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rockytom at 05:05 AM on 3 February 2013Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students
Ruddiman's book is indeed a fine textbook; however it is not written nor is it appropriate for an introductory science course for college students. Introductory courses need to emphasize principles and the current climate, As Ruddiman's title states, his book emphasizes "Earth's Climate - Past and Future." The emphasis of the Farmer and Cook textbook (Volume 1) is on current climate. Volume 2 will emphasize Earth's climate history. A Volume 3, if written, will emphasize Earth's future climate using projections based on past and present climates and "what if" scenarios.
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John Russell at 04:43 AM on 3 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Just out of interest, is there a general reason why some glaciers are kicking against the trend and growing, or is it a different reason in every case? Either way do we know why?
And thanks for the new comment interface as well, guys—a great improvement.
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A Change in the Weather at 01:46 AM on 3 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
JasonB @40: I agree. The conservative thing to do at this point is to treat fossil fuels as an endowment. They are the capital that bootstrapped modern society into being; now we should live off the dividends rather than plunder the principal. We don't have to go back to living in caves (and obviously there aren't enough to go around), but we do have to reserve fossil fuel use for those applications for which there are no reasonable substitutes.
Reasonable is not the same thing as economic. Economics without a carbon price are false. For example, we can make a car that doesn't use fossil fuels. It's not cheap in today's economics, but the value would be commensurate with its true cost. Which would mean that car ownership would be pretty limited. Which would mean a basic transformation of social structures and relationships.
Same thing for electricity. We can still have it. It'll just be in much smaller amounts until we can do the R&D that extends our non-fossil capability. This R&D would be one of the uses of fossil fuel for which there is no substitute--though it would need to be transparently managed and subject to oversight.
We can do these things willingly, or we can continue to waste our endowment and end up like many a trust-fund baby: depleted and unable to cope with the remainder of our now-pauperized existence.
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michael sweet at 23:01 PM on 2 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Following up on the cite by Paul D is this article from the BBC which covers the bat study specifically. It sounds like the one Ranyl was referring to. It recommends minor adjustments in location of home wind turbines. This does not appear to be a serious problem for bats. Are there any citations that suggest wind turbines are a serious problem for bats?
When wind turbines were first deployed there was a lot of noise about raptors. I have heard little of that in recent years. Can current data be cited by those who think this is a problem?
In my browser (Firefox) the preview option is gone. I like to check to ensure links are OK. Spelling errors are also not underlined.Moderator Response: TC: You may not have noticed, but SkS comments have now been converted to WYSIWYG. The second tab allows inserting links, pictures and tables; or if you insist on doing things the hard way, you can use the third tab, and edit in source. No doubt more information will be forthcoming soon. -
joseph8209 at 22:19 PM on 2 February 2013Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students
The book places the comptemporary climate debate within the far longer perspective of climactic changes at millenial and even greater time scales. There is a lot around climate reconstructions and great sections outlining the differences between anthropogenic versus natural climate change. Highly recommended.
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joseph8209 at 22:16 PM on 2 February 2013Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students
Could I pipe-up and recommend this excellent textbook I just read most of for an introductory climate science course on my Masters...
W.F. Ruddiman. (2007) Earth's Climate: Past and Future (2nd edition). Freeman and Co., NY.
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Paul D at 21:18 PM on 2 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
vroomie:
Please show supporting documents to some of your assertions, such as:
"[sic] As bats well in a recent in Scotland small scale wind turbines reudced bat activity by 50%."There is genuine research regarding this:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-20209896
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Paul D at 20:59 PM on 2 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Re Ranyl
I don't think anyone is saying technology is a 'hero'.
All solutions have their bad points and new technology requires time to mature and develop. But you have to use it first before you can fix the problems.For instance, would new radar have been developed to handle the problems of wind farms, if wind farms had remained on the drawing board and had never been constructed? The answer is no.
Would we have rules and guidelines about electricity installations if we hadn't started installing electricity in homes? The answer is no.
Deploying any new technology will mean something or someone will lose out. But given that humans are extremely unlikely to give up technology and knowledge, then you have to deploy the technology that does the least damage. Renewable energy is the compromise between human self centred desires and and the need to do minimum damage to the environment that provides resources to create those desires.Regarding birds, cats and wind turbines. I recently did a back of the envelope calculation and worked out that if all of the electricity in the USA was generated by wind energy, the number of birds killed by the turbines would still be negligible compared with the damage pet cats do, or even buildings and other human built structures. If you had to draw a bar chart, wind turbines wouldn't register on the graph when compared with the bar for pet cats.
Also in the UK the biggest danger most raptors have is from a human armed with a gun. There is a growing bank of knowledge regarding bats and birds now and wind farms, so numerous solutions and guidelines are being drawn up.
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Tom Curtis at 18:03 PM on 2 February 2013It's the sun
Robert Wagner @1041, below are 11 year running averages of Gistemp (as used in figure 1 above) post 1950, along with 11 year running averages of RSS and UAH data, all offset to have a common baseline of 1981-2010. As can clearly be seen, the trends of the three are virtualy indistinguishable. Your primary claim is, therefore, patently false.
I will also note that your supposition that the satellite records, by virtue of being satelite records, are more accurate records is unfounded. It is well known that the surface temperature record needs adjustment for the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, Time of Observation (TOBS), along with changes of instruments over time. The satellite record, however, invovles adjustments for changes of instruments (as one Satellite is replaced by another), for the fact that the raw data includes a large measure of the cooling stratosphere in its observations, for the fact that the time of observation at any location changes as the satellite orbits , for bias arising from the properties of different surfaces, and their altitudes; and so on. Far more, and far more mathematically challenging mathematical adjustments are required to take raw satellite records and turn them into a temperature record than are required for the surface record.
Below are a list of the main corrections of the main, known errors in the UAH record that have been needed over time (and acknowledged by Roy Spenser). There has been a scientific paper published pointing out yet another apparently needed correction that Dr Spencer does not yet agree with. Only time will tell if he has finally got it about right, or whether yet more corrections will be needed before UAH can finally be considered as accurate as the surface record:
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curiousd at 14:06 PM on 2 February 20132012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality
O.K. To do this (as in my comment 52 above about finding the actual version 2 data for CONUS as now archived) they told me I need to get into the business of handling large zipped files. I am going to plug away. I may or may not be able to do this, but will learn something in any case.
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jsmith at 14:03 PM on 2 February 2013Ice age predicted in the 70s
Bad news John/Dana/whoever is responsible for this page--the link to the video is dead. Maybe replace it with potholer54's video here
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Doug Hutcheson at 13:46 PM on 2 February 2013It's the sun
Robert Wagner @ 1042, those same satellite measurements you claim to be accurate show a TOA energy imbalance: more energy entering the Earth system than leaving it. What do you think is happening to all that extra energy Earth is absorbing, if it is not warming the biosphere?
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Robert Murphy at 13:43 PM on 2 February 2013It's the sun
"The most accurate measurements, satellite measurements, the ones the Clinate Scientists seem to choose to ignore shows flat temperatures from 1980 to 2000, with a few spikes"
Nonsense. UAH, a satellite measurement from climate "skeptics" Roy Spencer and John Christy, shows about .22*C of warming from 1980 to 2000. From 1980 to the present it shows about .42*C. You are completely wrong."As recent as 2008 we were at or below the level of 1980."
Nonsense again. 2008 was no where near as cool as 1980.
" If the best the (-snip-) can do is rely on highly innacurate ground measurements they don't have much of a case."The ground measurements agree very well with the satellite data, which you are obviously are unfamiliar with. Nothing you said above is true. Talk about a . (-snip-)
Moderator Response: (Rob P) Inflammatory snipped. -
Robert Wagner at 13:08 PM on 2 February 2013It's the sun
That chart shows temperatures continuously and sharpely increasing since 1980, that is pure nonsense. The most accurate measurements, satellite measurements, the ones the Clinate Scientists seem to choose to ignore shows flat temperatures from 1980 to 2000, with a few spikes. Then the reletively volcano free 2000 through today shows an increase of 0.2 degrees. As recent as 2008 we were at or below the level of 1980. If the best the (-snip-)highlighted by the original article starting this thread. http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
Moderator Response: (Rob P) Inflammatory snipped. -
JasonB at 12:40 PM on 2 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
ranyl,
I provided a link to a post here on cumulative emissions specifically because the science tells us that we do not have to stop all forms of carbon emission immediately or we're toast. Yet your subsequent post repeated this erroneous claim as if you hadn't followed the link. Please read it.
The fact is, the more we emit in the long run, the higher the risk of dangerous climate change. But it's far better to invest some short term carbon use into long term carbon reduction (e.g. manufacturing PV and wind turbines) than to continue business as usual while moaning that people keep on emitting carbon and refuse to live in caves.
There are a lot of people in the world who could quite rightly claim that they are entitled to higher levels of energy consumption and better standards of living because they weren't the ones who caused the current problem by doing so in the past. We have to expect them to continue to want to do raise their standards of living. What we can do is invest in technologies that will allow them (and us) to do so while emitting as little carbon as possible. Renewables are one way forward; efficiency is another; curbing to some extent the wasteful lifestyles of the developed world is probably a third. But let's invest the carbon budget that the science tells us we do have wisely.
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dana1981 at 11:16 AM on 2 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
StBarnabas - it's funny, John Cook used to get credit/blame for my posts all the time, because people assume SkS = John Cook. Now I guess I've written enough stuff here that people are starting to assume other peoples' posts are mine. I don't mind, Mark always writes good stuff, I just don't want to take credit for it!
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StBarnabas at 10:01 AM on 2 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
@6 dana
you should be honoured - Mark has done a great job with this one. Was it Oscar Wilde or George Bearnard Shaw who said only 1/4 of the sayings attributided to him were true, but he wished he had actuallly said it?
StB
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StBarnabas at 09:31 AM on 2 February 2013Introducing Climate Change Science to College Students
I will be starting a course next year with 2nd year Physics BSc students so am very interested in this. Please ley us know how you get on.
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kensmithla at 08:38 AM on 2 February 2013There is no consensus
As Christopher Hitchens said, "Since we do not have a spare earth, best to err on the side of caution". Don't you think ?
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Tom Curtis at 07:48 AM on 2 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
photon wrangler @4, I take it you are referring to the video. In that case the flattening of the curve is partly due to variance in temperatures between regions. If you took the mean and distribution of summer temperature anomalies over the climate normal period, and compared them to temperatures in the past, the curve would shift to the left, and flatten on that basis. Partly the flattening is because different locations are warming at different rates. Most notably, land areas are warming faster than sea ares, and polar regions, particularly the Arctic, but also the West Antarctic Peninsular, are warming faster than tropical regions. These effects are both the result of comparison between regions. It is possible, and there is some evidence to suggest that the distribution is flattening for some regional temperatures as well. That, however, has not been established to my knowledge. -
Bob Lacatena at 06:16 AM on 2 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
BF - I am curious as well. Can you cite any specific claims that have been "reined in," so to speak? -
scaddenp at 05:20 AM on 2 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
BF - I am curious. What outlandish claims are you thinking of that have been published in science (as opposed to say Greenpeace)? -
Paul D at 04:20 AM on 2 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Maybe the authors name could be emphasised with a slightly different colour in all blog posts? -
vrooomie at 04:01 AM on 2 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
ranyl@: "Also there is lots very good evidence showing how wind turbines warm and dry the atmosphere in their locality, rather daft to put so many in wet old Texas really, and of course change the atmosphere here and the knock effects expand, and keep in mind to supply the power humans actually use would take removing all the powr out of the wind." Not according to Zhou et al 2012: in that paper, it was shown to have a likely, but small *cooling effect.* Your passion on this subject is shared and appreciated, but to other readers who may or may not understand these issues as deeply, your opinions are not backed up by science, at least you do not provide the documentation such assertions require. Your undocumented assertions border on sloganeering: Please show supporting documents to some of your assertions, such as: "...wind turbines kill top predator raptors which as I'm sure you're aware means eco-system derrangement so a higher overall biodiversity impact per bird killed..." Or this.. "[sic] As bats well in a recent in Scotland small scale wind turbines reudced bat activity by 50%." It would be helpful and oh-so-ever more scientific to back up your opinions with data that shows they are valid opinions. -
dana1981 at 02:38 AM on 2 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
This is MarkR's article guys. -
Alexandre at 00:05 AM on 2 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Like the Denial Tango said, I'm skeptical of anything I just don't wanna know. BTW, I'm skeptical about it being my turn to take the garbage out. -
vrooomie at 23:57 PM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
rab, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll likely know, and understand, that as concerned scientists and amateurs here, alike, we sometimes get *very* frustrated with the deliberate and IMHO, venal attempts by the misinformers to...well, misinform. I myself have gone off, half-cocked at someone who utilized some given denialists' meme, only to be pulled up by the person at whom I was lashing out. Please accept my apologies for any slight I may have imparted by suggeting the link I did. I think I speak for all the regular contributors here when I say we have no agenda, beyond that of trying to sound the alarm--yes, what is going is alarming--about what is an increasingly worrisome future we ALL share, utterly irrespective of political stripe, nationality,or ethnicity. We truly are all in the same sinking boat: Some are bailing, whilst others deliberately add water to the vessel: That's crazy-making, and sometimes, we all fall victim to the frustration. Thanks for your reasoned and rational response to that frustration. -
mspelto at 21:46 PM on 1 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Well put, and of course now there is 2012 data to be analyzed. It is clear as I compile the chapter on Mountain Glaciers for BAMS 2012 due in three weeks, that 2012 will join 2011, and every other year since 1990, as a negative mass balance year. The glacier monitoring that has been done has proved more accurate than Jacobs (2012) for the Himalaya- as noted here at SKS As Mark has indicated the story is the same retreat, and typically new lake formation or expansion as you look Glacier by Glacier, it just gets worse. -
Tony Noerpel at 21:19 PM on 1 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Dana good article but chriskoz has a point. Even Richard Feynman used "trick" to describe a mathematical technique in his Lectures in Physics. I looked up trick synonyms and came up with concealment as being pretty descriptive, as in concealing 90% of the data. Tony -
bvangerven at 20:36 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Renewables currently also take fossil fuel to build, and that’s exactly why an global carbon tax is needed. Randomly distributing emission rights to whoever needs to emit CO2 for whatever reason will never help to get climate change under control. When a worldwide carbon tax is introduced, IF renewables use fossil energy in some way – during building, or for transportation etc, they will be penalized as well by the carbon tax. As it should be. It truly levels the field. The result: the cheapest electricity = the most carbon-neutral electricity. -
Tom Curtis at 19:04 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
BF @31, the most outlandish "scientific" claims in the global warming debate have always come from deniers; and as they get a pass from critical scrutiny, both by themselves and the media, there has been no let up in the absurdities. -
Tom Curtis at 19:03 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Jim Baird @30, whoever was the original source of the mistake, I think you will find that 10 million square kilometers us just approximately 3.85 million square miles. Proper form also requires that if you cut and paste text, you enclose the quote in inverted commas, and provide a link to the source. -
ranyl at 18:36 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Sorry correction, "I'm saying no renewables I am saying see the for what they are and stop making them into false hereos they are not, look up toxic waste from solar panel manufacture etc...." Should be, "I'm not saying no renewables I am saying see the for what they are and stop making them into false hereos they are not, look up toxic waste from solar panel manufacture etc...." -
ranyl at 18:33 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
"I wonder if you have reliable information to support these claims in relation to renewables? To take a couple of your examples: birds?! As opposed to the impact of domestic cats (orders of magnitude bigger impact). Toxic waste? As opposed to coal/nuclear. Mining? You're kidding, right? Fossil fuel extraction is done how? Warming the atmosphere? How?" Yes, I see cats kill birds, so it is just fine to put wind turbines up as many as possible cos something kills more of them, and cats kill small birds whereas wind turbines kill top predator raptors which as I'm sure you're aware means eco-system derrangement so a higher overall biodiversity impact per bird killed by a long way. I do not adovcate coal, gas, oil or nuclear, all have far to many deep enviromental problems and none are sustainable, as I say " Stop using fossil fuesl now or kill of humanity?2 so is a lame argument to put unless you thought I was advocating fossil fuels. As for mining well no I'm not kidding where does all that iron, copper, rare metals, zinc, aluminium, and all the things that go into solar panels, I woudl suggest you look up solar panels and environmental toxicity in google. As bats well in a recent in Scotland small scale wind turbines reudced bat activity by 50%. Also there is lots very good evidence showing how wind turbines warm and dry the atmosphere in their locality, rather daft to put so many in wet old Texas really, and of course change the atmosphere here and the knock effects expand, and keep in mind to supply the power humans actually use would take removing all the powr out of the wind. And again there is no carbon to spend on wind turbines etc, and pay back false accounting by EROI or whatever are we have to stop using fossil fuels full stop asap, therefore what payback exactly if we don't use fossil fuels? Renewables are a carbon cost now to provide a certain amount of intermittently generated electricty into the future, and remember the carbon costs is not just the panel or turbine it si getting it there, all the extra grid needed and so on and so on. I'm saying no renewables I am saying see the for what they are and stop making them into false hereos they are not, look up toxic waste from solar panel manufacture etc.... Again we have no carbon to spend and this budget cannot be blown, therefore for me I want to spend as little carbon as we can as wisely as we can, therefore I would want to have some renewable power and use the one that gives the most KWh out for carbon spent in so long as the wider environmental implications aren't too large. However again there is no carbon therefore this amount of aditional renewables would be very small indeed if we actually start taking this situation seriously, and to reiterate again renewables do not save carbon they are a carbon cost to give an amount of electricity and they have significant enviromental impacts all of them! -
BF8201 at 18:26 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
I think recent scrutiny of climate science has forced the more outlandish claims to be reigned in and the science is actually much more responsible now. -
Jim Baird at 17:56 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
jimb - 26. Of course you are correct. Took quote directly from their paper http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/otec/vol/vol8-4-1.htm Would assume they slipped the million in there by error. The 26.8C is right per http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2012/h2012_Chris.html -
Doug Hutcheson at 17:32 PM on 1 February 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
The "Academic Advisory Council" is full of important-sounding people
It is a blatant appeal to authority, based on the titles and academic qualifications of the members of the Council. The same, tired old horses getting flogged by the same, tired old contrarians. The trouble is, one has to have had some exposure to the topic to be able to spot the usual suspects in such a line-up. -
JasonB at 16:53 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
ranyl, The Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) for wind and even PV is fine — within a short period of time (about six months for wind, 2-3 years for PV) both have repaid the energy invested in creating them and from that point on they are a net contributor to reducing emissions, even if they were originally created using the dirtiest coal power around. There are fossil fuels that are being exploited now (e.g. bitumen tar sands, shale oil) that have lower EROEI figures than PV and recent US oil imports have a lower EROEI than wind! chriskoz, I don't like suggestions that breakthroughs are "needed" for renewables to be viable. There are many other ways of storing energy, some even quite cost-effective and efficient, and I think over time they will simply keep improving incrementally as they have been doing. One of the best forms of "storage" is simply not burning the fossil fuel that you would have otherwise — coupling intermittent renewables with e.g. gas turbines (or low-load diesel generators, for smaller installations). A penny saved is worth more than a penny earned, as they say. Since cumulative emissions are what we really need to worry about, reducing the rate at which we burn fossil fuels gives us more time to improve technology and find other solutions. Coupling solar and wind with gas-powered backup can be a better option than not deploying renewables while we wait for all the problems that will occur as they reach higher penetrations to be solved. -
chriskoz at 16:18 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
ranyl@25, You may not realise that the building of all those renewables (i.e. PV panels, windmills) does not necessarily require to burn fossil fuels to get energy. If we have some significant energy from the existing renewable infrastructure to boot with, the infrastructure can start expanding itself without need for "external energy". The only problem to solve, as skywatcher@27 noticed, is the energy storage. The solution must be as simple as the miraculous energy within a barrel of petroleum that we've been given for free 100y ago. Batteries (part of your rant) are not good solution because they require lots of non-renewable materials for in relation to their lifetimes. Another break-through solution is needed... -
JasonB at 15:35 PM on 1 February 2013Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen
It's very hard to read that GWPF PDF without getting very angry at the blatant distortions and misrepresentations. I also can't help noticing two things: 1. The description of "Dr Matt Ridley" on page 1 and his own description of his expertise stand in stark contrast to the kindergarten-level logical fallacies and misunderstandings of the science. 2. The "Academic Advisory Council" is full of important-sounding people (at least to those who are unfamiliar with its members), yet practically all of his references are to dubious blog postings rather than any peer-reviewed scientific papers that his esteemed colleagues might have written. For example, what's the point of that Advisory Council if he's going to rely on prematurely reported, significantly flawed and unpublished papers by ex-TV weathermen to prove his point? -
chriskoz at 15:35 PM on 1 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Good article, dana, as usual. I only object your use of the word "trick" to describe the deceitful cherry picking by deniers. Because, alongside, they have widely broadcast the phrase "Mike's trick", so as it stuck to all minds, and we almost automatically know what it means. Simplistic/ignorant minds (as the deniers often happen to be) may confuse those two meanings. So, for the deniers' actions, a separate term (e.g. "deceitful cheating") would better be used. -
Elmo at 12:34 PM on 1 February 2013Glaciers still shrinking in 2011, how have contrarians claimed the opposite?
Contrarians don't need no stinkin' facts. -
skywatcher at 12:00 PM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
Ranyl, I have my doubts about your renewables paragraph above:Not to mention of course the large environmental impacts of renewables as well, bats, birds, warming the atmosphere, toxic waste, rare earth metals, batteries, mining, and so on and so on..
I wonder if you have reliable information to support these claims in relation to renewables? To take a couple of your examples: birds?! As opposed to the impact of domestic cats (orders of magnitude bigger impact). Toxic waste? As opposed to coal/nuclear. Mining? You're kidding, right? Fossil fuel extraction is done how? Warming the atmosphere? How? You might have a point about rare earths, but it depends on the specific technology - it's a much bigger issue for computing/telecommunications. And certainly on batteries - energy storage is the single biggest challenge... Solve that and we can produce all the renewable energy we ever need in favourable spots on the planet! I would much prefer to use carbon budget now to help transfer energy generation away from merely burning carbon - a vastly better use of that bit of CO2 release... -
Tom Curtis at 11:07 AM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
rab @6 I apologize for my imputation. Never-the-less, Skeptical Science should not second guess the presentation of data from scientific papers. If the scientists themselves, along with the editor (and presumably the reviewers) are happy with the presentation of data, we, as amateurs, should not be changing that presentation except in the face of a compelling reason to do so. And indeed, as changing the presentation requires obtaining the data either from the authors, or by digitizing, and then reprocessing it; time constraints provide a compelling reason to not do so. In this case there is no compelling reason. The ratio of warm records to cold records only falls to 0.5 or below in six out of 131 years of data; the last time being in 1922. It only falls to around 0.33 once, in 1907, and never falls to 0.25. The last time it was 1, or below was 1965, following the Mount Agung volcanic eruption. The last time it was below 2 was at the time of the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption. The five year mean has never fallen to 0.5, not fallen below 1 since 1922, and bit fallen below 2 since 1967. Given how little of the data falls below a ratio of 1, and how little below that ratio it falls, there is no gain in complicating the interpretation of the data by adopting any but a linear scale. -
jimb at 10:49 AM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
re Jim Baird @ 24- I don't think that 10 million square kilometres is approximately 3 square miles. -
curiousd at 10:35 AM on 1 February 201316 ^ more years of global warming
Another thought about the effect of the AMO on C.S.....There is the article by Booth,et al in Nature Letter, vol 484, April 2012, pp 228 - 232. (Probably already appeared on SKS, though not sure..) They do a simulation which attributes about 70 % of that peak in the global temperature record in 1940s to the effect of Aerosols. For sure, if they are right, then the transient C.S. goes back up considerable. -
rab at 09:54 AM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
@Tom "But I guess that would be the point, wouldn't it!" No it's absolutely not the point! You apparently don't know me, so please do not jump to conclusions. I'm one of Skeptical Science's biggest fans. Just trying to help. One fair way is to have a linear scale above 1 and the reciprocal, but also linear below 1. But that's mathematically ugly. Is it better if I give my complete name? Let's be civil, OK? --rick baartman -
ranyl at 08:15 AM on 1 February 2013Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama
"It almost certainly wouldn't work anyway because it's too late - but people who know this, and who know about amplifying feedbacks, have a moral obligation to state the truth - only by drastically lowering our consumption and population could we hope to stave off utterly disastrous and calamitous climate disruption." Tend to agree. Also we have no carbon budget so not sure where all the carbon to build all these renewables is coming from, blow this carbon budget and it is blown! Not to mention of course the large environmental impacts of renewables as well, bats, birds, warming the atmosphere, toxic waste, rare earth metals, batteries, mining, and so on and so on.. Power down massively or kill off humanity and lots of the biosphere to boot? Stop using fossil fuesl now or kill of humanity? Stop exploiting and over indulging in everything or kill off humanity? Stop having cars or kill off humanity? Stop waging war or kill off humanity? Stop manufacturing arms or kill of humanity? The carbon budget really is this tight. 350ppm still gives a 50:50% chance of 2C and look what 0.7C is doing. Permafrost tipped, Arctic tipped, Amazon getting dryer, carbon sinks are reducing, waters are warming, ice is melting rapidly, albedo affect is strong, and yet some are saying spend loads of carbon to build loads and loads of renewables despite the very large environmental and carbon costs they have? The choice really is power down or kill of humanity? Anyway it seems most feel that killing off humanity is the best choice or that is what their actions say anyway. Don't fly or kill off humanity.. The choice is ours, but of course not having a car or not being able to fly, would mean taking away basic human freedoms, despite the facts that these have existed for less than 1% of the time of human existence and therefore it seems to kill off humanity is the choice humanity is making, with eyes wide open even if the majority of humanity is in denial, that climate change is now, right now and a direct threat to us all wherever we live! -
Albatross at 03:21 AM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
On a related note, Donat has a new paper out with numerous co-authors from around the globe. They used an updated version of HadEX (a collation and analysis of the gridded land-based dataset of indices of temperature and precipitation extremes). Here is a key passage form their abstract: "Results showed widespread significant changes in temperature extremes consistent with warming, especially for those indices derived from daily minimum temperature over the whole 110 years of record but with stronger trends in more recent decades. Seasonal results showed significant warming in all seasons but more so in the colder months. Precipitation indices also showed widespread and significant trends, but the changes were much more spatially heterogeneous compared with temperature changes. However, results indicated more areas with significant increasing trends in extreme precipitation amounts, intensity and frequency than areas with decreasing trends." Yet more evidence indicating that we are in for tough times ahead. -
Photon Wrangler at 03:14 AM on 1 February 2013New Research Finds that Most Monthly Heat Records Today are Due to Global Warming
The NASA GISS video of the shifting distribution pattern of temperatures is fascinating. Not only is the whole thing obviously -- and perilously -- shifting to the right, towards positive temperature anomalies, but it seems that curve is also flattening. There's just less and less time spent in the middle. Even the "new normal" is becoming less normal. I'll try to find time to read the paper behind it, but can someone here answer: Is the "flattening" of the curve a consequence of changing temperature? In other words, if we do manage to stabilize climate at say, 2.5 degrees warmer, and it holds there for a while, will the peak of the curve perk back up? If so, that's a least one bright spot. The new normal may not be fun, but at least it could be consistently not fun.
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