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Comments 109751 to 109800:

  1. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Baz... Case in point. Your link at WUWT does not include PIOMAS ice volume. Out of sight out of mind. Based on the first hand observations this season by Dr Barber at U of Manitoba I would expect that the MY ice situation is like worse than is being reported by the satellite data.
  2. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Daniel... I am very curious why Anthony and Steve at WUWT are so tenaciously clinging to the Arctic ice issue. They surely know this is a topic on which they are going to lose in the end. Every expert on the Arctic is saying the summer ice is going to be gone, and fairly soon. But these non-experts are pounding the "ice is rebounding" meme like there is no tomorrow. Anthony seems to laying the entire credibility of his site on the line with this one. It just makes no sense.
  3. It's the sun
    Beagle, to save everyone here (and yourself) from going over arguments that have been brought up many times in the past, I suggest you have a look at Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says because most of your assertions are in the Top 10 there. Read what they say and then come back and state what you disagree with. Also, you state that you definitively know one thing : "I know for a fact that many of the meteorological sites in the Russian high Arctic that had been reporting since the 1940s were shut down when the Soviet Union collapsed, and this resulted in a spike in reports from more tropical sites." Facts should be quite easily proven and backed-up, so could you provide a link to the facts concerning shut-downs and the "spike" ?
    Moderator Response: Beagle, please do as JMurphy suggested. Also, please respond to his request for more info not on this thread, but on the thread Dropped stations introduce warming bias. The policy on this site is for off-topic comments to be deleted. "Off topic" on this site means off topic of the particular post on which the comments are appearing, such as this "It's the Sun" post. Often conversations start as asides on an irrelevant thread, which is okay as long as immediately those conversations continue on a relevant thread. In such cases, it's fine to post a short comment on the original thread, pointing readers to the continuation on the relevant thread.
  4. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Ken Lambert... I don't think anyone has a problem accepting that warming has flattened in the past decade. That's pretty obvious. What people are objecting to is this statement: "[This is] pretty good proof that the theory of CO2GHG forcing as the main driver of global warming is in serious trouble." As everyone is pointing out, the climate is highly variable. It has ups and downs and has throughout the warming of the past 40 years. I presented a chart where there are a number of short term (cherry picked) trends that show cooling. Why is this warming this decade any different than previous cooling or flattening of the past? Answer: It's not. As well, if you can plot the 2 standard deviation of the trend I think you'll find that the flattening is still well within the expected range. When we start plotting consecutive years falling outside that range then you have full permission from me to claim that CO2GHG driven GW is in trouble. And I'll back you up.
  5. A South American hockey stick
    To add to what Robert Way just said... I don't think anyone should be jumping up and down over a global and pronounced MWP. As Robert said, the same mechanisms are at work today. If we see a strong MWP that would suggest higher climate sensitivity, one of the primary uncertainties discussed by the IPCC. We REALLY don't want to find out climate sensitivity is in the 5C or 6C range. As I understand it that would be a very very unpleasant scenario.
  6. It's the sun
    Interesting site with erudite comments and very well moderated, thank you John Cook. I recall in 1971 the Big Worry was global cooling and then the Modern Solar Maximum started up coincident with "global warming." I'd be interested in seeing the actual facts on global temperature measurements, i.e. what sites were used, what data controls are on those sites, who owns them, who pays for them, and when were the measurements taken. I know for a fact that many of the meteorological sites in the Russian high Arctic that had been reporting since the 1940s were shut down when the Soviet Union collapsed, and this resulted in a spike in reports from more tropical sites. Some Smart People think this led to a false sense of "global warming." My educated suspicion is that ‘greenhouse’ gasses do play a role, as does space weather, as does vulcanism, as do asteroid-earth collisions… But if you look at prehistoric periods of mass extinctions, they seem to all be associated with global cooling, not warming. Geologic periods of global warming seem to have all been associated with a great diversity of life. So what then should we fear most? All I know is my tomatoes did very poorly this year because “they” say it has been the 13th coldest summer in the US Pacific Northwest since 1941... and when I can’t grow food to eat because it is too cold, I starve. So show me the unbiased, actual, unspun, factual temperature data please.
  7. Philippe Chantreau at 00:44 AM on 19 September 2010
    A South American hockey stick
    Muoncounter, CO2 is well mixed, I don't think that where the sources are located is what makes the difference. The much larger proportion of ocean on the Southern hemisphere is more likely to contribute.
  8. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Re: Baz (269, et al), JMurphy (270), archiesteel(271)
    "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. " "You only read what confirms your beliefs, it would appear." "How does this not sound like wishful thinking? Thanks for confirming my earlier musings: you do not want to find the truth, you want truth to conform to your pre-made opinion."
     Baz, as JMurphy and archiesteel rightfully address, the preponderance of your comments display confirmation bias. Perhaps a period of honest self-assessment is in order. It's not like we all went over to WUWT and engaged you on this. You came here, ostensibly to learn. When advice and sourced correction has been proferred, you either ignore it or only selectively address it. If you actively wish to learn here and make positive, substantive contributions to everyone's understandings, please cease the posturing and try to more actively engage. Or you're wasting everyone's time here. And I'm sure you consider your time to be valuable, right? So let's try this: your comment I quoted above is refuted by Romm over at his place. As the Arctic ice volume is at an all-time low (remember, 60% of melt occurs from the bottom of the ice, so thinning occurs 24/7/365...w/ rising OHC, the volume loss of multiyear[MY] ice doesn't get completely replaced every winter anymore), the melt season has lengthened, with greater periodicity/variability from one year to the next. This is direct testimony to the loss of MY ice. The melt/export season continues, the volume losses continues. So, the question is this: given your statement I quoted and direct evidence indicating your position has a confirmation bias, what will you do about it? Will you continue your current trajectory arcing you towards denier status? Or will you use your evident intelligence, amply demonstrated, to objectively consider all of the evidence before positing an opinion? If the latter, we all welcome your contributions here. The Yooper
  9. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    KL #43 While you clearly have some intelligence, your comment shows that your understanding of applied statistics is pretty zero. To wit: "The most recent 8-15 years is not cherry picking. 1-2 years is cherrypicking. Given that AGW was recently declared a post-pubescent 35 year old, the most recent one third of this period cannot be regarded as insignificant" Is illogical, incorrect, and theoretically unsupportable. I must prepare a post on linear trends and statistical power in order to deal with this oft-repeated rubbish of yours and others' once and for all.
  10. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Re: Ken Lambert (47) Would that analysis you conduct be with your Mark 4 eyeball? Still cherry picking. A good background on statistics, and inherent dangers therein, is here. The Yooper
  11. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Re: Ken Lambert (43)
    "The most recent 8-15 years is not cherry picking. 1-2 years is cherrypicking."
     I could quote other bits, but I believe the entire gist of your comment revolves around this fulcrum. As other commenters have ably demonstrated above, this insistence upon a narrow focus of time, without the relevant context of the available larger dataset of time, is Cherry Picking. You conflate natural variability of noisy datasets with interrupted warming. This has been addressed many times here on Skeptical Science. Outside commentators have also addressed it, such as here and here. The long term trend, with natural periodicity properly removed, is what is important. Tamino gives a good example of how to adjust for that INRE: Sea Level Rise here. The Yooper
  12. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    JMurphy #46 Ned's Chart at post #18 here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-Pacific-Decadal-Oscillation-and-global-warming.html shows smoothed GISS land + SST and RSS temperatures which sure looks like flattening over the last 8-10 years. That's if a clear reduction in the slope of a curve is flattening - which for most people it is. Not desperate - just fact JM.
  13. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Ken Lambert wrote : "There is little doubt of a flattening in warming over the last 8-10 years. All temp records show it..." Really ? I tried it out for UAH (the favourite of the so-called skeptics - although am I right in thinking that they doubt even that now, because it doesn't give them what they want ?), and came up with this : I have used trends for the last 6-12 years, to encompass the years since which you believe there has been 'flattening' as well as a couple of years on either end, and the trend details are : From 1998 - 0.00559773 per year From 1999 - 0.0203245 per year From 2000 - 0.0160839 per year From 2001 - 0.00678464 per year From 2002 - 0.00372316 per year From 2003 - 0.0102541 per year From 2004 - 0.0168241 per year From what I can see, the flattest trend shows up if you take 2002 as your start date but it's certainly not as flat (in fact the trend is increasing) for the following two years. Now, I don't like to use any trends of only 6-12 years (let alone your 8-10) but surely even you can see that your assertion ("flattening in warming") is desperate ?
  14. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Ken Lambert, there's not a fixed amount of time (or whatevre) that tells us how much is enough, it is a statistical problem. Five years may be enough for a set of data but not enough for another, it depends on the noise and/or natural variability of the physical quantity that is being analyzed. There's one more thing that needs to be understoood. If we have, say, 5 years of flat trend, although we can still say that it has been flat (it's our best guess, afterall) we need to explicitly state its statistical significance. So the problem is not on the claim by itself but on the conclusions that can be drawn.
  15. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and global warming
    Ned #18 Nice chart Ned. Lots of work in that compilation. Would it be possible to show us a similar chart of the areas under the TSI curve and the logCO2 curve with the correct vertical scale in Joules?
  16. A South American hockey stick
    I should at least point some of you to here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm And have you guys note that although the MWP did affect the Northern Hemisphere distinctly and strongly (far stronger than the Southern Hemisphere) temperatures now are far beyond those achieved during the MWP and also that the mechanisms which explain the MWP are the same mechanisms which likely caused the 20th century warming but that these same mechanisms are not at play now.
  17. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    #43: "The most recent 8-15 years is not cherry picking." Really? Examine: The blue points are a full 10 years of RSS data for all latitutdes; the pink are just the most recent 8 years. The 'trend' for the blue is positive; the 'trend' for pink is slightly negataive. So it would appear that choice of sample directly influences the apparent outcome. We have 30+ years in RSS and lots more in surface temperatures; please use all available data. As for your continued insistence that I must provide some hypothetical baseline TSI value for you: we've already discussed this ad nauseum elsewhere. I'm not a solar irradiance expert and I'm not going to speculate. Its time to stop asking the same question every time we cross posts. This is a public forum; if anyone else felt your question was important, no doubt they would have chimed in by now.
  18. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    @Baz: more posturing to avoid responding to my questions, Baz? I'm not being ill-mannered, I just want to get to the bottom of this, and for some reason you cannot answer the questions I ask. Perhaps I wouldn't sound so aggressive if I hadn't seen this tactic over and over again from denialists posing as "concerned believers" or "ex-believers who were convinced otherwise by a statistically insignificant period of time." When people start to confront you with the errors in your reasoning, you begin to complain of being badly treated. Give me a break! In fact, it is *you* who is starting to act rude by ignoring counter-arguments and explanations as to why your "change of heart" was based on actual science, but an impression. "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." How does this not sound like wishful thinking? Thanks for confirming my earlier musings: you do not want to find the truth, you want truth to conform to your pre-made opinion. The fact that you refer to WUWT in your last post (instead of some scientifically accurate source) is the icing on the cake, really. So, let me ask my question again (no need to provide anything but the answer): point *what* to me? If you're going to mention me in a post, at least have the common decency to tell me what you meant.
  19. A South American hockey stick
    #15: "perturbance doesnt appear to be that significant given the total amount of fossil fuel that has been consumed" Can you substantiate that? Are you aware that the annual 2ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 tends to be about 50% of annual CO2 emissions? "global warming is happening in the northern hemisphere faster than in the southern hemisphere." Most of the CO2 sources are in the northern hemisphere. If atmospheric CO2 contributes to warming, one would expect exactly that the northern hemisphere warms more rapidly. Add in the greater thermal inertia of the southern hemisphere (all that water and a big mass of ice) and it would be very surprising if the southern hemisphere was not warming more slowly.
  20. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    RH, kdkd, Ned, muoncounter; Gentlemen (maybe ladies for muoncounter): The most recent 8-15 years is not cherry picking. 1-2 years is cherrypicking. Given that AGW was recently declared a post-pubescent 35 year old, the most recent one third of this period cannot be regarded as insignificant - particularly since the CO2 concentration and logarithmic forcing therefrom is at its highest level and increasing every year up to the present. There is little doubt of a flattening in warming over the last 8-10 years. All temp records show it, and OHC measurement is showing less heat gain (or no heat gain), the more accurate it becomes - even with the imperfect Argo. Even Jason is showing about 2.1mm of yearly SLR since 2002, with most of this (3 of 4 recent analyses) attributing to ice melt (mass) and not steric rise (OHC rise causing thermal expansion). OHC measurement prior to Argo is next to useless - very high noise, poor spatial coverage and no baseline. OHC increase claimed by splicing charts from 1993 with Argo (2003-04) has been dealt with elsewhere ie; "Robust Warming of the Upper Oceans", and found to be anything but robust. Muoncounter won't engage on the TSI needing a baseline of 'zero' forcing, because he has probably worked out that I am right, and we could well be seeing a 250-300 year slice of heat accumulation from Solar forcing imbalance which the IPCC AR4 has wrongly dealt with in Fig 2.4 and has been repeated elsewhere. Could this be another IPCC AD2035 or AD2350 moment? 8-10 years of flattening temperatures can't be attributed to ENSO, PDO, AMO unless these complex circulations actually cause a net global heat loss rather than re-distribute heat internally within the Earth system over that sort of time period - and who is suggesting that? Mind you it is not impossible - but contrary to our current understanding, and would be a welcome burp of heat to space to relieve some of that AGW if real. Finally Dr Trenberth's speculation that the 'missing heat' could be sequestered down below the 700-1000m level and might belch forth to king hit us, is looking increasing unlikely by the latest Willis analysis which is finding nothing much down there.
  21. A South American hockey stick
    Oops, the insturmental record is only added to the second graph, but you still see the beginning of the dramatic increase at the end of the first one...
  22. 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.
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
  25. 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?
  26. 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.
  27. 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
  28. 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
  29. 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
  30. 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
  31. A South American hockey stick
    I notice my comment is the same as Lazarus #10 - you have my permission to remove!!!
  32. 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?
  33. 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
  34. 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.
  35. A South American hockey stick
    Doesn't this research indicate that the MWP was global, or at least not restricted to the northern hemisphere?
  36. 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?
  37. Jeff Freymueller at 14:38 PM on 18 September 2010
    A South American hockey stick
    Thanks, Yooper.
  38. 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.
  39. 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?
  40. A South American hockey stick
    Re: Jeff Freymueller (3) Try here. the Yooper
  41. 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!).
  42. 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."
  43. 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.
  44. 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).
  45. 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.
  46. 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.
  47. 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.
  48. 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.
  49. 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.
  50. 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

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