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Comments 113451 to 113500:

113451. NickD at 03:18 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        doug_bostrom at 02:44 AM on 5 August, 2010 says: "John's explanations are quite accessible to anybody with a high school diploma..." I'll go you one further, Doug. I never earned even a high school diploma and I find his explanations very accessible :-)
113452. Ned at 03:05 AM on 5 August 2010
        Why I care about climate change
        John Harrington writes: You say you voted "both sides" in the last elections. I also don't consider myself of any particular political stripe, but, that said, I have a hard time understanding how anyone who understands the calamity of climate change could vote for a republican. I doubt John voted Republican, since that party doesn't exist in Australia! :-)
        Response: We do have a 'Climate Sceptics Party' (seriously, that's an actual political party) - that's probably the closest thing :-)
        
113453. Alexandre at 03:01 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        I hope someone comes up with a Blackberry app sometime.
113454. Doug Bostrom at 02:58 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        Finally will note, an increasing body of research indicates that the communications difficulties w/regard to climate science are not about failure to be able to understand science, they're about defensive postures on the part of the person refusing to acknowledge the science, protection of attitudes and beliefs having nothing to do with science. There are also indications that repeated or amplified explanations actually are counterproductive to changing beliefs, something that would call the notion of graduated explanations into question. If something can be done to the site that -rationally- attacks the underlying problem of dealing with "skeptic" psychology, that would be worth effort. A rearrangement hinging on what we thought we knew about skeptics 10 years ago not so much.
113455. JohnHarrington at 02:58 AM on 5 August 2010
        Why I care about climate change
        Thank you for what you do. We share a reason for caring about climate change, and that is our children. I have a question for you, though. You say you voted "both sides" in the last elections. I also don't consider myself of any particular political stripe, but, that said, I have a hard time understanding how anyone who understands the calamity of climate change could vote for a republican. They seem to vote in a bloc against any prudent response to climate change. If you don't mind my asking, who did you vote for any why? And if you prefer to keep your vote private (as is certainly your right) can you discuss in general terms why anyone concerned about climate change should be a swing voter?
        Response: Well, firstly, I'm Australian so I didn't vote Republican or Democrat :-) Secondly, two federal elections ago, climate change wasn't really on my radar and I don't recall it being much of an issue at the time. If I'd been more aware at the time, I might have voted differently but I honestly can't remember what either party's policy was at the time.
        
        In the last election, I had to choose between a party whose leader was a climate skeptic and a party whose policy was to put a price on carbon. A bit of a no-brainer really. Sadly, however, the party I voted for has now abandoned their attempt to put a price on carbon.
113456. Peter Hogarth at 02:57 AM on 5 August 2010
        Has Global Warming Stopped?
        kstra at 06:03 AM on 3 August, 2010 Sorry if my previous comment was cryptic. To clarify and add further to what ABG has said, here is the HadCRUT3 chart with temperature values up to June 2010. I have used the same start date, and added the same Excel 4th order curve fitting process. I have also added error bars. The results are quite different (and just as inadvisable to use). As others have pointed out, this highlights several dangers when analyzing data in this way: 1) Fitting higher order curves is problematic when these fits are based on simple mathematical functions that are unlikely to represent or model complex climate variations. Simple trends are indicators, and should not be used as models and should not be extrapolated far. 2) For the end dates, up to date data should always be used (if available). For start dates, the most complete versions of the data should be used if possible, we shouldn’t cherry pick without justification. In this case the BBC asked a loaded question. 3) Deriving any trends from short time series can give misleading results. Caution and an appreciation of error bounds and physical processes should be applied. If we take the entire data series from 1850 to 2010, and fit a second order function, and a fourth order function, the respective R squared values are indistinguishable. This kind of analysis tells us only general things about the temperature records, such as temperature is increasing, the rise is statistically significant, and the trend is probably accelerating over the recording period.
113457. Pete Ridley at 02:56 AM on 5 August 2010
        Confidence in climate forecasts
        There has been recent debate on the “How reliable are climate models?” thread about this topic. The lead article here repeatedly uses the word “predict” or its derivatives, just as the IPCC did in its second assessment report. After IPCC reviewer Dr. Vincent Gray pointed out that no model had ever been validated and could not predict global climates the title of the relevant WG1 chapter was renamed “Model evaluation” and the word “predict” was replaced with “project”. These changes were not trivial but highly significant. There can be no confidence in the ability of climate models to predict what global climates will be during the present century of any other because the present scientific knowledge of those horrendously complex processes and drivers of global climates are too poorly understood. Anyone who is inclined to reject that last statement should read a few more scientific papers on the subject and look carefully for the word “uncertainty”. Sorry that I can’t spend more time on this at the present but I’m under strict orders from she who must be obeyed. There is more on this on the “How reliable are climate models?” thread - enjoy Best regards, Pete Ridley.
113458. Doug Bostrom at 02:52 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        Should also note, detailed discussion here over tabs versus sliders, terminology etc. seems to have skipped an important step, namely "does this need to happen." That's a question the folks at Coca-Cola might have paused on before deciding on "New Colk" vs. "Updated Coke" vs. "Slightly Different Product in a Slightly Different Can."
113459. Doug Bostrom at 02:44 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        Not to be the wet blanket but I don't think the current implementation is sufficiently flawed as to require a serious upheaval and I don't think such disruption is going to produce much marginal benefit at all. John's explanations are quite accessible to anybody with a high school diploma and the sheer amount of work involved in redoing the site is going to be a massive distraction. I think discussion threads here prove beyond a doubt that going from "Easy" to "Hard" changes nobody's mind, or at least is overwhelmingly ineffective. We do that continuum every day, in a countless myriad of ways. We can witness the same futility on a number of other websites devoted to this subject. Once you find yourself arguing with somebody over easy science you may as well give up because you're not arguing science, you're arguing ideology or something else. More explanation, more amplification, more detail is useless. If a one-liner backed by an argument of the kind found in the existing rebuttals does not work you may as well give up. John keeps a lot of stats. I don't know if any are available on moving people from "I don't believe it" to "Ah, I see" but I suspect they're perfectly dismal whether we can produce them or not. Not to say there's no point to SkS, not at all. If somebody's just got the wrong impression and is curious about the subject they're going to "get it" when steered to a little information, a little being all that's necessary. So concentrate on getting the one liners down, concentrate on providing a path to the classic rebuttals, concentrate on tuning the classic rebuttals, keeping them fresh, that's my suggestion. To convey more information, to get the same effect of tabs and the like, cultivate references at the end of the standard rebuttals. The curious will certainly find them, the argumentative simply don't care.
        Response: Ah Doug, you're such a contrarian! :-)
        
        "John's explanations are quite accessible to anybody with a high school diploma"
        
        I have various anecdotal evidence that this isn't the case. I have friends and family with high school or higher levels of education that have trouble understanding the explanations on my site. My wife Wendy (tertiary education, an Arts degree... not that there's anything wrong with that :-) often complains that it gets too technical. The climate communication workshop run by Jan Dash also suggests the detail is too complicated for the average person on the street.
        
        So there is a definite need for plain English versions of the rebuttals. The emphasis here, the most important element of the multi-level system, is the Easy version. In my mind, the Hard version is almost an optional extra (although when I suggested having just the Easy and Moderate versions, one scientist I was speaking too insisted having the Hard version was important too).
        
        Believe me, I don't go looking for more work to keep myself busy. When this idea was first suggested to me, I tried to put it out of my mind. Too much trouble! But the more I thought about it, the more I saw the need for plain English versions. We need to be communicating the realities of climate science to the general public in a way they can understand. If we're not reaching the average person, then what's the point?
        
113460. angusmac at 02:43 AM on 5 August 2010
        Confidence in climate forecasts
        Your statement that climate models are accurate does not appear to be correct. The NASA GISS data up to December 2009 are shown in Figure 1. They are compared with the global warming scenarios presented by Hansen (2006). Figure 1: Scenarios A, B and C Compared with Measured NASA GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Data (after Hansen, 2006) The blue line in Figure 1 denotes the NASA GISS Land-Ocean data and Scenarios A, B and C describe various CO2 emission outcomes. Scenarios A and C are upper and lower bounds. Scenario A is “on the high side of reality” with an exponential increase in emissions. Scenario C has “a drastic curtailment of emissions”, with no increase in emissions after 2000. Scenario B is described as “most plausible” which is expected to be closest to reality. The original diagram can be found in Hansen (2006). It is evident from Figure 1 that the best fit for actual temperature measurements is the emissions-held-at-year-2000-level Scenario C. This suggests that global warming has slowed down significantly when compared with the “most plausible” prediction Scenario B. A similar study comparing HADCRUT3 with AR4 may be found here CONCLUSIONS It is evident that computer models over-predict global temperatures when compared with observed temperatures. Global warming may not have stopped but it is certainly following a trajectory that is much lower than that predicted by computer models. Indeed, it is following the zero-increase-in-emissions scenarios from the computer models
113461. Jim Meador at 02:38 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        There is a well-developed body of knowledge from the museum world about how to write clear, concise explanations. The links below have some helpful information for anyone interested... http://www.museumprofessionals.org/forum/member-articles/2424-writing-exhibit-labels.html http://www.serrellassociates.org/labelwriting.html
113462. KR at 02:37 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        How about "In Brief", "Overview", and "Details"? I agree about a tab interface. I've seen several GUI's with inappropriate sliders for discrete steps, and users keep trying to place the slider between those values.
113463. Doug Bostrom at 02:19 AM on 5 August 2010
        It's the sun
        By the way, Johno's entry to this thread and subsequent arc of discussion was truly classic. Arrogant but otherwise science-related premise leading to a screed about "my money" attached to a myriad of misinformation. An old story but useful. If somebody ends up talking about their money they're not really interested in science and wasting further time in discussion is probably pointless.
113464. wildrunar at 02:18 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        How about instead of "Basic" you use "Quick." The idea being that sometimes you just have to make the point in a hurry before the denalist gets distracted by something shiny. "Intermediate" could then become "More." For those rare cases when the person you're trying to explain it to isn't an indoctrincated denialist, but is instead curious enough to want to know more about the subject after having been won over by the Quick. Then "Advanced" could become "Detailed." I think it unilkely that you would ever need this to actually explain the point to someone, but it's always good to have the information there, because it reinforces the argument. Even if it won't be understood by our newly awakened former denialist, he'll be pleased to know that the science is there. You wouldn't, for example, ever see Creationism laid out with either an Advanced or Detailed tab.
113465. Doug Bostrom at 02:11 AM on 5 August 2010
        It's the sun
        Johno, pharmaceutical companies spend vast amounts of money "seeing if it works." "It isn't happening and it's good for us" is not very persuasive, leaving aside your contrarian liturgy of wrongness. It leaves me wondering why you're so passionate about proving the case for AGW wrong if you're so keen on it happening. You also might take a look at the Stern Review w/regard to costs and benefits of mitigation. Though criticized in a way remindful of critiques of climate change science, it still has the virtue of existence, something its critics have not been able to address with their own implementation.
113466. Albatross at 02:06 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        Fantastic idea Michael and John! I also have to ask what ProfMandia did @2-- when do you sleep John? Personally I like the terms "basic", "intermediate" and "advanced" (or in-depth, advanced might sound too snotty) levels. 1) Basic-- a one or two liner. Didn't someone recently do that for you, or at least a few of the arguments? 2) Intermediate-- the current level of discussion as it appears on your web-site, maybe some of the jargon and more technical stuff taken out. 3) Advanced-- something you would expect to read in a journal; could also include a list of references. I like suggestions made by Davidhs @20 regarding the content for each of the three categories. John, I was thinking, some readers here and SS app users would probably find it useful to have access to a glossary, or even better, hyperlinks to a glossary, for some of the more technical terms (terms that we scientists might think are basic, but which are confusing or too technical for lay people, one example that comes to mind is "albedo"). A glossary might be superfluous/redundant though-- if you don't get the terminology, go down one level. So maybe a glossary would be more appropriate for the SS site. Wow, what a cool idea this is, wish I weren't so busy right now, or else I'd hop right in and contribute.
        Response: A glossary has been on the to-do list for a while now. Wasn't it you that suggested it to me a few months ago? :-) Would like to get to this sometime when I get the time.
        
113467. Alden Griffith at 02:05 AM on 5 August 2010
        Has Global Warming Stopped?
        Hi Mike, I agree, and I'm well aware of how P values should be interpreted and what they really mean. I intentionally used language that might make a statistician squirm because I'm not trying to communicate to statisticians, but rather the public. The somewhat backwards logic of frequentist statistics is not all that easy to grasp for a lot of people at first. When communicating to the public, I think it's a lot easier to grasp the idea of 92.4% confidence than it is to interpret that there is a 7.6% probability of seeing the temperature trend that we did given the null hypothesis of no trend [a collective "huh?"]. While terminology is certainly important in science, it can really be a stumbling block in our notorious inability to actually communicate to the public. For the purposes of this post, I think saying 92.4% confidence is the way to go. -Alden
113468. gallopingcamel at 02:03 AM on 5 August 2010
        Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames
        Adaptation is costly but the costs are borne by the local residents. Up to now the Dutch have not just maintained their perimeter; they have created significant new inhabitable areas (e.g. within the Zuider Zee). They seem to think the effort is worth it but for how much longer? The alternative to adaptation is relocation. Relocation or migration brings all kinds of strife, sometimes involving neighboring countries.
113469. John Mason at 01:49 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        John, This is an excellent idea. I'm doing a bit of blogging on climate science and trying to get things explained in everyday terms these days. As post #22 says, it's often very effective to use commonsense everyday context: analogy too can be extremely useful. The critical bit is to explain things accurately, so far as the most up-to-date science is concerned, without sounding patronising. I've worked on-and-off for some years in doing such interpretation in the Earth Sciences - especially hardrock geology - and I fully appreciate the size of the task you have set yourself from experience. I wish you all the best with it. I've been so disturbed by the efforts of the politically-motivated anti-science opposition that I'm determined to move from geology to climate outreach as a career-change. Climate science - indeed, Mankind - needs all the help it can get in terms of improved public understanding. Cheers - John
113470. Ned at 01:41 AM on 5 August 2010
        It's the sun
        Agreed with JMurphy's comment. Johno, it's generally better to stick with one or two topics in a given comment, rather than tossing in economics, taxation, climate models, climate sensitivity, the fact that CO2 is a small fraction of the mass of the atmosphere, reliability of CO2 measurements, climate change impacts, the CO2/primary productivity relationship, ice ages, and solar irradiance. Throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks doesn't lead to very productive discussions.
113471. Jim Meador at 01:40 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        John, this is really a great idea. I used to work at a Science center in San Francisco, and I know that writing clear, concise, explanations takes a lot of effort but makes a big difference in terms of how much of the content reaches the readers. The key point is not to "dumb down" when writing the "basic" explanations, but to tie into commonsense, everyday context that everyone already has. Experts tend to tie their explanations into a context that non-experts don't possess, and thereby miss the opportunity to communicate all that they know. Naming the three categories must be done carefully, and is a subject worthy of the thought given by others above. You don't want your users to feel like "Dummies" when they go for the basic explanation. I'd be very interested to take a crack at a few of the arguments. How exactly do I submit my proposed text? As a comment? As to the user interface, I would suggest using three tabs instead of the slider. (A slider is more appropriate to a situation where there is a continuum of possible values. Since this particular situation is limited to three possible values, it seems like the wrong analogy.)
        Response: I'd be very interested to take a crack at a few of the arguments. How exactly do I submit my proposed text? As a comment?
        
        Early next week, I'll start a forum where all the authors can get together and first discuss the general approach, terminology, etc. Then I'm thinking the way authors submit proposed text is to first submit it as a new thread in the forum. That way, other authors can offer feedback/suggestions and the text can be honed before it gets 'officially published'.
        
        But like any social media experiment, who knows how this will evolve - first step is get the forum going then see what happens.
113472. Ned at 01:30 AM on 5 August 2010
        Confidence in climate forecasts
        kdkd is right -- a top-of-atmosphere radiative imbalance of 0.9 W/m2 corresponds to a climate sensitivity of around 3 C. Ken, I'm not sure you understand the distinction between (a) a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, and (b) a climate forcing. The number you cite (0.9 W/m2) is the former. The AR4 figure to which you refer discusses the latter. The existence of a TOA radiative imbalance is an inherently transient thing. The existence of an imbalance means that the earth is radiating less energy than it receives from the sun. Over time, this causes the earth to warm up, allowing it to radiate more, which reduces the TOA imbalance. Eventually, that figure will drop back to 0 W/m2, because the earth has warmed up enough to rebalance its radiation budget. Ken's citation of Fig. 2.4 from AR4 relates to uncertainty in the net climate forcing from various sources. There is uncertainty in that total, which in turn leads to uncertainty in estimates of climate sensitivity. But it's distributed around the best estimate of a climate sensitivity of 3 C. If your reaction is "Well, the uncertainty means it could be lower" then you have to equally consider the possibility that "Well, the uncertainty means it could be higher." In the meantime, while trying to narrow that range of uncertainty, we should proceed on the assumption that climate sensitivity is around 3 C. As for Ken's continued claims of "flattening" temperatures, I point out again that most of the past decade had temperatures above the pre-2001 trend: In other words, the 2000s were actually warmer than one would predict based on the rate of warming over the preceding two decades.
113473. Englishborn at 01:23 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        On the comments issue - I am not techie enough to know if this can be done but if one comment thread were to be used could the comment have a marker stating from which level they are commenting from? From a personal view the idea of splitting comments would likely cause those more knowledgeable and have a better understanding to not read and therefore answer questions or statements in the "lower divisions", which I find very valuable.
113474. Davidhs at 01:19 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        A vote for "thorough" for the third category, rather than words like difficult or hard or even technical. Rather than worrying at this stage about the exact labels, it might help to set out in more detail the characteristics of each category. This would help us all to start thinking along the same lines and have a clearer idea of what is in your mind, rather than just our interpretation of your headings. We will know better what to call each category when we have a clearer idea of what they look like. For example, the first category might (only might, note! I have only spent a few moments on these scribbles.) be as follows: - straightforward statement of the point. Two or three sentences at most, perhaps. - general indication of where the evidence comes from, eg. from Antarctic boreholes. - when this point was established, eg. CO2 greenhouse effect: demonstrated experimentally in mid 19th C. The second category might: - expand the basic statement, - indicate the history of the point, how the argument developed, - indicate the experimental history, - indicate the counter arguments and work on addressing them, - The third category would then be a more thorough discussion, including the maths, the references to the key papers, etc. ... Sorry: being called away to something else now!
113475. JMurphy at 01:19 AM on 5 August 2010
        It's the sun
        Johno, it appears that you need to start reading some of the threads here at Skeptical Science. Try these, for starters : Models are unreliable We're heading into an ice age It's not bad CO2 measurements are suspect Hanson's 1998 prediction was wrong Animals and plants can adapt to Global Warming The rest of the arguments are here
113476. Jeff Freymueller at 01:18 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        This seems like a workable idea for the App, and for the skeptic arguments page. I just don't see it working on the regular posts, though. Actually, it could work on the posts but not for the comments -- I think any discussion would be far too fragmented, and confusing as different people would be talking about different versions of the same thing. Chaos. So I would vote for using it on the archived skeptic arguments, and using Basic/Intermediate/Advanced as the terminology.
        Response: Multi-levels would definitely NOT be used for blog posts - this is solely for the skeptic argument rebuttals.
113477. DarkSkywise at 01:17 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        I like Yooper's Basic / Medium / In-Depth. It has a certain "je ne sais quoi". ;)
113478. dana1981 at 01:12 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        I think "Basic/Intermediate/Advanced" are good categories.
113479. DarkSkywise at 00:55 AM on 5 August 2010
        It's the sun
        Johno at 00:36 AM on 5 August, 2010: "However, a 10-degree mean temperature increase coupled with 3-fold CO2 increase would produce ideal growing conditions." Since even a 6 degree rise would be disastrous, I think you'll have a very hard time finding anyone to sell those crops to. ;)
113480. kdkd at 00:52 AM on 5 August 2010
        Confidence in climate forecasts
        Ken #17 Still plowing the same furrow. You've been down to bedrock for a while, and your field is barren. We now know from postings elsewhere that the measured TOA imbalance likely corresponds to a climate sensitivity of 3ºC - a figure I've been asking you to provide for a year or more. The temperature anomaly data supports the "supposed" heat imbalance as well. As for the error bars. There is more than component that contribute to these. Firstly we have measurement uncertainty. You appear to want to make the assumption that this is going to come out strongly in the negative feedback side with no scientific justification for this. Secondly and thirdly the error bars are influenced by variability and residence time. Finally, just because you repeat the assertion constantly doesn't mean that it's true: there is no flattening trend in the recent temperature record - you can only make this claim through deliberate or accidental ignoring of the statisitcal reality of the situation. Conclusion: constantly stating the obvious (that there are uncertainties involved) contributes nothing to the argument that the problem is less than the scientific consensus suggests that it is.
113481. GabrielB at 00:51 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        Any plans for Android love as well?
        Response: I'm taking the apps one step at a time, very conscious of the fact that Shine Tech are spending a great deal of their resources on developing these various apps, free of charge. So no plans yet.
        
113482. James Frank at 00:42 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        Another vote for the "Basic/Intermediate/Advanced." "Easy/Medium/Hard" feels odd, since what we're really talking about is the language involved, not the science. And "easy" or "hard" language doesn't communicate as much as "basic" or "advanced." I'm not sure I'm as superhuman as you are, but I'd be happy to have a go at drafting a few "basic" articles. I don't know the science as in-depth, but maybe that's a good thing.
113483. CBDunkerson at 00:37 AM on 5 August 2010
        Why I care about climate change
        BP, if you actually put some thought to it I think you'll find that 'social values', like say 'not killing people' and 'not stealing', were around for a LONG time before Christianity. Thus, no... pursuing such social values does not make you "a crypto-Christian". Setting aside that you could as easily have argued that circumcision makes someone 'crypto-Jewish' or not drinking 'crypto-muslim' or any number of other equally ridiculous associations. Human culture is both informed by and informs the various religions. For instance, Christianity did not decide that abortion was a sin until science proved that a genetically unique life form comes into being at conception. Originally Christians held that the soul entered the body with the first breath and thus ending a pregnancy before that was ok. Most Christian groups now argue that killing a fetus is the same as killing an adult, but Exodus 21 had very different punishments for the two (i.e. death for killing an adult, pay a fine for killing a fetus). Religions change just like every other aspect of our culture. They are not the underlying determinant of the human condition which you claim.
113484. Johno at 00:36 AM on 5 August 2010
        It's the sun
        @adelady: surely you can't be serious? Pharmaceutical companies do not invest trillions of dollars to "try out" a new medicine to "see if it works". Surely you aren't proposing we bankrupt the world's economy and limit future industrial development over an irrational fear? Surely you want action based on proper scientific study and evaluation? And while (not "medical sciences") pharmaceutical companies do invest billions of dollars for truly promising cures, they are using their own profits, not my hard-earned income, taken by the government through taxation. If you aren't following, then consider the following polemic arguments (as unscientific as AGW): AGW proponents seem intent on taking my money to fight global climate change. Nonsense! Stop studying pseudo-science and go get a real job, so I won't have to support you anymore. This applies to Dr. James Hansen as much as anyone. His grasp of climate science is limited to his computer model, which has been unfairly compared with direct observations at the top of this subject string. Solar, Wind, and other renewable energy sources will become competitive as fossil fuels run out, and prices for fossil fuels naturally rise. When this happens, atmospheric CO2 levels will necessarily begin to fall. The only question is how high will CO2 levels rise before fossil fuels run out? Based on the reading I've done, this seems to be somewhere between 2X and 5X current levels (that's 1500ppm, or 0.15% CO2). Just so we're clear, all of the AGW fear-mongering to date has been over 0.008% of the earth's atmosphere (+80ppm of CO2). Until the OCO is launched and collects its data, we don't have any reliable method of estimating changes as small as 0.008% of anything global. Again, based on the papers I've read, this would generate mean global temperature increase of no more than 10 degC. The increase would occur slowly, over the course of the next 1000 years. Therefore, predictions of coastal flooding and massive loss of life due to climate change (which happens over a period of decades) are simply sensational and unscientific. There remains a complete lack of any objective scientific data to demonstrate that hurricanes, typhoons, floods, or droughts have increased in either number or severity over the course of the last century. However, a 10-degree mean temperature increase coupled with 3-fold CO2 increase would produce ideal growing conditions. Plants would thrive. We'd be faced with battling all weeds the way some battle bamboo or briar patches in rich soil. Since the food chain relies on a strong foundation of plant life, all animals would thrive as well. In addition, higher global temperatures could result in preventing or delaying the onset of the next Ice Age -- a highly desirable result. Land animals cannot survive an ice ball planet, and crops will fail if growing seasons are cut short. The question is not whether ocean levels will rise, or more flooding and droughts will occur if temperatures are generally higher over the next few centuries; the question is how are we preparing for the coming Ice Age? Do we bankrupt our economy chasing after a little hot air, or do we begin investing in technologies to help us survive a dormant Sun?
113485. Daniel Bailey at 00:24 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        As someone who takes technical papers and concepts and translates them into plain English for the laymen (which is what most doctors are, believe it or not), there is a huge need for this concept, John. In terms of the tab parlance, something along the lines of: 1. Basic 2. Medium 3. In-Depth The nomenclature used won't really matter, but the K.I.S.S. Principle (Keep It Simple [or you're] Stupid) applies to the tab labels as well (even or the In-Depth level tab). And readability on a small screen is paramount. The impact of this will be immense. You must sleep even less than me, The Yooper
113486. Andy Brown at 00:08 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        I think it is a great idea on your part. People may pooh-pooh the "Easy" explanation as dumbing down, but it actually requires probably even more clarity of understanding and discipline of message to formulate an explanation that someone without a background in the concepts/jargon can grasp. I'm an anthropologist who works on this very issue professionally, and so I have a lot of experience in the challenges and pitfalls of this!
113487. KR at 00:01 AM on 5 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        I would agree on a need for a really really short response, the 'one-liners'. Maybe call that one "Snap!", or "Bar discussion"?
113488. Johno at 00:00 AM on 5 August 2010
        It's the sun
        For those interested in my previous post, the following sources lay a good foundation for understanding our current studies regarding solar energy transfer to the earth's climate system. Read: "Quantitative modeling of magnetospheric processes" (Olson, W.P. - American Geophysical Union, 1979) This book contains the paper by Paulikas & Blake: "Effects of the Solar Wind on Magnetospheric Dynamics: Energetic Electrons at the Synchronous Orbit" (Paulikas, G.A. and Blake, J.B. - pp. 180-202) Also, read: "Solar Wind Magnetosphere Coupling" (Kamide, Y. and Slavins, J.A.; Terra Scientific Pub. Co., 1986)
113489. Berényi Péter at 23:55 PM on 4 August 2010
        Why I care about climate change
        #86 thingadonta at 15:04 PM on 4 August, 2010 You don't need a religious foundation to motivate one to pursue social values. Those social values come from Christianity. As long as you are truly motivated by them, like it or not, you are a crypto-Christian. And if you happen to deny mentioning the Name, that's still in line with the commandment. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. As I was taught by a catholic priest, there is a formless void in the human soul made to the shape of God. You should be aware that all the false gods and demigods of the world fight for getting in and it is next to impossible to keep it clear if you do not let its true master take it. You may be able to live a righteous life in theory with that void wide open, but very few get the grace of God to actually accomplish such a quest. Trying to get rid of Christian faith is like the attempt of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King to win over the Buddha. He leaped to the very End of the World in seconds, found huge columns there, marked one with arrogant script and piddling, got back in a whirlwind just to find a root of finger on the Buddha's palm smelling of urine and showing a tiny inscription. But what strikes a scientist like me, is that if one can't perceive the natural underpinnings of a faith/religion like Christianity, it's no wonder one can't tell the natural underpinnings in something like climate change. What strikes a Christian like me, is that if one can't perceive the supernatural underpinnings of Natural Philosophy, especially its roots in Christianity.
113490. chris at 23:54 PM on 4 August 2010
        Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
        It's worth supplementing Tom's response just above since he very nicely gets to the root of the greenhouse effect. As Tom indicates, thermal energy is radiated to space from the upper regions of the atmosphere (specifically those regions of space at a temperature appropriate to balance the incoming solar radiation at a "temperature near 255K). Clearly the layers of the atmosphere right down to the Earth's surface are wamer than this (can be determined by the lapse rate). Now we add more greenhouse gas. At any particular height in the atmosphere the radiation of LWIR to space is less efficient since there is more higher altitude CO2 to absorb the LWIR. With more greenhouse gas, the emission of LWIR to space must necessarily occur from a higher altitude on average. However to maintain thermal equilibrium with incoming solar irradiation, the temperature of the layers from which LWIR is emitted to space must be the same as before. In other words those layers must warm up to the previous temperature (i.e. without the addition of greenhouse gas). All the layers below (right down to the earth surface) warm up. That's the greenhouse effect.
113491. Ken Lambert at 23:49 PM on 4 August 2010
        Confidence in climate forecasts
        Surely, the issue of confidence in climate forecasts deopends on the accuracy of the warming imbalance which is supposed to exist - currently about +0.9W/sq.m. The degree of warming now and into the future hinges on the accuracy of this number and its projected value going forward. Go look at Fig 2.4 of AR4 and Fig 4 of Dr Trenberth's 'An imperative for climate change planning et al.." and tell me the accuracy of the 0.9W/sq.m number. Pay attention to the width of the error bars on total aerosols, and net responses like WV and ice albedo feedbacks. The CO2 GHG forcing effect is fairly narrowly constrained, but flattening temperatures do highlight whether this effect and its interaction with water vapour is as accurately know as AGW science claims. And of course OHC is the least accurately measured and the owner of this blog agrees that the oceans are the only significant storage for the heating imbalance and that is where the true extent of global warming will be measured.
113492. Dikran Marsupial at 23:39 PM on 4 August 2010
        On Consensus
        Arkadiusz Semczyszak There is very little room for any doubt that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic. An even more straightforward argument than isotopic concentration can establish this, it is called the mass balance argument. 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"). This demonstrates that the natural environment must be a net sink of CO2 as the "missing" 55% of our emissions has to go somewhere (there has to be conservation of mass). Essentially, if the natural environment were a net source of carbon dioxide, then the observed annual rise in atmospheric CO2 would be grater than anthrpogenic emissions as both man and the environment would be contributing to the rise, but that is observed not to be the case. Now if you can show how the natural environment can be the source of the excess CO2, whilst at the same time the annual rise being less than anthropogenic emissions, THEN there may be reason to doubt. Ferdinand Engelbeen has an excellent webpage on this topic. Appologies if I have misunderstood your point.
113493. JMurphy at 23:38 PM on 4 August 2010
        Confidence in climate forecasts
        Daved Green, I have used that Climate Models site in the past and think it would be very useful if more people were to take in onboard, so to speak : it only requires downloading a small file (as far as I remember). I have also used the SETI one and one looking for various cancer 'cures', but that is neither here nor there. With regard to models, I posted this link elsewhere and wanted to post it again, as an example of a good model prediction : Quantifying the uncertainty in forecasts of anthropogenic climate change, from 1999/2000). (By the way, I added that link, plus two from Hansen on the same topic, to the LINKS section and noticed that there are an extremely large number of blogs, etc. being used as so-called skeptical arguments. Even the "Ice Age predicted in the 70s" topic has 248 skeptical 'arguments' against it, as if there was something to argue against ! To be fair, when you select peer-review only you get left with just a Rasool and Schneider paper from 1971, but that was a theoretical prediction from the time (subsequently discarded) and not a skeptical argument, surely ? Too much dross, though, and maybe confusing to those who come along to see what the state of play is with regard to various arguments - they might think that the skeptics have the upper hand, perish the thought...)
113494. Tom Dayton at 23:36 PM on 4 August 2010
        Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
        RSVP, there are GHG molecules above and below other GHG molecules. As each molecule radiates up, those upper molecules intercept that radiation. Then those recipient molecules themselves radiate up and down. There are many, many such layers. The effect is radiation being "trapped" within those layers. Except at the top of the atmosphere, where there are no other GHG molecules above the topmost ones, so the extra radiation of the topmost ones does not get intercepted. So the topmost ones cool.
113495. adelady at 23:36 PM on 4 August 2010
        It's the sun
        Johno, do you mean "adequately" account for CO2 forcing, or 'exactly'......... If you're trying to say - and until then we should do nothing based on on our current limited understanding - then you're failing to understand science generally. In the medical sciences, prescriptions and procedures are tried out, and adjusted when necessary. In the social sciences, economics models and projections are commonly used despite no-one understanding if or when any projection will ever be reliable. Life isn't mathematics. Science isn't mathematics. You want absolute certainty? Stick with maths, avoid science.
113496. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:16 PM on 4 August 2010
        On Consensus
        Simple examples that you can begin to doubt - dear “student”: “7. The new CO2 (as shown by its isotopic signature) is mainly from burning fossil fuels.” - The same "isotopic signature" have respiration, especially soil respiration. “8. Therefore the global warming currently occurring is anthropogenic (caused by mankind) [how? hypothesis 2a and 2b? - see Real Climate - discussion: G.S. + E.S. contra R.P. s.].” In Poland it is a proverb: "The devil [is what is most important] is in the details ..." But you doubted until the end - the “dear student” - in the alleged consensus, let us give voice a “prominent of the man” of the IPCC, a prominent scholar whose works (especially one), I cite here many times. He will answer the question you: “So what’s all the fuss about, then?” Atte Korhola , the Professor of Environmental Change, the UN IPCC (IPCC is the creator of "consensus"), he present: “... various reasons, so they desperately look around for anything they can to perhaps put off having to FACE REALITY.” (February, 2010). ... and "face reality" according to him is this: “The mistakes demonstrate that IPCC has taken on too much when TRYING TO CRAM the entirety of diverse climate research in one book and force it INTO CONSENSUS. [namely: the pursuit of consensus is a major mistake IPCC ...]” “However, science develops all the time and reduction of scientific ambiguity is NOT REALISTIC.” “UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS [These are 1-8 claims above?] are placed in the IPCC report. The report is being read as if it were a HOLY BOOK [“holy book” = “consensus”], and details presented in it are taken as truths CARVED IN STONE.” “HOWEVER, SCIENCE DEVELOPS ALL THE TIME AND REDUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC AMBIGUITY IS NOT REALISTIC. [ie: these 1-8 assertions + 9 - dominant negative effects GW; and are too detailed to give a strong consensus, at best it can be a MOMENTARY consensus - with many VERY significant: "but ..."]” "The evaluation of climate change should be continuous, and it should genuinely allow for DIFFERING VIEWS. [How can this be reconciled with the above -“professor “ - understanding of consensus?]” Consensus, consensus building ("style", the IPCC - that is, de facto proposed above - "Professor"), by Korhola, ignores the fact that: “... the issue of climate change has proved increasingly complex ...” “... the ambiguity of the models increases ...”; ... and leads to the emergence of: “... mistakes and exaggerations ... “ - „... for example, regarding the Himalayan glaciers, destruction of the Amazon rain forest, collapse of the grain crop in Africa, and the link between climate change and natural disasters ... [I'd loved - whit the most important - the spread of malaria ...]” ...and yet the logical (and most important) component of the consensus (by IPCC) is: „... and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems …” ... and becoming the logic: even when the based claims are true, but the conclusions are false, the “whole” must be regarded as false ...
113497. Johno at 23:14 PM on 4 August 2010
        It's the sun
        In reading through this string of posts there seems to be a complete lack of understanding (both experts and non-experts) regarding the physics of energy transfer from the Sun to the Earth. Solar forcing must include more than simply TSI. We have barely begun to quantify the interaction between the solar wind and the magnetosphere, which transfers highly variable amounts of energy to the earth's climate system. While early estimates indicated this energy exchange was negligible in comparison to TSI (only a few watts per square meter), it is NOT negligible compared to the assumed forcing of anthropogenic CO2 in earth's atmosphere (also a few watts per square meter). Until these phenomena have been successfully observed, measured and monitored for several decades, it will be impossible to adequately account for CO2 forcing.
113498. Craig Allen at 22:50 PM on 4 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        How about a 4th level called haiku :)
113499. the fritz at 22:45 PM on 4 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        I think , basic, easy, introductory etc.......are not necessary; all people concerned by this item don't believe and will never believe in AGW
113500. pdt at 22:26 PM on 4 August 2010
        Communicating climate science in plain English
        How about "bottom-line"/"in-depth"/"Gory Details"?

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