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Comments 38101 to 38150:
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Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Just_Curious - "...when a photon strikes a CO2 molecule it re-radiates exactly the same amount of energy without losing energy to heat, either by heating itself or surrounding molecules." No.
Checking the numbers, that is not actually the case. Relaxation to emission of a radiation excited CO2 molecule takes about 10-6 seconds, whereas at sea level pressure a CO2 molecule will undergo a collision about every 10-9 seconds. There are therefore about 1000 collisions exchanging energy at sea level before that molecule can emit.
What happens is that the air mass containing the absorbing CO2 (including O2, N2, etc.) molecule warms due to the absorbed energy, and (statistially) some other GHG molecules will radiate at some frequency in their spectra in a matching amount, due to the changed temperature of the air mass. Not the same molecule in 999/1000 cases.
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Just_Curious at 14:29 PM on 26 February 2014Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Ok thanks Scaddenp
Just to clarify
1. Yes that is what I meant, I used a line analogy rather than a photon traveling in a straight line.
2. If I read you correct then, when a photon strikes a CO2 molecule it re-radiates exactly the same amount of energy without losing energy to heat, either by heating itself or surrounding molecules.
3. Yes I understand that the only way heat leaves earth is by radiation, but is it not greatly diminished in the band that CO2 responds to.
4. My question is, does air, primarily O2 and N2 give off Long wave radiation when it's heated. What is radiating the heat at the top of storm clouds?
5. Maybe a better way to ask the question, what percentage of the total heat budget is in the long wave radiation band that CO2 responds to. If none of that band were allowed to escape, then the earth would have to heat to expel more at the frequency bands that gets through.
I'm new at this but enjoy reading all the discussions, thanks
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Bob Loblaw at 13:38 PM on 26 February 2014Humidity is falling
For all those wanting to engage dwm in his continued trolling, please note that when he says "the issue is completely understood and settled" (my bolding) he is engaging in step 4 of The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism (Impossible expectations of what research can deliver).
It's the old "if you don't know everything, you know nothing" gambit.
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Bob Loblaw at 13:29 PM on 26 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
paulh:
As for baselines: look at the top figure in the blog post itself. It's hard to read the axis labels, but I'm pretty sure it starts in 1950 and goes to 2010 in 10-year increments. In the first four years, the GISTEMP observations go from about -0.24 to +0.03, and then in three more years they drop back to about -0.25. These are all anomalies, not temperatures - they are the difference between the actual temperature that year and an arbitrary baseline (usually the mean for a period of years, often up to 30).
If you wanted to start a comparison between a model and GISTEMP, beginning in 1950, the question is whether you align the model and GISTEMP for a single year (1950), or for a period of years. Using the mean of several years smooths out the GISTEMP observations as well as the model results, reducing the effect of short-term noise on the comparison.
If you chose a single year, 1950 was "cold" in GISTEMP, so matching the model for that one year starts it off cold for the entire comparison. Let's say you pick 1954 instead, which has a spike in GISTEMP running above the general trend. From that point, your comparison would be biased on the high side (GISTEMP above the model).
As a general rule, there is no particular reason top favour 1950 over 1951, 1952, 1953, or 1954, etc. - they are all just years in a sequence. Yet we can easily see that picking different individual years in that short period will give a very different visual impression, ranging from GISTEMP well below the model to GISTEMP well above the model. A different choice in which single year to use can shift the position of the model values by close to 0.3 in relation to the observations.
In jargon-speak, the result (using a single year) is not robust: a different (arbitrary) choice gives different results. Cherry-picking is the art of knowing that your choice makes a big difference in the results, and choosing the one that misleads the reader down the path you want to take them.
When considering climate models, you cannot expect them to exactly mimic all the short-term variations. Some types of models generally give smooth variations, by their nature, but complex GCMS have their own "internal variability" and thus can show larger year-to-year ups and downs, just like observations such as GISTEMP. This gives the cherry picker yet another opportunity to mislead: if you can pick a low point in the observations that matches a high point in the model run, you can make the visual difference even greater.
The proper way to "match" the starting point is to average over several years in both the observations and the model results - enough years to average out that short-term variation.
Looking back at the figure showing Hansen's projections in the blog post, notice how the model projections (starting around 1988) begin in the middle of the range of GISTEMP values for that period - not at a spike (upward or downward). The model just happens to fall very close to the value for that individual year, but it is clear that the starting point of the comparison is in the middle of the range, not at an extreme.
Rob Honeycutt provides a visual on what not do to in a recent comment on the IPCC overestimate temperature rise post.
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chriskoz at 13:04 PM on 26 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
funglestrumpet@45,
Most of the climate scientists who are affected by 'skeptic' distortions, do not share your opinion. I've never heard of any proposition of 'sanction' or 'Nuremberg' to be imposed on even the most prominent deniers.
Jim Hansen, like yourself, talks a lot about the ethical obligation to our children and grandchildren. But unlike yourself, he never considers that failure to comply with those ethical standards should incur penalties of any kind. He rather suggest that all deniers, when converted, be taken 'on board' because we need their expertise to find the scalable solution to the problem of global clean energy.
And of course Mike Mann. Note that his lawsuit (which progresses well and has big chance of winning), is not about science denial by NRO and by Mark Steyn. It is about personal harassment. If it was against science denial it would have no stance.
As much as I sympathise with your opinion, I have to agree with Tom Curtis that our society did not develop the necessary law to sanction science denial. That of course may change in the future. Future generations, especially when pressed by negative effects of AGW that are predicted to surface soon, may change their laws, like we recently changed our laws with respect to homosexualism (a good example you provide), but it's up to them to do that. The laws cannot work backwards.
Meanwhile, we should be working to set the grassroots. Mike Mann's type of lawsuit is the only reasonable sanction we have at the moment. And, as I said before, even though it's not about sscince denial but personal harassment, its eventual success would send anyway a powerful message to all denialists and make the task of eradicating denial easier.
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scaddenp at 12:39 PM on 26 February 2014Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Others might have the numbers at their fingertips but here is some very quick answers.
1/ To make any sense of this question, I think you are really meaning, how far would a photon of suitable wavelength travel before it hit a CO2 molecule. I dont know the exact no.s but pretty much 100% by 10m.
2/ you are mixing up macroscopic (heat) and microscopic here. Think what "heat" means in the collision between photon and CO2. As such, the "efficiency" is 100%.
I think you get a better idea of what is going on if you look up Radiative Transfer Equation for the diffusion model, and also Beers Law (Beer's-Lambeth law). A bit much for a comment reply.
3/ Yes - pretty much the only way IR exits the atmosphere.
4/ Not sure I follow you but do you mean what are the other greenhouse gases, then prominent are water vapour, CH4, O3,NO.
5/ Dont really follow this at all. What CO2 does is absorb outgoing IR and then when it reradiates some of that re-radiation is going down (and by same path warms the surface). The gas itself doesnt heat.
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Just_Curious at 11:13 AM on 26 February 2014Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
I’m interested in the effects of CO2 on outgoing radiation, I have some questions.
1. If an infinitely thin line were extended out perpendicular from the earth, how far would it extend before it reached a 99.9% probability (aprox.) of coming in contact with a CO2 molecule? At 280 ppm and 400 ppm.
2. When a CO2 molecule re-radiates, what is its efficiency? I.e. energy in vs energy out. An analogy would be a number of steel balls in a row, each ball does not impart all of its energy to the next. After a certain number of balls the output is almost zero. The energy is absorbed as heat in the balls.
3. Would the long wave radiation in the CO2 bands ever reach the top of the atmosphere by the relay mode?
4. What other gases emit long wave radiation when heated. I.e. the IR we see at the top of storm clouds.
5. How much would the earth’s temperature rise if all long wave radiation (CO2 bands) were filtered and showed up as heat in the lower atmosphere?
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paulhtremblay at 11:10 AM on 26 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
@ 38 Bob Loblaw @39 Tom Curtis.
Bob, thanks for the link to Tamino. That's very interesting stuff.
Tom, my question about how Spencer manipulated by using two different baselines was not a rhetorical question. I actually don't understand the sleight of hand he used. Can anyone help? Usually Skeptical Science includes very good explanations and graphs.
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Russ R. at 10:51 AM on 26 February 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7
Tom Curtis @75,
First, apologies for the long delay. I'm not leaving you hanging; I've been out of town on a business trip. Second, apologies for the rushed nature of this comment. I appreciate and respect the time and thought you put into your responses, and I would give mine a similar amount of time if I could. But I'd rather give you a brief response than keep you waiting.
Your points, one by one.
Feedback in General: Thanks for the refresher. My experience with feedback (and feedback loops) comes from economics, where feedback mechanisms are quite common and lead to all sorts of chaotic phenomena (asset bubbles, liquidity crises, bank runs, etc.).
Ice Albedo: No disagreement. We still agree that the strength of IA feedback will not be constant, but will vary with temperature.
Water Vapour: I won't dispute your first point (that WV is not saturated in the tropics and can move to higher altitudes in addition to higher latitudes). You also correctly point out my mistake for applying the same BOE cos2 assumption as with IA feedback. I will simply agree that WV feedback will gain strength as temperatures rise.
I am going to disagree with your last two points. I don't think it requires anything more than simple assertion to argue that the addition of heat to surface water causes it to evaporate, and rise, and then subsequently condense, and fall back to the surface. I will also simply assert that vertical heat transfer can occur by convection in addition to radiation,which your response ignores. My last assertion of the day will be that in any tropical ocean location, the surface temperature after an afternoon rainfall is lower, not higher, than before.
Second, regarding "the wall" I referred to, I invite you to look at the seasonal temperature chart of any tropical island (far enough from continents to not be affected by land). Like this one for example:
You'll note that there's a pretty hard line right around 30C, that forms an upper temperature boundary. I'm not going to argue whether that's closer to 30C or 32C. Just that an upper bound exists. The colourful map you showed confirms this. What I'd like is your opinon on why such a limit exists at all? I would argue that as this temperature is approached, a "heat-dump" mechanism is triggered by evaporation and convection.
Lastly, on the subject of runaway cold events, would you agree that no such events have occured in the last 10 million years? Yet that period has seen numerous rapid temperature increases and declines, during which polar ice has advanced and retreated rapidly during transitions. Yet in every single instance, the temperature stabilized and no runaway cooling occured.
I'll continue to respond to your comment @55 when I have time.
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Riduna at 10:37 AM on 26 February 2014Global warming continues, but volcanoes are slowing down the warming of the atmosphere
On the one hand it is argued that material erupted from volcano’s can reduce solar luminosity producing a decrease in the rate of global surface warming. Sounds plausible. Is there evidence of this reduction? If so, how does it result in decline of atmospheric temperature but increase in ocean temperature?
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Tom Dayton at 09:59 AM on 26 February 2014Humidity is falling
From the IPCC AR5, Ch. 2, section 2.5.5.4 Reanalyses, p. 208:
In summary, radiosonde, GPS and satellite observations of tropospheric water vapour indicate very likely increases at near global scales since the 1970s occurring at a rate that is generally consistent with the Clausius-Clapeyron relation (about 7% per degree Celsius) and the observed increase in atmospheric temperature. Significant trends in tropospheric relative humidity at large spatial scales have not been observed, with the exception of near-surface air over land where relative humidity has decreased in recent years (Section 2.5.5).
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dana1981 at 09:35 AM on 26 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
Terranova @16 - I would define a climate scientist as someone whose profession involves doing scientific research related to the climate.
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scaddenp at 08:25 AM on 26 February 2014Humidity is falling
Research is never "done" but what the latest published papers referenced here show that with the best of observation and reanalysis so far, humidity levels are not falling and furthermore the reasons for the problem with Paltridge 2009 is understood. The evidence available shows humidity is rising.
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dwm at 08:12 AM on 26 February 2014Humidity is falling
Personal insults aside, I'll repeat since you tried dodging it:
Are you suggesting that the research has been "done" now on humidity levels and the issue is completely understood and settled? As you know, humidity is technically hard to measure accurately at all alititudes for the whole world, and there is not general certainty about what those levels are, or what they have been historically. It is a very weak spot of most current climate models.
Moderator Response:[JH] Please document the source of your assertion that humidity is "a very weak spot of most current climate models."
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scaddenp at 07:05 AM on 26 February 2014Models are unreliable
Not if they bothered to read the whole paper instead just quote mining. How about this quote then:
"For example, the forced trends in models are modulated up and down by simulated sequences of ENSO events, which are not expected to coincide with the observed sequence of such events."
What the modellers firmly state is that the models have no skill at decadal level prediction. They do not predict the ENSO events and trends are modified by this long period La Nina/neutral.
A better to question is to ask what skill do models have. If you dont trust models, then you must instead rely on simpler means to guide your policy. The verification of AGW do not depend on models so by what means would you guess the effect? The models despite their flaws remain the very best means we have predicting long term changes to the climate.
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jsmith at 06:50 AM on 26 February 2014Models are unreliable
I would be shocked if I was the first to bring this up, but a recent article in Nature Climate Change contends that the models predicted more global warming (as defined by global surface temperatures only) than actually happened. To wit: "Global mean surface temperature over the past 20 years (1993–2012) rose at a rate of 0.14 ± 0.06 °C per decade (95% confidence interval)1. This rate of warming is significantly slower than that simulated by the climate models participating in Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5)." Does this in any way validate those who state that the models can't be trusted?
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MA Rodger at 06:40 AM on 26 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
An interesting collection of denialist writing being linked @430 (Shaviv, Scarfetta & Solheim-Stordahl-Humlum). I'm not sure what we are supposed to make of them.
The different ilk of "It's the sun wot done it" messages are together rather contradictory. Shaviv's the one who tries to demonstrate ocean heating has an 11-year cycle, good ole Scarfetta fits global temperature to pretty-much every pulse-beat in the solar system with the one exception of the 11-year solar cycle, and the not-to-be-outdone Humlum in that linked paper fits Svalbard temperatures to the duration of the previous solar cycle.
And the other puzzle is - What has this collection of tosh got to do with the subject of CO2 lagging temperature? Anybody any ideas? -
scaddenp at 06:32 AM on 26 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
dwm - let's see if I can get a clearer understanding of your issue. I believe that you agree with the mainline science in that:
1/ Increase of CO2 in atmosphere at the moment is due to our emissions though in the glacial cycle it was outgassing from the ocean as temperature warmed.
2/ That increased CO2 does cause warming (and presumably the corallary that reducing CO2 cools the planet).
3/ That a no-feedback warming would be about 1 degree but the effect is amplified by feedback (including water vapour but also albedo).
Then we have the statement: "Since you admit to the fact that the amount of solar radiation the earth receives is variable/cyclical, why assume anything other than that (solar) for the changes in temperature, which then cause co2 to go up or down accordingly?"
Since you agreed that increased CO2 increases temperature, this is a strange statement to make. You claim "deglaciation" (by which I assume you mean the glacial cycle) is offtopic. However, the relationship of CO2 during the glacial cycle is the topic of this article so, as one of the moderators of this site, it is ontopic. Trust me on this. (However, argument that current climate change is caused by the sun are off topic and go to the topic that I pointed out above).
So to answer your question, "why assume anything other than the sun...", implies you think the graph excludes CO2 having anything to do with glaciation cycle. Beyond the difficulties in making the numbers work, there are two other reasons for assuming something beyond the sun that I can think of.
1/ If the glacial cycle is only about change in solar (plus its water vapour and albedo feedbacks), then why are NH and SH glaciations not anti-phased? The CO2 and to lesser extent CH4 are well mixed GHGs which contribute.
2/ The Milankovich cycles have been around a long time and yet we dont get the big glacial cycle till the Pleistocene. Easier to explain when look at earlier CO2 levels.
Finally note the in the PETM, CO2 increase preceded warming so closest analogue to the current situation.
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tstreet at 06:32 AM on 26 February 2014Global warming continues, but volcanoes are slowing down the warming of the atmosphere
Another thing. I infer from this article that the amount of heat transferred to the earth has slowed down during the so called slowdown or pause. They imply that an increase in the amount of energy going into the oceans is not the issue. I wonder if these authors know what they are talking about.
Climate scientists have stated that there is no slowdown in the energy reaching the earth. This, I presume is measurable and is measured on a continuing basis. This article seems to contradict what I thought was a fairly straight forward measurement of energy transfer and blockage by greenhouse gases.
I may be misunderstanding this article because I find it hard to believe that climate scientists are not measuring the heat gain properly.
Can someone please explain this to me?
Moderator Response:[JH] Unnecessary white space inserted at end of post deleted.
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tstreet at 06:12 AM on 26 February 2014Global warming continues, but volcanoes are slowing down the warming of the atmosphere
I wonder if the models also take into account the massive pollution form primarily coal fired plants that exists in places like China. if it has increased significantly, was this increase accounted for?
Yes, it is the total energy reaching the earth that is important, but doesn't an increase in aerosols reduce the total energy reaching the earth?
Are the emissions from volcanoes greater during the last 15 years than we were in previous period when we have a greater degree of surface temperatures?
If we are having measurement problems now, were we having measurement problems before?
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scaddenp at 06:08 AM on 26 February 2014How we know the greenhouse effect isn't saturated
I did get it from Clive Best (just examine the link). I am aware of Best's opinions but at a quick look, it was the diagram I was looking for more or less in online form.
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Chris8616 at 05:04 AM on 26 February 2014Global warming continues, but volcanoes are slowing down the warming of the atmosphere
Global Temperature Update Through 2013 21January 2014
James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy: The recent slowdown of global warming is a consequence of both a slowdown in the growth rate of climate forcings and recent ENSO history. Given that the tropical Pacific seems to be moving toward the next El Niño, record global temperature is likely in the near term. However, the rate of future warming will depend upon changes of the tropospheric aerosol forcing, which is highly uncertain and unmeasured. LINK
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened link to preserve page formatting.
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martin3818 at 04:33 AM on 26 February 2014Global warming continues, but volcanoes are slowing down the warming of the atmosphere
I could only access the new paper's abstract but if I have understood it correctly, the volcanic influences over the past decade or so is not very large.
In two simulations with more realistic volcanic influences following the 1991 Pinatubo eruption, differences between simulated and observed tropospheric temperature trends over the period 1998 to 2012 are up to 15% smaller ...
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funglestrumpet at 04:07 AM on 26 February 2014Our Facebook page reaches 20,000 likes
I came upon this site by accident. I was exploring the issue of climate change and happened to have it come up in one of my searches. I thought, "Well, I might as well have a look at what the skeptics have to say on the matter" and was very pleased to find within a minute or so that it was what I was actually looking for in the first place. I still have doubts about the name, even though I can see the logic behind it.
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Paul D at 04:06 AM on 26 February 2014A Hack By Any Other Name — Part 1
I was wondering when 'they' would resort to something like DOS.
It points to the fact that such people are more interested in politics than science and truth.
It was always going to be the case that the weaker 'deniers' got the more aggresive they would get. -
NewYorkJ at 03:42 AM on 26 February 2014Our Facebook page reaches 20,000 likes
Congrats, SkS! I was an early reader of this site and have recommended it to others. The site came around the time the blogosphere was becoming a common source of science denial and communication of climate science to the public was relatively sparse. It still is in my view but SkS goes a long way in closing the gap.
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funglestrumpet at 03:37 AM on 26 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
Tom, seriously, are you happy that this site can publish a post entitled 'Corrections to Curry's Erroneous Comments on Ocean Heating' concerning her flawed evidence to the Senate? Surely, in the light of that post, the sanctions that you say are already in effect, cannot be described as “appropriate.” They are supposed to be a deterrent. If they really are as effective as you claim them to be, Dana should have raised the fact that she had contravened them and unless she can provide an extremely good reason for such behaviour, faces … (add a fitting sanction).
I too am a champion of free speech and see it as a right. Indeed, it is impossible to have a functioning democracy without it. However, it needs protection from abuse and here is possibly where we differ most. Considering what it means to the lives of our progeny, I really don’t think that we should simply wring our hands and say “What can we do? It is just the way they are” when contrarians, such as those named in this post, pump out the 'same old same old' despite there being ample evidence that that 'same old same old' is false. It is important that they be brought into line with the existing science if they cannot provide a rebuttal to the received position on the matter in hand. Furthermore, unless you can suggest some alternative, I think that they need to face some sort of sanction. If science is about anything, it is about seeking the truth. The deliberate publication of what can legitimately be said to be flawed at best and downright wrong at worst, does, after all, provide the politicians with an excuse to not act, and, one suspects, get their envelope of thanks from the fossil fuel industry, which has a lot to gain from the b.a.u. that results from that inaction.
By all means support free speech, but not without sanction for abuse of the right to speak freely. Even with free speech we cannot stand up and be ‘phobic about many of society’s issues, even if we want to. I have no objection to homosexuals, but if I had, I certainly could not publish work that would reflect such a view. Not where I live at any rate. I have no objection to such constraints.
To conclude, I think that it is well past time to take the gloves off and do whatever we can to bring the debate round to a discussion of the facts. Surely, one has only to watch any of Potholer 54’s videos on Monckton to support the creation of a mechanism that would shut him up until his presentations follow the science and not be fodder to a media that is more interested in its advertising revenue than it is about its kids or its country, be it the one they were born in, or the one where they currently rest their head. If I have his lordship measured correctly, the threat of losing his title would be very effective at closing the said lord's cake hole.
Alternatively, perhaps we should all take James Lovelock’s latest advice and eat, drink and be merry for climate change is going to “hit the fan” in twenty years or so no matter what we do. If he is right, it is all too late to do anything meaningful about it anyway. I just happen to think that it would be a good thing for those who have done so much to ensure the b.a.u. that might have led to such a situation should pay a price for their actions. I suspect you don’t agree, though I am darned if I can understand why. Sod “Vengance is mine, sayeth the Lord.” I want to actually see it when the punishment is dispensed to fit the crime.
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Tom Dayton at 02:38 AM on 26 February 2014Humidity is falling
dwm: I regret to inform you that your tesseract is malfunctioning. In this timeline that the rest of us inhabit, and that you have dropped into, the year 2004 is earlier, not later, than the year 2010. Research on humidity levels has indeed continued, but in the time direction of 2004 forward to 2014, not the reverse. Therefore the newer results of Dr. Dessler and others were reported in their papers published in 2010 as summarized in the orginal post at the top of this thread.
By the way, which manifestation of The Doctor are you? My favorite is the one with the curly red hair.
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Chuck123 at 01:52 AM on 26 February 2014It cooled mid-century
I have heard it said that the Pacific decadal oscillation superimposes a sine wave of variation onto the underlying warming trend line, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PDO.svg and that this correlates to the multidecadal variation of the rate of rise. Is there research that supports this?
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Tom Curtis at 01:38 AM on 26 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
Funglestrumpet @40:
1)
"You seem to have put yourself into the position of judge and jury as far as the point is concerned. We get [no] "I think", "I believe" or any such phrasing that might indicate that you are just another commenter. No, you, Tom Curtis, have decided to act as spokesman for this site in total. Very democratic!."
That is an odd sort of rant. Particularly so given the almost complete lack of such qualifiers in your post @6. There "it seems" to you that we have let the exposition (or understanding) of the science get in the way of taking action on global warming, but when you call for a witch hunt against deniers, it no longer seems, but is (apparently to your mind) uncontestable fact. We cannot take you as a spokesperson for the SkS community, for you explicitly state that you are the spokesperson for, not just your familly but all future generations of it. A self appointed spokes person, off course.
That may be the problem. I have always, emphatically insisted that I speak only for myself, and nobody else unless I specifically specify that I am speaking in a formal capacity. I certainly do not speak for SkS, nor purport to, as I am no longer part of the SkS community in any formal way - having publicly resigned from whatever capacities I served in. I do not even speak for my familly, who are all perfectly capable of speaking for themselves; and nor do I pretend to speak for future generations even of my descendants (whose opinions I do not know - so how can I speak in their name). My overwhelming impression of people who purport to speak for others without officially being appointed to do so is that they are charlatans (for they invariably misrepresent the opinions of those they claim to speak for) who are claiming a false authority for their views because those views will not stand on their own.
Further, and as I have said before:
"You should also not be confused by my confident tone. I eschew the false humility of prefacing comments as IMO (or worse IMHO). Of course all that I write is my opinion, unless specifically identified as a quote. Even when I cite facts, the facts are only my best understanding of them. This is again something that should not need saying, but I have seen too many writers on the internet who strew their comments with IMO and the like, and genuinely seem to believe that any sentence they do not so adorn is some how unimpeachable truth."
2)
"I would have thought that if a climate scientist can be shown to have testified to Congress, Parliament, etc. with evidence that they know, or can reasonably be assumed to know, has previously been proven false, then that should attract sanction of some kind."
In fact, such sanctions already exist, and are quite appropriate. I think a case can be made that in some instances various deniers have been in breach of those provisions, and should accordingly be penalized. They should be penalized, however, on the basis of existing law - and no change of that law should be made to make the test for attracting penalties less strenuous for AGW deniers.
Your post @6, however, did not restrict itself to discussion of people in contempt of parliament, or who perjured themselves. It as a general claim that prominent (and not so prominent) deniers in general should be penalized. That is not acceptable.
This is an issue on which I am very passionate. Democracy, and with it a commitment to free speach are the highest achievements of the human species. So high an achievement that if we would sacrifice them for survival, we are not worthy of survival. And your impassioned plea @6 was de facto a plea for an abandonment of those principles. A plea to replace the rule of law with the rule of vendetta.
If you want to back down from that position, and defend the use of existing provisions against false testimony alone, by all means say so. We might then find a measure of agreement. But if you are not backing down, then do not pretend that your original position concerned only cases of breaches of existing law with respect to perjury and contempt of parliament (or other national equivalents).
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mgardner at 00:41 AM on 26 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
funglestrumpet @40
" I suppose it is more fun to concentrate on the science instead of taking that science into the political arena which is where it matters."
I tend to agree that the first part is a problem, but I think your 'call to arms' is an illustration a larger tactical failure. You want to drum these contrarians out of the community, and the denial industry would like nothing better. Isn't it obvious how it would be played?
The 'skeptics' are very good at tweaking scientists and bloggers into chasing their own tails and creating a false equivalence, giving the most bizarre 'skeptic' arguments legitimacy. People tend to want to do what they are comfortable with; for many capable in science, it is obvious that thinking and communicating outside their peer milieu is not their strongest suit. So, rather than respond at the level appropriate to the debate as presented by skeptics, and the audience it is aimed at, they foster the impression that rebuttal requires an ever-more complex analysis. Conclusion: The contrarian claims are on the same level, no matter that in reality they can be refuted with the most fundamental argument.
I would say that you are succumbing to the same jiu-jitsu; light the torches and bring the pitchforks, and the cries of Socialist Conspiracy will fill the airwaves.
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martin3818 at 00:17 AM on 26 February 2014Our Facebook page reaches 20,000 likes
... and how do you explain the pause before September 2013 ;-)
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Dikran Marsupial at 22:52 PM on 25 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
dwm - the double posting is caused by your use of the refresh and/or back buttons on your browser.
None of the papers you mention show that solar forcing is strong enough to explain the variations in temperature over the last 400,000 years, specifically the transitions from glacial to interglacial conditions. If you disagree, give page numbers and direct quotations from the paper.
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Tom Curtis at 22:42 PM on 25 February 2014How we know the greenhouse effect isn't saturated
nealjking @92, I don't know where scaddenp got it, but it was constructed by Clive Best. Best used his own radiation model for which he provides code. There was also a spreadsheet based implimentation of an earlier version, but the link is dead. The model only calculates values in the 13-17 micron range, and treats it as a single band. That means the results are approximate rather than accurate but still indicative.
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CBDunkerson at 22:21 PM on 25 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
I agree with Spencer on one thing... we shouldn't call him a 'denier' any more. Given his forays into... less than accurate representations of the facts (e.g. the graph in #36) he is not merely denying the evidence of AGW. He is actively distorting it. SkS policy forbids any speculation on certain motives for such, but he can certainly be called a 'distorter', 'disinformer', 'fabricator', et cetera without getting into why he would do such things.
As to Esop's point in #35 about Spencer's data inevitably disproving his own position... it already does. He frequently makes the 'no global warming for XX years' claim despite the fact that his satellite data does show statistically significant warming for the time period in question... he instead relies on the Hadley Center data to make the case. To all appearances, Spencer is a 'true believer'. I think he believes the things he says, even when they are obviously false. Thus, there is no 'plan' in place for when his data shows a new record high temperature. He simply doesn't believe that is possible... and when it happens he will undoubtedly come up with a way to believe that it hasn't, or that it doesn't matter. The man believes, and wrote a book arguing, that scientific facts and economic results must conform to his personal religious views. At that level of self delusion there isn't much which you can't rationalize away.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 22:13 PM on 25 February 20142014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8
chriskoz
Belatedly, welcome to Oz.
Where in Oz do you live? I am near Daylesford, NW of Melbourne.
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dwm at 22:10 PM on 25 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
I don't know why this board sometimes double posts my posts, some kind of feedback loop?
Happy reading:
Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 113, A11101, doi:10.1029/2007JA012989, 2008Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications
Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics (2010)
Solar activity and Svalbard temperaturesAdvances in Meteorology Volume 2011 (2011)
Moderator Response:[PS] Fixed link (I hope)
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Dikran Marsupial at 21:56 PM on 25 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
dwm, I suspect you are using the refresh or back buttons on your browser, which are resulting in reposts of your previous messages.
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MA Rodger at 21:21 PM on 25 February 2014Humidity is falling
dwm @15.
The information you quoted on the NASA website (linked @14) is titled:-
Humidity Relative to Earth's Temperature 07.20.04
It would perhaps have been better if it said 20th July 2004 but that probably would not make its message less of a honeypot for skeptical argument as its presence on the NASA website could be argued to show continued relevance.
The UN IPCC Assessment Reports stand as a pretty definitive account of the present science. If you are having difficulty with the content of this SkS post, I woud thus recommend you read AR5 Chapter 2 Section 2.5.5 pp206-8.
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nealjking at 21:04 PM on 25 February 2014How we know the greenhouse effect isn't saturated
scaddenp:
Where did you get the graph shown at #55 ?
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dwm at 20:47 PM on 25 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
(-snip-). "History", (-snip-), is anything for which there exists a record. Ice cores make history.
This chart was used for years to prove the driving effect co2 has on temperature, and only after the accuracy of the dating was improved, showing that the co2 increases actually lagged warming, did explainations such as this article begin to evolve.
(-snip-).
Moderator Response:[DB] Inflammatory tone snipped (twice); sloganeering snipped.
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funglestrumpet at 20:03 PM on 25 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
funglestrumpet @ 40
I would never become a proof reader! @ line 8 should read: 'We get no' instead of simply 'We get'. It makes a difference. The other proof reading errors are about par for the course, sorry.
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Anne-Marie Blackburn at 19:58 PM on 25 February 2014Our Facebook page reaches 20,000 likes
rocketeer - thanks. I'd initally made a reference to the hockey stick but removed it at the last minute. Never mind :)
chriszov, unfortunately the data from Facebook only go back to August 2011 so there was nothing I could do. The acceleration really started around September 2013, which you can glean from figure 1.
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funglestrumpet at 19:27 PM on 25 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
Tom Curtis @ 14
I would have thought that this site would not only attract scientists, it would attract scientists with families to protect. Judging by the total lack of support for either your views or for mine, I have to assume that I was wrong on the families bit.
The evidence is hardly hidden. Apart from promises to act, what the global community has achieved compared to what needs to happen is miniscule. You seem to have put yourself into the position of judge and jury as far as the point is concerned. We get "I think", "I believe" or any such phrasing that might indicate that you are just another commenter. No, you, Tom Curtis, have decided to act as spokesman for this site in total. Very democratic!.
I have deliberately delayed my response to see if either of our comments would attract discussion, but sadly, none has so far surfaced, I suppose it is more fun to concentrate on the science instead of taking that science into the political arena which is where it matters. Let's face it, with 97% support for the case that we are in trouble and it is our fault, the science battle is won. The problem is, we are in a war and the science of the issue is only one of its battles, albeit a major one. The danger is, to quote Bob Dylan, that those resisting action to fight climate change will 'win the war after losing every battle.'
I would have thought that if a climate scientist can be shown to have testified to Congress, Parliament, etc. with evidence that they know, or can reasonably be assumed to know, has previously been proven false, then that should attract sanction of some kind. I need hardly add that that should also apply anyone behaving in like manner, particularly including British peers of the realm. If the scientific community are not sufficiently annoyed to rise up and demand action to stop such behaviour when they see it repeated again and again, then it is hardly surprising that the politicians see no reason to take the action we all know to be essential and overdue. On this issue, as with many others, silence can be deafening.
We can all follow your lead, Tom, and snuff out any demand for positive action to shut up those who commit the 'crime' of misinforming those in parliament and even government on the issue of climate change. Or we can rise up and create a situation where the politicians are forced to either support those who have misled them, or act to ensure that they are removed from any position of influence in order to stop them doing so ever again. We would be in a much better place in the fight to combat climate change if we had only managed to treat the scientific 'guns for hire' that so managed to delay action on the tobacco and lung cancer issue.
If the mechanisms to silence those people are not in place, such as stripping them of their scientific credentials, or letters patent for their peerages, then there should be a campaign, and a prominent one to boot, that creates those mechanisms
Or we can continue polishing the science, who knows, we might even achieve 97.5% consensus, while climate change marches inexorably on and the fossil fuel industry and those in its pay laugh all the way to the bank.
I don't think this side of the fence will take any solace in being able to utter the words, "Told you so!" I think our children and grandchildren would prefer a cry of "Phew, that was close. Thank goodness we managed to get the politicians to act, albeit belatedly"
Make no mistake, how we as a species deal with climate change has ramifications way outside that of changes to the climate. There are many issues where public opinion has been swayed away from hard science by a media that is obviously working to a hidden agenda. An agenda which seems to follow what most affects their advertising revenue. How we react to that media and its influence will affect how we deal with those other major issues. We will get nowhere if we just let one person decide for the rest of us with little or no discussion. Judging by this particular comments thread, the portents are not good.
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Dikran Marsupial at 19:01 PM on 25 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
dwm wrote "This chart was used for years to prove the driving effect co2 has on temperature,"
This is simply incorrect, the data shown in the chart provides evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that can act as a feedback mechansim (amplifying the effects of orbital forcing). This is very clearly stated in the article above.
Nobody is claiming that CO2 forcing DRIVES climate change on that particular timescale, so you are just making a straw man argument.
"Regarding the variability of solar energy reaching the earth and whether it is sufficient to cause the warming patterns shown in this chart, I disagree."
Fine, care to provide any evidence to support your disagreement with the scientific mainstream on this one, some calculations perhaps?
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Dikran Marsupial at 18:31 PM on 25 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
dwm wrote "3. In no way did I ever imply that co2 contributed by man does not contribute to warming. We should all know, however, that it would not contribute to much more than 1 degree celcius of warming this century by itself without any feedback loop from water vapor, so to suggest otherwise would be disingenious."
Has anybody suggested otherwise?
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dwm at 18:24 PM on 25 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
To Scaddenp: (-snip-).
(-snip-)?
1. de-glaciation is no more relevant to this thread than the water vapor feedback loop, for which I was scolded for answering someone else about after they brought it up.
2. (-snip-).
3. In no way did I ever imply that co2 contributed by man does not contribute to warming. We should all know, however, that it would not contribute to much more than 1 degree celcius of warming this century by itself without any feedback loop from water vapor, so to suggest otherwise would be disingenious.
Moderator Response:[DB] Inflammatory tone snipped (twice), link to fossil fuel shill site snipped.
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dwm at 18:21 PM on 25 February 2014Humidity is falling
The information I quoted is on the NASA website. Are you suggesting that the research has been "done" now on humidity levels and the issue is completely understood and settled?
As you know, humidity is technically hard to measure accurately at all alititudes for the whole world, and there is not general certainty about what those levels are, or what they have been historically. It is a very weak spot of most current climate models.
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Dikran Marsupial at 18:18 PM on 25 February 2014CO2 lags temperature
dwm, I'll ignore your attempts to irritate by use of phrases such as "Despite the scientific equivilant of wrangling and wringing of hands,", which strongly suggest you are not really interested in the answers to your questions and answer them anyway:
"this chart is nothing other than a clear representation that co2 is not driving anything historically."
For the last 400,000 years, excluding the post-industrial rise in CO2, this is essentially true, because CO2 has acted as a feedback mechanism, rather than a forcing, which is what the article actually says, if you bothered to read it. Note the first line is "CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages but it did amplify the warming.".
However, "history" (I use inverted commas because history doesn't go back 40,000 years, never mind 400,000) goes back rather further than 400,000. This paper for instance discusses the possibility of climate change in part induced by a reduction in atmospheric CO2 as a result of increased chemical weathering following the uplift of the Tibettan platueau in the Cenozoic era. There is also the example of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, where rapid climate change ocurred most plausibly as a result of increases in greenhouse gasses. So your conclusion is incorrect, CO2 has "historically" acted as both a feedback and a forcing, although over the interval covered by the chart it is only acting as a feedback.
"Since you admit to the fact that the amount of solar radiation the earth receives is variable/cyclical, why assume anything other than that (solar) for the changes in temperature, which then cause co2 to go up or down accordingly?"
Because the changes in solar forcing due to Milankovic cycles are far too small to explain the observed changes in temperature. You would know this, had you actually read the article above. "This positive feedback is necessary to trigger the shifts between glacials and interglacials as the effect of orbital changes is too weak to cause such variation. "
"Often in science, complex theories are built up to support a set of assumptions that are later shown to be wrong. It seems to me that a lot of effort is going on to retrofit data sets to fit theories about co2 as a primary driver of climate, and that this article is a prime example."
This is deeply ironic, given that you obviously didn't read the article, but drew a stong conclusion which is at odds with that of the scientists who have actually studied this topic in detail.
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Tom Curtis at 13:52 PM on 25 February 2014Nazis, shoddy science, and the climate contrarian credibility gap
paulh @37, the first data point on the graph for satellites and radiosondes is 1980. Assume that to be the data point for the average of 1979 (the first year of available data) to 1983. It then follows that the last data point is the five year average 2013 to 2017, which a remarkable average to have in early 2014. Alternatively, assume the last data point is the average from 2010-2014. The the first data point is the average from 1976-1980, which is extraordinary given that the first year of data is 1979 (for satellites).
Any way you cut it, Spencer has averaged across over three years of non-existent data; or he has treated a two year average as being a five year average without notice.
As shonky as that is, however, I do agree that the baselining is even more shonky.
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