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Alexandre at 09:25 AM on 31 October 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
I do hope these guys reach their goal.
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Tom Curtis at 07:56 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
Glenn @9, it is worse than that. Feedbacks are responses to change in temperature, not to changes in forcing. As a result, other than slight differences due to differences in the geographical region, or altitude warmed, the feedback response to a change in greenhouse gas concentration will be the same as the feedback response to, for example, internal modes of ocean variability. That means with net negative feedbacks, such internal modes of variability cannot shift temperatures from the equilibrium levels. Any initial warming shift will result immediately in a negative feedback that cancels it out. Should that feeback be stronger than the initial warming, it will induce a negative feedback on the cooling, thereby returning temperatures quickly to the original value.
Thus, if net feedbacks are indeed negative, the only way we could have got the recent warming (or the MWP) is with a strongly cooling net forcing over the twentieth century. In like manner, the only way we could have got the LIA is with a strongly warming net forcing over the 17th-19th centuries. Indeed, if net feedbacks were negative, El Nino's should cool the Earth, and La Ninas warm it.
The whole notion simply collapses under a weight of contradictory evidence, none of which the authors of the NIPCC examine, or even notice.
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Doug Bostrom at 07:49 AM on 31 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
I'll argue that the scanty natural sciences degree requirements for a BA are sufficient for humanities majors to easily gain a toehold on the subject of climate science, certainly enough to grasp the inevitabilities forthcoming from the underlying physics.
Same deal as an engineer's impoverished exposure to visual arts, for instance. A handful of courses is enough to distinguish between up and down, left and right, where to find more information.
If executed in good faith, typical baccalaureate specifications will inevitably create the potential for a useful generalist, a broad mind.
Whether or not an effectively liberal education with a bent in any particular direction can overcome inherent fallibilities is quite another matter. Chris Horner suffices as an example of this indeterminacy. Bill Nye is another, Ray Kurzweil yet another, and then there's the guy who has been key* to the success of the NASA Mars rover programs.
*Deep pun. See this.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 07:37 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
"Contrary to that assessment, several studies indicate the net global effect of cloud feedbacks is a cooling, the magnitude of which may equal or exceed the warming projected from increasing greenhouse gases."
The logical conclusion if this were true would be that there is a 'special state' for the climate, which we just happen to be in now, where a negative feedback cuts in that doesn't occur at cooler temperatures. Thus setting an upper limit to the temperature for the Earth.
So we could check for this by looking to the paleoclimate record to confirm that temps haven't been significantly warmer in the past, providing support for the idea.
So the fact that 1/2 or more of the last 500 million years have been significantly warmer than today - 4-8 degrees warmer - indicates that such a upper limiting mechanism doesn't exist, at least not at our current climate level
Gee, I wonder why those eminent scientists behind the NIPCC didn't think of checking this?
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Tom Curtis at 07:32 AM on 31 October 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
doug @7&8, you can take further consolation from the fact that the release of the UEA hacked emails coincided with the Copenhagen conference on climate change, which certainly attracted a lot of media attention in Australia. Part of the spike, probably most of it in Europe, will be due to the conference rather than to the UEA hack.
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DSL at 06:42 AM on 31 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
Imagine how far those poor sods with humanities degrees have to go. Still, as KR points out (implicitly), I . . . err . . . they may have an advantage in not having to overcome the biases encouraged by their training. I've been wrong so many times (thank you, Tom) that I get over it pretty quickly.
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miffedmax at 06:06 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
There is a certain grim irony in a bunch of lawyers demonstrating such a lack of familiarity with the idea of "credible witnesses."
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tcflood at 05:59 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
Because taught in an environmental studies program at a university for several years before I retired, the Heartland Institut sent me a free copy of "The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism" by Steve Goreham. This paperback book of 240 pages has very good production values and is quite impressive. It is pure denialism with all of the standard misinformation, misdirection, illogic, cherrypicking, etc. If one didn't know much, it would be very convincing. Heartland's sponsors are spending a great deal of money in a highly professional propaganda campaign.
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2013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
Engineers, physicists, economists, meteorologists, geologists, emeritus PhD's - No profession is immune to the mistakes of pontificating in an area not of your expertise, of confirmation bias, of looking at a large and unfamiliar field of data and theory - and claiming "Oh, look, you forgot to carry the '2', and hence you are completely wrong..."
No person is immune to beginners mistakes in fields they do not know. And if the person in question is well established in their own field, used to being right, to being the reference point to others in that field, it can be difficult to put down the ego and humble oneself to being a starting student.
And worst of all, the drive, confidence, and ego involved with being an expert in one field can make it all but impossible for that person to even recognize their own lack of expertise in another.
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Doug Bostrom at 05:34 AM on 31 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
Further to VeryTallGuy and John and as a sample of the pragmatism of engineers, here's a sample of recent contributions to dealing with climate change by Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) Climate Decision Making Center. (CDMC). CDMC is a unit of CMU's higly respected Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP).
It's notable that among all the papers published through EPP and CDMC, you won't find a single proposition that anthropogenic climate change is a problem that can be ignored or is false.
Real engineers try to solve problems using engineering skills rather than trying to wish them away.
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scaddenp at 05:18 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
Unfortunately all to many scientists have "gone emeritus" to use the popular phrase. Ie trying to speak with authority outside their area of expertise, and all to often abandoning the scientific discipline in favour of strong self-belief. Worse when linked to dogmatic political beliefs as well. I think very successful (or lucky) scientists are more prone (eg Pauling) because thanks to their gifts, they lack experience in being wrong. The essence of science is allowing data to change your mind. Too many really good practitioners have little experience of this.
So you shouldnt reject an argument because someone is old, but you shouldnt regard statements as authoritive unless they come from someone actively conducting research and publishing in the field. You should be especially suspicious of emeritus professors making statements outside their field.
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Dikran Marsupial at 04:41 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
joeygoze an ad-hominem is an attack on the source of an argument made in place of an attack on its substance. In this case, the comment is made in a section entitled "The Credibility of Sources", and is followed by a section entitled "The Quality of the Report", so it is (i) clearly labeled as a comment on the relative credibility of the sources and (ii) is not make in place of an attack on the content of the argument, merely preceding it.
In a discussion of competence to speak on some particular issue, then there is a distinction to be made between working scientists and those in emeritus positions, namely the former have a need to continually keep up with research in their field, the latter do not.
Now science is not determined by credibility of the source, but by the internal consistency and evidence for the argument. The general public on the other hand are generally not in a position to accurately judge all aspects of the science, which means that we do have to take into account the credibility of the source, which is greatest for proffessional institutions (such as the Royal Society), has individual scientists somewhere in the middle, and political lobby groups rather further down the list.
In the case of the NIPCC report, the quality of the report is easy to determine, for example they have a chapter that cites Prof. Essenhigh's paper on the residence time of CO2, but fails to mention that the argument it contains has been thoroughly refuted, and doesn't reference the paper I wrote for the same journal explaining the errors (basic scholarship would suggest using e.g. Google scholar to look up papers that have cited key references to make sure that the referenced material is sound). That the NIPCC report contains arguments so easily demonstrated to be wrong should give anyone cause for skepticism, regardless of who the authors may be.
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MA Rodger at 04:38 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
I found the NIPCC Executive Summary a most entertaining document. They try so hard, they have managed to shot dead the villain who they have also 'proved' wasn't ever there to be shot. So which is my favourite NIPCC finding? I think it would be:-
The IPCC has concluded “the net radiative feedback due to all cloud types is likely positive” (p. 9 of the Summary for Policy Makers, Second Order Draft of AR5, dated October 5, 2012). Contrary to that assessment, several studies indicate the net global effect of cloud feedbacks is a cooling, the magnitude of which may equal or exceed the warming projected from increasing greenhouse gases.
Our GHGs, it seems, create negative cloud feedbacks and so if they have any effect at all, they are cooling the planet down! That's a stroke of luck coz we're pumping out those GHGs like there's no tomorrow. Hey! The recent rises in global temperatures could well have been catastrophic without their cooling effects. ☺☻
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joeygoze9259 at 04:19 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
"...Of that 35, 16 of the listed contributors are retired e.g. emeritus positions..."
The Ad-hominem attack on retired professors is not fair. That is agism and should not disualify a retired professor from making a scientific point.
Moderator Response:[PW] When any do make scientific points, they'll be listened to. As far as I have read--and that is reading a lot of work--none have, and none have published in a relevant or accepted climate journal. Perhaps you can point us to sources of data that do show any/some of their contrarian points to be valid?
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ubrew12 at 04:16 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
“promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems” What's the use of having a free market without its most important attribute? (freedom from reality)
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John Hartz at 03:34 AM on 31 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
@VeryTallGuy #5:
My sentiments exactly.
BTW, I have a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree.
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Doug Bostrom at 03:23 AM on 31 October 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
Actually, come to think of it, if we liken the graph above to energy it seems that little actual "work" was done by the UEA affair. Perhaps it's a stretch to analogize energy and headlines, but the integral of late 2009 appears to be fairly shrimpy compared to what came before and after. Lots of headline power in UEA but too short to accomplish much?
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Doug Bostrom at 02:17 AM on 31 October 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
Anja, unfortunately Google Trends only shows relative frequency of searches:
Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart. If at most 10% of searches for the given region and time frame were for "pizza," we'd consider this 100. This doesn't convey absolute search volume.
and
The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google
over time. They don't represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100. Each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100. When we don't have enoughdata, 0 is shown.The graph is drawn from searches satisfied by media headlines. To my mind, that's a proxy indicator for public interest as it's capable of being served by media.
Howerver, my much more intelligent spouse heard me grumbling about Google's sphinx-like silence on absolute numbers of headlines and after rolling her eyes took me here where we find this:
Ain't it a shame that the tawdry twaddle from UEA produced a bigger spike of media coverage than AR4?
Method behind the graph as well as more views and data are here: Media Coverage of Climate Change/Global Warming
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tmac57 at 01:50 AM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
A nice infographic that compares and contrasts the two reports might make for a quick sanity check for those who aren't aware of the background of Heartland and the so called NIPCC.
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The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
grindupBaker - Increased downward LWR decreases ocean cooling (oceans heat faster), while higher circulation of cool water to the surface ocean layers decreases atmospheric warming (and again, the oceans heat faster). In both situations the skin layer gradient is reduced and a higher percentage of incoming solar energy ends up being retained by the oceans.
The fact that atmospheric warming and increased downward LWR increases energy retention in the oceans is in fact the central aspect of how GHG's warm the ocean.
Since the oceans act as a thermal "flywheel", accelerating the warming of the oceans just speeds equilibrium with forcing imbalances, meaning that overall warming of the climate occurs faster.
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chriskoz at 23:21 PM on 30 October 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #44A
Nice Guardian article "Missing logic of Australian PM's denial" commenting the latest taking point sported by Tony Abbott. I found especially funny (and accurate) this picture in the comment thread therein. It would be an excellent toon and Abbott's description at the same time. Clearly, our PM has reached a new "Moncktonian" low, becase - like Monckton - he just debunks himself.
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Anja Krieger at 21:21 PM on 30 October 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
Doug, thanks a lot for posting this very telling graph. I'll use it on a slide presenting the project tonight. And Bert, I love your alternative interpretation. Seems it will get very cold soon!
I also tried Google trends with "climate change" and it looked similar, then with "CO2 emissions" and "greenhouse gases" - but those were just low lines on the bottom.
The one thing I cannot find on your graph and the Google trend page is what the lines actually mean. How many articles/posts were there in 2007, for example? I guess it's just a graph showing relative interest.
A big Thank You to everyone who has supported our project so far. Very encouraging.
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VeryTallGuy at 20:32 PM on 30 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
Composer99
Enough of the engineer-bashing already!
papers such as this one suggest engineers might be predisposed to the sort of worldview or mindset correlating strongly with the adoption of religious creationism, or indeed AGW contrarianism/denialism.
Respectfully, the paper shows no such thing. Indeed, it does the precise opposite! It in fact argues that Islamic extremism is a special case, due to engineers networks, technical skills and social conditions, and finds this is not replicated to other forms of extremism.
From the abstract:
engineers are virtually absent from left-wing violent extremists and only present rather than over-represented among right-wing extremists
Noting that Lewandowsky associates AGW denialism with laissez-faire economics ie right wing extremism if anything, this paper, if relevant at all to AGW, could only be argued as placing engineers as no different to other groups.
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grindupBaker at 16:37 PM on 30 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
KR #9 The concept that LWR causes "less atmospheric warming over the oceans" does not seem correct because it breaks the law of conservation of energy. If there is no LWR at all then SWR-produced ocean heat warms the atmosphere. If LWR is added then that is adding energy in the very thin layer. It must go somewhere. It cannot cause less heating either up or down. I think the concept is that it blocks and replaces some ocean heat going up.
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DSL at 13:33 PM on 30 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
GISS L-OTI arrived this evening. It will probably be revised down slightly, but at this point it's 1.01C for land and .74C for L-OTI -- easily the warmest September for GISS, despite the ENSO-neutral conditions.
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DSL at 12:51 PM on 30 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
No - he linked to a GWPF article on PDO. I posted the abstract to Kosaka & Xie 2013, and he disappeared. It was a Daily Caller stream. Yah, I stepped right into the middle of the madness, asking for the pride of conservatism: a well-evidenced, well-reasoned argument against the theory of anthropogenic global warming. Despite the heavy traffic, all of four people took me up on it. From the number of "likes" on my interlocutors' posts, there must have been a decent crowd watching the exchange. Perhaps utterly useless, but perhaps deep seeding.
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The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
ClimateChangeExtremist - A reduced viscous skin layer thermal gradient leads to less atmospheric warming over the oceans, but that gradient is determined by both the incoming LWR and by the amount of circulation in the ocean. A series of La Nina's, for example, bring more cool water to the surface and decrease the gradient.
The 1940's-1975 'hiatus' (more than 20 years, note!) appears to be clearly driven by the forcings; a resumption of more normal volcanic activity (1910-1950 being quite low in that respect), variations in anthropogenic forcings, and the natural variations like the ENSO.
20 years doesn't seem (IMO) to be a limiting/driving time span. Temperatures will ramp up, regressing to the mean trend, when natural variations such as ENSO swing back. At that time we should be better able to determine whether the underlying forcings such as aerosols have changed.
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grindupBaker at 09:34 AM on 30 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
ClimateChangeExtremist #7 That doesn't sound right because the LWR has energy and it must go somewhere. Though I just found out about the details of this effect last week, I suggest it is that heat from ocean to atmosphere that would otherwise come from very slightly deeper (from SWR warming) is being replaced by LWR energy to atmosphere (perhaps mostly evapotranspiration, need to check that) so heat to atmosphere is not being reduced as you appear (note 1) to suggest by rather the LWR energy is blocking/slowing part of it from leaving oceans and replacing it with its own energy. That causes warming of both atmosphere and oceans. I don't have knowledge to comment on a 20-year rationale --- go for it.
Note 1: "less heat is emitted by the oceans" yes if you divide "oceans" into this skin layer and the part beneath. Extra heat emitted by the skin, less by the oceans, I suggest. Brings a definition issue though because every place oceans is mentioned it must not include this skin to remain consistent. I've not seen indications that it's done that way.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:18 AM on 30 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
Since he is a chemical engineer, perhaps DSL should ask him if he is aware that, besides making an invalid argument, the same Steven Goddard he's referring to was the proponent of atmospheric carbon removal by deposition of carbonic snow in Antarctica (coz it's really cold down there you know). Last time I looked, WUWT had somewhat cleaned up that thread to make it look less ridiculous, something they have done on many occasions with their more laughable stuff (of which SG was a major contributor).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/09/co2-condensation-in-antarctica-at-113f/
The comment thread is still a class act of ignorance, stupidity and arrogance. The peanut gallery bought the thing hook, line and sinker, despite the occasional voice of reason pointing to vapor pressure and the phase diagram.
They eventually let Steven go and be ridiculous by himself, something he did notably in 2012 on YouTube, when he said that the big storm was going to halt the Arctic sea ice melt. He later removed that clip from YouTube. I can attest of that because I responded on the comment thread. The clip no longer figures on his channel's list.
You'd think such a heavily credentialed engineer would know better...
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PhilBMorris at 02:36 AM on 30 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
Back on topic…
Having read the RealClimate post (and avoiding all the off topic comments posted there…) a simplistic perspective seems to be as follows:
Assuming an idealised model, where there is equilibrium, and using average temperatures in ocean and atmosphere (lower troposphere) so that the top few meters of the ocean are warmer than the atmosphere (because the top few meters of the oceans absorb SW radiation), LW radiation from the ocean to the atmosphere is controlled by an ocean skin layer whose gradient is negative (i.e the bottom of the skin layer is warmer than the top). This gradient controls the amount of LW radiation emitted by the oceans into the atmosphere.
So let me stick my neck out a bit…
We now consider the effect of an increase in GHG which in turn warms the atmosphere.
This reduces the gradient of the skin layer, because the increased LW radiation from GHG will get absorbed by the skin layer.
The reduced temperature gradient reduces the heat flux from the oceans into the atmosphere.
Since less heat goes from the oceans into the atmosphere, the increase in atmospheric temperature due to increasing GHG declines.
And since less heat is emitted by the oceans, the oceans start to warm, with ocean dynamics carrying that heat down to greater depths.
Eventually the increase in ocean temperature is going to re-establish a larger skin layer gradient, causing the oceans to increase the heat flux into the atmosphere, which in turn will cause the atmosphere to start warming up again, with ‘eventually’ being the key word!
So sticking my neck out even more…
At a very simplistic level, one could look at atmosphere vs ocean temperatures, and guess that, as a first approximation, we will have no more than 20 years of ‘stable’ atmospheric temperatures. Why 20 years? Temperature records indicate a ‘stable’ atmospheric temperature between 1950 and 1970. Although research has suggested that this, and the current hiatus in temperature changes may be due to aerosols (Wilcox et. Al. Environmental Research Letters, June 2013), it seems obvious that if the oceans are emitting less heat into the atmosphere because of a reduced skin temperature gradient, then that could be a contributing factor to the current hiatus. If that is true, we can expect to see atmospheric temperatures to start increasing within the next few years (since the hiatus started about 15 years ago, give or take...). Hm, could be an interesting topic for some real research…
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grindupBaker at 02:35 AM on 30 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
Composer99 #1 There's a less fanciful aspect that I've not seen discussed. If the coal was used judiciously it could help mitigate many thousands of years of the approaching glaciation period. I would think (I've no time now to work it out) that it's far less than required to prevent any "ice age" at all, but it sure would help. There is some ideal rate (such as 0.05 ppmv/year for 80,000 years if that largest coal reserves estimate is correct) that might have a noticeable mitigating effect through that period. Instead our under-evolved species will likely burn the whole lot in a spasm lasting the next 600 years and cause a big killing temperature spike following by a decline into a killer ice age.
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Composer99 at 02:09 AM on 30 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
Since these posts are usually the 'open threads' at Skeptical Science, I thought I would re-direct the conversation developing here to this one.
With respect to engineers and climate science denial, there is a (sort of) joke, called the 'Salem Hypothesis', originating among people debating evolution with creationists, that engineers are over-represented among creationists with advanced (STEM) education. I do not think it is too much of a stretch to expect a similar (if not quite identical) outcome when considering AGW contrarianism or even denialism.
Interestingly, papers such as this one suggest engineers might be predisposed to the sort of worldview or mindset correlating strongly with the adoption of religious creationism, or indeed AGW contrarianism/denialism.
(Note that examining the adoption of contrarian beliefs with respect to specific fields of science is beyond the purview of the paper, which seeks to empirically confirm and account for the over-representation of engineers among violent Islamic organizations. It would be interesting to find further research specifically looking at the differing likelihood of people with advanced degrees to adopt unsupportable or conspiracist positions with respect to climate science, medicine, and so on.)
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(For those unfamiliar with the acronym, STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine.)Moderator Response:[JH] Good call. Thank you.
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DSL at 23:54 PM on 29 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
Here's his attempt at intimidation:
"Nice try. BTW, I am a Chemical Engineer who graduated from the top-ranked undergraduate engineering school in the country. I was awarded U.S. Patent #5,348,662 for the development of a wastewater recycling process.
And I obviously know more than you do, because I know how to navigate hyperlinks on the Internet."The link he's referring to (and referring me to) is Steve Goddard's claim of recovery based on one year's growth in 1m+ ice. No comment when I pointed out the flaw in SG's implied argument--and the implied error in judgment by this guy for even reading such garbage.
Moderator Response:[JH] You, Dave123, & Glenn Tamblyn are skating on the thin ice of being off topic. This thread is not a chat room.
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Dave123 at 21:47 PM on 29 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
Glenn- Chemical Engineers do more thermo than mechanical engineers, who can get stuck with gear trains, transmissions and the like. Chemical engineers convert lab chemistry to functioning chemical plants- and must use heat transfer, mass transfer, kinetics Daily. Gotta run.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 20:51 PM on 29 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
DSL
I would be interested to know what branch of engineering this chap was from. Civil, Electrical, Chemical - maybe they can be forgiven.
Mechanical and they should know better - thermodyamics is meat and potatoes to a mechanical engineer.
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ajki at 15:14 PM on 29 October 2013Escaping the warmth: The Atlantic cod conquers the Arctic
It may be useful to add another journalistic perspective to AWI's press release.
See "Atlantic cod pushing out Arctic relatives?" on Irene Quailes "Ice Blog".
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Bert from Eltham at 13:17 PM on 29 October 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
I can see the decline in temperature! It is all a hoax!
Sorry just got a bit excited.
I am just a grumpy old retired scientist and I sent some dollars to this real effort.
My ravings will not make much difference but smart young people given the opportunity will do far more given enough support!
Bert
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grindupBaker at 12:45 PM on 29 October 2013Why trust climate models? It’s a matter of simple science
Me#26 I see there's earlier links to the dendochronology discussion that'll be more accurate than my ad hoc summary, that's likely misleading, so look there instead. Especially since I'm better sticking with the base climate model theme since I've written a simple simulation model in 2002 (elevator system , fat bods, thin bods, elevators) for company promo site and assisted on another time-slice simulation model in 1973 (big old computer).
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vrooomie at 06:12 AM on 29 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
" In any case, one cannot reason with such people, and they are, quite frankly, best ignored!"
Rght up to the time these unreasonable and unreachable folks/sources/institutions are called upon by the MSM, for the "balance" they provide, regardless of how false it is. It is then we--us based in rational, data-driven thought processes--*have to* not ignore them, but once again, ad nauseam, rebut their lack of background of what they profess expertise in. Lindzen and Freeman Dyson are some of the most guilty of this, and it puzzles me to no end.
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Doug Bostrom at 04:54 AM on 29 October 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
Further to Stephen's exhortation, less than 5 minutes are required to make a contribution.
Why spend less than a handful of minutes on helping some journalists cover the meeting?
Here's why coverage is important:
No coverage, no blip on the radar of public consciousness.
Spend 5 minutes arguing on an obscure comment thread with somebody whose mind won't be changed, or massively multiply more positive use of the same time by choosing something better. Hey, you can do both; there's no opportunity cost here. Just do the contribution first, to make sure it happens.
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PhilBMorris at 01:33 AM on 29 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
CBDunkerson @11
I could not agree more regarding your comments about the skeptics (or maybe they should be called contrarians - aren't all good scientists skeptics?). Having recently redirected my physics/math background to climate science I had to wonder about well-established figures such as Lindzen - being an MIT prof - also being against the mainstream science view about climate change and its causes. Further research showed that he hypothesized about how global warming was occurring due to a ‘cloud iris’ effect rather than GHG and that subsequent examination by others showed no support for his hypothesis. Maybe it’s a case of 'There's no way I could be wrong, it has to be them'. Losing face can be tough - even more so for well-known people. So the intelligent contrarians may never admit what the majority accept, which is a pity, because they lend credence to the contrarian point of view. Some of the others take an adversarial point of view for the publicity it gains them, some because they simply don’t have the background and/or training to understand the physics involved – and either don’t realize that or don’t want to admit it. In any case, one cannot reason with such people, and they are, quite frankly, best ignored!
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Stephen Leahy at 00:41 AM on 29 October 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
Only 4 days left and CNM is half way to its fundraising goal to help some young jurnos cover the UN climate meeting next month. If you want better coverage of climate please help out by making a small contribution today.
Thanks
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DSL at 23:40 PM on 28 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
But Composer, the Earth has been cooling, and it's because of increasing solar radiation, or so an engineer chap, with whom I was discussing climate recentely, claims. To be fair, I don't think he actually put the two together in a cause-effect relationship. He also claimed that the theory of the greenhouse effect was 20 years old, water vapor feedback is strongly negative, and the greenhouse effect is a giant fraud. Again, no reconciliation between these claims, but then in the postmodern world having a consistent physics is "old school" and worthy of a chortle from one's betters.
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Composer99 at 23:24 PM on 28 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
This mechanism also helps to explain why the Earth has gradually cooled over the last 50 million years (Lear [2000], Zhang [2011], Anderson [2011]), despite the sun growing warmer over this period of time. As the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has gradually declined, so too has the temperature of the atmosphere and oceans.
Cue someone claiming that "Skeptical Science shows the Earth is on a long-term (50+ million year!) cooling trend - we'd better burn more fossil fuels before we all freeze permanently!!!"
On a serious note, this is a good start to what will surely be a fascinating primer on the behaviour of the ocean (at larger scales).
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grindupBaker at 19:00 PM on 28 October 2013Why trust climate models? It’s a matter of simple science
Ironbark #5 you say "All that leaves is the models" then later "whether CO2 emissions are to blame" but they are largely unrelated. The simulation "models" purpose is to get a reasonable picture of future climate, not to prove that CO2 is "to blame". "whether CO2 emissions are to blame" (are the primary warming agent) is determined by many means all telling a very similar picture. Physics of CO2 (adults do it & schoolkids do it on videos), hundreds of thousands of thermometers in the oceans over decades taking (must be millions) of measurements showing it's warming. The IPCC report even shows how much warming or cooling is attributed to each major factor each year, not just CO2. None of this science has anything to do the the simulation "models" that project the future climate, the only slight interrelation is that they also use the ocean part of the models to estimate accurately the water temperatures between the floats with thermometers in them, because that's far more accurate than just taking a straight line between them.
You say "ordinary people who don't have the time or expertise", "don't have the time or skills", so you say you have other life priorities and you imply strongly that you lack the mental equipment or life-conditioning or both that's required for logical analytical thought, so you base your opinions on the popular news. We all see that many humans are similar to that so they are easily led by the well honed techniques of those with power and intelligence well versed in advertising and the masses-manipulation techniques (that is, not naive obsessive scientist brainiac types). You must not be massively under the gun for time though because you've posted a few words so far.
The tree ring data goes back 2,000 years. It's not worth me lookiing back at the data for details (you can't even be bothered for a 2-minute look to asses it a bit and comment, you are so busy) but humans had pretty good thermometers last few decades and the tree ring data showed cooling but the thermometers reasonable warming. If you had a good thermometer outside your home and recorded temperature each day and chopped down your cherry tree after 10 years and found its rings showed it freezing outside when your thermometer log showed it warm would you throw out the thermometer readings you took and assume the tree rings were right ? It's ridiculous. The trees were poorly chosen at the treeline where they were bashed by the elements, instead of trees deep in the forest. Prof. Muller says the whole 2,000 years tree record should have been thrown out then rather than just throwing out the last bit, and he seems to have a point but that would not change the last decade of big warming record at all (as Prof. Muller has said that also) and there are other ways that were used to measure temperature back 650,000,000 years, not just 2,000 years, and they all show the same story as near as matters - it's getting warm very suddenly lately. The clever professionals in the human-based soft sciences lead the masses around by nose rings by any sparkly bit of trivium because the masses don't have the necessary mental equipment, have much bigger priorities (we are all selfish by nature) and prefer simple entertainments.
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Tom Curtis at 11:09 AM on 28 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
Christopher Gyles @12, it is wise to clearly mark ironical statements as such on the internet. Otherwise you will find your irony popping up in "skeptic" mouths as serious argument.
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Tom Curtis at 10:35 AM on 28 October 2013A Glimpse at Our Possible Future Climate, Best to Worst Case Scenarios
JamesRMarten @42:
1) If you are talking about the seciton of the original post which states, "The case for a most likely equilibrium climate sensitivity of around 2.5°C average surface warming in response to a doubling of CO2, as opposed to 3°C, is not yet very compelling, but it is certainly a possibility", then it does not matter. The temperature response for a doubling of CO2 is approximately the same whether we double from 280 to 560 ppmv (your case (a)) or from 393 to 786 ppmv (ie, from 2012 levels, or the equivalent of you (b)), or any other doubling in the range from 100 to several thousand ppmv. However, at extremely low levels or high levels of CO2, the approximately equivalent response to any doubling of CO2 will break down.
2) The IPCC AR5 WG1 Technical Summary states:
"The assessment of TCRE, limiting the warming caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions alone to be likely less than 2°C, total CO2 emissions from all anthropogenic sources would need to be below a cumulative budget of about 1000 PgC over the entire industrial era. About half, estimated in the range of 460 to 630 PgC, of this budget was already emitted by 2011 (TFE.8, Figure 1a). Higher emissions in earlier decades therefore imply lower or even negative emissions later on. Accounting for non-CO2 forcings contributing to peak warming implies lower cumulated CO2 emissions (TFE.8, Figure 1a). Non-CO2 forcing constituents are important, requiring either assumptions on how CO2 emission reductions are linked to changes in other forcings, or separate emission budgets and climate modeling for short lived and long-lived gases."
(My emphasis)
An increase of 1,000 Petagrams (or I,000 billion tonnes) of carbon (or 3,700 billion tonnes of CO2) is equivalent to 470 ppmv of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, only 55% of emissions actually enter the atmosphere, the rest being absorbed by the ocean and the biosphere. That leaves only 260 ppmv accumulating in the atmosphere. So yes, that does amount to the near doubling of CO2 over preindustrial levels.
The IPCC position is consistent, however with what is stated above. That is because they are looking at the TCRE, the Transient Climate Response to cumulative Emissions, whereas the above article is looking at the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS). With a crucial caveate, it is the Transient Climate Response that is more important. That is because the time scale for temperatures to rise from the level of the Transient Climate Response to the Equilibrium Climate Response is approximately the same as the time scale for the initial slug of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere to be drawn down by equilibriating with the deep ocean. The result is that the Transient Climate Response approximates to the full temperature response over the coming centuries, and indeed, the coming millenia (as the slower draw down be chemical weathering occures on time scales comparable to the Earth System Climate Response.) I have a spreadsheet showing the approximate expected temperature response to various estimates of the available fossil fuel base at different time scales here.
The crucial caveat is that temperatures will only plateau at or near the transient climate response if there are no further net emissions. Further emissions will result in a continued slow rise in CO2 concentration, and emissions equivalent to 10-20% of peak emissions (depending on when they occur) will result in a rise sufficient that we will face the full Equilibrium Climate Response, ie, about 50% greater than the transient climate response. As it is impossible to avoid all emissions, policies based on a Transient Climate Response target commit future generations to deliberate, artificial carbon sequestration at some level.
There is a further caveat that the rate of draw down and the rate of temperature equilibriation are not certain. In particular Hansen thinks temperatures will equilibriate much faster than is generally believed, which again will result in a temperature spike significantly greater than the Transient Climate Response. His, however, is not the consensus opinion. Therefore, other than noting its existence I believe policy makers should adopt the IPCC figures for establishing current policy settings, and fine tune policy later as we gain more information.
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Christopher Gyles at 09:07 AM on 28 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
It's obvious in which direction global temperature is headed. Just look at the mean of 1941-1958. That should be long enough a period to permit predictive certainty. We need to start burning more fossil fuel to stave off the impending ice age!
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Tom Curtis at 07:51 AM on 28 October 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #43B
doug_bostrom @2, legislating the value of pi comes to mind. In this case, of course, they only legislated a report, but appeared to have legislated the findings of the report, just to be on the safe side. However, you are wrong on one point. This is not just going to look ridiculous in hindsight.
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Doug Bostrom at 07:05 AM on 28 October 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #43B
As fake skeptics (aka "cranks") so often demand, let's not politicize science:
State climate change study may go begging for scientists
LINCOLN — Nebraska may be poised to conduct a climate change study that its own scientists don't want to be associated with.
The state's drought and climate task force wrestled Wednesday with the awkward job of developing a study on the impact of climate change in Nebraska but possibly excluding the role of humans in changing the climate.
The study is to be completed next year and cost no more than $44,000.
The Legislature approved the study this year and handed the task to Nebraska's already-existing Climate Assessment and Response Committee, a governor-appointed group that mostly advises the state on drought issues.
The sticking point in Wednesday's discussion, beyond the lack of money and time for the study, was what the Legislature meant when it voted to limit the study to “cyclical” climate change.
The word “cyclical” was added to the legislation by State Sen. Beau McCoy, a Republican who represents western Douglas County and is a candidate for governor. McCoy could not be reached late Wednesday.
Last April, during debate on the bill, McCoy said: “I don't subscribe to global warming. I think there are normal, cyclical changes.”
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Ken Haar of Malcolm, a Democrat and the leading environmental voice in the Legislature, wanted something broader.
Haar said after the meeting that his intent was to include all aspects of climate change. He said that any analysis that rejected science and excluded the role of humans would make the state “look stupid.”
“ 'Let's just embrace ignorance, and let our children deal with the consequences.' That's what that sounds like,” he said.
More details at the link above. This and much else is going to look so very, very stupid in retrospect.
Anyway, an example of the costly nature of "misleading." McCoy is a victim along with the rest of us.
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