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Composer99 at 00:59 AM on 16 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Arthur123: If your comment survives moderation, might I recommend you read more actual science rather than disinformation. I also recommend reviewing the Skeptical Science comments policy.
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michael sweet at 00:59 AM on 16 May 2014It's cooling
According to the NCDC, last winter was the 62 coolest winter (December 2103-Feb 2014) in Vermont. On the other hand, it was the warmest ever recorded winter in California. Jetfuel needs to check his "facts" before he posts. They are currently having large wildfires in California since it was so warm in the winter. Globally (since it is called Global Warming) it was the eighth warmest Dec-Feb ever.
I will leave the other"facts" in place as the moderator asks.
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Arthur123 at 00:47 AM on 16 May 2014Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
I have not read all these comments. There has been so much fudging on historical climate data by GISS and other government outlets to make the past look colder than today that I don't really see any evidence the eartth is really warming at any truely measureable rate. The HADCUT data shows no warming, the ARGOS ocean data shows no warming, Antartica is growing record ice, and the Arctic is showing some signs of ice growth too. Plus the USA just experienced one of the harshest winters of all recent times. If CO2 increases water vapor in the atmosphere than why are some blaming the west coast drought on AGW? The truth is these droughts have occurred many times in the historical past in the USA. A few years ago the Southeast was in severe drought. Not any more. The evaporation process in itself is a COOLING process so more evaporation more cooling not less. When precipitation falls latent is released back into the atmosphere. There is no net warming or cooling. The earth's atmosphere is a baroclinic system which is always trying to bring equilibrium to this dynamic system. Its this natural unbalance that keeps the system in motion and always unstable.
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Dikran Marsupial at 00:11 AM on 16 May 2014It's cooling
@jetfuel It may have been a harsh winter in Vermont, however it was an unusually mild one in the U.K. However the plural of anecdote is not data. If you want to make an argument that it is cooling, fine, but present the data supporting your argument, not just cherry picked press stories.
As to Arctic sea ice extent. There are a variety of reasons that the annual "recovery" is increasing. The most obvious is that it is dark during much of the winter in the high Arctic and any open water is likely to freeze up. The smaller the September minimum, the more open water there is, the more first year ice will form. This isn't rocket science. As to why the March maximum is declining more slowly than the September minimum, I'd say it was a combination of at least two factors. Firstly it is dark in the high Arctic during much of the winter, so the "regional" greenhouse effect is relatively small as the Sun is not warming the surface. Secondly, when the ice pack is relatively solid during the winter, it will be less affected by Arctic weather, principally wind which pushes the ice about more in the summer when it is broken up, rather than more or less contiguous during the winter.
Moderator Response:[JH] Excellent advice. Unfortunately, jetfuel is unlikley to take it because he has been ignoring such advice since he began posting comments on SkS. I suggest that everyone completely ignore what jetfuel posts from here on out. I have recommended that jetfuel's comment privileges be rescinded.
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ianw01 at 00:07 AM on 16 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
Fundamentally the problem is time-related:
- There is a lag between CO2 emissions and significant consequences for ordinary people.
- The time scales involved are not easily grasped by ordinary people. In human terms, the change is a very slow-motion train wreck but in geological terms the changes are a near-instantaneous shock.
The (human-centric) question is how much pain and cost future generations will endure, and which generations get the worst of it.
We have been proven to be much better at helping people (spatially) near us than those on the other side of the world.
Climate change is test about being concerned for people far away in time.
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DSL at 23:05 PM on 15 May 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #19
You are correct, BC! When I put the figure for April into my spreadsheet, I had left my guess for April in, and so I entered the new value as May's value. Gahhhh. Thanks for pointing that out. I was distracted! I have twins!
Moderator Response:[JH] Copy that. My wife's niece has triplets.
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jetfuel at 22:47 PM on 15 May 2014It's cooling
US natural gas supplies are at an 11 year low. Jeffrey Folks article on American Thinker: "A recent report on natural gas usage during this past winter. For the first time, the U.S. burned more than 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas this winter, most of it for heating. That was more than the 2.3 trillion cf of 2012-13, and double that of 2011-12.
That evidence is irrefutable. We have lived through a winter of historic proportions – the coldest winter in Vermont’s long history, and the third-coldest for the city of Chicago. Gas futures also provide evidence about next winter.
Futures traders are highly sophisticated investors who base their trading on all known information. Futures traders care only about the facts. When they are right about the facts, they stand to make a great deal of money."
I took a survey on CO2 and found out a few things: I generate 4.6 tons of it per year. Unfortunately, the site told me my result was above the world average of 4.0 tons, and that we 6.6 Billion Earth inhabitants need to all cut back to an average of 2 tons each to stabilize current global CO2 levels. For me to get down to 2 tons, I need to bump my 32 mpg sedan up to 70 mpg without any factory participation and turn my house from 66 degrees down to about 50 degrees all through next winter, and set my a/c on 85 this summer. Then, if 6.6 Billion others each also cut their use in half, Moana Lau can hold steady at 401 ppm CO2.
Not going to happen, but the US is reducing CO2 production by 7% per year and we make about 7% of the human made CO2 in the world. I wonder how our 3 trillion cu ft of nat gas use compares to our gasoline use.
Moderator Response:[JH] Stop wondering and start researching. Google can be your best friend.
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Alexandre at 22:22 PM on 15 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
We need more of this, much more. Scientific institutions coming forward and saying clearly what they know, and how large a consensus this is. There should be billboards and TV ads saying this.
Moderator Response:[JH] Once George Soros' check clears, SkS will move forward on your suggestion. (Tongue-in-cheek humor)
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chriskoz at 21:23 PM on 15 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Stephen@22,
I assume you're joking. On a serious note, being on the "wrong side of a debate" (with Tom or anyone else) can be a rewarding experience if you're open minded and want to learn. If you're afraid of a rational debate, you never learn anything. The trick is to know what is logical & rational and follow rational argumentation while rebutting the irrational. If you're wrong, ratinal arguments eventually teach you to change your mind.
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BC at 21:02 PM on 15 May 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #19
I'm glad to see that the Weekly News Roundup announcement has been rescinded, although I can see the difficulty with making a selection from such a wide choice and that it would be time consuming to do it.
Moderator Response:[JH] Thanks for the positive feedback. There will only be one News Roundup this week because my youngest daughter is getting married on Sat (US). The posting of Weekly Digest #20 may be postponed 'til Mon (US).
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BC at 20:43 PM on 15 May 20142014 SkS Weekly Digest #19
DSL,
Isn't the 2010 April figure higher?
I like checking out this page which gives an interesting monthly analysis -
www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/
See the 'Monthly Analysis' about a quarter of the way down. The new monthly figures come out on the 14th, give or take. This page can also be reached from
Then click on the top graph, followed by the 'page 2' link in the second line.
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Tom Curtis at 16:39 PM on 15 May 201497% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
Uncomfortable as it makes me, I have to agree with tlitb1 on this one. In partuclar, in stating that he understated his claims in the paper to get past peer review, Shaviv did not state that the claims in their understated form did not reject AGW. Further, in the abstract, Shaviv clearly asserts a climate sensitivity of 0.35 K/W/M^2 (equivalent to 1.3 C per doubling of CO2), and asserts that solar effects including indirect effects through changes in cosmic ray intensity are responsible for 0.47 K of the increase in temperature over the twentieth century. Using AR4 figures, that is 0.47 out of 0.7 K. Both of these should have been sufficient to classify the abstract as rejecting AGW.
The Shaviv paper just happens to be one of the demonstrably small number of mistakes in classification in Cook et al. It is silly to think that a project like the Consensus Project would be mistake free. What is remarkable about the project is how few the mistakes were, and how little impact (if any) they have on the headline result.
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KR at 15:53 PM on 15 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Cool breeze - There is no contradiction, and I don't see why that statement should disillusion you.
The global poor contribute the least to AGW due to their low per capita energy use, and due to their thinner margins for agriculture, water, and the income with which to adapt, they will be the most impacted by climate change.
This connects to an inverted position really puzzles me - Roy Spencer, for example, has been going on about mitigation efforts harming the poor, when it's really the Business As Usual (BAU) approach that he promotes that will do the most damage to the poor he seemingly champions... He seems to live in a backwards Bizzaro world.
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scaddenp at 14:59 PM on 15 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
I still dont follow. The people who need to install wind/solar are the rich countries. I'm not quite sure why you link low/no emission tech and economic prosperity. The two dont seem linked to me, except that if we dont move to a low/no emission power generation then the costs of adapting to climate change will do economic damage (and a great deal worse to poor countries). The poor contribute less to emissions, not because they use low emission technology, but because they use less energy.
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Coolbreeze at 14:38 PM on 15 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
@ scaddenp: Because , stating that people contributing the least to climate change are poor does not give low/no emission technology (wind and solar power) a reputation of economic prosperity.
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scaddenp at 13:51 PM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
"IMHO the predicted physics are not playing out, and the paleoclimate record demonstrates cyclical phenomena (albeit without a human overlay)"
That would seem to be an example then of choosing your own interpretation of predicted physics and denying the published papers instead. In my understanding of the paleoclimate record, what is obvious is that the climate changes in response to changes in forcing. Claiming what we see is an unforced cycle would require an interesting interpretation of conservation of energy when you look at OHC. I, with others, would like you to present the science that backs your claim as well as asking again where the "over the top" predictions in the IPCC are. Since you are a scientist, then surely you base your humble opinion on actual data and/or published analysis of data.
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ubrew12 at 13:26 PM on 15 May 20146 major reports in a year: is it possible to have too much information about climate change?
"Surely that’s a message that everyone can understand?" Surely, I get you. But you need to stop trying to convince me, and try convincing my invisible hand. (/sarcasm, I wish, but too many are thinking that way).
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John Hartz at 12:58 PM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
A friendly reminder - Dogpiling is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
Please let Terranova respond to Steven Barnes and DSL before posting a comment on his initial and subsequent posts.
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.
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DSL at 12:47 PM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
What, Terranova, has been responsible for the trend in GMST since 1960? It's not the sun. What is it if not the enhanced greenhouse effect? Is this "not playing out" simply the result of the trend doing something, over the last six years, that the models--which were not designed to provide subdecadal accuracy--did not project? I have a feeling the upcoming El Nino is going to breed several new species of meme that will replace "it hasn't warmed since X."
I will call you "in denial" if you refuse to provide evidence and, in your analysis, refuse to acknowledge and account for evidence provided by others. This is what the paid denialists do--the James Taylors, Tim Harrises, and Christopher Moncktons of the world. They have no interest in scientific progress. They attack simply to shape public opinion in the interests of their employers. It's easy to tell when someone is only interested in shutting up the science, ending it, silencing it. The comparison with open, evidence-based dialogue is night and day.If I were you, Terranova, I'd spend less time worrying about what people are labeling you and spend more time continuing to read the science, letting it take you wherever it takes you, regardless of your existing politics. I don't want "IMHO." I want the evidence you used to get there. Maybe I've missed something. Maybe it's important. Maybe you can tell me.
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Stephen Baines at 12:42 PM on 15 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Seconded. I only hope I'm never on the wrong side of a debate with Tom. He's downright scary...in a good way!
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Stephen Baines at 12:37 PM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
terranova,
You are going to have to be more specific about "doom and gloom predictions" and "the physics not playing out" and "cyclic phenomena" or it will be hard to take you seriously, regardless of your background. In so doing, take care to take such questions to specific threads related to them. We will follow you. We (well, mostly others) are here to discuss the science.
Moderator Response:[JH] You literally took the words right out of my mouth - excellent advice.
Terranova has dropped in to chat on the comment threads of SkS articles multiple times over the past few years. It is not clear to me what exactly he is trying to accomplish. Is it to learn? Is it to lecture? Debate? Perhaps he will be kind enough to explain.
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Terranova at 12:12 PM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
scaddenp, IMHO the predicted physics are not playing out, and the paleoclimate record demonstrates cyclical phenomena (albeit without a human overlay).
Moderator Response:[JH] What exactly is your IMHO based on? Please cite sources.
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scaddenp at 11:41 AM on 15 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
Coolbreeze - I am having trouble understanding why statements that people contributing least to climate change were also poor would destroy your enthusiam for wind and solar?? Doesnt make sense. I think the statement is true - the countries with lowest emissions (especially lowest emission per capita) are also among the poorest.
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michael sweet at 11:03 AM on 15 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Dessler says that the mistake is similar to Tom's description with a small increase in the calculated climate sensitivity (as Tom suggested). Apparently the paper has not yet been published so changes are being made in the gally proofs. Dessler states the conclusion that aerosol sensitivity needs to be addressed is unaffected.
Good job Tom!
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dagold at 10:49 AM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
On the topic of humor in the service of climate awareness, here is my latest HuffPost article, published today: "Interview With a Climate Vampire", a parody piece send-up of an interview with a denialist organization. I even reference SKS's "Hiroshima" widget for the 2nd time in one of my articles. Feel very free to re-print on SKS if the fancy stirkes you! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidgoldstein/interview-with-a-climate-change_b_5325343.html?utm_hp_ref=climate-change
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link
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Coolbreeze at 10:38 AM on 15 May 2014CO2 limits will hurt the poor
"Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change."
This is what destroyed my enthusiasm for wind and solar energies in 2010. I attended a green jobs workshop in which a representative of Apollo Alliance made the above statement. When I asked him about that, he mentioned that the people contributing the least to climate change were also poor. I am not sure where Apollo Alliance found that guy.
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tlitb1 at 09:50 AM on 15 May 201497% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
Though Shaviv also admitted that Cook et al. correctly classified his abstracts based on their content, but claimed that he worded the text in a way to slip it past the journal reviewers and editors.
I went through that link in that statement and don't see anywhere Shaviv agreeing that Cook et al. correctly classified his abstract of his paper "On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget" . And neither, as far as I can see, does the following point Shaviv makes there regarding the wording of the abstract imply he agrees :
"I couldn’t write these things more explicitly in the paper because of the refereeing, however, you don’t have to be a genius to reach these conclusions from the paper.”
Is there some other statement by Shaviv I may have missed where he clearly says he agrees with the Cook et al rating of his abstract?
The main reason I ask is because I recently checked out the Schulte consensus paper (that overlapped with Cook et al), and saw that it had categorised the Shaviv paper as rejecting the consensus. I then checked its Cook et al rating and was surprised to see it was instead classified as endorsing the consensus.
I would have agreed witht the Schulte rating and although the abstract is rejecting the consensus. Or at least not supporting it. This last past part of the Shaviv absrract seems to put it outside.
Subject to the above caveats and those described in the text, the CRF/climate link therefore implies that the increased solar luminosity and reduced CRF over the previous century should have contributed a warming of 0.47 ± 0.19°K, while the rest should be mainly attributed to anthropogenic causes. Without any effect of cosmic rays, the increase in solar luminosity would correspond to an increased temperature of 0.16 ± 0.04°K.
Doesn't the above key passage clearly indicate the paper holds a thesis that there is a greater proportion (>50%) increase in recent temperature rise that is not explained by anthropogenic causes and so puts it clearly outside the consensus?
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Dean at 06:39 AM on 15 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Dessler has answered Lewis' critique at http://www.climatedialogue.org/climate-sensitivity-and-transient-climate-response/#comment-924
It seems like it was a technical mistake but that the effect was that the revised sensitivity became slightly higher.
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link
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Dikran Marsupial at 03:12 AM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
BTW the other way science deals with bad papers is for someone to write a peer reviewed comment paper for the journal explaining the errors. As it happens, I did exactly that for one of the papers on the list of 10 (Essenhigh). I'd be very happy to discuss the science with you on the appproprate thread.
However, quite a lot of work is involved in writing a comment paper and the reward is pretty much nil, which is why it is not that common these days, so even for a really bad paper you should not expect a refutation to appear in the journal. Simply ignoring bad papers is the standard operating procedure.
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Dikran Marsupial at 03:08 AM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
Bart Strengers wrote wrote "Albert Einstein would say that 1 is enough."
only if it were correct.
"Actually there are 15 more in category 6. What do these studies say and why did they pass the peer review process?"
because peer review is only a sanity check, and even then is conducted by human beings that make mistakes. Getting through peer review is the first step towards acceptance of a paper by the research community, not the last. A nect step is to look to see what papers have cited it. Science has a good way of dealing with the odd really bad paper which makes it through peer review, which is to ignore it. Sadly the blogsphere has a tendency to focuss on them and not let them go (this doesn't just apply to climate change).
Essentially if a peer reviewed paper has been ignored by the research community (and not cited) or has recieved
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franklefkin at 01:37 AM on 15 May 20142013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
When are 2014 predictions going to happen?
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Bob Lacatena at 00:33 AM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
Bart, here are the 10. A quick read of their abstracts shows that they are indefensible garbage that should never have been published, and many got in by being submitted to "Energy" journals rather than climate science journals (i.e. they gamed the system by finding editors "friendly" to their results).
For example, one claims this:
The author suggests that neither modeling nor analyzing the resulting data show the presence of warming in the World Ocean; hence, there is no global warming in the atmosphere either.
Another has this childish observation to make:
The authors believe that recent global warming of Earth’s atmosphere is not due to an increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission but rather to long-term global factors. The human contribution to the CO2 content in the atmosphere and the increase in temperature is negligible in comparison with other sources of carbon dioxide emission.
Look at them all. They're an embarrassing joke.
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Bart Strengers at 00:03 AM on 15 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
@Curtis
I understand your point, but I am still curious which studies John was talking about. (Or does he refer to them in his paper?)
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Tom Curtis at 22:47 PM on 14 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
Bart Strengers @9, the peer review process is a spam filter for scientists. There are so many scientists and non-scientists wanting to publish their theories that if they all were published, any scientist wanting to keep up with the literature would be swamped by a sea of ridiculous, crackpot or poorly researched papers and have little time for the good papers that truly advance the science. This first started being a problem early in the twentieth century, so early in the twentieth century various journals started taking steps to weed out the pseudo-scientific spam. Those steps developed into the modern peer review system, in which, in order to be published you need to convince just three people (and editor and two peer reviewers) that your research is not obviously wrong. If you don't convince the first three you try, you can submit to another journal and try there. And again, and again.
Once you have been published in peer review, you have the imprimature of those three people that your theory is:
1) Not transparently wrong;
2) Does not include any obvious errors that can be picked up without redoing the maths;
3) Is well enough written that other people have a reasonable chance of determining what you did, and repeating it if they want to.
For most science publications, there may be some other criteria, ie, that it deals with a particular fairly general subject, that it challenges current views, that it can be communicated briefly, and so on, but no journal requires all, or even most of these additional criteria.
Fairly obviously, the first three criteria are not onerous. So like all spam filters, the peer review system sometimes lets spam through. The system works fairly well, so that the amount of spam tends to be very limitted. As some does get through, and as the general criteria are not that onerous, that is were the second tier or peer review comes in, ie, the response or otherwise of other scientists in the related field. and how much it effects the related field. Nearly all skeptical papers fair poorly in that regard.
In any event, the way most skeptical papers get published is that they are examples of some of the spam that gets through - in some cases through deliberate attempts to game the system. Some, on the other hand, are older papers that were on the cutting edge of the debate at the time of publication, but which subsequent publications have shown to be flawed.
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Bart Strengers at 22:16 PM on 14 May 201497% - A Statistically Representative Debate On Global Warming
Great video indeed!
However, a sceptic might say: this Cook study shows there are 10 studies in the category 7 (i.e. against AGW in a quantified manner). Albert Einstein would say that 1 is enough. Actually there are 15 more in category 6. What do these studies say and why did they pass the peer review process?
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YahooMike at 15:13 PM on 14 May 2014Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995
I participate in YA global warming forum and the deniers there always drop "statistically significant" but he went on to say the average warming for the period I think was 0.2C yearly which is a slight warning
Just another case of cherrypicking
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John Hartz at 14:28 PM on 14 May 2014CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
chris626: The first comment you posted on this thread was deleted by me because it did not comply with 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.
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John Hartz at 14:14 PM on 14 May 2014CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
All: Please do not dogpile any future comments posted by Chris626. Dogpiling is both unnecessary and unseemly. Furthermore, it is prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.
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Stephen Baines at 13:11 PM on 14 May 2014We can't count on plants to slow down global warming
I'm always puzzled by those who claim plants will save us by taking up CO2. If that were true it would already have happened, while CO2 was still at levels that didn't saturate uptake by Rubisco. The current increase of CO2 was happening despite the fact that, up to this point, photosynthesis was still sensitive to CO2.
In that same vein, this finding may be a good thing going forward, or at least less than bad thing. If CO2 were stimulating carbon sequestration previously, we could not expect that level of sequestration to continue to keep pace with CO2. That would mean a possible decline in sequestration and an increase in the airborne fraction in the future.
Now it appears that that sequestration was never happening in the first place...or at least not much. So that means were are not likely to get surprise increases in the airborne fraction in the future, at least not from this source.
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Tom Curtis at 09:56 AM on 14 May 2014Animals and plants can adapt
Following Scott Sinnock's (@34) advice, I searched Google Images for "tertiary temperature". The most relevant, prominent image was this one (originally from wikipedia):
The data is from dO18 from foraminafora shells on the ocean floor. dO18 records both the ratio of fresh to salt water, and water temperature. Consequently dO18 records do not linearly equate to temperature records between different periods with very different ratios of fresh to salt water, as when large quantities of ice are locked up in ice sheets. Hence the two different temperature scales.
As Stephen Baines mentions, the paper cited in the OP shows a temperature record for the tertiary. Indeed, it shows the data in the image above, first in an unmodified form and then adjusted for the size of ice sheets to give a direct temperature measurement (Fig 3(b)):
As you can see, temperatures did not consistently exceed 4 C above mid-twentieth century values until 35 million years ago.
Finally, I did see two images that showed temperatures in the 20 degree range. One showed central european temperatures only, and hence was not representative of global temperatures. The second was the crude graph by Scotese which is (in its original form), not proxy based, but merely assigns a warm temperature for periods without glaciation, and a cool temperature for periods with extensive glaciation. It also showed global average temperatures rather than the global temperature anomaly, and therefore showed at most a 7 C increase over modern temperatures at any time in the tertiary. I do not know what figure Scott Sinnock was basing his claims on, but they are not warranted by the limited evidence he provides.
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Tom Curtis at 08:11 AM on 14 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
An addendum for my prior post:
Kummer and Dessler state of the forcing data:
"Forcing comes from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report [Table 8.6 Myhre et al., 2013], which provides forcing broken down by component."
And:
"The forcing time series is referenced to the late-19th century, which means that the temperature anomaly time series must also be referenced to that same time."
However, the IPCC AR5 WG1 table 8.6 gives values for various IPCC reports including:
"AR5 (1750–2011)"
It's caption reads:
"Summary table of RF estimates for AR5 and comparison with the three previous IPCC assessment reports. ERF values for AR5 are included. For AR5 the values are given for the period 1750–2011, whereas earlier final years have been adopted in the previous IPCC assessment reports."
That clearly proves that Kummer and Dessler were in error in claiming that the forcings tabulated on Table 8.6 were "...referenced to the late-19th century". It is about that point only that I have said that they are wrong.
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Tom Curtis at 07:59 AM on 14 May 2014Sense and climate sensitivity – more evidence we're in for a hot future
Michael Sweet @17, I had read what Shindel wrote. It is, however, largely irrelevant because:
1) We are discussing Kummer and Dessler (2014), not Shindel et al (2010); and (more importantly,
2) Kummer and Dessler use 1880-1900 as there baseline period, not 1850.
Because of the later point, it is not possible to straightforwardly apply Shindel's comments to Kummer and Dessler. What is true of 1850 may well not be true of 1880-1900.
Further, the discussion of failure to use all forcings by Nic Lewis in criticizing to Shindell et al probably is not relevant to Lewis's superficially similar criticism of Kummer and Dessler. In fact Lewis does not show his working, so he may only have modified for the average anthropogenic forcing for 1880-1900. From the wording of his comment at Bishop Hill, however, it is far more likely that he has used the average of the net forcings (anthropogenic plus natural).
Finally, in a way I have argued that the first of Shindell's ways of resolving the issue for 1850 also applies for 1880-1900. It will almost certainly result in a small error of indeterminate sign, which is no criticism at all in science. I have, however, argued that his second method cannot be used in 1880-1900 because of the distorting effect of the volcanic erruptions, and in particular Krakatoa. That is an almost negligible consideration in 1850, where the closest preceding volcano was more than ten years prior and hence of negligible remaining effect.
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Stephen Baines at 07:54 AM on 14 May 2014Animals and plants can adapt
Scott...before you simply presume that the post is "egregiously misrepresenting" facts, you should read the paper its referencing, which, lo and behold, has a reconstruction of temperatures through the Cenozoic! It may even be the one you are referring to!
That reconstruction indeed shows that there are deep ocean temps in the Eocene era that were substantially greater than today, but those were 55 million years ago. It also shows that the last time temps were consistently 4C higher than current was just prior to the Antarctic glaciation 34 mya. There may have some periods that were a touch more than 4C warmer in the following 10 million years, but that was still 24 million years ago. The point of this post is that we are likely to recapitule tens of millions of years of climate history in the span of a century or two.
If you have a reconstruction that says otherwise, link to it. Otherwise we have no idea what you're specifically talking about, and it is therefore impossible to clarify things.
Then again, maybe you really aren't interested in actually discussing the evidence.
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scaddenp at 07:46 AM on 14 May 2014CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
I dont want to dogpile, but Chris626 is only looking at one of the lines of evidence presented (getting the accounting wrong). If it is "crap" then explain the isotopic evidence and ocean acidification.
While the planet might have had higher levels in past, (but also different solar input) the problem is rate of change (because adaption takes a long time), not the final temperature.
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Dikran Marsupial at 06:55 AM on 14 May 2014CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Chris626 wrote "The simple accounting demonstration that CO2 increase is manmade is pure crap."
so all of the worlds carbon cycle specialists are wrong, no hubris there then! ;o)
"Let humans be part of the nature term NE (as we are)"
This is just silly, if you define humans as part of nature the word "anthropogenic", "artificial" and ultimately "natural" have no meaning.
" let a group of animal species A be the one that produce some extra CO2 by an amount of 30 GT "
The flaw in this argument is obvious. The carbon dioxide that animals produce through respiration is directly (in the case of herbivores) or indirectly (in the case of carnivores) derived from plant matter, which is contructed from carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere. Thus all animals merely return to atmosphere the carbon that was taken out of it via photosynthesis, and hence are essentially carbon neutral. Now if you can identify an animal species where this is not the case and is increasing the amount of carbon moving through the carbon cycle, then you might have the beginings of an argument.
"Why should humans be solely responsible for all CO2 production added to the atmosphere? Is this some sort conspiracy against humans? Why not share the blame among all species, animals and humans included?"
because humans are the only animals that introduce additional carbon into the carbon cycle by extracting it (in the form of fossil fuels) from the lithosphere and burn it, which puts it in the atmosphere.
"How uglier can it get?"
Rather ironic thatyou should ask that, given you started your post by calling the work of eminent scientists "crap".
It is sad that there are skeptics that can't even accept that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to anthropogenic emissions when the evidence is unambiguous and unequivocal. If the natural environment (including all the animals) were a net carbon source, the atmospheric CO2 would be rising faster than anthropogenic emisssions as both nature and mankind would be net sources. However we know for sure that this is not the case, the observations rule that out completely.
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Tom Dayton at 06:41 AM on 14 May 2014CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Chris636: Of course the CO2 level eventually will stabilize--when humans eventually run out of fossil fuels to burn. The problem is that the ill effects of those high CO2 levels will get much, much worse, for a very, very long time in the time scale of human lives, civilization, and even species. See RealClimate for a couple of relevant posts.
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Stephen Baines at 06:34 AM on 14 May 2014CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Chris636
You are not doing the accounting correctly. It's not enough to simply produce CO2. You have to have a net exchange from one reservoir to the other.
So, for your example to work, the respiring organisms would have to cause a net loss of plant carbon to the atmosphere. To match the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, you would have to move about 250 petagrams of carbon from the terrestrial biosphere to the atmopshere (current - preindustrial atmsopheric CO2 = 850 Pg - 600 Pg).
That is 40-60% of current living terrestrial plant biomass (terrestrial plant C ~450 - 650p petagrams C according to the IPCC.) About 2/3s of that deline in terrestrial biomass would have occured since 1970. There is large uncertainty around estimates of plant biomass for sure, but you bet we would have noticed such a massive decline over such a short period of time.
As indicated in the post, the CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere is highly depleted in 14C. We know it is therefore tens of thousands of years old because that is how long it takes for 14C to decay completely. That age rules out everything except fossil fuels.
It is simple accounting in the end. Really, scientists are not so stupid to miss something so obvious. If individuals had been, you can bet their competitors would take them to task!
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DSL at 06:24 AM on 14 May 2014Animals and plants can adapt
Regardless of what your link says, Scott, you're not reading carefully:
"A low-range optimistic estimate of 2°C of 21st century warming will shift the Earth’s global mean surface temperature into conditions which have not existed since the middle Pliocene, 3 million years ago. More than 4°C of atmospheric heating will take the planet’s climate back, within a century, to the largely ice-free world that existed prior to about 35 million years ago."It doesn't make the claim you say it makes. It compares a potential 2100 with the "largely ice-free world" of about 35mya.
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DSL at 06:19 AM on 14 May 2014Animals and plants can adapt
Scott, can you provide a link? See the "insert" tab above the commenting box.
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Scott Sinnock at 06:10 AM on 14 May 2014Animals and plants can adapt
The author claims in item (B) that a 4 degree or so increase in global temperature will make things hotter than anytime in the past 35 million years. WRONG, at least according to graphs I see of Tertiary temperatures at Google "Tertiary Temperatures" (Images), which show temperatures up to 20 degrees hotter at about that time, even more earlier. So why should I believe anything else you tell me if you so egregioulsy misrepresent such easily available "facts"?
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