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Comments 42201 to 42250:

  1. Medieval Warm Period was warmer

    Tom,

    I'm aware of no Viking Saga stating that grapes were grown in Greenland.  Around A.D. 1,000 the Vikings sailed West from Greenland, coming across a barren land they called "Markland", presumably Labrador.  They sailed South and, as I can recall, they called their southernmost discovery, "Vinland" or "land of the grapes".  We believe this is present day Nova Scotia where a Viking settlement was discovered at L'anse d'Meadows.

    Note:  The Vikings never grew domestic grapes, at least not in North America.  The "grapes" they found may have been wild grapes, presently found no farther north than New England.

    Possible explanations:  1.  The Vikings misidentified their wild 'grapes'.  2.  We are misinterpreting the word "Vinland".  3.  The Vikings did discover wild grapes but, since then, wild grapes have disappeared from Nova Scotia for reasons other than climate.  4.  The Vikings sailed as far south as New England.  5.  Nova Scotia was significantly warmer then than now.  Take your pick.

  2. Greenhouse Effect Basics: Warm Earth, Cold Atmosphere

    Regarding 89 and 96:

    I need to make a correction for my calculation of the population of the first excited vibrational state for the bending mode of CO2. The ground state wave function is indeed non-degenerate and the first excited state is doubly degenerate, so there is a degeneracy factor of 2 for the Boltzmann distribution calculation. At 25C (77 F) the equilibrium percent of CO2 in the first excited state is 7.4%.

  3. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #37A

    wili@3:  I may be totally off base here, but I'll hazard a guess.  If CO2 warms the atmosphere, it holds more water vapor.  That doesn't mean it evaporates more water vapor off the Earth's surface, just that it can hold more.  Of course, there's the matter of the energy imbalance, yet that is quite small as a fraction of the total values of solar energy and Earth radiation.  So, there might be a smidge more actual evaporation going on, but (I'm guessing) just a smidge.  In that case, there would be little to no actual increase in condensation either (mass balance).  If true, then why would evaporation/condensation increase its surface 'cooling effect' in a globally warmed world?  Yes, the cycle is kind of a heat-pump, but why would this heat-pump become more efficient in the future as a 'negative feedback' to AGW?  (this is different from saying the kinds of cloud cover might change to favor clouds that cool rather than warm).

    It's often mentioned that precipitation patterns will change with AGW.  More droughts expected, but also more flooding when rain does fall.  However, I don't think the amount of evaporation/condensation going on is supposed to shift greatly, on a global basis.  I'll admit I'm guessing here, but if so perhaps others can correct me.

  4. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    Yves at #2:

    "Moreover, more knowledge now means more uncertainties now, this is a kind of paradoxical law of science but quite logic..."

    This reminds me of the missing-link argument of Creationists, where every evolutionary link found between two species simply raises from the Creationists claims of ever-more missing links, as if this somehow weakens evolutionary theory rather than supporting it.

    The parallel between this and the 'gap'-finding by deniers of climate science makes my skin crawl when I think of it.

  5. The Pacific Ocean fills in another piece of the global warming puzzle, and puzzles Curry

    @Kevin C:

    Re the volcanic response, I am not sure whether I got your last sentence in the 4th paragraph. If ENSO is included (which it already is in the first figure of the toy model), the lag time for volcanoes in the response function should be less than 30 years (which is the current default lag time). It seems that 5 years are more appropriate. With longer lag times, wouldn't there be the danger of "double counting" in case ENSO is partly volcanically modulated?

    Re your last paragraph, there is an interesting paper by McGregor et al. 2013 which came out a week ago, argueing that ENSO might indeed be capable of responding to external forcing. While physically plausible, they present intriguing paleoclimatic evidence for that.

    So far, it is thought that stronger (pos.) external forcing tends to produce less frequent El Nino events or to reduce its magnitude, resp. If this holds true also for short term forcings, negative volcanic forcing would increase the likelihood for El Nino events. And indeed, most volcanic eruptions are followed by an El Nino. As a result, a considerable energy imbalance builts up in the climate system, an imbalance which has to be overcome somehow ... and the easiest way to do that is to have stronger La Nina events in the decades that follow. I am not aware of any proposed mechanism for that, which is why I am very careful to connect the current La Nina preponderance with a delayed Pinatubo response. I just mentioned it before as one conceivable reason for that, while I consider it much more likely to be the case for past eruptions. I rather think of the current La Nina phase as a counterbalancing response to the strong GHG forcing (in agreement with some anecdotal paleo-evidence; see e.g. Mann et al. 2009). This way, everything would be fairly consistent, apart from the fact the many climate models suggest a different response. Nothing we should be too worried about in my opinion. The fact that things have looked different in the course of the past century could be easily explained by the highly spatially heterogeneous and temporally variable aerosol forcing. Above all: Stochastic internal variability!

    Hope that makes sense to you, though it might not bring us closer to the "response function truth".

  6. 2013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction

    I'm posting this here because the 'Arctic ice loss is natural' thread has benne dead since 2010 (a problem that wouldn't exist if the website had an email notification option!):

    I'm debating a Watt-bot and he's claiming that Arctic ice decline is all due to changes in wind patterns. He's posted several articles, but the broadest claims are made here:

    Wind contributing to Arctic ice loss, study finds

    Anything in the article that points out this doesn't question climate change's role he describes as spin - even though the study itself only seems to attribute 30-50% of the ice loss to changing wind patterns, according to the article.  

    Apparently this line is the dominant response to Arctic ice loss at WUWT other than the occasional rallying cry of "Recovery" (such as we are currently hearing). Any thoughts on this?

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Again, NO THREADS ARE DEAD at SkS.  Regular participants follow the Recent Comments thread, so that no matter where ANY comment is made, it will be seen.  And then responded to.

    Please repost this on this thread, where others will then appropriately respond to you:

    Arctic icemelt is a natural cycle

    This comment will be deleted in a little bit.  Parties interested in responding to Dvaytw, please do so at the link.

  7. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    Shoyemore @12, I think you have been confused.

    The effect of the ocean is that it has a very large heat capacity.  Therefore, for a given change in radiative forcing it takes a long time (centuries) to reach the equilibrium temperature.  Without the ocean, the Charney equilibrium temperature would be reached in a few decades at most.  Consequently, in a situation of radiative imbalance, the ocean cools (or warms) the Earth temporarilly relative to what the temperature would be without the ocean, but by no more than (approsimately) the difference between the Charney Climate Sensitivity and the Transient Climate Response.  In current conditions, that is about 1 or 2 degrees C.

    That analysis ignores the effects of the existence of the ocean on the radiative balance itself.  Absent an ocean, we would have no water vapour feedback, and no ice/snow or cloud albedo.  Further, the the albedo of the areas currently covered by ocean would be that of desert (much higher).  The net effect would be a much colder Earth, although I have not seen a study of by how much.

    What I suspect you are thinking of is the difference between the actual temperature of the Earth, established by the radiative/convective equilibrium relative to the temperature we would have in the absence of heat transfer to the upper troposphere by convection.  Absent convection, the Earth would indeed be much warmer.  Indeed about 36 C warmer as you indicate, as shown by Manabe and Wetherald, and discussed here (see the top figure on page 9). 

  8. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    somib, climate 'energy budget' studies take the energy used in converting ice to water into account. While this is a 'large' amount in absolute terms, it is actually only a small fraction (~2%) of the total energy from global warming... as can be seen here.

    The thing is that atmospheric temperatures actually aren't "lower than projected". They are within the span of results produced by various model runs for the greenhouse gas levels we have observed. Climate scientists (and people capable of rational thought in general) have always known that fluctuations would occur... this denier idea that temperatures should rise in a continuous straight line is one of their dumber (and that's saying something) positions. There were temperature fluctuations before human induced global warming and no reason to imagine that they would stop after it.

    Put another way... the difference between the 'slower atmospheric warming' observed over the past ~15 years and the 'rapid atmospheric warming' observed the 15 years prior to that is less than 1% of the total energy from global warming.

  9. Global imprint of climate change on marine life

    Jelly fish increasing??  The turtles should do well, that is if we allow them to breed.  Perhaps we will be eating turtle soup instead of tuna. 

  10. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    How much of the excess heat absorbed in the oceans causes ice melt?   This heat would melt ice floating on water.   Melting of ice on land would keep the surface temperature from rising.    In my high school physics class, I was told that it takes a large amount of energy to go from ice at 0 degrees centigrade to water at 0 degrees.  Perhaps the melting of the floating ice and ice on land is keeping the tempeatures lower than projected?   

  11. Global imprint of climate change on marine life
    One of my favourites is Cheung et al (2013) doi:10.1038/nature12156which shows the remarkable nortward migrations of fishes in the last three decades. Fig 1 is compelling.sidd
  12. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    And by "recent geologic history," Composer99 means the last 300 million years.  Honisch even suggests that it may be unprecedented, period.  The argument extends to atmospheric concentration, since atmospheric and oceanic carbon are tied tightly together.  It's possible that life in general has never experienced a carbon spike of this rate, and if temp follows (likely), then life in general may experience an unprecedented rate of increase in temp.  Evolution occurs at different speeds in different species.  The longer an ecosystem is at effective equilibrium, the more integrated and tuned the ecosystem's species become.  Rapid change across the spectrum of climate (temp, precipitation, wind, circulation, ice) means ecological dis-integration, and the species that evolve slowly are more likely to become extinct.  

    This may all sound rather alarmist and fanciful, and it may be hard to see from the perspective of a single human life, yet we are warming at between 10x and 30x the rate of PETM warming right now, and 55 million years ago there weren't seven billion human beings wrapped up in a complex, highly-integrated global economy, half living in cities and highly-dependent on the consistent delivery of cheap food, water, and energy.  Physics says the warming will continue for centuries.

    Here's the abstract from Johanson & Fu 2008:

    "Observations show that the Hadley cell has widened by about 2°–5° since 1979. This widening and the concomitant poleward displacement of the subtropical dry zones may be accompanied by large-scale drying near 30°N and 30°S. Such drying poses a risk to inhabitants of these regions who are accustomed to established rainfall patterns. Simple and comprehensive general circulation models (GCMs) indicate that the Hadley cell may widen in response to global warming, warming of the west Pacific, or polar stratospheric cooling. The combination of these factors may be responsible for the recent observations. But there is no study so far that has compared the observed widening to GCM simulations of twentieth-century climate integrated with historical changes in forcings. Here the Hadley cell widening is assessed in current GCMs from historical simulations of the twentieth century as well as future climate projections and preindustrial control runs. The authors find that observed widening cannot be explained by natural variability. This observed widening is also significantly larger than in simulations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These results illustrate the need for further investigation into the discrepancy between the observed and simulated widening of the Hadley cell."

    That's already happening: significant changes to general circulation.  During the PETM event, parts of general circulation flipped.  You don't think something like that will have a significant, complex, and resonant impact on human agriculture?  

  13. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    Thanks for posting the email, MrGibbage.  The response clarifies Fyfe's position quite a bit.

  14. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    hank_:

    In the first place, the hard data is already widely available. No special effort need be made by anyone who wants to find it. NOAA/NCDC, here at Skeptical Science, Real Climate, IPCC reports, and so on and so forth. Frankly, going around making statements implying that scientists have yet to "bring forth the hard data" sounds far more like spin in that light. In fact, it strikes me as practically an accusation of malfeasance.

    In the second place, "damage control from the AGW faithful"?? Please. Pointing out (correctly) that the oceans are taking up 90+% of additional heat content from global warming isn't "damage control". It's called being accurate. If you want damage control, there are many accounts by climate pseudoskeptics of how Arctic sea ice has been "in recovery" any time over the last decade (it hasn't), or how a not-quite-statistically-significant-yet-still-positive surface temperature trend since 1998 counts as "no warming" or even "cooling".

    -----

    josiecki:

    The NOAA/NCDC link posted by BBD works just fine for me (perhaps a mod fixed it if it was actually broken?). In addition, there just so happens to be a link to the Levitus et al paper in the Skeptical Science post discussing it. (Fancy that.) On to specifics regarding your inquiries:

    Surface Temps vs. Heat Content

    With regards to the prior focus on surface temperature anomalies, it must be said that these are much easier to measure than ocean heat content, we have longer-term reliable networks of surface temperature measurements, and as far as I am aware finding/developing adequate proxies for historical/paleo measurement is also much easier for surface temperatures than for ocean heat content.

    That being said, we are getting better at measuring present and past ocean heat content, and it is IMO irresponsible to leave it out of the discussion, since as discussed it does represent heat storage of nearly 2 orders of magnitude more energy from global warming than do surface temperatures.

    The Hockey Stick

    For it's part, the "hockey stick" is in reality just a small, minor piece of the global warming body of knowledge. Insofar as it is a cause célèbre, at least in the last ten years, it is because of extraordinary efforts by denialists to attack and discredit it (which they have manifestly failed to do). It is also instructive since it shows an important part of the picture: the rapidity of contemporary warming.

    Why the Atmosphere & CO2?

    You ask "why are we looking at the atmosphere?" Then you basically answer the question yourself with "Isn't the atmosphere where we experience climate [weather]? [correction mine]"

    The changes in weather due to warming, and its attendant effects on agriculture and other socioeconomic activity, is a very good reason to look at the atmosphere.

    As for CO2, well, the physics shows that the reason all this warming is occurring, in the oceans and atmosphere and cryosphere, is because of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere. (This is kind of a "Well, DUH!" thing.)

    What's It All About, Anyway?

    In your final post (as of this writing), you make what is IMO a very revealing comment:

    If we didn't have warming, we would be like Mars or a floating chunk of ice. It is a question of whether we are in balance, out of balance or just fluctuating.

    There are three major reasons why global warming is "kind of a big deal":

    1. Sea level rise. Sea level rise has consistently been at the high end of projections. Current expectations for sea level rise range from 50 cm to 2 m above preindustrial levels by the end of this century. The lower end projection entails an enormous cost to protect what coastal infrastructure we can and abandoning the rest. The higher end projection means the effective end of, say, entities such as the city of Miami, or the country of Bangladesh. Both represent severe economic and human crises.
    2. Ocean acidification. The "evil twin" of global warming, this is not caused by warming per se, but rather has the same source as warming: CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Currently, ocean acidification is proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in recent geological history, faster even than occasions known to be associated with, say, massive dieback of coral reefs.
    3. Other impacts, especially on agriculture, glacier melt, and (sub)-tropical regions. I won't go into too much detail here.

    Suffice to say, the net consequence of these impacts severely impairs our ability as a species to continue to exist in the extraordinary state of physical affluence and numbers we currently possess. If we want to maintain something like what we have now, global warming must be dealt with.

    As a final word, as I said to hank_, the data you are wondering about is out there, in great abundance. Start with the IPCC reports and work your way through the references. Browse posts here, or at Real Climate, and work through the references. The people who know their stuff and are regulars here are quite happy to help (although their reaction is strongly contingent on the perceived "adversarial" nature of the questions - many are the pseudoskeptics who have come and gone while "just asking questions").

  15. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    hank #9

    You do not seem not seem to be aware the Charney Report was published over 30 years ago, before the stale rhetoric you are throwing around had even been thought of.

  16. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    Oh, wow! I actually got a response from Dr. Fyfe. First my email to him and then his response below it.

    Hello Dr. Fyfe. I am sure you are very busy, but for a long shot, I thought I would try and just ask you about a question I have about your report

    Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years
    http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n9/full/nclimate1972.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201309#affil-auth

    I am not a scientist, but I do like to read a lot of science papers and reports (mostly space stuff). I am a believer in climate change, but I have a friend that is a denier. I have a Master's degree in computer modeling and simulation, so I understand how models are supposed to work. I understand your point of the paper in that the CMIP model has been overestimating the global temperature for the last fifteen years, when compared to the actual temperature. The model needs fixing--I get that.

    What I don't understand is your statement:

    The inconsistency between observed and simulated global warming is even more striking for temperature trends computed over the past fifteen years (1998–2012). For this period, the observed trend of 0.05 ± 0.08 °C per decade is more than four times smaller than the average simulated trend of 0.21 ± 0.03 °C per decade (Fig. 1b). It is worth noting that the observed trend over this period — not significantly different from zero — suggests a temporary 'hiatus' in global warming

    All of a sudden it looks like (the typical denier sentiment) that the planet is not getting warmer at all. Now, I know this was not the point of the paper, but I am confused by it, and my friend is using it as evidence that climate change is not real. Maybe that *WAS* your point, in which case I may need to rethink my stance as well. Or maybe I am misunderstanding what you meant. Is the planet getting warmer or not?

    Anyway, if you have the time, perhaps you could explain it to me in somewhat layman's terms what that statement really means and how it should be interpreted.

    Thank you, Sir, for your time.
    Very Respectfully,

    Skip Morrow

     

    And Dr. Fyfe's reponse:

    Dear Skip,

    Thanks for your interest in our paper.

    That the rate of warming has recently slowed down is well known. Not so well known are the reasons for this, although several lines of evidence suggest that it combines cooling impacts from reducing solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere, increasing reflecting aerosols in the stratosphere, and decreasing tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures -- which together are temporarily masking the warming impact from increasing greenhouse gases. None of these cooling impacts are expected to carry on very much longer, at which point we expect a period of rapid warming back the path the planet had been following for the last 100-years or so.

    On a different topic, here is a new contribution of ours that was released today from the publishers of Nature.

    http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130912/srep02645/full/srep02645.html

    Best, John

    --
    John C Fyfe, PhD
    Senior Scientist, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis
    Environment Canada

    Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Bldg., University of Victoria
    e-mail: John.Fyfe@ec.gc.ca
    off. 250-363-8236
    fax. 250-363-8247

    I think I understand now. It's a shame that so many denier websites are using this report to support their cause.

  17. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    All:

    I have deleted JvD's three most recent posts because they were sloganeering and repetitive.

    I have also deleted responses to JvD's deleted comments. 

  18. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    @IanC, I tend to agree with you, which is what makes me think I am misunderstanding what he is saying there.

    I actually sent him an email. It will be interesting to see what (or if) he writes back.

  19. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    MrGibbage,

    I think one should not automatically assume there something is wrong about the paper, or that the author is a denier; this is particularly so since this is a piece in Nature Climate Change (not some obsure Journal where the editorial standard may be questionable), and as you said John Fyfe is a respected climate scientist.

  20. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    DSL, thanks for replying. I know HockeySchtick is a typical denier website. But it has the full text of Dr. Fyfe's report for free. At the nature website where it was originally published, you have to pay for it.

    http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n9/full/nclimate1972.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201309#affil-auth

    So I am not interested in the way that HockeySchtick is trying to use it. They are focused on the model inaccuracy--yeah yeah, I get it--the models are inacurate for short term, which is the point of the paper. I only have issue with the point that he made suggesting that the temperature hasn't increaded in fifteen years. Which to me is strange because he seems to be well regarded in climate science and even served on the IPCC.

    I am not a climate scientist--I'm just a guy that reads a lot of science stuff and I am trying to convince a denier friend of mine that climate change is real. He found this report (which is written by a real climate scientist) and found the line suggesting that there hasn't been any increase and is using it as evidence that there is no climate change. I feel like Dr. Fyfe is on our side, but when he drops a stat like that and doesn't go into any more detail, then I am confused. I am pretty sure he knows about ocean heat content making up 90% of the thermal mass. So I think the statement that the temperatures haven't changed in fifteen years actually means something other than how I am interpreting it.

    I don't know what Dr. Fyfe's motives are, but when he drops a line like that, it sure makes me think he is a denier, which just adds to my confusion.

    He has his email address on his bio page here:

    http://www.ec.gc.ca/ccmac-cccma/default.asp?lang=En&n=AD427C5F-1

    Maybe I should just email him and ask.

  21. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    MrGibbage, by what measure?  Ocean heat content shows no "hiatus" over the period, and it makes up 90%+ of the effective thermal capacity of the climate system.  Global ice mass loss makes up another 2-3%, and it has accelerated over the surface "hiatus" period.  Further, if you run a 30-year linear from 1975 to 1998, you get 0.163C per decade, and that doesn't factor in the lower transient response of the period's earlier years.  If you run 1975 to 2008, you get 0.19C per decade.  So when did the "hiatus" begin?  

    Further, could Fyfe not have written this in 1995?  The trend from 1981 to 1995 is 0.0879C per decade.  The trend for 1997 (capturing the full 97/8 El Nino) to present is 0.071C.  Not far apart.  The trend from 1981 to present is 0.161C per decade.

    All Fyfe is saying, to me, is "models are sketchy at projecting short-term surface temp fluctuations," which, of course, everyone already knows.  

    Now, has global warming "paused"?  Or has the surface temp trend "paused"?  Slow day at the Fyfe office, especially since five bajillion people have already covered the issue.  Have you read Kosaka & Xie 2013?  Does HockeySchtick provide fair and balanced coverage of it?

  22. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    The link to this report is this:
    http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~brianpm/download/charney_report.pdf
    Otherwise you get the main page of the lab website.

    This is a remarkable report, albeit short (kind of a summary for policymakers), in that it already contains most of the ingredients of this climate problematics, even if the models have been considerably refined. Moreover, more knowledge now means more uncertainties now, this is a kind of paradoxical law of science but quite logic, since many unknown unknowns have come out as known unknowns. More uncertainties mean also more fodder for contrarians, and in this context, it's important to keep eyesight on the big picture. Reading this report retrospectively greatly helps.

    Moderator Response:

    [GPW] Thanks for pointing that out - a missing tilde caused the problem - now fixed.

  23. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    I did some research and found out that the principle author, John C. Fyfe was a participant of the IPCC 4AR. So it would seem that he is not a denier, and is in fact a supporter. So I am not sure what to make of this comment: 

    source: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/new-paper-finds-climate-models-have.html

    The inconsistency between observed and simulated global warming is even more striking for temperature trends computed over the past fifteen years (1998–2012). For this period, the observed trend of 0.05 ± 0.08 °C per decade is more than four times smaller than the average simulated trend of 0.21 ± 0.03 °C per decade (Fig. 1b). It is worth noting that the observed trend over this period — not significantly different from zero — suggests a temporary 'hiatus' in global warming.

    So, my question is, has it gotten warmer in the last 15 years, or not? Does it matter? If it doesn't matter, then why is he bringing it up? He doesn't really make a big deal about it in the rest of the paper, which seems mostly focused on the models. I get that the model isn't important to whether or not climate change is real, so that is not what my question is about.

  24. Global Warming’s Missing Heat: Look Back In Anger (and considerable disbelief)…

    A timely reminder that certain contrarian memes are false.

    This bears repeating:

    It seems to us quite possible that the capacity of the deeper oceans to absorb heat has been seriously underestimated, especially that of the intermediate waters of the subtropical gyres lying below the mixed layer and above the main thermo­cline.

    Also the absolutely central point that obsessing over TCR/ECS is a mistake. The true question is not climate sensitivity to 2xCO2 but ecosystem sensitivity to 2xCO2. Or higher.

  25. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #37A

    There's plenty of discussion out there on the point.  Schneider and Trenberth dribble this football quite a bit.  The topic gets talked about in different spots at SkS, but I don't think there's a solid article on it.  Maybe Colose or SoD could do a guest post on it.  Trenberth did a rather plain English summary a few years ago, but I can't find it.

  26. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #37A

    Here's a myth to add to your list:

    "

    There is an upper bound on global warming from water vapor condensation effects, when water evaporates from the surface it takes a lot of energy with it, when the water vapor condenses into droplets at high altitude it releases that thermal energy as long wave radiation. Because the condensation takes place at relatively high altitude the thermal energy released has an easier time escaping because a large portion of the greenhouse gasses that reflect long wave radiation are below the condensation layer.

    Because of this energy convection effect so long as Earth has surface water to evaporate and condense at high altitude there is a limit to how warm the surface can get."

    Posted by: Allen W. McDonnell | September 09, 2013 at 18:36

    http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/09/piomas-september-2013.html#comments

     

    I've seen variations on this arguments articulated elsewhere, so it seems to be one that has some circulation. It seems to overlook the fact the water vapor itself is a GHG, so the fact that there is more of it in the atmosphere is going to "limit the limit" that is proposed here. But I'm sure you folks can find other ways this argument falls down or states only a small part of the truth in such a way as to be misleading.

  27. Arctic sea-ice 'growth', a manufactured IPCC 'crisis' and more: David Rose is at it again

    Here's another take on the ESA CryoSat mission from the BBC. Arctic ice  volume decline may reach 2012 levels.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23964372

  28. The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator

    I'm trying to understand decimal month conventions for entering data.  The blog says if you enter 1990, that includes January 1990 data.  So if enter 1990 as a start date and 1991 as an end date, I would have 13 months of data, right? 

    What do I enter to include February data all the way through and including December of a particular year? (11 months of data).  One month in decimal form is 0.08.  So logically it would seem if I entered 1990.08 as a start and 1990.92 as an end, I would obtain February through and including December data?  Help me out here, please.



  29. Global imprint of climate change on marine life

    The rising and falling of "the jellies" on their 24 hour cycle may be an oceanic response to the need for the mixing of the upper strataof water.

    this of course, implies a "Gaia" state of consideration of the "Global Intelligence", which some pedents find objectionable, but...  this IS a board for discourse..

    The anthropic prionciple rulez.

     

     

  30. Arctic sea-ice 'growth', a manufactured IPCC 'crisis' and more: David Rose is at it again

    LINK

    'Offering new insights into our fragile polar regions, ESA’s CryoSat mission has provided three consecutive years of Arctic sea-ice thickness measurements, which show that the ice continues to thin.'

    Moderator Response:

    [RH] Shortened link that was breaking page format.

  31. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #37A

    forgot: it was from here:

    "Here comes the story of no hurricanes"

  32. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #37A

    A technical question:

    this link here:

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/admin_author.php?Action=EditBlogForm&BlogId=2181

    lead me to an admin page. Why?

    Moderator Response:

    [JH] Link Fixed, Thanks for bringing this to our attention. 

  33. Global imprint of climate change on marine life

    I apologise for going off-topic but this article by Tim Flannery in the New York Review of Books is a gripping must-read. The article is a review of the book  Stung! On Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean by Lisa-Ann Gershwin. It is about the rapid growth of jellyfish populations worldwide as the ecological balance of shell and bone marine creatures, from anchovies to penguins, is disrupted.

    The book sounds like it is worth reading.

    They're Taking Over!

    I appreciate less dramatic, and probably more essential, owrk done by John and his colleagues described in the post.

     

  34. Arctic sea-ice 'growth', a manufactured IPCC 'crisis' and more: David Rose is at it again

    Just in case it's of interest to anyone here, I'm currently in discussions with both the Press Complaints Commission and The Mail about the inaccuracies in David Rose's article. More at:

    http://econnexus.org/the-mail-is-being-economical-with-the-truth-about-arctic-sea-ice/#comment-42294

  35. Arctic sea-ice 'growth', a manufactured IPCC 'crisis' and more: David Rose is at it again

    If you take the first sentence of Rose's Mail on Sunday article and search for it (in quotation marks) you'll find that it already achieves 28,000+ hits. If it's anything like previous Rose/Mail articles, over the next month or so that number will increase to 50,000+. That's why Rose writes such stuff -- he has a big denial echo chamber to feed. 

  36. It hasn't warmed since 1998

    Can anyone point out the errors in this recent paper?

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/new-paper-finds-climate-models-have.html

    For the most part it looks like another rehashing of the "we are actually cooling (or staying steady)" argument.

  37. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    All: I have deleted JvD's most recent post because it was sloganeering and repetitive.  

  38. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    JvD - "...since the external cost of nuclear energy is negligable (which Budischak confirms)"

    I'll simply note that for the Budischack et al paper the externalities of nuclear power were not part of the study. That doesn't mean they don't exist - waste disposal/storage, carbon cost of low-density fuel extraction (excavation isn't free), and the cleanup of nuclear accidents; difficult to quantify as those accidents are rare events, significant because they are very very expensive. 

    What would be your estimated external cost for the evacuation of an entire city, over 150,000 people, for a period of decades? As at Fukushima? Your claims that nuclear power has no external costs is disingenuous in the extreme - nothing is free. 

    That doesn't mean that nuclear power isn't a viable option. It does mean, however, that your arguments in support of nuclear power, for example this matter of externalities and your claim that the 1950's 'truck reactor' was a potentially usable design, are unbalanced and one-sided cheerleading. 

  39. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    JvD,

    a few points from someone who is broadly speaking, a supporter of nuclear.

    1) Your tone is aggressive, and counterproductive.

    2) (-snip-).

    3) (-snip-).

    4) (-snip-).

    5) (-snip-).

    Tom Curtis's suggestion that you submit a post is excellent.

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Off-topic snipped.

  40. Arctic sea-ice 'growth', a manufactured IPCC 'crisis' and more: David Rose is at it again

    Thanks for that Baerbel. I have added the press-release to the bottom of the post for the sake of completeness.

  41. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    (-snip-)

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Off-topic snipped.

  42. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    (-snip-)

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Off-topic snipped.

  43. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    "As you have already been invited to do, you are quite welcome to write a post making the case for a nuclear future to mitigate climate change."

    It's already been done. I posted the article by Barry Brooks. There is nothing I could or would want to add to it.

    (-snip-)

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] Sloganeering and moderation complaints snipped.

  44. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    Further to JvD @90:

    "Budischak's conclusion is that a renewables electricity system would cost about 10 ct/kWh more than a nuclear-based electricity system, since the external cost of nuclear energy is negligable (which Budischak confirms)." (My emphasis)

    Tell that to the people of Okuma, Fukushima.

    I do have one more relevant opinion about nulear power.  That is that the announcements of overwhelming safety by people who favour nuclear power are simply not to be trusted.  Do not misundertand me.  The catastrophe at Fukushima is small scale compared to the prospect of global warming.  If the price of stopping global warming is a Fukushima a decade, and we cannot do it any other way, that is a price we ought to pay.  But the people who tell us the nuclear power is risk free, and (even more unbelievably) external cost free are the same people who were making jokes immediately after Fukushima about how the radiation release was less than the dose from eating a banana a year - until the real figures started leaking out.

    They were so confident about the safety of nuclear power that they did not recognize a genuine, and major emergency when it occurred.

    And yet they expect us to accept their blandishments about the safety of nuclear power as gospel.

    So when JvD asserts that "the external cost of nuclear energy is negligable" all that tells me is that his opinion on the safety of nuclear power is not to be trusted. 

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] All parties should confine comments about nuclear power to the pertinent and relevant areas of supplying baseload power.  The negatives of nuclear power, a la Fukushima, while pertinent in the real world and relevant in terms of being inclusive negative externalities of nuclear power, do not fall under the aegis of this thread and are thus off-topic from this point forward.

    This thread is about the ability of renewables to supply baseload power.  As such, discussions of nuclear power in a direct capacity are off-topic on this thread as well.

  45. Arctic sea-ice 'growth', a manufactured IPCC 'crisis' and more: David Rose is at it again

    The IPCC published a press-release setting the record straight about the end of September meeting:

    http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/press-releases/pr_11Sep2013_mail.pdf

  46. Debunking 97% Climate Consensus Denial

    One often-unsaid aspect of the public discussion on whether human-induced climate change is real, is ideology. Several months ago, the University of Kentucky hosted of forum on climate change with three excellent speakers who were all self-described conservatives. Liberals reported how they better understand that there are thoughtful conservative perspectives on, and solutions to, climate change, thus allowing for a broadened public discussion. In turn, conservatives in attendance learned the same thing. You can watch the recording of this event at http://bit.ly/135gvNa. The starting time for each speaker is noted at this page, so you can listen to the speakers of greatest interest to you.

  47. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    JvD @90, SkS does not "agree" with anything.  That is because SkS is a website, not a person.  The website is run by a number of volunteers who agree and disagree about many different things.  As you have already been invited to do, you are quite welcome to write a post making the case for a nuclear future to mitigate climate change.  Such a post will undergo the normal SkS "peer review" process, ie, any volunteers who are interested will look at the post, make comments about how it can be improved, and/or recommend it to be published, or not published.  Should it be published, it will not be the SkS view, but the opinion of JvD published on SkS (just as my posts on SkS are not the "SkS view", but just my opinions published on SkS).  However, if you are not prepared to put that effort in, you have no right to complain about the absence of such a post.  You will also have no right to complain if your repetitive brow beating is ruled off topic under other posts (as it mostly is - not to mention tedious).

    FYI, I have virtually no opinion on nuclear energy.  I am quite happy to have nuclear power as one of the options, but will not impede the already difficult political fight to do something effective about global warming by tying it to a nuclear agenda.  Beyond that, I am quite happy to just put a price on carbon and let the people actually building the power plants decide which will generate most  efficiently and hence give them the greater profit.

  48. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    @Michael,

    "Industry brag sheets?"

    I posted a peer-reviewed scientific article written up by the respectable Barry Brooks!

    And the video of Hansen I posted is relevant, because it directly contradicts the contents of the above article (and other articles on SkS) which is supposed to be part of the 'myth busting' series of SkS. You clearly don't like that, which is why you have now stated that James Hansen is wrong about renewables, nuclear and solving climate change, but you do not support your opinion. On the contrary, you turn around on and accuse me of not supporting my opinion! Even while I have presented clear arguments and provided literature supporting my views.

  49. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    Lastly, and that will be it for me unless I'm challenged to explain myself again. I realise that the nuclear energy issue is being prohibited from discussions about solving the climate crisis on certain discussion boards. I consider SkS better than that. Interestingly, James Hansen actually has an important thing to say about why actual solution to climate change (such as nuclear power) are often disparaged and ignored, here:

    http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110729_BabyLauren.pdf

    The Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy
    The insightful cynic will note: "Now I understand all the fossil fuel ads with windmills and solar panels – fossil fuel moguls know that renewables are no threat to the fossil fuel business." The tragedy is that many environmentalists line up on the side of the fossil fuel industry, advocating renewables as if they, plus energy efficiency, would solve the global climate change matter.


    Can renewable energies provide all of society's energy needs in the foreseeable future? It is
    conceivable in a few places, such as New Zealand and Norway. But suggesting that renewables
    will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.

  50. Renewables can't provide baseload power

    JvD,

    SkS does not have a position on nuclear.  SkS exists to document and counter misconceptions about human caused global warming.  SkS takes the consensus position on issues where a consensus exists.  Hansen's position is an outlier, not a consensus position, and is not directly related to SkS goal of countering false information about global warming.  For those reasons SkS does not take a position on Hansens issue.  Without asking, I am sure that the people who post on SkS have a variety of opinions about your pet peeve, some support you and some do not.  You are not convincing anyone to support your position by constantly nagging others to do your work for you.  For example, I am agnostic about nuclear but you have labeled me as an extreme enviro against all nuclear.  Why are you so incorrect in your assessment of me?  It is due to your posting style which alienates even those who might support you.

    As has been pointed out to you many times before, SkS is run by volunteers who write the posts.  You are welcome to do the work and write a detailed post about nuclear supported by peer reviewed science,  Industry brag sheets are not generally considered peer reviewed, nor are online videos.  These types of posts come on SkS occasionally, like the one we are currently posting on, so it is likely to be posted.  Since you are unwilling to do the work to support your position you should stop complaining about others not doing your work for you.  By constantly repeating yourself  you are sloganeering which is against the comments policy.

    Moderator: if my comments about SkS policy are incorrect please delete this post, since I do not represent SkS.

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