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Comments 31401 to 31450:

31401. protagorias at 21:30 PM on 2 March 2015
       Models are unreliable
       

       Glenn Tamblyn

       You may be right.

       Be that as it may, I will continue to maintain that increased accuracy in measurement is one of the primary drivers of model improvement.

       Moderator Response:

       [PS] Then maybe you would like to provide evidence to support that assertion.

31402. Glenn Tamblyn at 21:07 PM on 2 March 2015
       Models are unreliable
       

       protagorias

       "Well, to the extent that certain specific models can be improved I think you'll see a decrease in public misunderstanding and "denialism", and an increased acceptance of the science."

       With respect I think that is utterly naive. Most misunderstanding and denialism has diddly-squat to do with the minutiae of the accuracy of specific models. 99.999% of the earths population have no idea of how 'the models' differ.

31403. Glenn Tamblyn at 20:23 PM on 2 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Tom

       " I think that is just poor wording by Lloyd"

       Not so sure. In terms of his personal understanding of the temperature record is concerned it may simply reflect his ignorance - and enthusiasm for promoting a message. But it plays to a deeper misunderstanding.

       I suspect most people who think about how temperature record calculations are done can easily fall into the trap of thinking that adding/removing warm stations/cold stations will automatically bias the calculation.

       They don't get the difference between the Anomaly of the Averages, and the Average of the Anomalies.

       So dropping/adjusting stations can seem far more significant than it actually is.

       That's why this particular zombie just keeps on walking. And every time someone waves a voodoo wand at it again to keep it moving a whole new audience can be left scratching their heads - 'yeah, sure looks reasonable to me'.

31404. protagorias at 19:47 PM on 2 March 2015
       Models are unreliable
       

       Tom Curtis,

       
       So what is the purpose of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project as mentioned in #800, if all the models are homogenized as you appear to suggest? According to CIMP5, one of the goals is "determining why similarly forced models produce a range of responses". Clearly, not all models are equally valid in their predictions. I'm not suggesting that they don't all improve over time, but merely that certain improvements may more accurately reflect appropriate environmental factors. For example, heat in the oceans may be an appropriate factor.

       Furthermore, what is the purpose of discussing consensus itself as a specific factor if not to encourage acceptance of the facts, if non-acceptance (which I agree is motivated by ideology) - leads to unhelpful inaction on the part of the public?

31405. Peter Metaskeptic at 18:38 PM on 2 March 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly Digest #9
       

       I just answer to a comment at http://sciblogs.co.nz and the question of using social dilemmas crops up.

       Why aren't social dilemmas a core tool in our battle against GW-deniers (which can also be applied to anti-vax? Social dliemmas give us a pretty good explanation about why we fail to weigh on the political momentum of our civilization. (ref: tragedy of the commons)

       Peter : http://www.metaskeptic.net

31406. Tom Curtis at 17:16 PM on 2 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Glenn Tamblyn @22, I think that is just poor wording by Lloyd, ie, that the claim is that not using those stations increases the trend.  Unfortunately I have been unable to find a more detailed exposition of the claim to confirm that, or to find a list of the stations purportedly excluded.  In fact, all I have found is a powerpoint presentation of Stockwell's more general critique of ACORN-SAT which proves he is just another denier.  The proof is in his running the argument that the difference in rate of positive and negative adjustments between different time periods proves there is something wrong, without noting tha the algorithms used in homogenization do not factor in the decade of the adjustment, and therefore logically cannot be biased in the way he claims.  

31407. Tom Curtis at 17:07 PM on 2 March 2015
       Models are unreliable
       

       protagorias @802:

       First, your claim is false.  There has been a remarkable and continuous improvement of the models over time.  Going back to Hansen 88, models did not even include aerosols.  By the TAR, they universally did, but did not show ENSO like fluctuations.  By the AR4, some did, but others did not.  Now, with AR5 they all do.  None of this has had any noticable effect on public non-acceptance of climate science - which is not driven by the science, but by political ideology.

       Second, no scientist anywhere should alter how they do science to "increase acceptance of the science".  Doing so is just modifying science to suit political ends by a different name.  Indeed, that is exactly what you are after, a fact given a way by your desire "that certain specific models" be "improved", rather than that all of them be improved by standard methods.  By "improved" you mean no more than adjusted to give the results that you want.

31408. protagorias at 16:56 PM on 2 March 2015
       Models are unreliable
       

       Well, to the extent that certain specific models can be improved I think you'll see a decrease in public misunderstanding and "denialism", and an increased acceptance of the science.

31409. wideEyedPupil at 14:36 PM on 2 March 2015
       Why the Miocene Matters (and doesn’t) Today
       

       Fiction is a great way to help the non-scientitst (but former science student in my case) engage with technically complex topics in a way that brings them to life and provides a backdrop inviting and understanding of more technical information. It's seems like SciFi has inspired many technological breakthourghs and science careers, certainly my fathers career in nuclear physics was accompanied at an early stage with heaps of SciFi. 

       Perhaps we need more CC fiction to help win the war against FF and livestock industries.

31410. One Planet Only Forever at 13:01 PM on 2 March 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9B
       

       The LA Times article contains very little technical information, yet the comments are mainly opinions from people who seem to desperately need to not accept that human burning of fossil fuels is an unsustainable practice that needs to be curtailed earlier than the un-natural marketplace of popularity and profitability would bring the practice to its inevitable end. The willful lack of understanding is outstanding.

       p.s. The line at the end of my previous comment is not meant to have been part of another point.

31411. One Planet Only Forever at 12:55 PM on 2 March 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9B
       

       One way to address the "Pause" or "Hiatus" with a "Climate Science Doubter" is to show them the SkS Temperature Trends visualization tool and ask them to review the Land/Ocean history since the 1800s, any way they wish to look at all of the data. Then ask them to explain what they see in the data that is so particularly unusual about the most recent temperature values that needs to be explained to them, rather than other peculiar things like how unusually warm 1998 was relative to the years before it, or the very long "pause" in the temperatures from 1950 through 1980 that were definitely not "the end of the global average temperature increases".

        

       o explain why they are asking about the most recent set of data  

31412. Glenn Tamblyn at 12:35 PM on 2 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       ryland

       "It is claimed that the BoM removed 57 stations from its calculations replacing them with 36 on-avreage hotter stations and that this has created an increase of 0.42C in the recorded Australian average temperature independently of any actual real change in temperature."

       And in this Graham Lloyd highlights that he doesn't understand how temperature trends are calculated. Just substituting warmer stations doesn't necesarily increase the trend. One actually would need to substitute warming stations to manipulate the trend.

       This harks back to claims some years ago about the dropping of high latitude stations in Canada from the analysis, implying that since they were from a colder region, this would bias the trend higher. When in fact, since the fastest warming in the world is happening in the Arctic, if dropping stations from there were to have any impact (it doesn't by the way, there is still enough coverage) it would actually lower the trend.

31413. Tom Curtis at 09:25 AM on 2 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       ryland @16, with regard to the claims made in The Australian, several of them are certainly false.  Thus Graham Lloyd writes:

       "ACORN-SAT, which the Senate was told this week is managed by a two-person team in BoM, uses information from a select range of weather stations and computer modelling to compile its national temperature record. The data is also used to help create the global temperature record."

       However, the various teams generating global temperature series independently access the raw data from their own choice of stations.  Therefore, selection of stations used by the BoM has no bearing on those global temperature records.

       That fact also means those global records can be used as an independent check on the ACORN-SAT method, something done by the BoM as part of the review of the independent peer review of ACORN-SAT.  Of most interest is the comparison with BEST, not made in that review.  BEST, like ACORN-SAT shows a 0.9 C warming from 1910 to current.  That is interesting because BEST leaves out no records.  So whether you use 686 current, and 821 former stations (BEST) or 112 stations choses for their high quality and largely continuous record (ACORN-SAT), you get essentially the same result.

       That in turn means that if stations left out of the ACORN-SAT network make a difference to the trend, they were left out for good reason, ie, that station moves, change of equipment or changes in station surroundings have rendered those stations poor records of centenial change.

31414. DSL at 09:25 AM on 2 March 2015
       Models are unreliable
       

       I'm still not sure what "increasing importance of precipitation data" means in the context of general circulation modeling.  Is it not important enough right now?  Why should it become more important?  

31415. scaddenp at 09:03 AM on 2 March 2015
       Models are unreliable
       

       You will note that IPCC reports make heavy use of CMIP model runs.

       CMIP = Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Read about it here.

       Funnily enough it exists to highlight and explore differences between models and understand what is going on.

31416. protagorias at 08:48 AM on 2 March 2015
       Models are unreliable
       

       Some models predict better than others and failing to adequately account for emerging environmental factors of differing importance - for instance the increasing importance of precipitation data - will likely, over time, negatively impact a model's predictive capacity.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] You are once again skating on the thin ice of sloganeering which is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.

       Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right.  This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.

       Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it.  Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.

31417. Stephen Pruett at 08:19 AM on 2 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Excellent article.  Will you be addressing the status of metadata in the climate records and how this influences adjustments? After reading the Harry_readme file of climategate fame, I have the impression that at least some climate records have incomplete, confusing, and perhaps incorrect metadata. I have also read that older records (pre 70s) generally have little or no metadata associated with them. I would appreciate any information you could provide about this issue.  

       Also, are any of the raw climate records with metadata available online? It would be interesting to me to see at least a small sample. I have done analysis of microarray data for quantifying gene expression for over 40,000 genes and these data generally require normalization due to quirks of the fluorescence readers and the microarrrays, so I understand that it is sometimes necessary to adjust data. However, most journals that publish microarray data require the results and a description of the normalization method to be placed in a public database before the paper can be published.  Wouldn't something like that be useful for enhanced credibility in climate science?

31418. KR at 01:51 AM on 2 March 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9B
       

       The first link, to the LA Times, is wrong, and in fact seems to point to a SkS login page.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Link fixed. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

31419. FredColbourne at 23:33 PM on 1 March 2015
       CERN CLOUD experiment proved cosmic rays are causing global warming
       

       I commend you for your strictness in interpreting the results of the Cloud Experiment. As you quite rightly say, the lead author (Jasper Kirby) has been very cautious in his claims, limiting himself to the results of the CERN experiments. You can see this very clearly in the recent paper that reports the experimental results.

       In his lecture available via Youtube, Dr Kirby was careful to warn his audience concerning the uncertainties in the putative mechanism relating GCR to climate via cloud formation. There is a big ? mark in the graphic and he points it out to the audience.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63AbaX1dE7I

       In an earlier paper Dr Kirby was likewise cautious about what was expected from the Cloud Experiment, together with the uncertainties in relation to climate.

       He stated,

       "Although recent observations support the presence of ioninduced
       nucleation of new aerosols in the atmosphere, the possible contribution of such new particles to changes in the number of cloud condensation nuclei remains an open question." Page 32.

       Cosmic Rays, Clouds, and Climate (CERN-PH-EP/2008-005, 26 March 2008. Surveys in Geophysics 28, 333-375.

       LINK

       Only the most intrepid readers will wish to study the full paper, however the Youtube video contains the gist of the paper and several of the graphics.

       Dr Kirby's presentation is clear and I believe accessible to non-physicists. 

       There is a reference to protons and muons at one point, but readers of your blog will know that Wikipedea has good explanations of these.

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] Shortened link.

31420. michael sweet at 21:24 PM on 1 March 2015
       Climatology versus Pseudoscience book tests whose predictions have been right
       

       Dana,

       Arhennius calculated a climate sensitivity of 4.5C per doubling of CO2 way back in 1896 using a pencil.  Can that calculation be considered as a temperature projection?  It is still in the IPCC likely range of climate sensitivities all these years later (although it is at the high end of the range).  In any case, Arhennius should get credit for a solid estimation of the climate sensitivity.

       This calculation shows that the argument that climate is chaotic and cannot be predicted at all is incorrect.  After 120 years, Arhennius projection still stands as accurate.

31421. Rob Painting at 21:00 PM on 1 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Of course. This misinformation likely plays a big part in the lack of climate policy action. But this is definitely the wrong thread to continue this discussion. 

31422. ryland at 20:52 PM on 1 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       But the real point Rob Painting is that very few people are going to read either your comments or my comments while several tens of thousands and possibly a hundred thousand or more will read the pieces in the Australian and the Telegraph.  As the Australian piece is quoting emails in what it refers to as "Climategate" that don't portray the scientists involved in a very good light, the majority of the readers may well consider global warming to be something less than it really is. 

31423. Rob Painting at 19:56 PM on 1 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       I expect that's kind of the point of these reality-challenged newspaper opinion pieces - to convince people something isn't happening when it is. Even without the land surface temperature record, we know that global sea level is rising and worldwide loss of land-based ice is accelerating. So very clearly the world is warming. A lot.

31424. BBHY at 17:09 PM on 1 March 2015
       New Video: What Climate Deniers Learned from Big Tobacco
       

       Lookup "Lessons from Past Predictions: Hansen 1981" on this very website.

       If someone was able to make accurate predictions as far back as 34 years ago, perhaps we should take their current predictions seriously.

31425. ryland at 15:54 PM on 1 March 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       I have just read two pieces by Graham Lloyd in The Australian (February 28) stating that the BoM has questions to answer about the change in temperatufre records and that an independent assessment panel has been set up to look at ACORN-SAT.  It is claimed that the BoM removed 57 stations from its calculations replacing them with 36 on-avreage hotter stations and that this has created an increase of 0.42C in the recorded Australian average temperature independently of any actual real change in temperature.  Pieces such as these in The Australian  and similar pieces in the UK's Sunday Telegraph, are widely read and add significantly to the scepticism about the reality of human iinduced temperature change.  I

31426. Stephen Baines at 11:09 AM on 1 March 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       Elmwood,

       The fault is in ourselves, not in the stars - meaning the so-called elites.  We make and empower the elites, and presidents have to work with the congresses people elect.  We have elected congresses that have generally made Obama's efforts on the environment close to impossible.  Considering that, he's done remarkable well when I think back on it.

       Obama has been actively engaged in promoting alternative energies, and has received crushing criticism from the right for his efforts.  He has managed to get progress with China on language regarding GHGs.  He has pushed fuel standards repeatedly - and managed to get them.  He has overseen an increase in EPAs control of GHG's, and that has lead to the new power plant emission rules.  Can't think of a single president with a record to match that on green house gasses.  

       He has pushed development of fossil fuels as well it's true.  It certainly hasn't helped him win many electoral votes on its face, so I don't think that is purely a political calculation, although one could argue he would be even more crippled by charges of being antibusiness if he didn't do so.  I see it more as a backdoor form of stumulus to help the country recover economically (essential if environmental concerns are to have any traction).  There is also a foreign policy argument for energy independence behind it.  The long game (much longer than his presidecny)  is to make sure we are not left out of the alternative energy market when it inevitably starts booming.

       I'm not sure what kind of president you are imagining instead. 

31427. Tom Curtis at 09:42 AM on 1 March 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       Elmwood @11, the party, and opinions of the President do make a difference.  Had the US actually been a democratic nation, and hence Al Gore become President (with the majority of the popular vote, and the majority in Florida, counting all votes in which the voting intention of the voter was discernible) the we may have had an Afganistan war, but we would not have had a second Iraq war, and hence would not have had ISIS to contend with.  We also, almost certainly, would have had earlier US action on climate change.  Had John McCain defeated Barack Obama, odds are we would not now have the EPA regulation of CO2 emissions.

       Obama may have not given you everything you want, but that is a far cry from getting everything you don't want - the probable outcome of Republican victories.  If you don't believe me, just look at the Abbot government in Australia (or the Howard government, for that matter). 

31428. chriskoz at 08:22 AM on 1 March 2015
       New Video: What Climate Deniers Learned from Big Tobacco
       

       swampfoxh@1

       It's been about 37 years since Dr. James Hansen (NASA) warned the US Congress about the threat of AGW

       A typo sneaked into your sentence. Jim Hansen published his first general circulation model in 1988, followed by a famous "Global Warming has begun" testimony. So that was 27 years ago. 10y earlier than that would be when Stephen Schneider started his campaign to debunk "it's colling" myth.

       But, sadly, the way we are going, I forsee, in 2025, your comment will become accurate.

31429. Elmwood at 08:08 AM on 1 March 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       U.S. national politics are mostly driven by elites and corporate interests, this is nothing new. To think it really matters whether Bush, Clinton, or Obama is in charge is laughable: the U.S. has no serious plans of cutting fossil fuel production. There is simply too much money involved to allow care of our planet to get in the way.

       As long as Im president, Mr. Obama said, America is going to be pursuing an all-of-the-above energy strategy. Yes, we'll develop as much oil and gas as we can, in a safe way, but we're also going to develop wind power and solar power and advanced biofuels.

31430. william5331 at 06:19 AM on 1 March 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       I'm so looking forward to the book that President Obama will write after he leaves office.  He has been the most wasted president in the history of the United states.  It is a credit to him how much he has achieved despite having a totally hostile senate and congress against even measures that they previously supported.  One thing I would like to know from him, though, is why he hired exactly the same people from companies like Goldman Sachs, that caused the 2008 near meltdown (only avoided due to quick action by Obama)

31431. wili at 05:15 AM on 1 March 2015
       2015 SkS News Bulletin #1: Adjusting Temperature Records
       

       Thanks for collecting these. Perhaps for the next News Bulletin you might consider collecting the spate of articles on the likely acceleration of the rate of GW in the coming decades related to the recent article on the topic in Science by M. Mann. Here's the link to his recent related piece at RC that has links to many of the other related works: www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/02/climate-oscillations-and-the-global-warming-faux-pause/

       See also Climate Central, robbertscribbler and other articles linked at those sites.

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] Thank you fopr the suggestion. If only there were more hours in the day...

31432. John Hartz at 03:06 AM on 1 March 2015
       New Video: What Climate Deniers Learned from Big Tobacco
       

       Recommended supplementary reading:

       In 1998 major fossil fuel companies put $2m behind a plan that would effectively fuel the fires of climate science scepticism among the American public. We reveal where the 12 people behind that plan are now.

       What happened to the lobbyists who tried to reshape the US view of climate change? by Graham Readfearn, The Guardian, Feb 27, 2015

31433. swampfoxh at 01:33 AM on 1 March 2015
       New Video: What Climate Deniers Learned from Big Tobacco
       

       It's been about 37 years since Dr. James Hansen (NASA) warned the US Congress about the threat of AGW.  In the olden days of schoolhouse curricula design, educators established courses designed to respond to, among other things, new sciences.  The science of anthropogenic climate change has been pretty solid for a couple of decades, but where are the courses in this subject area?  I teach a class which I call, "Global Warming: Proof or Politics?" for an entity called: Citizen's Climate Lobby Education Corp, a tool of citizensclimatelobby.org.  I use SKS and other credible sources and literature in my presentation.   Should we promote, aggressively, the creation of mainstream secondary and college level courses so that we can offer our children an opportunity to avoid climate hell?  Can we do that? ...or, do we have time left to do that?  

31434. SteveS at 01:18 AM on 1 March 2015
       Clouds provide negative feedback
       

       On Safari, the final link to the Steven Sherwood video is broken. There appears to be a leading '/' that shouldn't be there.

31435. ryland at 20:13 PM on 28 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Thanks very much to all for the info on CET, it is much appreeciated.  A note for the diaries.  If, in due course, climate sceptics say the Spring of 2015 in the UK was unusually cool it may be because the first day of Spring has, this year, been moved to March 1 from the long standing March 21.  On a more serious note, thinking about  what seems a significant change to "Spring" in the UK, one can more readily appreciate the difficulties and problems involved in assessing temperatures obtained over many decades from a myriad of sources.

31436. MA Rodger at 20:12 PM on 28 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       Tom Curtis @244.

       The error by Teague in suggesting that sequestering 2GtC from the atmosphere would reduce atmospheric CO2 by 1ppm(v) is identical to that made by Savory.

31437. MA Rodger at 20:07 PM on 28 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       RedBaron @243.

       I fear you are straddling all three of your different arguments you have brought here with your comment. As I explained @234, this is a great impediment to getting anywhere in this discussion.

       As I interpret it, your -A+B illustrates this situation of mixing these different arguments. The +B is the carbon sequestration from future improved agricultural practice that you contend is a way of reversing CO2 levels. The -A is (it seems) is not the carbon loss from present agricultural practice that you contend the IPCC is underestimating. Rather -A is some natural sink that has ceased due to human intervention, a third issue that you argue here.

       Sticking with the IPCC underestimation before we address anything else (which makes things much less complicated), you again quote Houghton et al (2012) as referenced by IPCC AR5 which states "Globally, the current flux from agricultural management is uncertain but probably not far from zero." And for all the world, you are agreeing with this statement @243 - "See the IPPC got that part!"

       So, as we both seem to agree with the IPCC, can we agree? The on-going management of agrcultural lands (as opposed to changing land use) is as the IPCC say roughly carbon neutral.

       And if we can do that, do you then accept that the sources of carbon emissions set out by the IPCC are not in gross error?

31438. TonyW at 19:54 PM on 28 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       US Carbon emissions from fossil fuels rose in 2013 and 2014, and are projected to rise in 2015 and 2016 also. Actions speak louder than words and the notion that Obama has undertaken significant action to reduce emissions is bizarre, in the extreme. He has an "all of the above" energy policy and is expanding exploration for oil and gas. No, Obama is no different from any other major world leader.

31439. jja at 11:55 AM on 28 February 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9A
       

       original image here
       
       Larger and readable.

31440. Newsel at 09:57 AM on 28 February 2015
       With climate change, US presidents matter
       

       There is always this option to secure energy supplies:

       http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581887/The-bonfire-insanity-Woodland-shipped-3-800-miles-burned-Drax-power-station-It-belches-CO2-coal-huge-cost-YOU-pay-cleaner-greener-Britain.html

       Which we rather have?

31441. mancan18 at 09:27 AM on 28 February 2015
       Climatology versus Pseudoscience book tests whose predictions have been right
       

       Dana, I haven't read your book, I do intend to read it, but I was wondering whether anyone has studied the views on climate change by the "hard yards" researchers who actually collect the data that is used by everyone else to make their arguments pro or con regarding climate change. It seems to me that the views of the researchers who actually camp on the ice flows to collect ice-cores or measure glacial melts; or trek into the jungle to study species extinction, diversity and range; or spend countless time creating and refining the computer models that simulate the climate and weather; or those who monitor the stations that collect the temperature and carbon dioxide data etc; what are their views?

       For instance, I know that the climate change advocate, Tim Flannery, early in his scientific career, used to crawl around the jungles of New Guinea studying frogs and it was the changes in that environment that he observed over the years that led him into the field of climate change. Also, I know that Ian Plimer, the mining executive and prominent climate change denier, used to argue that undersea volcanoes were the cause of the rise in carbon dioxide. But I don't remember Plimer actually being on any expeditions that looked for those undersea volcanoes that he used in his argument. Are there any primary researchers who put in the hard yards collecting and analysing the data who doubt that climate change is actually happening? It is easy just to sit at a computer screen, run your statistical software on the data or search for papers that support your view, it is an entirely different situation for the people who actually collect and analyse the data. Wondering if there are any deniers amongst the "hard yards" data collectors. The ratio of those who agree to those who don't would be very interesting. I suspect it would be 100%.

31442. Tom Curtis at 09:16 AM on 28 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       In response to Red Baron in general, Houghton et al (2009) itemizes total biomass/hectare for various ecosystems.  Carbon constitutes about 50% of the biomass.  Taking low values where two are given, we thus determine that the carbon content constitutes 95 Tonnes/Hectare (ie, Megagrams per Hectare) for tropical rain forest, and 28.5 Mg/Hectare for tropical savannah.  The difference is 66.5 Tonnes per Hectare.

       Figure 8 of Retallack et al (2013), shows the carbon content in Kilograms per meter squared for for various ecosystems in African and Australia by precipitation.  In Australia, forests have a greater carbon content in soil than do grasslands (Mallee scrub).  In Africa forests have less carbon in soil than do grasslands.  Taking the largest difference (4 Kg/m^2) and converting units, that represents 40 Tonnes per Hectare.  Therefore, using conservative estimates, and counting both soil carbon and biomass Tropical rainforests sequester 26.5 more tonnes/Hectare than do equivalent grasslands.  Using more reasonable estimates, forests sequester as much as 126.5 tonnes/Hectare more carbon than do grasslands, ie, about twice the carbon per hectare.

       Interestingly, Teague (in a book chapter for Geotherapy) shows a tabulation (table 17) of soil and total Carbon stored in various ecosystems from White (2000).  He points out that globally, grasslands store more carbon in soil than do forests, although forests store more tonnes per hectare.  That is true of soil carbon alone, but once biomass is included, forests store 90% more carbon as grasslands per unit area, globally averaged.  White's results, as quoted by Teague, suggest the African situation is anonalous, and that the Australian situation where forests store more soild carbon than do grasslands is more typical.  Indeed, on the White (2002) figures, forests store 50% more carbon in soil per unit area than do grasslands.  (That may partially be because grasslands are typically found in more arid conditions than are forests.)

       Of more direct interest to your vague theses, Teague also tabulates estimates of emessions from various sources, showing 136 GtC from land use conversions from 1750 onwards (compared to the 180 GtC estimated in AR5), with a further 320 GtC estimated emissions over the Holocene to 1750.  The 136 GtC estimate for industrial era emissions compares to an estimated 270 GtC emitted from fossil fuels (compared to 365 GtC estimates in AR5).  Part of the discrepancy between these estimates and those from AR5 may be due to the final date of the estimate.

       Importantly, Teague is not suggesting that soil degradation is responsible for the hockey stick in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.  He does suggest soil revitalization can eliminate excess CO2 from the atmosphere, but that is because he assumes the revitalization of soil degraded in the preindustrial era will contribute to the sequestration.  The sharp increase in CO2 concentration, however, is due primarilly to the very sharp increase in fossil fuel use as shown in his post at 224.

       Teague does, however, suggest that restoration of the grasslands could sequester sufficient CO2 to bring the atmosphere back to preindustrial levels.  He writes:

       "If, for the sake of argument, we accept Buringh's 537 Gt number for the historic
       loss of carbon from soils, it is the equivalent of 218 ppm that was once safely 
       stored in the ground instead of in the atmosphere, and is roughly twice the
       excess carbon that we've injected into the atmosphere since 1750 (half of which
       was absorbed by the ocean and other carbon sinks). We need only put 224 Gt
       (112 ppm) back into the ground, even though a percentage of the excess didn't
       come from soil, it's from our burning of fossil fuels. To emphasize, replacing
       just half of the soil carbon we have lost in the past ten thousand years has
       the realistic potential for reducing atmospheric carbon to a pre-industrial
       280 ppm, presumably a significant step in restoring a relatively stable
       climate. Note that in so doing we would also sequester all past and current
       emissions from fossil fuels."

       (Original emphasis)

       I do not, however, trust his sums.  First, 1ppmv of CO2 in the atmosphere is 2.12 GtC (AR5), not 2 as uses in his estimate.  More importantly, just as only 44% of anthropogenic emissions have stayed in the atmosphere, only 44% of any carbon sequestration will result in a reduction on atmospheric CO2, the rest being compensated for by oceanic outgassing.  Therefore, to reduce CO2 concentrations by 120 ppmv, we need to sequester 580 GtC.  That is, he underestimates the task at hand by 60%.  Put another way, we would need to sequester 27% more CO2 in the soil than he estimates to have come out of it since the start of agriculture to tackle global warming this way.

       Second, he appears to fudge his figures.  Ruddiman's estimates of preindustrial emissions include excess methane production from the spread of rice paddies, and emissions from deforestation.  That is, they are not an estimate emissions of soil carbon.  Indeed, even the industrial era emissions from LUC only include 78 Gigatonnes from soil itself.  Assuming a similar proportion of preindustrial emissions are from soil, that means only 260 GtC have been emitted from soils due to human activities over the last 10 thousand years.

       Given this, the idea that we can solve AGW simply by changing our pastoral practises is fanciful.  (We may be able to help solve the problem by such changes, but it will only be a small contribution to the problem, most of which must be solved by reducing industrial emissions.) 

31443. dana1981 at 07:25 AM on 28 February 2015
       Climatology versus Pseudoscience book tests whose predictions have been right
       

       shoyemore - no paperback edition, but there will be a discount for those who take our climate denial MOOC (see upper right margin of the page).

31444. protagorias at 04:28 AM on 28 February 2015
       Animals and plants can adapt
       

       michael sweet,

       Climate change is undoubtedly happening at a very rapid and uncomfortable pace. And droughts are obviously a big concern.

       Perhaps what can produce a lot of return in the long run, be economocially sound jobs, as well as potentially help in managing forests and mitigating drought, is to gain the technology to unlock some of the water locked up the ringwoodite inside our planet. I think there's something like two or three times the volume of the world's oceans locked up in ringwoodite, but it's around 500 miles down.

31445. davidsanger at 03:48 AM on 28 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Thanks, this is very helpful. Perhaps you could add that the article was originally published last July on Judith Curry's blog and engendered a long long comment thread. Have there been changes in it since then?
       
       [best also to remove the reference to the "upcoming" NCAR conference]

31446. RedBaron at 03:33 AM on 28 February 2015
       There's no empirical evidence
       

       @ MA Rodger,

       Actually a closer aproximation of what I am saying is that the IPCC is vastly underestimating the problem, by ignoring much of the most basic underlying causes. This has also flawed their analysis of what needs to be done to fix the problem as well. Maybe if I approach it in more general terms you'll understand better. I admit I am not a very good "rough and tumble" public debate specialist. So you'll probably need to fill in some blanks yourself. But let's look at some disturbing trends. As a result of erosion over the past 40 years, 30 percent of the world's arable land has become unproductive. http://www.ids-environment.com/Common/Paper/Paper_83/Soil%20Erosion.pdf Now of course this is measured in terms of agricultural food production for humans. But if you understand that unproductive also means not feeding the soil food web that is responcible for the major part of the carbon cycle, you get an idea why the biosphere can't keep up with fossil fuel emissions. Or look at it from still another angle. The least efficient natural ecosystem for long term sequestration of carbon is forests, and forests currently occupy only 20-25% of the land surface of the planet, yet nearly all the carbon sequestered in world wide terrestrial ecosystems is in forests. Why? Because mismanagement of agricultural "artificial" ecosystems. Mismanagement that has turned the largest terrestrial carbon sink into an emissions source! Depending on how IPPC calculates it, it is either 8-10% of emissions, or calculated differently near net 0 effect. See references above. post 227 "Globally, the current flux from agricultural management is uncertain but probably not far from zero." See the IPPC got that part! But what they left out was that the same ecosystems that are currently "probably not far from zero" are the same ecosystems that pre-human intervention were the primary terrestrial sequesters of carbon. I am not sure how to explain the math flaw. If you have a negative and turn it into a positive, it is wrong to use the positive as the effect. So if you start with -A and later measure +B due to anthropomorphic changes. It is improper to use +B as the anthropomorphic effect. The real anthropomorphic effect is A+B. IPPC has vastly underestimated the effect of agriculture for this reason. Admittedly that is highly oversimplified, but it addresses the principle IPCC flaw. The effect of environment degradation is underestimated because the measurements are being done on the degraded ecosystems we see now, not the functioning ecosystems prior to humans degrading them. http://www.fewresources.org/uploads/1/0/5/2/10529860/3768968_orig.jpeg 

       Adding to the confusion, humans can actually improve on the natural ecosystems function beyond the natural pre-historical state (with intensive management). We haven't. We have done the opposite. But there is no reason we couldn't.

31447. jja at 02:37 AM on 28 February 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9A
       

       I have included the Feldman et al. (2015) data in my TOA forcing clearinghouse graphic.  The observed trend from 2001-2011 of 0.2 watts per meter squared falls DIRECTLY in line between the upper and lower range bound rates that I derived from Nuccitelli et. al. 2012 and Durack et. al. 2014.  I see this as a strong confirmation of the cumulative work to date on the subject.  view the graphic here: 
       
       
       
       More troubling, the 2001-2011 period was the decade with the most rapid expansion of Aerosol emissions in human history.  Therefore this rate of increase in ratiative forcing is moderated, possibly by a factor of 50%.  If this view then, the recent NODC ocean heat data (red dot at top right of graphic) is certainly within the range of plausible current forcings and the rate of increase may be as high as 0.5 watts per meter squared per decade.

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] Activated image source and constrained size to fit page format.

31448. Jim Eager at 02:33 AM on 28 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Some of the "other" known problems with the earlier portions of the Central England Temperature (CET) record include the taking of some readings indoors ,  and the use of records from Utrecht, NL, to fill in time gaps, meaning some portions are not even from central England.

31449. Jim Eager at 02:24 AM on 28 February 2015
       2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9A
       

       Wrong url for "Scientists witness carbon dioxide trapping heat in air in real-time field measurements"

       Moderator Response:

       [JH] The glitch has been fixed. Thank you for bring this to our attention.

        

31450. Zeke Hausfather at 01:48 AM on 28 February 2015
       Understanding adjustments to temperature data
       

       Sailingfree,

       Figure 1 does indeed show land only. Here is what land/ocean looks like: 

       Moderator Response:

       [RH] Adjusted image size to fit page formatting.

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