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stevecarsonr at 13:18 PM on 25 January 2010The chaos of confusing the concepts
doug_bostrom: "how can thermohaline currents affect global temperature?" By refreezing the arctic and northern europe and therefore increasing the albedo of the planet. If the albedo of the planet increases by 1% that's equivalent to about 3W/m^2, or a little more than the current impact of CO2. The current albedo of the northern mid to high latitudes is around 45-55%. If we took an area that was grassland, soil or forest and covered it with snow or ice it would go from around 20% to 60%-80% albedo. If we took ocean and covered it with ice it would go from 6% to 60% albedo. So an extra 7M km^2 of water with ice and an extra 3M km^2 of land with snow/ice would make that change. That's about 50% more sea ice in the arctic at the moment and a pretty big increase in northern europe/n.russia ice & snow. Also, if as a result of the THC shutdown the energy in the climate system is simply "re-arranged" then the tropical/sub-tropical regions will be warmer as a consequence of the northern high latitudes being colder. As energy is radiated at T^4, this will also result in a higher overall radiation. Back of envelope.. 20% of the world's surface decreases from 0 to -5'C and 20% of the world's surface increases from 15-20'C then there will also be a 1.1W/m^2 increase in radiation from the earth's surface (averaged across the whole planet). -
bit_pattern at 12:58 PM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Can you do a section on natural disasters? It's the latest "scandal" being promoted by The Times, would be good to have something to counter it with. -
NewYorkJ at 12:54 PM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
My contribution (for now): Coastal erosion, with a focus on Nigeria. http://idosi.org/wasj/wasj1(1)/10.pdfResponse: Many thanks for the link, much appreciated! I've added (belatedly) a sea level section to the Positives/Negatives of global warming and included coastal erosion.
Finding it hard to think of a positive impact of sea level rise... -
yocta at 12:34 PM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
RE#19 Chris The physicist Jan Hendrik Schön incident at Bell Labs is probably the worst I've heard of. He went so far as to include the same noise in his data for two experiments done at different temperatures. He eventually got busted due to scientists out there by doing their job. That is, critically assessing other peoples work and independently trying to replicate/verify their results. The only criticism I could have is that his colleagues eagerly slapped their name on his work as part of the "et al" without themselves bothering to check up on it's integrity. And I believe it was the editors of Nature were the ones who first discovered his misconduct. Shouldn't we then be congratulating the peer review system? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hendrik_Schön -
Berényi Péter at 12:26 PM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
chris at 10:54 AM on 25 January, 2010: Thanks, chris for the clarification. The IPCC could use whatever it saw fit after all. What passed its own review process, of course ("The circulation process among peer and government experts is very wide, with hundreds of scientists looking into the drafts to check the soundness of the scientific information contained in them"). One can get a clear enough impression about the depth of this process by considering the Himalayan glacier case (10.6.2). I am not allowed to cite or quote anything from it, for in order to access the reviews I was forced to accept a kind of non-disclosure agreement. But anyone can have a look. http://ipcc-wg2.gov/publications/AR4/ar4review_access.html Both the First & Second Order Draft Comments worth reading. Search for Himalaya or glacier. Evaluation is OK, I suppose. Almost all the expert comments are vague, except E-10-468 in First Order Draft Comments. It implies glaciers in the Karakoram region are growing (true) but was dismissed. The Japanese GOVT comment (G-10-121) is the only one which expresses some doubt, if only indirectly. No one notices the year 2035 thing. -
Bern at 12:22 PM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
"Scientific discussion should stick to the evidence, I would have thought." Well said, Chris! "Truth" is a dangerous thing. Just look at the many & ongoing religious wars over whose version of the "Truth" is correct. Lee Grable @ #9: Are you seriously suggesting that the generation of acoustic pressure waves is dependent upon whether there is a human observer present? Amazing, then, how all those animals that evolved in areas with no human population developed such a good sense of hearing... :-) -
PT_Goodman at 12:21 PM on 25 January 2010The IPCC's 2035 prediction about Himalayan glaciers
"In order to the glaciers in the Himalayans to melt completely, the freezing level would have to raise nearly 10,000 feet, for the summer freezing level in the area is about 13,000 ft. If it were to be reduced on a Moist adiabatic lapse rate, that would equate to a surface temperature at the base of the Himalayan Massiff to over 150F, and that is at 5000 ft. Dry adiabatically, it would be nearly 180F... I don't think that area is ready for that, as it would continue to warm gradually down to sea level and that would push it up to nearly 190F in BomBay (Mumbai as they say today). You could fry eggs on the sidewalk, maybe bake bread in a reflection oven, and roast corn on the cob in the same manner." The above is not my argument against the Himalayan glaciers melting. It is from a denialist. I'm brushing up on my physics (my 40 yo B.S. in Math/Physics isn't helping me much, anymore). I do know what an adiabatic lapse rate is, seem to recall that they are an idealization for estimating purposes only (although they do occur fairly precisely), and believe that the scenario described here is neither achievable nor sustainable in the real world (on earth). It would seem that the conditions described here would result in a very unstable atmospheric situation, and quickly and dramatically break down. I'm hoping someone here can provide a more complete refutation, although I'll be looking into it more myself. -
David Horton at 11:58 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
I had a great conspiracy theory going there John, and you've ruined it. Perhaps they have exchanged emails ...?Response: Sorry to rain on your tinfoil hat parade :-) -
Marcus at 11:20 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
You make a good point there Chris. Why does Peter assume that Peer Review is the "last line of defense" against bodgey science, when in truth it is the 1st & 2nd. Should a error laden paper somehow slip through the cracks, the scientific community as a whole is usually quick to highlight its flaws. Case in point is the original Manne paper relating to Paleo-climatology. Fellow researchers complained to the National Academy of Science, their claims were found to be valid & Manne was forced to redo & resubmit his original paper. If only the non-scientific world were subject to the same levels of scrutiny. Oh, & compare the level of peer-review in ISI journals to that of a journal like Energy & Environment. Remember that awful paper by the biology teacher Beck? The one which apparently proved that CO2 levels were higher in the 19th century than they are today (in spite of error bars which were almost as large as the actual values). That paper was utterly riddled with errors-errors easily pointed out by analytical chemists, atmospheric scientists & the like-yet it still got published, & is now held up as *proof* against global warming by those in the denialist industry. -
Marcus at 11:03 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
#60 (dhogaza), yes I found that confusing too, not least because we're not really talking about models in this case-we're talking about directly observed changes in average temperatures. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:54 AM on 25 January 2010The chaos of confusing the concepts
As we while away our Amateur Hours here, lest we get too lost discussing various subsystems it's a good thing to remember that-- chaos at or near the surface or not-- energy has to escape from the Earth if it is not to become warmer. So maybe it would be good to focus on effects that can actually change the planetary radiation equation. It seems to me that it's easy to pay too much attention to surface temperatures, ocean and land. Surface temperatures can be misleading; absent some means for improved radiation from the planet, there is not going to be any net "cooling" in absolute terms going on regardless of what surface dynamics and temperatures indicate. The elephant in the room here is the oceans; energy hidden in the ocean does not disappear. For example, can thermohaline currents affect global temperature? How? If energy is released at a unusually high rate from the oceans in one region it does not follow that it will automatically escape back into space. Focusing on chaotic processes is a bit of a distraction, unless one can envision a chaotic process that removes heat from the planet. What might that be? -
chris at 10:54 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
eh? What's "political" about the John Cook's statement you reproduced? "IPCC was in fact bound by its guidelines to rely on nothing but peer reviewed papers." Was it Peter? In the IPCC Procedures Documentation available here [*] it states concerning source material: "Peer reviewed and internationally available scientific technical and socio-economic literature, manuscripts made available for IPCC review and selected non peer-reviewed literature produced by other relevant institutions including industry". [*] http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_procedures.htm "2. Scientific discussion, on the other hand, should stick to truth (not "credibility")." Scientific discussion should stick to the evidence, I would have thought. "Anonymous peer review as such is inherently vulnerable to corruption (or redefinition à la Jones) indeed." In practice, I suspect this isn't much of a problem. If something is publishable it will get published, no question. Of course one might not get one's precious paper in the journal one might have hoped for. The only instance of substantial corruption of the peer review system I'm aware of is the one involving the Soon/Baliunas paper in Climate Research in which a biased editor let through a flawed paper. That was unfortunate, but has little scientific impact, since the scientific community recognises its flaws and ignores it...it's a good example of the "misrepresentation and dirty tricks" that I described in my post above though! There is a bit of a problem with Geophys Res Letters which seems occasionally to allow through some dodgy stuff. But scientificall that doesn't matter - though it helps fuel the misinformation industry... -
Riccardo at 10:52 AM on 25 January 2010We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
michaelkourlas, if 30 years are not enough to determine a trend i do not understand how 10 years can be enough. And it's not just 30 years, although smaller the contribution of ghg is sizeble even in the first half of the last century. Also, that the models did not predict the last 10 years is a mith, not least because they never attempted to predict them. I'd suggest to read how meaningfull comparison should be done. -
michaelkourlas at 10:40 AM on 25 January 2010It hasn't warmed since 1998
Ocean temperature has decreased since 2003. See R.A. Pielke, Sr., Physics Today, 94, Nov. (2008). which contains this graph: LINK
Moderator Response:Actually, the oceans have been warming since 2003. Observations of upper ocean heat show some short term cooling but measurements to greater depths (down to 2000 metres) show a steady warming trend:
However, the ocean cooling myth does seem to be widespread so I'll shortly update this page to clarify the issue. -
David Horton at 10:26 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
Doug Bostrom - I reckon "jpark" is another pseudonym for "JohnP" who similarly turned up out of nowhere on "2009-2nd-hottest-year-on-record-sun-coolest-in-a-century" thread. I thought he was just a bot, but if it is the same one here he is actually working away at distraction.Response: Based on their IP address, unlikely - one user is from the UK, the other is from the USA. That is, unless they're using IP mapping, which is unlikely (I have experienced users trying to disguise their IP before but only after I disabled their accounts on multiple occasions). -
michaelkourlas at 10:15 AM on 25 January 2010We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
I understand that the overall global warming trend has gone on for hundreds of years since the little ice age. I am not disputing that. What I am disputing is how much warming there has been since the 1980s, which is the warming we would be responsible for. We only started emitting massive amounts of CO2 in 1945 and the first time the temperature started rising after that was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Thus, the problem is that all the IPCC looks at to make its predictions and recommendations and such is one 30 year trend from 1980-present. 30 years is not really enough to completely determine whether or not humans are having a sizable impact on the climate system in the first place, but if there is a possibility that last 10 years of that series do not conform to the predictions that the IPCC have made... it really throws the IPCC's predictions into doubt. -
Berényi Péter at 10:10 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
doug_bostrom at 06:44 AM on 25 January, 2010: "Better stick to science" Agreed. However, our host made the bold _political_ statement "If the IPCC's mistaken prediction that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035 taught us anything, it's that we should always source our information from peer reviewed scientific literature" which cannot go unnoticed. What I was trying to set forth is that it was convoluted a bit, mixed two different things up. 1. IPCC was in fact bound by its guidelines to rely on nothing but peer reviewed papers. 2. Scientific discussion, on the other hand, should stick to truth (not "credibility"). IPCC happened to fail on both points. Intentionally, as Dr Murari Lal has admitted: "We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians". Of course. Impact is urgent, truth can wait. If peer review, scientific honesty or something else served truth better, remains to be seen. Anonymous peer review as such is inherently vulnerable to corruption (or redefinition à la Jones) indeed. Riccardo at 09:10 AM on 25 January, 2010: "Is this supposed to be the proof of non-scientific political bias?" Yes. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:09 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
"If the data going into all the trendy models is bad then we, the public, will simply dismiss the model." Whoever said that, thank you, here's another opportunity to point folks to an actual description of models as opposed to rumors about models: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm -
Riccardo at 10:04 AM on 25 January 2010We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
michaelkourlas, global warming didn't stop nor slowed down, at least if you mean the trend. Maybe temperature did, but it has the bad habit of going up and down in the short run; it always did and presumably will continue to do so. And the neither the IPCC nor the climatologists ever said it will not. -
michaelkourlas at 09:58 AM on 25 January 2010We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
Sorry, ignore the part about GISS. Check out the University of Alabama in Huntsville's measurements: http://www.nationalpost.com/893554.bin -
Steve L at 09:52 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Hi John, I'm surprised not to see sea level rise not mentioned on this page. And I didn't see anything about storms, but I could have missed it in a quick reading.Response: I've now added a sea level section to the Positives/Negatives of global warming and welcome any links to papers on the impacts of sea level rise. -
Tony O at 09:46 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Coral reefs http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/301/5635/955 There is a reference to warming oceans but I can't get into the article. As always it is hard to tease out how much is due to global warming and how much due to other factors. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5888/560 One-Third of Reef-Building Corals Face Elevated Extinction Risk from Climate Change and Local ImpactsResponse: Thanks for the links. You can actually access both those papers for free by signing up for a free membership with Science. The first paper doesn't go much into causes of coral degradation. The second paper (Carpenter 2008) looks at the increased risk of coral extinction due to bleaching and diseases driven by warming waters. I've added Carpenter 2008 to the Positives and negatives of global warming. Thanks again, appreciate you tracking those down! -
Vinny Burgoo at 09:46 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
The top item in your list of Negatives doesn't inspire much confidence in the objectivity of your selections. You must know that there's a lot of uncertainty about tropical forest growth rates. Many other studies have found accelerated growth and say that it is probably driven by increased CO2 and is probably pan-tropical. The Feeley study found decelerated growth and says that it is probably driven by local weather changes (and perhaps by human interactions - including research activity itself!) and that all such growth trends are strictly regional. So you have chosen an atypical study whose results might not be related to AGW (the study doesn't ascribe the changed weather to human activities) and which claims no more than regional significance and presented it in a way that suggests pan-tropical, anthropogenic significance. At the same time, you have ignored studies that claim pan-tropical significance and an anthropogenic cause but show an opposite, 'Positives' effect. Nice. If you insist on including such an unresolved issue in your tabulation, you might like to balance the Feeley paper with one that finds an increase in tropical forest productivity. Most such papers hypothesize that the observed increase will eventually be reversed by the effects of increased temperature. This one finds no evidence for that happening any time soon: _Effects of rising temperatures and CO2 on the physiology of tropical forest trees_, Lloyd and Farquhar, 2008 http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1498/1811.full.pdf Your second item is also regional, so could surely be countered by a study of a different region showing an opposite effect (assuming anyone can get funding for such studies). So is your third - and the model found an increased range and severity for *a* crop disease. It's dishonest to drop the indefinite article, especially when only one small region is covered. Your fourth might have global implications - but not for the real globe. Cattle like to munch young shrubs. Fifth: regional. Sixth: regional. Seventh: unambiguously global. Hurrah! And the study more or less says what you say it says. (Because the study itself is biased in favour of alarmism? Probably. Susan Solomon, innit. But hers is peer-reviewed alarmism, so I'll let you have this one.) Eighth: regional. That's the Agriculture section done with and I've had enough. This is a very silly enterprise. I have no doubt that studies identifying possible negative regional impacts outnumber those that identify possible positives. I also think it's plausible that changing climates will actually have more negative than positive regional impacts. But a tabulation like this isn't the way to prove it. Do you really want to have long lists of single studies with limited geographical scope - single studies whose caveats you ignore and which, in any case, may well have been superseded by more recent research? You're trying to be a one-man IPCC. It's silly. It would be better to point to synthesis studies. Best of all: simply point to the relevant IPCC chapters. * To prove that the above isn't an attempt to hide a failure to come up with peer-reviewed Positives, here are a couple of studies for your lefthand column. They were easily found. Both were included as positives in the recent RealClimate team 'consensus update', _The Copenhagen Diagnosis_. Positives: Agriculture Increasing human water supplies _Projected increase in continental runoff due to plant responses to increasing carbon dioxide_, Betts et al., 2007 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7157/full/nature06045.html Positives: Agriculture The greening of the Sahara _Atmosphere/vegetation feedbacks: A mechanism for abrupt climate change over northern Africa_, Patricola and Cook, 2008 http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007JD009608.shtmlResponse: Thanks for the feedback. I wasn't aware of Lloyd 2008 - it's apparent that the impact of climate change on forest productivity is an open question so I've removed Feeley 2007 from the list.
Global studies are always preferable over regional studies but this doesn't mean regional studies should be excluded if no global synthesis is available. However, the list should indicate if the study is regional in focus so I've updated some of the text accordingly.
The need for this page is two-fold. One to rebut the common skeptic argument that global warming is good. Secondly (and sadly) because of the persistent campaign to discredit the IPCC. People need reminding that beneath the politics, there is solid peer reviewed science studying the impacts of global warming. This page removes any barriers between the public and the original science.
However, I agree the list is incomplete and in need of improvement - my goal is to refine it over time and replace older studies with newer studies, regional studies with global studies as they become available. Plus I hope to improve the representation of the peer reviewed science as I find the time to read more deeply. Consequently help and feedback is very welcome to improve the content so again, thanks for your very specific suggestions. -
Riccardo at 09:45 AM on 25 January 2010Greenland is gaining ice
From Peru, in fig. 3 they show mass change for the period 2003-2008; fig. 2A shows the cumulative mass loss from 1960. The former is a rate of mass loss, the latter just a mass. r^2 is the so called coefficient of determination. In the case of a simple linear fit it's equal to the square of the correlation coefficient. You may (crudely) interpret it as the fraction of the variation explained by the model curve. -
michaelkourlas at 09:45 AM on 25 January 2010We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
No, I'm not just looking at the CRU measurements. Take a look at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies measuements (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/). They also show global warming slowing down and almost stopping at about 2000. At the very least, if global warming has not stopped, it has definitely slowed down quite a bit, against what the IPCC has predicted. -
Marcus at 09:39 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Absolute rubbish, Berenyi. Peer review-of one form or another-has actually existed for well over 150 years. The only thing which changed is that it went from being an ad-hoc process to being much more organized. It is also nonsense to try & suggest that Peer-review has slowed down the rate of scientific progress. In many fields, progress has gone ahead at an even faster pace (molecular biology & information technology stand out). If anything has stymied the rate of technological progress its the industrial sector, not the scientific community. Many very powerful, vested interests have used a host of measures to try & impede social & technological innovations that threaten said interests-whether via "Think Tanks", political lobbying or the buying & suppression of patents. Though Peer Review is imperfect, it's better than having no oversight of research, & at least the proponents of AGW can cite a wide body of peer-reviewed literature, whilst the denialists are largely forced to rely on information from web-sites like JunkScience.com & Wattsupwiththat or-worse still-joke journals like Energy & Environment. -
chris at 09:34 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
re #10 Peer review is a pretty good system Peter. It's a basic quality control for published science, and has the positive effect of ensuring that competent scientists present their work to a good standard (if they wish to publish anywhere of note). Of course it has its flaws (what example of organized human affairs doesn't?). But it's a strong part of the process of dissemination and accumulation of scientific knowledge. And of course it doesn't work in a vacuum. Most published science has already gone over the hurdles of peer review through departmental, conference or funding-source presentations, and once published has to live or die according to subsequent analysis. I wouldn't have said climate science, as science, has any particular problems. Of course it's a science that happens at this particular time to have strong political significance, and therefore it's subject to rather incessant attempts at misrepresentation and dirty tricks. But the best means of dealing with that is to focus on the science (i.e. what's passed the hurdles required to publish in a decent journal). Not sure the IPCC has any particular problems either. It's generally considered to be doing a good job of periodic assessment of the science with a view to informing policymakers and public. Of course it's not perfect either, and (like climate science and scientists in general) is subject to the rather hysterical attempts to make mountains out of molehills. Again the best means of addressing that is to focus on doing a good job. One might counter your assertions with the warning about the perfect being the enemy of the good. But in reality, those that are engaged in hyperbole and over-reaction against real or perceived errors aren't really interested in improving the systems of science...I suspect what they would like is to create the impression that the systems are sufficiently flawed that any old rubbish posted on the internet would have equivalent authority as the science. What a world that would be, eh Peter!? Otherwise, it's not easy to see what the problems are. It's good that errors or instances of poor practice are identified, wouldn't you say? That happens all the time in science (peer-review being part of that process). Identifying errors is the best means of correcting them. Not sure why we have to accompany the identification of errors with bouts of contrived indignation! -
STBro at 09:22 AM on 25 January 2010Does Urban Heat Island effect add to the global warming trend?
>"It's well established that urban areas are warmer than surrounding rural areas. >However, does Urban Heat Island (UHI) contribute to the global warming trend? >Short answer, no. Two thirds of global temperature data comes from ocean records, >free of UHI effect" Let's start with "Two thirds of global temperature data comes from ocean records ..." Looking at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ghcn-daily/index.php?name=coverage It looks like ocean stations comprise the minority of the data. Even if one refers to Hansen, J. and Lebedev, S. 1987. "Global Trendsof MeasuredSurfaceAir Temperature" http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1987/1987_Hansen_Lebedeff.pdf and includes shipboard data, it is still hard to account for "two thirds of global temperature data" coming from ocean records. An actual reference list for all that ocean data would really be helpful. I would find it far more credible if the source assertion for ocean temperatures was based on satellite observations rather than surface observations ... Once the actual data source counts can be sorted out, one must then validate that those sources are indeed "free of UHI effect." Specifically, one would need to look a stations in island cities, military bases, and onboard specific platforms. Density considerations are necessary when analyzing instrumentation details on sea going platforms and in coastal installations. I have collected environmental data both on land and at sea, including temperature altitude profile data and bathymetric profile data. When it comes to accounting for UHI, I'd be especially careful to account for it when it's "coming from ocean records." I remain fully skeptical and unconvinced regarding the assertion: "Two thirds of global temperature data comes from ocean records, free of UHI effect. " It would be really useful to overlay geospatial population density, transportation density, and power generation/consumption with respect to the temperature stations under consideration. Shipboard data needs to be corrected for navigational parameters, instrumentation, location and platform type. Finally, going to the Jones et al reference abstract linked in the first paragraph of the blog, one finds "Urban-related warming over China is shown to be about 0.1°C decade−1 over the period 1951–2004, with true climatic warming accounting for 0.81°C over this period." http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008JD009916.shtml The period spans more than five decades (1951-2004) ... so the UHI effect is 0.5°C. One then examines Jones et al abstract again "Global surface temperature trends, based on land and marine data, show warming of about 0.8°C over the last 100 years." It's not clear from the abstract if Jones et are saying that the total change in their study is (0.81 + 0.5 = 1.3) or (0.81 total). If the first case holds, UHI accounts for 38% of the increase. If it's the latter case, then UHI accounts for 62% of the increase. The question and answer posed by the blog "does Urban Heat Island (UHI) contribute to the global warming trend? Short answer, no" is inconsistent with either case: does it contribute? Yes, either 38% or 62% depending on the case and presuming that the total climatic increase is for the same five decades and not 100 years. If it is for the entire 100 years, then it may well account for the entire change. -
Riccardo at 09:10 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Berényi Péter, I'm shocked. The link you quote provide a whopping 16 non peer reviwed citations, over some 10,000 in the WG2 report. And i found even more, from WMO, World Bank, and the like. Is this supposed to be the proof of non-scientific political bias? -
dhogaza at 09:09 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
"Others here have parried my question rather than answered it. Is the actual data duff or not? If the data going into all the trendy models is bad then we, the public, will simply dismiss the model." Sigh. Temperature data doesn't go into the models. Neither the trendy nor the old boring ones. Temperature data is a model *outcome*, not *input*. -
Mother Nature at 09:01 AM on 25 January 2010Skeptical Science now an iPhone app
timbo at 09:02 AM on 15 January, 2010 "I'm waiting for an Andrew Bolt (check him out SS, he's a nutbag, writes for the Herald Sun) article claiming that coz it's snowing in Jan, GW/AGW is a sham" Timbo, Andrew Bolt has used the recent extreme cold snap in the Northern Hemisphere to question predictions that winter snow would become a thing of the past. I have mentioned claims from AGW scientist Dr David Viner's who commented on this. Now I read in today's 'The Australian' that the IPCC is under fire again for making claims linking extreme weather to AGW..... "The world has suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970's"- IPCC 4th assessment 2007 THEN.. "we find INSUFFICIENT evidence to claim statistical relationship between global temperature & catastrophic loses"- Muir Woods paper after peer review in 2008 THEN... "We are reassessing the evidence & will publish a report on natural disasters & extreme weather with the latest findings"- IPCC vice chairman Jean-Pascal Van Ypersele- LAST WEEK The worst of all this, was that this was all conveniently ignored before the Copenhagen summit!, why weren't we told this beforehand??? -
NewYorkJ at 08:55 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
"UPDATE 24/1/2010: There has been no direct response from Anthony Watts re Menne 2010. However, there was one post yesterday featuring a photo of a weather station positioned near an air-conditioner along with the data series from that particular station showing a jump in temperature. The conclusion: "Who says pictures don’t matter?" Not surprising. It's transparent to every scientist how ridiculous his sort of rhetoric is, but not always to his target audience. A picture or two like this is psychologically more convincing to many non-experts than any detailed objective analysis. #45, It might be a good idea to do a post on what an anomaly is, why it's used instead of raw temperature values, and what a baseline is. It's pretty basic stuff, I know, but I've seen Anthony Watts post anomaly values side by side (gistemp, HadCrut, RSS, UAH), then imply that because gistemp is larger, it's biased high. #36, Schwartz et al. mostly explains what climate scientists already understand. In the absence of manmade aerosol cooling, and the ocean time lag, more warming would be expected from industrial GHG emissions than has been observed. Schwartz explains that much of the uncertainty from deriving the climate sensitivity estimate from the instrumental temperature record comes from the uncertainty in determining the amount of negative aerosol forcing. Where he might have some contention, I think, is in his assertion that the ocean time lag in heating explains 25% of the discrepancy between observed and expected warming. My understanding is that most scientists determine that this value is a bit higher. Lastly, the instrumental temperature record is only one method for determining climate sensitivity. Other methods yield a similar best estimate as the IPCC. http://www.skepticalscience.com/Working-out-climate-sensitivity.html -
Mother Nature at 08:50 AM on 25 January 2010Skeptical Science now an iPhone app
To David Horton (12/01/2010) It's interesting how you say that some weather patterns are a gift to 'deniers' when it suits their argument, but that well and truly works both ways. If we look at the big freeze occuring in many parts of the Northern hemisphere lets take this in the context made by AGW scientists who have been warning people that winters and snow will be a thing of the past! Below is an article from March 2000. In this article, Dr David Viner says " in a few years winter snowfall will become a very rare and exciting event" , how wrong he was! http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html Is seems perfedtly okay for AGW scientists and activists to make wild and unsubstantiated claims about future weather patterns & events, but when a 'denier' merely comments & rasies questions on extreme weather, esp when that weather is cold then it's 'here they go again'. During early November, South Eastern Australia (S.A, Victoria) experienced 1-2 weeks of some very warm weather. It came as no suprise that our PM, Kevin Rudd used this as proof that we need an ETS! So once again it's perfectly ok and appropriate for AGW to use isolated weather events to push their cause, but completely unacceptable from the other side of the camp! As an aside, in Victoria, the weather 'redeemed' itself and we ended up having a very welcome wet 2nd half of the month and double the monthly average rainfall. Anyway here is more comment about the November hot spell from AGW believers.. http://indymedia.org.au/2009/11/10/its-getting-hot-in-here-november-heatwave-classic-climate-change-weather Its quite obvious both sides of the argument are guilty of using isolated weather patterns to push their cause..... -
From Peru at 08:15 AM on 25 January 2010Greenland is gaining ice
The Michiel van den Broeke, et al. paper "Partitioning Recent Greenland Mass Loss" states: "Our results show that both mass balance components, SMB and D (eq. S1), contributed equally to the post-1996 cumulative GrIS mass loss (Fig. 2A)." But then, Fig.3 shows: Ice Discharge: -94 Gt/yr Surface Mass Balance: -144 Gt/yr Isn't this a contradiction? Then comes this statement: "A quadratic decrease (r^2 = 0.97) explains the2000–2008 cumulative mass anomaly better thana linear fit (r^2 = 0.90). Equation S1 implies thatwhen SMB-D is negative but constant in time, ice sheet mass will decrease linearly in time. If, however, SMB-D decreases linearly in time, ashas been approximately the case since 2000 (fig.S3), ice sheet mass is indeed expected to decrease quadratically in time" What is this "r^2 = 0.97" and how it is related to the equations: MB = ∂M/∂t = SMB – D (S1) δM = ∫dt (SMB-D) = t (SMB0–D0) + ∫dt (δSMB–δD) (S4) Any idea? -
Gordon1368 at 07:13 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
Proposition 2: Scientists are incompetent and mistaken. We are talking about tens of thousands of scientists, from dozens of countries all over the world, in hundreds of different scientific academic, research and government institutions, from dozens of different scientific disciplines, approaching the problem from different directions, with different instruments and methods, coming to a common conclusion. While you can question the competence of some, you'd have to doubt the very fundamentals of science education worldwide to think they are all incompetent. I reject the idea that they do not know what they are talking about. jpark, I have looked at WUWT. I found very little serious comment there. I wanted to see what they made of David Barber's first hand observations of ice conditions in the Beaufort Sea last year. I looked at it at the same time that I looked at Barber's own summary report of his observations. The analysis in WUWT was one-sided, and the comments rarely rose above attacks on Barber's honesty, professionalism and competence. As I have said already, I have deeply considered the issues of honesty and competence, and have satisfied myself on those scores. WUWT is not very interesting to me as a source of valuable comment. -
Gordon1368 at 06:54 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
jpark, no one has parried your questions, they have answered very clearly; scientists understand the nature of the data they have, and know how to interpret it. Therefore, it is not 'duff.' Just because you and I do not see how it is used simply does not invalidate it. In order to doubt the scientists' word, you'd have to believe one of two things; they are lying, or they are incompetent and are mistaken. I do not offer the other possibility, that they are competent and mistaken, because while that is possible in the individual case and happens all the time, it is extremely unlikely when we are talking about tens of thousands of scientists in aggregate. This is a question you and I can examine without understanding the science. Proposition 1: Scientists are lying. I looked for a motive here. Two have been offered, that they are greedy, and that they are politically motivated. I dismissed greed because there are too many ways for scientists to make a good living in our world. A few may compromise their ethics to keep jobs or earn a few more dollars, but not the majority of scientists. Please grant that science is a difficult field and requires greater than average intelligence, thus some degree of foresight. Any scientist tempted by the short term gain that might accompany colluding in a lie, must realize that the discovery of that lie would mean the end of a hard-earned career. Examine the other essential component of the greed theory. It leads to the question of political motivation. Who would pay so many scientists to lie, and why? I am told they are global elites who want to destroy the Western economy. It seems counter to common sense that people would wish to destroy the system that gave them power. I had to either reject the theory that scientists are lying, or confidence in my own reasoning power. Sorry, jpark, I rejected the idea that tens of thousands of scientists gave up the very principles that led them to the difficult career field of their choice, to lie for a few dollars they could easily earn elsewhere. To believe that there is a vast political conspiracy, and that scientists from all over the world have bought into it, I think that a tin foil hat would not suffice. I would need a tin covered home and car, and a full-body tinfoil suit to wear every time I leave my tin house. Political motivation, rejected. I conclude that the majority of scientists are not lying. -
Doug Bostrom at 06:44 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Berényi Péter at 06:36 AM on 25 January, 2010 Your polymath attention to matters such as hypothetical issues w/peer review makes those times when you appear here with an attempt at scientific arguments against mainstream science automatically appear less credible. Better stick to science, or your reputation will wear out prematurely. -
Doug Bostrom at 06:38 AM on 25 January 2010On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record
lord_sidcup at 01:03 AM on 25 January, 2010 I noticed the same thing. jpark sailed in under false colors, look like. I seem to remember something to the effect of "fence sitter", but unfortunately that seems to have been another performance of an old, tired gambit. Waste of time. So many people on the network, so few basic narratives to choose from, boredom is the upshot. -
Berényi Péter at 06:36 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
John, anonymous peer review is not a sacred cow. In it's present form it was introduced only after WWII, when the US as the sole indisputable victor of the armed conflict took over leadership in science. Government spendings soared and the state felt the need of some handle on this crowd of weirdos called scientists. The procedure has it roots in eighteenth century state censorship by absolute monarchies. The political charge of the institution as it is practiced now is related to its introduction and dissemination by US government policy guidelines. By the time of its post WWII reinvention, early forms a peer review were mostly abolished and replaced by a more informal and free system. As a quality control measure, it neither performs particularly well nor does it promote efficiency. After WWII scientific progress definitely slowed down compared to the pace of previous (from mid XIX. to mid XX.) century. Especially if the prodigious increase in both the number of "scientists" and expenditures are taken into account. The sorest spot is anonymity with its lack of accountability. Open peer review can be a remedy, perhaps. Nature (2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05005 Can 'open peer review' work for biologists? Biology Direct is hopeful. Eugene Koonin, David Lipman, Ros Dignon &. Laura Landweber http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature05005.html So, peer review in itself would solve neither the problems of climate science in general nor those of IPCC in particular. The reason IPCC should have sticked to peer reviewed literature is entirely different. They have it in their own guidelines as a requirement. Yet in their AR4 report they frequently rely on non peer reviewed NGO material from WWF, Greenpeace and the like. It was the same with this Himalayan glacier issue, but the example is far from unique. More Dodgy Citations in the Nobel-Winning IPCC Report blogpost by Donna Laframboise http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-dodgy-citations-in-nobel-winning.html The whole scandal is more like a public political and legal issue than an internal affair of science. -
Lee Grable at 05:19 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
RE #8 Ned, "six degrees",that's great, but to quote an old adage, "if a tree falls in the forest, and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound??? The short answer would be no. -
Ned at 03:58 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
I'd like to second birdbrainscan's recommendation of "Six Degrees" (though note that it's by Mark Lynas, not Fred Pearce). It does a fantastic job of summarizing the peer-reviewed literature on impacts of warming, grouped by magnitude of warming (1, 2, 3 ... 6 degrees). Very eye-opening. -
Lupine at 03:57 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Just this morning there was a letter to the editor about this. It's amazing how fast the denier camp to jump on these things. And naturally they're using this as an argument against global warming. -
ProfMandia at 03:26 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
How about the negative geopolitical factors such as: 1) China and India pass the US as economic superpowers 2) Increased immigration 3) Higher food costs 4) Greater government subsidies (higher taxes) 5) Higher insurance rates 6) Increased authoritarian governments 7) Increased terrorism 8) Nuclear proliferation 9) Regional and global wars between countries with nuclear weapons which I outline here and also on my blog at: http://profmandia.wordpress.com/ -
Lou Grinzo at 03:19 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Excellent stuff, John. I do agree with Ned, though, on the wording of that one sentence. -
HumanityRules at 03:18 AM on 25 January 2010Skeptical Science now an iPhone app
I get your point but we are trying to cut back to individual components. Its not me that is suggesting 1Wm-1 change in radiative forcing will lead to 0.6oC change in temeparture at the surface its climate scientists. It is this I have a problem with, maybe you are agreeing things have been over simplified. -
robrtl at 03:17 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
we, as fleas on the butt of gaia can, do nothing to affect a changing climate. therefore the solution is to adapt not try to impede. -
Lee Grable at 03:16 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Didn't the original report state that the Himalayan glaciers would be substantially reduced by 2035? Quite a bit different than disappearing by 2035. If the IPCC is this succeptible to media hype, then the deniers have already won, and all the good work here is for naught. Might as well grab some popcorn, sit back, and watch the world burn. Unless you all find your balls, and fight back. I won't hold my breath. -
birdbrainscan at 03:16 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
Good work on this page. Have you read Fred Pearce's book _Six Degrees_? He references hundreds of peer-reviewed citations in constructing his account of expected impacts of each added degree (I read up through 3 degrees before I wimped out on the rest!) Maybe you'll want another source or two on glacier loss impacts, knowing how this is the current hot button? Can you re-word this one for clarity? "Increased deaths to heatwaves - 5.74% increase to heatwaves compared to 1.59% to cold snaps" First the dash confused me as I read it as a minus sign; second, is the 1.59% to cold snaps a (smaller) reduction? (and is that apples to apples, or are these % changes in two distinct absolute numbers which might be unequal? The 2003 heat wave in Europe killed ov 37,000, while the first list I found (wikipedia on disasters by death toll) lists far fewer deaths from "blizzards" (in the hundreds annually), and recent news headlines mention, e.g. 22 dead in the UK from the past month's extreme winter weather. -
Ned at 02:45 AM on 25 January 2010Peer reviewed impacts of global warming
"If the IPCC's mistaken prediction of disappearing Himalayan glaciers taught us anything [...]" John, most of us understand what you mean by that, but it might be worth rephrasing slightly. Obviously, the majority of glaciers in the Himalayas are in fact disappearing; the "mistake" was suggesting that could happen by 2035. But someone who comes here from a site like WUWT might take your opening sentence as confirmation that glaciers are not in fact disappearing at all.Response: Agreed, I can see how the original wording could be miscontrued - have updated the text. -
michaelkourlas at 02:42 AM on 25 January 2010Tree-rings diverge from temperature after 1960
Mr Cook: Regarding: "The divergence problem is unprecedented, unique to the last few decades, indicating its cause is anthropogenic." One thing I don't understand is this assumption that if we don't know what causes something in the climate system to happen, it must be us. I think the best way to explain this is the study on the links between telephone poles and cancer, where scientists found that in areas with high per-capita telephone poles, there were higher rates of cancer. Thus, telephone poles must be causing cancer! Now, this sounds silly, because there are other factors which may cause an increase in both factors (something to do with industrialization/urbanization, etc.), but it is quite comparable to current climate science. We assume that because we can't find any other natural factor that could cause the current warming (or tree ring divergence), it is automatically us. But we can't assume that. We have to assume it is natural until it is proven to be caused by us.Response: It's not definitely proven that the divergence problem is caused by us but the fact that over the last 1000+ years, it's only occured in the last 40 years is highly suggestive, particularly when likely causes like global dimming are anthropogenic. However, the key point is not that divergence is anthropogenic but that the evidence indicates divergence has not occured before recent decades so tree ring proxies are reliable before 1960.
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