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Tom Curtis at 09:36 AM on 2 January 20142013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
One Planet Only Forever @6, eloquently stated. It also, I believe ignores other aspects of the problem with geoengineering by reducing sunlight. Consequently I agree with you that mitigation is the best strategy at the moment.
Never-the-less, as world governments continue to dawdle in tackling climate change, they push up the costs of mitigation. Therefore continued dawdling may well push us into a situation where we must choose between pure, unmitigated climate change of +4 C or more, or reduction of CO2 emissions and concentration and reduction in insolation as a bridging method to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. That is, we may be forced to choose the least worst of two ills.
We are in the situation of the Titanic. If the captain does not turn and slow the ship soon, we may well be happy of the existence of life boats in the form of geoengineering, without in any way implying that life boats are a preffered method of crossing the Atlantic.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:39 AM on 2 January 20142013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
I will attempt to clarify the issue of why artificially blocking sunlight is an unacceptable option for addressing the current and imminent challenge caused by increasing CO2 emissions.
The first statement in the article that needs to be understood is:
“If you make the atmosphere warmer, but keep the sunlight the same, evaporation increases by 2% per degree of warming. If you keep the atmosphere the same, but increase the levels of sunlight, evaporation increases by 3% per degree of warming.”
This highlights that evaporation changes would occur from a ‘geo-engineered solution’. The following statement from later in the article highlights the risks of messing with the evaporation.
“To change the pattern and degree of evaporation would inevitably disturb weather systems and disrupt agriculture, with unpredictable and potentially catastrophic consequences.”
So it may be possible to change things in a way that is speculated to ‘control the surface temperature’ but there would be added risk of increased uncertainty of evaporation and resulting weather patterns.
A related issue is the way some people only look at regional ‘longer growing seasons’ from global warming and claim a ‘benefit’ is being obtained. However, as the temperature increases the added uncertainty of predicting the likely weather, and precipitation patterns, for the upcoming growing season in any location would negate any potential benefits of an extended growing season. The added risk of damage from more likely extreme weather events further reduces the potential benefit.
Of course another reason not to attempt to geo-engineer a ‘solution’ is the simple fact that an absolute understanding of every interaction and consequence of the human imposed alteration would need to be in place before ‘beginning to experiment’ with things. There is certainly ‘no time’ to develop the required understanding to allow such ‘ambitious and potentially damaging activities’ to be started.
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wili at 08:03 AM on 2 January 20142013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
Here's a link to an abstract for the article in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html
"Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing" by Steven C. Sherwood,Sandrine Bony & Jean-Louis Dufresne
And here's a link to a short video with discussion by one of the authors (Sherwood) of the article linked above:
http://climatestate.com/2013/12/31/planet-likely-to-warm-by-4c-by-2100-scientists-warn/
As I understand it, this study pretty much does away with all the models that predict global warming sensitivity at anything less than 3 degrees C for every doubling of atmospheric CO2.
So what's left are the models that show warming of between 3 and about 5 degrees C for every doubling. And it is sure looking like we are heading to at least a doubling by century's end if not much sooner (especially with carbon feedbacks kicking in and carbon sinks about to turn into sources...).
Basically, all those low-balling models had an unrealistic circulatory mechanism behind their models and so can be ruled out.
This is pretty damn big new, folks, if it's right. Worthy of a main post here, perhaps??
Moderator Response:[JH] Links activated.
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More misleading Congressional climate testimony
barry - In light of the (frequent) denier claims that there has been no warming in the last 15-16 years, only occasionally qualified by "no statistical" warming - pointing out that there has indeed been warming at nearly statistical significance is entirely appropriate.
I had a conversation with someone on JoNova regarding this - they asked "...what if 2-3 years more data show cooling?". I replied that I would be very happy about it. But given that the 15 year record showed warming, that 2-3 more years would likely show statistically significant warming, and that the underlying physics hadn't changed, their hypothetical would require massive drops in temperature to produce a downward trend. Something on the line of the McLean nonsense; which I considered rather unlikely...
"No statistically significant warming" does not mean "no warming", and false 'skeptic' arguments based on semantic ambiguity should be pointed out.
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StBarnabas at 00:29 AM on 2 January 20142013 in Review: a Productive Year for Skeptical Science
Dana
thanks for this. And to Chriskoz for the link. There is also a Guardian article on Sherwood's paper on P9 of today's paper (1/1/14) Here is a link to the online version
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/31/planet-will-warm-4c-2100-climate
Moderator Response:[JH] Link activated.
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garethman at 23:11 PM on 1 January 2014Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
Rocketman @ 10. The reason for my posting is that I was impressed by the discussion over on 'And then there is Physics' regarding communication. When I discuss why science is so confident about climate science or why the climate is still warming despite the oft qouted slowdown, their eyes start to glaze over if I get into too much detail. I wondered whether we could express a truth in shorter soundbites which are logical but convey a complex message. We know people understand complex subjects when being given information in small chunks. Hence the idea that if there are only 3 options and two are excluded, there is a fair chance the third is the correct information. A small, uncomplex chunk of information which may be useful. By the the way with regard to trend, the one I think that is important at present is the one you have refferred to regarding anomolous warming over the last 100 years.
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chriskoz at 18:15 PM on 1 January 20142013 in Review: a Productive Year for Skeptical Science
Doug@3,
A new study (via Mike Mann's facebook) :
Climate: Cloud Mixing Means Extra Global Warming
is another nail into the coffin of "Iris hypothesis" by Dick Lindzen. Clouds, if anything, may amplify the forcing of GHG such as H20. And that's consistent with generally higher CS value deduced from paleo record rather than from direct observations. How much more evidence is needed before we finally put to bed Lindzen's sticky idea? Incredible.
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barry1487 at 17:50 PM on 1 January 2014More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Tom,
Thanks again for the reply.
Rounding is not what I take issue with. Maybe I'm not making my point clearly enough. I quote Tamino in case that helps.
...there’s not enough data in 16 years to tell for sure, statistically speaking, which way [the trend is] going. That always happens — always — when the time span is short.
If the uncertainty estimate is larger than the trend over the 15 years, then no definitive value or even sign for that trend can be claimed - by anyone. Dana compounds Christy's error on this point. Pointing to the mean estimate doesn't mitigate this, and we would instruct a contrarian on statistical significance if they did the same.
I believe the accuracy of the argument could be improved without undercutting it's effectiveness. KR's reference to Tamino's 'Fifteen' post lights one possible way.
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dana1981 at 17:40 PM on 1 January 20142013 in Review: a Productive Year for Skeptical Science
BC @4 - I don't know where they get 57% from. The IPCC report did say the mythical 'pause' is due to about half changes in external forcings and about half due to internal variability. My sense was that they were just being very non-specific and saying 'about half and half' because they didn't have the confidence to be any more precise than that. Personally I think that recent research (including several studies discussed in the above post, published after the IPCC AR5 cutoff date) make a strong case that internal variability (ocean cycles) are responsible for more of the slowdown in surface warming than changes in external forcings, but there's not a consensus about that yet.
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2013 in Review: a Productive Year for Skeptical Science
Congratulations to SKS on their achievements in 2013. Amongst much else I have appreciated the weekly news summary from John Hartz.
I'm interested in any comments about the following. In this posting there's the following statement - "External factors, like decreased solar and increased volcanic activity, have also played a role in the slowed surface warming, but internal variability due to ocean cycles appears to be the main culprit."
However in John's recent weekly news (28 Dec) the 3rd article (Climate change 2013: Where we are now - not what you think) contained - "The new IPCC report tells us that half of warming (57%) that should have already occurred has been masked by aerosols mostly emitted since the turn of the century in rapidly developing Asian nations (yes, warming would double if cooling smog pollutants were suddenly cleaned up in Asia)."
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Tom Curtis at 15:14 PM on 1 January 2014More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Barry @22, clarrifying my inaccurate reading above, and as Kevin C points out @9 above, the article refers to the total warming over 15 years, not the 10 year trend over the last 15 years. Thus the 0.21 C/15 years is equivalent to 0.14 C/decade which is the correct value rounded to two significant figures. Consequently the trade off between effective communication and accuracy largely reduces to the appropriateness of the rounding, and of not quoteing error margins.
Note that whatever our view on this, if we have an issue with SkS's practise in this article, we must have a greater issue with Christy's comments before congress. Christy's "global temperature failed to warm over the past 15 years" equates to citing a trend of 0.0 C/decade with no error margin. That is, he rounded the (presumably) 1998-2012 rate to the nearest whole number and dropped the error margins. If you have a problem with SkS rounding to the nearest hundredth, you must think Christy's claims outrageous. Indeed, not a single error margin is to be found in his entire presentation.
On the matter of accuracy and effectiveness, however, the key points is that your communication must not mislead; and that must be part of a series of communications that invites people to find out more. Thus, in the case above, the 15 year trend without error margins is mentioned, but there is also a link to the SkS trend calculator so that those interested can find the full information, including error margins. Again this contrasts with Christy, who at several points in his talk refers to data that has not been published in peer reviewed papers, and which he does not provide sufficient background information for the data to be recreated.
There is a minor problem, however, with the SkS figure IMO. In calculating it, it appears as though they have first rounded the trend, then multiplied it out to 15 years. Had they reversed the procedure, they would have got a more accurate 0.2 C over 15 years (0.2025 without rounding).
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barry1487 at 13:32 PM on 1 January 2014More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Tom, KR,
Christie's claim that the globe has failed to warm over the last 15 years is false.
But the SkS claim that UAH TLT data show a definitive warming of 0.21C - or indeed by any amount - over the last 15 years is not correct either. There is a statistical possibility the trend is zero, whichever start/end dates are chosen. (I am by no means trying to argue that there has been a 'pause' in global temperatures)
That one sentence in the article sticks out for someone who has followed the 'debate' closely for years. A trend value absent uncertainty estimates is a red flag as Tamino and others have noted. But perhaps I'm stepping on the troubled nexus between effective communication and scientific accuracy (assuming my points have merit).
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Doug Hutcheson at 12:56 PM on 1 January 20142013 in Review: a Productive Year for Skeptical Science
"The cloud feedback question is one of the largest remaining uncertainties in future climate predictions, so this is an important new paper. Unfortunately it finds that clouds will act to amplify global warming, suggesting that the planet will warm at least 3°C in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which also suggests at least 4°C global surface warming by 2100 if we continue with business as usual policies."
There goes another favourite meme of the denialisti, that clouds will cool the planet (not that I wish to appear to be celebrating bad news). Ironic that BAU will result in such a change in the environment that big business will become no more than a despised memory. 4°C is nothing to look forward to, but that's where we are tracking. Homo Stupidus stupidus.
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chriskoz at 09:38 AM on 1 January 2014Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
grindupBaker@9,
I share your opinion how the aparent GW "pause" matters. It is the best response to garethman@1 question.
Let us remember that IPCC AR5 have lowered the bounds of equilibrium climate censitivity from 2K to 1.5K based on that. IMO, they did not have grounds to this adjustment, because the surface temp "pause" have been explained by multiple lines of evidence: e.g. current ElNino/LaNina cycles, deep ocean heat uptake and lately by CW2013 hybrid temps adjustment.
Needless to say, giving so much importance to the tiny fraction (3%) of the overall heat data towards the global climate sensitivity is not smart science, but they (IPCC) nevertheless did it in AR5. I've been saying for two years already, that we should switch to ocean heat content as the primary measure of climate change because it constitutes the most (90%) of it and we now measure can it. The other important measure, IPCC should consider in their ECS estimation is the paleo data. And that data consitently points ECS to be 3K or higher and no bias have been discovered in it since AR4. Therefore AR5 had no grounds to lower their ECS.
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dana1981 at 09:34 AM on 1 January 20142013 in Review: a Productive Year for Skeptical Science
Thanks Dawei!
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Dawei at 09:27 AM on 1 January 20142013 in Review: a Productive Year for Skeptical Science
Great summary Dana. To you and everyone else on the team, great work, everything you guys put out gets more and more impressive. The level of intellectual sophistication and creativity in the way it's communicated just keeps improving.
By the way can you add the link to Nuccitelli et al. (2012)? I don't remember which one that was.
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More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Tom Curtis - Agreed and agreed, the '15 years' bandied about by deniers is just nonsense. There is a good discussion by Tamino entitled Fifteen, showing how that period is well above the longer term mean - that slower increases have not yet dropped the temperatures as far below the long term trend as 1998 pushed them above. As to dates, I'm not certain when the most recent UAH data was made available, relative to the testimony and the OP.
Christy has an ongoing history of presenting flat graphs that are irrelevant, too short for significance (15 years, tornados, etc), un-normalized for observation history (max temp records, disasters), cherry-picked (Sierra or winter-only snowfalls ignoring continental yearly data), grossly manipulated (UAH to HadCRUT comparisons [mis]using a single extrema point for a baseline), etc., and attempting to use them as misleading rhetorical arguments against the existence of global warming. His Congressional testimony is just more of the same.
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Tom Curtis at 08:11 AM on 1 January 2014More misleading Congressional climate testimony
KR, the OP was published on Dec 26th, 2013 with reference to testimony by John Christy on Dec 11th 2013. A claim by Christy made at that date is innaccurate if it refers to any period other than Dec 1998 to Nov 2013, or if he had not yet published the Nov 2013 temperatures, Nov 1998 to Oct 2013 (again 0.135 C/decade). If he instead relied on the trend of annual data from Jan 1998 to Dec 2012, he did so knowing that his own data now showed something quite different.
Even if we pretend its OK to use obsolete data in testifying to Congress when you know the up to date data shows something different, we still face the simple fact, well stated by babazoroni:
"The 'pause' is easily shown to be a sham, by noting that it starts well above the the trend line. The long term temp trend also increases when the pause is included Why aren't these facts stated every time someone claims there has been a pause? I've only seen Gavin Schmidt note this, here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/11/short-term-trends-another-proxy-fight/"
(Link made live)
Every scientist knows about regression to the mean. Therefore every scientist knows that choosing a start date for a trend that lies well above the trend to that point will produce a trend less than the long term trend. Therefore Christy knows that choosing a 15 year trend up to mid 2013, and a 16 year trend now misrepresents the science. And to illustrate babazaroni's point:
UAH trend to Dec 1997: 0.044 +/- 0.161 C/decade
UAH trend from Jan 1998 to Nov 2013*: 0.059 +/- 0.226 C/decade
UAH trend to Nov 2013*: 0.138 +/- 0.07 C/decade
* trend calculated on SkS trend calculator, best estimate of terminal month
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Rob Painting at 08:00 AM on 1 January 2014More misleading Congressional climate testimony
So, John Christy conveniently neglects to mention the oceans - where 93.4% of global warming has been accumulating in the last several decades.
I wonder why?
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More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Barry - Unfortunately, "15 years" is a bit vague; I would be reluctant to say yea or nay on a particular figure without knowing the exact beginning and end points of that trend calculation. I don't know how when, for example, this post was initially written, just when it was published, and that may make a difference.
Regardless - the UAH data shows an upward (albeit not statistically significant) trend over 1998-2013, and hence Christy's claim that "As the global temperature failed to warm over the past 15 years..." is demonstrably false.
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barry1487 at 06:32 AM on 1 January 2014More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Thanks for the replies.
KR - you and I are making the same point. It was this statement from the article caught my attention.
"Their data set estimates the warming of the lowest layer of the Earth's atmosphere at 0.21°C over the past 15 years"
I would hesitate to describe that as 'making noise about noise', but it is odd to see a definitive trend value given at SkS when the uncertainty is greater than the trend. Seems out of place in an otherwise reasonable article.
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rocketman at 05:40 AM on 1 January 2014Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
@garethman You are right that the climate is not cooling or staying the same, but you are wrong when you say there is no long term trend. We know with high confidence from paleoclimate research that from about 5000 years Before Present up until 100 BP that the global average temperature was slowly but steadily falling. Over that 4900 year period it fell about 0.7°C - not in a perfectly straight line of course, but probably never more than +/- 0.2°C away from it. Now, in the last 100 years or so the global average temperatue has suddenly risen by about 0.7°C. That is the other point regarding your up-down-sideways comment. There are infinitely more than three options. It could be going down slowly at a rate of 0.7°C per 5000 years or up suddenly at a rate of 0.7°C per 100 years.
Since it is not entirely clear (to me at least) what point you are trying to make, I will add that the above mentioned sudden rise in global average temperature was quantitatively predicted as early as 1938 on the basis of human emissions of CO2.
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grindupBaker at 05:29 AM on 1 January 2014Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
garethman #5 Yes on the soft science of "explanation" but it's the Climate Sensitivity that's up for grabs if one pushes aside the large eclectic mix of babble. Needs many more thermometers in the oceans to reduce the interpolation needed because that can be an accurate measure of warming from year to year. The MST gets pushed around the planet a lot because of innumerable vagaries. It's more of a symptom than a prime indicator (of course, it's the symptoms that get discussed).
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william5331 at 05:07 AM on 1 January 2014Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
Gaia is fighting back. Good luck to her. As the Arctic ocean becomes more and more open and more heat is accumulated, we should see more low pressure events (rising air) over the Arctic and a positive AO. This sucks air from the south and with it heat. It shifts climate zones northward. However, it cools the Arctic with cloud cover taking over the job from snow of reflecting energy back into space. In the mean time, heat sucked nortward, reduces the temperatures in mid latitudes where most of the thermometers are located. Gaia is doing her best. Pity we can't help her. Carbon dioxide emissions for 2013 are a tad above the worst case scenario suggested many years ago. As individuals we are so smart, as a species so dumb. Strange.
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More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Barry - Looking at the UAH data set there has been no significant warming since last Tuesday. That statement, while true, is about as useful as yours; a lack of statistical significance for short time periods (15 years is quite short for atmospheric temperatures) indicates insufficient data, not a "pause" or for that matter a sudden acceleration. You need enough data to actually make a determination.
More complete data sets, such as those including ocean heat content, have sufficient data to discern trends from variation for shorter periods - and those show warming. As do all data sets if you look at enough data to make a distinction - warming.
Claims from insignificant time periods are simply making noise about noise.
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Tom Curtis at 04:18 AM on 1 January 2014More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Barry @13, as you recognize @14, it is now 2014. The last 15 years, therefore, starts in January of 1999, from which date the trend calculator shows a trend of 0.146 +/- 0.215 C per decade. That misses the last one or two months data, including the December data which has not been released yet (and probably not yet calculated). Using WoodforTrees, and ensuring a full 15 years data from Dec 1998-Nov 2013, the trend is 0.135 C per decade.
Those figures are not the 0.21 C quoted in the OP, which appears to be a mistake. Never-the-less, it shows how precarious is the position of those who hang their "skepticism" on short "15 year" trends. No doubt it will be Christy's new year resolution to break that bad habit, and to now discuss only 16 year trends.
Having said which, Happy New Year.
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babazaroni at 01:11 AM on 1 January 2014Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
The 'pause' is easily shown to be a sham, by noting that it starts well above the the trend line. The long term temp trend also increases when the pause is included Why aren't these facts stated every time someone claims there has been a pause? I've only seen Gavin Schmidt note this, here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/11/short-term-trends-another-proxy-fight/
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barry1487 at 00:33 AM on 1 January 2014More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Happy New Year to all.
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Poster9662 at 23:23 PM on 31 December 2013Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
I think the argument from the sceptics is that the temperature trend line showss there has been no statistically significant warming for about 15+ years which they take as being a pause.
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garethman at 21:17 PM on 31 December 2013Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
Thanks GWS, it may be uniformed from a technical viewpoint, but from a logical perspective it seems that if we exclude cooling of the climate, or staying the same, we only have one thing left which is warming. It appears that the warming trend is demonstrated beyond doubt, we also know that there does not appear to be any other long term trend such as cooling or staying the same so what else do we have? So I don't really have a question, apart from to point out that if skeptics claim there is a pause in warming just does not appear to be very logical. It's not a question but a comment on the headline statement which states "The year 2013 is currently on course to be among the top ten warmest years since modern records began in 1850" which will no doubt be challenged in some blogs. My initial comment seemed a straightforward stance to take which may be useful to lay persons who may not be familiar with the details and science of climate science (i.e. the vast majority of the public and press) Apologies in advance for any annoyance and a have great new year .Bwyddin Newydd Da.
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barry1487 at 20:13 PM on 31 December 2013More misleading Congressional climate testimony
"John Christy and Roy Spencer compile satellite measurements of the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere at the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH). Their data set estimates the warming of the lowest layer of the Earth's atmosphere at 0.21°C over the past 15 years, so Christy's opening statement is in direct contradiction with his own data."
I'm a bit confused here, too. I followed the link to the the trend calculator, and using UAH data ["their data set"], I got a trend of 0.054C/dec, with an uncertainy of +/- 0.25C for the last 15 years (1998 - 2012 inclusive). I used the last 15 full years, having read Tamino on annual cycle issues.
The trend is not statistically significant, therefore warming cannot be said to have occurred using just this data set, and the warming revealed is 0.081C for the last 15 full years ignoring uncertainty, not 0.21C. I get the same figure as the article if I calculate to the last calendar month, but the uncertainty larger than trend remains.
1) Have I misunderstood the uncertainty issue?
2) Am I over-cautious regarding the annual cycle problem?
Number 1) seems to undermine the definitive claim of warming for the last 15 years - using only the UAH data set.
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Doug Hutcheson at 18:44 PM on 31 December 2013Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
"The coldest years now are warmer than the hottest years before 1998"
Makes the contrarian claims of "no warming since [insert year here]" look as silly as they are. Of course, we can confidently predict that the contrarians will be telling us in 2014 that there has been no statistically significant warming since 2013. Sigh.
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Doug Hutcheson at 18:37 PM on 31 December 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #52
chriskoz, that article about Abbott's adviser had me shaking my head in disbelief. That the country is being guided by such 'Looney Right' opinions only confirms my worst fears about where the current government is heading. The only light on the horizon is the increasing number of people I am meeting, who are starting to worry about Abbott & Co's blindness to scientific advice. The most unlikely people are starting to realise AGW is real and they don't like the government being so out of touch.
Will 2014 be the year when we brought the Liberals kicking and screaming into the 21st century? I can only hope so, but the auguries are bad.
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MartinG at 17:35 PM on 31 December 2013Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
I think this is an exceptionally good and balanced article. It states the facts as observations, without the usual overload of interpretations (we will see if others in the know dispute them and for what reasons). This is therefore an article which insites credibility. Others may argue the causes, but the observational facts are something we all should be able to agree on. This is the basis of science. Thank you.
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chriskoz at 10:27 AM on 31 December 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #52
At the end of 2013, Tony Abbott (by his advisor) has given us the gift of revelation that he and his advisers are true anti-science nutters:
'Scientific delusion is crumbling'
Todate, I had some hope that current Oz govs are at least some sort of "luke-warmists", arguing the implications and policy responses, etc., but not denying the obvious logic of AGW. After that comment I have no doubt they have taken seriously John Howard's preaching that "scientists are religious zealots" and even extended it to the next level. That portrays them as absolute, uncurable nutters, like Jim Inhofe in US.
I wonder how far they are going to reach with such foolish agenda. Are australian electorate as silly as to believe it?
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gws at 05:24 AM on 31 December 2013Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
Not simplistic, but seemingly uninformed. Why don't you study the issue on these pages (or realclimate.org etc., or a textbook specific to your interests?) a bit more, and then come back with a more specific question or questions.
Moderator Response:gws, garethman's question was not particularly over-the-top, and in fact, his/her question was in support of what the science states. Please be more considferate, and less confrontational, in your remarks.
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gws at 05:06 AM on 31 December 2013Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Skeptical Science
Except that there is no such thing as being "pro-AGW" ... nobody here advocates it to happen.
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william5331 at 04:55 AM on 31 December 2013Southern sea ice is increasing
One connection is missing here. As the westerly winds increase, increasing the push on the sea ice, it increases the speed with which the ice is moving clockwise around the Antarctic. In the southern hemisphere, moving objects veer to the left. In a clockwise rotating system, left is away from the centre. This may be part of the explanation of why the ice is spreading outwards. We see this in the Bearfort gyre. It normally rotates clockwise and in the norther hemisphere, moving objects veer to the right. In a clockwise rotating system in the northern hemisphere, right is toward the centre and indeed, the centre of the Beaufort gyre, contary to one would think at first thought, is higer than the edges. Ocean garbage patches are also an example of this phenomenon.
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garethman at 04:32 AM on 31 December 2013Provisional Statement on Status of Climate in 2013
I am not a scientist, an academic or well qualified to judge the validity of climate science, but if the long term temperature trend is up, and we know climate never stays the same, and the data does not show any cooling, what is left apart from the fact that it has warmed and continues to do so. Or I am being too simplistic?
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grindupBaker at 13:44 PM on 30 December 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
I agree with chriskoz @#1 and don't see how Doug @#2 explained his misunderstanding. Unless I'm missing something, it's a bit like I see from the Skeptic side with its non-sequitor. As scientists discover some of the detrimental side effects of messing around with the ecosystem even more than the present +CO2 they should be reported as such, not as something else.
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DavidBird at 11:30 AM on 30 December 2013Sea Ice Volume is Not Recovering
There's something disturbing about the perspective in this animation. The blocks of ice are foreshortened or something, which creates a misleading impression about the relative decline. The block on the left does not align itself with its value on the axis, and the final volume on the right is not 30% as tall as the one on the right, either by eye or by screen capture followed by measurement. I like the idea, the data are horrifying, but the animation has exaggerated the loss by the manner in which it has been constructed.
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CBDunkerson at 07:32 AM on 30 December 2013More misleading Congressional climate testimony
joeygoze, the usual measurement is "accumulated cyclone energy".
Basically, hurricane Sandy was much larger than most storms. Category 1 winds covering nearly the entire US east coast is a much more powerful storm than Category 1 winds covering a few hundred square miles. The amount of rainfall, size of the storm surge, duration of high winds, et cetera, are all increased.
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william5331 at 06:06 AM on 30 December 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
We mustn't be tempted to use artificial methods to remove Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. While we are pumping ever increasing masses of Carbon into the atmosphere, it is obviously an insane idea but even if our output of carbon ceased tomorrow it is a not starter. Natural processes are so much more powerful as shown by our annual 7ppm variation (8up, 6 down) in atmospheric carbon dioxide. We must, rather restore these natual systems.
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/carbon-sinks.html
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/by-by-coral-atolls.html
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joeygoze9259 at 02:46 AM on 30 December 2013More misleading Congressional climate testimony
Question on statement above. "While Sandy was technically a Category 1 hurricane when it made landfall, it was also more energetic than Hurricane Katrina at landfall, and inflicted about $50bn in damages." The Categories are based on windspeed, right? What is the "more energetic" assertion based on?
Additionally, level of property damage is not a good value to utilize in arguing about increases in storm intensities as that value very dependant on population growth in geographic areas and community preparedness for storms. If Sandy had hit an unpopulated, undeveloped area or hit an area that was very well prepared for storm surge and the resulting $ value of damage was very low, it would certainly NOT be evidence that climate change is not causing increased storm intensities.
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Doug Hutcheson at 11:43 AM on 29 December 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
chriskoz, you didn't quote the last part of the article:
'The authors say: “An immediate consequence of this notion is that climate geo-engineering cannot simply be used to undo global warming.”'
We can't simply cool the Earth that way, because it would cause a catastrope. In this case, the sense of "can't" is "we can't do it because it is a stupid idea", not "we can't do it because it's impossible". So, I would say the heading is valid, although it could have been phrased differently..
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Doug Hutcheson at 11:22 AM on 29 December 2013Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
Now is the Winter1 of our discontent, to misquote the Bard. You have replied to the unimportant part of Tom Curtis's post, so have clearly read and understood it. The important part is this:
"the presence of IR active molecules in the atmosphere warms the surface relative to what its temperature would have been in their absence"
What do you have to say about the science backing Tom's statement? Is your new persona more amenable to examining the evidence and following where it leads, as a true sceptic would?
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Winter1 at 10:02 AM on 29 December 2013Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
re Ahuramazda. Thanks for drawing my attention to the inference which I was inviting by choosing the early Zoarastrian god as a user name. That was not the intention and certainly does not reflect my opinion on the subject of gods or superstitions generally. I have now chosen another user name, as can be seen.
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chriskoz at 09:39 AM on 29 December 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #52
The title "Reducing sunlight ‘will not cool Earth’" is wrong and misleading. Simple energy preservation law implies the opposite: less energy in - the planetary temperature must drop to restore the energy balance.
Even worse than that, the author implies: "two German scientists have just confirmed that you can’t balance the Earth’s rising temperatures by simply toning down the sunlight". In fact, the researchers said nothing alike. They said, as quoted at the end:
...traffic of water vapour around the planet, plays a powerful role in the making of climate. To change the pattern and degree of evaporation would inevitably disturb weather systems and disrupt agriculture, with unpredictable and potentially catastrophic consequences
and that's quite different.
I understand and share the author's dislike of geo-engineering, reinforced by the results of the quoted study. However in reporting it, one must take care to cite the correct news only. Bloating the headlines into bogus/irrational claims is unacceptable and only gives the "sceptics" an argument that "warmists exaggerate the reality".
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scaddenp at 09:03 AM on 29 December 2013Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
Please provide an example of inappropriate use of the term greenhouse gas. Your objection is extremely unclear.
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Tom Curtis at 08:14 AM on 29 December 2013Climate Change: Years of Living Dangerously
@54, I, if others do not, appreciate the irony of somebody, who, having taken the name of God, prattles on about so-called religious traits in others. I also understand and detest the arrogance of those who so name themselves. That arrogance shows in your framing of the discussion. The simple fact is that the term "green house gas" arose from historical usage. That usage is sufficiently inconsequential that there is no benefit gained to counter the confusion that would result from a concerted effort to change terminology. The use of the term no more implies acceptance of a green house model of the "greenhouse effect" than does saying you are in good humour, or find something humourous, implies you accept the greek theory of the four humours.
On a more substantive issue, that the presence of IR active molecules in the atmosphere warms the surface relative to what its temperature would have been in their absence is established beyond any reasonable doubt by direct observations. That climate models predict the approximate magnitude of that effect is also well established. If those climate models then go on to confirm the expected increase in temperature derived from simple consideration of the theory, that gives me far more reason to trust that expectation than do the comments of a person who seeks false authority by giving themselves the name of a god, and who demonstrates by their comment that they do not understand the basic science.
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