Climate Science Glossary

Term Lookup

Enter a term in the search box to find its definition.

Settings

Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off).

Term Lookup

Settings

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.

Home Arguments Software Resources Comments The Consensus Project Translations About Support

Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Mastodon MeWe

Twitter YouTube RSS Posts RSS Comments Email Subscribe


Climate's changed before
It's the sun
It's not bad
There is no consensus
It's cooling
Models are unreliable
Temp record is unreliable
Animals and plants can adapt
It hasn't warmed since 1998
Antarctica is gaining ice
View All Arguments...



Username
Password
New? Register here
Forgot your password?

Latest Posts

Archives

Recent Comments

Prev  2597  2598  2599  2600  2601  2602  2603  2604  2605  2606  2607  2608  2609  2610  2611  2612  Next

Comments 130201 to 130250:

  1. Is Pacific Decadal Oscillation the Smoking Gun?
    Have a look at these two sites: http://atmoz.org/blog/2008/08/03/on-the-relationship-between-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation-pdo-and-the-global-average-mean-temperature/ http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/warming-trend-pdo-and-solar-correlate-better-than-co2/ This analysis shows oceans are clearly the main drivers of climate through their actions in storing and distributing heat. We should not be surprised to see a close correlation between GMT and oceanic oscillations; in fact, given that oceans store around 85% of TSI and therefore (ultimately) transport that energy (directly and indirectly)around the globe we should be more surprised if there weren't. Of course PDO and AMO and the rest affect GMT because they are the prime mechanism that absorbs and disperses heat in the model. What is less clear is the time lag between oceanic warming and the release of that heat. I don't think that PDO et al is an issue, what is an issue is does increasing the CO2 component effect the overall system balance, in waht way and to what extent?
  2. Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans
    Three relevant articles: This one may have helped cooling last winter to some extent: "Kamchatka Volcano Blows Its Top", ScienceDaily (July 5, 2007) "The eruption of one volcano will have far-reaching affects. Although Klyuchevskoy is located in Kamchatka, its ash crossed the Bering Sea and reached Unimak Island in the Aleutians within one day." This one explains why not all eruptions cool: "Chile's Chaiten Volcano One Of Scores Of Active Volcanoes In Region", ScienceDaily (May 7, 2008) "In to order to significantly affect the climate, a volcano has to put out a lot of sulfur dioxide aerosols into the stratosphere for an extended period, which then reflects sunlight away from the Earth," he said. "Our data from Chaiten showed the last eruption was high in silica and low in sulfur." This most recent one may be on the same tectonic plate as Kamchatka (a different article that can be found on the same web page): "Explosive Eruption Of Okmok Volcano In Alaska", ScienceDaily (July 21, 2008) "Okmok Volcano in Alaska continues to produce explosions and ash plumes through a newly created vent and poses hazards to air travel in the area. ... There are about a dozen cones within the modern caldera that formed in the last 2000 years, and the most recent eruptive activity occurred in 1945, 1958 and 1997." Just 3 (somewhat large) examples of current vulcanism and why it may or may not be involved in cooling. My point being that not all vulcanism is created equal so a generic statement about volcanos is not relevant.
  3. CO2 lags temperature
    What about life? As temperature rises, so does metabolism..end result more plants/animals ( as long as other conditions allow) More plants, especially soft (non-woody) tissued, release more CO2. Plant decomposition accelerates adding methane to the atmosphere. temp goes up a bit more. CO2 rises a bit more, plants flourish. More ruminants = more methane, more CO2. Cycle continues until you start locking up CO2 in woody plants. I'm not saying this is THE cause, but it is a factor to be considered and allows CO2 to lag T and then decline as forests develop (800 - 1000 years grows an awful lot of woody material)until (possibly!) CO2 levels begin to fall. Also we should stop talking about variations in insolation being irrelevent. They aren't. The direct physical effect may be small...but the consequencies of that small effect may well be pretty big.
  4. Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
    "But for those lacking the foresight to care about the world they hand over to future generations, this is something that will affect us now and over the next decade." Are we debating science or philosophy? Facts or wishful thinking? "What is happening and how it may affect the earth" and "Do we want this to happen" are two different issues depending on whether you are human or not. As soon as you ask a question like that you move from 'hard' sciences to Behavioural sciences to How I Feel About Life And All That. Not science. There are probably thousands of lifeforms out there only too happy to see CO2 levels going up with the temperature. Others that don't. Where did we get the right to decide what the future of this planet and it's associated lifeforms should be? From just being the 'dominant' species? We talk about the kind of planet we want to hand down to our descendants but nobody has put up a specification as to what that might be. And if you did, there will be a load of people disagreeing with you. Change will happen, with or without us burning off fossil fuels. The real question is Will there be a catastrophic event as a result of our activities and How do make sure we survive it? Just as we have had to find ways round the problems our ancestors gave us, so will our descendants have to do the same. If we can make it easier for them, fine. But our basic imperative is to make sure man as a species survives. Isn't that what evolution is all about?
  5. Temp record is unreliable
    Sorry, forgot to post the sites....Look at: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast21jul_1m.htm http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/ghcn_T_stn.html Note the closing comments...... "The improved temperature record will guide efforts to refine computer models of the world's climate so that the behavior of the models more closely resembles the observed behavior of the atmosphere. Current models suffer from several shortcomings. For example, clouds are not well represented by the models. The resolution of current models is too coarse for features as small as clouds, Spencer said. Yet clouds clearly play a crucial role in climate due to their influence on humidity, precipitation and albedo (the percentage of solar energy reflected back into space as light). "The role of clouds is still regarded as one of the biggest uncertainties in global warming predictions," Spencer said. The ability of plants to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the role of soils have only recently been added to the models, and scientists aren't confident yet of how the models portray these factors, Spencer said. "While we know that vegetation takes up some of the carbon dioxide we generate from burning of fossil fuels, how that sink of carbon will change in the future is still pretty uncertain," Spencer said. Climate models are also limited by the computing power available. "The global models would be much better if computers were much faster," Spencer said. "Instead, a lot of approximations are made to make the models simple enough to do climate simulations over the whole globe. "Unfortunately," Spencer continued, "we know that many of the processes that are crudely represented are quite non-linear, and so have the potential to respond in unexpected ways."
  6. There is no consensus
    Consensus: lit. to think alike or to be in general agreement with others. If most people think the same thing then it has got to be true hasn't it? Even when what they think is based on an incomplete understanding of the thing they are discussing? But hey, everybody is entitled to an opinion surely? And doesn't that include scientists on both sides? As stated by someone else..consensus is NOT science. Opinion is NOT science. Science is about hard, repeatably demonstrable, irrefutable, facts.
  7. Models are unreliable
    1. probability and possibility are two different things. You may show statistically that something is probable and therefore, sooner or later will happen. This is only true mathematically and not necessarily works in the real world. Any computer model that includes assumptions, 'tweaked' data, or excludes any factors relevent to the model will give a rubbish result. 2. Remember the Chaos Effect. Small things through iterative action can have BIG consequencies, so the apparently small and irrelevent must be accounted for. Worse yet, we don't even know if we know ALL the factors influencing the climate....so any model will be suspect.
  8. Did global warming cause Hurricane Katrina?
    A basic explanation of hurricane formation can be found here: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Hurricanes/ and the basic requirement for a hurricane to form is that the sea temperature must rise to around 27C. Since GW produces elevated sea temperatures, it increases the probability that they will occur. It does not, however mean they will be more intense - it may well be that we would experience greater numbers at lower intensities; that's a guess...like a lot of weather processes, we simply do not yet know enough to make meaningful predictions.
  9. Temp record is unreliable
    On the subject of stations, I note that the number of stations used for data collection has dropped dramatically from 1990 'til present day. Coverage in (what was) the USSR and China has virtually disappeared. Coincident with the fall in stations the GMTemp has apparently risen.(???any connection here???) Look at a map of the current station locations and then tell me they are providing data that can be seriously used to construct a global model. Yes satellites provide additional cover but only during their overpass which is limited. Yes, their instrumentation is more accurate than land-based stations, but there are too few of them, so their 'correcting' effect on the overall dataset is diluted. The earth has around 510 million sqkm in surface; 150 land and 360 water. The vast majority of stations are land based and with around 4000 in use that works out to a station roughly every 38,000 sqkm. To try and model from that low level of distribution would be rejected by most reasonable people. The fact that most of these stations are actually concentrated in a much smaller area leaving HUGE areas un-monitored simply makes the data collected even more worthless for constructing any realistic model.
  10. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    cce I agree that in areas where temperatures were actually measured in the U.S. and it's advanced allies that what you say is true. I disagree that this is true for most points outside of the U.S. and it's allies. And since this climate change is considered "climate shift" by many scientists rather than global warming, I feel that it is a point of critical contention. In the part of the world I live in GW does not exist and in fact the reverse has been the rule for many years. It only seems to exist in the nearby large cities and at the north polar cap. So when you say that the entire world is warming it certainly can not be confirmed by most people living in totally unaffected areas that nobady seems to take into account. Measurements taken from orbit appear to be much more accurate than those taken from the ground or at sea level. This data does not exist from the 1930s and therefore the incidence of error is higher than claimed.
  11. Can animals and plants adapt to global warming?
    "Will global warming cause a mass extinction event?" was the title and the simple answer is possibly, dependent on the degree of GW. The underlying question ( it seems to me) is does it really matter? And if it does in what context? From an evolutionary viewpoint, no it doesn't, because evolution is a process with only two source drivers, survive and replicate. Everything else is dependent on these. The process has no ethics, no morals, no compassion, empathy or any other attitude we as humans bring to bear on the issues. And as humans we are often alarmingly double-minded. We worry about the state of one species ( say polar bears) whilst cheerfully killing others in their millions ( mosquitos). Anybody worried about an extinction event that would wipe out mozzies? No, I don't think so. Any species that dies out creates an opportunity for another to move into that niche and I think we seriously underestimate the ability of lifeforms to adapt to rapid climate changes. In any event, as I think Quietman said, we are part of the system and driven by the same 'forces' as every other lifeform...survive and replicate. In doing this we may well cause other species to die out, but that is the system. The dinosaurs ( and maybe a lot of other species)probably died out through their inability to cope with a dramatically altered climate resulting from a major impact event. And so we are here now. This is one answer from an evolutionary viewpoint. When we worry about species extinction, changing habitat et al, we need to ask why, and make sure the answer is not coming from a emotional viewpoint. (Polar bears are nicer than mozzies)
  12. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    Quietman, The coverage and precision is more than adequate to establish with statistical certainty that the '30s was colder than recent temperatures. GISTEMP, for example, calculates that the last decade was 0.4 to 0.5 degrees warmer which is significant given that the uncertainty is between 0.1 and 0.2 degree. "We just don't know anything" is a discredit to the work of a lot of people. Even if you don't accept that, there is certainly more evidence that it is warmer today, yet we have people going around talking about "the fact that the warmest decade of the last century was the '30s" which isn't even true for the US.
  13. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    cce Without the current system in place in the 1930s, and the poor measurement of most of the globes temperatures, exactly how do you know 1934 was actually not globally hot. Where were the reading points? Did they measure ambient temp from every point using the same or comparable instruments? This is one of the most imprecise sciences there is and eveyone acts as if its absolute fact. Unbelieveable!
  14. Climate sensitivity is low
    GMB Apparently you have some good backup out there. The last 3 papers I read on prior warming maximums all said that CO2 lagged temps by quite a bit. Dr. R. Spencer of NASA is explaining to congress that the sensitivity is much less than what the IPCC says it is.
  15. Temp record is unreliable
    According to WikiP. there are around 4000 stations around the world that are used for collecting data. Some are well maintained and calibrated. Some are not. From a fair number of stations the data does not arrive for incorporation at the right time, or sometimes not at all. So the data set is 'adjusted'. On a scale of 1 - 10 how would we rate the accuracy of this data source? And how reliable does this make any model we try to construct? Most of the stations are land-based and the sea based ones limited to particular sea routes; this means we have less data about sea temps then land temps...despite the sea being somewhat bigger. What skew does that put on any resultants?
  16. Evaporating the water vapor argument
    August 7th....still no sunspots (Spaceweather.com) Query: If the apparent lag between global T and sunspot activity is 10 yrs then the current cooling (IF it continues) should be visible in the sunspot record of around 10yrs ago....or is 10yrs a bit too close to the average sunspot cycle? The water vapour effect should be split in two...water vapour uncondensed and water vapour wholely or partially condensed (cloud) as cloud cover can both increase warming or decrease TSI dependent on the cloud thickness.
  17. It's the sun
    Interesting posts. Tlewellen has a very good point about science being seldom complete. Currently we do not fully understand ( or in fact know)all the factors that drive the earth's climate, so any modelling we do has to be held VERY lightly. Including AGW. To ascribe GW to a single source is simplistic: it ignores synergistic interactions which I suspect have a far greater effect than our current models can handle. Solar irradiation recieved by us is not constant and fluctuates around 6% due to orbital irregularities. Only recently has anyone started to think about the effects of other planetary masses on our orbit and the consequencies. It also seems from my (admittedly limited) research that too little attention and weight is given to the actions of water vapour and cloud formation/cover. I have even found one study that chose to ignore cloud effect because it was to chaotic and difficult to obtain hard data! I also worry about the actual relevence of data which has been 'altered' to account for anomalies....and then used as 'hard' information to produce a trend. Like Quietman says, scepticism is healthy!
  18. Models are unreliable
    To put the Global Warming issue in context, consider: 1. That average global temperature has decreased since 1998. The anomalies from NOAA data are: 1998 0.5763 1999 0.3947 2000 0.3629 2001 0.4934 2002 0.5573 2003 0.5565 2004 0.5336 2005 0.6044 2006 0.5428 2007 0.5458 Jan to June 2008 average 0.44 2. That GCMs (Global Climate Models) do not yet adequately account for the absorbed infrared radiation energy that is transported up by atmospheric convection currents. 3. That GCMs are not yet capable of dealing objectively with clouds so they are accounted for with subjective parameterization. 4. That currently used GCMs invoke water vapor positive feedback that climate history shows to be not valid. 5. That the GCM users/creators won’t divulge to competent evaluators some of the details of their computer programs. 6. That the only indicators that human activity causes global warming are these GCMs. 7. That the multi-billion dollar government grants for ‘climate research’ depend on ominous prediction of looming catastrophe. 8. That over 30,000 qualified scientists and engineers have signed a document stating that human activity has had no significant influence on climate.
  19. There is no consensus
    I missed that windows comment entirely. Writing a program for windows is not the same as writing for microsoft. It means to run on the windows O/S rather than on a unix or Linux or Mac O/S. Most likely using an MS language for compatibility like visual basic.
  20. There is no consensus
    Paledriver, There was no outright lie about the APS. No one said their position changed (a strawman argument); rather, that there is debate. Granted, it turns out it was a subset of the APS, but it is still part of the APS. Here is the link from the APS website: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/editor.cfm Partially quoted herein: "With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution." Personally, I think you do your self a disservice quoting a smear site (desmogblog.com) that only seeks to discredit and personally attack those who argue against anthropogenic warming. Arguing semantics about "rocket scientist"? Contacting Microsoft Corp. because he says he is "building a word processor for Windows"? Is this disgraceful behavior all the Inquisition has to offer?
  21. There is no consensus
    PS Publishing peer reviewed papers does not a scientist make.
  22. There is no consensus
    paledriver You are talking about two peoples seperated by a common language. American connotation varies state to state and even city to city and you nit pick over the connotation of a word used on the opposite side of the world. A little strange I would say. He used the slang meaning of a rocket scientist in a way that an American would not but how is this term normally used in Australia? Maybe John can tell us.
  23. April update on global cooling 2008
    Well that is a two way street. If Al Gore can use every lightning strike, hurricane, or spring flood as evidence of impending global disaster from climate change, it seems only logical that global warming skeptics can use a month of global cold weather to bolster their position.
  24. There is no consensus
    here's those credentials for you, auster.... "Who is 'Rocket Scientist' David Evans? 22 Jul 08 UPDATED: David Evans has sent along his definition of a rocket scientist. See below for details. This title grabbed our attention: Top Rocket Scientist: No evidence C02 causes global warming. And it should. It is a pretty bold statement and the implications would be pretty big news. So we decided to compile a backgrounder on 'The Top Rocket Scientist." Here's the research database entry on David Evans: No peer-reviewed articles on climate change According to his own resume, Evans has not published a single peer-reviewed research paper on the subject of climate change. Evans published only a single paper in 1987 in his career and it is unrelated to climate change. Evans has published an article for the Alabama-based Ludwig von Mises Instutute, a right-wing free-market think tank. Evans also published a "background briefing" (pdf) document for the Australian chapter of the Lavoisier Group, a global warming "skeptic" organization with close ties to the mining industry. "I am not a climate modeler" From 1999 to 2006 Evans worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office designing a carbon accounting system that is used by the Australian Government to calculate its land-use carbon accounts for the Kyoto Protocol. While Evans says (pdf) that "[he] know[s] a heck of a lot about modeling and computers," he states clearly that he is "not a climate modeler." Background David Evans lives in Australia and gained media attention after an article he wrote titled, No Smoking Hot Spot was published in The Australian in June, 2008.The article claims that climate change is not caused by C02 emissions because there is no evidence of "a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics." Evan's claim has been thoroughly debunked by Tim Lambert, a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales. According to his bio, Evans claims to be a 'Rocket Scientist' and one article claims that he is a 'Top Rocket Scientist.' While Evans background does show that he has a PhD in electrical engineering, there is no evidence that he was ever employed as a rocket scientist. Evans answered our inquiry about his claim to being a rocket scientist with the following explanation: In US academic and industry parlance, "rocket scientist" means anyone who has completed a PhD in one of the hard sciences at one of the top US institutions. The term arose for people who *could* do rocket science, not those who literally build rockets.Thus the term "rocket scientist" means someone with a PhD in physics, electrical engineering, or mathematics (or perhaps a couple of other closely related disciplines), from MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and maybe a few other institutions. I did a PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford in the 1980s. Electrical engineering is your basic high tech degree, because most high technology spawned from electrical information technology. I specialized in signal processing, maths, and statistics. The definition provided by Evans would appear to be at odds with the conventional use of the term 'rocket scientist' which according to various sources is "One specializing in the science or study of rockets and their design." For example, here's an entry on Answers.com about Hermann Oberth a famous Rocket Scientist who published a book about rocket travel into outer space in 1932 and is considered one of 3 founding fathers of modern rocketry and astronautics. Evans also claims to be "building a word processor for Windows." DeSmogBlog contacted Microsoft Corp. and they have confirmed that he does not work for Microsoft Corporation." http://www.desmogblog.com/who-is-rocket-scientist-david-evans
  25. There is no consensus
    An outright lie about the American Physical Society "The newest denialist talking point Physicists reaffirm that human-induced GHGs affect the atmosphere Posted by Andrew Dessler (Guest Contributor) at 1:23 PM on 18 Jul 2008 Read more about: climate | climate science | climate change skepticism | greenhouse-gas emissions | scientific research Tools: print | email | + digg | + del.icio.us | + reddit | + stumbleupon It goes something like this: The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. Of course that's not true. Today a statement appeared on the APS website saying: APS Position Remains Unchanged The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate." An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that "Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum." This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed. For a list of societies that have endorsed the mainstream position on climate change, see this post." http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/7/18/74618/8261
  26. There's no empirical evidence
    The following is actually pertinant to all these threads but this one seems the closest. "[ Global Warming: Has the Climate Sensitivity Holy Grail Been Found? by Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D. updated 7:00 a.m. CDT, June 30, 2008 (The following is a simplified version of a paper entitled "Chaotic Radiative Forcing, Feedback Stripes, and the Overestimation of Climate Sensitivity" I submitted on June 25, 2008 for publication in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.) ABSTRACT: This article addresses new satellite and modeling evidence that previous satellite diagnoses of high climate sensitivity--which directly translate into predictions of dangerous levels of global warming--contain a large spurious bias. It is shown that those exaggerated estimates were the result of faulty assumptions regarding clouds when analyzing variations in average global temperature and average reflected sunlight off of the Earth. Specifically, it has been assumed (explicitly or implicitly) that, for global averages on time scales of three months or more, temperature variations cause clouds to change, but that cloud variations do not cause temperature to change. But when properly filtered, the satellite data reveal evidence of cloud variations indeed causing temperature changes, and that this source of natural climate variability biases the estimate of climate sensitivity in the direction of a very sensitive climate system. The new interpretation suggests a very low sensitivity. If the new sensitivity estimate is accurate, it would suggest only 0.5 deg. C of manmade warming by the year 2100. The new sensitivity estimate also suggests that warming over the last century can not be explained by human greenhouse gas emissions alone, but instead might require a mostly natural explanation. ]" Changing the sensitivity number does change ecery argument all at once.
  27. Models are unreliable
    Oh - and in my research on this subject I found the chart you had above 'Average Mean Global Temperature Change' had been updated over on ClimateAudit: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3354#more-3354 Can I trust the updated charts posted there? They seem to show actual temperature date significantly diverging from Hansen C (ie: lower). Again - I'm not the expert so I'm here asking questions of those who are :-). Thanks.
  28. Models are unreliable
    Just saw this article referenced on another climate blog: http://www.atypon-link.com/IAHS/doi/abs/10.1623/hysj.53.4.671 It studies the accuracy of climate models. Basically compares the model's predictions vs what happened. The conclusion was that climate models don't predict forward very well. I don't have the background to judge whether this article is credible but it did go through a peer reveiw process.
  29. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    TruthSeeker: You can read some more about Antarctic and GW here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/02/antarctica-is-cold
  30. Vivek Thakur at 20:05 PM on 29 July 2008
    Evaporating the water vapor argument
    John If CC is acceptable then we can simplify still further and employ the "Boltzmann Atmosphere". As per this effect because of the drop in pressure at higher elevations the mole percent of various gases would drop exponentially depending on their molecular weights and the temperature. An actual calculation shows that at higher elevations the water vapour content is far higher compared to the carbon dioxide levels starting from identical surface levels ! Hence any CO2 generated at the surface should stay practically near this same surface ! This would amplify the effect of water vapour higher in the atmosphere but would reduce the forcing of CO2 on the water vapour since CO2 amounts would be negligible at higher elevations Very crude I know but somewhat interesting ! Incidentally Clausius and Boltzmann were in the same era more or less !
  31. There is no consensus
    Austerlitz Thanks for the link. I have posted it at the LiveScience website in an argument that I'm having with one of the NASA guys who isn't a climatologist. Not being a scientist it's hard to be taken seriously so I appreciate the link.
  32. There is no consensus
    Quietman, Here is another scientist who writes some compelling arguments against the theory: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html I have not checked his credentials; however, I find his arguments convincing. Of course, the Inquisition will dismiss him, as the consensus has already spoken.
  33. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    Somewhat belated: Antarctic sea ice: http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf From the Abstract: "The model shows that an increase in surface air temperature and downward longwave radiation results in an increase in the upper-ocean temperature and a decrease in sea ice growth, leading to a decrease in salt rejection from ice, in the upper-ocean salinity, and in the upper-ocean density. The reduced salt rejection and upper-ocean density and the enhanced thermohaline stratification tend to suppress convective overturning, leading to a decrease in the upward ocean heat transport and the ocean heat flux available to melt sea ice. The ice melting from ocean heat flux decreases faster than the ice growth does in the weakly stratified Southern Ocean, leading to an increase in the net ice production and hence an increase in ice mass. This mechanism is the main reason why the Antarctic sea ice has increased in spite of warming conditions both above and below during the period 1979–2004 and the extended period 1948–2004." In other words, a less dense surface layer reduces heat convection from below, which outweighs the increased warming from above. I little known fact: satellite observations began in 1972/1973 for the Arctic/Antarctic. But they aren't as sophisticated as subsequent measurements, and there is a gap in from 1976 to 1978 which is filled with more conventional observational data. However, the recent increase in SH sea ice doesn't match what it was in the early '70s, and there is proxy data showing a large loss starting mid century, but that is disputed. SH Sea Ice: http://cce.890m.com/changes/images/sh-extent.jpg The global trend is clearly down: http://cce.890m.com/changes/images/global-extent.jpg Also, kurt, the '30s were not warmer than current temperatures. In the US, they were similar to today, but global temperatures in the '30s were nowhere close to what they are presently.
  34. We're heading into an ice age
    should've been: "... is basically as high as it gets ..."
  35. We're heading into an ice age
    Quietman: That's simply not true. The glacial cycles of the last 450'000 years have consisted of long periods of slow cooling, followed by rapid warming. (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature.png - please note that present day is to the left). This rapid warming is believed to be started by small changes in solar forcing (see Milankovitch cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles) which is enough to start positive feedback spirals: warmer -> more greenhouse gases -> even warmer... Since we've recently come out of an glacial period, temperature is basically is as it gets and should be slowly decreasing (on a long timescale) until we reach the next glacial period. But instead, anthropogenic releases of greenhouse gases have started the process of warming. The amount of released GHG so far is enough to keep the planet warming for a long time (but of course, with possible micro trends of cooling) and we've soon reached a level where positive feedback spirals kick in, meaning that temperature will continue to rise even if we would stop our own releases of GHG.
  36. There is no consensus
    Austerlitz The blog that you gave the URL for was interesting but I found the actual APS newsletter even more interesting.
  37. There is no consensus
    As a Ph.D. scientist, I can attest to the fact there is no consensus among scientists on global warming. So much so, that the American Physical Society has opened debate on the matter. http://www.dailytech.com/Myth+of+Consensus+Explodes+APS+Opens+Global+Warming+Debate/article12403.htm But facts like these seldom get in the way of religious fanatics, and anthropogenic global warming is a religion.
  38. Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans
    Buried Volcano Discovered in Antarctica By Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer 20 January 2008: “This eruption occurred close to Pine Island Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet," Vaughan said. "The flow of this glacier towards the coast has speeded up in recent decades, and it may be possible that heat from the volcano has caused some of that acceleration."
  39. Glaciers are growing
    John This is a strange claim: Global warming causing California glacier to grow (Wednesday, July 9, 2008) "the seven glaciers on Shasta, part of the Cascade mountains in northern California, seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean"
  40. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    This article from Live Science may explain a little: Seas Striped With Newfound Currents By Brendan Borrell, 14 July 2008
  41. Cartoon about global warming alarmism
    LAI: My dear Sir, Worstall's logic and Hazlitt's logic certainly can't both be "sound" at the same time, because they happen to contradict each other. Worstall thinks more jobs is bad, Hazlitt thinks more jobs is good. I think you may need to revise your idea of what constitutes "sound" "logic".
  42. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    Granted, I have not read all of the comments at this posting, but I have read many of them, and I keep seeing ones that say the world is experiencing unusual warming. Professor Syun-Ichi Akasfu, who studies sea ice and weather, makes a compelling case using peer-reviewed articles that any warming we have seen in recent times is in line with warming that we would expect to see as we recover from the Little Ice Age. Would someone who is prophesier of catastrophic global warming please comment on the case he makes. A paper that he wrote on the subject is "Is the Earth still recovering from the 'Little Ice Age'? : A possible cause of global warming." As for me I don't believe in the catastrophic claims at all. I believe it's all fear-mongering, led by people and groups with political and financial ends in mind or by those who jump on bandwagons without sufficient evidence or who simply scare easily. The fact that the recent temperature measurements of the oceans show them to be cooling slightly in recent years, not heating up, is just one of many reasons that I don't believe this is true, along with the fact that the warmest decade of the last century was the 1930s and the fact that before temperatures stopped rising in about 2003, the world had just hit its 3,000-year average temperature. I also find it a bit amusing that at an earlier posting at this site, the authors go to lots of trouble to show that increased ice creation in the Antarctic is a regional anomaly, while at this posting they want us to believe that ice melting in the Arctic is not a regional anomaly. Again, someone please read the professor paper and comment on the whole argument and all of his proof; don't just try to key on some little nuance so that you can ignore the big picture. Thank you and have a great and hopefully warm day! Here in Wisconsin, we are finally experiencing some summer-like temperatures.
    Response: The various points you make are covered at the following pages: Obviously increasing Antarctic sea ice is a regional anomaly because the Southern Ocean is warming faster than the rest of the oceans of the world. As for Arctic sea ice, the article on this page makes the point that the recent dramatic drop in sea ice was also a regional anomaly - superimposed on the long term trend of falling sea ice. There's your big picture.
  43. Dan Pangburn at 00:56 AM on 9 July 2008
    It hasn't warmed since 1998
    Compared to the average 1998 through 2007: The average for the first 5 months of 2008 is 0.16°C colder according to Hadley's HADcrut3, and 0.10°C colder according to NOAA while the atmospheric carbon dioxide level continues its rise. Climate history shows that added atmospheric carbon dioxide has not had any significant influence on average global temperature. See graphs of NOAA and other credible data (all with source websites given) at http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/pangburn.html at four different time scales up to 150,000 ybp.
  44. It's the sun
    tlewellen Many of us posting comments are just laymen as well. But because John allows us to put links to reference material it is a great place to learn a lot more about climate change. But like any blog, don't believe everything you read. Like John says at the top of the home page - skepticism is healthy.
  45. There is no consensus
    paledriver I was rereading your post #65. Would you consider the description below qualified in climatology? "He obtained a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics with highest distinction in 1963, an M.S. in Astronomy in 1965 and a Ph.D. in Physics, in 1967, all three degrees from the University of Iowa."
  46. There is no consensus
    paledriver I'm not a scientist either, but as a research engineer I made much use of the scientific process. It does not matter how many believe a particular hypothesis is true, only the one that turns out to be right, regardless of how many backers it had. Working in the private sector, I had a lot of trouble getting some of my papers past managers who did not have a clue as to what I was talking about and believed otherwise, but once in the design staff's hands they understood and acted immediately (I have a lot of experience side-stepping managers). Let me give you a very good and reletively recent example: The late Dr. Rhodes Fairbridge studied the oceans for many years and determined that the sealevel rose and fell in cycles. It was named the Fairbridge cycle in DERISION because the consensus said he was wrong. It is now recognized to be correct and the consensus wrong. The hypothesis published in a science magazine in 1966 is the one explained by Dr. Riscard Mackey in his eulogy for Dr. Fairbridge. Again he went against the consensus but I think that he was correct. It was the only climate prediction made (last summer) that turned out to be correct thus far (it predicted low sunspot activity and cooling starting in 2008) and the IPCC, it seems, is finally paying some attention.
  47. There is no consensus
    Quietman, you argument about consensus doesn't relate. In science, truth wins out over time. And over time, as more and more data comes in, the consensus on this matter grows. As I've said, I'm just a layman but I know that much at least.
  48. Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans
    Sorry the subject of comment 9 is the south Atlantic, although it also affects the south pacific.
  49. There is no consensus
    paledriver p.s. I put that link in 62 to see if anyone could tell me if it was the same as discussed previously.
  50. There is no consensus
    paledriver I went back and read it again. It seems to be from the same organization but it also seems to be a different petition, they mention one in 2001 with 19k+ signers, and then they talk about 31k signers with 9k+ PHDs. It does not really mean anything one way or the other as I don't accept consensus as proof of anything, if I did I would be Hindu or Buddist (I'm sure one of those two have a consensus).

Prev  2597  2598  2599  2600  2601  2602  2603  2604  2605  2606  2607  2608  2609  2610  2611  2612  Next


The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


© Copyright 2024 John Cook
Home | Translations | About Us | Privacy | Contact Us