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Comments 48451 to 48500:
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curiousd at 19:24 PM on 22 February 2013In Wall Street Journal op-ed, Bjorn Lomborg urges delay with misleading stats
Comment on bchip at #7 above:
Missing from the thread are comments on the ways the legal and political system in the U.S. impedes renewable implimentation in cases in which subsidies are not needed.
Example:
1. Since 1977 the price of standard crystalline solarcells has fallen by a factor of 35. This is sometimes referred to as "The Swanson Effect". See URL http://www.marctomarket.com/2012/12/great-graphic-solar-energy-and-swansons.html
2. But the he price of installation of solar cells varies strongly from place to place, and is much less in Germany than in the U.S. See the URL
3. The plummiting cost of crystalline silicon solar cells was a contributor to the Solyndra bankruptcy; and make technologically more complex concentrating solar systems less important. See:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/solyndra/index.html
and:
http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2012/11/business-issues-the-capitalist-case-for-solar/
4.
Over half of the homes in Bangladesh lack a grid connection. But for $300 a typical off grid user can power light bulbs, a television set, and a fan by off grid rooftop solar.
5. I then pose the following rhetorical question: In, say, Connecticut, although a well heeled person might construct his/her sustainable home via a combination of solar and geothermal, why cannot someone who lives, say, in an apartment flat instead purchase solar installations for a large scale desert location in a part of the country with better insolation and receive corresponding cuts in his/her electric bill? On a smaller scale, such a concept was recently tested in California by
Conclusion:
There is an obvious solution to this problem
Moderator Response: [RH] Fixing font size on link that's breaking page formatting. -
Dikran Marsupial at 19:23 PM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Kevin, it was Phillipe's question that you ducked, so your reply should have been directed to him. I was merely pointing out to you that if you want to take part in a scientific discussion, giving adequate answers to peoples questions and not avoiding difficult issues is generally a good idea.
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Rob Honeycutt at 15:38 PM on 22 February 2013Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables
Clyde... It's a matter of relative chance. It's possible you'd see such an extraordinary drought without influence from global warming. But global warming makes it much more likely that such extraordinary doughts will occur.
So, you kind of have two choices. This was an extreme occurence and unlikely to occur again for a long time, or this is a function of human induced changes in the climate system and more likely to become more frequent, or even normal.
You choose where you're going to put your money.
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Chris G at 15:34 PM on 22 February 2013Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables
Clyde, if you want a proof, I suggest you take up theoritical mathmatics; there are no proofs in applied sciences. There are probabilities. Droughts have become more widespread, and in particular, 3-sigma heat waves are more than 10 times more common than they were prior to 1980.
So, do we know absolutely that there would not have been a drought and heat wave last year (and the year before) in the US with an atmosphere at 290 ppm? No.
Do we know there is more energy in the climate system than there was prior to the industrial revolution? The odds that every metric taken on that is wrong are infintesimaly small.
What do you think is more likely, that adding energy to the system shifts precipitation patterns and results in more frequent high temperatures, or that adding energy to the system has had no effect?
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Clyde at 15:11 PM on 22 February 2013Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables
ubrew12 says - The bizarre truth is that Heartland farmers in Kansas are only now in business thanks to 'Big Government'-backed farm insurance programs that tax the ordinary American to help them through their global-warming-induced drought.
Wheres the proof GW caused the drought? -
Rob Honeycutt at 15:01 PM on 22 February 2013Mars is warming
Novemdecillist... Is there something to give you indication that others are not thinking outside this particular box? I would suggest that scientists have made careers out of looking into a wide range of boxes to see if there could possibly be other explanations for what they see. In fact, other planets warming would be one of the first in a long series of other boxes researchers would check into.
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stressedchef at 14:51 PM on 22 February 2013Climate's changed before
Another aspect of the "climate has changed before" argument, not covered off in the current answer, is the implication that current climate change should not be considered alarming. "It's changed before, and yet here we are" may be a fair summary of this version.
Is it worth adding some relevant discussion and cross-filing the argument under both the "It's not us" and "It's not bad" taxonomies?
The main responses seem to me to be that a) deep past climate changes were not much fun for living things at the time, being associated with mass extinctions and great upheaval; b) human societies and economies are adapted to the climate they developed in, and so even changes within the range of natural changes of the distant past would be very disruptive; and c) humans now use a very high proportion of potential quality farmland, affordable freshwater and so on to accommodate a large population with high (for many) or rising (for many) living standards; there is not much safety margin to prevent a loss of living standards if climate change erodes availability of some of the resources we depend on.
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curiousd at 14:03 PM on 22 February 2013Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables
In post 2 above I should have said solar enterprises for CO2 offset, not solar offset enterprises.
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curiousd at 14:00 PM on 22 February 2013Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables
Question.....I personally tend to agree with ubrew12 in post 1. But what is the deal about political posts in SKS anyway? After several months of research into solar offset enterprises I found that if you go from charities to small businesses to various investment strategies, all are largely controlled by laws and politics. In SKS I feel I must not be too specific, but in essence I became convinced that at least in the U.S. the main impediments to large scale use of renewables are to be found not in our technology, but in our form of government. SKS is by good reason non political, and though I do understand why a line must be drawn, I am now somewhat confused about where that line is drawn.
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rehuie at 13:05 PM on 22 February 2013In Wall Street Journal op-ed, Bjorn Lomborg urges delay with misleading stats
Another major problem with the use of GDP is how impacts on it are used. There appears to be a fundamental assumption of linearity. That is, if agriculture is 10% of the GDP, and agricultural yields are reduced by 10%, the GDP takes only a 1% hit. This is probably correct for small changes. But if the changes are large, this is clearly not correct. If agriculture takes a 20-30% hit, then the folks who generate the other 90% of the GDP are going to be spending most of their time looking for food, so the GDP takes a much larger dive. This is but one small example – I’m sure others can generate more.
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Mars is warming
Also worth noting are the astronomers - who spend their careers looking at the stars, including spectral and intensity measurements. If we had entered a nebula (that was somehow unobserved at a distance) the reduction in starlight over the last 40 years would have been quite noticeable. Not to mention spectral changes in sunlight, measured either from the surface or from satellite.
Given a complete lack of evidence for a hypothesis of interstellar dust/climate interaction, I would classify it on the same level as "climate elves".
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ubrew12 at 11:34 AM on 22 February 2013Low emissions are no justification for Kansas scaling back renewables
There's a groundbreaking book in American politics, Thomas Franks 'Whats the Matter with Kansas?', that helps explain what is going on here, "where small farmers cast their votes for a Wall Street Order that will eventually push them off their land". Where former lobbiests for tobacco grower Phillip Morris joined hands with the Koch Brothers to create a 'Heartland' American Astroturf movement of 'Salt of the Earth' dupes.
The bizarre truth is that Heartland farmers in Kansas are only now in business thanks to 'Big Government'-backed farm insurance programs that tax the ordinary American to help them through their global-warming-induced drought. And, thanks to 'Heartland-values' propaganda, they then USE their solvent status to proselytize against those very 'Big Government' programs, and the Climate Change 'nonsense' they would otherwise seek to redress.
"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto"
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scaddenp at 11:25 AM on 22 February 2013Mars is warming
And also worth noting (as this and articles on other planets show) that real evidence for climate change on the other planets is somewhat lacking. See the intermediate versions.
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Tom Curtis at 11:02 AM on 22 February 2013Mars is warming
Novemdecellist @33, there is a very simple reason to think that our motion through the galaxy has very little do do with current changes in climate. Specifically, it will take us 1360 years to travel just one light year at our current rate of travell. In the direction we are travelling, there are no nebulae to obscuring local stars, so we know the nearest nebula to be many light years away. Apparently the nearest nebula of any sort, L134, is around 300 light years away, and not in our direction of travel.
It follows from this that the radiation, and molecular density of the space through which we are travelling has not changed appreciably in hundreds of thousands of year; and will not change appreciably for hundreds for thousands more years except in the cases of nearby supernovas. And if it is not changing, it is not the cause of change.
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Novemdecillist at 11:00 AM on 22 February 2013Mars is warming
We have NOT been measuring the other planets temperatures systematically since the 70's.... and I did not state the the majority of EARTH warming does originate with our mismanagement of the planet. I was only stating that IF other planets in our system might all be experiencing warming, then we should look at other possibilities be they "weird" or undiscovered!
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scaddenp at 10:14 AM on 22 February 2013Mars is warming
Whether travels on the galactic path had anything to do with past climate change is harder to decide, but we can see clearly that it has very little to do with post-1970 climate change. Why? because we have good measurements of the climate determinants. The only "space" factor affecting climate is TSI, whether from change of angle, change of solar luminense or "space dust". This is accurately measured by satellites since 70's and is stable if not decreasing (see "its the sun" argument), and yet the earth warms. Why look to weird, unknowable, out-there sources of warming when there is a perfectly reasonable, physically plausible solution coming right out of the smoke stack? Or to put it another way, we have measurably increased the energy flux onto the surface of the earth with increased GHGs. What mechanism do you propose by which this would not cause warming?
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Novemdecillist at 09:35 AM on 22 February 2013Mars is warming
Thinking 'outside the box' is a school not often visited by some. In all the discussions of planetary global warming (i.e. Earth, Mars Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto) very little attention is given to our solar system's travel above, below, and around the galactic plane on its cyclical route round the Galaxy. (approx 240k+ years). Conditions along the path are hard to predict since historic records are only now being established. Therefore any theories or calculations of planetary temperatures from volcanic, atmospheres, rings of dust, or human intereactions, etc. must include calculations of the density and position of materials encountered along our solar systems path and its interactions with the Sun's activities. These conditions make it extremely difficult to predict any astronomical algorithm's absolute forecasting the reason for Earth's warming trends. In other words, the best thought humans put forth probably has not reached a definite answer in totallity to the question, "Why is Earth warming?"
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Roger D at 09:04 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
My "prediction" is 4.2million Km2, based on cheating, i.e. putting a straight-edge up to the computer screen, and eyeballing a vertical line through Gavin Crawleys prediction line in Fig. . The intersection for 2013 minimum is ~4.2 million Km2 (with a low of ~3.2 and a high of ~5.1 million Km2)
Given that Gavin's predictions have proven better than average, and also that there is an ongoing trend of less multi-year ice (oops, sorry Steve Goddard, I mean an ongoing trend of "increasing extent of Jan-Sept. ice growth") it doesn't make any sense to choose something like 5million Km2 as a likely ice extent, and then put an error bar on that.
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Bob Wallace at 08:54 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Keith #43 - my observations and expectations match yours.
I have a small pond outside my living room window that freezes to 100% extent and melts to 0% multiple times per year. After being frozen over for days, it goes from almost frozen over to ice free in short hours.
The Arctic sea ice has gotten (comparatively) very thin. A few decades back the Russans set up their ice observatory stations on 20'/6m thick ice. Now they report that they have to hunt for 6'/2 meter ice. And they have to be prepared to move quickly if that ice begins to break apart.
I think that in the next few years we'll see a rapid melting of first year ice and that will clear the Fram and CA channels for the last remaining multi-year ice to be flushed out of the Arctic. I won't be surprised to go from significant extent to "Where's the ice?" in less than a month.
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dana1981 at 08:40 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Note that the summer storm had a small impact on the 2012 Arctic sea ice minimum. There almost certainly would have been a record even without the storm.
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Djon at 08:39 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Kevin,
Following your suggestion, when I look at figure 2 I see:- 1986 more or less matches your description, apparently fully recouping the loss that occurred in 1984 and 1985.
- 1992 followed a year of recovery not loss, and 1992 alone didn't have a recovery as large as the preceding two loss years, 1989 and 1990, put together
- 1997 was a year of loss rather than recovery. You presumably meant 1996, not that it recouped two immediately preceding years of loss either. If I were in a generous mood, I guess I'd allow that 1996 recouped the two years of loss that occurred in 1989 and 1990, though I don't see how that helps your argument that the losses of last year should be expected to be recouped this year.
- 2001, like 1992, followed a year of recovery. Unlike 1992, it looks as though the 2001 recovery was about the same size as the preceding two years of loss put together.
- 2006 didn't recoup the loss in 2005, let alone the loss of 2004 and 2005 combined
You're failing to convince me that any careful analysis underlies your beliefs about sea ice.
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cRR Kampen at 08:30 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
#43, Keith - that is my point exactly. This is why catastrophe theory applies, and not gaussian thinking. Even my hypothesis on the evolution of arctic sea ice these years is based on the same sort of observations re canal, pond and lake ice.
That hypothesis dates from 2005 and predicted first arctic ice free summer at +10 to +15 years, which means I can seriously fail this year or next.
The prediction was based on the miracle Britain-sized hole appearing in the north of the East Siberian Sea in August '05, in an area where for centuries to many millenia a massive 2-4 metres ice, usually affixed to the Siberian coast including during the minimum, was the norm.
I am actually quite aghast at the amount of underestimation of this process even in (semi-)professional circles.
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cRR Kampen at 08:20 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
#40 Tom, I am aware of that. The question is: what do we mean by 'the mean' here? Obviously we do not mean the 1979-2000 ice extent/area/volume mean for this number has (literally...) no meaning anymore. Therefore expectations based on this regression concept for 2013 running a higher minimum than 2012 are rather gratuit.
As for the discussion on error bars, as of this year one side of such a bar is very easy to place: it is on the zero of the vertical axis.
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Kevin8233 at 07:16 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Dikran,
Some of the other reasons,
1. 2012 was warm
2. 2011 was warm
3. etc
4. Put several years together in a row that were warm and the logical deterioration of the thickness of the ice occurs. Look at the trend for ice volume. All of these things point to a decreasing ice extent, my point was that the storm was a major cause (not saying the only) for it to be lower than expected. Looking at the "professionals'" predictions, they were all above the actual, so obviously they thought the actual was exceptional as well.
Looking at fig2, you can see several recovery years that do recoup a couple of years losses - these do not portend a general recovery of the overall trend - nor am I implying that - look at years 1986,1992,1997,2001,and2006.
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2013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Ok, I'll throw a few cents into the ring, based on a simple polynomial extrapolation (R² = 0.8194).
- 4.04 Mk^2 +/-0.8 (2σ) extent
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scaddenp at 06:19 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
I'll go with 4.1 +/- 0.9, error bars based on variability, number on crude extrapolation.
Got to ask Kevin - if it goes below 4, what conclusions are going to draw? What sort of data is required to change your mind? At the moment, I would say 5 is "Math You Do as a "skeptic' to Make Yourself Feel Better", and as likely to be as accurate as Rove.
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Djon at 06:12 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
If you wanted to say my error band was nonsensical, just say so. I think your unwillingness to have your understanding of what is likely to happen to sea ice extent in the next year judged based on your error band is a much more convincing demonstration that your error band is nonsensical than my simply saying so. Just because you don't like being mocked for writing nonsense isn't a good reason to retire mockery as a debate technique. -
keithpickering at 05:12 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Personally I'm skeptical of all statistical methods to predict SIA. I say this based on my personal observation over decades of the way ice melts on the lake behind my house. The area of the ice is extremely non-linear during ice melt. During the winter, ice covers 100% of the lake. During spring, as the weather warms, the ice still covers 100%, because it's melting mostly from the bottom up. At some point the edge gives way to open water, and the covered area is 99% to 98%. And then, in about a day, it goes from 97% to zero, as the ice is no longer thick enough to withstand the wind.
We're seeing basically the same fall-off-the-cliff behavior in the Arctic, starting in the Kara Sea and working east. Last year it made it all the way arount to the Beaufort, and it will again this year too (although at even higher latitudes).
If you want to know when summer ice will hit zero, ignore extent and look at the volume. Ice melts from the bottom up.
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Dikran Marsupial at 05:09 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Kevin, well quite, which is one of the reasons that your very confident prediction of a record September recovery seems somewhat peculiar.
By the way, in this post, you ducked the question posed by Phillipe here. He asked you to list the "number of factors" [note plural] involved in last year's record other than the storm that had already been mentioned. Pointing out that "that [the storm] was "one" of the other reasons" suggests you either didn't read his post with sufficient assiduity, or that you were being deliberately evasive. Please could you answer the question, so that we can understand your reasons for your prediction. -
Kevin8233 at 04:59 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Dikran (35):
That is what I was trying to say, it is easy to set a re-freeze record when so much melted previously. The re-freeze record is not indicative of a new trend, as you point out, the new max is still less than the previous max. I was not trying to state otherwise.
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Tom Dayton at 04:57 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
cRR Kampen, there is no "physics" behind regression to the mean. Regression to the mean is a human perceptual/judgment of the mathematical fact that (by definition of the mean) observations are more likely to be closer to the mean than farther from it. When observations are independent of each other, an observation happening to be far from the mean does not change the probability of the next observation most likely being closer to the mean than farther from it. The human perception/judgment of those two observations is that the second observation moved toward the mean (regressed toward the mean).
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Kevin8233 at 04:56 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Djon,
I did not expand my error bars. the +/- 4.5 is 5 times Tamino's error band. Since you want to place a consequence to my being wrong, I suggested using Tamino's error band. Maybe you would prefer to use his band without multiplication? (5.0 +/-.9) If you wanted to say my error band was nonsensical, just say so.
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Djon at 03:51 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Kevin,
Do I have to have made a prediction for your prediction to be wrong? In school, did you complain to teachers who gave you a bad grade on a test because I hadn't taken the same test? Maybe, unlike you, I'm not overconfident enough to think I can predict the sea ice minimum to within +/- 100,000 square kilometers seven months in advance. Although "overconfident" doesn't seem like the right word since you don't seem willing to stand by your prediction, judging by your apparent desire to expand your error bars from +/-0.1M to +/-4.5M. -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:33 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Kevin, I'm sure Tamino would concede that his prediction was falsified if the observations were outside his stated error bars. There is a good reason why Taminos error bars and mine are much broader than yours, which is because that is the basic scale of inter annual variability around the trend.
I suspect Djon was being lenient as the error bars on your prediction are clearly unrealistic, unless there is something fundamental that you know about Arctic sea ice that the rest of us don't know (including the scientists who work on this for a living).
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Kevin8233 at 03:26 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Djon,
How about 5 times Tamino's error band. That would make it 0.5 to 9.5 million Km^2.
Where is your prediction?
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Dikran Marsupial at 03:22 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Kevin, see figure 4, there was indeed a record gain in Arctic sea ice this year, but the January sea ice extent was still lower than last year nevertheless, so the trend in winter extent is still downwards.
The fact that the record gain is very likely to be simply due to the record loss last year is exactly why Goddard and Watts are wrong, it is exactly what would be expected, and doesn't signal any kind of recovery of sea ice, because the extent itself is still on the decline even with a record gain.
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Djon at 03:14 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
@Kevin
So you predict the NSIDC September average northern hemisphere sea ice extent in 2013 will be 5.0+/- 0.1 million square kilometers, right? For future reference, how much lower than that do you think the actual value needs to be to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you are utterly wrongheaded about climate science and that everything you say about it ought to be ignored? Would 4.5 be low enough? Letting you miss by anything less than 5 times your estimated error without considering it proof positive that you're suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect seems pretty generous to me but maybe you're more forgiving of your own errors than that.
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Kevin8233 at 03:12 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Dikran:
I would however point out that to get back to five million km^2 would require around the largest annual increase in sea ice seen in the satelite record, which seems rather unlikely as the trend in winter sea ice extent/volume are still downwards.
I believe we just had exactly that. And no, I don't believe that a record freeze means the downward trend is over. Is was a record freeze becauseit followed a record melt.
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Kevin8233 at 03:07 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
John Hartz:
Re your forecast that 2013 will be a recovery year for arctic sea ice and for future reference, do you like your crow baked or broiled?
I don't seem to be able to find your prediction. Is it here?
Phillippe:
It was clear before the storm that the minimum was going to be extremely low, the storm simply made it impossible to not beat the 2007 record
Agreed, that was "one" of the other reasons.
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stonepig at 03:06 AM on 22 February 2013In Wall Street Journal op-ed, Bjorn Lomborg urges delay with misleading stats
Somewhere I read reports written by insurance companies regarding the future of global climate changes and that industry. It's about the cost of replacement, not what it is pitted against.
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TerryM at 02:35 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Last year the Caa opened up and swallowed the MYI that previously had found a safe haven north of there. This year we could have a repeat of this new avenue for advection and melt or this winter's MYI having slid down from above Ellesmere Island may plug the labrinth of channels.
My WAG is that the Caa opens again & that SIA, SIE & volume will all fall below this years minimum. If the Caa opens, Arctic ice will find that the only place of refuge is above Northern Greenland, ballancing between advection through Nares Strait or advection through Fram Strait.
While it's possible that the remaining ice can evade both traps in any one year, at some point an unfavorable wind or current will ship the bulk of it south. I 'd consider lingering year round ice in 2033 much less likely than an ice free period in 2013.
Considering the probability that we'll go into the coming melt season with less volume than last, and that we'll probably have an open Caa like last year, I'd be surprised if any of the metrics were as high as 2012.
Terry
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John Hartz at 02:29 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
@Kevin #26
Re your forecast that 2013 will be a recovery year for arctic sea ice and for future reference, do you like your crow baked or broiled?
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Philippe Chantreau at 02:22 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Kevin, would you care to list the "number of factors" involved in last year's record?
You mentioned only that one storm. It was clear before the storm that the minimum was going to be extremely low, the storm simply made it impossible to not beat the 2007 record. Considering that this record was not beaten but shattered, I doubt that the storm was that much of a factor. That was also the opinion expressed by Zhang and colleagues from UW.
Overall the conditions over much of the season were "a mixed bag" (NSIDC's words). In contrast, 2007 had a perfect combination of melting conditions.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/08/a-summer-storm-in-the-arctic/
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cRR Kampen at 02:07 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
#27 - "The reason why there are "recoveries" in the observations is essentially "regression to the mean", after an extreme year, you will generally get a less extreme one."
What physics is behind this?
There is a severe circularity in this reasoning involving the definition of 'extreme year'. Apart, of course, from the meaning of 'mean' in cases of accelerating trends on dynamical systems.
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Dikran Marsupial at 02:01 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
Kevin making testable predictions is what science is all about. However, your two arguments both seem to me to be saying more or less the same thing twice. The reason why there are "recoveries" in the observations is essentially "regression to the mean", after an extreme year, you will generally get a less extreme one.
I would however point out that to get back to five million km^2 would require around the largest annual increase in sea ice seen in the satelite record, which seems rather unlikely as the trend in winter sea ice extent/volume are still downwards.
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Kevin8233 at 01:43 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
yes, I did mean in millions. As to why, which is important.
2012 was very low for a number of reasons, one of which was the storm which dispersed ice. Doubt that will happen again like that this year. As I indicated, I believe it will be a recovery year, which happens with some regularity. Couple the two tegether and there is some pressure to be dramatically higher than last year.
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Tristan at 01:42 AM on 22 February 2013Reconciling Two New Cloud Feedback Papers
The thing I find difficult to match up in my head is the idea that (judging by the likely ranges) the TCR can be as much as 2/3rds of the ECS.
A TCR of 2 and an ECS of 3 implies that 66% of the total warming associated with doubling GHG concentrations would have been already realised by the time the GHG concentrations had doubled.
It doesn't seem plausible.
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meher engineer at 01:40 AM on 22 February 2013In Wall Street Journal op-ed, Bjorn Lomborg urges delay with misleading stats
what is Accumulated Cyclone Energy?
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cRR Kampen at 01:08 AM on 22 February 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
#24, I might acknowledge your reproach of 'evasion' after you have checked my arguments for disposing with the concept of 'mean' in this case, but not before.
Interestingy 'The Black Swan' is much a report dealing with this kind of 'argument' leveled against Taleb all the time by people who do not seem to understand the concept involved.
Your (and Tamino's et al's) statistical approaches have fared pretty well, but we are increasingly looking at a Turkey Syndrome here -> http://www.attaincapital.com/img/newsletters/20111121_Fig1.gif
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Reconciling Two New Cloud Feedback Papers
Tristan - Quite correct on the three sensitivities; clearly I needed more coffee when I wrote that.
As to the TCS range, the IPCC AR4 discussion on sensitivities states that:
Equlibrium climate sensitivity is likely to be in the range 2°C to 4.5°C with a most likely value of about 3°C, based upon multiple observational and modelling constraints. It is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C.
The transient climate response is better constrained than the equilibrium climate sensitivity. It is very likely larger than 1°C and very unlikely greater than 3°C.
ESS as Hansen defined includes ice sheet changes, feedbacks including release of GHG's (such as ocean CO2, permafrost methane, etc). I find it (IMO) a bit more clear to group the different sensitivities by what feedbacks occur over that time period, rather than just the timescale itself.
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