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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 40651 to 40700:

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

    @SCM

    Thanks for that link. I see the full quote and context now :

    "I've always been agnostic about it (climate change)," Mr Howard told reporters in London before his address.

    "I don't completely dismiss the more dire warnings but I instinctively feel that some of the claims are exaggerated.

    "I don't accept all of the alarmist conclusions."

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

    The second quote is from media interviews prior to his speech:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/global-warming-exaggerated-former-pm-john-howard-says/story-e6frg6xf-1226753872134

  3. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming

    Few years ago I wrote about the beginning of the cosmic ray hypothesis from a different perspective.

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

    Howard characterised scientists who accept the evidence that humans are disrupting climate as “religious zealots”. Consequently, he is not so convinced of the scientific evidence.

    Could you show your source for where Howard specifically used the phrase "religious zealots" applied to scientists? I ask because it is not seen in the speech you link to.

    On what does he base his views? Howard states that “…I instinctively feel that some of the claims are exaggerated.”

    Also, could you show your source for this partial quote from Howard? It too is not included in the speech you link to.

    Thanks.

  5. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming

    chriskoz @7 - you're referring to me @4.  Me @5 points out that me @4 got low/high clouds warming/cooling backwards.

  6. Marcin Popkiewicz at 10:31 AM on 13 November 2013
    Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    @LuisC & others with technical problems

    Plese check in order:

    1. The game must be unpacked to a folder with writing rights - i.e. 'C:/WorldAtCrossroads', not 'C:/Program Files/WorldAtCrossroads' (which is write-protected)

    2. On some computers the game may be blocked by an antivirus software (it was necessary to mark the file as "allowed" and everything run fine).

    3. In one case the game run only on an admin account (not clear why, but it worked this way).

    The above steps vere sufficient in every case - if the game still doesn't work, please send me an e-mail (marcin.popkiewicz@wp.pl), I'll do my best to help.

  7. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming

    dana@5,

    You've got it opposite to me@2, therefore one of us must be wrong.

    All of the credible resources, including our own graphic of Cloud Feedback point that you are wrong. The science of cloud feedback is not intuitive, so it's easy to get it wrong. Thhe best way to remember it is, as I pointed @2, by thinking of clouds as reflecting the sun in summer: low clouds (usually heavy and dark) "obstruct a lot of sun rays" therefore cool you down, especially in summer when the scorching sun may be unbearable. On the other hand, the high, very thin clouds (like jet contrails) have little influence on scorching summer sun. That's the main difference. Difference in IR absorbtion by low vs. high cloulds, although goes in the same direction of climate feedback, is not that signifficant.

  8. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    Linux+Wine: me, too. No gyrations required. 

  9. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming

    Dana, thanks for an informative summary of recent work.  Although there doesn't seem to be any contribution from cosmic rays to the secular trend of temperature, there does appear to be a correlation between CR and decadal temperature fluctuations.  Of course, that correlation may just result from the correlation of CR with total solar irradiance (TSI).  You could add Foster and Rahmstorf (Environ. Res. Lett. 6 (2011) 044022) to the evidence against a strong CR influence on temperature.  They found that the amplitude of the TSI effect on temperature fluctuations since 1980 is no more than 0.05C.  The TSI effect would implicitly include any CR effect.  Since the sun is quieter now than it was in 1980, they found a small negative net solar effect from 1980 to 2011. 

  10. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    Didn't work. The program is running in the background but nothing displays.

  11. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming

    Sorry, I got that backwards @4!

  12. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    For Linux users: I tried it and played a couple of turns under Wine, so you don't need Windows to play it.

  13. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads


    Great game. I just finished my first playthrough (rule the world/fate of the world) and finished (in 2200) with orbital solar panels, CO2 at 400 and falling (from a top of 480) and sea level at 2 meters above pre-industrial. My enlightened leadership was a resounding success ;-)

    I was googling around for a forum where people can have a discussion about this game, but couldn't find anything. Are there plans to create something like that?

     

  14. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming

    suckfish @1 - it depends on the type of cloud.  As a general rule, low level clouds tend to have a net warming effect while high level clouds tend to have a cooling effect.  Cosmic ray theory suggests more low level clouds would form.

  15. One Planet Only Forever at 00:49 AM on 13 November 2013
    Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    Barry,

    Why is there still any "desperate poverty" if the GDP has grown so many times quicker than the population?

    Every nation has the wealth to ensure that none of its people are desperately poor. The most fortunate nations have excess ability that can easily assist less fortuante nations. And yet that simple and possible to do thing "does not happen", except in small grudging ways, or only if the more fortunate see a bigger personal payback.

    The probable explanation is the way that callous selfish interest can become popular. Marketing of mass-consumption consumerism promotes the "bad attitude". A higher percentage among the poor are willing to do more to help other poor people. That is because the callous greedy ones have a competetive advantage leading them to be concentrated among the more fortunate. That competetive advantage can also result in the callous greedy ones having more political and international trade infuence. It is easier to appeal to self interest than generosity. Guilt can be used to get better bahaviour out of the less generous, but guilt is not a sustainable way to get someone to behave in a more caring and considerate manner. Also, guilt does not work on the "career callous pursuers of more for themselves".

  16. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    "It is interesting to note that Global GDP has grown significantly faster than global population, yet there are still many people living in horrible poverty."

    By all metrics that I know of, increased GDP has led to reductions in poverty. A notable example is China, which has achieved rapid growth over the last 30 years (arguably stimulated by fossil fuel development amongst other things), and steep reductions in poverty. At the same time, the gap between rich and poor has widened.

    While a sizable fraction of the world's population still live in poverty, this fraction has decreased over the last 50 years. In the short term at least, accelerated productivity seems to have been a boon to the impoverished. The future under a changing climate is generally assessed as less optimistic.

  17. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming

    suckfish,

    You can access the AR5 chapter on clouds and aerosols here, Chapter 7, describing the complexities and uncertainties and giving best estimates.

  18. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #45

    Have you noticed many "obvious" typos in my posts?

    I don't know if the editor in the "Submit" box has the spell checker (a little squiggles would do for me, I usually know the spelling and prefer British English, according to the country of my residence) and how to enable it. Anyone knows and/or has an easy tip for me how to fix my typos before "Submit"?

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Check the HTML version of your draft. It has a spell-check feature.  

  19. Climate Science History - interactive style

    kampmannpein@11

    Interesting web site. Nice to see you embeded it successfully.

     

  20. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming

    suckfish@1,

    Your assessment is simplistic and incorrect.

    "clouds-keep-heat" (not just "at-night" but 24h) when they absorb ountgoing IR. Such property is attributed to high "Cirrus" clouds. Their effect is warming.

    Other clouds, like low "Stratus" clould, do not a bsorb IR but they are very good at scattering the incoming solar radiation (with that respect they act as if they increased the Earth albedo), that's why the "look dark" from below. Their effect is cooling.

    But on global average, the "cooling clouds win", i.e. stratus effect outweigh the effect cirrus effect. So, if the increased CR results in more cloud seeding, the net effect is cooling, assuming on average all types of clouds are seeded uniformely. I think that's the assumption of this article.

    Of course, verious "sceptics" might argue only certain type of clouds (depending on their agenda) are seeded by CR, I don't know much about CR to comment on that. All I can say is: in the present trend, they seem to try reinforcing the fading "it's the sun" myth by pointing out that sun's energy variation has a positive feedback from CR. It seems now, that the feedback, even if positive, looks miniscule, unable to explain the Earth energy budget and its history.

  21. Climate Science History - interactive style

    Hi Lei@14.

    The timeline covers over 200 years of history and the Vostok Core was extracted in the 1990s. As you can see in the project, space is constrained and when designing anything like this, information has to be edited in order to fit in with a design.

    I have had many discussions with Skeptical Science contributers about what should and shouldn't be included, the reality is we all had different projects in our heads and this one is I guess the result of me leading it! If someone else had led it, the result would have been different.

    I take your point though. We have the Argo project in the timeline which is a project that provides data, so why not mention Vostok?

    It's probably one for the to do list!

    I'll point out that the project data is not 'static'. The data can be added to and in theory that is my intention. For example we did consider including the IPCC AR5 report, but I thought that because it is a 'history' project, AR5 isn't really history yet. It's to soon to include it and it can be added later

    The software is designed to automatically configure itself to new data, so that in the future it can be extended to as many years as is needed.

     

  22. Cosmic rays fall cosmically behind humans in explaining global warming
    Re (3) of the hypothesis (fewer clouds will warm the earth) - is that true?What's the latest on the relationship between cloud cover changes and global temperature?I was under the impression that clouds-keep-heat-in-at-night and clouds-reflect-sunlight basically cancelled each other out?
  23. One Planet Only Forever at 14:19 PM on 12 November 2013
    Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    In my formative University years there was a program developed to simulate the development of a nation. The interface was a real-time responding dot-matrix text printer (pretty slick at the time).

    Through trial and error, what could be seen was that rapid industrialization produced a higher GDP, but with horrible social costs. A much slower, smaller scale economic development of cottage-style collective activities (no investors just making money because they had money), took much longer to produce higher GDP but never produced the horrible social consequences of rapid industrialization.

    It is interesting to note that Global GDP has grown significantly faster than global population, yet there are still many people living in horrible poverty.

    Slow and steady, sustainable development is possible and is better, except for those who want as much as possible for themselves as soon as they can get it.

    Short-term interests are not helpful. And the interest rate spike of the late 1970s played a significant factor in magnifying the focus on the short term. Unfortunately, the recent long stretch of low interets rates has not undone that tragic change of attitude. It seems that our currently popular socioeconomic delusion is not only producing damaging development, it is significantly influencing people to "more desperately want more for themselves as soon as possible", which feeds the pursuit of damaging unsustainable behaviours.

    A more fully informed population is the answer, but that is not easy to achieve.

    Part of the required solution is an end to the success of "partial information deceptive marketing". Full information marketing is seldom used because it is boring, more expensive, and would probably produce results that are contrary to the ineterests of the people with the money to develop and deliver it. Full information about climate change is never used by those trying to discredit the scientific findings. It is also never used by promoters of a hoped to be "Profitable Pursuit".

    Another part of a sustainable better future for all is the lifestyle of the most fortunate being sustainable. If the most fortunate were not consuming non-renewable resources and were not over-consuming the renewable resources "everybody could develp to be more fortunate - for a very long time", no conflict, no unneccessary poverty.

  24. Climate Science History - interactive style

    Oh, and lets have some perspective on the relative drivers. The milankovitch forcing that drives ice age is due to change in forcing that is about -0.25W/m2 per hundred years at 65N. Globally, its maybe a tenth of that. By comparison, anthropogenic GHG is about 2.29W/m2 (from the latest AR5) over last 150 years on a GLOBAL scale. Given that 0.25 on one point of the planet is very much smaller than 2.29 averaged over entire globe, I think we stop worrying about ice ages.

  25. Climate Science History - interactive style

    The iceage cycle is the defining characteristic of the Pleistocene. However, we have put CO2 at levels not seen since the pliocene when we didnt have ice ages, and yet the same orbital drivers would have been present then.

  26. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    LuisC - Perhaps you have a corrupt file.  Try downloading again if you havent already, and be sure to extract all of the files in the zip into a regular folder.  I just got it and it appears to run fine for me (Windows 7 machine).  

  27. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    Doesn't work. Any software support from these guys or suggestions from your end? The program doesn't even open.

  28. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B

    Skeptical Science should not link to an article like the above one on oil company profits.  Oil companies may receive excessive tax breaks; but an article that starts with a senseless comparison between the combined profits of five huge corporations and individual incomes isn't likely to be a reliable guide on the issue.  Please select articles that are more than inflammatory rants.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Your concern is duly noted.

  29. Climate Science History - interactive style

    Lei,

    It is good that you have come here to try to learn more.  In the 1970's there was extensive scientific discussion of the ice core data showing Ice ages every 100,000 years.  The consensus (reached over 30 years ago) is that AGW has delayed the upcoming ice age at least 100,000 years and perhaps for much longer.  The natural peak of the current interglacial was about 5,000 years ago.  It then cooled until about 1900.  For the past 100 years it has been warming faster than any other known period in the paleogeological record (see Mann's hocky stick for details of current warming).  This warming is completely caused by humans and is the topic we discuss here on Skeptical Science.  It is now warmer than at any time previously in the current interglacial.

    If you have question about the problems likely to be caused by this un-natural warming, find a thread here and let her rip!  You are welcome to ask how CO2 pollution has stopped ice ages if you wish.

  30. Climate Science History - interactive style

    Lei - Please see The upcoming ice age has been postponed indefinitely. It looks like the next glacial cycle (at the very least) will be skipped due to our emissions. 

  31. Climate Science History - interactive style

    Over the last 1 million years, there was been 10 Ice Ages - one every 100,000 years.

     

  32. Climate Science History - interactive style

    For 12,000 years the earth has been warming, but another Ice Age is apparently coming. 

  33. Climate Science History - interactive style

    What about the Vostok Core which shows warming and cooling over many years? 

    And the fact that it is predicted there will be another Ice Age?

  34. Climate Science History - interactive style

    sorry it should be: the "Astronomy" section under "knowhow" ...

  35. Climate Science History - interactive style

    Great stuff, I managed it to put this into my homepage http://www.ibk-consult.de/knowhow and it works just beautifully !!

  36. Climate Science History - interactive style

    Tnx for this excellent "table - toy" - I got some of the presented issues by the excellent book of Archer/Pierrehumbert "The Warming Papers" ...

  37. Book review - The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars now Available in Paperback

    BillyJoe: Your most recent comment was deleted because it was both a Moderation Complaint and Off-Topic -- both of which are prohibited by the SkS Comments Policy.

    Please read the SkS Comments Policy and adhere to it. 

  38. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    Limits to Growth is now available online:

    www.donellameadows.org/the-limits-to-growth-now-available-to-read-online/

    It is still a very good read. 

  39. Greenhouse Gas Concentrations in Atmosphere Reach New Record

    I too sigh with relief that the permafrost is not belching yet. The article repeats the common assertion that CO2 will remain high even if we stop CO2 augmentation immediately: It seems that natural consumption could increase substantially, especially with the help of civilization. Perhaps it is foolish, but our book, Pluvinergy … proposes that if we eliminate CO2 augmentation and increase uptake we can adjust the concentration back down within the century. Our hypothesis proposes working at the scale of the atmosphere to both eliminate CO2 augmenting fuels as well as directly cooling the planet. Thus, the theory proposes that we can have a chance of fixing the mess. Is our work that far off? I hope not.

  40. Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming

    dvaytw, in my experience the fact that Lomborg wrote something is in and of itself a solid indicator that it is unlikely to be true.

    More specifically on the IPCC, see this article on how the leaked draft of the impact report actually shows dire consequences indeed, rather than the low impact being falsely claimed by Lomborg and other climate fiction writers.

    Unfortunately, I haven't seen a point by point rebuttal of that particular article. However, all his claims are all fairly generic denier talking points which have been debunked on this site and thus rebuttals can be found in the 'most used myths' or via the search box.

    My suggestion would be to ask your 'skeptic' to quote the IPCC report itself saying that there is a scientific consensus that AGW is not increasing extreme events.... rather than Lomborg falsely making that claim. There is no such conclusion in the IPCC reports. It's fiction.

  41. Free computer game - World at the Crossroads

    This sounds very interesting. I'd love to see some of these concepts adopted into mainstream simulations (e.g. Sid Meyer's 'Civilization' series), for developments up to the present, as a way to teach more people about the interactions.

    However, I have to wonder how accurate predictions of future technology can be. It is possible solar power prices will drop to a fraction of fossil fuel prices in the next couple decades... or that some new process for extracting fossil fuels will allow them to remain the least expensive form of energy. I think what happens in the future has a lot to do with which technologies achieve these breakthroughs... and there just isn't any way for a simulation game to know how that is going to play out. Technologies we spend more funds researching have an advantage, but no guarantees.

    In any case, by tying player choices to results determined by historical measurements and demonstrable processes this is a fantastic teaching tool. It also seems to have some economic policy elements... which is another area where belief and reality are often very very different (e.g. 'cutting spending during a depression will revive the economy!').

  42. Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming

    Has anyone seen Bjorn Lomborg's latest:

    Don’t blame climate change for extreme weather

    He makes a lot of claims allegedly based in the IPCC's 600-page report, 

    Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation

    ...basically saying that the benefits of AGW will outweigh the costs until pretty far down the road.  I don't have time to verify his claims myself; has anyone seen a rebuttal to his argument?

    This
    No, climate change will not be good for the world

    and this
    NY Times Says Earth Has Unlimited Carrying Capacity, So Forget Climate Change and Party On, Homo Sapiens!

    are relevant, but I'm specifically concerned with his claim that it is the IPCC itself which is saying these things.  I'm getting attacked by a guy in a debate who says, "You've been talking all along about how a skeptic must accept the scientific consensus... now you're disagreeing with it when it doesn't suit your ideology!"


  43. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    gdcox, look at the second figure in the article above. The jet stream is found in the Ferrel cell (aka Mid-latitude cell)... which is constrained between the Polar and Hadley cells.

    Basically, there are 'walls of wind' running westward at the northern and southern extents of the northern hemisphere. The jet stream flows eastward between these two 'walls'. You cite river flow, but this is more akin to the meeting of ocean currents moving in opposite directions. The fact that air and ocean currents will go up is another decided difference from rivers. Where rivers are defined by gravity and contours, air streams and ocean currents are mostly defined by temperatures, density, and the rotation of the planet. Countours and gravity also play a part, but are not sole determinants as they are with rivers.

    The weakening of the northern Polar Cell, as the Arctic warms faster than the rest of the globe, has allowed the jet stream to meander more. Basically, the Polar Cell is getting smaller.

  44. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B

    On the matter of Haiyan and the discussion of its strength, can anyone quickly explain if it is possible to compare cyclone energy for different storm events by integrating the physical nature of the wind and pressure surges over space and time?  I know that accumulated cyclone energy is usually scored using wind speed as a measure but I'm curious to know how well surge might act as a proxy.

  45. A Rough Guide to the Jet Stream: what it is, how it works and how it is responding to enhanced Arctic warming

    Excellent paper thanks.

     

     But in this and other sources I still can see no explantion of why the jet stream is so tight.

     A river is confined by gravity and the contours...what confines the jet stream so well ?

     

  46. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #36A

    Agree with Paul Price above, can we have some commentary on Anderson's worthwhile thinking?

  47. Greenhouse Gas Concentrations in Atmosphere Reach New Record

    To clarrify a point of potential confusion, the 32% increase between 1990 and 2012 is an increase in the change in the Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) energy imbalance due to Well Mixed GreenHouse Gases (WMGHG) relative to 1750 (the "radiative forcing").  That is, of the total change in radiative forcing since 1750, approximately 25% has occurred in the last 20 years.

    The change in radiative forcing should not be mistaken with the total greenhouse effect of well mixed greenhouse gases.  The total greenhouse effect of CO2, for example, is about 30 W/m^2.  Relative to the total greenhouse effect of CO2, radiative forcing of greenhouse gases has only caused a 2.2% increase over the last 22 years.

    A confusion between "radiative forcing" and "total greenhouse effect" is invited in the article by describing the "radiative forcing" as "... the warming effect on our climate" whereas it is the change in warming effect on our climate.  As I can easilly imagine AGW "skeptics" arguing for the small total effect of CO2 based on this confusion - ie, arguing that the total greenhouse effect of CO2 is at most 2.2 W/m^2 because the 0.7 W/m^2 increase since 1990 is 32% of the warming effect - I thought the clarrification may be usefull.

    As another point of clarrification, that increase is the increase from WMGHGs alone, and does not include the negative effect of aerosols.

    Finally, for anybody interested in exploring the data in more detail can find it here

  48. Greenhouse Gas Concentrations in Atmosphere Reach New Record

    I am not as comforted as you, Steve. Levels of methane in the Arctic remain among the highest in the world, sometimes over vast areas. In general, there is a clear overall increase in CH4 concentrations as you go from the equator to the pole.

    Why should this continue to be the case if there aren't high emissions coming from that region?

    Your question about isotopic identification is a good one. I'll have to look at the report to see if they have addressed it. Of course, if a main source in the Arctic is from deep deposits of fossil methane that have come free due to slope failures from permafrost melt, the signatures may not be much different than from fracked fossil methane.

    Fo all of our sakes, though, let's hope the conclusions are right on the origin of this methane, since the sources proposed are at least in theory controlable.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Unnecessary white space eliminated.

  49. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #45B

    The profits of Big Oil isn't the issue, I think, it is the gross expenditures on energy.  The U.S. spent $1.2 Trillion on energy in 2010. Almost all of that was to purchase non renewable fuels.

    Imagine if we redirected that spending and invested in renewable infrastructure.  The American people could own a 100% renewable energy system for five years worth of carbon spending, instead of flushing our money out tailpipes and smokestacks.

    The beauty of renewable energy, of course, is that once you have paid off the capital cost of infrastructure, the resulting energy - decade after decade - is virtually free of cost.  If we owned our own National Renewable Energy Utility, we could all be enjoying unlimited free energy very quickly.  Oh, yeah, it would reduce our CO2 emissions to nearly zero as well.

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Unnecessary white space eliminated.

  50. Greenhouse Gas Concentrations in Atmosphere Reach New Record

    Good article and good to know that methane from Actic permafrost isn't rapidly increasing (current growth rate still quite a bit lower than in the 80s).  I'd speculate that methane from northern mid-latitudes is mainly from increased fracking.  Can this not be determined isotopically?

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