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Quietman at 13:32 PM on 12 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Philippe Chantreau; Dr. Rhodes Fairbridge had a hypothesis about planetary gravitation controling climate. He had predicted that when solar cycle 24 started we would see a cooling trend to peak in 2012. Since he passed away 2 years ago his hypothesis never saw a lot of attention. I think he may have been onto something, only time will tell. -
Quietman at 12:47 PM on 12 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
In recent news (the past few months) we have discovered 1} volcanic activity under the melting ice sheets in both Greenland and Antarctica that "may be contributing to their melting". 2) El Nino and La Nina are a part of one cycle driven by vulcanism at the South American subduction zone off the coast of Peru. 3) The atmosphere has had less particulates in the past 100 years due to decreased volcanic ejecta (not reduced vulcanism however). 4) The planetary alignment of 1976, while not having any immediate catastrophic effects, did intensify vulcanism all over the Earth. 5) The sudden increase in temperature slope begins in 1976. Please tell me that this is all coincidental. -
Quietman at 12:37 PM on 12 March 2008Human fingerprint on atmospheric CO2
CO2 = 379 ppm or 0.000380, or 0.038% currently. -
Quietman at 12:28 PM on 12 March 2008CO2 lags temperature
What if CO2 is meaningless? The graphs show measured concentrations of CO2 for the past how many years? Modern direct measurement of gases using a bench and means of interpreting past CO2 are not going to give the same results. Even trapped gas pockets in ice suffer from osmotic action. Past climates are mostly guesswork. As Wondering Aloud points out "it would cause a warming spiral." but that did not happen. The graph shows 450K years, ALL of which were within the oscillations of an ice age. We assume that this is an interglacial period. What if it isn't? How do we know that the planet isn't returning to Earth Normal or Earth Mean temperature? The fact is, we don't know. -
Quietman at 10:55 AM on 12 March 2008Models are unreliable
Models are as reliable as the data put into them. -
Quietman at 10:50 AM on 12 March 2008Mars is warming
It's not just Mars. Ever read the papers by the late Dr. Rhodes Fairbridge? -
Quietman at 10:46 AM on 12 March 2008There is no consensus
If science relied on consensus then the Earth would be the center of the universe and you would fall off the edge. Science is not about consensus, opinion is about consensus. A german physisist,Gerhard Gerlich, demonstrated (in a very long and boring paper) how there can be no greenhouse effect. Do we burn him at the stake? I have seen many explanations about how the greenhouse effect works but no proof. Is it real and can it be proven? -
John Cross at 00:08 AM on 12 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Wondering Aloud: Just to echo John Cook's statement on the ice ages. The timing of them seem to match the timing of orbital mechanics very well (as shown in the Milankovitch cycles). The really interesting thing is that there is almost no difference in the amount of energy that the earth receives from the sun during these cycles but how it is distributed is important. Thus there are feedback mechanisms required to explain ice ages. In fact, the idea of a constant sun but different earth processes changing climate seems to be a common theme that I have seen in paleoclimate. Another way to say it is that internal processes of the earth are more variable than solar output. There is speculation that the development of the isthmus of Panama - which took place about 2 million years ago - was the trigger that caused the current cycle of ice ages. I don't know how it fits into the idea of skeptical science, but there may be a very interesting post in there John. On the other hand you may not want my advice right now. The preliminary numbers are looking like February will be about the same as January (temperature anomaly wise). Thus my prediction is looking high! I am game for making a prediction for next month if anyone wishes to join me! JohnResponse: What, you're giving me more homework?! How about a guest blog post on the isthmus of Panama? :-) -
Philippe Chantreau at 21:54 PM on 11 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
To get back on topic, I recall this from Hadley: http://www.scienceonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/317/5839/796 In my recollection they suggested a short term stabilization or slight cooling until 2009 and more warming afterwards. Who knows? They may be right. -
Wondering Aloud at 05:43 AM on 11 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Phillipe he said he was hoping! (Response in 13) There is nothing simple about the physics involved here, indeed physics and astronomy are where a lot of very credible disagreement is coming from. It seems the better I understand a specific portion of the issue the less convincing it becomes. Hmm... it said that paper was ppv I'll have to try again. However if vulcanism is the big driver here how about the driver of the ice ages? Unless vulcanism has a 100,000 year cycle I think this is going to be a hard sell. Because now we are talking about two different mechanisms between IA and LIA. Not impossible but ...Response: Science magazine has free registration - sign up and you get access to certain papers. Not the most recent or really old papers but stuff a few years old are fair game. The 100,000 year ice ages and the Little Ice Age are two completely different phenomena. The 100,000 year ice ages are driven by Milankovitch cycles (and amplified by CO2 feedback) while the Little Ice Age was a short and mild (relatively speaking) cooler period just over the last few centuries. The major driving forces behind the LIA were the sun and increased volcanic activity. -
frankbi at 17:24 PM on 10 March 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
"Critique this stuff for a change:" No. If you want to spam unrelated denialist talking points, go play elsewhere. -
BTN at 16:03 PM on 10 March 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
frankbi Good analysis of Green/Armstrong. What fools. Critique this stuff for a change: http://climatesci.org/2007/06/15... http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/07/table-of-conten.html http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/climate.php http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1816 http://www.his.com/~sepp/Archive/NewSEPP/Climate%20models-Tennekes.htm http://www.springerlink.com/content/t341350850360302/ http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar http://www.cato.org/research/articles/michaels-031016.html -
John Cook at 13:35 PM on 10 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Okay, got a bee in my bonnet about the Little Ice Age now (j'accuse, WA). Tracked down another interesting paper Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years (Crowley 2000) (requires free registration to Science to view the full paper). He concludes "There is increasing evidence that pulses of volcanism significantly contributed to decadal-scale climate variability in the Little Ice Age". Lots of other interesting goodies in that paper too. -
Philippe Chantreau at 13:01 PM on 10 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
W.A., John is not hoping, he is quoting Wang (2005), Krivova (2007) and IPCC AR4. There is not so much in all this that's only a matter of opinion or preference, Physics still apply. And if you want to talk about weather, I just had a picnic today by the waterfall, was gorgeous and quite comfortable. -
Wondering Aloud at 12:05 PM on 10 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Burr. Don't even say that in jest John! You might hope CO2 forcing would overpower a cooling sun but looking at the magnitude of the event in the case on the Maunder, I sure wouldn't bet on it.Response: It's worth pointing out that the Little Ice Age was a combination both of lower solar activity (the Maunder Minimum) and increased volcanic activity. It wasn't all the sun. In fact, one paper (Robock 1979) goes so far as to suggest volcanic activity is the dominant forcing. That's an old paper though - would be interesting to track down mopre recent research. A good topic for a future post (thanks for the extra homework, WA!) -
tbandrow at 08:21 AM on 8 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm rooting for a sunspotless ice age. Global warming tells us that we are increasingly the masters of the earth, which is nice and all, but, an ice age just reduces us to utter despairing powerlessness. What better to depress a humanity that so pathologically feels like it needs to matter than to have to shake its fist in futility at the sun as the earth freezes and billions of people go hungry. The best is that, we know the sun is a big ball of hydrogen and helium, and therefor, even praying to it is utterly pointless. May as well stand in front of the tide and try it hold it back with your hand.Response: Even if the sun didn't show sunspots for the next few years (or decades), the forcing from CO2 overpowers the forcing from a cooling sun. However, I too am hoping for a cooler solar cycle. Another Maunder Minimum would be even better. It will mitigate the CO2 warming at least a little. -
tbandrow at 06:45 AM on 8 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
There's no need to argue inferences at all. This is something very easily testable, if the sun cooperates. Let's hope that the maximum doesn't show up, let's have no sunspots for, say five years. That way, if the sunspots do not come, and, we get past La Nina, and other "weather" effects, and, the earth's temperature continues to drop, then, we need to refine GCMs to account for some as of yet undiscovered mechanism linking solar output to the earth's climate. On the other hand, if the temperature does go up, then, well, obviously, that would argue in favor of existing GCM models, so long as the temperature increases were as predicted. -
Wondering Aloud at 06:17 AM on 8 March 2008What does CO2 lagging temperature mean?
What Gore should have said is that one relationship is clear... When it gets warmer carbon dioxide increases. Than he would have been correct and we wouldn't have to be discussing it.Response: Gore oversimplified. It's like when you're explaining complicated science to kids - you dumb it down so they can understand it. Plus Gore is not only trying to explain but also entertain - he doesn't want to get bogged down. Personally, I find the CO2 cycle fascinating and would've like to have heard more. And he opened himself up to criticism by oversimplifying. But the overall assertion "when there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer" is correct. The criticism is more a framing question than a question of whether he got the science right or wrong. -
tbandrow at 17:04 PM on 7 March 2008It's the sun
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. Last year, there was a low amount of sunspots, and the earth's global temperature dropped a degree. We can see if it drops again. Also, in that vein, is it not possible to just create a carbon dioxide plume, turn it on, then turn it off, somewhere, and measure the radiative forcing that way? It seems to me that the RF is calculated based on another term that looks, honestly, like a fudge factor to make a computer model "work". If you created a carbon dioxide "bubble" on earth somewhere, then shouldn't you be able to measure a temperature increase on the ground proportionally to that increase?Response: 2007 cooling was not driven by solar forcing (or lack thereof) but by La Nina. -
Philippe Chantreau at 14:07 PM on 7 March 2008Temp record is unreliable
And just as a reminder, it does not make any real difference what the ref period is. -
Philippe Chantreau at 14:07 PM on 7 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Watts is a little confused and not nearly as conversant with all this as he would like to suggest. Or he has anterior motives. See this post: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/whats-up-with-that/ IMHO, Watts has got much more attention than he deserves. -
frankbi at 13:44 PM on 7 March 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
BTN, I've seen this before. It's Fred Singer's "NIPCC" "report", which is just a collection of the same old discredited talking points. Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1991)? Been there. (http://folk.uio.no/nathan/web/statement.html) Douglass et al. (2007)? Done that. (http://tinyurl.com/yntbat) Now it'll be nice if you can actually address what other people have pointed out to you, instead of repeatedly spamming denialist talking points. For a start, how about discussing Green and Armstrong's "critique" I mentioned above? -
BTN at 04:16 AM on 7 March 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
frankbi Start with this and get back to me: http://heartland.temp.siteexecutive.com/pdf/22835.pdf (and be a smart and credible guy and don't shoot the messenger ! read it in full as well as the sources in the 10 pages of references and footnotes and let me know what you think) -
Wondering Aloud at 01:01 AM on 7 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Anthony Watts has now posted that Daily Tech got it wrong and that he sent them an immediate note telling them so. Also a good post there by John Cristy on the subject. -
JohnMashey at 17:21 PM on 6 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
See Hansen, Nazarenko, et al, "Earth's Energy Imblance: Confimration and Implications", Science, 2005. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf When incoming energy is larger than outgoing energy, the energy / temperature rises, i.e., First Law of Thermodynamics. Due to increasing Greenhouse gasses like water vapor, CO2, CH4, etc, the temperature of the Earth *as a whole* is rising. So, why do we see such jiggles in the Earth’s surface temperature, which is what NASA GISS, Hadley, etc report? Why doesn’t the energy difference just show up as a smooth rise in temperature? A: most of the energy goes into the oceans, which have 1000X the heat capacity of the atmosphere. The ocean-atmosphere system has all sorts of jiggles that *move heat around*, but do not create or destroy energy. We care about surface temperature because we live here, and we have the longest temperature series, but the surface is a miniscule slice of the whole thing, and surface temperatures in any one place jiggle daily (day and night, far more than any long-term trend), yearly, and from decadal-scale oscillations. Likewise, the surface temperature as whole jiggles, from things like El Ninos that move energy from ocean to atmosphere, and La Ninas that do the reverse. Analogy: A bathtub is being filled [sun], slightly faster than it is being drained [heat radiation]. You have a few floats, measuring the depth of the water. The depth would go up smoothly, except there’s a kid splashing around in the bath. Sometimes the kid lies back in the water, in which case the overall water level goes up [El Nino], but with waves, so that some floats go down. Sometimes the kid sits up, in which case the overall water level temporarily goes down [La Nina], but with waves, so a few of the floats go up. The kid splashes around the whole time, jiggling all floats second by second. At any point in time, there is a certain amount of water, but the average as measured by 1% of the floats is subject to lots of jiggles. Still, the water *is* going up, as long as more as coming in than draining out, and the physics of GHGs say that we’re slowly plugging the drain. The Earth as a whole is gaining energy, and all that some cold spell means is that some oscillation transfers energy from atmosphere/sea surface deeper into the ocean … but that energy doesn’t magically disappear, and the next time it comes back to the surface. -
Philippe Chantreau at 19:48 PM on 5 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
W.A., I think that 4 years is still a little too short. And really, you don't have to go far to find warmth. Here in the Pacific Northwest we had a tornado in January hardly a mile from my place and february has seen almost a full week of temps in the hi 50's lo 60's with (yes!) sunshine. Funnily enough, earlier we had record daily snowfalls in the Mt Hood area, although the lower elevations did not get as much as last year. No snowman for my daughter this year, but lots of rainy afternoons. -
Wondering Aloud at 13:02 PM on 5 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
I believe you John, some areas are warming some areas apparently aren't, why do I always have to be stuck in the aren't warming areas, both here and abroad. I got sick and missed my Antarctica opportunity a few years ago or I'd have another place to complain about. I do wonder how much is regional, how much is land use, and how much is GHG or some natural variation we don't understand yet. That's why I keep questioning and reading. My best Canada story was running my car into a snowbank near Orangeville. I managed to bury my car to the firewall without ever leaving my lane. I would think you would want warming almost as much as I do. Seriously, I guess my prediction is out there too. I think we'll know a lot more one way or another in about 4 years especially if the solar cycle is weak, but the waiting is tough and while I don't believe we'll see significant cooling I do fear it a bit. -
Wondering Aloud at 12:10 PM on 5 March 2008Was Greenland really green in the past?
Now this may seem off topic but I have read that the name Greenland was a propaganda tool used to attract settlers. The Norse definitely had farms there during the MWP and they appear to have been frozen out after seveal generations when the harbor stopped thawing regularly, but that doesn't mean it was ever a sunny vacationland. They also dubbed the Labrador cost Vinland, but I don't recommend relocating your winery there. Iceland was the opposite idea. The reason I came here is to ask the question where do we look to see where the earth is today on all these reported orbital and processional cycles and where is the earth in these cycles during an ice age?Response: NOAA have a page on Milankovitch cycles including links to data & papers on the subject. I haven't read them, let us know if you find something interesting. -
John Cross at 11:57 AM on 5 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Wondering: I am very familiar with your area since I am a Canadian and for a while lived very near Wiarton Willie. However if you look at other areas of the world you see significant warming (e.g. the Central England). Anyway, my numbers are out there for all to see. Regards, John -
Wondering Aloud at 11:44 AM on 5 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
Speaking of heat transfer between the ocean and atmosphere... Any idea of a good place to learn about the debate on the timeline involved? I have seen some claims that it is fairly short others that it is fairly long. The ocean is such a huge heat sink it could hide things for a long time. John, I predict February was cold and March will be cold and April will be cold, and if you lived where I do you would too. Around here if the groundhog predicts 6 more weeks of winter on Feb 2, we celebrate an early spring. We are all somewhat products of our environment. Wasn't the last La Nina a double dip kind of a pattern with a weakening in the middle? If so than either Feb or March could show a recovery followed in a few months by another nasty dip. At the end of which, global averages will be farther down... and it still won't mean temperatures are really falling long term. I think that is the way I'm guessing for 2008. But a guess is all it is, based on the last La Nina. -
John Cross at 06:13 AM on 5 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
John: You said feel free to post a prediction about February so I will go ahead. I also think that January is an anomaly so, taking into account La Nina, historical records of the relation between Jan and Feb temperatures and a bit of eye of newt I will predict that February will come in at between 35 and 45 on the GISS Land/Ocean. Any other brave climate watchers out there? JohnResponse: GISS post their monthly global temperature anomalies here so will be checking it regularly to see how your prediction pans out. :-) -
frankbi at 04:43 AM on 5 March 2008It's the sun
"If you have ever presented anything even close to logic or a fact here I can't find it." Here's the link again: http://folk.uio.no/nathan/web/statement.html Of course, in your supreme open-mindedness, you simply decided to ignore it. -
frankbi at 04:40 AM on 5 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
So you disagree with Daily Tech's argument... but you don't disagree with it either. Denialism is about hemming and hawing isn't it... -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:53 AM on 5 March 2008Temp record is unreliable
Glad to help. -
Wondering Aloud at 03:21 AM on 5 March 2008Temp record is unreliable
Good job Phillipe that makes much more sense. That part is a baseline problem then and not a totally dumb one. Another way of saying 1979-2000 was already warming though is to say 1951-1980 was the coldest stretch in a century. Too bad GISS used this for a baseline but what can you do about that. Excellent first paragraph too. Though there is a lot of debate about where warming should be greatest vs where it is the greatest. I'm not sure who is right there. I think between the two things you took care of the problem I had with the anomaly numbers. Hurrah. -
Wondering Aloud at 03:09 AM on 5 March 2008It's the sun
LOL Yup you got that right. The Sierra Club has been pumping out the same junk day after day for decades and so no one takes them seriously anymore, haven't for 30 years. If you have ever presented anything even close to logic or a fact here I can't find it. I have come to the conclusion that you are a "denier" trying to set up straw men to make glogal warming seem a hoax. Please let the debate go back to reality we were learning something here. I argue with Phillipe and John but I learn things from them. -
Wondering Aloud at 01:06 AM on 5 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
I agree that this sudden downward spike in temperature is probably meaningless. I would disagree that Watts claimed anything else, as I read the post when it was originally posted. He does not draw the conclusion you suggest but he does poke fun at the over reaction of the warmers to every bump and wiggle in the record like the 2005 hurricane season. I haven't read Daily Tech but I expect if I go there I will find the same thing. Wasn't the reason for the post by Watts that the GISS record was finally showing what the other 3 main records, like the HadCRUT you show here, had been showing for a year already, a dramatic cooling related to La Nina. I also disagree on your idea that this is seperate from the claim that warming stopped in 1998. It is clearly part of the same argument. The world is cooler than 1998. Quite a bit in fact. This fact is also irrelevent to the entire argument about long term trends and is them making fun of people who pretend 1998 was some dramatic human caused thing. Natural variability is clearly a big factor and the warming signal over a short term is relatively small next to it. Overly dramatic statements on either side are likely wrong and are certainly not science. I am not sure if I understand what the first commentor is saying about the solar effect, but I believe the idea is low sunspots are a proxy for high amounts of cosmic rays reaching the earth. High cosmic ray incidence means more cloudiness and reflective cooling. So the idea is even though TSI change is small temperature effect can be relatively large... like say a degree or so.Response: You make a good point - 2007 cooling and 1998+ cooling are both arguments cut from the same cloth. Both choose a starting point where global temperatures are temporarily inflated by El Nino, then point to subsequent cooler temperatures as proof that long term climate warming has reversed. -
frankbi at 21:00 PM on 4 March 2008There is no consensus
Yeah, Vincent Gray made a lot of noise, ergo there's no consensus. Genius logic! -
frankbi at 20:57 PM on 4 March 2008It's the sun
Wondering Aloud, I searched through your 5 paragraphs of verbosum and I couldn't find a single grain of fact or logic in it. You continually ignore facts, promote your Worldwide Satanic Conspiracy theory, and then accuse others of "personal attacks". Well, here's a link you'll definitely be interested in reading. "Chad Tolman, a Sierra Club Delaware Chapter member, said that views held by Legates and other climate-change skeptics are fast becoming _irrelevant_, making direct action by the state unnecessary." (emphasis mine) Yeah indeed... if you keep pumping out the same junk day after day, people tend to stop listening to you. http://www.webcitation.org/5W3dae1wg -
magnusorerar at 10:35 AM on 4 March 2008Global cooling: the new kid on the block
I'm a bit concerned that you miss a very basic thing. First. The effect from the sun controlling the temperature according to the number of sunspots is cooling when many sunspots. That's the effect which for example IPCC AR4 gives a few tenth of a degree cooling when there is many sunspots in the 11 years cycle. This is only the TSI effect, not involving a cosmic ray connection. (This description I guess also quite well fits in to the "reversed" covariance that Locwood/Frohlish noticed, but I think they missed a delay factor.) According to this TSI effect only we shall have a warmer world now, not a cooler. A bigger problem with this post is however that you try to debunk those who believe the sun's controlling climate through the cosmic ray link, but you not even involve that controlling function in your text. You can't debunk the strong cosmic ray and cloud force with another weak TSI effect (which I'm not even sure you're use the right way around). Also the La Nina argument. In a post late 2007, you refused that El Nino didn't forced heat through an increased amount of water vapor in the air, thus increasing the greenhouse. Instead you claimed that this was not at all the case. How can you claim the opposite about La Nina and still think you that will be taken seriously? Of course there are redistribution of heat as well as implications of increase or decrease in water vapor on a global scale in both phenomenon! http://www.skepticalscience.com/ocean-and-global-warming.htmResponse: I'm not denying cosmic ray influence. Cosmic rays are modulated by the solar magnetic field which correlates closely with TSI. Hence its difficult to distinguish between direct TSI warming and indirect cosmic ray influence on cloud cover.
So Camp 2007 empirically compares the solar cycle to global temperatures. The cosmic radiation cycle is the same as the solar cycle. He doesn't do any modelling on solar warming or cloud albedo - it's purely a statistical analysis to see whether there's a statistically significant pattern in global temperature that matches the solar cycle. And he finds a strong solar signal in global temperature - 0.18 degrees worth.
So basically, when Camp calculates the solar influence on global temperature, he includes the whole kit and kaboodle - TSI, UV, cosmic rays - it's all bundled in one big solar package. Note - I've never said cosmic rays don't affect climate but that the cosmic ray trend doesn't correlate with global temperatures.
Re my post on ocean warming, I wasn't denying the El Nino warming influence. Of course El Nino warms the atmosphere as the spike in 1998 shows. In fact, I say the opposite - that phenomena like El Nino demonstrate how oceans transfer heat into the atmosphere. -
Philippe Chantreau at 17:14 PM on 3 March 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
Frankbi, thanks for reminding all about the nature of the IPCC AR products. In summary, you could say that they are an assessment and report on the state of peer-reviewed climate science. Another point: I did not call anyone names. I said that Richard Courtney should not be called Dr. and I stand by that assertion until anyone can show me a statement from a university certifying that he was awarded a doctorate degree. I said that Courtney's status as an "expert reviewer" is an abuse of language and that he does not have real credentials to grant him expert status. I will also stand by that statement until proven wrong by solid backed-up references, such as a list of peer-reviewed science papers, in relevant fields, and preferably referenced by other prominent researchers in their own work. Don't waste your time on Google Scholar: Courtney is not even close to that. I said that Morano's standards to determine who is an "expert" (or even just a scientist) on climate are poor. I stand by that statement as long as Morano wants to include Courtney in this category, and a few others on his list. I said that Morano is a politician and that he does political PR, and that is exactly what he does. Since he is employed by Congress, it is easy to look up what Morano does for a living and what his previous career path has been. None of this consists of calling anybody names. -
Philippe Chantreau at 16:48 PM on 3 March 2008Temp record is unreliable
Re-reading through this, it seems that there may be some confusion. "if the surface warms more than the atmosphere then the atmosphere cannot be the cause as this would violate the second law of thermodynamics," The surface is not really the surface as in the surface of a spheroid. Surface temps measurements and estimates are rather the lowest troposheric temps and should be thought of that way. Sea surface temps would probably correspond better to the idea of surface as you use it in you thermodynamic view. But any AIR temperature can not be considered as surface that way, it is always atmospheric, even if it's 2 cm off the ground. "if they are using different reference periods for their anomaly calculations then combining them in the graphs as they have; that would be amazing incompetence so I doubt that's what it is." Actually that's exactly what it is and I don't know who you mean exactly by "they." This graph: http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/global2.jpg Is a compilation by Tamino to show agreement in the trends and agreement does show, in spite of having different time periods for anomaly computation. The reference period for GISS is 1951-1980. Obviously, the satellite record can not use this same period. Satellite records use 1979-2000, during which average temps were already higher, making warm anomalies smaller than those seen on GISS. It is not incompetence to represent these on the same graph, so long as we know what we're looking at. In fact, it is a good test of the true trend. Incompetence would lie rather in the ignorance of the difference or using the graph for interpretations that ignore these differences. Putting these on the same graph to verify identical trends is not incompetence. One last thing: satellite measurements are, in fact, lower troposphere measurements, a sizable layer of atmosphere, and even the T2 channel includes a strong stratospheric influence. The papers cited higher give some details on that. -
Wondering Aloud at 13:22 PM on 3 March 2008It's the sun
Regarding your link: Give me a break, cripes take an astronomy class or something. Or better yet thermodynamics. There is nothing there that convinces quite the contrary. There are numerous real references above maybe you should check them. Thank you for another personal attack as well. Do you really think your abuse is going to convince me or anyone else smart enough to understand this blog? Nor will your deliberate misunderstanding of everything that someone you oppose says. We are not idiots here. "Um, excuse me, that's the _whole_ _point_ of the AGW theory. Rive and Friis-Christensen olar effects correlated _well_ with _past_ climate change, but from 1985 on there was _no_ correlation between solar activity and global climate". Are you saying you think the whole point of AGW theory is that the sun caused climate cycles before but magically not now? So a thousand year wrong direction time lag for CO2 causing climate change is ok in your book? The fact that far larger CO2 changes in the past did not cause the climate change that is being attributed to todays tiny change is ok too? The heck with the entire paleo record, today is special? Meanwhile you think the suns effect is instant and only happens if the people you want to cite claim it does. Our host here, John and Phillippe are all obvious true believers in AGW, they are doing as good a job as can be done defending this position. You are showing a vicious political agenda and nothing else. I came here believing that the world was warming and Humans were largely the cause but doubting the catastrophic idea because it doesn't fit the historic record or the atmospheric physics very well. A few more posts from you and I might be convinced that it all really is a politically motivated hoax. -
frankbi at 04:26 AM on 3 March 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
Back to the post topic: the "scientists predicted global cooling" meme is alive and well! (Or rather, un-dead and well.) Green and Armstrong published a "critique" of the IPCC's climate projection methods in the bogoscience "journal" Energy and Environment. Green and Armstrong claimed that on May 21, 1975 the New York Times ran an article with a scary headline: "Scientists Ponder Why World's Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable" Alas, the paper authors made 2 stupid errors (http://tinyurl.com/2pw9ob): (1) They got the title wrong -- the actual title was "Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead" (http://tinyurl.com/yntoga); (2) They failed to notice that the scary article was on... page 92. And that's not even mentioning the stupidity of citing newspaper headlines instead of scientific papers to "prove" a point about scientist being wrong... Denialism is stupid. Again. -- Frank Bi, http://globaldumbing.tk/ -
frankbi at 03:22 AM on 3 March 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
Phillippe Chantreau: "And I will disagree with Frankbi on one point. The solar activity argument has been debunked by solar researchers, not by any blog." Well, you can put it that way. The actual debunking goes on not in this blog, but in the papers referenced by it... * * * BTN: "With regards to your name calling, I quote one great climate scientist who said [...]" Wow, this "great climate scientist" is so great you can't remember his name? Come on, if you want to say something, just say it in your own voice; no need to attribute them to some unnamed great person just to add gravitas. "you can't deny the growing body of peer reviewed science (unlike the IPCC report) that premises that GW is largely a natural process and highly unlikely caused by human activity." Well, the last time I asked about this "growing body of peer reviewed science disputing AGW", I received a list of _5_ papers. -- 4 of the papers turned out not to dispute AGW at all, and the remaining 1 used bogus methods (http://tinyurl.com/yntbat). Your "growing body" of research disputing AGW doesn't exist. The IPCC _is_ peer-reviewed, by the way. -
DWK at 08:50 AM on 1 March 2008Are we heading into a new Little Ice Age?
This is too interesting as we head into March and still virtually no sunspot activity. This is a certainty, at some time in the relatively near future, assuming the planet is here, there will be a Maunder Minimum a Dalton Minimum a Sporer Minimum and even a Wolf Minimum of sunspot activity. With each of these there was a corresponding drop in temperatures here on our planet. The sun produces virtually all of the energy on this planet, it is the overriding affector of our climate, nomatter what Al Gore and his increasingly wealthy, non-green living cronies say. When a new minimum occurs and it will occur, this planet will cool. CO2 aside. And there are superior climatologist who predict just the same, their voice being squashed by the Religious green movement, and yes the green movement is a Religion. But the creation can take care of itself, and everything under the sun is not new, we will revist a "little ice age" again one day, hopefully knocking down the arrogance of man a notch. Let me add this is a wonderful site for the science geek.Response: DWK, thanks for the kind comment. I suggest you read the last paragraph of my post though which compares solar forcing since the Maunder Minimum (0.23 W/m2 Krivova 2007) to CO2 forcing since pre-industrial times (1.66 W/m2 IPCC AR4). Even if the sun did return to Maunder Minimum levels (which is unlikely), CO2 warming would overpower the solar 'cooling'. -
BTN at 04:37 AM on 1 March 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
Philippe You can cherry-pick you research, and stick your head in the sand, but you can't deny the growing body of peer reviewed science (unlike the IPCC report) that premises that GW is largely a natural process and highly unlikely caused by human activity. It may be right it may be wrong - but the point is the science is out there and the debate is vigorous and ongoing and active (despite what the media says). With regards to your name calling, I quote one great climate scientist who said: "Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn't occur in a science debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate." -
Philippe Chantreau at 14:21 PM on 29 February 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
BTN, the Morano list is such a pathetic joke that it would hardly deserve to be discussed even if it were on topic. I noted that it featured Courtney as Dr. Courtney while there is still no university that will say he was ever awarded a doctorate. I'm sure his status as an expert reviewer, which does not hold up to scrutiny, also meets Morano's standards for "expertise." The laughable political twisting on the page you link goes on to saying that only 53 scientists participated to the IPCC "Summary for Policymakers" and compares with the Morano 400, as if it had any relevance. Of course it does not mention the vastly higher number of scientists who participated in the IPCC Assessment Report, which is really where the scientific substance is. The "summary for Policymakers" is exactly what it says, so the scientists there are only needed to put in an understandable form the science of the assessment report, which is obviously way over the head of the vast majority of politicians all over the world. Considering the miserable grasp on science in general that poltiticians exhibit on a regular basis, one could argue that the SPM should use more 5th grade science teachers than scientists doing research. This site here pays more attention to published science, give us links to papers rather than political PR and blogs. And I will disagree with Frankbi on one point. The solar activity argument has been debunked by solar researchers, not by any blog. Debate is always on in every branch of science, there is no need for blogs and screaming cybermobs in order to "continue the scientific debate." I expect you'll go next to the usual BS about consensus, grant money and whatever, and I won't bother responding to it. I have a job, a life and very little time to spare paying attention to anything but real, published science. But go ahead with the usual ranting if you wish. -
Wondering Aloud at 10:31 AM on 29 February 2008CO2 lags temperature
Nice personal attack Farmer but it added nothing to this discussion. Your Comment "No matter what the atmosphere is doing, if you add heat you get warming. You don't need a PhD to understand that." makes no sense in this context. There is no heat being added unless you are talking about variation in Solar output. The warming is supposed to be the result of Earth holding on to more heat and releasing it more slowly. The Earth is not a Black body radiator, but that doesn't even matter because CO2 isn't a big absorber of black body radiation at this temperature. Or this comment "We already know that increased carbon dioxide causes warming, so this means that the warming will be amplified by increased CO2 emission from the oceans." This is simply not correct. We think it should work this way, we have some theoretical reason to believe it should. But, it has rather badly failed the experimental test so far. In addition if your assertion were true this would be a positive feedback loop that is clearly not present in the Earth's paleo record. If the climate really worked this way the Earth would be vastly warmer than it is and would never have had any ice ages because once the CO2 got high, as it has many times in the past, it would cause a warming spiral. The idea that you can "take into account" in models affects that we simply don't understand is absolutely silly. -
BTN at 05:45 AM on 29 February 2008What 1970s science said about global cooling
Your debunking on solar activity has been debunked by hundreds of scientists. http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport Let's agree to disagree and continue the scientific debate: http://www.demanddebate.com/
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