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Comments 132151 to 132200:

132151. Quietman at 06:31 AM on 4 April 2008
        Comparing IPCC projections to observations
        frankbi Your sarcasm simply makes you sound like one of those fanatical short sighted environmentalists from california. Instead why don't you come up with a real solution or at least a way to determine the actual cause of AGW instead of knocking anyone who is actually trying to determine the truth.
132152. Wondering Aloud at 02:23 AM on 4 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        The other stuff will take me some time. The US is not the only place with good environmental regulations, I am sure some places do a better job. Some clarifications: Stopping acid rain to a large extent did not require an end to internal combustion engine transportation, or the de-industrialization of the world; which were the proposed solutions of the panic spreaders at the time. On the Golf of Mexico. The US refuses to develope it therefore China does... The Chinese company will not have to meet the stringent environmental requirements of a US company and will not be forced to clean up any mess they make, which a US company would be. Therfore we get reduced benefit coupled with increased risk of harm to the environment. This is the general pattern in a lot of industries, if we force the industries into places where environmental concerns are ignored the net effect to the environmment is much worse. A factory in the US has strict emission requirements, a factory in Shaghai probably doesn't. So what happens is we give a competitive advantage to the country that does the worst job on the environment. Rather than regulation we have created a system that indirectly prohibits the building of cleaner facilities in the US in favor of dirtier ones abroad. Not fixing the pollution problem but only shifting it out of our control. The net effect is a dirtier planet for everyone. You will notice I did not say there is anything wrong with US standards being high. But if they cause the facilities to be built elsewhere it defeats much of the purpose. I don't se an easy or even a good answer to this problem. On the harm of the ban, the ban of DDT did not stop or even reduce pesticide use. In fact it greatly increased the size and profit margins throughout the market. Which replacement for DDT could anyone argue in favor of? Which replacement was not much worse? Paration? Malthion? tetra-arsino-lead? The ban did make effective control of insect spread disease much more difficult and expensive. I think we are talking past each other a little here, I am much more focused on relative harm, the idea of any perfect solution is unrealistic to me and I think panic mongering tends to enable really bad policy decisions. I don't understand your one comment It seems you are saying that India building more dangerous and polluting chemical plants is good? Did you misread my point there? It isn't a good thing it is an unintended consequence of a bad policy decision.
132153. Quietman at 16:49 PM on 3 April 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1981... no, wait! 1991!
        Harold Pierce Jr Interesting link but why do they think that water vapor is not to be included in man made gases? The INTENTIONAL output from cars and LDTs is Water Vapor and CO2 instead on HC, CO and NOx. We have been converting these gases since the early 1970's by installing emission controls that reduce fuel economy in favor of "cleaner air".
132154. frankbi at 15:09 PM on 3 April 2008
        Comparing IPCC projections to observations
        Oh great, it's Al Gore again. Just imagine, someone sees a post on a paper by Rahmstorf et al., and he starts thinking about how to bash Al Gore. Cleraly a case of Gore Derangement Syndrome.
132155. Harold Pierce Jr at 12:14 PM on 3 April 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1981... no, wait! 1991!
        Hello John! GO: http://www.John-Daly.com. scroll down, click on "Station Temperature Data" and find the charts for Death Valley and Alice Springs. These temperature-time plots show no evidence for any global warming at these sites as well as most of the rural (i.e., remote) sites. Note the Alice Springs plot which starts about 1880. Go read "What the Station Say..." to learn about the late John Daly's criteria for selecting these particular stations. He is not cherry picking these stations. Note the distibution of these remote stations. Most temperature data in the GISTEMP data base from or near urban areas has been adjusted for bias due to UHI effects. Rural station data is used to determine the adjustment algorithims. You can find a discussion about the slicing, dicing and homogenization (SDH)of these temperature data records over at Steve Mc's blog. GO: http://www.climateaudit.org. John Daly's solution to the SDH of data from urban areas or any comprised site is not use it. I used the GISTEMP data to extend the annual mean temperature-time plot for Death Valley to 2007. The extention continues the flat line trend of the plot. Here is a link to "Global Warming: A Closer Look at the Numbers. GO: www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html Monte Hieb is a mine safety engineer and works for the WV Dept of Mines. There is no conclusive evidence that the current warm years (i.e., 1975-2005) are the result of any CO2-induced "global warming".
132156. Philippe Chantreau at 03:45 AM on 3 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        Well then, you must have plenty to say about these links, especially the Ames 1966 and the Van Veltzen et al 1972 studies. I'm especially curious to hear about the Miller et al 2001 study, which I found quite interesting and has the advantage of underlying the enzymatic processes by which shell thinning occurs. Also, it would be nice to provide links or references to scientic work substantiating this assertion: "It just happens that issue really bugs me because the ban did so much more harm both to humans and to the environment than DDT ever could." It's vague and very wide, you need to give more (scientific) info on that. It's not because acid rain was not a catastrophy that it should not have been stopped. What exactly are the reasons to tolerate swaths of forest and land bleached by acid rain? That nobody got killed on the spot? The convenience for the industry causing it? I dont' think so. "The DDT ban was one of the motivating pieces in the rapid development and growth of the chemical industry in India. Did they build facilities that would have passed environmental muster in the US?" No, but why exactly is that a good thing? I agree on the nuclear idea and the "biofuel Garbage" notion, except that not all biofuels are garbage. Some could be promising, depending on the source, but the corn lobby has hijacked the all thing and corn is just about the worst source for biofuel. Your reasoning about the Golf of Mexico makes no sense. You are saying that because we don't do something bad, others are doing it. They would do it anyway, the US not drilling it is not the cause of their drilling. And then you say that because they do it, we should do it too. And my Shanghai story does not bring that point up at all, I don't see how you make that jump. Plus, you keep attributing to me views that are not mine. In my opinion, the G of M is a place where drilling might not necessarily be that harmful, provided it is properly monitored and everyone is accountable for their actions. Then you go on to say that the US has improved air quality, which is entirely true (albeit unrelated) and that was actually the point of my Shanghai story. The US has improved air quality because of the Clean Air Act. If you don't want to live in a place like Shanghai, you need regulations like the CAA. In fact, equally strict or stricter regulations should be in effect worldwide. I'd add that it's not because the rest of the world has weak standards (which, by the way, is not the case everywhere, China and India are obviously problematic and as such, bad examples) that we should have weak ones too. Do you stop living a principled life if you notice that your neighbor is a rake?
132157. Wondering Aloud at 23:55 PM on 2 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        Yes Phillippe, I actually did check with some Biology people some including one well known one hung on to the idea a lot longer but basically surrendered on it after a few more trials. It just happens that issue really bugs me because the ban did so much more harm both to humans and to the environment than DDT ever could. At the time I searched every professional publication on the subject and kept finding out the skeptics had the data right. So, assuming I was totally wrong I actually began tracking Rachel Carsons references, looking the people up calling or writting to them... lets not go there. I don't doubt the reality of acid rain, I do doubt that it was a catastrophy and I am mighty disgusted with the wide scale condemnation of US power generation and manufacturing at the time for Canada having a problem that was at least 99% self inflicted. Thanks anyway for being understanding, as I said we are all vulnerable where our prejudices are concerned and I've built a dandy on that issue. Your Shanghai story brings up a further point though, consequences of foolish environmental decisions. We in the US refuse to drill in much in fact most of the available areas because of supposed environmental concerns. This doesn't stop the rest of the world from doing so with much looser contrals than we have. A classic case in point is the current plans of China to drill in the golf of Mexico. We feel it's "too ecologically sensitive" so instead the Chinese will drill there with Cuban basing and look how much they care for the environment. The DDT ban was one of the motivating pieces in the rapid development and growth of the chemical industry in India. Did they build facilities that would have passed environmental muster in the US? The US has had improving air quality for more than a generation now, but still the first thing I would suggest is replace all coal burning electric power plants with nuclear. If any interest group that was pushing the AGW agenda would adopt that idea I would not only support it, I'd be a lot more ready to believe they believed in AGW. As it is I don't think they do. Instead we get bio fuels garbage that at best only rasies food prices and likely makes things worse.
132158. Philippe Chantreau at 10:33 AM on 2 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        When I said BTN, I meant GMB (they need more variety in scrren names really).
132159. Philippe Chantreau at 03:31 AM on 2 April 2008
        There is no consensus
        "The perhaps painful truth is CO2 has not been a major cause of climate change in the past" 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. If you try to go farther in time, there is too much uncertainty to do informative comparisons. There is nothing to prove that a massive injection of CO2 in an otherwise stable climate can not have serious consequences. And, by the way, spare me the exaggerations that have nothing to do with what the research actually shows and suggest is possible. I do not pay more attention to exaggerated claims from advocay groups, whether they're from one side of the spectrum or the other. And I also maintain that, if you are a true skeptic with physics background, you should be screaming bloody murder to the flat-earthers like Gerlich. If not, then you're applying a double standard far worse than anything you claim is practiced in the scientific peer-reviewed litterature.
132160. Philippe Chantreau at 03:15 AM on 2 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        You don't have to apologize for your tone. There is nothing wrong with being opinionated, so long as you can still communicate, and your tone is a model of courtesy compared to freaks like BTN. To get back to the topic of skepticism, one question. When you discovered that the DDT was a joke in the chemistry department of your University, did you check in the biology department? About acid rain and China, I was serious. An airline pilot friend of mine was recently in Shanghai, where He was lodged in a tall hotel with exterior elevators. On a "good" weather day (i.e. no clouds, rain, fog to obstruct visibility) he lost sight of the ground completely at the 16th floor. That's essentially man made weather. They have to shoot instrument approaches there all the time, even in weather that would be VFR anywhere else in the world. So I repeat my question, would you like to live in a place like that? If not, how do you avoid the place where you live to become like that?
132161. Philippe Chantreau at 10:52 AM on 1 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        Doesn't exist? At all? http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-08/998063731.En.r.html http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8901(196606)3%3C87%3ADRITEO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8901(197512)12%3A3%3C781%3ADEITAK%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/172/3986/955 http://www.springerlink.com/content/d213435j6t82v118/ This one might be the most interesting found in that brief search: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-541X(197207)36%3A3%3C733%3ALMODBC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 Birds might do fine even on high doses, so long as they don't have to mobilize the stored substance. If they do, then the concentration in sensitive tissues (which fat is not, being a storage deposit) skyrockets and soon kills them. It's not only about chemistry, it's also about physiology and environemental dynamics. As for everything happening in Nature, complexity comes in to play. It's easy to show a population of healthy birds fed large amounts of a toxic. All you have to do is make sure they have plenty to eat. The toxic stays in storage tissues. What happens in the real world is another story. This is just a few minutes of surfing. Note that I did not say that it should have been banned either. As for lead paint, sorry but this is what kids do. They put stuff in their mouths. Small chips will be swallowed. Inevitably. Other countries banned the nonsensical lead paint for toys and other children accessories as early as the first half of th 20th century. Interior paints soon followed. http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Lead-Industry-Public-Health.htm http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/298/5594/732
132162. Wondering Aloud at 07:34 AM on 1 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        On asbestos... amphibole or crysotile? Most asbestos actually used in buildings was made much more dangerous by the process of removing it. We wound up with a panic that caused far more problems with the fix than was present unfixed. Sorry for my immoderate tone there phillippe it isn't your fault. But when ones youthful idealism is squashed he tends to remember it. Especially when the entire chemistry department in a major university system considers the issue an open joke.
132163. leebert at 07:14 AM on 1 April 2008
        Has solar cycle 24 begun?
        Quietman: The current rate of the sun's conveyors has slowed to a crawl which predicts sunspot activity 20 years from now: http://www.physorg.com/news66581392.html "...For more than a century ... the speed of the belt has been a good predictor of future solar activity... [ 2022 could be ] off the bottom of the charts." The shift to SC 24 might be slower than normal because the sun's internal conveyor mechanism appears to be running at 3/4 speed. Another thing to consider is the strong positive correlation of decreased solar luminance & far colder continental temperatures (hence this harsh past winter). Hansen authored a paper in 2001(?) predicting slowed continent-warming westerlies during periods of lower solar luminance / sun spot activity. When solar heating drops by 1 degree C over the oceans, continental winters become markedly more severe. I remember it took some coaxing a couple of years back to convince IPCC modelers to revise their predictions to account for our current solar minimum. We'll know by 2015 what SC 25 has in store for us. /leebert
132164. leebert at 06:41 AM on 1 April 2008
        Empirical evidence for positive feedback
        Hi John, It's generally agreed that 1° increase would occur from a doubling of CO2 alone. What most of the best skeptic arguments hinge on is questioning how much additional forcing is caused through feedbacks? If CO2 ppm are 3/4's of the way to doubling and we haven't experienced a 2.5° - 3.0° temperature increase then it invites the question as to whether these projected feedback loops are as intense as modeled or perhaps there are counterveiling phenomena. Likewise skeptics cite the differential between temperature anomalies in the Northern vs. Southern hemispheres and the closer correlation with aerosols. Since August 2007 V. Ramanathan has authored papers citing mid-to-upper tropospheric soot as having: - 50% role in heating over the Indian ocean, half of what's ascribed to CO2 - 40% role in atmospheric heating globally Ramanathan is quite blunt in stating that this was contrary to the conventional wisdom that soot's heating effect was counterbalanced by other aerosols as well as its own shading effects. Wouldn't that impact the role of CO2 in general climate models? Others have likewise has found soot-fall to be particularly pernicious on the ground, with soot causing up to 90% of the Arctic melt-off, industrial soot having an 8x more powerful warming effect on snow and ice than that from wood fuels. Significantly, Hansen cites 25% of centennial global warming being due to the general Arctic melt-off. None of these statements seek to exculpate CO2, but it draws into question the margin of warming that CO2 is in fact responsible for. Surely Ramanathan's and Hansen's findings are reputable and yet they seem to me to weaken the brief for dangerous CO2-driven global warming. Best regards, /leebert
132165. leebert at 06:19 AM on 1 April 2008
        Empirical evidence for positive feedback
        Hi John, It's generally agreed that 1° increase would occur from a doubling of CO2 alone. What most of the best skeptic arguments hinge on is questioning how much additional forcing is caused through feedbacks? If CO2 ppm are 3/4's of the way to doubling and we haven't experienced a 2.5° - 3.0° temperature increase then it invites the question as to whether these projected feedback loops are as intense as modeled or perhaps there are counterveiling phenomena. Likewise skeptics cite the differential between temperature anomalies in the Northern vs. Southern hemispheres and the closer correlation with aerosols. Since August 2007 V. Ramanathan has authored papers citing mid-to-upper tropospheric soot as having: - 50% role in heating over the Indian ocean, half of what's ascribed to CO2 - 40% role in atmospheric heating globally Ramanathan is quite blunt in stating that this was contrary to the conventional wisdom that soot's heating effect was counterbalanced by other aerosols as well as its own shading effects. Wouldn't that impact the role of CO2 in general climate models? Others have likewise has found soot-fall to be particularly pernicious on the ground, with soot causing up to 90% of the Arctic melt-off, industrial soot having an 8x more powerful warming effect on snow and ice than that from wood fuels. Significantly, Hansen cites 25% of centennial global warming being due to the general Arctic melt-off. None of these statements seek to exculpate CO2, but it draws into question the margin of warming that CO2 is in fact responsible for. Surely Ramanathan's and Hansen's findings are reputable and yet they seem to me to weaken the brief for dangerous CO2-driven global warming. Best regards, /leebert
132166. leebert at 05:53 AM on 1 April 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1981... no, wait! 1991!
        Hi John, What trend line do we get if we remove the "noise" that originates from varying solar irradiance? Can't the solar wattage differentials can be factored out to show the actual GHG forcings, both with and without feedbacks? I think that'd be far more informative than trying to glean out the solar noise from the general climate noise. Any difference would represent GHG forcings, not solar. Best regards, /lee
        Response: You don't ask much, do you?! As the long term solar trend has been one of slight cooling over the last 30 years, if you took out solar influence, if anything the global warming trend would be slightly higher.
132167. leebert at 05:45 AM on 1 April 2008
        Determining the long term solar trend
        What about solar cycle #25? The current rate of the sun's conveyors has slowed to a crawl which predicts sunspot activity 20 years from now: http://www.physorg.com/news66581392.html "...For more than a century, "the speed of the belt has been a good predictor of future solar activity... [ 2022 could be ] "...off the bottom of the charts."
132168. Wondering Aloud at 04:07 AM on 1 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        Version? Go ahead and find research that shows that DDT harmed Raptor birds. I can save you time it doesn't exist. Audobon and hawk mountain bird counts clearly showed increased populations at the height of DDT use. Something I experienced first hand. The bird egg thing had already been disproven 30 years ago. Tests with real birds at even wildlly elevated levels ranged from inconclusive to downright favorable. Long term persistence in the environment was exaggerated. In fact the test they were using to detect it at the time required that it break down readily in the environment. I went to a professional conference 25 years ago where this precise issue was used as an example of bad scientific ethics. Not to be argued? You are aware of the huge residue levels of DDT found in elephants? Yes Siberian elephants found in permafrost and the resulting discovery that the supposed marker for DDT building up in living tissue was in fact not a marker for DDT at all. Then you hit me with that old saw about the manufacturers wanting to sell too much when in fact since it was long out of patent and they made the patented replacements they were quiet supporters of the ban. It was used foolishly and broadly and had an effect of messing up local food chains from misuse; but you'll have a tough time finding a replacement that wasn't worse on every particular. Or perhaps a quote from Ruckelshaus at the time of the ban "We admit there is no scientific evidence to support the ban of DDT never the less we are banning it." Sorry, I tried very hard my first year in grad school environmental chemistry to try to prove the DDT issue wasn't a politically motivated fraud, I failed completely. It is the only project in hundreds of grad hours I never managed to complete, and the professors involved admitted at the end that they couldn't do it either. It is probably why I switched to surface chemistry and later into physics. The one "Real" and "not to be argued" thing in the DDT issue is the bodies of the innocent children who have died as a result of the ban. On acid rain, being "real" doesn't make it a crisis, which I suspect you well know. As in Canada blaming emissions from Sudbury on Gary Indiana. The perpose of that scare was to reduce fossil fuel use. When it faded in the mid to late 1980s it was replaced by another scare. As I recall the lead paint thing was basically "they'd have to actually eat the paint for it to be a problem." Which is exactly the issue. Which part of NASA is such a good source? or NOAA for that matter as there are public figures on both extremes in both agencies. Several of AGW's best known skeptics are NASA scientists or retired NASA scientists.
132169. Philippe Chantreau at 03:17 AM on 1 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        Your take on DDT comes from propaganda. The manufacturers of DDT ruined themselves. They pushed public health managers for insane amounts of the product to be used so that they would sell more of it. As a result, insane amounts of the stuff accumulated in the environment and affected numerous species. This last point is not to be argued, it has been well documented in multiple studies. N.G is not telling lies about this. You'd die too, if exposed to the appropriate dose of the chemical. This would never have happened if the greedy idiots doing a business of selling DDT had not tried to make more money out of it than what the real need called for. When the backlash happened, they tried to get back to reason by showing that, at the proper doses, the product was safe. It's too bad they could not bring themselves to sell only what was necessary for proper dosage in the first place. Before regurgitating propaganda, why don't you look at how much DDT was used per square meter of beach for instance, vs. what was necessary to achieve the desired result. DDT did kill birds because it ended up in the doses needed to kill birds' eggs, instead of the much lower doses needed to kill mosquito eggs and larvae. Of course, once something is legislated, it's hard to track back. The DDT backlash was not created by environmentalists but by businessmen. Since we're talking about lies, why don't we examine the lies of the lead industry about the neurological effects of lead containing paints on children. Or we could also examine the lies of the tobacco industry. There are plenty of lies to go around, really. Acid rain is real, I've seen the effects of it. Take a trip to China, yuo'll see plenty for yourself. While you're there, reflect on how you would like to live in such a place. The new ice age is media created bunk. Asbestos does cause lung disease, I have not met a pulmonologist who'd deny that. It's easy to see where your list comes from. For each and any of those items, how closely have you looked at the "alternate" side of the story that you were presented? "Being a skeptic is usually what science is all about." This claim is often heard, along with the suggestion that all the climate scientists doing research full time are not exercising the proper amount of skepticism. What's funny is that most of the time, that half veiled accusation comes from people who are not scientists and would be hard pressed to distinguish between what warrants great skepticism and what's more likely to be truly interesting. Quietman's recent interest in the miserable Gerlich "paper" is a case in point. I'm not going to cut skeptics any slack if they are not aware of the all story and rely on sources that are worthless. GRL is a good source. Energy and Environment is not. Heartland is a miserable source. NOAA and NASA are good ones. There are objective criteria for this. If you decide to ignore them, your skepticism is nothing more than well dressed bias. Skepticism cuts both ways. How much skepticism did you direct toward the version of the DDT story that you were told?
132170. Wondering Aloud at 02:07 AM on 1 April 2008
        There is no consensus
        paledriver, Read from the 3rd paragraph on of my post 16. That was my point. I do indeed think it is clear that the public is being duped. I think it is deliberate and I think the AGW alarmists are the ones doing it. The "many fake signatures" is both clearly incorrect and irrelevent. By your own references over 90% were verified. Phillippe I don't agree with your way of stating the consensus though It isn't far enough off to argue. On your double standard point though, Phillippe, that is exactly the contention I have been making from the other side of the issue for a long time so it is kind of funny. The correct hypothesis has to defeat all the others. It has to pass the experimental test and make predictions that other hypothesis don't. Being experimentally supported is the beginning of this; that isn't enough to prove it, but at this point we haven't even got that. Being only not much worse than the other explanations is not enough. Holding the accepted theory to the highest standard is what a scientist is supposed to do. It only takes one thing to prove it wrong. The perhaps painful truth is CO2 has not been a major cause of climate change in the past, despite levels many times the current level. In order to believe it is about to cause huge consequences today when it never did in the past you need some pretty convincing proof or some new physical reality. John I am pretty impressed with how current you keep your articles references.
132171. Neu at 01:27 AM on 1 April 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1981... no, wait! 1991!
        John, Nice post. I have also looked at the influence of solar cycle on global temperature. However, although the correlation after 1960 looks quite impressive, it diminishes when going further back. You find also oscillations in the order of about 10 years, however, the correlation to the solar cycle is rather negative. This is hard to explain by data uncertainty (global temperature since 1870 is not too bad and the sunspot data is not either). And if you look a little bit closer to solar and temp cycle over the last decades there is a phase shift changing the sign over that period. So I am sceptical, if this quasi-10y-oscillation seen in global temperature really is a response to the solar cycle. It might also be an internal resonance frequency of the climate system and the correlation over some decades is accidental. Looking at longer time series, this seems more probable. In this case, the geographical patterns shown by Camp and Tung might just represent the difference between warm and cold years of this internal oscillation (like it exists e.g. for ENSO). However, be it a response to the solar cycle or an internal oscillation, we can expect that we are at the minimum now and there will be a rise over the next years; subject to the reservation that the oscillation has only been rather regular over a few decades, but not before...). Urs Neu
        Response: Interesting analysis. Camp's study does only go as far back as 1960. There are other studies that find a similar solar signal (although not as much as Camp, they seem to find a 0.1C solar signal in global temperatures). Will track down some of these studies, see how far back they go.
132172. John Cross at 00:59 AM on 1 April 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1981... no, wait! 1991!
        John: I think this is a really interesting post. I will have to think about it over a while. But I think the key thing is that this is to be expected yet all we hear about is warming stopped in 98, no wait, 2001, no it's really 2002, etc. Thanks again for Skeptical Science. John Cross
132173. Wondering Aloud at 00:29 AM on 1 April 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        Actually I think the graph in 28 was done by John Cook. It is a derived graph of a "corrected" value rather than a raw data graph and as a result tends to magnify trends, if any, near the end of the time line. It is very easy in that case to get suckered into seeing trends even if they aren't there. I don't have any idea what the time lag for any of this stuff is. I am trying to suggest that the instant response idea is wrong and unlikely because of the heat capacity of the system. There are a lot more than one or two interactiong variables here and how much of a factor the ocean plays and how long it takes to respond to a change are big factors. For example the 1890s increase could play a roll in the 1930s being warming. The correlation isn't that great. It just happens to be a bit better than CO2 temp one or the TSI temp one. I am just playing with the numbers, it seems obvious to me that simple answers to complicated questions are usually wrong. Which is why current cooling does not disprove AGW, however the warming of the late 20th century doesn't prove it either. Being a skeptic is usually what science is all about. Just because I posed another unllikely hypothesis doesn't meen I suddenly believe it's right. The way science works is the correct hypothesis has to take on and defeat all competing hypothesis. If it ever fails it's done. What you may not see is that people cut the CO2-warming idea a lot of slack, as you say, while holding all other ideas to tight scrutiny. Perhaps you are also dealing with people who have been around for the last 50 or more years and have been bitten by the distortion, dishonesty and alarmism that has been characteristic of every big environmental crusade I can think of. This has in the past led to policy that is in fact harmful to the environment. If you want a dandy example take a look at the story of DDT. Every thing used to replace it was more environmentally harmful more expensive less effective. Here we are 35 years since the ban, National Geographic still telling us it was killing the eagles, all long ago disproven and millions still paying for the lie with their lives. Or would you like to think about acid rain, logging, the new ice age, nuclear power dangers, alar, asbestos or how about compact florescent bulbs ?... the list goes on and on. Here is my question on this rant, how many times does it take for the same people to lie to you before being a skeptic becomes your knee jerk reaction? Maybe you should cut the skeptics a little slack, they are doing their job. The fact that anyone is even willing to listen to claims of global warming, or any impending environmental disaster, is a miracle. We better not be wrong this time, especially not for inciting another overblown panic, or we may never regain the influence to get anyone to believe us if we have a real warning.
132174. Philippe Chantreau at 15:56 PM on 29 March 2008
        There is no consensus
        WA: "The claim that there is some vast number of scientists that constitute a consensus and that agree with catastrophic warming is not only not science it isn't even correct." Here is a strawman so big, it's more akin to the Chinese straw dogs. Let's merrily burn it. Indeed, it's not correct at all. The SCIENTIFIC consensus is that there is warming, happening quite fast, and that the massive CO2 release from the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to it. That is the real consensus.
132175. Philippe Chantreau at 15:41 PM on 29 March 2008
        There is no consensus
        WA, I don't understand why you would even pay attention to the "my list is bigger than yours" type of attitude, which is obviously utter nonsense. Why are you trying to defend that so-called "petition project?" What does that have to do with science and evidence? Disputing that there is a consensus among climate scientists is downright futile. All sources of information arguing that point are non scientific (Heartland, Cato, Inhofe's office, CO2 science and all that crap). Real scientific organizations (AAAS, AGU, etc) endorse the AGW hypothesis, which is by itself an interesting fact. I find it really funny that "skeptics" both dispute the existence of a consensus and also argue that consensus is meaningless anyway, as Quietman does with a mightily inappropriate comparison. As for Quietman post about Gerlich's pathetic load of dung, Rabett Run has more on that than anyone really needs to know. And to answer his question, there is no doubt about the radiative properties of CO2 and the reality of the GH effect. It can be precisely measured in the lab, and if there was no GH effect, this planet would be an ice covered rock. The Gerlich paper is also funny in the sense that it denies the very existence of a GH effect at all but, later, the authors questioned about Venus go on explaining Venus' temps by GH effect from other sources than CO2. It's perfectly grotesque, a fine example of the worst BS that denialism can produce. The quality of skepticism here is on the way down if that's the kind of stuff we're going to talk about. Well, BTN had already set the bar so far down that we might have a margin anyway, but still. This my thought of the day to you, Quietman, and others. You can not apply extreme scrutiny to the CO2 hypothesis and lower scrutiny to alternate explanations. I know that it makes for a lot more work but that's the only way. If you apply the same extreme scrutiny to these other alternate explanations, what is left of them? Have you even tried (sincerely)? If not, you can not call yourself a skeptic in the true sense of the word. In my experience, if you try to take apart these alternate theories with any eagerness comparable to what "skeptics" use against the CO2 hypothesis, there is nothing left, zilch, nada. That's one reason why I'm skeptical about climate skepticism.
132176. Philippe Chantreau at 12:51 PM on 29 March 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        This "goofy" data happens to be compiled by Dr. Solanki. Since you're calling it goofy, perhaps you'd care to explain exactly what makes it so. You having difficulty to use it is not necessarily enough. I find it more plesant to look at than the graph in 38 with all the noise, and it's done with the same data, what's not to like? "The dip your talking about around 1920 (in post 31)would than be part of the cause of the mid century cooling." But then you would have no temp response to the increase of the 1890's. And the 1965 dip does not have a response either. No matter how you cut and slice it, it's hard to fit, to the point of being impossible. Especially when considering how small these variations actually are when you translate them in terms of energy received per square meter and what's reflected by albedo (roughly divide by 4, the multiply by 0.49). Sorry, but I don't find it convincing at all. Imagine you're applying your skeptical outlook to that hypothesis. How well is it truly defended? Being a real skeptic means you're equally skeptic of all hypotheses and HOLD THEM ALL TO THE SAME STANDARD OF SCUTINY (that which you're aplying to CO2). You can't cut slacks to the solar idea just because it's not CO2. I find that true skeptic attitutde profoundly lacking with all skeptics but very few (counted on one hand's fingers) whose writings I have read on blogs. Ironically, those show much greater intellectual integrity than "skeptic scientists" like Baliunas, Pielke Sr. and others.
132177. Wondering Aloud at 06:50 AM on 29 March 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        The dip your talking about around 1920 (in post 31)would than be part of the cause of the mid century cooling.
132178. Quietman at 05:58 AM on 29 March 2008
        Determining the long term solar trend
        Wondering Aloud That is what converted me from passively accepting AGW to being skeptical (as to the source and strength of AGW) in the first place. There are too many variables that were not originally addressed and that may explain the large discrepancies between predicted behavior and observations.
132179. Wondering Aloud at 05:54 AM on 29 March 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        I dont think you understood me Phillippe I wasn't saying it was true but looking at the TSI graph, not this goofy one here with the 11 year averages etc I am asking if the increase in the TSI from the first half of the century could be part of the cause of late century warming.
132180. Quietman at 05:48 AM on 29 March 2008
        Determining the long term solar trend
        Philippe I understood the main post but had some difficulty following the updates. His summary statement is logical but I can't seem to figure out if he reinforced the original statement or switched directions.
132181. Wondering Aloud at 05:45 AM on 29 March 2008
        Determining the long term solar trend
        You're right Phillippe, interesting.. but oh no another variable that affects everything.
132182. frankbi at 05:39 AM on 29 March 2008
        Ice age predicted in the 70s
        Um, for one thing Moran was writing about _Florida_ cooling, not _global_ cooling. I guess you'll need to relax your search criterion for "global cooling" a whole lot to prove that scientists did predict cooling... "they came from scientists who made suggestions (like the above 'possibly to a new ice age') which were then hyped and exaggerated by the media. Much the same thing is happening now with the global warming scare." Yeah, "much of the same thing" in the sense that the "media" is artificially inflating the voice of the global warming "skeptics".
132183. Quietman at 05:36 AM on 29 March 2008
        Comparing IPCC projections to observations
        frankbi Also you appear to be under a misconception. I never said that I deny AGW, only that I am skeptical that CO2 is in fact the prime mover. I won't repeat myself here but I explained my concerns in my comments to "Determining the long term solar trend".
132184. Quietman at 05:27 AM on 29 March 2008
        Comparing IPCC projections to observations
        frankbi What I need to see to be convinced is simple. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis. If the prediction matches the actual data then you have proof. Using the climate model that Gore displayed the amount of warming to the increase in CO2 was actually 1/2 of the prediction. This is a large error. It tells me that the model is either using bad data or based on an erroneous concept. When I see a match I will accept the results. I am not a scientist but a retired engineer. I am accustomed to and expect precision.
132185. paledriver at 03:14 AM on 29 March 2008
        There is no consensus
        and were do you get "1"? but please, wondering, rephrase your point for me. perhaps I have misunderstood?
132186. paledriver at 00:23 AM on 29 March 2008
        There is no consensus
        if it's such a waste of your time, stay the heck away. You seriously don't understand that any "fake" signatures, and there were many on both, not to mention the fraudulant article to support the "petition project", you really mean to say that you can't grasp that that in and of itself shows the desperate need to dupe the public with policy driven pseudo-science? you're point is on your head.
132187. frankbi at 15:30 PM on 28 March 2008
        Comparing IPCC projections to observations
        Quietman, I asked you what kind of evidence exactly you'd accept as proof of global warming. Apparently the results presented by Hansen, Rahmstorf, Lockwood, Santer, etc. etc. etc. aren't "proof" to you, so I'm just wanting to know what you _would_ consider "proof". What do you consider as actual "proof", and what do you consider as _not_ actual "proof"? You've repeatedly dodged the question.
132188. Philippe Chantreau at 13:48 PM on 28 March 2008
        Determining the long term solar trend
        To stay in topic, this post and its sequel are mighty interesting: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/pmod-vs-acrim/
132189. Philippe Chantreau at 18:05 PM on 27 March 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        "Just for fun assume the timelag for a solar affect on the Earth is about 35-40 years, probably not true but you see the result would fit interestingly" Disagreed, as I pointed in post #31.
132190. Philippe Chantreau at 18:02 PM on 27 March 2008
        Climate change on Mars
        The lack of correlation between Mars and Earth' climates is well known to Mars enthusiasts. Dust storms and warm conditions prevailed at the time of the Viking landings in the 70's, while Earth was entering the recent global warming trend we know. Then, while Earth was warming, Mars cooled down, only to experience dust storms and warming again in the recent past. To my knowledge, there is no significant correlation with solar activity either. It is rather ironic that some skeptics will go at length on how Earth has not warmed since 1998 and then go on to attempt correlations with Mars, which did warm significantly since 1998. I have looked at a variety of claims about other planets' "climates" and so far nothing even remotely convincing has surfaced.
132191. Quietman at 16:17 PM on 27 March 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        Wondering Aloud I believe that the half cycle average is 11.1 and full cycle average is 22.3, but I can't remember where I read that.
132192. Quietman at 16:10 PM on 27 March 2008
        Climate change on Mars
        Philippe Please note that I said "If there is a correlation". Regardless of the difference in axial tilt, IF it's solar warming we should see some correlation, making some allowance for La Nina of course. I have not heard any further information on what Mars is doing so I am only speculating that IF it is solar activity then it should affect Mars in similar fashion to earth. When I said "this winter" I should have said "at this time". The cooler south pole remark was just a curious observation. Thanks for the Link.
132193. Quietman at 15:48 PM on 27 March 2008
        Determining the long term solar trend
        I am not saying that CO2 lag disproves AGW, I accept the fact of AGW but I do not accept that CO2 is the prime mover. I do look forward to reading the paper you mention with great anticipation. I wan't to see if it confirms my suspicions. In 1975 the Clean Air Act was passed, requiring vehicle manufacturers to meet standards in HC, CO and NOx. As you are probably aware these emissions ride opposing curves so lowering one tends to elevate another. The addition of a catalyst, and later a combination of three catalysts was able to reduce these emissions by changing the specified emissions to water vapor and CO2 and Sulphur dioxide. I worked in an emissions lab for 10 years and when the 1981 standards came out there was an additional increase in CO2 and water vapor (these emissions were not considered harmful to the environment) and additional sulphur dioxide. That is why exhaust systems don't last as long as they did on pre-emission vehicles. The largest emission from modern gasoline engine vehicles has been water vapor. This means sulphuric acid diluted in water vapor pumping out from all the vehicles fitted with a catalytic converter (1975 on for most passenger vehicles). Don't you find this coincidental timing of instituting emission controls and the advent of acid rain and AGW just a little strange?
        Response: The timing isn't strange at all. The Clean Air Act had the effect of lowering aerosols in the atmosphere which have a cooling effect. As aerosols have a short life in the atmosphere, removal of the cooling effect would've been fairly quick. This is one of the reasons for mid-century cooling (with cooling solar activity possibly one of the other factors) which ended in the mid 70's. I wasn't aware that the Clean Air Act had the effect of increasing CO2 emissions which is an interesting point.
132194. Periander at 11:46 AM on 27 March 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        "Oceans are much deeper than that." Quite the generalization there. Many are, many are not. Neverthe less are you arguing that all the heat is finding its way to the deep deep depths of the ocean without leaving a trace in the top 2 kilometers? That's quite a sequestration mechanism there! Can you provide me with details?
132195. 5meocmp at 11:06 AM on 27 March 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        @Periander: 1. Argo only measures to 2km. Oceans are much deeper than that. 2. If La Nina is bringing cooler water to the surface, you would *expect* that Argo would show a cooling at the surface.
132196. Periander at 10:37 AM on 27 March 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        Ok, so the argument is that La Niña is bringing cooler water to the surface, which means that less heat is being transferred from the oceans to the atmosphere resulting to the lack of recent warming. Makes sense. However, the reduced transfer of heat from the oceans should logically then be accelerating the rise in ocean temperatures. Problem is that there hasn't been any recent rise in ocean temperatures: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025 The Argo system, the best data available, is showing no rise in ocean temperatures at all (indeed, a slight cooling) since it was deployed in 2003. This data raises a lot of questions. If the heat isn't in the atmosphere, and it's not in the oceans, where is the Global Warming heat supposed to be?
        Response: Note that the heat capacity of the oceans is much greater than the atmosphere. So relatively small amounts of heat exchange (from the ocean point of view) make a big difference to atmospheric temperatures.
        
        Initial results from the Argo system contained a cooling bias due to issues with the pressure system. The latest results from Argo show warming. This is particularly the case when the results down to 2000 metres deep are considered (the upper waters show more variability while the overall warming trend is more apparent when viewing the 2000 metres heat content).
        
        Bottom line - the oceans are still warming.
132197. Quietman at 03:52 AM on 27 March 2008
        Determining the long term solar trend
        This is not to say that there is no AGW, there is definate evidence of AGW contribution through ozone, hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen, but CO2 appears to be the feedback mechanism rather than the cause, hence the lag. But until any hypothesis has been proven true I will remain skeptical as I have an field engineering background and can not accept any hypothesis based solely on consensus.
        Response: The problem with invoking CO2 lagging temperature as a way of disproving AGW is that ice core records actually confirm the amplifying effect of atmospheric CO2. Plus as you say, it's a feedback mechanism. We pump CO2 into the air, it causes warming, the warmer temperatures cause the land and oceans to give up more CO2 - you have a positive feedback loop. There's a paper coming out on this very mechanism which I hope to post on within the next few weeks.
132198. Quietman at 03:34 AM on 27 March 2008
        Comparing IPCC projections to observations
        frankbi In the "Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?" thread you provided the link" http://folk.uio.no/nathan/web/statement.html This was an interesting letter. Most interesting was "Addendum by Eigil Friis-Christensen" which you apparently did not read.
132199. Quietman at 03:20 AM on 27 March 2008
        Comparing IPCC projections to observations
        frankbi Re: "What evidence will you accept as proof that AGW _is_ happening and _is_ serious? " In science it is up to the person or persons presenting the hypothesis to also present proof. The AGW hypothesis has evidence but no proof. If you believe it so strongly it's a matter pf faith. Present actual proof and all of us skeptics will shut up. Why else do you see so much skeptisism? Why don't you see it from prominent figures as much? Because the skeptics are threatened with losing their jobs if they don't fall into line. That is not science, that is ignorance. Science depends on skepticism. No progress would be made without it. If you have proof, please present it.
132200. Wondering Aloud at 02:01 AM on 27 March 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        Yeah, Phillippe I noticed that and it certainly is part of the issue. The technique used in the Max Planck graph appears to show a drop in irradience when the raw data doesn't have one. The 11 year averaging is creating at least part of the disconnect in the timing. Just for fun assume the timelag for a solar affect on the Earth is about 35-40 years, probably not true but you see the result would fit interestingly. It also seems to fit somewhat with the PDO.
        Response: There is a time lag between the sun and climate but historically, it's been about 10 years. Eg - Usoskin 2005 compared 1150 years worth of TSI and temperature and found the correlation was highest when temperature lagged TSI changes by 10 years.

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