Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 Next
Comments 49151 to 49200:
-
DSL at 07:00 AM on 7 February 2013It's the sun
Kevin, while the regular commenters on this site will be more than happy to address your concerns, they do expect you to read the main articles (basic, intermediate, and advanced). The people at NASA are among those who have contributed to the studies upon which the main articles are based. Further, if you have a specific piece of information--a quote, for example--that is driving your questioning, please link to it so that we don't have to rely on a vague reference in a single sentence.
-
Kevin8233 at 06:57 AM on 7 February 2013Temp record is unreliable
The various datasets (not just GISS) have been checked & rechecked, both internally and independently. Even amateur "scientists" have replicated the global rise in temperatures using as little as 10% of the station data because there is a global warming signal in the data.
If the data is/was so accurate, why does Hansen keep changing it? And why are ALL changes in the direction that support his belief? You would think that at least some "mistakes" were made in the other direction, no? How much cooler are the 30's going to get?
-
DSL at 06:57 AM on 7 February 2013There is no consensus
Kevin, you wouldn't ask your dentists to perform heart surgery. There is an overwhelming consensus in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences. But why look at a consensus of people? Why not look at a consensus of evidence.
-
Kevin8233 at 06:51 AM on 7 February 2013There is no consensus
The signature project has 31,487 signatures, of which 9029 have PHDs, all saying that it is not man made. Makes it hard to believe that there is a 97% consensus.
-
Kevin8233 at 06:36 AM on 7 February 2013It's the sun
I thought that both the IPCC and NASA have admitted that the Sun plays a much more major role then previously thought.
Is this true?
-
fydijkstra at 06:32 AM on 7 February 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
Albatross: you make a very interesting remark!: "The psychology of those in denial and fake skeptics is fascinating. What is even more fascinating (and perhaps sad too) is that they seem wholly incapable of being aware of their extreme bias and propensity to enage and perpetuate conspiracies. They seem unabe to help themselves."
Don't you see, that this statement exactly fits to those who are in denial of the recent lack of warming for 17 years, and to those who call themselves 'skeptic about skeptic arguments'? And to those who still deny the existence of the Medieval Warm Period, contrary to historic facts? Or to those who insist that the sea level rise is accelerating, contrary to satellite measurements?
In the Netherlands we have an interesting TV game, in which three men all state that they have a special profession, but for only one of them it is true. The others are actors. They are interrogated by a panel. At the end of the game all panel members have to decide who is the real professional. And then the leader of the game asks: 'Will the real profssional now stand up?'
We can ask the same question in the climate debate: 'will the real denialist now stand up?'
-
dana1981 at 06:25 AM on 7 February 2013A Climate Sensitivity Tail
Rob P @6 - yes, the quote from Trenberth in the OP is in response to Annan saying that warming has slowed over the past decade. That's just not true if you include ocean heat content data to 2000 meters.
-
curiousd at 05:17 AM on 7 February 2013It's too hard
I work with green action groups. In my mind, there are pervasive forms of denial common amongst such groups that almost approach the level of dangerous attitude as in those who deny global warming;
1. Acting locally (My friends and I all have sustainable homes, we eat locally, we recycle, and drive hybrids) will be enough. Not even close to being right. What about folks living in high rises in Chicago in the wintertime?
2. The Hubbard's Peak driven scarcity of fossil fuels will force reform. Old fashioned point of view. We now know we have enough readily available fossil fuels to fry the planet.
-
Bob Loblaw at 05:16 AM on 7 February 2013A Climate Sensitivity Tail
I think part of the contrarian reaction is based in the psychology of Going Down the Up Escalator. Just as any sort-term drop in temperatures becomes a claim that global warming has "stopped", any study that mentions a decrease in climate sensitivity is grabbed as if it is evidence that everything about climate sensitivity is decreasing. As part of the uncertainty monster, it confirms the contrarians' belief that mainstream science is wrong, and that all the errors are accumulating in one direction. To the contrarian, it is just a matter of time before other uncertainties will yield even lower estimates of sensitivity, until eventually it will fall to the point that it is nothing significant.
That Annan's statements do nothing to support the low sensitivity favoured by the Spencers and Lindzens is irrelevant: i just another "nail in the coffin" for a confirmation-biased view that the sensitivity just has to be lower than what the proper science is saying.
-
Rob Painting at 04:47 AM on 7 February 2013A Climate Sensitivity Tail
One doesn't need to misinterpret James Annan's comment, he's writing some unsupported nonsense all on his own. For example this comment over at the Dot Earth blog:
"combined with the stubborn refusal of the planet to warm as had been predicted over the last decade, all makes a high climate sensitivity increasingly untenable"
Over the last 50 years around 93% of global warming has gone into heating the ocean. Compare the "noughties" decade to the 1990's and you find that the ocean heating rate increased. In other words the observations contradict what Annan claims.
Then there's all his strange rants about the IPCC. He seems peeved that he's being ignored by those involved in preparing the latest IPCC assessment. Given that he is making claims contrary to the evidence, I'm not surprised his protestations may be falling on deaf ears.
By the way, what is the basis for claiming that the negative aerosol forcing estimate has been reduced?
-
Roger D at 04:46 AM on 7 February 2013A Climate Sensitivity Tail
As illustrated in this OP and noted in comments above, "skeptics" seem to be expert at mental cut-and-paste to build their understanding. Maybe they all grew up eating out at smorgasborgs where their parents allowed them to choose the ice cream for the main course and for desert. If only the world really did work that way....
-
dhogaza at 04:36 AM on 7 February 2013A Climate Sensitivity Tail
"Annan has also made the case that the most likely equilibrium climate sensitivity value may be closer to 2.5°C than 3°C."
It's worth noting that the current estimate from NASA's GISS Model E, to be used in the upcoming IPCC model ensemble, is 2.5C. The version used for the previous IPCC report was about 2.7C. "About 3C" includes the possibility of "a bit less than 3C" ... contrarians seem to have missed just how mainstream Annan's view is that it might be closer to 2.5C than 3C.
Not to mention just how uncomforting this mainstream (though slightly on the low side) view is to anyone who cares about the future.
-
Rob Honeycutt at 04:32 AM on 7 February 2013A Climate Sensitivity Tail
My sense was the (fake) skeptics homed in on only this part: "A value (slightly) under 2 is certainly looking a whole lot more plausible..."
And that's all the wanted, all they needed. Everything else didn't fit their notions of CS and so they excluded it.
I've had exchanges with a bunch of them this week on various websites and they were completely unaware that Annan had also made statements regarding the central estimate still being 2.5C to 3C. It totally flew by them without notice.
-
dana1981 at 04:24 AM on 7 February 2013A Climate Sensitivity Tail
Composer @1 - yes, it appears that contrarians interpreted Annan's comments as "climate sensitivity is not very high, therefore it's low". Hence the 'memo to contrarians' section in the OP. I saw several contrarians saying that Annan's comments were confirming what 'skeptics' have believed all along. Unless they think Lindzen and Spencer are extremists, that is simply untrue.
-
Composer99 at 03:49 AM on 7 February 2013A Climate Sensitivity Tail
As the Oregonian thread here demonstrated, people can easily read what they want instead of reading what is actually written.
So instead of what Annan & Hargreaves are actually saying, which (if I am reading their paper correctly) is that we can more confidently (though still not completely) rule out possible climate sensitivity greater than 4°C, pseudoskeptics & contrarians appear to be reading it as supporting their notions of climate sensitivity (which vary, but as far as I can see a sensitivity of 1.5°C appears to be the ceiling).
-
Philippe Chantreau at 03:22 AM on 7 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Rob, thanks for the link to the Real Climate exchange, very enlightening. After re-reading this thread and looking at the RC thread, it seems more and more obvious that what comes from Richard C(NZ) is best described as amateurish obfuscation a la maniere de G&T. Thermodynamics wins again, unsurprisingly.
-
Kevin8233 at 02:19 AM on 7 February 2013Was 2012 the Hottest La Niña Year on Record?
ooops, never mind. NOAA retracts claim!
-
Daniel Bailey at 02:18 AM on 7 February 2013Icy contenders weigh in
Albatross, the findings from Dahl-Jensen need to be considered in context, with that context being that other ice sheets such as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) also are sensitive to warming. My takeaway from Dahl-Jensen:
The NEEM community members group examined a Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) core with a complete record of the Eemian interglacial (130,000 to 115,000 years ago). What they found was that surface temperatures after the onset of the Eemian (126,000 years ago) peaked at 8 ± 4°C above the mean of the past millennium.
Coupled with the determined thinning of the GIS at that point, they were able to quantify the SLR contribution of the GIS during the Eemian to be no more than 2 meters, with a greatest likelihood centered at about 1 meter Sea Level Rise (SLR).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v493/n7433/full/nature11789.html
The challenge presented by the NEEM study is this: the Eemian SLR is generally thought to be 6–8 meters above that of the 20th Century. If the GIS contributed only a quarter of that (at best), then where did the remainder come from?And that is where the contributions from the WAIS and the EAIS come into context. For those sheets needed to have been significant contributing players in order to "close the Eemian SLR balance."
My two cents. Glad Jason wrote this, so I can now deep-six the article I had started on.
-
dana1981 at 02:15 AM on 7 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Son of Krypton @51 - thanks for the information, that's very cool.
-
Albatross at 02:04 AM on 7 February 2013Icy contenders weigh in
Jason and collaborators,
Best of luck with this. I hope that you are successful in raising the funds and bringing this the "Dark snow project" to fruition.
The findings of Dahl-Jensen et al. (2013) just do not make sense. Greenland is probably going to warm more than 5-8 C and the recent response to less warming than that is indicative of the fact that the ice sheet is indeed sensitive to warming. So I agree that the Eemian is probably not a good proxy of how thigs will unravel during the Anthropocene. Do you intend to respond to Dahl-Jensen et al.?
PS: I had the good fortune to attend the special showing of "Chasing Ice" at the AGU, the movie and the panel discussion that followed were brilliant.
-
Albatross at 01:52 AM on 7 February 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
The psychology of those in denial and fake skeptics is fascinating. What is even more fascinating (and perhaps sad too) is that they seem wholly incapable of being aware of their extreme bias and propensity to enage and perpetuate conspiracies. They seem unabe to help themselves.
When the first paper came out the fake skeptics were warned that their knee-jerk reaction was simply reinforcing the original paper's findings. They ignored that advice (offered in good faith) and now we have a second paper documenting their irrational behaviour. It is all quite surreal, and to me at least, this exercise demonstrates again that for fake skeptics and those in denial anthropogenic global warming is not about science or uncertainty or dogma at all, but about their ideological and extreme leanings.
-
Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Moderators - With respect to the repeated misinterpretations of others statements (despite correction), the strawman arguments that have been posted over and over, should the "Comments should avoid excessive repetition" Comment Policy be applied here?
Moderator Response: [DB] Agreed. The sloganeering/excess repetition portion of the Comments Policy is now in effect on this thread, due to need. -
Composer99 at 00:27 AM on 7 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Thanks, DB & KR!
-
bratisla at 21:59 PM on 6 February 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
Another interesting thing in the paper, discovered by the wise bunny: Lewandowsky and his co-authors have submitted another paper on the same topic, but with a different dataset (footnote 5 of the article, if I remember corretly - rabbett has the details).
The popcorn will become really short on supply, especially if we consider that this article will attract lots of comments, which will be used for another study, and that all these studies will call for a synthesis article, which will etc.
This is pure genius.
-
Tom Curtis at 20:53 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Rob Painting @70, we should now be able to expect Richard C to apologize for wasting our time with his peverse misinterpretations. Why then, do I expect him to continue arguing, even against so clear a statement as that you quoted from Rahmstorf?
-
Rob Painting at 20:38 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
You will be able to provide a reference then
Yup. From here:
[Response: I try a different way. To your point 3 the answer is yes - the ocean surface is on average warmer than the overlying air, because the ocean absorbs a lot of heat from the sun, part of which it passes on to the air above. Your confusion arises simply because we are now discussing how the bulk of the ocean below the skin layer gets heated. Thus we are talking not about the gradient between sea surface and overlying air, but we are talking about the gradient through the skin - i.e., the water temperature difference between the top and bottom of the skin layer, which controls how heat flows across this layer, from the bulk of ocean water below to the surface. Obviously, if you heat the top of the skin layer, this reduces the heat flow across this layer from below. Clear? Or still confusing? -stefan] …
I think this rather ridiculous strawman argument has reached the end of its shelf life.
-
Boswarm at 20:29 PM on 6 February 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
Cornelius,
Well done:
express concern that labelling some people conspiracy theorists may not help them develop objectivity
Don't label them (who cares who they are) or put them in boxes - just do the science and continue. Stop the name calling - that's their game - work on the science and the science links only.
Objectivity - ???? Just do the work and the truth.
-
Cornelius Breadbasket at 20:22 PM on 6 February 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
Applogies for the terrible html.
My aim was to highlight that Pfizer withdrew it's support for Heartland in December 2012 (which is still good news) and to express concern that labelling some people conspiracy theorists may not help them develop objectivity.
-
Richard C (NZ) at 20:07 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Rob P #67
<"As for Stefan Rahmstorf, I know for a fact that he ascribes to the mainstream view that greenhouse gases warm the ocean through the reduced thermal gradient in the cool-skin layer."
You will be able to provide a reference then. That would be helpful to reconcile (or not) his quote with that reference.
I note though that the IPCC has not adopted that "mainstream view" specifically - why not? The purpose of assessment reports is to compile and communicate such views is it not?
In regard to the insulation effect, have thermodynamic calculations been done to support the approx 18x10^22 J OHC accumulation using that effect as the basis and if so where is the documentation?
-
Richard C (NZ) at 19:43 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Tom #65
Great, now we're getting to what Andreas and Stephan are describing and it's clear that totally different inferences can be extracted e.g Rahmstorf.
You,
"Rahmstorf – heat [from the sun] penetrates faster into [sun => ocean heat transfer process] the oceans in a warmer climate [because it does not escapes so easilly]."
Are you seriously implying by this inference that radiative penetration of sea water is faster at 15 C ambient atm temperature say than 14 C ? The speed of EM radiation being the speed of light in both cases.
Or parephrasing - radiation from the sun penetrates faster into the oceans in a warmer climate because it does not escape so easily? That does not make sense.
Me,
Rahmstorf – ”heat ["warming from the atmosphere"] penetrates faster into [an atm => ocean heat transfer process] the oceans ["build up of heat in the ocean"] in a warmer climate”
I'm sure Stefan is referring to heat in the atmosphere (global warming) as his heat source because the full quote from RC is:-
"This increase in the rate of sea-level rise is a logical consequence of global warming, since ice melts faster and heat penetrates faster into the oceans in a warmer climate."
My inference makes much more sense irrespective of whether the inferred process is valid or not.
Now Schmittner.
Me,
Schmittner – “Most heat trapped by carbon dioxide and other gases added to the atmosphere ["warming in the atmosphere"] is absorbed by [an atm => ocean heat transfer process] the oceans ["build up of heat in the ocean"]”
You,
Schmittner – “Most heat trapped by carbon dioxide and other gases added to the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans"
Your inference,
>"what Schmittner said was, most heat build up in the surface heat reservoirs as a result of CO2 is in the ocean."
Your inference firstly neglects heat trapped in the atmosphere by CO2 and other gases (according to Andreas) and secondly neglects his "absorbed by" atm => ocean heat transfer process. The inference is best made using the quote as per Rahmstorf otherwise the quote will inevitably be misconstued as it has been in this interpretation.
-
Rob Painting at 19:30 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Yup, the Fairall paper describes what I have explained multiple times in this thread already. This is not surprising because I was the one who drew this to your attention in the first place.
As for Stefan Rahmstorf, I know for a fact that he ascribes to the mainstream view that greenhouse gases warm the ocean through the reduced thermal gradient in the cool-skin layer. He was involved in a disagreement between myself and other commenters on Real Climate some months back and made his views on this known. Is it really any surprise that he agrees with the established research?
-
StBarnabas at 19:23 PM on 6 February 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
Well done John
I have avoided WUWT ands similar sites like the plague as I feel that they are a complete waste of my time (generating loads of heat and virtually no if any light) and they simply get me annoyed. Using data from such blogosphere sites recursively is a masterstroke.
Can such sites suffer from a stack overflow?
-
Dikran Marsupial at 19:06 PM on 6 February 2013Climate science peer review is pal review
MartinG wrote "But if somebody shows me that the papers de Freitas got published were poorly written, with unsupported conclusions etc. then I will agree they shouldnt have been published"
If you actually read the article above, you will find that the paper in question was refuted in a paper appearing in the journal EOS, and that several of the editors of the journal (including the editor in chief) resigned precisely because the paper was faulty and should not have been published. What more evidence do you want?
-
Richard C (NZ) at 18:11 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Rob P #59
Fairall's "average atmospheric heat input to the ocean" term in the abstract includes solar radiative energy input to the ocean (the greater flux by far). That radiation energy is transfomed to heat energy only after absorption in the water so they're stating net corrections of different sources and forms of energy in the abstract, not necessarily heat form or atm source as per their term. Their term is a catch-all for the SIDE of the interface that the NET energy inputs from including solar-sourced radiative energy.
Page 10 Fairall,
4.2. Effects on the Average COARE Energy Budget
Using the Moana Wave data, we have computed mean
bulk-derived values for sensible and latent heat fluxes.
When combined with net solar and IR radiative fluxes, these
yield a value to the total heat supplied by the atmosphere to
the surface of the ocean: Equation (32)Again, my questions are not in respect to Peter Minnett's cool-skin insulation effect because that is not the process that Andreas and Stefan describe (see #62, #64).
-
Tom Curtis at 17:35 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Richard C, you may becoming confused as the result of a simple, and pervasive analogy.
Consider the following diagram:
It represents a water tank, with the water level within the tank controlled by flow from two taps. Suppose the tank is initially in equilibrium, so that water flowing from the upper tap is exactly matched by water flowing from the lower tap, such that the water level does not change. We then alter the situation by slightly closing the lower tap. That initially results in a decrease in flow. The resulting disequilibrium results in an increase in water level, which in turn results in an increase in pressure at the level of the lower tap. That increase in pressure results in the velocity of the water in the tap increasing, until eventually the increased velocity compensates for the decreased aparture, resulting the the flow through the two taps matching again, and a restoration of equilibrium.
In this situation, it is natural to say that the lower tap has trapped more water.
But what does that mean?
It does not mean that water enters the tap and does not leave it. Indeed, water entering the tap now spends less time in the tap than previously, not more.
It does not mean the water occupies a greater volume in the tap. On the contrary, the closing of the faucet means the volume of water in the tap has decreased slightly.
If you think that "the tap has trapped more water" means something exclusively about the tap and the water, you are inevitably confused.
In fact, "the tap has trapped more water" means only that the volume of water in the reservoir controlled by the tap has increased.
In a similar example, if we here that a dam has trapped water, we do not think of the dam wall seizing water molecules and not letting go. We know that in this case the metaphore indicates that the volume of water in the reservoir has increased.
In exactly the same way, Schmittner's statement has nothing to do with the amount of heat retained by individual CO2 molecules, nor yet with the duration that they retain excess heat captured in the form of IR radiation. Rather, it is about the trapping of heat in the various heat reservoirs at the Earth's surface. The largest such reservoir is, of course, the ocean.
So, what Schmittner said was, most heat build up in the surface heat reservoirs as a result of CO2 is in the ocean.
Rahmstorf is even simpler:
"heat [from the sun] penetrates faster into [sun => ocean heat transfer process] the oceans in a warmer climate [because it does not escapes so easilly]."
Clearly your glosses on Schmittner and Rahmstorf's comments are not necessary semantically. They are therefore solely your interpretation, and interpretation which as previously noted shows a gross misunderstanding of the greenhouse effect.
It is really time you put up or shut up on my challenge. You are plainly unable to produce quotes that would clarrify things in favour of your interpretation - something that should give you pause. Failing that, you should contact Rahmstorf and Schmittner and seek clarrification; or admit your error.
Alternatively, as you have previously said:
"Dana and Andreas would appear to be on the same page re the quote from Andreas so it seems reasonable to accept Dana's interpretation of Andreas' process."
Would you accept Dana's word for it? Or are you so wedded to your straw man that no evidence, and no lack of evidence in your support, will divorce you from it?
-
Marco at 17:01 PM on 6 February 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
mothincarnate, to view the fun already unfolding, see WUWT with its guest post of Tom Fuller (who clearly hasn't read the papers, as neither claims most pseudoskeptics are conspiracy theorists).
-
Richard C (NZ) at 16:31 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Tom Curtis # 60>"...process (b) is not a reasonable inference from the quotes"Please see #62 for my element-by-element matching of the quotes with my inference and what Composer99 disputes in relation to them (Note I agree with him on that).If you dispute that analysis please provide a similar extraction of meaning element-by-element. -
Rob Honeycutt at 16:26 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
"Now we’re making progress." I wouldn't get too excited.
How do you propose that the additional heat in the oceans is getting there?
-
Richard C (NZ) at 16:17 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
-
Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Richard C (NZ) - "I'm simply inferring" == recasting statements into something else.
None of the various quotes you are repeating state your strawman argument, only your (re)interpretation thereof into different statements entirely. GHG's cause the oceans to warm - not by "upstream pumping", but by slowing heat loss. Claiming 2nd law violations is simply semantic nonsense on your part.
Repeating your fallicious argument does not improve it.
---
Rob Painting - "Richard C is aware of the peer-reviewed literature on this subject...". I find myself not at all surprised. His continued repetition of strawman arguments does not support a reasonable discussion on his part.
-
Climate science peer review is pal review
MartinG - I would have to disagree, as I have serious concerns about de Freitas getting published in the first place (not to mention his editorial practices). "Pal review" emphasizes ideological/personal approval over scientific criteria, meaning that de Freitas's papers did not receive the critical and constructive opinions of disinterested people familiar with the field.
"Pal review" is closely related to "no review" on the science. And the appearance of such papers (which I consider junk) in reviewed publications is thus a false appearance of respectability. Those papers did not pass peer review at all - if they had they might be taken seriously. And later examination by those peers indicates that the papers are nonsense.
-
Tom Curtis at 15:43 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Richard C @58, process (b) is not a reasonable inference from the quotes, and would only seem so if you do not understand how the greenhouse effect works. Each of the quotes you select says, in slightly different ways, heat trapped by the greenhouse effect is predominantly stored in the oceans. You can only understand such statements if you know how the greenhouse effect traps heat - which plainly you do not.
-
Rob Painting at 15:29 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
KR - Richard C is aware of the peer-reviewed literature on this subject - I have provided links to him on Saunders and especially Fairall (1996) some time ago.
Note this part of the abstract text:
"For an average over 70 days sampled during COARE, the cool skin increases the average atmospheric heat input to the ocean by about 11 W m-2; the warm layer decreases it by about 4 W m -2 (but the effect can be 50 W m -2 at midday)"
(edit) No doubt this could likewise be misconstrued to mean something other than Fairall intended. -
MartinG at 15:27 PM on 6 February 2013Climate science peer review is pal review
DSL - My point is with the idea of "Pal review". I actually have no problem with what de Freitas did - he got his papers peer reviewed and published. Its actually no error on his part if the reviewers were all climate sceptics any more that if they had all promoted AGW, though personally if I was editor I would ensure a balance. Its only when we label everybody as either pro- or anti that we get a problem. I cannot judge if all the papers involved were worthy of publication or not since I havnt read them, but I assume they were if they got past the peer review process. If they were bad then there should have been refused by the editor and reviewers, and the result will be that the editor, peer reviewers, and the journal will fall into disrepute. But I refuse to condemn them just because they have a different opinion of whats hapenning in the world. But if somebody shows me that the papers de Freitas got published were poorly written, with unsupported conclusions etc. then I will agree they shouldnt have been published.
In my discipline the literature is unfortunately full of poor quality papers and we have to learn to sift through to find the goodies just as we do with internet searches. Peer review was initially a mechanism to ensure that scientists are able to devote their attention to papers of merit. The days when an article was worth reading just because it had been peer reviewed are long gone I fear - and thats why I believe we should look at content, not on whether something has gone through peer review or not. This article and its comments have not been peer reviewed - and I am reading them!
-
Richard C (NZ) at 15:22 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
>"Richard C (NZ) is attempting to recast a slowing of energy into an upstream pumping"
Not at all, I'm simply inferring from the quotes what the process is that they are describing. It is clear that there are 2 processes being subscribed to, a) insulation (or "slowing" of ocean => atm transfer), and b) atm => ocean transfer (or "upstream pumping"). Comments here at SkS seem to be in favour of a) but at odds with b) which is the Schmittner/Rahmstorf proicess by inference.
Process b) is the reasonable inferrance from the quotes (except perhaps Dana's but that is for him to clarify) and so my 6 questions are in terms of b) obviously because I'm not taking issue with a) in this thread and I made that clear from the outset.
-
mothincarnate at 14:50 PM on 6 February 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
I can already hear the Anthony's and the like of the world scream, "Fly my pretties fly!"
Interesting article and I suspect this follow-up could in turn yield similar results as well down the take.
Moderator Response: (Rob P) All caps changed to bold text. -
Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Composer99 - Google Scholar is your friend: Saunders 1967.
Note to everyone looking for primary sources: Google Scholar is an excellent source for finding papers. I consider it one of my starting points for any academic search.
-
Rob Honeycutt at 14:30 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Richard @53... Yes, no one is answering question-by-question because you're entire premise is faulty. That's just not the answer you were looking for.
Honestly, Tom totally nailed it before.
-
Composer99 at 14:27 PM on 6 February 2013Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
IMO Richard C appears to have doubled down on all three conceptual errors I suggested he was committing upthread (with an amendment to the first error).
To whit:
(1) I suggested error #1 was a differing operational definition of "heat/energy". I should like to amend this to a different operational definition of heat/energy transfer. As elucidated by Tom Curtis, Richard is working off an incorrect assumption of what people here are actually claiming - his so-called "Nuticelli/Schmittner/Rahmstorf atm>>ocean heat transfer effect" that he is asking questions about. IMO Richard C is misinterpreting colloquial descriptions of the effects of the enhanced greenhouse effect (unreasonably so - since when does a letter to the editor need to meet the standards of a paper submitted to PNAS?) and mistaking them for novel proposals of heat transfer from the atmosphere to the ocean.
(2) Richard has continued to ignore the First Law of Thermodynamics. The extra energy in the oceans has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is, parsimoniously, the extra energy building up in the Earth system as a result of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Various other posters have noted how this occurs, without reference to any nonphyisical mechanism that Richard C seems to think is being proposed and is therefore asking questions about.
(3) Still backwards. As has now been pointed out again, and again, and again, all known or posited mechanisms for heat to build up in the ocean result from it failing to escape the ocean. In no case is the build up of heat in the ocean caused directly by warming from the atmosphere.
As far as I can see no one owes Richard C answers to his questions, because they are based on the above conceptual errors.
(Incidentally, it appears the physics of the cool skin layer have been well described since at least 1967, although finding that paper online escapes me at the moment. The paper itself is Saunders, P.M., The temperature at the ocean-air interface, J. Atmos. Sci., 24 , 269-273, 1967.)
Moderator Response: [DB] An accessible copy of Saunders 1967 can be found here. -
Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)
Richard C (NZ) - You (nobody else) are the one who has attempted to recast others statements into (paraphrasing) "heat (net energy) moves from atmosphere to ocean". No-one else. That makes your argument against the (never made) claim a strawman argument on your part.
Other readers: Greenhouse gases (GHG) cause the oceans to warm because they slow the flow of energy to space. Think of the energy situation as a river - from the headwaters (sun) to the Earth (mid-stream) to the ocean (space). Beavers (GHG's) build a dam; not surprisingly waters rise (Earth energy/temperature increases) until flow out of midstream (Earth) matches flow into it.
Richard C (NZ) is attempting to recast a slowing of energy into an upstream pumping, then arguing against that. It's ridiculous, a claim never posed, and he is simply raising a strawman.
Further attempts to dilute/confuse by multiple questions (see above) are merely obfuscation and a Failure to State fallacy. Certainly not a serious argument, supported by anything factual.
Prev 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 Next
Composer99 at 14:27 PM on 6 February, 2013
>”In no case is the build up of heat in the ocean caused directly by warming from the atmosphere.”
Thank you Composer99, I agree with you. That is certainly not a process I subscribe to either but that process is what Andrea Schmittner and Stefan Rahmstorf describe by inference from their quotes and Dana states Andrea is “correct”.
Hence my questions asking for the basis for the Schmittner/Rahmstorf process (“build up of heat in the ocean caused directly by warming from the atmosphere” by inference) from literature among other things.
You are saying in effect that the understanding that Schmittner and Rahmstorf convey by their quotes is incorrect unless you dispute my inference. If you do, lets go through those two quotes element-by-element to extract the actual meaning using my inference and your process above (“In no case is….”):-
Schmittner – “Most heat trapped by carbon dioxide and other gases added to the atmosphere ["warming in the atmosphere"] is absorbed by [an atm => ocean heat transfer process] the oceans ["build up of heat in the ocean"]”
Rahmstorf – ”heat ["warming from the atmosphere"] penetrates faster into [an atm => ocean heat transfer process] the oceans ["build up of heat in the ocean"] in a warmer climate”
Both of these quotes conform to your “In no case is….” process and my “atm => ocean heat transfer” inference. Neither describe an insulation effect.
Now we’re making progress.