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Comments 125651 to 125700:

  1. Berényi Péter at 03:22 AM on 30 December 2009
    Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    John Cook at 2009-12-12 23:44 PM wrote: "Trenberth states unequivocally that our planet is continually heating due to increasing carbon dioxide. This energy imbalance was very small 40 years ago but has steadily increased to around 0.9 W/m2 over the 2000 to 2005 period, as observed by satellites" No, he states nothing like that, unequivocally or otherwise. What Trenberth actually says is this: "There is a TOA imbalance of 6.4 W/m^2 from CERES data and this is outside of the realm of current estimates of global imbalances (Willis et al. 2004; Hansen et al. 2005; Huang 2006) that are expected from observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The TOA energy imbalance can probably be most accurately determined from climate models and is estimated to be 0.85 ± 0.15 W/m^2" He simply sets the satellite-measured radiative energy balance of 6.4 W/m^2 at the top of the atmosphere to the entirely different value of 0.85 ± 0.15 W/m^2 based on climate models. It is equivalent to the proposition that satellite measurements are useless in this respect, so one has no choice but to verify climate model predictions using data derived from the model itself. In this case however, one can NOT say that the value of 0.9 W/m^2 is "observed by satellites". Or can, provided true and false statements have equal right to be uttered. EARTH’S GLOBAL ENERGY BUDGET by Kevin E. Trenberth, John T. Fasullo, and Jeffrey Kiehl http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/90/3/pdf/i1520-0477-90-3-311.pdf
    Response: I'm quoting Trenberth from the opening paragraph of  An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's global energy (Trenberth 2009):
    Given that there is continual heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Figure 1) and other greenhouses due to human activities, why is the temperature not continuing to go up? The stock answer is that natural variability plays a key role [1] and there was a major La Nin˜ a event early in 2008 that led to the month of January having the lowest anomaly in global temperature since 2000. While this is true, it is an incomplete explanation.

    And a few paragraphs further along:

    Given that global warming is unequivocally happening [2] and there has so far been a failure to outline, let alone implement, global plans to mitigate the warming, then adapting to the climate change is an imperative.
    The broader point I was trying to make is that Trenberth's out-of-context quote was being used to portray him as privately not believing global warming is happening. This is decidedly not the case as is clearly communicated in the peer review literature.
  2. The albedo effect
    There is a growing body of evidence that in equatorial latitudes trees induce symbiotic bacteria and certain chemicals into their transpiration streams which increase reflective cloud cover over tropical forests during the day which is the best time to promote cooling. Please see www.weforest.com and read the white papers and watch the videos on our pages there.
  3. A visual deconstruction of a skeptic argument
    re response to post #1: It's worth pointing out that a recent analysis [*] supports the conclusion that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 is increasing, and with a larger trend than Knorr 2009 indicates, 'though as with Knorr 2009, the uncertainty is quite large. C. Le Quéré et al. (2009) Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide Nature Geosci. 2, 831-836. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/abs/ngeo689.html
  4. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    Steve L @ 23 I have had a look at NASA's data and the current hot spot in Antarctica started around 1982, about the same time as the hot spot in Angola. That is based on 27 years of data and therefore I would argue reflects climate and not simpy weather. Also, with regard to which year has been hottest, taking into consideration the accuracy of the temp measurements ( +/- about 0.1 degree C according to NASA ) the years 1998, 2002,2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, can be regarded as being of similar temperature.
  5. A visual deconstruction of a skeptic argument
    John, this article looks impervious to skeptic remarks, however, according to the numbers, ocean, land and vegetation absorb more CO2 than they put out. How then can any CO2 have remained if this process has been going on for millions of years?
    Response: Kudos for noticing! Ocean, land & vegetation are absorbing more than they emit because nature is partially absorbing the CO2 we're emitting. In other words, nature is trying to undo the impact we're having on the climate (I don't mean that in a mystical Gaia fashion - it's just a consequence of the nature of carbon sinks). Currently, nature absorbs about 45% of human CO2 emissions. The fraction that remains in the atmosphere, around 55%, is referred to as the "airborne fraction".

    One of the big questions concerning the carbon cycle is whether there's any trend in the "airborne fraction". Eg - is nature losing the ability to absorb our CO2 emissions? There have been some studies indicating that the oceans are getting saturated (Quéré 2007, Schuster 2007, Park 2008). On the other hand, an analysis of the airborne fraction has found a slight increasing trend in airborne fraction of 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade but the result is statistically insignificant (Knorr 2009). In other words, the status of the airborne fraction is pending.
  6. Skeptical Science housekeeping: Translations and Comments Feed
    "Many thanks to Ari and Kaj for all their hard work (I'll try to keep my verbosity down in future posts to make things easier for you)." It's our pleasure. Thank you for making such an amazing resource. We are just glad that we can help in offering it also to (Finnish) people who don't understand English. Oh, and on the verbosity thing, don't hold back, keep giving us challenges. ;)
  7. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    #22. I think you might instead ask John Cook, or re-read the post. In the post, John writes that he would rather people focus on energy imbalance, but he thought it was also worthwhile to show that one specific year (1998) likely wasn't the warmest. It is only estimated to be the warmest in one case because of the limited spatial distribution of sampling in that case. You can compare the NASA GISS map in Fig 2 to the top panel of Fig 1 and see that the probable hottest year was 2005 owing to all that warmth in the polar regions where HadCRUT doesn't sample. That's what the maps are about. Re-read the post and tell me if you agree.
  8. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    Steve L @19 "For rates of global warming (large spatial scale), somewhere over 15 years is recommended in this post"... So I can disregard NASA's temperature map above as it reflects weather and not climate ? In that case, why was the map posted here?
  9. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    To Steve L To answer your question about what I meant. I suppose a very different picture is conceivable. One where the entire planet's temperature is raised slightly, everything one color for the most part, and possibly some holes where the trend is lagging. This being a situation where the temperature is increasing globally and in general unison.
  10. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    To follow up on my #18, RSVP, I know I have linked to RC to look up waste heat stuff before, and I think it is done better there, but see this too: http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/04/global-warming-is-not-from-waste-heat.html . And we know that anthropogenic aerosols are cooling the planet considerably: http://skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate.html ' If ever asked how much CO2 contributes to global warming, you could say "all of it... and some!" ' Large industrial cities are responsible for a good proportion of the aerosols, so let me be the first one you've heard say, "cities cool the planet, with the exception of greenhouse gas production." Sorry for the off-topic, John. I don't know how to make this more relevant to your post.
  11. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    Neilperth @15 -- the difference between Figs 1 and 2 is that the latter compares individual years, whereas the former compares decadal averages. Weather effects become more important than climate effects as the temporal and spatial scales are reduced. For rates of global warming (large spatial scale), somewhere over 15 years is recommended in this post: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/how-long/
  12. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    RSVP@17: No, you haven't explained. You said two things in #9, both of which are at odds with Fig 2. You said GHG effects are downwind of waste heat sources (not "may be" as in #17), and I asked for explanation because Fig 2 seems to contradict you. You also said the data indicate the opposite of localized cool spots, but I see blue only in localized spots on Fig 2. You didn't explain that either. The Arctic is supposed to warm quickly, the Antarctic is not. I don't know why you persist in insinuating that regional patterns of warming are unexpected from AGW theory. I thought you were cured of that (http://www.skepticalscience.com/Was-there-a-Medieval-Warm-Period.html see your much appreciated response at comment #42). Your response in #17 above is a bit of a jumble, and it's probably not worth delving into here (even if I had the expertise) because (1) this post is about how hot 1998 was, and (2) the figures we're discussing (esp Fig 2) have observational periods that are too brief. Finally, I didn't notice in the video someone saying that cities cooled the Earth. Did you? The only time I ever heard that was at a talk given by Hadi Dowlatabadi who gave the example of Pittsburgh -- the aerosols from post-war industry there apparently reduced the temperature of the city by quite a bit. I can't find the ref. But if you want a big picture view, go no further than our host's other pages. For example: http://www.skepticalscience.com/urban-heat-island-effect.htm
  13. Predicting future sea level rise
    Bern @46 Potential crop failures,famines, severe water shortages, wars, diseases etc are things which mankind has had to battle in the past and no doubt these phenomena will occur in the future with or without alleged man-made global warming. With regard to sea level rise, we have yet to see the "catastrophic" rise in sea level forecast by climate researchers. And if sea level does rise, I don't think it will rise so fast that nothing can be done to help mitigate the effects. By the same token, when the next ice-age comes this will also cause mankind some hardship. Even Hansen discusses the possibility of a mini ice-age in the coming decades. One of the big challenges that mankind faces is the population explosion - about an extra 160 million extra people every year as I understand. All of these will require energy for warming, cooling, cooking etc etc.
  14. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    #14, Approximately Angola, the Antarctic Peninsula, north of the Faulkland Islands, Siberia, Uzbekistan, Siberia, and the Western Arctic seem to be the reddest. Please explain. ////////////// I already explained above, and I did watch the video. The link is very apropo and appreciated, however the style is defensive and biased giving it a political campaign type feel. I would like to answer your question in part by asking another question. Are red and purple splotches random, or might there not be a particular reason why some parts of the world are warming in general more than others? And if we had maps comparing temperatures over ten year intervals going back in time 1000 years, would one expect temperature cycles to have a homogeneous distribution, or resemble the kind of thing we are seeing here? I would assume that even in a totally non anthropogenic scenario, you would have uneven warming, for whatever the causes. However in the case here, these patterns are due in part by nature and in part by man. Drivers such as waste heat may be local or downwind as I was saying. The cumulative effect of an urban continent such as Europe, or metropolis such as Los Angeles, Mexico City cannot be cooling the Earth. I dont think anyone is denying this. (Maybe the video is and exception) I would also ask if polar zones arent more prone intrincially to have their average temperatures change given that they are dry, and represent the tail "edge" of the planet's net thermal energy reservoir.
  15. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    The red hot-spot anomaly in Antarctica, just below the tip of South America sticks out like a sore thumb and is partly surrounded by areas which are cooling. How is this explained ? What is special about the area where the hot-spot occurs ?
    Response: This is possibly due to the cyclonic conditions around Antarctica which lead to dramatic warming in West Antarctica and cooling in the East Antarctic interior. I touch on it briefly when looking at Antarctic sea ice.
  16. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    In figure 2 you will see a hot spot in Angola where temp change from 2001 to 2005 had increased by about 1.8 degrees. And in general most of south Angola has warmed by about 1.2 degrees But on the ECMWF map, (1998-2008)the reverse is shown. The location of the hot spot in figure 1 has actually cooled by 0.3 degrees and in general the south of Angola has cooled. Or to put it another way, figure 2 shows appreciable warming in South Central Africa while the ECMWF map shows cooling to no change in the same area. How is this explained ?
  17. It's cooling
    ''The atmosphere is warming'' My understanding is that is not warming enough to be able to confirm that an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming. Also it's not warming enough in the right area which is supposed to be in the Troposphere at around 10km. Has this suddenly changed? Also regarding ''Oceans are accumulating energy'' Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming. In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans
    Response: Josh Willis is right. Over 90% of global warming goes into the oceans. Some studies of upper ocean heat (using the "3000 robots" that comprise the Argo network) have shown cooling over the last few years during a time when the Pacific has transitioned from El Nino to La Nina conditions. However, when the Argo data is examined to greater depths, down to 2000 metres, it's seen that the ocean is still accumulating heat (von Schuckmann 2009):

  18. Could CFCs be causing global warming?
    So I take it that this theory is that as the sun settles down, and more CR's gain entry into the stratosphere, they react with the CFC's and drive more O3 loss, right? With less O3 in the strat, more of the sun's rays can now reach the earth, but on the other hand, more of the earth's emmisions can now travel out to space "easier". So is he saying that with less ozone more energy escaped the earth compared to the extra amount coming from the sun?
  19. Could CFCs be causing global warming?
    Here's a paper from RC from last year that seems to put this into a bit better perspective; http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/12/ozone-holes-and-cosmic-rays/
  20. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    #9, Looking at Fig 2 above, I see what you say we should expect: "(last vestiges of cooler zones) appearing as remanant localized cold spots" -- there are really just a few speckles of blue. Then, when I look at the hottest spots in Fig 2, I don't see them being downwind of "coincidentally downwind of locales where waste heat is being generated". Approximately Angola, the Antarctic Peninsula, north of the Faulkland Islands, Siberia, Uzbekistan, Siberia, and the Western Arctic seem to be the reddest. Please explain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7OdCOsMgCw (This Peter Sinclair video may not be appropriate [strays from scientific discourse in places] but it does some nice things with maps of heat and people.)
  21. Could CFCs be causing global warming?
    Well, the abstract is interesting and suggests that a broad range of material will be presented. It surprised me that the paper has just one author, but then I read that Lu is cross appointed in three departments.... Anyway, I would have liked to read the paper, but it ain't free. One potential triviality that caught my interest is the secondary axis in Figure 1: Normalized EESC. Is this standard normal deviates? I wouldn't think so, but why not present the data in ppm or something? At a broader level of response, I'm thinking of ozone holes being polar phenomena and wondering about Lu's choice of a temperature record that mostly ignores these regions. I'd like to hear about the distribution of CFCs in relation to ozone holes and whether this is relevant to interpretation of Lu's results. And now a borderline off-topic comment: I think we have a lot to learn from the CFC-ozone story (or at least I do), including topics of denial (support for inaction), public education, innovation and solution (Montreal Protocol). This paper seems to stray from several standard assertions of AGW-deniers (e.g., http://skepticalscience.com/Are-humans-too-insignificant-to-affect-global-climate.htm , http://www.sepp.org/key%20issues/ozone/ozdeplth.html ). Lu's paper is at odds with much of the science on climate change (as the post shows nicely), but I think its deviation from common talking points could be more fatal to its eventual popularity (and ranking among the hottest skeptical arguments). I'm assuming here from the abstract that Lu finds support for anthropogenic ozone depletion. Is that assumption correct?
  22. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    My question is: why Trenberth did not put the same question about the accuracy of surface data when the temperasture increase appeared to be unstoppable? It does not appear to me 'a clear, open, manner' to manage the issue.
  23. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    @RSVP in #9, On can think about it in this way: Since water vapor dominating the green house effect, and since water vapor varies in concentration in the atmosphere, and if CO2 is uniformly distributed, and if CO2 has a significant effect, then it follows the warming will be greater at those places where water vapor has less concentration. Therefore, since water vapor concentration is lower at the polar region the prediction is that warming due to CO2 should be greater at the polar regions.
  24. Could CFCs be causing global warming?
    "When one considers the energy building in the entire climate system (especially the oceans where most heat resides), we see that the planet is still accumulating heat through to 2009 (Murphy 2009, von Schuckmann 2009)." These two papers don't outweigh the Argo data which indicate flat or decreasing upper ocean temperatures. Since this is consistent with land and atmospheric measurements, we should conclude the earth is not accumulating heat unless it is in the deep oceans. I am not aware of a plausible mechanism for this.
    Response: von Schuckmann 2009 does use Argo data. Other recent papers on ocean heat trends focused on upper ocean heat which shows more variability than measurements down to 2000 metres which is what von Schuckmann does, showing a less noisy signal:


  25. Could CFCs be causing global warming?
    Hofmann et al. (2006) might be of interest here. They show (from direct observations) that radiative forcing from both CFC-11 and CFC-12 has decreased since 1980's.
  26. Predicting future sea level rise
    Phillipe...... I find your reply rather baffling. Of course corruption happens in every country of the world. Where did I state otherwise ? Although in my case it is only in African countries that I have had to pay bribes to leave the country and have my money mysteriously disappear from my bank account. Situations which I have yet to experience in Europe. Also, where did I state that we do nothing with regards to global warming ? If burning coal to produce power causes global warming, then one obvious solution is to go nuclear. But over the years environmental groups have fought against using nuclear power to generate electricity and the result was that in Australia, for example, we have had to rely mainly on coal fed power stations. And now the same environmental groups are complaining that this causes global warming. Yes, my "characterization of the compensation intended" is accurate - developing nations around the world are demanding hundreds of billions of dollars per annum. Introducing a world-wide ETS will inflate the cost of just about everything in the Western world. And when you consider that much of the goods and services consumed in developing countries are imported, this will mean that the increased cost of these goods and services will be passed on to these countries. So while the developing countries will get billions of dollars in compensation, they will also be paying billions of extra dollars in the form of higher prices for goods and services.
  27. Models are unreliable
    The claim is made that the climate models "...have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations. This claim is refuted by the noted climatologist Kevin Trenberth; he states at http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/recent_contributors/kevin_trenberth/ that that the models referenced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change do not make predictions. It follows that: a) the UN-IPCC models are not falsifiable and b) the IPCC models are not scientific, by the definition of "scientific." Rather than make predictions, the IPCC models make what the IPCC calls "projections." A "projection" is a mathematical function which maps the time to the global average temperature. A "prediction" is a logical proposition which states the outcome of a statistical event. A "projection" supports comparison of the computed to the measured temperature and computation of the error. However, it does not support falsification of the model for the apparatus is not present by which the proje3ction may be proved wrong. A "prediction" provides this apparatus.
  28. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    From the report: (quote)"The implication of these studies is that, should greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current course of increase, we are virtually certain to see Earth's climate warm by several degrees Celsius in the next century, unless some strong negative feedback mechanism emerges elsewhere in Earth's climate system," Dessler said(end quote) Lovely phrasing here. Dressler is a true scientist, IMHO.
  29. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    RSVP CO2 is not well mixed in the troposphere according to this NASA release: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-196 Some interesting things happening right now in the science, as more results start arriving from better equipment.
  30. Philippe Chantreau at 08:36 AM on 26 December 2009
    1998 is not the hottest year on record
    Merry Christmas, happy new year and thanks for all your hard work John.
  31. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    The fact that there are localized hot spots leading a global warming trend seems to suggest these as sources of heat which radiate outward. Greenhouse gases fill the entire atmosphere equally. Why do their effects precede locally, and coincidentally downwind of locales where waste heat is being generated? Conversely, if the heat source was homogeneous, you would expect to see exception (last vestiges of cooler zones) appearing as remanant localized cold spots, yet the data indicates just the opposite.
  32. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    Comparing the lower figures 1 with figure 3, the dynamic ranges in temperature are about the same, yet the time span for figure 3 includes only half as many years within the same period. This constitutes a fairly large discrepancy unless this implies a curve that peaks or flattens out somewhere in the middle.
  33. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    Merry Christmas to all, and praying for a peaceful 2010! Thanx John for your time and patience. May Santa be kind to you and yours!
  34. Philippe Chantreau at 06:20 AM on 25 December 2009
    Predicting future sea level rise
    You have nothing to teach me on the subject, unfortunately. I grew up in Africa and worked there too. My parents lived and worked there for 17 years. A closer look at European countries and the US taught me that no category of country has a monopole on corruption, which is simply a feature of Human nature. In Africa, it is more obvious because they don't care about appearances as much and the underlying poverty is, by our standards, extreme. I'm not sure your characterization of the compensation intended is really accurate, but in any case, what else do you propose be done? Nothing? Integrate the real price of carbon in the world's economy without softening the impact in some way to the most vulnerable, who will also likely be the most affected by climate change? These countries have benefited from assistance before, even if the benefits were reduced by corruption. Should nothing have been done then? That would have been a more rational thing to do? In any case, this is OT. I apologize to John for starting the discussion and won't pursue it.
  35. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    The paper is Simmons, A. J., K.M. Willett, P.D. Jones, P. W. Thorne, and D. Dee (2009), Low-frequency variations in surface atmospheric humidity, temperature and precipitation: Inferences from reanalyses and monthly gridded observational data sets, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2009JD012442, in press.
  36. Hockey sticks, 'unprecedented warming' and past climate change
    The same as Chris said: WWT has added the global temperature record (0,6ºC), but Greenland has experienced much more warming than the global average. These two reconstructions clearly show a warming of more than 1 ºC, therefore, temperatures in Greenland are probably warmer now than they were in the MWP (in spite of the fact that the MWP was mainly focused on the North Atlantinc around Greenland): FIG. 11. Greenland ice sheet land station record annual temperature anomalies with respect to the 1951–80 base period. Multiples of standard deviations for the 1951–80 period are included. Major volcanic eruptions are indicated Source: Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Air Temperature Variability: 1840–2007 (full pdf, PPT) Jason E. Box, Lei Yang, David H. Bromwich y Le-Sheng Bai Journal of Climate, Volume 22, Issue 14 (July 2009) Fig. 2. (a) Mean annual temperature (TMA) difference averaged over ice-sheet area, assembled from two datasets: ECMWF re-analyses (blue) and BOX (red) Source: Surface mass-balance changes of the Greenland ice sheet since 1866 (full pdf) Wake et al 2009 Annals of glaciology., 50 (50). pp. 178-184 It is curious that much of the warming there took place at the begining of the century (though anomalies are now greater). It seems that there is great variability there, probably related to the Arctic amplification.
  37. Hockey sticks, 'unprecedented warming' and past climate change
    "Now one could nitpick the analysis by pointing out that it focuses on one location in Central Greenland. Temperature at a single location inevitably show greater variation than the global average. "
    Aren't the long time scale proxies necessarily spotty? I am trying to learn as much as possible, and let me state my position before asking questions. I believe CO2 is a good prima facie argument for observed warming. I am not strong enough in science to judge between many seemingly convincing arguments (more on that later), but I do believe we need to be seriously thinking about it. I think we need to look at all of mitigation, adaptation, and possible counter climate engineering. We also need to get statisticians and economists involved in these debates as well - cross discipline review and hard analysis will help, not hurt. The scene at Copenhagen was very disappointing for anyone who cares about environment - it looked from here like a mixture of magical thinking and silly UN politics. I also am deeply suspicious of cap and trade - it looks more like a way for scam artists to get rich than a way to really make a change. That said, I am trying to learn as much as possible about the science. It is fascinating to me. I have just watched (twice) a lecture by Dr Richard B Alley that opened my eyes about CO2 a bit. The compliment to him is that a laymen can get a lot from his talk. http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml He discusses several CO2 proxies but mentions that the Antarctic ice is the gold standard for reconstruction. He mentions some glitchiness in Greenland ice. Also at points he alludes to certain temperature records being uncertain due to locality. I have two questions: 1. How well spread out are the proxy records for temperature and CO2? Is there a chart that shows what proxies are available for each time scale? 2. How well do proxies agree, and what statistical methods are used to resolve them to the one line graphs I see in so many presentations? That is, what is the error margin when extrapolating global averages from them? For example this graph apparently shows various NH proxies. They seem to vary quite a bit to me. http://physicist.org/history/climate/images/ipcc_6_10_sm.jpg What I am driving at is that these are northern hemisphere, but I don't see a similar SH. How do we know what the global temp was and with what accuracy? We seem to are talking about a degree or two or less over a thousand year period.
  38. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    Thanks for this alert, and thanks to the Met Office for posting this release. I have been suggesting to 'climate science' denier friends that the lack of polar temp estimates were accounting for some of the differences between HadCRUT3 and GISS 'global' estimates. Glad there is now a scientific study, apparently, investigating this difference between the reports of global temps of the Met Office and, say, Goddard. As this is an instance of 'climate science' it will probably have little impact on my 'science is a conspiracy' oriented friends, but is good to have available for voting bystanders who listen with both ears. Thanks for the update!
  39. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    Tom......... I was thinking more of the difference in temps between the areas north and south of the Persian Gulf. I am not talking about local temp differences on the scale of cities - the hot spot north of the Persian Gulf for example is about the size of India. Have the original temp data been kriged to get the "blocked" temp data ? If so this produces a smoothing effect which means that the original ( raw ) temp differences were even greater than shown.
  40. CO2 is not a pollutant
    Some plants grow worse at higher temperature, offsetting gains from CO2 spurring growth. Examples are in tables in the USDA report I linked to in my earlier comment.
  41. It's not bad
    Plants can't grow any better than their limiting factor, which might be not CO2, but nitrogen, water, light,.... Some plants grow worse at higher temperature, offsetting gains from CO2 spurring growth. Even if they do grow "better," the betterment often is not to the advantage of farmers; for example, the extra mass can go into non-consumable woody stalk, which makes the crop more expensive to process than any extra grain/fruit value. And weeds such as poison ivy and kudzu respond much "better" to increased CO2 than do many crops, but "better" is not better for people, and not better for plants that those weeds compete with. For details see the U.S. Department of Agriculture's report on climate change.
  42. CO2 is not a pollutant
    Plants can't grow any better than their limiting factor, which might be not CO2, but nitrogen, water, light,.... Even if they do grow "better," the betterment often is not to the advantage of farmers; for example, the extra mass can go into non-consumable woody stalk, which makes the crop more expensive to process than any extra grain/fruit value. And weeds such as poison ivy and kudzu respond much "better" to increased CO2 than do many crops, but "better" is not better for people, and not better for plants that those weeds compete with. For details see the U.S. Department of Agriculture's report on climate change.
  43. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    neilperth, the San Francisco Bay Area is one example. Increased heat on the inland side of the bay causes air to rise, which sucks in cold air from the Pacific ocean, and that cold air travels through San Francisco, which gets colder. So if you were thinking such a situation is physically impossible, so divergent temperature changes must be due to measurement error, you were wrong.
  44. Predicting future sea level rise
    RE post 56 "Some ( countries ) don't have that money Riccardo (Bengladesh). Some could but it gets lost in corruption and all that (Nigeria). If only the use of money by governments was based on rational choices..." Phillipe ....A very perceptive observation. And what is the UN's answer to global warming ? To give developing nations billions of dollars! Now, when openly corrupt governments of countries like Zimbabwe, Angola, Sierra Leone, Indonesia, to name a few, get their hands on this money, where do you think the money will go ? I have lived and worked in several of these countries for a total of nearly 15 years and the corruption has to be seen to be believed. These governments have little regard for the well being of their citizens in terms of food, housing, health, education etc, and much less interest in the alledged effects of global warming. As usual, most of the money will be siphoned off into the pockets of corrupt politicians, their family, friends and hangers-on.
  45. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    John........ Rest assured you are not the only one who has had difficulty obtaining data form HadCRUT :) RE: the NASA plot of temperature above for 2001 to 2005, why is the major part of the temperature increase concentrated in N. Canada, Greenland and Siberia ? Also there are places on the map where in one area the temp has risen by say 1.8 degrees while at the same time, relatively close-by the temp has decreased by about 0.4 degrees. How do you explain this ?
  46. It hasn't warmed since 1998
    John, I am fully on board with the argument that most of the heat is stored in the ocean, and that the atmosphere has a noisy temperature signal. However what I do not understand is the sharp drops in total energy content, for example around 1968 and 1996. Given constant or slowly rising CO2 concentration and the coean heat reservoir with a large time constant, I would have expected (naively perhaps) some monotonously rising function for total heat content. Have any explanations been proposed?
  47. 1998 is not the hottest year on record
    John, is there a more complete reference besides the press release? I haven't found any yet. Interesting information about the global coverage.
    Response: Not yet - I searched the ECMWF website and tried emailing HadCRUT and ECMWF for more info but no success yet. Will update with more info as soon as I learn more.
  48. Antarctica is gaining ice
    diogenes, in the Zhang 2009 paper cited, the wind field is taken from the NCEP-NCAR reanalisys. It's not shown nor I looked for it; but given that the surface temperature has increased (fig. 3 in this post) I don't think that there any significant large scale change in thermal winds at play. Locally and seasonally it might have an effect but i have no clue on this.
  49. Lawrie_Williams at 21:35 PM on 23 December 2009
    Is the climate warming or cooling?
    Gidday. I live in North Queensland, Oz. I notice the role of melting ice has not been mentioned. I suggest warming is continuing, however it is being taken up in the form of latent heat and in the steady warming of the deep oceans. Greenland, for example, is shedding 200 cu. km. of ice per year. If it were not for this buffering effect of the ice and the oceans we would be broiling by now. And soon enough even melting ice and cool oceans will not be able to stop the warming of the biosphere.
    Response:

    Of the two phenomena, warming of the deep ocean should be taking up much more heat than melting ice. The paper  An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's global energy (Trenberth 2009) actually examines this question and finds the amount of heat going into melting ice is around 1.4 x 1020 joules per year. In contrast, the heat being absorbed by the ocean is between 20 to 95 x 1020 joules per year. More on Trenberth's paper...

  50. Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
    jabberwockey, it is nature that cherry picks wavelength as far as molecular absorption is concerned. On the contrary, thermal emission is broad band and it depends on temperature. Hence what you see in the full spectrum (the background) reflects the increase of surface temperature.

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