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Riccardo at 09:19 AM on 5 April 2010It hasn't warmed since 1998
Jeffomatic, well, i wouldn't say that the oceans are not storing heat; look at the response to comment #40. And I would not say that "temperature is not showing it" either; see for example fig. 4 in this post or here if you like statistics more. Although we all may agree with Trenberth that "it's a travesty" that we can not track the details of the heat flow through the climate system, neverthless we can see that more heat is here. -
Jeffomatic at 09:03 AM on 5 April 2010It hasn't warmed since 1998
The earth is still storing up heat, but temperatures are not showing it? Well, that's a bit hard to swallow and sounds fishy. The new ocean temperature buoy system shows it's not the sea that's storing it, and that has such a large thermal inertia that you'd expect it to lag anyway. If the air and land is not warming... what's storing the heat? Dark matter in my backyard?? I think the statement is another stall to keep everyone from seeing that reality has diverged significantly from previous predictions. I've been living in the same area for sixty years. I haven't seen anything to indicate a climate change above normal variations. In fact, it's April 04, 32 F. outside and snowing right now!Response: "The new ocean temperature buoy system shows it's not the sea that's storing it"
Actually, the new ocean temperature buoy system (ARGO) does show that it's the sea that is storing up heat. The following is the measurement of ocean heat measured by ARGO down to 2000 metres deep and shows the oceans are steadily accumulating heat (von Schuckmann 2009):
Apologies for repeating the same graph from my response to comment #40 but it seems repetition is required for this particular argument. -
ubrew12 at 08:14 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
From Peru said: "What do you think?" I think it fails to explain the steady warming of deep oceans, as would be expected of a global warming scenario. It does posit a mechanism by which that warming could puff off heat to the atmosphere. To the point: how do we know ENSO isn't deepened or made more frequent by AGW? The oceans hold heat 1000 times more densely than the atmosphere. We argue about just what the atmosphere is telling us about AGW, shouldn't we be arguing about the oceans at a rate 1000 times this? Proving that AGW, as measured by atmospheric temperatures, is caused by ENSO, proves nothing. The oceans are where the judgement of AGW is actually written, and those oceans are warming. -
Jeff Freymueller at 08:10 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
#3 Humanity Rules, you have to look a bit closer at Figure 7. I just did and noticed a couple of non-obvious things. First, not only are the y-axes on the right and left sides different, they are also offset just a bit. The zero on the right side is a bit lower than on the left, so if you just eyeball the relationship of GTTA to the zero, it gives a misleading sense that the GTTA has about the same value at the end of each panel as it does at the start -- in fact, in both cases the GTTA is higher by 0.1-0.15 C at the end of each panel relative to the beginning. Add the incline of each panel and the 0.2 C offset between (a) and (b) and you pretty much have the temperature increase of the last 50 years. Second, you can see that in the middle panel GTTA is mostly below SOI, and in the bottom panel it is mostly above. And if you rescaled the GTTA axis so that the GTTA curve spanned about the same fraction of the total plot range as the SOI curve does for its axis, the trend of the GTTA relative to SOI would be more obvious. They did the same y-axis label shifting in Figure 1 as well. "Hide the incline" indeed! -
Doug Bostrom at 07:09 AM on 5 April 2010It's land use
By the way, I should mention there's a fun experiment possible for investigating what JohnD and I are discussing here, one that can be done pretty cheaply at home. You'll need two small concrete slabs and two thermometers with the bulb or thermistor arranged such that they can be brought into contact with a surface. --If you don't have some at hand, go to your garden supply center and buy a couple of concrete slabs of the type used to make walkways and the like, 12"x12" or similar. --Attach a thermometer to each slab, making sure the thermometer bulb or thermistor is in good contact with the slab. --Now arrange one slab so that it is parallel to the sky, the other perpendicular to the sky. --Wait for a clear night. A few hours after dark, take a reading from each thermometer. The sky-facing slab will produce a cooler reading. --Wait for a cloudy night. Again, a few hours after dark take a reading from each thermometer. The disparity between the readings will be less. A neat little demonstration, with various possibilities for further experimentation. -
Doug Mackie at 07:02 AM on 5 April 2010A residential lifetime
John Russell @76 Nor do I wish to disuade people from tree planting. However, I read over 900 public submissions made to 3 successive Select Committees considering an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in New Zealand. It was curious to see how many people from the forestry industry took issue with the Kyoto rule that tree carbon is considered released when the trees are harvested. (*) The foresters claimed they could keep growing and cutting trees for ever and keep getting new credits. My point was that in most situations reforestation is a one time credit. A one time credit worth having but still a one time credit. If you can dig a deep pit and throw your cut down pines in there so they don't rot for a few thousand years it will give us a bit of breathing space. (But still won't address ocean acidification when they eventually do rot). * One submission said that since you didin't hear the CO2 hissing out the cut stump it was proof that CO2 was not relaeased from cut down trees. Judging by the rest of that submissioin, I'd say they meant that sincerely). -
Riccardo at 06:49 AM on 5 April 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter, and in case you may think that the number of profile may be different you'll find it here on page 9. -
Riccardo at 06:43 AM on 5 April 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter, you're dangerously falling into a grim denialism. You do not bother to verify you claims and let other people do the dirty job to make your denialism apparent. It's a bit boring. Your claim about the jump in the deployment of Argo floats in 2003 which you immagine is the cause of the jump in OHC is blatantly false. Check youself (pag.4). -
watchingthedeniers at 06:40 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
Nice work. What was that about hiding the decline? Looks like even this half-hearted attempt by the denial movement to produce some actual science is a bust. -
cloneof at 06:27 AM on 5 April 2010Climate sensitivity is low
So how about that Spencer & Braswell et al 2008? It has a few nice ideas about climate models and their feedbacks... and so far I haven't found anyone who has been able to debunk it. Has anyone found one? -
From Peru at 06:27 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
There is an hypothesis in the website "Climate Observations" by Bob Tisdale that blames ENSO for the warming after the 1970s. "Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976? – Part 1" http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/can-el-nino-events-explain-all-of.html Bob Tisdale believes that big El Niños cause step changes in global temperatures, specially sea surface temperatures. In short, the La Niñas reduce the cloud cover above the tropical pacific, so the Pacific Warm Pool accumulates heat (interestingly, it is there were the most rapid sea level rise happens, at a rate of more than 1 cm/year !). Then when a big El Niño happens, the heat is released and transported to other ocean basins. When the next La Niña occur, part of this warmth persist(apparently, the effects of La Niña are less global than El Niño ones). It seems to me to best skeptical argument I have ever read. It fails, however, to explain the steady warming of deep oceans as shown in "Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003-2008" by K. von Schuckmann. What do you think? -
Tom Dayton at 06:16 AM on 5 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
I think Harold's request for comments about peer review is on topic for this thread (A Database of Peer-Reviewed Literature on Climate Change), even if those comments are triggered by particular claims by McKitrick (("Circling the Bandwagons") about how he was treated by that process. But if anyone wants to discuss the climatological substance of McKitrick's claims in that paper, I think maybe you could do it over at Deep Climate. The most relevant parts are the comments starting with the comment by Paul Middents on April 2. -
Doug Bostrom at 06:08 AM on 5 April 2010It's land use
JohnD, it's the sky-facing radiator of the Earth's surface that is significant in the way you describe, and it's going to remain the essentially the same regardless of whether it's covered with buildings, deserts or trees. We can't significantly increase the sky-facing area of the Earth, or at least we have not figure out how to do that yet. The absorption/emissivity characteristics of various materials do vary but I wouldn't care to guess whether concrete is a better radiator overall than shrubbery. The mass of the C02 added to the atmosphere is a way of measuring the amount in play but likening the heat capacity of that mass to that of a mass of concrete is not a useful way of thinking about the situation. The issue here is not the amount of heat that C02 will absorb, but rather its effect on the escape of thermal radiation from the atmosphere. Whatever is at the bottom of the atmosphere be it mesas or urban monads, the radiation they emit must wend its way through the air column and escape into space. Relative mass has nothing to do with the problem. I suggest you do some back of the envelope calculations to get a grasp of the amount of energy arriving at the Earth's surface versus the heat capacity of the quantity of concrete you're speaking of. The numbers here are way beyond intuitive. -
John Russell at 06:03 AM on 5 April 2010A residential lifetime
Doug Mackie @55 Thanks for your response. I have emailed a colleague who is a leading soil scientist for his comment. I'll let you know his response on this thread as soon as I hear back. You're right about tropical soils: the temperature ensures there are high levels of microbial activity which break down organic matter very rapidly. However we should also consider the immense areas of tundra in the high latitudes where soil accretes at around 1mm per year. I agree completely that human activity -- to use a cynical expression -- is more than a match for natural sequestration processes. The reason I was a rather critical of your original statement was that I don't wish to discourage people from planting trees; it's an essential part of dealing with the problems we face -- that and the fact I have 100 acres of young trees growing even as I write. One does one's best to do the right thing when so many other people appear not to care about the future. -
adelagarde at 05:36 AM on 5 April 2010Is the science settled?
Dear John, nice piece of work, congratulations. Many things to say, but probably in next comments. One concerns the point: "To argue that the 5% that is poorly understood disproves the 95% that is well understood betrays an incorrect understanding of the nature of science." Well to be more accurate, you should say that even if 5% are poorly understood based on the uncertainties provided by the effects of aerosols these 5% do not preclude the conclusions obtained from the rest of 95%. Just to answer to criticisms like the one by oracle2world for instance which uses bad examples, but that the way usually people that are not scientists try to justify their thoughts. -
johnd at 05:34 AM on 5 April 2010It's land use
Doug, whilst the mass may not change due to concrete production, the surface area exposed to the atmosphere does so dramatically. Soil temperatures just slightly below the surface remain fairly constant, and depending how deep you go start to get warmer. However when the raw materials are mined and finally erected as concrete with large surface areas and relatively thin sections there is a massive increase in the thermal mass exposed to the atmosphere which through heat absorption and then slow release must have some measurable effect. If 750 Gt of a minor gas in the atmosphere becomes a concern when 3.3 Gt extra is added annually to the atmosphere, what effect does adding 10 Gt of concrete to what is an already massive amount already in place. What I trying to understand is given the ability of a gas such as CO2 to absorb and re-radiate thermal energy is somewhat less than those solid materials considered to provide efficient thermal mass properties, can the much larger quantities of concrete be ignored, especially given the large increase in surface area exposed to the atmosphere. -
Doug Bostrom at 04:46 AM on 5 April 2010It's land use
JohnD it's probably helpful to remember that production of cement is itself a significant source of C02. Calcination of cement during manufacture liberates C02, offset to some extent as cement ages after use and reabsorbs C02, but this takes a very long time indeed so calcination of newly made cement remains a significant net contributor to our C02 emissions. The manufacturing process is also inherently energy intensive, itself responsible for consumption of large quantities of fossil fuels as the components of cement are heated. In the U.S. cement production is responsible for something like 10% of C02 emissions. As to heat capacity of cement, needless to say the raw materials used in production of cement are not imported from off-planet; the mass of the Earth does not change when a kilogram of cement is created and thus the notion that all the cement we manufacture is going to be a net sink of for heat is an error. Regarding the radiation of heat from cement structures, they of course share with everything else on the surface of the planet the requirement for whatever energy they do radiate to penetrate the atmosphere and escape, which is of course the main problem we're facing with the ever more fluffy and cozy blanket we're making with our C02 emissions. There are some schemes currently in play to sequester C02 from coal plants in cement but they do not at this time appear suitable for massive deployment due to shortages of alkaline compounds needed in the diversion process as well as disposal problems with acid byproducts. -
Tom Dayton at 04:44 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
Deep Climate also has graphs with and without differencing, and has a ton of other info relevant to the fundamental poverty of McLean et al.'s original paper. There are more links to relevant material in the Links section here at Skeptical Science, in these sections: McLean's reply to Foster 2010 was censored and It's El Nino. -
Bob2220 at 04:24 AM on 5 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
Energy and Environment is not ISI listed, and they have their own brand peer review which is highly criticized. If they were a legitimate peer-reviewed source, I think they would be listed on the ISI. It seems pretty cut and dry. Articles from Energy and Environment should be categorized as grey papers. If Energy and Environment would hope to be categorized otherwise they should conform to the real peer review process. I am sure that many of their articles could survive this process, and I am sure that many of them would not. At least we would be all working from a common ground. -
Tom Dayton at 04:14 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
Tim Lambert at Deltoid has plotted satellite (UAH) measured temperatures before and after using McLean et al.'s 12-month differencing filter. -
Berényi Péter at 03:44 AM on 5 April 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
#85 Ned at 00:29 AM on 5 April, 2010 "these short-term fluctuations are superimposed on a longer-term rising trend" Large scale deployment of ARGO floats started in 2003. There is a huge upward jump in OHC at the NODC site in that year, since then it is decreasing (irrespective of ENSO). The jump must be an artifact due instrumental change. Pre ARGO project OHC data are unreliable.
Inlet is from NOAA Multivariate ENSO Index page.
Excess heat due to GHG "trapping" can go either to the oceans or to space, nowhere else. It does not go to the oceans. Therefore it escapes to space and is lost forever. No trapping. Theory should be revised ASAP.
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HumanityRules at 03:30 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
It took me 3 or 4 reading of McLean to realise it is a bit of a dogs dinner. It does seem that the initial removal of the trend to indentify the 7 month lag is valid but they then go on to claim far too much without any valid analysis (i.e. by eyeballing). I take the point about figure 7 being confusing but if you do object to the splicing of two data sets then you can just ignore a) and look at b) and c). After all 1979 onwards is the most important period for global warming to show itself in the data. So just 'eyeballing' b) and c) of figure 7 suggest there isn't a great deal of separation between SOI and global temp. There was one extra question I wanted answering. I had noticed that Figure 1 clearly showed temperature rising above SOI in later decades as mentioned in the article. This is less obvious in Fig 7 b) and c), which would be the equivalent set of data. Now figure 1 is the 12 month running average for temp while Figure 7 is a plot of monthly averages. Does the smoothing of the temperature data do anything to cause the SOI and temp to diverge? -
grypo at 02:47 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
The entire McLean rebuttal is a great read - especially the comment section. -
Tom Dayton at 02:14 AM on 5 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
Relevant to this thread on peer review is Stephan Lewandowsky's The Peer Reviewed Literature Has Spoken. -
Ned at 00:29 AM on 5 April 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
BP writes: We will see a drop in OHC (Ocean Heat Content) in the coming months. That wouldn't be surprising (if it happens), since we've been in El Nino conditions for some time now and there's typically a short-term decrease in OHC when the cycle shifts from El Nino to La Nina. It's important to keep in mind that these short-term fluctuations are superimposed on a longer-term rising trend. This is discussed over in the article What causes short term changes in ocean heat? -
Mikemcc at 00:28 AM on 5 April 2010It's cosmic rays
There's a new paper out Kulmala et al (Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 1885–1898, 2010), it's available on line here: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/1885/2010/acp-10-1885-2010.pdf The telling part in the conclusions is: "Our results do not support the idea that the ions produced by galactic cosmic rays would be a major factor behind secondary aerosol production and the related aerosol-cloud interactions." -
gallopingcamel at 00:21 AM on 5 April 2010A residential lifetime
Marcus (#73), "For instance, as long as we have access to fuel/energy, we'll always be able to generate sufficient warmth to grow crops & live quite comfortably, & you can always add additional layers to your clothing if it gets too cold." Maybe Tom Dayton can point me to the appropriate thread for discussing this very interesting speculation. If not, I look forward to the subject coming up on some future thread. -
Ned at 00:20 AM on 5 April 2010Temp record is unreliable
johnd writes: Aren't satellite based temperature measurement equipment calibrated against "known" conventional temperature measurements? If not what are they calibrated against? The accuracy of satellite measurements despite the sophisticated instrumentation, will only be as accurate as the standard used to calibrate them. The AMSU temperature measurements are calibrated against two targets. There's a "hot" target located on the satellite itself (whose temperature is directly monitored using high-precision platinum resistence thermometers). For a "cold" target the sensor turns to measure the cosmic background radiation in open space (a very cold 3K). Real earth temperatures will fall between these two targets. The close agreement between satellite and surface temperatures is a bit of a problem for those skeptics who believe that the surface record is hopelessly contaminated by UHI effects. I've seen many commenters on other sites try to reconcile this by assuming that the satellite record is somehow "tuned" to match the surface trend, or surface stations are used to "calibrate" the AMSU satellite temperatures. But no such adjustment is actually used, and the close agreement between satellite and surface temperatures is real. -
gallopingcamel at 00:16 AM on 5 April 2010A residential lifetime
Philippe (#72), My points have to do with influencing the CO2 "Residence Time" in the atmosphere. In particular there are some sequestration strategies that make sense. Many sequestration methods proposed create useless materials thereby destroying wealth, whereas growing food or wood contributes to prosperity. I can't put it much plainer than that. Can I count on your support? Did you look at the History Channel video (#66)? -
MarkR at 00:05 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
I love it! :D I plan to check for myself, but this is a pretty funny result after the media frenzy over 'hide the decline'. -
HumanityRules at 23:51 PM on 4 April 2010Greenland's ice mass loss has spread to the northwest
#63 Both are affected by climatic conditions. Temperature is part of that. -
johnd at 18:56 PM on 4 April 2010It's land use
I'm just following from a discussion on the "A residential lifetime" thread as it was getting off topic over there. That discussion centred on the residential lifetime of atmospheric CO2 and the fact that 3.3 Gt of CO2 was being added to the atmosphere each year..... Various industry and government reports generally put the global annual production of cement in the vicinity of 3 Gt which translates into about 10 Gt of concrete. Most of this concrete results in new structures being built on the earths surface and provide a substantial thermal mass, absorbing and then dissipating heat energy. Apart from the quantity produced each year compared to CO2, and the ability to absorb and then radiate heat energy as does CO2, the residential lifetime of concrete structures most likely exceeds that of CO2 given that the recycling of concrete is likely far less than that of CO2 within the carbon cycle. If 3.3 Gt of a gas being added to the atmosphere is of concern, then should 10 Gt of a high thermal mass product also not only be of concern but have a measurable effect. -
Marcus at 18:37 PM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
Shows what gallopingcamel knows. I was in fact referring to the point in Earth's history when dinosaurs dominated every single ecological niche on the planet. A time before the evolution of grass & the crops which were developed from said grass species. In truth of fact, it is far, far easier to guard against cold-via technology-than it is against heat. For instance, as long as we have access to fuel/energy, we'll always be able to generate sufficient warmth to grow crops & live quite comfortably, & you can always add additional layers to your clothing if it gets too cold. The same cannot be said for extreme warmth, where plants wither & die & where water may well become exceedingly scarce. So, given the choice between a Warmer World & a colder world, I know which I'd pick-no matter how much the Fossil Fuel Lobby tries to convince us otherwise. -
Riccardo at 18:15 PM on 4 April 2010Temp record is unreliable
johnd, I know what Spencer and you think. I was giving reasons to think differently. -
Berényi Péter at 17:07 PM on 4 April 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Well, I see. Rules keep changing. Anyway, I try to repost with an explanation. Snow is not just about abundant moisture, it also indicates the lack of heat. Snow is cold. In a sense at 0 °C it is 80 °C colder than water at the same temperature. To produce meltwater at 0 °C from snow the same amount of 80 °C warm water is needed or 80 times more at 1 °C. Warming in a system far from thermodynamic equilibrium is not characterized well by its average temperature. Heat contents is a much better indicator and latent heat (or the lack of it) should not be dismissed. From a climatic point of view the energy imbalance is decisive. With much snow the weather system manages to keep its effective temperature relatively high even with diminished heat content. And snow is also an almost perfect blackbody in thermal IR, so it is an effective radiator both because of its temperature and emissivity. At the same time, it is white (a good reflector) in the visible portion of spectrum, where most incoming radiation hits the surface. UAH ch04 ("near surface") data (~ -16 °C) are not particularly hot, but indicate Earth is losing heat to space at a rather high rate right now. In other words: it is cooling. We will see a drop in OHC (Ocean Heat Content) in the coming months.
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Philippe Chantreau at 16:59 PM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
Johnd, I'm surprised. I gave a list of scientific references. You cite a blog post. Any real scientific work in that blog post? Sorry, I have barely enough time to keep up with SkepSci, so I'm not going to Spencer's blog. If there is anything substantial there (i.e. published), you can cite or link it. I think Doug Mackie summarizes a number of good points in hos post 71. GC, I am not sure exactly what you are trying to say and that's not my point. I don't care for language including "horrific", "pestilence" and what not. It's amusing for a while, then it becomes annoying. This site's focus is the existing science on a certain subject. Grandiloquence and theatrical effects do not add to the discussion. -
Doug Mackie at 16:24 PM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
In my final reply to this off topic line of questioning: 1A)You have a ref for your concrete figure? 1B) Do you know how concrete is made? 2) Why don’t concrete structures continue to get hotter and go china syndrome? (Hint: Clausius) 3) My earlier comments were to invite you to suggest how the heat retained by conrete compares to the heat retained by the oceans and/or soil and/or deserts and/or rocks. You did not respond. -
Tom Dayton at 14:59 PM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
gallopingcamel and johnd, I believe your comments on plants belong not on this thread, but on "CO2 is not a pollutant". -
Tom Dayton at 14:55 PM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
johnd, how about taking that topic over to "It’s land use"? -
johnd at 14:53 PM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
gallopingcamel @66. Similar FACE experiments growing wheat in Victoria resulted in improved growth and yields with improved utilisation of moisture but protein % were slightly down due to nitrogen limitations. I'm not sure whether the increased yield, + 17%, meant that each plant still maintained the same nitrogen uptake . From what I recall the total protein yield of each plant was the same or even more but did not match the increase in wheat yield. It is a natural fact of cropping that often protein % rises when wheat yields fall and vice versa. -
Tom Dayton at 14:52 PM on 4 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
Harold, for responses to McKitrick's claims about warming and economic activity, see It’s land use. -
johnd at 14:41 PM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
Doug Mackie @64. I'm not trying to take this off topic, is there a more appropriate thread for this line of thought? However to respond to your comments, it is the relative effect of 10 Gt of concrete added to the earths surface as infrastructure globally each year against the 3.3 Gt of CO2 added to the atmosphere each year that I was hoping to have quantified. -
gallopingcamel at 14:35 PM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
Philippe Chantreau (#60), You really need to be more aware of recent history. Just to get you started, I recommend the following video by the "History Channel". It does not take sides in the Alarmist/Denier debate but it explains climate change over the last 1,000 years in an interesting way. Enjoy: http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/educational/watch/v158890018kQaxQaK Getting back to the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere, do you see this as something that mankind can influence or would you leave it up to nature? The FACE experiment (NASA/Duke university) showed that the rate of sequestration by trees is affected by CO2 concentrations. If such effects are significant the relevant time constants could be much shorter than those suggested at the top of this thread. On another thread, Tom Dayton has pointed out that the growth spurt in loblolly pines caused by elevated concentrations of CO2 tends to be short lived owing to limitations in other nutrients such as nitrogen. However, it is likely that higher CO2 concentrations will favour plants that can acquire nitrogen directly from the atmosphere (e.g legumes), especially if agricultural incentives are in place. Imagine "Bean Mountains" as well as wheat and rice mountains. Throw in Olive oil lakes and maybe we can cook up something tasty and nutritious when the next Tambora blows its top. -
johnd at 14:23 PM on 4 April 2010Temp record is unreliable
Riccardo, Spencer wasn't presenting his analysis as complete, but believed what differences he found are sufficient to justify a more complete independent analysis. Given that there are few stations where one can be confident of the data being not being biased by the UHI effect perhaps it does warrant careful analysis. Aren't satellite based temperature measurement equipment calibrated against "known" conventional temperature measurements? If not what are they calibrated against? The accuracy of satellite measurements despite the sophisticated instrumentation, will only be as accurate as the standard used to calibrate them. -
Tom Dayton at 14:19 PM on 4 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
Harold, I've published in peer-reviewed journals and peer-reviewed conference proceedings, submitted grant proposals to peer-reviewed granting agencies, and been a reviewer for all those and a reviewer of book proposals to publishers. I've also had submissions rejected by all those. All that has not been in climatology, but in the multiple fields experimental cognitive psychology, research methodology, decision theory, and human-computer interaction. From what I can tell by looking completely from the outside at climatology's peer review process, it seems to be working just fine, and quite similarly to peer review in the my fields that I listed above. Are there problems? Sure. Is there room for improvement? Sure. I've never been happy about being rejected. Sometimes I've been furious. Sometimes I've known that my submission was rejected despite worse work being accepted. I've reworked submissions multiple times, despite disagreeing that rework was needed, to suit the demands of reviewers and editors. I've got some rejected submissions sitting around that I've effectively given up on, though I probably could get them published if I added some experiments to them (but now I've got more interesting things to work on). But I've never publicly posted a screed about a rejection. I'm flabbergasted that McKitrick has done so. McKitrick's experience was typical for anyone whose submitted work is severely and fundamentally flawed. Reviewers are not necessarily going to spend the time to list, nor even look closely enough to notice, all the problems with a submission if right off the bat they discover a fatal flaw. Reviewers and editors will advise the author sufficiently so the author can rewrite the paper, if the reviewers and editor think the paper is fundamentally sound enough to be a useful addition to the literature. But otherwise they will not spend the time to help. They will name just the first fundamentally fatal flaw and reject the paper without inviting resubmission. If the author fixes that flaw and resubmits, then the reviewers will read on to discover more flaws. It's the author's responsibility to ensure their submission is high enough quality to be accepted. McKitrick's submission was not. All the things he complains about in his public screed have been publicly addressed, and his paper is just... well, wrong. -
Doug Mackie at 10:52 AM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
John Russel @55 Yes, reforestation can be a help. BUT ask this question: How much of the current “extra” CO2 in the atmosphere is due to deforestation and/or soil degradation and how much is due to fossil fuel burning? The answer is that reforestation and reforming soils will help but it will never be a significant contribution to reducing atmospheric CO2 UNLESS we have some way of reforming fossil fuels faster than we are burning them. Your example about Brazilian soils is especially informative. The reason more and more forest is slashed and burned is that rain forests have poor, shallow soils that depend on a short residence time of carbon. That is, they depend on high turnover of leaf litter etc to support high biomass. They do not have deep reserves of buried organic matter and once the biomass is removed and you can take only a few seasons of crops (grain and/or cows fed on the grain) before the soils are exhausted. -
Doug Mackie at 10:39 AM on 4 April 2010A residential lifetime
Johnd @54 Huh? Sorry, I seem to be especially obtuse lately. Do you mean to ask if: Given that there is so much concrete etc with a lot of thermal inertia then will the concrete soak up a lot of the excess heat that would otherwise warm the atmosphere? And/or will the slow release of such stored heat alter the climate? The answer is simple and can be phrased as a question: “Why are wine cellars cellars?” Hint #1: What should you wear in a desert at night? Hint #2: Compared to concrete, what is the heat capacity of water? Or soil? Or sand? How much of each is there on earth? -
Riccardo at 10:02 AM on 4 April 2010Temp record is unreliable
johnd, it's always a good thing when other scientists come out with different analysis. But it needs to be done at the same quality level. The dataset Spencer uses did not go through the same quality control as GHN; also, data are not homogenized. Spencer corrected the raw data just for altitude and check for water coverage. Given that similar and more comprehensive analysis on the link between population and UHI has already been performed and accounted for, I'd be more carefull before claiming that "there is sufficient doubt". There are other things that I think need to be clarified. For example, Spencer found large UHI warming-population density differences for different years, which I find hard to explain. Even larger differences are found between USA and the rest of the world. Also, there's a sharp increase in the warming bias already between population densities of 5 and 20 per Km2, which again I find hard to understand. And it's worth noticing that the whole claim is based on the data for population densities below 200 per Km2, above which Spencer's results agree with CRUTem3. Spencer should also explain how satellite based temperatures can be fooled by population density. One last remark, the ISH dataset is released by NOAA which uses the GHN dataset for its analysis of temperature trends, I'm sure for good reasons. -
Ned at 09:39 AM on 4 April 2010There's no empirical evidence
philc, here's a simplified way to think about it: (1) In the pre-industrial atmosphere, total solar irradiance is in balance with outgoing longwave radiation, giving the earth some normal temperature T. (2) When we add CO2 to the atmosphere, this reduces outgoing longwave radiation in the CO2 absorption bands. (3) The earth then warms, causing more radiation to be emitted in wavelengths that aren't absorbed by CO2. (4) Eventually, outgoing radiation is again in balance with the incoming radiation, but with less of it being emitted in the CO2 absorption bands, more of it being emitted outside those bands, and a higher surface temperature. This is not actually a perfect description of what's going on, but it's fine at the conceptual level IMHO. -
Harold at 09:31 AM on 4 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
doug_bostrum, you may be right that his tone and attitude reflects a lack of respect that is not helpful. I am not Ross McKitrick and have not spent the two years dealing with the inexplicable responses and nonresponses from referees and editors that has eroded at that respect. I also have no experience trying to publish technical papers in journals, and so I do not know what is normal in the back-and-forth of peer review. You have implied that this is the standard experience of many people in Climatology and other fields. I would like to ask generally of those who have published in peer reviewed journals if the experience of Ross McKitrick described in this essay<\a> is commonplace. I appreciate the stance of this blog and this thread in that science expressed in peer reviewed papers should be allowed to speak impartially. However, this article throws another light on peer review. If McKitrick's experience is rare, then science is not allowed to speak impartially, and given the significance of AGWs implications, this is a critically harmful situation. If McKitrick's experience is commonplace, then peer review itself is broken, and science needs to find another voice.
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