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jja at 02:59 AM on 18 January 2017Parts of United States are heating faster than globe as a whole
Dr. Bob Kopp led a study for the 'Risky Business' project with an update a few years ago that indicated that extreme heat and humidity impacts in the Unites States was most likely to occur in the Ohio River Valley region. The timelines for these impacts appear to be significantly delayed given the rapid warming we have experienced in the last 3 years. If this trend continues then the likely impacts should be accelerated by several decades.
more information here:
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boba10960 at 01:01 AM on 18 January 2017Fact Check: Rex Tillerson on Climate Risks
Not to detract from concern about Tillerson, but one needs to be careful not to equate the Gulf Stream with AMOC. The Gulf Stream transports five to ten times more water as it leaves North America off Nova Scotia than the amount of water involved in AMOC. The rest of the water carried by the Gulf Stream constitutes ocean recirculation, including the subtropical North Atlantic Gyre. Consequently, northern Europe would continue to benefit from ocean heat transport even were AMOC to be reduced. Consider, for example, the climate of British Columbia. The Pacific Ocean lacks a PMOC that is equivalent to AMOC, yet the combination of ocean heat capacity and gyre recirculation maintains a mild climate in Vancouver.
Paleoclimate records clearly indicate periods of abrupt cooling in Europe during the last glacial cycle. Many scientists attribute this to a decrease in AMOC, but a competing hypothesis is that expansion of sea ice in the North Atlantic insulated the atmosphere from the ocean heat source in wintertime during these cold intervals (see, for example, Denton, G. H., R. B. Alley, G. C. Comer and W. S. Broecker (2005). "The role of seasonality in abrupt climate change." Quaternary Science Reviews 24(10-11): 1159-1182). Note that Wallace Broecker is also a co-author of the paper that advocates this sea ice hypothesis.
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Tom Curtis at 00:46 AM on 18 January 2017Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
The misnamed RenaissanceMan (hereafter RM) @210 quotes Ottmar Edenhofer as saying:
"One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy."
The quote is a translation of a comment Edenhoffer made in an interview, where in response to the interviewer saying:
"De facto ist das eine Enteignung der Länder mit den Bodenschätzen. Das führt zu einer ganz anderen Entwicklung als der, die bisher mit Entwicklungspolitik angestossen wurde."
{"De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy."}
Edenhoffer replied:
"Zunächst mal haben wir Industrieländer die Atmosphäre der Weltgemeinschaft quasi enteignet. Aber man muss klar sagen: Wir verteilen durch die Klimapolitik de facto das Weltvermögen um. Dass die Besitzer von Kohle und Öl davon nicht begeistert sind, liegt auf der Hand. Man muss sich von der Illusion freimachen, dass internationale Klimapolitik Umweltpolitik ist. Das hat mit Umweltpolitik, mit Problemen wie Waldsterben oder Ozonloch, fast nichts mehr zu tun."
{"First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole."}
(Note that the translation is by Philip Mueller, apparently for the Global Warming Policy Foundation. As that organization has repeatedly proven itself an unreliable source, I do not trust the translation, but not speaking German, must relly on it.)
Stating the obvious first, RM, or his source, has reversed the order of the two sentences he does include in the quote, and deleted three of five sentences in the paragraph, one from between the two sentences, and all without any indication of the deleted sentences existence. That sort of manipulation of other peoples words is, in academic situations considers fraud. That is because the meaning of any sentence depends on its context - and RM (or his source) completely butchers the context whilst trying to hide the fact that they have done so. So, at best RM rellies on a fraudulent source without fact checking. I note that Larry Bell similarly butchers the text in an article for Forbes. CFACT also butchers the quote, but again not in an identical form. Simon Downing also has a similar, but distinct butchering. It appears that AGW deniers are almost as bad as creationists when it comes to lying by out of context quotation. But I can find no evidence that RM is not himself an original butcher of the quote; and hence a perpetrator of a deliberate fraud.
So what is the context of the quote, and how does it effect things? Well, to begin with Edenhofer had already stated clearly, in the immediately preceding response that:
"Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil."
That is, he has clearly acknowledged the objective of climate policy, ie, to keep the increase in Global Means Surface Temperature to 2 degrees celsius or less. But in doing so, he notes that the policy necessarilly will have impacts beyond the environmental, and specifically economic impacts. He clarrifies what that means afterwords. Specifically, the choice of different responses to AGW will de facto result in different consequences for the distribution of global wealth. He has already mentioned one example in the response before that (ie, two responses before the one RM, or source, butchered):
"That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all."
I might note that the current approach, of limits on emissions as a percentage of a nations current emissions locks in higher living standards for the first world as part of the treaty system well into the future.
No reasonable climate policy can be devised without noting, and negotiating these de facto effects. But they are, as Edenhofer clearly states, even in the butchered version of the quote, de facto effects. That is, consequences that were not the intended consequence of the policy.
Moderator Response:[PS] You know better. Please dont roll in the mud with the pigs.
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Eclectic at 00:13 AM on 18 January 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #2
So, RenaissanceMan, which do you think is more insufferable: the actual physical global warming which is going on — or the hypocrisy of those who are using jet planes? Or the hypocrisy of those who conflate these two separate concepts?
Do Einstein's personal flaws mean that his Relativity ideas are wrong?
Your argument falls on its face, RenaissanceMan.
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MA Rodger at 22:27 PM on 17 January 2017Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
RenaissanceMan @209.
The choice of vertical scale on a graph of CO2 concentrations is hardily science. And the relative position of a red line on a piece of paper does not determine the contribution of CO2 on global climate forcing. The atmospheric levels of CO2 presented on both of your graphs is roughly consistent (you appear to plot CO2 some 50ppm too high on the lower graph) and it is atmospheric levels which determine forcing.
Yet you accuse the Keeling Curve of having an "unscientific nature." Have you any reason for such a claim? Setting out your claims in scientific terms would be the proper thing to do, if you are able.
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RenaissanceMan at 22:07 PM on 17 January 2017Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Incidentally, the profound effect of water vapor on warming is clearly and demonstrably felt on cloudy nights, where water acts as a powerful blanket, warming local temperatures. The carbon dioxide concentration does not vary remotely as much as humidity, so that on cool, clear nights, the "forcing" argument is out the window, along with heat.
On a side note, another bogus claim is that "increasing ocean acidification" (sic) results from higher carbon dioxide concentrations dissolving in ocean water.
1. The ocean is not "acidic," it is alkaline. In fact, it is 18 times more alkaline than pure water. (The pH scale is logarithmic, and ocean water has a pH of ~8.2)
2. Degassification is a primary natural source of carbon dioxide. It leaves the ocean, rather than dissolving in it.
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.” – Ottmar Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015
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RenaissanceMan at 21:56 PM on 17 January 2017Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
"Radiative forcing" is such a contrived and meaningless term. It is simply an attempt to dismiss water vapor's dominant significance. The infrared spectra for water vapor strongly resembles that of carbon dioxide, and in fact the former is even more powerful at capturing IR radiation. The unscientific nature of the Keeling Curve reflects the author's attempt to instill fear, rather than communicate truth and knowledge. The Keeling Curve is blatantly dishonest [snip]because (1) it does not have a zero base and therefore is strongly skewed as to slope, and (2) does not include the dominant greenhouse gas, water vapor.
Simply making these two adjustments changes it from this:
to this:
Moderator Response:[RH] Please keep your images down to 500px in width.
Warnings and snips due to commenter not reading the SkS commenting policies.
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RenaissanceMan at 21:39 PM on 17 January 2017Russian email hackers keep playing us for fools
Nigelj@1: "Let’s be clear the Clinton and climategate email hacks were theft of people’s private correspondence. The thieves can’t even claim a public interest defence, or whistle blower defence, because there was no wrongdoing found in the documents."
You mean that a Democratic operative at CNN can hand over debate questions to Hillary Clinton and that doesn't represent "wrongdoing"?
Oh please. Bernie Sanders can be ousted by the joint efforts of DNC operatives who want Hillary crowned, and no "wrongdoing" there?
And on and on..
"People I know still quote climategate as if it proves the IPCC wrong. "
Why your ongoing uproar if climategate documents showed no wrongdoing? In fact, it was a major embarrassment which showed inexcusable and indefensible bias by supposed "scientists" with a very profitable "research" axe to grind.
"I don’t like the thought of Trump attempting to appease Putin any more than the way Clinton antagonised him. Both can only create all sorts of obvious problems. It would be better to maintain a sincere, respectful, but slightly detached approach."
How did you like Obama appeasing Putin in 2012: "Tell Putin I'll have more flexibility after the election," Obama said to the Russian diplomat.
And then Hillary giggled as she and a different Russian diplomat hit the little red "Reset Button" she gave him. Democrat appeasement of Russians is just fine, isn't it. But when the other side does it.... ooooo baby. Danger Will Robinson.
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RenaissanceMan at 20:51 PM on 17 January 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #2
And that "other planet" would be.....?
The absurd pretense of space travel being some sort of answer to any imaginable question flies in the face of reducing carbon emissions. All that space technology consumes tons of fossil fuels all over the globe. How is it that the most ardent supporters of anthropogenic climate change (formerly "global warming") fail so miserably to practice what they preach? Al Gore globe trots the world over. Barack Obama flies Air Force One to Hawaii for every Christmas vacation, with his massive entourage, and takes it to Florida for a round of golf with Tiger Woods. Then he's off to Los Angeles to appear on a late night talk show. Billions of tax dollars, and CO2 pounds for worldwide vacations, all the time.
"Researchers" flie and drive around the world, willy nilly, as if their "work" is so critical to mankind's existence. The Hollywood Glitterati preach one thing and then take limos to their private jets, for getaways on huge yachts or foreign homes. The hypocrisy is insufferable.
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Haze at 16:41 PM on 17 January 2017Press complaints process is ‘exercise in futility’ for scientists
Is this why "But, overall, majorities of Americans appear skeptical of climate scientists. No more than a third of the public gives climate scientists high marks for their understanding of climate change; even fewer say climate scientists understand the best ways to address climate change. And, while Americans trust information from climate scientists more than they trust that from other groups, fewer than half of Americans have “a lot” of trust in information from climate scientists (39%)." (http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/public-views-on-climate-change-and-climate-scientists/)
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:41 PM on 17 January 2017Fact Check: Rex Tillerson on Climate Risks
A proposed better wording for the Global Sea Ice image description:
"Global sea ice extent data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The 2016-2017 values shown in red have been significant record lows since September of 2016."
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John Hartz at 13:02 PM on 17 January 2017It's the sun
Recommended supplemental reading:
The NASA data conspiracy theory and the cold sun by Stefan Rahmstorf, Real Climate, Jan 16, 2017
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knaugle at 02:36 AM on 17 January 2017Fact Check: Rex Tillerson on Climate Risks
Regarding #1
It's clear I'm thinking in terms of the next 50 years while the discussion on AMOC is thinking in terms of 100 to 300 years. So like the old beer commercial, I guess it's possible we could get both since the time scales don't line up, but neither of these events will be along the lines of "tastes great or less filling" :(
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knaugle at 02:28 AM on 17 January 2017Fact Check: Rex Tillerson on Climate Risks
I've been following Arctic and Antarctic ice coverage for some time now.
Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis
and the current trend is impressive, way below the recent average (1980-2000). It seems logical that it is not possible to have both an ice free Arctic and a Svalbard-like climate in Northern Britian / Norway.
Along those lines, Svalbard is approaching the point where it should be mostly iced in, but remains fairly ice free.
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Tom Curtis at 12:20 PM on 16 January 2017Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
Denny @21, as the moderator [PS] indicates, the IPCC AR5 found that in the period 1951-2010, more than 100% of warming was due to anthropogenic factors, as shown in this graph derived from AR5 data by Real Climate:
The likelihood that anthropogenic factors caused only 50% or less of the warming is very small (0.06%) based on that graph, while the likelihood that it is less than 100% is only 33.14% - ie, less than one chance in three. The IPCC final statement is more conservative than the graph, allowing a likelihood of not less than 95% ("extremely likely") that the anthropogenic factors caused more than 50% of the warming.
The IPCC can be this confident because the primary natural forcings (solar and volcanic) are known to have had a negative trend over that period; the ENSO influence is known to have been near neutral; and because the sixty year period provides a close coincidence with the period of natural cycles thought by some to have a significant influence on temperaure (AMO, PDO) and hence are neutral, or very nearly so. Other purported natural influences are either also negative because associated with one of the influences above (eg, cosmic rays), or of such poor scientific basis as to be magical thinking. Because of this, denying that the anthropogenic contribution over that period is in the range of (approximately) 75-125% amounts to magical thinking and/or pseudoscience.
What is worse, anthropogenic contribution is not constant over time. It amounted to less than 50% from 1901-1950, and likely around 30%, for example. Taking the 1901-2010 interval, it is closer to 75% than 100%. With ongoing emissions at a Business As Usual rate (RCP8.5), the anthropogenic contribution will become overwhelming. That is, it will still be close to 100%, but the probability of it falling below 75% will become vanishingly small unless something very unusual happens (ie, an increase in solar activity unprecedented in tens of thousands of years (and potentially over the entire life time of Sun to date). Further, because such natural factors are unpredictable, they are not included in the projection, so that if some unprecedented natural warming did occur, so that the anthropogenic contribution fell to 80%, then likely the total warming will have increased to 5 C, not the 4 C projected.
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Denny at 08:30 AM on 16 January 2017Humans are too insignificant to affect global climate
Everyone seems to agree that if we follow the present trend, by the end of the century the temperture of the planet will increase by 4 degrees. Your article shows that at worst case the human cause is 1%. So 1% of 4 degrees is only 0.04 degrees. When you factor in all of the other variables your article mentions, plus forest fires, volcanos, etc., if all human causes were removed, there would be no noticable affect on the temperature even considering your water vapor loop which is present and obviously included in the 4 degrees change.
Moderator Response:[PS] "Your article shows that at worst case the human cause is 1%" This does not follow from the article at all. Can you please be more explicit where in our article that you get the idea that long term change in temperature (as opposed to short term variations) is only 1% human? We obviously need to improve clarity. AR5 put it at more like 110% (the earth would be cooler without anthropogenic effects). Discussed here.
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John Hartz at 10:58 AM on 14 January 2017It's the sun
Recommended supplemental reading:
As Earth Warms Up, The Sun Is Remarkably Quiet by Bob Henson, WunderBlog, Weather Underground, Jan 11, 2017
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ldibart at 10:05 AM on 14 January 2017It'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 .IMOModerator Response:[JH] Sloganeering snipped.
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Tom Dayton at 05:14 AM on 14 January 2017Conservative 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.
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Tom Curtis at 04:21 AM on 14 January 2017NOAA 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.
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Tom Dayton at 03:24 AM on 14 January 2017Conservative 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.
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Tom Curtis at 03:05 AM on 14 January 2017Conservative 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.
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Sean OConnor at 03:01 AM on 14 January 2017Conservative 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...)
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RedBaron at 02:36 AM on 14 January 2017Conservative 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:
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Sean OConnor at 01:23 AM on 14 January 2017Conservative 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.
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Tom Curtis at 00:33 AM on 14 January 2017Conservative 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.
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Sean OConnor at 21:58 PM on 13 January 2017Conservative 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.
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bozzza at 15:49 PM on 13 January 2017Conservative 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>
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bozzza at 15:44 PM on 13 January 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 8
..well, maybe not exactly: nah, good maps actually- I hereby stand corrected!
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bozzza at 15:41 PM on 13 January 2017Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe: Episode 8
The Middle East is the exact antithesis, however. Interesting maps.....
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bozzza at 15:13 PM on 13 January 2017Press 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!
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chriskoz at 12:44 PM on 13 January 2017Global 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.
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Tom Curtis at 11:47 AM on 13 January 2017Russian 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.
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bjchip at 08:20 AM on 13 January 2017Press 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).
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william5331 at 05:47 AM on 13 January 2017Global 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.
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Sean OConnor at 01:27 AM on 13 January 2017Conservative 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.
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John Hartz at 01:18 AM on 13 January 2017Russian 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
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Tristan at 15:56 PM on 12 January 2017Prepare 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 2017Conservative 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 2017Russian 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"
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sailingfree at 08:16 AM on 12 January 2017Global 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?
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chriskoz at 18:15 PM on 11 January 2017Conservative 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'"
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BBHY at 18:06 PM on 11 January 2017Conservative 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.
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RedBaron at 07:21 AM on 11 January 2017Prepare 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:
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.
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Tom Curtis at 07:06 AM on 11 January 2017Russian 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.
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John Hartz at 07:03 AM on 11 January 2017CO2 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
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Tom Curtis at 06:03 AM on 11 January 2017CO2 lags temperature
Adri Norse Fire @510:
1)
"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.
2)
"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.
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One Planet Only Forever at 04:12 AM on 11 January 2017Conservative 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.
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Daniel Bailey at 00:55 AM on 11 January 2017CO2 lags temperature
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.
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Daniel Bailey at 00:47 AM on 11 January 2017CO2 lags temperature
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"
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