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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 49151 to 49200:

  1. Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students

    It’s good to see more books surfacing. When I wanted to read up on the subject, it was pretty much sites like this, realclimate and the academic literature. Raypierre’s Principles of Planetary Climate is good for physics grads (even one like me who didn’t do particularly well, I’m more at home in Computer Science), but more acessible texts are a really useful addition.

    It is BTW a tad unfair to depict an ostrich with its head literally in the sand. They don’t actually do that, though they are in most respects almost as unintelligent as a science denier.

  2. Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)

    I meant <sub> tags, but it eats the others too…

  3. Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)

    The animated graph is brilliant. I posed a link to the YouTube on Facebook.

    Something not often talked about is the implications of 90% of the increased planetary energy going into the oceans for the potential scale of a big El Niño. Has anyone modelled that? Can we expect another spike above the average as big as 1998, or would it be even bigger?

    @vroomie: agree on the editor. I can now type CO2, without all the tags. Over at realclimate, their editor eats <sup> tags.

  4. Dueling Scientists in The Oregonian, Settled by Nuccitelli et al. (2012)

    It is these kind of "duels" that will become increasingly frequent and bitter, as reality and the facts close in on climate misinformers. The laws of the jungle, vis-a-vis a cornered animal, are *going to* apply, and we who operate in the confines of an evidence-based world must be prepared to front these battles. Tiring, but, the stakes are worth it.

     

    To the Mods: LOVE the WYSIWYG editor...a great inprovement!

  5. Climate's changed before

    pcrudy...  It's actually a very apt comparison.  It's shown over and over in published research that CO2 is the "Biggest Control Knob" (as Dr Richard Alley puts it) for global climate change.  

    Essentially, what humans are doing is taking that knob, that naturally modulates, and we're turning it rapidly in the warming direction.  So, saying that natural climate change precludes humans being able to change climate is fundamentally wrong.  And that is the point of the statement.

  6. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Doug H

    In Windows 7 I think using the middle button to click on a link, opens a new tab with the page in IE8.

    I don't think the middle-button in Windows XP has a specific function does it?
    You have to use something like MS IntelliPoint to assign a function or action to it.

     

  7. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    On firefox 18 under Linux I'm getting a popup for the movie every time I visit the SkS homepage - it's really annoying. A simple fix would be to put the image before the break and movie after. (Or just move the movie to youtube).

    Moderator Response: [Sph] Done, thanks. Not worth moving to YouTube, but getting the video off the snippet displayed on the home page was a good idea.
  8. Climate's changed before

    '....It is obviously true that past climate change was caused by natural forcings. However, to argue that this means we can’t cause climate change is like arguing that humans can’t start bushfires because in the past they’ve happened naturally...' is just another absurd comparision.

    Comparing a billions of years old eco system and it's natural forcings over eons, to e.g. two neanderthals rubbing two sticks together 10,000 years ago to start a fire, and then accidently starting a bush fire, (proving that even neanderthals had the ability to change the climate!) demonstrates (-snip-).

    Moderator Response: [DB] Inflammatory snipped. Please read this site's Comments Policy before commenting further (link adjacent to the comment box). Further comments constructed as this one will be deleted in their entirety. FYI.
  9. Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?

    Don... With the new WYSIWYG tool you can click the "insert" tab and easily link a URL.  Sorry for killing that last link.  

  10. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Oddly enough, under the latest version of Google Chrome - Going to SkepticalScience.com, or this page, positions the browser to show the movie illustrating the editor at the top of the page. Not the top of the page itself, but scrolled down a fair bit. FireFox does not show this behavior.

    This occurs even after clearing the browser cache - it's not due to old data. Chrome just seems to like the movie :)

  11. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    super - Thank you all !

  12. It's the sun

    Sabretruthtiger wrote: "The high degree of correlation also suggests that solar activity is the primary driver of global temperature on every time scale studied (which is pretty much every time scale but the Milankovitch cycle)."


    As others have noted, the period since ~1960 is another time scale where solar activity is clearly not the primary driver of temperature change. However, it is interesting that you were apparently aware that your argument did not hold true for the Milankovitch cycles... yet apparently couldn't make the connection between CO2 being the primary driver of temperature changes there and the 'recent time scale' link between increasing CO2 and temperature.


    So yes, if we ignore every time scale at which solar activity was not the primary driver of temperature changes then we would conclude that solar activity is always the primary driver of temperature changes. We would just be wrong. As your argument clearly is.

  13. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Peter, this happened to me. I'd reinstalled everything a while back following a rebuild but hadn't gotten round to downloading and installing Quick Time Player. Having just done so, the issue is resolved. Hope that helps.

  14. Doug Hutcheson at 17:32 PM on 4 February 2013
    WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Sphaerica @ 12, I can no longer make the editor misbehave in the same way (tears hair, gnashes teeth, throws things at monitor).

    I still have a problem using the middle button to type highlighted text into the Basic, or Insert, editor field: instead of typing the highlighted text, the middle button appears to paste whatever is currently in scratchpad memory.

    If I explicitly use Edit/Copy to copy the highlighted text to memory, then Edit/Paste to paste it into the editor, everything seems to work fine, so I will use that route in future and train myself to not use the errant middle button.

    Thanks for taking the time to respond. I will just crawl back under my rock ...

  15. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Peter,

    Can you clarify your problem?  Does it happen on every page, or only this post?  What are the details behind the download prompt?  The behavior you're describing sounds very, very strange.

  16. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Phil, Good point! Never thought of that. I retract my request. ... Thanks, sauerj

  17. 2013 SkS Weekly Digest #5

    Congratulations on getting your "Side of Least Drama" article getting into CP. I've done what I can to spread that important message to as many sites as possible


    In the mean time, methane seems to be emerging from the ice-free parts of the Arctic in ever-increasing concentrations:

     

    http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/02/dramatic-increase-in-methane-in-the-arctic-in-january-2013.html#more

     

    I know, I know, the article is from AMEG which has not always been, how shall we say, as scientifically meticulous as they could be. But the relevant methane maps are from Yurganev, who is, as far as I can see, beyond reproach. So is something going on with Arctic methane right now, or not? Is this methane from methanogens thriving on the newly opened ocean surface, or from seabed permafrost and clathrates starting to dissociate?

     

    Is this methane on its way to the stratosphere? If so, what will it do there, and what will it's effects be on the global climate?

     

    (For the record, in case anyone thinks I am some kind of AMEG troll, I think nearly any kind of geo-engineering is an exercise in hubris, when the most fundamental problem we are facing is human hubris.)

  18. Don Gisselbeck at 12:06 PM on 4 February 2013
    Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?

    I skiied it September 18. This line: link would not have been skiable in 2007 (ice and crevices). This; link and this;

    Moderator Response: [RH] Hot linked urls. (Sorry, I seem have killed the last link.) If you just paste in long links it breaks the page formatting. Please try to hot link your URL's whenever possible.
  19. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    It even pops up when I posted the above comment.

  20. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Now every time I load a SKS page I get a prompt to download a comments file which I have to cancel and it keeps popping up when ever another page is loaded so have to now keep clicking again and again to cancel.

  21. Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?

    Don were you there in mid-sept of 2012?  the snowpack looked pretty low in satellite imagery of the area.

  22. What Role Did the Arctic Storm Play in the Record Sea Ice Minimum?

    Just a pingback. Neven's blog has a recent (Jan 31) post on this, reporting on paper that has just appeared in the online version of Geophysical Research Letters. Neven's post points back here, too. Summary: don't blame the 2012 record low ice extent on the August storm.

  23. It's the sun

    Pretty sure this is No. 2. 


    I'm also pretty sure Sabre's a drive-by.  As I recall, he/she/it drove by over the summer with another bag full of wonders.

  24. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Some sites let the writer edit his/her entry. Is that even possible here? Or, am I asking for the moon?


    The obvious problem with this idea is that unscrupulous posters can edit their posts wholesale, changing the entire content, thus making it look like any subsequent replies are stupid or meaningless. I guess it might work if the edits were moderated, but I think the moderators have enough to do already ...

    Moderator Response:

    [DB] "but I think the moderators have enough to do already"

    Yes

  25. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Thanks guys! The ".mp4" worked. When I open the file, it now 'runs' the movie. I notice I put a ton of typos in my note (embarassing). Some sites let the writer edit his/her entry. Is that even possible here? Or, am I asking for the moon? To all the team: Keep up the good work. This site is building a legacy for the years to come; it's one clear voice crying in the wilderness!

    Re-testing insertion of above link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GetB-xs9D_A. Wow! This IS a lot easier!

  26. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Now we can behave like secretaries with a new DTP package...

    Also noticed that "keep me logged in" option doesn't appear keep me logged in, maybe cookie not working or expiring too soon?

    Would it be possible to issue a redirect after post, so the back button doesn't offer to repost a message? I guess I'll find out when I post this and go back!

    Are youtube links automatically formatted to embed? Here's a test:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GetB-xs9D_A

  27. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    ajki

    Sphaerica has changed if to .mp4

  28. The Climate Show #32: a Cook's tour of the Aussie heat

    thnks Gareth ... excellent content

  29. The Climate Show #32: a Cook's tour of the Aussie heat

    Nice show gentlemen.  Living in the southern US right now (otherwise known as "denyer central"), I can tell you this is going to be a very long fight.  What history has shown us, is that people don't tend to move on an issue until it is at its doorstep.  When increased melting continues on Greenland (like the melting "event" that took place last summer) will need to be repeated for a coule of years.  That will get the attention in the northeast US.  But for peole in the southern US, it will take a huricane to slam into Miami, Houston, or New Orleans again.

    As temperatures continue to rise, and as storms continue to batter our coast, as droughts continue to bake our interior.....people's mindset will gradually change.  Denyers need to be publicly held to account for their lies.

  30. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Paul D@16:

    an Apple version of mp4

    The origin may well be an "Apple" product - the result is a wellformed mpeg4. When downloading the file and changing the extension to something like ".m4v" or even ".mpg" e.g. WinMediaPlayer will happily display it.

  31. Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

    #18/19 JasonB and DougH:

     

    You may be interested to read one or all of the following:

    My post about the GWPF's Academic Advisory Council: http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/sampson-and-the-temple-of-economic-dinosaurs/

    My posts about the Bishop of Chester (on its Board of Trustees): http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/fostering-denial-in-the-church-of-england/

  32. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    The 'mv4' is the video demo file at the top of this article.

    It's an Apple version of mp4.

  33. The Climate Show #32: a Cook's tour of the Aussie heat

    Particularly useful were few links you guys have shown. Worth following and reading on your own. BTW, could all the links the climate show guys are talking about be listed under the embedded video next time around for the listener's convenience?

    The icesheet talk by Richard Alley is particularly fascinating, not no be missed!

  34. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    As I'd like to try the brand new gift, I could make a try at the .mv4 miracle [sauerj] as well. From time to time I get a really annoying mess of "A plugin is needed to display content" messages from Firefox when reading an article or from the home page of SkS. This article itself is a perfect example for this phenomenon due to embedding the example slide show. As in the other example given in ref., the cause is absolutely always one "param" of the "object" tag: "quicktime". The videos/slide shows are well formed mpeg4 but the param "quicktime" results in a fail to display since no "Quicktime" is installed. Most (Win) users will avoid installing "Quicktime" unless permanently needed. But it may be a useful codec for the rest of the world(? tablets, cell phones...), though I doubt that seriously. There are some "Quicktime Alternate" floating around - but I think it'd be better to change the "param" to "video/mp4".

  35. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Question: Everythime I move to a different SkS page I get a Windows7 prompt to "open or save sks_comments.mv4 (682 KB) from skepticalscience.com". If I try to "open" the file, the computer acts its trying to open a program that it doesn't have an application for (like opening a worksheet.xls file w/o having Microsoft Excel program installed). This just started happending right when this WYSIWYG change went into effect.

    Does anyone know what this sks_comments.mv4 is all about???? What should I do with it since I can't 'install' it and I can't get rid of it????

  36. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Doug,

    Tried repeating your problem here following your instructions and couldn't replicate. I inserted a link then looked at the code and it looked fine. Switched to basic and back to source and nothing had changed.

    Wonder if the actual link string has something in it that was a problem?

  37. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Doug, to help me resolve the issue:

    1. What type of computer (or phone) are you using?
    2. What browser?
    3. What is your "middle-click" configured to do?
    4. Can you paste into a comment:
      1. How the comment looks when you type it
      2. How the comment looks when you go into the source editor
      3. How the comment looks just after you leave the source editor
      4. How the comment looks after leaving the source editor
  38. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Though I've only scratched the surface of it so far, this is the best comments interface I've seen on the www.

    Only one point. I use Firefox which has a very useful real-time spellchecker add-on that works whenever I make a comment on a site—except it no longer seems to work when using this interface.     

  39. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    If I want to be bold I'ld try

    a few

    indents

    to see 

    where they

    go ...

     

    But I think I'll take a low road, while you take a high road.

    But coming to the source, I find no problem, whether in italics or underlined.

    To Doug Hutcheson, the above was just a test, and no doubt very testing.  The initial section was done by wysiwyg, while the line including the italics and underline was added in source.  One thing I did which you may have neglected was to start and finish the line in source with <p> and </p> respectively.  Also, to get tidy html code with wysiwyg, it is probably better to type your message, and then format afterwards rather than formating as you go.  Not sure about the other problems you mention.

  40. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #5

    Re "69 feet of sea level rise" article where Chris Mooney interviews Jason Box, the author of this claim. Such claim needs to be adequately qualified: Chris did not do it in this areticle. A substantial melt of both GIS and AIS is required of 69ft SLR. We can be almost sure that such event won't happen in this century and maybe even won't happen in the next century.

    NEEM2013 on RealClimate provides the empirical evidence that IS response to the warming is a slow process that may last milenia. Jason apparently disagrees with the results of this study. Certainly, the orbital variation forcing in eemain was different that today's CO2 global forcing, however given the relative slowness of IS melt as evidenced in NEEM2013, I think there is plenty of time to reverse current CO2 forcing (by ocean sequestration or maybe by ingenious humans who invent the industrial scale CO2 scraping from the air) before Jason's alarming prediction has the chance to eventuate.

    I'm expecting some discussions on that subject to follow and I'm looking forward...

  41. Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students

    curiousd: Regarding your slide show "Leaky Sink Global Warming Analog," you might find the article "Relaxation theory of climate" interesting (Aleksei V Byalko 2012 Phys.-Usp. 55 103).

  42. Doug Hutcheson at 18:25 PM on 3 February 2013
    WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Both my last two comments arose because I was trying to reply to doug_bostrom @ 3, with the comment that I laughed at his cartoon and it reminded me of one that was circulating years ago, with the same Micrsosoft paper-clip saying "I see you are trying to write a suicide note: would you like to start the suicide note wizard?"

    This comment entirely typed into the 'Source' editor, lower pane and it looks good in the rendered pane, so I hope it posts OK. If it does, the moral might be to either use the Source editor alone, or the WYSIWYG editor alone, but don't try mixing methods.

    Hope these comments help someone else noticing this problem. (I'm a retired programmer: I can't help it if I have a fetish for finding bugs ... <grin>)

  43. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    When the "sophisticated AI" is added, will this include DWIM and DWIW! buttons?

  44. Doug Hutcheson at 18:13 PM on 3 February 2013
    WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    The problem seems to be with the source editor and the way it interacts with scratchpad memory.


    Also, try this: highlight the name of the person making a comment and middle-click to type it into the 'Basic' editor. You will notice that what is pasted is a hyperlink to the person's name, not just the text of the name as it used to do.

    Now, click on the 'Source' tab and look at the HTML: on my system, the HTML is OK at this stage.

    Now, click back on the 'Basic' tab. The editor pane on my system now shows an icon indicating there is malformed HTML and clicking on 'Source' now shows the HTML is, indeed, screwed up.

    Moral 1: don't look at the 'Source' pane. Ever.

    Moral 2: don't highlight a commenter's name and try to save yourself some typing by middle-clicking into the editor pane, as you will end up with a kinda-correct hyperlink to the person's name, instead of just plain text.

  45. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    where did those colors come from?

  46. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Hey! it seems makes one can use sub and sup tags simultaneously, if one doesn't have anything substantial to say. bolding italics test

     

    human fingerprint

    [Ðø hjumän fingõÿpÿint is mässiv]. 

  47. Doug Hutcheson at 17:43 PM on 3 February 2013
    WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Further to my comment @ 2 above, I have been able to replicate the behaviour:

    1. Type something into the edit field, under the 'Basic' tab
    2. Highlight it
    3. Click 'Insert'
    4. Click 'Create link' and type (or paste, in my case) a URL
    5. Click 'Source' and note that the html is pretty garbled
    6. Try to correct the HTML
    7. Click 'Basic' and notice such things as an icon indicating there is a dangling tag, and/or the item that should be a hyperlink is only half a link and half plain text, or other strangeness. Also note that the changes you made under 'Source' have had no effect
    8. Click back on 'Source': on my system, the HTML is now badly screwed up and all my source editing has gone to God.

    Moral seems to be "don't mess with the HTML created automatically by the editor and, in fact, don't even look at it using the 'Source' tab". I have not yet determined if creating an entire post, using the 'Source' editor alone, works properly.

    I discovered this, by creating a post using 'Basic' and 'Insert', then being interested to see the HTML generated. Just looking at the source seems to be the bringer of plagues upon my coding.

    I have not looked at the source of this comment, so I hope it posts OK.

  48. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Other terrific new features will be rolled out Real Soon Now. Sophisticated AI will parse your comments as you type, making it easy and fun to avoid making embarrassing errors in public.

  49. Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome

    (OffTopic) David B Benson got it correct here. :-)

  50. Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students

    One other thing....In regards to my post number 7 above, the people in this thread might have an interest in my posted "Leaky Sink Global Warmig Analog" by clicking on that title at this site:

     

    http://www.phys.uconn.edu/people/faculty/storrs/pease/

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