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vrooomie at 02:38 AM on 18 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Alexandre@17, you are correct: Lomborg is as tricky and slippery as denialati (lukewarmistas??) come. Howard Friel's book, "The Lomborg Deception," deftly, if not simply, takes apart Lomborg's suppostions better than any other source I've found. -
Alexandre at 00:30 AM on 18 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Lomborg is a more refined denier. He even denies that he denied anything. He does not say "global warming is a hoax". He says science is often right, progressing, but you know, CO2 is plant food, and sea level stopped rising, and poor countries rely on fossil fuels to develop themselves, and so on. An articulate obstructionist and public misinformer, this one. If you pay enough attention, you can spot the usual bottomline: whatever you do, don't touch the market of fossil fuels. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 00:19 AM on 18 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
LRG @7 " can I live on pure sugar?". Yep,no problem. How long were you planning on living? That's a bit harder. Moving on to C3 vs C4. Research programs to try and transpose the C4 gene complex into C3 plants is one of those Big Ideas out there. Big because it isn't about transferring a single gene. Rather an intricate complex of gene's neededto produce the entire architecture of C4. Not a small under-taking. RADICALLY not a small under-taking. But a huge pay-off if it can be done. Similarly efforts to transfer the capacity for Nitrogen Fixation into other plants. A Doddle surely. Just all the genes needed to provide/support a complete life-support system for a symbiotic organism. No Problemo So both really hard. But the pay-off is massive. -
meher engineer at 23:20 PM on 17 January 2013Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Bill@13 wrote "it's a great way to capture people's attention". True. To begin capturing it you could refer to a much more familiar natural beast, the thunderstorm: its average energy content equals that of 50 Hiroshima bombs! The assertion appears in an old (1952) issue of Popular Mechanics, where it is attributed to Dr. Roscoe Brabham,a Univ of Chicago meteorologist. Click Ref.3 in the Wikipedia article on Thunderstorms to get to the issue. The Wiki article is useful in other ways: it lists the average weight of the moisture that the making of a thunderstorm lifts up (500,000 tonnes),and their average diameters ( 24 kms.).Their tops, of course, can touch the tropopause. -
CBDunkerson at 23:03 PM on 17 January 2013CO2 limits will harm the economy
Mal Adapted wrote: "However, the socialized external costs of fossil fuel use we're currently paying don't include things like the death of coral reefs from ocean acidification, the imminent extinction of the polar bear and the costs of weather disasters 50 years from now. These costs will be incurred even if all carbon emission ceases today. It's doubtful that a carbon tax could internalize them." And if we don't get carbon emissions under control then the costs of those future impacts will be even greater. Ergo, a carbon tax paid today to avoid those greater future impacts would indeed internalize some of the future cost. "It's about the costs that have been external to total gross global product until recently, but are now being socialized: groundwater overuse in the Great Plains; overfishing of all seafood stocks; growth of urban areas forcing agriculture onto less productive soils; the list goes on and on." The list goes on and on... and has nothing to do with global warming. You appear to be saying that solving every problem in the world would require vast political and economic changes... and therefor solving global warming would require vast political and economic changes. It is a non sequitur. Global warming can be solved without "radically reordering our economic and political systems". Read the article above for confirmation. -
cRR Kampen at 20:20 PM on 17 January 20132012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality
Anthony Watts is no meteorologist. Doesn't even know what a polar low is. -
Dikran Marsupial at 18:28 PM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
eon I would have thought it obvious that the answer is "yes, you would expect to see a broadly flat trend plus some noise", as that is directly implied by the statement that there is little evidence to suggest that the "unknown unknowns" have a significant effect. However, one can't say that would apply to ALL time periods and it also leaves open the definition of "plus some noise". Do you agree that the video clearly demonstrates that the apparent hiatus in global mean surface temperatures is adequately explained by volcanic and solar forcing and ENSO, and that once these factors have been accounted for there is little evidence for a reduction in the rate of warming due to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Yes or no? -
citizenschallenge at 18:26 PM on 17 January 2013Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Nice job Rob! You folks really know how to explain the science. Perhaps that's why you're coming under such venomous attacks of late. In any event, I want to thank you for that generous sharing policy - My little blog is just my hobby, it's got to take backseat to all life's other demands. So I tell you, it's really nice to be able to reproduce a beautiful piece of journalism/science/education {whatever you want to call it} with graphics :-) and all, to support some point I'm trying to make. For instance this article makes for a perfect final 'chapter' to my most recent collection. Thank you all ! Peter Link to Peter's "chapter"Moderator Response: [PW] Hot-linked article -
prestrud8125 at 17:58 PM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Why do you consider increased plant growth to be a positive outcome of global warming? That is a value judgement. Increased plant growth changes ecosystems. For example: According to the latest published results from the satellite based NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) instrument, the biomass of the tundra has increased by 20% over the last 30 years. If this continues, large parts of the tundra and alpine ecosystems, including their biodiversity as we know them today, will disappear in a few decades. -
bill4344 at 16:19 PM on 17 January 2013Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Daniel - Gareth thinks not. It would be interesting to determine the origins of this one, as it's certainly a great way to capture people's attention. -
JasonB at 15:59 PM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Clyde: Response posted on a more appropriate thread. -
JasonB at 15:58 PM on 17 January 2013Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming
Response to Clyde: Why do you think we need to be able to say AGW caused a particular extreme weather event? That's like saying we shouldn't warn people of the dangers of smoking until science can prove that a particular lung cancer sufferer developed lung cancer because they smoked and not because of any other reason. As your own link states, "the emerging ability, arising from improvements in climate models, to calculate how anthropogenic global warming will change, or has changed" is being watched with interest by "lawyers, insurers and climate negotiators" because "nations, communities and individual citizens may begin to seek compensation for losses and damage arising from global warming", but:It is more difficult to make the case for ‘usefulness’. None of the industry and government experts at the workshop could think of any concrete example in which an attribution might inform business or political decision-making.
Moderator Response: [DB] Added hyperlink to referenced link. -
ajki at 15:52 PM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Great article! And it may help to understand a strange myth I recently read in a comment at "Klimalounge" [S. Rahmstorfs Blog] and which is not on the myth list. The myth goes like this: "Take that, warmistas! Sahara is getting greener!" and though not explained by the commenter ["Seifert"] it probably means: 1. poorer countries do profit from "good" CO2, 2. models do not predict that (so, models are wrong/bad/evil...). Rahmstorf itself did not pick that up in his explanations and rightly so, I think, because this must be something especially weird. Is this WSJ "greening" the root for myths like that? Is that something new within the denialsphere? -
dana1981 at 15:31 PM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Clyde @11 - who are you talking to? -
johnrabbit at 15:08 PM on 17 January 2013Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Can anybody explain if the recent high temperatures of the Indian Ocean were linked to the La Nina in the Pacific? Did the warmer Pacific water flow east to the Indian Ocean? -
Clyde at 15:06 PM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
(-Off topic snipped-).Moderator Response: [DB] Your comment pertains to extreme weather events. As such, it was snipped as off-topic. Please follow up to JasonB's reply to you on the other, more appropriate thread. -
DSL at 15:02 PM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
We might also mention that plants' reproductive cycles are tuned to a stable or slowly changing climate. With rapidly warming conditions, plants' reproductive mechanisms may not be set in motion--or be set in motion at the wrong time, unable to take advantage of various pollination mechanisms. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/01/130116-spring-earlier-global-warming-plants-trees-blooming-science/ -
Cugel at 14:08 PM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Regarding Ridley's selective vision and excuse to Parliament, it has for centuries been a financial maxim that to borrow short and lend long is a sure road to bankruptcy. It's not credible that nobody ever pointed this out to Ridley, but he either could not hear or he regaled them with the "new economic paradigm" which comes with every asset bubble, in which old unwelcome maxims no longer applied. What's more the bank was lending long on 125% mortgages, on the understanding that the asset value would inevitably rise (thanks to the new economic paradigm) to fill the gap. None of this was unprecented by a very long way. Ridley is a (-snip-), pure and simple.Moderator Response: [DB] Inflammatory snipped. -
Daniel Bailey at 13:40 PM on 17 January 2013Newcomers, Start Here
Tamino pretty much staked the heart of the "it's a random walk" meme in this recovered post here. Such flights of bad statistics he labeled "mathturbation". Tamino:"One final note: there’s an ever-growing number of “throw some complicated-looking math at the wall and see what sticks” attempts to refute global warming. It seems to me that a disproportionate fraction of them come from economists. Perhaps that’s because they fear the loss of corporate profit more than they fear danger to the health and welfare of humanity. Or perhaps it’s just a reflection of the rather poor track record of economists in general. When it comes to predicting the future, it’s well to compare the truly astounding successes of, say, physics, to, say, economics."
I note that Kärner gives props to McKitrick for his advice. An economist... -
Maggnum at 13:14 PM on 17 January 2013Newcomers, Start Here
Has anyone seen the paper by Olavi Kärner recently added to The Hockey Schtick wherein he claims the Sun controls climate & 'gives no support to theory of anthropogenic climate change'? Link to the paper is here: http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/karner.pdf It's from 2002 and appears to have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. I tried to review the paper, but it's outside of my knowledge box :). Anyone have any comments or debunking advice on this? -
Daniel Bailey at 11:33 AM on 17 January 2013Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Memory says Gareth from Hot-Topic. 'Course, memory lies like a rug somedays. -
John Cook at 11:24 AM on 17 January 2013Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Jake, I'm not sure where the Hiro comparison originated. I heard someone (not Hansen) express the energy imbalance in terms of Hiros per second so I checked those figures then used it in the Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism but that was back in 2009 - I don't recall who originated the idea. -
Steve Metzler at 10:45 AM on 17 January 20132012 Shatters the US Temperature Record. Fox, Watts, and Spencer Respond by Denying Reality
There goes Watts trying to directly compare temp anomalies that use different baseline periods *again*. This must be the fourth time he's been caught doing it, and you can't explain it to him. That's why he loves the satellite records vs. the land based ones - they have lower anomalies because they have more recent baseline periods. And to him, that means temps aren't increasing as much in the satellite records. Poor, deluded Tony. I used to read WUWT more regularly out of a sort of morbid curiosity to see what hijinks they were up to. But now I rarely bother because the cyber-bullying in the comments gets my blood pressure up. I mostly just read the Tamino takedowns of Tisdale et. al.Moderator Response: [RH] Adjusted unnecessary inflammatory acronym. -
Doug Hutcheson at 10:37 AM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Their results showing the net change in NDVI from 1982 to 2008 are illustrated in Figure 2, with green representing a greening, and brown representing a browning
Oh, these science boffins! Why can't they make these graphics simpler for the rest of us to understand? [/sarc] -
littlerobbergirl at 10:25 AM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
With my serious veg grower head on I was going to comment on different response in C4/C3 plants, increased predation, weeds and nutrition, but I see you have indeed 'got it covered' in the 'gory details' with lots of other interesting stuff I didn't think of ;) So if co2 is plant food, can I live on pure sugar? I have tried... -
Doug Hutcheson at 10:20 AM on 17 January 2013Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Reach New Record
Tom Curtis @ 11, thanks for that clarification. I didn't think any fossil carbon ended up in fertiliser, as I couldn't work out what plant nutrient it would provide, but I didn't want to rely on the (non-existent) infallibility of my understanding "8-) scaddenp caused the penny to drop, by pointing out the carbon phase change from CO₂ to CH₄ (plant consumes CO₂, animal eats plant, animal emits CH₄), with CH₄ being a more potent greenhouse gas. So, I was right when I understood animal digestion is not adding carbon to the carbon cycle, but wrong when I followed this with the assumption that animal digestion is therefore not adding a forcing. -
JasonB at 09:45 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
eon,If "no", then what's the point of the video? You can crunch some numbers for the last 30 years in one way, but the same crunch method isn't applicable for other time periods, then that doesn't sound very scientific.
Over the longer term the answer is "yes and no" because you've ignored known factors that are omitted in the video because they are known to not be factors now but have been in the past. The forcing associated with Milankovitch cycles is an obvious one — it has been decreasing for thousands of years, leading to slow, long-term cooling, but the change is too small to be a factor at the timescale of the video, and since it's more related to the distribution of insolation rather than the total insolation, it might not have been picked up as "solar activity". An asteroid impact would also have an effect. Long-term changes to albedo due to encroaching and retreating ice sheets or desertification are also omitted but important in the past. The reason I say "yes and no" is because the "same crunch method" would work for those other factors if they were a factor. If you want to use the same method to account for changes since the last glacial maximum, then simply add terms for the additional factors that come into play. There's nothing wrong with omitting knowns that we know aren't relevant to the period in question, however. If you really want to show the video is wrong, then rather than complain about unknown unknowns not being included, all you have to do is show that when adding a term for AGW that depends on net anthropogenic forcings, what is left is more than just "some wiggles due to weather". That is scientific. -
Tom Curtis at 09:21 AM on 17 January 2013Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Reach New Record
Doug Hutcheson @8, so far as I know, synthetic fertilizers are primarily manufactured using the Haber-Bosch process. That process reacts nitrogen with hydrogen gas to form ammonia, which is then used to manufacture fertilizers. Fossil fuels are used in the process both as a source of hydrogen gas, and to power the process. The key point is that no carbon from the fossil fuels ends up in the final product (the fertilizer). Consequently any fossil fuel carbon taken up, and emitted by cattle has come indirectly by first being absorbed by plants. They do not represent additional fossil fuel emissions. Of course, the fossil fuels used in the industrial process do release greenhouse gases, but are accounted for in budgeting CO2 emissions as industrial emissions. Scaddenp has already mentioned the production of methane by ruminants. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:45 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
In response to eon here: "Since no human contributions, no unknown contributions and all the significant factors have been subtracted/added, then by your arguments, we would see a flat graph (+some noise) ? " You would likely have a fairly flat graph, but with longer term variations. Here is the past 2000 years with solar and volcanoes. The MWP and LIA in this graph are attributable to both solar and volcanoes. So, I think without those you'd end up with a fairly flat graph with noise.
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Mal Adapted at 08:29 AM on 17 January 2013CO2 limits will harm the economy
It appears I've given the impression I'm opposed to a carbon tax. For the record, I think a carbon tax is the most efficient way to internalize some of the external costs of fossil fuels and encourage their replacement with renewables, and the sooner a substantial carbon tax is in place the better. Some of our disagreement here is because we're focusing on different time scales. My argument is that (assuming the tax isn't rebated in the right way), average buying will decline while the carbon tax is in place, before the transition to renewable energy is complete. After that, once energy unit costs stabilize and once the socialized costs you enumerated are no longer being paid (and little or no carbon tax is being collected), it's reasonable to predict that average buying power will be about the same as today. However, the socialized external costs of fossil fuel use we're currently paying don't include things like the death of coral reefs from ocean acidification, the imminent extinction of the polar bear and the costs of weather disasters 50 years from now. These costs will be incurred even if all carbon emission ceases today. It's doubtful that a carbon tax could internalize them. The argument of Naomi Klein that I linked to, and that I think is ineluctable, is about more than systems of energy production. It's about the costs that have been external to total gross global product until recently, but are now being socialized: groundwater overuse in the Great Plains; overfishing of all seafood stocks; growth of urban areas forcing agriculture onto less productive soils; the list goes on and on. This is the liquidation of global natural capital I was referring to, and as long as any of it continues, global society will not be sustainable. I can't escape the conclusion that ending liquidation of all natural capital will require "radically reordering our economic and political systems", and neither can some of the more forward-looking deniers. They want to keep socializing the loss of natural capital while they continue converting it to private gain. That's the freedom they're afraid of losing, as well they should be. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:22 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
eon... Perhaps there should be an addendum video that also removes forcing from man-made greenhouse gases from the trend. -
eon at 08:05 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
Sorry - i should of added: If "yes", then that gives "skeptics" an opportunity to prove them wrong (which is probably why people never answer yes/no questions with a straight yes or a no!) If "no", then what's the point of the video? You can crunch some numbers for the last 30 years in one way, but the same crunch method isn't applicable for other time periods, then that doesn't sound very scientific. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:05 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
eon... Once you remove those primary variables, what I usually get from skeptics is "we're just recovering from the LIA" or "this is just natural variability." Neither of which offers any actual mechanism for the trend. -
eon at 07:58 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
@BaerbelW By comment #69 i was more responding to comments rather than the video. I did clarify further beyond an opening statement.... read "noise" and "not significant" in my comments as "some wiggles due to weather". I don't think anyone is bothered about the wiggles/weather - it is more the longer trend that is of relevance. @Rob I get the point of the video. I don't have a problem with the point of the video. I have a problem with the content of it -> specifically its methodology of working out the "human contributions". I have no issue with the point of the video. The videos point shouldn't have any bearing of if its calculation is correct or not. @Dikran At least 1/3 people tried to respond to a simple question! I take it that is a "I don't know" (fair enough). Yes, it can't be measured.... but that wasn't really the question. The question is what would you expect to see. It wasn't a rhetoric question. The purpose of the question is to see if people really believe that the method outlined in the video, to the extent that they believe it would work for ALL time periods. If yes, then that gives "skeptics" an opportunity to prove them wrong (which is probably why people never answer yes/no questions with a straight yes or a no!) -
Alexandre at 07:50 AM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
A correction about Bjorn Lomborg: He's not an economist. His own website says he majored and later a Ph.D. in Political Science. Sometimes he's described as a "statician". Not sure how accurate this is. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 07:37 AM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
An important principle in Agricultural science is Liebig's 'Law of the Minimum'. Essentially that a plant's growth is limited by whichever resource is most restricted. So adding any resource (CO2, Potassium, whatever) may not do much if that resource isn't the limiting factor for that plant. So knowing how plants will react in the future is nowhere near as simple as the 'CO2 is Plant Food' meme suggests -
BaerbelW at 07:03 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
@eon - I just checked the video script and the narration at 01:20 states the following: What's left is the human contribution to climate change plus some wiggles due to weather. This is different from what you assert at #69 (as well as in some other comments) "and then bundled the remainder all as "caused by humans"." -
Alex The Seal at 06:48 AM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
I disagree that Murdoch wants GW to be a non-issue. The topic is an emotional one which sells news. He loves to keep the pot well stirred. -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:33 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
eon... It seems to me, again, that you're thinking the point of the video is to validate that warming is man-made. It's not. The video merely validates that the past 16 years of warming are consistent with the prior 16 years when you remove ENSO and volcanoes. Validation of the human contribution to warming comes from the overwhelming body of scientific research. This video is a direct response to all the places in the news media where "skeptics" are saying that there's been no warming over the past 16 years. This video neatly puts that myth to rest. -
ubrew12 at 06:28 AM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
World is growing greener with CO2? Was it not green enough before? -
dana1981 at 06:17 AM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
John Russell @1 - indeed, failing to account for any but the best possible scenario seems to be a constant problem for Ridley in many different areas. Maybe we'll get lucky - maybe climate sensitivity is on the low end of possible values, maybe the greening trend will continue in the future, etc. But banking (pun intended) on that best case scenario is a fundamental risk management failure. If any but the very best case scenario comes to fruition and we fail to do anything about it, we're in big trouble. Which seems to be basically what happened to Ridley's bank, which probably isn't a coincidence. -
Dikran Marsupial at 06:01 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
@eon, perhaps I ought to get out my time machine and collect some observations so that we can perform the exercise you suggest? If you want to know what to expect, then look at some control runs from GCMs. GCMs include greenhouse effect, volcanic and solar forcing, the more modern ones also have an ENSO like phenomenon. However, GCMs can't include "unknown unknowns", so your question is rhetorical as I suspect there is no answer that would satisfy you. Note also that we haven't said there are no unknowns, just that there is little reason to suggest they exist. -
eon at 05:49 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
ok, thanks for responses: I'm not going to reply to every individual comment as it will take too long. But I will rather answer the general theme (ignoring ozone as per mods request):- "yes there unknowns+accuracy issues, but that a) They are small/irrelevant; b) Everything has unknowns, so you can't bury everything in quicksand if it isn't completely conclusive." All i'm saying is that the author of the video has took the temperature readings, then subtracted some known figures, and then bundled the remainder all as "caused by humans". If that is true, can I ask what you would expect to see on the graph for the pre-man-made-global-warming era, if you subtracted all of the (Volcano+Solar+El Nina factors) as has be done in the video? So we have: 1) Removal of all rises due to volcanos, solar, el-ninas. 2) In this era, there would be no human CO2 contributions. 3) It is said there are NO unknown factors (of significance) Since no human contributions, no unknown contributions and all the significant factors have been subtracted/added, then by your arguments, we would see a flat graph (+some noise) ? -
gws at 05:32 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
eon As scientists we sometimes want to, and at times need to be pedantic. In our science and how we interpret it, but not necessarily in how we communicate it. The moment at 1:22 into the video can make some of us feel a bit uneasy. But this is not because there is any reason to think it is wrong. Considering how much is known about climate forcings, invoking the "unknown unknown" is not just unhelpful, especially with respect to communication, it is also mostly wishful thinking, and as such not goal oriented. All those who wish there were some unknown factor that only makes us think CO2 is a problem (recall that the physical effects of CO2 in the atmosphere are fact) are basically akin to drug addicts who blame everything but themselves for their problems. How does that help? See Dikran @64. Ever asked yourself how likely it is that thousands of scientists have yet to discover a major climate factor after so many decades of research? And indeed, your CFC assertion is odd ... so we are indeed looking forward to some source of that claim. -
John Russell at 05:20 AM on 17 January 2013Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming
Ridley is "always assuming the best case scenario, never preparing for the worst." Which is why he totally screwed up his bank. Northern Rock was once a fine building society until it became a bank and under Ridley's leadership was then the first to crash when the financial meltdown came along. [This is all referenced in the second link in the article.] Note the excuse Ridley made to the Parliamentary inquiry when explaining why his bank went down; "we were subject to a completely unpredicted and unpredictable closing of the world credit markets." Doesn't that say so much about his denial mindset? I can just hear him now using similar words, when he's called to account for denying the changing of the world's climate (well, one can dream, can't one?). -
Rob Painting at 04:57 AM on 17 January 2013Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Jake - not sure. John Cook has used the comparison before, but whether it originated elsewhere - I don't know. -
Rob Painting at 04:52 AM on 17 January 2013Ocean Heat Came Back to Haunt Australia
Colinkirk - this heat wave was a record-breaker. See this except from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology hyper-linked in the post: "On Monday the average maximum daily temperature record for Australia was broken at 40.33°C. The previous record, 40.17°C on 21 December 1972, was held for 40 years. The daily average maximum temperature yesterday (8 January 2013) is a close third at 40.11°C. The number of consecutive days where the national average maximum daily temperature exceeded 39°C has also been broken this week—seven (7) days (between 2–8 January 2013), almost doubling the previous record of four (4) consecutive days in 1973," said Mr Plummer. And yes, we're sure most readers appreciate it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The point that you are failing to understand is that these heat waves will become more frequent and more severe in the future ( See the hyper-linked SkS posts at the bottom of the post). By mid-century these kind of temperatures are likely to be the norm, with heat waves taking place over and above that. With the Earth's committed warming due its energy imbalance, we've got 3 or more decades of warming to come even if we were magically able to stop burning fossil fuels. Australia is a hot, dry, country. Making it much hotter and much drier will bring with it extraordinarily severe consequences. Good luck adapting to that. Your fellow Australians are going to need it. -
Bob Loblaw at 03:44 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
eon: You appear to be beating a variant of the drum that says "you don't know absolutely everything, so you can't claim to know anything at all". As we never know absolutely everything, but we frequently know enough to accomplish many things, this is a drum that just adds noise, not signal. If you are going to rest a case on "unknown factors", don't expect to be taken seriously when known factors explain most of what is happening. As for your CFC-ozone dismissal - don't throw out the "hogwash" epithet quite yet. When you find your source that "cast a lot of doubt on the claim" and present it here, I suspect that a scientific analysis will show that your source is the one that's doing the pig-cleaning. That doesn't mean that I won't look at your information with an open mind, but my brain hasn't fallen out yet and there is an awful lot of strong science in the CFC-ozone link that would have to be wrong before you'll convince me.Moderator Response: (Rob P) - talk about ozone is wandering off-topic. The future ozone-depleted world avoided was the subject of a peer-reviewed paper released last year, and also this older paper - discussed at NASA Earth Observatory. Note the total ozone and UV index figures. Dodged a bullet there. Find an appropriate thread to discuss it, if you so wish. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:14 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
I also have to object to the term "dumbed down" because I don't think that is what has been done here. This, I believe, is a very sophisticated communication piece. Sometimes making complex issues simple and easy for people to comprehend is the most difficult task a scientist can face. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:06 AM on 17 January 201316 ^ more years of global warming
eon... What you're perhaps missing is there are fundamental accepted facts like, 1) Humans are releasing vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, 2) CO2 is well understood to be the strongest well mixed greenhouse gas, and 3) An enhanced greenhouse effect will act to warm the planet. It doesn't follow that you absolutely MUST restate and reprove every aspect of the science for a simple presentation to be valuable. Given the overwhelming body of scientific evidence showing that humans are having a dramatic affect on the climate system, this presentation is perfectly reasonable. It would also be a mistake to suggest this video is proof of a connection between the rise in surface temperature and human causation. It's not, and it's not presented that way. The lesson of the video is that, the surface temperature record is noisy but if you remove some of the known noise (ENSO and Volcanoes) then you can clearly see the trend of the past 30 years is consistent.
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