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Comments 116851 to 116900:
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Ian Forrester at 10:53 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
JohnD do you understand what photosynthesis is? Energy from sunlight is captured by the plant and converted into chemical energy (mostly carbohydrates in cereals). If you try and grow your plants earlier in the year you have far less sunlight, both duration and intensity, so that would reduce, not increase, energy capture. Also, winter wheat does not grow in the winter, it is planted in early fall, germinates and then goes dormant until the warmth of spring. Your arguments are as baseless as those put forward by other deniers that agriculture will simple move north (poleward) due to higher temperatures, ignoring of course that it is not temperature which limits agriculture but the availability of adequate soils. -
Marcus at 10:48 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Marty promulgates another myth of the fossil fuel industry, which is that greater energy use=greater prosperity. If you were to plot per capita energy use (in Megawatts/Capita) vs per Capita GDP, you'd see that there isn't a strong correlation between the two. In the majority of Western nations, the average household uses about 30%-50% more electricity than it needs, mostly due to inefficient appliances & poor house design/poor insulation. There is much the same situation going on in many commercial properties. Most commuters use 20% more fuel than they need to get to their destinations due to idling in peak hour traffic jams-largely down to a lack of adequate public transport, inadequate car-pooling & very poor peak-hour traffic planning. What this tells me is that, far from increasing prosperity, inefficient use of electricity & fuel is actually *decreasing* prosperity, as high energy & fuel bills leaves most families with less cash in their pockets for other necessities. So, in truth, improving efficiency of energy use will not only significantly reduce CO2 emissions, it will also leave people with more money in their pockets. Oh &, btw Marty-as far as I'm concerned anyone who tries to win the "skeptic" argument by claiming the other side is pushing for "dictatorships", "scientocracy", "eugenics" etc etc, has lost the argument already. If you can't rely on the *facts*, but have to resort to blatant scaremongering, then you're really wasting your time at a site like this! -
Ned at 10:28 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
thingadonta, I really think you're striving to find an inconsistency that just doesn't exist. During the glacial/interglacial cycles, the primary forcing is changes in the latitudinal/temporal pattern of insolation. This forcing is then amplified by a series of positive feedbacks involving CO2, methane, ice-albedo, dust, etc. Today, the primary forcing is CO2, complemented to a lesser extent by CH4, N2O, halocarbons, etc. The same feedbacks operate. All of these are discussed by IPCC and are basic staples of the consensus model of climate change past, present, and future. If John Cook doesn't discuss them in the article at the top of the thread, it's because he's responding to someone else's argument that specifically involves CO2 ... so he focuses on CO2. If you doubt this, go ahead and type "methane" or whatever into the search box at the top left, and you'll find that all of these factors are discussed in detail on this site. For example, one link that pops up is CO2 is not the only driver of climate Hope this helps. -
Marcus at 10:16 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Well when you read the FACE study properly, we find the outcomes of the study are not as bright as John D would have us believe. Basically my reading of the study suggests that a near doubling of CO2 concentrations-under *ideal* conditions-will generate a SHORT TERM increase in biomass of around 20%-30% in *WHEAT*. The study points out, however, that photosynthetic rates decrease over the long-term due to acclimation, which suggests that these increases in biomass cannot be sustained-especially in the face of shortages in water & increased temperatures (conditions which are already an increasing reality for farmers in Southern Australia). Of course, one of the key problems of a warming climate is increased senescence-not heat stress. Increased senescence means that plants will ripen *before* they reach full growth. This will lead to a reduction of biomass-most especially *seed* biomass, with potentially devastating consequences (especially when one considers the reduced uptake of nitrogen-& therefore reduced protein yields-under high CO2 conditions). Unfortunately, John D's claim that we can simply "change the planting times" reveals an astounding ignorance of how modern agriculture works. For starters, most agriculture is a year-long affair, with both winter & summer crops. Secondly, farmers don't just plant arbitrarily-they usually wait for the first good rains of the season before planting (usually around late Summer to mid Autumn for Winter crops, & late Winter to Mid-Spring for Summer Crops). Of course, with rainfalls declining & usually getting later in the year (South Australia has seen an average 1%/year decline in Autumn rainfall since the 1970's), the ability to plant crops during ideal growing times becomes ever more restricted. Of course, what I love is this general theme, from the likes of John D, that the whole of society must simply *adapt* its entire way of life to rising CO2 emissions *rather* than the fossil fuel industry should lose even a single dollar of their mega-profits. What industry in history has enjoyed so much demand for its ongoing protection-nay coddling-than oil & coal? -
Ned at 10:16 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
MattJ: Just to pile on, in addition to the comments by Tom Dayton and Jim Eager ... as John Cook mentioned at the top of this thread, there are some graphs showing runaway and non-runaway positive feedbacks in a comment here. In all fairness, I have seen lots of people who are under the impression that any positive feedback in the climate system would inherently imply runaway warming, a la Venus. That's not actually the case, however. As long as the feedback factor is small enough, it will just amplify the original warming (or cooling). -
DrTom at 09:44 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
Cynicus, #6. Aloha. Yes, I will take those numbers for the sale of argument. Hot Methane escaping under pressure won't form clathrate unless it is contained at depth. Some will certainly dissolve to form anoxic zones but most will bubble up and enter the atmosphere. Methane is considered ~25 times stronger than CO2 as a greenhouse gas over a 100 year time frame; but over 20 years it's GWP is 72 and over 8 years a large release should have a noticeable effect, possibly in the form of a rapid-onset extinction event. Given the short-term 72-to-1 greenhouse potential of CH4 to CO2, we can guesstimate that within a short period of time we will have tossed the equivalent of an extra year of CO2 into the atmosphere from the Gulf and it will persist for 8 years. If it raises the average global temperature by just ONE degree...it will be one degree too much. ~IF~ we are near the terminal limits of global climate change, whether it is Anthropogenic or simply nature's way of telling us we have exceeded our 'use by' date, we should have a definitive, quantifiable indication within the next eight years. -
kdkd at 09:41 AM on 21 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Doug #222 Indeed, the Bayseian technique (and the related but simpler Akaike information criterion) is a much better way of assessing hypotheses, than the standard hypothetico-deductive model. Especially for systems which have compleity, or where proper experiments can't be performed. -
moldyfox at 09:35 AM on 21 June 2010The albedo effect
NASA showed that even with a radiometer on the Moon, you could not come close to measuring the Earths global climate due to lack of coverage. Earthshine (science et al) is a globally discredited paper and should not be used by any climatologist trying to detect 0.3%/decade albedo and 0.5%/decade cloud climate feedback effects. On the other hand review 2009 G. Matthews, “In-flight Spectral Characterization and Calibration Stability Estimates for the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. Vol 26, Issue 9, pp 1685-1716. This explains how existing CERES data has significant calibration drifts (also which are correctable). Initial analysis shows corrected CERES data would show a slightly reducing albedo from 2000-2007 and a slightly increasing outgoing long wave. Read the paper and assess it yourself. -
thingadonta at 09:28 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
As usual you have left out the detail to create an inconsistent argument. AGW proponents claim that current warming will/is releasing methane from arctic areas to warm the Earth. If so, this must also occur at the end of Ice Ages, but it is never mentioned, so as not to get in the way of the 'c02 explanation' for the end of Ice Ages. Methane release must occur as the sun has warmed the earth since 1750-1950+, which is also conveniently not mentioned, so as to not get in the way of the c02 warming effect of the late 20th century. Also, the warmign oceans at the end of ice ages must store all that 'missing ocean heat', which is then slowly released, as AGW proponents claim it will do over the coming century. You also have ice albedo changes as Ice ages end, vegetation changes, and ocean current changes. All of these are not mentioned in the above article, so as to bolster the effects of C02, but they are usually mentioned whenever AGW proponents want to enhance projected T effects over the next century. Inconsistency anyone? -
moldyfox at 09:26 AM on 21 June 2010Measuring Earth's energy imbalance
The truth is out there CERES solar calibration was done using a reference radiometer on the ground, with 13 year old mirrors that were never measured, see peer reviewed 2009 G. Matthews, “In-flight Spectral Characterization and Calibration Stability Estimates for the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. Vol 26, Issue 9, pp 1685-1716. The climate records can be fixed and the imbalance is easily explainable by the paper given that the reference standard was never actually measured. Read it and assess for yourself. -
moldyfox at 09:19 AM on 21 June 2010How we know global warming is still happening
The truth is out there, before drawing conclusions on CERES I suggest you read 2009 G. Matthews, “In-flight Spectral Characterization and Calibration Stability Estimates for the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. Vol 26, Issue 9, pp 1685-1716. Be critical, I cannot fault it, and it explains CERES data currently contains significant calibration drifts so no climatologist should base any conclusions on it (plus its solar wavelength calibration is based on a 13 year old ground radiometer which has not been measured itself). In truth the albedo dropped slightly from 2000 to 2007, the outgoing long wave slightly increased. This agrees with models used by Trenberth etc. Read it and assess for yourself. -
MattJ at 09:13 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Reply to tobyjoyce #24: What? "politicians have little choice but to follow the scientific consensus?" But this claim is itself unscientific, and very much so. Politicians VERY rarely even pay attention to the consensus. Especially today's politicians, who have one ear tuned to the lobbyists, and the deafer ear turned to the polls. Have you really forgotten already how under Bush, the EPA turned a blind eye to all the scientific evidence, not only for AGW, but for the need for lower emission limits for a great many other pollutants as well? People were even fired for pointing out the need based on peer-reviewed scientific results. This trend was particularly bad under Bush, but it was not unique to his mis-reign. On the contrary: ignoring the real science is situation normal for politicians. It takes a concerted effort to get them to pay attention to it, an effort that is only occasionally successful. -
moldyfox at 09:08 AM on 21 June 2010It's albedo
The truth is out there Recent peer review of CERES in-flight calibration show that the CERES solar wavelength response drops in RAPs mode due to exposure to atomic oxygen. The data you show above was corrected using the rev 1 corrections described in 2009 G. Matthews, “In-flight Spectral Characterization and Calibration Stability Estimates for the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. Vol 26, Issue 9, pp 1685-1716. This also explains how those corrections did not account for the dimming of the on board lamps and hence over-corrected. CERES data properly calibrated would therefore show a slight drop in albedo from 2000 to 2007 as well as an increase in outgoing long wave flux (as Trenberth's climate models would expect). Read the paper and be critical, I could not fault it... -
Jim Eager at 08:51 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
MattJ, add the series 1.0, 0.9, 0.8, 0.7, 0.6, 0.5, 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1. Does it lead to a runaway value? -
marty at 08:20 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Sorry you beat me to it with comment 56. In response to which I would say that I agree that consumer society is an alienated affair of massaged desires offered as substitutes to real freedom. However we cannot reject the whole thing because we have seen massive technological development. And besides that's the nature of the society we live in. People enjoy their mobility and I like living in a global age. Obviously wastefulness is inefficient and anything that can increase efficiency seems like it's probably a good thing, but that doesn't mean that people can't have a new T.V. set. The way that things are going they will be virtually dematerialised in a few years anyway. Trying to keep this to the general topic of opening up the debate however I would say that low-carbon can be high-tech. There are also interesting low-tech options that needn't be seen as conservative or new-age or anti-progress. I'm quite excited by the idea of rammed -earth building for example, not because I'm particularly convinced by the AGW argument but just because it's an interesting idea. If the AGW hypothesis is indeed correct then we need to have a much more open approach to what we are going to do about it. -
Tom Dayton at 08:18 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
MattJ, you can create a spreadsheet containing positive feedback that does not run away. See my comment on another thread. -
Riccardo at 08:12 AM on 21 June 2010IPCC were wrong about Amazon rainforests
Just for info, the Sunday Times retracted his piece by Jonathan Leake. RealClimate has the story. -
MattJ at 08:04 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
The comment in the article, "A common misconception is that positive feedback always means runaway warming. This isn't necessarily the case. If the feedback is not too great, what happens is an amplification of initial warming with the temperatures eventually stabilising at a higher level." sounds misleading at best. Now I have to admit that my own memories of positive feedback in electronics circuits is somewhat vague, but what I recall is: in-phase positive feedback DOES cause unlimited growth, which is exactly why the circuit designer tunes the feedback loop to limit the gain/oscillation to a useful value. This is done in one of two ways 1) adjust the phase of the feedback or 2) decrease the gain of the positive feedback as the circuit output approaches the desired value. Which one of these is the best analogue for what happens with positive feedback in climate? In particular, I wonder in the citation above: once it "stabilizes at a higher level" is the feedback even still positive? Isn't it changing throughout that time, stabilizing only when the feedback drops, so that it is no longer 'positive'? -
Doug Bostrom at 07:53 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Marty, as others have said the science portion of this issue is not going to be settled in pubic debate. If you want to assess the "state of the science" and you're leery of the IPCC, see the recent National Academy report Advancing the Science of Climate Change, commissioned by Pres. Bush. You can read the NAS report here, online. (Just scroll down to see the freely readable version) As to your distaste for "green" solutions, don't overgeneralize. I for one would prefer using the ample fusion power sleeting down on us but short of a miracle of concerted effort I don't see us making that choice fast enough to swerve our depletion of fossil fuels away from the double disaster of resource exhaustion and serious lingering damage to our little skin of atmosphere. We'll end up with a messy and substantially inadequate combination of technologies, some archaic and anachronistic, some better, not enough to produce an optimum outcome. -
marty at 07:41 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
I don't really know what I think about the science, since as I said in my original post I've not had the benefit of a full public debate. I read the stuff from this site and I read the stuff from the sceptic side and I am simply not qualified to be able to decide. What would have been of help here is a debate among the experts from both sides where I can see who seems to make the most sense. But you are right in that even were I to become convinced of the case for AGW I don't think that the science translates straight into public policy. For one there is a great deal more potential impact on peoples lives being touted here than a vaccination program requires. Also it seems that there is an automatic assumption that the science translates straight into a green agenda, rather than say a develop our way out of it agenda that might include nuclear power for example, or hydro-electric dams and so forth. I think the idea of solar, wind, wave power etc is great but it seems to me that we need to provide for increased energy demands come what may to allow for economic expansion and social progress. I think that we have to look at all the alternatives here and not be too blinkered. That's basically the point that I'm making. If those convinced of AGW want to have a progressive rather than conservative impact on the world then I think that the debate needs opening up and not closing down with glib putdowns like Mythago's 'go and eat banknotes', response to my concerns about how the science meshes in with the economic realities. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:31 AM on 21 June 2010Astronomical cycles
I've had fun rummaging through Scafetta's citations, Riccardo. Indeed he does seem obsessed, makes a perilous leap from tentative indications to firm conclusions, indulging in rhetoric along the way. I suppose in way that's good; I dug into the citations because Scafetta's remarks about the IPCC report are factually wrong and led me to wonder what else he was misinterpreting or exaggerating . -
Riccardo at 07:16 AM on 21 June 2010Astronomical cycles
shawnhet, maybe i now can see why you are focusing there. As convinient to your position you do not like to see where the bases of his paper are and rather prefer to look at it upside down. As a general rule, the begining is were one should start, not the end. doug_bostrom, several scientists are currently looking at possible sources of decadal variability. I think that the work on the cycles could be valuable in this respect, but his sort of obsession to disprove AGW led him off road. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:11 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Marty, I'm not sure that access to sufficient food to eat, reliable shelter, education and health care automatically entails "massive industrialization." These things are found together, true, but in fact ample access to ever larger and more numerous televisions, an automobile for every 2 persons, hundreds of square feet of largely unoccupied domestic living space etc. per capita etc. are not really prerequisites for a happy and health life. In fact, such irrational choices could be said to retard improvement of the fundamental human condition. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:03 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Marty, would it be safe to say you don't have a problem with the science per se but rather the indications and clues it offers as regards the future direction of the human experience? -
johnd at 07:02 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Ian Forrester at 00:47 AM and Jim Eager at 04:31 AM. That same response to heat stress has always been the case as long as wheat has been grown. Unless you see the annual cycle of the seasons disappearing completely, the answer to avoiding heat stress would simply mean sowing earlier, rather than later as they did in the trials. Ongoing research into developing improved cultivars that perform better in cooler and wetter conditions, the winter wheats, has been progressing for several decades. -
Sean A at 06:52 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
Gallopingcamel, which of these points are problematic? 1) Orbital changes cause a slight warming. 2) This slight warming causes a little bit of CO2 to be released from the oceans, over hundreds of years. It takes about 800 years for the waters in the ocean to overturn. 3) Increased CO2 in the atmosphere leads to more warming. 4) Warming promotes evaporation and starts to melt ice sheets; increased water vapor and reduced albedo amplify the warming. 5) More warming leads to more CO2 being released from the oceans. We've got positive feedbacks now. Go to #3. 6) Eventually a new climate equilibrium is reached. In short, Milankovitch cycles start the warming, which eventually releases CO2 from the oceans (the 800 year lag), which leads to more warming, which in turn releases more CO2. The whole process takes thousands of years. See The 800 year lag in CO2 and What does the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming? Note that "CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway". How is any of this the least bit controversial? Which parts, specifically, do you disagree with? -
marty at 06:51 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
It's quite true that population growth tends to fall naturally but not directly for the reasons you give since you miss out the most important factor - prosperity. Unfortunately in the developing world poverty means that birthrates remain high. I personally find the equating of human lives and carbon a thoroughly abhorrent idea - see in my original post regarding the Malthusian conclusions drawn from the science. However, if you were to make such comparisons, and if you were to seek to reduce population growth in order to reduce carbon emissions then it might be argued that we need a massive industrialisation and development in the developing world as the solution to global warming. -
Doug Bostrom at 06:38 AM on 21 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Is it ironic that Scafetta's hypothetical but unexplained connection between climate and Earth-external ~60 year periodic forcings appears to hinge largely on acceptance of Mann et al's dendrochronology interpretations? See Scafetta's key cite of Long-period Cycles of the Sun's Activity Recorded In Direct Solar Data and Proxies (MG Ogurtsov, YA Nagovitsyn, GE Kocharov, H Jungner - Solar Physics 2002, full-text PDF) If Scafetta had confined himself to making this a review paper and eschewed forming conclusions about actual percentages of attribution it would have been a lot better. -
cynicus at 05:44 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
DrTom #4, Are you referring to last weeks news that perhaps for every barrel of oil 2900 cubic feet of natural gas is escaping from the well? Given the depth of the wellhead, most methane should dissolve before reaching the surface as described in a previous post about methane venting from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. If the estimates are correct then the amount of methane gas released is staggering. Will this gas ultimately be deposited as clathrate on the bottom of the GOM or will it slowly outgass to the atmosphere? -
Ned at 05:17 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Marty, nobody here has advocated imposing a global dictatorship or eugenics or a forced one-child policy. That's not a really helpful approach to discussion here; you would be better off developing arguments that don't involve the assumption that those who disagree with you are evil. Science is not a democracy. It's also not a dictatorship. Ideally, it's a meritocracy. In the long run, scientific claims that don't provide useful explanations of how the world works will lose out to those that do provide better explanations, though it can take decades (or longer) for this process to work out. That's separate from the question of how a society should respond to what science says. The question "If we double the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere, what consequences should we expect?" is a scientific question. The question "Are those consequences worth trying to avert, and at what price?" is a value judgment, and in a democracy the latter question is absolutely a subject for the democratic process. -
dhogaza at 05:15 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
"'Unfortunately, scientific differences cannot be decided by public debate and a vote. Nature is not a democracy!' Quite true. Nature is not a democracy. But I take it that you would not be in favour of a Green Dictator who would enforce green policies irrespective of people's needs and desires. Or maybe you would! ... As far as political considerations go maybe you might be in favour of some kind of un-elected scientocracy running the world but I certainly wouldn't. " How does Marty get from "scientific differences cannot be decided by public debate and a vote. Nature is not a democracy" to a conclusion that this implies a political dictatorship run by scientists! Marty - please get real. 1, Science is what it is. CO2 is going to do its thing regardless of your political beliefs. 2. The legitimate debate centers around *policy* - what to do about the implications of what science teaches us. Feel free to debate that to your heart's content. If you want to argue that the correct response is to do nothing, well, do so. -
Doug Bostrom at 05:13 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Marty, flamboyant speculations about eugenics and the like are fun rhetoric to write and read but they're not very useful. As we've learned over the past few hundred years, the combination of better education, better health care and better equality between sexes appears to naturally produce a decline in birth rates to more sensible levels. So there's no need for draconian laws such as China substituted for these improvements. We know this already. Your point about the impact of population is well taken, though. Meanwhile, as to the transference of scientific knowledge into the public policy arena, we've already seen numerous successful examples of this. Strong encouragement of vaccination so as to promote "herd immunity" from disease, public sewer and water systems, cases such as these were the upshot of scientific investigation leading to reasonably sound predictions not confirmed until public policy was adjusted to follow scientifically derived recommendations. In some cases (public water and sewer systems) temporary controversy arose as these improvements were implemented because they presented a threat to established commercial interests. Note that vaccination was a new market not posing a threat to existing commercial concerns and thus was embraced with relatively little controversy compared to public health initiatives such as sewer systems. This business of C02 is not really new as a general phenomenon. It happens to be particularly difficult to address as well as controversial because indeed we do have a serious dependency on fossil fuels and as well the commercial incentives for established players to maintain inertia are also very large. -
marty at 04:51 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
In response to my desire to see a public debate on AGW Tobyjoyce says 'Unfortunately, scientific differences cannot be decided by public debate and a vote. Nature is not a democracy!' Quite true. Nature is not a democracy. But I take it that you would not be in favour of a Green Dictator who would enforce green policies irrespective of people's needs and desires. Or maybe you would! Mythago says 'to not act to stop AGW is hardly 'ethical'' Ok. So given that having a child is just about the worst thing that anyone could do for their carbon footprint would you be in favour of some kind of eugenics program or something like China's one child policy? such measures would be highly effective and perfectly in line with the science, but would they be ethical? As far as political considerations go maybe you might be in favour of some kind of un-elected scientocracy running the world but I certainly wouldn't. Unfortunately this is just the kind of high-handed response to legitimate concerns about how the science integrates in with the world of human affairs that makes people go running to the sceptics or just throw their hands up in despair about the whole issue. Even if the science were all black and white - which it isn't - then the relationship between the science and what we, as a society, do about it is not at all black and white. -
Doug Bostrom at 04:49 AM on 21 June 2010Andrew Bolt distorts again
Speaking of leaky journalism, "Africagate," "Amazongate" are officially decommissioned by their publishers, both of whom relied on Jonathan Leake to lead them into credibility-sapping embarrassment. Hopefully the newspapers lead astray will see the pattern. Climbdowns covered here at Real Climate. -
Ned at 04:45 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Argus, as to why there are generally rainforests in the tropics and deserts around 30 N/S ... that's an effect of the Hadley Cells (moist air rising in the equatorial region expands and cools, causing precipitation, while the sinking air at the other end of the Hadley cell is dried out). Warmer climate conditions generally see a wider ITCZ and a poleward expansion of the whole system, so, for example, during the Holocene Optimum much of the Sahara was a little bit wetter, because of this poleward shift. Argus, I too remember discussion of using the a pipeline or canal to the Qattara Depression to generate hydropower and create an inland sea. There's some interesting history of it in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression One obvious issue would be the buildup of salt over time, left behind by the evaporating seawater. -
Jim Eager at 04:31 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Yes, Ian, but that's not exactly a part of the paper that Johnd would want to cite, because quite obviously it does not support his "CO2 is plant food" and higher CO2 concentration will be beneficial talking points, now does it? Quite the opposite, in fact, as it confirms what the climate science community has been saying all along: CO2 fertilization will be for naught in the face of increased heat stress and unpredictable precipitation and/or ground water supply. -
Sustainable2050 at 04:26 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Thanks! What about mr Carter's $ 60 billion figure; is that the true spend on climate research? Regards, Kees van der Leun -
Argus at 04:23 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
s1ck #31 - Thanks for an interesting comment about saturation vapor pressure and relative humidity! And also about dry areas vs humid areas. But why do we have these persistent dry areas? Why is Sahara a desert now (but not 9000 years ago)? And why is there mostly rain forests at similar latitudes around the world (except for the nearby Arabian Peninsula)? Is there anything we can do about it? Maybe there is! I remember reading an article in Nature in the 70's about a proposition to open up a tunnel to flood the Qattara Depression with water from the Mediterranean. It would provide hydropower for decades or longer, and eventually create a large lake (the size comparable to Lake Erie) in the desert. A lot of water would of course evaporate in the heat, creating clouds and rain within a much greater area. I think it sounds like a grand project, which 30-40 years ago did not seem so interesting, maybe, since Libya had so much oil anyway. But now? Reduce oil use, get electric power, improve the local climate, freshen up the Mediterranean. Why not try this? A climate experiment in real life.. -
Doug Bostrom at 04:18 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
GC, it's a rare and wonderful thing to see a premise so obviously wrong that we can all agree. This one's a bit more complicated but you're smart enough to tell us, what's your specific objection? Further reading here where John covered the lag before, also it's covered here at Real Climate as well as here at New Scientist. Same misunderstanding patiently explained by a bevy of authors. It's been in circulation for at least 5 years now, time to let it die peacefully. -
DrTom at 04:14 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
Science is never settled; but once in awhile an event occurs which gives us the opportunity to test some of our hypotheses. The Gulf of Mexico disaster is releasing ~2 to ~3 million gallons of oil every 24 hours depending upon who does the estimate. John Kessler at A&M estimates that 40% of the leak is Methane. I think one needs to add 40% to account for the methane; in either case, I believe enough Methane has leaked into the atmosphere in a short enough period of time to generate a blip at best which will be difficult to explain away as non-Anthropogenic. -
gallopingcamel at 03:59 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
I was with you guys in doubting Hocker's assertion that temperature is driving CO2 concentration in the atmosphere over the short term. Now you are asserting that over the medium term (700,000 years) that CO2 is somehow a significant factor in the Ice Age cycle even though it lags temperature by ~900 years. Give it up, your convoluted arguments don't make sense. -
paulgrace at 03:58 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
I think there is a general failure on Science's part to provide a clear explanation, to wit, We know: CO2 causes warming; CO2 is really high; and Warming isn't that bad. Therefore science is wrong about something. It's the lag of warming behind CO2 that isn't clear, and that creates misunderstanding and doubt in the larger message. An analogy might be helpful, but find one message and repeat it often and succinctly. A supertanker analogy might make it easier to visualize, and this is not a good one, but I hope a clear explanation could be crafted-- Earth's climate is slow to change, because it is massive, and many inputs drive changes. CO2 is one driver, and a very powerful one. Imagine the climate to be a huge supertanker. CO2 is pushing the engines faster and faster toward a hotter climate. Today, the climate is already measurably more extreme. Science is warning us to pull back the throttles before the ship runs aground. Even if we cut the throttles to zero today, it will take time for the ship to slow, and the longer we wait, the faster the tanker will be going. -
snapple at 03:53 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
NOAA just had a big article about how warm it has been. They discussed each area separately. I put it on my site and dolled it up a bit. Happy Fathers' Day. http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2010/06/noaa-may-global-temperature-is-warmest.html -
shawnhet at 03:42 AM on 21 June 2010Astronomical cycles
Riccardo:"thanks for quoting the entire paragraph quoted just in part by me. Though, I do not understand why you refer to the conclusions and not the premises of which i'm talking about. Apparently you continue to shift your attention to something else. True that toward the end Scafetta extrapolated his curves but still the trend comes before his analysis of the cycles. You should not overlook it because his building would collapse without them." Riccardo, again, respectfully, you are very confused here. I referred to the section I posted last time, because it showed how you were wrong about what Scafetta was doing. You now are moving the goalposts to talk about his premises. It still doesn't mean what you think it means. The fact remains despite the fact that you can (arbitrarily) set n to whatever you want doesn't mean that you will be able to *reproduce* the observed temperature changes of the last 150 years(alone or in combination with some other effect). There is no point IMO with comparing hypothetical trends that do not match the observed records to ones that do (at least potentially). As I have said before, this is apples and oranges. Cheers, :) -
Doug Bostrom at 03:35 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Odd coincidence w/regard to Argus' question and some of the replies, this popped up while I was browsing newspapers. Return of the rainy season in China: Earlier this year, south-east China endured its worst drought in living memory, but in the past week, some places have been inundated with three times the average rain for this period. Weather or climate? Who knows, but it's in keeping w/predictions. Warmer air becomes turgid with moisture, refuses to give it up and then -bam- out it comes when the temperature is finally forced to drop by adiabatic cooling or whatever cause. Oops. Reading further in the article: Southern China experiences flooding almost every summer, but the pattern may be changing. According to the Beijing climate centre, extreme weather events have increased in recent years. It says droughts are becoming longer and rainfall comes in more intense and damaging bursts. China devastated by floods The juxtaposition of the architecture seen in this photo with such a quantity of floodwater suggest that indeed this is an unusual amount of flooding: Floodwater swells past houses in Xiqin township -
cce at 03:17 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the tropospheric hot spot
I compiled this list of papers, with the relevent quotes, that detect enhanced tropical troposphere warming within observations. Two are analysese of radiosonde temperature data, one is based on the thermal wind data, and two are based on the satellite MSU data. "In the tropical upper troposphere, where the predicted amplification of surface trends is largest, there is no significant discrepancy between trends from RICH–RAOBCORE version 1.4 and the range of temperature trends from climate models. This result directly contradicts the conclusions of a recent paper by Douglass et al. (2007)." http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0442/21/18/pdf/i1520-0442-21-18-4587.pdf "Insofar as the vertical distributions shown in Fig. 3 are very close to moist adiabatic, as for example predicted by GCMs (Fig. 6), this suggests a systematic bias in at least one MSU channel that has not been fully removed by either group [RSS & UAH]." http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~stevensherwood/sondeanal.pdf "The observations at the surface and in the troposphere are consistent with climate model simulations. At middle and high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, the zonally averaged temperature at the surface increased faster than in the troposphere while at low latitudes of both hemispheres the temperature increased more slowly at the surface than in the troposphere." http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n6/abs/ngeo208.html "We find that tropospheric temperature trends in the tropics are greater than the surface warming and increase with height." http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~qfu/Publications/grl.fu.2005.pdf "At middle and high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, the zonally averaged temperature at the surface increased faster than in the troposphere while at low latitudes of both hemispheres the temperature increased more slowly at the surface than in the troposphere." http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~kostya/Pdf/VinnikovEtAlTempTrends2005JD006392.pdf -
Argus at 03:04 AM on 21 June 2010Watts it like at a climate skeptic speakers event?
Re: Moderator's response to my comment - Thank you, I will be an interested reader of a possible future post around rain and drought. Re: SNRatio#28 - More of all extremes, as a result of increasing volumes and greater statistical variance, is an important aspect. I think we have to continue observing and asking questions for quite a while before we know. Re: SNRatio#29 - I thought it was OK here to question, and discuss, claims that were made in the top post... Re: dhogaza - Snowpack is a new word for me (my native language is not English), but I certainly see your point. In my country we have a lot of that, and a lot of hydro-electric power as well... -
Chris Colose at 02:42 AM on 21 June 2010How Jo Nova doesn't get the CO2 lag
Note that to get the magnitude of the glacial-interglacial CO2 feedback, you need other feedback processes such as wind-driven mining of CO2 out of the deep ocean. The solubility feedback itself is relatively weak and somewhat offset by the salinity-gas feedback. See this post and the Sigman/Boyle and Anderson et al. pieces linked inside. -
Riccardo at 02:02 AM on 21 June 2010Astronomical cycles
shawnhet, thanks for quoting the entire paragraph quoted just in part by me. Though, I do not understand why you refer to the conclusions and not the premises of which i'm talking about. Apparently you continue to shift your attention to something else. True that toward the end Scafetta extrapolated his curves but still the trend comes before his analysis of the cycles. You should not overlook it because his building would collapse without them. And you also persist in claiming i'm proposing a different trend. Maybe I should repeat it once more, I do not propose any. On the contrary, I say that no trend can be used without a reason when the results strongly depends on it, let alone extrapolate it. You fell into the mistake that even Scaffeta warned against. HumanityRules, becaause they're relatively small deviations and because they do not repeat cyclically, thus pointing to something that happened or not properly accounted for in those limited time ranges. -
HumanityRules at 01:39 AM on 21 June 2010Astronomical cycles
82 Riccardo "I'm not that impressed by the mismatch" Why?
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