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Comments 110901 to 110950:

110901. gallopingcamel at 14:20 PM on 5 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        Anne-Marie Blackburn (#40), I was nodding in agreement with your post until the end. I quote: "On top of that, we're seeing a rise in global temperatures when natural factors should be leading to a slight cooling. This strongly suggests that greenhouse gases are overwhelming the impact of other factors." CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are rising and will continue to do so unless the burning of fossils fuels is sharply reduced. I think we are in agreement on this. I suspect that we also agree that the Earth has been warming since 1850 (it is so important to choose the right start date). When it comes to attributing how much of the recent warming results from CO2 concentrations and how much from other causes, we may disagree. I see plenty of evidence to suggest that CO2 is not a major climate driver. If you do not share my opinion I look forward to hearing your views.
110902. nigelj at 14:18 PM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        Thingadonta You say " Most of the history of the world has been about exploiting uncertainties for power". Like the oil companies / corporates regarding climate change for example?
110903. gallopingcamel at 14:03 PM on 5 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        Joe Blog (#46), Thanks for your comment. Let's hope that somebody will take the trouble to enlighten us.
110904. James Wight at 13:25 PM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        jdsykes, the burden of proof is always on the proponent, not the skeptic. However, the proponents of AGW have well and truly met the burden of proof; otherwise the scientific community would not be convinced. Some of the evidence that convinced scientists is discussed here and here. thingadonta, did you actually read my post? I wrote: “Science comes to tentative conclusions based on the balance of evidence. The more independent lines of evidence are found to support a scientific theory, the closer it is likely to be to the truth.” This is very different to the way that religions arrive at conclusions. Religious “truth” is based on authority and revelation and myths, whereas AGW is based on scientific evidence. Religious dogma is usually asserted to be absolutely certain, regardless of what empirical evidence might say. Scientific conclusions are not dogmatic; for example, the IPCC acknowledges there is a possibility that global warming is not anthropogenic. AGW is not a religion.
110905. kdkd at 12:03 PM on 5 September 2010
        Urban Heat Islands: serious problem or holiday destination for skeptics?
        BP #37 Actually I've revised my opinion somewhat here. Your failure to do the basic statistical tests to assess the validity of your regression is either an example of incompetence (i.e. you don't know how to do it and you won't admit it), or that you are afraid that doing the correct tests will show that your model is not valid (or that you have done this, and do not want to show the results), in which case it's not an example of incompetence, but of scientific fraud. Strong words, and I know that superficially it seems counter to the site's comments policy. However, this is in response to a clearly inadequate analysis of data presented on this site. BP's only options are to allow these charges to go unchallenged and thus demonstrate that one of the above is true, do the F test and correlation test himself and publish it here, and/or to release his raw data to allow someone who knows how to do it to do it for him.
110906. Eric (skeptic) at 11:12 AM on 5 September 2010
        Quantifying the human contribution to global warming
        How does the C-C relation govern upper tropospheric water vapor? Isn't is governed by convection, cloud formation and other local factors? It seems like we are presupposing that the local variations are all somehow averaged out and the C-C relation holds on average. But it only holds for some (possibly changing) percentage of the upper troposphere and in the rest there is greater and lesser water vapor depending on local conditions.
110907. adelady at 11:04 AM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        I live with uncertainty routinely, and so do you. I pay my insurance, I do up my seatbelt, I wear sunscreen, I had children, I buy garden plants. I do not understand these problems with certainty and / or uncertainty. We are living beings surrounded by other living things as well as lots of other people. This is all uncertain, and crossing the road is risky - but I manage this by obeying road rules and keeping my eyes open, as I'm sure you do. My "doubt" about climate science is the same as most people's. Don't know the size or the direction of the uncertainties. But not knowing the timing or the extent of possible storm damage to my house doesn't stop me from paying the insurance premium.
110908. Joe Blog at 11:00 AM on 5 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        gallopingcamel at 15:32 Well for the earth to go into a full blown glaciation with a high GHG level, would mean it must be through increased albedo reducing SW, through which ever mechanism(from the hypothesis you stated, to greatly increased particulates from volcanism, or impact, biological? etc) One of those interesting questions we may never be able to answer with full confidence. But i for one dont know ;-)
110909. johnd at 10:56 AM on 5 September 2010
        Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
        scaddenp at 08:56 AM, forgetting about clouds for a moment that also trap IR radiation over about 2/3rds of the earths surface, water also covers about 2/3rds of the earths surface. Thus one would expect that if longwave radiation is a factor of any significance in increasing evaporation than perhaps 2/3rds of that radiation is a result of the initial absorption of solar shortwave radiation by the water suggesting that for at least 2/3rd of any IR driven evaporation it is a case of the water heating itself by the heat already dissipated. Perhaps if could provide a critical path chart or flow chart that would assist in conveying how this circular flow of energy all fits into place.
110910. thingadonta at 10:42 AM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        "Just because some details are still not well understood should not cast into doubt our understanding of the big picture: humans are causing global warming." One can look at this from another angle-the skeptical one (since this site is supposed to be about skepticism). Most of the history of the world has been about exploiting uncertainties for power. Nations go to war based on it. Religions and ideologies arise from the fear of it, and totalitarian regimes attempt to wipe it from the face of the earth. Exploiting uncertanties in climate is nothing new to the 20-21st centuries. Most of the ancient religions stumbled on the idea that you can exploit the fear and uncertainties regarding projected climate/weather (floods, droughts etc) for power. Why do you think humans were ever sacrified to a Sun God?. It is essentially about replacing uncertainty of future climate with a false certainty about future climate, whilst at the same time eliminating dissent -either real dissedents or simply 'potential' dissedents- by a formalised ritual tradition. Sound too extreme? Thousands of people per year were sacrificed in Central and South America (notably-in areas prone to climate swings and El Nino-La Nina) to serve a political structure based on fear and uncertainty surrounding climate. Spanish conquistadors found 100's of thousands of skulls sacrificed simply for the sake of exploiting fear of climate and climate projections, and to eliminate dissent, and doubt, of a political system built on false climate certainties. In the common case of sacrificing young female virgins, this also served the purposes of male patriarchy, but it was ultimately and largely for reasons of personal and class-based power. Nothing more. Climate scientists are not going to fool skeptics with this possible recent revival of an old-age trick-denying and using uncertainty in the Earth's climate and weather as a means to social control. A completely opposite way of looking at it (the skeptical one, by the way), is that you should actually never 'cast aside' one's 'doubt of climate science'; such is the road to ideology, blind faith, and false certainty as a means to social power and control. The Aztecs and Mayans discovered it, and now 21str century ‘scientists’ have discovered it (but not the sceptical ones). If you think this view is extreme, take a look at human history, or ask anyone who has actually ived under a totalitarian regime. They don’t take their scepticism lightly. Jacob Bronowksi was very clear in his conclusions about human history in his infamous 'Ascent of Man' series and book; if history teaches us anything, its that humans should never be too sure of themselves.
110911. johnd at 10:37 AM on 5 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        Anne-Marie Blackburn at 08:22 AM, you are missing the distinction, natural processes are removing half of the estimated anthropogenic emissions so it can't be said that one is overwhelming the other, each is only winning half the battle. It could be argued that CO2 levels would be falling by 2ppm each year in the absence of any anthropogenic emissions, so the 4ppm added annually is equally overwhelmed if a term such as overwhelmed is to be used at all. The nett global gain in CO2 concentration is less than the range in nett global seasonal fluctuation, and in turn the seasonal fluctuation in various regions in both hemispheres indicate values many times that of the annual emissions. This indicates that under normal seasonal conditions regionally there is a large capacity for natural processes to sequester many times more CO2 than what is being currently emitted. Thus understanding what drives those natural processes is vitally important especially given such natural processes also release about 30 times the CO2 into the atmosphere to that of anthropogenic emissions. If the processes are driven primarily by external factors related perhaps to solar emissions that may indicate what measures can be taken as counter measures. However if the processes are driven by other human related factors then perhaps action may be more effectively directed there. Given the relative magnitude of natural processes versus fossil fuel related emissions, a very little change in the natural processes, whether releasing or absorbing, whether driven by natural forces or by human action, would have perhaps greater impact than the huge change necessary to reduce emissions. At the end of the day it may be that if temperatures that rise as a result of increased emissions, the seasonal growth that already has a significant influence on the annual nett gain may accelerate to balance the emissions with overall nett positive benefits. However unfortunately the current understanding of all the processes involved is far from complete but studies that at least compare plant growth under deprived, ambient and enriched conditions are continually extending the current understanding of at least one aspect of the natural processes.
110912. michael sweet at 09:18 AM on 5 September 2010
        The surprising result when you compare bad weather stations to good stations
        Chriscanaris, So you say that because all the data indicates a rise in temperature that suggests to you that there is a problem? Maybe the temperature was carefully recorded for years at many places and the result is real!! The uniformity of the data suggests to me that it is a robust result. The scientists lose either way. If there were problems with the data you would claim we should ignore it because of the problems. When the data is consistent you complain it cannot be trusted because it is too uniform. Heads you win tails I lose!!! What would you be happy with?
110913. michael sweet at 09:09 AM on 5 September 2010
        Urban Heat Islands: serious problem or holiday destination for skeptics?
        BP: Since you claim that the UHI is proportional to population, the temperature trends in rural areas in the US where population has declined should show a decline in temperature. Many rural areas in the US have population declines over the past thirty years. Show three that show declines in their temperature trends. Urban and rural stations show the SAME trend in temperature increase. This shows that the temperature is increasing. Your claim for a logarithmic increase for population change made without any mechanism or data is simply an unsupported claim. You need to get some valid data or stop wasting our time. Your claims have become more and more shrill recently, while your data has declined in quality. Consider if you want to continue on this path.
110914. Chris Colose at 08:58 AM on 5 September 2010
        Quantifying the human contribution to global warming
        There's been some interesting questions and a few off-target remarks here, which touch on several topics. Hopefully I can provide some focus below. The radiative forcing for a change in CO2 is highly dependent on the the temperature structure of the atmosphere, cloud cover, and water vapor. You can boil down the physics to a simple statement about forcing going like the logarithm of concentration, but this cannot be derived (or the 5.35 W/m2 coefficient) without spectrally resolved calculations. This is in part because the other gases/clouds "steal" some of the radiation that would otherwise. In fact, the power of a specific greenhouse gas is maximized when it is acting by itself and does not need to compete with the spectral overlap by other constituents. This is discussed in an in press paper by Schmidt et al 2010 which attempts to partition the total greenhouse effect by contribution to individual gases, and I discuss it here. What's more, the logarithmic dependence breaks down under situations not too far from modern-day Earth-like conditions, such as at the very high CO2 concentrations thought to exist at the termination of a snowball planet. To touch on RSVP's point in 9, he is correct that there is still some uncertainty in the forcing for a doubling of CO2 (The central value is 3.7 W/m2, though with a range of about +/- 0.3 W/m2, see Forster and Taylor, 2006 depending on method used) but becomes much larger for different atmospheres (like past Mars or early Earth). The vertical temperature profile is also relevant because the greenhouse effect requires some sort of lapse rate to allow colder atmosphere aloft to radiate to space at a temperature colder than the surface. Even though the concentration of CO2 is pretty uniform over the globe, the forcing does have some variation over the planet due to changed tropopause location and lapse rate effects. The solar radiation of course does matter for the greenhouse effect to be relevant at all (and even the shortwave absorption by water vapor and CO2 is not completely zero, though much smaller than the longwave part). If the Earth had no incoming sunlight, the greenhouse effect would not support any temperature higher than the 'cosmic background' temperature, although it would take the planet a bit longer to cool off to that point than a planet where you turned off the sun and had no atmosphere at all. This is obviously quite removed from reality though and Dima is correct that the small variations in solar radiation do not matter for the CO2 greenhouse effect. In fact, the true no-feedback sensitivity parameter (in the article, 0.27 K/(W/m2))is also dependent on the finite absorption of the atmosphere, and so becomes more on the order of about 0.3 to 0.31 K/(W/m2). This so-called Planck feedback response is pretty robust across various models; see for example Table 1 in Soden and Held, 2006 [PDF]). This table gives an estimate of the magnitude of the Planck feedback amongst various models (you need to take one divided by these numbers to be consistent with my units). Water vapor acts to enhance this sensitivity by making a plot of the outgoing longwave radiation vs. temperature more linear than the T^4 dependence that a blackbody has. This enhances the sensitivty by a factor of about two, to the extent that the upper tropospheric moisture content scales with the Clausius-Clapeyron relation. To humanity rules (#11), the vapor content should go up nearly exponential with T, but the absorptivity goes up nearly like the logarithm (though not as nicely as CO2, and some have argued more of a square root dependence), so the feedback of water vapor as T increases should be somewhat linear. See my article on feedbacks here for more. Also keep in mind that the typical sensitivity-forcing equations in this article apply only at equilibrium and the timescale to reach equilibrium depends on the climate sensitivity, so the "heating in the pipeline" becomes larger as sensitivity increases. To HumanityRules (#11 regarding the natural oscillations)-- I don't think anyone argues that the polar regions are highly variable and exhibit significant amounts of influence from ocean circulation. In particular, windiness and advection is a large part for estimating year to year 'minimum' in sea ice extent, but the preconditioning of ice loss (not just extent but thickness) is clearly due to albedo feedback which is in part related to rising temperatures, and these temperatures are rising almost everywhere on the globe, it's not a redistribution, so this is a signature of external forcing. Just from the abstract, the Chylek paper uses detrended data to see a see-saw effect, so it's unclear to me how you can make statements about the trend from this (but I have not looked at the whole paper and cannot for some time), but the abstract itself says that natural variability in the Arctic as well as the trend are both at play here. Finally, the canonical 2 to 4.5 C estimate of equilibrium temperature change per doubling of CO2 (and the feedback parameter lambda itself) does encompass water vapor feedbacks but also the other effects (lapse rate, clouds, ice-albedo) required to get the full range.
110915. scaddenp at 08:56 AM on 5 September 2010
        Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
        johnd - heating the water to cause evaporation can be done by short-wave AND long wave. That is why radiation from GHGs matter. I am perfectly ready to accept that without solar radiation coming in then you dont get any IR going out. The point is that the GHG re-radiate outgoing IR back to the surface causing more warming of the water. A careful statement of your alternative theory would be appreciated.
110916. Paul Magnus at 08:52 AM on 5 September 2010
        Hurricanes And Climate Change: Boy Is This Science Not Settled!
        I think it is....NOAA intensity-or-frequency
110917. Lou Grinzo at 08:45 AM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        One interesting resource on the "when did we know CO2 was bad" topic is the 1965 report to US President Johnson. The appendix that refers to CO2 is: http://bit.ly/dvbtRN (That's a link to a PDF in a public folder in my DropBox account.)
110918. Anne-Marie Blackburn at 08:22 AM on 5 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        johnd, I said that greenhouse gases were overwhelming the impact of other factors, which in context meant that their warming impact was greater than the cooling impact expected from other, natural factors. With regards to natural processes, I don't agree with you. If natural processes were overwhelming CO2 emissions, we'd see no increase or even a decrease in CO2 levels. But CO2 levels are rising, which means CO2 emissions from human activities are overwhelming the ability of natural processes to remove this additional CO2.
110919. johnd at 08:14 AM on 5 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        Anne-Marie Blackburn at 07:55 AM, yes, the alternative scenario is no anthropogenic emissions. Only then could a baseline be established for where natural processes would be heading. At the moment natural processes sequester about half of anthropogenic emissions so it is not valid to claim that the emissions are overwhelming the natural processes, as they, the natural processes are equally overwhelming the anthropogenic emissions.
110920. Anne-Marie Blackburn at 07:55 AM on 5 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        johnd, I'm not sure I understand your point - what is the alternative scenario in this case? I have pointed out in my original post that natural factors would in all likelihood have led to global cooling, though the overall forcing would probably not have been strong enough to cause a new glacial period. Isn't this the alternative scenario you mention? Also I should mention that this is the basic explanation for this rebuttal - you can read a more detailed explanation here.
110921. Chris Colose at 07:39 AM on 5 September 2010
        Empirically observed fingerprints of anthropogenic global warming
        Dana, Good job. This is a nice and useful post in general, though I would be careful (for this and future posts that Skeptical Science does) not to oversell some of these points and equate ‘consistency’ with a ‘fingerprint.’ Consistencies do not always lead to any explanatory or predictive power, and this could very well be the case with the simulations of the time evolution of global mean temperature anomalies. The solid agreement between model simulations of temperature change (e.g., the Meehl graph) and observations is curious given the strong uncertainties in radiative forcing which ranges from ~0.6 to 2.4 W/m2) (see AR4 Figure 2.20), feedbacks, ocean heat content uptake, and the model ensemble members themselves (e.g., Schwartz et al 2007 Nature commentary; Knutti 2008, GRL). Indeed, the models probably do not sample the full range of uncertainty which is in part owing to the neglect of aerosol indirect effects or possible anti-correlations across the models between forcing and sensitivity, and more detailed inclusion of aerosol physics could very well lead to inconsistencies in model-observations. This should not be surprising or problematic, since formal attribution is about spatio-temporal patterns rather than the agreement in model-observation time series of temperature change. This can be done even after subtracting off the global mean temperature anomaly or ‘tuning’ the amplitudes of a perturbation (since we don’t know the sensitivity). For instance, we would generally expect the response to a volcanic eruption to occur after the eruption. In space, we might expect the response to short-lived aerosols to be focused over areas with large changes in sulphate emissions. These patterns should be pretty robust because they are very strongly constrained by the basic characteristics of the forcings and the climate system. As another example, the increase in downward infrared radiation to the surface is not necessarily unique to increased greenhouse gases, nor is it necessarily inevitable that more CO2 should directly make the atmosphere a better emitter to the surface. This would be the case if the boundary layer was moist enough to already radiate close to a black body at its temperature, which is nearly the case in the tropics. The CO2 still makes it warmer by reducing the outgoing flow of radiation and the increased temperature of the troposphere increases all the energy fluxes into the surface (the sun could do this too), not just the radiative fluxes. Water vapor really complicates getting a clean CO2 spectrum of downwelling radiation, and the best place to do this would probably be a clear night in the Antarctic winter, but this is not too relevant to the enhanced greenhouse effect anyway. I don’t see how Philipona et al (2004) really understood this at the time. Chris
110922. Peter Hogarth at 07:27 AM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        Colorado Bob at 00:23 AM on 5 September, 2010 Thanks for that link. The various GRACE estimates of mass loss are known to disagree (sometimes by significant factors) due to the relatively short time series, and this paper looking at GIA correction is actually in line with other recent GPS based work. However all trend estimates show unquestionable significant mass loss and acceleration of loss. Better absolute estimates of this loss are important for the sea level budget, but do not change the mean sea level rise measurements.
110923. johnd at 07:20 AM on 5 September 2010
        Carbon dioxide equivalents
        Daniel Bailey at 06:27 AM, I also appeal to the moderators to allow reply to posts that have previously introduced a line of discussion and have been allowed to remain. I made a general response regarding how logging permanently removes large amounts of essential nutrients thereby depleting the nutrient reservoir within the soil. You made mention of the "remnants of the once mighty forests that stood here (the stumps of which measure up to 8 feet across)" which you indicated as being having been logged out. Mighty forests cannot grow without the nutrients firstly being available in the soil, there is only so much that can be absorbed out of thin air. If you could estimate the quality and quantity of timber that was removed from the forests, it would be easy to arrive at a reasonable estimate of what amount of nutrients the soil had available originally, but not once the timber was removed, thereby allowing some comparison of soil nutritional levels before and after.
        Moderator Response: Please instead post your comment on a relevant thread, and on this thread post a comment saying you have replied over there, with a link to your specific comment. You can get the link to your comment by right clicking on its date-time stamp and choosing the resulting menu item Copy Link Location.
110924. johnd at 06:45 AM on 5 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        Anne-Marie Blackburn at 20:32 PM, given that about half the anthropogenic carbon emitted is sequestered by natural means it can also be claimed natural processes are as equally influential in determining the nett result. As to which is prevailing can only be judged by considering what the situation would be without the anthropogenic emissions. Would natural processes have continued to reduce CO2 levels leading to global cooling? Making an case supporting one scenario is biased unless the alternative is recognised and quantified.
110925. sun tzu at 06:31 AM on 5 September 2010
        It's the sun
        thanks, after reading up on it and starting to understand the basics im pretty much sold on the CO2 and greenhouse gas as the prime candidates.. only problem is, it seems so many people want to blame it on something that wont hit their profit margins, not to mention all the media and blog sensationalism pushing the general consensun to the point of denial. Anyhow, thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my posts. I also found this link to be a source of great information : http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/ However I cant help but feel that a very real problem is being used as an excuse to keep energy company shareholders happy - charge more for less - after all... its saving the world lol
110926. Elderbear at 06:28 AM on 5 September 2010
        Hurricanes And Climate Change: Boy Is This Science Not Settled!
        @Berényi Péter: Why are you drawing a linear trend line on your graphs? They clearly do not represent linear processes. One could argue for a multi-decadal signal in your 25-year averaging, and probably in your 10-year averaging. On what basis did you choose your averaging periods? If you want to do something interesting, integrate your data over each solar cycle and express the results in terms of energy released. BTW, what does "Annual Sum of Saffir-Simpson Category" mean? For 2004 there were 9 hurricanes in the Atlantic giving an annual sum of Saffir-Simpson categories of 27, well above the range of your scale.
110927. Daniel Bailey at 06:27 AM on 5 September 2010
        Carbon dioxide equivalents
        A plea to our moderator and John Cook for forbearance, in that we are straying perilously off-topic on this thread. But a claim was made that I feel needs to be justified with a source: Re: johnd (19)

        "The soils would not always have been poor, especially if it could grow giant trees... good soil can suddenly become poor soil."

        What source do you reference that shows the soils in Northern Michigan and Wisconsin were ever good? Soils in this area not under cultivation already tend to have 1-12" of acidic loess overlaying either sand dunes or bedrock. Shorter growing seasons relative to warmer, more southerly climes have meant narrow, more densely packed tree growth rings than is typically found. As a result, the forests here take a long time to achieve maximal height and spread of canopy. Compare this to soils farther south in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, where loessal drift is often measured in thousands of feet. Coupled with a warmer, longer growing season, forests there achieve greater heights and canopy spreads yielding much greater boardfeet yields when harvested. Even hardwoods. Unless you have more direct experience in the soil types and forests of this area than I, please cite your sources which offer testimony different from what my own direct, personal lifelong experience shows? Michigan background info the same for Wisconsin Not trying to be argumentative here. But this is really not a subject I'm willing to debate, nor is this a proper venue for anything other than science-based discussions and sharing of learnings. So please, share the learnings. The Yooper
        Moderator Response: It's better to post a comment on a relevant thread and then on this thread post a link to that comment.
110928. johnd at 06:21 AM on 5 September 2010
        Hurricanes And Climate Change: Boy Is This Science Not Settled!
        I don't know if it has been raised before or not in other threads, but it should be considered as part of the discussion how such events rather than being considered indicators instead form part of a negative feedback system.
110929. actually thoughtful at 06:19 AM on 5 September 2010
        Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
        AdrianSmits - can you provide a source for your statement that humidity is reduced (Please realize that "Watts up with that" is not a source)? Can you possibly restate your first point - I don't understand it as written. Thanks.
110930. cynicus at 06:02 AM on 5 September 2010
        Hurricanes And Climate Change: Boy Is This Science Not Settled!
        Ned, that's an interesting quote. If true would it mean that the whole discussion (about evidence on stronger or more frequent cyclones already being visible in the records) is a straw man because noticeable changes would only appear in the second half of this century?
110931. J Bowers at 05:42 AM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        Re. 6 MattJ. I thoroughly agree.
110932. miekol at 05:24 AM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        Global warming is settled, the why is not.
110933. J Bowers at 05:23 AM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        But, but... "...And I’m going to show you the latest science, which now doesn’t leave the question unsettled anymore this is now settled science, it is now settled science that there is not a problem with our influence over Climate. The science is in, the truth is out and the scare is over.” -- Christopher Monckton. 10/14/9 Minnesota Free Market Institute presentation H/T to Citizen's Challenge
110934. chris1204 at 00:31 AM on 5 September 2010
        The surprising result when you compare bad weather stations to good stations
        At 52 years of age and happily married, I've grown immune to foxy nurses - they're nothing but trouble! :-) From what little I know of population behaviour, I find straight lines with identical or near identical slopes rather different from what I'm used to seeing in the real world (even if we're dealing with anomalies rather than raw data). I note the Menne 2010 paper contains graphics for adjusted and unadjusted data - this post shows unadjusted data only. At the risk of demonstrating my ignorance, I'd expect to see at least some error bars or other evidence of scatter in the comparisons of well sited and poorly sited stations. As the current post stands, it really does look as if the maximum and minimum anomalies were extraordinarily small. Consequently, while I didn't 'imply that the USHCN has shown the exact same increase in temperature, for each station, over the period in question,' I did find the uniformity between the two sets of data disconcerting. I believe Menne at al (2010) pretty well said as much if I understood them correctly.
110935. Colorado Bob at 00:23 AM on 5 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        Heads up - Ice caps in Greenland and West Antarctica melt is not as hard as thought 02 september 2010 door M&C September 2, 2010 by M & C http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=nl&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tudelft.nl%2Flive%2Fpagina.jsp%3Fid%3D7a6c3d15-1c1e-4869-b378-840a000c6803%26lang%3Dnl
110936. Argus at 00:21 AM on 5 September 2010
        IPCC is alarmist
        citizenschallenge, Maybe the IPCC itself, has helped to diminish 'its public moral authority', by, among other things, purposely publishing outrageous predictions, even though two expert reviewers and the Indian government adviced them to withdraw the erroneous claim (e.g. the Himalayan glaciers). Recent news: The world's leading climate science body must "fundamentally reform" its organisation and how it operates if it is to regain the public's trust, according to a major review.
110937. dana1981 at 00:17 AM on 5 September 2010
        Empirically observed fingerprints of anthropogenic global warming
        If by 'greenhouse theory' you mean anthropogenic global warming, that was the entire point of this post. The empirical observational data is matching what's predicted by the models. That's experimental evidence.
110938. jdsykes at 23:58 PM on 4 September 2010
        Is climate science settled? Especially the important parts?
        Given the lives in the balance, it would seem to me that the deniers should be required to prove their allegations that AGW is false, and that their "proof" should be beyond a shadow of a doubt. After all, it is their premeditated obstructionism that will contribute to the suffering of millions.
110939. lciattaglia at 23:20 PM on 4 September 2010
        Weather vs Climate: Watch the waves, miss the turning of the tides
        Adelady,I wanted simply to suggest that our lifespan ( or what we remember of the past) is not the correct meter for interpreting the meteorological episodes as a proof of the climate change…. My post had the intention to support the previous one (posted by keepingitreal) on waves and tides.
110940. Ned at 21:08 PM on 4 September 2010
        Hurricanes And Climate Change: Boy Is This Science Not Settled!
        My understanding is that much of the uncertainty about whether AGW will lead to more frequent tropical storms is due to the competing effects of SST and wind shear, both of which will presumably be increased in a warmer world. Higher SSTs tend to promote TS development but higher wind shear tends to hinder it. Thus, different models that emphasize one parameter or the other will give very different results in terms of future TS frequency. See, for example: Knutson et al., 2008. Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-first-century warming conditions. Nature Geoscience 1: 359-364. Zhao et al., 2008. Simulations of Global Hurricane Climatology, Interannual Variability, and Response to Global Warming Using a 50-km Resolution GCM. J. Climate, 22, 6653–6678. Knutson et al., 2010. Tropical cyclones and climate change. Nature Geoscience, 3, 157 - 163. The latter is somewhat interesting -- it's a review article, with a list of authors covering the gamut from Chris Landsea to Kerry Emanuel. It also nicely illustrates that some parts of this picture seem clear, while others are still very uncertain:

        Whether the characteristics of tropical cyclones have changed or will change in a warming climate — and if so, how — has been the subject of considerable investigation, often with conflicting results. Large amplitude fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones greatly complicate both the detection of long-term trends and their attribution to rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Trend detection is further impeded by substantial limitations in the availability and quality of global historical records of tropical cyclones. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether past changes in tropical cyclone activity have exceeded the variability expected from natural causes. However, future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100. Existing modelling studies also consistently project decreases in the globally averaged frequency of tropical cyclones, by 6–34%. Balanced against this, higher resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20% in the precipitation rate within 100 km of the storm centre. For all cyclone parameters, projected changes for individual basins show large variations between different modelling studies.

110941. Rob Painting at 20:33 PM on 4 September 2010
        Hurricanes And Climate Change: Boy Is This Science Not Settled!
        BP, you have successfully demonstrated that really bad hurricanes/cyclones have a tendency not to travel to the United States, but given that they're not actually born there, not really enlightening. There's actually peer reviewed studies (see @34) that there are more intense hurricanes/cyclones being generated in the last few decades in the tropical regions. So it appears they have a hunkering for more international travel. The PDI kinda looks like a hockey stick too.
110942. Anne-Marie Blackburn at 20:32 PM on 4 September 2010
        How we know an ice age isn't just around the corner
        gallopingcamel #38 Interglacials can last up to 30,000 years. Another glacial is unlikely to happen any time soon because orbital factors are currently too weak to trigger one. On top of that, we're seeing a rise in global temperatures when natural factors should be leading to a slight cooling. This strongly suggests that greenhouse gases are overwhelming the impact of other factors.
110943. Rob Painting at 20:12 PM on 4 September 2010
        The surprising result when you compare bad weather stations to good stations
        Chriscanaris @ 63 -"Actually, if you knew anything much about sphygmomanometers and blood pressure measurements, you'd know that there's very considerable variability in readings depending on type of sphygmomanometer" So why the spurious analogy?. @58 your scenario was this: "However, if every sphygmomanometer showed an almost identical rise in blood pressure of, say, 20 mm-Hg +/- 0.5 mm-Hg, you'd be wondering about the validity of the data set." You imply that the USHCN has shown the exact same increase in temperature, for each station, over the period in question. It hasn't. If it had then sure, that would indeed cause the clattering of alarm bells. As to your amended scenario it still misses the mark, for instance:- What was the average of the 100 readings?. Has some form of calibration been carried out on the sphygmomanometers?. What was the mean of the anomaly in the 2nd check up compared to the baseline 1st reading?. But even then it's not valid, Your sphygmomanometers would be in constant use between your visits & therefore would require the same protocols for every use. But even then............. How's this for expanding on your analogy? - suppose you expect having a super hot babe nurse taking the readings will bias blood pressure too high for you (micro site influences). So you compare the small number of readings taken by foxy nurses, and the large number taken by the butt ugly doctors (good/bad stations). Your expectation is not borne out by the results, you're a couch potato, smoke and have poor eating habits, and in the 2nd check up the blood pressure trend is upwards with a virtually no discernible difference between the anomaly trend of readings taken by the foxy nurses and butt ugly doctors (Menne 2010). This is where sphygmomanometersorg. weighs in - they have enlisted volunteers who have photographed the foxy nurses. The photos look compelling, any red blooded male couldn't help but see his blood pressure skyrocket one assumes (me too) but that's not what the data shows. You say it seems a tad too uniform, I say well I'd expect your blood pressure to go up with that kind of lifestyle, but let's wait and see if science can resolve why the foxy nurses didn't bias your readings higher.
110944. johnd at 20:03 PM on 4 September 2010
        Carbon dioxide equivalents
        Daniel Bailey at 08:09 AM, re "Those giants took many centuries to reach maturity in these poor soils." The soils would not always have been poor, especially if it could grow giant trees. Trees drag a huge amount of essential nutrients out of the soil. In a permanent forestry situation, the foliage, branches and trees that die and fall to the forest floor allow those nutrients to be recycled. However if logging occurs all those nutrients that have been taken from the soil over the life of the tree are permanently removed from the system depleting the natural reservoir of nutrients and thus degrading the soil. Irrespective of what is grown from the soil, unless those nutrients that disappear down the road on a back of a truck are replaced, the system is not sustainable. In farming, the nutrients are generally regularly replaced, and sometimes in plantations, but rarely when natural forests are logged, hence formerly good soil can suddenly become poor soil.
110945. johnd at 19:10 PM on 4 September 2010
        Carbon dioxide equivalents
        RSVP at 16:06 PM, well managed improved pasture systems are a more efficient form of CO2 sequestration than forestry and will build up the amount of carbon stored in the soil, and keep it there as long as it remains well managed. Governments are looking at providing incentives to allow primary producers to profit from such capturing and storing.
110946. Rob Painting at 18:32 PM on 4 September 2010
        Empirically observed fingerprints of anthropogenic global warming
        Gnbatt @ 6 - How do we know more CO2 is causing warming? and On the Absorption and Radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours, and on the Physical Connection of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction
110947. MichaelM at 17:57 PM on 4 September 2010
        Carbon dioxide equivalents
        It would only be sequestration if nothing ever consumed the farm products eg wheat was stored in a mine and never used. Once we consume it we convert it back to CO2.
110948. gnbatt at 16:58 PM on 4 September 2010
        Empirically observed fingerprints of anthropogenic global warming
        forget the model simulations... are there any direct experimental evidence for 'greenhouse theory'?
        Response: There are several independent lines of direct experimental evidence for greenhouse theory (in fact, there was a detailed blog post on this yesterday).
110949. johnd at 16:53 PM on 4 September 2010
        Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
        scaddenp at 12:19 PM, read more carefully, you have not grasped what has been written. Solar shortwave radiation provides the energy required for evaporation to occur. IR radiation, heat, can only be emitted after the solar energy has been absorbed by any matter on the surface, transforming the energy from light to heat, the air is then warmed from below by contact with such matter. Without solar radiation first transferring it's energy to any form of matter, such matter cannot emit IR radiation, heat, nor would water have the energy it requires to evaporate.
110950. johnd at 16:30 PM on 4 September 2010
        Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
        Ann at 19:56 PM , what do you mean "more or less" in equilibrium? Seeking equilibrium is totally different to being at equilibrium. An active person seeking to match food intake with energy output is more or less seeking some form of equilibrium. A dead person may be at equilibrium in terms of the same energy input and output, but if not, then certainly at rest.

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