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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 12251 to 12300:

  1. Other planets are warming

    S0urce @53,

    There is usually no dispute that the strength of the Sun has increased over the eons. (So says the Standard Solar Model although the 'weak early sun paradox' does occasionally throw up some contradictary ideas, eg Graedel et al 1991). Yet an increase of 200K in the Sun's temperature over periods of a century or even centuries is in a different league. A rise in temperature from 5800K to 6000K (with theSun unchanged in size) would result in a 14% increase in solar radiation, boosting Earth's insolation from 1366Wm^-2 to 1442Wm^-2. Solar insolation has been accurately measured for 40 years with no sign of such a rise.Solar Insolation graphAnd actually, we wouldn't have required such measurements to notice an increase of that size. A rise of 200K in the Sun's temperature would have applied a ~12Wm^-2 forcing to Earth's climate, enough to boost Earth's global temperature by ~10ºC, a bit of a game changer if it happened over a period of a century or so.

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] I deleted S0urce's duplicate post in this thread. See the copy s/he posted in It's the Sun.

  2. It's the sun

    The Sun was classified as a G2V main sequence Yellow dwarf star, and oddly it still is. But the fact is it no longer is a yellow star, it's a white star. The once yellowish sun is now a brilliant metallic white, as result of an increase in the average temperature of the photo sphere of approximately 200 degrees kelvin.
    It is possible to actually prove this increase in temperature to yourself.
    The only equipment and materials you need are an astrophysical publication in book form that predates 1980 and gives the photosphere temperature and classification of the Sun , a camera, and a color/temperature star classification chart . All publications no matter where they originate that predate 1980 will say the Sun is a G2V main sequence yellow dwarf star. with a photosphere temperature of 5600-5750 Kelvin. It will also describe the visible overall appearance of the Sun as "pale yellow", which correlates with that temperature color -wise. There may be an image showing you how the Sun appears, usually just a circle of pale yellow. If you reference a star color /temperature chart you will find this to be true, that 5750 correlates with a pale yellow star.. The Sun as a G2 star was on the upper end of the "yellow" classification, but as it gained 200degrees K to 6000K , it's classification changed from G2 to F-9, which is on the lower end of the "white" star classification temperature and color.

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] See MA Rodger's response comment in the Other Planets are Warming thread. Everybody please post further responses here in this It's the Sun thread.

  3. Record high snow cover was set in winter 2008/2009

    I think Molsen is wanting to pick a shorter time period to make his point (ie cherry pick). When you have a noisy time series (like this one), you dont get to pick arbitary periods (see "the escalator" in right hand column). The amount of variance in the data determines how many points in the time series are needed to determine a significant trend. Climate is defined as 30 year average of weather for a good reason.

  4. Record high snow cover was set in winter 2008/2009

    That graphic already incorporates 2018 data.

  5. Record high snow cover was set in winter 2008/2009

    Daniel Bailey, if instead of using the trend line that incorporates 2010 data, you use the trend line that incorporates 2018 data, you will see that it has shifted up slightly.

    PS, you're right — the answer should be updated to reflect new data. The existing data is misleading.

  6. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    @bArt 334.  "The reason I choose to remain an AGW skeptic at this time is because a series of unscientific but still logical and true facts bring me there by deduction (which is all that readings and models happen to do also)."

    I disagree, unscientific is not logical.  There is a reason more than 97% of mainstream science says AGW is not only real but a serious problem.  And there is absolutely no doubt that the increased CO2 and warming is anthropogenic.  Its plain straight forward chemistry shown through carbon isotopes.  No ifs, ands, or buts.

  7. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    bArt - your point 4/ raises interesting question. How do you really go about about evaluating an issue. There is a lot about critical thinking versus motivated reasoning here.

    One good starting point is to decide what evidence would make you change your mind (and please dont insist on nature doing something that climate science says cant happen like monotonic temperature rise).

    You might ask, what would it take for me to decide AGW is wrong and I think this post outlines at the bottom what discoveries would certainly cause me to change my mind.

  8. SkS Analogy 17 - Lotteries, evaporation, and superstorms

    nigelj@1 Yes, evaporative coolers are a good example. When I was young we did not have air conditioning in our car. When travellig in the desert we put wet washclothes on our forehead to cool ourselves down. Same principle as an evaporative cooler.

    Although evaporation only occurs above 0C, below that temperature the process is fundamentally the same, except it is called sublimation and not evaporation because frozen water is moving to the vapor phase. I enjoy watching a small pile of snow inside our shed in Minnesota slowly disappear in the middle of winter.

  9. SkS Analogy 17 - Lotteries, evaporation, and superstorms

    Very catchy, informative and entertaining analogy. I found myself trying to remember under what conditions evaporation occurs. It could be helpful to include an embedded link to a wikipedia article on evaporation, or a brief summary that evaporation can happen at any temperature above 0 degrees C, and is proportional to temperature, and the vapour pressure of the atmosphere etcetera. Or maybe this is superfluous to the thrust of the discussion, and over complicates it?

    Several of the principles noted form the basis of evaporative coolers.

    Another consequence of a warming world and higher levels of atmospheric moisture is storms produce more intense rainfall. This was very significant for Hurricane Harvey.

  10. Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming

    Thanks folks, that's what I was looking for. More the science and stats part than the ad hominem stuff, since I was raised to be able to learn from a fool, and I also don't mind learning from people who are biased or sometimes wrong  I try to avoid tribalism in politics generally, and I find it especially rampant and ugly in the climate wars. 

    But it will take me a while to get through it all. 

    Just offhand, of course the US mainland is not nearly the whole world, but it's probably the part that's been keeping the best records of hurricanes for the longest. When you lose your keys in the dark, it may be smart to look first under the streetlights, type thing. Of course, of all possible statistical outcomes, a finding of no significant trend is most easily produced by a too-small sample, so I "get" the criticism. 

  11. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    bArt @334,

    While I agree with the comments @335&336, I would say that the meaning of much of what you write is not at all clear. So let me present what I interpret you as saying along with my own understanding of its context.

    You accept the world is warming and are open to "new findings and information" (4), but this is an exceedingly low base from which to establish the reality of AGW.

    You don't give a hoot about humanity (1) or other biological life (3) as long as you are not too hot and have oxygen to breath. Interestingly Arrhenius thought that a little more heat would be good for the world, he living in Sweden which is a tad cold come the winter. There was even discussion of setting fire to coal mines so AGW could be created without having to mine the stuff before you burn it. If Arrhenius had lived in the tropics (as do 40% of humanity) or a less Euro-centric world, he would surely have thought differently.

    Your need for volcanoes (3) remains a mystery.

    The failure of science to nail down ECS more exactly cannot really be seen as a reason to ignore the serious nature of AGW. Identifying the upper limits of ECS is always going to be difficult as a high ECS is only different from a medium ECS after 100 years or so. The work of folk trying their hardest to demonstrate tiny values for ECS (or TCR) and thus to diminish AGW, such work doesn't really hold water outside the narrow constructs they set it out within. So yes, in a narrow sense "the science is actually not yet settled" but the bit of science you rest your faith in (2) is narrower than narrow and those wholly engaged in that sliver of science are simply refusing to leave the last-chance-saloon at closing time.

    The relevance of your final sentence in (2) is not evident.

  12. Sea level is not rising

    Whatever the rights or wrongs, post-earthquake changes to the district plan are a long way from "If people are to be forced by law to move away from coastal areas or suffer other penalty due to events that merely might happen". Chch dropped relative to sealevel in the quake and rising seas (currently happening as measured not a future maybe) only exacerbate the situation. I sit on other side where colleagues wring their hands in despair when consents are given to building in a gun barrel. Chch suffered enough from that where developers with deep pockets buys land, and fights their way through to sell it on to suckers. I agree that compensation needs to be looked at but so is the responsibility for diligence. Better if councils sorted hazards before development.

  13. Sea level is not rising

    This link shows that CCC over-reached when it wrote the district plan for a coastal strip of land here in Christchurch, New Zealand. https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/107144890/three-lines-left-out-of-christchurchs-district-plan-has-left-a-community-in-despair

    Of course they claim it was an honest mistake. I am very skeptical.

    I believe that where a rated property has had full occupancy and building rights for several decades, if the powers that be wish to change the rules, then even though they have the right to do that, any property owner that loses amenity of value (due to policy changes) should be compensated.

    We are a bit of a special case here in Christchurch after the earthquakes, we have been told so many lies, have been spied on by govt. and generally been ridden roughshod over, that we now are very suspicious of  any officials who wish to change things in their favour and at the same time pull the wool over law abiding citizens eyes.

  14. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Just to further at your point 1. You seem to be stating it is reasonable to be AGW skeptic because prefer warming. In places where death toll in 1000s from heatwaves, then they would rather a cooling trend. Is it logical to for each person to determine the truth of what is actually happening on basis of their preference. Or is it, "I all right Jack" ergo AGW is alarmist conspiracy?

  15. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    1/ You choose your beliefs around your personal preferences? Hardly logical. A logical basis for believe is where the actual evidence points you.

    Again, it is not a question of what the temperature actually is, but how fast that it is changing that is the main problems. Rapid change threatens infrastructure and agriculture.

    2/"can cancel one another out". I am not aware of any evidence supporting that. Where did you get that from? Cloud feedback is very complicated (is it net positive or negative?) but able to cancel out water vapour feedback? Again, all the actual evidence whether from paleoclimate, models, TCS estimates etc. puts sensitivity in range 1.5 - 4.5 with likely value of 2.8-3.0. You appear to be accepting some hand-wavy arguments in favour of what you would like to believe rather then any actual evidence.

    "Both oceans and atmosphere are fluid, dynamic and vast and average measurements can only indicate trends." Not sure what your point is here? The error range associated with measurement of both ocean heat and atmosphere are well documented and I cannot see how they would support your argument.

    3. Well that is logical, because biological life contributes next to zero to global warming. Its burning fossil fuel that does the damage.

    4. Good, but actually understanding the existing findings and information would be good idea. You seem a little prone to ignoring observations you dont like.

     

    I am still keen to see a response to reply on other thread. Particularly your source for laws pushing people off land on basis projected sealevel rise.

  16. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    The reason I choose to remain an AGW skeptic at this time is because a series of unscientific but still logical and true facts bring me there by deduction (which is all that readings and models happen to do also).

    1. Some warming is preferable to some cooling (humans are warm blooded and do not do well without insulation against the cold (0 deg.C). When I physically begin to feel uncomfortable from the relentless heat, I may then prefer a cooling trend.

    2. Positive and negative feedbacks associated with increased water vapor and cloud formation can cancel one another out and complicate matters. The actual balance between them is an active area of climate science research and therefore the science is actually not yet settled. Both oceans and atmosphere are fluid, dynamic and vast and average measurements can only indicate trends.

    3. As long as terrestrial and deep ocean volcanoes exist, and as long as I do not have difficulty breathing (O2 supply) then I am not going to worry about how much "heat" biological life (see above) contributes to global warming.

    4. I remain open to new findings and information and accept that a GW trend is currently occurring. 

  17. Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming

    Norm Rubin,

    The RealClimate link that Bob Loblaw has above shows that using only landfalling hurricanes reduces the available data by a factor of over 1000.  They specifically argue that this is an inappropriate method of data analysis because it allows the noise to overcome the signal.  It appears that the paper you cited has been prebunked.  I seem to have been too kind in my post.

    Bob,

    Thanks for the great links.  I see your posts on other sites.  Always well informed.

  18. Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming

    Somewhat old now, but Pielke's work has been discussed over at Tamino's Open MInd in the past:

    https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/catastrophes-how-many-more/

    https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/unnatural-catastrophes/

      Slightly newer discussion of hurrixcane frequency at RealClimate. The post presents some behaviour by Pielke that is, shall we say, not particularly flattering.

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/03/the-most-common-fallacy-in-discussing-extreme-weather-events/

  19. Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming

    Norm Rubin,

    I am not an expert on hurricanes but I read some.

    Nature Sustainability is not the same journal as Nature.  It is less prestigious.

    These authors have been making this argument for a long time.  From what I have read it appears that they are in the minority but there is not a consensus on this topc.

    Analysis of USA only data seems inappropriate to me. There are not many hurricanes and the record is noisy.  The USA is only 3% of the Earth's surface.  You would expect that noise would be bigger than the signal.

    This article documents that strong hurricanes (force 4 and 5) have increased in number over the entire Earth.  They reference at least 4 other papers that find an increase in the most powerful hurricanes.  There appear to be less force 1 and 2 hurricanes so the total number of hurricanes is about the same.  There is much more signal to noise in an analysis of the entire Earth.  It stands to reason that if there are more force 4 and 5 hurricanes (which cause most of the damage), there will be more damage caused.  An analysis of world  wide damage for the past 40 years would be more meaningful than a USA only analysis with a longer record.

    The paper I cited claims that sea surface temperatures have only been elevated enough to affect hurricanes for 40 years so the earlier data in your cited paper is not as valuable.

    Jeff Masters discusses the catastrophic hurricanes that struck the USA in 2018.  He discusses modeling that attributes 50% of Florence's rainfall to warming.  Similar attribution has been made for Harvey's rainfall in Texas last year.

     To me it stands to reason that if there are more category 4 and 5 hurricanes and they produce twice as much rain due to warming than more damage will be caused by hurricanes.  There were several strong hurricanes at the start of the limited USA record analyzed in the Weinkle et al paper which affect the statistics.  

    I expect it to be a long time (decades) before the USA only record of hurricanes shows statistically significant change in hurricanes since there are so few and the record is noisy.  The worldwide record already shows increases in powerful hurricanes which cause the most damage. 

    I doubt there will be much commentary on this paper by scientists unless deniers make wild claims about it.  Since it is a valid paper if you choose to make the argument that hurricanes have not changed you can, but it is not a strong claim when the world record is examined.  The fact the US damage was so severe in 2018, after the Weinkle paper was published, is suggestive but not statistically significant yet.  

  20. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    Scaddenp, yes that pretty much sums it up. As does this amusing quote from John Rogers:

    "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

  21. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    Gee, I would have said the attraction of Rand's confused philosphy was in how to feel good about being a completely self-centered, immoral prat. Followers really dont want to think too hard about how her idea connect actual reality, preferring to try and shape reality to fit Rand's fantasy worlds.

  22. Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

    @324 MA Rodger,

    "room" in this case refers to the size of the sink potential, not the size of the pool or the rate at which carbon moves from one pool to another.

    Clearly because this is a complex system the rate will vary quite a bit due to many factors, but the size of the sink is far more than large enough to handle all the excess carbon in the atmosphere easily. That would not even get soil carbon levels to pre-industrial, much less pre-agriculture.

    Keep in mind though, I have stated multiple times here with evidence that LUC as you depect here for example is about emissions and completely inadequate at resolving the whole stable soil carbon cycle including lost sequestration capacity. It's a labile or biomass state. ie short term carbon cycle and labile carbon pools. Apples and oranges.

    Because you are about oranges instead of apples I can see where you might think this is off topic. But instead of going off topic, go back on topic, and you'll see more clearly my point. I am not talking about LUC in the biomass and labile carbon pools, I am talking about saturation capacity in the long term stable carbon soil sink.

  23. State of the climate: How the world warmed in 2018

    So we're at 2045-2050 where we will hit the 2°C above pre-industrial baseline. 1.5°C probably by 2030. Not much time left. I'd say the oncoming decade is DECISIVE for anything like Paris.

    Safe Climate Zone

    Global warming will happen faster than we think

    That’s how fast the carbon clock is ticking

  24. Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

    RedBaron @323,

    Your assertion that there is "room for all emissions to be absorbed by natural systems" (by this meaning the biosphere) is a little off-topic here.

    However, a few facts (numbers sourced mainly from the Global Carbon Project).

    About one third of our CO2 emissions since 1750 have resulted from Land-Use-Change (or in simple terms cutting down trees). And as a result of these LUC emissions, the biosphere only became a net absorber of our emissions from the 1970s-on (when FF emissions became the 'bulk' of the total).

    Today (ie the last 40 years) the biosphere absorbs significantly more of our emissions than do the oceans. But when we manage to stop boosting atmospheric CO2 levels (hopefully soon), the oceans will become the major absorber, eventually taking the vast majority of our emissions and in doing so, reversing the biosphere absorption of today (and since 1990 when CO2 was ~350ppm).

    The absorption of CO2 on man-managed lands can be improved and the carbon then 'sequestrated' (ie out of reach of the natural carbon cycle) to somewhere safe (rather than relying on natural 'sequestration' processes). But without such 'sequestration,' added reabsorption relies on either reversing the LUC (so simplistically able to reverse that third of our emissions that came from LUC) or a continued presence of an elevated atmospheric CO2 level, which logically implies not "all emissions" can be absorbed by this route.

  25. One Planet Only Forever at 13:27 PM on 23 January 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    nigelj,

    Thanks for the added insight into Ayn Rand.

    And I will continue using the term Altruism but will trying to remember to describe it as 'helping others with no expectation of any return benefit' and the related understanding 'not harming Others'.

    That is the essence of the motive for establishing and pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals. Most of the required actions and corrections should not be expected to return a direct benefit to those who put the effort into achieving and improving on them. The required actions are not a set of Trades in the Market between supposedly fully informed and equally influential parties.

  26. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    OPOF @19, I did a design degree, and Ayn Rands Fountainhead "came with the territory" and I also read Atlas Shrugged. I think you are right her views were very coloured by her experiences of the Soviet Union. She saw the worst side of socialism, a confused set of policies often forced onto people in barbaric and senseless ways at the point of a gun. Intellectuals rounded up and forced into labour camps. Anyone should be horrified, but it made her react against anything even remotely socialist, and means she was letting circumstances colour her evaluation of things, so although she claimed she was an objectivist, she was actually the complete opposite. Not that all her observations are wrong, but her ideology and her code of morality is little more than her opinion and doesn't make a lot of sense.

    For example its nice to say everyone should be productive. Who would disagree? Nobody sensible. But if someone gets lucky and wins the lottery and stops being productive there is nothing we can do about it short of forcing them, the very thing Ayn Rand would rebel against.

    And how do we deal with people who cannot be productive like invalids? Because it's really this that is her real, hidden concern. In Ayn Rands world they are left to the wolves, because she rules out any collective response where the public assist such people through something like a social security programme, because she sees this as the alleged mob telling her that she must help pay for such a scheme through taxation. She sees this as fundamentally wrong, having seen the worst consequences of such forced programmes in the soviet union, however the only viable way of funding such schemes is in fact taxation. The only viable way of funding any form of government action is taxation, so if taxation is "theft" then we cannot escape some element of theft, because the alternative is the rule of the jungle- and this is even worse than Soviet collectivism. So I say her world view is laughable and not logically thought through.

    In fact the real solution is to create socio economic structures that help people and tax as required, but structure them to minimise such structures abusing their power and over taxing and over spending.There are obvious ways of doing this.

    Yes sure I agree Rands acolytes try to give altruism a bad name. I'm in two minds, because I see your point of view, yet why should we let them dictate the terms of the debate? Altruism is a recognised form of human behaviour and a word in the dictionary. We do it because we are human, and I'm damned if anyone is going to tell me it's somehow fundamentally wrong or cannot form part of governments thinking! Even if we use the term Helpful they will finad a way to pull that to bits!

    Ayn Rands world might have purity of ideas, but it is a cold sterile purity and is unable to deal effectively with problems in the real world. The real world is complicated and messy. I do not believe in soviet union style collectivism as such, this sort of ownership just leads to stagnation, because nobody owns anything so nobody cares, but environmental problems fall into the category of "things needing some government input" because free markets simply dont adequately solve the problems. This might annoy Rand, but too bad for that. Ayn Rands thinking means such problems would go completely unsolved for the sake of her "principles" which is just madness.

  27. Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

    @321 chromedome49

    You are correct. There is actually room for all emissions to be absorbed by natural systems. But of course we humans have significantly degraded that side of the carbon cycle as well. 

    Farming Claims Almost Half Earth's Land, New Maps Show

    Land Degradation: An overview

    So even though there is room, particularly in the soils, in reality agriculture has turned that sink potential into the second leading cause of AGW behind fossil fuels.

  28. One Planet Only Forever at 11:30 AM on 23 January 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    nigelj,

    Thanks for the link. Improving understanding relies on updates of information that alter or strengthen an existing understanding.

    One pore point. I am moving away from using the term Altruism.

    I have been learning that people have different perceptions of the term. And some of those perceptions are not consistent with my intent to focus on helping vs. harming others. Using the term can end up in misunderstanding.

    Some people, like Ayn Rand, have very extreme views of Altruism. They see a altruism as a complete abdication of all personal choice or freedom. Ayn thought that way because she considered the Authoritarian Soviet state actions to be examples of what altruism is all about. What was happening was not Ayn Rand's observation of a requirement of altruism from Soviet citizens. A portion of the Soviet population was abusing claims that sounded altruistic as misleading marketing for their authoritarian strongman pursuits of more personal power and perceptions of superiority relative to others.

    My current understanding is that Ayn Rand would likely have been a strong proponent of what I am thinking is required. One gap in her expression of her thinking was the failure to describe what she meant when she said things like it being 'best for every man to do as they please except that it was 'immoral' for a man to not be productive'. Productive is open to a range of helpful and harmful possibilities. It is possible that a person interested in being deliberately harmful (as I describe help vs harm) could be considered to be productive because they are doing something that impacts others and they are succeeding.

    Ayn Rand has said other things that indicate she expected people to be helpful rather than harmful. But she never seemed to clearly elaborate on the requirement for helpfulness. Tragically, an acolyte of Ayn's, Allan Greenspan, claimed in his testimony to Congress after the 2008 financial debacle he oversaw the development of, that he had no idea that business leaders would consider doing anything that would result in future harmful consequences.

    Many anti-altruism freedom fighters appear to similarly misunderstand what is actually going on. The mere mention of the term altruism can trigger a fear and anger gut-reaction that isn't helpful. Using the terms helpful and harmful still challenges their beliefs, but it is harder for them to be dismissive about a help/harm description than they can be about a term like Altruism. Some of them actually even try to claim that altruism does not exist, probably because they do not want it to exist, because the likes of Ayn Rand state that altruism and capitalism cannot co-exist, but more likely because the thought of giving up a potential personal benefit out of consideration for Others is seriously contrary to their interests.

  29. Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

    chromedome49 @321,

    You appear to be asking a question by beginning a sentence "Question:" but this isn't followed by a question. So I will assume you are asking something like: 'Why, if anthropogenic emissions are but a small fraction of natural emissions (using the numbers in the OP, actually 3.7%); why then can't such a small extra amount be taken up and absorbed by the much larger natural mechanisms?'

    The problem with such a proposition is that the natural cycle was in balance prior to our emissions. Today, the reason the natural cycle is out-of-balance and takes more CO2  than it emits is simply because the atmospheric CO2 levels have gone up. Without such an increase, the balanced natural cycle would fail to take any of our emissions. But as there is now an extra 1,055Gt(CO2) in the atmosphere, there is extra space in the natural absorption part of the cycle for some of our CO2 to be absorbed in that cycle. While we continue to emit at increasing rates the proportion of our CO2 emissions absorbed by the natural cycle will continue to be large, roughly 50%. Were we to stop emitting, the natural cycle would continue absorbing extra CO2 and reducing the anthrpogenic burden in the atmosphere, initially quite quickly over a few decades, then more slowly in successive centuries until in a thousand years 75% or 80% of our emissions will have been drawn out of the atmosphere. After that, the process becomes so slow that it will take many tens of thousands of years to reduce the remainder to insignificance.

  30. Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

    If I understood your answer correctly, you said our 29 GT Co2 is small compared to the 750 GT exchanged each year, and that ours is about half absorbed. Question: 29 GT times 25 is 725 GT. It looks to me as if there was plenty of room for ALL of our CO2 to have been absorbed.

  31. Hurricanes aren't linked to global warming

    All I can find this minute is the abstract and citation  with the full text behind Nature's paywall. I thought I'd read it  but I've never paid for a Nature subscription  

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0165-2 is the link.

    And here's a paste of the contents, FWIW:

    Nature Sustainability
    Analysis | Published: 26 November 2018

    Normalized hurricane damage in the continental United States 1900–2017
    Jessica Weinkle, Chris Landsea, […]Roger Pielke Jr
    Nature Sustainabilityvolume 1, pages808–813 (2018) | Download Citation

    Abstract
    Direct economic losses result when a hurricane encounters an exposed, vulnerable society. A normalization estimates direct economic losses from a historical extreme event if that same event was to occur under contemporary societal conditions. Under the global indicator framework of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the reduction of direct economic losses as a proportion of total economic activity is identified as a key indicator of progress in the mitigation of disaster impacts. Understanding loss trends in the context of development can therefore aid in assessing sustainable development. This analysis provides a major update to the leading dataset on normalized US hurricane losses in the continental United States from 1900 to 2017. Over this period, 197 hurricanes resulted in 206 landfalls with about US$2 trillion in normalized (2018) damage, or just under US$17 billion annually. Consistent with observed trends in the frequency and intensity of hurricane landfalls along the continental United States since 1900, the updated normalized loss estimates also show no trend. A more detailed comparison of trends in hurricanes and normalized losses over various periods in the twentieth century to 2017 demonstrates a very high degree of consistency.

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    Nature Sustainability
    ISSN 2398-9629 (online)

    NatureAbout us [clipped...] 

    I believe the item linked in post 84 is aimed at the second item I was asking about  

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] A full copy is here.

  32. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    OPOF

    "My current developed understanding is that the Objective of human activity needs to be helping others."

    Some of the research posted recently supports this notion: "What affects individual energy conservation behavior: Personal habits, external conditions or values? An empirical study based on a survey of college students" The study found values and in particular altruistic thinking was the most significant factor leading to more energy conservation. 

  33. One Planet Only Forever at 04:04 AM on 23 January 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    nigelj @1,

    I try to constantly improve my awareness and understanding.

    My current developed understanding is that the Objective of human activity needs to be helping others. With the highest level of that objective being to sustainably improve the future for humanity. The flip side of that understanding is that, as a minimum, people need to avoid harming others, including and especially not harming the future of humanity.

    The Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Climate Action, are a great presentation of what is required to achieve a better future for humanity.

    And the responses to the required corrections of what has developed that are exposed by the understanding of the Climate Action Goal, or any of the other Sustainable Development Goals, expose inconvenient realities of the socioeconomic-political systems that people developed their preferences and ways of thinking in.

    A clear understanding to me is that Competition for perceptions of superiority relative to others brings out the Best or Worst in people. If people in the competition can get away with behaving worse (more harmfully) then the competition encourages the development of worse competitors (more misleading secretive harmful people - deniers) because that behaviour is an easier way to be a bigger winner. Without close monitoring and rapid effective correction things can be expected to devolve away from sustainable helpful improvements (like that entropy thing).

    What needs to be encouraged is the development of 'Passionate thoughtful helpful' people rather than the misleading marketing creation of 'Angry gut-reacting fearful' people.

    From that basis of understanding I agree with your concerns about the Psychology Today article. And I have some minor points to make regarding your points 1) and 2), and I would add some new points.

    Regarding your point 1): I believe that the awareness that needs to be raised is awareness of how easy it can be to keep people from improving their awareness and understanding. People can easily be kept from improving their awareness and understanding, be kept from changing their minds, if they have developed a personal liking/desire for an incorrect belief that leads to harmful results or the risk of harmful results. People can be easily tempted to like claims that defend their developed desire to not have to change their mind, or change how they act, or admit that their actions are harmful.

    Regarding your point 2): Leaders and followers are a matched set. A leader needs followers to remain a leader. I agree that getting better behaviour out of leaders is key to achieving the required corrections. The problem is how fickle the followers can be. Back to 1), many people can be easily tempted by deliberately misleading wanna-be-leaders.

    A Good Helpful solution is to have all competitors for leadership being dedicated to honestly improving awareness and understanding of the corrections required to sustainably improve the future for a robust diversity of humanity (based on the understanding that the only viable future for humanity is a robust diversity of humanity sustainably regionally fitting in to a robust diversity of life on this planet). That requires increasing the number of people who understand the need for that type of leadership.

    In addition, the climate change problem will not be solved by only the Good Helpful people changing what they do. The problem requires fairness, meaning everyone understanding what they have to do - No Free Riders allowed to believe and do as they please (PeterV included a version of this point in his Jan 11, 2019 comment on the SkS item “Discussing climate change on the net”). Allowing harmful beliefs and activity to persist uncorrected is very dangerous and damaging to the future of humanity.

    A key issue is the type of attitudes, ways of thinking about things, that the socioeconomic-political systems encourage people to develop. People act based on the way they think. Even gut-reacting is a way of thinking. It is thinking without well reasoned evaluation of the helpfulness/harmfulness of the thoughts and resulting actions.

    Constantly improving awareness and understanding (being more correct), to help develop sustainable improvements for others (being more helpful), should be the understood ideal for every member of humanity. And it should be the expected behaviour of all of the winners and leaders in socioeconomic-political competitions for popularity and profit. The more influential or wealthy a person is, the higher the requirements should be for them to behave correctly helpfully.

    Acting harmfully in spite of the ability to more correctly understand how to be helpful is the worst thing a person can do, especially a wealthy or influential person. A person who has the ability to correctly understand something but chooses to act harmfully in spite of their ability to be correctly helpful needs to be seen to be a very harmful type of person. And a person who claims to be doing something helpful but achieves that claimed helpfulness through a harmful action must not be given credit for that Good Thing they claim to have done.

    An example of 'understanding that Actually Doing Something Good does not justify compromising on helpfulness by doing some Bad to get the Good - the ends do not justify the means' is drug operation leader El Chapo. El Chapo is not a Good Person even though his leadership of the regionally popular and profitable activity provides significant assistance to very many poor people in Columbia. That Good does not excuse any of the harm done.

    The same goes for fossil fuel burning being excused because of perceptions of Good Results being observed in the world that has been dominated by the burning of fossil fuels (incorrectly attributing the Good that has happened to an understandably unsustainable and harmful activity).

    And that need to find excuses for understandably unacceptable desires relates to the following point in the Psychology Today article “Psychologists consider denial—the refusal to accept facts in order to protect us from uncomfortable truths—to be a primitive defence mechanism.”

    The need to find excuses for developed harmful preferences is a defence mechanism. It is being triggered by some very smart people who understand how to manipulate the thinking of people. They try to make people fearful. But the political ones also try to make people incorrectly angry enough to be sure to vote for the leadership contender who makes them incorrectly fearful and angry. And those very smart people have the ability to correctly understand the climate science. But they are willing to work for the interests of wealthy and powerful who can also understand climate science and the socioeconomic-political corrections that need to occur to limit the harm being done to future generations. Collectively they fight against corrections and limits to their freedom to harm others and future generations, because such corrections and limits are 'correctly perceived to be at their personal expense, their loss of perceived superiority and prosperity relative to others'.

    My understanding leads to another comment regarding the following Psychology Today article point "How easy it is to shut the bad news away and look to deal with more tractable problems. Even poverty, war, and famine seem more easily solved than climate change.". Without achieving the Climate Action Goal, any perceptions of success regarding any other Sustainable Development Goals will be unsustainable. The more rapidly the climate action goal is achieved and improved on the easier it will be to sustainably reduce poverty, war and famine.

  34. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    'Climate Forecast: World Is “Sleepwalking into Catastrophe”'

    Is there a difference between 'catastrophe' and 'doom'?

  35. Sea level is not rising

    " If people are to be forced by law to move away from coastal areas or suffer other penalty due to events that merely might happen, then it is bullying."

    Interesting. Where is that happening? This sounds like something out of a rightwing fake news. Moved by law?? Please provide a link. Insurance companies stand to lose money and so funnily enough study the science quite seriously. They are getting tetchy about properties in highly exposed areas.

    " I still think that our planet has amazing self correcting and regulating abilities."

    And yet the projected changes are well within past states for the planet. 400ppm of CO2 takes us back to the much warmer Pliocene when we didnt have ice ages. What is worrying about historical evidence, is that rate of change is very very high compared to past and fast rates of change in the past have been very bad for many species. What is informing your belief that the planet will be self-correcting? Hope or facts?

    "Actually I do now accept both, but the extent and attendant risk are arguable."

    What do you mean about extent? You are still doubting the current measurement of around 3.7mm/yr from satellite and tide guages? Or the more reasonable doubt about how high it go?

    "My wife says it is merely the tail end of the huge cooling period (ice age) where the glaciers only continue doing what they have been doing for thosands of years."

    The question to ask is why? Scientists are incredibly attached to conservation of energy and temperatures have to rise and fall for a reason. And there is a well understood reason. Past glacial cycles are orbital-driven and happen via mechanisms that only can only operate when other forcings (including and especially CO2 levels) permit persistance of winter snowfall in NH through summer when the orbital forcing result in low insolation. On that basis, instead of warming, we should be very slowly cooling. (see here for details). With CO2 at current levels, it is not going to happen. The change in insolation driving glacial cycle is large but changes at rate of a few milliwatts/m2/ century at latitude 65N. By comparison, greenhouse forcing is increasing at around 3 watts/m2 /century on average over the entire globe.

    I know the Fox well (I am in Dunedin) and those West Coast valley glaciers have some special characteristics. There are two main drivers. On hand, the warming Tasman is increasing snowfall in the neve region pushing it forward, especially in El Nino. On other hand, the warming at terminus is increasing the melt rate. Its retreat/advance is the balance of those factors.

    I still find it astonishing that you could contemplate some hand-wavy explanation instead the hard work of thousands of scientists accumulating data over decades.

  36. Sea level is not rising

    Gentlepeople:

    On the subject of atmospheric water content, the measurement you want is "precipitable water" - the total water vapour in the atmospheric column, as if it were condensed and fell as rainfall. That will tell you how much it can contribute to sea level (or change).

    This web site provides a map (updated daily?), showing values ranging from close to zero up to about 70mm.

    https://eldoradoweather.com/climate/world-maps/world-precipitable-water.html

    This web site gives similar data, and mentions that the global mean is 21.6mm.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/precipitable-water

    If you account for the oceans only covering 2/3 of the world, that means that the 21mm could increase sea level by about 30mm. So, if you doubled atmospheric water vaour concentration (a huge change, much beyod what 3C of warming would cause), you'd lower sea level by 30mm.

    Entirely consistent with MA Rodger's numbers in comment #15.

  37. Sea level is not rising

    scaddenp@21

    Thanks for the link to the paper on OHC. In it, it states:

    "Our reconstruction, which agrees with other estimates for the well-observed period, demonstrates that the ocean absorbed as much heat during 1921–1946 as during 1990–2015."

    I take from that that as much heat was absorbed in the early 1900's as was being absorbed at the turn of the century (44 years later).

    You wonder why I fail to explain why I dont accept the direct observations of sea level rise (and for that matter ice loss).  Actually I do now accept both, but the extent and attendant risk are aguable. If people are to be forced by law to move away from coastal areas or suffer other penalty due to events that merely might happen, then it is bullying. Why not use education? It's worked on me so far. I used to be a denier (of sorts) although I still think that our planet has amazing self correcting and regulating abilities. There seems to be as much alarmist language as there is the opposite, lets just stick to verifiable facts.

    My wife says it is merely the tail end of the huge cooling period (ice age) where the glaciers only continue doing what they have been doing for thosands of years.
    Fox Glacier in New Zealand moves at approximately 10 times the speed of other valley glaciers around the world. 
    Fed by four alpine glaciers, Fox Glacier falls 2600 metres on its 13-kilometre journey towards the coast. It is 300 metres deep and its terminal face is just 5 kilometres from the township. Vertical schist rock walls on either side of the Fox Glacier valley are over one kilometre high. It is said that at one time Fox Glacier fed straight into the ocean, 13 kms. away. That means it's been receeding for quite some time.

    Please point out any wrong facts or assumptions I make, thanks.

  38. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    PC @14, there is so much denialism about, that its easy to jump to conclusions, and I do it as well. We get on edge.

    You are right, the event is not unusual, however it does look like inversions will become more frequent as in the links I posted. 

  39. Philippe Chantreau at 07:36 AM on 22 January 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0450(2003)042%3C1302:TASVOF%3E2.0.CO%3B2

    OK, I was dead wrong in my hasty interpretation of sunspot underlying message, I guess I'm a little jaded from years of fending denier's BS. Apology for that.

    However, I was not wrong in my assessment of how unusual this is for NH; it's not. Sunspot said verbatim at post #3 above "should be impossible." There is absolutely no reason why it should be impossible and it certainly is not uncommon.

    Changnon et Karl (2003) mapped the frequency of freezing precipitation for the 48 contiguous for the perio 1948-2000. Only Southern Cal and Southwestern Arizona have an average frequency of freezing precipitation days of zero. See link above, for some reason, it would not insert anywhere but at the top of the page.

     

  40. Sea level is not rising
    "This to me means that only the upper levels of the ocean are being warmed"

    When you preclude yourself from reading the actual scientific literature and restrict yourself to contrarian sources, I can see why that might be the conclusion you have been guided to make.

    However, the actual science knows that the ocean mixing layer in real life depends upon the time of the season, the location and even the extended weather patterns.  Hence, the mixing layer can range from a few meters to the abyssal depths, aided by Ekman trnsport and the above conditions.

    The oceans are warming, top-down. Per Cheng et al 2017:

    "OHC has increased fairly steadily and, since 1990, has increasingly involved deeper layers of the ocean. In addition, OHC changes in six major oceans are reliable on decadal timescales.

    All ocean basins examined have experienced significant warming since 1998, with the greatest warming in the southern oceans, the tropical/subtropical Pacific Ocean, and the tropical/subtropical Atlantic Ocean."

    "The new result (Fig. 6) suggests a total full-depth ocean warming of 33.5 ± 7.0 × 1022 J (equal to a net heating of 0.37 ± 0.08W/m2 over the global surface and over the 56-year period) from 1960 to 2015, with 36.5, 20.4, 30.3, and 12.8% contributions from the 0- to 300-m, 300-to 700-m, 700- to 2000-m, and below 2000-m layers, respectively."

    Cheng et al 2017

    More here.

    Cheng and Zhu 2018 - 2017 was the warmest year on record for the global ocean

    Cheng and Zhu 2018

    And, per Zanna et al 2019, global warming has heated the oceans by the equivalent of one atomic bomb explosion per second for the past 150 years (since 1871):

    "The ocean heating rate has increased as global warming has accelerated, and the value is somewhere between roughly three to six Hiroshima bombs per second in recent decades, depending on which dataset and which timeframe is used. This new study estimates the ocean heating rate at about three Hiroshima bombs per second for the period of 1990 to 2015, which is on the low end of other estimates."

    Zanna et al 2019

    Background SKS posts to read:

  41. Sea level is not rising

    More on deep ocean heating and circulation in a paper just out. See here.

    The determination of steric sea level rise is done by whole-of-ocean temperature rise as determined by observation, not back-of-the-envelope though admittedly deep-ocean temperature change is poorly constrained and the largest source of error in the estimates.

    You are still failing to explain why you dont accept the direct observations of sea level rise (and for that matter ice loss). Any sort of modelling of sea level rise is seeking to understand the actual measurements not the other way round.

  42. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    Clearly Manchester had some sort of rather large temperature inversion. Either snow hit a warm layer and turned to rain or rain passed through a shallow cold layer before it had time to freeze completely.

    The thing is would climate change be making temperature inversions worse in some way? Turns out climate change is expected to increase the occurence of temperature inversions.. and here as well.

    Just a bit of Sherlock Holmes searching on my part. So Sunspot might have been onto something.

  43. Sea level is not rising

    Recommended supplemental reading:

    Ocean warming speeds vary with depth by Tim Radford, Climate Home, Jan 10, 2019

    It's chock full of embedded references to scientific findings on the subject matter.

  44. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    Sunspot @11,

    The GISTEMP graphic @4 is a month's average not a single day. Were there no budget dispute running in the US, I would consider examining US state temperature data to see how unusual this East Coast cold spot actually is, but the child on Pennsylvania Ave is still in tantrum mode & NOAA data is off-line.

    As for your question which I paraphrase - 'What would we be seeing if Global Environmental collapse were happening?' That would likely depend on what you mean by "Global Environmental collapse."

    And while you insist The IPCC "don't specify what (twelve years left) really means," the IPCC SR15 does make clear what it expects in 12 years - a 45% cut in carbon emissions relative to 2010. And this is required, they say, to "limit warming to 1.5°C" and provide analysis of what exceeding such a warming would result in.

  45. Sea level is not rising

    bArt @17,

    I wouldn't say (as @18) that the short essay by Lilly Li you cite is "incorrect." Rather it is saying (although not very well) that the surface ocean waters are well mixed while lower depths below this mixed layer require circulation to spread the warming. Circulation is a slower process.

    Perhaps it would be worth explaining that the bottom of the ocean is 'cooled' rather than 'warmed'. You will be familiar with the high temperatures in the Earth's core. Puddled over the majority of the Earth's surface are the oceans & above that is an atmosphere with a temperature averaging 15ºC. Yet the ocean depths, sandwiched between the molten Earth's core and the sun-warmed atmosphere, are only just above freezing. (Until recently there was parts below 0ºC but reportedly this is disappearing.) So the only way the bottom of the ocean can be so cold is because something is keeping it cold. And that is salty cold water from the poles that tumbles down into the abyss.Ocean temperature profile

    Under AGW, the cooling of the ocean depths is less and the warming of the ocean surface is greater. So the whole ocean is warming. A quick look at OHC data shows the 600m ocean layer below the top 100m level (which contains the mixed layer) is warming at a third the rate of the surface 100m layer. Deeper down, the 700-to-2,000m layer is warming a sixth as quick as the surface 100m (these calculated from 1955-2013).

  46. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    As usual, everyone just wants to argue. Well, it's the internet...

    I wasn't born yesterday. I have never seen anything like sleet at 14 degrees. When it is that cold - it snows!. Every time! Yes, of course, there was a warm layer meltng the precipitation on the way down. I get that.

    And I certainly did not say that it was 'impossible". Obviously not. And anyone paying attention to the weather yesterday knows that this was not just in Manchester, NH, it was a widespread phenomenon all over the Northeast. Very low temps, but still sleet or even freezing rain. Not impossible, but very, very unusual. I'd bet that, if you showed what happened yesterday to any meteorologist thirty years ago, they would have said that storm was so unlikely as to be nearly impossible. Nearly.

    @MA Roger - Great map. One day. One day is weather. Climate is not shown on a map of one day's weather. The cold air detaching from the Pole to this extent and remaining so far south for so long, and how frequently this sort of thing is happening in the past couple of decades, is an obvious consequence of Global Warming. Sure looks like a major slowdown in the thermohaline circulation to me.

    The question I was trying to ask was: If the Global Environment was collapsing before our very eyes, what would we be seeing? In other words - explain to me how what we are seeing is NOT ongoing Global Environmental collapse? Because I think that it is. And it is accelerating. The simple fact that 75% of the insect population has died off provides strong evidence right there.

    Here's the thing - IPCC says we have twelve years left. They don't specify what that really means. Wise. I say they are overly optimistic, and I maintain evidence is "on my side". I feel like I know too much. I just go along with my day, but I think it is highly likely that the humans don't have much time left. And honestly, I don't talk about it because the last thing I want is for people to understand that the way I understand it. I claim no superior mental stability, but I know most people can't handle the concept that most life can be extinguished on this planet within a few years. Let's be kind and say a decade. I don't want people to know that. Enjoy what time is left. My only suggestion is this: if there is something on your bucket list you are planning for five years from now, and you can do it next year, move up your plans. 

    So there's my little rant. I just wanted to point out the contrasting weather at opposite ends of the planet. I enjoy the discussions here about the problems we face in 2300. It means that, even here, nobody really gets the full nature of the problem. But that's OK... keep vapin' the Hopium...

     

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Promoting doom (snipped) is unhelpful.

  47. Sea level is not rising

    Hi bArt,

    Your source of information is incorrect.  There is a circulation into the deep ocean from both poles where cold surface water sinks all the way to the bottom of the ocean.  This sinking water circulates around the world (on the bottom) and then re-emerges at other locations like the coast of Chile.  Wikipedia thermohaline circulation explaination.  I learned about the thermohaline circulation 50 years ago, it is not news to scientists.

    The circulation in the ocean has been modeled.  Recent data has shown that scientists underestimated the amount of heat that has been transferred into the deep ocean and the warming is worse than expected.  It is typical for scientists to underestimate warming because they are conservative.

    It is easy to raise quesitons about AgW if you ignore what scientists understand.  I recommend that you stop wasting your time on skeptic disinformation.

  48. Sea level is not rising

    Hi, doubting thomas is back again. This website https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/LilyLi.shtml states "There is a barrier between the surface water and deeper layers of the ocean that are not mixed. The barrier begins around 100 meters and can extend another few hundred meters downwards. There is a thermo cline meaning there is a quick change in temperature when entering the deeper surface of water. A CTD (Conductivity, Temperature and Depth) instrument (usually placed in the water from a ship or a platform) measures temperature in the deep ocean. Recordings have shown that the average temperature of water ranges from 0-3 degrees Celsius (32–37.5 degrees Fahrenheit)."

    This to me means that only the upper levels of the ocean are being warmed and are therefore only expanding over a fraction of their volume. Has this been modelled anywhere that anyone knows about?

  49. Philippe Chantreau at 13:53 PM on 21 January 2019
    2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    NigelJ is right. Freezing rain happens when there is a temperature inversion, which is common when a warm front overtakes a cold air mass in the winter. It often starts with snow, then sleet, followed by freezing rain. It obviously indicates that the temperature at higher altitude is above freezing. I certainly would not believe that this is an impossibility anywhere in NH, nor is a temperature of -10 degrees C.

    The average low for January in Manchester is 12 degrees Farenheit, lower than the temperature of this event according to Sunspot. Nothingburger. Just another example of "it snowed so there is no global warming" nonsense.

    https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/manchester/new-hampshire/united-states/usnh0361

  50. 2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

    OK, I see - 14F didnt mean much to me, but -10C makes it clear. Ed Hummel gives a pretty useful explanation here.

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