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  2601  2602  2603  2604  2605  2606  2607  2608  2609  2610  2611  2612  2613  2614  2615  2616  Next

Comments 130401 to 130450:

  1. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    I seem to have dropped the r.
  2. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    chris I am sorry but to say the cause is involving CO2 to any serious degree is assuming that the hypothesis for current CO2 induced AGW is correct. All of the above papers make that assumption without any attempt to prove that assumption correct. Water Vapor acting as a GHG in lower latitudes would have the same effect as described, so would solar brightening from lack of aerosols and so would ocean warming cycle forcing from increased vulcanism. To be accurate, you can say for a fact that the ice thinned from some form of heating, possibly GHG, possibly CO2 but you can not assume that it is anything specific without proof. Thus far there is absolutely no proof of any serious effect from AGW - the cause is still hypothetical. Working from other peoples assumptions is just bad science. Kay et. al. in fact do not mention CO2 at all in the 2008 pape
  3. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    You haven't got that quite right I think, Quietman. The extent of summer sea ice melt over the Arctic in 2007 certainly wasn't natural. It was a combination of a natural phenomenon intercepting with strongly "unnatural" conditions. If you read Kay et al (2008), it's clear that the authors indicate that their analysis is consistent with a natural, but not uncommon, phenomenon (decreased cloudiness and increased longwave downwelling) being greatly augmented by the fact of a greatly attenuated Arctic ice sheet (both in extent and thickness) that has been occurring since the 1960's, as a result of increased global surface temperatures (global warming) which have predominated over the Northern polar regions. e.g. see historical sea ice extent data at the Uni of Illinois Arctic Climate Research Center: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg It's the already attenuated loss of polar ice and ice thickness that lead to a (not-unprecedented) phenomenon having such a large effect. Two points are pertinent [see Kay et al (2008)]: (i) The increased LW downwelling is calculated by Kay et al to yield increased surface thermal energy sufficient to melt an extra 0.3 m of ice (or 0.7 m of ice in broken seas where albedo feedbacks kick in). In previous years [see point (ii)], when the sea ice was considerable thicker, 0.3 metres of melt wasn't sufficient to clear large areas of ice and so the sea-ice extent was (a) not diminished much, and (b) consequently, reinforcing albedo effects didn't arise. (ii) This is clear from the observation that the 2007 cloud/LW downwelling phenomenon was by no means unprecedented. Thus [see Kay et al (2008)], the Barrow measurements of cloud cover show that the years 1968, 1971, 1976, 1977 and 1991, for example, all had even lower cloud cover than that of 2007. However (see the link to the Uni. Of Illinois sea ice extent data just above in this post), there was no significant deviation from the trend of sequentially reduced summer sea ice extent during these years. In other words the weather conditions pertaining during the summer of 2007 shouldn’t have resulted in the massive attenuation of sea ice. Unfortunately, the “baseline” situation in the Arctic has changed. As Kay et al (2008) conclude: In a warming world "cloud and shortwave radiation will play an increasingly important role in modulating summertime sea ice extent." The other papers are generally in line with these rather straightforward conclusions. We've always known that the Arctic would be one of the most sensitive areas for observing consequences of global warming, since it is a "focus" for strong heat transfer from the equator, and it's an area where strong positive feedbacks due to loss of albedo from warming-induced sea ice melt will be observed in a warming world. That's pretty much exactly what Kay et al are highlighting. This statement in your post #4 is also a bit dodgy: "But this is not what Francis or SHimada said in 2006 (at least according to the abstracts), they clearly state "air temperature, water vapor and cloudiness" and "ocean heat", with no mention of CO2, but instead the more powerful GHG: water vapor." But it's obvious that: (i) "air temperature" refers to warmer air temperatures (the air temperature is rising due to enhanced greenhouse effect) (ii) "water vapour" refers to increased water vapour concentration that occurs spontaneously in warmer air. Remember that water vapour concentrations are effectively "set" by the air temperature (and pressure) and doesn't vary independently of primary warming (or cooling) influences. In other words water vapour concentrations can't just rise on their own! They're always feedbacks. (iii) "ocean heat" refers to the increased heat in the ocean due to global warming (and albedo effects as summer sea ice is increasingly denuded)…and so on…. i.e., the fact that a paper doesn't mention CO2 doesn't mean that effects from increasing greenhouse gases aren't implicitly or explicitly meant! After all man-made greenhouse gases included CO2 and methane and nitrous oxides directly and water vapour indirectly. However one doesn't have to keep spelling it out in every paper that's written.
  4. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    Sorry - I put them in the wrong order.
  5. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    John Heres an update on ocean cooling (top link) and background (bottom link) - Interesting I think. The Southern Hemisphere westerly winds have moved southward in the last 30 years. A new climate model predicts that as the winds shift south, they can do a better job of transferring heat and carbon dioxide from the surface waters surrounding Antarctica into the deeper, colder waters. The new finding surprised the scientists, said lead researcher Joellen L. Russell. "We think it will slow global warming. It won't reverse or stop it, but it will slow the rate of increase." Southern Ocean Could Slow Global Warming - ScienceDaily (Dec. 5, 2006) The current consists of a number of fronts. Observations indicate that turbulent mixing is enhanced in these fronts, penetrating through much of the water column. Noting that understanding the ACC is important to understanding regional and global ocean circulation, Saenko feeds a simple representation of mixing along the current's fronts into a global climate model to evaluate the mixing's potential impact on ocean's overturning circulation. Antarctic Current Roils Deep Ocean Waters - ScienceDaily (Jun. 6, 2008)
  6. It's the sun
    The following comments are challenges to the theory of global warming that I haven’t heard any successful retort: • Post by Barry on Jan 30th – “I question the physics behind the response: a crucial finding was the correlation between solar activity and temperature ended around 1975......The assumption is that there is always an energy balance between heat radiated from earth and input from the sun. Lets say that solar activity remained above this energy balance, one would have to assume that temperature would still increase, until some new energy balance is achieved. This means that temperature can still increase as long as the input is greater that the output. • Post by tbandrow on March 7th – “Well, solar flux doesn't need to be argued. It can be proved. The current solar theory is due to an interaction that has something to do with sunspots. So, if that is the case, then we can see if the global temperature will go down, assuming the present dearth of sunspot continues.” Yes I saw the comment regarding La Nina, but his point was as we have more time years with low sun spots and cooling temperatures we can rule out irregularities like La Nina, can’t we? • Post By Dan Pangburn on April 14th – “From the Vostok ice core data, during glacial periods, often a rising temperature trend with a rising carbon dioxide level suddenly changed direction and became a falling temperature trend in spite of the carbon dioxide level being higher than when the temperature was increasing. This could not be if carbon dioxide causes a positive feedback. The Andean-Saharan Ice Age occurred when the carbon dioxide level was over ten times its current level. What is different now that could lead to run away temperature increase?” I find this argument to have particular merit, since by the accounts and data that I have seen, we haven’t seen any statistical temperature increase in the last 10 years (per NOAA data), yet we continue to increase CO2 concentration. If someone would point me to the arguments that have been made (or make new ones) that offer explanations or counterpoints, I would greatly appreciate that.
  7. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    John No, your argument was clear and well written, my confusion is in the supporting papers and the asumption made that the thinning was caused by AGW (Gascard 2008). I think the cause is much more dynamic than just GHGs from other papers I have read. The explanation for the sudden melt is quite understandable.
  8. It's the sun
    Second order skeptic John has a whole page devoted to Sloan 2008 titled Do Cosmic Rays Cause Clouds that you might want to look at. The lower link to "Global dimming and global brightening - an analysis of surface radiation and cloud cover data in northern Europe" I found very interesting.
  9. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    From the opening line in the Abstract (Gascard 2008): "The Arctic is undergoing significant environmental changes due to climate warming." I assume that this must be a different "anticyclonic pattern" than the one spoken of in Kay 2008 since it has a different cause. Or is that why you titled this in the form of a question?
  10. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    John I know that Kay 2008 was not about CO2, but it was the only paper I could read and try to relate to the question posed in the title "natural or man-made?". It is obvious to me that summer 2007 was natural over the arctic from that paper so I had some difficulty figuring it out in context. After reading Nghiem 2007, Comiso 2003 and Rigor 2000, I started to put it into context to see how you intend it to support AGW. No offense but I am not convinced.
    Response: I thought I'd spelled it out but hopefully this'll make it clearer. The dramatic sea ice melt in 2007 was largely due to natural weather conditions - the strong winds moving ice out of the Arctic and reduced cloudiness. Kay 2008 looks at the natural weather conditions causing the reduced cloudiness.

    So the answer to the question "is Arctic ice melt natural or manmade?" is both. The long term trend is manmade but natural weather conditions in 2007 added to the trend, with dramatic effect. Plus the long term trend weakened the sea ice so that it was more vulnerable in 2007.
  11. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    John Re: "Downward longwave radiation has increased, as expected when air temperature, water vapor and cloudiness increases (Francis 2006). More ocean heat is being transported into Arctic waters (Shimada 2006)." In Comiso 2003 - what the "Arctic is expected" to do is based on Budyko, M. I., 1966: "Polar ice and climate", as well as "atmosphere model to gradual changes of atmospheric CO2. Part II: Seasonal response", by Manabe, 1992. Cosimo 2003 is in turn referenced by Nghiem, 2007 for support. The CO2 hypothesis appears to be accepted defacto from 1999 as the cause: Using simulations by global climate models (RIGOR 1999) "These changes in surface air temperature over the Arctic Ocean are related to the Arctic Oscillation, which accounts for more than half of the surface air temperature trends over Alaska, Eurasia, and the eastern Arctic Ocean but less than half in the western Arctic Ocean." Also on Dec. 16, 1999, there was a press release "Evidence mounts for Arctic Oscillation's impact on northern climate" which said this could be part of human-induced climate change. But this is not what Francis or SHimada said in 2006 (at least according to the abstracts), they clearly state "air temperature, water vapor and cloudiness" and "ocean heat", with no mention of CO2, but instead the more powerful GHG: water vapor. To attempt to decipher all this I found a site that explained that the main constant is that the climate in all arctic areas is affected by the extreme solar radiation conditions of high latitudes. This site also contains the basics and terminology used so that the layman can more readily understand. Kay 2008 aside, I did not see mention anywhere of the other contributers to the ice melt that I have read about since last fall but the 3 I read assumed AGW caused the thinning and were published prior to the discovery of vulcanism's contrinution under and around Greenland. So I am still skeptical.
  12. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    I tried again and was able to download Nghiem 2007, Comiso 2003 and Rigor 2000 this time around (I already had Kay 2008). I overlooked one of these earlier but the other two apparently had server problems. But for Francis 2006, Shimada 2006, Perovich 2007, Stroeve 2007, Stroeve 2008 and Gascard 2008, I still get only abstracts and a form to purchase the paper. I'll get back later after reading the 3 additional PDFs. Thanks.
    Response: Any time I could find an online PDF, I'd link to that. In the cases where only the abstract was available, I'd email the author and 9 times out of 10 they'd email me the full paper. I'll be happy to email you any of the papers if you're interested.
  13. Philippe Chantreau at 02:07 AM on 10 June 2008
    Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    I didn't have problem with any of the links and only the Gascard paper was limited to the abstract.
  14. Second order skeptic at 01:53 AM on 10 June 2008
    It's the sun
    Two more studies to add to your impressive list of twelve: Sloan et al. 2008, http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1748-9326/3/2/024001 Kristjansson 2008, http://folk.uio.no/jegill/publications.html (first link)
  15. Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
    John Unfortunately two of the links would not open for me* and all but Kay 2008 were only abstracts. As Kay et. al. does not mention carbon dioxide anywhere in the body of the paper and neither did the abstracts, there is no indication that it was caused by AGW. The paper and abstracts all refer to heat transfer from ocean currents but really do not answer your question one way or another. Very interesting reading however. * no error messages just blank pages - probably server problems rather than bad links.
    Response: Kay 2008 isn't about CO2 but about the weather conditions in 2007 that caused reduced cloudiness throughout the 2007 summer.
  16. Misinterpreting a retraction of rising sea level predictions
    nealjking That is not how science works. GW is a hypothesis, albiet a fair one. The problem is that it has been accepted as a working hypothesis but has not been proven. Climate change, on the other hand, is obvious. Most of the natural forcing are proven, albeit not all. Science works by proving your hypothesis valid, which may or may not prove an alternate hypothesis invalid (two different functions can have similar results). Yes I have a higher standard of evidence to meet, but I do not deny GW, rather I am very skeptical of CO2 as the cause of GW or that AGW is actually an important factor in climate change. There have been very good peer reviewed papers indicating natural causes that fit the picture much better than CO2 induced AGW. The jury is still out on this. I am not posting links here because they do not relate directly to this issue (Did global warming stop in 1998?) but if you read through the rest of this site you will find plenty of links to some very interesting papers (both from John and in the comments). But "framework theory, it has to be DISPROVEN to be invalidated." is a false premise as it too is a hypothesis, albeit a good one.
  17. Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
    Will Nitschke As a skeptic I find this site the most open minded of all the climate blogs I have visited, especially when compared to our American sites. I find the links and graphs especially useful and highly recommend this site to others who often comment on the web.
  18. April update on global cooling 2008
    Actually today will set a record high if the predicted temp is reached. (all temps in F)
  19. April update on global cooling 2008
    Local update - switch from below average to above average: Mo.,. u Lo, u Hi, u Precip, Record Lo, Record Hi Jun 1, 49°, 72°, 0.14 in, 31° (2001), 88° (1937) Jun 2, 49°, 72°, 0.14 in, 34° (1998), 85° (1989) Jun 3, 49°, 72°, 0.14 in, 32° (1929), 86° (1978) Jun 4, 49°, 72°, 0.14 in, 30° (1926), 86° (1990) Jun 5, 50°, 73°, 0.14 in, 34° (1964), 88° (1943) Jun 6, 50°, 73°, 0.14 in, 33° (1929), 86° (1973) Today, 66°, 88° this switch from cooler to warmer occurred a couple days ago, and the forcast for the next few days is like today. Above average but not record setting. Again the record years are of interest.
  20. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    Steve L Re: "Were temperatures read to the nearest degree?" As I am only 60 I really can't say. People who served in WW2 would have to be at least 80 but most would be in their 90s now. Any old-timers out there?
  21. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    Yep, I'm familiar with the heat capacity of water. Building thermometers similar to what they would have used in the past shouldn't be too hard. (Controlling for differences in calibration would be more difficult, I imagine.) But the test would be to determine whether people read the temperatures from the thermometers to be different given a .3 degree difference in the water temperature. Were temperatures read to the nearest degree? If so, it's still possible that on average people could detect slightly warmer temperatures on average. I used a crappy alcohol thermometer for measuring stream temperatures and I suspect a bias of .3 degrees would be detectable given enough comparative measurements.
  22. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    Steve L Absolutely. But to determine the difference between the methods used in 1940 through 1945 you need to use the same type and grade of instrumentation. Modern instruments are much more sensitive. When I first started using temp sensors in the 1970s the state of the art sensors were still primitive compared to the ones I used in the 1990s. I can't even imagine what they used for sensors in 1945 other than a good grade mercury thermometer. But to simplify, open a door in winter and the room temp drops immediately but put a new fish into an aquarium and it takes 10 to 20 minutes to equalize the temperature of the water in the bag with the fish to the water in the aquarium. The water density (along with the plastic bag of course) inhibits heat transfer so the key is how immediate the readings were taken.
  23. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    Quietman (9) -- surely this is something that could be tested empirically, right?
  24. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    On the measuring of water temperatures - my own experience has been while localized readings of air temps are easily affected by nearby objects, water temperatures are not. If the readings were taken immediately after entry into or onto the ship the difference in readings is minimal when considering the instruments used at the time. Todays instruments would show a slight difference but in 1945? Not!
  25. Warm Penguin Eggs at 23:02 PM on 5 June 2008
    What does CO2 lagging temperature mean?
    ...or perhaps the other drivers of climate explain a very high percentage of what has happened to temperature. With CO2 not only is there simultaneity but the amount of effect may simply be very much smaller than that proportion explained by solar activity. However, the sun's effects are being subjected to far greater standards of proof than CO2's effects. When the former is used as a single variable cause of temperature change over the long term, little mention is made of the closeness of fit over most of the period; the focus seems to be on "it hasn't worked since 1975". Well if I was the sun I would be a little upset at that summary dismissal. If I was CO2 looking to take plenty of credit for temperature change, I would feel very flattered by all the attention being lavished on me, especially as I had something of an inferiority complex on the matter of causality - was I the symptom or the cause, I had always wondered. Perhaps I had been appointed almost by default to fill the vacancy that has existed since 1975 (call it a change in the structure of the sun / temp relationship), rather than on my merits. My face happens to fit. Cynics might say that it's the fact that CO2 levels incorporate some element of human behaviour and the various urges of governments (humans can be taxed and regulated whereas the sun can't) or human beings (we are powerful creatures who must be having an influence on the world around us) explain the focus on CO2 rather than on solar activity.
    Response: That is a rather cynical approach. The reason for the focus on CO2 is for two reasons that are based purely on science: CO2 is the most dominant climate forcing and it's also the fastest increasing.
  26. Warm Penguin Eggs at 21:28 PM on 5 June 2008
    CO2 lags temperature
    But this isn't supportive to the greenhouse hypothesis though is it? An absence of statistically signifcant readings on a measure that is quite central to the mechanism of how a phenomenon works can be blamed on poor data, of course, but this absence while providing no particular support to the contrary, doesn't exactly provide positive support to the greenhouse argment. Or is it possible to say with some confidence that one of these two data sets is better than the other? (Although even the "supportive" data set is not able to disprove the null hypothesis of no greenhouse effect from what you say.) [Apologies if this was the wrong page on the site to have raised this subject - at the time I began I didn't realise how extensive the site was].
    Response: The relevant page is satellite measurements of troposphere. UAH vs RSS is discussed there.
  27. There is no consensus
    "what did I make up?" This: "there are over 20,000 climate scientists in the U.S. alone according to the AGU". Though I give you the benefit of the doubt (it is a big difference, however!) Anyhow, the comparison doesn't make sense --the OISM petition is Americans only, while the 20,000 includes foreign AGU members. And I don't know that I would call all of them "climate scientists": Some biogeochemists might be, majority probably are not, though they likely understand a part of the process, most volcanologists aren't climate scientists, etc... The actual number of *climate scientists* is probably much lower than 20,000 (or the 13,000 American AGU members). Then again, like I said above, I never thought science worked through popular opinion. "It would have been better for you if you had, rather than that hoax of a petition." I know the petition has it's problems, and it isn't exactly a major credible opposition to AGW, but I would hardly call it a hoax
  28. There is no consensus
    what did I make up? My memory was a little muddy, my age perhaps, but the basic point is still there. There are about 20000ish members of the A.G.U. alone who are climate scientists, ergo 200 is about 1% or insignificant. And since we were talking about the conference, I naturally supposed you were too. It would have been better for you if you had, rather than that hoax of a petition.
  29. It's the sun
    leebert Taking northern polar wind direction that would go far to explain the March 2008 anomaly over asia. BTW Nice links, especially the jpeg.
  30. There is no consensus
    No, you didn't, and still do not, understand me. You said "I don't know where you got 200 climate researchers were there, but there are over 20,000 climate scientists in the U.S. alone according to the AGU, so even there were 200 in attendance" The 200 figure came from Scientific American when they looked at the OISM petition. There is nothing to attend regarding the OISM petition because it is a petition. You must be talking about the Heartland Conference. And I have been unable to find any concrete mention of 20,000 climate scientists in "the U.S. alone". The best I can find is an Eli Rabbett post in which Eli mentions 13,746 AGU members in climate related fields with a spread like this (quoting from Eli's blog): "-1956 Atomspheric -1564 Biogeochemistry -334 Cryosphere -751 Global climate change -4736 Hydrology -2326 Ocean sciences -634 Paleoclimate -2004 Volcanology (you can argue here if you want)" If you add foreign members, the number reaches 19,340. Now I understand what you are saying about the numbers, but please, don't make things up to prove your point. Though I never did think science was much of a popularity contest.
  31. It's the sun
    John, The question of global dimming is a tricky mess and b/c of the heretofore lack of solid field data, a big "known unknown," largely misunderstood & relegated to a "masking" function. V. Ramanathan (Scripps, INDOEX) has consistently found that in the case of aerosols there's a net heating effect, despite the surface dimming. Instead of easing or masking CO2's effect, mid-tropospheric brown clouds ladened with soot & sulfates are driving temperatures up, creating bigger temperature anomalies. The effect is as high as 40% over the vast Pacific region. He's claiming that the window of opportunity can be stretched to 20 years via simple soot mitigation. C. Zender is saying similar things re: soot deposition in the Arctic & Subarctic. There's also a documented cloud-seeding effect of winter storms in the N. Pacific that in turn loft soot into the stratosphere to be borne into the Arctic, eventually causing black icebergs (yes, black icebergs). The odds that we can curtail CO2 fast enough against even the mid-case scenarios are low, so subsuming the evidence against soot under the rubric of "carbon emissions" for fear of diluting the message about CO2 seems to me a mistaken approach. see: http://www.scientificblogging.com/blog/258
  32. It's the sun
    John, The question of global dimming is a tricky mess and b/c of the heretofore lack of solid field data, a big "known unknown," largely misunderstood & relegated to a "masking" function. V. Ramanathan (Scripps, INDOEX) has consistently found that in the case of aerosols there's a net heating effect, despite the surface dimming. Instead of easing or masking CO2's effect, mid-tropospheric brown clouds ladened with soot & sulfates are driving temperatures up, creating bigger temperature anomalies. The effect is as high as 40% over the vast Pacific region. He's claiming that the window of opportunity can be stretched to 20 years via simple soot mitigation. C. Zender is saying similar things re: soot deposition in the Arctic & Subarctic. There's also a documented cloud-seeding effect of winter storms in the N. Pacific that in turn loft soot into the stratosphere to be borne into the Arctic, eventually causing black icebergs (yes, black icebergs). The odds that we can curtail CO2 fast enough against even the mid-case scenarios are low, so subsuming the evidence against soot under the rubric of "carbon emissions" for fear of diluting the message about CO2 seems to me a mistaken approach. see: http://www.scientificblogging.com/blog/258
  33. It's the sun
    Hi Quietman, John, New studies show it's not just about TSI: See: “Is Climate Sensitive to Solar Variability?”, March 2008 “Physics Today”, provided the graph of Phenomenological Solar Signal (PSS) from 1950 to 2007 http://i27.tinypic.com/1zbavyo.jpg CERN's CR & cloud machine: http://aps.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0804/0804.1938v1.pdf FWIW the Aurorae rain hot particles emitting IR & NIR, there's a So. Atlantic Anomaly weakness in the magnetosphere where the radiation belt descends into the ionosphere, and cosmic rays over the Antarctic may cause regional warming via NO2 formation.
  34. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    Just a query about the other events around 1945: would the effects of 5 years of progressively more massive fires from bombing (culminating in the huge attacks on Berlin, Chemnitz, Dresden, and Tokyo, Kobe, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc) have contributed to cooling through particulates in the air? Especially with the jump in all the heavy industries (even German output vastly increased in 1943/44) and little regard was taken anywhere for environmental effects. Production increased hugely - Ford alone outproduced the Italian manufacturing industries - on a worldwide scale, and then continued since. While more and more CO2 was being pumped out, so too was air pollution increasing. Even contrails from massed bomber streams (although aircrew usually tried to prevent contrails from giving their position away). Anyway, is this an effect that must be (or has been)taken into account?
    Response: Considering the large temperature drop over sea and negligible drop over land, I'm guessing this effect was not significant.
  35. Warm Penguin Eggs at 21:17 PM on 3 June 2008
    CO2 lags temperature
    I am a layman, but I thought that there was supposed to be more temperature increase in the troposphere (I think) rather than at the surface if the driving force behind rising temperatures was really CO2 levels. In fact I am told the reverse has actually been observed. Doesn't this suggest that something other than CO2 has driven most or all of the warming of the last 30-40 years?
    Response: RSS satellite data of troposphere temperature shows good agreement with models, having a slightly larger warming trend than the surface. UAH data has a slightly lower warming trend. The difference is due to how they adjust their data. What we expect to see in the troposphere and what we observe is within data uncertainty.
  36. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    John Keep in mind that La Nina usually follows El Nino and the time lapse can be very small.
  37. It's the sun
    John I am not sure of the relevance but How Plasma From Superstorms Affects Near-Earth Space from ScienceDaily (May 31, 2008) represents another unfactored aspect of the irregularity of output from the sun.
  38. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    What are the three worst "corrections"? I suspect it's all outlined at Climate Audit, but I don't think there's a nice summary there. You say there was no sudden dramatic shift in sampling method, but the shift in source fleets for data seems to contradict your assertion. If different countries' fleets used different methods.... Whoa, the uncertainty is larger than the change? Are you suggesting that the temperature increase from 1900 to now is not certainly greater than zero? Please clarify. Thanks.
  39. Wondering Aloud at 01:16 AM on 3 June 2008
    A new twist on mid-century cooling
    I have no problem with that Steve. But, I have a big problem with the now over 70 post hoc "corrections" in this already questionable data set; some are nonsensical. Others appear to be a deliberate attempt to make the data fit a preconcieved notion. There was no sudden dramatic shift in sampling methods in 1945 there were sporadic changes back and forth over various methods over a period of 20 years or so. The entire "average" temperature has so much uncertainty that the uncertainty is larger than the change.
  40. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    To #2 and #3 -- when data aren't collected for your purpose, you don't have a choice in how they are collected. It's sensible to adjust them to correct for inconsistencies in collection. I agree that post-hoc adjustments are problematic. But don't you see the data having some value if they match large tropical volcanoes and trends in ice? How were those results fudged? In terms of developing a new interpretation of historical records, I think it would be very interesting to let some skeptical group of scientists outline their method for data adjustments beforehand, put it into code, and then see if their output yielded conclusions that differ greatly from what we currently have.
  41. Wondering Aloud at 23:36 PM on 2 June 2008
    A new twist on mid-century cooling
    Twist, spin, describe it how you will. soon the climate will be clearly shown to be much warmer than ever before and caused directly by humans. This will become firmly entrenched in policy even as the Ice Sheets readvance. The "record" of the last century and a half was never capable of giving the kind of resolution we pretend it has and now the endless "corrections" have passed completely out of the realm of reality. I particularly like that the corrections make the past colder and the present warmer and that the likelihood of so many "corrections" all going the same direction is now already lower than the odds of winning the lottery.
  42. Geoff Larsen at 15:58 PM on 2 June 2008
    A new twist on mid-century cooling
    What a worrying branch of "science" this is! "compensation for a different potential source of bias in SST data in the past decade— the transition from ship- to buoy-derived SSTs—might increase the century-long trends by raising recent SSTs as much as 0.1 C, as buoy-derived SSTs are biased cool relative to ship measurements" Surely if they had followed a scientific approach, and I assume they did, the transition from ship- to buoy-derived SST's would have been accompanied by strict comparison & control between the 2 methods, to iron out any biases, during the transition period. These after the fact adjustments, nearly always in one direction, are becoming a sad indictmenton on this field, as they appear to be flaying in all directions to cover up the weakening of the hypothesis of detrimental AGW. We saw it in the "hockey stick' saga, in the failure to adjust properly for UHI & other biases in the land surface temperature time series, in the tropical troposphere time series, and now apparently in the SST & OCH. Perhaps the 1940's time STT's are incorrect and should be changed. However why wasn't this done years ago & who wants to vouch there are not far more serious problems in the surface temperature series which exaggerate the warming? The bias's in this field (you even see it expressed, non-overtly, in the language that is used) are obvious.
  43. A new twist on mid-century cooling
    I'm not sure what to make of all this. On one hand, as somebody else said, this is a triumph of modelling over data -- the data were problematic and rather than endlessly tweaking the models to get a fantastic and fragile fit, the models were left as they were and seem to give more reasonable results in hindsight. On the other hand, requirements to endlessly(?) adjust data give some folks pause regarding the temperature record and thus the main means of assessing the effects of global warming. Where does this leave us -- with glaciers and ATOC (http://www.ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/marine/mar-2.cfm)? PS. regarding Figure 4 and natural variability, note there was a big El Nino in 1941 - http://tinyurl.com/5mzakp (from realclimate).
    Response: I did think about mentioning the Southern Oscillation Index which indicates strong El Nino conditions in 1941 - this may play a part in warm temperatures over that period but not so much over 1943 to 1945. This doesn't explain the 1945 discontinuity at any rate - the ENSO signal was filtered out and only furthered the discontinuity.
  44. It's the sun
    clayco Very interesting links but I cant get the top one to work, seems to be something missing.
  45. It's the sun
    http://www.spaceandscience.net/siteb...eport12008.doc John L. Casey “The existence of ‘relational cycles’ of solar activity on a multi-decadal to centennial scale, as significant models of climate change on Earth.” Research Report 1-2008 http://www.spacecenter.dk/publications/scientific-report-series/Scient_No._3.pdf/view Svensmark, H. and Friis-Christensen, E. Danish National Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich –“The persistent role of the Sun in climate Forcing” Danish National Space CenterScientific Report 3/2007 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801174450.htm Charles D. Camp and Ka Kit Tung Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) paper 10.1029/2007GL030207, 2007 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801175711.htm Anastasios A. Tsonis, Kyle Swanson, and Sergey Kravtsov: Synchronized Chaos: Mechanisms For Major Climate Shifts Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) paper 10.1029/2007GL030288, 2007 http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2007JD008437.pdf N. Scafetta e B.West : Phenomenological reconstructions of the solar signature in the Northern Hemisphere surface temperature records since 1600 JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICALRESEARCH, VOL.112D24S03,doi:10.1029/2007JD008437, 200
  46. Tom in Texas at 12:40 PM on 1 June 2008
    It's the sun
    2007 global cooling continues into 2008: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/globally-2008-significantly-cooler-than-last-year/ And the sun is still blank: www.solarcycle24.com I'm looking forward to this coming winter (but then I don't live in Canada). By next spring, the debate (which is far from over), will "heat" up.
  47. Philippe Chantreau at 01:49 AM on 31 May 2008
    April update on global cooling 2008
    And I meant Phoenix,AZ, of course. Hot air is nobody's exclusivity in election times, it qualifies as a well mixed gas. There will always be weather.
  48. Wondering Aloud at 04:52 AM on 30 May 2008
    April update on global cooling 2008
    Well Phillippe it could be all the hot air from your recent primary election. It does appear you are the exception, as Montana to Ohio at least have been frigid and we may have some very serious agriculture effects if it doesn't change soon.
  49. It's the sun
    And the latest ideas on Solar Inluence in climate change.
    Response: The idea of global dimming is covered somewhat here. The most disturbing element of global dimming is expressed well on the PBS page: "Is global dimming masking the full impact of global warming? Some climate experts worry that it is, with the possible consequence that as we reduce pollution, the climate will heat up to unprecedented levels."
  50. It's the sun
    John You might find this NASA clip interesting: A shock wave following a flare
    Response: That's an awesome animation - just imagine the size of that shockwave, the magnitude many times the size of the Earth!

Prev  2601  2602  2603  2604  2605  2606  2607  2608  2609  2610  2611  2612  2613  2614  2615  2616  Next


The Consensus Project Website

THE ESCALATOR

(free to republish)


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