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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 126101 to 126150:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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?
  6. 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.
  7. 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.".
  8. 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" ?
  9. 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.
  10. 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?
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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?
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    Philippe Chantreau I was talking about honest mistakes.
  23. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    btw great article!
  24. 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?
  25. 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.
  26. 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.
  27. 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.
  28. Models are unreliable
    neilpert, your comment was a little bit early ;)
  29. There is no consensus
    neilperth, did you read the whole story of that paper? It goes exactly the opposite way.
  30. 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.
  31. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    RSVP, a lot of doubts infact, it's the breading stage of science. But this does not mean any doubt, any weird unverified idea. The difference is huge. The problem with reputation you mention is exactly what i was referring to in my last comment when i said "destroy science altogether". If you put it as a matter of collective reputation of scientist (peer reviewers are scientists) you are destroying science just because you don't like (who knows why) the conclusions of part of it.
  32. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    When I dry my hands with a heated blow dryer, the surface of my hands feel really cold until all the moisture evaporates. Have upper atmosphere temps changed?
  33. Understanding Trenberth's travesty
    Sequestered heat is to Climatology as dark matter is to Astrophysics. In Accounting, they just fire you.
  34. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    Robert Ellison, look at the UAH dataset in the same Dr Spencer page. Scroll down to the end and read the global trend: 0.13 °C/decade. RSS gives 0.153 °C/decade. Compatible numbers are found for the three surface temperature datasets, which is worth recalling do not measure the same thing as the satellites. All of them are compatible with what is expected from a steady global warming.
  35. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    RSVP, you are far away from what i think and you clearly don't know how the peer review process works. May you find an unknown blogger trustworthy while you don't trust a peer review papaer. Bizarre, i'd say. Laymen discovered peer review just in the last few years and just as climate science is concerned. Given the pathos this topic generates now everyone feels the right to pontificate on almost anythings scientists have been done for decades, if not centuries. Look at what you've just said; you are questioning gas absorption, one thing know for a couple of centuries (litterally) and confirmed up to today. Do you really think there's no one around able to do some easy experiment and calculation of absorption? Trying to counteract "the inconvenient truth" i see more and more people destroy, maybe unconsciously, science altogether; and this blindness (or nihilism) is frightening.
  36. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    batsvensson, you probably didn't follow the discussion. Much too easy to jump in between and say it's a strawman ...
  37. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    @Riccardo, I quoted "personal attack to scientists". You responded: "scientists" is plural. It's a whole scientific community that is under attack from outside." Your argument is a strawman.
  38. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    To John Cook Way back, someone pointed me to an experiment that shows how CO2 interacts with IR to raise its temperature, thus proving greenhouse gas theory. The experiment was a lab geared to grade school or high school students and consisted of temperature comparisons of gas in a box with and without CO2. Proportion, concentration, and geometry didnt seem to matter for this. But considering the surface of the Earth is roughly 510,000,000 km2. Taking the square root you get 22,583 km. The height of the atmosphere is roughly 10 km. Converting to meters, we get 22,583,000 and 10,000 meters respectively. If we want to model this on a 100 m2 surface, 10 m on a side, the height of our model atmosphere would be around 4 mm. If it were possible to get 4 mm of air hovering over this surface, and inject 0.0003 percent of its volume with CO2, this would be a fair comparison for study. Riccardo Is it peer review or peer pressure? The sense I get is that you are only considered a peer if you agree.
  39. Robert Ellison1178 at 23:16 PM on 12 December 2009
    What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    #'s 63, 64, 65 'Using NOAA satellite readings of temperatures in the lower atmosphere, scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) produced a dataset that shows global atmospheric warming at the rate of about 0.07 degrees C (about 0.13 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since November 1978. "That works out to a global warming trend of about 0.7 degrees centigrade over (the next) 100 years," said Dr. John Christy, who compiled the comparison data. "That's a definite warming trend, which is probably due in part to human influences. But it's substantially less than the warming forecast by most climate models, and it isn't entirely out of the range of climate change we might expect from natural causes. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=11540 http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ The peak of global temperature in the 1998 El Nino is part of the 1998/2001 climate shift and evident in any of the (monthly) temperature records. This is the simplest part of the science. The more interesting arguments concerned major uncertainties in the solar records, cloud properites and dynamics and as a result of complex systems theory.
  40. The hockey stick divergence problem
    LorenzoG, ice cores temperature reconstructions are based on isotopic ratios; sea and lake sediment reconstructions use some biological proxy; neither is precipitation dependent. Trees, ice sheets and sea typically happen to be in different locations; you may find some lake sediments and tree rings from the same location. The solution of what is mathematical more than observational? It's not clear to me what you're asking.
  41. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    DeNihilist, it's true that people "are smart enough to get the basics of the science, most of us just don't have time to educate ourselves." and that "So attention grabbers are the default argument.". Problems arise when, like for the post of J. Storrs Hall you link, one needs a little bit more than get the basics to not be fooled by those attention grabbers. And indeed it's a much larger problem, there no filter on what can be published on the internet. Anyone interested in climate science is continuosly forced to spend his time in debunking more or less absurd claims people find somewhere in pseudo-scientific sites. It's much like the too many "inventions" of perpetual motion machines; apart from some curiosity, i'd not spend time looking at them seriously. How many times one should repeate that no conclusions can be draw from a temperaure reconstruction in any single site which is not shown to be for some reason representative of the global pattern? And what about the too short time series so frequently analyzed? One of the great things of this site is the collection of these kind of arguments, indeed ;) Scientists have managed to find a solution to which i think we all should adhere, it's well known and called peer review process. It should represent the threshold for throwing the other claims away without wasting time debunking them over and over. Questions are always welcome and if someone can answer i'm sure he will; but jumping on a blog with a claim found in some obscure sites is not asking questions nor it's discussing science.
  42. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    To John Cook You say above... "The total contribution of waste heat to our climate has been calculated and compared to the heating contributed from greenhouse gases in Warming from fossil fuels (Caldeira 2009). The radiative forcing from CO2 is around 10,000 times greater than the forcing from waste heat." From the Caldeira paper.. "Therefore, in year 2000, the Earth was heated >75 times more by anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere than by direct heating from fossil-fuel combustion." The huge factor you are referring to has to do with the theoretical cumulative heat from the total lifetime of CO2. When you are talking about Joules per year, even the article you make reference to only attributes a factor of 75 times. Now 75 is still significant, but what is this energy doing? This radiative energy only involves 1) the Sun, 2) the Earth's surface, and 3) outer space. Do you think electrical power lines are hot to touch? They are not. (You dont want to try this). Power lines are conduits of power between a source and a load. In the same way, the atmosphere does not absorb radiative energy however much it is increased. Heat transfers to air through convection as described by the equation, q = hA(Ta − Tb). When the air and solid reach the same temperature heat transfer stops. Ocean water temperatures are normally always cooler than sea level air temperatures (except near the Earth's poles), however, car radiators, motors, refrigeration systems, etc., are generally warmer than the surrounding air. These are warming the air, day and night.
  43. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    Phillipe, The reason that sceptics pick 98 is the same reason that Mr. Gore uses Mann's first hockey stick - for effect. Since 98, the temp rise has slowed quite a bit. Has it cooled? Of course not. That is why this decade may be the hottest that we know of, it is coming from a hugh peak. But the battle for minds continues on both sides of the debate. As I posted earlier, the majority of the people, in my opinion, are smart enough to get the basics of the science, most of us just don't have time to educate ourselves. So attention grabbers are the default argument. Simple. What intrigues me is that the pro side has not yet seen the real truth about the release of these "climategate" files and e-mails. The anti side is finally getting to debate the science, and it is very public, so more of the harried masses can now see what the pro side has contended to be the facts. Do you not see what a great oppurtunnity this can be? More people are Binging/Googling this subject (then even Tiger woods indescretions!). More people are looking for the truth. Finally, the pro side can climb out from obscurity and declare their side with logical and science backed facts! This website is a prime example. As more of my friends ask me about this, I always refer them here as the best place to get the pro side of the debate. Tell your leading lights to get off their talking points and celebrate the freedom that this leak has given them to finally explain the science to those who matter the most - Joe and Jane six pack! People don't want to be scared into doing the "right" thing, they want to walk with reason into doing the right thing. This leak is the best thing that has ever happened for CC! Dont miss the boat! Since I am not very good at pasting stuff, here is an attempt at getting some graphs from Greenland. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2475.html That is the info The graphs appear on WUWT in an article by J. Storrs Hall - here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/ more interesting material to help push us to a better understanding.
  44. Philippe Chantreau at 12:28 PM on 12 December 2009
    What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    The "lack of warming" since 1998 exists only under the condition that 1998 is cherry-picked as a starting year and the effect of the massive 98 El-Nino not taken into consideration. How is it if we take 1997 or 1999 as a starting point? Why so much focus on 1998? The answer is simple: the extraordinary warmth of that year makes it easy to suggest that it was "cooler" afterward, although the following decade was, in fact, warmer than the one containing 1998. Every time someone tries to take 1998 as a starting point for anything, I know they're trying to take mo for a ride. This has been discussed already. Swanson and Tsonis conclude: "Finally, it is vital to note that there is no comfort to be gained by having a climate with a significant degree of internal variability,even if it results in a near-term cessation of global warming. It is straightforward to argue that a climate with significant internal variability is a climate that is very sensitive to applied anthropogenic radiative anomalies(c.f. Roe [2009]).If the role of internal variability in the climate system is as large as this analysis would seem to suggest, warming over the 21st century may well be larger than that predicted by the current generation of models, given the propensity of those models to underestimate climate internal variability [Kravtsov and Spannagle 2008]." A quick look at how temps have recently behaved can be see here, it is very much as expected in a noisy system, and not different from what has been seen before: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/giss1.jpg Skeptics like to use natural variability only one way, but it does cut both.
  45. The hockey stick divergence problem
    I would like to see an analysis of proxy results based on location. Tree rings, ice cores and sediment data all have a precipitation component. Are all low latitude proxies experiencing different precipitation conditions than high latitude proxies? Or % of cloud cover? Information is missing, and most of the solutions seem to be mathematical rather than observational.
  46. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    NewYorkJ, there have been times when the AGW theory was on the making and the challenges put on it were fruitful. A lot of things have been fixed and/or improved thanks to the true scientific scepticism; and there is still ample room for discussions, as is the case in scientific conferences and peer reviewed papers. But I know, you're not talking about science and scientists ;)
  47. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    Regarding the Darwin station spin (Re: response to #50), this is a nice debunking: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/12/trust_scientists Skeptical arguments somehow seem to be growing more irrational and shrill. I didn't think that was possible.
  48. Models are unreliable
    blouis79, you might want to read something on weather vs climate. But if you like straight lines, fit one to the last 30 years or so and you'll end up with about 2 °C by 2100. Not confortable anyway. But you don't need to use "fancy computer models" to do better than a straight line fit and get a better representation of reality. By the way, you can also do nice fits to the ice ages cycles without "fancy computer models", but guess what?, they do a better job.
  49. Models are unreliable
    The science of prediction is well studied and not very reliable. A straight line fit with available historical data is statistically just as good as a fancy computer model. A stock market model works fine over 100 years as a straight line with unpredictable ups and downs. That's as good as a climate model will ever be over a few hundred million years - a straight line with ups and downs. The argument about weather vs climate is germane - they say we can't predict weather but it's OK we can predict climate and then try to predict the jiggles which is as good as predicting weather. So has anyone seen a model run try to account for the paleoclimatology data?
  50. What happened to the evidence for man-made global warming?
    From An AP news item about the stolen emails.. "One referred to using a "trick" that could be used to "hide the decline" in temperatures". Ya'll are doing a great job, keep it up.

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