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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:

As Earth Warms Up, The Sun Is Remarkably Quiet by Bob Henson, WunderBlog, Weather Underground, Jan 11, 2017

ldibart at 10:05 AM on 14 January 2017

It's the sun

The earth has been cooling down its dropped over 1 degree since the 90s not sure why the graph above stops and does not show this cooling down since the article was posted later than the highest heating point.

Now this cooling down is still continuing even though methane gas was released roughly ten times the amount more than normal. the sun has been less active as well before the earth began to cool a bit .the earth is still .36 degrees warmer however but again this cooling was done a bit after 2000 so that decrease happened relatively fast and I am sure will cause weather changes as the earth adjusts ..

They are trying to put the blame on man for the methane .however since 2007 Methane levels went on the rise and again the past 2 years released 10x (was the quote) that amount .. so unless rice paddies and cows and other man made products which is supposed to be 60 percent of the methane I dont see that had anything to do with this huge release at all as they stated having risen some monstrous amounts this can not be man made methane .

They admit that its hard to know where it came from ..but they will indeed blame man make up stats and charge people for it even though this much methane release has to come world wide and from other sources .IMO

Moderator Response:

[JH] Sloganeering snipped.

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Tom Dayton at 05:14 AM on 14 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

Sean, following up on my reply to you: The climate models do a good job of reproducing the sizes and durations of internal variability of temperature--those large swings above and below the model ensemble mean that I described previously. So changes in short term trends such as those you referred to as "flattening" are expected--projected by the models.

What the climate models do poorly is project the timings of those short term changes--for example, internal variability's oscillations due to ENSO. The sizes and durations of temperature oscillations due to ENSO are projected well, but the phase alignments of those oscillations with the calendar are poorly projected.

That's due to the inherent difficulty of modeling those things, but also to the difference between climate models and weather models. Those two types of models essentially are identical, except that weather models are initialised with current conditions in attempts to project those very details of timings that climate models project poorly. Weather models do well up through at least 5 days into the future, but after about 10 days get really poor. Climate models, in contrast, are not initialized with current conditions. They are initialized with conditions far in the past, the Sun is turned on, and they are run until they stabilize. It turns out that it doesn't matter much what the initialization condition details are, because fundamental physics of energy balance ("boundary conditions") constrain the weather within boundaries that are "climate." You might think of it as the mathematical (not the normal English!) concept of "chaos," with weather being the poorly predictable variations around stable "attractors." (Type "chaos" in the Search field at the top left of this page to see relevant posts.)

Evidence that the models well-project durations and sizes of temperature swings can be seen if you pick out from those model run spaghetti lines, the runs whose timings/phasings of some major internal variability in ocean activity just happen to match (by sheer accident) the actual calendar timings of those. Risbey et al. did that, as described well by Stephen Lewandowski along with several other approaches.

Tom Curtis at 04:21 AM on 14 January 2017

NOAA was right: we have been underestimating warming

From the Comments Policy:

"No multiple identities. Posting comments at Skeptical Science should use only one registered screen name. Use of more than one account will result in all accounts being banned."

Given that, and given that Echo_Alpha_Zulu/Echo_Alpha_Delta is using at least two accounts, I will not respond to his comments until the moderators have determined to what extent he is violating the comments policy, and the appropriate course of action.

Moderator Response:

[JH] All of the comments that Echo_Alpha_Delta has posted have been deleted because he/she is a sock puppet of a person who has been banned from posting on this site. All future posts of Echo_Alpha_Delta will be summarily deleted until his/her new identity is banned.

Tom Dayton at 03:24 AM on 14 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

Sean, your statement that "the measured temperature was falling rapidly down the confidence limits" is incorrect, because those are not "confidence limits" in the usual statistical sense. You are not at all alone in misunderstanding that; climate scientists like most all other scientists (me included!) usually speak and write in shorthand about information that they all know. The "envelope" of model runs in the graph that Rob posted for you is shading to cover the area spanned by all the CMIP5 model runs. The individual model runs can be represented by a spaghetti graph that most people find hard to read, so usually the shading is substituted for the strands of spaghetti. See Rob Painting's post's Figure 2 as a schematic to understand that, and his Figure 3 for all the actual model run spaghetti strands.

The CMIP5 project had multiple models, most produced by different teams. Each model was run at least once, but some were run multiple times with different parameter values. The set of all model runs is a "convenience" sample of the population of all possible model runs. Indeed, it is only a "convenience" sample of all possible models. "Convenience" sampling in science does not have the "casual" or "lazy" implication that the word "convenience" does in lay language. It means that the sample is not a random selection from the population, and not even a stratified random sample. In this case, it is impossible to randomly sample from those populations of all possible model runs and all possible models. Therefore the usual "confidence limits" related concepts of inferential statistics do not apply.

So what does this distribution of model runs mean? It is multiple researchers' attempts to create models and model parameterizations that span the ranges of those researchers' best estimates of a whole bunch of things. So it does represent "confidence" and "uncertainty," but in more of a subjective judgement way than what you probably were thinking. Read Rob's post for more explanation.

Notably, none of the individual model runs has the shape of the multi-model ("model ensemble") mean line. In other words, we expect the global temperature to not follow that multi-model mean line. That's a stronger statement than "we don't expect the global temperature to exactly follow the multi-model mean line." It would be disappointing if any of the individual model runs followed that mean line, because it is quite clear that the global temperature varies a lot more than that. That's because the global temperature in the short term is weather by definition, and only in the long term is climate. So what we expect is for global temperature to vary a lot day to day, month to month, year to year, and even decade to decade, in response to variations in internal variations such as ENSO; and to variations in forcings such as volcanoes, insolation, greenhouse gas emissions, and reflective aerosol emissions.

We do expect that the resulting wavy actual global temperature line will follow the general pattern of all those model runs. That includes expecting the actual temperature line to stay within the range of all those model runs (the bounds of the ensemble). We expect it will not hug the ensemble mean; we expect it will swing up and down across that mean line, sometimes all the way to the edge of the range (not just to the edge of 95% of the range). We expect 10 year actual trends to deviate substantially from that mean line. We expect 20 year actual trends to deviate significantly from that mean line. We expect 30 year trends to deviate somewhat from that mean line. We expect 50 year trends to deviate slightly from that mean line. Beyond 50 years into the future the uncertainty starts increasing again.

Read Rob's post, then with that knowledge as context, re-read Tom Curtis's replies to you.

Tom Curtis at 03:05 AM on 14 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

Sean OConnor @9, what your really saying is that you want a gotcha moment, not actual understanding.

For the record, the running 10 year means in the CMIP5 RCP8.5 from 2011.5 (ie, the period from 2007-2016) to 2020.5 (ie, 2016-2025) is 0.284 +/- 0.278 C/decade. The mean value is meaningless without the uncertainty. It would only be a meaningful value if, contrary to fact, we lived in a world without short term, unpredictable influences on temperature such as ENSO. With that uncertainty, any observed trend during that interval from 0.006 - 0.562 C/decade lies within the predicted model range.

More importantly, the model projection for 2011-2015 was a 10 year trend of 0.255 +/- 0.323 C/decade, with an observed trend of 0.148 C/decade - well within the uncertainty level. Indeed, according to the models, there is a 19-25% chance of a trend that low, or lower. If you conclude from those statistics that the models have been falsified, you are like a person who, seeing a 1 rolled on a six sided dice, conclude that probability theory is bunk because it predicted only a 1 in six (16.67%) chance of such an event occuring in a single roll.

That leaves aside such details as that the models are projections, ie, predictions on the assumption that a particular forcing history has occurred. That is particularly significant because it is known the observed forcing history showed a lower growth than the RCP8.5 forcing scenario; which would lead us to expect the observed trend to be less than the projected trend.

Sean OConnor at 03:01 AM on 14 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

OK, I'll make it easy. If the level of CO2 continues to grow for the next couple of decades as it did for the last couple of decades what will be the projected expected rate of global temperature rise over that time? (and we continue to get similar numbers of volcanos, El Ninos, La Ninas etc...)

RedBaron at 02:36 AM on 14 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

@9 Sean OConnor,

Models don't predict, they project. There is a difference. in other words:

If ABC.... then D +/- an uncertainty factor

ABC... has some factors that are known and some factors that can't be known until they happen. So because all the factors ABC... can't be known ahead of time, they can only be projected as to what range of values they might have in the future, depending on our actions and many events that can't be known ahead of time.

For example, exactly how many new solar panels will be bought next year? Wind generators? Do you know? When will be the next el nino? la nina? The next major volcanic eruption? How large? The average fuel efficiency of next years car and truck models? How many will be sold? How much will they be driven? We can project possible numbers for all of these within ranges, but no one can predict ahead of time those exact figures and hundreds more until they actually happen!

As of yet NO ONE can accurately predict the future. What climate scientists can do with their models is project possible outcomes depending upon how a multitude of future events unfold. Then those projections are tested against the empirical evidence after it happens and is measured, and it gives scientists new knowledge about how our climate system works.

The reason you keep needing to ask over and over and are frustrated at not getting a satisfactory answer, is because you are asking the wrong question.

Maybe this will help:

Gavin Schmidt: The emergent patterns of climate change

Sean OConnor at 01:23 AM on 14 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

OK, I'll ask for a third time: What do the models predict that the rate of global warming will be over the next few decades?

The article states that we've been seeing something like 0.16C to 0.18C per decade as measured by scientific instruments.

My understanding was that the prediction was 0.3C per decade. So I am surprised to see an article on Skeptical Science giving a figure of about half what was predicted.

Tom Curtis at 00:33 AM on 14 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

Sean OConnor @7, I compared the RCP8.5 model runs for CMIP5 to the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Land Ocean Temperature Index (BEST LOTI) from 1861 to 2015 (that being currently the most recently available annual data point for BEST LOTI). Taking runing 10 year means over that interval, the BEST LOTI has a mean difference from the CMIP5 RCP 8.5 ensemble mean of 0.01 Standard Deviations (ie, a normalized error of 0.01), with a standard deviation of the normalized error of 1.11. That is, over that period the historical record shows more variability than the ensemble mean, but the running 10 year trends show no significant bias. Indeed, the trend of the normalized error is -0.004 +/-0.004, so that over time, the mean normalized error has decreased - a trend which is almost but not quite significant.

The greater variability of the historical record is expected. That is because the mean of the CMIP5 RCP8.5 ensemble is the average of 39 different runs, each of which varies in different locations. That is due to different timings of simulated ENSO events, along with other quasiperiodic cycles represented in the model. Consequently the ensemble mean is far smoother than any individual run.

Now you might correctly point out that the majority of that run represents a hindcast. We are more interested in the accuracy of forecasts. However, the proper test of the accuracy of the forecast is that it is not statistically distinguishable from the accuracy of the hindcast. If we apply an absolute test of the accuracy in the forecast, we treat the actual record as though it were an ensemble mean; rather than the logical equivalent to just another ensemble member. We know from the hindcast that the timing of ensemble member ENSO events (and the like) are not coordinated and that those drive the substantial variability from year to year from the ensemble mean. We also know that the historical record exhibits the same behaviour. Therefore we expect in future the variability from ENSO events to result in considerable variability in the short term trend from the ensemble mean, but that overtime that variability will average out.

As it happens, the normalized error in the 10 year trend terminating from 2006 - 2015 is -0.67. That is, it is running two thirds of a standard deviation of the typical error below the ensemble mean. Therefore it does not even hint at a problem in accurate prediction.

Note that the 2006-2015 interval has high values at either end and low values in the middle and so would be expected to have a flat trend. That, from our knowledge of the ENSO record, and that the ensemble mean averages out the effects of ENSO, we would expect a lower than average 10 year trend to 2015.

Sean OConnor at 21:58 PM on 13 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

Thanks Rob P for posting that graph but virtually all that it shows is that models are good at predicting the past and that isn't something I'm terribly interested in. But when the model was actually predicting the future, from say 2000 onwards, your graph clearly shows that actual recorded temperatures were quite flat whereas the prediction was for them to increase (which is ironic as this article is all about there not being a pause when your own graph clearly shows that there was!) and the measured temperature was falling rapidly down the confidence limits. Granted, the recent El Nino has upped the measured temperatures, but my understanding is that this will only be temporary as it was in 1998.

So rather than show a graph of hindcast predictions could you please let me know what the predicted global temperature rise is according to our latest models for the next few decades? Don't show a graph, just write down the number in degrees C per decade that we are expecting for the next 20 or 30 years. My understanding was that it was 0.3C/decade but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Moderator Response:

[Rob P] ".....your graph clearly shows that actual recorded temperatures....."

The ol' eyecrometer is not a statistical tool. Note what appeared in the post above - from Foster & Abraham [2015]:

"A barrage of statistical tests was applied to global surface temperature time series to search for evidence of any significant departure from a linear increase at a constant rate since 1970. In every case, the analysis not only failed to establish a trend change with statistical significance, it failed by a wide margin."

"My understanding was that it was 0.3C/decade....."

In the IPCC's Second Assessment Report, the projected global annual mean rate of warming for the early 21st century (slightly larger than scenario IS92a), including greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols, was 0.2°C per decade.

bozzza at 15:49 PM on 13 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

BBHY, would you therefore agree that the pattern markets need to see before a consolidatory approach toward self imposed carbon intensity efficiency would be: <b>a temperature trend of la ninas above that of el ninos?</b>

bozzza at 15:44 PM on 13 January 2017

Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 8

..well, maybe not exactly: nah, good maps actually- I hereby stand corrected!

bozzza at 15:41 PM on 13 January 2017

Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 8

The Middle East is the exact antithesis, however. Interesting maps.....

bozzza at 15:13 PM on 13 January 2017

Press complaints process is ‘exercise in futility’ for scientists

White-trash-democracy got bombed in 2001: why haven't we collectively realised that parents have a responsibility to their kids yet?

Because we are all trying too hard to be like our once-hippyish parents whom we all remember cutting off their hair... and then they changed! Now we have become them without the free-love bit and the world is full of McMansions and lonely neighbours.

What happens next is up to us as people: governments follow, the people lead!

chriskoz at 12:44 PM on 13 January 2017

Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 8

william@2,

Your "prophecy" does not make any sense in light of e.g. (Samson 2011):

(click to see larger version)

Same aplies on the smaller scale: "rich and famous" are going to sit in their A/C towers, or move to their other properties, while poors and vulnerables are going to suffer. Example: recent cases of suicide in flooded Thailand. Rich people do not react like that.

Tom Curtis at 11:47 AM on 13 January 2017

Russian email hackers keep playing us for fools

As I have said previously, I am not going to endlessly reprosecute this point. I will note, however, that while adamski will not accept significant evidence of Russian involvement in the DNC hack, he reverses the onus of proof when it comes to condemning Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, who is charged with fomenting a coup simply because the US has given aid to the Ukraine. Next he will be telling us that the US pulls Putin's puppet strings because of the >10 Billion in aid given to Russia over the same period.

I will also point out that my accurate description of Putin as a hardline, nationalist, dictator is not in any way weakened by the extensive support of such dictators by the US in the past, given that I am not a US citizen, and have never condoned that support. Indeed, I have condemned it.

bjchip at 08:20 AM on 13 January 2017

Press complaints process is ‘exercise in futility’ for scientists

The great misfortune for our children is that democracy fails us when people are ignorant, and that they prefer not to pay for "news" that is "inconvenient" to their beliefs or that simply fails to entertain them. Which means that media outlets have a stron interest in entertainment and controversy, and very little in the boring part about accuracy.

Since we enlightened our social structures so that news is now a commercially sold product (infotainment), the result is a spreading and undeniable increase in ignorance. The ignoranti outnumber us, and democracy IS failing, and the result is that we are failing our children, in not providing them with an environment that supports the civilization and privileges we ourselves enjoy today. This is simply a symptom. It is actually remarkable that there is still some theoretical mechanism to correct it. I do not think that in the USA the ability to challenge a media pusher on its products even exists (outside of libel court).

william5331 at 05:47 AM on 13 January 2017

Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 8

Just a wee niggle. Climate change is likely to have a pretty devestating effect on the rich and famous. Think about all that high priced realestate that will be trashed by sea level rise. Think about cities which typically have three days of food within their boarders when there is a massive Northern Hemisphere crop failure. Think about the wall street types that were jumping out of their multi story buildings during the 30's crash. They joy may just possibly be spread around a little more equally than we think.

Sean OConnor at 01:27 AM on 13 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

You state that we've had warming of between 0.16C and 0.18C per decade. How does that compare to model predictions?

Moderator Response:

[Rob P] Here's an update to a figure which appeared in the IPCC AR5.

John Hartz at 01:18 AM on 13 January 2017

Russian email hackers keep playing us for fools

In my opinion, Kurt Eichenwald is one of the best investigative journalists in the US. I therefore place great weight on the accuracy of his reports about the Russian/Putin interference in the 2016 Presidential election. Here is an introduction and link to his most recent Newsweek piece on this topic.

Prior to the November presidential vote, Newsweek published an article revealing the scope, intent, mechanisms and global impact of Russia’s interference with the American election, based largely on information from European intelligence services. Given the recent release of declassified government documents confirming large portions of the original article, we are combining new reporting with extensive information from the first Newsweek piece that has yet to be declassified and has been described by individuals from and connected to several foreign intelligence services who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Trump, Putin and the Hidden History of How Russia Interfered in the U.S. Presidential Election by Kurt Eichenwald, Newsweek, Jan 11, 2016

Tristan at 15:56 PM on 12 January 2017

Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth ‘no global warming since 2016’

@RedBaron

Very interesting, thanks for your detailed response.

Ignorant Guy at 15:24 PM on 12 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

Like chriskoz, I didn't like the headline. But you can't always not get what you don't want.

But let's get serious. I really agree with chriskoz that this web-site needs to be easy to read. I come here frequently to keep myself informed and find the site higly valuable.
I am not a native English speaker and I am so-so fluent, but I have a way with words and I have I way with logic. Still I needed to read the 3-negtion headline several times to get the meaning right.

adamski5807 at 14:02 PM on 12 January 2017

Russian email hackers keep playing us for fools

Tom@32 How is it that other actors are eliminated without giving us factual substance of thier claims? You are prepared to question assange's claims yet give no qualifications to what is being claimed by the agencies ( remember Iraq?) You provide a link that half way down states there Assange asked the US to review and redact names but refused and that there is no evidence that anyones life has been threatened as a result. You also omit that it was a 'real journalist' - David Leigh of the Guardian, who made it necessary for the cables to be dumped en masse after he published the decryption codes in a book.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn20869-assange-why-wikileaks-was-right-to-release-raw-cables/

Is it possible for you to provide examples of countries where the US has suppported democracy as I can give plenty where the opposite is true (read Chomsky)

Leak or hack, what does it really matter as we know all govts are involved in such affairs, but in this case what is seen as the "crime" is its release to the american public.

Demonising Putin with descriptors such as hardliner, nationalist, dictator are meaningless when there are plenty of leaders around the globe who enjoy full US suuport and protection. Putin is an oligacarch thanks to US capitalism after the collapse of USSR and the privatisation of state assets.

And finally, where are you getting you information of Ukraine and Syria? Are you saying Nuland had nothing to do with the illegal overthrow of Yanukovitch despite her admission of spending $5bn to secure "a democratic Ukraine"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2fYcHLouXY

sailingfree at 08:16 AM on 12 January 2017

Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 8

The Bible says even more.

God made the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve, but got mad at them and kicked them out to a less hospitibale place: “… cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shall thy eat out of it … in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,…” (Genesis 3.17,19)

And after a few generations He was so mad at mankind that He flooded the Earth. “And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6.5) “… and so the Lord said  I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; …” (Genesis 6.7)

He later changed his mind for Noah and his family, and promised no more global floods. He made no such promise about heat though.

Could He be mad again, seeing how "well" we have taken care of the Earth and have treated other humans?

chriskoz at 18:15 PM on 11 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

Thanks Dana for another good article, but its title, with 3 negations "can't stop", "denying" and "no global warming 'pause'" is virtually impossible to grasp even for me, a fluent English reader. I grasped it only by inference, because I know Dana and what he thinks on the subject, and of course from the text.

However, those less fluent (e.g. what google translate would do with it if some need to read in another language?) or who don't read the text carefully, will just remain confused.

Simplicity and clarity of arguments & language is what separate this website from denialist crowd and let's not forget about titles...

"Conservative media keep denying that the global warming 'pause' was debunked" would be far better. Or a different take: "Science denying conservative media keep believing in a myth of the global warming 'pause'"

BBHY at 18:06 PM on 11 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

Not only are El Nino years hotter than previous El Nino years and La Nina years hotter than previous La Nina years, but we also have La Nina years that are hotter than earlier El Nino years. If that isn't evidence of warming what is?

I like to remind people that 2008, which was the coolest year since 2000, was still warmer than all but one year of the 1900's. So a year that is actually in 99th percentile of warmest years is now what counts as a 'cool" year in the 21st Century.

My conservative friends still claim that the Earth is in a cooling period, but we know that has now become part of their political identity and has nothing at all to do with the scientific facts.

RedBaron at 07:21 AM on 11 January 2017

Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth ‘no global warming since 2016’

Tristan,

Easier said than done. The best published science so far regarding management changes on existing grassland is here:

Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical, physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie

But one study in Texas, no matter how well done, doesn't help much to determine what will happen in Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, South America, Asia, Australia etc etc... Its being done in all those places. Soil carbon is rapidly rising. Vegetative cover is increasing, etc etc etc. But as far as I know, there isn't yet enough published literature to quantify it.

That's the first problem. The second problem is so far, counter to what everyone is claiming, no land managed this way has ever been found yet to saturate so far. Other types of grassland management has, but not HPG, not yet. Gabe Brown has one paddock up to 11%, and it is actually accelerating carbon sequestration rather than slowing down. There is a guy in Missouri named Greg Judy who has been doing this long enough he theorectically should have reached saturation, but instead, his land the A horizon carbon sequestration simply tapered off at the upper levels, but accelerated deeper in the soil profile. He is now building high carbon soil meters deep. No saturation in sight...yet. But he hasn't had his land volunteered as part of a carbon sequestration scientific study with controlls either. Only relying on his own reporting of soil tests sent to labs. So these lines of evidence are not robust at all, nor quantified properly.

In some cases where some of these properties have been robustly measured, they often are simply thrown out as outliers. That doesn't help us much either.

But the biggest obstical of all is getting any good data at all on land currently in corn and soy production. What would be the effect of changing that land back to properly managed pasture? People have done it, but I have seen no data that could be used to quantify the effects besides the case studies done on several farms including Gabe Brown and his neighbors. A webinar describing those results can be found here and even this focused on cover crops used as forage rather than the pasture land:

Innovative No-Till: Using Multi-Species Cover Crops to Improve Soil Health

And here is Gabe describing it himself:

Gabe Brown: Keys To Building a Healthy Soil

This would necessarily be part of any plan though. Because while we currently over produce corn and soy, we wouldn't want to stop completely either. So this needs to happen too. Wouldn't want to grow it for biofuels though. Switchgrass not only produces about 5 times the biomass above ground for biofuel production, it also rapidly sequesters carbon in the soil at the same time. (10.6tCO2/ha/yr in the 0-120 cm soil profile)

Soil Carbon Storage by Switchgrass Grown for Bioenergy

Basically what we are left with then is calculating potential theoretically rather than actually robustly estimating it from observable published results. We have a few studies here and there, and they are suprisingly consistant, but not enough to be sure worldwide. Agriculture can double soil carbon levels in the topsoil within three to five years, particularly when the starting point is below 2%. Soil carbon increases of 0.5-1% could therefore be achieved relatively easily with these simple changes to land management anywhere those soil carbon levels have dropped below 2%. So the next question is how much carbon is that? To calculate that we use this formula:

Total weight of the soil (100 t/ha/cm) x % SOC = 1tC/ha/cm for every 1% increase of SOC. The standard soil measurement depth is 30cm. So 30tC/ha for every 1% increase in SOC. (SOC actually increases meters deep and in the case above with switchgrass even more at depth than shallow, but data for depths over 30cm is quite rare because most the data was collected in conjunction with arable cropping)

The only thing to do next is simply project how many acres of land we do this on.

Desertification is experienced on 33% of the global land surface and affects more than one billion people, half of whom live in Africa. [1]

Applying the numbers above to 33% of the land surface gives one ridiculously high potential. Even I can't be that optimistic. Agricultural land producing food totals 49,116,227 square kilometers (just under 5 gigahectares) So if we could do this on just 33% of current agricultural land that would give us a usable sink of around 1.5 gigahectares. That gives 45 Gt C for every 1% increase in SOC just in the top 30cm of the 1/3rd the world's agricultural soils. You won't reach saturation for at minimum 225 Gt C. Every 27 tC sequestered biologically in soil represents 100 tCO2e removed from the atmosphere. That gives us 833 Gt CO2e sink size for only 1/3rd the agricultural land increasing in SOC 5% only in the top 30cm. More than all the excess CO2 currently in the atmosphere and approaching significant numbers for total emissions ever. The last figure I found for global industrial emissions since 1751 was ~ 1,450 Gt CO2e (maybe some of you climate scientists could confirm that)

Yet as big as that number is, 1/3rd the agricultural land being capable of sequestering well over 1/2 of the total industrial emissions ever just by increasing SOC 5%. It is still finite. So we still must rely on the other scientists and engineers to get a handle on emissions.

I still contend if we do both, it will solve AGW and may be the ONLY way we can. Certainly the only way I know of that can be afforded and instead of risks, benefits.

Tom Curtis at 07:06 AM on 11 January 2017

Russian email hackers keep playing us for fools

adamski @31, there are now six independent organizations with relevant expertise that claim the malware shows the computers to have been probably hacked by Russian government associated hackers. Those organizations state that fingerprints are emulatable by others so that it is not definitive proof, but all are confident that it is relevant evidence. Given that you are not an expert in cybersecurity, your opinion that it is not evidence at all is irrelevant.

The recent claim by a purported "whistleblower" to have leaked the data (your original postion) is shown to not be credible by the prior claim by Guccifer 2.0, who is shown to have been running a false flag operation by his deficient knowledge of Romanian (his purported nationality). He also (unconvingly) claims that Russian metadata left on the files was his "watermark"; but that metadata shows a Russian connection prior even to the wikileaks dump.

Public statements by Putin show him to have a strong preference for Trump as president, showing the Russian government to have a clear motive compatible with their having leaked the DNC documents. He may have had a reasonable motive for that, but that has no bearing on the matter. (I will note that everybody, always, would "like a cooperative relationship". The question is, on what terms. Russia's activities in the Ukraine and Syria show the terms on which they will accept a "cooperative relationship" is explicitly inimical to US foreign policy, and to the supporting of democracy in general. Putin is a hardline, nationalist, dictator. Any US President who gains a "cooperative relationship" with Russia while any of those three descriptors applies is probably sacrificing US interests to do so.)

Finally, Assange is not a journalist of any description. At best he merely dumps data to the web with no effort to assess its import. However, he does far worse thant that. While initially favourable to the idea of wikileaks, Assange lost my support when he dumped a large body of unredacted data revealing the names of Afghanistanis cooperating with NATO forces, thereby setting them up to be murdered by the Taliban. Since then, the further, completely targeted dumps show him (at best) to be a stooge for people inimical to the West. His public statements suggest he is a willing stooge.

I am not going to endlessly reprosecute these points. Nothing in your response actually presents counter evidence to the evidence I already detailed @13. You have just thrown mud (together with an unwarranted testimonial for Putin) in the hopes that the evidence will be ignored.

John Hartz at 07:03 AM on 11 January 2017

CO2 lags temperature

Adri Norse Fire @510:

Here's another science-based response to the issue you have raised:

“Over eight glacial cycles in 650,000 years, global temperature and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere have gone hand in hand. When temperatures are high, so are CO2 amounts and vice versa. This obvious connection is part of a coupled system in which changes in climate affect CO2 levels, and CO2 levels also change climate. The pacing of these cycles is set by variations in the Earth’s orbit, but their magnitude is strongly affected by greenhouse gas changes and the waxing and waning of the ice sheets.”

Source: Climate Change: Picturing the Science, Gavin Schmidt and Joshua Wolfe, W.W. Norton Company Ltd, 2009

Tom Curtis at 06:03 AM on 11 January 2017

CO2 lags temperature

Adri Norse Fire @510:

"If we have verified that CO2 follows the increase of the global temperature in the ice cores with a determined time delay, it is evident that it is not the CO2 that causes the temperature increase, but the opposite."

As it happens, however, what has been determined over the most recent deglaciation is that 90% of the temperature increase lags the CO2 increase (see final figure in OP, and Shakun et al (2012)). That is entirely consistent with the standard theory which is that while the deglaciation was triggered by changes in NH insolation due to the Milankovitch cycles, it was then driven by a feedback cycle of greenhouse gases (CO2 and methane) and albedo changes.

I would be a bizarre form of science that threw out a theory because the data conformed with the expectations from the theory.

"But how do you know that CO2 is responsible for current climate changes?"

A regression of Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) against CO2 forcing shows a correlation of 0.9, an R^2 of 0.811, and a temperature change of 0.58 C/(W/m^2), ie, a Transient Climate Responsce (TCR) of 2.14 C per doubling of CO2. In contrast a similar regression of GMST against Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) shows a correlation of 0.416, an R^2 of 0.173, and a temperature change of 1.77 C/(W/m^2). Adjusting to the solar forcing, that represents a temperature response of 10.1 C/(W/m^2), or a TCR or 37.3 C per doubling of CO2.

The high correlation between CO2 forcing and temperature is not due to the CO2 increase being a consequence of temperature increase, both because multiple lines of evidence show the CO2 increase to be due to anthropogenic emissions (as per Daniel Bailey's post @512) and because the correlation between GMST and CO2 forcing (0.9) is higher than the 0.679 correlation between GMST and CO2 concentration. To reject the dominant role of CO2 forcing in the increase in GMST in this circumstance is to reject that which has strong supporting evidence (CO2 forcing as the cause) in favour of that with only very weak evidence (TSI forcing as the cause); but also to indulge in magical thinking that supposes that like effects (ie, similar values in forcing) are up to 17 times stronger when the cause is solar forcing than when it is CO2 forcing.

There is much more evidence of the dominant role of CO2 forcing in recent temperature increases than this, and stronger individual items of evidence - but this evidence is very straight forward and easy to understand. In the end you either accept evidence or you do not. If you do, you do not have any serious doubt as to the role of the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gases in the current rapid increase in GMST.

One Planet Only Forever at 04:12 AM on 11 January 2017

Conservative media can't stop denying there was no global warming 'pause'

If the denier/delayers lose traction with their 'pause' propaganda they will surely move to another delaying tactic like saying they need to see another 10 years of data to be convinced. That can be repeated in 10 years, as many times as it works for them.

Promoting denial is just one of the actions they will try to benefit from. Ultimately the biggest trouble-makers are the ones with the most to lose because they chose to deny that they should dramatically reduce their reliance on getting away with benefiting from the global burining up of the non-renewable buried ancient hydrocarbons. They gambled big on getting away with behaving less acceptably.

Clearly it is irresponsible for anyone to try to delay actions that will develop truly lasting improvements for all of humanity far into the future, developing almost perpetual ways for all of humanity to live decently on this amazing planet.

It is equally clear that 'the conservative media' are not the real problem. The problem is any individual or organization that pursues the increase of its perceptions of success "Winning" popularity and profitability without responsibly limiting their actions to "Helping" to advance humanity to a lasting better future for all.

Winners who are not Honestly Helpful are actually Threats regardless of temporarily created perceptions in the minds of a portion of current day humanity.

Daniel Bailey at 00:55 AM on 11 January 2017

CO2 lags temperature

"how do you know that the current increase in temperature (+ -0.5 ° C since the end of the Little Ice Age) is due to the action of the tiny fraction of the atmosphere composed of greenhouse gases and among them the tiny part composed of CO2"

Off-topic, but I'll answer anyway and risk the ire of the moderators.

Scientists have a pretty good understanding of what the Earth's climate has been throughout it's history, why it has changed over time and what the specific factors are that have made the climate change.

And the only factor that fully explains all the changes we can see and measure in temperatures, ocean salinity, atmospheric composition, loss of Arctic sea ice volume, changing species habitats & ranges is due to the warming from human-derived fossil-fuel CO2 we have put back into the carbon cycle.

We have accurate, reliable data for the growth of atmospheric CO2 and for anthropogenic emissions (for details, see Cawley, 2011). The fact that the net natural flux is negative clearly shows that natural uptake has exceeded natural emissions every year for the last fifty years at least, and hence has been opposing, rather than causing the observed rise in atmospheric CO2.

It is true that the fluxes between the oceans and atmosphere depend on temperature, so all things being equal, one would expect atmospheric CO2 to rise in a warming world.

However, the thing the fake-skeptics and compulsive liars normally ignore is that CO2 solubility increases with increasing difference in the partial pressures of CO2 between atmosphere and surface waters.

In the real world, all things are not equal, our emissions have caused a difference in partial pressures, which is increasing the oceanic uptake, which more than compensates for the temperature driven change in fluxes.

The human-caused origin (anthropogenic) of the measured increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 is a cornerstone of predictions of future temperature rises.

As such, it has come under frequent attack by people who challenge the science of global warming. One thing noteworthy about those attacks is that the full range of evidence supporting the anthropogenic nature of the CO2 increase seems to slip from sight. So what is the full range of supporting evidence?

There are ten main lines of evidence to be considered:

1. The start of the growth in CO2 concentration coincides with the start of the industrial revolution, hence anthropogenic;

2. Increase in CO2 concentration over the long term almost exactly correlates with cumulative anthropogenic emissions, hence anthropogenic;

3. Annual CO2 concentration growth is less than Annual CO2 emissions, hence anthropogenic; (Link, Link)

4. Declining C14 ratio indicates the source is very old, hence fossil fuel or volcanic (ie, not oceanic outgassing or a recent biological source);

5. Declining C13 ratio indicates a biological source, hence not volcanic;

6. Declining O2 concentration indicate combustion, hence not volcanic;

7. Partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean is increasing, hence not oceanic outgassing;

8. Measured CO2 emissions from all (surface and beneath the sea) volcanoes are one-hundredth of anthropogenic CO2 emissions; hence not volcanic;

9. Known changes in biomass too small by a factor of 10, hence not deforestation; (Link, Link)

10. Known changes of CO2 concentration with temperature are too small by a factor of 10, hence not ocean outgassing.

The current, and ongoing, increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is due to human industrial activities. In scientific circles this is the climatological equivalent of the Earth being round - a fact so plainly obvious and supported by such a vast body of scientific evidence that to question its reality is absurd.

It quickly becomes clear that it is the humans who have caused the rise in CO2 levels, by burning fossil fuels in the twentieth century. Every other hypothesis makes a host of predictions that do not pass the test of the evidence.

H/T to Tom Curtis, from which much of the above is sourced.

Please stay on-topic from now on. Thousands of threads exist here on virtually every topic related to climate change imaginable. Use the Search function to find the most appropriate thread and place your questions there.

Daniel Bailey at 00:47 AM on 11 January 2017

CO2 lags temperature

"If we have verified that CO2 follows the increase of the global temperature in the ice cores with a determined time delay"

And yet the BEST team found that, WRT 'Is CO2 leading or lagging temperature rise':

"we know that the CO2 is not coming from the oceans but from human burning of fossil fuels"

And

"it is clear that it is the CO2 that comes first, not the warming"

Adri Norse Fire at 21:31 PM on 10 January 2017

CO2 lags temperature

If we have verified that CO2 follows the increase of the global temperature in the ice cores with a determined time delay, it is evident that it is not the CO2 that causes the temperature increase, but the opposite. It is a proof that the temperature causes the increase of CO2. So far we are all agreed. But how do you know that CO2 is responsible for current climate changes? Because it is a greenhouse gas? Of course, all greenhouse gases produce a warming (if the theory of greenhouse effect is true) in the global temperature. But, how do you know that the current increase in temperature (+ -0.5 ° C since the end of the Little Ice Age) is due to the action of the tiny fraction of the atmosphere composed of greenhouse gases and among them the tiny part composed of CO2 and within the CO2 of the tiny percentage produced by human industrial societies and not due to the action of other more widespread greenhouse gases or to the huge natural emissions of CO2 or the undisputed influence of the sun on global temperature wich in turn raises the atmospheric CO2 level?

adamski5807 at 16:12 PM on 10 January 2017

Russian email hackers keep playing us for fools

Tom @30. U.S. Intel Chiefs have a history of deceiving the public ( Glenn Greenwald). Who can forget James Clapper performance before Congree regarding the NSA in 2013?? So then - where is the evidence?? The latest report again says nothing on this, a report which was claimed to be why the 35 diplomats were deported. The phrase “we assess” was used 19 times without a single fact to demonstrate Russian involvement. In other words we, the intelligence community, have made a judgment, and you, the American people, must take it on faith. NSA even gave it a moderate vote of confidence.

So lets look at your reasons.

Malware - It cannot be claimed that tools such as X-Agent have been exclusively sourced by Russia when it can be shown others have access and these tools and the infrastructure the DNC hackers allegedly used are not evidence that points to any specific actor. Indeed any cyber-crime actor, like the NSA, seeks to disguise as a different actor when committing attacks. Something that "proves" that A did it is likely to have been created by B, C or D to disguise as A. All such hacking tools use freely available infrastructure like TOR or rented networks from cyber-crime wholesalers like the recently exposed Israeli denial-of-service franchiser.

Crowdstiker - FBI claims that democracts refuse full access to DNC servers. Did C/striker get this? How do you do a thorough investigation without full access?

Putin - stated that he would like a cooperative relationship with US. With Clinton comparing him to Hitler, naturally look to the othr side. How many time have we heard the US state thier preferred candidate.

Assange - WikiLeaks conducted themselves as actual journalists, not stenographers for the CIA and Pentagon, and made the secret documents public, damaging the candidate who was the overwhelming favorite of the military-intelligence leadership. If you think the publication by WikiLeaks of US military and diplomatic communications that document war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and conspiracies against governments around the world is treasonous, then you and I have a major difference.

Tristan at 14:40 PM on 10 January 2017

Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth ‘no global warming since 2016’

@RedBaron

Maybe this is simplisitic, but it seems that to advance your position you need to have references for the following things, and a discussion on the significant caveats:

A) Carbon capacity of existing temperate pastoral grassland (seems like Jobbagy and Jackson (2000) has you covered)

B) Carbon capacity of the proposed C4 pastoral grassland.

C) Cost/time associated with converting the grasslands of A) to the grasslands of in B).

michael sweet at 10:27 AM on 10 January 2017

Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth ‘no global warming since 2016’

Red Baron,

It appears to me that you feel that your opinion is the only thing that can be accepted science and everyone else is incorrect. Since I am not expert in this area, I have to go with the consensus opinion. If your soil claims have merit keep on presenting them to others. Scientists accept new proposals once they see convincing data. "Potential climate wedges" from supporters is not very convincing.

I think you should stop your very loud criticism of others based on your assumption that you know it all. Perhaps there is some merit in others experience. Voicing the mainstream scientific opinion cannot be called "false myths". Perhaps I have misread your posts.

From our previous discussion it is clear that you greatly underestimate the amount of carbon that has to be removed from the biosphere and overestimate how much soil can remove. In the end we will have to implement everything that removes carbon so perhaps your ideas will be seen as beneficial. In any case it will probably improve the soil for those who can implement it.

william5331 at 05:13 AM on 10 January 2017

As Seas Rise, Miami Development Continues Unabated

I suppose they could fill the bottom floors of tall buildings with concrete and enter at the second floor. Wharves could be built to moor boats and singing boatmen imported from Florence. Going with the flow so to speak. There should be a great business opportunity for raising houses a few meters and putting piling underneath. Could be quite exciting too. There should be an influx of crocodiles and water moccasins and even the giant hybrid pythons. Mangroves will become the favored (or only) garden plant that will grow. Spoon bills and other birds will use them to nest and the area will become a naturalist paradise. "always look on the bright side of life"

RedBaron at 04:56 AM on 10 January 2017

Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth ‘no global warming since 2016’

Tom,

I have no fundamental problem with Jobbagy and Jackson. It is of course discussing the highly degraded current state rather than prior to industrialized agriculture, overgrazing, undergrazing and various other human impacts. So you sould be careful in the conclusions you draw from the paper. But I can certainly accept in the most general terms the data while still disputing certain conclusions some might draw from it.

As far as your claim of typically about 1% SOC found in mollic epihedons. That of course is the problem. When soils that historically contained 6-10% SOC prior to human impact are currently holding 1% SOC we have a serious problem. Basically farming on subsoil.

Tom Curtis at 03:54 AM on 10 January 2017

Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth ‘no global warming since 2016’

RedBaron @14:

"Now the last thing for you to connect all the dots is understand what biome builds soils, forests? or grasslands? This is again 100 year old science. Mollic Epipedon"

While Mollic epipedons are formed in grasslands and have a high (>0.6% , typically about 1% SOC according to one source I saw) SOC, Folistic epipedons are mostly composed of organic material and consequently, have SOC in the 10's of percents. They, or course, are formed in forestland.

That goes to show that just citing the high SOC values of Mollic epipedons, or that they are generated in grasslands has no evidentiary value. What is required is an actual stocktake of total carbon reservoirs for typical environments, as is provided by Jobbagy and Jackson (2000).

They show that temperate grasslands store 19.1 kg/m^2 of carbon in the first 3 meters (Table 3), with a further 5 kg/m^2 above ground (Table 4). In contrast temperate deciduous forests store 22.8 kg/m^2 of carbon in the first 3 meters, with a further 129.2 kg/m^2 above ground. Temperate evergreen forests also store more carbon in the soil than do temperate grasslands, and considerably more in the total ecosystem (although not as much in either as do temperate deciduous forrests). Similarly tropical forests (deciduous and evergreen) store more carbon in the first three meters of soil than do tropical grassland/savanna, and massively more when the whole ecosystem is taken into account.

You are welcome to say that that data is out of date, and link a more up to date source, but unless that source details total ecosystem storage for all relevant ecosystems, it does not supplant Jobbagy and Jackson.

RedBaron at 23:43 PM on 9 January 2017

Prepare for reanimation of the zombie myth ‘no global warming since 2016’

Michael,

When I supply a link like: Liquid carbon pathway unrecognised, what do you suppose "unrecognised" means if not missed by the accepted mainstream line? We have the situation where ~5,000 farmers and rapidly growing numbers in Austrailia, and a few case studies run by Dr. Jones for scientific verification are in fact doing right now as we speak what the accepted mainstream line completely ignores and even worse says is basically impossible. Well in my book, we can attach a high level of uncertainty to new breakthroughs like this, but it is improper to say it can't be done. That's denialism exactly parallel to AGW denialism.

Much the same, I gave you a source that claims

"The relative size of each of these pools can vary in
different soils. But in general, the size of the stable pool remains relatively constant, while the sizes
of the labile and slow pools are sensitive to management."

That is the accepted mainstream line and it is what I was taught. That knowledge is 100 years old! For all that time no one really understood exactly why, but no one ever accomplish the formation of a mollic epipedon where one didn't exist. It basically was impossible. We could degrade it, but we didn't know how to bring it back. However, it is an impossible thing that several people are doing right now for the first time in human history! And you want me to hold back my enthusiasm?

It's even worse for SRI, which has over 5 million practitioners and over 700 articles in the scientific literature, yet the accepted mainstream line as reviewed by that link completely ignores it.

Did you ever wonder why I am so sympathetic to your SkepticalScience claims that "big oil" is actively obfuscating the science behind AGW? I have kept that open mind and reviewed the evidence because I know for a fact "Big Ag" is doing the same thing to soil science where ever it crosses the line in the soil they have claimed for themselves.

There is a reason I gave you that link anyway even though Daniel Kane clearly dances around that "Big Ag" minefield on tiptoe.

Currently the atmosphere and
ocean have too much carbon while soils have lost carbon at an alarming rate due to development,
conversion of native grasslands and forests to cropland, and agricultural practices that decrease soil
organic matter

and

Oceans and aquatic systems are by far the largest at an estimated 38,000 gigatons (Gt)
and vegetation is the smallest of the pools at an estimated 650 Gt. Soil is about four times the size of
the vegetation pool at an estimated 2500 Gt, making it the largest terrestrial pool of carbon (Batjes,
1996).

and

Historic land use conversion of native ecosystems to agriculture is responsible for soil carbon reductions as high as 60-75% (Lal, 2011).

(btw That's on land still in production. More cropland has been lost completely and abandoned to desertification than is currently in production)

So you can easily see the soil pool potential is far larger than the living biomass potential. I don't dispute that forests have greater biomass potential. I simply am saying the soil carbon potential is much greater.

Now the last thing for you to connect all the dots is understand what biome builds soils, forests? or grasslands? This is again 100 year old science. Mollic Epipedon

So when we talk about AGW mitigation strategies, do we talk about labile biomass carbon? Or the 4 times larger and orders of magnitude more stable soil carbon pool? It shouldn't even be in dispute. But by far the most common approach advocated is afforestation rather than soil sequestration. It's a zombie myth that keeps rearing its ugly head just like the zombie myth addressed in the OP!

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