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Comments 111501 to 111550:

  1. Comparing volcanic CO2 to human CO2
    Further to Ned and RSVP's thoughts, I think of fossil fuels somewhat as a class 1 lever with the advantage end becoming shorter even as the load becomes heavier. Maybe the GHG problem is the fulcrum being moved in a way that makes supporting the load even more difficult? "Snap" goes the metaphor but we should acknowledge we need to slip something else under the load, soon, or it'll fall. The fossil fuel lever is a tool to be used for temporary application, best put away, it's not a cantilever we can use for permanent structural support.
  2. Why we can trust the surface temperature record
    #6, Presumably thingadonta will acknowledge Ned's correction? Or better yet, the fact that his basic claim about the "systematic bias" of the temperature record has been debunked here more times than anyone can count?
  3. Why we can trust the surface temperature record
    Presumably thingadonta will acknowledge Ned's correction? It's been quite a while since volunteers did these "outsider" reanalysis efforts, I'm surprised thingadonta is not aware of 'em.
  4. Comparing volcanic CO2 to human CO2
    Ned, Before reading your reply #15, (and as I was driving around town), I realized that while fossil fuels are bad news, they will ironically be counted on for transitioning to alternative technologies, and that this situation may not even be something that could have been avoided. actually thoughtfull No sarcasm intended... lets not confuse a little global warming with assured oxygen deprivation.
  5. Why we can trust the surface temperature record
    Why not check out the trends by yourself? I maintain a csv file of monthly temperature anomalies for the 5 major global temperature series that you can download and analyze in Excel, R or other software. The 3 surface station data (GISS, Hadley, NOAA) run from 1880, the satellite data series (RSS, UAH) run from 1979. Here's the link to my do-it-yourself post.
  6. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    #24 Mike G "virtually all CaCO3 production in the ocean is biotically driven or facilitated." A question I have is this: in the ocean subsurface, volcanic rocks around mid ocean ridges (not just in the Atlantic-the 100,000km+ of volcanic ridges around the world), where seawater circulates down several thousand metres, carbonate dissolution/precipiation is driven by volcanic procesess, including heat, not biotic processes. This domain is far larger than areas of limestone/biotic procesess. Carbonate-enriched rocks from volcanic processes are widespread. This carbonate isnt biotic related, and it isnt factored into the models. The volcanic domains which produce/effect carbonate levels extend from ocean floors right through to shallow-subaerial environments (eg mId Ocean Ridges-through to areas like NZ North Island). Surely this must have a large effect on ocean pH/carbonate levels?
  7. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    18 Thingadonta Yes, we're well aware that the ocean is well-buffered. That is absolutely no comfort to us because it is well-buffered due to the carbonate/bicarbonate buffer system. When you add CO2 to seawater you convert bicarbonate to carbonate. That conversion is what buffers the pH change, but in the process it lowers the bicarbonate concentration in the water. That is bad news for corals and most other extracellular calcifiers which rely on a high ambient bicarbonate concentration to lay down CaCO3. While the change in pH is easier for most people to understand than a change in the CaCO3 saturation state and it does allow us to calculate changes in HCO3/CO3 concentrations, the actual concern over acidification is the change in bicarbonate ions moreso than the change in pH. Also, while most limestone isn't laid down by corals, virtually all CaCO3 production in the ocean is biotically driven or facilitated. There is very little precipitation of CaCO3 in the ocean that's still considered abiotic. As for whether coral reef researchers have factored in the effects of carbonates near the Atlantic ridges- no, because on the timescale we're concerned with they are irrelevant. If we were interested in what would happen in 1000 years or so they would be important. However, they're interfacing with bottom water, not the mixed layer and any changes they induced would take ca. 800 years to be telecommunicated to the mixed layer where most calcifiers, including corals, live. Whether those carbonates are relevant to or have been factored into Archer's or the IPCC's models, I don't know.
  8. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    12 Humanity rules, You're making several huge errors here. First, primary producers are bottom of the food chain. While phytoplankton are included in that, they are far from the only constituents. In coastal waters there the highest concentration of biomass is, there is also high productivity of autotrophic bacterioplankton, vascular plants, and benthic micro/macroalgae in addition to the phytoplankton. There are complete food chains that don't include phytoplankton at all. Second, most phytoplankton dies and sinks without being eaten- i.e. it is in excess. A 50% drop in phytoplankton would only equate to a 50% drop in heterotroph biomass if all of the phytoplankton was being eaten. That's not to say that a 50% loss of phytoplankton has no effect, because it does- particularly on C/N/P cycling, but that it does not translate linearly to changes in heterotroph biomass Third, the majority of the world's fish stocks have declined over the historical period. Traditionally we have viewed this as a top-down process (i.e. we're removing them faster than they reproduce), but that doesn't mean that bottom-up processes (lack of food) isn't also behind the decline. Until very recently we just haven't been looking for evidence from that perspective and you tend not to find things you don't look for.
  9. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    #8 Thingadonta, Yes, the historical composition of the ocean's carbonate system and pH is modeled, but it's done with the same models used to measure modern values since the constituents cannot be easily measured directly even today. The models are empirically derived and have very small uncertainty ranges for the modern era when seawater B11 and C12/13/14 isotope concentrations are known. #11 thingadonta Actually, we DO take into account the geologic record and the effects that changing carbonate chemistry in the ocean has affected calcifiers in the the past, which is precisely why we're worried about them now. The oceans DID acidify multiple times in the geologic record with major associated diverstiy changes and in at least a few cases, major extinction events. Reefs in particular have been wiped out, with the dominant reef-builders at the time being driven completely or ecologically extinct, 4 or 5 times at least. In the most recent major event, reef building ceased entirely for 12-18 million years and skeleton-building corals virtually disappeared. The re-emergence of calcifying coral diversity and reef building only began again after the seas switched back from calcitic to aragonitic.
  10. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    thingadonta writes: A volcanic event such as a flood basalt event associated with a emerging hotspot or Siberian Traps event exceeds rate and magnitude of human C02. From Saunders 2009:
    However, if we consider the province as a whole, the eruption of between 2×10^6 and 3×10^6 km3 of basalt could release 12000 to 18000 Gt of C, enough to significantly change the carbon content of even a Permian atmosphere. Note that the eruption of 18000 Gt of C over 1 million years equates to only 0.018 Gt per year, a fraction of the current output from burning of fossil fuels (~ 7 Gt C/a).
    There's lots of other useful information in Saunders 2009, if you're interested in flood basalt episodes.
  11. Why we can trust the surface temperature record
    When I say "see this post" I of course mean "see this post" ... :-)
  12. Why we can trust the surface temperature record
    thingadonta, I think you're mistaken there. Re: upwards vs downwards adjustments --- there are many cases where the processing of surface data results in a downward adjustment; you just never see them highlighted at WUWT for some reason. When "skeptic" bloggers Jeff Id and RomanM created their own global temperature reconstruction using surface station data, they found a warmer trend than that from Phil Jones's HADCRUT record. See this post for a more detailed discussion that illustrates how robust the surface temperature trend is. You get very, very similar results to the NASA/CRU temperature records even if you use completely different methods with completely different input data (e.g., daily GSOD data instead of monthly GHCN). Re: satellites --- The RSS satellite record shows a trend of +0.16C/decade. Over the same time period, GISS, HADCRUT, and NCDC also show trends of +0.16C/decade. The four trends are identical to within 0.01C/decade ... and RSS data are not adjusted in any way to match the surface data. Conspiracy theories and speculation about fraud or tampering with the data may be popular in certain other quarters of the blogosphere, but let's avoid them here, please.
  13. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Thingadonta @ 18 - " I dont think so. A volcanic event such as a flood basalt event associated with a emerging hotspot or Siberian Traps event exceeds rate and magnitude of human C02." That's simply your non expert opinion, not supporting evidence. Read the study I linked, it actually addresses such issues.
  14. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    HR @ 12 - one of those logical fallacies I suspect - personal incredulity. Much of the food chain higher up, things like fish, squid, shrimps etc have had their populations devastated on a global scale by overfishing, sediment and nutrient run off. How many people notice that decline?. Anyone remember the North Atlantic cod fisheries?. If you spend as much time under the sea, as I do, you do tend to notice the changes to the marine environment. It's not pretty I assure you.
  15. Comparing volcanic CO2 to human CO2
    Thanks, RSVP. If we tried to keep this up over the long term, I think the first limit we'd run into would be a shortage of burnable carbon. But in any case, yes, I agree that the graphs show that we (or, more particularly the next couple of generations) are in for a wild ride. I wish we had started dealing with this problem two decades ago. Somehow it just seems intuitive to me that when you're trying to change a system with a lot of momentum, it's easier to start early with a more gradual change than to wait until the last minute and have to make more radical adjustments. Right now the line on the far-right side of those two graphs seems to be headed implacably upward.
  16. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    #16: dappledwater "...rate of CO2 release that makes the current great experiment so geologically unusual, and quite probably unprecedented in Earth history. " I dont think so. A volcanic event such as a flood basalt event associated with a emerging hotspot or Siberian Traps event exceeds rate and magnitude of human C02. Volcanic events such as the Siberian Traps emitted more c02 than humans ever will. Oceans did not acidify for tens of thousnds of years from this kind of output, in both rate nor magnitude greaer than human c02 emissions, so they wont acidify from human emissions of c02 on short time scales. The geological record indicates that these sort of amounts of c02 are buffered in the oceans-which is why oceans take a long time to acidify. Some researches acknowledge this but twist this around and say such and such rates of acifidication haven't happened in such and such million years; this actually provides good evidence that the oceans are buffered. #15 Boba10960 There is a vast and dynamic interplay between c02/c03 and the ocean subsurface. Most limestone in the world is in fact formed as a result of precipitation of c03 from ocean waters, and not from coral reefs. How his actually occurs/rate has been a matter of debate for decades. An example is the dolomites in Italy, which is the type area for dolomite rock. Tese formed from ocean precipitation. Currently I am engaged (along with other work) in analysing/reviewing thousands of metres of carbonate-enriched sediments formed close to the ocean/subsurface interface. These sort of carbonate- saturated sediments are everywhere. The interface of c03/c02 in eg volcanic realms extends thousands of metres beneath the sea floor, eg along much of the Mid Ocean Ridge system. One question: has David Archer and the IPCC, along with coral reef researchers, factored in the thousands of metres of c03/c02 interaction/interface along all the world's ocean ridges? I bet the answer is, they haven't. (Note: some NASA sceintists think the world's ocean water comes from comets-they know nothing about crustal geology and how granites expel water when they cool-which is how the world's oceans formed when the earths crust first cooled; the point is they are ignorant of what goes on in the subsurface. Couldn't coral reef researchers be making the same sort of mistake?)
  17. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Colorado Bob writes: The gender of alligators is determined by the temperature of the eggs. Temperatures between 90 and 93 degrees Fahrenheit will produce males. Temperatures between 82 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit will produce females. Huh. So I guess another danger of AGW is that we'll be overrun by mobs of angry male alligators, all frustrated at their inability to find a mate ...
  18. Why we can trust the surface temperature record
    "the organisations which collect the readings take into account any local heating or cooling effects" Virtually every 'adjustment' is made upwards. This is impossible unless sytematic bias is occurring. 'Remarkably similar' is also incorrect. Eg Unadjusted satellite data doesn't fit/isnt similar with other data. The only consistency is the 'remarkable' number of times adjustments are made upwards, to make them 'remarkably' consistent with each other.
  19. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Thingadonta @ 9 -"C02 has been released faster than humans are currently adding c02 to the atmosphere" When, for instance?. Some supporting evidence for your assertion would help. "and yet oceans didnt acidify." Well actually they did, mostly the deep ocean though. See the intermediate version of this rebuttal. And Ocean Acidification in Deep Time And note some comments from the study: "Nevertheless, observations and modeling clearly show that during the PETM the deep ocean, at least, became highly corrosive to CaCO3. These same models applied to modern fossil fuel release project a substantial decline in surface water saturation state in the next century. So, there may be no precedent in Earth history for the type of disruption we might expect from the phenomenally rapid rate of carbon addition associated with fossil fuel burning." And: It is the rate of CO2 release that makes the current great experiment so geologically unusual, and quite probably unprecedented in Earth history. Indeed, much of industrialization and economic activity revolves around energy generated from fossil fuels. In other words, much of humanity is, in efect, engaged in a collective and deliberate efort to transfer carbon from geological reservoirs to the atmosphere as CO2. The resulting rate of environmental change very likely far exceeds that associated with past greenhouse transient events, and will have been exceeded in the geological record only by bolide impacts of the sort that caused the K/T extinction 66 million years ago".
  20. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    thingadonta @8 "The ocean subsurface is by far greater in area than all the worlds coral reefs. Sedimentation/dissolution processes could create a strong buffer to changes in ocean pH. This has never been factored into any IPCC or other models of ocean pH projections." Why do you exclude all of the work that has been done on this topic, for example, by David Archer of the University of Chicago (also contributor to REALCLIMATE)? David has been modeling sedimentation and dissolution of calcium carbonate for two decades, and then incorporating those results into global models of ocean buffering and its impact on pH and CO2. Is there something about this work that you find unsatisfactory so that you discount it in making the statement quoted above? Of course, as worrisome as ocean acidification is, corals face a greater danger from bleaching due to ocean warming, as described in a news item in yesterday's issue of SCIENCE.
  21. Why we can trust the surface temperature record
    Global Warming is taking place. In Northern Hemisphere Heat Waves started in Russia and moved South with firestorms. It is the SUN.
    Response: The question of whether the sun could be causing global warming is examined in detail, including many peer-reviewed papers on the subject, at "It's the sun" (long story short, the sun has been cooling over the last few decades while our planet has been warming).

     
  22. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Something that would be worth making reference to is the impact of the Well Mixed Layer at the top of the ocean and its impact on Total CO2 uptake by the oceans (and thus Ph) vs uptake just by the WML. Although this may not be appropriate for the Basic version, perhaps an update to the Intermediate version. The WML is the top of the ocean where wind and wave action, tidal movements and even movements of living things ensure that it is fairly well mixed - hence the name. The rest of the ocean below it, around 97% of it is extremely NOT well mixed, with the main mixing force for the bulk of the oceans appearing to be upwelling and downwelling currents at certain points. The result of this is that both overall CO2 Uptake rates by the ocean, and Ph changes, in the short timescale of decades is driven predominantly by what happens to the WML - the bulk of the ocean volume isn't particularly in play on this timescale The oft cited sceptic argument that the ocean contains 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere and therefore CO2 in the atmosphere can't be from us - the oceans soaked it all up - and Ph consequently can't change that much is based on the fallacy that on short time scales the whole ocean is in play. It isn't. Over centuries and millenia, yes and this is relevant to Thingadonta's comments about short geological timescale evidence, what might happens due to the geochemistry of the depths etc. However we probably can't read very much into what this signifies for our modern experience since the rate at which change is occuring swamps past rates and substantially removes whole-of-ocean measures from consideration. Perhaps Ocean Acidification should actually be called Well Mixed Layer Acidification. And this is bad enough since most of the marine lfe we are concerned about lives in or survives from the WML. An interesting Back-of-the-envelope calculation. If the oceans hold 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere, and the average depth of the oceans is around 3800m, and the WML at the top is on average about 100m deep, then the WML holds 1.32 times as much as the atmosphere (ignoring temperature, salinity,etc, this is a BOTE calc) 43% in the Atmosphere and 57% in the WML. Rather in the ballpark for the usual figures for percentage uptake by Oceans vs Atmosphere. The following text from Spencer Wearts 'The Discovery of Global Warming', http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Revelle.htm is fascinating reading. Particularly the discovery of just how much an atomic bomb exploded at depth DIDN'T disrupt ocean stratification. Also the not spelled out link between CO2 uptake in the oceans and Boron! This sort of puts simplistic arguments by sceptics that it is just about Henry's Law in the shade
  23. Medieval Warm Period: rhetoric vs science
    Surely it doesn't matter how hot the MWP was. Say, for the sake of argument, that we accept that it was warmer then than it is now. Then doesn't the skeptic's argument boil down to the equivalent of "Forest fires can happen naturally, therefore it is impossible for an arsonist to start a forest fire". Maybe the article could make that point more clearly.
  24. actually thoughtful at 18:41 PM on 28 August 2010
    Comparing volcanic CO2 to human CO2
    Wow! RSVP are you trying to be sarcastic or are you putting down your "skeptic" mantle long enough to admit we have some serious issues ahead of us?!
  25. actually thoughtful at 18:31 PM on 28 August 2010
    Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Humanity Rules - I take your overall point that we would notice a 50% drop. However I googled food supply from the ocean and came up with 5% (5% of all food humans eat comes from the ocean). Way out of my depth (tiny pun intended) on this issue - but maybe we wouldn't notice for a few years. And marine biologists tell us the oceans and transitions zones are in a WORLD of hurt. So maybe we have, in fact noticed.
  26. Comparing volcanic CO2 to human CO2
    Ned Thank you. The graphs you provide show that the natural sources and sinks of CO2 effect cycles of 100,000 years, or so. This explains how with emissions 100 times found in nature, you get that verticle spike at the end, and I suppose that if this were to continue for 100,000 years, the atmosphere would reach 30% CO2, however this is actually not possible since all the oxygen would be used up way before this. :) Seriously,... it looks like we are up a creek...
  27. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    9.Dappledwater I think some old denier pointed this out on WUWT. As you say phytoplankton are virtually the sole source of energy for the whole of the marine environment. Without them there is no food chain, nothing. If phytoplankton halved since 1950 that would have to mean the whole marine ecosystem would have to also have havled. I think a total biomass drop in the ocean of 50% would a) be easy to see and b) have people screaming. I don't think we've lost 50% of the living biomass of the oceans unless you know otherwise.
  28. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    #Dappeldwater: Volcanic events can be rapid, medium term or long term. C02 has been released faster than humans are currently adding c02 to the atmosphere, and yet oceans didnt acidify. As usual coral researchers take no account of the geological record. Obvious really.
  29. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Thingadonta @ 8 "Past geological events indicate that it takes a long time for oceans to acidify" Yes, exactly, past geological events (volcanic activity) released CO2 much more slowly than the rate at which humans are currently adding it to the atmosphere. That's why the current acidification is progressing much faster. Obvious really.
  30. Hansen etal hit a Climate Home Run -- in 1981
    With enough circumstantial evidence we may safely conclude we've accurately described a real circumstance. :-)
  31. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Dsleaton @ 6 - yup, a real double whammy for phytoplankton, which are the basis for the ocean food web & recycle much of the Earth's oxygen. The warming oceans are becoming more stratified, thereby reducing nutrient upwelling and therefore leading to declines in phytoplankton abundance. Press release here: Marine Phytoplankton Declining: Striking Global Changes at the Base of the Marine Food Web Linked to Rising Ocean Temperatures Then there this bad news: Acidifying Oceans Spell Bleak Marine Biological Future 'by End of Century', Mediterranean Research Finds ,
  32. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    "The acidity of global surface waters has increased by 30% in just the last 200 years. " As I understand, 200 year old data on ocean pH is modelled, not measured, so we don't know for certain how much ocean pH has changed in the last 200 years. "These changes in ocean chemistry are irreversible for many thousands of years," This also is uncertain. From Wiki: "Leaving aside direct biological effects, it is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.[50] This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2 with moderate (and potentially beneficial) implications for climate change as more CO2 leaves the atmosphere for the ocean.[51]" The ocean subsurface is by far greater in area than all the worlds coral reefs. Sedimentation/dissolution processes could create a strong buffer to changes in ocean pH. This has never been factored into any IPCC or other models of ocean pH projections. We dont know what kind/magnitude of negative feedbacks occur in the ocean subsurface, and therfore there is no way we can make any meanigful statment regarding ocean pH projections. Past geological events indicate that it takes a long time for oceans to acidify (of the order of thousands of years++); this implies that negative feedbacks to changes in C02 in the atmosphere are likely to be strong, and current prjections far too simplistic and overstated.
  33. Climate Models: Learning From History Rather Than Repeating It
    Argus #26. We do actually have one long term climate model of future temperatures. Arrhenius in 1896 predicted a one degree rise for the 20th century from fossill fuel burning, not a bad estimate. Thats very sobering. Never loose siight of that in the detail and exact effects of relatively minor gases like nitrous oxide. Never loose
  34. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    @dsleaton Looks like heat. This hypothessis has been supported by correlation between local temperature and phytoplancton abundance.
  35. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Not certain if it's heat or acidification, but we recently had the news about phytoplankton: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7306/full/nature09268.html
  36. Can humans affect global climate?
    19.Dappledwater I guess I posted this record to try to extend the record further back from the post-WWII increases in CO2. I think we might be able to consider 1800-1900 as a period of very low CO2 emission but there's always a danger in assuming things.
  37. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Bacteria that eat hydrocarbons.
  38. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Jellyfish
  39. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    As this deary nightmare has unfolded , some winners have begun to show themselves. Just off the top of my head I can think of the following : Kudzu Poison Ivy Pine Bark Beetles Spruce Bud Worms No doubt the oceans will turn up winners in a more acidic world. I got 5 bucks sez , they aren't things we'll enjoy.
  40. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Michael - One of the great metaphors for how small changes do great things is the alligator. At one temperature range, all the offspring become females, but just a few degrees away they all become male. " The gender of alligators is determined by the temperature of the eggs. Temperatures between 90 and 93 degrees Fahrenheit will produce males. Temperatures between 82 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit will produce females. " http://www.ehow.com/facts_5972765_difference-between-male-female-alligator.html
  41. Ocean acidification threatens entire marine food chains
    Might be worth adding that there are not simply species "at risk" but there are already changes occurring which have been observed. I have forgotten the details, but it is among the planktonic species of the Antarctic.
  42. Comparing volcanic CO2 to human CO2
    thpritch: Thanks, I have fixed the link. Andy
  43. Assessing global surface temperature reconstructions
    Hi, Zeke. Thanks for stopping by, for the kind words, and for the correction to figure 5. The two time-series are already quite similar, so if this brings them even closer together the results must be virtually indistinguishable! In any case, I'll update the post to reflect this (though it may be a couple of days before I'm able to do so). I'm sure you're a busy guy, and rankexploits.com seems to be a good venue for your writings. But if and when you have the time, we'd all very much appreciate any thoughts you'd care to share over here.
  44. Can humans affect global climate?
    Those who have lived in cities that have been hit by hurricanes/cyclones will be hoping that the comment about humans not being able to affect single weather events is true, or perhaps not. There is a train of thought developing that hurricanes/cyclones may be drawn towards large population areas because of the changes such infrastructure has on the local climate. If true not only does it affect the area hit, but those areas missed that may have otherwise received at least the moisture such events bring in the course of such natural events.
  45. Can humans affect global climate?
    Yvan Dutil #20- The only 'incompetency' Spencer proved is his own. The whole article is pseudo-science. You should have been able to guess this by his frequent reference to 'trending' and its removal, with no discussion of what algorithms he used to do this. But without that discussion, we have no idea if he did it right, or if he did it to get the results he wanted. Then there is also his red herring about the ratio changing due to rise in C12 instead of fall of C13.
  46. Climate Models: Learning From History Rather Than Repeating It
    CBDunkerson at 22:03 PM, the broad strokes of the hydrological cycle are indeed broad if the mathematics which drives the climate change theories is exchanged for the application as it applies in practice. Clouds coverage of the earths surface is about 2/3 so it is a major factor of not only how much solar radiation intersects the earths surface but where. Whilst debate rages over small changes in solar output, by comparison little is devoted to how small changes in solar output compares to small changes in cloud coverage and distribution in terms of nett effect, simply because clouds are dismissed because no-one is sure of the nett effect. YET the whole effect that the climate has on the planet is dependent on how much and the distribution of the solar radiation falling on the surface. It is unequal heating and cooling that firstly sets in motion the processes that try to find thermal equilibrium, but also where the unequal warming and cooling occurs that results in thermal energy being absorbed or liberated from the soils and waters which in turn affects whether CO2 is also being absorbed or liberated. In addition the circulation that develops as thermal equilibrium is sought also transports the CO2 either depriving or making it available to and from the various sources and sinks in varying combinations with moisture and warmth that combined determine whether a location becomes a nett source or sink for not only the thermal energy and moisture, but the CO2 as well. Even if all that does have a negligible effect as you claim, which I disagree with, if it is what determines whether the nett effect is positive or negative, small or large, then obviously understanding, and being able to measure it becomes very important. It is all very well to look at the nett effect today and correlate one piece of data with another, but if the processes which are not fully understood are input in to create models that successfully recreate the past climate in order to make predictions leading forward, one can never be sure whether the assumptions being made are correct or merely the result of a number of wrong assumptions canceling each other out.
  47. Comparing volcanic CO2 to human CO2
    In regards to the link {Moerner and Etiope (2002)}, it does not exist nor was I able to find a joint paper by these authors via Scifinder. However, there is a 2002 article by Etiope on "Geologic emissions of methane to the atmosphere" in Chemosphere Volume 49, Issue 8, December 2002, Pages 777-789
  48. Zeke Hausfather at 03:09 AM on 28 August 2010
    Assessing global surface temperature reconstructions
    Ned, I'm a bit late to stumble upon this, but great summary of the work to date. One quick clarification: figure 5 is based on an incorrect interpretation of the v2.mean_adj dataset. Namely, it is a change-log rather than an independent dataset in its own right, and should be combined with all v2.mean months not present in v2.mean_adj. When that is done, the differences become much smaller. See the update on the bottom of http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/the-ghcn-adustment-puzzle/ The net adjustments can be seen here: http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j237/hausfath/Picture478.png
  49. Arctic sea ice... take 2
    Oops, Michael Sweet beat me to it...
  50. Arctic sea ice... take 2
    CBW writes: The only reason it is used is because it has value for navigation, and hence a longer historical record. Yes, for most physical processes ice area is probably more relevant than ice extent. But estimates of ice extent tend to be more reliable than ice area, at least in the non-winter months. For those of us who are just casual observers and aren't using sea ice data in actual quantitative models, the main thing is just to be consistent. The folks over at WUWT have shown a tendency to shift back and forth among different data sets (extent, area, NSIDC, JAXA, CT, PIPS, etc.) depending on which one is more exciting to them at any given time. That's a recipe for self-deception, IMHO. Pick one metric that you like to track, and stick with it.

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