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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 113101 to 113150:

  1. More evidence than you can shake a hockey stick at
    Your question about record highs is a good one. Surely this is a simple enough figure to be readily available from most European countries
    Since 2002, when the website below was born, there have been more record-breaking hot days than cold each year for the list of cities, towns and airports around the world. http://www.mherrera.org/records.htm The record-breakers for the current year are here. http://www.mherrera.org/temp.htm That page also includes a list of 1600 or so (from memory) of the cities and towns in the database with there min/max temps (but no dates).
  2. Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames
    Michael, I don’t think that the Australian Government would be very impressed with your derisive “ .. dating back to only 1993 and covering only 12 islands .. ” comment about their The South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project (Note 1). You seem to be suggesting that the coverage they have established for that part of the globe will provide inadequate data. The Monitoring Network (Note 2) comprises: “- Sea Level and Meteorological Monitoring Stations. The current network of 12 robust and low maintenance Sea level Fine Resolution Acoustic Measuring Equipment (SEAFRAME) monitoring stations is providing excellent service. All parameters having an effect on sea level (wind, air and sea temperatures, atmospheric pressure) are being sampled at one second intervals. Sea level readings are taken and averaged over three minutes and meteorological data is collected and averaged for 2 minutes at the hour. - CGPS Monitoring Stations. The Continuous Global Positioning System (CGPS) network monitors vertical movement in the earth's crust, such as subsidence or tectonic shifts, at the SEAFRAME tide gauges and adjacent land. Sea level data can then be adjusted to compensate for the earth's movement to within a millimeter, enabling the absolute sea level to be determined.” Perhaps you’d like to show how the monitoring network used by Church & White (2006), Holate & Woodworth (2004) and Leuliette et al. (2004) to produce the data used in the NAS graph compares. You say that “The NAS study .. has real sea level data on page 168” but what I see on that page is a graph that purports to represent changes in annual mean sea level as determined by tide gauges and satellite altimeters, along with rate of sea level rise estimates. How reliable are those estimates, arrived at following statistical manipulations undisclosed on that page? Far more important to our discussion is the statement just above that graph “Distinguishing the effects of natural climate variability from human-caused warming is one of the challenges of understanding the details of past sea level and anticipating its future course”. You might also consider Dr. Roy Spencer’s “My Global Warming Skepticism, for Dummies” comment (Note 3) “ .. to the extent that warming occurs, sea levels can be expected to also rise to some extent. The rise is partly due to thermal expansion of the water, and partly due to melting or shedding of land-locked ice (the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and glaciers). But this says nothing about whether or not humans are the cause of that warming. Since there is evidence that glacier retreat and sea level rise started well before humans can be blamed, causation is — once again — a major source of uncertainty” – “hear hear” to that.. You may like to read his book “The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled The World's Top Climate Scientists”. NOTES: 1) see http://www.bom.gov.au/pacificsealevel/ 2) see http://www.bom.gov.au/pacificsealevel/technologies.shtml 3) see http://www.drroyspencer.com/my-global-warming-skepticism-for-dummies/ Best regards, Pete Ridley
  3. Berényi Péter at 23:54 PM on 10 August 2010
    Temp record is unreliable
    #99 Ned at 21:31 PM on 4 August, 2010 As a reminder, BP's figures (like the first one in his comment above) are not particularly useful as long as he continues to use simple averages of the GHCN data set. In a sense that's true. But it is good for getting an overview, the big picture if you like. Also, if adjustment procedures are supposed to be homogeneous over the entire GHCN, this approach tells us something about the algorithms applied, if not about the actual temperature trends themselves. However, with a closer look it turns out there are multiple, poorly documented adjustment strategies varying both over time and regions. Some adjustments are done to the raw dataset, some are only applied later, some only to US data, some exclusively outside the US, but even then different things are done to data in different regions and epochs. A gridded presentation is indeed an efficient way to smear out these features. On the other hand, it is still a good idea to have a closer look on intermediate regional and temporal scales if one is to attempt to identify some of the adjustment strategies applied. For example here is the history of temperature anomalies over Canada for a bit more than three decades according to three independent datasets (click on the image for a larger version). I have chosen Canada, because of data availability and also because this country has considerable expanses in the Arctic where most of the recent warming is supposed to happen. The three datasets used were
    1. GHCN (Global Historical Climatology Network)
    2. The National Climate Data and Information Archive of Environment Canada
    3. and Weather Underground, an independent weather portal company (a spinoff from the University of Michigan)
    The three curves have some family resemblance, but beyond that their physical content is radically different. Weather Underground shows an almost steady decline since 1989 (that is, a 0.8°C cooling), GHCN a huge warming (more than a centigrade in three decades, almost 1.27°C in five years between 1994 and 1999) while Environment Canada something in between with practically no trend since 1985. Up to about 1995 the three curves go together nicely. With some offset correction (which has no effect on temperature anomaly trends) they could be brought even closer. The same is true after 1998. Therefore in this particular case most of the action happened in just four years between 1995 and 1998. In this period the divergence is very noticeable, so the next thing to do is to have a closer look at these years in Canadian datasets and to determine the exact cause(es) of discrepancy. Now I do have all the data necessary to do the analysis at my fingertips. Unfortunately I do not have too much time for this job, you may have to wait a bit. Neither was it always easy to collect the data. My IP has even got banned from Weather Underground for a while because they might have noticed the work the download script had been doing. Anyway, I have no intention to publish their dataset (as long as it stays put on their website), I just use it for statistical purposes. The spatio-temporal coverage patterns of the three datasets are different inside Canada. Weather Underground, understandably, has an excellent recent coverage, getting sparser as we go back in time. Fortunately for some sites their archive dataset goes back to January, 1973 (e.g Churchill Falls, Newfoundland). They also use WMO station numbers (at least in Canada), which is convenient (the connection between four letter airport identifiers and WMO numbers can get obscure in some cases). It is just the opposite with Environment Canada. Their coverage in early times is even better, than the previous dataset's (they go back to March, 1840), but it is getting sparser as we approach the present (unfortunately their station identifiers are different from those used by either GHCN or Weather Underground). This tendency of station death is even more pronounced in GHCN. It is not easy to understand why. GHCN has a particularly poor recent coverage in the Canadian Arctic, although this area is supposed to be very important for verification of computational climate models (Arctic Amplification and all). It is funny, that even the raw map used by GISS misses a fair number of the arctic islands that belong to Canada and shows sea in their place. At the same time Arctic coverage of Environment Canada is excellent. Their data are also said to be quality controlled and of course digitized. Why can't it be fed into GHCN? Looks like a mystery (I know there used to be a war between the two countries back in 1812 when seaborne British terrorists ate the President's dinner and set the White House aflame, but I thought it was over some time ago). Anyway, the very practice of making adjustments to a raw dataset prior to publication is a strange one, which would be considered questionable in any other branch of science. But should adjustments be done either way, if their overall magnitude is comparable to the long term trend, anything is measured but the trend itself. The double adjustment to raw Canadian data also makes understandable why USHCN have got a different treat than the rest of the world. It would be pretty venturesome to meddle with US raw data directly for the US, despite the recent legislative efforts of both major parties to put an end to this preposterous situation, is still an open society, more so than most other countries of the world. Therefore it was advisable to introduce US adjustments only in v2.mean_adj, which is a unique feature, not done for the rest. As the US is only a tiny fraction of the globe, at first sight it does not make much sense to go into such pains. But without the 0.52°C upward adjustment of the US trend, data from there would get inconsistent with neighboring Canadian ones. What is more, it would be somewhat inconvenient to explain why the US does not have this warming thing, but still needs cap & trade. It is also noticeable, that the strange divergence, if global, does not increase one's confidence in computational climate models parametrized on this very dataset.
  4. Why I care about climate change
    #124: "science will triumph over the establishment's beliefs, but whereas it didn't happen within Galileo's lifetime, hopefully the establishment will see the error of its ways sooner than later" Sadly, it took over 200 years for 'the establishment' to see the error of its ways. By 2200, we'll have 800 ppm CO2? I teach high school science; as a new school year begins I remind myself of this: four out of five Americans (79%) correctly respond that the earth revolves around the sun, while 18% say it is the other way around. These results are comparable to those found in Germany when a similar question was asked there in 1996; in response to that poll, 74% of Germans gave the correct answer, while 16% thought the sun revolved around the earth, and 10% said they didn't know. When the question was asked in Great Britain that same year, 67% answered correctly, 19% answered incorrectly, and 14% didn't know. Science may indeed triumph some day, but there always seems to be that last 20-25% who will never get it.
  5. Talkin bout the Skeptical Science phone apps
    Speaking of which. John, you may have noticed a commenter at the Guardian going by the nickname of PaulInOz1 who was highly critical of you and your article. Turns out he's Paul Ostergaard of Aeris Systems, the developer of Our Climate. There's another "contrarian" called PaulInOz at Guardian CiF who's been there for a while now, so it's not sure if he's the same guy, but PaulInOz1 only started posting on August 7th. Pretty low if you ask me. He's been banging heads with some of us (in one he kept repeating "Shame on you" at me), and one in particular called onthefence. Search through the Our Climate reviews at the Apple store and you'll find a review by an "on the fence" singing the praises of Our Climate. OurClimategate, as far as I'm concerened.
  6. Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames
    Typo: should be page 186 in the NAS report.
  7. Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames
    Pete: You cited a non-peer reviewed article by a single author dating back to only 1993 and covering only 12 islands as more authoritative than the US National Academy of Sciences? The entire paper consists of eyeballing data, no analysis is performed. If this is what convinces you have a good day. The NAS study Doug linked has real sea level data on page 156.
  8. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    RSVP at 18:47 PM on 10 August, 2010 I'd say that they are products RSVP, and we should be careful not to over-categorise the outcomes of scientific advance. We might say that in the broadest sense the aims of science is enhancement of human wellbeing (even if in reality scientists are more focussed on rather specific outcomes, many of which may have commercial motivations). For "products" in the commercial sense this might relate to direct benefits of things (like cars and flights and duvet covers), and the slightly less direct benefits in relation to profits and employment, and then the overall benefits to societies from economic wellbeing. Publically-funded research is less likely to result in products in the sense of discrete things (although a lot of this does do just that in relation to technology transfer of publically-funded research outcomes to industry). But the science that underpins the development of vaccines or cancer therapies or antimicrobials can be considered to yield "products" that have enormously positive contribution to human wellbeing. I would consider that the scientific outcomes on CFC catalytic destruction of stratospheric ozone is a "product" in this sense, if rather less directly so, since it leads to understanding that informs productive economic and political decisions which enhance human wellbeing. Apollo is an interesting example. I certainly wouldn't say that the future realities of whether or not there might be commercial voyages to the moon, is any reason to question the science, for at least two reasons. First, it might be a reason for questioning the motivation underpinning the scientific effort. Much of this was political, and one could argue that the "product" (enormous prestige and enhancement of personal satisfaction in the American population during the 1960's) had huge value. More generally, the science stands on its own merits. One can't predict necessary outcomes of scientific research, but Apollo was an important step on the path for development of technologies in rocket science, computers, satellite remote sensing and various elements of materials science, and understanding of human physiology.
    Moderator Response: I think this conversation has gone far outside the topic of waste heat. Please, everybody get back on topic.
  9. Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames
    Michael I don’t see that we are splitting hairs on the fundamental issue. This is whether or not emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere arising from our use of fossil fuels has made, is making or will make any significant contribution to past, present or future global climates (or weather events). Discussing whether or not it is correct to refer to opinions on this issue as hypothesis, theory or even law is pure semantics so let us stop wasting time on it. I’m not impressed by the numbers argument (scientific consensus) in supporting conjecture, only by what I recognise as hard evidence and am always suspicious of statistical manipulations and people with political motives. Your “list of predictions” includes such speculation and the first one, “sea level rise” is something that I have been involved in recently as I have been reviewing a draft book on the subject of sea level change being written by a couple who are not scientists. They, like you, obviously QUOTE: .. think these are "significant human-made global climate change" .. UNQUOTE but this does not make it a fact. May I suggest that you take a look at the 2009 article “SOUTH PACIFIC SEA LEVEL: A REASSESSMENT” at the New Zealand Climate Science Coallition site (Note 1). I particularly like that column “Years with zero trend” in Section 3 Conclusion. Doug, I have had quick look at the NAS report and so far have found nothing that I haven’t seen before, either in AR4 or the numerous papers and articles that I have read during the past 3 years. I may be able to make time for a further read but looking at some of the over 200 references mentioned there to “uncertainties” and “estimates” about those horrendously complex global climate processes and drivers gives me a hint that I’ll be wasting valuable time. I was disappointed to see virtually nothing about assumptions made. NOTES: 1) see http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/spsl3.pdf Best regards, Pete Ridley
  10. Confidence in climate forecasts
    Johnd: Around 1900 Arrhenius calculated a climate sensitivity (by hand) of 4.5 C/W2 without knowledge of the weather that you claim is required for that calculation. His number is still within the range of accepted values. The models of the 1970's and 1980's predicted, with skill, current warming, arctic amplification, sea ice loss, Arctic/Antarctic anamolies, etc. These models did not have the weather knowledge you claim is required. The forecast of weather, both short term of weeks and long term of a few months or years is simply different from the long term forecast of weather out decades. Weather is chaotic while climate is not. I was going to refer you to the "weather is not climate" page but I see you are a frequent visitor already. Perhaps it is worth another read.
  11. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    Chris Similarly, with global warming, whether it is caused by men, women or nature, there will be no way to proove it, even if people take action and a detected warming trend goes away. I have tried here to help, but cannot afford to spend time writing things that get deleted. So this is my very last post. I salute you and wish you all the best.
  12. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    Chris "I'd say they're knowledge an impulse to understand difficult phenomena and to apply this knowledge and understanding productively. " The application of science has its impact on products that in the end must work. In many cases, customer satisfaction is a reliable indicator that proves the science out. Global warming, the size of the ozone layer hole, whether they went to the Moon or not,... these are not "products" passing the scrutiny of society at large. It is applied science yes, but not the same. Going to the Moon could be a product, and the day it is, very little skepticism on this issue will remain. You could still however question whether Apollo was for real, but how relevant will it be? On the other hand, the more time that goes by and there is no commercial voyage to the moon, the more reason to question the science.
  13. Three new studies illustrate significant risks and complications with geoengineering climate
    Lewis, I can't reliably answer your questions but am inclined to believe the authors are speaking of reactive, interventionist techniques, possibly leading to failure to effectively deal with what spawns the intervention. One of the authors (Morris Judd) has a blog post mentioning the publication of the paper, Geoengineering Article, and seems responsive to folks stopping by with comments. For my part, if we can't avoid putting things in the atmosphere it seems to me most conservative to focus on directly removing what we've added, not exactly geoengineering in my book so much as tidying up as we go along. Which of course begs the question, how may we avoid adding what we must remove? If it's cheaper not to add at all that's better than going full circle.
  14. Confidence in climate forecasts
    Doug @ 108 - great graphic over at Jeff Masters' blog, very interesting to see how it compared with the 2003 European heat wave. I have one eyebrow raised.
  15. Three new studies illustrate significant risks and complications with geoengineering climate
    Doug - thanks for the synopsis above - sadly the text is "currently unavailable" so I'm hoping you can clarify some points. As one who'd still be opposing Geo-E if there were any credible argument that excess airborne GHG stocks could be removed by natural sinks before the feedbacks gain enough momentum to run amok, my interest is in effective sustainable Geo-E techniques. The meaning of "antecedent criterion" is unclear - does it refer to "a return to conditions prior to the problem" ? Or perhaps to "problem being insoluble without intervention" ? The "future state constraint" appears to generalize an assumption that all Geo-E options generate permanent change from the original condition. True in the sense that you can't step in the same river twice; untrue in that a gigahectare of forest carbon sink would both retore pre-industrial planetary tree cover and would help cleanse the atmosphere. Also untrue for albido restoration via 'cloud brightening,' where miniscule sea-salt particles, lofted in minute seawater droplets, would reliably be rained out within a few days, and would be generated to do so over the oceans. So is the paper generalizing unjustifyably, or is it just that the synopsis not able to express a more nuanced argument ? If the latter is the case, could you describe it ? Regards, Lewis
  16. Why I care about climate change
    ...Indeed its fair to say that today's establishment is ruled by the all powerful economic "realists". Once again science will triumph over the establishment's beliefs, but whereas it didn't happen within Galileo's lifetime, hopefully the establishment will see the error of its ways sooner than later.
  17. Pluto is warming
    Two questions: 1. Where are the scientific citations for "What the science says..." section? 2. The following statement has major logical flaws: "Any Plutonian warming cannot be caused by solar variations as the sun has showed little to no long term trend over the past 50 years and sunlight at Pluto is 900 times weaker than it is at the Earth." First off, why is it necessary for the sun to undergo long term variations over several decades for solar variations to affect Pluto? That is, why are short term variations completely irrelevant? For an extreme example, let's say the temperature of the sun doubled overnight and stayed that way for a year, only to fall back down to normal the next year. Does anyone seriously believe that such an extreme (but temporary) solar temperature jump wouldn't affect Pluto's temperature? Secondly why does the fact that the sunlight is 900 times weaker on Pluto necessitate that Pluto is not warming due to solar variations? Presumably the fact that Pluto is 500 times smaller in mass than the Earth with essentially no atmosphere plays a role, no?
  18. Why I care about climate change
    gallopingcamel @ 122 You fail to see the irony of your last post. Back in the day of Pope Urban VIII the establishment was based on theology. Galileo's theory of heliocentrism was based on science and the empirical observations that he could make. Who ended up being right? Galileo with his damnable science...
  19. Remember, we’re only human
    a most excellent post! the most insightful sentence is "What is needed is a radical change in how we see ourselves and our place on this planet." in my opinion, Cosmology should be a required course in high school and college. Not just evolution that has happened on earth with regard to our life forms but stellar evolution. the fact that the elements that make up life on earth were formed in stars billions of years ago is truly a tremendous revelation. if we all come to the realization that life on this planet is so rare and it took close to 15 billion years to get here causes one to pause. although i don't believe it, we might be the first fruits of that evolution and could be the only advanced civilization in the galaxy or universe. upon coming to that realization how frivalous are wars and religious/political squabbles? are we so ignorant and arrogant to destroy ourselves and snuff out the only life in the universe? sometimes i think it might be in our best interest to find life on another planet so that we put our existence in the proper perspective. and i agree with the first post by BP and all my beliefs in christianity are not nullified with my understanding of stellar evolution and the observations of our universe. the incredibly precise constants that are required to make life as we know it couldn't have happened by chance. the more i learn about the cosmos the more i realize that there must have been intelligent design and this cries out for a creator. i hope that our struggles now are just a turning point for our planet and only through education can we push through this to a new level of enlightenment and purpose. AGW is just one of the issues we are wrestling with and the good news is the cosmos has a funny way of exerting its influence no matter what we may 'beleive'. our only hope is to raise an educated public to discern which issues to focus on and which ones are real.
  20. gallopingcamel at 14:36 PM on 10 August 2010
    Why I care about climate change
    JMurphy (#121). Great work! You have listed the "learned fools" who know what they need to say to keep the gravy train rolling. All the experts in the establishment supported Urban VIII but history has forgotten who them.
  21. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    Suppose you go to the Star City casino on Friday night and place a bet at roulette. I just fixed another point, now people in Sydney will know what you are talking about!
  22. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    Who will win the NRL Grand Final in September? I have just fixed up your example for you.
  23. On Consensus
    #38: "The increase in the amount of new CO2 in the atmosphere each year is only about 45% of anthropogenic emissions (this is known as the "airborne fraction"). ... Ferdinand Engelbeen has an excellent webpage on this topic" My congratulations to Engelbeen for a strong bit of work. I've been playing with a slightly different way of showing this strong connection between atmospheric CO2 increase and CO2 emissions. The US EIA has a wealth of data on CO2 emissions from fossil fuels by fuel type, by country, etc. These data can be turned into "annual world emissions of CO2 in Gtons". From MLO monthly CO2 concentrations, compute the annual high (Mar-Apr-May) and annual low (Sep-Oct-Nov) for each year. Form a delta CO2 (in ppm/yr) from these seasonal extrema; plot together with the world emissions: The right hand scale is emissions in Gtons; the left hand scale is ppm CO2/yr. A smoothed curve of the composite of the spring and fall extrema is shown; with the exception of the big dip in 1991, this graph is an extraordinary match to the emissions curve. What caused that drop in the rate of CO2 increase? Robock 2003 and others have established that the violent eruption of Mt. Pinatubo led to a short term cooling and diffusion of sunlight which in turn led to a profound increase in plant growth over the following few years. More plant growth, more CO2 taken out of the atmosphere. Note however, that the annual change in atmospheric CO2, even at the bottom of the dip, is still positive. Note also that the rate of CO2 increase quickly recovers its upward trend; as CO2 emissions continue to increase, we should be seeing 2.25-2.5 ppm/yr fairly soon.
  24. 10 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable
    #102: the stomata argument started wayyy back at #21. The geocraft website left out some critical bits from its source material (notably one of the Kouwenberg papers).
  25. Heat stress: setting an upper limit on what we can adapt to
    Well before a disastrous 'upper limit' is reached, stress fractures occur: Search some variation of 'high electricity demand blackouts' in Google News and you find US electricity blackouts skyrocketing A hot month and a record power demand IEC, private producers pull out stops to avoid blackouts Electricity consumption reaching record highs Saudi Arabia needs $80B to spend on power by 2018 and so on. There was a popular saying in the late 70s-early 80s US oil patch: Let the bas_ards freeze in the dark (referring to folks in the northern US who complained about the high price of heating oil during those cold, cold winters). The times, they are a-changin'!
  26. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    Hang on nhthinker. This is about a 3 minute spot on a radio station. A good opportunity to get thoughts in order and presented for people who don't normally consider scientific issues. A shopping list of thesis proposals is not what's required.
  27. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    #36: "Impact of 2 to 4.5 C for a doubling of CO2 is generally accepted. So is it really 2, 3 or 4.5 C?" You're missing the point. The exact temperature change doesn't matter; the fact that temperature is increasing does. Or to use the analogy here, does it matter all that much whether you hit the brick wall at 70, 80 or 90 kph?
  28. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    Shorter version of nhthinker's post: "Don't raise my taxes."
  29. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    Bat, could you sort me out re your concept of map versus terrain? Earlier, if I understood you correctly, you remarked that the notion of energy being emitted by a magnetron and then being reabsorbed by the same magnetron is "gibberish" and cannot be supported by any experimental evidence. Yet we are confronted with the phenomenon of magnetrons prematurely failing when their RF emissions are not absorbed and converted to heat by something other than the magnetron that is also sympathetic to the magnetron operating frequency, w/the net effect of overheating the magnetron filament and thus prematurely shortening its normal useful lifespan as a thermionic emission source. If the same magnetron RF emissions are allowed to disperse in free space we do not see the phenomenon of shortened filament life we see in the case of their being confined to a fairly efficient reflective cavity having no exit but the magnetron waveguide itself. This result can reliably be reproduced in the case of having no observers. I think I understand something of what you're driving at w/regard to quantum mechanics yet here on the scale where we live we must explain failed magnetrons. What's the deal w/maps and terrain? How is it relevant to our scale?
  30. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    Uncertainty: Impact of 2 to 4.5 C for a doubling of CO2 is generally accepted. So is it really 2, 3 or 4.5 C? Our knowledge needed to tighten up this very wide range of estimates has not seriously improved since the first projections in the mid 70s. So much for certainty. And so much for the value of computer models to tighten up that estimate. How is the formation of high and low level clouds impacted by doubling of CO2 or a 2 C rise in temperature? (we don't know). How certain are we that ice core proxies are only inaccurate for the last 100 years and were never inaccurate before? (we don't know). What will be the response of deep water - (the real driver of long term climate trends be) to a 2 degree rise in surface temperatures? (we don't know). What will the solar activity be in the next hundred years? (we don't know). What will the volcanic activity be in the next 100 years? (we don't know). What will be the asteroid activity of the next hundred years? (we don't know). Who predicted the depth of the recent/current solar minima? (no one). Realistically, the global tax thing is doomed unless you expect to go to war with developing nations over it. When will be the creation a small low power source to replace 0.25 to 10,000 hp engines AND be lower cost than an internal combustion engine and burning carbon? In the next 50 years, how much improved will our scientific knowledge of CO2 be if CO2 continues to rise as opposed to stagnating? Fifty years from now, how much improved will our ability to create a create stationary and portable power sources that cost less than burning carbon from coal or oil or wood? How certain are we that the Earth would now be in the midst of an ice age were it not for the impact of humans? (we don't know) If you, by definition assume that every else that can impact climate averages out, we still are at 2 to 4.5 C. But it is only fools that ignore the uncertainty in their assumptions. So much for certainty.
  31. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    MattJ: Given the broadcast is going to be on RTR-FM, which is "a community radio station based in Perth, the capital city of Western Australia", then the references to Burswood Casino (in Perth) and AFL are probably much more appropriate than Monte Carlo & the World Cup. It could easily be modified for an international audience along the lines you suggest, though.
  32. The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
    Nice interview with Dr. James Zwally on MSNBC's Countdown tonight. "Ice chunks 4x the size of Manhattan don't break off every day", etc. Video of the interview may be available here later tonight or tomorrow.
  33. Heat stress: setting an upper limit on what we can adapt to
    This story about the current heat wave & forest fires in Russia perhaps gives an example of what a significant increase in global temperatures would bring. Long before we got to the point where areas became uninhabitable, we'd see these sorts of results in heatwaves become more and more frequent. The current problems in & around Moscow are likely due to the smog more than just the heat, but increasing temperatures brings an increasing risk of forest fires, too (and peat bog fires? That's a lot of carbon being released that was tied up for a few thousand years...)
  34. Confidence in climate forecasts
    JohnD "It is not enough to just focus on those warming processes that work to retain heat energy, those cooling processes that disperse and remove accumulated heat must also be quantified." Nothing 'removes' accumulated heat from the system except radiative transfer out to space I would have thought. The energy within the system concentrates in different places at different times. But the redistribution of heat between various parts of the land, ocean and atmosphere is exactly that. Redistribution. The more energetic the system, the more energetic the redistribution. Heat is only 'removed' from the system at large at the top of the atmosphere. The fact that the atmosphere and oceans within the system are over-excited and rocking and rolling all over the surface doesn't matter.
  35. Confidence in climate forecasts
    JohnD, clouds introduce uncertainty to GCMs in terms of radiative effects, not atmospheric heat transport. GCM functionality w/regard to redistribution of atmospheric heat appears quite good, not particularly controversial.
  36. Confidence in climate forecasts
    michael sweet at 10:22 AM, whilst it is a common cliche that climate is not weather, it is impossible to quantify climate without first understanding, and then quantifying the existing pattern of all the weather processes. Thus the GCM's that do understand, combine and quantify all weather processes provide the basis from which climate models are then able to articulate how the weather will (or should have) manifest(ed) itself at any point in time, both looking forward, and back. The main focus of the AGW theory is the role IR plays in the retention of heat energy. However IR only plays a small role in the movement of heat energy, about 25%(?), convection and conduction move and disperse the vast majority of heat energy, and of course these are weather processes, with clouds being an integral and dominating part of those processes. This then leads straight back to the inability of climate models in being able to successfully and adequately quantify such a dominating process. It is not enough to just focus on those warming processes that work to retain heat energy, those cooling processes that disperse and remove accumulated heat must also be quantified. Whilst the forecast of the next El-Nino/ La-Nina event may fall under the realm of weather forecasts, it is the frequency of such events and how they alternate that is relevant to the climate. A quick glance at the Quinn reconstruction of past El-Nino events over the last 500 years show clearly that such events are not regularly spaced but go through periods where they are more frequent and occur one upon another, and then times when they were infrequent. Given it is acknowledged that they are a result of redistributing heat energy then the obvious question is what caused such irregular patterns, patterns that seem to indicate as much, if not more regular occurrences in the past than at present. As an example, the extended drought that was responsible for the American dust bowl era, should it be weather forecasting, or climate forecasting, that can be used to forecast when such conditions might return? It is thought that another such pattern may be in the process of forming now. Which branch of the science does the responsibility for making predictions that may follow such longer term patterns, weather or climate modeling?
  37. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    batsvensson at 19:25 PM on 9 August, 2010 RSVP Category errors abounding here unfortunately. RSVP's sealed mirrored box with a lamp (an old chestnut that has sadly disappeared from the thread into the aether!) doesn't have the effect he supposes radiative theory should impose since in reality mirrors are only mostly reflective and in fact absorb a bit of energy at each of the millions of "bounces" of photons per second - if the box were to be opened, the opener might find it to have warmed a tiny amount; there certainly wouldn't be the expectation of a burst of photons of visible frequencies/energies/wavelengths. False premises don't advance arguments productively. Likewise bat's apparent negation of the possibility of knowledge of events involving electromagnetic radiation due to the "unknowability" inherent in quantum mechanics. We certainly don't know what a photon looks or smells like, or even whether one might have blue or brown eyes. However we have very functional models of photons (and electrons and atoms) and these manifest as macroscopic properties (absorption, emission, energy transfer, diffraction, excitation, relaxation and so on) that are extremely knowable. It is the macroscopic knowable elements of the electromagnetic spectrum that are of interest when we discuss rather basic (and also well understood) elements of radiative transfer in relation to the greenhouse effect. That's the bottom line, although one could develop this further. However it seems to me a very elemental indication of the knowability of macroscopic manifestations of microscopic quantum properties, that one can take very high energy photons (of X-ray energies; are these little chaps particles or waves or what??), blast them at crystallised proteins where they are diffracted by electrons (and the location of these chaps themselves can only be defined in probabilistic terms), to yield 3 dimensional atomic resolution structures that are sufficiently accurate that molecules can be designed by modelling, that bind to these proteins....and which themselves (the molecules) can be used to halt the progression of AIDS in fortunate recipients [*]. Clearly we know rather a lot about these supposedly unknowable manifestations of the EM radiation. What are the essential inputs to these advances? I'd say they're knowledge an impulse to understand difficult phenomena and to apply this knowledge and understanding productively. Even though we might not know whether a photon brushes it's teeth before going to bed at night, we can construct wonderfully effective models of its properties that have great explanatory power. [*] Of course if one was unfortunate enough to live in a country at a time when the scientific knowledge of HIV and AIDS was systematically misrepresented (e.g. South Africa under Mbeki), then the astonishing advances in antiretroviral therapies might have been of sadly little personal import. The misrepresentation of scientific knowledge tends to have victims, and one wonders at the impulse of those that go out of their way to do this, even at the lesser level...
  38. Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames
    I have searched through all of my posts to this blog and can find nowhere that I have referred to AGW as a hypothesis. Pete, I think we're working through the hypothesis issue at your suggestion, or that is to say because of what implicitly appears to be a misunderstanding on your part judging by your own words. In your own words (many times): The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis It's not surprising some folks believe you're assigning AGW to the status of "hypothesis." On the other hand, the NAS says: Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities. Comparing your words to the NAS it's reasonable to form the impression your assessment is at variance w/the scientific community. Now I suspect you're going to mention "significant" as the issue in play here. I suggest you turn to Part II of the NAS report and arm yourself with information before relying on significance of human contributions to climate change as a reason to dismiss concern over this issue. Overall Part II is an excellent summary of our understanding of this topic while beginning at page 158 you can read about the significance of human impacts on climate behavior. Be sure also to see figure 6.4.
  39. Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames
    Pete, I am sorry if I misinterpreted your post. It seems to me that you are splitting hairs in your statements and complaining when others do not agree with your split. When I read the NAS statement it seems clear that they mean "The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis" has been measured as a fact. They clearly state that the scientific consensus is that severe consequences will result from BAU. They cite multiple lines of evidence. Where do you find room in the NAS statement to justify your claim that the measured changes are not significant? You did not respond to my list of predictions that have come to pass (theories predict things that come to pass). Sea level rise, sea ice loss and ice sheet loss exceed many of the model predictions. I think these are "significant human-made global climate change". Why do you think 2 meters of sea level rise (the current high end, raised from less than 1 meter only 3 years ago) will not be a problem for your grandchildren? The planning documents Doug quoted suggest that over 2 meters it will be too expensive to defend London. It will certainly be too expensive to defend Florida, where I live.
  40. Confidence in climate forecasts
    JMurphy at 06:42 AM, in response to your comment about the June model forecasts all being reasonably well aligned. Given that a La Nina pattern is now well established and is being predicted to be stronger and remain in place for over a year, then one would expect most credible models to be aligned. Where the models do differ is generally when patterns are changing with different models throwing up conflicting forecasts, and this is where the reputation of models is generally formed. A further refinement is considering how far out from such changes each of the models can begin forming reliable forecasts. Most will be able to forecast an event when it is imminent or already established, as BOM does, but being able to reliability predict a year ahead is beyond most, but not all, at present.
  41. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    I like it. It's short and clear. Another examples I like to enlighten about weather are the ball falling down a hill. You cannot predict short-term bounces, but you know it is going downwards. Or the river streams (weather) vs the course of the river (climate).
  42. Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames
    Doug, may I start by apologising for accusing you of writing a diatribe. I was reacting to what actually thoughtfull said on the “Confidence in climate forecasts” thread. His comment was between two of yours and I associated the word with you – my mistake. Regarding what you call my “personal opinion of AGW being a hypothesis ”, I invite you to read my comment 56, 2nd paragraph. I cannot understand why you consider my opinion about The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis conflicts with what you quoted from the NAS paper. I have searched through all of my posts to this blog and can find nowhere that I have referred to AGW as a hypothesis. I believe that I have used the term on only four occasions. That was thrice on “How reliable are the Climate models” (comments #207 on 26th July @ 19:52 & #217 on 28th July @ 02:34 – quoting Phil Scaddenthen, #219 on 28th July @ 06:46 – quoting JMurphy) then on the “Why I care “ thread on 8th August @18:18. None should give you the impression that you have. On the contrary the last two comments should make clear to anyone what I see as being The Hypothesis. I would appreciate you pointing out anywhere that I have said or suggested that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a hypothesis. JMurphy, would it be unfair of me to accuse you of bias? I didn’t notice you huffing and puffing at actually thoughtfull on the “Confidence in climate forecasts” thread when he used the word “diatribe” in his comment to me on 9th August @ 07:00. Michael Sweet, it appears that you make the same mistaken interpretation of what I say as do others here. Could this be deliberate I ask myself. Best regard, Pete Ridley
  43. Confidence in climate forecasts
    More words to puzzle over: Belarus records its hottest temperature in history for the second day in a row The Russian heat wave has also affected the neighboring nations of Ukraine and Belarus. All three nations have recorded their hottest temperatures in history over the past few weeks. Belarus, on the western border of Russia, recorded its hottest temperature in history on Saturday, August 7, when the mercury hit 38.9°C (102°F) in Gomel. This broke the all-time record for extreme heat set just one day before, the 38.7°C (101.7°F) recorded in Gorky. Prior to 2010, the hottest temperature ever recorded in Belarus was the 38.0°C (100.4°F) in Vasiliyevichy on Aug. 20, 1946. As I described in detail in Saturday's post, Belarus' new all-time extreme heat record gives the year 2010 the most national extreme heat records for a single year--seventeen. These nations comprise 19% of the total land area of Earth. This is the largest area of Earth's surface to experience all-time record high temperatures in any single year in the historical record. Looking back at the past decade, which was the hottest decade in the historical record, seventy-five countries set extreme hottest temperature records (33% of all countries.) For comparison, fifteen countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries). Earth has now seen four consecutive months with its warmest temperature on record, and the first half of 2010 was the warmest such 6-month period in the planet's history. It is not a surprise that many all-time extreme heat records are being shattered when the planet as a whole is so warm. Global warming "loads the dice" to favor extreme heat events unprecedented in recorded history. Dr. Jeff Masters' Wundergound Blog My eyebrows are up.
  44. Talkin bout the Skeptical Science phone apps
    Also wanted to share this review of the iPhone app in Apple's app store. Shows what kind of tactics the science based approach has to confront: ------ Superseded by Our Climate (3 out of 5 stars) by James Mann Schneider - Version 1.1.0 - Aug 6, 2010 It was a relatively good idea to bring the climate change arguments to an iPhone. But this particular app is extremely buggy, crashes all the time, and contains numerous mistakes. IT professionals and top climate scientists have now improved John Cook's project and developed a much better application called "Our Climate" which contains lots of quizzes, charts, polls, besides dozens of concise articles about all aspects of the climate and its drivers. -------- Simply incredible and deeply revealing about the ethics of denialism. For those not familiar with it, "Our Climate" is prominently featured on wattsupwiththat.com
  45. Post your blog review on the radio podcast: Long Term Certainty
    I like the post as written. I like to use an analogy trying to show the difference between weather and climate like this. If I had to forecast how much rain we will have the next 12 months I could do so but the odds of being correct are small. Because that's weather. If you ask me how much rain we will have over the next 30 years I would take the average yearly rainfall and multiply times 30. The odds of being correct for 30 years Are much better. The reason being 12 months is weather, or noise if you will, and 30 years is climate which filters out the noise.
  46. Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong
    I have updated the chart with rolling 12 month values for the latest GISS data (to June 2010). It is of possible interest to those looking at "record" temperatures that the current 12 month average is the highest on record (both for station data and Land plus Ocean data).
  47. Confidence in climate forecasts
    JMurphy at 06:42 AM, if you go to the site indicated below as a starting point, you will be able to go back through the archives to the 2007 forecasts and follow how the predictions evolved. Also go to the email discussion link within the page that provides some background as to how the implications of coming up with a strongly negative forecast were being closely considered given most other agencies were providing more rosy outlooks, at a time when the rural sector was particularly wanting a rosy picture painted. The print media gave quite a bit coverage to the matter when they picked up on the story the following year. http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d1/iod/sintex_f1_forecast.html.var
  48. Three new studies illustrate significant risks and complications with geoengineering climate
    Thought-provoking scientific freshness: Many geoengineering projects have been proposed to address climate change, including both solar radiation management and carbon removal techniques. Some of these methods would introduce additional compounds into the atmosphere or the ocean. This poses a difficult conundrum: Is it permissible to remediate one pollutant by introducing a second pollutant into a system that has already been damaged, threatened, or altered? We frame this conundrum as the “Problem of Permissible Pollution.” In this paper, we explore this problem by taking up ocean fertilization and advancing an argument that rests on three moral claims. We first observe that pollution is, in many respects, a context-dependent matter. This observation leads us to argue for a “justifiability criterion.” Second, we suggest that remediating actions must take into account the antecedent conditions that have given rise to their consideration. We call this second observation the “antecedent conditions criterion.” Finally, we observe that ocean fertilization, and other related geoengineering technologies, propose not strictly to clean up carbon emissions, but actually to move the universe to some future, unknown state. Given the introduced criteria, we impose a “future-state constraint”.” We conclude that ocean fertilization is not an acceptable solution for mitigating climate change. In attempting to shift the universe to a future state (a) geoengineering sidelines consideration of the antecedent conditions that have given rise to it --conditions, we note, that in many cases involve unjustified carbon emissions --and (b) it must appeal to an impossibly large set of affected parties. Geoengineering, Ocean Fertilization, and the Problem of Permissible Pollution
  49. 10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
    Timely arrival of new integration of anthropogenic C02 emissions w/carbon cycle: "What’s new about this research is that we have integrated the carbon cycle into our model to obtain the emissions data," says Erich Roeckner. According to the model, admissible carbon dioxide emissions will increase from approximately seven billion tonnes of carbon in the year 2000 to a maximum value of around ten billion tonnes in 2015. In order to achieve the long-term stabilisation of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, the emissions will then have to be reduced by 56 percent by the year 2050 and approach zero towards the end of this century. Although, based on these calculations, global warming would remain under the two-degree threshold until 2100, further warming may be expected in the long term: "It will take centuries for the global climate system to stabilise," says Erich Roeckner. More: New carbon dioxide emissions model
  50. Talkin bout the Skeptical Science phone apps
    Semperviren's idea of a quiz is terrific. Could be constantly refreshed by randomly picking ten questions.

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