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Comments 40551 to 40600:

  1. Antarctica is gaining ice

    I don't believe the ozone hole is the reason the south pole is getting colder. By saying this, we are basically saying that ozone is a more important greenhouse gas than CO2. If ozone is decreasing, in the presence of increasing CO2, the south pole should be getting warmer unless CO2 is less important than ozone as a greenhouse gas. But since the ozone is not currently decreasing, (it's been flat for years), this means we need to stop making this false claim. My null hypothesis is that ozone is NOT the reason the south pole is getting colder, for the reasons I gave. Disprove my null hypothesis, please. 

  2. The Other Bias

    Wili: It would be nice to do something like figure 1 with real data, but to do that we would have to reproduce the HadSST3 calculation, which is a really complex piece of work. And having done that it would probably be impossible to interpret visually because you would have the weather signal superimposed on top of the trend.

    You could complement the illustration with some figures compiled from the real data from this article. (Which I suspect is the least-read of my contributions here, although as a piece of science journalism I think it is my best work.)

  3. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    Thank you to everyone for the generous donations so far. We're at about £1200.

  4. The Other Bias

       Great article. I like a lot about figure one--it really gets across what the problem is quite clearly, once you think about it for a moment. But I'm wondering why there are no units on the y axis. If these are taken from real studies, it shouldn't be that hard to add.

       It makes me less likely to use this otherwise wonderful graph in explaining the issue to, for example, student, or from sharing it on other blogs, since the same criticism will likely be raised and I will be left with no answer (unless, of course, I am missing something blindingly obvious to everyone else...wouldn't be the first time '-) ).

       My other suggestion for making that graph even stronger is to draw another red line (or another color, if you wish, with a legend to mark it) showing how the ship-alone data, too, goes up faster than than the combined set (blue line) does (unless my eyeballing calculation is off).

       Anyway, thanks again and congrats on another great article.

  5. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    I seem to have been able to make a donation by credit card from Italy without problem. The first thing I did was changing the country. That changed the whole form to Italian with Italian provinces etc. Maybe the CC problem only occurs for non-UK English-speaking countries?

  6. The Other Bias

    MP3CE - Most likely a low bias in the satellite records, as discussed here. Satellite temperature estimates are quite complex, and there have been repeated corrections to the data sets as various biases are found. Also see Po-Chedley and Fu 2012 for some specific UAH discussion. 

    See also the 2006 US Climate Change Science Program "Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere - Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences", authored in part by Dr. John Christy (of the UAH data). Executive Summary pg. 10 notes that 

    This inconsistency between model results and observations could arise either becaise "real world" amplification effects on short and long term time scales are controlled by different physical mechanisms, and models fail to capture such behavior, or because non-climatic influences remaining in some or all of the observed tropospheric datasets lead to biased long-term trends, or a combination of these factors. The new evidence in this Report [...] favors the second explanation. (emphasis added)

    Christy, however, does not mention this report anymore, insisting instead that the satellite data is the most accurate measure possible... perhaps a bit of bias on his part?

  7. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    I ended up contributing through PayPal.  The county/state issue is only a problem for CC donations.

  8. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    This past summer, the Arctic was somewhat cooler than it had been over the past few summers. As expected, the global average temp shot up to record tying level, further proving the negative bias provided by the non-measured heat bundled up in the Arctic over the past few years.

  9. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    michael sweet @40.

    Curry has in truth responded to the comments made by both authors at her blog although there is little more to learn from her responses except that she is not up to speed with the literature (or the authors' names). Probably has too little time to spare now she's a blog-mom.

    Later in the comments thread she (curryja) dismisses the attempt to establish a 'global' surface temperature record, but rather considers the key issue to be a comparison of 'model simulations with observations' and again refers to the Ed Hawkins analysis. So, unless HadCRUT is revised by added coverage or by revised data, the inability of CMIP5 models to reflect Arctic amplification will be ignored by curryja and the 'pause' will remain. Yet this is strange as I don't remember this 'pause' being measured by comparing models & observations. It is surely always a regression of temperature observations alone with not a sniff of model simulation.

  10. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    Yes, PayPal works easily in the USA.

  11. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    Worked for me too in the U.S. using PayPal

  12. The Other Bias

    Hi guys, interesting article, but raises one new question to me: These analyses show that observed surface temperature trend is larger than observed. Now, the question is: what about satellite data, as their trends are slighly lower than that of surface data. Is this due to different thing being measured or are there other biases in satellite data or after all, there are some other correction should be made to surface data ?

  13. Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change

    @Tom Curtis #25:

    I cannot help but wonder what the results would have been if a fourth option, "Not sure", had been offered to survey respondents.

  14. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    I should have mention in #10 I used paypal.

  15. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    I was able to contribute from the US.  I didn't have to specify country/county.

  16. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    I had the same experience as rocketeer (#4) and cannot donate.  Even though "United States" is listed in the pull-down menu, the web site still requires a UK county.  

  17. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Poster:

    At RealClimate the OP clearly states that this paper is considered important and groundbreaking.  Your suggestion in 35 that RC is not supportive in incorrect.  Do not confuse scientists closely reading a paper to understand it better with Currie's criticism.  In addition, there are several posters in the thread at RC who appear to be tone trolls.  

    The authors have countered Curries objections directly.  Curry has not responded to these counters.  The paper has been widely peer reviewed before publication.  I personally doubt that Curry can find important issues in a single day of thought that the reviewers missed with much longer reflection.  We will have to wait to see how the conclusions of this paper hold up.

  18. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    grindupBaker @38-with regard to your opinion that "global warming is an increase in ocean heat content",  a  new, peer reviewed paper  by Chen , Feng  and Huang (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818113002397)

    suggests this may not be the case.  Their bullet points are:

    The global mean sea level started decelerated rising since 2004 with the rising rate 1.8 ± 0.9 mm/yr in 2012

    Deceleration is due to slowdown of ocean thermal expansion during last decade.

    Recent ENSO events introduce large uncertainty of long-term trend estimation.

    In the Abstract they note that since 2004  the rate of rise in global mean sea levels has dropped from the 3.2±0.4 mm/year seen from 1993 to 2003 with the rate of rise in 2012 being 1.8±0.9mm/year.  This fall in the rate of rise is thought due to "a slowdown in the rate of thermal expansion in the Pacific during the last decade as part of the Pacific decadal scale variability" .  From their Figure 5b it looks as though the Pacific may have changed from gaining heat in the period 1993 to 2003 to losing heat from 2004 to 2012

    Moderator Response:

    (Rob P) - That's a very interesting paper, but off-topic here. It does, however, provide independent support for greater heat being mixed into the deep ocean and the increased upwelling of colder, denser, water at the equator - all part of the spin-up of the wind-driven ocean circulation, and results in a phenomenon known as cabbeling. Please find a more appropriate thread if you wish to discuss that paper further.

  19. Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change

    John Cook, thank you for the ammendment, update and clarrification.  Based on the quote, Howard definitely called people such as you, me, Gavin Schmidt, Michael Mann etc religious zealots; although not concenating the words.

    Given that, it represents a substantial hypocrissy when he then goes on to complain that:

    "Increasingly offensive language is used. The most  egregious example has been the term “denier”.  We are all aware of the particular meaning that word has acquired in contemporary parlance.  It has been employed in this debate with some malice aforethought."

    Leaving aside the completely false claim about the meaning of the term (one he will not find supported in any modern dictionary) and about the malice in its use (another offensive claim by Howard); the lack of concern exhibited for the truly offensive language in the debate - the widespread charges of conspiracy, fraud, criminality and of genocidal intent made by deniers against climate scientists and those who defend them is breathtaking. 

    It is, however, unsurprising.  In my view, Howard has never troubled his politics with a factual view of the world.

     

  20. Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change

    John, another question asked in a survey in 2005 is easilly quotable:

    "Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings -- [ROTATED: human beings have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life and God guided this process, human beings have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life, but God had no part in this process, or God created human beings in their present form exactly the way the Bible describes it]?

    Evolved, God guided 31%
    Evolved, God had no part 12%
    God created man exactly how Bible describes it 53%
    Other (vol.) 1%
    No opinion 3%
    2005 Sep 8-11"

    The main difference between the questions is that the one cited by Mal Adapted uses as the third choice, that "God created human beings in pretty much their present form at one time in the last 10,000 years or so"  Interestingly, that question gained 45 and 46% percent of respondents in 2004 and 2006 respectively.  In contrast, "Humans evolved, with God guiding" attracted 38 and 36% in those years, and no opinion attracted 4 and 5%.  The approximately 6% rise in "Evolution, but God guided" in the second form of the questionaire relative to the form quoted above probably represents a shift of those whose interpretation of "exactly as the Bible describes" allows them to consider creation prior to 10,000 years ago as consistent with the Biblical creation accounts.  

    Given this, the 40% (2011; 46% in 2012) result almost certainly represent full blooded young earth creationists.  I doubt phrasing of the question has inflated the figure.  Rather, the phrasing may have inflated the figures of "theistic evolutionists" with a significant number of respondents (around 5%) who allow their theology to override their understanding of science.

    Going back to Williams original point.  He as definitely mistated the age factor.  The figures do not support the claim that 40% of US citizens are Ussherites, only that they are young earth creationists.  That, however, is a quibble that does not detract from his main point.  I definitely doubt, however, his claims regarding Australians, who are far less prone to overt religion than are US citizens.  Indeed, based on a 2009 poll:

    "Nearly a quarter of us believe the biblical account of human origins over the Darwinian account. Forty-two per cent of people believe in a wholly scientific explanation for the origins of life and 32 per cent believe in an evolutionary process ''guided by God''."

    Interestingly, a 2010 poll showed that only 10% of Australians did not believe in evolution, suggesting that a significant portion of those Australians who accept a Biblical account of the origin of humans accept a somewhat more scientific account for the origin of other species - or that they are very confused.

    Finally, while I find this interesting, I'm not sure how it is on topic. 

  21. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    I continue to hold the opinion that "global warming" is an increase in ocean heat content, but I can see that the complexities of surface temperatures and their distribution is erudite science and must be useful, just not "global warming". Need more Argos (the new 18kg ones).  

  22. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    Donated £20, well worth the many hours it will take me to even begin to understand it.

  23. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    Paging Al Gore and Michael Mann to tweet this.... 

    I just tweeted them.... Let's see what comes of it..

  24. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    @rocketeer (#4)

    I donated from the US (District of Columbia) with no problem.  Maybe because I used Paypal.  Or maybe something in your browsing history makes the payment system think you're in the UK.   Better luck next attempt.

  25. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    jdixon1980@27,

    I concur,

    While congratulating Kevin & Robert (I need to note here that Kevin C recently mentioned few times of working busily on one important publication - now we can assume what publication it was :)

    I have to warn the authors that thisk work falls into the area of "inconvenient science" where results are simple to undesrtand and likely to be denied by contrarians with encumbered agenda. I mean here, that your work, guys, falls into the same implicative category as e.g. the work of Mike Mann of Shaun Marcott, so expect lot of scientific scrutiny and denialist attacks. The former maybe a rewarding challenge, as I hope your results wthstand (i cannot be certain until I have time to read it) but the later may be unpleasant.

  26. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Poster:

    "However despite Professor Curry being a climate scientist with a solid publication record of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers on climate related topics and the Chair of The School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech., Even though she is quite clearly not one of the scientific illiterati, I am aware that many climate scientists are not enamoured of her views. But does that make them wrong?"

    The responses by the authors to Curry's criticism make it clear that either she didn't read the paper in detail, or chose to ignore the various tests of the robustness of the paper's methodology that made her objections moot.

    While she's not part of the scientific illiterati, she often acts as though she is.  It is that, not her contrarian views, that cause knowledgeable people to disagree with her.  It is not enough to be contrarian, you have to have sound arguments to back up your contrarian views to gain respect. 

  27. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Bert my apologies for saying I had paraphrased your comment.  I can see by your somewhat intemperate language that tis irritated you.  You ask about other siies and on Judith Curry's site there is a lot less adulatoin than there is here.  However despite Professor Curry being a climate scientist with a solid publication record of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers on climate related topics and the Chair of  The School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.,  Even though she is quite clearly not one of the scientific illiterati, I am aware that many climate scientists are not enamoured of her views.  But does that make them wrong?  Looking at the report of this paper on Real Climate, a site I would think not even you would criticise, the comments from some readers there are far more critical than those at this site.  In addition the replies  Gavin Schmidt and Stefan Rahmstorf are very helpful. Should you look at the comments on this paper on Real Climate you may find some that are relevant  to your own comments here. Once again, my apologies.  

  28. Bert from Eltham at 10:31 AM on 15 November 2013
    Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Just to make it clear to poster.

    This paper by Kevin and Robert does a magnificent job of collating disparate data sets to show that Global Warming has NOT hit any sort of hiatus.

    Anyone who has faced a noisy three dimensional electron density map generated by noisy x-ray diffraction data to elucidate a three dimensional molecular structure of a complex molecule and has used all other evidence to arrive at a refined structure by reiteration has my deepest sympathy. Bert

  29. Bert from Eltham at 10:16 AM on 15 November 2013
    Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    poster at @32 you did not paraphrase me but you did make a lot of crap up! You obviously are confused by subtle comment.

    Show me a reputable site that refutes this refereed paper that is not run by the scientific illliterati. Bert

  30. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    I find it fascinating how the same paper is viewed at different sites dealing with Climate Change.  Here it is considered a groundbreaking and immensely influential paper whereas others consider it to have very little that is of value.  To paraphrase  Bert @31 One site's accolades are often matched by another site's criticisms.  As in these cases each site usually has input from reputable  climate scientists it is often hard to discern what is the real situation.  

  31. Bert from Eltham at 09:27 AM on 15 November 2013
    Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

    When I first read this about Kevin Cowtan's and Robert Way's paper a few things fell into place inside my mind.

    We all hold evidence based science to be the way forward to better understanding of reality.

    The only argument that scientists legitimately have is where the evidence is patchy or has large errors.

    I can see how someone with a background in x-ray crystallography can see the way clearly to fill the gaps in the existing data by drawing together seemingly unrelated data. Having a bright young PhD student as a collaborator is also a major asset.

    There is only one dogma in science. The ratio of signal to noise!

    Do not forget though one scientist's noise can be another scientist's signal. Bert

  32. EvilDoctorDaddy at 09:02 AM on 15 November 2013
    Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    Donated, I want to read this (wish I’d thought of it).

    Did you consider PLoS one?

  33. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    The CC form requires an entry for county selected from a pull-down menu of British counties.  No way to donate from the US - no way to enter the state and it won't accept contribution if county left blank.

  34. Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change

    @Mal Adapted:

    Thank you for the citation.

    I'm not all that impressed by the way Gallup framed the question. I personally question whether the results haven't been skewed by the three choices presented to survey responders. I would paste the question here, but the Gallup website does not allow it to be copied.   

     

  35. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    The Paypal account has a £1900 limit, which by chance is just about right assuming I get the member rate. (My RMS membership may be too recent).

    So if it stops accepting donations during the UK night time then that means we've reached out target. (On the other hand Paypal might lift the limit overnight, because I've provided the paperwork.)

  36. Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change

    Unfortunately, Americans (and other countries also) have a lot of paranormal beliefs. summary of american beliefs of paranormal.  Belief in God-guided evolution is about the same as belief in ghosts.  Belief in evolution without the hand of God is much lower.  Science in general is poorly understood.

  37. Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change

    Mod:

    Please provide a citation for your assertion that 40% of Americans are literal creationists.

    It was 40% in 2011, last year it was 46%:

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evolution-creationism-intelligent-design.aspx

  38. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Holy Vostok Ice Cores, Batman, look at the difference in the trend calculator:

    Old HADCRUT:

    Trend: 0.52 ±1.55 °C/century (2σ)

    HADCRUT Hybrid:

    Trend: 1.33 ±1.83 °C/century (2σ)

    (Naturally I started with 1998...cuz that's where "they" always start)

  39. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    For those of us in the USA, $1 buys ~£0.62 as of this minute, so if you're thinking of a nice, round number of $100 then submit accordingly to the donation tool, upon which the sun never sets. :-)

  40. Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change

    With 40% of Americans being literal creationists who are convinced the earth is 6000 years or less old and Ausies probably not far behind, it is asking a lot for them to try to understand the mounting evidence for climate change.  The mind set of these folks is for a simple answer that then doesn't require any further thinking and from which all answers flow.  However, these same folks are prone to flipping 180 degrees if the push is great enough.  (read Battle for the mind by WW Sergent for an explanation of this phenomenon).  I suspect the only sufficient push will be some real disasters such as a complete crop failure in the Northern Hemisphere but by then the damage will be horrendous.  Unfortunately we have the boiling frog phenomenon so far.  Each year storms are more serious, floods more devestating, droughts longer and harsher so our fellow travelers on planet earth who demand simple unexamined explanations are getting used to the new paradigm.  Sad to think we need a real disaster to shake them out of their present mind set.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Please provide a citation for your assertion that 40% of Americans are literal creationists.

  41. Help make our coverage bias paper free and open-access

    I donated £50 ... £50 * 60 =  £3000 ...
    (or more donating less, or less donating more).

  42. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    It would be interesting to see a temperature curve just for the area within the Arctic circle over the past century or so.  The error bars would be large at first but getting smaller and smaller with accumulating satellite data/

  43. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Wow raised to the wowth power. WebHubTelescope's CSALT overlay strengthens the urgent need for even stronger data driven science . A linearized CSALT slope over the past 33 years describes a1.8 C per century rate. Do the math.

     

     

  44. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Unfortunately I think it will be all too easy for the "skeptics" to respond to this by working it into their epic fairytale about how climate scientists "manipulate" data whenever it doesn't "say" what they want it to.  As though reams of tables of raw numbers had a way of opening their mouths and "speaking" for themselves if "statistics" would just keep its grubby hands off of them.  

  45. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Wow indeed. We always knew that the lack of Arctic coverage meant that the estimates there were questionable, but I never expected the difference to be this significant. That said, it helps explain the observed collapse of Arctic sea ice and the approach seems sound. We had been assuming that the reason measured estimates of deep ocean warming didn't quite cover the 'missing heat' was because we still weren't finding all of it. If this result holds up then the last of the 'missing heat' may finally have been found.

    The fact that they used UAH satellite data to 'bridge the gap'... that 'popping' sound you hear is Roy Spencer's head exploding.

    Esop, for a second there I thought you had suddenly become an impossibly naive optimist... until I got to the airborne pigs.

  46. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Most excellent work and great to see a formal study on this.

    I have ranted about the negative bias from the poor Arctic coverage and the obvious huge warming up here for years, so that could not be a big surprise for those who work with this full time. On the other hand, the work with areas with low ENSO sensitivity that also had poor coverage is novel and highly interesting.

    The MSM is going to be all over this and they will demand an explanation from the ''skeptics''.

    Shortly after, pigs will be airborne.

  47. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    The trend calculator has a "hadcrut4 hybrid" option. Is that based on this work? Could you confirm? If it is a link on the calculator to this article in the datasource list would be helpful.

  48. Deconstructing former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's 'gut feeling' on climate change

    Tom,

    There's no doubt in my mind that Abbott sees climate policy the same way Howard does, and takes whatever position is most politically expedient. Malcolm Turnbull, one of Abbott's own party said, "There is not a position on the ETS Tony has not held."

    Charging Abbott with hypocrisy gives him too much credit, as if he's ever held a position with any spine in it. He's no more than a flip-flopper on this issue, washed about by the tides of public opinion and opportunities for political gain, like undermining Turnbull's leadership.

  49. Citizens Climate Lobby - Pushing for a US Carbon Fee and Dividend

    Eric and others may be interested in this article on border tariffs.

  50. Global warming since 1997 more than twice as fast as previously estimated, new study shows

    Like almost everyone, I am thrilled at the novelty of this work.

    I am sure it will be closely critiqued (no doubt it has been already), but the implications are quite large.

    • Estimates of climate sensitivity based on recent warming like those of Otto et al will have to be revisited.
    • Climate modellers will be smiling.
    • The publications that ascribed the "pause" to volcanoes, ozone, deep ocean warming or ENSO will have to be also revisited. But we do understand the role of the ocean in global climate a lot better now.

    The scientists involved must be simultaneously thrilled and annoyed!

    Given the uncritical attention the "hiatus" received, there is still no sign of a news media report of this paper AFAIK. We can watch the BBC Science and Technology page, and the Economist with interest!

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