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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 110401 to 110450:

  1. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    A guest blog at Pielke snrs blog, Have Changes In Ocean Heat Falsified The Global Warming Hypothesis? – A Guest Weblog by William DiPuccio (MAY 5, 2009), link, provides a good overview of the issues discussed here The argument that we ought to accept ocean heat, measured in joules, as the gold standard for measurement of global warming - and - that reliable measures of this date from 2004 - and - indicate that global warming has halted seems valid to me. An important role for scientists is to point out which measuring tools are the best available and Pielke snr has led the way here.
  2. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Eli has long recognized that the denialists believe ten impossible (well, contradictory) things before breakfast and they get....annoyed when this is pointed out
  3. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    #33 KR at 02:22 AM on 11 September, 2010 the distribution of cloud cover affects temperature. It's not just cloud cover. I have shown you clouds because they are visible to the naked eye. The boundary of clouds is a special surface in the atmosphere separating regions with above 100% relative humidity from those below it. But all the other surfaces with equal relative or specific humidity are fractal-like. Precipitable water index distribution for North America: Now, let's consider a very simple climate model. There are two layers, the surface and the atmosphere. In such a model atmospheric (absolute) temperature is always 0.84 times lower than surface temperature, because from there half the thermal radiation goes up, half down (and 0.84 ~ 2-1/4). As in this model the path length is fixed, IR optical depth τ is proportional to the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. For the sake of simplicity, let's suppose it is independent of wavelength in thermal IR. In this case absorptivity/emissivity of the atmosphere is 1-e-τ. Also, let the atmosphere be transparent to short wave radiation. If I is the short wave radiation flux at the surface and T is absolute temperature there (and the surface radiates as a black body in IR), then I = (1+e-τ)/2·σ·T4   (σ is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant) It is easy to see for a given SW flux I if IR optical depth τ is increased, T should go up as well. However, let's make the model just a little bit more complicated. Let's have two compartments of equal area over which the sum of GHGs is constant but it may be different between them. That is, in compartment A optical depth is 2τ·cos2φ and in compartment B it is 2τ·sin2φ (the average is τ of course). Also, let the heat transport between compartments be very efficient, so surface temperature T is the same everywhere. In this case the effective optical depth is τeff=-log((e-2τ·cos2φ+e-2τ·sin2φ)/2) Now, τeff happen to have a maximum at φ=45° where GHG distribution is uniform between the compartments and decreases as it is getting more uneven. Therefore a small increase in overall IR optical depth τ due to increased GHG concentration can be compensated for by making its distribution skewed. Water vapor, as a not well mixed GHG is perfect for this purpose. I do not put expression for entropy production here, because it is a bit complicated. But you can figure it out yourself based on radiative entropy flux of a black body being 4/3·σ·T3. Anyway, overall entropy production is also increased by decreasing τeff, so the maximum entropy production principle pushes the climate system toward an uneven GHG distribution whenever it is possible. Note cloud albedo is not taken into account at all in this discussion, only clear sky water vapor distribution.
  4. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    All of your links to WattsUpWithThat seem to link to one page tut-tutting at a picture of a thermometer placement, 'How not to measure temperature, part 22'. Any chance of fixing that?
  5. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    In general changing theories is a good thing especially if the old ones are wrong. "Karl and his colleagues conclude that there is only a one-in-20 chance that the string of record high temperatures in 1997-1998 was simply an unusual event, rather than a change point, the start of a new and faster ongoing trend." http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2000/prrl0002.html But then warming decelerated and that's ok, there's no way Karl could have predicted that. But a skeptical scientist would have acknowledged the likelihood of natural acceleration and deceleration and not proclaimed 95% confidence of 1997-1998 being the "start" of anything.
  6. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    omnologos writes: I very much appreciate the chriscanaris/Ned exchanges. So do I :-) I wonder then if it's a matter of definitions, like with many other things. "The sun isn't causing global warming" means more "whatever the sun has been doing in the past few decades, global warming due to greenhouse gases has been there regardless" than (literally) "the sun is unable to cause global warming". Yes, that's a nice summary of how I would describe it. Solar variation absolutely does have an effect on climate. It's just that in recent decades the sun has not varied by a whole lot [at timescales longer than the usual solar cycle], so its effect has been small.
  7. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    Phil at 03:56 AM, Phil, no I am reading it on the basis that the diagram is merely a budget, and just like a household budget it identifies the inputs and allocations but says nothing about any underlying wealth that is generally represented by accumulated assets those being a combination of both fixed and liquid assets. In this case the accumulated assets are the heat contents of the land and oceans, and that of the atmosphere which most obviously represents the liquid assets, those being the assets that are readily drawn upon to cover any short term variations within the overall budget. For a budget to balance, once an amount has been allocated to one outgoing it is simply not available to another outgoing. In the diagram it is clear that 390 is allocated to the liquid assets. This obviously is excess to that allocated to evaporation and convection which are also allocated to the liquid assets. However 324 is also available from the liquid assets as part of the process attempting to maintain budget integrity by balancing out, or seeking equilibrium. Thus as the 390 was outside that required for the other allocations of 78 and 24, the lesser amount drawn upon,324, cannot logically be available either as it is already utilised to makeup the balance of the 390. If on the other hand the budget showed that the flows were reversed with only 324 allocated to the liquid assets whilst 390 could be drawn upon, then obviously the excess, 66 would be available for the other processes, and the allocations of 78 and 24 would be accordingly higher in order for the budget to balance. In either case, nothing changes with what is available from the liquid assets. But that is NOT the case in the diagram, therefore there is nothing to support the assertion that the back radiation has energy available to input into the evaporation process. I understand that the diagram is a rather simplistic depiction, noting it says nothing about contained energy within the system, nor anything about what drives the processes, it merely attempts to depict the flow from where the energy originates to where it is dissipated, just as a household budget does.
  8. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Not a problem, at least you get to play with an iPad!
  9. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Just perusing the US State of the climate report and noticed that their Fig. 3.7 shows NODC OHC content values decreasing slightly after 2004, whereas the OHC data for PMEL and Hadley both show increases in OHC, especially the Hadley data. So who to believe? At this point, I sure don't know which one is right...and in light of those discrepancies I would certainly not venture to state unequivocally in public that global warming has stopped. Maybe Pielke can explain to us specifically why he chose the NODC OHC data over those data provided by PMEL and Hadley....
  10. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    * puts up hand, looks guilty * sorry, I think thats the second time I've gone and ruined all the links in a guest blog post. Maybe that's what happens when you blog from an iPad :-(
  11. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Looks like we lost the links somewhere in translation there, but I think I got them all fixed.
  12. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    omnologos - Yes, the sun is capable of causing climate change. However, all evidence available indicates that it is not the sole forcing responsible for the warming of the last 150 years (the magnitudes of solar change would require a huge climate sensitivity to those effects, and as no known solar changes correlate temporally), and that small solar variations are superimposed on the much larger CO2 driven warming.
  13. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Links are busted, badly formed - looks like they were created with an HTML editor that had some issues.
  14. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    andreas - I'm not sure about the exact answer to your question, but notice that a 2% change in albedo would simply change the 0.7 to 0.68 or 0.72. In other words, it wouldn't change the solar forcing significantly.
  15. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Lots of broken links in the article, could it be my system?
  16. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Link to "skeptic arguments that contradict each other" is broken. The science is sound. All they have is repeating the same old talking points that have been dis proven again and again. Skeptical Science makes it easier to whack the mole, saves researching the same old stuff again and again.
  17. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    I very much appreciate the chriscanaris/Ned exchanges. I wonder then if it's a matter of definitions, like with many other things. "The sun isn't causing global warming" means more "whatever the sun has been doing in the past few decades, global warming due to greenhouse gases has been there regardless" than (literally) "the sun is unable to cause global warming".
  18. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Ned @144, Just had a look at your numbers. FWIW, they look good to me, although I cannot vouch for the contribution to global SL from glacial melt--although the NSIDC numbers valid up until 2003 may be too low (e.g., Dyurgerov (2002) notes that contribution from glaciers exceeded 2 mm/yr after 2000). Either way, as you say, the heat required/involved is too small to significantly affect the 0-700 m OHC numbers, i.e., explain the slowdown in OHC over the period in question. I'm beginning to appreciate Dr. Trenberth's frustration ;)
  19. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    nigelj, your question is not naive! It is excellent and common. The answer is in the post Climate Time Lag.
  20. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Ned, Thanks for taking the time to respond to two questions I had posed. I do recall your prior posts. In this particular instance, I was just asking for some basic information about the amount of heat that has been "consumed" in the melting of the Greenland Ice sheet over a specified time period. I know that it pales in comparison to the amount of heat stored in the upper layer of the world's oceans.
  21. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    This is a good site and I feel the case for agw is very compelling, however I have one area of doubt regarding solar activity. Could the early 20th century largely solar forced warming be causing or contributing to the current warming by some delayed action or feedback? I cant see how it would and presume its been ruled out. Im not a scientist and it may be a naieve question. Id appreciate some clarification.
  22. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    Eric (skeptic) - I think that averages can be used if they are understood and properly chosen. As an example, Trenberth has recalculated upwards IR from the Earth's surface in his energy budgets to be an average of 396 W/m^2, rather than the earlier value 390 W/m^2, due to a better understanding of surface temperature variations and the effect via the T^4 relationship of temperature and energy emitted. If the average is properly chosen, it will be fine as a model input, even if the gridding is much larger than the fine level detail of water vapor levels or cloud coverage.
  23. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    Chris G (#35), you are mostly right that weather and other internal factors should have some paleo consistency. But not completely right because of biosphere changes, geological and other long term changes that affect weather. The bigger problem is that paleoclimate estimates require a mutual relationship with no other external factors. Unless there are paleo records of the other factors (partly possible) and a known relationship between those and the CO2 and temperature being estimated (not very well known). To take a simple example if some solar magnetic effect (e.g. GCM flux) affects both temperature and CO2, then the sensitivity of temperature to increased CO2 alone cannot be determined from those two proxy measurements.
  24. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Badgersouth writes: Has anyone computed the annual mass of Greenland ice cover loss/gain from 2000 through 2009? How many Joules of energy does it take to melt a cubic meter of ice? My guess is you're wondering whether the "flattening" of ocean heat content that Dr Pielke refers to is attributable to the latent heat associated with melting ice. It's a reasonable question. I tried to address it a couple of days ago, when somebody asked about it in another thread. Here's a link to my first comment, and here's a followup (with further details and correction of a typo in the first comment). The bottom line is that obviously heat that goes into melting ice means less heat raising the temperature of the ocean. But the amounts involved (for both declining Arctic sea ice and melting land ice) are about two orders of magnitude smaller than the OHC anomaly numbers. It's just too small to have much of an effect.
  25. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    @135 If I read correctly the discussion, melting ice is not enough to explain the lack of energy in the ocean. Or Argo is wrong or the satellites are. So what other indices show an increase in temperature since 2004? The existence of these show that there are problems with ARGO. Get it right?
  26. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    In discussing the point that 2004-2009 is too short a period to see such trends, it should be clarified more precisely *why* we might not expect to see changes over that length of time. There are in fact several reasons I can think of; others can perhaps think of more. (1) The rate of change in both ocean heat content and in surface temperature expected from global warming is still small enough that the change only emerges from statistical noise (inherent and/or measurement-related) over longer periods of time. (2) Over short periods of time there are processes within our climate system that introduce substantial variability which, over longer periods, average to zero. ENSO in particular has a major impact on 2-3 year variability. Also don't forget we've been near the bottom of a solar cycle for a few years too (so incoming solar is 0.2 W/m^2 or so less than the average right now just from that). (3) Plain old weather - cloudiness levels and storm systems can persist to some degree for a month at a time (like the Russian drought, Pakistan floods situation this summer). These have a major impact on Earth's energy balance over the short term, and while they average out over the period defining weather, the natural statistical variability they introduce into Earth's energy balance almost certainly overwhelm global warming signals (so far) over the few-year time frame. Agreed?
  27. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    BP, thanks for the link, I agree completely. The use of averages in grid cells is not much different, philosophically, than using world wide parameterizations for water vapor feedback. It's a lot of use of ideal or heavily simplified relationships, which are valid in some cases by definition and then assumed to have a plus and minus delta on each side of them that averages out. KR, the cloud argument is valid and affects both IR back radiation and albedo. But the concentration of water vapor outside of clouds is just as important (if not more). Each point in space and time will have some thermodynamic formula for back radiation. Nothing much can be said about an average for an area (e.g. the size of a GCM grid cell or the whole earth) using global-average sensitivity formulas as suggested above. The main problem being that the formula cannot account for water vapor unevenness. Using climate models with volcanic aerosol inputs without being able to model the weather (e.g. mesoscale convection) will simply produce an overestimate of sensitivity. For example http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/pinatubos-summer-washout-volcanoes-erupt-and-the-worlds-weather-changes-bill-burroughs-explains-the-link-between-forecasting-such-effects-and-global-warming-1554179.html shows that weather itself was a negative feedback for this particular volcano preceded by El Nino (not lower humidity on a global average basis from a globally averaged volcanic cooling).
  28. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    Thanks for the good post, there's just one question left, I hope, it's not silly. You wrote dF = 0.7 * d(TSI)/4 This is a very straightforward and easy to understand formula - the larger the change in solar irradiance, the larger the energy imbalance it causes, and thus the larger the radiative forcing. Studies have reconstructed TSI over the past 300 years. Are there long term studies about the factor 0.7? Can we be sure, the albedo is a constant over centuries? For example, a change in cloud cover of about 2% can cause the same forcing as a doubling of CO2.
  29. How we know the sun isn't causing global warming
    #33: "you must be able to accurately tell us where we are in the cycle of 'natural' solar forcing. Perhaps Muoncounter could attempt an answer this time. " Why? If you are questioning the content of this thread - that the observed warming is not due to the sun -- do so with specific objections. Or, as you suggest in the prior exchange, are you looking for a magic TSI number, so that you can claim that CO2 forcing is minimal? If so, that question is dealt with in specifics elsewhere. My comment here was about galactic cosmic ray flux, which was specifically a part of this post; I am happy to debate that subject in depth if you like.
  30. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    As I understand it, SLR tends to concentrated around the equator due to centrifigual forces and ocean currents. If that is the case, would the OHC stored in the upper layer of the oceans be unevenly distributed, i.e., more around the equator and less elsewhere?
  31. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    Dana1981, Thanks for the excellent article. #3 Thingadonta, I think you raise some valid points in that the pattern of the change can be different between different sources of an imbalance. For instance, the pattern caused by an increase in solar output can be different from an increase in GHGs. There are articles on this site and elsewhere which identify these differences; for example, a larger rise in nighttime lows than in daytime highs is associated with a higher GHG content in the atmosphere where that would not be the pattern expected from an increase in solar output. However, the atmosphere and oceans do a pretty good job of distributing the energy over the globe, and in the long run, energy in is very close to energy out (radioactive decay and others making up the tiny fraction difference). #29 Lars, I think you'd have to propose a climate system where Antarctic and Greenland were isolated from the rest of the world for tens of thousands of years, in order to seriously question that there is a relationship between the ice core derived temperatures and the global average. It's pretty well known that the record is not a global proxy. However, they are, in part, based on oxygen isotope ratios. I'm willing to accept that oxygen is pretty well mixed in the biosphere over periods of thousands of years. Werecow, I'll second what CBDunkerson said, and add that an awareness that the sensitivity varies based on what is the current state can pretty readily be found in paleoclimate studies. On the distribution of water vapor and clouds: The really nice thing about the paleoclimate is that it takes all these considerations into account.
  32. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    I suspect that we have seen the last of Dr. Pielke and HumanityRules on this comment thread. Can anyone else answer the following two questions that I had posed to them yesterday. 1. Is the annual OHC to be computed by the NODC for 2010 likely to be higher, or lower, than the number computed for 2009? 2. Does Dr. Pielke postulate a theory about why global warming purportedly halted during the period 2004-2009?
  33. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    #37: "I was rather looking forward to your reply" Why? It seems as if you want to create some sort of straw man in the form of a quantitative branch for me to saw off. I had no idea that form of expertise was required in order to agree with a point raised in a 'basic version'. Your comment in 36: "small imbalance could mean Solar forcing only or a smaller CO2GHG effect that theoretically claimed" suggests that you would like someone to provide a number that will allow you to claim that CO2 effects are small; I'm not qualified to do that. However, the CO2 question is addressed in detail elsewhere. My observation in #28 still stands: a paper noted the long term cycle evident in the sunspot index. And I echo what kdkd said in #31: all this stuff can be estimated without estimating this 'equilibrium TSI'.
  34. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    A couple of points, ARGO measures heat content by measuring temperature and composition. The probes float at depth and surface every 10 days, during which they measure profiles. While the oceans have 90% of the heat content, it ain't 90% of the Earth's heat content, because that leaves out the mantle and the core. However, that is just the scientist in Eli, because the heat flow through the lithosphere is slow and small compared to that from the sun. The more serious point is that ARGO and the other probes do not measure the heat content of the deep ocean, but only of the upper 1km or so. That means they are NOT measuring the heat content of the entire ocean, something to keep in mind when looking at strong claims. So what can ARGO do?. It can measure the heat flow into and out of the upper 1 km layer of the ocean and that is very significant, but since it depends strongly on winds and currents, it is NOT a direct measure of global warming free of variation. It is a damped measure as can also be seen by looking at the time response to Pinatubo esp in the sea level rise
  35. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    Berényi Péter @32 That is not a picture of water vapour
  36. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Badger @134/135, I'm not entirely sure where this line of questioning is going. I am not an expert on the "delayed oscillator" or exactly how ENSO may affect global OHC. Maybe someone else here can add some information. That said, I'm pretty sure that the "delayed oscillator" is now accepted widely in the community. As for the ice loss form Greenland, a new paper our in Nature (in which they used different correction factors, than those used in recent studies, to account for the impact of glacial isostatic rebound) suggests that the mean ice loss from Greenland between April 2002 and December 2008 was -104 (+/- 23) Gt/yr, and -64 (+/- 32 Gt/yr) from the WAIS. 1 Gt is about 1 km^3 of ice. As you can see, there are some issues closing the global SL "budget".
  37. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Badgersouth @135, see the link I just posted for ari. It has Greenland and Antarctic ice mass graphs for the period since 2002.
  38. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    ari @125, as has been mentioned, five or six years is too short a period of time to say anything definitive, but here is a site where you can see some of the key indicators and decide for yourself if the trends are continuing: http://climate.nasa.gov/keyIndicators/index.cfm Note that this year's arctic sea ice minimum looks like it will be somewhere in the vicinity of 2008's number. It is already considerably lower than 2009 by every measure I've seen. We'll likely know this year's number within a couple of weeks. (Also, it looks like their 2009 number is wrong -- not sure what the problem is, but it looks about a million km^2 too big, so maybe it's just a plotting error.)
  39. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Albatross: Has anyone computed the annual mass of Greenland ice cover loss/gain from 2000 through 2009? How many Joules of energy does it take to melt a cubic meter of ice?
  40. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Albatross @ 131 Is the science settled on the causes of the "delayed oscillator"? Does the "delayed osciallator"impact the amount of OHC stored in the upper layer of the ocean system that is measured by the ARGO system?
  41. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    Doh: I don't think it does.
  42. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    JohnD @79 OK, I think I understand your problem with the diagram. The figure of 324 backradiation comes from heat accumulated in the atmosphere over time. The figures of 168 and 324 imply to me that solar irradiation takes, on average, twice as long to leave the atmosphere as enter it. This is, of course, the essence of the greenhouse effect; heat is trapped for a period of time in the atmosphere, and the more greenhouse gases, the longer that period of time. I think you are trying to read the diagram as if it applied "from day 1" as it were; I don't it does. Make sense ?
  43. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Dr Pielke @115 You clarify that a snapshot is a month's average data. Can you please explain your rationale for choosing a one month period as indicative of the overall heat balance. It seems to me from a visual inspection that the noise overwhelms the signal for even a three month period, and that, as I posted earlier, several year's data might be needed. Presumably however, you've done a proper in depth analysis of the data to identify the time period necessary to differentiate signal from noise - it would be really interesting to share that please ?
  44. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    129. Rob Honeycutt states: "This is the big game and the fans are drunk on politics. Climate change is an issue that we need to get right. If you're passing out shots of bourbon to the fans you're doing a massive disservice to science." Especially true if the bourbon is being passed out a conference sponsored by the George Marshall Institute.
  45. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Badgersouth @130, Yes, as far as I understand the mechanism for El Nino is referred to as the delayed oscillator. The cause is most certainly not undersea volcanoes as Monckton suggests. Read more here: http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/theory/index.html
  46. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Has the scientific community reached consensus on the causes of the El Nino and La Nina events?
  47. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    Eric (skeptic) and BP - Absolutely correct and very relevant, the distribution of cloud cover affects temperature. The question, which I have not seen solidly answered, is whether and how the distribution of cloud cover changes with temperature, and if so does it act as a positive (rising cloud height) or negative (expanded cloud area) feedback. Stephen Schneider in his last TV appearance stated that a 2% increase in cloud cover would halve the CO2 induced temperature rise (negative feedback), while a 0.2km increase in cloud height would double it (positive feedback), and that our current measurements are not accurate enough to determine those changes. Hence the wide range of climate sensitivity due to cloud feedback.
  48. Pielke Sr and scientific equivocation: don't beat around the bush, Roger
    Here is an example of my problem with jumping the gun to use ARGO data as a new proxy to define global warming. Suddenly you start finding articles like this spreading all across the internet. This one titled "Arrrrggggg…Argo Shows Global Cooling." Written by a Dr. Jay L Wile Full article here. "Thus, while carbon dioxide levels have risen, the globe has neither cooled nor warmed overall in the past 30 years. If you look at the temperature in the graph from 2003 on, however, you will see a clear trend – the troposphere has been cooling since 2003. This is mostly like in response to the fact that the late 1990s were abnormally warm. Now, of course, all global-warming alarmists know these data. In fact, they used to be published on NASA’s own website, but when too many people started pointing to NASA’s website as evidence that “global warming” is not happening, NASA quickly removed the data." The full article is rife with inaccuracies from someone who claims to have a PhD in Nuclear Chemistry. I tried to locate a way to contact Mr Wile but the comments are closed and he has no contact information on the blog that I could find. This is exactly my previous point about rowdy fans. When the rhetoric too quickly shifts to OHC is global warming then you feed the obfuscation machine. These people are not going to look at the details. They aren't going to question whether the ARGO data is robust yet. They only want a reason to believe there is some crazy conspiracy going on. This is the big game and the fans are drunk on politics. Climate change is an issue that we need to get right. If you're passing out shots of bourbon to the fans you're doing a massive disservice to science.
  49. Antarctica is too cold to lose ice
    You can see the mass balance for antarctica at the following link http://www.skepticalscience.com/Part-Three-Response-to-Goddard.html
  50. A detailed look at climate sensitivity
    #24 Eric (skeptic) at 20:09 PM on 9 September, 2010 proving that humidity has gone up on average means nothing. The distribution of water vapor is the only thing that causes or doesn't cause global warming. If water vapor is evenly distributed then there is global warming, if not, global cooling. There is a large natural range encompassing both cases and a lot in the middle. You are right. See this comment at another thread for example. This is how unevenly water is distributed in the atmosphere: With a simple Zero-dimensional climate model it is very easy to demonstrate the effect. The more uneven atmospheric water vapor distribution gets, the lower average surface temperature goes. For a realistic range of parameters, entropy production of the system also goes up as water vapor gets lumpy, even if heat distribution along the surface is extremely efficient (same surface temperature everywhere). The main problem with analytic computational climate models is that they are unable to resolve these fine structures so they simply apply averages at sub-grid scales. To put it in another way you can see through a barbed wire fence easily. But if you take the average density of iron per unit area, it gets indistinguishable from a thin but absolutely opaque iron plate.

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