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Comments 30601 to 30650:

  1. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    Watchdog @44

    Regarding your comments:

    Point 1- At the time of the bolide impact, Chicxulub was not anti-podal to the Deccan Traps. All of the continents were still positioned on one hemisphere of the Earth.

    Points 2 and 3 -Chicxulub and the Deccan Traps did have a profound effect on the Earth’s temperature. I’m not aware of any glaciation at that time. I wouldn’t conclude there was glaciation because of the drop in sea level because the theory I mentioned, I’ll call it the GTME, explains that when the Earth’s core elements move back toward Earth-centricity and surface gravity increases, sea levels near Pangea’s continental remnants must have lowered, as they did. The same type of massive sea level drop occurred at the P-T boundary for, I believe, the same reason it did at the Cretaceous-Triassic boundary. And, I’m not aware of any glaciation at that time.

    The gravity anomolies that you refer to in Canada and elsewhere are caused by crust compression from overlaying ice. This is far different and significantly smaller than those caused by the movement of the Earth’s core elements theorized by the GTME.

    Regarding your final statement about the dinosaur extinction, my belief, based on their gradual extinction throughout the Cretaceous and the rapid disappearance of the remaining dinosaur taxa at the very end, cannot be explained by the bolide impact nor the volcanic theories or by attributing the extinctions to their combined effects. Dinosaur fossils have been found near the Deccan Traps between major lava flows raising doubt whether worldwide extinctions could have been the result of volcanism.

  2. The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)

    And props too for accurately including this caveat, usually skipped in popular geology:

    That there is still much lively (and at times acrimonious) debate concerning the Plumes Hypothesis, including postulated alternative formation-mechanisms for LIPs, need not concern us here.

    There is indeed a lively debate, including many recent papers (and presentations at last year's AGU) arguing that contrary to every textbook, deep-mantle plumes do not exist. Some of that work is cited in this more colorful piece describing the plume hypothesis as "zombie science."

    http://www.mantleplumes.org/Zombie.html

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Fixed link

  3. There is no consensus

    wakeup @666: This survey is not the only evidence used "daily" to suggest an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists, and in fact, it references several other studies that support that position. I agree there are limitations of this study (hence my question), but the consensus is pretty clear from other sources as well.

  4. The cause of the greatest mass-extinctions of all? Pollution (Part 1)

    Speaking as a geologist, this is a very well-written and readable account. Kudos to you for assembling it all in such an easily-understood essay.

  5. There is no consensus

    michael sweet @664: Please re-read Cook et al and check the author survey sent - inconclusive was not a choice given to the authors of papers.  I believe it is clear from the methods and the nature of the subset of abstracts receiving a treatment of inconclusive that Cooke et al realized their error late in the process and thus were unable to completely correct for this. I do not doubt that the number of scientists publishing papers indicating they are unconvinced is very low, but I was hoping someone was aware of such a study.

    I am trying to find if anyone has quantified this in any way, that was all.  I am not attempting to dismiss the consensus on AGW.

  6. It's the sun

    Hi Tom,

    If you know of a mathematcal tool that could resolve whether autocorrelation is sufficient to explain the clustering of error years, I would be interested, though it is hardly an important point. (I confess I don't know the correct approach, myself, but eyeballing the graph did not at first suggest to me that simple autocorrelation was enough; looking at it again I am not so sure.)

    The bigger problem I have with the "It's chance" line of argument is that it seems to be largely devoid of explanatory power. It is a truism that, within normallly distributed sets of data, a certain proportion will fall below a certain number of standard deviations, but it is a truism that applies as well to good models as to bad. It would remain true even if we added noise to the model to the point that it ceased to be useful. Even Pangburn could raise it in defence of the worst patches of his own model. The 2-SD yardstck is itself modified as the model deteriorates.

    If the Minister for Education says: "We have to lift our game, 1% of schools are performing below ther 99th centile", then it is appropriate to point out to the Minister that 1% are always expected to perform below the 99th centile. Conversely, if the principal of a school says: "We have to lift our game, our school is performing below the 99th centile," or even just asks, in the boardroom: "Why are we performing below the 99th centile?", he would be rightly frustrated if his teachers said, "Don't worry, there'll always be 1% of schools below the 99th centile."

    Asking why a particular patch of data-model matching is much worse than the rest is more analagous to the second situation, I believe. And while it may have been the case that there was no explanation other than chance, and I agree that thsi cannot be dismissed entirely, I am not surprised there are better explanations.

    On the other hand, we have wandered off-topic and I greatly respect the work you do here so I wil leave it at that.

    Regards, Leto.

  7. Climate's changed before

    It is amazing that so many experts think they know what happened millions, billions of years ago on the earth!  Let alone that the techonlogy that is used to record the earth's temperature has only existed since the latter 1800s.  Add to it in the 60s and 70s we endured a global cooling scare!  When you take and issue and use it for an agenda you will you scare tactics!  But in the end we dont even use the data attained during the 100 years of numbers collected but a brief 30 year period from 1950-1980 as our "average"!  Yet we all know that this is the period of global cooling!  Add to the alarmism of the 30/4,500,000,000,000 and science thinks it can answer every question with such a small sample, amazing!  But I digress, let us take this one little degree over the past 100 years... now let us remove the co2 created by the mere existance of man and the population explosion.... next let us remove the co2 produced by the livestock explosion needed to feed the world.... let us remove the co2 from any additional solar activities.... let us remove the co2 that is created from all sources apart from fossil fuel usage!  Next let us go to the remainder and break it down between countries in comparision to their production of co2 to run their economies... So now we in the usa are responsible for a fraction of one tenth of one degree!  Let us now see what we can do to affec that number but also remembering that as we punish those who produce co2 one of two things will happen.  They will increase the price of their goods or services and in the end punish the poorest among us or second they will move thier companies overseas where they will have fewer regulations and be able to increase production and co2 thereby eliminating any potential positives by attacking them in the first place... hmmmmmm!

    Moderator Response:

    [TD] Only your first two sentences are on the topic of this post.  If you want to discuss the topics of the other sentences, post them on the appropriate threads.  In each of those original posts, after you read the Basic tabbed pane, read the Intermediate and then the Advanced tabbed panes, if they exist:

     

  8. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    Theorist @43.

    In my posts above I've directly alluded to some of your 3 points.

    Placing carbon isotope excursion and lower surface gravity on the side burner for a moment, the following factors are not negated by them.

    Point 1 - There is evidence (not proof) that the shockwave of the Chicxulub Impact (which would have travelled in the direction of the Deccan Traps) must connect with effects upon Earth's Core-Mantle

    Points 2 and 3 - There is strong evidence/agreement that the emissions of both Chicxulub and Deccan Traps ARE the Cause of the lowering of Earth's Temperature by as much as 8°C, which in turn caused a lowering of the Ocean Levels by c.40 Meters, which in turn is consistent with widespread glaciation, which in turn is consistent with significant llfe extinction.

    Said another way, after all was said and done: If the effects of either/both Chicxulub's impact shock and thermal, along with the effects of its Ejecta upon Life - as well as - the probable greater effects from the larger volume of Deccan Traps Ejecta (including damaging respiratory effects on fauna and flora), the ensuing Global Freezing due to the blockages of Solar Radiation from both events - would have dealt an additional death blow to much of any remaining life. ----

    In this current 'climate' of concern of Warming, the attention given to Abrubt Cooling Events - including their extent and effects upon Life - can be oft be cast aside.

    Consider the last Glaciation period which ended c.12,500 yrs ago, created 10 Million Sq. Miles (in both hemispheres, including all of Canada) covered in ICE - all consistent with a 400' lower Ocean levels of the Oceans.

    Consider now the contribution of that Glaciation event to Extinction:

    Consider the Habitability of Life in Canada 20,000 years ago.

    Recalling All of Canada was covered in ICE, how many species can survive during longterm periods of ICE and only ICE

    Speaking of Gravity. Consider the decrease in Gravity in a large portion of Canada, particularly in the general Hudson Bay area. The ICE upon that area was as much as 3.7 km thick. This ICE depressed that area (which still slowly rises) by c.650'.

    An agreed _part_ of the "cause" of the decrease in Gravity is:
    The ICE compression pushed _aside_ some mass/material from underneath that area - thus lowering the mass/gravity of that area.

    Another theory of lowering "part" of the Gravity is referred to as "convection". Whereby moving magma currents pull tectonic plates downward thus removing mass and thus lowering Gravity from that area.

    Both theories are now considered together as explaining the total "missing mass/lowered gravity" of that area.

    ERGO: Getting back to Lower Temps, the abrupt decline in global temperature is the Cause of the increase of ICE; which ultimately affected - in part - the Gravity of some areas of Earth.

    As with theories which approach Chicxulub and Deccan Traps as connected to each other, is that Glaciation Period and Magma Convection Process - possibly connected?

    POINT? Again, there are multiple causes and climatic (and other) effects - often intertwined) which are detrimental to life.

    WHY should the Overall Cause of Dinosaur Deaths be approached as if a new plausible theory _must supplant_ other existing plausible theories of detrimental-to-Life Causes and Effects?

    •

  9. There is no consensus

    Well there are other ways to see whether Cook is on the right track. You can ask the climate scientists directly. That would be Doran 2009, which came up with the same figure. You could also look at all the scientists who contributed research surveyed by the IPCC - ie over 4500. By contrast wikipedia provides this helpful list of dissenters. Taking out the non-climate scientists and industry shills, you are left with a list of mostly scientists who have "gone emeritus" and/or are ideologues.

    Frankly, anyone who doesnt believe that a consensus exists is pursuing an elaborate exercise in fooling themselves and I would suspect them to be ideology and/or identity driven.

  10. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    This is an excellent up-to-date analysis of the current thinking of the mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Triassic boundary. It has been over thirty years since the bolide impact theory was proposed yet we still do not have a definitive answer to the extinction. I believe this is because neither the bolide impact nor the volcanic are the primary culprits in the mass extinction; they played a minor role and were caused by changes in the position of the Earth’s core elements.

    I believe the Gravity Theory of Mass Extinction explains all mass extinctions, which have the following characteristics, in addition to the extinctions caused by changes in surface gravity:

    1. Massive flood basalt volcanic eruptions which originate at the core-mantle boundary.

    2. Massive fluctuations of sea levels.

    3. Large carbon isotope excursion (the disassociation of methane from marine locations caused by the combination of low sea level and lower surface gravity and not by volcanism).

    Scientists have ignored the coincidence of these factors, which accompany all mass extinctions prior to about 30mya.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHMAT_i3-KQ&feature=youtu.be

  11. PhilippeChantreau at 01:06 AM on 20 March 2015
    There is no consensus

    I find the line of reasoning from wakeup so tenuous and the conversation so vacuous that this is coming really close to a DNFTT situation.

  12. One Planet Only Forever at 00:01 AM on 20 March 2015
    Fossil fuels are way more expensive than you think

    Another consideration is that any developed activity based on a practice like burning up non-renewable resources fundamentally cannot be continued. The economic system response is that scarcity will make the activity cost more. What really happens is a few people figure out how to be the ones to benefit most to the bitterest of ends that they can get away with. That includes wars and overthrowing governments and setting up indebted poor nations so they can displace self-sufficient tribes to get the cheapest possible access to the limited resource they wish to be the maximum beneficiaries of in the short-term, the only term that matters to them in their financially focused pursuits (and a lot of research indicats thta people motivated by financial pursuits are less caring of the consequences of their actions. So all rich people are not a problem. Only those who strive to be richer any way they can get away with are a problem).

    The lack of a future for such activities and the damaging actions taken by powerful wealthy pursuesr of more for themsleves needs to be included in the evaluation.

    In addition, many economic assessments of the 'overall economics' claim that reducing the burning of fossil fuels 'costs more' than dealing with the consequences. Those evaluations are fundamentally flawed because there should never be any 'consequences to be faced by future generatons' created by the pursuits of personal benefit by any in a current generation. It should not matter how wealthy some people in a current generation can get if that wealthy way of life cannot be continued indefinitely on this amazing planet with all others developing to live that way if they wish to.

    The current socio-economic-political systems are motivated by 'some trying to win what they want to the detriment of others'. The concept of developing an eternally enjoyable way of living that all humanity can enjoy if they choose as part of the robust diversity of life is contrary to the current systems that encourage a few to fight to dominate or 'win over' all others at the expense of others.

  13. 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #12A

    Back to Antarctic sea ice-had a moment to read again.  I enjoyed this article in the Washington Post, which is posted this week.  It seems to give a nice summary of possible explanations for sea ice extent.  Even includes an opinion that this could be chance fluctuaton, from John Turner (who, on a quick search, seems to be an earnest scientist).    It makes sense to me as a layperson that fluctuations will occur within geologic time frames.  Monitoring overall ice trends, as with the NASA and NSIDC data, yields a more accurate picture, as individual fluctuations revert toward the mean.  It also seems land ice is slightly harder to measure at this point, but progress is being made in measuring land ice thickness.

  14. There is no consensus

    wakeup - By your standards, then, every science paper should also explicitly state that the sky is blue, gravity exists, green is not purple, and in essence recapitulate the entire sum of human knowledge, because otherwise that's all clearly up for debate.

    Um, no.

    Every bit of science exists within the body of shared knowledge assumed as a background. It's only when a work rests on other assumptions that it's necessary to state those, in a minority opinion - the better accepted a bit of knowledge, the less you need to start it to the readers. Meaning that climate 'skeptic' papers need to establish their (different) assumptions, but mainstream works not so much.

    I suspect (personal opinion) you are fully aware of this, and are just looking for some semantic points to dismiss the consensus on AGW. That same argument has been raised before (read back in these threads), and it's still nonsense. 

  15. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    Ranyl - Thank you for posting that selection.   "" It’s weapons of death include a violent blast that destroys everything for thousands of miles around the impact, a heat flash from the blast that incinerates everything in a similar radius, followed by a near-global rain of red-hot ejecta that turns the sky into a broiler (“grill” if you are outside the US) inflicting fatal burns and igniting a global conflagration. The blast, centered in shallow ocean, generates a colossal tsunami across the juvenile Atlantic and the shock wave triggers earthquakes and tsunamis around the world far more violent than the 2011 magnitude 9 Tōhuku earthquake in Japan. Finally, the great quantity of dust and incinerated debris flung into the upper atmosphere blocks out the sun, turning the world dark and the climate frigid for years.""   Please pardon me for my redundancy; however if you review that selection you can see it directly supports the fact that Chicxulub was a global event.  One can only surmise the actual and complete extent of all its immediate destructive-to-life effects upon life in North & South Americas'.  I.E.  It's clear from that selection is that its impact upon E.G., Global Temperature aka Global Freezing which is Not due to CO2 (and similar Solar-Radiation reduction effects from Deccan Traps Ejecta) are but a part of All the overall causes of the deaths of the dinosaurs.  

  16. There is no consensus

    wakeup @666.

    If your comment @666 is the substance of your enquiry (although it is more assertion than enquiry), perhaps the example of Whiskas cat food advertising will demonstrate where you are missing the point.

    This is not to do with "whether or not global warming is human-caused" as you suggest @666. Rather it is to do with whether climate scientists agree it is human-caused. And they overwhelmingly do agree.

    The UK Whiskas cat food advert of the 1980s initially used the phrase "8 out of 10 cat owners said they cat preferred it." This was adjudged to be deceitful because there were many who didn't express a preference and were not included in the "10". Thus the adverts was changed to say "8 out of 10 cat owners who expressed a preference said their cat preferred it."

    Yet this still does not give the full story. How many cat owners (or more correctly cat feeders, because they are the ones in a position to know) responded that there was not a jot of difference between these various cat foods? It could be, say, that only a third could see any difference at all between premium cat food Whiskas and some budget moggy-snack.

    What you are suggesting @666 is that all the papers reviewed are like cat feeders and so these papers would all allow an answer to the enquiry and that in the majority of cases the papers show a response "Don't know" or in the Whiskas analogy "I see no difference." Yet what that majority( that you wish to include within the results of the analysis) are saying is the equivalent of "I don't know because I don't feed the cat."

    This explains why, contrary to your assertion,  the 97% figure "is (properly) demonstrated by this survey."

  17. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    " It’s weapons of death include a violent blast that destroys everything for thousands of miles around the impact, a heat flash from the blast that incinerates everything in a similar radius, followed by a near-global rain of red-hot ejecta that turns the sky into a broiler (“grill” if you are outside the US) inflicting fatal burns and igniting a global conflagration. The blast, centered in shallow ocean, generates a colossal tsunami across the juvenile Atlantic and the shock wave triggers earthquakes and tsunamis around the world far more violent than the 2011 magnitude 9 Tōhuku earthquake in Japan. Finally, the great quantity of dust and incinerated debris flung into the upper atmosphere blocks out the sun, turning the world dark and the climate frigid for years."

    From main article Watchdog, not sure what your point that Howardlee hasn' taddressed really.

    Yes a big impact makes a lot of waves, just not enough apparently to wipe out life all over the earth, that takes a global cultprit, according the evidence presented and mulled over by those who drawn the conclusions Howardlee presents.

    That an impact of that size didn't induce the full mass extinction makes CO2 warming and acidification just more worrying really.

    Although despite that, if a comet was again coming our way everybody would pull together to try and do something about if ways could be found. Yet when it comes to the greater threat posed by what we are doing, most people turn a blind eye, under the premise that an acclerated mass extinction won't happen really, the threat isn't that great, it won't happen to me or will take place in a far away place.

    Every year we pump out enough CO2 to be equivalent of approximately 3 mega volcanoes erupting.

    But the affects are too subtle as yet for most human's contemplation and threat reaction to be induced as we human's really only react to comet like threats, as we can identify the danger as an immediate impact and that is clearly life threatening.

    Anyway the scale of change required to actually become a sustainable, non toxic, biodiversity enhancing global soceity is too great it seems and the majority of solutions are still toxicity producing, biodiversity impacting and totally none sustainable (e.g. larges scale dams, wind turbines, PV panels, Batteries, industrial scale biomass production) and don't address the issues of massive over exploitation of resources, population expansion, waste creation and inasive alien species.

    We'd have more chance if a comet was going hit us!

    Does anyone out there actually think transformational change is possible if that meant sacrificing the car, plane and mobile phone?

  18. Fossil fuels are way more expensive than you think

    Social cost of goods or technologies is well known: economist call it externality. The problem is that is a type of indirect cost. It's really hard to change it in a direct cost (with a taxation or with law in order to avoid pollution). And this not only because population has to accept this change, but also because in a global market if only one nation (even if the first economic power one like USA) will support strongly (partially, with investment both on fossil both on revewable  is not so effective) this change the other competitors (China, Brasil, Russia etc etc) will take commercial advantages avoiding (or simply delaying) this pollution tax.

    Regarding Nuccitelli graph I hope that 2014 will not be an isolated year but the beginning of a new trend of decoupling. Looking through data there are also  1980-81 and 1992 with GDP increase (around 2%) and decreease of CO2 emission while durimng 1994 and 1998 a GDP increase at more or less 3% was done with a small CO2 increase (around 0,5%). 

  19. Fossil fuels are way more expensive than you think

    I like that studies of this sort help make people aware of the hidden costs of the fossil fuels we use. I wonder how much more would be added by including the cost of oil spills?

    Then again, in a way the added cost is misleading. When parts of Antarctica melt from too much CO2 in the atmosphere, no amount of money can put that ice back. When a beautiful beach is submerged by rising seas it can't be replaced with a stack of $100 bills.

    I think a lot of people don't realize that the effects of global warming as almost completely irreversible. When we limited sulfer pollution, the acid rains stopped and the forests and streams recovered. When we stopped emitting CFCs the whole hole in the ozone begain to shrink.

    The changes to the climate caused by humans are not like that. They are pretty much permanent, unless you consider time scales greater than 1000 years.

  20. Skeptical Science now an Android app

    Apart from mobile games, there are plenty of useful apps available for everyday use. For example, Google itself releases new Android apps from time to time. One of the latest ones is Google reader, which allows the user to browse and read RSS feeds and news items from the different sites that are subscribed to using Google Reader from the web. best android apps

  21. There is no consensus

    wakeup @666, thankyou for opening my eyes.  I had not realized the theory that the Earth is not flat was in so much difficulty.  However, following your methods, I noted that there is virtually zero endorsement of the proposition that the Earth is a sphere (or oblate spheroid) in scientific papers.  It follows, from your impeccable reasoning, that >>99% of scientists do not accept that the Earth is either a sphere or an oblate speroid and that, by inference they consider the theory that the Earth is flat to be at least as viable.

  22. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    howardlee @39 - Yes. Thank you.    Returning to the topic of quantifying the impact effects and "region" size of Chicxulub I refer to a paper in _Meteoritics and Planetary Science_, "Earth Impact Effects Program: A Web-based computer program for calculating the regional environmental consequences of a meteoroid impact on Earth", by Collins, Meloth and Marcus, which includes various physical results from 3 sizes of impactors; one the size of Chicxulub.  I note that its thermal energy alone estimated at a radius of 1,800 miles from its point of impact is 10 times the level which would cause 1st degree skin burns.   My Point?   I think we can agree that the 'regional' area of destruction wrought by Chicxulub covered a rather vast region; perhaps continentalish. 
    http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/effects.pdf

  23. There is no consensus

    Tristan: Thanks for responding. At issue is whether or not global warming is human-caused. If the goal was to find out if a significant majority of scientists publishing in the field support the theory, it's unusual, to say the least, to discard 66% of the subject papers because they "made no statement of attribution" and treat the 34% who do as 100% to reach the conclusion that 97% validate the theory of human causation.

    That would be fine if the 97% is declared for what it is: the percentage of the 34% of experts who have reached a conclusion, as it is (if you know to look for it) in the Science Project logo above. Unfortunately it is used daily to convince the public that 97% of climate change scientists agree that gw is human-caused, which, in my view, is not demonstrated by this survey.

  24. Crowdfunding Support for Science: The Dark Snow Project

    Tracking it back to the original figure you get caption of:

    "Monthly mass anomalies (in Gigatonnes, Gt) for the Greenland ice sheet since April 2002 estimated from GRACE measurements. The anomalies are expressed as departures from the 2002-2014 mean value for each month. For reference, orange asterisks denote June values (or May for those years when June is missing)."

  25. Crowdfunding Support for Science: The Dark Snow Project

    Quick question. What is that "Greenland Ice Mass Loss" graph actually showing? I'm a bit confused by the positive and negative numbers on the y-axis.

  26. It's the sun

    Leto @1139, temperature shows a level of autocorrelation across years.  Because of that, clustering of high SD years is not unexpected.  If follows that "just chance" cannot be excluded as an explanation for the cluster of high SD years.  And even though it is more probable than not that it is not just chance, I certainly cannot claim that just chance is less probable than any or all of the other alternative explanations.

  27. It's the sun

    Thanks Tom and Glenn... Tom's list of "error years" (1938, 1943, 1944, 1963) do not appear to be randomly distributed - if we plotted a rolling 2-year or 5-year average of absolute (or squared) model-data mismatch, I suspect there would be a peak in the 1938-1944 period that stuck out well above the rest of the plot (more than 2 SD), so I was hoping there would be better explanations than "it's chance". 

    Clearly, there are several potential explanations and it seems more than likely that the data around that time is itself suspect (particularly given the association with WW2 and  the change in coverage). That makes the performance of the model even more impressive.

  28. arationofreason at 09:09 AM on 19 March 2015
    There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature

    Linear 'fit' to the last 38 years of ocean data yields 0.3 watts/m^2. Essentially the same as the Livitus et al results. This is ~93% of global warming power with a decent average time. Note this is only about 1/10 of the global warming power claimed by IPCC to reach 3C in a century.

  29. There is no consensus

    michael sweet @664, in Cook et al, self raters were not given an "inconclusive" option.  Rather they were given a neutral option, without the possibility of distinguishing between "neutral because inconclusive" and "neutral because relevant issues were not addressed".  The distinction is important because the former, but not the later, should be included in the denominator in determining the proportion of endorsements.

    In the abstract rating section of the paper, a subsample of neutral papers were given a secondary rating to distinguish between "neutral because inconclusive" and "neutral because not addressed".  Only 0.1% of neutral papers fell into the former category.  Assuming that a similar proportion of papers self rated as neutral were "neutral because inconclusive", then 96.7% of self rated papers that had an opinion on the topic would have been self rated as endorsing AGW.  That compares to the 97.2% found in the actual paper without the option of distinguishing reasons for the neutral rating.

  30. michael sweet at 06:07 AM on 19 March 2015
    There is no consensus

    mav1234,

    Read the advanced or intermediate tabs of the OP.  All the studies allow the papers to be rated inconclusive.  Cook had 7 ratings.  Many of the papers were rated inconclusive.  

    Where did you get the idea that inconclusive was not a choice??  If you believe the "skeptic" blogs you will never understand the issues.  Their primary purpose is to put out disinformation.

  31. There is no consensus

    Hello all,

    Is anyone aware of a similar study in which authors were allowed to rate their studies as "inconclusive"?  Given that this study asked authors to rate studies without the option to mark as inconclusive, I was just curious.

  32. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    Watchdog @38 I assume you are referring to Ohno et al 2014. That's a paper looking at the nature of the aerosols generated by an impact. In the article you will see I reference newer research on the volumes of material and mechanisms of acidification showing that ocean chemistry rules out the impact as a feasible cause of the ocean acidification.

  33. There is no consensus

    The case is actually stronger, if I recall correctly.  The 3% of publications addressing the human contribution are not actually comprehensive.  If we were to include only studies that determine the contributions of the full range of natural and anthro forcings, feedbacks, and oscillations, the number would not be 97%.  It would be 100%.

  34. There is no consensus

    wakeup, let's consider some different scenarios;

    • If you look at all climate papers which stated causes of GW then ~97% said GW is mostly human caused.
    • If you look at all climate papers then ~33% said GW is mostly human caused.
    • If you look at all scientific papers then less than 1% said GW is mostly human caused.
    • If you look at all papers on any subject (e.g. economics, philosophy, knitting) then near 0% said GW is mostly human caused.
    • If you look at all written communication throughout human history then near 0% stated a position on any given single topic.

    People who are not trying to kill their own capacity for rational thought should be able to see that looking at anything other than the percentage amongst those who actually addressed the issue (i.e. 97%) is meaningless. The only reason to favor a percentage including some pool of data which doesn't even address the subject is to deliberately delude oneself.

  35. There is no consensus

    wakeup - When you write a paper, you don't waste time rediscovering gravity, or that the sky is blue, or Archimedes Principle. You spend your time on new work and how that relates to previous hypotheses. The more accepted something is as a background fact the less you will see it explicitly discussed in a paper. It would therefore be reasonable to include the 2/3 of papers not bothering to mention GW causes as agreeing with the consensus - not doing so is a conservative choice minimizing actual agreements. 

    If, on the other hand, your work disagrees with the consensus, with accepted background material, you're going to mention that and state why, whether you consider that background material to your work or central to the paper. Meaning that we should expect a higher percentage of attribution in minority papers on climate, a higher percentage of implicit or explicit claims of dominant natural causes in 'skeptic' papers, an overrepresentation of dissention.

    And yet even with that potential overrepresentation, papers arguing against AGW still come in at less than 3% of the papers mentioning causes of climate change. 

  36. There is no consensus

    wakeup @657.

    You say:-

    "Many non-scientists are bewildered by the volume of conflicting information on this subject, by fuzzy numbers and apparently authoritative statements that amount to gobbledegook when subjected to rigorous analysis. Anyone?"

    The volume of 'conflicting information' and the 'fuzzy numbers' may be less easy to get you to identify, but please do give your examples of 'apparently authoritative statements that amount to gobbledegook'. It is difficult for anyone to begin to address your question without knowing what you're on about.

  37. There is no consensus

    "while the remainding two-thirds made no finding as to cause."

    That's not quite accurate. Itd be accurate to say that those two-thirds made no statement of attribution in the abstract. That's not surprising, most climate science does not involve quantifying attribution.

  38. There is no consensus

    Advance apologies if this question has been asked and answered many times. I just discovered the site while searching for the source of the oft-quoted 97% consensus and was disconcerted to read that the consensus refers to 97% of the 33% of authors who stated a position on human-caused warming, while the remainding two-thirds made no finding as to cause. The reality, then, is that twice as many climate researchers do not agree that gw is human-caused, do not know, or are unwilling to take a position.  I read one comment here that seemed to say that the 66% didn't  need to state an opinion because it is so obviously human-caused - the "everyone knows" argument. This wouldn't be acceptable in a courtroom or a school science project so I hope it is not the case.

    Many non-scientists are bewildered by the volume of conflicting information on this subject, by fuzzy numbers and apparently authoritative statements that amount to gobbledegook when subjected to rigorous analysis. Anyone?

  39. Glenn Tamblyn at 11:35 AM on 18 March 2015
    It's the sun

    Leto @1136

    Further to Tom's comment, this paper is interesting 

    LINK

    Particularly fig 11b.

    Significant step changes in the percentage of SST measurements from US ships with a significant rise during the war and a sharp drop in Aug 1945. The paper is using the older HadSST2 dataset for SST's. The more recent version has some correction for this but perhaps ot completely.

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Shortened link.

  40. It's the sun

    Leto @1136, 1944 (-3.27 SD), 1938 (-2.81 SD), 1943 (-2.45 SD) and 1963 (-2.02 SD) are the only years with greater than two standard deviations below the mean error between model and observed temperatures. We would expect values exceeding SD of 3.29 from the mean, assuming a normal distribution, just 0.1%.  Ergo, with 131 observations, we expect to see such a value 12.3% of the time.  So, while the observation is unusual, it is far from clear that the model has come "unstuck" in 1943.

    There is, however, a better than even chance that there is a problem with the 1944 values, and given the closeness in time, possibly also those of 1938 and particularly 1943.  Curiously two of those years are at the height of WW2, and one immediately preceeds it.  This raises several issues.  

    First, there were large, and unevenly distributed changes in shipborne traffic in WW2.  Specifically, there was a large reduction in shipborne traffic outside of military convoys in the Pacific.  In the Atlantic traffic from the US to Brittain and back diverted substantially north or south of normal routes to sale near airbases that provided aircover against submarines.  There is a very real possibility that these factors have distorted WW2 SST records.  There are also likely to have been disruptions of land records at the same time.

    Second, there was a very rapid change in the proportion of SST records taken from engine manifolds rather than by buckets in WW2, with an abrupt change back immediately after.  It is not certain the correction for these factors is entirely accurate, with again the possibility of WW2 SSTs being too hot.

    Third, one area that certainly saw a marked loss of traffic was the NINO3 to 4 region of the Pacific.  That means ENSO records of the period are likely to be unreliable resulting in a potential erroneious ENSO correction.

    Fourth, WW2 saw extensive production black carbon and oil slicks, both of which may have markedly reduced albedo.  It is not clear that this has been picked up in the forcing records.  If they have not been, it may be the case that the WW2 records underplay the forcing in that era.

    I suspect the larger errors in the model in and near WW2 are due to some combination of these five factors (chance plus the four potential sources of error).  Of the four potential sources of error, two represent potential errors in the temperature record, and two potential errors in the model.  Given all of this, it is not clear that there is a problem, and if there is it is not clear that the problem is in the model.  It is also possible that some other factor in what was an unusual period (to say the least) was involved.

    Given all of this, my inclination is to not give too much weight to errors in the WW2 period.  Where I a scientist looking at the temperature record, or the forcing or ENSO history, I would be looking at that period in detail to try and resolve the issue, but the error is not so large that it would trouble me if I could not.

  41. 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #11B

    ryland @18, nuclear and fusion are simply off topic in this thread as none of the news articles above discuss them.  There is, however, extensive discussion of both options on other SkS threads.

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Serious discussion of nuclear is probably better conducted at http://bravenewclimate.com/.

  42. 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #11B

    ryland @18, the lifetime energy costs of producing solar cells is a very limited look at EROEI.  Done properly, that should be a whole of project investment, including in the comparison the costs of refining the steel, manufacturing the pipe, and building oil refineries etc for comparison, not to mention the energy cost of refining and transport.  It should also include the energy cost of the transmission infrastructure.  By picking only on the cost of PV cells, you appear to assume that oil goes from the well to our use without any energy cost.  Because many of these costs vary by project, the overall cost can only be assessed project by project.

    As it happens, assessments of relative EROEI of fossil fuels and solar are quite varied.  Never-the-less, the EROEI of PV solar in Germany is greater than 1.  Ergo, even in Germany solar could provide all energy needed for industrial purposes, including the manufacture of new PV cells.  Given that, and given the size of the total energy resource base from solar, a pure solar powered civilization is feasible, even at current technologies.  As it happens, however, the EROEI of fossil fuels is declining with time, while that of solar is improving.

  43. 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #11B

    Wol @17, apology accepted.

    From 15:

    "One might as well argue that all the energy involved in laying down the deposits of the various elements that are used to make PV panels - moving tectonic plates, weathering, sedimentation and the like, should be included in PVs energy budget."

    Only if you also include the energy involved in processing animal and vegetable matter to oil or gas (which involves sedimentation, massive burial to quite deep depths where a combination of pressure and geothermal energy make the transformation).  Further, for an apples to apples comparison, pushing that far back, you would have to quantify the energy involved in forming and moving into exploitable veins, the minerals used in manufactoring oil and gas refineries, pipelines, tankers etc.  I don't know how to quantify all these additional factors, but the net balance certainly won't make our equation show fossil fuels as more efficient than solar, and in fact is likely to make the comparison less favourable for fossil fuels.

    Further, including these factors only detracts from the simple point I was making.  Specifically, fossil fuels are a very energy inefficient way to store energy but are only viewed favourably because the energy in storing them is largely already expended.  Put another way, standard energy efficiency comparisons cherry pick an irrelevant comparison while neglecting far more imporant issues of sustainability.  The comparison is irrelevant because the denominator for the energy efficiency equation for solar is so large (considering total resource) that even ridiculously low energy efficiencies provide more than enough energy.

    Finally, for completeness, there are two relevant comparisons.  The first is a gateway comparison only.  Is the energy returned greater than energy used in gathering the energy (technically, Energy Returned on Energy Invested or EROEI).  If not, the resource cannot be a primary energy resource for society.  Solar comfortably meets this margin for most projects south of the Artic Circle, and wind does better.  Second, what is the relative levalized cost of the two energy sources including all externalities.  Solar and Wind comfortably win this comparison as well (though they loose it if you exclude fossil fuel externalities).

  44. Climate change in the Arctic is messing with our weather

    Despite the reduction of the arctic ice, there is still an awful lot of it reflecting EM radiation back into space.  Even now we see the jet stream weakening and wobbling, presumably due to the slower rotation of the Polar Hadley cell.  The PHC is powered in the same way the air coming out of an open fridge is.  The air radiates heat into space, the air gets heavy, flows downward and south as it hits the ground.  What happens when the Arctic is open water for, say, all of August and half of September.  Will this not reverse the Polar Hadley cell and suck climate zones northward.  This effect should also be seen in the fall as the land rapidly cools off but the huge store of heat in the ocean is warming the air above it.  It would likely be extended as freezing starts and Latent Heat is released.  Interesting that if this happens it will be just as the grain crops of the Northern Hemisphere are ripening.

    http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2008/07/arctic-melting-no-problem.html

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Link activated.

  45. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    The causes of the deaths of living organisms wrought by the Chicxulub Impact and the Deccan Traps Emissions are clearly manifold.  Here's another for instance: A paper published in Nature GeoScience by 12 scientists "Production of sulphate-rich vapour during the Chicxulub impact and implications for ocean acidification " indicates that huge amounts of Sulphur Trioxide were formed by the impact which in turn formed into Sulfuric Acid.. resulting in intense global acid rain, which for starters, is the major culprit in eliminating most of the planktonic foraminifera populations in the oceans. 

  46. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    "According to figures I have seen, the Chicxulub bolide was estimated to have a mass of about 23/4 trillion tonnes and was shifting at about 20 km/sec (straight down). That equates to a kinetic energy conversion of about 5.5x1023 joules, and therefore suggests that the energy release was roughly equivalent to about 130 million megatonnes TNT"

    I'll take your words for it BtF.

    Really illustates just how lethal a large CO2 injection is.

    Mind you CO2 releases is the mechanism with the long rep for mass extinctions and near mass exticntions.

    And we've put 2billion Hirosh bombes worth since 1998 alone and lots of sulphur and aerosols, just like ahuge volcanic offgasing just we;'ve done it really really quickly in comparison to the past events.

  47. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    I'm going to need a bigger recycle bin to handle the obsolete lecture notes I use in my climate change classes.  I just put forth the bolide theory in last week's session.  I have learned to warn the students that change is inevitable in the realm of good science, so an abiding speculation is a valuable asset.

    Thanks to the efforts at explaining the Deccan Traps events alongside the bolide impact and thanks for y'alls voluminous comments.

  48. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    @ ubrew12 - Perhaps if a group of geophysicists were given access to a military ballistics testing facility, the Questions surrounding the Chiculub->Earth->Deccan Traps Connection? could be settled once and for all. 

  49. It's the sun

    Tom @1134 (or others), do you have any idea why the otherwise excellent model-data match for the Cowtan model comes a little unstuck around 1940?

  50. So what did-in the dinosaurs? A murder mystery…

    billthefrog@19 said: "Chicxalub could have had percussions... at the hot spot" Yup. As I said, as non-scientist, I feel free to speculate.  I was just speculating that maybe, given a molten core of a certain diameter, the shock of Chicxalub could have attenuated in solid matter, most probably, JUST outside that core diameter, and focused itself on a ring on the planetary opposite, of diameter commensurate with the diameter of that molten core.  But, no, likelihood that the two events are related remains extremely low.  Having said that, Dashiell Hammett would certainly have made that relation.

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