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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 34751 to 34800:

  1. Antarctica is gaining ice

    jetfuel, setting aside the different effects of ice in different locations outlined by scaddenp... you are also comparing the antarctic annual volume loss rate to (vague generalizations of) the Canadian annual volume maximum. That is obviously illogical.

    That 81 GT average was over the period 1992 - 2011... twenty years. So the total ice loss for that period was ~1,620 GT. Meanwhile, the total annual ice gain in Canadian lakes over the same period was, what? Approximately zero? In Summer they are melted out so we've gone from zero ice volume to zero ice volume. In winter they freeze to varying extents, but setting aside the one anomalous year you cite, the overall trend has likely been decreasing ice volume. In any case, any changes in average volume over the course of the year have been minimal compared to the Antarctic ice loss.

  2. Antarctica is gaining ice

    Are you serious? Let's suppose say that Canada's lakes gain and lose say 1000Gt of ice between summer and winter. Only a change in the surface area of lakes frozen or a change in timing (which would both affect earth albedo) would have any climate significance. On the other hand, 81Gt of  ice loss from Antarctica is going straight into sealevel rise. Furthermore, as rock is exposed albedo is reduced.

  3. Antarctica is gaining ice

     Shepherd et al. (2012) estimate the mass balance of the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet to be -81 ± 37 gigatonnes per year. The tolerance band is less than Lake Superior's 2014 ice volume change when 2 feet thick ice formed over the 32 thousand square mile lake. Canada has over 320 thousand square miles of lakes that get ice each winter. Antarctica's 81 GT loss per year may not be much when compared to the millions of GT there.

  4. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Michael. ... when someone is trying to justify why nature is behaving a certain way as is the case with global warming it can be very blinding to get caught up in the minutia of individual studies especially when studies conflict each other.  I have read hundreds of climate studies over the years.   I have a degree in environmental biology so I know a thing or two about succession.   You asked me why I believed that the climate models were inaccurate and I provided 2 different studies for you.   I don't think that the models are useless. ... I agree that they can help us continue to refine the complex mechanisms that dictate climate.   However no matter how much you insult or belittle me I still am skeptical about the reliability of using the models to predict the climate.   But if it makes you feel smarter to belittle me.... go ahead. 

  5. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Let's also not forget that if it came down to it we can stop using corn to make fuel.  

  6. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Ok.... so let's discuss what we have learned. We know from Scaddenps second reference @48 that soils take different amounts of time to develop.   We also know that temperature and moisture also affect the rate.  In Wisconsin the soil took 8000 years to develop.   So since we know that the glaciers retreated from Southern Canada around 12000 years ago. ... we shouldn't have much of a problem. 

  7. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny,

    In this exchange we see the difference between skeptical sites like WUWT and scientific sites like SkS.  When you challenged Scaddenp on the age of soils he produced (very strong) evidence tht soils are indeed very old.  You have provided no evidence to support your position that soils can change in a human lifetime, although you have been asked for such evidence.  At WUWT they rarely provide evidence, they argue by assertion, as you have done.  Scientists argue by producing evidence to support their claims.  I am more likely to believe Scaddenp the next time he comments because he has provided data that supports his claims.

    The ball is now in your court.  You can do one of two things:

    1) Conceed that Scaddenp was correct and that you have learned something.

    2) Produce evidence that supports your claims.

    I do not need to challenge Scaddenp since I also knew that soils take thousands of years to develop. 

  8. Stephen Baines at 08:07 AM on 12 August 2014
    Facts can convince conservatives about global warming – sometimes

    Carbtheory.  It is a scientist's job to critically evaluate evidence in support of propositions.  They are hired and promoted largely based on the ability to do just that.  So it is not that much of a stretch to believe that many of them do in fact have the time to evaluate evidence thoroughly, especially in their specialty.  

    As for those denying the consensus, they would seem to fall just as easily into category 4 of your system — The alienated.  Frankly, Im not sure that label is constructive either.  Contrary voices play an important role in science generally, even though they are most often wrong — it's just that in this case those voices are amplified to such a degree that the general consensus among climate scientists is not apparent to the general public. 

  9. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Well I am very surprised  that someone thinks the slow pace of soil development is wild claim, when a google of "how long soil develop" would give you the textbook answers, but least I be accused of making unstantiated claims, then this well-cited study on post-glacial vegetation recovery is useful and there is this online University of Minnesota textbook

  10. It's the sun

    knaugle:

    I only read the abstract and list of references. The references include Friis-Christensen and Lassen, Singer, and Svensmark. Not exactly awe-inspiring.

  11. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Tom@41:

    The first link didn't have a map, and had several links to spots, so I wasn't sure which link you wanted me to follow there. I presume the link with the map you are referring to is this one:

    http://http-server.carleton.ca/~msmith2/45211/Module5/CLI/mapping_agriculture.html

    [As an aiside, the web page looks like it is course material from a course offered at Carleton University. The professor whose name is listed in the URL is Michael Smith - now retired - who was my undergraduate thesis advisor.]

    As to the geographical restriction, remember that I was responding to Donny's claim (@24) that boreal forest soils are climate-driven. I presented an example where they are not, in a region of Canada where the agricultural/non-agricultural boundary coincides with the edge of the boreal forest. It's an area that I know quite well, and the boreal forest soils are severely limited by underlying geology - not climate. The map I showed included the transition from grasslands to boreal forest, and things don't improve further north from there.

    As for the Mills paper, I repeat my interpretation: the paper does not adequately justify its claim that large portions of the class 5-7 soils will become classes 1-3 under climate change. The Carleton link also leads to full descriptions of the soil classes, as well as the modifiers that can be applied to each class. Mills' table 6 lists a lot of H modifiers ("Adverse climate as a result of cold temperatures"), and changes those to M modifiers ("Deficient soil moisture")with lower class numbers. The CLI does allow multiple modifiers, but I can't tell from Mills paper if he's looked at that level of detail.

    I still don't see enough explanation of how Mills decided to shift those classes, and I'm not convinced. It takes a lot more than just a temperature change to create the excellent soils available in the map you include in comment #41. The black soils (best) are the result of much greater moisture availability and much more productive grasslands over thousands of years (compared to the increasing moisture deficits in the dark brown and brown soils).

    North of the black soil zone is an area of even greater moisture availability, but the terrain is unfriendly to grasses and the boreal forest dominates. The tongue of black soils to the NE of Saskatoon (on your map) follows the North Saskatchewan River valley - it is geological in origin, not climatic.

    My main issue with MIlls (1994) is that he seems to have assumed (not demonstrated) that the limitations to agriculture are dominated by climate, not geology. This is exactly the error that Donny has made.

  12. It's the sun

    knaugle - As was pointed out (repeatedly) on that 2-month old WUWT thread by Leif Svalgaard, a solar expert who is a frequent visitor there, there has been no recent 'Modern Grand Maximum'. Their paper fails on that alone. 

    Add to that issues such as equating postulated 64.3-year (oddly specific) temperature cycles to 50-year solar cycles (bzzzt), making claims based on low correlations, requiring a climate response far beyond the changes in solar forcings (implying a very high climate sensitivity), and the general avoidance of other forcings such as GHGs, aerosols, land use, etc., and the paper appears to be an exercise in bad curve-fitting. 

    Non-linear changes in various climate forcings (see here for data and links to published work on those) cause non-linear temperature changes - and if you ignore those factors you might think that there were significant long-term cyclical oscillations. But you have to ignore a great deal of the physics to do so. 

  13. It's the sun

    WUWT web site (purportedly "The world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change",  ahem) claims the following paper suggests it really IS the Sun and solar cycles and so forth.  Has anyone read it?  I think it's in Chinese.  Yet it does amuse me that much of the solar science purporting to refute AGW is from this part of the world, or Russia.

    ZHAO X H, FENG X S. Periodicities of solar activity and the surface temperature variation of the Earth and their correlations (in Chinese). Chin Sci Bull (Chin Ver), 2014, 59: 1284, doi: 10.1360/972013-1089

  14. Greenhouse gases are responsible for warming, not the sun

    The WUWT web site is championing the following paper as a possible "refutation" of AGW.  Has anyone read it?

    ZHAO X H, FENG X S. Periodicities of solar activity and the surface temperature variation of the Earth and their correlations (in Chinese). Chin Sci Bull (Chin Ver), 2014, 59: 1284, doi: 10.1360/972013-1089

  15. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny... It happens that Scaddenp's statement is not a wild claim. And you have still yet to substantiate any of your statements, at all.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] The comment you are responding to has been deleted because it was nothing more than argumentativie sloganeering. Donny is on the verge of recusing himself from posting on SkS. 

  16. Facts can convince conservatives about global warming – sometimes

    Donny said... "Am I a "denier" Doug if I think the climate would be warming even if humans were not adding any CO2?"

    In a word: Yes. 

    You have to understand that scientists have researched that exactly possibility to exhaustion. The overwhelming conclusion is that, over the past 50 years, in absence of human carbon emissions, the earth would be experiencing a mild cooling.

  17. Facts can convince conservatives about global warming – sometimes

    carbtheory...  What you're presenting doesn't seem at all relevant since the 97% is not based on anyone following anyone. The 97% (at least relative to Cook et al) is a measure of the results of research. It's conclusions based on data and research.

  18. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    dr2, I think the main thing we're talking about here is not just any plant but major food crops--wheat, soy, corn...I'm not sure that these can grow in short, hot seasons as well as some of the plants you might have seen thriving. And swamps aren't as much of a problem as simple bare rock--most of the soil was scraped off of most of the Canadian Shield by the ice sheet during the last ice age, and not much soil has developed since. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield

    And you can't quickly remediate or improve soils. It is far easier to adjust to a civilization with very few carbon fuel inputs (most past civilizations had none, after all) than to a civilization without soil (I can think of no civilization that existed without this vital resource in abundance).

  19. Facts can convince conservatives about global warming – sometimes

    carbtheory:

    I'm not really sure why we should find your line of thinking compelling.

    Can you clarify? Are you suggesting that we should suspect the results of the research of tens of thousands of scientists over 150 years because of a very recent, and (charitably) modestly-supported foray into some aspect of personality?

  20. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Glenn Tamblyn @42, for an anecdotal test of the importance of insolation versus climate, visit England (I just did for the first time, among other things we visited Kew Gardens and the Cambridge Botanical gardens, as well as traveling by train between Cambridge and London).  London's at 51 30' N, Cambridge at 52 12' N, and we were struck by how vigorous some of the plants were compared to their counterparts near Boston.

    This is different climate moderation from what is expected in the future for Northern Canada so I'd expect different results then/there, but it is also an example showing that very healthy plant growth is entirely possible beyond latititude 50N.

    And if I were the sort of person to plan for disaster, I'd be putting a lot of thought into figuring out how to remediate, improve, or adapt to agriculture in terrible soils.  Hubris, I know, and no substitute for prevention, but draining swamps is known and ancient technology.

  21. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Glenn Tamblyn @42, that is a very important point.  The current agricultural zone in Canada extends to about 55 North, so that future agriculture made possible by global warming will be north of that.  However, noon insolation is not the best indicator of the effect on agriculture.  Although at 60 North, noon insolation is less than at 45 North, the longer summer day at 60 North results in more summer insolation overall, as shown on this chart of total daily insolation by latitude and day of year:

    As can be seen, however, the price of that increased summer insolation is a much shorter growing season overall.  It high northerly latitudes, at most one growing season will be available per year regardless of temperature and soil quality.

  22. Facts can convince conservatives about global warming – sometimes

    Look up "followership" on wikipedia. Under "Followeship Patterns" there are five descriptions of types of followers. Have a look at #5.

    "5. The Star Followers: These exemplary individuals are positive, active and independent thinkers. Star followers will not blindly accept the decisions or the actions of a leader until they have evaluated them completely. Furthermore, these types of followers can succeed without the presence of a leader."

    The last sentence indicates that a star follower is actually leadership material.

    Now, ideally all scientists would fit this description. However, how many people have the time, money, persistance or for that matter the intelligence to truely fit the description of a "Star Follower" when it comes to climate change. More often than not, one scientific paper depends on another that has already been written to back it up. Yet there are highly quallified scientists who attempt to fit the star follower description and have come to the conclusion that AGW theory is seriously flawed. I dare say many people put them in a group as deniers.

    Most likely the majority of people fit #'s 1,2,3 and 4 follower descriptions. (Typical society %'s next to all 5 types would be helpful.)

    So then, what percentage of the 97% concensus on climate change are, or truely attempt to be a "Star Follower"? Indeed should society pick their leaders due to a high % of followers in a scientific consensus?

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] It is customary for commenters on this website to provide links to materials being cited in a post. Please do so in your future posts. 

  23. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Another factor missing from this discussion of potential crop yields vis-a-vis Canada is latitude and available sunlight.

    The Great Valley in California for example lies between 35 & 40 North. Central Canada in contrast is roughly between 50 & 55 North.

    This is the relative amounts of sunlight arriving at noon for different latitudes and time of year. From here:

    It isn't just temperature and soil type that restrict crop yields in Canade vs lower latitudes. It is also available sunlight and length of growing season.

  24. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Bob Loblaw @38, the initial link was to the correct location.  The map at that location shows the limited area of Canada that has been thoroughly mapped as to soil type.  However, as that causes confusion, here is a map of the Canadian Prairie from wikipedia:

    As can be seen the area of the prairie approximately corresponds with the area shown by your map.  Specifically, your map is bounded by Lake Winnipeg in the east, the Rockies in the west, and does not extend far north of the top of Lake Winnipeg.  It includes not more than two thirds of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and much less a proportion of Manitoba.  It is overall a small portion of Canada.  I do not think we can reasonably argue to the lack of suitable soils for agriculture in Northern Canada from a map that does not show any of Northern Canada.

    To make up that lack, I looked up Mills (1994).  IMO, Mills (1994) shows that there are currently some lands in Canada suitable for agriculture as regards their soil, but on which agriculture is prevented by climate.  Some of those lands will be openned up to agriculture by climate change.  However, the total amount of land potentially opened up to agriculture by global warming is small relative to the total arable land in the USA plus Canada (approx 8%), and very small relative to world agricultural land (approx 1.2%).  Even assuming a similar expansion in available agricultural land in Russia results in a small overall impact on abailable food production, and probably insufficient to compensate for other climate related losses.

    The additional agricultural land represents just 1.6% of Canada's total land area, so I am certainly not trying to contradict your argument.  Rather, I am providing a peer reviewed estimate (if dated) so that Donny can try to make his case if he thinks he has one, and noting that I do not think he does (hence my comment about comparison with global wheat production, and comparison with the arable land area of Texas and California). 

  25. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Further to the question of possible expansion of arable land in Canada, in eastern Canada (primarily Ontario and Quebec) the current agricultural zones usually butt up against PreCambrian Shield zones, which have very little potential for agriculture. Growing up in Ontario, I saw many regions of abandoned farms that people attempted to settle in the 1800s, but could not make a go of it due to poor soils (not climate!).

    The major exception I can think of in Ontario and Quebec is the Clay Belt. That is one area of reasonable soils, where changes in climate would increase agricultural potential.

    The huge tracts of land that Donny is speaking about exist only in his imagination.

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Please keep the tone civil.

  26. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    There is a very important point in here. If climate change occurs slowly, then there is time for soils suitable for agriculture to develop as ice recedes - but it is a long process over centuries and millenia, not decades. Our problem isnt that the climate is changing  - it that it is changing too fast.

  27. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Tom @ 9:36am (now 36, but number will probably change as more posts from Donny are deleted):

    Your fiirst link does not lead directly to a map. It leads to a general information page on the Canada Land Inventory (CLI, which is also what was used for the previous map I included). The CLI is generally limited to areas not far beyond current agricultural zones, but at the limits it does show severe limitations not based on climate. When you get a corrected link to the map you wished to present, we can discuss it.

    Your second link (Mills, 1994) leads to a paper that focuses on north-west Canada and Alaska. Its Table 5 lists areas of "potentially arable soils", and provides the CLI classes. Of the 194 million hectares included in the table, roughly 175 million hectares are in classes 5, 6, and 7. These classes are the "very severe limitations", "marginally suited for forage", and "unsuitable for any agriculture" classes I referred to above.

    Mills makes the statement (p121) that "The results shown in table 6 indicate that a number of MLRAs [Major Land Resource Areas] were identified as being limited by the current climate and hence were deemed non-arable". Most of the "improvement" in arable area in Table 6 is based on shifting CLI classifications from classes 5-7 to classes 1-3.

    I do not see anything in Mills (1994) to support the claim that the soil limitations are are mis-applied climate limitations. Mills' conclusions appear to be highly dependent on that assumption. I have travelled in northern Manitoba, northern Saskatchewan, northern Alberta, the Mackenzie Valley, and the Yukon. With the exception of the Peace River area, I have seen little land that I think would make a good candidate for agricultural expansion. Rocks, bogs, etc. don't make for good soils, just because the climate changes.

    Perhaps you can tell me just what it is about Mills' paper that you find convincing?

  28. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Further to my @36, the increase in 16 million hectares for Canada compares to 11 million hectares of arable land in California, and 53 million hectares in Texas.  That is, it is just 25% of the arable land in those two states.  The loss of more than that 25% in those two states due to increased drought as a result of climate change will result in a net negative balance in arable land between CONUS and Canada.

  29. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Bob Loblaw @30, the map you show is of a very restricted portion of Canada.  How restricted can be seen in this map of mapped areas for land use capacity from the CLI.  Looking for more general information, the most comprehensive I could find was Mills (1994).  Peter Mills finds that under a doubled CO2 scenario, arable land in Canada will increase by approximately 40%, from 39 to 55 million hectares.  He does not that may be accompanied by a loss of arable land in the US or Southern Canada due to reduced water supply.

    To put that into context, assuming an equivalent increase in Russia, based on world wheat production statistics, that would increase potential grain and cereal production by 10%.  I believe that means the additional land available will be insufficient to offset loses in production due to heat in warm regions, and loss of water. 

  30. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    The following study gives some idea about the variation between models. It is worthwhile reading the conclusion. Is it obvious to anybody what will happen with crop yields?

    North American Climate in CMIP5 Experiments: Part III: Assessment of 21st Century Projections

    "Although many projected changes in NA climate are robust across CMIP5 models, substantial disagreement in some areas helps to define priorities for future research. The sign of mean precipitation changes across the southern U.S. is inconsistent among models. Models disagree on annual mean precipitation changes in the NA monsoon region. Models disagree on snow water equivalent changes on a regional basis, especially in transitional regions where competing effects occur due to greater snowfall and warming temperatures. In the southeastern U.S., the multimodel mean diurnal temperature range (DTR) signal is rather weak, accompanied by larger variance among the models. The western U.S. is characterized by large intermodel variability in the number of frost days in the Western U.S., where multimodel mean decreases in frost days (greater than 70 days in RCP8.5) are also largest. Models do not agree on how intraseasonal variability will change over the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, which may have implications for future modulation of hurricane activity. Projected changes in seasonal mean Atlantic and east Pacific tropical cyclone activity are inconsistent among models, which disagree on the sign and amplitude of changes in environmental factors that modulate hurricane activity. Models are highly inconsistent in projecting how the ENSO teleconnection to NA will change."

  31. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Again, Donny... First, you should drop the snark. Second, you should provide sources for your claims, as everyone else here is doing.

    You've still not supported your statement that, "[T]he models have said a lot of things over the past 15 years.... a lot of which have been revised over the years because of inaccuracies."

  32. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Bob.... try to follow me here...of course there are areas now that aren't suitable. ... this is primarily due to temperature!   We are talking about when the climate Shifts!  

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Please provide supporting evidence for this assertion and that areas can become suitable in the timescale of climate change.

  33. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny:

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

    Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.

    Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.

    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.

  34. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    All: Donny's most recent comment has been deleted. 

  35. The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator

    Re my #60, maybe it is Cowtan & Way after all. I was only familiar with the long-term dataset, the one that uses kriging.

    Is "HADCRUT4 hybrid" actually C&W's HadCRUT4-UAH hybrid?

  36. CO2 effect is saturated

    That clarifies things. Thank you all very much for your thorough explanations.

  37. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny@24:

    No, climate is not the only difference. Your ignorance is blatantly obvious - or you are just trolling.

    Here is a link to a report titled "Mapping the Quality of Land For Agriculture In Western Canada".

    Figure 12 in that report is the following:

    Canadian Prairie Soil Capability

    Classes 1, 2, and 3 (shaded black) are "good". Classes 4 and 5 are "severe" and "very severe" limitations. Class 6 is "marginally suitable for forage crops", and class 7 is "unsuitable for any agricultural use".

    Current agriculture already fills the "good" areas. There is absolutely no way that a climate shift will cause soil changes in anything other than geological time scales.

  38. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny, I have responded to your citation of Spencer's "models are wrong" graph on a thread more appropriate than this one:  "Models are Unreliable."

  39. Models are unreliable

    Responding on this appropriate thread, to Donny's comment on an inappropriate thread:

    Spencer followed up his claim that you linked, with another claim this time about "90 models" but likewise severely flawed.  Hotwhopper clearly explained Spencer's biggest...um, "mistake"...of playing loose and fast with baselines.  There is also the issue of Spencer falsely giving the impression that the RSS and UAH satellite trends are consistent.

  40. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny @20,

    This is what portions of Siberia look like. Try farming that with or without heavy equipment.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKyRHDFKEXQ

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Activated link.

  41. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny @23...  Again, with Risbey, you fail to even grasp what you originally stated.

    Again, you said, "However the models have said a lot of things over the past 15 years.... a lot of which have been revised over the years because of inaccuracies."

    1) The models have not said "a lot of things over the past 15 years." The models have been relatively unchanged over the past 15 years. 

    2) The models have also not been "revised over the years because of inaccuracies." Models are coded based on known physics, they're not just plugging in random numbers to try to make things fit. Model outputs are the emergent results of the underlying physics, plain and simple. 

    Now, again, I would request that you retract your inaccurate statements.

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Please put all replies concerning "reliability of models" on the appropriate thread in the followup that Tom Dayton has provided above. Debate works better to when you stick to one point at a time and substantiate your claims. Failure to do you will be treated as just trolling and be deleted.

  42. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny @21...  Roy Spencer's post shows absolutely nothing supporting the statement that, "[T]he models have said a lot of things over the past 15 years.... a lot of which have been revised over the years because of inaccuracies."

    The models state what they've always been stating. Climate modelers regularly improve their methods, but those have resulted in only very minor difference. In the article you post, Roy is only discussing the discrepancy between models and satellite data, where it's just as reasonable to assume that it's the satellite data that is getting it wrong.

    Also note, Roy is improperly centering the comparison between the models and the satellite data by arbitrarily chosing the start point of the data.

  43. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny,

    Please provide a reference to support your wild claim that a significant area of forest in Canada can be converted into farmland to replace California and Texas.  Provide a cite to show boreal forest will covert to farmland on a human time scale.  You have yet to provide a single reference to support your wild claims.  You obviously know nothing about soils or you would answer Bob Laidlaw's question. 

    Donny should be required to provide data to support his wild claims.  People who make uninformed claims only add to the noise, they do not add to the discussion.

  44. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Bob.... the boreal forest soil diffiencies are climate driven.....

  45. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Here is another study and question for Mr Honeycutt. ... why would Risbey et al (2014) be studying model simulation results with regard to ENSO and throwing around the term ocean heat uptake... if all models have been doing such a stellar job?  Seems like they are trying to figure out where the expected surface heat went.....and why the predictions are off. 

  46. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Donny:

    Sure, there is lots of land in Canada north of current farming belts.

    Some of us that can read maps can also read soil maps. Care to back up your flippant comment with some information to demonstrate that you know something about the soils in those "huge tracks [sic] of land"? I'll give you a hint: if you look in the prairie provinces, you'll find that current agricultural zones pretty much stop at the border between the grasslands and boreal forest. Further north than that, the soils are not very good. Can you demonstrate a single area in Canada where the northern regions have good soil for agriculture, so that shifting climate zones are not a problem for relocating farms?

    You're long on opinion, but awfully short on information.

  47. nospacesallowed at 02:16 AM on 11 August 2014
    Facts can convince conservatives about global warming – sometimes

    I agree with Mal. Even if you left it at "I think Global Warming is happening and a problem because the best global warming scientists (In the NAS) think it is a problem." that still would not be an argument from authority. An argument from authority only applies if the authority is not an expert on that subject matter, the claim is outside their field, there is no agreement within the field, the person is significantly biased, the area is not a legitimate discipline, or we don't identify the authority.

    I don't think anyone is about to tell you that they don't have to worry about their cancer because believing their doctor is relying on an argument from authority.

    TLDR, relying on expert opinions is not an argument from authority.

  48. The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator

    I haven't been able to locate the downloadable data for the dataset identified as "HadCRUT4 hybrid". Does anyone have a link?

    Initially I thought this might actually be Cowtan and Way, but it doesn't seem to be.

  49. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    However. ... this is a compilation of models. ... that don't seem to have done so well. ..  www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-the-view-from-space/

  50. Air pollution and climate change could mean 50% more people going hungry by 2050, new study finds

    Ma Rodger...  I was responding flippantly to a non scientific jab with regard to where the new farming land would come from. There are huge tracks of land to the north of current farming belts... like southern Canada and across Asia.   .... but anyone here can look at a map and see that.   But rather than discuss these issues people like Rob Honey will probably ask me to find a study proving there is land in southern Canada.   

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