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Comments 128001 to 128050:

128001. JCLadybug at 13:17 PM on 10 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        Question. So I know from the Calvin cycle and from the relative pH of water that as temperatures warm up they CAUSE carbon dioxide levels to increase. Isn't it a circular argument to say that inverse. Wouldn't the temperatures just simply continue to increase if both statements are true?
128002. Thumb at 12:59 PM on 10 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        "It's up to you to prove that it is warming" Have you been watching the Arctic or Greenland? What about glacier retreat in general, or the rising ocean levels? I thought the new argument was that the Earth was warming but it's not our fault. Now the argument is, in spite of the events I listed above, that the earth is cooling because it's not warming in a straight linear progression since it's peak in 1998? Or is it that it's warming but it's all a big multi-decades long lag effect from the sun? It's really tough to keep up sometimes.
128003. Robbo the Yobbo at 12:46 PM on 10 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        On nett climate effects from clouds - it is indeterminate - but simply to discount the SW effect by assuming no nett effects is less than scientific. There is a beautiful new site at: http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndClouds.htm It is worth checking the entire site. It provides nice pictures and graphs on all sorts of things - including low cloud and high clouds from the ISCCP. It shows tropical high level cloud increasing since 1999 and low level cloud decreasing. This should be a warming from IR trapping by clouds which offsets the increase in shortwave radiation at the surface. Nonetheless, it is obvious to blind Freddy that the planet is not warming all that quickly and that there are changes in the radiative budget caused by cloud changes that need to be accounted for. The position of the IPCC in regarding clouds as a climate feedback rather than a forcing is untenable.
128004. Robbo the Yobbo at 11:20 AM on 10 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        Posted in the wrong spot - Doh! Never mind, it is still relevant. Just on your Svensmark and Friis-Christensen comment - the paper is not peer reviewed (but you bring it up). I had a quick glance. You are intepreting the discussion in a radically different way from what they themselves say. 'In a recent paper (ref. [1]) Mike Lockwood and Claus Frohlich have argued that recent trends in solar climate forcing have been in the wrong direction to account for "the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures". These authors accept that "there is considerable evidence for solar influence on Earth's pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century." But they argue that this historical link between the Sun and climate came to an end about 20 years ago. Here we rebut their argument comprehensively.' You may not agree but you have no right to make an assertion that is diametrically opposed to what is said in very clear terms and then attribute that to the authors.
128005. Robbo the Yobbo at 11:01 AM on 10 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        Not trying to hide - Rob or Robert is fine - my laptop was offline and I used a work email in registering and forgot my login details. My mates call me Robbo. The cloud reconstruction is, and I will quote Goode et el 2009, that using 'satellite cloud data and Earth reflectance models, we also show that the decadal scale changes in Earth's reflectance measured by earthshine are reliable, and caused by changes in the properties of clouds rather then any spurious signal, such as changes in the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry.’ It is not just one paper or source however – see Hatzianastassiou et al ‘Global distribution of Earth’s surface shortwave radiation budget’, the Global Energy Balance Archive, the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project and the Baseline Surface Radiation Network. We saw an increase in surface incident shortwave radiation of 3 to 4 W/m2 between 1984 and 1998 and a decrease of 2-3 W/m2 between 1999 and 2008. These fluxes are climatologically significant. As I say, clouds have been treated as a climate feedback rather than a climate forcing and this is proving to be a questionable assumption. I have provided references. There is a link to a 42 page summary from CERN’s Jasper Kirkby. It appeared in Surveys in Geophysics 28, 335-375 (Nov 2007) – but is available on the CERN server. There are several references linked to on ScienceBits: http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate Check out Figure 3 on the site – but of course never relying on a single source. Google Ilya Usoskin who has a dozen relevant studies on his website. Usoskin specialises in correlating cosmogenic isotopes with global temperature reconstructions over 1150 to many thousands of years. There is also a Hadley Centre Technical Note No 62 prepared for the 4AR. Both the Schwartz and Spencer and Braswell papers I referred to as interesting discussions. The Spencer and Braswell paper is more relevant to changing shortwave forcing. But this is about time lag. The Mizimi post adds another element to uncertainty in the TOA fluxes – CERES calibration – on top of cloud changes and early 20th century TSI changes – as well as other changes in Earth albedo – snow and ice, black carbon, land clearing etc. I have trouble accepting PDO data prior to WW2, let alone calculated TOA fluxes to 1880. The uncertainties are far greater than the changes being modelled. If we add to this the more recent ocean cooling. At a very minimum – a lack of heating since 2004. Does that imply a new climate equilibrium has been reached? Hardly, climate is not and never has been in equilibrium which is the fundamental flaw in all of the climate equilibrium models.
128006. Robbo the Yobbo at 10:52 AM on 10 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        Not trying to hide - Rob or Robert is fine - my laptop was offline and I used a work email in registering and forgot my login details. My mates call me Robbo. The cloud reconstruction is, and I will quote Goode et el 2009, that using 'satellite cloud data and Earth reflectance models, we also show that the decadal scale changes in Earth's reflectance measured by earthshine are reliable, and caused by changes in the properties of clouds rather then any spurious signal, such as changes in the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry.’ It is not just one paper or source however – see Hatzianastassiou et al ‘Global distribution of Earth’s surface shortwave radiation budget’, the Global Energy Balance Archive, the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project and the Baseline Surface Radiation Network. We saw an increase in surface incident shortwave radiation of 3 to 4 W/m2 between 1984 and 1998 and a decrease of 2-3 W/m2 between 1999 and 2008. These fluxes are climatologically significant. As I say, clouds have been treated as a climate feedback rather than a climate forcing and this is proving to be a questionable assumption. I have provided references. There is a link to a 42 page summary from CERN’s Jasper Kirkby. It appeared in Surveys in Geophysics 28, 335-375 (Nov 2007) – but is available on the CERN server. There are several references linked to on ScienceBits: http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate Check out Figure 3 on the site – but of course never relying on a single source. Google Ilya Usoskin who has a dozen relevant studies on his website. Usoskin specialises in correlating cosmogenic isotopes with global temperature reconstructions over 1150 to many thousands of years. There is also a Hadley Centre Technical Note No 62 prepared for the 4AR. Both the Schwartz and Spencer and Braswell papers I referred to as interesting discussions. The Spencer and Braswell paper is more relevant to changing shortwave forcing. But this is about time lag. The Mizimi post adds another element to uncertainty in the TOA fluxes – CERES calibration – on top of cloud changes and early 20th century TSI changes – as well as other changes in Earth albedo – snow and ice, black carbon, land clearing etc. I have trouble accepting PDO data prior to WW2, let alone calculated TOA fluxes to 1880. The uncertainties are far greater than the changes being modelled. If we add to this the more recent ocean cooling. At a very minimum – a lack of heating since 2004. Does that imply a new climate equilibrium has been reached? Hardly, climate is not and never has been in equilibrium which is the fundamental flaw in all of the climate equilibrium models.
128007. David Horton at 09:08 AM on 10 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        #8 Chris - thank you, that makes sense. The more general point I was exploring is that, as is clear on the previous thread, denialists are interpreting "time lag" as meaning some period when change in input (ie from the sun) has no effect at all on global warming until some long time afterwards, 20 - 50 years, when it suddenly warms up. This is to "explain" why global temperatures keep rising, inconveniently, when sun activity is low and falling. That is, the rise now is a delayed reaction to sun activity half a century ago. In fact, as I was trying to tease out with my questions, the "lag" that Hansen (and John Cook) are talking about is just a delay in the full effect of input changes being felt. A change in sun activity does give an instant response, but equilibrium, between the new input and output parameters, is not reached for some time. However a tracking of temperature would still show it rising and falling (if this were the case) with sunspot activity or cosmic rays or whatever deus ex machina mechanism is the denialist talking point of the day. It doesn't, it rises, and rises, and rises, with GHG concentration, and time is running out. It is I suppose another example of where climatologists need to be very careful of the terminology they use. But it is impossible to guard against the cherry picking of words and sentences and gotcha moments that is the antithesis of science.
128008. canbanjo at 08:15 AM on 10 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        re the 'radiation at the top of the atmosphere' graph, why do all the runs correlate very closely during the 'dip' periods, compared to the more typical periods?
128009. chris at 07:07 AM on 10 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        re #5 David, I think I can answer your point #1. First of all we need to define what we mean by lag. This is the period during which the climate response to a change in forcing comes to equilibrium with the forcing. So if we double atmospheric CO2 and the climate responds with a 3 oC rise in temperature, the lag refers to the time for the full 3 oC of warming to be realised. This "evolution" to a new equilibrium occurs on many different time scales. The atmosphere will respond quite quickly...the oceans very slowly. In reponse to a large volcanic eruption there is a rapid onset and very short duration (18-24 months) "pulse" of considerably reduced radiative forcing. The atmosphere will cool quite quickly and this will be quite noticable in land/ocean surface temperature measures. The oceans will statrt to cool. However they will not have "got very far" in cooling before the atmospheric aerosols are washed out of the upper atmosphere and the radiative forcing has returned to the pre-eruption level. So basically in a volcanic eruption the effects of the forcing doesn't penetrate very deeply into the "climate system". Only the superficial levels with rapid response times (the atmosphere) are significantly affected. Although it gets a bit colder in the year or two following a large volcanic eruption, this degree of cooling is small compared to the cooling that would occur if the negative forcing was maintained for a long enough period (hundreds of years) for the ocean heat content to come to equilibrium with the reduced forcing...
128010. chris at 06:55 AM on 10 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        re #3 Robert ("Robbie" now?), we've already seen on the other thread that there's something rather dodgy about these data. I think we need to wait until the practitioners sort out their methodologies and analyses before we can take the cloud/albedo data seriously. It's a very difficult topic. Interplanetary Magnetic Field. I'd like you to refer us to a peer-reviewed paper that discusses a mechanism and a quantitative analysis of any IMF/CRF/cloud/climate relationship. It seems to me that with the seeming difficulties in relating the CRF-climate hypothesis to empirical observation, some dubious recourse to the IMF is now being made. Let's see some science please. The Schwartz paper. You've made the same mistake with Schwartz as with Goode and Palle. You haven't noticed that these authors have recvised their work in subsequent publications. Schwartz's original analysis was poor (an arbitrary and ridiculously small time constant deining the inertia in the ocean resonse to radiative forcing), and he published a correction in which he increased the time constant to 10 years (I think) and now comes up with with a climate sensitivity around 2 oC (of warming per doubling of atmospheric CO2): http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapCommentResponse.pdf His ocean inertial time constant is probably still to low (and in any case the ocean response very likely can't be modelled with a single time constant), and making it a bit longer would put his climate sensitivty smack back into the scientific "best estimate" of around 3 oC per doubling of [CO2].
128011. chris at 06:39 AM on 10 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        Robert, the cosmic flux-climate advocates I was referring to are Svensmark and Friis-Christensen. They stuck a (rather scientifically illiterate) report on their website concerning the solar contribution – climate link www.spacecenter.dk/publications/scientific-report.../Scient_No._3.pdf whatever the failings of the science in their report, they are pretty clear that the cosmic ray flux has been pretty flat (a slight cooling contribution) since the late 1950's. That's clear from their Figure 2B where they've stripped out the warming trend and shown that the cosmic ray flux (though it could well be total solar irradiance) "matches" the denuded temperature evolution over this period (note that their cosmic ray flux data is upside down). It's obvious that the cosmic ray flux data in their figure indicates a net cooling contribution if anything during the period of large late 20th century and contemporary warming. A similar conclusion could be made from the data presented in your Jasper Kirby article. The long term secular trends in the CRF are tiny (total variations of a few percent). A pretty fatal problem with attempting to link rather dodgy cloud-albedo effects to the CRF, is that the CRF variation through the solar cycle is much larger than the tiny scular variation throughout the last 60 years. However inspection of all of the ISPCC-albedo data in the Palle/Goode papers we've been discussing shows no relationship between albedo/cloud metrics and the solar cycle. That pretty much rules out significant CRF-albedo-cloud linkages. Two other problems: 1. There are clearly major problems in obtaining reliable cloud-albedo metrics. The two data sets presented in your original Goode-Palle paper and the recent one I found are wildly different. I prefer to wait until the issue are clarified objectively before drawing major conclusions. However it's worth pointing out that the apparent large forcings that you are taking from these papers are not necessarily nett forcings anyway. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but these forcings seem to be calculated from the observed "moonshine" (or cloud) albedo measurement. However these effects, if cloud related, are not pure albedo effects in the manner arising from (for example) surface land or sea ice. Clouds in the sky enhance earth albedo, but they also warm the surface by preventing convective and radiative heat loss. The actual nett effects of variations in clouds are not necessarily very significant. 2. I agree with you that one needs to consider forcing (W/m^2) and heat accumlation (Joules) properly. If one assesses the accumulated upper ocean heat in the period 2003-2008 inclusive, using the data of Levitus et al (2009) [see graph in John Cook's top article to this thread), this value (around 5.8 x 10^22 J) is rather similar to that predicted from the net forcing resulting from enhanced greenhouse and all other contributions. So there isn't really anything that is yet inconsistent with our understanding of the greenhouse effect and the consequences of enhancing this. Of course there is some uncertiainty about accumulated heat in the oceans during the last few years. You suggest that the ARGO data is "the best". Perhaps, but it's not yet terribly reliable yet. A couple of years ago the ARGO data was indicating marked upper ocean cooling. That was found to be the result of an artefact from malfunction in a subset of the devices. More recently two separate analysis using the same corrected data have resulted in two different interpretations of upper ocean heat. So rather like the cloud/albedo/CRF data there are serious issues of reliability. I prefer to wait til these are sorted before making/believing fundamental interpretations. Incidentally, I agree that the Jasper Kirby web article is well written. However it treats the subject with a vastly "one-eyed" interpretation. If I have time I might make a few points on this.
128012. rcluvsc at 05:45 AM on 10 July 2009
        Is the climate warming or cooling?
        Instead of taking everything for face value, I downloaded the global land/ocean temp data from NCDC and plotted it out on excel. While it is obvious that global warming has occurred for many years, what happened around 1997 to 2009? The data plainly shows nearly any change with no significant warming or cooling with the exception of a couple of years the trend has been neutral. So if Carbon dioxide is supposedly causing the earth to warm, why has the temperature trends for the past 12 years not continued to increase? This shows the flaws and uncertainties in the science. What about ocean currents, the sun, PDO, AMO, etc? If you don't believe me, pull up the raw data and look at it closely.
128013. Mizimi at 05:01 AM on 10 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        "The 5-yr global mean CERES net flux from the standard CERES product is 6.5 W m-2, much larger than the best estimate of 0.85 W m-2 based on observed ocean heat content data and model simulations. The major sources of uncertainty in the CERES estimate are from instrument calibration (4.2 W m-2) and the assumed value for total solar irradiance (1 W m-2). After adjustment, the global mean CERES SW TOA flux is 99.5 W m-2, corresponding to an albedo of 0.293, and the global mean LW TOA flux is 239.6 W m-2. These values differ markedly from previously published adjusted global means based on the ERB Experiment in which the global mean SW TOA flux is 107 W m-2 and the LW TOA flux is 234 W m-2." Toward Optimal Closure of the Earth's Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation Budget....Loeb et al.
128014. Quietman at 03:45 AM on 10 July 2009
        Climate's changed before
        "When it comes to climate, the early Paleogene period (~65-34 mya), at the start of the Cenozoic Era, had one of the most Eden like climates of the Phanerozoic. As the Cenozoic progressed a cooling trend set in leading up to the formation of permanent ice caps and the Pleistocene Ice Age we are still experiencing. But before the world started to ice up our planet underwent one of the most dramatic bouts of global warming known to science—the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM. Recently, global warming activists have tried to liken human CO2 emissions to the cause of the PETM, 55 million years ago. Is it true, that our actions may trigger a sudden sharp rise in global temperature? The mid-Cretaceous (~125-85 million years ago) and the early Paleogene are among the best known ancient “greenhouse” climate intervals—times when Earth's average temperature was significantly higher than they are today. During the Cenozoic (the last 65 million years) the global climate has cooled substantially, up to a main cooling step at the Eocene-Oligocene transition (~34 mya), which included the development of the first glaciation at a continental scale in Antarctica. Another main cooling step occurred in middle Miocene (14 mya) and was a significant step in the development of the Antarctic continental glaciation." FROM: Could Human CO2 Emissions Cause Another PETM? Read the rest, It's an interesting view.
128015. Quietman at 03:40 AM on 10 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        "I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time." FROM: My Nobel Moment - By JOHN R. CHRISTY I could list all the articles from scientists but John asks us not to make lists of links. I think this one is a good example of good scientists that are more than skeptic about the whole fiasco.
128016. Quietman at 03:32 AM on 10 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        Thumb It's up to you to prove that it is warming. So far we see broken satellites, broken weather sensors, excuses for why the machines do not show reality unless they fudge the data. Show the proof that it is warming? Even the IPCC said it's cooling. NASA said it's cooling. Where do you get your data from?
128017. David Horton at 14:54 PM on 9 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        Good to see such a quick response John, well done (but I didn't think I was being bitchy, so there!). But my physics isn't good enough to understand completely what is being said here, or by Hansen in the paper being summarised. Let me try some questions. 1. If there is a 20-50 year lag, why is there such an instant response to volcanic eruptions, which are equivalent to reducing solar input? 2. I had understood that the variations in solar input were too small to do more than explain some of the noise in the graphs, and "The radiative forcing from the warming sun is not particularly large" seems to conform this, so why is this an issue in the greater scheme of GHG effects? 3. The plateau business is confusing. The graph you show of net radiation is essentially plateaued from 1900 to 1970. Hansen has a graph of surface temp which shows a rise to 1940 and then a plateau to 1970 - is this the lag effect of solar increase in the early 20th century? I haven't seen that as an explanation before. 4. Granted some meaningful changes in solar radiation, are you saying this: when solar input increases, radiation out also increases, but it takes a while to warm up the whole planet so radiation out increases more slowly and the planet warms up slightly faster than it might otherwise have done until equlibrium is reached. When solar input decreases, radiation out continues at a higher rate because of the planet temperature, and therefore the fall in temperature, until equilibrium is reached is faster than it might otherwise have been. 5. Leaving those details aside, the increase in the temperature of the Earth from 1970 onwards has taken place in spite of falling or steady solar input, and therefore can only be the result of lower radiation outwards which in turn is the result of rising CO2 levels. That is, the solar input question, while of academic interest, has no relevance to the fact of global warming in recent times. And will continue to be of no relevance unless an increase in solar input makes our problems even worse.
128018. Robbo the Yobbo at 12:45 PM on 9 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        I have been introduced to an update of the ISCCP reconstruction. The increased shortwave forcing between 1984 and 1998 is 3.4 W/m2 in the newer study.
128019. Robbo the Yobbo at 12:37 PM on 9 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        Hi Chris - back again but on my laptop. Directly quoting from the Palle et al (2009) - 2 W/m2 change in shortwave forcing between 1999 and 2004 and constant (within the limits of error) thereafter based on Earthshine data. Compare this with the ISCCP-FD data. You are still not understanding the distinction between energy flux (W/m2) and energy (J). The latter accumulates as heat in the global system. When the energy flux declines on a sustained basis there is less energy accumulating in the system. Nothing peaked in 2000 - it just moved to a new state of energy flux. I must admit that I can't make head or tail of the difference between the 2006 and 2009 graphs. However, a 1% change in albedo is 3.4 W/m2 – the math is very easy. Figure 2 of the 2009 paper actually makes a lot more sense - a 1% decline in albedo from 1984 to 1998 - noting Mt Pinatobu in 1992. A total change in shortwave forcing of 3.4 W/m2. It is not 20 times less than the value of 6.8 given in the 2006 paper. I am not sure which solar system magnetic/cosmic ray/cloud proponents admit anything of the sort. See Svensmark and Marsh on the Nir Shiviv website – Figure 3. http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate See this discussion. Neutron counts peaked in the late 1980’s – and I am not convinced that neutron counts are the ideal metric to see changes in magnetically modulated cosmic rays. The aa-index peaked in 2003 on an annual basis - but in the late 1980's on 11 year averages. http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sspvse/oral/Ken_McCracken/wintergreen1.pdf The point about ENSO is that it involves an energy transfer between the ocean to the atmosphere. Inter-annual variation in the heat content of either doesn’t matter a damn. The moving averages of either are not terribly informative. All that matters is the total energy in both. The heat content of the atmosphere is quite a lot less than in 1998 – El Niño pumped a lot of heat into the atmosphere in 1998 and it is simply a function of a vast area of warm water across the Pacific. http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ We get back to ocean cooling. The ARGO data – best available – doesn’t show any warming since commencing in 2004. Together with atmospheric cooling – the data seems to show less energy in the global system. The cloud and energy content data are consistent.
128020. Robbo the Yobbo at 08:19 AM on 9 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        One of the problems is that A, contrary to the ruling assumption, is not even nearly constant resulting in an increase in surface incident shortwave radiation of 6 W/m2 between 1984 (the beginning of cloud reconstructions) and 1998 and a decline of 2 to 4 W/m2 from 1998 to 2008. The decline in cloud cover between 1984 and 1998 seems to be equally high and low cloud - so the increase in shortwave forcing is not offsett by longwave cloud effects. The only reasonable conclusion seems to be that cloud changes contributed significantly to late century warming - and certainly of the oceans. All I can say in relation to the IPCC is - how do you like those bananas? No - naughty - I shouldn't gloat - I could conceivably be wrong. Although it is all adding up - sea surface temperatures, ocean heat content, global surface temperature, sea levels and cloud cover. Let me go back to the Usoskin result provided earlier. The link is between cosmogenic isotopes and global temperature reconstructions over 1150 years with the best correlation on a 10 year lag. The likely conection is between the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF)/cosmic radiation/clouds. This is summarised in Jasper Kirkby "Cosmic Rays and Climate'. The IMF is reflected in the aa-index of Earth geomagnetic activity which peaked in 2003 on an annual basis - although 11 year averages peaked in the late 1980's. In discounting the link to surface temperature rise post 1975, both you and Ilya Usoskin use the wrong metrics - solar irradiance in your case and the sunspot number for Ilya. The 10 year lag between the IMF, clouds and, consequently, global total heat content seems to be working out pretty well. See Spencer and Braswell - http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer-and-Braswell-08.pdf for the implications for TOA radiative balance for varying cloud cover. Changing cloud cover falsifies the Hanson paper referred to above. Swhartz - http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/stevepubs/HeatCapacity.pdf - provides a discussion of surface temperature response to climate perturbation based on ocean heat capacity. An interesting discussion that finds a relaxation period of 5 years and low climate sensitivity to CO2.
128021. shawnhet at 05:28 AM on 9 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        I think it bears mentioning that an increase in sunlight will increase heating in the oceans as compared to an increase in the GH effect(which will primarily heat the atmosphere). Energy that is absorbed by the oceans will be emitted slower than energy absorbed by the atmosphere. It takes much longer to heat the ocean that it does the air(due to the mass difference). Given this alone, a straight increase in solar irradiance should have a longer lag time than an increase in the GH effect(even assuming the energy contribution is the same). Cheers, :)
128022. Lee Grable at 04:44 AM on 9 July 2009
        Climate time lag
        Maybe you should take some lessons from the Real Climate website. They don't suffer fools over there. Cuts way down on the bitchiness.
128023. chris at 04:09 AM on 9 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        whoops, that should be: "One can hardly claim a contribution from variations in the cosmic ray flux when there has been no trend in this parameter (a slight cooling contribution if anything) during the period since the late 1950’s when the CRF has been measured in detail."
128024. chris at 23:59 PM on 8 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        The revised analysis of Palle et al (2009) is pretty straightforward, Robert, and I understand it quite well having read it carefully a couple of times. The original analysis on which you were basing your interpretations in post #41 has been rather fundamentally revised. The so-called "robust" estimate of 6 W/m2 variation based on an apparent decrease of albedo anomaly from around 9% in 1986 to around -2% in 1998 originally proposed by Goode and Palle in their 2007 paper, seems now to be [based on ISCCP FD data - see Figure 1a of Palle et al (2009)] an apparent decrease in albedo anomaly from around 0% in 1986 to around -0.5% in 1998. If the albedo anomaly change has been revised downwards by a factor of around 20-fold to 5% of the original estimate upon which you were basing your analysis in post #41 how can the original estimate by the same authors be "robust"?! Likewise if the original Goode and Palle estimate of an increase in albedo between 1998-2005 has been revised to a best estimate of zero change between 2000 through 2007, that should lend us to question the significance of these measured albedo contributions to climate parameters. Even if there is an apparent "cooling" forcing due to a small increase in albedo between 1998-2000, this is difficult to reconcile with the fact that all of the climate parameters associated with radiative imbalance from any source have been in the warming direction for many years since 2000. The ocean heat content has increased markedly since 2000 (at least up to 2004) as have sea levels (latest data still consistent with a trend near 3.2 mm/yr: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_global.jpg); the air-sea surface temperatures for the decade 2000-present are significantly warmer than for the decade 1990-1999 and so on and this applies right through 2007. Why should these parameters have continued in a warming direction for many years after your apparently dominant cooling forcing has peaked in 2000? The IPCC certainly hasn’t “spent 20 years ignoring natural variation”. What leads to that odd conclusion? The IPCC analysis of the full surface temperature variation since the start of the 20th century has been made using the best (and evolving) measures of all contributions to variable radiative forcing whether natural or anthropogenic. One can hardly claim a contribution from variations in the cosmic ray flux when there has been no trend in this parameter (a slight cooling contribution if anything) during the period since the late 1980’s when the CRF has been measured in detail. Even the proponents of that theory recognize that variations in the CRF hasn’t contributed to marked late 20th century and contemporary warming.
128025. Robert Ellison at 14:56 PM on 8 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        Incidentally, have a look at the steric sea levels (I assume these are deltas) in Figure 4 above - none of these show much of a change. I can only reiterate that you need to look at total global heat content at any one time. That is the heat content of oceans and the atmosphere as well as other minor heat reservoirs. The bottom line is that the planet is not heating at all since at least 2004 - the revised ARGO data is certainly the best that we have. There is obviously something that has changed in the Earth energy budget.
128026. Robert Ellison at 14:45 PM on 8 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        Chris – I think you are misunderstanding the E. Pallé, P. R. Goode and P. Montañés-Rodríguez (2009) Interannual variations in Earth's reflectance 1999–2007 J. Geophys. Res. 114art #D00D03 Just between you and me - a copy is available at: http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Palle_etal_2008_JGR.pdf ‘Earth's global albedo, or reflectance, is a critical component of the global climate as this parameter, together with the solar constant, determines the amount of energy coming to Earth. Probably because of the lack of reliable data, traditionally the Earth's albedo has been considered to be roughly constant, or studied theoretically as a feedback mechanism in response to a change in climate. Recently, however, several studies have shown large decadal variability in Earth's reflectance.’ The ‘climatologically significant’ change in Earth Albedo since 1998 – reassessed downward from 4 to 2 W/m2 since 1998 in the Palle et al (2009) study - although the ISCCP-FD result is higher. The lower estimate is not a ‘small’ value. Compare it with the IPCC estimated net anthropogenic forcing of 1.5 W/m2 to 2005. The decrease in energy hitting the earth surface is not a one off event but represents an ongoing reduction in shortwave energy flux hitting the surface of the planet. The energy deficit is cumulative and this is the reason why you would expect a global decline in total heat content of the oceans and atmosphere and other minor components in the global energy reservoirs. The question is not whether one should expect a decadal decrease in global total heat content but how long it will last and what are the implications for anthropogenic global warming. The ‘robust’ estimate of decadal variation – 6 W/m2 between 1985 and 1998. The shortwave forcing of Earth’s climate between at least 1985 and 1998 must not continue to be ignored. This means that the IPCC estimate of the cloud albedo effect is wrong because; • the cloud albedo effect is not constant; and • it is simply wrong - the 2007 IPCC estimate of the cloud albedo effect is negative when it should be hugely positive between at least 1985 and 1998. The IPC has spent 20 years ignoring natural variation that is obvious to blind Freddy in the climate record. Now it is being said that there is natural variability of unknown causality that is masking global warming but which will soon return with a vengeance. Doh! The situation gets worse for the IPCC when you start to wonder what the drivers of decadal variation of global cloud cover are. Is it internally driven by decadal variation in sea surface temperature? This really just leads to seeking the underlying driver for the well known decadal variations in sea surface temperature and, indeed, in total ocean heat content. Inevitably, it seems to me, we are drawn to the solar system magnetic/cosmic ray/cloud theories of Svensmark and numerous other authors. Jasper Kirkby of CERN provides a terrific summary at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1938 Solar system magnetism – as reflected in the annual series of the aa-index of Earth geomagnetic activity - was at 14.2 last year down from a peak of 37.1. It is expected to trend down for a couple of centuries.
128027. chris at 05:24 AM on 8 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        re #41 Robert, the Goode and Palle data you cited which shows an apparent continuing ("cooling") contribution from an apparent reduction in SISR reaching the surface (increasing albedo) from 1998 through 2005 has been reassessed by the same authors (abstract below [***]), and found to be inconsistent with new data and analysis. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD010734.shtml Goode and Palle now find a consistent interpretation with the CERES and ISCCP cloud analyses in which there has been no change in albedo from the period 2000 through 2007. In other words their previous large apparent negative forcing that you describe isn't actually correct. Although their new analysis suggests that there has been a small increased albedo in the period 1998-2000, there has been no detectable change since then. This reassessment is consistent with the data on ocean warming which shows large increases in upper ocean heat since 1998 (see John Cook's top post, for example), even if there is some question about the last few years. One shouldn't be fooled into thinking that the land-ocean surface warming under enhanced greenhouse forcing has "stopped" just because 1998 was a very anomalously warm year due to a large El Nino! It's likely that the very recent period of lower temperature anomalies are the result of the strong La Nina episode of 2008 and the fact that the sun is at the bottom of its solar cycle. Palle and Goode's reassessment of surface incident solar radiation indicates that that metric is unlikely to be very important outwith the small reduction in total solar irradiance at the solar minimum (and not forgetting the effects of aerosols on reduced surface insolation). Easterling and Wehner (2009) [*****] have recently highlighted (again) the fallacies in the assumption that the earth will not undergo significant periods of temperature statis or even cooling on a long term warming trajectory under the influence of an enhanced greenhouse radiative imbalance. Of course when this happens it should be possible to adress the significant causal elements in hindsight (solar metrics, volcanos, La Nina's etc.). In this case the change in albedo doesn't seem to be important at least according to Goode and Palle's reanalysis. Incidentally you said on another thread that sea levels haven't risen "in years". That's incorrect. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037810.shtml [***]E. Pallé, P. R. Goode and P. Montañés-Rodríguez (2009) Interannual variations in Earth's reflectance 1999–2007 J. Geophys. Res. 114art #D00D03 abstract: The overall reflectance of sunlight from Earth is a fundamental parameter for climate studies. Recently, measurements of earthshine were used to find large decadal variability in Earth's reflectance of sunlight. However, the results did not seem consistent with contemporaneous independent albedo measurements from the low Earth orbit satellite, Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES), which showed a weak, opposing trend. Now more data for both are available, all sets have been either reanalyzed (earthshine) or recalibrated (CERES), and they present consistent results. Albedo data are also available from the recently released International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project flux data (FD) product. Earthshine and FD analyses show contemporaneous and climatologically significant increases in the Earth's reflectance from the outset of our earthshine measurements beginning in late 1998 roughly until mid-2000. After that and to date, all three show a roughly constant terrestrial albedo, except for the FD data in the most recent years. Using satellite cloud data and Earth reflectance models, we also show that the decadal-scale changes in Earth's reflectance measured by earthshine are reliable and are caused by changes in the properties of clouds rather than any spurious signal, such as changes in the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry. [*****]D. R. Easterling and M. F. Wehner (2009) Is the climate warming or cooling? Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L08706 abstract: Numerous websites, blogs and articles in the media have claimed that the climate is no longer warming, and is now cooling. Here we show that periods of no trend or even cooling of the globally averaged surface air temperature are found in the last 34 years of the observed record, and in climate model simulations of the 20th and 21st century forced with increasing greenhouse gases. We show that the climate over the 21st century can and likely will produce periods of a decade or two where the globally averaged surface air temperature shows no trend or even slight cooling in the presence of longer‐term warming.
128028. Robert Ellison at 10:47 AM on 7 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        I seem to have somehow posted twice - for the Goode et al reference http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Goode_Palle_2007_JASTP.pdf
128029. Robert Ellison at 10:37 AM on 7 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        I believe that you have fundamentally misunderstood the physical processes of heat transfer between the ocean and atmosphere in ENSO events. The difference between El Niño and La Niña by definition involves higher sea surface temperatures during an El Niño. In an El Niño, the trade winds falter and warm water spreads eastward across the central Pacific. Higher sea surface temperatures across a vast pool result in a transfer of energy to the atmosphere resulting in a spike in global surface temperatures. Energy is transferred from the Ocean to the atmosphere resulting in a lower mean ocean heat content. In a La Niña, the reverse happens with heat transfer from the atmosphere to the ocean – global surface temperature falls. The correlation between surface temperature trends and ENSO events is 100%. The thermocline is located between 50 and 1000m – predominantly above the 200m depth. The thermocline should be thought of as a transition layer between the warm and turbulent surface and the cold oceanic depths. As you say, in a La Niña, cold subsurface water rises strongly in the eastern Pacific. This water mixes with warm surface water and increases the volume of water in the surface layer but may not change the heat content when the latter is integrated over a suitable depth. 700m is probably suitable. Ocean heat content increases in a La Niña and decreases in an El Niño. This not only makes physical sense but is, I believe, the correct interpretation of the graphs. The reverse cannot possibly happen without violating the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics. ENSO needs to be seen in the context of both ocean and atmospheric temperatures but also in terms of decadal changes in surface incident short wave radiation (SISR). The total global heat content – declining or steady ocean heat content and declining atmospheric temperature (if you look at the monthly temperature record – there is no doubt when surface temperature peaked in the 97/98 El Niño) – certainly seems to imply that there is something else happening in the global climate system. See - ‘Shortwave forcing of the Earth's climate: modern and historical variations in the Sun's irradiance and the Earth's reflectance, P.R. Goode, E. Palle, J. Atm. and Sol.-Terr. Phys., 69,1556, 2007.’ PDF The clue is in decadal changes in ocean temperature – primarily the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and in decadal changes in the frequency and intensity of ENSO events – but also the in total ocean heat content. There are extrinsic causes dominated by changes in cloud cover and consequent changes in SISR – as revealed by the ISCCP. The world’s oceans must be cooling because SISR has decreased by about 4 W/m2 since 1998 – an order of magnitude greater than anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing in the same period. The net direction of cloud climate forcing in the atmosphere is less certain – but the change in shortwave forcing is a direct input into ocean heat content. This result emphasises the importance of including cloud changes associated with changes in the Interplanetary Magnetic Field. That is, clouds are a climate forcing on 20 to 30 year and longer cycles, rather than simply a feedback as the IPCC insists. http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1938
128030. Robert Ellison at 14:07 PM on 6 July 2009
        This just in - the sun affects climate
        The corelation is with the inyterplanetary field/ ionising cosmic radiation and cloud (the best fit of cosgenic isotopes with temperature being with a 10 year lag). The magnetic field peaked in the mid to late 80's, clouds cover was a minumum around the turn of the century. This is 2009 - no increase in surface temp for a decade, no increase in sea level (and therfore temp) in years and a substantial increase in albedo over a decade. A sin by omission several times over.
        Response: Actually, there has been no correlation between cosmic rays and global temperatures over the last 30 years of global warming. Measurements of the climate's total heat content find the planet has continued to accumulate heat since 1998. And sea level rise has been accelerating over the last century and is still rising.
128031. Thumb at 07:18 AM on 6 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        "Prove it. It is not warming, it's cooling. The air is cooling, the oceans are cooling. What planet do you live on?" Is this sarcasm? While surface air T has never been a steady linear climb, it has been gaining on it's 1998 peak. And as to our oceans warming or cooling, everything I can find on ocean temperatures shows a continued climb. While I could understand some regional surface cooling (say, near increased glacial runoff areas, i.e. Greenland), could you post any links showing oceans in general are actually cooling?
128032. Quietman at 02:01 AM on 6 July 2009
        Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans
        Now that this has all been explained, what I need to now point out is that this is now a cause of GW, in fact has nothing to do with long range climate change (that is the Sun and little to do with the recent "AGW" issue). This is a side show, and the reason for melting of poles and some glaciers in specifically over the subduction zones IMO. This side show is also attributable to the Solar Jerk as a side effect on the Earth itself IMO. Bottom line, it's all comes back to the Sun as the driver of climate via both direct and indirect means. Ok, I think I made my point, now it's up to you to try to understand what I explained. Denial of the Sun and the results of the Solar Jerk in IMO is a silly argument so I am done. I have more paleontologist issues pressing to get back to.
128033. Quietman at 01:37 AM on 6 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        Re: "Nevertheless, the sun stays the same, the CO2 keeps rising, and so do the temperatures, as predicted." Prove it. It is not warming, it's cooling. The air is cooling, the oceans are cooling. What planet do you live on? Re: Now which denialist are you calling a "solar jerk"? "The Solar Jerk" is not a person, it is the name of a hypothesis put toward in 1966 by Dr. Rhodes Fairbridge and the predictions by Dr. Mackey in summer 2007. "We are all toast" Hansen lost his mind several years ago.
128034. hnrsoftware at 00:29 AM on 6 July 2009
        There is no consensus
        Oops - in a key sentence, I used angle brackets and it mkes no sense now. Let's try: The danger of a "concensus" is its use in the non-scientific arena, as in: "If CONCENSUS then ACTION".
128035. hnrsoftware at 00:25 AM on 6 July 2009
        There is no consensus
        First, I want to say that this website is exactly what I have been looking for. A place where the arguments on both (or more) sides are presented factually, with a minimum of name-calling and cheerleading. I think I entered the site as a denier and am now firmly in the skeptic camp. Many of the mini-arguments in the various threads seem to be on specific technical points, but they carry huge baggage of gross media exaggeration of either or both sides, plus the need to defend the team (alarmist/denier) as if this was some kind of a sporting event. Because the is the concensus thread, I want to focus on that. If the concensus statement is "recent global climate change is primarily influenced by human activities", then arguing against it is like insulting Mom or apple pie. The difficulty, as I see it, is understanding exactly what the concensus implies, in terms of further science to be done and political actions to be taken? The danger of a "concensus" is its use in the non-scientific arena, as in: "If then " Not having a skepticalscience website to refer to for the hole in the ozone layer "debate", I'm on weak scientific grounds and have to use the wikipedia summary, but I believe that the situation is parallel. The scientific concensus was "there is a reduction in the stratospheric ozone level with a hole near the antarctic". A theoretical mechanism was proposed that CFCs could cause it, and a political action was taken to replace freon with a substitute. Media crisis reports were published and an equivalent alarmist/denier debate ensued. Political action was taken and the economic costs were large. It appears from the wiki graphs that ozone is trending back up, but there is little or no media coverage of the progress, or lack thereof. Is this the model for the AGW question?
128036. David Horton at 19:08 PM on 4 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        Nevertheless, the sun stays the same, the CO2 keeps rising, and so do the temperatures, as predicted. Now which denialist are you calling a "solar jerk"? I sympathise with the sentiment, but name-calling is not good. Oh, and I think the predictions from the alarmists (and only a fool, or a stooge, is not alarmed) are running somewhere about 25 to zip since Hansen first started ringing alarm bells.
128037. Quietman at 12:48 PM on 4 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        "Denialists know the truth" Very true. But it is the AGW alarmists are the ones in denial. Wake up, it was predicted by Rhodes Fairbridge in the "Solar Jerk". Back in the summer of 2007 Mackey said it would be 2008-2011 to prove the hypothesis. Two years down, two correct predictions and three to go. That is two correct predictions for the "Denialists" and ZERO for the alarmists.
128038. Mizimi at 21:23 PM on 3 July 2009
        Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
        It's not an elephant FredT, it's a sacred cow. The more 'advanced' nations are showing a decline in birth rate that already threatens the continued viabilty of the indigenous population, and so to 'fill the gap' have to rely on immigration to maintain the society. In order to get people to produce less children you have to deal with a number of problems, not least is their standard of living. It's a complex subject, frought with difficulties - but you're right, deal with overpopoulation and the 'global warming problem' will fade away.
128039. David Horton at 12:03 PM on 2 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        Hmmm. "It's the sun what done it". "Um, no, variation in sun activity too small, and in any case has been decreasing in recent times while temperatures rise". Pause. "It's the sun what done it, but it is a delayed reaction, just like it is warmer after lunch". This sort of stuff is faith in action. Denialists know the truth - ie that no environmental concern must ever get in the way of, hell, must never even pause, neoconservative laissez faire unregulated capitalism for the very rich - and therefore no fact can ever demonstrate the failure of their ideology. All facts can be explained away, individually, no matter how far fetched each explanation is, and no matter what the combination of all data tells you about the real world. Now, where else have I seen that mind set in action?
128040. thingadonta at 10:19 AM on 2 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        I dont need 'greatness', since I dont think like boring, pompous academics. And yes, the earth is responding to warming-natural warming, (except none in the last decade or so, whilst c02 just keeps on rising-no evident connection). Lag effects are well known by most academics anyway, except perhaps your great self. EG: -C02 rise lags earth T rise in orbital variations, by ~400-1000 years. This is a pretty long lag. -The onset and end of ice ages have long offsets/lags, from orbital variations. There is T 'resistance' to both onset and the end of ice ages, but more resistance to an end, where T subsequently rises rapidly, possibly after ice sheets thin out, have mostly melted and albedo effects become (suddenly) greatly diminished. ? -It is recognised there is a statistical 10 year time lag between solar activity and earth T (Usoskin 2005). My question is whether or not they have looked at longer term trends (ie from the very beginning of a climate shift, such as the 1500 year sun cycle, rather than short term peaks and troughs) and also sustained solar peaks, in this 2005 analysis, and others. I suspect that they haven't. The 1500 year solar cycle may be important in this respect. So far (~1750-2000s), the earth is responding as it should to this solar variation- about +-1 degree in the first ~250 years or the solar warming cycle, we have about another 250 years and ~1 more degree of warming to go to ~2250, in the 1500 year solar cycle trend. This warming is well in line with previous 1500 year solar cycle warmings. (I just got the new book of the 1500 year solar cycle by Singer, so more later). Have you read it? The issue of variations in solar activity on the earth as a whole between day/night and between seasons and hemispheres is irrelevant, it doesn't change net affect over time. The same applies to C02, it traps incoming heat by day, keeping the heat in by night, but the net effect over time includes both day and night. Solar activity is no different. Summer (eg in the S hemisphere)still warms between December and February, despite their being 'nights', with no local solar activity, the net effect is positive, with a heat lag of 20-25% of the total warming trend since the winter solstice. Whether or not the 20-25% heat lag correlation is valid is another matter, but heat lag effects themselves, even multi-decadal ones, are well known. There is nothing extraordinay, or 'e=mc2' in my ideas, they are quite simple, I find that most 'global warmists by humans' are pretty naive and uniformed about even simple, contrary views or ideas to their mantra/mission/religion/ideology etc. Most haven't even got a clue that the sun drove climate change in the past, and could therefore be doing so now also- with similar-scale T changes to similar-scale solar variations.
128041. David Horton at 08:42 AM on 2 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        "The sun could explain all of this heating, in my opinion, without needing to invoke C02" - and your opinion is good enough for me, mr thingadonta. But it is a great pity that you "don't have time to write a 'paper'", what a loss to science that is, surely some 'government-funded researcher" could take you on and let you achieve greatness? Correct me if I am wrong, but let me see if I have understood your "e=mc2" moment. The hottest part of EVERY day (leaving aside variables like cloud cover) is an hour or so after mid-day. The hottest part of EVERY year is usually a bit later than summer solstice in whichever hemisphere you live. So, drum roll, the effects of the increase in sun activity some 50 years ago are only just being felt now, by analogy. But the analogy is false, I'm afraid, so you better stick to your day job. Every part of the earth does warm up and cool down considerably, alternately, each day, every part of the earth does warm up and cool down considerably, alternately, each year. What makes you think that there is a long term delay as a result of tiny fluctuations in sun's activity? Let alone in proportion to the delay on a daily basis. This sort of nonsense just keeps on coming while, leaving aside temperature measurements and regression analysis, the world is responding, unmistakably - plants, animals, glaciers, deserts - to a warming planet.
128042. Joel Upchurch at 06:29 AM on 2 July 2009
        Does ocean cooling disprove global warming?
        Sorry for putting in a late comment, but I was just happened to notice a reference to a thread I started on physicsforum. I don't know if you have also looked at: Domingues, C.D., (2008) Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise, in Nature Vol 453, pp 1090-1093 (19 June 2008) doi:10.1038/nature07080 I found a free copy of the paper here http://www.astepback.com/GEP/Nature%...LR%20rates.pdf What I found interesting is that Domingues actually has 1 standard deviation error bars on his graph which indicate that the pre 1970 data is almost worthless. I wish everybody did their graphs that way. I'm pretty sure the spike from 2002 to 2003 in Leviticus is just an artifact of splicing in the pre-argo data. I'm a lukewarmer myself, so I wasn't upset when OHC flatlined for several years there. I expect warming to resume when the El Nino kicks in. BTW does anybody know why Argos doesn't collect PH data? I think it would be nice to have.
128043. chris at 22:02 PM on 1 July 2009
        The correlation between CO2 and temperature
        jeesh HS, you're engaging in a bout of contrived indignation based firstly on a misreading of a sentence, and now (your post #24), on a misrepresentation. Please try to be more careful with your reading. I said: "Unsupported assertions on dodgy web sites are rarely helpful HS and you've again dumped several on this thread." The noun is "unsupported assertions", of which you dumped several. Now you're suggesting that my sentence can be taken to mean that I "claim that (you) had "dumped" several links to "dodgy web sites " in this thread" . That's a weird misrepresentation HS, and any "offense" you've contrived is an "offense" to your own misrepresentation. Let's get back to the science. Your web site chap asserts that raised CO2 levels are reduced to pre-industrial levels "instantly", "instantly" being "a few years or decades at most". That's clearly at odds with the scientific evidence that bears on that point, as I described in my post #20 above. It's an extraordinarily ignorant assertion and one wonders why someone who goes to the trouble to construct a web page on this subject would be so ill-informed of the science. It’s a particularly weird misrepresentation when one examines the reference that your web site chap uses to “justify” his assertion (he does this in a “comment added 1/5/2008”), viz:

        To clarify, this means that if we were to stop emitting carbon dioxide, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere would rapidly return to pre-industrial levels. Geologists tell us that the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is on the order of five to ten years [23].

        However if one reads ref [23](***), one finds that they conclude “Decline of CO2 levels in the atmosphere will take centuries because of the slow turnover of the deep sea.” HS, how can an old report that concludes that decline of CO2 levels will take centuries, be used to justify an assertion that the decline will be “almost instantaneous” (“a few years or decades at most”)? ***[23]. National Academy of Sciences, Climate Research Board (1979). Carbon dioxide and climate: a scientific assessment. National Academy of Sciences, 72pp.; cited in Ref. 1, p. 434.
128044. papertiger at 22:01 PM on 1 July 2009
        Jupiter is warming
        Hello John, I should have done this long ago but I lost interest. Besides which Phil was being a distraction. Your five thrusts starting with number one are answered in Phil Marcus' letters to Nature, "Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter." Phil posted the link on his EDU homepage at the top of the list, so I imagine he is kind of happy with this work, giving it pride of place above all the rest. Here is the relevant excerpt:

        The Methods section shows that vortex mergers lead to ‘Global temperature changes’, the cycle’s next stage, in which the temperature T near the equator (poles) rises (falls) by ,10 K. Currently the weather layer (containing the clouds and vortices) is nearly isothermal in latitude. This is surprising and not understood. A balance between cooling via blackbody radiation and heating from the Sun (a function of latitude) and internal sources would make the poles ,30 K cooler than the equator. Most solar heat is absorbed in, or just below, the weather layer, so deep convection cannot make its T uniform. Consistent with theory my calculations show that when there are several vortices per westward jet, the velocity v is chaotic and chaotic mixing of T makes the layer isothermal.

        He seems to be saying that deep convection ie heat radiating from the planet would result in the pole being 30 K colder then the equator. Also he implys that the weather layer ie everything that we can see is powered by the Sun, that there is an absorbtion threshold below. This asumption is further strenghened later with this:

        Jovian vortices are robust because strong Coriolis forces make the atmospheric flow nearly two dimensional, an environment where vortices thrive. (Three-dimensional flow destroys vortices.) The GRS cannot be part of a street because the street’s cyclones would need to be north of the westward jet stream at 20 degrees S, and no cyclones (not even transients) lie between 20 degrees S and the equator.

        Interesting note. On Jupiter cyclones are cold air downflow features, where as their opposite, the anticyclone, (Red Spots, white spots, and ovals) are warm air rising features. Why would there be no cyclones near the equator? Because the air is heated by the sun. All the way to the bottom of the cloud deck. Todocha.
128045. chris at 20:35 PM on 1 July 2009
        The correlation between CO2 and temperature
        re #22 1. “Unsupported assertions on dodgy web sites are rarely helpful HS and you've again dumped several on this thread.” The noun is “unsupported assertions” HS. That’s what you’ve dumped several of. 2. The point is that the unsupported assertions you dumped (about the instantaneous nature of recovery of enhanced atmospheric CO2; about the role of photosynthesis in reducing enhanced CO2 levels; about the role of the oceans in reducing enhanced atmospheric CO2 levels) are either grossly incorrect, or meaningless without some real world context (see my post #20 for why). 3. “Vaguely relevant papers and articles”? You and your misinformed website chum are attempting to pursue some fallacies about the lifetime of enhanced CO2 levels (using unsupported assertions). If we want to know what the scientific evidence actually indicates we have to look at the science, wouldn’t you say? There is a recent review [ref #1 of my post #20] that addresses exactly the point under consideration. The article is a review of scientific analysis of the lifetime of enhanced atmospheric CO2 levels. How can that not be entirely relevant to a discussion of the lifetime of enhanced atmospheric CO2 levels, HS? I hope you’re not suggesting that the science isn’t relevant (or only “vaguely relevant”!), and that we should ignore this and form our world views from unsupported assertions on dodgy web sites. Likewise if we are considering the true lifetimes of enhanced atmospheric CO2 levels, it’s relevant to look at examples of studies in which the lifetimes of enhanced atmospheric CO2 levels in the past are directly assessed through analysis of carbonates in cores at times following tectonic events that greatly raise atmospheric CO2 levels. I gave some examples [refs #4, #5 and #6] in my post #20. And if we are considering the role of the oceans in taking up enhanced CO2 it makes sense to look at some of the science in which his point is specifically addressed [refs. #2 and #3 in my post #20]. Why not supplement your unsupported assertion that these are “vaguely relevant papers and articles” with some explanation of why you consider them to be “vaguely relevant”? That would be quite an interesting starting point for discussion….
128046. thingadonta at 20:12 PM on 1 July 2009
        The CO2/Temperature correlation over the 20th Century
        :50 Some points: Yes the earth is warming- about 1C+- over the last few hundred years. You can link to many many websites which show solar vaiables which have increased since about 1700, peaking in the mid-late 20th century. This website also agrees with as much. eg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Activity_Proxies.png -With such things as oceans taking time to absorb heat, ice melting slowly in the Arctic causing slowly decreasing albedo, and well-known properties of thermodynamics itself, you get heat lags. Its too simple for 'global warmists by humans' to undertand. These heat lags can be susbstantial eg 20-25% of the total warming trend in daily T from dawn, and annual peak T 20-25% after the summer solstice. (check any meteorological record). This 20-25% would explain heat time lags after peak solar activity in the 20th century, if the model correlation is valid, but even if it isnt directly applicable (global climate is complicated and may not be directly proportional to eg daily T), the concept of a heat lag itself IS valid.Its a question of how much heat lag. Also note, that raw satellite troposphere data doesn't show much of a warming since 1979 in any case; and I don't trust bureaucratic 'corrections' to this data, which amplifies recent warming since ~1980. But it is clear that T has increased +-1C since about 1700+-. The sun could explain all of this heating, in my opinion, without needing to invoke C02. Those who don't like the sun causing this much change, since solar variables seem to be too weak, have to also explain why the sun caused similar-scale T changes in the past, associated with similar 'weak' solar changes. They also dont like the stepwise trend in T when placed against solar trends, but they have to deal with this with C02 as well. In other words, it is quite possible that solar forcings are under-estimated by the IPCC etc, one piece of evidence being changes in T being caused by similar small changes in solar variables in the past. A similar sort of problem occurs with those who want to invoke eg mammoth extinction to climate change, mammoth surived similar many similar changes to climate before humans came around, so if humans didnt cause their extinction, hwo does one explain their non-extinction in simialr climate changes in the past?? Similarly, how does one explain similar T changes in the past, without any changes in c02, if solar forcings arent stronger than assumed by eg the IPCC?? To answer your request about models and data etc properly, I would have to be involved with full time research, which I am not. I don't have time to write a 'paper', but you can get solar reconstructions from various places, eg the NIPCC report is a good reference. If I was a government-funded researcher I might be able to give you much more, not enough time now.
128047. rzwilling at 16:47 PM on 1 July 2009
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        I second Theo's question - is there updated information available on the most recent temperature trends and whether La Niña has been receding in the last year (since mid-2008, that is). Does anyone have any current information indicating one way or another?
        Response: Southern Oscillation Index monthly data is available at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology while monthly global temperature anomaly is available at NASA GISS. Here's a graph of the updated data:
        
        
128048. thingadonta at 14:30 PM on 1 July 2009
        Models are unreliable
        Alot of people are worried about the motives and science behind 'human induced global warming', because they perceive it as an example of backdoor socialist- determinism, the bane of the 20th century-think Eugenics, Nazism, Communist-Bolshevism, as examples. These were all 'models', or ideologies, of the way the underlying science and human activities interacted. One consistent and dangerous theme with these three movements is that they all claimed to be based on science, with direct 'links', but were really political agendas masquerading as science. They were all examples of supposedly irrefutable 'science', where doubts were heavily suppressed. Those who advocated their 'causes' were very, very sure of themselves. The big question is whether or not 'human induced global warming' is also a form of socialist-determinism. Psychologically, the foundations and underlying assumptions are very similar. Human activities are usually elevated above other factors, the future is largely preordained and inevitable, society must be re-ordered acccording to the 'new science' etc etc. In something so big and fundamentally chaotic as the economy, or climate, is it questionable, at best, that we can ever be so sure about 'links', to re-order entire societies. There are aspects of general determinism in the politics of the human-induced climate change movement-people want to control and re-order society in the manner that 'human induced global warming' dictates. They 'link' human activities to climate, (which is itself a form of determinism). Their absolute sureness of the pervasiveness and dominance of the link, without mitigating or confounding factors, is very close to a deterministic style of thought. One dataset or factor is raised in importance above all others, to latter to which they ascribe simple 'noise'. They are, by default, above the squabbling of the market, or democratic process. The future is certain, and pre-ordained, and it is C02. Nothing is more moral or certain, than a re-ordering of society according to the fundamental principles of the new idea. Those who cant or wont change will be discarded, in the new world. It is a matter of life and death. And so on. Trouble is, people have heard it all before-it may therefore be entirely psychological and political,related to peoples pathological need to order and control society, and nothing at all to do with the 'science'. Is it really true that there is a direct causal link between human activities and climate? Perhaps one should pause at the previously 'certain' links between eg, biology, race and fitness in society; the previously certain links between capitalist class struggle and communist inevitablility; the previous certain links between evolution, race, war, and Aryan racial struggle for Europe. What was the underlying major problem with these ideas?. It was the determinism, that there was a direct link between the underlying science, and human activities. No wonder people are worried about the 'models'. Should give pause for thought.
128049. HealthySkeptic at 14:00 PM on 1 July 2009
        The correlation between CO2 and temperature
        Lee, I'm sure Chris doesn't need your help in defending himself. However, just for your edification, there was nothing "legitimate" in Chris' snide criticism. In particular, I took offense at his claim that I had "dumped" several links to "dodgy web sites " in this thread. Not only did I consider his manner in stating it to be uncivil, it was a demonstrably false accusation. A fact you have conveniently overlooked. All I expect here are courteous answers to my questions. Is that too much to ask for?
128050. thingadonta at 11:47 AM on 1 July 2009
        There is no consensus
        If one looks at history, fascist certainty usually seems to win out over neutral uncertainty. One of the key points is the lack of doubt, amongst those who are so sure of themselves. How many, I wonder, of human-induced global warmists really looked at data about the sun, when they unconsciously believed in co2 induced global warming? Thre is a peculiar mind flip in those who claim consensus: only those who agree with you are actually counted in 'the consensus'. The rest are not 'true scientists' etc. If you define it this way, that those who agree with you are 'the consensus', then you have a 100% consensus!. A perfectly circular mind trick. All hail to the party/Allah/our dear leader/global warming etc! At any rate, if one can't even tell that there is NO consensus amongst the range of scientific fields regarding causes of climate change, then one isn't going to be very good at obejective analysis. Better off going back to the Soviet Union, when one can be told whatever the party wants, where there was also a 'consensus'.

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