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Kevin8233 at 04:33 AM on 12 April 2013Antarctica is gaining ice
Alternate interpretations of the mass changes driven by accumulation variations are given using results from atmospheric-model re-analysis and a parameterization based on 5% change in accumulation per degree of observed surface temperature change. A slow increase in snowfall with climate warming, consistent with model predictions, may be offsetting increased dynamic losses.
The above was tail end of the conclusion of Zwally's presentation (I believe it was his presentation and not his paper), but anyway, my question is this; Is he correct in his statement that models predicted this increase in ice? I believe "Barry" even suggested that AR4 had similar predictions.
I'm not asking if his paper or his observations are correct, just the above statement. If it is correct, does this debunking need to be re-done?
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CBDunkerson at 22:19 PM on 11 April 2013Models are unreliable
The 'intermediate' article for this topic notes that Arctic Sea ice decline and global sea level rise models have proven to be very conservative in comparison to actual results.
The reasons for this are also generally known... scientists have only recently begun to get a handle on the rate of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica and thus these were excluded from sea level rise models. Now that we know that there is significant ice loss going on that will be factored in to the models and they will move closer to the observed values. Similarly, recent findings have shown that mechanical effects (i.e. ice breaking up under wind), bottom melt due to unexpected circulation patterns, ice export, and other significant factors were not included in the Arctic ice loss models.
This does not mean that all climate models are similarly lacking important factors. The atmospheric temperature models have been largely on target. The PIOMAS Arctic ice volume model has been confirmed by recent sattelite measurements. Et cetera.
No model includes the wing flaps of every butterfly on the planet, but we have a pretty good idea of which models include major uncertainties and which do not. Also, contrary to what you say, it is very common for linear (and other) trends to be used when looking at various climate factors. Indeed, a linear trend is a model... just a very simple one. Search on Maslowski or Neven for examples of this pertaining specifically to Arctic sea ice. Their trend projections show sea ice extent dropping to near zero in the next few years.
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Dikran Marsupial at 22:12 PM on 11 April 2013Models are unreliable
@bouke The fact that the models are obviously missing some physics that is important for regional (i.e. Arctic) climate does not imply that they are not useful for global climate projection, for the simple reason that the missing physics is only relevant to a particular region, and hence this doesn't substantially affect the global climate.
Scientists are perfectly happy to discuss the flaws in the models, however the reason they don't often explicitly say that "the models aren't good enough" is because it isn't an all-or-nothing issue. There are some things the models predict well, and others that they don't.
The main reason they use models rather than linear trends on the other hand has nothing to do with predictive power. A physical model allows you to test the consequences of a set of assumptions of how the physics of climate works. A linear trend is just a statistical model based on correlations and does not allow you to draw any causal conclusions.
I doubt there is a fundamental discussion on the relative merits of the two approaches for the simple reason that they are two tools with different jobs. Secondly a linear model is only appropriate for a situation where the (rate of change) of the forcings are approximately constant, which is unlikely to be true of centennial scale projections for which physical models are more appropriate.
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bouke at 21:33 PM on 11 April 2013Models are unreliable
I have a question on model reliability in predicting arctic sea ice. I just read (parts of) "Constraining projections of summer Arctic sea ice" by Massonnet et al. Looking at their figure 1, it is clear that most CMIP5 models do not accurately model
past september sea ice extent (SSIE). This is even more visible in their figure 2, which shows that 90% of the models either simulate an average SSIE in
1979-2010 outside of 2 sigma of the actual average, or a trend in SSIE outside of 2 sigma of the actual trend. If the physics of the models were perfect, only 10% of model runs would be expected to fall outside this window.To my mind, this shows that the models still miss essential physics, and it would be unwise to attribute too much predictive power to them. A linear trend may be a better predictor. Yet, I never hear a scientist say 'The models aren't good enough at the moment, so it may be wiser to look at the linear trend.'
Why is that?
Is there a fundamental discussion somewhere on the relative merits of a linear trend versus a model as a predictor of the future?
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Tom Curtis at 21:08 PM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
michael sweet @36, when I first raised issues regarding Tamino's argument, I raised them at Open Mind. They never got past the "awaiting moderation stage". I reposted the comment to be sure, with the same result. I have drawn the conclusion that Tamino does not want my comments, for whatever reason, and given that, would not deign to comment at Open Mind again if future.
Since you asked ...
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michael sweet at 20:07 PM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Tom,
Instead of debating yourself here, have you tried going to Tamino's blog and asking him what he thinks of the 8.2 ka event? What did he say? Tamino frequently replies to informed questions.
As I read Tamino, he does not claim the analysis proves that no sudden spikes could occur. He claims Marcott is strong evidence that such spikes did not occur. This seems reasonable to me.
How could all the proxies have missed such a spike? As you point out, there is evidence of a drop in proxies at 8.2 ka. Others challenge that as a global event. Marcott may be correct that it was mostly a North Atlantic event, like the midieval warm period. Manns' data shows that if you cherry pick your proxies you can find a lot of spurious, local trends. KR lists several known local events. Where are the proxies for a sudden, global spike? I do not see skeptics here providing a list of proxies showing a spike. They must have searched for such proxies without being able to find them.
In addition to showing that Marcott might have missed a sudden spike, a physical mechanism for such a spike is required.
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scaddenp at 18:29 PM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
KR - if you applied Marcott method to only the altantic proxies and failed to find a 8.2ka cooling spike, then this would suggest problems with the method in resolving spikes. The magnitude of the 8.2ka event on global temperature being definitely debatable. The mechanism for sudden cooling in that region is there.
However, I have little time for the argument that could be 0.9 warming spikes in the absence of any physical mechanism for creating one. I just share Tom's doubts the Marcott (and Tamino's) work conclusively provide observational evidence to show that they didn't occur. I am also of the opinion that it is a side-show from the significance of the paper.
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Lars Karlsson at 17:07 PM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Steve, KR and others,
To the convinced "skeptic", <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/marcott-hockey-stick-real-skepticism.html#93376">all those "might" would turn into "must"</a>, and the alternatives hiding behind them would be invisible.
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Ray at 14:32 PM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
scaddenp There are some calculations and comments by Clive Best on the Tamino generated peaks that reach somewhat (but not entirely) different conclusions that you might find interesting.
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Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
scaddenp - There's a good set of information on the 8.2 Ka event from NOAA, which lists various paleotemperature proxies from Minnesota, Germany, Costa Rica, Greenland, and the North Atlantic as supporting evidence.
They also list paleo evidence for the end of the African Humid Period, drought during the Akkadian Empire, and the drought leading to the collapse of the Mayan Empire. Those were all regional events of only a few hundred years, but multiple sets of relevant paleo evidence is available for each.
I would therefore consider a larger scale global warming event to be something for which we would see paleo evidence - and we do not.
Just to clarify - Is anyone actually claiming both that the Marcott data might miss such a spike (which I'm willing to postulate for the sake of the discussion), and that we wouldn't see such a global event in the rest of the data? There really is no evidence for such a spike, let alone a physical mechanism.
WRT Tamino's work, I have yet to see anyone put forth a convincing counter to his work regarding a hypothetic Holocene 0.9 C global warming event, and his conclusion that it would be visible in the Marcott data. There has been a lot of discussion and/or complaints with regards to sampling effects and averaging, but - IMO there needs to be math, or it didn't happen.
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dana1981 at 12:40 PM on 11 April 2013It's not bad
Mark @344 - first off, almost all of the estimates in the Tol paper you reference are from the most conservative economists doing climate research (Nordhaus, Tol, Mendelsohn, etc.), so the paper almost certainly underestimates the economic damage from climate change (probably by a very large amount, in my opinion). It's really interesting that it references Chris Hope, who now says that the social cost of carbon is in the ballpark of $150 per tonne of CO2, which is 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than Tol believes.
Despite these underestimates, the paper still concludes that the net impact on GDP at 2.5°C will be negative, and we're already committed to about 1.5°C warming and still rising fast. So I'm not really sure what your point is.
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dana1981 at 12:26 PM on 11 April 2013Climate's changed before
Mark @345 - there's nothing directly wrong with 'the skeptic argument' as articulated by Lindzen here. It's the implication of the statement where the problem lies. Saying 'climate has changed naturally in the past' is like saying 'humans breathe oxygen'. No duh. Everybody knows that. So what's the point in saying it? The answer to that question is pretty clear.
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Mark Bahner at 12:19 PM on 11 April 2013It's not bad
Oops. I forgot to include the link:
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Mark Bahner at 12:16 PM on 11 April 2013It's not bad
The economic impacts of climate change may be catastrophic, while there have been very few benefits projected at all.
What about Figure 1 of this paper?
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Mark Bahner at 12:02 PM on 11 April 2013Climate's changed before
What was wrong in what Richard Lindzen wrote?
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engineer8516 at 11:21 AM on 11 April 2013Making Sense of Sensitivity … and Keeping It in Perspective
"Notice that it is for all intents and purposes, in that small range, linear." You're right, but the global climate is so complex. It's still not sitting well with me so I decided to try and derive it myself. Take the following with a grain of salt. I might have done something wrong or interpreted something wrong.
Anyway, using the energy balance...
Power in = (1-α)πR2F0
Power out = 4πR2ϵσT4, where ϵ is the emessivity
Thus, F = ϵσT4, where F = (1-α)F0/4
Thus, T=[F/(ϵσ)]1/4
The total derivative is: dT/dF = δT/δF+δT/δϵ*dϵ/dF
substituting and simplifying:
dT/dF = T/(4F)-T/(4ϵ)*dϵ/dF, where the term T/(4ϵ)*dϵ/dF is from feedbacks.
Thus, the linear approximation for climate sensitivity is k ≈ 4*dT/dF ≈ T/F.
With this linear approximation we're assuming that for small changes in temp the term T/(4ϵ)*dϵ/dF is almost constant or negligible. Feedbacks aren't negligible so we're arguing it's almost constant.Thus, we're assuming
dϵ/dF ≈ C*ϵ/T, where C is a constant. I still don't like this approximation. I guess I have to do more reading. Again I might have done something wrong or interpreted something wrong so take the stuff above with a grain of salt. Thanks
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chriskoz at 11:21 AM on 11 April 2013Antarctic Octopus Living Testament To Global Warming
When I was reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as a child, I thought "Interesting but completely our of reality nonsense" because Jules Verne did not know that Antarctica was a continent rather than ice shlf like arctic. BTW, Verne could have been ignorant, because even back then (mid-end of XIX century) the adventurers could have known about antarctic mountains.
Anyway, that has now changed: Nautilus could have swam under the antarctic ice just like octopuses did, if the action have taken place in Eemian... -
Jeffrey Davis at 11:17 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
McIntyre's work is rhetorical rather than scientific. Hence the innuendoes and sarcasm.
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scaddenp at 11:15 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Tom that is a very interesting point. I asked around here and no 8.2ka event known NZ circles but dating is lousy. Suppose you just used Alantic-influence proxies. If the spike doesnt show with them using Marcott/Tamino's methods you must definitely conclude that the method isnt capable of resolving such spikes.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:41 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Tom @ 21... "Such errors provide "skeptics" an opportunity to point to a mistake..."
You know, it seems to me, that's something that can never end. Science is iterative. It's never perfect. There is always something more to understand, always a better and more accurate way to look at things.
I keep getting the sense that the "skeptics" prey on this essential element of the scientific process in order to try and undermine it. Any real skeptic would look at a paper like Marcott and find ways that improve it by being skeptical. McIntyre and his ilk do the same thing, but in order to try to tear down other scientists and their work.
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scaddenp at 10:38 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
The point isnt whether McIntyre is a competent statician or not. It's what he does with it. Mostly what he has done is to draw attention aware from the main points of the paper to a sideshow. However the main point of the article is that the statistics were used simply to give people a reason to dismiss the paper whereas Tamino took the criticism on board and explored the effect and what it would do for the conclusions. Tamino's stuff advances science and could be worth publishing. McIntyre? All you seem to get sniping from sidelines, innuendo about improprietary and nothing published since M&M. I'd say put up or shut up.
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Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Ray - I've read through a number of the McIntyre discussions on Marcott, and (personal opinion only) have found them to be a mix of cherry-picks and arguments in detail while ignoring the larger picture. With language like "Marcottian uptricks upticks" and the like, McIntyre appears to be taking more an ideological approach than a scientific one.
I've also seen numerous statistical mistakes made by McIntyre, such as not knowing how to judge principal component weighting or deal with normalization (such as incorrectly selecting significant components, giving unsupported results), both in his attacks on Mann et al and Lewandowsky et al - I have not been impressed.
Your mileage may vary, but I don't find his work a useful contribution.
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Ray at 09:58 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
KR
There are a couple of current pieces on Climate Audit looking in some detail at the proxies used in the Marcott paper and making some comparisons between these and other similar proxcies. The language used isn't hysterical and the conclusions drawn don't seem overly comtentious. McIntyre, whatever his shortcomings, perceived or otherwise, is a competent statistician and there are points made, which, to me at least, give a wider perspective on the pros and cons of the various proxies that used in climate science.
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Tom Curtis at 09:58 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
As has previously been discussed, the 8.2 Kya event was a very significant cooling event associated with the suden release of large volumes of melt water into the North Atlantic. The volume of melt water released may have raised sea levels by as much as 1.2 meters. The effect in the North Atlantic was drastic, dropping regional temperatures by as much as 3 degrees C. The fall in temperatures is detectable in Soreq Cave (in Palestine) and in Kilamanjaro Ice cores. It is unclear whether it is detectable further afield. There are large negative excursions within age uncertainty in Antarctic Ice cores. The temperature excursion is large enough to effect the global mean surfacte temperature even if regionally confined. If, as is possible, it was a global excursion, it would have resulted in a fall, then recovery of global mean temperature of about 1 degree C.
The significance of this is that it hardly registers on the Marcott et all reconstruction. It barely registers even on Tamino's emulation, which is more sensitive to short term variations. If you look at figure 2, just prior to 6000 BCE there is a sharp decline. That is followed by a short up and down blip, followed by a general rise. Shortly after the start of that general rise there is a very brief downward blip. That blip is the 8.2 Kya event as it shows up in Tamino's version of the Marcott reconstruction.
This specific example shows, again, that Tamino's test was not adequate to support his claims, as repeated in the main post above.
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Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Incidentally, the count of 'skeptic' posts terribly upset about this paper is up to at least 26 on WUWT, and 14 at ClimateAudit. Apparently they find the outlines of Holocene temperatures, compared to where we're going now, very threatening in some fashion.
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Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Tom Curtis - And as already discussed, we have sufficient proxy evidence (completely aside from the Marcott reconstruction and statistics) indicating the 8.2 Ka event and the drop in global temperatures then, an excursion lasting only a few centuries. As I noted here, there is no such support (nor physical mechanism) for any upward spike in temperatures during the Holocene of the nature and scale seen in current warming.
You certainly do have a point re: Marcott and the 8.2 Ka event - I had not carefully considered the timeline in previous remarks - but there's no evidence of 0.9 C warming spikes during the Holocene.
That's from the full body of evidence - completely aside from the Marcott et al time resolution, there is no indication of such a spike in proxy data that shows the 8.2 event. Hence arguments based upon "a spike might have been missed" are inconsistent with that body of evidence. And claims about such spikes are IMO the result of arguing about only one paper, when there is a great deal more data available contradicting such claims.
[ Not to mention that current warming will not be a short 'spike' - thousands of years will be required to draw down the CO2 we've put up in the last 150 years. And therefore claims about Holocene spikes too short to show in Marcott are irrelevant. ]
In that regard I find the 'spike' arguments seen from Watts, McIntyre, and the like to be in essence cherry-picking and red herrings; arguing about one set of data (which has its pluses, minuses, and uncertainties, and which definitely will be discussed/elaborated upon in future work) by making hypothetic claims clearly contradicted by the rest of the information available. I'm rather appalled at the time wasted on this nonsensical side-line.
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Tom Curtis at 08:21 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
KR @16, as we have already discussed, the 8.2 Kya cooling event, which was large, wide spread and possibly global, does not show up in the Marcott et al reconstruction. Or more precisely, it shows up as a 0.01 C dip in the general rising pattern at that time (in the reconstruction). That dip is too small to be seen in standard representations of the reconstruction.
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Tom Curtis at 08:16 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Paul R Price @20, much as I appreciate the effort, your graph contradicts the data in Marcot et al. Specifically, it ignores the fact that the mean reconstruction is heavilly smoothed by Marcott et al's proceedure, and that it therefore conceals probable events with higher temperatures in the past. For example, you say that current temperatures exceed any experienced in the last 125,000 years. Marcott et al, in contrast say that between 18 and 28% of Holocene temperatures exceed modern temperatures. You place a line which even crosses the 1 sigma error bar with the label, "Temperatures unknown to human civilization". In fact, if we are to take Marcott et al's figure 3 seriously, human civilization has experienced temperatures up to 0.5 C greater than current temperatures in the interval between 6000 and 2000 BCE, albeit for less than 5% of that time.
These may seem like quibbling errors to you. They are not. Such errors provide "skeptics" an opportunity to point to a mistake, for the benefit of themselves or their friends. Having found such a mistake, it is then used as an excuse to switch their minds of and not consider the true ramifications, which apart from these errors you have admirably illustrated.
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BBD at 08:15 AM on 11 April 2013Antarctic Octopus Living Testament To Global Warming
# 9 william
One has to account for the change in MSL between the Eemian and the Holocene. Eemian GAT was ~1C above the late Holocene but mean sea level was ~5m higher.
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Paul R Price at 07:28 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Dana,
Thanks for the summary of Marcott reaction, great point about what it says about real vs. false skepticism.
Inspired the post by Jos Hagelaars here is a poster annotated version of Hagelaars' Marcott graphic I have put together with temperature bands indicating human history and with last dates to constrain warming to different temperatures from Stocker (2012).
If a bit cluttered but is intended as a poster to convey science to policy types as another attempt to convey the enormity of what is now occurring. Any constructive comments or corrections welcome, especially if there are other strong references in contrast to Stocker for peaking or carbon budget exhaustion dates.
Paul
Moderator Response:[TD] Thanks, Paul! A related SkS post is The Y-Axis of Evil.
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colinrus at 06:59 AM on 11 April 2013Land Surface Warming Confirmed Independently Without Land Station Data
What strikes me is how different the trends are in some parts of the globe between the two maps. Does this imply that some areas have a huge warm or cool bias in the temperature record? Seems most unlikley to me. So either there are errors in the non temperature data at the "local" level or the model is ok in aggregate but error prone at the detail level or???
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Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Bob Loblaw - Good point.
Lars Karlsson - You're correct, some 'skeptics' might argue those points. And as I stated, I would find such arguments rather silly. They could use roughly the same arguments from unsupported possibilities to make claims about unicorns, after all.
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:24 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Lars... The problem there is, what ever magical unknown forcing that might have occurred has to also square with very well known changes in forcing we see today. And those forcings have to square with climate changes seen in the deep past as well.
The holocene is not some isolated segment of time in Earth's history that had different forcings and CS than the rest of Earth's history and the present.
It's just odd to me how hard it is for some people to accept that the overwhelming body of scientific research is mostly likely correct.
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william5331 at 06:23 AM on 11 April 2013Antarctic Octopus Living Testament To Global Warming
I wonder if the scientists have taken into account the "floating ice" consideration. For instance, if there is a basin with a bottom is 100m below sea level filled with ice, all the ice up to sea level and approximately 10 meters above sea level will have no effect on sea level if it melts. Only the ice above 10m above sea level will cause a rise in sea level if it melts.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:11 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
KR: I took Lars' comment as a prediction of what we'de hear from the fake skeptics, rather than an expression of his own beliefs, but it's hard to read tone into the printed word.
...and the "plausible physical mechanism" is called "pixie dust" (AKA "natural cycles").
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Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Lars Karlsson - Just to make certain I have your points straight:
According to your post, large scale temperature rises in the past, which we have no evidence for (despite proxy evidence showing events like the 8.2 Kya cooling, which should indicate our ability to see such changes), nor any plausible physical mechanism for such a spike, involving forcings that we somehow haven't detected over the last century (the most measured period in human history), are sufficiently possible for you to argue against known radiative physics (the CO2 contribution) and/or that because of these unseen forcings you feel the climate sensitivity might be low?
I find myself oddly unconvinced...
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Rob Painting at 05:51 AM on 11 April 2013Antarctic Octopus Living Testament To Global Warming
Yes, the last interglacial, the Eemian (about 120-130,000 years ago), was thought to be slightly warmer than present. This was due to changes in Earth's orbit and rotational tilt (obliquity) which allowed more sunlight to reach Earth's surface - especially the Northern Hemisphere. See this SkS series of posts on the last interglacial.
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Steve Metzler at 05:46 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Lars, with all due respect... you're bending over so far backwards there that... well, you know :-)
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William Haas at 05:39 AM on 11 April 2013Antarctic Octopus Living Testament To Global Warming
This must be evidence that past interglacials could have been warmer or of longer in duration or both then the one we are experiencing today. The causes of these past interglacials must have all been of natural origin.
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Lars Karlsson at 04:22 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
If some "skeptic" has actually thought about the implications of more variability in the past, he/she may have thought along the following lines.
Larger temperature variations in the past does not necessarily imply a higher climate sensitivity. They might instead indicate some stronger natural forcings, which might in principle have gone undetected or unaccounted for during the last century, and these forcings may have then contributed singificantly to the warning in the last 100 years in which case the contribution from CO2 would be less and hence climate sensitivity might be lower.
So this leaves a rather slim but still existing possibility that larger temperature variations in the past and a low climate sensitivity can both be true at the same time.
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DSL at 02:32 AM on 11 April 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #14
Archie, has global warming plateaud? (two 16-year trends that overlap, one .3C per decade; the other .0875C per decade; and the climate-scale trend (37 years): .165C per decade, just under the expected rate of warming)
What do you think? Respond on the appropriate thread.
Moderator Response:[TD] Archie, there best thread for that particular issue is "Human activity continues to warm the planet over the past 16 years". For the more general conversation you started, use "Making Sense of Sensitivity … and Keeping It in Perspective." No matter where you post, you can see all replies by doing what most regular readers do: Watch the overall Recent Comments list, which you can get to by clicking the "Comments" link in the blue bar at the top of every Skeptical Science page.
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jyyh at 02:01 AM on 11 April 2013Antarctic Octopus Living Testament To Global Warming
interesting study, but is their life cycle well understood? i guess so for the study's been published.
the two large gorges crossing the transantarctic mountains could still have had an ice shelf over them of course, for the extensive snowfalls on the (pen)insula mountains and south in transarctic montains. and the ross sheet might have been attached to the bottom for the rebound. but ok, +4 - +6 meters of global sea level rise from melt is still plenty. pig, thwaites and ronne to go if not greenland, and other way around. filchner will stay for a long time (origins partly on eais).
off topic (lame joke), there has been some rumours of ocean's fourteen movie, but i think oceans 13m ASL was bad enough.
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dana1981 at 01:43 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Eli @12 - good point, have updated the post to give Nick Stokes credit for his genuine skepticism as well.
Another issue which seem to be allulded to in the comments here involves confused claims that Marcott spliced the instrumental temp record onto his proxy data set. The study did not do that. They did compare the 0.8°C warming in the instrumental temperature record over the past century to the cooling of similar magnitude over the past 5,000 years in their proxy data set, which is certainly a valid and useful thing to do.
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Tom Dayton at 01:08 AM on 11 April 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #14
archie lever, there is a Skeptical Science analysis of that Economist article.
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Philippe Chantreau at 01:02 AM on 11 April 2013Trillions of Dollars are Pumped into our Fossil Fuel Addiction Every Year
Kevin's "The low income people spend a higher percentage of income on energy."
That's silly. Low income people spend a higher percentage of income on almost anything they buy, compared to even slightly higher income people. The immense majority of products and services aren't offered on an income based scale sliding scale.
The only way for low income people to make that adjustment is to opt for cheaper solutions (i.e. rent a 2 bedroom appt instead of owning a 4 bedroom 2000 sq.ft house) or to consume less. Wherever someone lives, there is no cheaper solution for electricity and fuel, as price is decided by the utility and gas prices are pretty consistent by region.
Income disparities are such that for many items, no reduction in the quantity consumed will bring the percentage on par. In the US, the kind of person who can drive a brand new Lexus will spend a far smaller percentage of their income on gas than the person driving a used Chevy, except if the latter drives around the neighborhood a couple of times a week.
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EliRabett at 00:55 AM on 11 April 2013Real Skepticism About the New Marcott 'Hockey Stick'
Now some, including Eli to be sure, might think you should give Nick Stokes more credit for his posts on Moyhu and on CA. Nick might run a designer botique, but he is always worth reading on these things.
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Tom Curtis at 00:37 AM on 11 April 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #14
archie lever @3, warming has "plateaued" at a rate of rise greater than the twentieth century average (GISTemp). That little fact the economist probably forgot to mention. Further, paleo studies of climate sensitivity continue to show climate sensitivity greater than 3 C. Studies of temperature increase in the last century and some studies of the increase since the LGM show lower sensitivity; but the latter depend on a controversially high finding of LGM temperatures and the former are very noisy. So perhaps, and hopefully they are right about the climate sensitivity - but that is not a conclusion that can be drawn from the full range of recent studies.
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Tom Curtis at 00:33 AM on 11 April 2013Trillions of Dollars are Pumped into our Fossil Fuel Addiction Every Year
Kevin @39, apparently it is your intended stragegy to argue against a policy because half the policy will have consequences that the full policy does not. That makes your arguments trolling in any man's language. Given that, and that you have been comprehensively refuted, there seems little point in further responding to you.
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archie lever at 00:32 AM on 11 April 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #14
According to last week's 'Economist' report warming has plateaued and climate sensitivity is most likely lower than the 3 degreesC for doubling CO2. Any comment on this?
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Tom Curtis at 00:29 AM on 11 April 2013Trillions of Dollars are Pumped into our Fossil Fuel Addiction Every Year
Composer99 @37, the 2009 Census data does show that households in the North-East spend, on average, 22.5% more on utilities than do households in the west. The next most expensive region after the North-East is the Mid-West, then South, then West. The increase is almost entirely due to increased demand for electricity, gas and fuel oil so it is a reasonable conjecture that the increased energy use is due to heating requirements.
That increase is partly compensated because the West and particularly the South spend far more on gasoline than do the Mid-West and the North-East (particularly). Never-the-less, a carbon tax would slightly favour the warmer regions of the US over the colder in the short term. (Of course, longer term heating bills in the north will fall, while cooling bills in the south will rise.)
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