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Comments 41101 to 41150:
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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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JamesRMartin at 06:19 AM on 28 October 2013A Glimpse at Our Possible Future Climate, Best to Worst Case Scenarios
Is the doubling of CO2 under discussion here
(a) a doubling of current CO2 concentrations?
(b) a doubling of atmospheric CO2 relative to the pre-industrialization levels?
(c) other?
This (above) is my main reason for commenting, but if anyone wants to address the following comments as well, that'd be fine.
The IPCC recently came out with a proposed "carbon budget" which amounts, more or less, to allowing for a near doubling of current CO2 emissions since the beginning of the industrial age.
For what it is worth, the IPCC carbon budget strikes me as quite optimistic, given that the Arctic sea ice nearly disappeared in summer recently and is expected to do so within a few years. Combine this with the many positive feedback mechanisms which would likely occur as a result of this dramatic shift in the Arctic, and it appears our budget is probably already about consumed.
Moderator Response:[JH] This comment thread is an appropriate venue for a discussion of your (a) and (b).
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Jim Hunt at 00:54 AM on 28 October 2013Fox News defends global warming false balance by denying the 97% consensus
Jubble @3 - Sorry, but Friday has already been and gone. I thought based on previous correspondence we were intending to keep in touch about this sort of thing? Here's where we're up to at this end on hauling The Telegraph before the Press Complaints Commission:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2013/10/will-the-telegraph-print-the-truth-in-the-cold-light-of-day/
So far they have at least corrected a couple of their most blatant inaccuracies, and we've yet to make a formal complaint to the PCC. IIRC Fox were spouting the same "60%" nonsense as The Mail and The Telegraph last month. How might one go about persuading a US based purveyor of "news" to publish a similar "correction"? -
Tom Curtis at 20:42 PM on 27 October 2013Temp record is unreliable
MA Rodger @294, the difference between the GISS graph and the WUWT/World Climate Report Graph is that the former is for annual values, while the later is for Summer (JJA) means only. I have downloaded the data, and plotted the graphs myself, and can verify that the WUWT graph is the summer data, as claimed. The claim that the flatness of the summer graph means there has been no warming, however, is simply false. Arctic summer tempertures near ice fields are very constant because of the large amount of ice in the vicinity. The temperature of the ice is, naturally enough, freezing - and prevents temperatures rising more than about 3 C above zero. Excess energy that would have raised temperatures in the absense of ice melts the ice instead.
I should note that WUWT and the World Climate Report correctly identify their graph as being of summer temperatures in each case, so there can be no suggestion that they have passed of summer temperatures as annual temperatures. They have merely misinterpreted the significance of the stable summer temperatures over time.
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chriskoz at 20:42 PM on 27 October 2013The Coming Plague
The discussion about peak oil is realy OT here, but I want to mention important historical facts in this context:
- the EROEI for oil refining at the begining of XX century was 100:1 (fabulous)
- now (2010) is about 10:1, new explorations are a bit lower, some 7:1
- EROEI on tar sands is only 5:1
As pointed by Andy, tar sands are starting to be viable and their reserves substantial. We have a fair bit to go before petroleum industry collapses when EROEI reaches unviable 1:1. Most economists predict that it may not happen until ~2100, i.e. petroleum will be with us for another 100y. The Mora 2013 study timeframe finishes at 2100, therefore the collapse feared here will likely not affect Mora 2013 results. It is more likely that emissions will just increase as the result of increased petroleum production footprint as EROEI shrinks. Tom Curtis@9 comment is right on that issue is spot on and I concur.
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CBDunkerson at 20:10 PM on 27 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
And this is the problem... there is a segment of the population for whom complete nonsense is automatically held to be 'good science' if it states what they want to believe. There are still many people who think, 'McIntyre proved that PCA always produces a hockey stick shape'.
Similarly, people otherwise capable of basic reasoning somehow lose the ability to understand the simplest concepts of statistical analysis (e.g. 15 year trends in lower atmospheric warming a few years apart give radically different results, ergo these trends are obviously too short to be indicative of the long term impact) when there is any 'refutation' at all... no matter how meaningless.
Too much credit is given to the few skeptics capable of performing actual scientific analysis... because none of their science supports the nonsense they spread. The fact that Pielke senior, Curry, Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Muller, and various others have conducted actual scientific research with valid methodologies and repeatable results does not excuse the fact that they have also made blatantly false statements to advance various beliefs which they cannot substantiate scientifically. After someone at the LA Times said that they don't print letters from climate 'skeptics' containing false information various other papers stated their policies. The Denver Post stated that the matter is still in doubt and it would be "editorial arrogance" to dismiss the views of "properly credentialed experts" like Spencer and Curry. The quotations from these two are particularly galling because Spencer's is outright false and Curry's deliberately misleading;
http://www.denverpost.com/carroll/ci_24333316/carroll-one-truth-global-warming
The fact that these sometimes scientists have not been sufficiently called out and denounced for their false claims means that they will continue to be given equal (or greater) time by many segments of the press and provides cover for the Tisdale's and Watts's to push climate denial into the realm of fantasy and nonsense.
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MA Rodger at 19:35 PM on 27 October 2013Temp record is unreliable
@292 & 293.
The origin of the Wattsupian graph dates back to the 2009 Axford et al paper on the work at Lake CF8. At the time Wattsupia simply re-posted the World Climate Report nonsense. There is a debunk from 2009 by Dale Husband stating that a quick look at the GISTEMPS data shows the graph is bogus. "That's not even remotely the same chart!" I am presently unable to expand on this as the GISTEMP station page isn't working for me.
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dana1981 at 19:26 PM on 27 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
Note that 1990 was the hottest year on record at the time. The only reason it's now "not especially hot" is because of the global warming that's occurred over the subsequent 2 decades.
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scaddenp at 17:08 PM on 27 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
Well after picking myself off the floor, perhaps the way to discuss this constructively would be you, hank, what it was that impressed you about the piece and what made you think that it discussed actual science.
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Andy Skuce at 14:09 PM on 27 October 2013The Coming Plague
Try this for the Jaccard book chapter link
Update: The original link came from Mark Jaccard's blog, (here, scroll down to near the bottom). This link seems only to work intermittently, so I downloaded the pdf and uploaded it to my own blog.
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Philippe Chantreau at 13:58 PM on 27 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
The "high road"? ROFL. Tisdale's word salad is a perfect fit for the venue where it is published, nothing more...
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Stephen Leahy at 12:40 PM on 27 October 2013The Coming Plague
Joel - try this link for city projection.
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Joel_Huberman at 12:24 PM on 27 October 2013The Coming Plague
This is an interesting article, and it is greatly enhanced and clarified by the discussion. I've tried to follow some of the links, and I've found two that don't work for me. The first is in the tenth paragraph from the end of the main article: (City by city projection here). The second is in comment 14 by Andy Skuce (this book chapter by energy economist Mark Jaccard). I hope both links can be fixed.
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scaddenp at 11:12 AM on 27 October 2013Scientists tried to 'hide the decline' in global temperature
Ironbark, if your impression of climategate emails is based on solely on emails as reported by the misinformation crew, then you are missing some interesting information - like how the misinformation/disinformation sites manipulate you. You might want to check out about:
Selective editing of the emails to cast them in a different light
and strangely omitted emails that provide context. The links allow you to check blog posts against the emails so you can see that there is no further wool being pulled over your eyes.
How do feel about being manipulated like this?
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Andy Skuce at 11:09 AM on 27 October 2013The Coming Plague
I would suggest that anyone who thinks Peak Oil is a bigger problem than climate change should read this book chapter by energy economist Mark Jaccard. The following graph comes from there, showing that there are abundant new souces of oil that will be expensive, but below the current market price of crude oil:
There is also a good discussion of the "Peak Debate" on page 435 of this document, which also contains a very detailed assessment of energy resources from fossil fuels to renewables. The untapped resources of unconventional oil are huge, but they are dwarfed by the remaining gas and coal resources. See this chart (too wide to embed here) from the Summary for Policymakers of the Global Energy Assessment report.
Peak oil is not really about energy, but about transportation fuels. Many countries already are used to paying very high prices for liquid fuels because of taxes. If Americans have to start paying the same prices as Europeans for gasoline, that will require a tough economic adjustment, but surely not a disaster.
The big problem, as the Mora article shows, is that we are already well along the road to changing the climate to an unprecedented state. Yet we have barely got started digging up and burning the available carbon.
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Tom Curtis at 10:54 AM on 27 October 2013Double Standard on Internal Variability
hank_ @6, you and I will have to disagree about what constitutes a "Good read if you ar actually interested in the science". Essentially Tisdale's argument comes down to the claim that 1990 was not "especially hot" because it was in the upper 27th percentile of temperature residuals rather than in the upper who knows what percentile, for he never says what percentile he would consider "especially hot". So, he is quibbling about words and trying to hide the fact behind a barrage of graphs, mostly irrelevant. It may be good science by Tisdale's standards, but it is not good science. Indeed, from my point of view it is not science at all, just "sciency talk".
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