demand if people have proof of climatic changes that happened as quickly as the current warming without some clear catastrophic event (supervolcano, etc.) associated with it. @RSVP: "Figure 1, if accurate, seems to take some wind out of AGW as exhibited by the overall extent of natural temperature oscillations." Not really. We are already aware of natural temperature oscillations, that's how we know the current one isn't natural. "Temperature is seen to change as much on its own (between 1000 AD and 1500 AD), as it does in the subsequent 500 years that follow." You seem to forget the spike at the end (i.e. the instrumental record), which is *exactly* what AGW is about. So this graph reinforces AGW, not "take some wind" out of it as you would suggest.
  2. A South American hockey stick
    Figure 1, if accurate, seems to take some wind out of AGW as exhibited by the overall extent of natural temperature oscillations. Temperature is seen to change as much on its own (between 1000 AD and 1500 AD), as it does in the subsequent 500 years that follow. While man's activities are surely contributing to recent warming, the perturbance doesnt appear to be that significant given the total amount of fossil fuel that has been consumed in this period. It is also hard to ignore the data that shows global warming is happening in the northern hemisphere faster than in the southern hemisphere. Seems to be loosing about 1 degree on its way south.
  3. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Aha, now we see where Baz has been coming from all along - WUWT. That explains a lot. Firstly, for your own benefit, you should do some reading on this website, starting here and here. That should help to wean you off WUWT... But, more importantly, I can see how your reliance on secondary sources is giving you a warped picture of reality. Take your MartinFrost link : that is two reports spliced together, with only one source shown at the top - to claim that it is all coming straight from Physorg.com. However, that particular report ends two paragraphs before the graphic. From there on (including the graphic) the report is direct from The Register, that fine, unbiased source...not. And he's using two uncredited pictures, one (perhaps both) from NASA. Tut, tut. This is your usual sort of source, is it Baz ? You only read what confirms your beliefs, it would appear. No wonder you are so willing to accept very short trends.
  4. A South American hockey stick
    @archiesteel: That is helpful, but I still can't help wondering if we can truly say that this recent warming is outside of the range of a normal shift without a larger sample. Do we have any longer range proxy data for South America to compare it against to illustrate that the recent shift is unprecedented?
  5. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Rob that PIOMASS reference is out of date, it was for June, and was much discussed at WUWT. See here for all the charts: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/ 2010 isn't over yet! Let's wait and see how the line performs as the Arctic re-builds. You may be in for a surprise.
  6. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    acrchiesteel. That was close, you almost posed a question for debate! No, it's okay, reading back, you didn't. Is this your style, to try and brow-beat? As I pointed out way back, I'm happy to discuss, but not with people who act ill-mannered. Try and 'discuss' even when someone frustrates you, rather than poke them with a stick. It serves absolutely no purpose when they don't respond (as I have not) as you cannot converse. And before you say "I wouldn't want to" then why all the postings? Clearly you want to talk, but (IMHO) you lack the civilised ability. Rob, my 0.001% figure comes from loss gainst volume. The Antarctic contains 20,000,000 GT of ice. The annual loss of 190 GT is a little less than 0.001%. Rob, clearly it's completely insignificant. Even 100 years of (even accelerated) loss would still be completely insignificant! If you had £20m and donated £190 to charity every year, I would say that your donation is insignificant against your wealth, wouldn't you? And before we debate this any further, you might want to read this: http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/sept2010/greenland-icemelt.html
  7. A South American hockey stick
    I see your tropical South American hockey stick ( already broken I notice) and raise you one Arctic hockey stick http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46320000/gif/_46320407_arctic_temperatures_466gr.gif
  8. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    A fairly detailed analysis of the 2035 typo is provided at the link below. It suggests that the typo was actually caught during the expert review stage but some kind of glitch occurred, perhaps due to multiple changes being requested, and the requested correction was either not applied or the original text was accidentally restored. Anatomy of IPCC’s Mistake on Himalayan Glaciers and Year 2035
  9. A South American hockey stick
    Too many hockey sticks around, it's going to be boring :) Small (irrelevant) typo, Moburg -> Moberg both in the text and in the caption
  10. A South American hockey stick
    I notice my comment is the same as Lazarus #10 - you have my permission to remove!!!
  11. A South American hockey stick
    I notice that this reconstruction shows a "Medieval Warm Period" from about 1000 to 1200 AD. Does that mean that the MWP was possibly worldwide, not just a Northern Hemisphere or North Atlantic phenomenon?
  12. A South American hockey stick
    Since John seems to approve of fig1 not having the instrument record attached I thought it'd be interesting to see moberg 2005 without it as well (although these are uncalibrated). Moberg 2005 SI
  13. A South American hockey stick
    I think that mann's "hockey sticks" are a contribution to the scientific literature. I think that some individuals (who will remain unnamed) have taken aim at Mann far to much for his previous studies really tried to develop novel techniques and was ripped apart for doing so regardless of the amplitude of millennial to centennial scale changes in the earth's climate cycles even our best measurement techniques show that the greenhouse effect is increasing.
  14. A South American hockey stick
    Doesn't this research indicate that the MWP was global, or at least not restricted to the northern hemisphere?
  15. A South American hockey stick
    But are these two 'hockey sticks' strictly the same as the Mann hockey sticks that got everybody so excited? Mann had near perfectly straight down trending shafts with a very obvious blade. Both the figures you show allow for far more natural variability than the contentious Mann hockey stick. It's worth reading the text in the Moburg et al. (2005) link you provide under Fig2 to get a perspective on that. Can we throw away Mann's hockey sticks?
  16. Jeff Freymueller at 14:38 PM on 18 September 2010
    A South American hockey stick
    Thanks, Yooper.
  17. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    Daniel @17, That was an awesome Kansas video that you linked to! Had Thingadonta actually read something useful like glacier backgrounder by Kargel rather than linking to spam from a UK tabloid paper, then he would know that the glaciers of the eastern Himalaya in particular are not doing well. The typo was an unfortunate mistake and should not have been made. It does not change the fact that "Total Himalayan mass balance is distinctly negative” (Kargel et al. 2010). Anyhow, the issue had been addressed (ad nauseum) and it is time for everyone to move on.
  18. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    24.Riccardo But if we take glacier melting as a signal of global warming then we have to say that temperature in 1945-1955 were similar to 1995-2005. I think some people struggle with accepting that. 25.mspelto The UNEP/WGMS report does show the mass balance changes were similar in 1945-1955 as 1995-2005 (Fig 5.1). This is with regard to "30 reference glaciers" which I imagine represent good spatial coverage and records. Their "all glacier" record appears to show tha same result although it doesn't extend quite as far back. Fig5.9 tells me that records began Europe - late 19th century. North America - ~1900 but major ramp up ~1945. Arctic - ~1935 Asia/South America - ~1960's New Zealand - 1980's Antarctica/Africa - erm, take your pick Actually looking at this then maybe the idea that the WGMS data as a true global record has to be qualified. mspelto if you have time could you comment on the WGMS data? And maybe let us know which data Cogley has access to that the WGMS doesn't have? 26.michael sweet Expertise is a good thing. Mselto seems to rate Cogley The United Nations Environment Programme seem to rate The World Glacier Monitoring Service Both seem to have importantly different stories to tell about glacier mass balance in the mid 20th century. Which should I go with?
  19. A South American hockey stick
    Re: Jeff Freymueller (3) Try here. the Yooper
  20. Jeff Freymueller at 12:41 PM on 18 September 2010
    A South American hockey stick
    This is really interesting! Thanks for posting it. Unfortunately, it is in a section of Journal of Geophysical Research that I can't get (but maybe at work!).
  21. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    #41: "the warming is masking the cooling" Maybe it was this junk from the junkman, circa 2005. "One of the more interesting "Sky Is Falling" postulations made in recent years has been the claim that the apparently cooling stratosphere is masking observation of anticipated warming in the troposphere."
  22. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Oops, I was waaay late on that one (hadn't refreshed the page in a while before writing #39). I see others have responded better than I, and am again grateful for the general quality of comments on this site.
  23. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    @baz: "So, the warming is masking the cooling? Where have I heard that before?" I glossed over this passage before, but it kind of nags me. Where *did* you hear that before? This sounds like a reference to something else, but I can't figure it out. Anyway, I had a look a the graph you tried to embed, and I don't understand why you think this shows a cooling. Did you not see the "2004" arrow, indicating the current range of temperatures? In fact, this graph clearly shows the warming is currently masking any long-term cooling effects. Note, however, that the subject of this article is about shorter time frames (to the order of 30 years).
  24. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    @barry: you are completely right, my choice of words was ambiguous. In my mind I was saying it in the context of climate science, where "we are cooling" means the climate is cooling in a statistically significant way. To claim otherwise would have been scientifically incorrect, in other words. Indeed, one has to carefully phrase what they say, especially when confronting others about their own rhetorical inconcistencies. In my defense, I'll say English is not my first language, but I'll try to be more careful.
  25. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    It's about frame of reference. There's nothing wrong per se with saying, "the globe has been cooling", when this applies to a time frame in which the globe has actually been cooling. If the statement is void of the word climate then it can be 'true' for short-term periods, but the point of confusion is that 'skeptics' reading such statements, and probably also writing them, implicitly assume that it is climate that is being discussed, instead of short-term weather phenomena. archiesteel in the post above this one is thus dragged into the murky waters by such omissions. By 'scientifically correct', they mean 'climatically significant'. 'The globe has cooled since X' may be 'scientifically correct', but it is tosh with respect to recent global climate. So much care has to be taken with contrarians. They are not interested in a reasonable conversation or with seeking the *truth* They only want ammunition, and careless phrasing provides them with it.
  26. A South American hockey stick
    @Sealcove: well, there's an easy answer to that, and it's contained in your own examples: "many of which seem to take thousands of years." The current observed change, as can easily bee seen on the above graphs, is quite rapid. Cycles that take thousands of years to complete by definition tend to move much slower than what we're seeing. Thus, it is very unlikely that the current, rapid change is due to such natural cycles.
  27. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    When Lal countered that he never said what David Rose in The Daily Mail attributed to him, Rose's journalism was investigated, and it was found he was a serial abuser. Even Roger Pielke Jr, a 'skeptic', wrote to Rose asking him to correct the record. The headline for Rose's article on Murari Lal is, "Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn’t been verified." So the spin starts with the headline. Murari Lal is not a glaciologist.
  28. A South American hockey stick
    Question, is 1600 years enough of a sample in terms of climate cycles to be significant? I am just thinking of some of the wild swings we see in much larger samples, many of which seem to take thousands of years, and I don't quite know how to explain to myself or others why such a small snap shot is significant.
  29. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    Re: thingadonta (8, 13, 14) An example of making a positive contribution to this thread might have looked like this:
    "There was indeed an error in Section 10.6.2 of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in that the attribution of the Himalayan Glaciers disappearing by the year 2035 was incorrect. However, a closer look into the tale reveals that the date cited, 2035, most likely crept into various reports from an original 1996 International Hydrological Programme (IHP) report by Kotlyakov, published by UNESCO, which gave a rough estimate of shrinkage of the world's total area of glaciers and ice caps by 2350. J. Graham Cogley, of Trent University (Ontario), suggested that the 2035 figure in the second sentence of the WGII paragraph was apparently a typographic error, and should have instead read 2350. Summational source here."
     See? That wasn't so hard. Unless all you seek is to generate controversy and to waste others' time. Then carry on, my wayward son. The Yooper
  30. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    @Baz: Point what to me? That you admitted not being rational about this subject? That you picked a five-year (or is it ten years now) time frame in a completely arbitrary way, and this change a belief you claim to have had before? Oh, yeah, and let's not forget that you've "worked with acids." Well, so have I, so I guess it makes me as much of an expert as you. It's not surprise you've decided to make this personal instead of answering my counter-arguments, however I have to remind you this is against site policy. As for me, this will be my last intervention on this thread. Next time we meet, try to have actual scientific, rational arguments, m'kay?
  31. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    thingadonta #13 A good way to have yourself not taken seriously in any discussion of climate change is to use the British Daily Mail as a primary source to justify your point of view. Example here.
  32. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    @Baz: "Anyway, we ARE cooling." ...only if you cherry-pick a very specific time frame. By any other (scientifically-correct) measures, we are not.
  33. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Baz... I would trust what the experts in the field have to say. If they told me that increasing ice mass in Antarctica was a signal of a coming ice age, I would listen. What I think you're failing to recognize or read is the accelerating nature. If you look at 0.001% (a figure that I still need to confirm) as a linear figure, you're right, that's not going to amount to much very fast. It's the fact that this is accelerating that is pause for concern. And it's not even a concern over, "Oh crap the southern ice cap is going to melt soon" it's just yet another indicator of the impact anthropogenic CO2 is having on the climate. And relative to the Arctic ice, maybe you haven't been watching the PIOMAS ice volume chart. 2010 is going to be a dramatic low for ice volume.
  34. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    "To any normal thinking person, this mean exagerating for political purposes, a clear and admitted breach of IPCC prinicples." 1) Learn to type ("prinicples," "should be releaved of duties", etc). Reading your posts hurts my brain. 2) Snark comments about the science and scientists are not what this site is about. Try WUWT instead. 3) This is tempest in a tea pot, quit adding your own farts to the winds. 4) Your attempt at satire failed miserably. I suggest you leave it to those with a talen for it. Your comment adds *nothing* to the scientific discussion, and neither does this one. So I'll ask you to please cease your hit-and-run, poorly-worded, scientifically-deficient posts, as this isn't an advocacy or debate site. Thanks, and have a nice day!
  35. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    ....that is sent back to 1st year science class.
  36. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    re #12 The statement was made to show how stupid the glacier statement was. There is an interesting quote by Dr Lal, co ordinating author of the chapter, who desipuite knowing it was dubious, states "It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action" Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz0zpcSb8EC. To any normal thinking person, this mean exagerating for political purposes, a clear and admitted breach of IPCC prinicples. "IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy". Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz0zpcmLu7g I would like to use my dubious statement above, for political purposes. I am concerned about Asias energy supplies in the next few decades, and the rising threat to these from climate science, so I am going to leave it in my report to "impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action". Dr Lal should be releaved of duties and sent back to 1
  37. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Ken #14 "Just the fact that we are all niggling about whether the Earth is slightly heating or cooling over the last 8-15 years, or whether it is statistically significant is pretty good proof that the theory of CO2GHG forcing as the main driver of global warming is in serious trouble." How do you make these illogical leaps? It simply means you're asking the wrong questions. Have you considered the possibility thatyour ideological preconceptions contaminate your ability to evaluate the science in a level headed way? I might write up a post for SS on statistical power and trends in the next week or two to dispel this rubbish once and for all.
  38. Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
    70, TTTM: I'm not sure what you mean by "literally trapped". What is pretty clear from the radiative transfer theory is that the intensity of IR power reflects the temperature at the photosphere; so the higher the altitude, the lower the radiated power, the smaller the amount of cooling. I don't see any conflict with cirrus clouds: Just because you use a blanket doesn't mean you can't wear pajamas.
  39. Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
    TTTM: After some thought, I come back to the same point of view: - Increasing convection, in itself, wouldn't change the radiative forcing budget, so it wouldn't affect the global average temperature. Additional mixing would probably stir things up a bit more, spreading the heat around: So you would get "more weather". Not surprising: weather is pretty much driven by convection anyway. - The ground-level heating should increase the absolute humidity, which should result in a smaller lapse rate (rate of temperature drop with altitude): Dry air has a lapse rate of about 10-deg-C/km, whereas saturated moist air drops at about 5-deg-C/km. What this implies is that the ground-level temperature will not need to rise as much to make the radiative forcing imbalance go away. This effect can never be big enough to result in a net cooling, but it will moderate (to some extent) the warming due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. So, never let it be said that I denied ALL negative feedback loops in global warming!
  40. Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
    High level Cirrus clouds make a large difference to keeping the long wave energy within the atmosphere. Your ideas that the (15um) long wave energy is literally trapped within the atmosphere isn't supported by evidence (or the science)
  41. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Rob, what I'm saying is that the 'loss' is so small (in context with the amount that the Antarctic has) as to be insignificant, and within Grace's error, surely? As of now, it's losing 0.001% of its mass. Do you really react to that with alarm, seriously? Within five years that could be reversed, and as I said, it could be in error anyway (haven't yet clicked on Daniel's link yet). Rob, reverse this. If the Antarctic were gaining 0.001% of its mass annually would you be afraid that we're heading for a new Ice Age? [Please ignore the other metrics as we're talking about the poles.] I'm willing to bet you wouldn't. I see no alarm about the poles as of now. The Antarctic looks healthy, and only time will tell on the Arctic. Certainly all the scare stories we got from what should be level-headed people after 2007 look somewhat shaky. 2008 ice was supposed to be so thin that 2009 would be disaster. Not so. Despite the thickness it recovered fairly well. 2010 is inconclusive as of now (let's see what happens in the coming weeks). But like I said, let's see what happens over the next few years.
  42. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    mspelto, although it may sound ovious, I wish to thank you for you invaluable contributions. There's a sentence in the conclusions of you paper that I, not being a glaciologist, could not fully understand: "The correlation coefficient in annual balance between each glacier exceeds 0.80, regardless of the extent of accumulation zone thinning, indicating annual balance alone cannot be use." My trivial picture would say that accumulation zone thinnig alone could be enough to point not just to disequilibrium but to the non-survival of a glacier. What I think I'm missing is some physical mechanism of glacier dynamics that justify the use of more sophisticated parameters. I would be gratefull if you could elaborate a bit on this.
  43. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Baz... So, how is it that you, with no particular expertise in ice, would come to a very different conclusion than the experts who are actually working with the data? There is very a big difference between "Antarctic ice is stable" and "Antarctic ice loss is accelerating."
  44. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Daniel... Not so important to waste time on it. I just wanted to bookmark it so I would be able to locate it in a pinch. Thx!
  45. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Re: Rob Honeycutt (33) Michael Tobis ran across it somewhere & posted on it, so a bunch of us ran around trying to find the original source image (buried in a ppt somewhere). This is the source for the image that caused the controversy. I forget the thread post at OIIFTG. If it's important, I can look it up for you. The Yooper
  46. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Daniel... Do you have a source for that diagram? I had never put that together that the emergence of agriculture is timed exactly with coming out of the Younger Dryas. Let's hope we don't later have to add to the other side of the chart a captions that says "agriculture ends."
  47. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Re: Baz (261)
    "As I understand it Grace reports an annual loss of 190 GT (+-77). As the Antarctic has 20,000,000 GT of ice then that 0.001% of ice is well within Grace's normal error, surely? If the Antarctic were gaining 190 GT of ice (according to Grace) then I'd say it wasn't gaining it! For me, it appears that the Antarctic is extraordinarily stable."
     Actually, I covered the net (bottom of the error range) loss of Antarctica here. The majority of losses have come since 2006, so the loss is just ramping up. And many sources point to catastrophic instability in the WAIS, particularly in the PIG. Just pointing it out to, um, you. The Yooper
  48. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Re: Baz (25)
    "Anyway, we ARE cooling."
     By ignoring the 20th & 21st Century temperature rise, you're still wrong. Anyway, this would have been a better version of that graph to use: As the other commentators point out, you're not using the correct resolution of time-frame for this thread. The Yooper
  49. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Baz... Are you missing the point of that chart? Yes, the overall natural trend should be a very slow (geologic scale) cooling. But that chart makes a hard break to the positive trend around the industrial revolution. You are doing exactly what Barry @ 19 pointed out. You skip from way too short of a trend to prove a point (5 or 10 years) to way to long of a trend (8000 years). The entire issue is about current warming and statistically significant trends. I think I understand where the focus on short term trends comes from though. What if, for some reason not yet understood, climate is taking a turn toward cooling? Do we need to wait for 30 years to find out? I'm sure someone here can answer this better than I can but I believe statistically you can see that turn in temps without waiting 30 years. You'd be looking to see if the temps start falling outside the 2 standard deviation boundaries of the trend. Alden Griffith does a really good job of addressing this whole idea of current cooling here.
  50. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Everyone on this thread should know that mspelto is a researcher on glaciers. I appreciate his comments as they are more informed than what the rest of us can come up with. Thanks mspelto for your help. I was amazed at your web site on ice worms, I had thought they were fictional.

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