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David Horton at 15:12 PM on 20 August 2010The Strange Case of Albert Gore, Inconvenient Truths and a Man in a Powdered Wig
TOP, do you not see that the denier movement is also "political"? That, indeed, preventing the acceptance of the science and the necessary action is a far more political act than simply making the reality of the science available to a larger audience and leaving them to make up their mind about the politics involved? -
mothincarnate at 15:10 PM on 20 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
I know - just having a little chuckle :-) -
giniajim at 15:09 PM on 20 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Have there been any efforts to verify the names and qualifications on the "petition"? As John suggests, it might be interesting to go back and see how many of the respondents have now changed their mind. -
thingadonta at 15:08 PM on 20 August 2010Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
#20 dhogaza Actually there was a bit of other early evidence for continental drift as well. (I've got a copy of Wegener's original book on continental drift-its a good read-you can get it on Amazon). -stratigraphic (both fossil and rock)correlations between the Americas and Africa-Europe, and numerous other places. There is a few other strange ideas in the book, but can't remember them at the moment. A globe with a sliding outer skin isnt a very common daily observance, so it took a while for such an idea to sink in, when various geophysics etc backed it up. -
David Horton at 15:06 PM on 20 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Nova has no interest in understanding it - reality is not what she is about. -
mothincarnate at 15:00 PM on 20 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
This is good - it might now be in a language Nova can understand.. -
John Chapman at 14:26 PM on 20 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
If one looks at the petition document that individuals sign there is no record or entry of the date. (http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWPetition.pdf) The petition has been going for a decade or so and one wonders how many would change their tune since those early days in the climate debate? -
johnd at 14:26 PM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
KR at 13:18 PM, the data in your "spurious example" is rather suspect. Pirates, at least in SE Asia, would number rather many more than the graph indicates and numbers are probably rising, especially as each financial crisis cycles through the region. Of course theses days instead of a fully rigged and crewed sailing ship with cannons poking out on all sides, a couple of blokes in a speedboat with a war surplus firearm, and perhaps even some ammunition, can still make a good living from a low cost operation targeting other small boats,tug boats, smugglers, drug runners etc. Some small fishing villages are renown as pirate lairs that drug runners and smugglers try best to avoid. :-) -
scaddenp at 14:11 PM on 20 August 2010Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
Poptech - you can insist to you are blue in face that E&E is "peer reviewed". I'll go with the "trade" designation. Publishing there has to be a career-damaging move. If you want objective measure of science community judgement on E&E, then perhaps you should look at its journal impact ranking. (good luck actually because I couldnt even find one for it). -
scaddenp at 14:07 PM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
eric - I pointed you the skepticsci page not because of the article itself but because it was a convenient pointer to the papers published about the subject. Kirkby may be right - but the point was, even if he IS right, it still doesnt help explain current climate. The papers on that article deal with limitations on any real world response to cloud formation from GCR. I am all for Kirkby doing his experiments though. Read the concluding remarks in McShane or Wyner? Several commentators have also pointed to a problem with their analysis already but lets wait to both paper and responses are published. Also, note proxies are hardly used to "predict" climate. You can check whether current best models can reproduce past proxy temperatures from proxy forcings but you would guess correctly that this is more useful to check for invalidation than anything else given the uncertainties. Climate prediction is based purely on physics. -
Bern at 13:59 PM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
scaddenp: yep, orbital forcings affect distribution of solar radiation - but they don't change the total amount. And, yes, land/ocean distribution would also be a significant factor, even if not (directly) a forcing. They'd still generate feedback forcings, though (e.g. albedo changes to due cloud / ice / vegetation cover). Meteor impacts certainly would kick up a lot of (short-lived) aerosols, but can also result in enormous greenhouse gas kicks, depending on what type of rock is hit, and how much organic matter burns / decomposes as a result of the short-term effects. This may provide a nudge that pushes the global climate from a relatively stable state into a transition state. -
The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
I checked a bit more, Berényi - and found that "Of all large whales, the bowhead whale is the most adapted to life in icy cold water". Posting a bowhead whale skull as evidence for a warmer Arctic is both meaningless and misleading - they like it cold, and live in the Arctic year round. -
Is the sun causing global warming?
johnd - Correlation is not causation. I would in fact refer you to this enjoyable yet spurious example... Unless you can hypothesize a reasonable physical interaction (I've yet to see any) wherein solar magnetic strength or cosmic ray patterns actual affect global surface temperatures (and I believe that no such direct correlation or interaction has been shown), it's at best an interesting correlation without causation. Clouds and formation rates would probably be your best bet there, but current consensus appears to be that clouds (which show a slight inverse relationship to temperatures over the last 60 years) have only a weak effect on global temps. -
TOP at 13:17 PM on 20 August 2010The Strange Case of Albert Gore, Inconvenient Truths and a Man in a Powdered Wig
Looks like my comments related to post #7 got pulled during the day so I'll tone them down. The judge seems to be saying that the film is being used for political purposes. There have been other politicians that have used science and technology for political ends. Political uses of science such as Gore is doing tend to create a situation where science can be codified into law. This is against science. What if spontaneous generation had been somehow written into law. Gore is not a good spokesperson precisely because he is a politician. -
muoncounter at 13:14 PM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
#34: "Near-Earth variations in the solar wind, measured by the geomagnetic aa index " If you want to compare temperatures to the solar wind, why not look to ACE SWEPAM for actual solar wind data? The solar wind is only one component in the very complicated interplanetary magnetic field. From spaceweather: "When Bz is south, that is, opposite Earth's magnetic field, the two fields link up," explains Christopher Russell, a Professor of Geophysics and Space Physics at UCLA. "You can then follow a field line from Earth directly into the solar wind" -- or from the solar wind to Earth. South-pointing Bz's open a door through which energy from the solar wind can reach Earth's atmosphere! "I find the expectations of many punters here towards correlation perplexing. There seems to be a requirement for any proposed influence to show almost total correlation before it will be acknowledged as being even relevant." No argument there, but on this site, it is usually the deniers who quote 'corrleation isn't causality' when presented with correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature or ice melt or any of the other things we talk about. -
How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Eric - positive (and negative) feedbacks with an absolute value < 1.0 damp out. Feedbacks > 1.0 absolute value are un-physical; they would increase infinitely, requiring an infinite amount of energy to do so. Here's a post on feedbacks, also here, which I wrote a while back - these may give you some idea on how these work, and how they taper out after a fixed amplification/dampening of the initial forcing. -
TOP at 13:03 PM on 20 August 20101934: the 47th hottest year on record
Dr. Masters considers the phenomenon that led to 1934 and the currently ended Russian heat wave to be the same. It has to do with a polar jet stream the "gets stuck" farther south than usual. If you look at the temperature anomaly map there was an equally cold area to the east of the hot area. A friend in the North of England complained to me of unusually cool temperatures while the heat wave was going on in Russia. The heat wave is cherry picking if it is used to support AGW until further analysis is done. -
The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Berényi - I believe that 1-2°C global (as per 125,000 years ago) translates to 2-4°C or more in the Arctic. I would love a fact check from someone who has actual expertise in this (Pete Hogarth, for example), though. I don't know what the normal range of bowhead whales is - but there are multiple whale species present in the Arctic and Antarctic year round. Sorry - I don't consider this evidence in either direction. Current Greenland mass behavior seems to indicate a transition point, however, as is evident in the graph I posted in #38. -
johnd at 12:46 PM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
muoncounter at 12:04 PM, the abstract for the paper you extracted the graph from begins:- "Near-Earth variations in the solar wind, measured by the geomagnetic aa index since 1868, are closely correlated with global temperature ( r = 0.96; P < 10-7)." However it then on focused on only the northern hemisphere whilst acknowledging that the differences between the temperatures and trends of both hemispheres. Regarding correlation, some correlation is obviously necessary before scientists can begin investigation for any physical link. I find the expectations of many punters here towards correlation perplexing. There seems to be a requirement for any proposed influence to show almost total correlation before it will be acknowledged as being even relevant. This would be appropriate if the weather or climate only responded to one forcing. However the weather is a result of a large number of different forces of varying magnitudes and origins that variously oppose or amplify other competing forces to give the weather of the day, or the season, as winter and summer demonstrate. At certain times one particular force will dominate, at other times others will. Only when all these forces are fully understood will the weather be able to be modeled successfully, but we are not there yet. Similarly with the climate, there are many processes that are far from being understood, clouds, and solar winds being just two such processes. So dismissing any such process just because the correlation is not total seems rather premature to me. -
Trueofvoice at 12:39 PM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
Eric144, The problem with accepting Kirkby's work as factual is a simple one: it hasn't been replicated. Mann's work, by contrast, has been confirmed by repeated independent studies. I'd like to know why you find Kirkby more credible than any climatologist. My guess is he confirms your existing bias, but I'm willing to hear your argument. Stating that his work must be right as it gets funding from a big scientific organization is self-refuting, because the scientists you don't like (Mann, Hansen, Trenberth) also get funding from top scientific bodies. By your logic their work must also be correct. -
eric144 at 12:21 PM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
doug_bostrom at 10:13 AM on 20 August, 2010 Kirkby's work shows that the science is not settled. I am conflating scientists and environmentalists because that is how the NASA/Hansen/Schmidt/Mann axis behaves. Even Pielke Jr and Hulme are committed environmentalists and they are supposed to be skeptics. "Well, well; correlation isn't causality? And yet the deniersphere clings to Svensmark's hypothesis? Isn't that ironic... " I'm sorry, what is a deniersphere ? Is it something little children play in ? That's what it sounds like to me. I'm glad I'm not a gamma minus. The CERN experiments are being done to explore the mechanism of cloud formation . scaddenp You are comparing sceptical science, a blog behind which there is no expertise, with a highly credible physicist like Kirkby. I would be surprised if there were any non sceptical, independent, individual physicists. Forgetting representative, political bodies. -
scaddenp at 12:07 PM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Eric, there are a lot of ways to assess climate sensitivity. The commonest is direct calculation from model output (which comes out at around 3) but ECS may be higher has AR4 models dont track carbon feedbacks. This is ONLY about physical causes. IPCC WG1 has a section on estimating sensitivity from past response to forcing with many papers. Annan and Hargreaves just one of many different approaches. Necessarily, uncertainties are high. Annan at least uses an approach to limit the upper end. -
muoncounter at 12:04 PM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
BTW, if this graph is correct, aa to temperature is not even that good of a correlation.
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muoncounter at 11:59 AM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
#24: "the solar coronal magnetic field strength as indicated by the aa geomagnetic index, " Interesting. The aa index is clearly increasing [see figure 3 in the linked paper]. If you believe that aa is correlated with global temperature, then you must necessarily admit that the earth is in fact warming. But correlation? As the denialists always ask, what does that prove? -
johnd at 11:55 AM on 20 August 2010NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
doug_bostrom at 10:26 AM, what is the point you are trying to make? 1. 300 mm of rain in 36 hours has never before happened anywhere in the world at any time in recorded history, or 2. 300mm of rain in 36 hours only ever falls where it impacts adversely upon humans, or 3. if that occurs, the effects are worse if they have not been subjected to such an event for a very long time. The definition of denialist confines it's use to political debates, so you can continue to correctly use it with confidence in the political aspect of any debates you pursue. "denialist noun one who denies an assertion in a controversial political debate. usage note: This is usually used by those who make the assertion, or by those who implicitly hold the assertion to be true, of others. It is rarely used self-descriptively." http://www.allwords.com/word-denialist.html -
muoncounter at 11:50 AM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
#22: "CERN would not be spending huge amounts of money funding Kirkby unless they believed the research potentially highly fruitful." Oh, I don't know how true that is. I've been in and around particle physics projects for the last 6+ years; projects get funded and take on a life of their own. The original CLOUD proposals date back to 2000. Here's an interesting comment on CERN's experiment vis a vis Svensmark: Bent Sørensen, an environmental physicist at Roskilde University Centre in Denmark, believes Svensmark's paper lacks real evidence. "It's an interesting proposal for research, which is why CERN will try to acquire the knowledge that is lacking, " says Sørensen, "but I feel there's a large gap between finding statistical correlations with some assumptions and having a causal correlation or even a physical correlation." Well, well; correlation isn't causality? And yet the deniersphere clings to Svensmark's hypothesis? Isn't that ironic... -
batsvensson at 11:44 AM on 20 August 2010The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Effects of Climate Change
johnd, No. It is much more complex than that. -
Eric (skeptic) at 11:39 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
From Weart, Annan, Hargreaves 2006 uses a probabilistic argument to estimate sensitivity from two observable variables, forcing and temperature. Using both negative and positive forcings and corresponding temperature changes, they calculate ranges of sensitivities and most likely values. No discussion of what physically causes those limits. Weart also mentions Lindzen's theory of self-regulating climate. Then he dismisses it by saying "...climate experts (aside from Lindzen and a few followers) were now nearly certain that serious global warming was underway". Apparently Weart believes (1) "serious" global warming is a reality rather than just a model result and (2) the "seriousness" of global warming means that Lindzen's theory of self-regulation is wrong. Can't find "Climate Models and Their Evaluation" at ipoc.ch where Weart says it is. I did find this http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/supporting-material/expert-meeting-assessing-multi-model-projections-2010-01.pdf but haven't finished reading it. -
scaddenp at 11:06 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Bern, just to nit pick, orbital variations are about variation primarily to distribution of solar radiation. The effect is dependent on land/sea distribution so going back in time, the changing plate configuration is also a factor in climate. Meteor impacts I would say are mostly aerosol in effect? -
HumanityRules at 11:05 AM on 20 August 20101934: the 47th hottest year on record
Since you're talking percentages. What % of the globes surface where humans recording temperature in 1934? If that was say 20% does that make it any more valid than the cherrypicking by the deniers? -
scaddenp at 11:01 AM on 20 August 2010Temp record is unreliable
BP - apologies. I have taken time I don't really have to read the GHCN documentation. The raw file should indeed be the thermometer readings as received from custodian corrected only for scale. If the individual data from environment Canada dont match individual data from GHCN, then you do have a case for asking why not. However, averaging isnt meaningful without methodology for the average. Is difference in the individual stations or in the averaging method? I note that GHCN rejects station data for which the raw data for homogenization correction is not available, so in principle, you should be able to find all that. Since you think the adjustments must be wrong, then pick the station with highest adjustment and get the homogenization data for that. Repeat the procedure in Petersen et al -
scaddenp at 10:55 AM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
Good luck to Kirkby - he might find something interesting. However, EVEN if GCR DO have a part to play in cloud formation, phenomenological studies would suggest the effect is weak and given the non-trend in GCR flux, it cant be responsible for current warming. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:37 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Thingadonta stops being serious when he mentions Al Gore. Stick with the science, Thingadonta. -
Tom Dayton at 10:35 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Ogemaniac, CO2 is not inert with respect to IR, which is the only aspect that matters for the topic under discussion. The doubling of the number of CO2 molecules means drastically increasing the effect of CO2. Since the pre-doubling effect already was large, the increased effect will be large. 2 x 1 = only 2, but 2 x 1,000 = 2,000. -
Bern at 10:29 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
@thingadonta - did you miss the part of the article where he said that external forcings in the past included a number of different elements, including solar irradiation, volcanic eruptions (& aerosols), and greenhouse gases? Obviously that list should include orbital variations, and potentially meteor impacts (although it'd have to be a big one to trigger a really long-term climate shift). -
Doug Bostrom at 10:28 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Yes, Eric, models do project maximum temperatures. If you don't know that, may I recommend Spencer Weart? Look for the section on GCMs, follow the references. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:26 AM on 20 August 2010NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
JohnD, are you paying attention? 300mm of rain didn't fall over the ocean, it fell where people live and have been accustomed for a very long time to that not happening. Maybe there really are such things as "denialists." It's a word I use very infrequently because I don't think it applies very well to most people; I don't like generalizations of that kind and our language is excellently suited for conveying nuance. JohnD, what do you think? Is there such a thing as a "denialist?" -
Bern at 10:26 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Good point, owl905. The comparison should be with the natural variation of global temperatures, rather than the absolute temperature in Kelvin. On that basis, a 20% shift is pretty significant. Especially as we're talking about a 20% shift upwards on top of an already relatively high interglacial temperature... -
Eric (skeptic) at 10:26 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
"Our climate is highly sensitive to changes in heat." Can you quantify when the positive feedback stops since it has always stopped in the past? Are there models that max out temperature at some point? What specifically causes positive feedback to stop? -
thingadonta at 10:22 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Yes, but the actual correlation between greenhouse gas levels and climate change in the past is not that good. This suggests variations in levels of greenhouse gases are not that infleuntial in affecting temperature, but rather follow other causes (such as c02 released when oceans warm due to lower solubility). Eg. C02 is known to follow rising ocean temperatures at the end of ice ages (soemthing Al Gore conveniently left out). Currently the correlation between c02 and T since 1850 is about 22%, and falling. One has to introduce a bit of gymnastics in the geologial record to explain why greenhouse gas levels don't often corralate with T, such as lower solar output in the Ordovician, and even in recent times such as increase in aerosols ~1940-1970, which all sounds a bit convenient.Response: "One has to introduce a bit of gymnastics in the geologial record to explain why greenhouse gas levels don't often corralate with T"
Gymnastics? I would characterise it as taking into account all the forcings that drive climate. If the sun was cooler in the past, this obviously needs to be taken into account when calculating the planet's net radiative forcing. Similarly for the mid-century cooling, when you factor in solar dimming which is a directly observed phenomena and couple that with increasing temperatures at night even during the period of mid-century cooling, there is no inconsistency with greenhouse warming effect.
Many of the misunderstandings about climate would disappear if everyone were to take into account the full picture, not just cherry pick the bits and pieces that lead to a misleading conclusion. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:13 AM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
Kirkby's work might do that, eric144, sounds as though you wish for it to be so. But what does Kirkby's work have to do with environmentalists? How are the two things connected in your mind? I ask you because you're the latest person to appear here apparently burdened with such a conflation. -
eric144 at 10:09 AM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
doug_bostrom Kirkby's work counters the perspective that the sun has no part to play in global warming as put forward in this blog. The difference in qualifications and credibility between the two individuals is utterly vast. -
owl905 at 09:54 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
If 3dC is 1%, then MattJ's range of potential temperatures is 300Cdegrees. That's unrealistic. The ice-core record gives the reality range - 10Cdegrees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png Doubling CO2 with a plus 3dC consequence would be a dependent variable increase of about 20% (factor in the lower rate of increase with the higher levels of CO2). -
CoalGeologist at 09:53 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
MattJ @1 commits a common "Straw Man" fallacy in his reply, in presuming that the term "highly sensitive" must necessarily describe a climate response more extreme than what is actually observed. Another error is assuming there should be a linear 1:1 relationship between climate driver and climate response. That said, one of the persistent complaints by AGW skeptics is accusations of hyperbole and exaggeration in describing the impacts of climate change. This is the origin of the odious term "Alarmist", which is commonly applied to anyone who accepts AGW as proved, or likely. Accusations of "Alarmism" are, themselves, mostly a Straw Man. Most scientific papers on climate change are quite careful and measured in their conclusions. Even climate studies that predict more severe long-term impacts are based on a particular set of assumptions, and should not be presumed to be intended to frighten little children. At the same time, if the goal is to reach the broadest possible audience, and to use the most non-inflammatory language, perhaps some further explanation should be added, or perhaps even the word "highly" dropped. -
Ogemaniac at 09:41 AM on 20 August 2010Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
I am alone. How many people are required for a consensus? One. I am with my wife. How many people are required for a consensus? Two. I am out with my wife and another couple. How many people are required for a consensus? Four. I am out with a group of twenty people. How many people are required for consensus? Errr...wait...this isn't easy any more. Probably not all twenty. Maybe 18-19? I am a climate scientist, and have three thousand scientific peers. How many are required for a consensus? Hmmm......2500? 2700? 2900? Again, not an easy question with a definitive answer, other than the answer is NOT all 3000! A few crackpots does not a consensus unmake. -
johnd at 09:36 AM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
doug_bostrom at 09:34 AM, can you elaborate why you consider it not relevant. -
Ogemaniac at 09:35 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
MattJ: The doubling of a small number is still a small number. It is actually pretty amazing that just a few hundred ppm of a trace, largely inert, gas could cause such a change to the entire planet. -
David Horton at 09:35 AM on 20 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Good post James. Another lesson (http://davidhortonsblog.com/2010/05/28/swings-and-arrows/) from past changes is that there is no magic negative feedback mechanism that magically kicks in to stop global warming. This wishful thinking (eg that plants are suddenly going to grow faster and gobble up CO2) is completely negated by the dramatic nature of past changes, -
Doug Bostrom at 09:34 AM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
JohnD, "relevance or otherwise." You captured the reason why you don't hear of it. -
johnd at 09:30 AM on 20 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
No one has touched on the subject of solar winds and the solar coronal magnetic field strength as indicated by the aa geomagnetic index, and the relevance or otherwise of the doubling of the solar coronal magnetic field in the last 100 years, which correlates well with temperature increases.
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