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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 125851 to 125900:

  1. Hockey sticks, 'unprecedented warming' and past climate change
    "On the contrary, the past provides evidence for our climate's sensitivity to carbon dioxide. " That's kind of an irony around the arguments from "the climate has changed in the past" and "I want the MWP to be warmer than today so I can claim CO2 doesn't cause warming and warming isn't bad" folks. If climate was almost entirely static but greenhouse gas concentrations changed significantly, it would be evidence against their impacts. The larger temperature swings between glaciation periods helps to confirm the impact of greenhouse gases, and a more variable climate and stronger temperature swings over the last couple of millenium tends to imply greater climate sensitivity to any forcing mechanism, thus confirming positive feedbacks.
  2. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    SNRatio, you appear to be entering Rumsfeld territory here. Known unknowns and unknown unknowns. I can accept a known unknown can be constrained within the system but with some of the forcing they are approaching unknown unknowns. Take cloud as an example again. These impact on energy transport in multiple ways having both + and - affects. It seems that just what the overall nett affect of changes in cloud cover, or the processes that my drive that are completely unknown. As you say I don't necessarily make the distinction between basic and applied but if I had to I'd put this in the basic camp.
  3. Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
    Hernandeath, the graphic states a balance which can be deduced from the atmospheric record. If the flows were not in balance, the atmosphere would not have kept roughly the same amount of CO2 for millenia. Now there may have been some give and take between land and sea but that does not change the conclusions. The systems have evolved towards a balance. The CO2 in the atmosphere is relatively tiny. Visualized as water, our atmosphere is about the same mass as 10m of water spread evenly. Out of that (by weight) the CO2 is currently about 6mm thick. Visualize a layer of glass (the greenhouse!) spread evenly. Now, it is easy to see this is tiny compared to the amount of carbon locked up in fertile soils, forests, or seas with carbonate rich muds. If those ecosystems were not finely balanced the atmosphere would have major fluctuations. But, before human large scale agriculture and industry, the records are of long constancy. And, really not so surprising that a mass of human activity reshaping our environment has produced a rapid change in the atmosphere - from bubbles in the Vostok ice cores, it seems we have produced a spill larger than any in a million years. So the New Scientist graphic may simplify, but it is basically the inescapable conclusion. The world has operated in rough CO2 balance, and we are the biggest change in the equilibrium for a very long time.
  4. Hockey sticks, 'unprecedented warming' and past climate change
    Watching the global warming debate back and forth is like watching a boxing match between two very good fighters. Punch, counterpunch. Back and forth. Fascinating.
  5. What do the hacked CRU emails tell us?
    John, Re my post 48 above, you stated there is "a greater than 90% chance that humans are causing global warming (I believe this actually understates the certainty)." This 90% chance or probabilty that you mention, is this at the 90% confidence level, 95% confidence level or some other confidence level? Can you please point me in the direction of the relevamt data so that I can check your claim statistically ?
  6. Models are unreliable
    Hi John, Great site, the best one I've seen yet, especially as you have links to actual journal articles. One thing that I've noticed is that some "skeptics" have a you feed junk in you get junk out mentality when it comes to computer models. I recall when I used to debate creationists at my university and a very similar argument was used of carbon dating of being exactly like that. Although I don't want to stretch the comparison any more than that it is just an interesting point. There is an article that discusses this a little more I've linked to below. "Are climate change deniers like creationists?" http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2009/0828/are-climate-change-deniers-like-creationists It is the comments that are really interesting as people compare global warming alarmists to creationists, but again I feel the science is on vacation in their arguments.
  7. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    HumanityRules #17 I don't think we really disagree that much - to me it seems more a question of wording. I agree with you about the lack of knowledge you mention, to me it just seems more on an applied rather than basic level. My impression is that the basic governing equations for the situation can be set up, but we are not able to find satisfactory solutions to them. And, for instance, knowing the details of how a system is chaotic and therefore in some respects not completely predictable, is a piece of physical knowledge for me, not a lack of it.
  8. There's no empirical evidence
    Re: #16 thereisaidit This isn't really skeptical statements i'm saying here but: I have two scenarios in my mind: 1) If renewable energy is to succeed there needs to be a massive price reduction in the price per kilowatt hour. My boss held up a $0.10AU coin and said that is the necessary goal for renewables to compete/ensure the economy can adjust. This site i've listed below has some figures though it might have company bias but as you can see in order for non CO2 producing forms of energy to flourish there needs to be something (ie.a heavy amount of research/investment etc) to get it there. http://www.coldenergy.com/difference.htm 2) This second scenario isn't so pretty. This addresses the population issue you raised. I heard an interview with Paul Ehrlich who is a Professor in population studies. He is the author of The Population Bomb back in 1967 has some very dire predictions about world population levels. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2747139.htm On your point on the ice caps: This is something I don't know but even if we could magically turn off the "CO2 emissions switch" I would think that the Artic ice loss will continue ie no matter what we do now global warming is happening and it is only a case of damage control reducing the extent in the rise of average temperatures in the future.
  9. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    SNRatio #16 It's my understanding that it's not just cosmic rays vs clouds that we don't understand but many more aspects of clouds such as changes in precipitation rates and cloud life that we don't understand. Look at the error bars in fig4 on trenberths paper.
  10. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    RSVP @88 CO2 acts as a notch filter. The band does not widen with more CO2. The bands will widen with more CO2, in principle at least. This is due to increasing numbers of molecules (a) with higher rotation states, (b) transitioning between higher vibrational states (assuming the usual deviation from harmonic oscillator behavior) and (c) forming complexes. As to whether these have any significant effect or not on the greenhouse effect, I'm afraid you need a climate scientist not an ex-spectroscopist
  11. The hockey stick divergence problem
    LorenzoG, right, the annual thickness of ice definitely depends on precipitation while keeping the same isotopic ratio. This is the very basic of temperature reconstructions from ice cores. You ask what may cause the divergence problem; there's the whole dendroclimatology community asking itself the very same question. Unfortunally, no one came up with a solution yet; indeed, when temperature stops being the limiting growth factors, many other may come into play, including local environment. It's not rare that only some trees in a region show divergence while others do not. I'd suggest reading the review (D'Arrgigo 2008) linked by John in this post. P.S. There's no way to use tree rings as temperature proxy without intesive data analisys, re-normalizations, "adjustments" and the like.
  12. Philippe Chantreau at 05:51 AM on 15 December 2009
    What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    RSVP, the point is that, because radiative properties of CO2 are well known, the radiative forcing can be calculated precisely and has been. If you want to dispute the forcing's value, tell us why and give some alternative or references.
  13. The hockey stick divergence problem
    Riccardo, Yes, ice cores measure isotopic ratios, but the deposition of ice and the entrapment of those isotopes depends on a certain minimum level of humidity in the area. Too little humidity and there won't be any deposition, and in extremely arid conditions, ice can even sublime, along with its entrapped isotopes. Sedimentary deposits also depend on a certain level of water movement to cause erosion and transport of silt and other materials. All I'm saying is that there is some difference between the experience of low latitude trees and high latitude trees to cause the divergence problem in the proxy record. If the difference is not temperature, what is it? Could it be humidity/precipitation? Could it be cloud cover? Something else? I haven't seen any papers trying to find a real physical explanation, only re-normalizations and adjustments to old data to bring them into line with the instrumental record.
  14. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    RSVP wrote, "And then there is the real problem that waste heat will continue to be produced regardless of the technology and no one is willing to address this problem." and later, "I was referring mainly to nuclear, however since you asked, if you had a very efficient solar panel, it would mean you are retaining sunlight (solar heat) that would otherwise be reflected into outer space (i.e. changing the Earths albedo). Supposedly CO2 is doing this and it is considered a bad thing." Not sure how "regardless of technology" could be interpreted as "mainly nuclear". With respect to solar, you mean when plants cover the earth and carry out photo-synthesis it makes the earth hotter? Forests make the earth hotter? Have you quantified the effect? So, if we went with wind, hydro, tidal, wave, and geothermal, we'd be okay then? We wouldn't cook ourselves?
  15. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    @15 I don't think we should start looking for small holes in the basic physics before we have checked out all our applications of it. To me, one of the basic problems with the budgeting is the assumptions about the radiative imbalance. As Trenberth implies in one of the emails (but not in the paper?), this is by no means constant, even though we may have rather precise estimates of the average (expectation) value (0.9 W/m2, 90% CI 0.4-1.4). Maybe it should be modeled as a stochastic variable, something like a multi-dimensional pseudo-random walk. There may also be too simplistic assumptions about the interplay between GHG forcing and water vapor. We may have small holes in the basic physics too, right now perhaps most likely in the areas of magnetism/cosmic rays vs cloud formation. But several studies indicate that this is unlikely to have any major influence on the big picture we are discussing. Where we do not attempt to model cloud formation with any great precision, but rather work out from the observed radiation balance.
  16. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    no RSVP, a notch filter is an interference filter, absorption works differently. In any case, quantify this "minute" difference; it's a few tenth of a percent of the totale IR emitted. Looks pretty tiny, does it? But that's enough, few W/m2 can change the temperature significantly.
  17. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    Riccardo "It does not matter how large is the CO2 absorption band or the percent of its concentration" CO2 acts as a notch filter. The band does not widen with more CO2. The baseline for comparison is the change in the effect of that notch (preindustrial) with respect to the entire spectrum. Seen as a percentage of the total energy associated with the entire IR spectrum, the change is minute.
  18. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    PDT asks Could you explain how waste heat from solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, wave, tidal or any other renewable energy source adds energy to the Earth's climate system? I was referring mainly to nuclear, however since you asked, if you had a very efficient solar panel, it would mean you are retaining sunlight (solar heat) that would otherwise be reflected into outer space (i.e. changing the Earths albedo). Supposedly CO2 is doing this and it is considered a bad thing.
  19. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    The specific heat of water (melted ice) is double that of ice. All that extra ocean should require more energy to heat.
  20. Some Skeptical Science housekeeping
    John, thanks for your excellent web site. You are doing everyone a service with your clear and thoughtful articles.
  21. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    All these evidences are bit misleading. The question is NOT whether the globe is warming up. The question we should ask is whether it is HUMAN who made the warming. If you look the evidence from this perspective. You will see the evidence that support AGW is really thin. I listed here: • Our planet is suffering an energy imbalance and is steadily accumulating heat (Hansen 2005, Murphy 2009, Schuckmann 2009, Trenberth 2009) • Satellites measure less infrared radiation escaping out to space at the wavelengths that CO2 absorb energy (Harries 2001, Griggs 2004, Chen 2007) • Surface measurements find more infrared radiation returning back to the Earth's surface (Philipona 2004), specifically at the wavelengths that CO2 absorb energy (Evans 2006) • Cooling and contraction of the upper atmosphere consistent with predicted effects of increasing greenhouse gases (Lastovicka 2008) Are these evidences sufficient to claim that AGW is for real? I would say those evidences are far from conclusive. Also note that if a paper was published in 2008, it is very likely that the work was done prior to 2007 and the data the work studied would be even earlier than that. Everyone know that it was relatively cold for last couple of years, as Trenberth indicated in his email.
    Response: The question of whether it's humans causing the warming is indeed the more important question. However, there are many who even question that global warming is happening (as you do later in your comment) so all bases need to be covered.

    That reminds me, a new paper came out this October with a more comprehensive look at surface measurements of downward infrared radiation (Wang 2009) - I'm in the process of reading through that paper and will add it to the evidence for an enhanced greenhouse effect shortly.
  22. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    My understanding of trenberths paper is that he identifies error in the calculation of the energy balance of the planet. As he says 'Where has the energy gone?" He begins the discussion about were this error may occur identifying weakness in our measurement of many of the variables in the system as well as our lack of understanding on some of the systems (such as clouds). One thing he does is to constrain some of the possible answers to this conundrum using sea level rise. He points out that if the energy has gone into sea ice, land ice, deep oceans or land this would have had different affects on sea level. By this method he is able to rule out most of the possible options as to where the energy has gone. My understanding is there are only two possible options. Changes is cloud cover, although no mechanism is known and measurements are poor. This only exists as an option because of the poor understanding. The other mechanism is, as John pointed out, into the deep sea but this is speculative, has no known mechanism and requires re-jigging of other factors in the energy budget system in order to also satisfy the observed sea level rises. I think what Trenberth is identifying here is not weakness in models, not just weakness in our observations but also a small hole in the basic physics of the system.
  23. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    MACaTAC wrote " Trenberth claims in his email that the earth based systems are inadequate to account for the imbalance based upon this "Given". Being a skeptic, that makes me question the adequacy of the satellite system of measuring radiation in and out of the atmosphere." That is not what Trenberth claimed. Instead he claimed that the scientists' understanding of the Earth's energy systems is insufficient to fully account for the short term and detailed fluctuations in the energy budget. The observations of energy in and out of the Earth are solid.
  24. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    Here is the problem for me with your article. Your explanation of the email relies upon what is set up in " An imperative for climate change planning: tracking Earth's global energy (Trenberth 2009)". In this report Trenberth clearly states what is "Given"... "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?" ..and you apparently accept this "Given" in your analysis. "Trenberth states unequivocally that our planet is continually heating due to increasing carbon dioxide." Trenberth claims in his email that the earth based systems are inadequate to account for the imbalance based upon this "Given". Being a skeptic, that makes me question the adequacy of the satellite system of measuring radiation in and out of the atmosphere. Trenberth obviously believes that this satellite data is without any substantial systematic error and the probable error of the data can be trusted with no substantial shift in actual data values due to said lack of systematic error. If not, then there is no way he could claim that the earth based systems used are inadequate. This logic reminds me of religious fanatics who can only cite the Bible as the way to prove the Bible is without error. I will now direct my attention to understanding the satellite measurements. Thank you for your article.
    Response: The point of this article is to clarify Trenberth's views which have been misrepresented. Just because Trenberth says the planet is still heating due to CO2 doesn't make it so. But it does establish that Trenberth believes it so - and thus the characterisation that Trenberth is saying global warming has stopped is erroneous.

    The evidence for the enhanced greenhouse effect caused by CO2 is found in satellite and surface measurements finding less heat escaping to space at CO2 absorption wavelengths and more heat returning to earth at the same wavelengths. It's not religious faith but empirical evidence.

    Note for future reference - comments about religious fanatics usually are deleted.
  25. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    RSVP, "And then there is the real problem that waste heat will continue to be produced regardless of the technology and no one is willing to address this problem." Could you explain how waste heat from solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, wave, tidal or any other renewable energy source adds energy to the Earth's climate system?
  26. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    batsvensson, i'm not going to dispute anything with one who shows no real interest in it.
  27. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    RSVP, problem is you that are looking at the wrong quantities. It does not matter how large is the CO2 absorption band or the percent of its concentration. What is important is the forcing associated with its increase and the amount of more heat trapped. As you quote the waste heat you are aware that it's heat that matters. So, put numbers to heat in the two cases and compare; this would be "directs [your]self through reason.".
  28. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    @Riccardo, You wrote: "you probably didn't follow the discussion. Much too easy to jump in between and say it's a strawman ..." Since you reply lacks credential substance, I take it as you agree that your argument is a straw man. Or do you wish to dispute whether or not "personal attacks" are the same as "attacks on all scientist" ?
  29. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    Riccardo What is that about destroying science? That is like saying someone can change the truth. My questioning (not questions) comes from what other scientists have already established. "Insignificant" details such as the fact that the absorption bands of CO2 comprise less than ten percent of the IR spectrum, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmosfaerisk_spredning.gif and that the concentration of atmospherice CO2 comprises only .03% of its molecular composition, as opposed to water vapor that can vary but is typically around 1.5% or more (>50 times more and while having a much wider IR absoption spectrum). And then there is the real problem that waste heat will continue to be produced regardless of the technology and no one is willing to address this problem. It's these relative quantities based on well established science that directly conflict with your highly esteemed peer review board. My only agenda is to feel confortable with the conclusions, and it would be nice to live in a world that directs itself through reason.
  30. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    @ Answer #74 No, you don't really address the issue. The problem is _not_ that we have to take forcing from GHG into account, of course we have, and historical changes in non-GHG forcing can of course not be the _only_ explanation. The problem is that we can't really say, from the evidence presented here, if the present contribution to radiation imbalance from historic solar/cosmic ray changes is practically zero or somewhat higher. It can't possibly be very high today, but I can't see how the evidence presented here can answer this conclusively. To answer it, the historical surface temperature record is pretty much useless as a sole witness. And do we have reliable direct measurements of historical energy imbalance of, say 0.3 W/m2? When you say it was so small back in the 1950s, do you base it on measurements or model simulations? And if it is measurements, what is the uncertainty?
  31. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    @RSVP: If you think the estimates are wrong, please indicate how. You should also explain how deep ocean heat, which is directly measurable, is _technically_ analogous to dark matter, which isn't. Otherwise, may I suggest that at WUWT you find a better audience for that kind of commentary. The situation is that Trenberth has been misrepresented and misunderstood, and this post sets it straight. I think this should also be seen in the light of discrepancy between model forecasts and actual temperature development during the last decade - the basic physics does not seem to be wrong, but the modeling clearly is.
  32. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    Australis, what sceptics do not (want to?) consider is that Trenberth is working on interannual variability while at UNEP they consider the long term trend. It's not a subtle difference.
  33. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    You nicely show that there is no deception on the part of Trenberth but I'm not sure you have either Trenberths position or the science fully explained. Trenberths paper was published Aug 2009. The von Schuckmann 2009 paper was published Sept 2009. The dates on the relevant emails are Oct 2009 such as 1255532032.txt So when Trenberth wrote that email the data was public. It appears that he is still unconvinced that both sides of the equation were balanced. In fact after others tried to correct his comment he followed with this "How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget." (dated Oct 14, 2009) There is a further issue John. Trenberth states that from 1993 to 2003 the energy imbalance is perfectly accounted for based on the 'conventional' understanding of the system. So any changes you wish to introduce after 2003 (such as sequestering to the deep ocean) could not be applied to the previous decade. In other words a significant global energy transport system would have to be 'switched on' in 2003 in order for the sums to add up over all of the recent past. Does this seem reasonable? It seems you are blunting Occams Razor here.
  34. Philippe Chantreau at 18:07 PM on 13 December 2009
    What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    I do not really agree that I took what you said out of context. Pretty much everything about climate science has been explained in ways accessible to the general public. The PR campaign against climate science has prompted some to dig deeper. When they do, they find that things may not be as simple as was described, although not that much different. Duh! You can't explain general relativity to your grandma without taking some serious shortcuts. If she decides to dig, she will probably find that the way you explained it left a lot to be desired, even if, at the time, it was the best possible way. If she wants to go further, she will soon hit a wall of maths and physics that she is not ready for. And I don't really see any grandma doing her own tensor calculus work to independently verify the general relativity equations (unless she's a maths buff, in which case, she should be explaining the theory to you). What do you mean by "attitude like mine"? Did it occur to you that I am one of these regular folks that you mention? Did it occur to you that perhaps I spend all my workdays caring for regular folks? As a regular folk, I don't like being taken for a ride. That's what the deniers blogs, lobbyists and think tanks are trying to do. As for your argument that the stolen e-mails are fostering debate, I maintain my position on that. Specify where exactly you think that I talked down to you and I will clarify. To answer your question on the denier I mentioned, he vaguely understood the Iacono&Clough graph but maintained that it did not constitute evidence of anything, fully defining the word denier for all. I also had to endure a stream of verbal abuse and insults that, fortunately, John removed. Obviously the guy was not here to learn anything.
  35. It's cooling
    If the ocean has warmed to this extent, it must surely have expelled many millions of extra tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Has this new stream been detected at Mauna Loa? And does it advance the expected date for reaching the fateful 450ppm?
  36. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    "..we can't definitively explain why surface temperatures have gone down in the last few years. That's a travesty!" Isn't that exactly the meaning alleged by the skeptics? Many skeptics allege the UNEP compendium denied that surface temperatures had flattened in recent years, and welcomed the fact that a leading IPCC scientist was contradicting that denial.
  37. Was there a Medieval Warm Period?
    This brouhaha has similarities to issues sweeping science generally. A hundred years ago peer reviewed journals made sense, and rarely did anyone need to read a lab notebook. Frauds (or incompetence) happened but we were satisfied with the pace at which failure to replicate an experiment would eventually clear out the false reports. As this was a great improvement over the amateur "gentleman scientist" or even pre-science era, it was a good thing. But time moves on. Two big changes are occuring. One is the decay of the peer reviewed publishing industry. It is affecting some branches of science faster than others, but it will eventually decimate all. As the newspaper business is collapsing under the internet, so are journals. The second change is the availability of technology which has redefined both possibilities and expectations of how results are reported. It is that same medium. The clear expectations are: - all data for published results is itself published - all procedures for manipulating the data are also published The mechanisms for this are the same kind of thing that Open Source software uses. Use modern statistics/math packages like R or IronPython or Mathematica or MatLab and database languages like SQL. It is not that hard and it makes mistakes less likely and process more easiliy inspected and shared. Climate science is an area screaming out for this. No wonder the critics are having a field day, most climate science is still in the last century paradigm on a new century key issue. At least one guy gets it, Hansen has open sourced his code, clearly explained his approach on the NOAA website, and ensured all the data is available. This resulted in two independent reimplementations of equivalent code that largely validated his results (one error was found which made only a slight correction). The climate investigation is not going to finish this year, or next, or in the next decade. And the critics are not going to stop. The way to deal with this situation is not to get defensive, it is to get open. Rethink the whole process and step into the 21st century.
  38. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    Thanx Tom, just got back from my oldest son's hockey game (yes he uses a hockey stick! LOL!) On my way to your suggestions.
  39. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    DeNihilist, the reason your post appeared twice is that a bug in the blog software re-executes the Submit button's action if you refresh the page after submitting. Just flip your browser to any other page anywhere and then return to this page. In answer to your question, see The CO2 effect is saturated. If you want more details than that, or if you want more explanation but less detailed than the linked articles provide, do an internet search for "RealClimate Saturated Gassy Argument" and read both parts 1 and 2 of the resulting article on RealClimate.
  40. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    Philippe, you took my post out of context! I do not expect Joe and Jane sixpack to understand the intricate science, but if a scientist, as I think Einstien said, cannot explain it to their grandmother, then they don't really understand it themselves. At the bottom of my post, I put 2 links up, one showing ice core data, (which by the way Riccardo, I never meant to it to seem that I thought this could be taken as a global signature - sorry), the other an interpretation of said data. You are right, I cannot translate said data to a graph plot. But this chap did (though I think that his presentation was poor), so I am looking for some intelligent comments on this graph. It is attitudes like yours Phillipe that drive the common folk, (who are very neccesary, to keep this world working, so that said scientists can devote their attention to their studies) to seek the more simplistic solutions. We are educated enough, that we don't appreciate being talked down to. As in your second to last paragraph, you may have had to hand hold this chap, but in the end did you clarify his reasoning? If you did you just proved my point. I'm here to learn. You don't want to waste your time on people like me, then don't. I will in the end come to my own conclusions based upon more then one persons help. If this conclusion is wrong/right, then I will repent or be happy. Now back to learning, John, could you please point me to the discussion about CO2 forcing. I have been reading more about this in other blogs lately, and some claim that as CO2 increases, its' effect decreases in a non-linear way. I find that as I go through your history, looking for something particular, I seem to get caught up with other lines of reasoning! LOL!
    Response: The effect from CO2 is non-linear - it's logarithmic, in fact. This means as CO2 increases, it's effect diminishes (kind of like how movie sequels get less effective - for anecdotal evidence, see the Police Academy movies). This logarithmic relationship is used when calculating the radiative forcing from CO2.

    For more info on CO2 forcing, peruse the observational evidence of an enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 (and other greenhouse gases). Another page that puts the role of CO2 compared to other forcings into perspective is CO2 is not the only driver of climate.
  41. Philippe Chantreau at 06:44 AM on 13 December 2009
    What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    DeNihilist says "The anti side is finally getting to debate the science." Total nonsense. The anti side is using the e-mails out of context to convince Joe and Jane six-pack of stuff that the e-mails don't say. See John's recent post on Trenberth' quote. Same with the "decline" thing, that Gavin Schmidt discussed early on RC after the leak. There is no debate about the science, just wild accusations and a massive press campaign. The science has always been there in the open. The litterature has loads of articles. GISS' data and code is available. McIntyre, in pure Limbaugh fashion, gets the crowds outraged about Briffa "not sharing data", while he's had those data for years. Quality debate we see there. J&J 6packs are googling and finding piles of junk like WUWT, the science blog of the year where they very seriously discussed the possibility of carbonic snow on Earth. Talk about a travesty. J&J 6pack hardly understand what a variable interest mortgage entails, you sincerely think they'll click on the subtleties of statistical methods, radiative physics or fluid dynamics? Take a look at Patrick027 discussion of Rossby Waves on this very site and tell me how J&J 6packs are going to participate. I had a brush once on this site with a guy full of himself who had to be taken by the hand to understand the Iacono&Clough stratospheric cooling graph, and he claimed scientific background. The supreme irony is with the Soon & Baliunas piece. That pathetic thing barely deserved Energy&Environment. They used backways provided by Legates to circumvent the peer-review process in such a underhanded way that the journal's editors massively resigned. Now the e-mail expressing frustration over the fraudulent presence of such a bad paper in the litterature are used to suggest that scientists are influencing the peer-review process. Well, yeah, they did, in exactly the oposite way than what is suggested by those exploiting the e-mails. Debate the science? What a joke.
  42. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    Philippe Chantreau I was talking about honest mistakes.
  43. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    btw great article!
  44. Philippe Chantreau at 06:15 AM on 13 December 2009
    Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    RSVP, please let's not go there. Accounting has demonstrated its "creativity" and shortcomings throughout the Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, etc, etc, events. All the brilliant economists working wit the Wall Street giants have recently demonstrated a collective failure so spectacular that I don't know how any other science could ever measure up to it. And how many got fired again?
  45. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    Monckton totally ran with this misrepresentation (among many many others). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne-X_vFWMlw&feature=player_embedded A clip of him at Copenhagen berating some activist kids, and using emails and totally inaccurate statements to try and prove a point. I don't think anyone familiar with the science, skeptic or not, would be impressed by his arguments and behaviour. Highlights: 1. Trenberth email is brought up but cited along the lines "he says the earth has been cooling for past 15 years" which somehow pretends lack of increasing surface temperatures is cooling. Taking a line out of context and then further twisting it is just special. 2. Backs up falsehood number 1 by saying that we have seen "statistically significant cooling over the past 15 years". Apparently the sudoku master has a different way of defining the terms "statistically significant" and "cooling" 3. His continual breach of Godwin's Law. Back to the Trenberth email. One would have to deliberately seperate the phrase from the rest of the email, from the context in general and to ,perhaps most illogically of all, ignore his recent statements to clarify the issue. I explain the energy accumulation to others by using the analogy of a small business/shop. I run my store with many items and I take cash only. I know that at the end of the business cycle what my total profit (or loss) has been. But I can't tell which items made a profit, nor how much profit came from each. Its an internal accounting issue, not a bottom line issue.
  46. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    Lee Grable, yes, stratosphere is cooling. You might want to take a look at the collection of papers provided by AGW Observer.
  47. Climategate CRU emails suggest conspiracy
    There's an elegant counter to the skeptic argument that scientists adjusted ground temperature data to bias it toward warming. Giorgio Gilestro simply plotted all the adjustments made to each of the GHCN/CRU individual temperatures. The average adjustment is... zero degrees. And a nicely uniform, normal distribution around zero.
  48. Models are unreliable
    neilpert, your comment was a little bit early ;)
  49. There is no consensus
    neilperth, did you read the whole story of that paper? It goes exactly the opposite way.
  50. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    From answer to #53: "However, as far as the global warming debate goes, cosmic rays have had little to no role in the warming over the last few decades. This is because measured cosmic rays have shown little to no trend since the 1950s - an unsurprising result as cosmic rays are modulated by solar activity which has also shown little to no trend since the 1950s." Assume CO2 emissions are immediately reduced so concentrations are held constant at 388 ppm. Because of heat in the pipeline, we would still have temperature increases for decades, maybe for centuries. Applying this very same kind of reasoning, you could say in 2040 'CO2 have had little to no role in the warming over the last few decades. This is because measured CO2 rays have shown little to no trend since 2009'. As long as we don't know more exactly how equilibrium is reached when forcings change, we can't rule out 20th century changes in cosmic rays and solar activity as an explanation for recent changes, any more than we can rule out historical GHG changes. As most paths towards equilibrium probably imply a declining effect over time, it is surely little support for solar activity/cosmic rays as the only or most important factor behond recent changes.
    Response: This issue is addressed in Climate Time Lag. Solar activity did rise in the early 20th Century. While the solar radiative forcing is small compared to CO2 forcing, let's assume for the sake of argument that the solar forcing is somehow amplified. For example, by cosmic rays. So solar activity flattened in the 1950s.

    If current global warming was a lagged response to early 20th Century solar variations, what we would see is a higher energy imbalance around 1950. Then the energy imbalance would gradually reduce as the planet warmed and outgoing longwave radiation increased. Eventually the climate would reach radiative equilibrium as outgoing radiation equalled incoming solar radiation and warming would stop.

    What we've observed is something quite different. The energy imbalance was quite small back in the 1950s. Then over the last 40 years, we've observed the energy imbalance gradually increase until it has hit current levels of 0.9 W/m2 (Trenberth 2009). If we were approaching equilibrium from past solar variations, we would expect the energy imbalance to level out. The opposite is occuring.

    This is also backed up by satellite and surface observations of an increasing greenhouse effect.

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