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Comments 121501 to 121550:
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Ned at 22:55 PM on 5 April 2010Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
The northern hemisphere sea ice extent graph for this winter/spring is a bit remarkable. For most of the winter the ice was tracking the 2006-2007 extent line quite closely. But instead of plateauing and starting to drop in late Feb. or early March, it just kept going:
It will be interesting to see what NSIDC has to say about this in their next monthly update, which should be out soon.
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gallopingcamel at 22:07 PM on 5 April 2010A residential lifetime
Phillippe (#78), I will choose my words more carefully! Several folks are discussing the production of timber and that is another great strategy for sequestration. Are we headed for consensus on something? -
Ned at 21:58 PM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
Re MCdF09 Figure 7, the jump from panel (a) to panel (b) is a real problem. I don't think the offset in left vs right Y axes for panels (b) and (c) is a problem (I disagree with Jeff F. about this). The bigger issue is that MCdF claimed that SOI explained 81% of the variability in the MSU record, but that was based on the detrended data. That was their ONLY quantitative comparison of the two, and it was fundamentally wrong. Figure 7 is just for "eyeballing"; there's no quantitative analysis included. In his recent comments McLean keeps trying to shift the discussion to Figure 7. It's important to note the problem with Figure 7 (panel a vs. b/c) but it's also important not to let him shift the discussion away from his erroneous quantitative claims. -
Ned at 21:40 PM on 5 April 2010Does record snowfall disprove global warming?
Berényi Péter: writesPre ARGO project OHC data are unreliable. You're wrong about this. Pre-ARGO data on OHC are more sparse and more difficult to work with, but there have been many successful analyses of long-term trends in OHC. Because this subject is off-topic for a thread on snowfall, I've replied over in the thread on Does ocean cooling prove global warming has ended? -
Ned at 21:37 PM on 5 April 2010Oceans are cooling
Over in another thread, Berényi Péter writes: Pre ARGO project OHC data are unreliable. I'm replying here, since the subject was off-topic for that thread and it's on-topic here. Pre-ARGO OHC data are sparser and more difficult to work with. But there are many papers that have successfully analyzed long-term trends in OHC. Here are just a few examples from the past two years: Levitus et al. 2009 Ishii and Kimoto 2009 Domingues et al. 2008 Much of the work from the Levitus et al. 2009 paper was also treated in this2009 presentation at CLIMAR. Note the following comment: "There was a concern that instrumental bias corrections might have affected the long-term trend (1955-2007) in ocean heat content that we previously reported. It will be demonstrated that, although some small corrections are indeed necessary, the instrument bias corrections do not affect the previously reported long-term trend in ocean heat content."
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Ned at 20:54 PM on 5 April 2010It hasn't warmed since 1998
Jeffomatic writes: In fact, it's April 04, 32 F. outside and snowing right now! That kind of anecdote is not particularly useful. On the same date here in northern New England (where there's normally still snow on the ground at this point) it was in the mid-70s F (after having been an astounding 83 F the previous day). -
John Russell at 18:51 PM on 5 April 2010A residential lifetime
Doug Mackie: 77 I see now where you're coming from if your vision of woodland/forest is the monoculture cash crop of pines which are rased and replanted every 30 years or so -- as also are oil palm plantations. That's the current reality of most commercial forestry, enabled by the ready availability of cheap diesel. I'm talking about woodland management of indigenous trees which are coppiced and thus highly sustainable and, I would claim, a net carbon sink. That's the only sort of tree-planting I wish to promote. -
Tom Dayton at 16:36 PM on 5 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
Correcting my previous comment that "It's nice if they at least acknowledge receipt of submissions, but that, too, takes time, so they don't always." I intended to write that pre-submission inquiries such as the one that McKitrick said he made to BAMS are not always responded to. In fact, I suspect that few such inquiries are responded to by any journal in any field, because it takes time. If you want to know whether there is any chance of the journal accepting your paper, just send them your freakin' paper. The editor is disinclined to spend the time to respond to you "Well, maybe, but that depends on exactly what's in your paper." The editor can just as rapidly tell you "no" upon seeing the title and abstract of your paper, as by reading your pre-submission inquiry's description of your paper. -
Doug Mackie at 15:47 PM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
Being vain, I seldom hesitate to repeat myslelf: (this also posted at Deltoid). I’ve offered this up before elsewhere. Here are links to submissions made by McLean to a New Zealand Parliament Select Committee that was considering an Emissions Trading Scheme. Three Select Committees have had a go. For the first round in 2008 McLean co-submitted with someone who in a previous life called for a boycott of Mobil because of climate change issues and is now a denialist. http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC/Documents/Evidence/9/1/7/48SCFESCEvidenceCCETRP_ET44-Terry-Dunleavy.htm For the second round in early 2009 McLean went solo: http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC/Documents/Evidence/6/3/2/49SCETSSCevidenceETSR_047A-John-McLean-supp1.htm http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC/Documents/Evidence/3/6/2/49SCETSSCevidenceETSR_047-John-McLean.htm And nothing for the 3rd round in late 2009. -
Tom Dayton at 15:32 PM on 5 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
Harold, the journal Science's editors reject 80% of submissions without sending them to reviewers. -
Tom Dayton at 15:26 PM on 5 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
Harold, only a small fraction of submissions to peer reviewed journals are accepted. The exact percentage depends on the field and on the journal within that field. The most prestigious journals have the lowest acceptance rates, because those journals are the most stringent in applying their publication criteria, which is what makes them prestigious, which is why so many people submit to them, which is one cause of the huge submission rate that creates so much competition among submissions thereby lowering the chances of being accepted,.... For example, the journal Science accepts less than 8% of submissions. Consequently, editors don't even send all submissions out for review. Many submissions get rejected based on the editor reading the title and abstract, because the topic might not be suitable for that journal regardless of the submission's quality, or because the journal has been publishing many articles on that topic recently and wants to give space to other topics, or because the findings of the submission are not novel enough or do not contribute enough to the literature to justify taking up space. Submissions never are judged solely on their own merits, but also on whether the literature is better served by publishing them or their competition of other submissions. The editor's job is to make those decisions if possible without using the scarce time of the (volunteer) referees. The referees' opinions are merely advisory to the editor, though different journals have different rules about how much weight the editor should give the reviews. Editors are busy people, so they rarely respond to rejected authors' subsequent inquiries. It's nice if they at least acknowledge receipt of submissions, but that, too, takes time, so they don't always. It's not that different from any non-scientific periodical; they do not always (and some never) acknowledge unsolicited submissions. Harold, this really is how the scientific peer review system works, and has for a very long time, in all fields. It handles submissions as best it can, but the reviewers all are unpaid volunteers who already are desperately busy, the editors get paid little or nothing and also usually have full-time other jobs, and there is barely enough funding to publish the small percentage of articles that do make it all the way to print. Publishing in a peer-reviewed journal (or a conference, for that matter) is not a right, it is a privilege. -
johnd at 14:58 PM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
Given that the intensity or magnitude of any ENSO events in the Pacific Ocean are subject to influence of the IOD in the Indian Ocean, any theorising that fails to incorporate that and other regional influences, that combined, represent the entire global climate, is unlikely to come up with all the answers. I realise Australia is not the world, but when scientists were putting too much emphasis on ENSO in trying to predict our weather their success rate was lucky to be as good as tossing a coin, perhaps worse. Now as greater understanding of the IOD begins to filter in things are starting to make more sense. -
Harold at 14:51 PM on 5 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
Oops. I just read the policy page that forbade cutting and pasting from previous comments. My apologies. This issue regarding McKitrick's paper has been pushed as far as is decent, and I will leave it alone. Thanks again. -
Philippe Chantreau at 14:44 PM on 5 April 2010A residential lifetime
GC "I can't put it much plainer than that." Indeed, and that's a significant progress compared to the horrific- pestilence type of formulation. I conclude that we are in agreement on the better ways to word an argument. -
Harold at 14:27 PM on 5 April 2010A database of peer-reviewed papers on climate change
I appreciate those of you who have responded to my comments and the patience of this blog to allow me to press the issue. I have continued to press the issue because it does not appear to me that the issue raised McKitrick has been squarely addressed. Tom Dayton writes "All the things he complains about in his public screed have been publicly addressed, and his paper is just... well, wrong" and then directs me to this paper published in Jan 2009 which calls into question McKitrick's 2007 published paper. But the paper that McKitrick has been submitting since early 2008 addresses the objections that have been raised to the 2007 paper, including (according to McKitrick) those articulated in the Schmidt's 2009 paper. I am not sure how his position can be considered to be publicly addressed when it has not even been seen. Quoting Tom again, "McKitrick's experience was typical for anyone whose submitted work is severely and fundamentally flawed." This is fair, if the editors/reviewers consistently says so. However, McKitrick's summary of the responses he has seen is the following: "Altogether I sent the paper to seven journals before it went to SP&P. From those seven journals I received seven reviews, of which six accepted the findings and supported publication. The one that rejected my findings contained some basic technical errors, but the journal editor would not respond to my letter pointing them out. Nature, Science and Geophysical Research Letters would not even review the paper, while the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society never acknowledged the pre- submission inquiry. Global and Planetary Change received one review recommending publication, blocked another reviewer before he could submit a report and then turned the paper down." This is not how I would expect a working peer review system to respond to a fundamentally flawed paper, even if that system is imperfect. Comment 27 points to an article that tries to show how peer review is effective at accomplishing quality control while avoiding censorship. I would be interested to see what it takes to qualify as censorship in the climatology field. -
Tom Dayton at 14:18 PM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
From Peru, it doesn't matter what the proposed mechanism is for ENSO's effect on global temperature. The actual, empirical, observed data show that ENSO can explain only short-term variations in temperature, not the long-term increase. That's the point of this post, and of the post It's El Nino. Click on the link to Deep Climate that I provided in my comment #5 above, and look at the graphs there. -
Jeff Freymueller at 13:44 PM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
#13 Chris G, Foster et al in their comment pointed out that the filtering McLean et al. applied to "reduce noise" mainly filtered out the long-term trend. Foster et al. are correct. McLean et al. found a strong correlation between the filtered SOI and filtered GTTA (which is fine, and non-controversial). Then they made a series of statements that were true for the filtered time series, but they stated them as if they were true for the original series (they are not true for the original series). I think you can conclude for yourself from Figure 1 whether SOI explains the trend in GTTA -- it explains a lot of short-term variability but clearly SOI does not have the trend that GTTA has. -
Jeff Freymueller at 13:36 PM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
#10 michael sweet, I think it is not normal. I would never do such a thing intentionally in my own work, and I would be embarrassed if I did it accidentally. Having the zero point on the y-axis be different on both sides, yet so close that a quick look makes it seem the same? The effect is deceptive, and it is the authors' responsibility NOT to be deceptive. #11 comment, actually I think the smoking gun wasn't firing blanks, but it ended up pointed back at the shooter... #12 Humanity Rules, if you put the three panels together, added back the 0.2 degrees offset in GTTA between panels a and b, then I think you would see the trend more clearly. Also note that the x-axis is expanded in panels b and c relative to panel a, which makes the trend appear smaller. In any case, as I mentioned above, the effect of putting the zero label in slightly different places on the right and left y-axes is visually deceptive. The bottom line is that Figure 1 is a straightforward plot of two quantities, and they did several things differently in Figure 7, all of which had the effect of obscuring the trend in GTTA, which is obvious in Figure 1. You might ask yourself why they did that, or why they removed the trend for their statistical correlation while claiming they were just removing noise? I've drawn my own conclusion. -
Chris G at 13:34 PM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
OK, this may be a naive question, but if the SOI is a function of air pressure differences, and El Nino/La Nina is water temperature, well, aren't both of those dependent to some extent on the amount, or pattern of distribution, of energy in the system? If so, changes in them are driven by changes in energy, or energy flux. I think it would be surprising if there were not feedbacks or interdependencies involved, but I'm wondering if there is some confusion here between cause and effect. Also, did I understand this correctly that they filtered out the long term trend, and then state that they detect no long term trend (global temperature rise)? -
HumanityRules at 12:54 PM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
#8 jeff, If we were concerned about absolute values I would take your point about the shift in the axis but what matters here is trends and I still don't understand why the trend difference is more obvious in figure 1 than it is in figure 7. If the difference existed in figure 7 it would be shifted to one end of the graph (1980 or 2000) because of the axis shift, but it isn't.Response: The shift in axis is significant because Figure 7a uses the same SOI Y-axis as Figures 7b and 7c. And yet Figure 7a uses a different temperature Y-axis from Figures 7b and 7c. They're shifting the goal posts, they're splicing the data sets then trumpeting this graph as disproving the large body of empirical evidence that more CO2 is causing warming. -
thingadonta at 10:02 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
I never thought much of filtering out long term trends to show short term trends are making short term trends, as in the Mclean et al paper. The long term trends remain relevant and must be explained. But one hide the decline (divergence) doesn't validate another hide the divergence (Mann et al 1998). The long term trend remains, and it doesnt follow either Mann's tree rings or short term climate variations.Response: "one hide the decline (divergence) doesn't validate another hide the divergence (Mann et al 1998)."
Of course it doesn't, noone is suggesting "McLean hid the decline therefore it's okay for Mann to hide the decline". In the case of the tree-ring divergence problem, what is required is a proper understanding of the tree-ring divergence problem. Contrary to what is commonly reported, it's not a divergence or decline in temperature - but a decline in tree-ring growth due to some factor other than temperature. This is an issue that is openly discussed in many peer-review papers.
In contrast, what we're talking about here is more straightforward - the direct comparison of temperature and SOI. But the comparison is being obscured by splicing of data, of obscuring the splice by dividing the graph into multiple boxes, of using different Y-axis ranges in the different boxes and a curious lack of divergence in Figure 7 that is not apparent in Figures 1 and 4. The way McLean and others talk up Figure 7, it's the smoking gun that disproves anthropogenic global warming. With all the question marks over this graph, it's more a smoking gun firing blanks. -
michael sweet at 09:28 AM on 5 April 2010McLean, de Freitas and Carter rebutted... by McLean, de Freitas and Carter
Re: Jeff Freymueller at #8: It seems to me that Jeffs comments about the axis being shifted is correct. I presumed that the zero on each side lined up when I looked at the graph. It was very difficult to see that they did not line up. To McLean et al: is it normal to have this type of axis shift? -
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.
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