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Stephen Leahy at 01:44 AM on 1 November 2013ONLY HOURS Left to Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate
Tom @9 agree its the UN climate conference at end of every year that spikes coverage. Copenhagen had by far the biggest media turnout with 6000 media, 100,000 people marching in the streets etc. The graph does show how media interest in the UN meets has fallen off. Barely a handful of jurnos from North America at the 2012 COP in Doha.
With CNM we're hoping to do something to halt the decline.
Thanks Alexandre - we're very close thanks to SkS readers!
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jdixon1980 at 00:51 AM on 1 November 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
"Many climate sceptics seem to review scientific data and studies not as scientists but as attorneys . . . ."
It seems to me that quite a few of them are not scientists but attorneys - see James Taylor, J.D. e.g.... Being a lawyer myself and knowing many of them, I think I can say confidently that practicing law, more than most other professions, could make one susceptible to the allure of (and adept at constructing) grand self-delusions. Laws are designed (and constantly modified) by people to create social outcomes, not explain or predict physical outcomes like scientific theories do. Legal disputes between parties very frequently are limited to two opposing sides, who on the surface are arguing about the truth of what the existing law is, what the relevant facts are, and/or how the law should be applied to those facts, while they care not about the analysis but only about their side prevailing - the analysis is a means to an end rather than the end in itself. I don't think these aspects of the modern legal system are necessarily bad things, but when you are constantly living and working in this framework, it is easy to fall into the trap of viewing everything, even science, through the lens of partisan advocacy.
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Composer99 at 00:10 AM on 1 November 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
VeryTallGuy & John Hartz:
I overstated the case I was making in comment #1, for which I apologize. I will stand by the statement that, based on the findings in GH2007, one can reasonably expect to see engineers form a larger proportion of climate science contrarians than other STEM professionals.
GH2007 reviewed previous work documenting the political & religious views of academics in the US and elsewhere and found that on the average engineering faculty & students are more politically conservative (pp. 45-50), or more religious (pp. 51-53), or both, than their counterparts in other fields.
This is a key finding in the paper, as noted in the abstract:
We consider four hypotheses that could explain this pattern ["that engineers alone are strongly over-represented among graduates in violent [Islamist] groups in both" the Middle East/North Africa region and North America/Europe]. Is the engineers’ prominence among violent Islamists an accident of history amplified through network links, or do their technical skills make them attractive recruits? Do engineers have a ‘mindset’ that makes them a particularly good match for Islamism, or is their vigorous radicalization explained by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries? We argue that the interaction between the last two causes is the most plausible explanation of our findings [...] [emphasis mine]
To the best of my knowledge, political conservatism and religious belief are both strongly associated (perhaps even causally related) with the willingness to adopt contrarian positions on evolutionary biology and climatology. (I am not sure, VeryTallGuy, that either creationism or climate contrarianism can be said to be extremist as social phenomena even though they clearly are extreme scientific positions.)
As final notes:
- For what it is worth, which may be very little, I began my own post-secondary education studying software engineering.
- With respect to my own current vocation, my admittedly anecdotal experience suggests on average practicing musicians and other performing artists are far more likely to have contrarian positions on various scientific subjects, including harmful positions such as anti-vaccine sentiments, than are practicing engineers or other STEM professionals, and for far weaker reasons.
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MA Rodger at 20:50 PM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
Re climate feedbacks @9 & 10.
The NIPCC analysis of cloud feedbacks would indeed be laughable if they actually were talking of feedbacks. Actually it is far worse than that.
The finding I quoted @4 is based within their Chapter 2 Forcings & Feedbacks , a 98 page treatment by Craig Idso & Tim Ball with contributions from Tom Segalstad. These gentlemen then must be the NIPCC experts on forcings & feedbacks. The quote @4 appears in Section 2.4 Clouds but it is very obvious from reading section 2.4.1 that these "experts" do not know the difference between "forcing" and "feedback" which is a trifle embarrasing, even for Numpy Idiots Professing Climatological Credentials.
I think I will enjoy reading the rest of Chapter 2. I will learn why, for instance, these numpties source their paleoclimate reconstruction from an archaeologist and not from the original climatologist (Alley 2004) or perhaps a more recent piece of work.
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VeryTallGuy at 18:33 PM on 31 October 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #43
@John Hartz #6
Full disclosure: I have a Masters in Chemical Engineering
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grindupBaker at 17:38 PM on 31 October 2013The Sun Has Cooled, So Why Are The Deep Oceans Warming?
KR #11 My issue is not addressed. To clarify: I am in agreement with "decreased ocean cooling", increased ocean warming, all the ocean stuff. I have specific disagreement with "A reduced viscous skin layer thermal gradient leads to less atmospheric warming over the oceans" because, by straightforward logic, this would depend on the cause of the reduced thermal gradient. If the cause was more circulation of cool water to the surface then " less atmospheric warming over the oceans" I agree. But if the cause was more LWR hitting the skin layer then there's no reason for the atmospheric warming over the oceans to reduce even though ocean cooling reduces --- because there's more energy overall due to more LWR.
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MP3CE at 14:14 PM on 31 October 2013US school infiltration attempt by Heartland’s IPCC Parody
NIPCC - does it stand for Non Intelegent panel on Climate Change ?
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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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