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Comments 34401 to 34450:

  1. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #36

    herrhund, do you think it's worth responding to?   Do you find its method to be sound?

  2. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    I think I can spot Christy now (without any quote).

  3. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    I wanted the Mojib Latif quote to be this one:

    'If my name were not Mojib Latif, my name would be global warming'

    If I remember correctly in response to some contrarian claiming that his work supported them.

  4. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Rob Honeycutt @22. A graph is just a Rorschach test to Anthony.

  5. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #36

    Hey guys,

    are you going to comment on this paper from the global warming policy foundation?

    http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2014/09/Warming-consensus-and-it-critics.pdf

    Quote:

    "While Cook’s approach appears to owe more to public relations or propaganda than the scientific method, there is little doubt that there is a scientific consensus, albeit not the one that the authors of the paper have led people to believe exists. The consensus as described by Cook et al. is virtually meaningless and tells us nothing about the current state of scientific opinion beyond the trivial observation that carbon dioxideis a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet to some unspecified extent. The figure of 97% is entirely discredited, whatever the nature of the consensus."

  6. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6199/897

    Varying planetary heat sink led to global-warming slowdown and acceleration

    Global warming seems to have paused over the past 15 years while the deep ocean takes the heat instead. The thermal capacity of the oceans far exceeds that of the atmosphere, so the oceans can store up to 90% of the heat buildup caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Chen and Tung used observational data to trace the pathways of recent ocean heating. They conclude that the deep Atlantic and Southern Oceans, but not the Pacific, have absorbed the excess heat that would otherwise have fueled continued warming.

  7. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    So how many of these folks do people recognize (at least by name, if not by caricature)? I seem to recognize the names of about a third of them, so far (though it is difficult to pull up some of the figures who are partly behind others).

    Response:

    You can use the rotate buttons in the top corners to move the characters around, if someone is obscured.

  8. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    I wonder if SkS might consider publishing 'Climate Scientist Cards' (like baseball cards, except, well, you know). Some of our local coops have done this for local small farmers. It kind of gets across the idea how skewed our priorities are in our culture, and who are true heroes are.

    The cards could include these caricatures, the quotes, and a short blurb--maybe stats on publications...

  9. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Update to my comment at #14 above.

    The 97 Hours website has been updated so that when you click on one of the lit-up cartoons the quote bubble will pop-up and stay up - so you can click on the scientist's bio page. There is also now a link in the lower right which goes to the source of the scientist's quote.

    Have fun!

  10. Sea level rise is exaggerated

    TD inline @202

    Cristobal JASL trend, 1907-2010: 1.5861 mm/yr.  Note that there is a large dip in sea level around 2000, with a rapid recovery (nearby stations show trends of 13.788 and 13.707 mm per year in the period of recovery) such that by carefull enough chery picking you might find a period with near zero trend depite the rapid overall rise.

    Balboa JASL 1907-2010: 1.5494 mm/year (previous link).  In both cases extending the data beyond that held for the PSMSL stations increases the rate of sea level rise.  That strongly suggests that any lack of sea level rise Maui claims is, at best, the result of cherry picking.

  11. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Donny

    I assume you are reerring to the big change at around 6500 BP. This period, the major cooling ad warming is called the 8.2 kiloyear event. The main theory for its cause is that it was the final collapse of Lake Agassiz. Agssiz and its sister Lake Ojibway were massive glacial lakes in the northern US and central Canada that formed as the Laurentide ice sheet melted. Probably held more fresh water than all lakes on earth today.

    The main theory is that repeatedly as the ice sheets melted these lakes were prone to ice wall collapse floods, dumping huge amounts fo fresh water. When these bursts of fresh water flooded out into the Arctic or North Atlantic the change in salinity they caused triggered a slowdown/collapse in the Atlantic Meridinal Overturning Circulation- the current system that includes the Gulf Stream that makes wester Europe artificially warm. If the current collapses then the north atlantic basin can cool signiicantly and then warms again when the current restablishes.

    The 8.2 Kyr event is thought to have resulted from the last collapse of Lake Agassiz - there were earlier floods triggering previous events like this that come from earlier in the core, not shown on this graph.

    Importantly, these sort of events appear very differently in the Antarcic cores and other studies with the same period being perhaps warmer. Which is what we might expect - if heat isn't being moved northward then there should be more heat remaining in the south.

    The cores aren't recording global events so much as local and regional ones. Standard denier tosh to suggest, imply, or 'leave the reader to form their own view' that black is white through cherry picking the data they use.

  12. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #36

    jim - Depends on the period you are looking at, on whether you are examining sufficient data for statistical significance, etc. The period 1985-1999, for example, is 15 years (too short for significance, as are the last 15-17 years), showing a warming rate of 0.23 C/decade, while the statistically significant period 1984-2014 shows a warming rate of 0.167 C/decade. Short term variations definitely added to warming in the 1990's (albeit without statistical significance). 

    Longer term, the AMO for example appears to have had a cooling influence in recent decades (Mann et al 2014). There seems to be no way to support natural variation as a majority cause in recent warming. 

    "...does that mean that the warming attributed to anthropogenic carbon is overestimated?" - No, it means that there is natural variability plus the anthropogenic forcing trend, hardly a surprising result. See IPCC AR5 WG1, Chapter 10, Detection and Attribution of Climate Change, for the current state of the science. 

    Attribution estimates - Anthropogenic

    [Source]

    As noted on RealClimate wrt Chen, Tung, and others, "Nobody has any problems with the idea that multi-decadal internal variability might be important. The problem with many studies on this topic is the assumption that all multi-decadal variability is internal. This is very much an open question."

  13. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #36

    Jim, try a read of Double Standard. Note also that the internal variability strongly affects surface temperature (ENSO in particular), but it doesnt do much to OHC. I would say that pretty much all variations in OHC are due to change in forcings.

  14. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #36

    If the hiatus is due to internal variation of the climate system does that imply that previous warming must be partially attributed to internal variation? And further does that mean that the warming attributed to anthropogenic carbon is overestimated?

    I refer to Matt Ridley's argument and his defense here:
    http://www.mattridley.co.uk/blog/whatever-happened-to-global-warming.aspx

    I found convincing the email he quoted from the Chen and Tung (2014) authors supporting his interpretation of their paper.

  15. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    I must say, adding the guitar into Dr Alley's cartoon character is a nice touch.

  16. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Rob, as also pointed out at Hotwhopper, Watts actually put up Loehle 2007, before all the corrections were made.

  17. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Marco @18... Also, Watts tries to pull out Loehle's work to make up for his posting such a thoroughly debunked graph of GISP2. But in my first SkS article I took that one on and created the graph below with Dr Loehle's assistance.

  18. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Donny... You have to bear in mind that that graph represents only one small part of the globe. It is a regional record of temperature at the Greenland summit. Also bear in mind where the Greenland summit is. It's well above the arctic circle and thus it's where we expect to see much more rapid swings in temperature.

    I'm really amazed that Watts has posted that version of the GISP2 data. He totally knows that the it's wrong where it states that the year 2000 = "present." That should give you a sense of how much Watts cares about accuracy and truth. In fact, of all the versions of the GISP2 data floating around the denialsphere, that one is probably the most misleading of all.

  19. Sea level rise is exaggerated

    It is curious this controversy on a scientific level. "They have a millimeter measurement" for 68 years ... every day ... well documented ... Panama Canal.
    Repeat ... for 68 years
    Without any pressure from powerful groups and only practical for the normal functioning of locks filing purposes.
    The levels of the Pacific and the Atlantic, have been unchanged in the last 68 years.

    Give a bit of a laugh to see how each to defend a theory and make specific studies in specific geographic areas and draw overall conclusions.
    .
    Governments need to collect more taxes, and for that... we have to blame something.

    Moderator Response:

    [TD]  Please provide a citation for your claim.  NOAA's Sea Level Trends page shows trend of increase since 1908/1909 on both ends of the canal.  (Click the arrows on that page to see more info, and in the resulting dialog window click the "Linear Trend" link.)

  20. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    KR looking at the graph above it looks like there was rapid warming 6300 years ago of more than 3 degrees in about a 200 year span.... do they have theories as to what caused that rapid warming? 

  21. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Donny - That's one of the most misrepresented data sets on the climate blogosphere. See the Crux of a Core series here on SkS.

    Long story short: it's a local record of a particular location in Greenland, not a global proxy, often mis-graphed with incorrect proxy endpoints, and shown with a noteworthy lack of the most recent temperatures:

    GISP2 data with most recent instrumental temperatures

    [Source]

    Good data, deceptive presentations, ridiculous interpretations. 

  22. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Donny, see http://skepticalscience.com/10000-years-warmer.htm

    No surprise to see WUWT not caring (see their "update") about using, once again, a falsified graph.

  23. When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?

    saileshrao... If you're an AGU member and are genuinely interested in this issue, then I'd suggest you approach the Moscone Center people about it. AGU is not a caterer, nor does AGU even select a caterer, for the events. Whoever does event organizing at AGU is, likely, merely selecting which services the Moscone Center offers. It's unlikely AGU has an option to choose an outside catering service for events. That would be the exclusive service of Moscone Center.

    That said, this is San Francisco. I would imagine the management at Moscone Center would be open to hearing your suggestions about offering low carbon meal packages for events. Only at that point would AGU even have the option to do what you're suggesting they do.

    If you think it's an important issue, it's certainly within your power to help make it happen.

  24. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Can someone please tell me if this Greenland ice core graph is real or crap?  Not sure who to believe. 

    wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/08/monday-mirthiness-97-hours-97-opinions-97-consensus/

  25. Dikran Marsupial at 18:07 PM on 8 September 2014
    97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Jenna, I suspect there are a handful professors who don't have a PhD (for instance because they have built up an impressive track record of industrial research before moving into academia) but I would suspect the number would be exceedingly small, especially as it is possible to get a "PhD by publication".

  26. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Jenna  Professor is an academic title used by universities.  Most professors have a track record of attracting grants and publishing in the peer reviewed literature and are considered experts in their field.  Drs in this context have a PhD but may not work in a university so are not referred to as Professor even though their scientific output is similar to those of "Professors".  And of course there are may scientists working in university who also have excellent credentials but are not professors as there are only a limited number of professorships available

  27. When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?

    Tom Curtis @23:

    The carbon cycle is not the only biogeophysical cycle that humans have altered among the planetary life support systems. As a member of AGU, I'm concerned about all the cycles that we have messed up, not just the carbon cycle.

    As Prof. Will Steffen said, "Climate change is one of many global changes that are destabilising our planetary life support system. It is ultimately a question of core values. Can we change our core values rapidly enough – and decisively enough – to halt our slide towards collapse? That is humanity’s most important question in the 21st century!"

    As scientists, we are very good at rationalizing any set of core values, but then we should expect the general public to get very good at ignoring our pet peeves.

  28. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Each scientist's cartoon and quote page (follow BaerbelW's link or instructions above at comment #7) here on SkS has a link to that scientist's bio page. Usually hosted by their university, etc.

    Each hour's featured scientist on the 97Hours website (http://skepticalscience.com/nsh/?#) has the same bio link.
     Also, when you hover over the smaller figures which are already "lit up" on the "turntable", and click your mouse that scientist's quote balloon will pop up. The bio link is also in that bubble but there is a trick to get to it. Click and hold your mouse button and drag over to the underlined link, release the button and a new tab/window will open with the bio page.

    Have fun!

     

  29. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Jenna, I have found the rotation and pan arrows to be helpful sometimes in accessing a particular scientist.  I think those buttons give a very cool effect, so congratulations to the people who worked on this.

  30. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    For example, David Karoly.

  31. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Jenna, the professors are scientists who regularly publish in their respective sub-disciplines.  It would be cool to get a google scholar link for each of them (or a link to their CVs).

  32. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    I have 2 observations;

    1) it's vewry difficult to get some of the figures to respond to your mouse-over. I'm not sure what the problem is, do we need to rotate the screen?

    2) there seem to be too many "professors" and not enough "scientists" (as in dr.'s, etc). Or are the professors really scientists?

    Jen.

  33. 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #36B

    jja should that perhaps be "Climate change threatenst to put the fight against hunger back by Millenia"?

  34. When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?

    saileshrao @19, a reasonable estimate for revving car engines for an hour is 5 liters of petrol consumed (based on a 1.8 liter, 4 cylinder engine), with CO2 emmisions of 11.5 Kg.  That in turn is half the CO2e emissions of 1 kg of grass fed beef, which comes in at 19.2 Kg per live kg of beef for the worst category (grass fed) in the Midwestern USA.  Even serving 500 g steaks means the beef is comparable to just one hours of "revved engines", and for the more reasonable 350 or 200 g steaks, the advantage is entirely with the beef.  Of course, the calculations above do not include CO2 generated in transporting and cooking the beef, but nor does it include that in transporting, refening and than further transporting the petrol.

    Of course, there is just one banquet at an AGU, and you propose an equivalent of 15 hours revved engines as the CO2 equivalent of that banquet.  Clearly you are not arguing this from science, or anything approaching a factual basis.

    Further, the AGU already advertizes its attempts to support sutainability, mostly through its choice of convention center which will by itself reduce emissions generated from the meeting by a greater amount than eliminating beef from the menu.  They further recommend that attendee's use the BART transport system, which will save CO2 emmissions more than that of a steak meal for each round trip.  These steps are visible, more effective, readilly associated with a concern regarding CO2 emissions and do not advertize a hair shirt mentality in the same way that banning beef from the banquet would do.   That later point, however, makes them insufficient from saileshao's point of view.

    saileshao @21, "foregoing the constant economic growth paradigm" is not necessary to tackle climate change and should not be coupled to reducing CO2 emissions as a strategy.  Doing so merely encumbers the later making it far less politically achievable.  Once again, hooking your particular political agenda to concern about AGW acts only to the detriment of the later and is not the strategy that shoud be pursued by those whose primary concern is ensuring AGW is controlled.

  35. When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?

    Personally, most of those I know, regardless of their political persuasion, understand and accept the basic mainstream science. While this is interesting, it leaves a lot of room for social/public policy choices and decisions. I'd rather start hearing more about the range of options and trade-offs with respect to individual choices and decisions, neighborhood/local planning, as well as State and Federal options.

    If enough people are responding at individual and local levels, we can drag the higher levels of social architecture along for the ride. Too many are interested in working on national and state level politics, without much attention to their personal and local level decisions and options. Too many view this as a black or white issue that one political "side" has the monopoly on. As in most such issues the reality is closer to being that there is one side that is generally much less wrong about what the science says. In fact, there are many traditionally fiscally conservative  public policy positions, such as revenue neutral carbon taxes, that ahould, and probably will, play vitally important roles in addressing AGW climate change adaptation and mitigation.

    We will never get past the "should we do something" stage and fully into the "what should we do" stage, if we don't start defining the options that everyone has at each level of decision making.  

  36. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Is this great initiative being intentionally coordinated with the "Disruption" screenings being held tonight around the country?

    "Disruption" film: grassroots global revolt a key answer to CC

  37. When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?

    Rob Honeycutt @20

    Re: "Simple taxation works wonders to alter broad consumer behavior."

    I don't see governments all over the world and the corporations who control them in our capitalist system foregoing the constant economic growth paradigm anytime soon. Therefore taxation policies that alter peoples' behavior so that they become net contributors to ecosystems instead of net consumers is a distant dream. This is not as easy a problem as getting people to switch to reusable shopping bags, which is why governments have been punting on this issue for the past two decades.

    We're facing the same intractable problem worldwide that Gandhi faced in India in 1915: an entrenched power structure that is utterly impervious to reason. Gandhi tackled it with voluntary grassroots actions.

    Besides, why wait to do the right thing at AGU meetings just because we haven't yet received price signals not to do the wrong thing? The IPCC AR5, Chapter 11, is unequivocal that the consumption of animal foods at present levels is unsustainable. Please take a look at Fig. 11.9 to see the land use component and the energy flow of animal food products vs. the land still remaining as pristine forest and the energy flow of plant food products. That figure illustrates why Nature has a loaded gun pointed at our heads, saying, "Change your conduct or it's your life!". And those stats are from 2000 and it has only gotten worse since then!

  38. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Ah. Now I see that only the name appears when the cursor is held on the figure (and not until it waves) and that the statement usually requires a click before it appears. I hope folks don't give up before they figure this out, especially old guys like me. 

  39. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    johnthepainter - you can see the ones already published via the menue-path: Resources --> Climate Graphics - 97 Hours of Consensus . This takes you to this page:
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?c=9

    The ones in the email you received contain a glimpse into who is yet to come - a preview if you will.

  40. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Oh. Never mind. I saw the figures wave when I put my cursor on them, but didn't hold it there long enough to see the statements. Guess I'm too impatient.

  41. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Hey, I got tipped off to this by a George Mason Univerity email, which posted six of the figures with their statements. It's a great idea and I'd like to email friends about this, but I don't see a way to see all of the statements already made on this website--and the examples on the email don't all match the first six on the website. I don't know when people will check their emails and I don't want them to miss anything. When I check the corner box on the home page, I am taken to the picture of the group, with the ones whose statements have been made fo far shown and the rest as darkened figures. It took a little while before a large figure with a statement appeared, and I hope people will have the patience to wait until this happens. I also can't get back to the home page without downloading it all over again. If you can tell me how to navigate this any better, I would like to share it with the folks I am emailing.

  42. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    While it is important to note and accentuate the fact of mainstream science support and confirmation of AGW, there are consequences to reinforcing perceptions of the importance of "concensus" (in general) on issues of science, especially with regard to the shaping of public policy in response the findings of science. These consequences can become more problematic as these terms get translated from considered debate to more colloquial exchanges.

  43. When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?

    saileshrao... "A carbon tax sends a message that well-to-do people, such as Al Gore and climate scientists, can continue with their profligate consumption, but it is the riff-raff, the poor people, who should be cutting down on their consumption."

    I think this is absolutely wrong. What it means is that the well-to-do have the greatest incentive to change. In fact, it's already the case that it's easier for people of means to, say, build a LEED certified home or purchase a Tesla and charge it with the solar panels the put on the roof of their home.

    But at the same time, carbon taxes that are paid by those who polute the most will ease the impacts on any rising cost of energy that result from taxation.

    Tax and dividend certainly would not "continue the orgy of consumption." In fact, quite the opposite. It's likely the only viable approach to changing broad national behaviors that produce carbon emissions.

    With regards to voluntary participation, the example I always use is the use of plastic grocery bags in California. We had decades of outreach, education, news stories, etc, etc, on the impacts of using plastic grocery bags. But volunary participation was limited even with people who agreed that it was a serious problem! But the first day the law went into place that said retailers had to charge 10 cents for a shopping bag, that was the day everyone changed. Now, here where I live, everyone uses reusable shopping bags.

    Simple taxation works wonders to alter broad consumer behavior.

  44. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    RFMarine: we've got heaps of that now in biological repsonses to warming. Such as range shifts in marine and terrestrial plants and animals, changes in timing of life history events, etc.  Ecologists like to say we dont even need all the therometers (and satellites) - we can clearly see the warming in ecosystems responses. example one   example two

  45. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Very clever, and well done. But I count 100 figures, so I wonder who the remaining 3 will be.


    Lindzen, Curry and Christy?

  46. Rising Ocean Temperature: Is the Pacific Ocean Calling the Shots?

    BC

    Yep! Sea level rise with heat accumulation isn't anywhere nearly as simple as X Joules = Y millimeters. Here is another mechanism that might be involved. As heat moves to diferent points in the ocean this influences the how much density change occurs in different locations. In turn this impacts on the gravitational effect that each part o the ocean has on every otherr ppat, prhaps altering the Geoid slightly. And this might inflluence the rrate of the earth's rotation ever so slightly, in turn influencing how much the oceans bulge out at the equator.

    These efects might be small but they highlight that sea level is not simple.

  47. Rising Ocean Temperature: Is the Pacific Ocean Calling the Shots?

    Thanks. Interesting article. So the hiatus could end soon or go on for another 15 years?

    Would it be the case that because the heat is going down deep and at mid latitudes the thermal expansion would be reduced? This would be because it's occuring at low temperatures and the coefficient of expansion gets smaller as it approaches 0 deg C.

  48. 97 hours of consensus: caricatures and quotes from 97 scientists

    Here's an example. If we didnt have all those scientists monitoring the climate, we could tell that somehting is happening when obvious stuff like large cargo ships start using the northwest passage. The first large cargo ship to use the northwest passage was in 2013. If in the future it becomes a rebular occurence then you got non meterorological evidence that something is going on

  49. When their research has social implications, how should climate scientists get involved?

    Rob Honeycutt @16 and 17:

    I'm not as concerned about the chain smoking doctor having less influence over his smoking patients. I'm concerned that the AMA annual meeting is officially encouraging chain smoking during the conference, making ALL doctors less effective in the anti-smoking campaign.

    Imagine if at the AGU fall meeting, all attendees ritualistically revved their rental car engines for an hour at a stretch, three times a day. And then complained that the general public is not taking climate scientists seriously on greenhouse gas emissions.

    Serving animal foods at the AGU fall meeting is a worse display of frivolity from a lifecycle emissions standpoint.

    A carbon tax sends a message that well-to-do people, such as Al Gore and climate scientists, can continue with their profligate consumption, but it is the riff-raff, the poor people, who should be cutting down on their consumption. As such, I respectfully submit that it is politically impossible to implement it.

    A carbon tax with dividends is more palatable politically, but that just continues the orgy of consumption that brought us all these environmental catastrophes in the first place, because this policy has been shown to "grow the economy" in every analysis that I've seen.

    Therefore, there is no way out of our predicament but to change ourselves from within. We have no option but to pare down our consumption voluntarily without waiting for external price signals or Big Brother to modulate our behavior. At the minimum, we need to restrain ourselves in public gatherings for 4 days at the AGU annual fall meeting once a year, or risk being taken not too seriously.

  50. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #35

    My guess, echoing conspiracy theories, is, it's the countdown to Bardarbunga Main eruption, that is machined by Climate Deniers to discredit global warming next year. lol.

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