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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 131951 to 132000:

  1. Climate sensitivity is low
    So what method do you propose, GWB?
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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
  5. Cartoon about global warming alarmism
    Ha! Spot on!
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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?
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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).
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    Maybe not Greenland, but it certainly seems the case toward Alaska.
  16. 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.
  17. 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
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. 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:

  23. 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."
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
  26. 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).
  27. 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.
  28. 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
  29. 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 ;-)
  30. 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
  31. La Nina watch: March update
    I hope the cold can hang on a couple more months. Our salmon are going to sea during this time and warm temperatures are bad for those little guys. Being an optimist, I'm going to say this recent return to warmth is an anomalous blip and April will be back to 0.5. Too bad my prediction is worthless. I hope someone has a reason to expect good news.
  32. It's the sun
    John I apologise for my outburst in your blog. I came to this blog in the hope of learning through intelligent discussion as I am about fed up with arogant alarmists that shout you down in the news blogs like CBS or ABC. I also read the papers and articles at Climate Debate Daily which has alarmist articles on the left and skeptical articles on the right. I see outright lies in both columns. But I also see a lot of excellent articles with links to papers. With the exception of one or two individuals, your responders to this blog seem to be both intelligent and educated and to them as well as you I apologise.
    Response: Your comment is appreciated. I always make it a point to address the science and avoid making personal comments about a person I disagree with. Ad hominem attacks are a form of mental laziness. It's always easier to attack a person than the argument they're making. It's also an indication that the arguer is more interested in winning the debate than finding the truth. I encourage both sides to exercise restraint and stick to the science - it makes for more constructive dialogue and you never know, both sides might learn something. :-)
  33. Neptune is warming
    The reported connection between brightenings of Neptune and of the Sun is suspect even from cursory inspection of the vastly different ordinate scales in the Hammel and Lockwood figure you show. The fractional size of the Neptune brightening ( ~ 0.15 mags, or 15%) is roughly ONE THOUSAND times greater than the Sun's brightening ( by ~ 0.02%).I pointed out this huge disparity to Heidi when she first sent me a draft, and it is mentioned as a problem in her paper.This disparity by almost three orders of magnitude overshadows whatever correlation may exist between irradiance or global temperature. Second, I have to comment on your quote from Sami Solanki that our TSI time series, used by Heidi, is erroneous. His basis is that our model overlooks the scale change in spot area measurements after the RGO program closed. The plot you present comparing our model to the one provided to you from MPI begins to show divergence not around 1976 (when RGO spot areas stopped), but only around 1985. Also, the MPI model plotted by Solanki and Fligge ( GRL, 25,341,1998)shows a similar rise of irradiance into the 1990's as our model, even though it uses the "corrected" spot areas preferred by MPI. For both these reasons it is hard to believe that this claimed spot area scale change (which is not widely accepted anyway) is the main reason our model shows solar brightening that disagrees with radiometry. Frankly, it is unclear at this point which to believe - the model or the radiometry. We are, after all, dealing with changes in TSI of a few hundredths of one percent over multi-decadal time scales. This is at the edge of what even optimists believe about the stability of the radiometry.Both radiometry and models have been subject to so much tweaking since 1978 that, as a 35 -yr veteran of this field, I have both a healthy regard and skepticism for both approaches. The lack of recent TSI increase seen in the radiometry happens to be more acceptable at present, but the error bars are still large enough to raise questions. The main argument against TSI driving of recent global warming still comes not from the direction of TSI change, but by its insufficient MAGNITUDE to drive the recently accelerated global temperature increase ( e.g. Foukal et al., Nature, 443, 161, 2006). Peter Foukal
  34. Has solar cycle 24 begun?
    leebert "The solar inertial motion hypothesis" of Dr. Mackey is based on work by the late Rhodes Fairbridge. He published in 2007 around the same time that the weather forcasters were calling for a warm 2007-2008 winter due to AGW. His paper predicts a definate cooling to counter AGW in ssc24 and then colder in ssc25.
  35. Climate change on Mars
    Mars should have, theoretically, a higher sensibility to solar activity as the earth because that planet is red. Since most solar irridiance is in de UV-part of the spectrum which it's not reflected by the Martian surface. The colour 'red' means that it longer wavelengths reflects and short wavelengths absorps.
  36. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    Steve L Sorry but I could not even guess at that. I am a retired engineer with an interest in paleontology and paleoclimatology but I am not a scientist.
  37. ScaredAmoeba at 01:57 AM on 9 April 2008
    There is no consensus
    The updated version of this OISM 'review' was published in that well known organ of climate research - The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (2007). Little wonder that it survived peer review. Apparently the previous 1998 version was later published in Climate Research - A Journal that has had serious problems with its criticised peer-review process, notably under the editorship of Chris de Freitas, under whom numerous editors resigned in protest. I don't know when the 1998 version was published, or whether the Editor was de Freitas. But there seem to have been some pretty suspect papers published in CR.
  38. ScaredAmoeba at 01:02 AM on 9 April 2008
    There is no consensus
    Re 23 Wondering Aloud 'Not all that glisters is gold' And The Oregon Petition of Science and Medicine 'Petition Project' Review, now updated with a change in authors was neither peer-reviewed (despite explicit claims)), nor science - it was deceptive pseudo-science, deliberately formatted to appear as if it were a NAS publication (and therefore peer-reviewed). For an excellent insight into the Oregon Petition Document, see: http://tinyurl.com/nt38z This is from a Professor who frankly admits that he was nearly fooled by it. Enough people were fooled that the National Academy was inundated with calls asking if it was their new position and had to issue a news release. Quote ''The Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is concerned about the confusion cause by a petition being circulated via a letter from a former president of this Academy. This petition criticizes the science underlying the Kyoto treaty on carbon dioxide emissions (the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change), and it asks scientists to recommend rejection of this treaty by the U.S. Senate. The petition was mailed with an op-ed article from The Wall Street Journal and a manuscript in a format that is nearly identical to that of scientific articles published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal. The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy.'' End quote http://tinyurl.com/38nqdj Note: Seitz, Baliunas & Soon are all associated with the ExxonMobil funded George C Marshall Institute! Seitz was a solid-state Physicist. Baliunas & Soon are Astrophysicists. Arthur Robinson and his son Zachary are Chemists. Note that none of the authors of this purportedly climatological paper are climatologists!
  39. ScaredAmoeba at 18:51 PM on 8 April 2008
    CO2 lags temperature

    Quietman, Another thought: Those graphs in my previous post show a rapid upward acceleration of CO2 in recent decades, one that matches the accelerated warming. If what you suggest were true: namely that Earth is [your hypothesis] 'returning' to 'normal', then one would expect an ever decreasing asymptotic approach. Instead, what is seen in the second graph is a rapid departure upwards from the upper bound historic values - the exact reverse of what is expected. Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr_Rev_png Oops! your theory is shot full of holes!

  40. ScaredAmoeba at 18:38 PM on 8 April 2008
    CO2 lags temperature

    Quietman 'How do we know that the planet isn't returning to Earth Normal or Earth Mean temperature?' Are you seriously proposing a new theory - that the Earth has a memory? Do you have a mechanism? Or a 'setting' to which this 'memory' is adjusted? Is there any peer-reviewed literature as a source? CO2 clearly cannot be meaningless, it has long been known to be infra-red active and remains resident in the atmosphere for a long time, from memory ~33% remains after one hundred years and 20% after a thousand years, but there is a long tail meaning that some will remain for tens of thousands of years, causing significant warming. Inevitably, this alone will affect the net heat balance of the Earth. Of course CO2 is NOT the only GHG and as temperature increases, so does the water vapour, which acts as a positive feedback amplification. But while water vapour is a stronger GHG than CO2, it does not remain in the atmosphere for long. The source of the excess CO2 is explained by the shifting isotopic ratio of the atmospheric carbon. From this it is known to originate from non-biological sources - i.e. fossil carbon: coal, oil & gas. Regarding CO2, the Mauna Loa CO2 readings overlap ice core data during the period 1959-1978. The CO2 readings obtained match perfectly during the overlap. AFAIK, the oldest ice cores are ~ 1000 ky old. Here's one with the source data and references - so that YOU can check its authenticity! Image:Carbon_History_and_Flux_Rev_png and Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr_Rev_png Sorry, but I couldn't locate a version in the p/r literature. I've seen them before, it's just that I couldn't find any. We are clearly performing a global experiment and no-one can be absolutely certain as to the precise outcome, but if it does all go dreadfully wrong, the trouble is that we are INSIDE the test-tube! It would therefore be a really good idea to heed the scientists and stop trying to light the Bunsen burner! Let's cut-back on the use of fossil-fuels, through improved technology, energy conservation & efficiency and renewable energy generation. The economic argument that carbon taxes will damage the US economy is bogus. “As Congress prepares to debate new legislation to address the threat of climate change, opponents claim that the costs of adopting the leading proposals would be ruinous to the U.S. economy. The world’s leading economists who have studied the issue say that’s wrong” http://www.cis.yale.edu/opa/newsr/08-03-19-02.all.html We owe it to the next generation and generations to come to hand over the Earth in the same condition as it was when we received it. Sadly, this will not be the case.

    Response:

    Note - globalwarmingart.com usually cites his sources if you want to track down the original studies where he get the data from.

  41. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    Hi John, thanks for responding to my question in comment #2. But that error bar, I suspect, is calculated from the variance in the estimate. An estimate that is systemically biased can have high precision (tight error bars) and low accuracy. I don't know enough about how the ice melt is measured or calculated to evaluate whether or not the estimate could be missing something. Quietman (comment #4) -- there are also inputs from comets that presumably aren't constant but these should be pretty small, right? How about if the atmosphere carries a lot of water vapour and then dumps it when it gets a bit chillier. How much water could that be? Sorry to pursue questions I've already guessed are silly, but as part of getting into the mystery one has to eliminate the pool boy and the gardener before focusing just on the obvious maid and butler.
  42. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    Steve L The system is not closed. Atmospheric gases are constantly lost to space, the rate depends on the speed of the solar wind which is not a constant (another sore point for me).
  43. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    Satellite measurements of sea level should not be affected if they use the equatorial sat. tracking stations to maintain cal. as they are located on coral atolls and islands and not subject to glacial rebound. The best data I found was from "Equatorial Atmospheric and Ionospheric Modeling at Kwajalein Missile Range" by Stephen M. Hunt, Sigrid Close, Anthea J. Coster, Eric Stevens, Linda M. Schuett, and Anthony Vardaro (PDF).
    Response: Added a link to the PDF for you.
  44. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    I wonder if people really know what's going on in the ocean depths. I mean, there was a recent paper (LeQuere et al) stating that the deep ocean was saturated and releasing CO2, but that didn't really make sense (to me) either. They say there's increased winds and turnover in the Southern Ocean so that suggests (?) that there are meaningful interactions with the depths on short time scales. But okay, let's accept that the answer isn't in the deep -- here are two silly questions: 1) You say that a much greater contribution from melting ice has not been observed, but what level of confidence is there in the ice melt estimates? 2) What quantities of water are involved in changes to water vapour or additions from space or something (how closed is this system)?
    Response: To answer question 1, the graphs displayed above show the error bars for the various components of sea level rise. The discrepancy is well outside the error bars.
  45. Determining the long term solar trend
    Yes, I noticed that only the links that you post work, the ones from comments only work with cut and paste. There are some other sites like that also, I don't know why it is except possibly the O/S running on the server. Whiles links made in unix will always work with MS software, I find that MS created links often do not work on unix servers. That was why we used unix for our websites (before I retired I was involved in building a support network by editing and converting technical manuals). But thats why I include title and date, and author when available. BTW I have some cantidates for your weekly contest that I enjoyed reading: http://www.time.com/time/magazine... The Clean Energy Scam TIME/CNN http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs... New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears Posted By Marc Morano – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov August 20, 2007 http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm... U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 Senate Report Debunks "Consensus" Report Released on December 20, 2007 U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (Minority) http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/volcano... Volcano, Not Global Warming Effects, May be Melting an Antarctic Glacier January 21, 2008 http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=828 Mar. 20, 2008 By Roy W. Spencer The Sloppy Science of Global Warming Roy W. Spencer is a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. His book, Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor, will be published this month. http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/Phoenix_UrbanHeat.htm This document provides an examination of the urban heat effect in Phoenix Arizona.
    Response: My links are hyperlinks only because I'm using HTML - feel free to use HTML in your comments. In fact, please do so the long URLs don't wreak havoc with my web design. Eg - <a href="http://www.website.com/">Title of Link</a>

    But please keep the links on topic.
  46. The Mystery of the Vanishing Ocean Heat
    I notice that there is no mention of continental rebound as glacial weight continues to be removed. This has an effect on sea level measurement as it changes the reference points (increased altitude under the receded glaciers, reduced altitude nearer the equator. Also displacement from growing seamounts and ridges from vulcanism. Are these factored in or just considered miniscule?
    Response: I'm not sure if that would effect satellite measurements of sea level - it would have more effect on tidal gauge readings. Willis 2008 does mention a slight trend of sea level rise due to glacial isostatic adjustment changing the volume and shape of the ocean basins but has little mention of glacial rebound (just a reference to a glacial rebound signal in the Grace data). There's probably a mention of how it's factored into the data at sealevel.colorado.edu - you're very welcome to investigate and report back to us :-)
  47. stevecarsonr at 16:02 PM on 5 April 2008
    Models are unreliable
    I'll also raise the question whether anyone really believes this extract (from above) which appears to be a basic premise for the page: "This betrays a misunderstanding of the difference between weather, which is chaotic and unpredictable and climate which is weather averaged out over time. While you can't predict with certainty whether a coin will land heads or tails, you can predict the statistical results of a large number of coin tosses. Or expressing that in weather terms, you can't predict the exact route a storm will take but the average temperature and precipitation will result the same for the region over a period of time." It's a false analogy. Random *independent" events provide statistical certainty over a period of time. The climate does not fit this description. Can anyone provide some evidence -peer reviewed citations - that long range climate forecasting is more accurate than weather forecasting? I know the IPCC claimed it in their report but they didn't backup the claim.
    Response: That's the problem with using analogies - the comparison always breaks down at some point when you compare it directly. The main point is the contrast between short term, random unpredictability and long term, statistical summations. While weather is chaotic and non-linear, long term climate trends are discernable and predictable. As is seen in these peer reviewed studies analysing the success of climate forecasts.
  48. stevecarsonr at 15:54 PM on 5 April 2008
    Models are unreliable
    I thought this comment was interesting and relevant. It is taken from the US Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works - http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report Physicist Dr. Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal Society of London. Dyson called himself a "heretic" on global warming. "Concerning the climate models, I know enough of the details to be sure that they are unreliable. They are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe that the same fudge factors would give the right behavior in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere.," Dyson said in an April 10, 2007 interview. Dyson is also a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal Society of London.
  49. Wondering Aloud at 08:01 AM on 5 April 2008
    Global cooling: the new kid on the block
    Well googling your suggestion which is not the way I would normally look things up... I find your number right away. I have an old Oklahoma Farm Bureau article here that has 1971 for peak. The OFB is supposedly world wide use. I wonder why they did that. I wonder if it's right? A number of other things in the article checked out. 1959 Still doesn't fit very well with eagle populations reaching their bottom in 1949 though? On the first page of the links that came up in the search is an Jounal of American Physicians and Surgeons article that is less complimentary of the ban than I am. This is classic internet, I get easier access to information and less certainty of it's accuracy. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 9 Number 3 Fall 2004
  50. Philippe Chantreau at 05:10 AM on 5 April 2008
    Global cooling: the new kid on the block
    Actually, I really don't have that much time. It took me less than 10 minutes on Google to find the studies I linked, including the blurb pointing to the Miller study (the best one, it's got the pathophysiology). EPA places DDT peak use in the US in 1959 with 80 million pounds. 1971 saw the application of 13 million pounds. See this press release: http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/ddt/01.htm Took me less than minute to find this one by googling "DDT peak use." "I suspect that if you do dig into it you will find the answer is a resounding no." But you don't know, really. Until you do, you should abstain from claiming it as if it was a fact. And look up that Wikipedia article, it is quite informative and does not point to anything resounding, yes or no. Good ol' reality is never as spectacular as we'd like and keeps on not declaring any camp a true winner.

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