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Comments 39501 to 39550:

  1. 2013 was Australia's Hottest Year, Warm for Much of the World

    Sorry

    I always mess this up, 

    I was trying to do it like you guys instructed 

    what did I do wrong?

  2. 2013 was Australia's Hottest Year, Warm for Much of the World

    DSL says

    Henry, how's about you avoid cherry-picking start date and region

    Henry says

    this is not cherry picking

  3. 2013 was Australia's Hottest Year, Warm for Much of the World

    Follow the link offered in post #10...

     

    Not since the Onion have I enjoed such a wide ranging and disconnected offering of satire pretending to be science. 

    This might stand alone as one of the funniest attempts (though completely delusional) at denial on the web. Thank god for blogs and the democratization of opinion; albeit uninformed and non-scientific opinion that is pulled out of the tailpipe. 

  4. 2013 was Australia's Hottest Year, Warm for Much of the World

    Henry, how's about you avoid cherry-picking start date and region, and instead show your math for your global analysis and post your response to the appropriate thread (after reading it and the comment stream that follows).

  5. 2013 was Australia's Hottest Year, Warm for Much of the World

    Interesting.

    You say Australia is getting warmer.

    I am stunned to find how many people still do not believe me when I tell them it is cooling, globally. All the major global data sets are showing that earth had its maximum heat output around 1998 and that we have made the turn down since then. To be fair, I think that I made the prediction that it had started globally cooling, naturally, even before many others had become aware of it. In my final report:

    http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/


    one of the things I mentioned on what would happen, as a result of global cooling, was:
    "At the higher latitudes >[40] it will become progressively cooler and/or drier, from now onward, ultimately culminating in a big drought period similar to the Dust bowl drought 1932-1939."

    So how are my predictions concerning this panning out? Well I have not yet started looking at rainfall patterns. I wish I had time for that. Paradoxically, I have noted that one may even expect to see some warming in the areas where it does get drier. This may have happened in Australia as well. What I have done now is to take a sample of ten weather stations in Alaska and look at the change in the average temperature there, over time. 

    [ I have a picture from excell, alternatively I can send you the file with the results of the ten weather stations)

    Alaska is situated between latitudes 60 and 70 degrees. It has a number of good weather stations with reliable results. I took all the average daily data from the stations indicated in the graph from 1998 until 2014, compressed to an average annual temperature. I submit that this sample of weather stations is representative for the whole of Alaska. Note that 9 out of the 10 weather stations are showing a negative trend, i.e. a cooling trend. You can also clearly see that each of the stations’ results correlate sharply with each other in terms of rises and falls. I think it would therefore be fair to take the average of the 10 slopes of the ten linear trends as representative for the whole of Alaska, and indeed, for the whole of earth’s [60-70] latitude (inland only). If we do that, I find that the temperature in Alaska and [60-70] has been dropping at an average rate of 0.55 degrees C per decade, since 1998.
    This means that since 1998, average ambient temperatures in Alaska have already dropped by almost 1 degree C. We are not even halfway through the cooling period, which I predict will last until at least 2038 or 2039 (+ 5 years).
    Anyone still interested in investing in the Arctic?

  6. High-stakes climate poker

    I live in Anchorage, AK and work with the oil industry. The oil companies have an undue influence on politics in our state and have managed to buy themselves a tax break worth billions a year.

    This money could be used to for renewable energy, homes for the homeless, you name it. But instead the money will leave our state and go somewhere else, only to increase fossil fuel consumption. 

    Now Shell has plans to drill in the Chukchi and ConoccoPhllips produce oil in NPR-A. How is any of this in our best interest at this point? 

  7. High-stakes climate poker

    At the beginning of 2012, we had a CO2 budget of about 1010 GtCO2. At that time, the remaining global fossil fuel reserves contained about 3400 GtCO2, about 3.5 times the budget. (Source: http://j.mp/FF_RR_CO2)

  8. Heat widget viewed more than one million times at over 60 blogs

    >>The current central pillar in the efforts to deceive people ..............<<


    I'm glad you used the word "current" - the deniers change from one falsified argument to another as each is demolished.

  9. Heat widget viewed more than one million times at over 60 blogs

    You might like to consider adding the tonnage of fossil carbon we have released since 1850 or such.Would need some guesstimates for the earlier times but the sheer minute-by-minute gigatonnage pouring forth nowadays is going to produce a timer that looks like the US Debt Clock

  10. Hockey sticks to huge methane burps: Five papers that shaped climate science in 2013

    Hank_Stoney - I suspect because, in part, there is considerable confusion between resolution and detection - a confusion I have encountered more than once in the realm of signal processing.

    A band-limit of 300 years, as per the Marcott et al analysis, means that their methodology won't be able to resolve or separate discrete events (warming or cooling) less than perhaps 600 years apart, as they would be blurred together. Detecting that something happened, however, is another story entirely. You can look through a telescope at a distant pulsar or supernova, sized far below the resolution of your telescope - and yet detect it as a bright spot that clearly tells you that something is present. In much the same fashion the 'unicorn spike' so beloved of the 'skeptics' would add 0.9*100 or 90 Cyr to the Marcott data, and even the blurring of the Marcott processing would still show this as a clearly detectable bump in the mean. 

    You don't need to resolve something to detect it. 

    I agree, it's important to distinguish between peer-reviewed science and unfiltered (so to speak) opinions on blogs. Which is but one reason I found your description of the blog based discussion of 'unicorns' as a dust-up a bit odd; that seems to be giving more credence to blogged objections than to the replies. 

  11. Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows

    I read the Matthews & Matthews 2014 paper: it is indeed badly written, poorly supported, and, at least at this point, amateurish. It may have good points, but they are difficult to tease out of the poorly-written nature of it.

  12. Heat widget viewed more than one million times at over 60 blogs

    The current central pillar in the efforts to deceive people about global warming is the 'no warming for the past X years' lie. This widget and the underlying data on total (mostly ocean) warming is the most effective response to that nonsense (the statistical argument is equally valid, but not as easy for some people to follow).

  13. Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows

    Micawber @27.

    You say "I suggest you read the whole document and then think about the physics."

    Perhaps I should. Perhaps I will. That I have not thus far is because of a number of factors, not the least being that the document is so badly written. And my advice to any who attempt like Matthews & Matthews (2014) to run the 100 metres against a field of international sprinters when they themselves yet remain reliant on a baby-walker to keep their backside off the floor (I don't think that an unfair assessment of their academic position and their academic ambition): my advice would be to present a paper written to the highest possible standard. From such a position and attempting so much, it is essential that you impress a wide audience with a well-argued thesis and demonstrat that you really do know your stuff. Sadly Matthews & Matthews (2014) is a scholarly nightmare. And it would remain so even if Matthews & Matthews (2013) were published and available, which unforgivably it is not.

  14. Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows

    The contribution due to TSI fluctuations is close to that theoretically predicted based on energy balance

    CSALT model

    The Cause of the Pause is due to thermodynamic Laws.  It really is not that complicated.

  15. Hockey sticks to huge methane burps: Five papers that shaped climate science in 2013

    @KR - Fair enough but then why did Marcott et al not explicitly state this? Even after having been given the opportunity to respond to this issue in the FAQ, they chosenot to make such a claim.  Given the significance of such a result, I'd like to think they would have made their case if it were at all justified.

    So I reiterate: in order to avoid confusion when discussing this (or any other) study, I personally think that it would be wise to carefully distinguish between the actual peer-reviewed conclusions that the authors intended and those inferred and written about in the blogosphere after the fact by those such as Tamino and yourself, in this instance.  

    In any case, the Marcott et al paper was a great contribution to paleoclimate studies from last year and certainly deserves mention in this post. 

  16. Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows

    Micawber - the note of caution is due to it being apparently not yet published. It is also not wise to rush into enthusiasm over a paper till it has faced the cold hard scrutiny of other expert workers in the field.

  17. Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'

    Tom Curtis - It would scale linearly for that computation. The ratio of height change would only shift for different duration or shape spikes, for signals with a different frequency distribution. 

  18. Doug Hutcheson at 09:44 AM on 16 January 2014
    Heat widget viewed more than one million times at over 60 blogs

    Another excellent piece of science communication by SkS. This widget, together with the escalator graphic, tells a huge part of the AGW story. Well done.

  19. Mitigation Mosaic: How small steps can make a difference

    Direct action as it should be applied

  20. Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'

    KR @97, thankyou for analyzing the doubly perturbed case.  Fairly clearly, I was correct that the additional perturbation would further smooth the spike, but you were correct that it would not smooth it sufficiently to make it indistiguishable within the Marcott reconstruction.  Indeed, my estimate @72 of the likely magnitude of the effect of that additional smoothing is shown to have overstated the effect.  

    Comparison with the Marcott reconstruction shows the largest hillock in that reconstruction to be just 0.8 C (around 5 kya), ie, about 1/3rd of the magnitude produced by smoothing the "unicorn spike" of 0.9 C.  Assuming the effect scales linearly, that suggests "unicorn spikes" do not exceed 0.3 C if they exist at all in the Holocene.

  21. Heat widget viewed more than one million times at over 60 blogs

    Yes, this is really great. And thanks for putting Neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog near the top of your page. We had quite a tussle over there when it fisrt went up. Glad to see he kept it.

  22. Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows

    MA Rodger @25

    I take the work presented seriously because it is based entirely on over a century of daily observations to oceanographic standards.

    It is not wise to trivialise such rare fieldwork. I think it would be wise to consider their thesis that 93% of global warming is in the oceans. It seems to me that this should be the focus of futher work on anthropogenic warming.

    There is clearly some hitch in publication of the first paper. However, it is summarised in the introduction. The three phases of warming and the links to Arctic ice melt are important findings. Surely it is worth considering the physics of real rare observations without carping about other issues.

    Is it plausible to suggest the three SST warming phases link to Arctic ice melt? What are the consequences? Any research should be verified by experiment. That has been the problem with SST taken for climatological purposes as the authors point out.

    Do you wish to challenge the simple fact that SST has been taken from unknown depths and corrected for unverified evaporative cooling or engine room warming since 1955?

    Moreover, it is 3000 less accurate for oceanographic dynamics and completely omits essential salinity. That is like measuring air temperature without pressure. Water heated from the top has buoyance dependent on salinity and temperature. None of this is included in current models.

    I am enthousiastic about these new findings because they are based on field verification that is the foundation of scientific method.

    I suggest you read the whole document and then think about the physics.

  23. Mitigation Mosaic: How small steps can make a difference

    From Felbach's point of view, the real significance of this is if/when the ecological and/or economic brown stuff hits the wind pusher, they will be sitting pretty while all around them will wish they had done the same.

  24. It's aerosols

    carbtheory @20, first of all, you should not place all your argument on one publication, even if it turns out correct. That said, I presume you are talking about this presentation, given 14 years ago: http://www.me.umn.edu/centers/mel/reports/dbkucdavis.pdf

    It shows on said page three (not including the front page), a "typical" diesel engine exhaust PM mass and number distribution. These (ultrafine and fine) particles are actually generated from gas-to-particle conversion, often inside the exhaust pipe. And yes, such traffic related emissions are responsible for a significant amount of fine PM in urban areas (not globally). The, most abundant in terms of numbers, ultrafine particles coalesce within hours to at most days into the accumulation range (the size range in the middle of that graph, labelled). They do not act as CCN themselves.

    The accumulation  mode is named such because that is where atmospheric PM "accumulates" after coalescence (i.e. from smaller particles) or deposition (i.e. removal of larger particles) over time. Due to steep number reductions (do not mistake emissions with ambient abundances), they do not significantly grow by coalescence any more, but mostly by condensation, i.e. more gas-to-particle conversion, which limits the overall growth rate and total size achievable. Their lifetime in the atmosphere is on the order of a week and thus they do not mix throughout the troposphere.

    And yes, not all accumulation mode particles are good CCN. They have to be hygroscopic. Köhler theory describes what you are looking for. You can try this also.

    The "energy usage" is not what matters in terms of how much PM is formed. Sulfur content is much more relevant. That is why it was mandatorily reduced in diesel a few years ago.

  25. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #2

    Tom (#4): That is not good. Amazing how the anti-science folks have gotten into position in AUS, by the sound of it.

    Up here in Scandinavia, the deniers have been unusually quiet after month after month with extremely mild temperatures. Last 30 days average sits an amazing 7C above normal, but the cold weather just arrived, so the anti science guys will start to blow their horns any day now. The public just soaks up their nonsense like a sponge. Just saw an interview with random folks on the street in the local paper, and it read like a Monckton statement. Only guy worried with the extremely warm winter temps was an Englishman that could not believe the +7C (24-7) in Oslo, Norway (60 degs north) in January. He was also appalled that the locals did not care at all.

  26. Heat widget viewed more than one million times at over 60 blogs

    Awesome!

    The deniers have attacked these with furious anger. The reason? The widgets are very effective at conveying the message to the general public, and the deniers aim is to distort that message.

  27. It's aerosols

    @ 19, first sentence, quite believable.

    Second sentence: take a look at page 3 of the study I refered to, by mass the majority of emissions are between 0.1 um and 1 um. By number the majority are substantally smaller than 0.05 um for typicle deisel engine particle size. So, with an extremely high number weighting in what they describe as nueclii mode particles where does that leave us for potential CCN from those emissions once they start mixing with the atmosphere? This is for an internal combustion engine. However petroleum accounts for a higher % energy usage than coal.

    Third sentence: "Accumulation mode particles", the name suggests they are growing in size, mass or both. Wikipedia state a 'typical' CCN size of 0.2 um. I'm under the impression that the accumulation mode particles that become CCN need to reach a minimum size which is dependant on how hydroscopic they are ( due to their chemical composition ) and the atmospheric conditions they exist in. Is this assumption correct?

  28. Global warming and energy – intertwined problems in Africa

    The best opportunity to reduce our CO2 footprint is to help undeveloped and developing regions to leapfrog the West into much greater efficiency. The grid is terribly wasteful. Distributed generation can happen painlessly, and avoid grid waste. People are use to a lower rate of energy use, and so moving up a little is a great comfort, yet costs little in comparison to wasteful ways of developed regions. Unless something like Pluvinergy is made operative, we must jump way ahead of what we have achieved so far; practically nothing in CO2 reductions. Helping the developing world in africa and other places to cope with and adjust to climate change this way is the wisest use of resources and time.

  29. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #2

    With regard to Chriskoz @2, we should probably refer further discussion of Tom Switzer's article to the more detailed discussion at the 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #2.  

  30. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #2

    Esop @3, "the Australian based denier [faction]", as you put it, currently dominates the party of government.  By July they will have control of both houses of parliament, controll they will use to repeal Australia's carbon price, wind back the renewable energy requirement, and impliment a mitigation scheme which consists of paying the heaviest emitters "to reduce their reduction", with the payment being retained by the emitters even if they increase emissions instead.  Economically, that last works out as a subsidy for CO2 emissions.  In the mean time, they have effective control of some of the most important media in the country, and other media sufficiently cowed such that at best we get false balance on climate change.  That dominance is partly attributable to Tom Switzer, who in his last few years as editor of The Australian's opinion pages gave the 1% of climate scientists who reject AGW an article a day to present their views; with the 97% percent who accept the evidence only being allowed a few articles a year, and only if they were writting to challenge the then proposed emissions trading scheme.   Whatever the motivations behind Tom Switzer's article, desperation is not one of them.

  31. 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #2

    scaddenp@11

    Thanks for that quote from Lowry. We can definitely say that Switzer's spin on it is a sentence taken out of context to suit his agenda. Similar to other distortions of reality therein.

    Tom@12

    Thanks for your analysis which is spot on and worth promoting to an article or debunking Climate Myths from Politicians where Switzer is not featured yet.
     

  32. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #2

    chriskoz (#2): The clueless anti-science piece by this Mr. Switzer that you link to is obvious damage control. The Australian based denier fraction is completely besides themselves with desperation right now and will do anything to deflect the publics attention from the extreme heat in Australia at the moment.

    I just watched CNN from the Australian Open and players are passing out from the extreme heat, so a very visible PR nightmare for the deniers, as the AUS Open is broadcast around the world.

    It is going to be a very interesting year, and likely a very difficult one for the flat earth crowd, so they will turn up the rhetoric and noise to 11. 

  33. 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #2

    Poster @7, Tom Switzer's article begins with the claim that the Australasian Antarctic ("Spirit of Mawson") Expedition (AAE) "... was promoted as the voyage to study the melting of ice sheets in the South Pole".  That is, at best a 1/10th truth, and a massive misdirection.  The Antarctic Ice Sheet is indeed melting, but the AAE did not go to Antarctica to study that melt, and nor was the Akademik Shokalskiy trapped by a sudden freeze of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

    The actual scientific reasons for the expedition are explained at the AAE website, an explanation mentions ice sheet melt just twice; and which details the specific scientific reasons for going to Antarctica:

    "We are going south to:

    1. gain new insights into the circulation of the Southern Ocean and its impact on the global carbon cycle
    2. explore changes in ocean circulation caused by the growth of extensive fast ice and its impact on life in Commonwealth Bay
    3. use the subantarctic islands as thermometers of climatic change by using trees, peats and lakes to explore the past
    4. investigate the impact of changing climate on the ecology of the subantarctic islands
    5. discover the environmental influence on seabird populations across the Southern Ocean and in Commonwealth Bay
    6. understand changes in seal populations and their feeding patterns in the Southern Ocean and Commonwealth Bay
    7. produce the first underwater surveys of life in the subantarctic islands and Commonwealth Bay
    8. determine the extent to which human activity and pollution has directly impacted on this remote region of Antarctica
    9. provide baseline data to improve the next generation of atmospheric, oceanic and ice sheet models to improve predictions for the future"

    (My emphasis)

    The most interesting item (in this context) is (2).  The Akademik Shokalskiy was trapped by windblown fast ice (ie, sea ice) and the AAE went to Antarctica to study (among other things) "...the growth of extensive fast ice...".  Unfortunately for deniers, a tail about scientists going to Antarcitica to study growth of extensive fast ice and then being trapped by that extensive fast ice due to a short term wind change doesn't have the right level or irony.  Consequently they simply made up reasons for the expedition not significantly related to the objectives of the expedition, and imply the ship was trapped by a sudden freeze (it was not), and in Switzer's case, imply it was trapped by a sudden extension of the ice sheet itself.  That is, because the truth does not suit their propaganda needs, they deal in fantasies.

    Almost the entire rest of the article discusses political facts.  That is worth noting.  Switzer's evidence against global warming consists almost entirely of evidence that people are ignoring the harm from global warming.  Even his narrow purported case that he is not denying the warming but only the harm from the warming is not helped by that.  Indeed, it is made worse in that he cites no studies or evidence of the likely impacts of global warming at all.  Apparently in Switzer's opinion, global warming is likely to be harmless because all of the right people do not believe it to be harmfull, regardless of scientific evidence to the contrary.

    I distinguish between his purported case and his actual case because his sole "scientific argument" is "Meanwhile, 2013 marked the 15th year of flat-lined global surface temperatures, despite record levels of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere since 1998."  Flat lined?  In fact the 15 year trend to the end of 2013 is 0.093 +/- 0.14 per C/decade, greater than the 0.084 +/-0.009 C/decade trend since January 1901.  Further, adding that fifteen years increases the trend, ie, the trend from Jan 1901 to Dec 2013 is greater than the 0.071+/- 0.01 C/decade trend from Jan 1901-Dec 1998.  Even with his obvious cherry pick, saying the temperature trends "flat-lined" is another case of spreading fantasies because the facts are not suitable to the propaganda purposes of the author.

    The article is a disgrace to journalism.  It shows in full that theory of journalism that anything labeled as "opinion" is publishable, if it comes from the right people, even if it is fact free, or completely counter factual.  It represents, further, an example of that political theory that holds democracy in such high regard they think the way to advance their political cause is to con the people.  To pervert Lincoln's famous dictum to say that "You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but you can fool enough of them enough of the time to suite your ends."

    Given the debasement of journalistic and democratic ethics evident in Switzer's article, it is no surprise that his background is with the American Enterprise Institute; as opinion editor of The Australian, as an advisor to former Liberal Party leader, Brendan Nelson, and as an unsuccessful candidate for preselection for the Liberal Party. 

  34. The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures

    A suggestion: Write an Op-Ed givng examples of convervatives and conservative media getting it right on climate change and energy policies. Start here:  conservamerica.org/

  35. 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #2

    Actually quoting the Lowry Institute report.

    " For the first time since 2006, the steady decline in the number of Australians supporting strong action on climate change has reversed, with 40% (up 4 points) now saying global warming is a ‘serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs’. Opposition to the carbon-pricing legislation has fallen 5 points to 58%."

    Not exactly the spin in the SMH is it?

  36. 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #2

    poster, perhaps this discussion would be more focussed if could be more specific about which points from the Switzer article are actually right? That the cryosphere is increasing (implied) or that public doesnt get it? Others? A survey of public opinion is only a measure of how well the science is being communicated to the public, something seriously hindered by rhetoric from someone living in a reality-distortion field like this author.

  37. 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #2

    Poster@7,

    Tom Switzer's article is almost entirely distortion of reality (e.g. famous "global warming stopped" theme and confusion of weather event vs. climate) and baseless politically loaded rhetoric, as I indicated on Weekly Digest #2 thread.

    It would be interesting to check the source of that Lowy Institute survey that allegedly showed the drop of acceptance of AGW in AUS from 70 to 40% to find out if his rhetoric is based on at least one undistorted fact.

  38. Global warming and energy – intertwined problems in Africa

    Fungelstrumpet: Fair comment. Actually, all I hear in the media about Africa is conflict related, so a regular reminder of what's going on climate-wise is important.

  39. Global warming and energy – intertwined problems in Africa

    After living in Africa for 15 years, I can assure you that erratic weather with extreme floods and extended droughts are the norm.  It may be true that the weather is getting more erratic but I would like to see records from weather stations before drawing any conclusions.  The people of Africa are no more or less likely to misremember than we in the West are.  We all like to think that the time we are in is something special and out of the ordinary. 

  40. Global warming and energy – intertwined problems in Africa

    John,  Excellent posting.  I'm somewhat puzzeled by your last sentence though.  Please enlighten me on "In this regard, the climate-energy problem is often thought of as a double-edged sword – solutions to the climate problem make access to low-cost electricity more difficult."  It seems to me that at least some solutions to the climate problem will make access to cheap and clean energy at low cost more readily available to people in need. Implementation with great care is essential.  It's mainly in the grid.  We have the technology for wind and solar and other sources of clean energy, but not the grid.  Or did I miss something in your post?

  41. Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows

    My thesis showed that thin tropical cirrus covers a large portion of the globe and small increases in the high cloud fraction can have a large impact on the Earth's longwave radiation budget. Tropical anvil outflow cirrus extends several hundred kilometres with a relatively large mean "observed" longwave cloud radiative forcing from co-located CERES (Aqua) measurements of 33 +/- 20Wm**-2. This is inspite of a considerably drier upper atmospheric conditions and lower ice crystal concentrations (both around 4 fold lower) than deep convective plumes with a longwave cloud radiative forcing of 52 +/- 28Wm**-2.
    The radiative impact of thin cirrus in the tropics is not to be undermined. Its microphysics and global impact is profound, yet it is poorly monitored and apparently insensitive to moisture and lower tropospheric conditions.

    This work is summarised in Chapter 6 of my PhD thesis - with visualised case studies of atmospheric conditions in the presence of tropical clouds in the Pacific and Indonesian regions in Chapter 5.

    https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/7755

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Fixed link

  42. Mohamed Aboshady at 02:31 AM on 15 January 2014
    The Big Picture (2010 version)

    Interesting !

  43. Mitigation Mosaic: How small steps can make a difference

    BaerbelW - Thank you for this description of practical steps that any community can take to reduce their fossil fuel use through energy efficiency and renewable energy, and begin to address climate change.  Given the paralysis at the Federal level here in the U.S., mixed progress at the State level, and the insufficiency of relying on individual actions, it seems that the most productive way forward is from leadership at the community level.

    My town of Lafayette, Colorado, USA is well behind Fellbach but is now on the verge of doing something similar, namely allocating significant resources from the town budget toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions by residents, businesses, and government through investments in EE and RE.  A handful of passionate citizens who want to get something done began pressing for such an action last year, and it has been a lot of work (including passing a "citizen initiative" at the ballot in November), but now it looks very promising that Lafayette will soon be starting on the path that Fellbach has taken.  One lesson is that individuals really can make a difference, which brings to mind this quote:

    Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
                             - Margaret Mead

    One commonality with Fellbach is that we propose offering free energy consultations so that any resident or business can learn what EE measures they can take and how much it will save them on their energy bills, at no risk or cost to them, in order to get the ball rolling on actions.  Mostly, though, it's not about give-aways, it's about education.  We're promoting the following principles of successful programs aimed at high participation rates:  1) massive public outreach and education from many angles, sustained over time, about available programs and how people will benefit from them;  2) make it super-easy for people to participate once they understand the benefits;  and 3) provide financing so that there is no or low upfront cost and payments come from energy savings (for example, establishing a low-interest revolving fund operated by the City, possibly with on-bill repayment).

    We are confident that City Council will soon pass a Clean Energy Ordinance that establishes an Energy Sustainability Fund aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving people a lot of money by not purchasing unnecessary energy.  We're describing this idea in terms of a "City Service", not unlike other social benefits that the City invests in, like the Library and parks and the Rec Center.  As the Fellbach article states, this community-level approach to energy sustainability is both scalable and adaptable, and Lafayette's on-going experience shows that it can all begin with just one or a handful of committed citizens who want to get something done on climate change.

  44. funglestrumpet at 01:44 AM on 15 January 2014
    Global warming and energy – intertwined problems in Africa

    Kevin C @1

    I don't know how old this post is, but it has not been in my inbox for very long, and certainly no longer than many of its companions so your assumption that all who comment herein are not interested in Africa is a bit premature. And just for the record, dead wrong in my case at least. 

  45. Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows

    Micawber @24.

    I hate to pour cold water on you evident enthusiasm but do you think it is not premature to accept the work of Matthews & Matthews so readily? The paper you link to begins by stating "This is the second of two papers on..." but where is that first paper?

    If I look for Matthews, J. B. and Matthews, J. B. R: (2013) 'Physics of the upper ocean', Physics Today, under review, I see no sign of it having been published by Physics Review. And with that first paper absent, the content of the second, that paper you link, that to smacks of being very much prelimenary work. Indeed, Matthew & Matthew 2014 say themselves "Our work needs confirmation by..." and I would humbly suggest the method of than confirmation may not best be achieved with the methods they describe.

  46. New Study Suggests Future Global Warming at the Higher End of Estimates: 4°C Possible by 2100

    The effect describes sounds like a climate system that is not in equilibrium i.e. the land surface and atmospheric temperatures warming through greenhouse gases at a faster rate than the sea surface temperatures can equilibrate to. In a steady state climate, either during brief periods of global temperature slow-down or upon curbing carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs and other greenhouse gases the sensitivity from this cloud effect may reverse.
    It seems to me that the system described is a climate state where the specific water vapour concentration in the atmosphere is inefficiently distributed into the atmosphere - indicating also that there is a longer than anticipated lag-time for atmospheric moistening and also delayed upper tropospheric moistening. As water vapour is a greenhouse gas, this may reach a critial point in time limit at which the rate of warming is buckled before rising sporadically in a staged approach. Pushing the Earth's hydrological cycle into an imbalance can only cause more weather extremes and enhance internal climate variability further.

  47. 2014 SkS Weekly Digest #2

    Anyone can knows and the background of a fellow named Tom Switzer. He just wrote an opinion piece on smh, which reads like Marc Morano:

    Game finally up for carboncrats (warning  before you read: everything in this link is a lie and baselesss rhetoric; read some reader comments to learn that people, thankfully, are generally not deceived by this nonsense)

    Interesting that smh, which boasts as "Independent, Always", allowed their space to such buffon as Switzer. In the name of "balance" in this "debate"? Sounds pathetic. Perhaps  Mr Switzer represents some special interest that distorts his worldview so badly. That's the reasonI'm asking about his background. And sadly, we have another denier to debunk (unless shm withdraws this piece and appologises to the readers, which seams unlikely).

  48. Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows

    The discussions here continue to focus on the relatively trivial 7% of AGW in the atmosphere.
    A paper showing the top 2m of ocean controls the 93% AGW in the oceans was published 3 January. It suggests heat is transported in the oceans from the tropics polewards to basal melt Arctic ice.
    It is based on century-long daily timeseries at Isle of Man that has both tropical and sub Arctic waters with seasonal variations. Earlier work measured evaporation in the tropics. It showed evaporation was temperature and salinity dependent. Buoyant water floats on an ocean heated from above. It is not convective like a kettle on a hob.
    Sea surface temperatures taken for atmospheric purposes, needs to be 3000 times more accurate than air temperatures because of the higher heat capacity of water. In any case, salinity in the upper 2m has hardly ever been measured. Large temperature gradients in the top 3m were reported from the tropics
    Three phases of warming are shown in the 20th century; warming, slight cooling and post 1986 rapid warming. The authors suggest it is greater than 1C in twenty years. They relate this to three phases of icemelt. First multi-year deep ice keels and tidewater glaciers to about 1939. Then a mid-century slight cooling while ice islands and multiyear ice melted. Finally the present period of annual ice melt.
    They showed a mid-century hot cold cycle 1959/1963 coincided with the peak of the 400-year sunspot cycle. It only became apparent for the brief period when solar radiation was two standard deviations larger than long-term means.
    Thus, the mid-century cooling was due to maximum icemelt. The declining annual ice suggests that the buffering of AGW has been largely removed. The authors suggest this could lead to more basal icemelt in tidewater glaciers of the Canadian Archipelago and Greenland. Moreover, the north Pacific water is trapped by equatorial divergence and the 50m Bering Strait. This leads to more intense tropical storms and strengthened sub-polar jet streams. Details of the Pacific evaporation and circulation are not yet online. However, they show eleven interconnected counter-rotating divergent/convergent Lagrangian wind-driven surface gyres transport surface water. Buoyant surface water forms a global nutrient circulation system.
    These papers suggest that we need to study the upper 2m of oceans to understand the 93% of AGW. Far too much emphasis has been put into land-air based purely on models and unverified statistics. This is likely to give deniers a great weapon.
    The Economist has already highlighted the issue: “A simple idea underpins science: ‘trust, but verify’. Results should always be subject to challenge from experiment”, “Modern scientists are doing too much trusting and not enough verifying-to the detriment of the whole of science and of humanity” (Economist, 19 Oct. 2013 p11)
    It is far too easy to sit in front of a computer screen and run models or blog on Skeptical Science. We need to ignore all projections and hypotheses until they have been tested by extensive field observations. The paper shows how the unverified SST assumptions missed ocean climate shifts. The mid-twentieth century problem has been discussed extensively on this website. These papers suggest a physical basis from data taken to oceanographic standards. No models were used though the authors have published research on this area.
    The authors suggest the problem stemmed from confusing correlation with causation. Correlation coefficient would be better named the coincidence index. It is not a relation like the Navier Stokes equations or the Clasius Clapeyron relation with a physical basis. Coincidence is not causality. All this is in the paper cited.
    Given the huge heat capacity of the oceans and verified physics it would be worth switching attention to the upper ocean to understand AGW. Online access is:
    Citation: Matthews, J. B. and Matthews, J. B. R.: Possible signals of poleward surface ocean heat transport, of Arctic basal ice melt, and of the twentieth century solar maximum in the 1904–2012 Isle of Man daily timeseries, Ocean Sci. Discuss., 11, 47-122, doi:10.5194/osd-11-47-2014, 2014.
    Printer Friendly Version:

     

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Fixed link

  49. 2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #2

    Synapsid, I didn't look at the date. Thanks for the heads up.

     

  50. Global warming and energy – intertwined problems in Africa

    If I'm reading the comments on this article correctly...

    ...then no-one is interested in Africa.

    But 'Every single thing every one of us does affects everyone affects everybody, all over the world. It's one global ecosystem'.

    Moderator Response:

    [PW] Eliminated unnecessary white space.

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