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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 130651 to 130700:

  1. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
    The watervaporfeedbacktheory isn't 'waterproof' at all. Humidity is not only controlled by air temperature but also by the temperature of seasurface and tropopause. I've been working with boundarylayer models. They showed a decrease in evaporation when increasing greenhouseeffect by CO2 at fixed SST's, especially by stratocumulus-conditions. Since greenhouse warming is strongest in troposphere and over land. Atmosphere stabilize over oceans and reduce vertical mixing. On the other hand the stratosphere surpresses deep convection. CO2-cooling of the stratospere makes the tropopause more flexible which leads to higher cumulonimbusclouds. Thereby the tops getting colder and water/ice rains out more efficiently. They observe a trend in more intensive rainfall all over the globe which IPCC destributes to higher moisture contents. It's rather a result of higher and colder tropopause, since higher watervapour contents are not measured in tropospere in recent decades. NCEP/NCAR-realyses show decrease of relative humidity on different levels and the evidence raised above are just so tiny. The study of Soden 2001 doesn't say anything about watervapourfeedback by greenhousewarming. First the Pinatubo caused a short cooling by reflecting solar irridiance and not a slowly warming. The area examined is too small thus doesn't yield for the total globe and the period is too short. Local interannual variations should also cause that effect.
  2. Jürgen Hubert at 22:11 PM on 17 April 2008
    It hasn't warmed since 1998
    I've analyzed the data used by Christopher Monckton in a recent essay where he claims a cooling trend, and the results may be surprising. Or possibly not, for the readers of this website... http://jhubert.livejournal.com/181274.html
  3. It's the sun
    mick What your first sentence actually means is rather unclear. Could you please explain what you meant? References please. As stated earlier, the solar hypothesis is wanting and satisfactory mechanisms remain unproven, especially since evidence for increasing solar output is unconvincing. More science is definitely required. The solar hypothesis is also vastly overhyped, especially by those with a fossil fuelled agenda or a political axe to grind. The lag of CO2 behind temperature only shows that CO2 is released by increasing temperatures. This does not disprove that CO2 is a GHG. CO2 is known to be infra red active, both as a feedback and as a forcing. The absorption spectra of CO2 and H2O are different and the absorption of CO2 can be detected by satellite. The warming from CO2 often leads to additional feedbacks from other sources e.g. water vapour. Annually adding ~ 28 Gt of CO2 from burning fossil fuels has artificially boosted atmospheric CO2 and started a warming phase. The fossil source of this carbon is demonstrated by the isotopic composition. The increasing temperatures will release further CO2 that will cause further warming. All this without requiring any change in solar output.
  4. There is no consensus
    When you compare the last 600kyr to the previous 600myr, of course the climate looks "very stable," but that is not a meaningful comparison--it's useless. Not only is the time scale vastly different, but the mechanism for change is as well (also, time periods before the ice core record are far less certain). No great departure from extremes does not necessarily equate to "very stable climate."
  5. There is no consensus
    Philippe said: "Change alone does not make unstability. Perhaps a comparison with weather would be useful. The weather changes continuously along the year, yet we deal with it just fine so long as nothing happens like 4 months without rain or freezing in june." You have invoked two comparisons which are irrelevant: Weather and climate more than 600kya. And your last sentence seems odd--based upon other interglacials, we have been in late november for the last 2000 years and the first frost still hasn't come. Then Philippe said: "The examples of hot house as in the mesozoic times are commonly used by advocates who argue that because it has been very hot before, it's OK to go that route again now. The fact that the world and the biosphere were vastly different in these times is what makes that argument irrelevant, not the climatological elements themselves. Those advocates often argue that warmer is better, yet mass exctinctions have happened during these periods, indicating that a hot house does not guarantee against them." I don't know who these "advocates" are but this does not seem to be in either of my responses. "The cause of the Permian extinction is unknown. I don't know any that has been established for the Ordovician. So the volcanic/collision explanation for mass extinction applies with any level of certainty to the Cretaceous only." The cause for an ancient extinction is never "known." It has been speculated that the Permian extinction was caused by a similar event to the one that caused the Cretaceous--volcanism and/or meteor impact. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction occurred at the transition to one of the largest Ice Ages in the last 600myr. So while he cause is not "known," the current running theory speculates that the cause is the somewhat rapid decrease in temperatures.
  6. Wondering Aloud at 07:16 AM on 17 April 2008
    Global cooling: the new kid on the block
    I don't know what particular argument you are talking about, I suppose up top? Where I didn't like his graph or see where he got it from? I think that is mostly resolved. I am not sure how big the solar affect is but it looks to me like it might well be half of the total signal fairly easily. I don't think the current solar minimum should show up as a temperature drop for quite some time yet, and only a sustained minimum should have any effect. We had a couple of centuries of generally increased solar activity. I have severe doubts that this last March was second lowest snowcover on record. I think I'd question how that data was gathered if they actually publish that conclusion. GISS? no problem with that data set... except the warming signal is primarily coming from an "adjusted" version of the land record. Remove the obviously flawed stations with large warming bias and the arbitrary cooling of the past introduced as "adjustments" from that record; than we can talk about it seriously. But if you do that half of the total signal vanishes... That is why we have a problem here. Fortunately there are at least 3 better data sets. Using the GISS one is not needed. No one wants to admit that we should do that though because it isn't so dramatic.
  7. Philippe Chantreau at 05:33 AM on 17 April 2008
    There is no consensus
    Change alone does not make unstability. Perhaps a comparison with weather would be useful. The weather changes continuously along the year, yet we deal with it just fine so long as nothing happens like 4 months without rain or freezing in june. The examples of hot house as in the mesozoic times are commonly used by advocates who argue that because it has been very hot before, it's OK to go that route again now. The fact that the world and the biosphere were vastly different in these times is what makes that argument irrelevant, not the climatological elements themselves. Those advocates often argue that warmer is better, yet mass exctinctions have happened during these periods, indicating that a hot house does not guarantee against them. The cause of the Permian extinction is unknown. I don't know any that has been established for the Ordovician. So the volcanic/collision explanation for mass extinction applies with any level of certainty to the Cretaceous only.
  8. It's the sun
    Solar temperatures should lag temperature changes on earth. That is what actually shows the real influence of the sun on climate. This the exact opposite of historical readings of C02 when C02 lagged temperatures suggesting the opposite correlation.
  9. There is no consensus
    Thanks for the response. You say: "Robert, these extremes are very well constrained compared to numerous changes that happened before that period. It is fair to say that the climate of the past 600k years has been quite stable compared to the climate of times before that, because those "extremes" remain within a certain range. Even the periodicity of the changes remains overall nicely consistent. So my comment is far from being ridiculous." and then you say: "I have ran many times into the argument that climate has changed to extremes in the past and they always call on paleoclimate examples from way before the ice core records, especially hot house periods of the mesozoic times, which are of little relevance to our situation." This seems slightly peculiar--you use that very comparison in your first paragraph. Regardless, the last 600,000 only appears stable when compared to the vastly different time scale of the previous 600myr (such a comparison is not useful). Essentially your argument boils down to the "the last 600k years have been stable in that they are consistent in their extremes and periodicity." The belief in constant change as "very stable climate" seems misplaced. Then you say: "Besides, it is interesting to note that the 2 largest mass extinctions of the geological record happened in hot times (P/T and Cretaceous)." They did occur in "hot times," but the mechanism behind these extinctions is considered to be volcanism and/or meteor impact-- blocking sunlight and preventing photosynthesis. On the other hand, the Ordovician-Silurian extinction (3rd largest) occurred during the transition to one of the largest Ice Ages in the past 600myr. Anyhow, this seems irrelevant to my response (39) above. Your last paragraph also seems irrelevant--I don't disagree that CO2 is higher now than any time in the last 600kyr. -Robert
  10. Philippe Chantreau at 11:33 AM on 16 April 2008
    There is no consensus
    Robert, these extremes are very well constrained compared to numerous changes that happened before that period. It is fair to say that the climate of the past 600k years has been quite stable compared to the climate of times before that, because those "extremes" remain within a certain range. Even the periodicity of the changes remains overall nicely consistent. So my comment is far from being ridiculous. This page gives a quick glance at very long term variability: http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm I have ran many times into the argument that climate has changed to extremes in the past and they always call on paleoclimate examples from way before the ice core records, especially hot house periods of the mesozoic times, which are of little relevance to our situation. Besides, it is interesting to note that the 2 largest mass extinctions of the geological record happened in hot times (P/T and Cretaceous). It is also interesting to look at how CO2 has changed during these 600k years compared to what has happened in the (very) recent past. There is no precedent in the ice core record to such an injection of CO2. Nothing even remotely comparable to it. See this link, slide number 8. http://ec.europa.eu/research/environment/pdf/descriptions/raynaud_ipy_bxl07.pdf
  11. It's the sun
    Dan Pangburn You failed to prove that CO2 cannot be the driver of temperature via feedback, by choosing to totally ignore that other factors are involved. But later-on in your argument, you acknowledge that single effects alone are too simplistic. Are you suggesting that the climate is driven by a sole factor, or by more than one? You seem to suggest that both cases are true? Your contradictory logic proves that your argument is logically flawed and is without merit. Please ask any objective climatologist. Objective means NOT being in the pay of a vested interest (e.g. fossil fuel industry)! They will tell you that the climate is driven by numerous forcings and feedbacks. They will also tell you that a factor that causes cooling such as aerosols (volcanic or man-made) can result in cooling, despite increasing CO2 concentrations that would result in warming.
  12. It's the sun
    Quietman The Professor Giegengack’s accusation of exaggeration would have us believe that the IPCC and scientists have perpetrated a most serious fraud – if only it were true. The truth is that the Professor’s accusation of exaggeration is a straw man argument and completely dishonest. The Professor should know perfectly well that both the IPCC and the scientists, of which the IPCC is involved, are extremely careful to use ranges of future scenarios in which they have extremely high confidence. Therefore these projected scenarios tend to be very cautious and conservative. The IPCC, for instance has consistently published past projected future scenarios that have been proven by events not to be exaggerations. The fact that the Professor levels such a false accusation reveals more about him than the IPCC and the thousands of scientists involved that he wrongly accuses of exaggeration. There are a small number of scientists, who have chosen to accept money from the fossil fuel industry and who do not have a reputation for credibility worth preserving. So why is the Professor not telling the truth? I don’t know, but there are a small number of scientists who make very similar accusations at mainstream scientists and the IPCC. Most of the others have been funded by the fossil fuel industry. So perhaps, he too is being less than open and honest in terms of his conflicts of interest. Further evidence that Professor Giegengack was being disingenuous is another projection that supports the view that the IPCC’s estimates of future sea level rises of 28 to 43 cm by 2100 were over conservative, due to incompletely understood mechanisms of ice-melt. [Dr Jevrejeva's group’s projections have been submitted for publication in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.] The new estimates suggest sea-level rise is likely to be in the range of 0.8 and 1.5 metres, which confirms another estimate of 0.5 and 1.4 metres by 2100 by Stefan Rahmstorf, but using a distinctly different methodology. IPCC exaggeration? – clearly not. However, the facts never got in the way of malicious allegations and lies.
  13. Al Gore and Dr Thompson's thermometer
    John Do realize that you need a mirror to read the lower graph?
    Response: :-) That was Steve McIntyre's quick and dirty technique to compare the graph from Gore's movie to Thompson's paper. Thompson unfortunately displays the data in a vertical fashion which makes direct comparison awkward. McIntyre couldn't be bothered fixing up the axes labels and I'm even lazier, just hotlinking to McIntyre's graph. I could subtitle this post "An Inconvenient Axes Orientation" although not quite as catchy as "Inconvenient Truth". Here's the original graph from Thompson 2003:

  14. Cartoon about global warming alarmism
    frankbi You are right on, that "economist" is definately looney. We could use a few of those jobs here in PA.
  15. There is no consensus
    Philippe (36) said: "That may be because there has not been a release of CO2 on the scale we experienced these last 150 years during the 600k years of very stable climate the planet has been through." Hold on, did anyone else notice that? 600k years of very stable climate? The last 600k years has been a torrent of climatic change. So if by "stable" you mean "always changing between extremes," then yes, you are correct. Beyond that, the Earth's climate has never really been stable. I just had to point out that ridiculous comment.
  16. Cartoon about global warming alarmism
    Hah. I just wrote a blog post about how the Adam Smith Institute's `argument' against green jobs. Summary: creating jobs is bad. No, I didn't make that up. http://tinyurl.com/3ogc8y
  17. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    I really wish you would have waited, John. I can't stand the suspense.
  18. Models are unreliable
    Frankbi said: "And besides, if models can be "fudged" to fit anything -- as our `skeptics' claim -- why are the _same_ `skeptics' saying that they can't get Hansen's model to fit the data? Can it be because our `skeptics' are simply full of junk?" I am surprised that John did not reply to this, but I assume he does not have the time to respond to every nonsensical claim that appears on his board. Frank, if you do not know that GCMs (and many other models) are "tweaked" to fit past data, then you have no place attacking others. It is common practice, and there is little that is nefarious about it, though it may appear as such. You probably know that there are many uncertainties and complexities in the climate system, and in attempting to model such a system, you must used what has already been observed to better your understanding and accuracy. If models were based purely upon theory for such a complex system, they would appear wildly inaccurate and worthy of no utilization. -Robert
  19. Solar cycles and global warming
    Wait one minute. ALL of our heat other than vulcanism comes from the sun. Without sunlight CO2 could never have been an issue. Greenhouse gases only amplify, they can not cause heat. Therefore if the sun intensifies a little the greenhouse gases multiply the effect. By the same token, if the sun is not as hot or there is less TSI that lowers the number that can be multiplied by a greenhouse gas. So solar cycles affect the amount that can be multiplied by the gases.
  20. Al Gore got it wrong
    This is an unfair statement. Of course he got it wrong. He's a politician.
  21. Climate sensitivity is low
    So what method do you propose, GWB?
  22. It's the sun
    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? The determination that non-condensing greenhouse gases have no significant influence on average global temperature is not refuted by any climate history. The assertion ‘it’s the sun’ appears to be too simplistic. Of course the sun is part of it but several other things affect the temperatures at the measuring sites. These other things may include solar wind, cosmic rays, UV, magnetic strength, relative humidity (propensity to form clouds), ocean turn-over, and possibly other factors. Apparently, no one has sorted all this out yet. Graphs of NOAA and other data (all referenced) are presented at http://www.middlebury.net:80/op-ed/pangburn.html. One observation from these graphs is that the recent (last 130 years or so) average global temperature data has not been unusual.
  23. Cartoon about global warming alarmism
    While I seen the writing in blogs of such people as despicted in the cartoon, what makes it funny is that it is the exact opposite of what I see most often, and because of the post times I can even tell what part of the world these things come from. From a psychological and cultural viewpoint such humor and attitude are very interesting.
  24. Cartoon about global warming alarmism
    LOL: It now has a place on my office door right beside Freedom from Reality. In fact it complements it rather well. Thanks, John
  25. Cartoon about global warming alarmism
    Ha! Spot on!
  26. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
    A calculation of the greenhouse effect of water vapor and clouds using the GISS GCM is 85% as shown in the table at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 . This argues against the relative values for radiative forcing of water and carbon dioxide quoted above.
  27. Models are unreliable
    A common comment regarding GCMs is that they do not account for clouds very well. This is a substantial weakness. There have been assertions that warming increases atmospheric water vapor which, through a feedback mechanism, increases warming. Certainly increased atmospheric water vapor would produce more, lower-level clouds. How do the GCMs account for this? A simple cloudy-planet point model where standard atmosphere tables are used to get average cloud temperature vs altitude shows that a change of average cloud altitude of 305 meters would result in an eventual average earth temperature change of 0.75C. Many other factors known to influence cloud formation are not accounted for in the GCMs.
  28. CO2 lags temperature
    During a glacial period (between interglacials), the graph shows many changes in temperature direction, trend up, followed by trend down, followed by trend up, followed by trend down and so on for many cycles. If the theory is that a trend up causes atmospheric carbon dioxide to increase which adds to warming, why, with atmospheric carbon dioxide level higher than it had been during the temperature increase, would the temperature stop going up and go down instead?
  29. It's the sun
    ScaredAmoeba In The Pennsylvania Gazette, May 15, 2007, article An Inaccurate Truth? an interview of Professor Robert Giegengack of the Department of Earth and Environmental Science pretty much sums up my stance: AGW is real but not apocalyptic.
  30. It's the sun
    I stand by my comment about solar influences. Even if the moving solar barycentre influences climate in some weird and mysterious manner, so far, this is not much more than a theory. My distinctly limited investigation leads me to believe that it has about as much relevance to climate change as astrology – i.e. not much. At most the influence can only be small. It is notable that AFAICT the scientific community doesn’t seem particularly convinced either. Once the scientific community takes it seriously, so will I. Until then, I'll treat as cuckoo science - intended to look convincing, deceive the unwary and postpone action and legislation to combat CO2 emissions. There’s a lot of cuckoo science around and strangely much of it can be traced back to sources funded by Exxon and the coal industry. The solar hypothesis remains distinctly unproven and remains far from convincing. More science is clearly required. You seem persistently to be looking for any possible excuse to ignore the ugly fact that we already have a cause for a substantial proportion of climate change that is supported by solid science. We have the mechanism, palaeoclimate studies, all supported by a wealth of observations and measurements using different methods and that is increasing atmospheric CO2 with an anthropogenic origin. We must reduce and phase-out fossil carbon emissions by all means possible at the earliest feasible time. We must not permit any new coal-powered plants to be built without tried and tested sequestration technology being incorporated. All non-sequestered emissions from coal-powered stations need to be stopped no later than 2030. That is easily enough time to have a tried and tested zero carbon generating capacity.
  31. Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
    Periander The heat transferred in an El Nino is from the earth itself, indirectly through the ocean. It's a form of vulcanism known as a subduction zone (see comment 4).
  32. Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
    John You may recall that I had mentioned that the solar activity causing changes to the magnetic field rang a bell but I cound not put my finger on it. Well I just did in my last comment. It is starting to come together.
  33. Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
    5meocmp Argo shows an averaged temperture for various zones. You need to look at maps that contain smaller snapshots to see the changes wrought by both El Nino and La Nina. The effect actually begins as a localized cooling (La Nina) or heating (El Nino) along the Peru-Chile (or South American) subduction zone. The change in ocean surface temperature over the zone causes changes in both ocean currents and wind direction* (*towards the Andes mountains or away from them). This type of phenomena is not restricted to El Nino/La Nina but occurs in lesser degrees all around the "Ring of Fire". Since these changes in the subduction zone are reflections of what is occurring in the mantle it follows that the tidal movements in the mantle are the actual cause of a very strong climate driver. As we know that tidal effects are heavily influenced by gravitational pull of large extraterrestrial objects we can show that there is significant climate forcings from our neighbors in the solar system. To what degree remains a question. See the arguments in "Its the Sun" for references.
  34. It's the sun
    ScaredAmoeba As I have mentioned elsewhere, Richard Mackey (Austrailia) published last year Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate in which he states "When the totality of the sun’s impact is considered, having regard to the relevant research published over the last two decades, the influence of solar variability on the earth’s climate is very strongly non-linear and stochastic. Recent research about the sun/climate relationship and the solar inertial motion (sim) hypothesis shows a large body of circumstantial evidence and several working hypotheses but no satisfactory account of a physical sim process." He procedes to explain how and why the IPCC data for solar influence could be incorrect. This research is now also supported by Oliver Manuel (Nuclear Chemistry, University of Missouri, Rolla, MO 65401 USA) and Hilton Ratcliffe (Astronomical Society Southern Africa, PO Box 354, Kloof 3640 SOUTH AFRICA) in their December 2, 2007 paper Fingerprints of a Local Supernova Personally I believe that there is more to it and have been reading up on the current hypothesis for the cause of El Nino / La Nina to see how the Fairbridge hypothesis would fit. I feel that it does but I am not a geologist that that is the field where this type of science would be applicable.
  35. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    Maybe not Greenland, but it certainly seems the case toward Alaska.
  36. It's the sun
    Quietman The evidence for significant extraterrestrial sources – e.g. GCR & solar effects remain wanting and contradictory. Some studies have required variable ‘smoothing’ to achieve an excellent correlation, however the correlation vanishes with more data, and there were other ‘strange’ errors. e.g. the notorious and widely quoted by skepics, Friis-Christensen and Lassen 1991. As demonstrated by Damon and Laut 2004 ‘Pattern of Strange Errors Plagues Solar Activity and Terrestrial Climate Data’ The weight of evidence is on the side of CO2! Solar / GCR evidence remains inconclusive.
  37. It's the sun
    Quietman 'If the sun turns out to be a more powerful driver than CO2 and you take drastic action you just killed us all.' Ahem! I think you are mistaken! ."Ironically, even arch-skeptics Soon and Baliunas, who would like to lay most of the blame for recent warming at the doorstep of solar effects, came to a compatible conclusion in their own energy balance model study. Namely, any model that was sensitive enough to yield a large response to recent solar variability would yield an even larger response to radiative forcing from recent (and therefore also future) CO2 changes. As a result, their "best fit" of climate sensitivity for the twentieth century is comfortably within the IPCC range.
      This aspect of their work is rarely if ever mentioned by the authors themselves, and still less in citations of the work in skeptics' tracts such as that distributed with the "Global Warming Petition Project."
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=229
  38. La Nina watch: March update
    Look closely at the 3 similar maps in the Atmoz link (Jan, Feb, March) specifically in the area of southern Peru and northern Chile where they meet the coast.
  39. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    So then I can assume that the map colors reflect an average over 4 years rather than the maps in Atmoz's analysis which show monthly changes. This would make sense as the colors over the South American subduction zone (off the coasts of Peru and Chile) show neutral and warm when they should show cool as in Atmoz's presentation. What strikes me as odd is the warming around the horn between S.A. and Antarctica in both this map and the three monthly maps in question.
  40. Determining the long term solar trend
    John Thank you, will do hyperlinks, and yes I will try to stay on topic although it is difficult because one factor usually involves another.
  41. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    John The ARGO map above has no date. Is this current? I went to their web site but the maps link gave me a 404 code. I would love to see this map for an EL NINO year and a LA NINA year to compare the area off the west coast of South America.
    Response: The pic came from Willis 2008 which I think gets published within a week or two (he emailed me the prepress). It shows the trend from July 2003 to June 2007.
  42. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    Maybe this is just too simple of a theory, but could it be possible that the unexplained ocean cooling during what should otherwise be a warming period may be be related to the large amounts of near freezing cold ice water runoff from the poles and Greenland ice melt?
    Response: Spatial distribution of steric sea level rise (in other words, temperature change) doesn't show dramatic cooling near the poles or Greenland so this doesn't seem the case:

  43. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    You may be interested in how the map in this article compares ocean temps to US land temps: Vulcan Greenhouse Gas Map Zooms In On CO2 Sources7 April 2008 "The maps and system, called Vulcan, show CO2 emissions at more than 100 times more detail than was available before."
  44. Global warming stopped in 1981... no, wait! 1991!
    And one more thing... According to the AGW theory temperatures should increase in direct proportion to C02 with positive feedbacks. This would suggest that the temperature should have increased in a steady logarithmic direction and not the ups and downs of the post Little Ice Age warming.
    Response: Over the short term, we see weather fluctuations imposed over the long term trend - internal variability, if you will. Over the long term, we also observe secular  ups and downs as climate is influenced by more than one forcing. For example, the early 20th century experienced warming when CO2 forcing was much less than it is now. Similarly, it cooled mid-century due to increased forcing from cooling aerosols.
  45. Global warming stopped in 1981... no, wait! 1991!
    The same could be said for the starting the graph right after the Little Ice Age which is generally when the trend is set. OMG!!!! warming after the LITTLE ICE AGE, so shocking and unprecedented!!!
    Response: May I direct you to another popular skeptic argument, we're coming out of an ice age.
  46. Wondering Aloud at 01:09 AM on 10 April 2008
    La Nina watch: March update
    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/... Live graph of 4 data sets
    Response: That is one nifty little webpage! Doesn't just plot live graphs, does annual means, detrending, Fourier analysis. I've added it to my Resources Links. Here's the graph you linked to:



    Atmoz's analysis of global temperature maps looks at how GISS includes areas over China and Mongolia with high temperature anomaly that RSS does not. Similarly, RSS includes cooler South Africa which GISS doesn't. So GISS is probably too high and RSS is too low. Will be interesting to see if GISS update their data with South African data down the track (if they do, someone let me know).
  47. Comparing IPCC projections to observations
    Yes, Aaron and DSM! (#5, #6, #7) Here we come closer to the key issue of global warming. Is there really an imbalance in earth energy budget? I try to answer these question by searching the web but I'm not satisfied till today. I'm wondering that I couldn't find yet even a poor research pointing out these case. The only paper I found was of Hansen et al 2004, who statued an imbalance based on oceaan heat content compared with modelled radiation budget. This doesn't proof AGW either because greenhouse gases heats both ocean and atmosphere and solar irridiance heats only oceans. Thereby solar irridiance penentrates deeper as longwave radiation and should be stored better. According to the IPCC, solar activity attributes for about 1/7 tot global warming but for ocean heat storage solar effects can be much greater. NOAA satellite measurements shows an increase in outgoing longwave radiation during past decades. According to the fact that greenhouse gases avoid longwave radiation from escaping into space satellite measurements should show a decrease, or at least no trend in OLR but they don't. They show INcrease in OLR! So I'm wondering what other measurements say such as ERBE.
  48. Global cooling: the new kid on the block
    A missing point in these thread is the snowalbedo. In januari 2008 northern hemisphere snowcover was on the highest since 1966, according to data from Rutgers university snow lab. There was extremely snowcover reported over large parts of Asia where it efficiently reflects solar heat. This caused the cooling as well. On the contrary, during march northern hemisphere snowcover was second lowest on record. Premature GISS-data shows that global temperature anomalie rises to 0.67°C. This means we're back on the stage and the drop in the winter was just an incident. @ Wondering Aloud, It seems to me that your particular argument in these discussion doesn't hold anymore. Which I don't mean that solar activity could be an important feature in climate change. You'd better find new arguments to criticize AGW. Regards, Victor
  49. La Nina watch: March update
    Well, you see my prediction was actually for a time period that was two weeks from February and two weeks from March. So if we do the math for this time frame you get a contribution of 13 from February and a contribution of 14/30 * 67 = 31.3 from March so together you get an anomaly of 44.3! So in fact my prediction is amazingly good. I am expecting NASA to be calling on me any time now if the psychic hotline doesn't hire me first! John PS in regards to April, I do know the value of the anomaly, but I am not sure of the time frame for it yet ;-)
  50. Climate change on Mars
    It appears these guys wouldn't agree; Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 Senate Report Debunks "Consensus" December 20, 2007 http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport AND just for the record, Fred Thompson didn't run a "failed" campaign...here's why; How the Republican Party Committed National Suicide By JB Williams http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_19227.shtml Who Hijacked the Primaries? by Brett Winterble http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24726 The Death of Conservatism? 43 Mistakes and the GOP's Dobson's Choice http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961546/posts GOP Leads Astray http://gopleadsastray.blogspot.com/ Conservative Blackout by Lisa Fabrizio http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12517 AP Gives Thompson the ‘04 Treatment by Jed Babbin http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24127

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