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Comments 40501 to 40550:
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Kevin C at 20:24 PM on 26 November 2013Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access
I've just asked the publisher for an update on the open access process. Hopefully I'll have more information tomorrow.
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Ruurd Lof at 17:06 PM on 26 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
@Dana1981 Thanks for the link to the original discussion. I missed that one.
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Tom Curtis at 14:33 PM on 26 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
As noted above, I have overinterpreted the data available to me. This is always a risk when interpreting scientific data as a non-expert. In particular, not being expert I have not always read the range of scientific papers on a subject to put the particular papers on which I rely into context. In this case I accepted too readilly the data from Langen and Vinthner, (2009), or more properly, their webpage on that paper. Prompted by Foster/Wright above, I have since looked at a greater range of the literature and found a significantly more southerly source of Greenland precipitation in most papers (again without claiming an exhaustive search, so I may be missing something. There are three key papers in this reassessment.
1) Johnsen et al (1998) find that most of Greenland precipitation, particularly on the west coast comes from "the subtropical part of the North Atlantic Ocean", with the best modelled results with an assumed source close to weather ship E (Echo), ie, just north of the Mid Latitude High:
(Source)
2) Of particular interest in this discussion is Werner et al (2001), which examines source water for precipitation in both Greenland and Antarctica. The find the only overlapping source for Summit at Greenland, and Vostok in Antartica is the tropical Indopacific, which provides just 10% of Greenland's precipitation, but 44% of Vostoks. Polar Seas provide 15% of Greenlands moiture, and the North Altantic 28%. In all, 72% comes from the extratropical NH, and the remainder from the tropics, with none from the SH.
3) Also of interest is Sodemann et al (2008a), which discusses the sources of winter precipitation in Greenland. In particular, the examine the effect of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on the sources:
Again, the dominance of the North Atlantic as a source is evident; but so to is the large shift in source with a shift from postive to negative NAO.
Overall, a clear picture that most precipitation from Greenland comes from the extratropical North Atlantic and Polar seas. There is almost no moisture from the SH, and none from the SH extra-tropics. There is an almost complete divergence between sources for Greenland and Antarctic ice, showing that neither can be considered a global proxy. Further, Greenland ice shows a significant shift in source based on dominant weather states (NAO) making it even less suitable as a global proxy.
So, while my over interpretation has lead to a clear error in relationshipt to the dominant source of Greenland precipitation by placing it to far north, it does not effect the conclusion that Greenland ice cores are a regional, not a hemispheric or global proxy. Curiously, the 44% contribution from tropical waters to the Vostok precipitation makes it, though clearly not a global proxy, a significantly better approximation than Greenland ice cores.
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John Hartz at 12:14 PM on 26 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
StealthAircraftSoftwareModeler: Your three most recent posts have been deleted for violating the Comments Policy prohibition against sloganeering. Your proposensity to pratter on about anything and everything is indeed tiresome to Moderators and readers alike.
Please read the SkS Comments Policy and adhere to it. If you do not, you will forfeit your privalege to post comments on this site.
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scaddenp at 12:07 PM on 26 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Further PS on SST change. What period on time are you looking at? Decadal level cycles like PDO and AMO affect SSTs. If you are only looking at <20 years, then that data doesnt tell you much about climate change.
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scaddenp at 11:56 AM on 26 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
PS. My evidence of ideological bias. In an interview with Watts on PBS.
"SPENCER MICHELS: What’s the thing that bothers you the most about people who say there’s lots of global warming?
ANTHONY WATTS: They want to change policy. They want to apply taxes and these kinds of things may not be the actual solution for making a change to our society."
To me that sounds pretty much like the wonderful "skeptic" logic of "The only solution I can see to AGW involves things contrary to my political ideology, therefore AGW must be wrong". A better approach would be think up a solution that it is compatiable with your ideology. -
scaddenp at 11:41 AM on 26 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
You are only considering SST. How about looking at basin wide OHC? Looking at THC, you have northward movement of warm water into arctic, where it indeed cools, and sinks.
Have you found things on this site by the way that arent backed by peer-reviewed published science (something you certainly cant say about Watts)? Do you think authors here delibrately mischaracterize science to support an idealogical position? It is good to be skeptical about science but there is a big difference between skepticism and delibrately pushing misinformation.
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nigelj at 11:26 AM on 26 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Nice idea on ocean warming. I have another comment on communicating the science to the average person. Firstly I think the mainstream climate science community has done a fine job with the IPCC reports, and on sites like this.
However there are problems as well. The issue is that the public mostly gets its information from the popular media and the sceptics tend to manipulate that and dominate it well. I have rarely heard the IPCC or leading climate scientists full force in the popular media pushing their case and refuting the sceptics.
The few occassions I have heard the climate scientists in the press or on television, they over complicate things. I know scientists want to do science, but communication is essential people. Dont leave it to journalists or Al Gore he has too much political baggage. The public will only respect climate scientists or the IPCC.
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Tom Curtis at 11:21 AM on 26 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
re: steve foster @38-40, further research has shown that I have over interpreted the global circulation diagram and the data from one study shown above. It does not, however, support "Foster's" claims. I will discuss this in detail in a follow on post, but first go point by point through "Foster's"' claims:
1) The troposphere includes the entire atmosphere from the base of the lowest blade of grass to (approximately) 150 hpa. As such, it certainly includes winds over the ocean surface, and over Greenland, and hence it is tropospheric winds that account for the snowfall in Greenland.
2) Water vapour is carried far higher into the atmopshere in the tropics than anywhere else, but not in any significant amount into the stratosphere. That is because the troposphere reaches to a far higher altitude in the tropics than elsewhere on the planet. Because water vapour precipitates out with the cold, the stratosphere in fact has very little water vapour compared to the troposphere:
(Source)
3) You are missing the point. The dry band at the northern edge of the NH Hadley zone results means nearly all water vapour from the tropics has been precipitated out. Only a portion of it then travels further north, with most returnd to the tropics by the trade winds. Of that which travels north, much of it will be precipitated out, with some of that being replaced by newly evaporated water vapour from mid-latitude oceans. This is particularly the case as it travels along the surface.
4) Actually, Antarctica (168 mm year continental average) does recieve less precipitation than the Arctic (<500 mm per year average), with the highest most central regions of Antarctica receiving 50 mm per year compared to <100 to 200 mm per year for central Greenland (described as the driest part of the Arctic).
5) The Arctic ocean varies quite significantly in winter temperatures, and away from the ice edge varies also in summer temperatures.
6) Foster completely ignores the second figure in my preceding graph which shows the large difference in circulation between Holocene and glacial conditions, something I specifically commented on.
7) As Phillipe Chantreau @40 points out, your maths on distances is just wrong. More crucially, the stratosphere has very little moisture compared to the troposphere as can be seen by comparing the figure above to the zonally averaged specific humidity:
(Source)
Comparison shows a specific humidity of at least 1 g/Kg, ie, 1000 ppm by mass, through out the surface troposphere. For comparison, stratospheric values are around 4 ppm by volume. As H2O is a light molecule, that drops to closer to 2 ppm by mass. Therefore the stratosphere is several orders of magnitude too dry to be the major source of precipitation at any location in the troposphere. It is also far too dry to be a channel through which tropical (still less SH) moisture is tranferred to the poles.
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wili at 08:40 AM on 26 November 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #47
Neven is now covering the seabed methane article on his Arctic Sea Ice blog: http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/11/and-the-wind-cries-methane.html#more
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Paul D at 08:39 AM on 26 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Wonder if it would be a good idea to have it configurable so that the default comparison can be changed by setting a parameter in the embedding code?
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4 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
What about 25 hair dryers (1500 watts each) for every human on Earth running 24/7?
Or 2 or 3 electric cars?
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dana1981 at 08:20 AM on 26 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
I would encourage people who have concerns about the Hiroshima bomb unit of energy to read John Cook's post from a few months ago, 4 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second. This wasn't a spur of the moment decision, we put a great deal of thought into it.
And if you're uncomfortable with that unit, the widget offers others like Hurrican Sandys, lightning bolts, etc.
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chriskoz at 08:17 AM on 26 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
wili@13,
Here's an interesting quote from that article:
About 17 teragrams of methane [...] escapes each year from [...] East Siberian Arctic Shelf, said Natalia Shakova, [...]; the world emits about 500 million tons (teragrams) of methane every year from manmade and natural sources. The new measurement more than doubles the team's earlier estimate of Siberian methane release, published in 2010 in the journal Science.
(my emphasis)
If their estimates are accurate, that would partially explain the increase in CH4 concentration from late 2000s:
The concentration increased by ~.050ppm, from 1.740ppm, which is %3, while contribution from Arctic Shelf's emissions jumped from ~8/500 (1.6%) to ~17/500 (3.5%). That difference (up to 2%) does not quite make up the %3 difference in concentrations but the most of it. The rest must be coming from other sources, perhaps increased emissions from hydraulic fracking. Keep in mind that these are just rough envelope calculation by myself; proper calculations may give different proportion.
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Ruurd Lof at 07:18 AM on 26 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Hi, I like the idea of using metaphors in order to get the message to the public....but. To use the image of Hiroshima bombs to instruct people about global warming seems to me a little over the edge. Scientifically the comparison is like 5 pears equals 5 appels. And I do not really think that the public gets the message except that naming Hiroshima is like naming the Holocaust. It is intended to shock people. I think people should be shocked about Global Warming, but for the right reason.
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CollinMaessen at 05:25 AM on 26 November 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #47
Thanks for the mention. :)
Moderator Response:[JH] You're welcome and thank you for all that you do.
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:16 AM on 26 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
DB... Why am I not surprised?
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jdixon1980 at 04:15 AM on 26 November 2013Will extreme weather like super typhoon Haiyan become the new norm?
wpsokeland@34
"The average trmperature of our globe is varying over the past 30 years with swings of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees centigrade -- up and down. The general overall trend is upward. Since the solar constant, your only energy source ts constant and, if greenhouse gases were continually increasing via human input, the average temperature of our globe would be continually increasing. There would be no temperature swings as seen in the data. Any PhD in heat transfer would know that a different energy source is active in the real temperature variation." (my emphasis)
I agree that any Ph.D. in heat transfer understands conservation of energy, and thus, to the extent that the thermal energy that is added to a system isn't converted into something else like chemical potential energy, latent heat of phase change, mechanical work, or mechanical potential energy, the average temperature of the system (as long as "average temperature" is calculated by properly weighting temperature data with heat capacity of the material at the recorded temperature, to accord with conservation of energy) is generally physically forced to rise when you add thermal energy to it. I don't think you have to be a specialist in heat transfer or have a Ph.D. or even a B.S. in anything to understand conservation of energy. Conservation of energy is an intuitive concept that people are generally taught in required science courses in high school if not before.
That said, I suspect you are misapplying the principle of conservation of energy to the global climate. What do you mean by "average temperature of the globe?" I assume you probably mean average surface air temperature over land? If so, that represents a very tiny component of the thermal energy of the climate system, about 90% of which is found in the oceans. Given the cycles of heat flow back and forth between the oceans and the land and atmosphere, it is unsurprising and consistent with AGW theory that there are fluctuations in land surface air temperature rather than a constant rise. My understanding is that, when you account for warming of the oceans, the total thermal energy of the climate system has been consistently increasing over the past 30 years, as would be expected given the thermal disequilibrium caused primarily by spiking CO2 levels primarily due to human activities.
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wili at 03:13 AM on 26 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
LiveScience has a good article on the methane study, too. LINK
RealClimate and neven's Arctic Sea Ice blog are both planning lead posts on this story soon. How about SkS?? '-)
Moderator Response:[RH] You can actually hotlink your own URL's if you look at the second tab above the comments box labeled "insert." Just highilght the text you want to link and the paste the URL into the box that pops up. It's easy and will save the moderators some work. Thx!
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tluke at 02:52 AM on 26 November 2013Global Warming Paws Fails to Materialise: Earth Still Warming and Global Sea Level Rising Like Gangbusters
I sent a summary of this paper to a friend who is both a scientist and somewhat skeptical of the AGW consensus. She sent me a response to the article (and a few others that address the gap in arctic coverage) by Judith Curry. I read Judith's response and I had a very hard time following her critique. I have seen some responses to what Judith Curry has written on other issues in the comments on Skeptical Science but I am not aware of anything on this particular issue. I would like to provide my friend with a response to Judith Curry's critique that focuses on the science. Any suggestions?
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Dikran Marsupial at 02:19 AM on 26 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Thanks Michael, glad to hear my intuition wasn't too far out! Hopefully this fully addresses SASM's question.
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michael sweet at 01:05 AM on 26 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Dikran,
Freezing of sea ice releases a lot of heat into the atmosphere. This accounts for much of the increase in temperature in the Arctic in fall. Then the ice insulates the ocean from the coldest part of the winter. In the summer, that heat is absorbed again from the sun to melt the ice.
The melting and refreezing of sea ice does not contribute to the net heat budget of Earth since it is returned later. Melting ice caps uses some heat, but it is a small fraction of what the Earth absorbs from AGW.
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Bernard J. at 18:55 PM on 25 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Dang, deleted some text in that last paragraph. The gist is apparent, I hope.
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Bernard J. at 18:49 PM on 25 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Heh, synchonicity...
A while back I was talking with one of my colleagues in the staff tea room and, after a bit of back-of-the-journal-envelope arithmetic, we worked out that at the rate that the human population is currently growing, if one started from around the time that the Keeling curve data began to be collected the rate of Hiroshima energy accumulation would follow pretty closely the human population clock as it ticks over today.
Except that the accumulation of energy is about 4.6 bombs/second using the value for Little Boy was actually a little greater than the rate of turning over of the human population clock, so the HPC would run too slow...
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Dikran Marsupial at 18:41 PM on 25 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
SASM If you want to avoid the impression of trolling, when someone answers your question, explicitly state those parts of the answer that you accept, and explain why you reject those parts of the answer that you do not accept. Do not just raise another objection without dealing correctly with the answer you have already been given. A common tactic of trolls is not to give a hostage to fortune by explicitly agreeing to anything as it means that they cannot then go back to that topic later and say the opposite. Also if someone asks you a direct question, give a direct answer.
Now as to the assymetry. The Arctic is an ocean and it has currents floating into and out of it all the time. As the Arctic ocean is colder than the Atlantic or Pacific, that suggests that these ocean currents are on balance transporting heat into the Arctic, causing it to be warmer than would otherwise be the case. This doesn't happen for the Antarctic, becase it is a land mass, so the ocean currents can't bring heat to the pole (note the Anarctic peninula is warming). Secondly if sea water gets much colder than 0C it freezes, rather than getting colder. This means that the ocean under the ice is much warmer than the air above it in the Arctic. There is no similar phenomenon that stops the rock under the ice in Antarctica from getting colder until there is an equilibrium with the air temperature above the ice. I am not a physicist, but my intuition suggests that the formation of ice is slightly exothermic (i.e. gives out heat) as otherwise you wouldn't need heat to melt it. That explains why the oceans don't get much colder than a few degrees below zero C (depending on salinity). I suspect someone here who is a physicist can explain the details.
P.S. I was going more for an English civil war look ;o})>
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ajki at 16:59 PM on 25 November 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #47
re: Toon of the Week
Brilliantly summing up COP19 and the undergoing political process. Just plain and simple brilliant.
And not for the first time.
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barry1487 at 16:36 PM on 25 November 2013Super Typhoon Haiyan: Realities of a Warmed World and Need for Immediate Climate Action
YubeDude,
Side note on bamboo for construction/scaffolding:
I first came across it being extensively used in Hong Kong. My first thought was that it was a third world thing (not really knowing Hong Kong's financial status at 22 year of age). But then someone told me that it was a great material, as it was cheap, lightweight, easily and quickly grown, strong and flexible. Scaffolding can be more extensive and higher thanks to the weight/strength ratio.
I also learned that it is a better scaffolding material for high winds, taking the force of wind better than metal, owing to the flex, and that if it falls, the lighter weight does less damage.
So though it looks like a compromise developing countries have to make, it turns out that it may well be a better choice of material, especially for high wind events.
Rebuilding costs to developing countries is a subtler issue than at first glance. If infrastructure is cheaply made and restored, then rebuilding could be less onerous, other factors depending, than for wealthier countries with expensive infrastructure. But a fairly safe generalization is that structures in the developing world (bamboo scaffolding aside), do not withstand high winds as well as wealthier countries. Immediate impact for third world communities is more devastating. And, according to the IPCC, most areas of the world more vulnerable to the risks of climate change are where developing countries are.
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Tom Curtis at 16:23 PM on 25 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #47B
Trevor S @4, voters have only limited influence over the policy outcomes of elections, despite propaganda to the contrary. The first, and most fundamental reason for this is that voters do not get to vote for policies individually. When you go to an election, you get to vote for a candidate for your local seat and (depending on jurisdiction) perhaps also an upper house member and/or chief executive. The candidates you are voting for will have a large number of policies, either personally, or as dictated by the policies of the party for which they stand. Consequently, when you vote for a particular member, you do not, because you cannot vote for any one policy. Rather you vote for a bundle of policies, some of which you may disagree with. Further, you do not just vote for that bundle of policies, but also for the member (and their party), and hence as part of the bundle for which you vote is an estimate of the integrity, intelligence and vigour of the candidate and the administrative competence of the party.
If this were not enough, candidates will often hide some of their policies, of simply change their policy after election. On top of that, the voter is more or less lied to continuously by the supposedly free press, much of which considers its role in a democracy to by similar to that of Pravda in the USSR. Even diligent citizens, therefore, must be to some extent ill informed.
Consequently, the claim that the policy outcome of a newly elected government is "what the voters want" is simplistic, and in fact must be false in any democracy in which policies are not approved line by line by the electorate. At best, the policy outcomes are what the voters can live with, given the range of policy and administrative alternatives.
This is not to exonerate voters for the slow and ineffectual response to climate change. However, the politicians and journalists who should have as their first duty the facilitating of their full accountability to the electorate, but who have instead resorted to irrational policies, faux policy debates, personality politics, and outright lies (in the case of politicians); and to false balance (at best) and in many cases outright anti AGW mitigation propaganda (in the case of journalists) bear far heavier blame. They are betraying democracy, and with it the citizens of their nations. Unfortunately, in the face of global warming, they are betraying future generations at the same time.
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Albatross at 15:48 PM on 25 November 20134 Hiroshima bombs per second: a widget to raise awareness about global warming
Hi Bob,
Brilliant work! Take a bow, you deserve it.
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SkepticalinCanada at 15:02 PM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Please, please, please....the article and one of the comments say that Canada does not care. It is more correct to say that the current right wing government of Canada and a certain proportion of Canadians don't seem to care. Some Canadians, including myself, are passionate about this issue, and care very much. I am ashamed of the way the representatives of Canada have deliberately sabotaged climate talks, and hope that the next election brings some sanity to the issue.
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TonyW at 14:13 PM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Perhaps a reduction in the rate of growth of emissions is indicative of the real level of global economic growth. It's unfortunate that there isn't a common way of estimating economic growth across the globe, and that some countries employ all manner of tricks to make the figure look as good as possible. Consequently, it's all but impossible to determine if carbon intensity is really reducing. However, energy and, thus, emissions (given that all energy sources have some fossil fuel element and that the global energy mix is still predominately fossil fuels) being a reasonable proxy for the level of the economy, I would say global economic growth has been in the doldrums for the past two years. Hopefully (from the point of view of a liveable environment), permanent economic contraction can set in, to start the emissions actually decreasing. -
scaddenp at 13:37 PM on 25 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
I have not looked at ocean circulation and climate in any detail at all, however, this little fact sheet on the thermohaline circulation does talk qualitatively on the effects on climate.
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scaddenp at 13:15 PM on 25 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
Frankly it is hard to someone seriously if they are reading WUWT. You are happy with being misinformed? Why would that be?
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scaddenp at 13:12 PM on 25 November 2013Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows
If you see here, other people keen to have C&W available have stumped up the funds to make it freely available. However, the points I made above were outlined in the Realclimate article which you claimed to have read.
Most of the energy imbalance created by CO2 goes into heating the ocean which has complex mechanisms for distributing heat vertically and horizontally, with decadal level effects on surface temperature. Want to describe that without models? Noone is claiming that climate is solely a function of GHG. Currents, cloud cover are all part of this but they are responses not forcings.
If you are aiming at solely nitpicking anything at all that you can, without also making some effort to understand the explanations given to you and to read the references supplied for understanding, then frankly that counts for trolling. Writers and commentators here are not here to pass some test you want to put, but are certainly interested in helping someone understand the science. You come across as trolling when you dont acknowledge responses, apparently ignore links and instead jump to some new denier talking point.
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wili at 11:07 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Ah, I see that further down it says:
"Shakhova and her colleagues estimate that 17 teragrams are escaping each year, though the new study says the estimates are likely on the conservative end."
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wili at 10:52 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Thanks, DB.
Picked up by CC now: LINK
Here's Shakhova's quote in that article: "In 2003, we started from zero observational data on methane available for this area"
So in under ten years it's gone from nothing to "100–630 mg methane m−2 d−1" or as the NS piece puts it "500 tonnes of methane to bubble out of every square kilometre of the sea bed each day."
That would be bad enough if it were a linear increase. But since it is part of a feedback system it is almost certain to be exponential in its growth. I'd love to see estimates of total methane release from the area at this time.
Moderator Response:[DB] Hotlinked URL.
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wili at 09:19 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Here's the link to the Nature article (thanks to prokaryote at RC):
Ebullition and storm-induced methane release from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf
Moderator Response:[DB] Hotlinked URL.
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scaddenp at 08:37 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Found the paper I was looking for: "Validity of the temperature reconstruction from water isotopes in ice core", Jouzel et al 1997 (the et al including Johnson, Alley, Cuffey and Dansgaard).
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wili at 07:57 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
From the main article:
“This is the second year in a row of below average emissions. Perhaps this represents cautious progress,” Le Quéré told IPS.
Surely, Le Quere should have said "This is the second year in a row of below average growth in emissions"? Perhaps something was lost in translation? A casual reader could be quite confused by this. Meanwhile, Allen and Stocker are pointing out that we need to be reducing the rate of emissions by about 2% or more starting now. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/historic-co2-emissions-require-immediate-cuts-16771
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wili at 07:17 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Oops. Here's the actual link to the NS article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24639-arctic-storms-speed-up-release-of-methane-plumes.html#.UpJdRI2kCxl
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Trevor_S at 07:17 AM on 25 November 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #47B
@ 3 One Planet
"mainly concerned about pursuing more for 'their population' so they can get re-election of leaders by showing what they got away with. That pursuit of re-election is particularly damaging when the ones wanting election can easily promote the 'popularity of getting away with unsustainable and damaging activities'."
For that to be true, (and I mostly agree with you) it means it's a reflection of what the voters want. If it wasn't, they wouldnt be elected. If we are to play the blame game, lets lay it squarley at the feet of those most deserving, the voters. Those very same voters who emit (in the Annex 1 nations) most of the Worlds CO2e. One just has to look at the result of the recent elections in Australia. If you are aware of the Science of AGW (and who could not be these days) , aware of the projections showing the damage that will be caused from the your emissions and then vote to elect politicains who have no intention of a reduction of any efficacy, then who is really to "blame" ? You're either a physcopath, a denier, or don't really care (this is not a critisism, just an observation). Back to Australia, voting for the ALP would have simialry seen no effective reduction, as they both subscribe to a similar mantra ... Is it any wonder that's the path persued by politicans the World over ?
Apprently we need to form an orderly que to do the right thing and every nation wants to be last in the que to have a "competetive" advantage. There are a few individuals doing the rfight thing (I like to think my partner and I are, in terms of CO2e emission we're ultra low) but the ones with the spotlight on them aren't eg Gore, Flannery, Mckibben etal are all prodigious emitters.
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chriskoz at 07:08 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
PluviAL@2
Obviously you don't provide any reference to your pluvinergy "magic", why? Because you simply don't have it. Curiously I looked around and all I found is this:
http://www.pluvinergy.com/products.html
and a link to some non-existent blog and non-existent youtube video therein. Google reported that that this "pluvinergy" concept existd at least since Feb 2010 (someone mentioned the term on some blog back then) so by now it should be at least widely discussed technology.
The verbatim quote from the website above:
Although Pluvinergy is much simpler than cell-phones, DNA technology, or Nuclear Technology, it still requires more detail than can be offered in a basic website.
We have laid out the complete theory, process, and plan for development and rapid deployment...
is like the quote from the XIXth century inventor of perpetuum mobile: surely his invention was simpler than the contemporary technology, yet difficult to grasp by "not-involved" reader. That's because te "miracle" was only his dream and indeed, dreams may be quite complex to grasp by others. The dreamers have even patented some of those "miracles". The patents are nothing but just harmeless distraction from the realistic knowledge. Those machines back then were all sorts of spinning mechanical contraptions in a box, according to then fashion trends (steam engine, reciprocal petrol engine), now climate science and earth energy budget seem to be infashion, so the according "machines" are being "invented".
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PhilMorris at 07:06 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
Pluvial@2. Well perhaps the moderator should have treated your submission as spam. I went to your website, clicked on the link 'How it works' and was not too suprised to see nothing of significance there, except a link to buying a book on Amazon. Hm, seems like advertising to me!!
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wili at 07:04 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
I don't really want to know anything about "pluvenergy." For now, just consider how humans (specifically industrial society) has trashed the planet (even leaving out GW) with the energy it has used so far. Clearly, providing humans with vast new energy sources is not in the best interests of the planet, nor even in the best long-term interests of humans.
Back to the topic of increased carbon: There has just been an article published about a carbon feedback that could have major consequences in the coming years and decades:
Nature Geoscience DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2007.
Here's a link to an article in New Scientist about the research: DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2007.
Quite a dramatic story! Worthy of a main post, or at least to be included in the next weekly roundup?
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scaddenp at 06:56 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
This has come up before but I cant find it. There is a paper demonstrating that it is regional. Fractionation during precipitation is reason. Anti-phased cooling periods between Antarctica and Greenland would also not be observed in ice core if the proxy was global (and would be challenging comparing GISP2 to tropical glacier icecore and insisting that they represented a single global proxy!).
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Larry E at 06:03 AM on 25 November 2013Will extreme weather like super typhoon Haiyan become the new norm?
The chart is interesting. If you use the vertical bands to designate decades you can put a red dot at the appropriate point on that timespan for each cyclone. This greatly improves understanding of the data.
Sorry that I don't know how to post graphics here, since I don't have a place on-line to post my enhanced graphic.
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:00 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Steven Foster @40... Richard Alley, who is probably the leading expert on the Greenland ice core data, repeatedly states that the Greenland summit data is a regional, not hemispheric, record of temperature.
Moderator Response:[DB] Steven Foster was a sock-puppet, fake user ID deployed by the departed Morgan Wright. Both have had user privileges revoked, as will any subsequent iterations.
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Dumb Scientist at 05:18 AM on 25 November 2013Book review - The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars now Available in Paperback
For the last 800,000 yrs, CO2 stayed below 300ppm
CO2 was last at 400ppm ~3 Myrs ago: much of Florida was underwater
This'll be interesting. -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:57 AM on 25 November 2013Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Also, where is the reference for this?
"All the snow they get in Flagstaff comes from the desert air"
The college of agriculture and life sciences of U. of Arizona says that it comes from Pacific storms and their associated fronts. They also concur with Tom Curtis on the desert bands, as does essentially everything I've read about it.
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened link that was breaking page format.
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PluviAL at 03:50 AM on 25 November 2013Carbon Emissions on Tragic Trajectory
The problem, one-planet and wpsokeland, is that these are impractical solutions. The ascent of civilization is energy based. To stop ascension seems to chaotic, the better solution is to bring all people onboard. a) 75% of the population is outside the vessel of wealth; poor. b) If population growth is best controlled by economic ascension; as China's experiment with population control seems to indicate.
Alternatively, geothermal energy is insufficient. It is about 44 TW, compared to solar of 174,000 TW. Considering civilization now uses about 17 TW, the 44 TW is not enough. PV is a far better solution, or even wind, a product of solar energy. We argue at length that both of these are impractical too.
Please don't consider this spam, I believe the host of the website has already considered it and allowed me back into the community. Has anyone considered my argument in Pluvinergy? Not to flatter, but the level of scientific literacy, and open mindedness here is my best hope for a fair hearing. Being as intellectually honest as I can manage, this seems to be a genuine solution. And if, as I agree with the problem summarized by the article and these two posts, the analysis of the problem is correct, Pluvinergy is the only viable solution proposed. It may be wrong as proposed, but according to its argument it is the only real solution.
I would really appreciate any comment or direction. The illustrations are very bad in the paper version so I plan to redue the book as an interactive book, so any direction is valuable. PS: It is ok to tell me I am crazy, I have gotten a lot worse comments in creagslist community. But, I expect much better input from this community. Thanks.
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