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Phila at 04:56 AM on 15 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
#1 Geo Guy "In the end, reliance on the IPCC reports is simply not realistic - perhaps that is why the UN has initiated an investigation into the methodology and processes used by the Panel?" Actually, I think the reason they've done this is because it's necessary in order to counter the politically motivated attacks against them, even though they've made fewer demonstrable errors in their massive documents than the average "skeptic" makes in a single 100-word blog comment, and should therefore be far more credible by the skeptics' own alleged standards. In any case, that kind of critical self-examination and self-correction is precisely what makes the IPCC process scientific. And the lack of it is exactly why "skeptical" arguments never die, no matter how many times they've been debunked (cf. "hiding the decline"). -
johnd at 04:38 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
ProfMandia at 13:17 PM on 13 June, 2010, more relevant to any comparison is that between the northern and southern hemispheres. There is a relatively significant difference between temperatures and understanding and explaining that difference would be of more value, yet it's been completely ignored in this thread. Why is that? -
Gordon1368 at 03:50 AM on 15 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
@#2 philc I think you misapprehend how the word "consensus" is used. It does not mean that the scientists agreed to agree. In this case, the consensus is a result of scientists from many different institutions and disciplines, from all over the world, competing against each other for resources and recognition, and using different methods independently coming to similar conclusions. Therefore it is a powerful indicator of validity, just the opposite of what you conclude. -
Riccardo at 03:34 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Berényi Péter, in line with what skywatcher wrote, I have to clarify two misunderstandings. First, I have no doubt that at high population density the UHI effect tend to saturate. Second, I do not claim that UHI is non existent nor negligibly small; indeed, all the surface temperature datasets correct for it. Go back to the figure you showed in comment #10. The problem with Specer findings (and you) is the trend in the low population density regime. It is claimed that already at 5/Km2, i.e. one family in one Km2, already produce a warming of 0.35 °C. Add three more families in the same Km2 and it jumps to 0.8 °C. This is an extraordinary claim, i'd say. You seem to suggest that the metadata define as rural sites that should not be considered as such and quoted Barrow as an example. At first I did not want to comment on this extreme cherry picking, one particular site in a particular environment and in a particular season (note that they detect a negative UHI effect in summer). But let me spend a few words just to show how far one may mislead the readers. I guess you did not read the paper nor check where the met station is in Barrow. The infamous 2.2 °C were measured by a set of ad hoc thermometers placed inside the village; they wanted to assess the problem of building stability due to permafrost melting. The metereological stations, on the contrary, are outside the village, at the airport for a while and now even further away as part of the Climate Reference Network. Should we presume that they give the same reading as the thermometers inside the village in the season of largest energy use and soil-air temperature difference? One last thing. I don't care if you may or may not do the calculations, which I consider wrong, from the data I show. What that graph shows is that when calculations are done properly and with population densities wildly different, we get an overall difference in the trends relatively small. Your try to assign the measured global warming to the UHI effect ("Not much warming is left" back in your comment #10) is unsupported. It is really surprising that you try to revive the now largely abandoned mantra of the UHI effect. -
skywatcher at 01:59 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
@97, Berenyi, I doubt anyone here is suggesting that teh UHI effect does not exist. What they are doubting is that it has changed in the way you suggest. But take that article you refer to: The UHI effect is only significant in winter, and the annual average UHI is much smaller (it's possibly even negative in summer, though the authors attribute this to other effects). But you still have the problem of assessing how, in each case (seeing as how you like the details), the UHI is able to change substantially with a rising population. The supposed relationship does not take into account any other factors, as Gneiss pointed out, and can be subjected to a more rigorous analysis. But as the UHI is clearly a local effect (your reference shows this nicely), quite how does it drive the global temperature rise as measured by satellites, or the loss of sea ice, or the retreat of glaciers, or the myriad other observed warming effects in areas far from urbanisation? That's the whole point of John Cook's post. Far more likely, given the multiple independent lines of evidence, is that your UHI hypothesis is incorrect, and you are failing to apply a 'skeptical' mind to the single blog post you're using as evidence... c'est la vie... -
Ned at 01:58 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
BP, my apologies, I read that sentence ("therefore temperature difference between two spots ...")carelessly and leapt to an incorrect conclusion about what you were doing. Fortunately that was irrelevant to the rest of my point, however, and I stand by the comment that your proposed UHI effect (0.29C/century over land) works out to approximately 5 or 6 percent of the current global trend, whether measured using satellites or surface observations. -
Berényi Péter at 01:50 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#94 chris at 00:06 AM on 15 June, 2010 The notion that geothermal heat flux has made a significant contribution to the recent increases in deep ocean heat content [*] isn't supportable without evidence that the geothermal heat flux has coincidentally increased enormously during the same period Yes. But geothermal heat flux is still an important driver of OHC, if not on short timescales like this. The oceans have to get rid of that heat somehow, otherwise it would warm them up at a 0.0002°C/year rate. If all the sea ice would have gone (as it was during Eocene times), surface waters got warm even in arctic seas, downwelling of water close to ice edge would stop (due to lack of ice edge), in just a hundred thousand years (which is nothing on geological timescale) even abyssal waters would warm up to 20°C. In half a million years the entire ocean would be boiling. Actually it would not. Circulation would resume long before that, at a higher than present day temperature. -
monckhausen at 01:50 AM on 15 June 2010Common graphical tricks and the Medieval Warm Period
End of Lambs T-t graph: mentioned to be around 1920. I got another value of 1905. Does anybody know the sources of the two values? -
Berényi Péter at 01:27 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#93 Ned at 23:58 PM on 14 June, 2010 Perhaps you meant to write "as the ratio of log population density is constant..."? For God's sake, NO! Do I have to explain logarithms? (logarithm of quotient is the difference of logarithms, at least last time I've checked it was that way) -
Berényi Péter at 01:16 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#91 Riccardo at 22:30 PM on 14 June, 2010 you should admit that the extraordinary conclusion is a logarithmic dependence of UHI effect on population starting already at very low values Well, you have not mentioned so far you think the logarithmic dependence breaks down for low population density values. If this is what you claim, you should also supply an alternative hypothesis about the approximate form of the function in this range. However, before you venture to do that, you may prefer to have a look at this article: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY Int. J. Climatol. 23: 1889–1905 (2003) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/joc.971 THE URBAN HEAT ISLAND IN WINTER AT BARROW, ALASKA Hinkel at al. Barrow, Alaska is a fairly northern (71°17′44″N) village, with 4581 inhabitants in 2008. As the GHCN criterion for a township being flagged "rural" is to have less than 10,000 inhabitants, it is classified rural indeed (WMO No. 70026). In spite of this Hinkel at al. 2003 have found an average winter (December-March) UHI of 2.2°C there (relative to the surrounding countryside). Therefore we may safely conclude there exists at least one rural GHCN site where UHI is not negligible at all. Data show otherwise, even when they are categorized according to population density as in the graph I showed before (didn't you notice?) You mean this figure, I suppose. I don't see how is it related to the (non)logarithmic dependence of UHI. It has two categories, less than 2/km2 and more than 500/km2, but nothing about how the distribution of stations in each category has changed over time. Without this information nothing can be calculated, therefore based solely on this graph the logarithmic hypothesis can neither be confirmed nor refuted. You may also study this one. Atmospheric Environment Volume 7, Issue 8, August 1973, Pages 769-779 doi:10.1016/0004-6981(73)90140-6 City size and the urban heat island T.R. Oke Unfortunately I have no access to it right now, but he studies settlements ranging from ten thousand to two million inhabitants and has found logarithmic dependence of UHI in this range with ΔTUHI = log10(pop) where pop is population of the city. It is equivalent to an UHIE of 0.22°C/doubling (of city population). As area also increases with increasing population, the rate of increase in population density is lower. Therefore if Oke's formula is accepted, about 70% of 20th century warming is accounted for by UHI. Of course he has not studied settlements below 10,000, but his formula still gives a 2.92°C UHI for the lower end. I guess his values are a bit high, but as the Barrow, Alaska case shows, not an order of magnitude higher than reality. A UHI of 0.16°C/doubling (of population density) still looks like a safe bet. -
chris at 00:49 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
HumanityRules at 14:25 PM on 14 June, 2010 "On changes in seasons and phenological changes it seems that species have always had to adapt to climate induced ecological change. I think it's uncontroversial to say the temp record of the 20th century is a combination of a natural cycle with a warming trend imposed upon it? I was trying to find the amplitude of that natural cycle. It looks to be ~0.3-0.5oC over 15years. So species are always having to adapt to change, in fact Darwin called it Adaption" That's incorrect on several levels: The globally averaged amplitude of natural cycles (or quasiperiodic variations in surface temperature arising from oscillations in the climate system) is likely in the region of 0.1-0.2 oC (see e.g. [*] and [**]). A recent analysis of the contributions of these natural oscillations concludes that they have made near zero contribution to the warming since the start of the 20th century [**]. Your final point confuses (i) the component of species "fitness" that encompasses somatic or phenotypic compatibility with the range of (climate) variability within their ecosystem (one could call this "adaptedness"), and (ii) "adaptation" in the Darwinian sense, which involves the (genetic) acquisition of phenotypic traits that increase the fitness of a species with respect to a particular ecosystem. There is no question that "fit" species are (by definition) compatible with the range of meteorological diversity within the particular climate regime they inhabit. The point at issue is the ability of species to adapt to changing environmental conditions as climate regimes shift rapidly under the influence of global warming. Species that are adapted to a particular climate regime with its inherent variability, are likely to be poorly adapted to a considerably different climate regime. They're unlikely to be able to acquire the adaptations by which they might retain fitness, since Darwinian adaptation is a slow process. Therefore under rapidly changing climate conditions species migrate (as is being observed in the real world) or if this is not possible, they may likely become extinct. [*] Zhang, R., T. L. Delworth, and I. M. Held (2007), Can the Atlantic Ocean drive the observed multidecadal variability in Northern Hemisphere mean temperature? Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L02709 [**] K. L. Swanson et al. (2009) Long-term natural variability and 20th century climate change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 106, 16120-16123. -
Ned at 00:26 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Global land+ocean temperature trends since 1979 are +1.6C/century for RSS, GISS, HADCRUT, and NCDC (or +1.3C/century for UAH). I don't see any way that the satellite records could be influenced by the UHI effect. But in any case, even a rather inflated estimate of +0.29C/century UHI effect on land would be +0.08C/century globally (land is 29% of the world). So BP's estimate of the UHI effect would be 5% of the current global temperature trend (for RSS, GISS, etc.) or 6% (for UAH). Note that that "29% land" figure includes vast expanses of completely uninhabited areas in Antarctica, Greenland, the Sahara, etc. I'm not sure how much effect UHI has there, but that's all included in this 5% (or 6%) figure. -
chris at 00:06 AM on 15 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Ken Lambert at 23:22 PM on 14 June, 2010 "Since we are talking 0.9W/sq.m for Dr Trenberth's TOA imbalance driver of AGW, a 0.3 - 0.5 W/sq.m figure would be a significant component." It would be if it were a significant number. In fact it isn't. It's around 0.028W.m^2 globally averaged. Flanner, M. G. (2009), Integrating anthropogenic heat flux with global climate models Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L02801 The notion that geothermal heat flux has made a significant contribution to the recent increases in deep ocean heat content [*] isn't supportable without evidence that the geothermal heat flux has coincidentally increased enormously during the same period. Remember that the dissipation of heat from the earth interior to the surface is expected to occur at a rather constant rate given by the constant (in the 10^4-10^6 year timescale) generation of heat by radioactive decay and the temperature gradient to the surface. Globally averaged this amounts to around 0.1 W.m^2. There's no evidence that this has increased dramatically (i.e. doubled!) during the last few decades. ----------------------------------------- [*] the work of Greg Johnson and his collaborators is a good starting point; e.g.: Johnson GC et al. (2006) Recent western South Atlantic bottom water warming Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L14614 Johnson GC et al. (2007) Recent bottom water warming in the Pacific Ocean J. Climate 20, 5365-5375. Johnson GC (2008) Warming and Freshening in the Abyssal Southeastern Indian Ocean J. Climate 21, 5351-5363. Ozaki H et al. (2009) Long-term bottom water warming in the north Ross Sea J. Oceanograph. 65, 235-244. Johnson GC et al. (2009) Deep Caribbean Sea warming Deep Sea Research. 1 –Oceanograph. Res. 56, 827-834. Johnson GC (2008) Reduced Antarctic meridional overturning circulation reaches the North Atlantic Ocean Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L22601 -
Ned at 23:58 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Berényi Péter writes: This line of reasoning is so simple, obvious and self-explanatory, that claims about UHI not having any significant influence on historical surface temperature reconstructions should be considered extraordinary. BP, with all due respect, I have repeatedly pointed out your tendency to un-skeptically latch on to poorly tested ideas and hastily conclude that they falsify large swathes of the scientific consensus. This latest comment of yours is a case in point. It just seems so confused that one hardly knows where to begin. BP writes: UHI turns out to be a surprisingly linear function of logarithmic population density, therefore temperature difference between two spots would not change due to UHI as long as the ratio of local population density is constant between them. First, unless I'm missing something, this "turns out to be" is based heavily on one blog post by Roy Spencer. And the rest of that sentence makes no sense! Perhaps you meant to write "as the ratio of log population density is constant..."? Then there's this: With an UHI constant of 0.16°C/doubling average warming due to UHI effect in GHCN was 1.83×0.16°C ~ 0.29°C, meaning 45% of 20th century warming as measured by the Global Historical Climatology Network is due to Urban Heat Island Effect and has no climatological significance whatsoever. Where does that 45% come from? It appears to me that you're comparing your estimate of an "average" UHI effect to the 20th century global temperature trend. But 70% of the world is ocean! So even your excessively high estimate of UHI would actually account for only about 13% of 20th century warming. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 23:46 PM on 14 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part IV– Medieval Warm Period?
Marcus says: "As to the methodology used-what's the accuracy? Whats the rate of deviation around the mean? So basically you're basing you FAITH in a strong MWP on a single paper, using a largely untested method focused on a single region of the Earth during the Summer months of the year. Yet you accuse *others* of cherry picking! Hilarious!" Chris, in turn, says: "It’s simply unacceptable to choose OLD papers that seem to support a position without considering subsequent work, or to pretend that a tiny set of papers that doesn’t represent the "scientific consensus", does. Ignorance [...](and contrived ignorance) is no excuse whatsoever." I have (for You)a "second cherry" ... Also very "fresh", not OLD, papers: Late Holocene climate dynamics: A high-resolution sediment core from Maxwell Bay, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, AGU, Hass et. al. XII.2009: "Comparison with Antarctic, hemispherical, and global temperature reconstructions reveals clear signals of the MWP, the LIA and the post-LIA climate recovery. Class 1 sediments dominate the warmer MWP, Class 2 sediments dominate the colder LIA. The Maxwell Bay record shows climate signals that are partly UNIQUE to either one of the hemispheres. Thus, it RESEMBLES BEST THE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE RECONSTRUCTION [it a propos: "methodology used-what's the accuracy"]." "Apparently, the MWP started earlier in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) than in the Northern Hemisphere suggesting that THE SOURCE FOR THE WARMING MIGHT ALSO BE IN THE SH. [...]" Well, Well ... "In contrast to the MWP the timing of the LIA appears to be largely synchronous between the hemispheres. Generally finer sediments clearly mark the end of the LIA. However no stronger meltwater influence can be detected; THE CONDITIONS OF THE AD 1970S RESEMBLE [?!] THOSE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MWP." Well, Well ... Fact: Monckton (and Abraham, Marcus, Chris too ?) should know this (and previous - von Gunten et al.) work - papers ... -
john mcmanus at 23:25 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
At the end of "206 Bones", Kathy Riecks urges better standard in forensics. She is especially critical of "experts" used by police and the courts with few qualifications. An anthropology survey course does not make one an anthropologist. Right Kathy, but isn't science under attack across many disciplines. Creationist are still carrying torches and looking for Darwin. Geology is denied by " young earthers". Vaccines are blamed for all sorts of problems and medical science is under attack by fringes angry about stem cell research. All Doctors are regarded as fakes by some. Some seem motivated by problems understanding and dealing with real life, but the motives of others are darker. There is money, power and fame to be had in denial. Deny evolution, open a church and the bucks come rolling in. Write that vaccines kill and your book will sell. Deny climate change and get a job on Inhoff's staff. Lies about the "trick" attract followers to your website. Surface stations to close to hot air, sell your weather services. I am sure you can think of more examples. Climate science is under attack, but when seen in light of the number of people willing to deny rather than read a single article we see the pit bulls will never be more than a loud and frustrated rump puzzled by their lack of influence. -
Ken Lambert at 23:22 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
BP #89 BP I found a reference some time ago (since lost) with an estimate of waste heat from industrial and domestic processes released into the atmosphere across the continental USA. From memory the number was between 0.3 and 0.5W/sq.m. (I could be wrong here) Since waste heat is a component (probably a large one) of the UHI, do you have any information on an estimate of this number? Since we are talking 0.9W/sq.m for Dr Trenberth's TOA imbalance driver of AGW, a 0.3 - 0.5 W/sq.m figure would be a significant component. Also note that I think that a large chunk (60%) of Willis' heat equivalent of 0.1W/sq.m OHC increase in the deep oceans below 700m has been found by your geothermal reference. See Post #77 here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=77&&n=202 -
werecow at 22:58 PM on 14 June 2010Podcasts, interviews and Monckton bashing
I've been looking for a podcast like Irregular Climate for ages, really enjoying it. I agree that a "discussion style" podcast works better than a solo one, though, so that's a welcome addition. And it's fun to put the voice to the blogger too, John. -
Riccardo at 22:30 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Berényi Péter, we are going to be circular. Indeed you're maintaining the point you made before which, in my opinion, is untenable for the reasons said before that it's not worth repeating. Given that you talked about extrordinary evidence, you should admit that the extraordinary conclusion is a logarithmic dependence of UHI effect on population starting already at very low values. Data show otherwise, even when they are categorized according to population density as in the graph I showed before (didn't you notice?). It's pretty hard to explain how is it possible to have a diverging effects on going to lower population densities and indeed Spencer didn't even try in the blog post and you didn't question but blindly accepted it. We all are still waiting for the extraordinary evidence. -
Ned at 22:17 PM on 14 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Arkadiusz, there are essentially three large short-term CO2 fluxes in the climate system (ignoring slow processes). * The surface ocean/atmosphere CO2 flux. This is pretty well understood in its broad details (Takahashi 2009, Sabine 2004). There is a clear consensus that under current conditions the ocean is a net sink for CO2, not a net source. * The anthropogenic land use & fossil fuel CO2 flux. This is likewise well understood in its broad details, and we know that we are emitting an amount larger than the observed atmospheric increase in CO2. The oceans are taking up part of this increase. * The atmosphere/terrestrial biosphere (incl. soils) CO2 flux. This is the most difficult to characterize and has the most uncertainty. Much of the interannual variability in the long-term accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by variability in this flux. However, simple accounting tells us that the terrestrial biosphere has to be a long-term net sink for CO2 because we know how much we're producing, we know how much is accumulating in the atmosphere, we have a pretty good idea of how much is going into the ocean ... and there isn't any other sink. So the uncertainty in the details of how terrestrial sinks process carbon isn't really relevant to the larger topic here. If someone were to ask "What fraction of the observed CO2 increase in the atmosphere is due to anthropogenic sources?" the correct answer is "More than 100% of it." -
Argus at 22:09 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Comment to sign number three: Seasons are shifting Whereas I am sure there lies an enormous effort behind compiling the report quoted (for first flowering index), I think that as support for climate warming this is third rate science. A big issue is made out of the claim that spring comes some 3 days earlier now than 250 years ago, without noticing that, within this long time period, flowering varies between day 120 and day 170! Looking at 25 year averages, there are maxima and minima that differ more than ten days from each other, but the only thing the graph is used for, is comparing the first and the last 25 year average. What I find more interesting is that the first 90 years show a trend upwards (later spring) by almost 10 days, then there is a solid trend downwards for the following 70 years (down 10 days), which is then followed by a marked trend upwards for 50 years. In the last decades the average moves down again. All this really tells me, is that the first flowering index goes up and down, as centuries pass! -
Berényi Péter at 22:03 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#84 Riccardo at 15:52 PM on 14 June, 2010 if our best estimate of the difference in the trend between rural and urban stations is 0.05 °C/century [...] there's no much room for a big UHI effect however calculated. This is what those data tell. That's not true. Those data only tell us effect of growing population density on surface temperature is similar at sites classified either "rural" or "urban" by GHCN. It tells nothing about the absolute magnitude of the effect. Population density distribution tends to be self-similar (fractal) over scales spanning several orders of magnitude.
As population density increases, this structure is expected to be approximately preserved. That is, while population increases much faster in densely populated ("urban") areas than in sparsely populated ("rural") ones, the ratio of population density between different regions only changes slowly.
Should UHI effect be a quasi-linear function of local population density, your claim ("there's no much room for a big UHI effect") would certainly be justified.
But it is not the case. UHI turns out to be a surprisingly linear function of logarithmic population density, therefore temperature difference between two spots would not change due to UHI as long as the ratio of local population density is constant between them.
The ratio of two functions being constant does not impose a restriction whatsoever on the rate of change of the functions themselves.
The only question remaining is the magnitude of the UHI effect expressed as temperature change for a doubling of local population density.
If your number (0.05°C/cy) for UHI trend is adopted, it implies a local UHI effect magnitude of 0.027°C/doubling on average, because global population density has doubled almost twice during the past century (quadrupled in 109 years).
With such a low UHI constant the Urban Heat Island Effect would be unobservable, even with sensitive instruments. It would simply get lost in weather noise. Your figure means if population density in city center is a thousand times more (and that's stretching the limits) than in the surrounding countryside, temperature difference between the two places (the UHI effect) would be around 0.27°C.
In fact one neither have to be a scientist to detect UHI, nor instruments are needed. It can be felt. By anyone traveling from countryside to city or back. And that means the effect is huge, at some places it can be as large as 3-4°C for population density differences considerably less than a thousandfold.
Therefore my estimate of 0.16°C/doubling is a conservative one.
World population has doubled about 1.83 times during 20th century. Those people had to settle somewhere. But it was never their priority to avoid GHCN stations at all cost. Therefore population density around some GHCN stations doubled less than 1.83 times, and more around others. On average population density has increased as the global rate even if a GHCN station happened to be nearby.
With an UHI constant of 0.16°C/doubling average warming due to UHI effect in GHCN was 1.83×0.16°C ~ 0.29°C, meaning 45% of 20th century warming as measured by the Global Historical Climatology Network is due to Urban Heat Island Effect and has no climatological significance whatsoever.
This line of reasoning is so simple, obvious and self-explanatory, that claims about UHI not having any significant influence on historical surface temperature reconstructions should be considered extraordinary.
And as we all know the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.
-
Riccardo at 21:41 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
RSVP, "science is about being objective", indeed. So why you ask to provide better reasons? Science gave the picture and the probable outcome, it's now a political choice to act or not. We are free to choose to eventually destroy the planet, something like 'live (we) and let die (the others)' or 'after me the flood'. It's just a political choice. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 21:35 PM on 14 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
"It's important not to confuse these two quite different processes." Consent ..., - but the problem of CO2 sources, strongly associated with real RF CO2 - and it is difficult to speak of even a partial consensus - that is unacceptable. - "Volcano" in 1992 / 3, shows us that this "first" RF process - caused by anthropogenic CO2 excess - may be very insignificant, as in 1992 / 3, a small amount of added CO2 to the atmosphere (circa 0, 5 -1 ppmv), and the second process - a continuous rise in temperature of land in the last decades of the twentieth century - by affecting the breathing of the biosphere - can be decisive. Simply put: 0.5-1 ppm may not result in average growth average of 2.5 ppm. They must be natural causes. My "long comment" is to show that: - Natural warming came first and is responsible for most of the increase of CO2 and start a positive feedback of "living" CO2 in the atmosphere, - Next to the ocean have a much more powerful natural sources of CO2 - which react (warming) more strongly than the ocean. -
RSVP at 21:11 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
Perhaps Science is failing by not providing better reasons to limit greenhouse gas emmisions. I have always felt that altering the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere cannot be a good thing, and that we should definitely do all we can to conserve nature. This wishful thinking however does not make AGW any more real, since science is about being objective not emotional. -
RSVP at 20:57 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
"What is rather incredible, however, is that Theil makes his arguments without a single reference to the well funded and documented campaigns that have been launched by special interest against our scientific establishments." Yes, but sitting on one's hands (i.e. blank checks for Acedemia) could actually be more expensive and irresponsible. -
RSVP at 20:48 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
<<"Marcus at 15:45 PM on 14 June, 2010 HR, you claim that because most extinctions in Earth's history are natural, that we should simply ignore those extinctions caused by human actions.<< On the other hand, acting to conserve nature is about as unnatural as you can get. When you observe animals in nature, they are directed soley by instinct, not their rationale; and yet conservationists appeal to Man's particular faculty to reason in order to work in harmony with nature. The most natural thing would be to let this situation just "takes it course" come hell or high water. (i.e., hell in the form of global warming. High water, rising sea levels). Lurking behind AGW is this idea of a time bomb that will catch us off guard sometime in the future, and moreover, that the last thing to trust in in Nature and God's Providence. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 20:32 PM on 14 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
#Berényi Péter "... and up to 250 inches (6 metres) in Ukraine ..." Schlesinger 1991, Lieth and Whittaker - 1975 - Tropical rain forest, the rate of C accumulation in soil: 2-3-2,5 g C/m2; taiga - 11,7-15,3 g C/m2. The average content of organic C in soil (kg / m 2): Tropical rainforest - 10.4; grass communities: 19.2 ... Global Change: Effects on Coniferous Forests and Grasslands, Breymeyer et al. 1996: “Net annual C fixation in tropical tree-grass systems is about 7.6 x 10 Pg C yr-1, with a possible range between 3.2 and 10.8 x 10 Pg C yr -1 . This is about half of the net annual C fixation attributed to tropical forests.” “ However, with our present state of knowledge globally it is unclear whether the C stock in savanna vegetation and soil is increasing or decreasing, since opposing processes predominate in different areas of the world." However ... "The tropical savannas, grasslands and woodlands [dry] HAVE A LARGE POTENTIAL for either sequestration or release of C, depending on future land management practices, climate and atmospheric composition." -
Argus at 20:18 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
About the second point (signs of warming): Sea levels are rising Figure 3 in the post: Visual depictions of Sea Level Rise shows that, while the sea level is mostly rising, in large parts of the Pacific it is actually falling. A lake can have a higher level in the end where water runs in, and a lower level where it runs out, but how can an ocean over 15 years show rising levels in one part, and at the same time falling levels in another part? Can we trust such results? Other than for short time variations (due to atmospheric pressure) the ocean level should be one and the same, I think. Water flows until differences are evened out.Response: Ocean level isn't completely homogenous - thermal expansion means cooler areas of the ocean are lower and warmer areas are warmer. What we have with global sea levels are two independent measurements - tidal gauges and satellites - giving consistent results. -
snapple at 20:12 PM on 14 June 2010Request for mainstream articles on climate
I don't really understand how to submit articles, but the Telegraph had a real sour-grapes article. Mostly, Gerald Warner predicts that the e-mail Review is about to be published, but he also makes snide, ignorant remarks about "hide the decline." Here is the article: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100043200/third-climategate-report-imminent-expect-a-shortage-of-whitewash-in-stores-this-weekend/ He got his scoop from a blog, but the Review said they would report in the spring, and it is almost summer. I wrote my opinion here. http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2010/06/uktelegraph-predicts-that-independent.htmlResponse: I'd already added this one. Would be really great if you could submit articles - what is it about the submission form that you don't understand? -
Ned at 20:02 PM on 14 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
Arkadiusz, thanks for the long comment. However, everything you discuss under your point (2) above is about carbon cycle climate feedbacks (involving the biosphere, soils, etc). The sentence that you quote ("This conclusion would be rather startling ...") refers to anthropogenic CO2 added directly to the atmosphere acting as a climate forcing not a feedback. It's important not to confuse these two quite different processes. -
Argus at 19:35 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
I have a problem with some of the points at the beginning of this post: The first one: Ice sheets are melting In the link we are presented with graphs that show that both polar ice sheets are melting. They cover the period 2002-2009. This is a little confusing to me: I thought discussions about long term climate change ought to be based on considerably longer observation periods than 7 years. What am I missing here? -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 19:28 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
J. Scott Armstrong (Ph.D., MIT, 1968), a Professor at the Wharton School of Management, University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Long-range Forecasting, the creator of forecastingprinciples.com, and editor of Principles of Forecasting (Kluwer 2001), an evidence-based summary of knowledge on forecasting methods. He is a founder of the Journal of Forecasting, the International Journal of Forecasting, and the International Symposium on Forecasting, and he has spent 50 years doing research and consulting on forecasting. (Armstrong@wharton.upenn.edu) Kesten C. Green of the International Graduate School of Business at the University of South Australia is a Director of the International Institute of Forecasters and is co-director with Scott Armstrong of the Forecasting Principles public service Internet site (ForPrin.com). He has been responsible for the development of two forecasting methods that provide forecasts that are substantially more accurate than commonly used methods. (Kesten.Green@unisa.edu.au; and Willie Soon ...: "Our research findings challenge the basic assumptions of the State Department’s Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report (CAR 2010). The alarming forecasts of dangerous manmade global warming are not the product of proper scientific evidence-based forecasting methods. Furthermore, there have been no validation studies to support a belief that the forecasting procedures used were nevertheless appropriate for the situation. As a consequence, alarming forecasts of global warming are merely the opinions of some scientists and, for a situation as complicated and poorly understood as global climate, such opinions are unlikely to be as accurate as forecasts that global temperatures will remain much the same as they have been over recent years. Using proper forecasting procedures we predict that the global warming alarm will prove false and that government actions in response to the alarm will be shown to have been harmful. [... !!!]" -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 19:15 PM on 14 June 2010Is the long-term trend in CO2 caused by warming of the oceans?
1. I disagree with Hocker (and agree with Paul W) - only the solubility of CO2 in the waters of the oceans - it's too simple. The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is far more closely related to temperature over the lands than the temperature of the oceans. Compare the size of annual increments of CO2 in the atmosphere from land and ocean temperatures. For example: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/images/nature06591-f1.2.jpg (CO2 annual - ENSO); with http://global-warming.accuweather.com/julyall-thumb.gif (temperatures in July - the oceans and land). Here we see indeed a significant correlation with El Nino, but ... after each major volcanic explosion (1963, 1982, 1991) is a sharp drop in the number accumulated in the atmosphere of CO2. Moreover, as the temperature drops and the (parallel) accumulation of CO2. Cooling of the ocean? In the years 1982-4 ocean SST (July) - as opposed to the land - almost did not fall. Responded only to strong cooling of the land. The largest difference concerned the year 1984 / 5. Conclusion: The land temperatures are much better (than the oceans) correlated with the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. 2. "This conclusion would be rather startling if it were true, since the scientific CONSENSUS is that CO2 is currently acting as a "forcing" that warms the climate." Terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics and climate feedbacks, Heimann & Reichstein, Nature, 2008: - "There is ample empirical evidence that the terrestrial component of the carbon cycle is responding to climate variations and trends on a global scale. This is exemplified by the strong interannual variations in the globally averaged growth rate of atmospheric CO2, which is tightly correlated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation climate variations. Many lines of evidence show that the variations in the CO2 growth rate are mainly caused by terrestrial effects, in particular the impacts of heat and drought on the vegetation of western Amazonia and southeastern Asia, leading to ecosystem carbon losses through decreased vegetation productivity and/or increased respiration. These interannual variations reflect short-term responses of the carbon cycle to climate perturbations, however, and cannot be expected to hold over longer timescales." However, ... The temperature dependence of organic-matter decomposition—still a topic of debate - Miko Uwe, Franz Kirschbaum, 2006: "Despite the continuation of much further experimental work and repeated publication of summary articles, there is STILL NO SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS [!!!] on the temperature dependence of ORGANIC MATTER DECOMPOSITION. It is likely that this lack of consensus is largely due to different studies referring to different experimental conditions where confounding factors play a greater or lesser role." In my opinion: ENSO significantly only through its impact on the system: heterotrophic bacteria breathable - phytoplankton; influence of CO2. Conclusion: (Reference No. 7 of the official - rather skeptic - position of the Polish scientists: Attitude of the Committee of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences to the question of impending of global warming): "Warming of the oceans reduces their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide whereas a smaller area occupied by permafrost INTENSIFIES DECOMPOSITION OF ORGANIC MATTER IN SOIL and therefore, stimulates increased emission of greenhouse gases." I remember: Temperature-associated increases in the global soil respiration record. Bond-Lamberty B, Thomson A, Nature. 2010: "The scientists also calculated the total amount of carbon dioxide flowing from soils, which is about 10-15 percent higher than previous measurements [...]." -
Paul D at 18:56 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
I think we need some media establishments that actually report news about journalists, newspapers and magazines. There must be a market now, because so many people think they make a mess of reporting. They thrust themselves into the limelight and think themselves as celebrities, it must be time to unpick their mad egos and start doing to them what they do to others. -
JMurphy at 18:16 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
marty's link, supposedly about the science not being settled over man-made global warming, is to an article by Peter Taylor, author of 'Chill', a book which has the usual so-called skeptical arguments and which is published by a company who specialise in 'modern spirituality and personal development'. There is a short review of that book at this website, which also includes this quote from an autobiography Taylor has published, called SHIVA'S RAINBOW : "In truth, in the scientific realms in which I worked, and gained by now, some standing, I was an imposter. I am not a scientist. Apart from my brief survey of tree-hole communities when I successfully correlated insect larvae diversity with circumference and aspect of the hole to the sun, which, in any case, had been done many times before, I have never `done' science. In my work I have relied certainly upon an understanding of scientific theory and a memory for facts and relationships, and upon an instinct for the hidden and not yet known, but fundamentally I have been a linguist and an actor. My scientific degrees were linguistic exercises in critical review. My performances on television, in public inquiries, on tribunals and commissions, those of an extremely well-briefed lawyer, the ultimate actor. Which is not to say there is no dedication to truth" (pp. 146-7). -
andyrussell at 17:50 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
There's an interesting Opinion piece in Nature called "Defeating the merchants of doubt" about the agenda behind climate change "scepticism" and what scientists can do about it. I wonder what climate scientists are supposed to do with this information? [I wrote a very short blog post on this here. Should they use it to attack their critics or just stick to the science? Is it just useful background info? Why is this agenda and funding for the "sceptic" industry not more widely known and reported, especially when the relatively small revelations from "Climategate" recieved blanket coverage? -
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg at 17:47 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
Geo Guy, you might be interested to know that the methodology and processes used by the Panel is reviewed after every assessment report. That is just simply good practice for any large organisation. -
John Russell at 17:35 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
Journalism like that of Stefan Thiel, make my blood boil. I'm sure his motivation is just to write 'a good story' which he knows will have many of his readers' heads nodding in agreement. He can say literally what he likes, he's only answerable to an editor -- who more than likely knows nothing about the subject matter -- and next week he'll probably be writing entertainingly about the economy, or politics. The sad fact is that climate science is deeply boring to the vast majority of the public and they will make no effort to understand it. When that's the case it's a normal defence mechanism to rubbish it. Journalists like Theil are simply giving them what they want; and in the world he operates it simply does not occur to him that what he writes has any long term repercussions for the planet. -
Stephen Baines at 16:04 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
Philc You are making a lot of pretty loose claims, but one of them I can't let lie. "Funds are dispersed by relatively low level bureaucrats according to the directions desired by the higher ups- not according to an even-handed, scientifically-driven research agenda." This statement seems ignorant of what actually happens. Some context. All scientists have pet projects they would like to get funded, but funding rates in US science generally have been very low over the last decade. In my discipline at NSF <10% of submitted grants have been for almost a decade. Those proposals get reviewed by 5-10 external reviewers and discussed in detail by a separate panel whose composition revolves with each cycle. So, literally dozens of people are involved in the review process over the course of several submissions. Similar structured exist for proposals through NASA, DOE and NOAA. The "higher ups" that you speak of are therefore actually the dozens of peer scientists that donate significant amounts of time reviewing a proposal over a cycle of several submissions. It's not a perfect system. Sometimes it can be a bit conservative, sometimes decisions can seem capricious. We all complain about how painful it is to get funded, and many like to imagine injustices to make themselves feel better about the rejection. But on the whole it works amazingly well. The program managers at NSF that I have worked with listen very seriously to the advice of reviewers, and generally follow that advice very closely. Every decision is documented. Having seen it in action, I simply can't imagine how anyone can think the funding system could be persisently manipulated by a small cadre of people with an agenda in the way suggested. -
Riccardo at 15:52 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
Berényi Péter, if our best estimate of the difference in the trend between rural and urban stations is 0.05 °C/century (which is determined with an error, not indeterminate) there's no much room for a big UHI effect however calculated. This is what those data tell. -
Marcus at 15:45 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
HR, you claim that because most extinctions in Earth's history are natural, that we should simply ignore those extinctions caused by human actions. By that logic, because most forest fires are natural, do you agree that we should simply ignore those which are caused by arson? Even if said arson leads to the destruction of your home & all your possessions? This merely highlights how ludicrous such an argument is-yet still it gets bandied about by those supporting the interests of the Fossil Fuel Industry & other highly destructive corporate entities. -
Phila at 15:16 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
#80 "it is almost funny the way climate change is invoked to explain almost all changes in the natural world." That's a bit of an exaggeration, surely. But given that most scientists do believe that global warming will have a broad range of global effects, why would this surprise you? Honestly, don't you think it'd be much, MUCH stranger if AGW were real, but its effects were strictly limited in time and space, thanks to some physical process of which no one has any inkling? For me, the oddest thing about many "skeptical" arguments is the simultaneous claim that climate is too complicated to predict, and too limited in influence to affect virtually every aspect of life on earth. Granted, certain predictions may be wrong, but that argument cuts both ways: they may be too optimistic, rather than too bleak. Whatever uncertainty exists doesn't necessarily work in our favor. Right? -
Marcus at 15:00 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
#2 Philc. Wow your post was so *funny* that I almost split my sides. So lets start the debunk from the beginning. "The source of the CRU emails really doesn't matter." Oh really-so if someone hacked *your* e-mail account & illegally disseminated your correspondence-out of context-you'd not have a problem with that? Even if the lack of context made you look like a thief, or murderer-or something even worse? Yeah right. The fact is that hacking is a CRIME, & needs to be punished. That this crime hasn't even been properly investigated yet leaves me thinking that the authorities *know* who were behind it-but are too scared to do anything about it. Of course, the shift towards hacking & going over the IPCC reports for minor typos & other errors shows the desperation of the Denialist Cult. Having *failed* to debunk the science for the last 30 years, they've now shifted to underhanded methods to try & discredit the scientists & the institutions they work for-yet even *that* tactic seems to be failing them! You mention the supposed "hiding" of the divergence between measured temperatures (using both Satellite & ground-based measurements) & tree-ring proxies. I confess that writing papers on it-& discussing its implications for proxy data-is a very funny way to *hide* something. What Briffa's tree-ring data (which was due to increased drought conditions in the areas studied over the last 30 years) revealed was the danger of over-reliance on a single source of proxy data, & has really paved the way for greater multi-proxy analysis of past climate. To suggest that tree rings-whose size are subject to environmental conditions *other* than temperature-might be more accurate than direct satellite or ground-based temperature measurements is completely laughable! Equally laughable is your claim that the Geocentric model of the solar system was a *scientific consensus*. In fact it was a *RELIGIOUS* consensus-one which flew in the face of the observations made by the Greeks & Romans almost 2,000 years earlier. Indeed, this is not unlike the *IDEOLOGICAL* consensus that humans are not responsible for global warming-even in the face of *decades* of research & direct observation. The reason for this ideological viewpoint is the many *BILLIONS* of dollars that the oil & coal industries stand to lose if real action is taken to combat global warming-much, *much* more than the mere millions of dollars that climatologists "might" stand to lose if Global Warming were somehow debunked tomorrow (this is unlikely, as climatologists & others in related fields will still have access to employment & funding whether AGW is real or not). What I'm also curious to know, PhilC, is where is your outrage at so-called "Skeptics" like MacLean-who deliberately spliced two graphs together-even though they had separate Y-axes-to "hide the incline" in temperatures over the last 60 years. Oh, but I guess denouncing your fellow "party members" isn't the done thing-much better to attack opponents-on flimsy evidence-like a good little Party Apperatchik. -
scaddenp at 14:48 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
HR - so what natural cycle other than ENSO is impacting the global temperature record and what is your evidence for it? If you have no external forcing, then all you have is heat redistribution and that doesnt explain the energy imbalance. As to extinctions - the problem that causes extinction is rates of change that are too fast for adaptation. Now humanity is certainly bringing in the too-rapid change with habitat destruction and change, but a climate that warms too fast is an additional and global cause. Compare warming rates now with the rates of change during the ice age cycle. I worry about media and greens getting tunnel vision but I dont think you can project it onto science. -
HumanityRules at 14:25 PM on 14 June 2010How climate skeptics mislead
34 David Horton There has been a short period of global warming which explains the whole list the cause maybe wholly CO2, partially CO2, barely CO2 or not CO2. I find the two extreme positions (wholly and not) difficult to accept in a chaotic, naturally variable system that is poorly observed and understood. Secondly when it comes to the potential impacts of global warming I worry the science is full of tunnel vision, it is almost funny the way climate change is invoked to explain almost all changes in the natural world. Extinct is a natural process, 99.9999% of all extinctions happened before hominids appeared on the earth. I accept we can cause extinctions but it's still the case that it's human expansion and change in land use that have the greatest impact. On changes in seasons and phenological changes it seems that species have always had to adapt to climate induced ecological change. I think it's uncontroversial to say the temp record of the 20th century is a combination of a natural cycle with a warming trend imposed upon it? I was trying to find the amplitude of that natural cycle. It looks to be ~0.3-0.5oC over 15years. So species are always having to adapt to change, in fact Darwin called it Adaption. My interest isn't really in seeing the theory collapse it's in trying to confront the implications of the politics of climate change, in terms of the science this is more associated with the conclusions drawn from the data rather than the data itself. Take one of John's bullet points "Species are becoming extinct" surely at best that should be local population extinctions based on data presented in the associated paper. Already we conveniently drop an important distinction to emphasis the danger. -
Sean A at 14:11 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
Climate science and the IPCC reports have withstood a long, unrelenting assault and keep standing. None of the brouhaha and ideological grandstanding have made the slightest dent in the science. And despite all of the sound and fury, the public still overwhelmingly supports the science, the scientists, and government regulation of greenhouse gases. Survey results The Climate Majority -
NickD at 13:11 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
Sorry, should have addressed my comments to philcnot Geo Guy. My apologies for the confusion. -
philipm at 13:09 PM on 14 June 2010Latest GRACE data on Greenland ice mass
Thanks for the kind comments on my article. No doubt those who went over there to read it saw some of the contrarian comments. Doug #46, I don't interrogate the reasons for people taking comfort from irrelevant short-term variation, I merely destroy their hopes (and mine: it would be great if they were right). Meanwhile AMSU-A continues showing 2010 to be anomalously warm, given short-term effects. Let's hope the straw-clutchers let go soon enough for us to take effective action. I'm changing my focus to talking up clean energy because I am convinced most people arguing against the science don't really understand it and are motivated more by fear that the alternative is a collapse of industrial society. -
scaddenp at 12:54 PM on 14 June 2010Uncertain motives: Theil misrepresents the science
Geo Guy - misinformation from Dietze is NOT "errors" in IPCC. philc - still getting this long-debunked stuff coming up. What "hiding" of the divergence? All those published papers on it? See debunking on this site. Also, millions of dollars on climate research - yes, but remember most of it goes on satellites, much of the remainder on ships. And yes, imaginary physics really struggles to get funding. You have a perfectly good, consistent, physically reasonable theory of climate and yet a desperate search goes on for anything at all for fairies instead.
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