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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 49301 to 49350:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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

  4. 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!

  5. 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

  6. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    ajki

    Sphaerica has changed if to .mp4

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

    thnks Gareth ... excellent content

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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/

  11. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

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

    It's an Apple version of mp4.

  12. 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!

  13. 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".

  14. 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????

  15. 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?

  16. 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
  17. 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.     

  18. 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.

  19. 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...

  20. 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).

  21. 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>)

  22. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

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

  23. 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.

  24. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    where did those colors come from?

  25. 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]. 

  26. 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.

  27. 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.

  28. Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome

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

  29. 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/

  30. Doug Hutcheson at 15:57 PM on 3 February 2013
    WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Thanks for this, it is appreciated.

    I did have a glitch with a link I inserted using the Link button, then tried to edit using the Source tab: every time I returned to the Basic tab, my hand-coded changes were removed (yes, my change was valid code). In the end, I had to use the Unlink button, then switch to Source and insert the link through HTML, which worked fine. Just a petty teething trouble that most people would never notice.

  31. Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students

    I taught Physics of the Environment at my University for a number of years, just quitting this last semester to concentrate on other climate change activities. The course I taught is aimed at a 101level, so that these students are probably not science majors. Therefore, we need to go over units, metric system, force, work, energy, and so on, in addition to doing environment and climate, all in one semester. The approach has recently been to teach abbreviated Physics 101, tack on environment, and refer to the excellent text  "Energy, Environment, and Climate" by Wolfson, for special topics.  I have ordered the recent text by Farmer and Cook, and look forward to its arrival next week.  I have a second job involving coordinating basic honors physics taught  for University credit  (not advanced placement) in various high schools. I suspect there may be fears amongst high school teachers of personal consequences from teaching much about global warming, and I hope to find out more about this. 

  32. It's the sun

    Jason B @1048, the most commented thread would have to be the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics thread, with (currently) 1424 comments.  I suspect this one comes second, although I have not done a survey.

  33. It's the sun

    JasonB...  I was thinking exactly the same thing.  Literally, this is probably THE most clearly debunked myths there is in the climate debate.  It's stunning that anyone is still clinging to it.

  34. It's the sun

    Sabre @1045...  Do you honestly believe that the broad scientific community hasn't already considered everything you've stated here before coming to the overwhelming conclusion that human are primarily responsibe for the rise of global temperature of the past 40 years?

    Just curious.

  35. It's the sun

    Just out of curiosity, what's the most-commented post here at SkS? This would have to be a contender, which strikes me as amazing because it's one of the most obviously wrong myths yet apparently one of the most fervently argued.

  36. It's the sun

    DSL,

    Apparently some people don't feel uncomfortable commenting on posts they haven't read. It gets a bit ridiculous when the post you'd provide them with a link to in order to dispel their misconception is the one they've commented on!

  37. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #5

    Topic 2: Philippines and climate change, laws only don't work: see renewable energy act.  It is implementing the laws. So far only coal power has been implemented.

  38. It's the sun

    Sabre, you did read the intermediate and advanced articles tabbed above, yes?  Yes, global temp track solar variation quite well until about 1960. Where is it argued that it doesn't?  What happens after 1960, as TSI drops from the modern max, and temp just keeps on rising.  You're familiar with Pasini et al. (2012), yes?  And the same Usoskin (2005) points out "during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source." 

  39. WYSIWYG Comments Feature

    Thanks Bob Sphaerica!  It's easy as . . .


    ABC
    DoReMe
    123

    In-tag style, too -- nice.

  40. Doug Hutcheson at 13:18 PM on 3 February 2013
    The Climate Show #32: a Cook's tour of the Aussie heat

    Watching this video was an hour well spent. Thanks, guys.

  41. Sabretruthtiger at 12:45 PM on 3 February 2013
    It's the sun

    Why are people even debating this The empirical evidence in favor of the solar explanation is overwhelming.

    Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have found a very high degree of correlation (.5 to .8) between solar-magnetic activity and global temperature going back many thousands of years (Bond 2001, Neff 2001, Shaviv 2003, Usoskin 2005, and many others listed below). In other words, solar activity “explains,” in the statistical sense, 50 to 80% of past temperature change.

    Such a high degree of correlation over such long time periods implies causality, which can only go one way. Global temperature cannot be driving solar activity, so there must be some mechanism by which solar activity is driving or modulating global temperature change. 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).

    In contrast, records of CO2 and temperature reveal no discernable warming effect of CO2. There is a correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature, but with CO2 changes following temperature changes by an average of about 800 years (Caillon 2003), indicating that it is temperature change that is driving atmospheric CO2 change (as it should, since warming oceans are able to hold less CO2). This does not rule out the possibility that CO2 also drives temperature, and in theory a doubling of CO2 should cause about a 1 degree increase in temperature before any feedback effects are accounted, but feedbacks could be negative (dampening rather than amplifying temperature forcings), so there no reason, just from what we know about the greenhouse mechanism, that CO2 has to be a significant player. The one thing we can say is that whatever the warming effect of CO2, it is not detectable in the raw CO2 vs. temperature data.

    This is in glaring contrast to solar activity, which lights up like a neon sign in the raw data. Literally dozens of studies finding .5 to .8 degrees of correlation with temperature. (-snip-). RF for CO2 is entered as ___ W/m^2 while RF for total solar effects is entered as ___ W/m^2. [I'm not going to quote the actual numbers, but yeah, the ratio is an astounding 40 to 1, up from 14 to 1 in AR4, which listed total solar forcing as 0.12 W/m^2, vs. 1.66 for CO2.]

    So the 50% driver of global temperature according to mountains of temperature correlation data is assumed to have 1/40th the warming effect of something whose warming effect is not even discernable in the temperature record. (-snip-).

    (-snip-)

     

    Moderator Response: [DB] Off-topic and inflammatory rhetoric snipped.
  42. Don Gisselbeck at 12:26 PM on 3 February 2013
    Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?

    It looks like the  denialosphere have missed another good cherry pick, the Stanton Glacier in Montana. When I first skied It in mid September 2007, it was nearly all ice. The last few years,it has been almost entirely firn covered in late September or early October. I can link to pictures and video if anyone is interested.

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

    Thanks for the explanations, Bob and mspelto, that makes sense and helps greatly. 

  44. 16  ^  more years of global warming

    Kevin C @ 123

    Not really what I was saying. Ocean enthalpy is all over the map from Trenberth's dropoff and "missing heat" to Levitus's steady rise. Finally found the time to plot Foster and Ramshorf against Levitus as I mentioned earlier to curiousd. Not conclusive but shows similar structure.

    http://geosciencebigpicture.com/2013/02/02/structural-sim…ocean-enthalpy/

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

    It is useful to look at the Swiss Glacier Commission results from 2010 when they noted three advancing glaciers (Kaltwasser, Sardona and Trient. all retreated significantly in 201 and had before 2010 so this was more of a blip than a trend.  Similarly the one glacier, Mont Durand,  that advanced in 2011 had retreated substantially the previous several years. In 2012 Norway reported of the 28 glaciers observed four advanced, but of these only one had advance in 2011 as well.  There are a few advancing glaciers that sustain the advance.  Of the 200 glaciers I have worked on only one Taku Glacier has a sustained advance, and this is the result of filling in its fjord with sediment and the resulting cessation of calving, like paying off your mortgage, changed its balance Pelto et al (2008).

  46. Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students

    Dessler's book is a good introduction to climate science.  One of many attributess that make Farmer and Cook's textbook unique is the treatment of denialism in climate science in two chapters, Chapters 23 and 24 (Chapter 23 - "Understanding Climate Denial" and Chapter 24 - " Rebuttals to Climate Myths") each of which may be found at Springer.com/environment/book/978-94-007-5756-1.

  47. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #5

    William:

    One of the articles that slipped under my radar this week is In Energy Taxes, Tools to Help Tackle Climate Change by Eduardo Porter, New York Times, Jan 29, 2013.  

    In this article, Porter provides a frank assessment of the propsects for enacting a national tax on carbon in the US anytime soon. Right now, it doesn't appear to be on any elected offical's radar screen -- including President Obama's.

    What President Obama says about climate change in his upcoming State of the State address will tell us more about what he intends to do - at least in the near term. 

  48. Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students

    Andrew Dessler 2011 Introduction to Modern Climate Change (recommended by Steve Easterbrook) is a good starting point.

  49. 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #5

    Are we seeing a paradigm shift.   I doubt it but live in hope.  Why don't we simply adopt Jim Hansen's Tax and Dividend solution.  If the US of A did this, the dynamics are such that other countries would have to follow suit.  Besides, from a politician's point of view it is a tremendous vote catcher.  Win win all around.

    http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2009/12/jim-hansens-climate-change-solution.html

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

    John Russell:

    Every glacier has its own mass balance - so in that context, yes, every one is different. Generalizations are possible, though. Every glacier also is not uniform over its entire extent - net accumulation of mass will occur over part of the glacier, net loss will occur in other parts. Combined with slope and gravity, this is what causes a glacier to flow.

    Typically, a glacier will have an accumuation zone and an ablation zone (ablation = losses due to melt, calving, and/or sublimation/evaporation). In a typical mountain glacier, the upper reaches are accumulating mass, the glacier is flowing downhill, and the lower reaches are losing mass. There is a dividing line between the albation and accuulation zone which is significant on an annual scale, but there are also seasonal effects, too.

    How a glacier's mass balance responds to a shift in climate depends on the effects in both the ablation and accumulation zones. A warming climate will usually increase losses in the ablation zone where losses are already greated than accumulation. In the accumulation zone, it can depend on just how cold the zone was before. A very cold accumulation zone with little snowfall may see an increase in snowfall and thus an increase in accumulation with little increase (if any) in melt, whereas a warmer accumulation zone may see less snow (and perhaps more rain) and a reduction in accumulation with increased melting.

    More melt/calving in the ablation zone combined with less accumulation in the accumulation zone will obviously cause recession. More ablation plus more accumulation - obviously depends on the details, but will cause glacier advance if accumulation overpowers increased ablation.

    Keep in mind that this is not a case of "glaciers will be claimed to show global warming effects no matter what they do" - it is clear that the processes are fairly well understood and there is a narrow set of conditions where warming can lead to glaciers growing. The broad, sweeping generalzation is that warmer climates will cause most glaciers to recede.

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