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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 112401 to 112450:

  1. Long Term Certainty
    about SL's moderator response to #7 I thought everybody agreed that all efforts implemented so far, and especially the European ones, were too little, too slow, too late and too much of a whited sepulchre to be taken as example of what serious mitigation would look like... usually one is presented with a choice between climate catastrophe and the wholesale redesign of the economy... that's why I for one am much more interested in adaptation
  2. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    That's a radiometer being graphed there, RSVP, if you're looking at the green line. Not temperature. The line jumps up and down swiftly because the sun is being intermittently occluded by clouds.
  3. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    KR I invite you to take a look at this webpage... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_collector Note the graph found halfway down that shows temp vs. minutes and how quickly temperature rises and drops (and how peak values coincide with those on the Moon). Whereas in 225 you attribute the higher temperatures found on the Moon as having to do with how long the Lunar day is, as you can see from the graph, response times are in the order of minutes such that your argument is illbound. As far as what you say about albedo... albedo refers to the planet as a whole. If you were standing on a sand dune in the Sahara on a sunny day as compared to the Moons Sea of Tranquility, albedo also has nothing to do with this difference in temperature. So referring to my question in 224, I cant say I am satisfied with your answer.
  4. Long Term Certainty
    E-e-e-e-e-ek!!! "shouldn’t we better cut emissions"? Do they really speak English that way Down Under?? "Hadn't we better cut emissions" would be immediately understood as correct over here.
    Moderator Response: G'donyamate for picking that. My apologies. SL
  5. What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
    If you heard someone yell over an intercom:
    "Hey, everybody: a jet plane just crashed into the building! Get out as fast as you can!"...
    Call me an alarmist, but I'm going to leave the building first, then assess the veracity of the statement. In that order. Staying put and possibly winning a Darwin Award would seem to preclude further evolving... The Yooper
  6. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Effects of Climate Change
    "It is widely believed that warmer climes will encourage migration of disease-bearing insects like mosquitoes and malaria is already appearing in places it hasn’t been seen before." This is an urban myth.
  7. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    Along the lines of David Horton's remarks as well as those of ms2et, thinking about the career of Art Meyerhoff is instructive. Here's a fork in the road, which path does not lead to a dead end? Spencer and the small handful of legitimate scientists manning their barricade remind me in some ways of Meyerhoff. Intelligent, trained, creative, dogged, wrong, but in most cases making a good faith scientific effort without resorting to out-of-band rhetoric. There's the difference between most of this tiny group and a much larger rabble not really interested in science. Meyerhoff had deep, fundamental objections to the emerging mainstream picture of plate tectonics. He mounted a vigorous, forceful effort to complete a different picture but he never, ever accused his scientific opponents of fraud, of malfeasance, of malign intent. Although he and my father were in polar opposition over the interpretation of newly emerging observations, they could share a dinner table and go on to have perhaps too many drinks without ever saying a thing they'd regret or have a hard time owning up to later, when the research dust had settled. Miekol Australia may not be as stuffed as you think, though whether they'll continue selling their coal abroad is an important detail. See "Australia strategy for Zero Emissions by 2020". 2020? Maybe that's farfetched, but there's a plan with the marvelous virtue of existence, as opposed to hopeless despair.
  8. Long Term Certainty
    Are the available climate models able to take the "present state" and based on this calculate backward in time to say 1800 and replicate the record we have?
  9. What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
    Both options, cooling and warming seem to generate alarist reactions, and in either case, it would surely be blamed on Man; yet if it were shown to be due to Nature, Man would surely attempt to wrest the trend. Someday perhaps we will realize we are just another animal on this planet... maybe after evolving a little further.
  10. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    thingadonta, misquoting the article and then disagreeing with the misquote is difficult to accept. It's not, as you wrote:- "debate about....the role played by human activity It's: “...the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played" That's a different statement. "Largely nonexistent" is fine. Science never produces unanimity: example, Robert Bakker still disputes that the KT Extinction was caused by a meteor impact. Nor is consensus about the end of arguments. If it were, the equivalent of a scientific filibuster would be on notice 7x24 to prevent consensus. 'Consensus' is 'sufficient agreement that the evidence is strong enough to warrant action'. Scientific consensus on AGW was achieved 20 years ago (the Lintzens, Lomborgs, Pielke's, McIntyres and Monctons notwithstanding). The evidence leading to that consensus has been fortified since then by adding more evidence, withstanding the challenges, and witnessing the trend.
  11. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    Worth noting that consensus arises from the evidence, not the reverse, and the reverse is the line that deniers have been pushing for years. Was thinking yesterday about another example of consensus, one used (like Galileo) quite incorrectly by the deniers, and that is continental drift. If I remember correctly when it was first proposed, as a theory, it depended entirely on (a) the shapes of Africa and South America and (b) some biogeographic distribution puzzles. I can remember it first being discussed in the 1960s in my Zoology Dept, and discussed along the lines of "Well, yes, cute theory, very ingenious, but what would be the mechanism, and there are other explanations for the puzzles". Over the next few years evidence began to accumulate as sea floors were mapped, sediments and rocks dated, the nature of tectonic plates and the Earth's crust better understood, that it just gradually became a matter of consensus. There was no grand announcement, just that all of the objections had been removed, all the mechanisms understood, no one had come up with a single piece of evidence that contradicted the theory, and the idea of continents fixed in time and space just faded away. That is how consensus works (evolution of course being another major example) in science, and that is how it has worked for climate change.
  12. Is the sun causing global warming?
    muoncounter at 10:32 AM, the abstract for the "new research" from 2008 that you cite actually states :- "A decrease in the globally averaged low level cloud cover, deduced from the ISCCP infrared data, as the cosmic ray intensity decreased during the solar cycle 22 was observed by two groups. The groups went on to hypothesize that the decrease in ionization due to cosmic rays causes the decrease in cloud cover, thereby explaining a large part of the currently observed global warming. We have examined this hypothesis to look for evidence to corroborate it. None has been found and so our conclusions are to doubt it. From the absence of corroborative evidence, we estimate that less than 23%, at the 95% confidence level, of the 11 year cycle change in the globally averaged cloud cover observed in solar cycle 22 is due to the change in the rate of ionization from the solar modulation of cosmic rays." So 2 groups studied one solar cycle, cycle 22, and arrived at certain conclusions. The authors of the research cited rather than finding corroborative evidence for such conclusions being reached, ended up estimating that less than 23% of the change in the globally averaged cloud cover observed in solar cycle 22 was due to the change in the rate of ionization from the solar modulation of cosmic rays. Unless the abstract is wrongly worded it seems to me that the authors DO confirm that cosmic rays DO affect cloud cover, perhaps as much as 23% they claim at a 95% confidence level. That is hardly a rebuttal.
  13. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    @#2. chriscanaris: So which cherries do I pick? @#6. chriscanaris: Anne-Marie, I have no quarrel with the trends over thirty years which your post deals with. However, in the context of climate change, thirty years is really too short a time span. You pick all the cherries, chris. And, of course, 30 years is less than ideal but with things happening fast you'll be surprised. First, a general explanation, and then a concrete example. It's a matter of focus. When we focus on the small picture the 'eyes' of our mind tends to get stuck on certain things and our vision blurs. That's when it's time to step back and get a broader look at all the facts, even general facts that don't seem to be related to the subject we were focusing on. Those seemingly unrelated subjects really are of relevance, they just don't seem to be precisely because we're over focused on a small part of the picture at any one time. Here's an example of what I mean. Let's say I'm meditating on the Arctic shrink and I get to wondering why some aspect of it isn't happening as I thought it was supposed to. Forget about it, pull back, and start looking at other aspects of Global Warming even if they are seemingly unrelated to the Arctic. I would meditate on Thermal Lag. the time delay between CO2 coming about with some increase in temperature but not all. My understanding is that we're supposed to get 1*F extra in the next 30 years even if we stop burning all fossil fuels this very minute. That's Global Average. Arctic average would double. How will that effect the ice cap melt that you were so worried about moments before? (If it's not already gone in the summertime by then)? Moral of the story. Thermal Lag, and other 'minor' issues, will make the Arctic ice cap melt you were worried about moot. Rest assured, it's going to happen, and probably worse. We just don't know all the side streets that AGW will travel on.
  14. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    "debate about....the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes”. This statement is entirely incorrect. Virtually every paper published by climate scientists debates and dicusses the relative degree to which human activity is affecting climate, overall climate sensitivity, future projections, past climate changes, and so on. The wording is very misleading, and more or less states that we know everything. Most climate science papers take it for granted that human activities are changing the climate, but they do debate climate response to these activities, all the time. So how can there be 'no debate' about the 'role played by human activity'. This is a typical exaggeration/distortion which causes so many skeptics to keep being skepical. Wording should be something like: "there is much debate about the degree and nature of climate response to human activity, however there is no debate that human activities are actually affecting climate in the first place".
  15. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    “...the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes”. If this is the case, then why do so many suitably qualified scientists disagree with the AGW hypothesis (Lindzen, Spencer etc...)? If the unremarkable rise in late 20th century mean global temperature anomalies was caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, then why hasn't that rise continued to follow CO2's onward march? There must be a good reason.
    Moderator Response: [Graham] 3% of scientists working in related disciplines cannot be described as 'many qualified scientists'. It is a minority, and even then the nuance suggests not all of them support your position. Lindzen, for example, does not take issue with AGW, he disputes sensitivity. And temperatures have continued to rise during the last decade, and claiming otherwise is not going to stop the ice melting.
  16. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    " There are no national or major scientific institutions anywhere in the world that dispute the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Not one. " In this case we're stuffed. The Chinese, the Indians, the South American nations and African nations are not going to stop burning coal. And all the 1st world including Australia are not going to stop using petroleum driven cars. Armageddon is upon us. Its 11.48 am. This comment will be deleted before 1 pm :-) Its on topic but I guess its slightly political :-)
  17. Models are unreliable
    New (model) model comes online: BOULDER—Scientists can now study climate change in far more detail with powerful new computer software released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). ... The CESM builds on the Community Climate System Model, which NCAR scientists and collaborators have regularly updated since first developing it more than a decade ago. The new model enables scientists to gain a broader picture of Earth’s climate system by incorporating more influences. Using the CESM, researchers can now simulate the interaction of marine ecosystems with greenhouse gases; the climatic influence of ozone, dust, and other atmospheric chemicals; the cycling of carbon through the atmosphere, oceans, and land surfaces; and the influence of greenhouse gases on the upper atmosphere. In addition, an entirely new representation of atmospheric processes in the CESM will allow researchers to pursue a much wider variety of applications, including studies of air quality and biogeochemical feedback mechanisms. Press release Release includes this remarkable picture (click for full resolution): "Modeling climate’s complexity. This image, taken from a larger simulation of 20th century climate, depicts several aspects of Earth’s climate system. Sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations are shown by the two color scales. The figure also captures sea level pressure and low-level winds, including warmer air moving north on the eastern side of low-pressure regions and colder air moving south on the western side of the lows."
  18. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    ‎"Scientific knowledge is the intellectual and social consensus of affiliated experts based on the weight of available empirical evidence, and evaluated according to accepted methodologies. If we feel that a policy question deserves to be informed by scientific knowledge, then we have no choice but to ask, what is the consensus of experts on this matter." Historian of science, Naomi Oreskes of UC San Diego
  19. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    Constructive comments from MattJ! Regarding excessive tidiness, it helps to remember these "basic" treatments will be ultimately be presented in a tabbed format, w/"intermediate" and "advanced" presentations available for those wishing to delve into the details. Meanwhile, the acid bath of freewheeling comment anneals the work in progress. (ok, that's a pretty horribly mixed metaphor. How about "furnace" instead of "acid bath?")
  20. Is the sun causing global warming?
    #15: cosmic rays again? "Estimated changes of solar irradiance on these time scales appear to be too small to account for the climate observations. This raises the question of whether cosmic rays may directly affect the climate," That's a large leap, with little to support it. A couple of rebuttals follow. The new research shows that change in cloud cover over the Earth does not correlate to changes in cosmic ray intensity. Neither does it show increases and decreases during the sporadic bursts and decreases in the cosmic ray intensity which occur regularly. published the first comprehensive modeling of how the sun might indirectly thin cloud cover and thus warm the planet. It suggests that cosmic rays are not up to the task by two orders of magnitude.
  21. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    owl905: you're imputing motives that ain't there. I'm genuinely interested in making sense of a welter of conflicting claims. I asked an honest question and I thank Doug_Bostrom, mdenison and others for coming up with a some papers which I'll be looking at with great interest (which is one of the reasons I like this site). CBDunkerson: your comments about the global anomaly trend certainly fit an eyeballing of the graph - I wonder if anyone's looked at the statistical significance. I'm thinking of something on the lines of tobyjoyce's presentation of Tamino's reconstruction.
  22. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    This basic version makes some good points, and makes some of them very well: I was particularly pleased with the line, "the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes” But that is a long line, not well parsed by our target audience. So I would have reworded it something like this, in addition to including the exact quote: "For all practical purposes, the debate (about whether or not man is causing global warming aka climate change) is nonexistent among those scientists who understand the nuances and scientific bases of climate processes". We don't really need "long-term" in "long-term climate processes", because by definition, climate is long term. The confusion between 'weather' and 'climate' should be addressed somewhere else, probably earlier in the same basic version of the rebuttal. We need 'bases', not 'basis', since there really is more than one: there are, for example, 1) thermodynamics and 2) the quantum theory of the interaction of matter and radiation. We need "for all practical purposes", because even Americans who have never heard the word, are under the heavy influence of 'Pragmatism': they are quick to believe what appears practical/pragmatic to them, and unreasonably slow to believe anything else. Also, putting this at front allows us to get rid of the weakening epithet 'largely' in front of 'nonexistent'. The skeptics are always very quick to take unfair advantage of such weakening, making it look like hedging rather than scientific accuracy. Buy my wording is no less scientifically accurate, yet more vigorous and therefore more memorable and persuasive. Such vigor and persuasiveness helps them believe what they should have believed anyway but don't: the time for that debate is long over, the time for drastic action is already upon us. Finally, I have to caution about making the scientific method sound more tidy than it really is: just think of all the hypotheses that fell by the wayside, only to come back in modified form, such as the 'luminiferous ether', which fell away for only a few decades before it was resurrected as the vacuum in QED, which itself is a very untidy theory, NOT a theory that "makes sense", since even today, it still requires the arbitrary exclusion of divergent integrals, an act that has never had a satisfactory theoretical explanation.
  23. Plain English climate science - now live at Skeptical Science
    Answering CoalGeologist, #8: there are already several excellent sites on logical fallacies and how to rebut them. My personal favorite is still http://fallacyfiles.org/ which is one of the very few (to give one example of its superiority over the others) to correctly describe the difference between a relevant personal attack and an irrelevant ad hominem.
  24. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Models say less frequent but more intense rainfall. Weather statistics say: The River Niger - the third largest in Africa - reached its highest level for 80 years, said the regional river authority, the ABN. But the rains came too late to rescue this year's crops, which have already failed. "This year was a double whammy," Christy Collins of the aid agency Mercy Corps told the Associated Press news agency. In most years, even if the country's primary crop fail, at least the secondary crops survive, she explained. This year there was so little rain during the growing season that not only did the fields of millet not bloom, but the secondary greens used for animal fodder also failed. Not only are many villagers going short of food, but their livestock - their only asset - have died off. BBC "Niger hunger 'worse than 2005'" Wasn't somebody talking on this site about the putative beneficial effects of climate change on states on the southern border of the Sahara?
  25. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Now here's an interesting perspective on statistics, offered by climate scientist Steven Sherwood: The “loading the dice” analogy is becoming popular but it misses something very important: climate change also allows unprecedented (in human history) things to happen. It is more like painting an extra spot on each face of one of the dice, so that it goes from 2 to 7 instead of 1 to 6. This increases the odds of rolling 11 or 12, but also makes it possible to roll 13. What happens then? Since we have never had to cope with 13’s, this could prove far worse than simply loading the dice toward more 11’s and 12’s. I’m not sure whether or not what is happening in Russia or Pakistan is a “13″ yet, but 13’s will eventually arrive (and so will 14’s, if carbon emissions continue to rise). Via Andy Revkin
  26. Is the sun causing global warming?
    So where's the stratospheric warming Ken? If, as you claim, the sun is solely responsible for the warming of the last 30-60 years, then we'd expect to see a warming *throughout* the atmosphere-yet instead the Stratosphere is cooling, whilst only the troposphere is accumulating heat. You can perform all the mathematical chicanery you want, but all the available evidence shows that both sunspot & TSI levels have been *falling* for the last 30 years, which would suggest a *decline* in the amount of heat accumulating in the biosphere. Yet instead we're seeing a bucking of that trend which is occuring with a strong linear correlation to the rise in CO2 levels in the atmosphere!
  27. Andrew Mclaren at 09:01 AM on 19 August 2010
    Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    As a digital artist myself and one working extensively with maps, it is easy to spot a bit of Photoshop work in the first (top left) panel of Monckton's maps dated 17/01/1980. The characteristic digital artefact of Photoshop's "Polar Inversion" filter is apparent around the North Pole of that map, with the pixels in a radial pattern there. It's a pretty basic transform that allows a cylindrical map to be turned into a polar map (Stereographic or AZED-type). What's been composited there? A pretty cack-handed effort I'd say. The others may well have been retouched more convincingly. But his efforts may indeed be all about the most deliberate and flagrant red herrings to waste the maximum possible amount of everybody's time...
  28. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    With regards to the denier claim that the ice is higher than predicted, we might want to revisit Dougs' post stating predicted ice values to see what was really predicted. I see values ranging from 4.2 -5.7 x 10^6km2 (the 1.0 value is not a scientific prediction). It appears that the actual value will be near the middle of that range, unless something unusual happens. WUWT predicted 5.8 10^6km2 (and then changed to 5.6), that is what is is today so their prediction was too high.
  29. Temp record is unreliable
    BP - no one doubts for a moment that data in the series has to be adjusted but you seem to assume that data adjustment is evidence for global conspiracy to create global warming but you havent investigated the adjustment for any single station so far as I am aware. Take Wellington. Original station close to sea level. Then it was moved to met office on top of nearby hill. ("Proof of global cooling. Adjustments arent required"). Later it was moved to airport at sealevel. ("Conspiracy to create warming by moving station. Must make adjustment"). NONE of this history is apparent in the raw data. In fact none of it accessible via internet. Since you are so sure that a station has be incorrectly adjusted, then surely the way to prove this is get the adjustment procedure from custodian and check it against the GHCN manual. None of your graphs mean anything until basis for adjustment has been audited for individual station. You can claim a coup if you find just ONE piece of fraud, so surely worth effort of writing directly to custodian and a lot more cost effective than analysis that shows that adjustments are made - we know that. Papers written on what, how, and how effective these are.
  30. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    As an aside - I agree with a previous poster (sorry I can't find it right now): It's very odd that some skeptics will say "We can adapt to whatever climate changes occur", and yet in the same breath say "It will destroy us to make the changes needed to reduce CO2 levels".
  31. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Pete Ridley - Your statement "Humans can exert no control over this on a global or even regional basis" is both very curious and quite unsupported. We're pumping 29 GT of CO2 into the atmosphere, with noticeable effects - global warming, ocean acidification, arctic melt, etc. Some of the mitigation proposals involve equally large inputs into the climate system. Dougs links are also relevant. Throwing up ones hands and saying "We can do nothing" is simply a call to inaction. Nonsense! Changing our CO2 output is possible at fairly small cost and possibly large reward ($$$ reward, aside from the obvious benefits of avoiding more drastic climate change). Pete, you've argued both "It's not happening" and "It's happening, there's nothing we can do". I find that quite contradictory... which is it?
  32. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP - the moon at the equator ranges from 100K at night to 390K peak daytime temperatures, mean of 220K (-53 °C), with the large range due to the 28 day rotation, leading to two weeks each of heating and cooling. Temps at 85 degrees N are 70K, 230K, mean 130K. The Earth temperature ranges from 184K to 331K, mean of 287.2K (14 °C). The Earth has a higher albedo than the moon - without the greenhouse effect it would be much colder. Given the diurnal differences between the Earth and Moon, comparing max temps is a red herring. Mean temps are what's relevant in comparing energy flows - I would have thought that rather obvious. As to experience - many of your postings pose extremely simple analogies that don't incorporate the actual numerical relationships in the climate; relative amounts of AHF to insolation, amounts of IR versus convection/evaporation, trying to compare heating a house to the entire atmospheric column, your rather non-physical 'flavored joules' that don't behave like other joules, etc. Those missing pieces make your analogies false comparisons, essentially Straw Men - they are confusing at best, misleading/misdirecting at worst, and don't add to the discussion. They simply don't reflect experience with the math and relationships relevant to climate change. I would encourage you to look at the actual relationships (insofar as they are understood), and consider/discuss what you might see as issues with those, rather than generating yet another ill-fitting analogy.
  33. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Effects of Climate Change
    Further to the rice yield question, the figures from the UN FAO show the last two years (2006 and 2007) having declining growths of yield of under 1%, and declining growths since 2004. The figures that Berényi Péter prefers (from the USDA), show declining growth of yield since 2007 - last year given, 2008. Even using those figures, however, this decade (2000s) seems to be showing less average yearly growth of yield than any decade since the records started in 1960.
  34. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    2. chriscanaris: Do we have proxies for ice sheet extent predating this period? History of sea ice in the Arctic Leonid Polyak et al. This paper has a lot of information and references that may help Chris. As an example "Fig. 12. Comparison of a multi-proxy reconstruction of sea-ice extent in the Nordic Seas during 1200–1997AD" appears relevant to your question.
  35. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    2. chriscanaris Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check This post show sea ice back to the 1880's from the work of Walsh and Chapman.
  36. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Happily, Russia's heatwave is set to end today, after a final excursion reaching 93F. Less happily, Pakistan's trial by rain continues. See Jeff Masters' blog for details.
  37. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Pete, historical temperature records have been broken in many places across the globe this year. Seizing on the omission of a qualifier in a single sentence in a blog comment does not change that fact. Past changes in climate or the notion that we are unable to modify the climate somehow gets us off the hook today are ill-founded ideas and do not affect physical facts today. Here are some places you can take those arguments if you wish to pursue them: What does past climate change tell us about global warming? Are humans too insignificant to affect global climate? In fact, the historical record does say this year is unusual and as well the past 10 years exhibit a notable statistical aberration in terms of extreme heat records. You can repeat over and over again that you don't believe so, but the numbers written in meteorological records will not change as a result. As to the statistical probability of Russia's heatwave, that's been looked at and of course it's possible to draw some conclusions. Here's a professional meteorologist's description of how it's done, using only the month of July as an example. Taking the whole pattern of this summer's weather over Russia into account, odds of such an occurrence lie somewhere between 1:1000 and 1:3000. See a treatment of the anomalous heat from June leading into August here.
  38. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    #2: "defying trends with a summer melt less than predicted" That sounds like the kind of misconception posted around denier sites who happily pore over these curves. What do they fail to notice in graphs such as this? Everybody looks at the 2007 curve and concludes that the melt amount is less because all other curves are well above that minimum. However, look where the yellow and red curves start the melt season: at a value well above the black curve. Its the difference between annual max and annual min that counts. If the prior year's max extent is greater and the mins are close, the melt amount is in fact increasing. #6: "in the context of climate change, thirty years is really too short a time span." A sea ice reconstruction going back to 1870 is available here. The min extent (column 4) is fairly flat thru 1950, then begins falling at an increasing rate. Is it just coincidence that the CO2 (ice core+atmospheric composite) curve begins taking off at about the same time? But why should that matter? If 30 years of decreasing extent isn't enough to establish the problem, how will presenting more make any difference?
  39. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    I am puzzled as to why my comment was removed but have modifeid it slightly and hope that it stays posted this time. Doug, “ .. if you dig into records you'll see that .. “ the world has experienced warming and cooling numerous times before and almost certainly will continue to do so. We have been coming out of an ice age for a few thousand years so it is bound to be warming up. It would have done this even if we had never found a use for oil or coal or gas. Changes to global climates have been going on since the beginning, as a result of natural (not human) processes and drivers. Global climates change drastically as a result of long periods of bitterly cold and pleasantly warm. We are presently in between these two extremes of global temperature conditions but have no idea for how long. Humans can exert no control over this on a global or even regional basis. All that we can hope to achieve is what we have always had to do, react to and protect against such changes as best we can. You say “ .. all-time high records were set pretty much across Russia from St. Petersburg to Siberia. ..” Since worthwhile temperature measurement only started in the 1700s it is difficult to accept that as gospel. The historical record tells us that there is nothing unusual about current weather events around the globe. According to the 2004 paper “Geography of Droughts and Food Problems in Russia (1900-2000)” (Note 1) by Golubev and Dronin, Department of Geography, Moscow State University, the “Numbers of years with droughts in the main economic regions of the Russian Federation in 1891-1983” are: - North West 21, - Central 29, - Central Chernozem 32, - Northern Caucasus 24, - Volga-Vyatka 32, - Volga 28, - Urals 28, - West Siberia 18 Joe Romm quotes from the Russian Met. Centre “There was nothing similar to this on the territory of Russia during the last one thousand years in regard to the heat.” (Note 2). The validity of that claim needs substantiation. I’m not aware that there was a mechanism for measuring heat as long ago as that. Can you advise on this? According to “Across the Nations .. the World’s Worsts Disasters” (Note 3), floods occurred in China in: - 1642 Flooding takes about 300,000 lives. - 1887 The Yellow River overflowed, causing the death of about 900,000 people. - 1911 Yangtze River flood - approx: 100,000 deaths. - 1931 A flood on the Changjiang River took at least 145,000 people - 1935 Another Yellow River flood "caused 27 counties inundated and 3.4 million victims". There is no reason to believe that the future will be any different, regardless of how much fossil fuel we continue to use. As for the two beautiful graphics in Joe Romm’s article comparing 2003 & 2010 (and the one above), I prefer this couple for 1936 and 2010 (Note 4). NOTES: 1) see http://www.usf.uni-kassel.de/ftp/dokumente/projekte/droughts_and_food_in_russia.pdf 2) see http://climateprogress.org/2010/08/09/russia-heat-wave-one-thousand-years-global-warming/ 3) see http://across.co.nz/WorldsWorstDisasters.html 4) see. http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/08/nasas-giss-moscow-is-burning-human-co2induced-unprecedented-global-warming-is-to-blame-not.html Best regards, Pete Ridley
  40. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    KR 222 single number for you, KR +125 C. Surface temperature of on the Moon. Explain how it gets so hot without GHGs.? That aside, I just happen to have "experienced" 25 years in engineering labs. Hands-on. doug_bostrom To answer your question, you can respond if you please.
  41. Is the sun causing global warming?
    Jasper Kirkby, a British experimental particle physicist currently with CERN, Switzerland presents a lecture in which cosmic rays show a strong correlation with global temperature over short and long time periods. He is currently involved in research on their effects on clouds at CERN..... Some of these reconstructions show clear associations with solar variability, which is recorded in the light radio-isotope archives that measure past variations of cosmic ray intensity. However, despite the increasing evidence of its importance, solar-climate variability is likely to remain controversial until a physical mechanism is established. http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073 Jasper Kirkby is a British experimental particle physicist currently with CERN, Switzerland. He originated the idea for the Tau-Charm Factory, an accelerator now under construction as BEPC II in Beijing. He has led several large particle accelerator experiments at SPEAR; the Paul Scherrer Institute; and most recently, the CLOUD experiment at CERN. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Kirkby Results from CLOUD are expected soon.
  42. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    W/regard to Chris' concern about what we know of past Arctic sea ice extent, not surprisingly this has been a subject of research. Thanks in part to fanatical peering through microscopes at diatom and foraminifera skeletons, past sea ice extent can be teased out of the record. Assessing inter-decadal conditions stretches reconstruction skills but there is enough detail in the record to begin making comparisons between today's conditions and past patterns of behavior of Arctic sea ice. We're not really in the dark on this. Past extent of sea ice in the northern North Atlantic inferred from foraminiferal paleotemperature estimates Sea ice variations in the central Canadian Arctic Archipelago during the Holocene A biomarker-based reconstruction of sea ice conditions for the Barents Sea in recent centuries Arctic climate change: observed and modelled temperature and sea-ice variability Palaeoceanography and climate changes off North Iceland during the last millennium: comparison of foraminifera, diatoms and ice-rafted debris with instrumental and documentary data Abrupt climate changes for Iceland during the last millennium: evidence from high resolution sea ice reconstructions Arctic environmental change of the last four centuries Past glacial and interglacial conditions in the Arctic Ocean and marginal seas-a review
  43. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    Arctic Ice extent is only less than predicted if you are talking about a LINEAR trend. However, as Tamino showed, it fits a quadratic trend pretty well, implying an acceleration in recent years.
  44. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    Chris, the skeptic claim that global sea ice is increasing is, like the others you cited which have already been addressed, simply false; Global trend If you look at the red anomaly data on that graph you'll see that on the left the anomalies rarely dipped below the baseline... while on the right they seldom rise above it. In short, the anomaly trend for global sea ice area is very clearly decreasing. Also, the fact that Arctic sea ice extent does not set a new record low every year is not indicative of a 'recovery'. Indeed, the fact that the Arctic sea ice volume (the actual AMOUNT of ice... as opposed to how 'spread out' it is) has continued to plummet shows just how ridiculous that claim is.
  45. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    Here's a meta-question. RSVP-- taken as a contraction, what do the letters mean?
  46. Berényi Péter at 02:21 AM on 19 August 2010
    The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Effects of Climate Change
    #61 JMurphy at 01:21 AM on 19 August, 2010 two knowledgeable sources linked to above say one thing, and you assert another. Who to accept as knowing more on this subject, I wonder? Accept the truth and nothing but, of course. From 2002 to 2008 average annual growth of yield was 1.62%, growth of production 2.69%/annum. Click on images for the respective spreadsheets.
  47. Is Arctic Sea Ice 'Just Fine'?
    chriscanaris, the main problem with reading your comments are that you try to score a point without doing any homework - leveraging the assumption of no useful pre-1979 data into undermining the observations of decline. There is no 'defying trends', a cold spell in the Arctic is obvious - when it's covered in smoke (http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/DATA/SMOKE/2010H050457.html) is typical of a hoodwink. Any research at all would have shown you that Antarctic sea-ice isn't a proxy for cooling, and the trend is flat, with a very very small increase as a trend. The worst problem, however, is that after demonstrating little of your own reseach, you conclude there's similar 'cherry-picking' from the two sides (that's a symptom of anti-science syndrome). Just so there's no confusion about the lack of homework your post represents, a 101 start is Wikipedia:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_of_sea_ice Then move up to the NSDIC data that's graphed back to the early 50s - and shows the late 70s as the start of more than just satellite records. http://nsidc.org/sotc/images/mean_anomaly_1953-2009.png http://nsidc.org/sotc/images/mean_anomaly_1953-2009.png In fact, the article pointing out the ugly state of the arctic (as opposed to the 'just fine' joke) is bang on.
  48. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Effects of Climate Change
    Could we also bear in mind that rice paddies are starting to be contaminated by salt water contamination from rising sea-levels, destroying all current and future potential. The agricultural impacts of climate change are complex, nuanced and interlinked, and not simple at all.
  49. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Effects of Climate Change
    Berényi Péter wrote : "No, it is not. The transient setback between 1999 and 2002 has nothing to do with climate change and everything with market forces. After 2002 growth resumed at a slightly faster pace than before." From a different page in your own link : A major reason for the imbalance between the long-term demand and supply is the slowing growth in yield, which has decreased substantially over the past 10–15 years in most countries. In South Asia, average yield growth decreased from 2.14% per year in 1970-90 to 1.40% per year in 1990-2005. In some years, this has been below 1%. Yield growth in Southeast Asia has decreased similarly. In the major rice-growing countries of Asia, yield growth over the past 5–6 years has been almost nil (Figure 4). Globally, yields have risen by less than 1% per year in recent years. And I just want to re-post what I posted previously, in case anyone missed it : There has been a major decline in world rice production since late 2007 due to many reasons including climatic conditions in many top rice producing countries as well as policy decisions regarding rice export by the governments of countries with considerable rice production. Rice Trade So, two knowledgeable sources linked to above say one thing, and you assert another. Who to accept as knowing more on this subject, I wonder ?
  50. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    A single number for you, RSVP - 33°C. That's the difference between the temperature of the earth with and without the greenhouse effect. It's 33°C warmer - not cooler. Note that relative nighttime warming, more than daytime warming, is one of the classic indicators of an increasing greenhouse effect - and that is exactly what is observed. Contrary to your last posting. You've presented arguments by analogy, RSVP - the numbers, however, prove you incorrect. Look at the energy budget - 80% of energy coming from the temperature of the Earth leaves as IR, only 20% as convection/evaporation. Only 1% of the energy present comes from anthropogenic heat flux. You are incorrect. What's I'm seeing (IMO) is the unfortunately common "Common Sense" logical error. Many people discussing science try to project their personal, local experiences upon large scale or unfamiliar systems - quantum mechanics, climate change, electromagnetics, etc. The problem is that local personal experiences do not map 1-1 with other, complex systems, and hence "common sense" will lead you astray. If you don't try to understand the complex systems as they exist, rather than projecting your daily experiences onto them, you will quite simply be wrong. As above...

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