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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.

Recommended supplemental reading:

How the Trump White House Wound Up Releasing Dire Climate Report by Eric Roston & Christopher Flavelle, Bloomberg News, Nov 6, 2017

Daniel Bailey at 22:23 PM on 6 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Ancillary to Bob Loblaw's fine comment at 232, previous research has shown that ice sheet mass contributions from land-based ice sheets have exceeded thermal expansion as the biggest contributor to global sea level rise. Recent research just submitted now has isolated the individual ice sheet contributions to global sea level rise.

Per Hsu and Velicogna 2017, between April 2002 and October 2014 global mean sea level grew by about 1.8 millimeters per year, with 43 percent of the increased water mass coming from Greenland, 16 percent from Antarctica, and 30 percent from mountain glaciers.

Hsu and Velicogna 2017 - Detection of Sea Level Fingerprints derived from GRACE gravity data

SLR Fingerprints
Embiggened

william5331 at 18:16 PM on 6 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

I don't get it. Presumably the air pollution that comes from Chinese factories is primarily particulate material and sulfur. If so, why don't they simply buy off-the-shelf equipment from the USA and reverse engineer it. America cleaned up the same problem about 70 years ago with electrostatic precipitators and sulfur scrubbers in the smoke stacks of power plants, smelters and other polluting industries.

michael sweet at 10:31 AM on 6 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Norrism:

Bob Loblaw and M.A. Rodger have address some of the data analysis. If you read Tamino's post you will get a more detailed account. The IPCC does not state how their data was calculated. The method is undoubtedly somewhere in the references. It looks to me like they used a short analysis period, but it may be due to the data sources they used.

It appears that the IPCC graph that Koonan used was graphed with the 18 year data point at the start of the 18 year period (Noonan did not copy the caption so I could not tell from his graph). That means the data reached to 2011 and was up to date when it was written. My last post incorrectly dated the graph.

We know that sea level rise has increased rapidly for the last 6 years. That means the sea level now is about 20% greater than it was in 2011 when the IPCC data was written. Comparing to 1950 it is less likely that 1950 was as fast as today than in 2011 since sea lefel rise is greater.

In addition, papers have evaluated all the data sets graphed in the IPCC reports and some of those data sets have been updated. That would change the data (I am not sure what those changes are). In order to make a valid comparison today you need to use the updated data sets.

The writers of the CSSR reports used the updated data sets to reach their conclusions. They reached a valid scientific conclusion. Koonan cherry picked old data because he thought it supported his preconceived notions. His claims are not scientificly valid. The CSSR report supersedes the IPCC report because it is a more recent in depth review.

MA Rodger at 08:44 AM on 6 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

NorrisM @230.

Yous seem to be asking two things. Firstly, why do we not see "similarly high rates" to 3,2mm/yr(+/-0.4mm/yr) in the Tamino graph? Secondly, what caused the rate of SLR 1920-50 to be higher than periods before and after?

The methods used to create the Tamino graph have been explained @231/232 but this is probably not enough for you.

To address your first question concerning the IPCC quote, be aware that the quote originates in the Executive Summary of AR5 Chapter 13 so is not what I would call definitive, and indeed the quote you give cites references elsewhere within AR5. (You call this quote "fact" which is seriously wrong.)

If you refer to Section 3.7.4 you will see that it is not just Church & White that are being cited and that in Fig 3.14 Church & White data yields the lowest SLR through this 1920-50 period, hitting a momentary peak of just 2.3mm/yr from 18-year lnear trend calculations. (It is not clear from AR5 but this is certainly Church & White (2011) not C&W(2006) which would yield significantly higher levels of SLR through these years. Note C&W(2011) plot 16-year linear trends which also peak at 2.3mm/yr.) The Tamino graph uses differing methods and yields a peak of 2.1mm/yr through these year.

Your second question has no definite answer. Note that C&W(2011) speculate that the ice-melt contribution in 1920-50 could have been greater than is usually estimated. And if you look at zonal temperature records (ie GISTemp below), the place with the big temperature during the early 20th century was the high northern latutudes that do conveniently have ample ice to melt.

GISTEMP zonal graphic

Bob Loblaw at 05:44 AM on 6 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

With respect to acceleration, and whether it will continue, the figure I included in comment 222 shows that Greenland and Antarctica are having an increasingly large contribution. Ice sheets like these are slow to react, and they are just getting going in response to recent warming. The major question on what will happen by 2100 is "what will happen with Greenland and Antarctica?"

Bob Loblaw at 05:39 AM on 6 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

NorrisM:

In the Tamino link provided above, he states:

"If we smooth the data, a lot depends on the time scale for smoothing. Too short a time scale will tell us about the ubiquitous wiggles, which is not what we’re interested in."

In the figure just after that statement, he shows the smooth fit he produced:

Tamino sea level (Church and White)

Note that Tamino's curve does not follow every "ubiquitous wiggle". Less smoothing will give greater variation in rate over shorter time intervals. The IPCC report does not state (that I can see from a quick glance) how short a time interval they used to get "similar" rates. Section 13.2.2.1 does, however, state:

"Interannual and decadal-scale variability is superimposed on the long-term MSL trend, and Chapter 3 noted that discrepancies between the various published MSL records are present at these shorter time scales.

and

"Because of the presence of low-frequency variations (e.g., multi-decadal variations seen in some tidal gauge records; Chambers et al. (2012)), sea level acceleration results are sensitive to the choice of the analysis time span.

If you make the time span short enough, you'll get twice-daily tides with very high rates of change. Not "sea level rise", though. The IPCC is probably looking at shorter time scales than Tamino.

Mal Adapted at 05:29 AM on 6 November 2017

Why people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do

ddost4827:

I suspect there there's a strong reaction dynamic at play in US politics where because Democrats advocate for climate change policies so stridently, to the point of demonizing Republicans or conservatives who oppose it, people in those groups push back more on the political aspect and party line division rather than on any scientific basis.

This is a straw man argument. Individual Democrats who 'advocate for climate change policies so stridently' may get pushback against themselves. Blaming those particular obnoxious Democrats for the refusal by "Republicans and conservatives" to discuss any climate change policy at all, doesn't help with "keeping the discussion fact based and discussion oriented".

I'm not convinced ddost4827 is actually interested in dialogue.

NorrisM at 04:29 AM on 6 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

michael sweet @ 218, Bob Loblaw @ 219 and MA Rodger and John Hartz

I have read the references in the above citations and I am still confused as to the statement by the IPCC in the 2013 Assessment which, again, has the following summary:

"It is very likely that the global mean rate was 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm yr–1 between 1901 and 2010 for a total sea level rise of 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m. Between 1993 and 2010, the rate was very likely higher at 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm yr–1; similarly high rates likely occurred between 1920 and 1950. {3.7.2, 3.7.4, 5.6.3, 13.2.1, 13.2.2, Figure 13.3}"

The graph of Church & White presented in Tamino and reproduced in michael sweet's post at 227 seem to be inconsistent with a statement of fact in the 2013 IPPC statement. The rate shown in the Church & White graph (is this fully Church & White or an extension added to a Church & White graph that ended earlier?) does not show a similar rate in 1920 to 1950 at approximately 3.2 mm/yr. Surely this is what "similar high rates" has to mean.

Responding to Bob Loblaw, of course new information on sea level rises since 2013 are relevant but it does not explain this statement by the IPCC made in 2013. At that time it was either right or wrong. From what I can gather, the new CCSR report effectively repeats this analysis in the main report but does not reference this in the Executive Summary which is Koonin's complaint.

Moderator @ 224

I have not fully read the Mooney discussion nor have I got through this entire thread which I intend to do as part of my understanding on this issue.

But I thought I should respond to what seems to be an inconsistency between the Church & White graph and what the IPCC (and I believe the CCSR) have said about this period 1920- 1950.

I thought I was going to get an explanation of why the rate during 1920-1950 was close to the same but the answer comes back that the rate was no where near 3.2 mm/yr at all during this latter period. If all the IPCC was referencing was a short term acceleration during this period at the same rate for a much shorter time than the 30 years, then that could have been made a lot clearer because that is not what was stated. But that is not even supported by the Church & White graph.

I certainly agree that Koonin's most recent statements would suggest that he is not looking to becoming the Chair of any Red Team Blue Team panel unless Pruitt intends to have Co-Chairs, one from each side of this issue.

MA Rodger at 03:23 AM on 6 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

This Koonin blather raised by NorrisM includes a WSJ opinion piece by Koonin (paywalled) entitled "A Deceptive New Report on Climate", this concerning the draft of a Climate Science Special Report (CSSR). Blog Mom Judy Curry has a post suppling some excerpts from the WSJ item and from the Koonin memo to the authors of the CSSR, the memo itself being also posted at Judy's site (where NorrisM linked to it @221).

The Koonin criticism sets out to fudge the inevitability of serious SLR by branding SLR rates since 1993 as "not statistically different from those during the first half of the 20th Century," this description being required so as to "not misleadingly alarm the non‐expert reader into believing that recent rates of rise are unprecedented." And he also wants mention of 2m SLR by 2100 setting out that this would require a rate of 24mm/yr so as to "help illustrate for the non‐expert reader just how dramatic the projected changes are." Or should that be 'how unbelievable'?

So here we have somebody in denial over AGW-induced SLR.

And he is not the only one. In the same post, Judy links to a slide show of her own titled "Sea Level Rise: Past, Present & Future" which also shows signs of denial. And Judy's prediction of global SLR 2017-50 is presented on Slide 35 as 3" to 8" which works out as an average SLR over the period of 4.2mm/yr(+/-2mm).

michael sweet at 21:20 PM on 5 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Norrism:

Your post is a perfect example of why scientists do not want to engage in a "Red-Blue" team discussion with Koonin as moderator, as you have suggested.

When one team deliberately falsifies the data the public thinks that scientists have not reached consensus. In this example of sea level rise, everyone who has looked at the data agrees that sea level rise is twice as much now as it was in 1950.

Koonan is not an acceptable person to moderate such a debate since he has demonstated that he in completely uninformed of the data and deliberatly misinforms his audience. There is no excuse for Noonan's use of data that is 12 years out of date to make claims of current sea level rise. If Noonan wants to make public criticism of scienitsts he is required to use the current data that was in the report he criticized.

The analysis from Dr. Nerem, linked at 216, gives enough data to realize Koonin's claim is false on its face. I linked the article containing Tamino's graph there also. You have been given the actual data. Every time you use Curries' blog as a reference everyone here knows that you are misleading them. Why have you not learned Curry is not a credible source from your previous postings of false information using her as the source? Do lawyers always continue to use references after they have been shown to be incorrect several times?

Koonin cites the IPCC to support his lie that sea level rise is approximately the same now as in 1950. The intent of the CSSR is to update data in the IPCC report. The scientists who wrote the CSSR are required to use the most up to date data. In addition, the data in the IPCC report was 7 years old when that report was written 6 years ago. Do we really need to reargue data that is 13 years old when current data is available?

Do you lawyers sit around and endlessly argue if it is fair to count blacks as only 3/5 of a vote and whether separate but equal facilities are acceptable??? Why do you ask scientists to reargue current sea level rise based on 13 year old data?

As I paraphrased from your post: " It is this attitude of the "denier side" which drives scientists crazy. If the facts were honestly stated on both sides then you would not get this kind of dismissive reaction from scientists."

Raise your game. You have been posting here at SkS for a long time and you still post these obviously false claims from sources you have been repeatedly shown are spouting lies. It is time consuming to find the actual data to respond to these lies.

michael sweet at 12:05 PM on 5 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Norrism:

I recommended to you that you should read Tamino's posts on sea level rise. You wasted your time at Curry's blog.

If you had gone to Tamino you would have seen this graph of the speed of sea level rise calculated from Church and White:

sea level rise

This graph indicates that currently sea level is rising at approximately double the maximum rate during the 20th century. Please present data to support your wild claim that the current rate is similar to the rate in 1950. The acceleration was similar in 1930 but it did not last as long and started from a much lower base. Koonin does not discuss acceleration.

From a brief examination of this graph and the post of Koonin at Curry's blog it appears that most of the similarity in speed of sea level rise Koonin claims is due to Koonin cherry picking the time period that was analized.

Koonin's graph under "what the literature says" ends in 1995. I note that in 1995 Tamino's graph indicates the sea level rise was approximately the same as the peak in 1950. Unfortunately, my calendar says it is 2017. Koonin's graph is an 18 year running average. Becasue sea level rose so fast after 2000, the running average is much lower than the yearly (smoothed) average.

Keep in mind that the IPCC data is all at least 6 years old and Tamino's graph shows rapid acceleration over the last six years. I reviewed the sea level section of the CSSR and they do not have a comparable graph.

I do not know why you point out that Koonin posted his remark just before the report was released. The release date was set several years ago and it was the Fifth draft of the report. Koonin knew what was going to be in the report before it was released.

Denier's who rely on obviously cherry picked data to make their points are dishonest. It is this attitude of the "denier side" which drives scientists crazy. If the facts were honestly stated on both sides then you would not get this kind of dismissive reaction from scientists.

This information was not included in the Executive Summary because it is false.

You consistently pick minimums and claim deniers arguments that are cherry picked are equal to data anlysis by scientists. This is a false argument. You need to raise your game. By continously bringing up false claims you make people think you are just a troll and are not interested in learning about the causes and problems of AGW.

You asked: "Is there a scientific explanation for why sea level rises during the period 1920-1950 were close to the same as the present rates?"

The answer is: current rates are double the rates from 1920-1950. You fell for a cherry picked argument by deniers.

If you refer to Koonin as a reliable authority on AGW again I will refer to this post and point out that Koonin is a cherry picker whose primary purpose is to mislead. It makes you look bad to refer to him so much.

Eclectic at 11:48 AM on 5 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

It is sad to see Koonin's ideas spiralling down into crankdom.

Koonin is only 65, and yet for some years now there has been increasing evidence of that widely-known but poorly-understood phenomenon: "Going Emeritus". Considering his previous prominent administrative/advisory governmental jobs, it is possible that there may also be a touch of LDS motivating him [ LDS = Limelight Deprivation Syndrome ].

While LDS is probably a minor part of the affliction suffered by the average professor who retires, it is neverthless clearly not at the heart of the "Emeritus" condition. But I fear it will be a very long time until the physiologists & neuro-psychologists come to a good understanding of the mechanisms producing the science-denier mind-set of such "Gone Emeritus" cases.

In the meantime, we (including NorrisM) will just have to ponder the mystery of how an intelligent science-literate guy like Koonin is able to get it so terribly wrong about such basic scientific thinking. And while he is lecturing climate scientists about them "not looking at the bigger context" . . . he himself is blithely turning a blind eye to the necessity of seeking causations for physical events (and he is losing himself in a mess of cherrypicking & statistical abstractions, rather than looking at the real world).

More than sad, it is tragic.

Bob Loblaw at 07:31 AM on 5 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Thanks, gentlemen. I should know better.

John Hartz at 04:37 AM on 5 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

NorrisM @221

As evidenced in the new research summarized in the following article, sea level rise is a very complex subject matter. You would do well to focus your time and energy on peer-reviewed papers published in reputable scientific journals rather than on the pseudo-science poppycock posted on Judith Curry's website.

New science suggests the ocean could rise more — and faster — than we thought by Chris Mooney, Energy & Envronment, Oct 26, 2017

Bob Loblaw at 03:29 AM on 5 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Crap. That figure ended up being a lot wider than I expected. Moderators, can you please fix?

Moderator Response:

[JH] Fixed.

Bob Loblaw at 03:28 AM on 5 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

NorrisM:

I have no interest in what Steve Koonin has asked - he has no credibility as a scientific source on climate change, due to reasons already explained. Judith Curry is also of no interest to me. Most of what gets posted on her site is a waste of time.

In comment 219, I posted a link to RealClimate. It includes the following graph:

Sea Level rise

I assume that you have followed the links given to you, or have a reason not to. What is it about this figure that you question? What about it fails to answer the question you are posing about cause of changes in sea level rise in the past century?

Moderator Response:

[DB] Fixed image width.

NorrisM at 02:59 AM on 5 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

michael sweet and Bob Loblaw

In an earlier post on another thread (which discussion has properly moved to this location) I posed the following question:

"It is interesting that in the above IPCC quote we had similar "high rates" during the period 1920-1950. Curious as to whether there is any explanation of that anomaly."

And Bob Loblaw @ 219 states:

"You need to understand why sea level has changed (both in the past century and the past 20,000 years) and apply that knowledge to what will happen by the year 2100."

It seems now that Steve Koonin has posed the very same question in a critique issued by him on October 10, 2017 prior to the release of the CSSR report which I understand just happened. You can read his criticique at https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/cssr-on-slr.pdf

I am not saying that the recent sea level rise since 1993 is not more relevant than the average over the 20th century but does it not behoove scientists to either explain the 1920 to 1950 rise or admit that they do not know?

And I agree with Koonin that the CSSR, by not including this information in the Executive Summary (which is intended for the layman), shows that it is not just a scientific report but rather one which is intended to "move the agenda". It is this attitude of the "consensus side" which drives conservatives crazy. If the facts were honestly stated on both sides then you would not get this kind of dismissive reaction from Republicans who you have to convince ( a common theme in my posts).

Is there a scientific explanation for why sea level rises during the period 1920-1950 were close to the same as the present rates?

secretclean at 09:20 AM on 4 November 2017

There is no consensus

Climate change is real and has very clear anthropogenic causes. Countless people have died due to smog and pollution, proven. It has a negative impact on the environment, proven. CFCs and other greenhouse gases created a hole in Antarctica's ozone layer, proven. Banning CFCs helped the ozone layer heal, proven. Just because oil conglomerates will lose billions switching to renewable energy and it's more expensive for them to observe emissions regulations while mass producing plastics doesn't mean the science behind industrialization changing our climate isn't true.

michael sweet at 06:37 AM on 4 November 2017

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #41

The U.S. Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Report has been released. Link is to the Executive Summary. This is similar to the IPCC report but not as long and it focuses on the USA. I find this report easier to read than the IPCC report.

For Sea Level Rise:

sea level rise

Note the area of 5+ feet of rise (for the intermediate scenario) in the Gulf Coast.

A separate report on impacts will be released next year.

Moderator Response:

[DB] Fixed image width.

nigelj at 06:05 AM on 4 November 2017

Why people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do

Fossil fuel advocacy is a large part of the problem and delays progress, but ideology is also a factor. You see some of Americas climate deniers coming out with plenty of rhetoric on personal liberty, as an excuse to avoid laws that they dont like.

nigelj at 05:44 AM on 4 November 2017

Why people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do

ddost4287 @3

"Democrats advocate for climate change policies so stridently, to the point of demonizing Republicans or conservatives who oppose it, people in those groups push back more"

I suspect you are right to some extent. The trouble is Republicans advocate just as stridently on other matters, and have demonstrably and provably shown very little desire for bipartisan arrangements. Trump is the extreme example.

Perhaps both sides need to "pull their horns in" but its hard to see how this will happen. The Democrats generally say look at the science, and other reputable evidence, on economic, social and environmental matters. I find it hard to see anything wrong in that position.

"I'm surprised at how many mainstream sources never talk about the science, they just reference how most scientists believe man-caused climate change is occurring - if you're not willing to present an actual fact-based, scientific argument, than don't be surprised if people reject your policies"

Yes it would be good to get a more detailed list of evidence for climate change in the general media. However their purpose is more to bring us the latest news and general opinion, they cant be a tutorial session especially on complex issues. The IPCC reports are all available online for free for the sceptics to read, but I suspect they just dont want to know the truth. They prefer to latch onto whomever is making the most noise and telling them its all a hoax, people like Christopher Moncton, Rusch Limbaugh and Donald Trump, etc. I dont actually live In America but I see this happening.

John Hartz at 05:14 AM on 4 November 2017

Greenland is gaining ice

Recommended supplemental reading:

New Greenland maps show more glaciers at risk by Carol Rasmussen, NASA's Global Climate Change, Nov 1, 2017

ubrew12 at 03:48 AM on 4 November 2017

Why people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do

ddost4827@3 said: "...there's a strong reaction dynamic... because Democrats advocate for climate change policies so stridently... demonizing Republicans... [so] people in those groups push back more on the [politics]...." Given human nature I'm sure that's a part of what's going on. It does seem illogical, however, to punish your descendents because you hate your contemporaries.

When society becomes strongly divided on a particular issue, policy change is delayed, which favors the status quo, which in this case is fossil fuels. So there's a strong motivation within America's energy status quo to keep the country divided on this issue. Whereas Europe, having to import much of its fossil fuel, is less likely to be influenced by a strong local industry acting to protect itself.

ddost4827 at 00:39 AM on 4 November 2017

Why people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do

As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!

ddost4827 at 00:35 AM on 4 November 2017

Why people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do

I would like to know more about how the various political entities in Europe have picked up and advocated for climate change response as a political policy. I suspect there there's a strong reaction dynamic at play in US politics where because Democrats advocate for climate change policies so stridently, to the point of demonizing Republicans or conservatives who oppose it, people in those groups push back more on the political aspect and party line division rather than on any scientific basis. As in most issues in US politics, perhaps if there was more dialogue on both sides, more people would be convinced? These days, I think people react more to the messenger than the message itself, and advocates of climate change policies would be wise to depersonalize their arguments, and stop attacking the intelligence of skeptics. In my own search for more information, I'm surprised at how many mainstream sources never talk about the science, they just reference how most scientists believe man-caused climate change is occurring - if you're not willing to present an actual fact-based, scientific argument, than don't be surprised if people reject your policies in a reactionary manner. I applaud some sites, like this one, for keeping the discussion fact based and discussion oriented.

ubrew12 at 23:55 PM on 3 November 2017

Why people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do

Climate disinformation is paid for by the fossil fuels industry and targeted to populations that can make a difference affecting policy. I don't think the difference between American and European perceptions need stem from anything more than this: Americans are the target of a propaganda effort because they matter more than Europeans in keeping fossil fuels 'open for business' around the World. At the very least, the US military can be purposed to protect fossil interests the World over much more easily if the US public perceives this to be in its interest. Fossils is a huge industry in America, but not in Europe, so Americans are already predisposed to accept denial propaganda. Russia's meddling in US elections shows that targeting critical population groups in swing states like Wisconsin can yield huge benefits, like Donald Trump. I just think fossil disinformation has been similarly targeted, and the disparity across the Atlantic Ocean is the result.

michael sweet at 21:54 PM on 3 November 2017

Sea level rise is exaggerated

Norrism:

I found this description on Climate Central of the map that was used by Zillow for their analysis:

"This analysis uses elevation data on a roughly 90-meter horizontal resolution grid derived from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). SRTM provides surface elevations, not bare earth
elevations, causing it to commonly overestimate elevations, especially in areas with dense and tall buildings (Gamba et. al, 2002) or vegetation (Shortridge et. al, 2011) . Therefore, this analysis very likely underestimates, and Mapping Choices under-portrays, areas that could be submerged at each lockedin sea level, and so the following analysis and visualization should be seen as likely lower bounds" (my emphasis).

Source. (Zillo cites NASA but it is the same map that Climate Central uses). This is a serious problem with most sea level damage analysis. Many informed people are not aware of this problem. Obviously, people cannot live on top of trees and buildings when the land is covered with water. I had thought that Climate Central used actual land heights. Actual damages are certain to be much higher than estimated by Zillow. Scientists make conservative estimates.

leapy99 at 11:23 AM on 3 November 2017

The F13 files, part 1 - the copy/paste job

Well done on your research of this paper and your efforts to hold the journal/authors to account.
One approach that you could try is to write a letter describing what has transpired to other journals to see if they might be interested in publishing your current critique paper. If they think the error are bad enough there’s a chance they would enjoy slinging some mud at Elsevier and publish your paper. However, sadly I think that this has only a smaller chance of success.
It is most likely that the Elsevier editor may have been right in suggesting the only way to move forward is a more general article critiquing this and other papers. Trying to publish an article that focuses on a critique of a single article is hard in science. The reason is that unless the errors are egregious, scientists try to avoid head on criticism of other scientists work and would rather focus on the science than the work of the researchers.

Tom Dayton at 10:52 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

KanNapper, you asked "Where did all the water vapor go?" Eventually it condensed out of the atmosphere, becoming liquid and solid water in the oceans, lakes, streams, absorbed by plants, sunk into the soil,...

nigelj at 07:10 AM on 3 November 2017

What does a sexist Google engineer teach us about women in science?

The memo writer appears to be driven a lot by ego, ignorance and politics. This has diminished any good points he made.

Regarding differences in aptitudes between men and women. One thing seems certain, women are good at multi tasking, men good at focussing intensely on one thing. Not sure if this is learned or genetically evolved. However the implications for technology jobs could depend on whether you are responsible for running a team of people, or being away in a corner solving one particular problem. Perhaps companies need a mixture of both skill sets.

I go along with Eclectic, given what we know it seems good to have as even a mix as possible of women and men in technology, business etc. But I dont like forced quotas, and instead it should be encouraged and make sure we remove barriers and prejudice.

Maybe there are more liberals in media or academia, however I'm not sure why this is a problem, or what you would do about it. They choose this profession for whatever reason, and are also entitled to their views arent they? Its called freedom of speech. A forced quota of political leanings in academia and media would seem unwise, and as unwise as a forced quota of women.

The gender pay gap is a simple fact, generally around 10% . It's simply an average across companies and obviously could vary from company to company. I dont know why anyone would deny that which is obvious and easy to measure.

What is far more important to me are the reasons: Gender pay gap on wikipedia has some interesting summation of peer reviewed research. The causes appear to be a mix of 1) gender discrimination 2) Women tending to choose slightly lower incomes professions and 3) Low wages in professions like aged care.

We cant change choices women consciously make and I have no problem if women prefer certain professions, but we can minimise blatant gender discrimination with strong laws, and do things to ensure people in services industries get reasonable wages.

nigelj at 06:37 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

KanNapper @14

Soils could indeed potentially store all industrial emissions, or a large component of them. This is a useful thing to do with better farming of the permaculture variety.

The problem you have is it would require radical changes to all farming on global scale, and rates of achieving this would likely be very slow, and rates of absorption of emissions into plants and thus soil carbon are very slow over millenia time scales. Therefore reducing emissions at source is the priority.

nigelj at 05:50 AM on 3 November 2017

Why people around the world fear climate change more than Americans do

Good article, but missed a few things.

Firstly there is indeed evidence that more educated people in America are more sceptical of climate change. Its very disappointing and counter intuitive.

However education may still be be a factor in this denial in another way. The following study finds standard of climate change education in schools in america is very poor, so smart generally people may not be getting enough basic information on which to make informed decisions:

www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/11/two-thirds-of-us-students-are-taught-climate-change-badly-study-finds

Politics is clearly a factor as the article says, with strident views and a strong partican divide in America. Its a very combative sort of system that is causing steep divisions more so than Europe it seems, and The Republican Party is becoming increasingly entrenched and irrational in its views on certain well known matters. However some European countries do have deep divisions as well.

But it goes further, as almost all Americas political parties are further to the right than Europe with Europes parliament and citizens being demonstrably more accepting of environmental laws, government role in the economy, and climate science in general. (Thats not to say Europe gets everything right either, and right size of government is a delicate balance)

The denialist think tank movement appears very strong in America with strong fossil fuels influence. America has long been an oil and coal producer. Some European countries rely more on nuclear energy or gas fired generation so you dont get quite such powerful fossil fuel lobby influence perhaps.

America is a strongly christian country. This website has discussed how fundamentalist and evangelical christians tend to be climate change sceptics. Europe is a little more towards atheism. However overall I would not see religion as a huge factor in the climate issue, with many christians in the middle accepting we are causing climate change.

For me personally adding these things together is enough to explain higher climate scepticism in America.

One Planet Only Forever at 04:37 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

KanKnapper@16,

Interesting hypothesis, but what about all the new carbon introduced into the recycling environment by digging up and burning fossil fuels?

KanKnapper at 03:02 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

I wasn't clear. The largest source/sink that humans have disrupted that is easily accessible and amenable to recovery. For reference, see Climatic Change 61: 261–293, 2003. “The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era
Began Thousands of Years Ago”. Since soil respiration is 9x larger than all industrial emissions, it takes a much smaller change in this large carbon sink to store all industrial emissions. As far as “respiration” is just part of the “natural” carbon cycle, that is hogwashy. Organic decomposition results in CO2 emission, organics stored in topsoil is sequestration (takes effort, but still sequestration). One would think after 10,000+ years of practice, humans would know how to keep the topsoil.

For your second comment, let’s reframe your point and focus on atmospheric coupling via vegetation, specifically desertification (Sahara, Australia, greater Gobi). At the dawn of agriculture, these were areas of “natural” topsoil containing huge amounts of both carbon and water. Topsoil destroyed, vegetation gone, link destroyed……..where did the water go? From the paper above, we know where the carbon went because it forms a non-condensible gas. Hard to measure a condensible gas, but estimations can be made based upon a ratio with the measured CO2 which is above my pay grade. Where did all this water vapor go?

Philippe Chantreau at 01:48 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

Kanknapper, you need much more substantiation to your assertions than "as far as I can tell." The largest sink is the ocean. You don;t demonstrate otherwise. Does loss of topsoil square with the isotopic characteristics of atmospheric carbon? Still, the burning of hundreds of billions of tons of fossil fuel isn't going away, where is that carbon going?

Temparature independent water vapor component? How exactly are physics going to accomodate keeping water vapor in the air below the dew point? The atmosphere has a way to discriminate between regular water vapor and the one coming from your preferred source? Please elaborate.

KanKnapper at 01:24 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

As far as I can tell, the majority of the GHG in the atmosphere above natural baseline is due to agriculture and topsoil is the largest potential ag sink and therefore the largest potential source. The IPCC counts farming practices, but has totally ignored loss of topsoil and the carbon contained therein. Some like to claim that the carbon is just deposited in colluvium and stored, but half of erosion is from wind and it takes some pretty powerful voodoo to store organic carbon in an oxidizing environment. Much of the water erosion carbon turns into biogenic methane. I posit further that loss of topsoil adds a temperature independent water vapor component to the atmospheric GHG concentration and this has been going on for over 10,000 years with rapid soil loss since ≈1900.

CSIRO estimates that just adding 0.5% organic carbon to 2% of the Oz ag land would offset all industrial emissions. Doubling either term would result in a net-carbon negative process like amount. This would restore atmospheric CO2 to pre-industrial levels if adopted on a much larger scale in countries that can afford it. Reducing atmospheric GHG concentration quickly to acceptable levels is something that cannot happen even if the world was 100% renewable as of today. So why all the focus on carbon neutral when we can be carbon negative for likely a lot less investment?

KanKnapper at 01:24 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

One Planet Only Forever at 00:55 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

eschwarzbach@10,

The wording of the opening statement of the OP is wide-open to interpretation. In my reading of the rest of the document the only specific years mentioned are 2015 and 2016.

With the corrrections I suggested (either one), the result is less open to the interpretation that 2015 levels of CO2 were lower than 2014 or a previour record year, and it is 'less open from the beginning'.

So the semantic problem is the statement that 2016 set a New Record without closing the opennings to interpretation about when the Previous Record was set.

The type of opening available in the uncorrected opening statement is exactly the type of opening abused by a misleading information provider. They will claim you don't have to read more than the first sentence to know that the item is an incorrect presentation attempting to make things appear different from what they actually are, accurately adding justification for that claim by stating that CO2 levels have been higher than 280 ppm through the past 800 000 years and that they were even higher than 280 ppm in the past few hundred years.

Swayseeker at 00:39 AM on 3 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

Landfills give off a lot of methane. Why not cover the lanfill sites with transparent greenhouse plastic sheeting a metre or two above the ground and collect the gas under the plastic sheet and feed it into a tower where it can be flared? A large updraft will be formed and the flared gases will disperse high up. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower The gases will be heated by flaring and the greenhouse effect if transparent greenhouse plastic is used above the landfill. The system will simulate a solar updraft tower.

To reduce CO2, increase rainfall in desert areas near the sea and grow trees there. The wind speed is low just over the ocean (as it is just above the ground). There is therefore a fairly stagnant layer with very high relative humidity just above the sea. If one used thousands of floating devices as shown below one could increase moisture in the air so that air blowing to land would produce more rain. Water has a very high emissivity (about 0.95), so the greenhouse plastic will keep in a lot of radiation from the sea surface. For high sea surface temperatures of 30 deg C or so, the greenhouse will keep in about 450 W per square metre of infrared radiation from the sea surface.
The light portion of the solar energy passing through the greenhouse plastic will be absorbed by the black sheet instead of it penetrating deep into the ocean. The infrared portion of solar energy entering the greenhouse will be absorbed within the uppermost few centimetres of the sea surface. Any infrared radiation from the sea that is reflected back to the sea by the greenhouse plastic will also be absorbed in the upper few centimetres of the sea. The result will almost certainly be a heating of the sea surface under the greenhouse plastic, enhancing evaporation and high humidity. About 53% of solar energy is light energy, so the black sheet will prevent a lot of energy from escaping down to deeper levels and will concentrate it near the surface - see diagram at http://airartist.blogspot.co.za

Eclectic at 00:20 AM on 3 November 2017

What does a sexist Google engineer teach us about women in science?

Cero @14 , a continuation of my (#16) reply to your "notes" :-

(C) Yes, I agree that the Memo-ist's comment about "Marxists" demonstrates that he has a rather wacky/extremist attitude.

(D) Mention of "liberal bias in academia" is one of those strange (but frequent) claims causing me to smile. Among other things, it presents a fuzzy poorly-defined poorly-researched picture of reality. Much of it arguable. And much of it based on bizarre American definitions, where "liberal" is a code-word for something which is not liberal, and "conservative" is a code-word for something which is not particularly conservative (and is especially non-conservative in relation to climate & environmental issues).

All that aside, the Memo-ist seems to be trying to say that academia & social scientists & scientists generally are "strongly to the left" in their views. BTW, thank you Cero, for the Wiki reference on the issue — I was interested to see there that studies in 2010 & earlier, indicating that students generally remained uninfluenced by the political views of academic staff. And AFAICT, the "Leftishness" that the Memo-ist was complaining about, was more in the region of 75-90%, than the 95% he was complaining about.

True, they were American studies : but my overall impression is that this same "Leftish" tendency applies throughout the Anglophone academic world (with the possible exception of South Africa?) — and probably for the same causations, applies in non-Anglophone Western Europe too. You will note, Cero, that the Memo-ist paints with a broad brush — broader than mere academic/teaching scientists [and elsewhere in SkS, you will find reference to surveys indicating that scientists more generally are low (and increasingly low) in American "conservative" allegiance.]

so the Memo-ist has a point, in his comments.

But when we boil it down, the situation is this :- When a commentator finds that 75-90% of highly-educated intelligent people hold a view which is appreciably "to the left" of the commentator's view . . . then very likely it is his view that has a bias — not theirs!

Oh wonderful irony. (And the cause of my smile.)

(E) On the question of "pay gap" for women, I don't know whether any such applies at Google itself. But look around, Cero, within the USA and internationally too — for women, the "zero pay gap" is the exception, rather than the rule, for equal-work jobs. And to that must be added the "economic gap" also, owing to opportunity disparity (an important matter for the vast majority of women, who get little access to that minority of jobs possessing zero pay gap).

Overall, it ain't good . . . and we can't hide behind soothing sophistries about the whole thing being a non-issue.

MA Rodger at 22:48 PM on 2 November 2017

Climate's changed before

cero @580,

I can see Kemp et al (2015) being drooled over by denialists. This would be because they misinterpret the paper which sadly misses out on saying explicitly things that are obvious in any genuine reading of the paper.

The idea that ancient warming episodes may have contained more rapid events within the actual warming, that the average rate of warming will inevitably be exceeded over shorter sections of that warming: this is logical. And when you are concerned how quickly, say, an oak forest habitat can shift polewards, those speedier intervals are relevant.

As Michael Sweet points out, we cannot (yet) measure such short accelerations from the available data so Kemp et al set out a new method to infer those increased levels. This is interesting stuff, and very early days, so it cannot be seen as entirely reliable. Consider the PETM which we know took millennia to occur. It was a gentle warming over a long period and would have had periods of increased and decreased rates of warming. Thus Kemp et al take central estimates for this event (5ºC to 9ºC = 7ºC, ~5ky to 20ky = 12.5 ky, this a rate of warming of 0.0006ºC/yr compared with recent rates of 0.015ºC/yr ) and adjust these to suggests a potential millennial rate of 0.0032ºC/yr or about half the PETM warming occurring in a single millennuim.

Other measured temperature rises are likewise adjusted. A 15ºC measured ocean warming over 800,000 years during the P-T (250My bp) is inferred to include a millennial period of at least 4.5ºC warming. (Potentially we could deduce a 9ºC warming over 2,000 years.) Or the Bølling-Allerød during the warming from the LGM (13,000yr bp) measured at 3ºC over 100 years is adjusted to equate to 2.2ºC over a millennia.

So I am on safe ground when I suggest that Kemp et al have not begin to capture the scale of that adjustment. They have set out a method that begins consideration of it.

But there is a missing aspect within the paper if it to be used to argue about the rate of AGW relative to previous non-anthropogenic warming. We are facing a temperature rise of 4ºC in a little over 100 years from unmitigated AGW. Such a rise would rival the magnitude of the largest millennial warming set out by Kemp et al. The caution Kemp et al say "must be exercised when describing recent temperature changes as unprecedented in the context of geological rates" does not apply to expected future unmitigated temperature changes.

Tom Dayton at 22:21 PM on 2 November 2017

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

KanKapper: The limit on water vapor is not a lack of liquid water available to evaporate to become vapor. The planet is covered with vast pools of liquid water that constantly are evaporating, adding water vapor to the atmosphere. The limit is how much water vapor can remain in the atmosphere at the atmosphere's temperature. Water vapor constantly is condensing out of the atmosphere to become liquid (or solid) water. Any water vapor added to the atmosphere above the atmosphere's temperature-dictated capacity simply condenses out--about 10 days as a global average.

eschwarzbach at 22:09 PM on 2 November 2017

Greenhouse gas concentrations surge to new record

Back to comment No.3 of One plantet..

Semantic analysis of the uncorrected text does not imply that "2015 CO2 levels were lower than 2014". There is just one minor uncorrectness in the original text: "...surged at a record-breaking speed in 2016". The increase rate (speed) was 2015 slightly higher than in 2016 (both globally and Mauna Loa). Human language is seldom absolutely correct and exhaustive. But saying "...surged at a record-breaking speed in 2015 and 2016 to the highest level in 800 000 years" should be perfectly valid, without too much words.

cero at 20:04 PM on 2 November 2017

Climate's changed before

@michael sweet:

I don't think, they claim, that it is not possible at all to measure the rate of climate change in the distant past, but they claim that the conclusions from the data are much less accurate than is commonly believed. Therefore it makes sense to correct for that.

They only have been cited 4 times, however the article is only two years old. And maybe they just didn't get that much attention. Still, the article was published in a well-known peer-reviewed journal.

That climate change deniers cite this paper can't be an argument against its validity.

KanKnapper at 13:44 PM on 2 November 2017

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

"The starting point in considering this is the observed fact that water vapour content in the atmosphere is governed by temperature. This is simply an everyday meteorological observation."

My question is what happens when water is insulated from atmospheric temperature and then that insulation is removed? The temperature hasn't changed, but now there is more water in the atmosphere. Specifically, I'm referring to topsoil and the loss thereof. The loss of carbon in the topsoil since the dawn of agriculture is the largest single contributor to atmospheric CO2. Since topsoil contains more water by mass than carbon, it would seem to be a major source of water vapor as well and independent of atmospheric temperature.

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