by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my attention this past week.
From masterresource: Presidential debate climate change cheat sheet. Some excerpts:
Climate During the Obama Administration
• Over the course of the Obama presidency the rate of global warming has declined.
• Over the course of the Obama presidency the rise of the global sea level has slowed.
• Over the course of the Obama presidency the emissions of greenhouse gases from the U.S. have declined.
None of the above are a result of Obama Administration policies.
• Instead, the vagaries of natural climate variability have led to a (temporary) slowdown of the rise in both global average temperature and global average sea level.
• The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S is largely a result of a poor economy, a rise in the use (and affordable availability) of natural gas, and on-going improvements of the U.S. energy efficiency that were begun long before the Obama Administration.
Well, all this seems to be moot in context of the presidential election: climate change seems to be off the political radar.
———
From USA Today (h/t Bill Hooke): Stealth war to redefine science. Some excerpts:
In our state of political gridlock, the scientific community fears the impact of the looming federal budget cuts known as “sequestration.” But there is something else they should be fearful of: the redefining of science itself.
Indeed, there appears to be an increasing trend to change the definition of what is widely considered to be science. Why?
Two reasons: Money and politics.
First, the money. Relatively speaking, science departments are lavishly funded compared with the humanities. If a field becomes widely perceived as being scientific, it is likely to get more money from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other government sources of funding.
Second, the politics. It’s not a secret that academia, particularly the humanities, skews heavily left.
———
Die Klimazwiebel has an interesting post about UK public on climate change. Excerpts:
The study shows that while a substantial majority of the UK public believe the world’s climate is changing, many feel relatively uninformed about, or uninterested in, the findings of climate science, and a sizable [sic] minority do not trust climate scientists to tell the truth about climate change.
———
NYTimes has an article entitled Study finds fraud is widespread in retracted scientific papers. Excerpt:
In the new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two scientists and a medical communications consultant analyzed 2,047 retracted papers in the biomedical and life sciences. They found that misconduct was the reason for three-quarters of the retractions for which they could determine the cause.
“We found that the problem was a lot worse than we thought,” said an author of the study, Dr. Arturo Casadevall of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.
Dr. Casadevall and another author, Dr. Ferric C. Fang of the University of Washington, have been outspoken critics of the current culture of science. To them, the rising rate of retractions reflects perverse incentives that drive scientists to make sloppy mistakes or even knowingly publish false data.
While the fraudulent papers may be relatively few, he went on, their rapid increase is a sign of a winner-take-all culture in which getting a paper published in a major journal can be the difference between heading a lab and facing unemployment. “Some fraction of people are starting to cheat,” he said.
“I don’t think this problem is going to go away as long as you have this disproportionate system of rewards,” he said.
——-
JC note: I am still at the UK, the RS uncertainty workshop is over. Terrific workshop, I will have several posts in the coming days. In the meantime, check out Josh’s Workshop cartoons. (link fixed)
No comment on this http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/full/ngeo1573.html
“Permafrost soils contain an estimated 1,700 Pg of carbon, almost twice the present atmospheric carbon pool1. As permafrost soils thaw owing to climate warming, respiration of organic matter within these soils will transfer carbon to the atmosphere, potentially leading to a positive feedback2. Models in which the carbon cycle is uncoupled from the atmosphere, together with one-dimensional models, suggest that permafrost soils could release 7–138 Pg carbon by 2100 (refs 3, 4). Here, we use a coupled global climate model to quantify the magnitude of the warming generated by the feedback between permafrost carbon release and climate. According to our simulations, permafrost soils will release between 68 and 508 Pg carbon by 2100. We show that the additional surface warming generated by the feedback between permafrost carbon and climate is independent of the pathway of anthropogenic emissions followed in the twenty-first century. We estimate that this feedback could result in an additional warming of 0.13–1.69 °C by 2300. We further show that the upper bound for the strength of the feedback is reached under the less intensive emissions pathways. We suggest that permafrost carbon release could lead to significant warming, even under less intensive emissions trajectories.”
The huge range of possibilities in this work would seem to make it almost meaningless.
> The huge range of possibilities in this work would seem to make it almost meaningless.
A refined chewbaccattack:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/32083794151
Wow, soil sure holds lots of carbon.
I sent a note of appreciation to the corresponding author, Dr. Andrew H. MacDougall, and a reminder that Dr. Peter Toth spoke the truth and then vanished [“Is the Sun a pulsar?” Nature 270, 159 (1977)] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v270/n5633/abs/270159a0.html
Here’s the rest of the story of Climategate and the corruption of science: http://omanuel.wordpress.com/
What’s to comment on yet another behind a paywall, model-driven paper? The authors of which include IPCC-nik Andrew <AR4 will show that climate change is a barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles>> Weaver!
The same Andrew Weaver designated as an LA for AR5. Now what would be news is if Weaver, having recently declared himself a candidate for the Green Party in British Columbia’s spring 2013 election, were to acknowledge his conflict of interest and recuse himself from IPCC deliberations, henceforth. That would be both newsworthy and honourable, would it not?
Certainly far more honourable than pretending (redefining?) model simulations as “experiments” as Weaver and his co-authors have done in the SI.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/extref/ngeo1573-s1.pdf
Look, squirrel.
Louise,
You and other alarmists continually post articles implying catastrophe. However, the connection isn’t made. How does the presence of 1,700 Pg of carbon in permafrosts mean catastrophe. I know you argue it will be released, warm the atmosphere and cause all sorts of unspecified deadly consequences. But the planet has been with out ice at either pole for 75% of the time multi-cell life has existed. So what is the problem with warming? Furthermore, life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder. So what is the problem with warming?
I see no point in continuing to argue the planet will warm if there is nothing more that unsubstantiated assertion using scary adjectives to define the consequences of warming.
Furthermore, the consequences must be put in terms of costs and benefits and time phased so we can compare these with the costs and benefits of the proposed mitigation policies.
At the moment I am convinced that most of the proposed mitigation policies – like carbon taxes, cap and trade and renewable energy, will have insignificant effect on the climate but have huge economic costs (meaning bad for human well-being). See here for example:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/
Alarmists really do need to understand and address this concern of the skeptics.
“I know you argue it will be released, warm the atmosphere and cause all sorts of unspecified deadly consequences. But the planet has been with out ice at either pole for 75% of the time multi-cell life has existed. So what is the problem with warming? Furthermore, life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder. So what is the problem with warming?”
Sudden and pronounced change is the cause of mass extinctions.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s cooling, warming, or what. Changing conditions place a stress on species. Species have to adapt to in order to survive. If the change is too much too fast then species can fail and be driven extinct.
When did the planet last warm 3 degrees C in a few centuries? And how did life cope with that?
Large, abrupt climate changes have affected hemispheric to global regions repeatedly, as shown by numerous paleoclimate records (Broecker, 1995, 1997). Changes of up to 16°C and a factor of 2 in precipitation have occurred in some places in periods as short as decades to years (Alley and Clark, 1999; Lang et al., 1999). However, before the 1990s, the dominant view of past climate change emphasized the slow, gradual swings of the ice ages tied to features of the earth’s orbit over tens of millennia or the 100-million-year changes occurring with continental drift. But unequivocal geologic evidence pieced together over the last few decades shows that climate can change abruptly, and this has forced a reexamination of climate instability and feedback processes (NRC, 1998).
Lolwot,
I find these sorts of comments/questions unpersuasive because of the inconsistency in what the Alarmists claim are the most important impacts of warming. Here are some of the impacts people pick from:
• Rapid sea level rise
• Magnitude of sea level rise by 2100
• Extreme weather events
• Fatalities from hot weather events (they ignore the reduction in fatalities cause by less cold events)
• Loss of glaciers and loss of reliable fresh water supplies
• Reduced alkalinity of the oceans
• Polar bears drowning
And, on this occasion, you’ve chosen to pick on mass extinctions.
I find it frustrating that the climate science ‘consensusts’ has been unable to put it all together and state their projections of the net economic costs and benefits over time for any given temperature projection scenario. Without that I cannot take your cherry picked argument about mass extinctions seriously.
There are other reasons too why I find your comment/questions unpersuasive. The amount and rate of extinctions caused by CO2 is already, and will be in the future, negligible compared with the extinctions caused by habitat destruction from other causes. So your argument is a distraction and a diversion from what is important. Mitigating CO2 emissions would cause us to waste our wealth on polices for a cherry picked, but relatively unimportant, threat (when considered in proper perspective).
Another point, comparison of present and past rates of warming are meaningless because we have temperature readings at much closer time scales now than we have for the past.
Furthermore, we know from Greenland ice cores that rates of temperature change were much faster in the past than now. Importantly, life thrived when it warmed but died out when it cooled. This shows life prefers warmer. I realise the Greenland ice cores refer to local temperature changes. But so what? Life responds to local changes not global changes. So the rapid local changes demonstrate that life prefers warmer and warming.
All in all I am far from persuaded that warming is a serious threat in the next 50 or even 100 years. On the other hand, the consequences for human well-being of the mitigation polices advocated by CAGW Alarmists – such as CO2 pricing and mandated renewable energy – would be very bad.
Furthermore, I am persuaded that we will cut emissions automatically without damaging the economy. It will happen faster when the ‘Progressives’ stop blocking progress – either because a significant proportion of them realise the damaging consequences of the policies they promote, or because they are sidelined by the majority of rational and objective people.
In summary, I’d urge you to put all the costs and benefits of projected damages together and time phase them – rather than pick out one scaremongering scenario at a time, each time loaded up with scary adjectives. It’s totally off-putting.
I point to this:
> I’d urge you to put all the costs and benefits of projected damages together and time phase them – rather than pick out one scaremongering scenario at a time, each time loaded up with scary adjectives
And I point to this:
> [T]he consequences for human well-being of the mitigation polices advocated by CAGW Alarmists – such as CO2 pricing and mandated renewable energy – would be very bad.
That is all.
Like the polar bears???
“and state their projections of the net economic costs and benefits over time for any given temperature projection scenario”
Because no-one knows!
How much economic cost came from 9/11? Did people figure that out before they took action against terrorism?
If you think people will deal with climate disaster in a “rational” unattached way using calculations, you might just get a nasty surprise if and when disaster strikes.
The fact is that as much as we know, the changes to CO2 happening to the atmosphere today are unique in Earth’s long history. Far faster than anything that has come before.
This renders a “nothing to see here” conclusion impossible. “nothing to see here” can only be supported now by providing positive evidence that the very significant change in CO2 level will have no effect, or that it happens all the time. Neither can be supported. In fact the evidence leans very much the other way.
The three known direct effects of rising CO2:
1) warming because CO2 is a strong greenhouse gas
2) ocean acidification because rising CO2 reduces surface ocean pH
3) plant fertilization because CO2 is “plant food”
It’s implausible that any one of these impacts will be zero, let alone all of them and each have further knock on effects on the environment.
The scale of this impact (global) and the long turnaround time to reverse it even if we wanted to, makes the issue particularly important. There’s no question of being able to suddenly turn it off, it’ll take many decades at least to reverse whatever impacts occur.
So ‘no-one knows what will happen’ is actually a bad thing, not a good thing. The more uncertain we are the more plausible the nastier catastrophes. Uncertainty works both ways.
@Peter Lang: I am persuaded that we will cut emissions automatically without damaging the economy.
I agree, but it is far more persuasive case that we will cut emissions automatically BY damaging the economy.
“When did the planet last warm 3 degrees C in a few centuries? And how did life cope with that?”
Warming appears to occurred at that rate or faster at the beginning of every interglacial during the current ice age.
See for example here: http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
“The time span of the past few million years has been punctuated by many rapid climate transitions, most of them on time scales of centuries to decades or even less. The most detailed information is available for the Younger Dryas-to-Holocene stepwise change around 11,500 years ago, which seems to have occurred over a few decades. The speed of this change is probably representative of similar but less well-studied climate transitions during the last few hundred thousand years. These include sudden cold events (Heinrich events/stadials), warm events (Interstadials) and the beginning and ending of long warm phases, such as the Eemian interglacial. Detailed analysis of terrestrial and marine records of climate change will, however, be necessary before we can say confidently on what timescale these events occurred; they almost certainly did not take longer than a few centuries.”
Most species in the northern temperate region have survived several such cycles of warming and cooling. And that includes Polar bears:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear#Taxonomy_and_evolution
There really is no basis for the idea that current (or realistically projected) warming rates are capable of causing a mass extinction.
From that article:
> If one accepts the contradictory picture obtained from comparing the Devil’s Hole record and some of the terrestrial pollen records with other parts of the world, it seems that for thousands of years warm ‘interglacial’ type conditions in the mid-latitudes on land could have been occurring at the same time as much colder ocean temperatures and expanded Arctic ice sheets. The Eemian, it appears, could have been a strange beast quite unlike our present interglacial phase (which began rapidly and fairly simultaneously all around the world). This confusion over the nature and duration of the Eemian adds to the difficulty in making simple, general comparisons with our present interglacial, and in interpreting the significance of some of the events seen in the marine and ice core records.
Another quote:
> It is important to note, however, that most of the very rapid climate transitions during the last 100,000 years do not show any clear association in timing with the background Milankovitch rhythms, especially the fluctuations at periodicities below 19 kyr. In these cases their ultimate trigger must lie in other factors, probably a combination of many processes that sometimes line up to set the climate system on a runaway course in either the direction of cooling or warming.
And perhaps the quote most related to our subject matter:
> It is difficult to say what the risks are of a sudden switch in global or North Atlantic region climate, because the mechanisms behind all past climate changes (sudden or otherwise) are incompletely understood. They appear to be real, however, and relatively small-scale changes in North Atlantic salinity have been observed and studied in the last few decades (Dickson et al., 1988). Fluctuations in surface water characteristics and precipitation patterns in that region vary on decadal time scales with variations in the strength of high-pressure areas over the Azores and Iceland (the North Atlantic Oscillation; Hurrel, 1995, 1996), providing an observed apparent link between salinity and climate fluctuations. The fear is that relatively small anthropogenic changes in high-latitude temperature as a result of increased concentrations of greenhouse gases might switch North Atlantic circulation and alter the course of the Gulfstream during such natural fluctuations.
One can see a lot of words just by reading.
> You and other alarmists continually post articles implying catastrophe. However, the connection isn’t made.
How is it supposed to be implyed is no connection is being made?
Hypothesis: Peter Lang injected his own pet peeve into Louise’s comment.
Observation: Peter Lang’s opus.
Willard,
Did you not understand the point or are you using a CAGW Alarmist tactic of avoiding the point?
Peter Lang,
Perhaps you should rince and repeat your point again, in case anyone has not understood it, there are so many ways to state it:
Simply CAGW alarmism.
Or, because of CAGW alarmism, X.
Or, CAGW alarmism is obviously caused by Y.
Or, that just proves that CAGW alarmism is Z.
Or else.
Please continue. CAGW alarmism is so much interesting.
Peter Lang,
I think Willard well understands the point but is just tired of your continued mis use of the term CAGW. You and your fellow deniers, are determined to misrepresent the IPCC’s findindings and to describe 3 degrees of global warming, the most likely climate sensitivity, as “CAGW.”
The IPCC doesn’t use the term CAGW at all. If you think it does give me just one reference.
They do use the ‘word’ catastrophic for the more unlikely possibilities such as the collapse of the Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets which would lead to a rise in sea level of several metres.
If you think I’m wrong in saying that, then show me where the IPCC say otherwise.
I doubt you’ll stop your mispresentation of the IPCC even though you know full well what you are doing. At least that that’s what I’d expect from a lying b*****d like yourself.
TT,
It might be a good idea to document the occurences of the string “catastroph” in the IPCC documents.
Here’s one example where the IPCC did talk about abrupt climate change:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/1614543532
Paul in Sweden eventually stepped down from the debate.
Which reminds me of Mövits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8fIVTH0TiM&feature=relmfu
The Cirkus might appeal to WebHubTelescope.
I don’t have full access to this article – not having a spare £22 hanging around – but from reading the abstract this is an entirely model-based paper.
How has the model been validated against reality? Any actual observations or experimental work at all? Or is it just another beautiful (or even ramshackle) construction with no grounding in fact?
I must, however, give credit to the authors for calling their data ‘simulations’ rather than ‘observations’ and ‘experiments’ as other more assertive climateers have done.
Louise, those Warmist & Fake’s misleading ”feedbacks” are actually ”STARVEBACKS”
2]Using ”Nostradamus tactic”: it ”COULD” happen in 2300…? You are not heroic anymore; to ”predict /scare” for next year / decade…
Louise, you told us many things; but would you like to tell us something honest: do you feel sick in the belly, when you look yourself in the mirror?! The ones that you are targeting – you are not succeeding to scare them – b] scaring children and nutters; is not something to be proud off…0,13 – 1,69C, WOW!!! Are you sure that isn’t going to be 1,71C, instead of 1,69C. If I had any say; you and similar – would have being in the the same cell as Bernard Madoff, only few years longer sentances
Alarmist climate model output is not any kind of data.
The history of the past ten thousand years has had many warm periods that are similar and warmer than this one. Permafrost has not been a problem in these many past warming periods and there is no reason to believe it will cause a problem in this current warm period that is well inside the bounds of the past warming periods in the past ten thousand years.
Climate Models fail and fail again. Climate Models forecast warm, warmer, warmest and it does not come to pass.
Actual data wins out over junk consensus science every time.
If the data goes their way, ever, I will consider their alarmist theory.
The data is not going their way and I reject their alarmist theory
Yes but alarmism, models, consensus, and more data needed.
Hmmm … following the link that you supplied leads not to Josh’s cartoons, but instead to
Judith, the Fleurbaey-Zuber economic analysis will no doubt thrill foresighted conservatives like Pope Benedict, Wendell Berry, Jane Goodall, James Hansen, and all the hunting-and-fishing folks at Season’s End … but libertarian cartoonists like Josh are unlikely to be amused! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
`Cuz is it *rationally* the case, that consideration for the welfare of future generations, acts to restrict the liberty of the present generation?
Aye, Climate Etc lassies and laddies, now *THAT’S* the enduring question, eh? ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Not just this week, but every week, eh? ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
The enduring question is what practical, pragmatic and effective actions should be taken in a multi-objective context of the global civilisation. Guees we should look elsewhere than you – FOMBS.
http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation
As far as mistakes go it wasn’t so bad. It could have been a porn link. ;-)
The “Josh” link initially took me to Economic Logic. Now it shows Economic Logic in the address bar but won’t open it. However, Fan, I’ve downloaded the negative discount paper from your link and will comment on it later.
Fanny
Midst all your smileys I caught this remark
Your future great-grandchild: Puleez, greatgrandpa, don’t rack up a bunch of debt for me to pay to try to cool the planet I’m gonna live in. I don’t want it colder. I want it warmer than you old fogeys had way back in the 2010s. The warmer the better.
Greatgrandpa Fanny: But, honey, I’ll make this big economic sacrifice “for the welfare of future generations”, and ask the whole world to do the same, even if it totally disrupts our economy for the next generations, because I know what’s best for you.
GGC Like hell you do!
Max
Of course there is no plan by CAGWers of actually lower CO2 levels by any significant amount, the only significant plan is to try create some totalitarian government regime, which the great-grandchild would have to deal with. In similar way [though perhaps minor in comparison] present children in Russia have the USSR legacy that continues to burden their future.
But, if some local asshats could provide the story of how the soviet empire made the future a better world for the children, this would be preciously delightful. Perhaps if I can make a suggestion, one can discuss how it as provided opportunities for strengthening familial bonds and increasing appreciation of the richness of the religious aspects of life.
Well said Max,
Its so bleeding obvious, why can’t the Loony Left nutters understand it?
“I’ll do nothing “for the welfare of future generations”, and ask the whole world to do the same, even if it totally disrupts our climate for the next generations, because I know what’s best for you.”
Lolwot,
You are being deceptive. That is not what Max said. Max said he and everyone else will do the very best they can for their decedents by being economically rational, increasing wealth (I am talking about national and global wealth) and investing in education, improved governance systems, infrastructure, etc.
Good Morning Fan.
It appears that the San Diego Unified School District supports your approach to investments in effort to reduce greenhouse gases:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/10/despite-setbacks-san-diego-unified-school-district-asserts-commitment-to-clean-energy-alternatives?cmpid=SolarNL-Saturday-October6-2012
I do find it rather disturbing that the “District officials say they have not followed thought to track the actual savings”
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/sep/14/tp-flawed-solar-panels-removed-at-schools/?page=1#article
Do you have any suggestions for the district on how they might improve their financial and engineering tracking processes (let alone their initial decision making processes on how negative a discount rate they should use to select project A vs. B) so that they become a tad more effective in their use of the limited amount of funds they can obtain from the public?
Obviously they will need to have a price for the value of a ton of carbon dioxide removed from the generation of electricity with their RE projects. Do you have a recommended value for them to use?
The folks over at Synapse have a few thoughts on the subject of CO2 and what prices could (should?) be:
“Special Edition: Synapse Releases 2012 CO2 Price Forecast”
http://www.synapse-energy.com/Downloads/SynapseReport.2012-10.0.2012-CO2-Forecast.A0035.pdf
See also this month’s article by Stephan A. Schwartz, titled Climate Change and Willful Ignorance (Explore, September 2012).
Latimer Alder and Peter Lang, your attention in particular is directed away from juvenile politics-first quibbles, and toward Scharz’ serious, in-depth analysis! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
@AFOCBS
If you ever start writing like a grown up rather than an over-enthusiastic five year old who has just discovered smileys for the first time then I’ll maybe pay more attention to your witterings.
Until then, fergddit. Leave the adults alone. They don’t want to hear from you.
PS
Have you thought of applying for a post as a climate communicator? The alarmists – realising that they are losing the arguments – think that ‘better communication’ (i.e. more attractive lipstick on the pig) is what they need.
Please become one. You’d be the sceptics best recruiting sergeant
Latimer Alder, your last two posts have been carefully inspected for (1) rationality, (2) scientific content, and (3) relevance to climate-change.
Result of testing Neither rationality, nor scientific content, nor relevance to climate-change, were detectable. ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Perhaps Stephan Schwartz’s article Climate Change and Willful Ignorance explains why?
At least some of the ideological basis is readily discerned:
Latimer Alder, your worldview and Congressman Broun’s worldviews are naturally consonant, eh? :?: :?: :?:
Your worldview, and the modern scientific worldview, not so much, eh? ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
@AFOCBS
Please stop writing drivel addressed to me.
FYI I have been a total atheist since about 14 yo.
I have never heard of Broun and do not remotely share any of his views that you have represented.
If this sort of trash is the best positive advancement for your case that you can manage then you really are clutching at straws.
@fan
Latimer Alder and Peter Lang, your attention in particular is directed away from juvenile politics-first quibbles, and toward Scharz’ serious, in-depth analysis!
Yes, time to become and adult now and turn a blind eye to bias, and pretend politically-driven climatology is ‘the facts’. Swallow your propaganda like a man and stop complaining.
Fan, the comedic value of your posts continue to increase exponentially !
From your editorial link
“And we don’t have much time. Listen closely. That sound you hear is the smoke alarm of civilization ringing like a fire siren in the night.”
LOL
Do not send to know for whom the smoke chokes, the truth is suffocated for thee.
============
Nothing you can ever put forward will ever be more deserving of a falling-down, belly-rolling laugh than the Fleurbaey and Zuber financial analysis. Sheesh; a couple of French authors pretending to an understanding of the finance function.
When money is free (i.e. the interest rate is zero) Irving Fisher teaches us that you can justify spending whatever it takes to flatten every railroad track in the country because over enough years the fuel savings to run the locomotive will pay off the free money.
Anyone who believes in financial models that recommend investing in projects with negative net present values what they are really saying is spend everything you can now–even if you have to run the printing presses day and night — because, the future will never come.
Wagathon, isn’t it odd that economists like Kenneth Arrow disagree with you?
Gosh, and somehow economists like Arrow even manages to express their ideas without “falling-down, belly-rolling laughter.”
How does Arrow do that, Wagathon? ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
‘Critics of the Stern Review don’t think serious action to limit CO2 emissions is justified, because there remains substantial uncertainty about the extent of the costs of global climate change, and because these costs will be incurred far in the future. However, I believe that Stern’s fundamental conclusion is justified: we are much better off reducing CO2 emissions substantially than risking the consequences of failing to act, even if, unlike Stern, one heavily discounts uncertainty and the future.’
It is not strictly true that there is a valid black or white postion on mitigation. It is not taxes or nothing – much as that appeals to the monochrome minded.
‘Climate Pragmatism, a new policy report released July 26th by the Hartwell group, details an innovative strategy to restart global climate efforts after the collapse of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. This pragmatic strategy centers on efforts to accelerate energy innovation, build resilience to extreme weather, and pursue no regrets pollution reduction measures — three efforts that each have their own diverse justifications independent of their benefits for climate mitigation and adaptation. As such, Climate Pragmatism offers a framework for renewed American leadership on climate change that’s effectiveness, paradoxically, does not depend on any agreement about climate science or the risks posed by uncontrolled greenhouse gases.’
http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation
Why does Joe Romm call this an extreme right wing policy? God only knows FOMBS. :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:
Joe Romm is suffering, these days. Have a little pity.
========
LOL … uhhh … Kenneth Arrow remains the youngest-ever Nobelist in history … and *FIVE* of his students have themselves become Nobelists … whereas the credentials of the Hartwell Group were … uhhh … what exactly, Chief? ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
To arrive as such a conclusion Arrow must accept as fact that there is a consensus of scientific belief in AGW theory. But we know better than that. We know that belief in global warming is a belief held by ‘egalitarian communitarians’ not the scientific literate who are skilled in numeracy and respect the teachings of the scientific method as a means of separating truth from fiction.
Arrow may be the youngest proze winner in economics in 1972 – they must bloom latte in economics. Just like you FOMBS :lol:
http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation
By Rob Atkinson, Netra Chhetri, Joshua Freed, Isabel Galiana,
Christopher Green, Steven Hayward, Jesse Jenkins,
Elizabeth Malone, Ted Nordhaus, Roger Pielke Jr., Gwyn Prins,
Steve Rayner, Daniel Sarewitz, Michael Shellenberger
But we wonder if 18th century economics can handle the modern world.
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/online-content/the-creative-destruction-of-climate-economics/
We wonder if you have any clue at all about what you want – or are just obsessively pushing some button somewhere.
And let’s not forget:
http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation
vagaries of natural climate variability have led to a (temporary) slowdown
apparently Vukcevic has a hypothesis but no one knows what it is:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
Oh, c’mon, he’s so good he knew about that natural variability stuff. I’m not saying he asked me or nuthin’.
====================
Encouraging enthusiast = positive feedback
The link to Josh’s cartoons took me to a blog called Economic Logic.
LOL … that economic analysis turns out to be *FAR* more thought-provoking than any Josh cartoon! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
For which, thank you Judith Curry! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Must be groundhog day again.
The enduring question is what practical, pragmatic and effective actions should be taken in a multi-objective context of the global civilisation. Guess we should look elsewhere than you – FOMBS.
http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation
The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future — benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.
The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.
I would commend the particular technology of conservation farming because it addresses hunger, poverty, water and soil conservation, improved ecologies and carbon sequestration 500 Pg (500 billion tonnes) of carbon dioxide at the same time. That is nearly twice the total human emissions thus far. Everyones a winner.
Interesting Vid Chief !
Josh cartoons are at https://www.icloud.com/journal/#3;CAEQARoQkXS-fI0-a0o9VlOxsutC6A;4886F5BF-6E1E-466F-A77B-9C7ED7F8575A
Not quite last week – but relevant to variability. It shows centennial to millennial variabilty of the Pacific Ocean.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Vance2012-AntarticaLawDomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/media/news/2012/ice-core-reveals-unusual-decline-in-eastern-australian-rainfall
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00003.1?journalCode=clim
Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Niña or diminish El Niño impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”
The world is not warming for a decade or three and I would discount entirely the potential for any prediction beyond the next chaotic climate shift.
I would commend – however – the particular technology of conservation farming because it addresses hunger, poverty, water and soil conservation, improved ecologies and carbon sequestration at the same time. Everyones a winner.
http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/
http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/doc/CA_SSC_Overview.pdf
Chief
Is that dog SAM on the loose again? Does SAM blow the Easterly winds down or does SAM fill a void when the Easterly winds die? Do the rains in Brisbane come when SAM is back on the leach? Do the Easterly winds respond to ENSO?
I’m interested if your pets are house broke.
RiHo08,
I am glad you asked such a sensible question. There are 4 main climate dogs influencing rainfall variability in Australia. But you know that dogs run in a pack. They are working dogs – so not house trained at all.
A curious cold layer in the atmosphere of Venus
by Staff Writers
Paris (ESA) Oct 05, 2012
“Venus Express has spied a surprisingly cold region high in the planet’s atmosphere that may be frigid enough for carbon dioxide to freeze out as ice or snow. The planet Venus is well known for its thick, carbon dioxide atmosphere and oven-hot surface, and as a result is often portrayed as Earth’s inhospitable evil twin.
But in a new analysis based on five years of observations using ESA’s Venus Express, scientists have uncovered a very chilly layer at temperatures of around -175 degrees C in the atmosphere 125 km above the planet’s surface.
The curious cold layer is far frostier than any part of Earth’s atmosphere, for example, despite Venus being much closer to the Sun.”
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/A_curious_cold_layer_in_the_atmosphere_of_Venus_999.html
Venus is very nearly tidally locked with the sun so it has a night that lasts for months. The surface and lower atmosphere is isothermal because it’s heated geothermally. The upper atmosphere, above the emission altitude where it’s thin enough for radiation to flow freely, is heated by the sun and when the sun ain’t there for months on end we should expect it to get mighty chilly. No surprise there. I guess you’d find yourself surprised if you subscribe to that goofy runaway greenhouse though. Good grief! Do people still believe that? I mean a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus is SO 1960’s. The first Russian probe got there in like 1970 and discovered the surface was isothermal fercrisakes.
What!!?, Venus doesn’t have a runaway greenhouse effect!? I am shocked. Next thing you’ll be saying there was no Snow Ball Earth.
At least a slushball earth. The evidence is ambiguous for a complete freeze all the way to the equator but little doubt it came very close a couple of times. That’s a runaway icehouse. There’s no such thing as a runaway greenhouse where the water cycle is active to limit it. Venus lost all its water but now sulfurous clouds reflect 90% of solar energy directly back to space giving the surface even less insolation than the earth. The uber-dense 90 bar CO2 troposphere is in the same ballpark for an insulator as rocks are and thus geothermal energy from the molten core of the planet is what keeps the surface hot. The geothermal gradient doesn’t take a nosedive at the top of the crustal rock like it does on the earth but rather continues on to the top of the troposphere where it then falls off the cliff.
If you take the earth’s geothermal gradient (25C per kilometer) and apply it at the top of Venus’ troposphere (50 km) where the temperature is the same as the earth’s surface you get 1250C. But the pressure isn’t constant so the insulation is less at altitude and greater at the surface. Rocks don’t change so it isn’t quite the same. We can approximate the changing troposphere density by taking the average between surface and 50km to get 625C for a ballpark hypothetical surface temperature. Actual measured surface temperature is 450C and that puts us in the ballpark. The rest is just in the details of the difference in thermal conductivity between a 90-bar CO2 troposphere and rocks.
Slushball is more like it.
How does the climate system get out of an albedo-locked snow/slushball state?
BBD, My guess would be it never got there, to a Snowball, more a slush ball and then wobble shifted things around.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n1IjN3CoKbw/UHCaiCn9K8I/AAAAAAAAETw/BtEc5jUjskM/s512/drake%2520passage%2520versus%2520southern%2520caribbean.png
Captn, ‘slushball earth’ was still mostly frozen. The argued distinction is that the slushball earth had a narrow equatorial band of open, or seasonally open water.
So either way, you have NH and SN ice sheets right down into low latitudes which gives you an albedo-locked icehouse climate. The last icehouse was the Marinoan ~640 – 635Ma. For ~5Ma, ‘wobbles’ didn’t override ice albedo. But then something did. What could it have been?
What age are the top and bottom panels in this link btw?
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-n1IjN3CoKbw/UHCaiCn9K8I/AAAAAAAAETw/BtEc5jUjskM/s512/drake%2520passage%2520versus%2520southern%2520caribbean.png
BBD, the two panels are off of Google Earth, I don’t what bathymetric data they used, but it is fairly recent.
About 750ma ago, northern Canada was estimated to be at 10N latitude, Depending on orientation, that would put the southern Caribbean at about 60S. Location of the land masses relative to the equator would be a factor to consider for SlushBall Earth.
Capn
Continental drift during the ~5Ma of the Marinoan icehouse was relatively small. Certainly not enough to explain the exit from an albedo-locked icehouse. So what could have over-ridden ice albedo? Perhaps an atmospheric forcing?
BBD, the images were in reference to slushball. The 5ma is interesting, but I am looking more at the 2.2 ma which I think is related the the Antarctic losing a large chuck of ice sheet. That particular time period is a bit of an anomaly and the anomalies are general the more interesting events.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fa_IDVMYqrM/UHBo7G5aA1I/AAAAAAAAESc/DW9qH5j3RSo/s912/past%2520few%2520million%2520years%2520of%2520tropical%2520ocean%2520temperatures.png
Capn
So Google Earth does 640Ma? Cool. Can I have a link?
We seem to be having separate discussions.
Continental drift during the ~5Ma of the Marinoan icehouse (~640Ma) was relatively small. Certainly not enough to explain the exit from an albedo-locked icehouse. What over-rode the ice albedo?
BBD, this fixation of yours that everything is CO2 related is so 60s. If you spent a little time with the paleo you would noticed that there is an inverse correlation between Bottom water temperature and Sea surface temperature. As sea ice expands, the efficiency of the polar heat transfer decreases and the rate of Abysmal depth mixing decreases. This causes a larger stratification of mid- depth temperatures. Ocean heat content decreases but upper ocean heat content increases. It is magic.
With warmer upper level water temperatures there is not much of a perturbation required to drive the system to a new inter glacial. Once the interglacial starts, additional CO2 is released from both the oceans and the land as glaciers retreat with warmer atmospheric temperatures. CO2 doe amplify that atmospheric warming, but is not the initial driver of the warming. Remember there is a lag of CO2 behind temperature in the southern hemisphere.
The southern hemisphere is also more sensitive to precessional changes than the Northern hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere more sensitive to volcanic activity. It is almost like there are two different hemispheres :)
BBD, since you have this fear of exploration,
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-MYrzYOUJO3o/UHDZi9JVsFI/AAAAAAAAEUI/BhsM99Pt8sE/s879/abysmal%2520v%2520top%25204ka.png
That is a plot of the Galapagos SST versus the tropical Eastern Pacific and Atlantic bottom water temperature estimates. There are different temperature ranges and settling times. Note how the bottom water temperature gradual warms between interglacial periods. Neat huh?
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/–lTzZrR-etA/UHDZiwV4rCI/AAAAAAAAEUM/uMKtVmqv1HM/s912/abysmal%2520v%2520CO2.png
That is the Bottom water temperatures versus EPICA CO2, notice how there is also an inverse relationship between bottom water temperature and CO2.
The “Bottom” in those cores is 3200m and 3900m which is just above the Abysmal zone. So it would appear that OHC drops rapidly during the change from glacial to interglacial and then slowly rises during the interglacial until it drops like a brick at the entry into the next interglacial.
Kinda interesting. That could be why Stott is on this “natural variability” kick, he is such an academic rebel. He even has an Hypothesis about CO2 and Caltrates since there seems to be some missing 14C in the abysmal depths.
Cap’n, I gotta HVAC problem for an important client, calls herself Ms. Guya, or something like that. I hear you’re a go to sorta guy.
=====================
Capn
We were discussing the geophysical mechanisms permitting the exit from a snowball earth. Remember? Why can’t we talk about this?
Is your refusal to accept that CO2 plays a central role in glacial-interglacial transitions somehow connected to this refusal to discuss the exit from an albedo-locked greenhouse?
;-)
Oh, and one other thing. I’d google the difference between abyssal ocean and the, ahem, ‘Abysmal Ocean‘…
;-)
BBD, “Is your refusal to accept that CO2 plays a central role in glacial-interglacial transitions somehow connected to this refusal to discuss the exit from an albedo-locked greenhouse?”
CO2 does not play a consistent or central role in the transistion from glacial to interglacial CO2 may contribute half as in 50% of the eventual warming, but the amount that CO2 contributes changes with the internal climate state of the system. CO2 is more a regulator than a driver.
As for the “albedo locked” greenhouse or slushball, I doubt that other natural forces, like tides, change in the surface area of oceans, glacier dynamics and changing geological stresses of imbalanced mass would allow an Snowball Earth. Just for grins consider that sea level drop associated with glaciation would increase the shear stress on large land fixed glacial sheets on one side and floating on the oceans side. That huge ice masses move BBD. Every part of the system is dynamic.
As I also pointed out, as sea ice extent increases, the ice insulates the water below not only radiantly, but also convectively by reduce surface ocean atmosphere turbulent mixing. So in many situations, CO2 is totally out matched by other climate influences.
Since you obviously did not study the Herbert et al data I posted, the sensitivity to various forcings varies as the internal dynamics change. The average surface temperature of the Eastern Tropical Pacific has dropped for the past 4.5 million years while the Atlantic, South China and Arabian sea have remained much more stable as far as SST is concerned. CO2 has a role, but it is not the star of the show.
No. The glacial termination could not happen without positive *feedback* to the initial orbital forcing. CO2 is the central positive feedback on which the process depends because it globalises the warming. The rest of what you say indicates that you don’t really understand the term ‘feedback’.
Who cares? The slushball world is mostly white and mostly frozen. How does the climate system break out of the resulting albedo-locked icehouse?
And no mention of Abysmal Oceans? ;-)
Stop creating strawmen. CO2 acts as a feedback during glacial terminations and a major climate forcing now. It is about to emerge as the star of the show.
BBD, Freudian slip as I try to whip you into shape. CO2 lags temperature. It obviously is not a driver in Southern Hemisphere deglaciation. Unlike the Northern Hemisphere, there is no stable base for Antarctic glacial ice to expand. There are a variety of islands crossing the discharge of the Drake Passage that do provide some support for “fixing” sea ice which would change the pattern of the ACC with has a rather large temperature gradient.
The most thermodynamic stable area of the oceans, believe it or not, is the southern latitude band between 44S and 64S due to the most efficient mixing created by the ACC and the wicked ass winds the region are famous for. It only takes a small change in that efficiency to impact climate. CO2 does not appear to have a significant impact on that efficiency or it would consistently lead southern hemisphere temperature change.
Two strawmen. Just read Shakun et al. (2012). All is explained ;-)
Whip me into shape? At least I know the correct term for abyssal oceans.
Are we talking about P. Martin btw? Co-author of this study?
As well as Quaternary deep sea temperature histories derived from benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca?
Do read the linked abstract.
BBD, “Are we talking about P. Martin btw? Co-author of this study?
As well as Quaternary deep sea temperature histories derived from benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca?
Do read the linked abstract.”
Same Martin different study. She also has d18O and Lea has several reconstructions including the Galapagos. I am following the ~4300-yr recurrent pattern in temperatures which they mention as 5-kyr in that study. I am not trying to calculate sensitivity to CO2, that has been done to death and ranges from 0.7 to 9.0 C in most of the paleo studies I have seen. In fact it is because of the inconsistent range of sensitivity that I am looking in the changes in the decay rates of the internal oscillations.
Now think about that, why would paleo reconstructed sensitivity to CO2 change with time? What would change the timing of Glaciations from 41ka to every 2nd or 3rd?
Is your source for this graph entitled Abysmal Depths and CO2 Martin et al. (2002) Quaternary deep sea temperature histories derived from benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca?
If so, did you mean core M16772 Eastern tropical Atlantic? Not M16722?
Second, which data are you using? Your δ18O curve differs from the M16772 δ18O curve in M02 Fig. 3. Your core TR163-31P δ18O curve also differs from M02’s Fig. 5.
BBD, Yep, Martin 2002 -The download of the spread sheet has M16772 in the read me and M16722 on the data page. That chart was dO18 which I was using for timing not temperature, since it had to most data points in the Atlantic core.
I’m still confused. Your δ18O curve differs from the M16772 δ18O curve in M02 Fig. 3. Your core TR163-31P δ18O curve also differs from M02’s Fig. 5. Your curves are different from the ones in the paper.
Did you use different data?
BBD, “Did you use different data?” No, that is the data from the NOAA paleo site. I did use the default openoffice smoothing, but I just compared the download master to my worksheet and everything looks in order. If I do any interpolation or averaging I typical make big notes on the charts. I haven’t compared to the original paper though since I was just looking for various regional cores for the past 120ka to compare to the Herbert 2010 tropical oceans.
There is the typo on the data page of the download, I when with M17722 because that was on the page with the actual data.
Here is the TR-163-31P core Mg and dO18 plot direct from the download, not smoothing, no anomaly.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-kdBVHJDFzY8/UHITvaREyPI/AAAAAAAAEWg/iXwkQ-ceY4Y/s912/martin%25202002%2520TR163-31P.png
BBD, There is always another study. “In spite of the short data range, the power at tilt and to a limited extent at precession shared between d18Ocalcite and d 18 Owater permits a phase estimate to be made at these periodicities (Fig. 11). In both cases the phase offsets are within error zero: d18Ocalcite agsd18Owater by 2 3 kyr for tilt and 5 8 kyr for precession. In contrast, cross-spectral analysis indicates that at eccentricity periods there is a ca 16 5.5 kyr lead of temperature over calcited18O and a ca 24 5.6 kyr lead over water d18O (using ARAND software, Howell, 2001); similar values were obtained using Analyseries software (Paillard et al.,1996).”
http://atripati.bol.ucla.edu/24.pdf
They take a good look at some of the calibration issues and see the same 23ka bump I am seeing. I have no idea what “team” they play for.
Sloppy, and it’s going to cost you because there is a major problem here. Since you obviously can’t see what you’ve done, I’ll tell you for free: you have the δ18O curves for both cores upside-down. And that makes you a colossal buffoon ;-)
Flip them to the correct orientation and your argument about the inverse relationship between bottom water and CO2 falls apart completely. As it rather has to, no?
Another fatal error. Something of a pattern developing, I’d say.
Now, stop the endless BS and go back and *read* Shakun et al. (2012). Also *read* Martin’s 2005 paper where she and co-workers disagree in great detail with your half-baked notions about the relationship between deep water formation and CO2:
You need whipping into shape ;-)
Tripati plays for team *science*. Unlike you. Read this:
Tripati et al. (2009)
Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years, Aradhna K. Tripati, et al.Science 326, 1394 (2009); DOI: 10.1126/science.1178296
The clue is in the title.
Idiot.
Nice work BBD.
OH CAPTAIN… my captain.. it looks like you have outdone Mike mann.
i wonder if the captain realizes that IF he made this mistake, that he will be hounded unmercifully til he corrects it
It’s gone very quiet in here capn.
Just dear steven passing by with a few kind and prescient words.
Wherever can you be?
Steven Mosher, “OH CAPTAIN… my captain.. it looks like you have outdone Mike mann.
i wonder if the captain realizes that IF he made this mistake, that he will be hounded unmercifully til he corrects it”
Oh yeah, I know. Then once UNtopia is complete he can chill on the bass pond.
BBD, my response is down near the bottom.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-250533
Isothermal? no
http://www.realclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/clouddeck.jpg
Very strong greenhouse effect on Venus.
loltwat
I meant isothermal with respect to latitude not altitude. Are you dyslexic or just planetarily (among other things) uninformed?
There is no greenhouse effect in the lower atmosphere on Venus anymore. There probably was in the past due to water vapor but that all boiled off and was photodissociated a long time ago and hardly any sunlight penetrates to the surface today because of sulfuric clouds which reflect 90% of solar energy directly back to space. Earth gets far more sunlight at the surface than Venus. Dig it. Sunlight is required for the atmospheric greenhouse effect – solar shortwave comes in unimpeded to heat the surface and longwave is coming from the surface is impeded on the way out. The length of the night on Venus is 118 earth days so it gets no sunlight for a very long time at night. Yet the day and night surface temperature is the same ergo no greenhouse effect in the lower atmosphere.
Now you know. Or at least now you should know but I fear this Solar System 101 lesson from yer old pal Dave went in one ear and out the other. More’s the pity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
Isothermal at the surface is exactly what you’d expect under a strong greenhouse effect.
Yes Venus absorbs less solar energy than Earth, but thanks to it’s massive greenhouse effect it’s far warmer than Earth.
If you are trying to claim Venus is that warm from geothermal activity: pull the other one.
I thought you would be incapable of understanding. Hopefully others aren’t so dense. An isothermal planetary surface temperature when there the daylength is 118 earth days definitely precludes greenhouse heating. One modesty brighter individual than you tried to tell me it was due to high wind speeds on Venus that kept the day/night atmosphere well mixed. It was a plausible mechanism so looked it up. The surface winds on Venus, as it turns out, are very slow. High wind speeds only develop in the upper atmosphere. The lower atmosphere is more like soup than air and moves slowly as you’d expect for something so dense. The slow surface wind speed was inferred 50 years ago by radar imaging of the surface. At 90-bar if there were any significant windage it would polish the surface smooth as a billiard ball because it would push big rocks around with ease and effectively sand-blast it level. Radar imagery revealed a diverse surface with lots of interesting topology which is impossible in high 90-bar winds.
I picked up persistent variability in Josh’s cartoons.
It is more persistent variation in ocean surface temperature in many locations. Still the only way for seasonal to decadal probabalistic forecasts.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/rain_ahead.shtml
I have been considering my belief that the estimates of no-feedback climate sensitivity are based on highly dubious physics. Let me try and write these down, and see if anyone has any comments.
I start with the fact that I agree that should the concentration of CO2 double, then there would be a radiative imbalance, whose numeric value is about 3.7 Wm-2. This imbalance must be compensated for by a rise in global temperatures; AGW is real. The question is, what is the right way to estimate the no-feedback climate sensitivity?
Now the no-feedback climate sensitivity is an abomination in physics. It is a quantity that it is impossible to measure, and as such has no meaning by itself. However, it could be useful as a way of trying to work out how the value of total climate sensitivity might be obtained from empirical data. So the way the number is estimated is of interest.
The way I understand the value of about 1.2 C for a change in radiative imbalance of 3.7 Wm-2, is that this number is estimated by assuming that the only change in the atmosphere is a change in radiation. No account is taken of a potential change in lapse rate. However, it is clear that if there were to be any radiative imbalance, the atmosphere would respond by all means possible in order to compensate. It is just plain wrong to look only at the radiation term, and then say that a change in lapse rate can be considered a feedback. The change in lapse rate is never going to be a feedback. It is merely a different way in which the radiative balance can be compensated for.
Therefore, the correct way to estimate no-feedback climate sensitivity is to assess how the whole atmopshere responds to a change of radiative imbalance. Note that this sort of estimation would be valid for any form of forcing; e.g a change of TSI One must take into account conduction, convection and the latent heat of water at the same time as the effects of radiation are considered. So far as I have been able to find out, no-one has attempted to do this estimation. There is nothing in the literature that I can find where such a number has been estimated. The only thing that is clear is that it will be less than 1.2 C for a doubling of CO2. How much less seems to be unknown.
Some years ago, I participated in a blog on Yahoo called Climate Skeptics. There there were a number of people who really knew what they were talking about. I can only remember 2 names, Chuck Weis, and Bill Kinninmonth; David Woijek was also a member. They discussed the detailed physics of how the total atmopshere would respond to a change of forcing. I do not pretend to understand what they were talking about, but the upshot of the discussion was that they could not agree on what the proper physics was. So it does not surprise me that no-one has attempted the estimation of total atmosphere no-feedback climate sensitivity.
So, two questions if people would not mind answering.
1. Am I correct in claiming that the proper value of no-feeedback climate sensitivity must include all atmospheric effects; conduction, convection, the latent heat of water amd radiation.
2. If I am right, then what is a resaonable numeric value for total atmosphere no-feedback climate sensitivity?
I love it when the talk turns to “Feed Backs” There is a good probability the 50% of the global warming since 1900 is not CO2 related, some combination of natural variability, recovery from LIA depression, land use etc. In that case, some portion of the warming attributed to CO2 would be “Feed Back” from other sources of warming. But since the modelers “defined” Feed Backs as responses to CO2 forcing, natural variability does not exist as it is assume to zero over rather short periods. Now that some models have replicated century scale natural variability (imagine that :) ), I wonder how the modelers will communicate that there is radiant feed back to natural variability?
“AGW is real”
And your empirical proof is?
Have you got anything at all to show it exists?
What exactly do you base this on?
Myrrh, you write “And your empirical proof is?”
No I dont. I put this bit into my discussion in order to maintain my argument with the proponents of CAGW. I want to ensure that it is understood that I am not claiming that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has no affect. I will, for the sake of discussion, agree that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has some affect on global temperatures, but the discussion needs to center on how much this effect is.
Kininmonth headed the National Climate Centre at Australia’s BoM from 1986-98 and represented Australia at world climate conferences in the early 90s. He runs the (private) Australasian Climate Research Institute and frequently writes very lucid articles and letters on alleged CAGW.
Jim Cripwell | October 6, 2012 at 6:31 am said: ” agree that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has some affect on global temperatures, but the discussion needs to center on ”how much this effect is”.
Jim, it’s a loaded comment; how much the effect from CO2 is? zero, ZERO!!! discussing how much CO2 increases the GLOBAL temp, is same as discussing: how much man / Jim can get pregnant, OR, ”how many galaxies are spinning around the earth; if not the whole universe. You cannot admit that: you have being duped by the clever Warmist – so you are justifying half of their lies, as if they are correct. shame, shame!!!
Zero effect?
So, if we removed all the C02 you would see no effect whatsoever. Or if it were 100% C02 it would have no effect whatsoever.
Might bold claims for a skeptic who is suppose to practice doubt.
Steven Mosher | October 7, 2012 at 4:03 pm said: ”Zero effect? So, if we removed all the C02 you would see no effect whatsoever. Or if it were 100% C02 it would have no effect whatsoever”
Mosher 1]: if we remove all the co2, days will get a bit hotter / nights a bit colder – overall same warmth units would remain.
2] ”if it were 100% C02” =======Mosher, you tricked yourself by that question! That’s what happen, when you are scared to recognize my formulas!!!
3]oxygen & nitrogen are 998999ppm in the troposphere, they are regulating the temperature, not CO2! IF you put on one end of the scale an elephant V 350 ants on the other side… question is: ”if you double the ants to 700, or 1700 ants; would that tip the scale?” But, you are referring es extreme: to remove the elephant (the O&N), the REGULATORS…? Naughty, naughty!!!
4] I respect a lot examples or experiments with extremes: same as: if you remove the gravity, all of Switzerland would have eventually flooded. from rainwater. Naughty, naughty Mosher!
5] you don’t have to make it 100% CO2, to change the temperature; remove the O&N, temp will change. because they regulate, they insulate. On the moon, minus O&N, between day and night temp is over 200C. (tragically, because of the propaganda that CO2 is bad – the psichos are turning oxygen into water, by promoting of burning methane / natural gas; BUT ARE AGAINST CREATING NEW METHANE. mother of all crimes!!!
Mosher, are you man enough, to admit when you are wrong?!?!?! Now is your chance, go to my basic proofs first on this post, then work on the other 9. : http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/climate/
StephanTheVirtuallyAloneDenier
Do you question the basic physics of CO2 absorption spectra?
It would seem so. Or he’s just wants a bit of attention.
Particular Physicist | October 7, 2012 at 3:23 am asked:
StephanTheVirtuallyAloneDenier
Do you question the basic physics of CO2 absorption spectra?”
Physicist, please don’t chicken out; you are needed!
CO2 absorbs more heat, than O&N – but also CO2 absorbs much more COLDNESS than O&N!!! (that’s why CO2 is used to make dry ice) Unless you are one of the ”flat earth believers” / 24h sunlight on every spot on the planet?!
In other words: CO2 absorbs much more heat during the day, up; where cooling is much more efficient – CO2 absorbs much more coldness than O&N, at night – THOSE TWO FACTORS CANCEL EACH OTHER::: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/climate/
Physicist, don’t chicken out! Everything is proven, in details!!!
Stefan
So you agree CO2 absorbs heat during the day, but say
(a) it “absorbs coldness” during the night, and that
(b) the two exactly cancel.
So what does “absorb coldness” mean? CO2 radiates heat faster than O & N ? Is this effect documented anywhere? And does it have a name ?
Particular Physicist | October 8, 2012 at 2:00 am said: ”Stefan
So you agree CO2 absorbs heat during the day, but say (a) it “absorbs coldness” during the night, and that (b) the two exactly cancel”.
EVERYTHING IS PROVEN ON MY BLOG
Physicist, my English is very limited, if I start telling you names on other languages; probably you wouldn’t understand, that on side, now – a] ”what does “absorb coldness” mean?” I have being on the same subject, on few other blogs -:::: for me is the most important, people on the street to understand. I don’t go from; ultimate zero / Kelvin / oxygen two, nitrogen two. Honest people say; oxygen + nitrogen – they have stoves and fridges calibrated in Centigrade – below zero is cold – above zero is warm – above boiling is hot, and so-on. ”put some warm cloths, not to catch a cold” see, for 99% of the people cold exisat.
on the other hands, the regular bingo players in the phony GLOBAL warming blogosphere are desperate to sound scientific – for them is no coldness, no light, just lack of photons… They remind me of a starving man trying to shit – lots of hot air, but nothing solid.
The pressure will come from the street; that’s where 90% of the people want NOTHING BUT the TRUTH. Simplify physicist, cut the crap, cross the irrelevant zeroes. I hope we have cleared the unnecessary smokescreen.
Physicist, I have given you a tread, where you can find in more details. I strongly suggest, you should 2] but I don’t think it’s necessary .for me to reduce myself to start using Kalvin and oxygen two (O2 -N2) so that a person can understand.(As somebody said before): Physicist, are you with us, or against the truth?!
Yes, CO2 absorbs more heat than O&N. If you don’t have a laboratory handy: take two lumps of wood, to represent oxygen + nitrogen, and a steel bar, to represent CO2. leave them on the sunlight – at noon monitor their temps and see how hotter the steel pipe will be than wood. 2] leave them on the same place, and take their individual temp at midnight. Of course, metal releases heat quicker; but because people know about dry ice – I’m not going to change it for you – so you can play smart ass. I will ask you one thing: do you know the importance for the truth to be known; or is it for you a game, as for most of the ”bingo players”?! please tell us.
Jim Cripwell, you got most of the way. The convection is considered via the lapse rate assumption. Basically it is convection that determines the tropospheric temperature profile. If you heat the surface, the convection transfers that change throughout the troposphere in a specific way that governs the lapse rate. You also mention conduction. That connects the surface to the bottom of the atmosphere, and also maintains that temperature connection between them.
Crickets.
By chance Jim Cripwell said:
> Let me try and write these down, and see if anyone has any comments.
“Jim Cripwell, you got most of the way. The convection is considered via the lapse rate assumption. Basically it is convection that determines the tropospheric temperature profile. If you heat the surface, the convection transfers that change throughout the troposphere in a specific way that governs the lapse rate. You also mention conduction. That connects the surface to the bottom of the atmosphere, and also maintains that temperature connection between them.”
We can assume that what controls earth temperature [air temperature as measured in shaded box] is the skin surface temperature.
Or change the skin surface temperature and Earth’s air temperature follows.
With some means to force average global skin temperature to be 10 C warmer or cooler and a large fraction of this 10 C difference is reflected in air temperature.
Or skin temperature is a knob that controls air temperature.
Whereas changing the air temperature by 10 C warmer or cooler, does not affect skin temperature- by much.
“should the concentration of CO2 double, then there would be a radiative imbalance, whose numeric value is about 3.7 Wm-2”.Based on what simplifications? Probably on a cloudless planet. That’s not where I live. Is there any serious estimate on how the cloud cover (and therefore albedo and therefore the energy absorbed) would change?
CG
The 3.7Wm-2 is a pretty solid estimate for the tropopause region, so it doesn’t include clouds or changes in much of anything. It is just a means to simplify one variable in a system full of variables. It is one of the few estimates that I completely agree with, BTW.
3.7Wm-2 is approximately 0.3% of the solar constant. Few numbers in climatology are known with such a precision, that’s why I question it.
It may be an excellent estimate for a purely radiative balance above a black body; but then neither oceans nor jungles nor deserts nor clouds are good black bodies. And you have ignored my point that the more of the solar energy input itself may be reflected into space if the cloud cover increases – or maybe not. Are you aware of any estimates you could agree with?
Yes skeptics think clouds will increase in response to warming and act as a negative feedback reducing absorbed sunlight.
Additionally Manacker thinks that would cause crop shortages and famines.
No wait…silly me…skeptics only act concerned about a drop in sunlight if scientists are proposing it through geo-engineering. If it’s cloud changes caused by CO2 then that’s fine…
Disingenuous. Not worth reading your comments.
Or perhaps you don’t want to address the point that negative cloud feedback is actually another name for Anthropogenic driven Sunlight Reduction.
lolwot
It appears that you have a reading problem.
Please show where I wrote that added clouds “would cause crop shortages and famines”.
But there is no doubt that clouds do affect our climate.
We know (Ramanathan and Inamdar) that there are two primary mechanisms by which clouds affect our climate:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=207108
http://miskolczi.webs.com/RAM-Inamdar-FCMTheRadiativeForcingDuetoCloudsandWaterVapor.pdf
– reflection of around 14% of the incoming SW radiation due to cloud albedo resulting in cooling estimated to be 48 W/m^2
– absorption and re-radiation of outgoing LW radiation resulting in warming estimated to be 30 W/m^2
[This compares with an IPCC estimate for 2xCO2 forcing (Myhre et al.) of around 3.7 W/m^2.]
We know from ISCCP observations (Pallé et al.) that the global monthly mean cloud cover decreased by around 4.5% between 1985 and 2000. As a result the Earth’s global albedo decreased by the equivalent of around –5 W/m^2, i.e. decrease of reflected SW radiation (= heating of our planet). Over the period 2000 to 2004 the cloud cover recovered by around 2.5%, with an increase in reflected SW radiation of around +3 W/m^2 (= cooling).
http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Palle_etal_2006_EOS.pdf
[Interestingly, these periods coincide well with a period of rapid global atmospheric warming (1985-2000) followed by a period of slight cooling (2000-2004), as measured both at the surface and in the troposphere.]
IPCC models assume that cloud feedback with warming is strongly positive, contributing 1.3C to the estimated total 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2C, as reported in AR4 WG1.
Yet physical observations over the tropics from CERES satellites by Spencer + Braswell (2007), which were made after AR4, show a strongly negative feedback with warming over shorter time periods.
Correcting the IPCC model assumptions to include these physical observations would reduce the 2xCO2 CS to around 1.0 C.
So, as Kevin Trenberth stated in an interview, where he was asked to explain the current “unexplained lack of warming”, which he had previously referred to as a “travesty”, it could be that the “missing heat” is being reflected out “to space” with “clouds acting as a natural thermostat”. This makes sense to me, as it also appears to check with the physical observations.
So that’s what I have concluded about the impact of clouds on our climate.
Max
lolwot | October 6, 2012 at 8:40 am said: ” you don’t want to address the point that negative cloud feedback is actually another name for Anthropogenic driven Sunlight Reduction”
G’day my friend lolwot, i have to help you a bit: there is no such a thing as ”negative / positive cloud feedback” there is only ”positive STARVEBACK” .of common sense…
I have a good one for your kind of ”saviors” listen to my hypothesis: there are about 18000 satellites in orbit – all of them have selfishly spread many solar panels and are blocking part of the sunlight never to reach to the ground. PLUS numerous pieces of junk floating there, reflecting lots of sunlight every day; and that effect from those satellites IS ACCUMULATIVE. This is my contribution to the Warmist crap; don’t say that I didn’t help you! It’s suitable for your kind of fear mongering, BOO!!!
lolwot | October 5, 2012 at 10:21 pm said: ”Yes skeptics think…”
wrong again lolwot: if ”Skeptics” can think – they wouldn’t be called Climate Change Skeptics. They would be called Global Warming Skeptics, but definitely NOT climate changing Skeptics. Clinically dead brains cannot see the difference between constant big / small climatic changes and phony GLOBAL warmings.
That name has being pinned on them by the clever Warmist – so that when people on the street see a nutter that is skeptical about climatic changes – to keep their children away from him. They are not interested in AGW and similar crap. They know that it gets wet, then dry climate – it gets from summer into winter climate – when somebody is skeptical about climate changes – keep your children away from him!!!! The blogosphere is cuckoo’s incubator / paradise; but people with sanity on the street see more and more CO2 produced – GLOBAL warming is nowhere to be seen – the Fakes are getting ripe for funny-farm
Curiuos George | October 5, 2012 at 9:40 pm said: “should the concentration of CO2 double, then there would be a radiative imbalance, whose numeric value is about 3.7 Wm-2″.Based on what simplifications? Probably on a cloudless planet”
George, water cloud and CO2 (dirty cloud) react very similar!!! If you know the effect from water cloud, dirty cloud effects similarly: .the fog is lifted in the morning by the sunlight and creates clouds. b] because ”carbon” atom in the CO2 molecule intercepts sunlight – warms up – that warms the two lucky oxygen atoms in the CO2 molecule – they, as warmer than surrounding oxygen & nitrogen atoms- expand more and lift the lazy carbon atom in the CO2 molecule up and up, during the day.
then at night, the carbon atom stops getting warmed by the sunlight – cools itself and the two oxygen atoms; BECAUSE co2 CAN ABSORB MORE COLDNESS than O&N can; and falls down, to feed the trees and crops. Plus: my theory has being proven that: CO2 increases condensation = CO2 is a ”Rainmaker” if you want instruction for Stefan’s experiment, let me know.
Jim, in answer to your question, CO2 cannot be a driver of climate change (being able to retain radiation at thew surface) as it does not possess the physical properties to do so as it is in such small and insignificant amounts.
To demonstrate the relative amounts of CO2, could you for example read a book placed on a lectern that 2.5 km away? Of course you can’t, and even if I doubled the font size from 10 to 20 point, you still couldn’t read it.
So, that is what they are saying when they think CO2 can act as a radiation deflector. When it is only one molecule among 2500 or so of others, and even if you doubled the amount, the equivalent of boosting atmospheric CO2 levels from 390 to 780 ppm (doubling the point size on the book) it would still be the same, and then it would only be two molecules among 2500. In its current amounts in the atmosphere it does not have the physical presence to be able to do what they think it can..
1. Am I correct in claiming that the proper value of no-feeedback climate sensitivity must include all atmospheric effects; conduction, convection, the latent heat of water amd radiation.
Sorry, I miscopied what I wrote in word.
First, many thanks for all the comments. However, no-one has directly answered my first question. Let me rewriter it an emphasise it.
1. Am I correct in claiming that the proper value of no-feeedback climate sensitivity must include all atmospheric effects; conduction, convection, the latent heat of water amd radiation.
Does anyone have a specific answer to this question?
I replied above.The answer is yes, the lapse rate critically depends on convection to maintain it, and convection relies on latent heat to get as high as it does. The troposphere is a convectively mixed layer on a long time scale.
Jim D, you write “The answer is yes,”
Thank you. Someone who agrees with me. Let us see whether there are any disagreements.
Maybe you misunderstood. I meant yes it already does. The thing it doesn’t include is that a warmer ocean will put more water vapor in the atmosphere.
Jim D | October 6, 2012 at 3:48 pm said: ”The thing it doesn’t include is that a warmer ocean will put more water vapor in the atmosphere”
JimD, CORRECTION: the thing that YOU didn’t state is:: that water vapor would create more clouds – clouds are as a ”sun-umbrellas” for the sea / land = more sunlight is intercepted high up, where cooling is much more efficient -less sunlight comes to the sea / land; and equalizes in a jiffy. It’s called: self-adjusting mechanism” Which part you can’t understand JimD? http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/water-vapor/
Jim,
The central problem with your underlying discussion related to the effects of increasing CO2 is that you are focused (like many are apt to do) on the atmosphere, when the key effects related to Earth’s energy imbalance actually are in the ocean. In putting a thicker or heavier jacket on your body, do you really care how warm the jacket is, or how much warmer it makes your body? As land dwelling creatures we are naturally inclined to care very much about the temperature of the lower troposphere and the activities related to life going on in this region, but it is very much like caring about the activities going on right on the surface of your skin, right under your warm jacket, when in fact, it is your core body heat, that is being maintained by that jacket on a very cold day that really matters.
On Earth, we have two spheres of core “body heat”, namely, the oceans (the hydrosphere) and the lithosphere. The hydrosphere gets its heat of course primarily from the sun and to a much lessor extent from the lithosphere. Altering the greenhouse concentrations of the atmosphere will influence first and foremost how much heat is retained by the oceans, and indeed, along with the 40% increase in CO2, and similar increases in methane and N2O that we’ve seen over the past few centuries, we seen the heat content of our oceans rising consistently over this period. Of course, increasing greenhouse gas concentrations also alter surface tempertures and mid-troposphere tempertures as well, but these regions are far more subject to shorter-term variability from natural fluctuations, and thus are noisier signals compared to the overall steady rise in ocean heat content we’ve seen. Finally, keep in mind that rising ocean heat content does not mean that energy stays in the ocean, as the net flow of energy is always from ocean to atmosphere, and thus, that heat will, and has been affecting tropopsheric tempertures, and also affecting things like arctic sea ice, with the majority of it’s melting actually occurring from below, in the warming ocean water.
We seem to have been here before. Whatever is happening in the oceans, greenhouse gas warming must by definition be experienced in the atmosphere. Which has stopped warming this last decade and a half, despite CO2 levels shooting upwards,. So clearly there is a lot more to it (including claimed ocean warming) than just CO2 being the temperature knob as the consensus would have it.
The troposphere has far less energy content and far less thermal inertia than the oceans and is thus far more subject to natural variabilty and short-term noise. If you are trying to access the impacts on Earth’s energy balance from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, wouldn’t you want to look at the most stable and reliable non-tectonic energy reservoir of the planet to see long-term effects? Which is of course the oceans.
Doesn’t effect the basic point : if the atmosphere isn’t warming, it cannot the agent of the oceans warming.
@R Gates
Have we found Kev’s missing heat then?
If so, where was it? Hiding down the back of the sofa where all my biros and loose change go? Or thrown out with the rubbish by mistake?
“We seem to have been here before. Whatever is happening in the oceans, greenhouse gas warming must by definition be experienced in the atmosphere. Which has stopped warming this last decade and a half, despite CO2 levels shooting upwards”
The atmosphere hasn’t stopped warming in the last decade and a half.
Take HadCRUT3.
Total warming from 1970 to the end of 1998: 0.47C
Total Warming from 1970 to present: 0.65C
0.65 – 0.47 = 0.18
So that’s 0.18C warming post 1998. 28% of the warming since 1970.
Somebody tell Phil Jones
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
Sullivan,
It is not the temperature of the atmosphere that affects the temperture of the oceans, but rather the other way around, or more precisely, the heat flux from ocean to atmosphere. The net flow of energy on a planetary scale is from ocean to atmosphere, as the oceans contain far more energy than the atmosphere ever could. This fact, by the way, of net heat flow from ocean to atmosphere, is displayed quite readily by the fluctuations of the ENSO cycle, whereby tropospheric temperature is driven by the release of net heat from the tropical ocean surface. Thus, your requirement that atmosphere temperatures must rise before ocean tempertures do is nonsense.
Gates
No, you’re avoiding the issue. CO2 impacts the atmosphere (directly), not the ocean. So for this to have some knock-on effect, the atmosphere needs to to warm.
This point is strengthened by your own point that net heat transfer is from ocean to atmosphere, since a warmer atmosphere is a necessary condition for the oceans to warm by means of losing less heat to the atmosphere.
Sullivan you are avoiding the issue:
The atmosphere has warmed over the last decade and a half.
No, the atmosphere has not warmed significantly over the last decade+. Even the IPCC doesn’t claim it has.
Sullivan,
CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere affect energy content of both oceans and atmosphere directly, with the primary effect being to the oceans first in terms of altering the planet’s energy balance. Net energy flows from ocean to atmosphere. Basic thermodynamics would not allow net energy to flow from a smaller reservoir (the atmosphere) into a much larger reservoir (the ocean). Sorry.
Take HadCRUT3.
Total warming from 1970 to the end of 1998: 0.47C
Total Warming from 1970 to present: 0.65C
0.65 – 0.47 = 0.18
So that’s 0.18C warming post 1998. A significant amount of warming. 28% of the warming since 1970 in fact.
lolwot
Take HadCRUT3
Trend since 1998 is slight cooling
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend
Hope this helps.
Max
Here’s Dick, wishing his best (no, not his BEST) to Willard Tony:
> Look at the attached. There has been no warming since 1997 and no statistically significant warming since 1995. Why bother with the arguments about an El Nino anomaly in 1998? (Incidentally, the red fuzz represents the error ‘bars’.)
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/32989835844
Let the reader also note that at the time of this writing, there are 19 occurences of “1998” on this page.
> We seem to have been here before.
The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. It is true the population has increased.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/33120836963
R. Gates, you write “The central problem with your underlying discussion related to the effects of increasing CO2 is that you are focused (like many are apt to do) on the atmosphere, ”
I am sure you are correct, but that is not my problem. The problem I am addressing is the estimations made by the proponents of CAGW of no-feedback climate sensitivity as it affects global temperatures. That is the issue. If you read what our hostess continually concentrates on, it is the uncertainly as to how much atmospheric temperatures rise as a result of adding CO2 to the atmopshere; not the effect on oceans.
If someone has estimated the no-feedback climate sensitivity for oceans, then I would love to discuss it. But all I can find is a number of 1.2C increase in global temperatures for a doubling of CO2. Do you have a reference as to where a similar number has been estimated for the no-feedback climate sensitivity of oceans? If that reference exists, I would be delighted to discuss in as much detail as you like.
But until I have something to hang my hat on, the equivanent of no-feedback sensitivity in the atmopshere, for oceans, I cannot start a sensible discussion. If you are correct, as I am sure you probably are, then what is the equivaltent number to 1.2 C for a doubling of CO2 for the atmosphere, for oceans, when you claim that the major effect is in the oceans?
Jim,
I do appreciate your search for this basic “no feedback” temperature of the lower troposphere for a doubling of CO2, though I am dubious as to what such a rather theoretical number would really tell you in the long run. What we care about in terms of the climate is the amount of external forcing placed on the system as a result of altering the greenhouse gas chemistry of the troposphere. This forcing represents a change to the energy balance of the system, with more net energy being retained as greenhouse gas concentrations increase. It makes more sense to measure this energy in Joules, and the majority of this energy being retained is in the primary non-tectonic energy reservoir of planet, which is in the ocean. The theoretical non-feedback temperature change of the lower troposphere from a doubling of CO2, be it 1.2C or whatever, is inconsequential compared to the 50 or 75 x 10^22 Joules of energy (or more) that the oceans would retain.
R. Gates you write “I do appreciate your search for this basic “no feedback” temperature of the lower troposphere for a doubling of CO2, though I am dubious as to what such a rather theoretical number would really tell you in the long run. ”
You also write “The theoretical non-feedback temperature change of the lower troposphere from a doubling of CO2, be it 1.2C or whatever, is inconsequential compared to the 50 or 75 x 10^22 Joules of energy (or more) that the oceans would retain”
Maybe I have not made myself clear. I am in basic agreemen t with what you write. I can see that what happens in the oceans is far more significant than what happens in the atmosphere. So, in one sense, you are preaching to the choir.
What I am trying to discuss is the effect of rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere on the heat balance of the earth. You claim I need to look at what is happening in the oceans, and I do not disagree. But I cannot discuss the issue until I have the numbers that someone else needs to estimate. I cannot do the estimates myself, though if someone does the estimates, and explains how they do them, then my physics is good enough to be able to understand what they have done.
So what I need is the equivalent of the no-feedback climate sensitivity for the oceans that has been estimated in a similar way for the atmosphere. If you are correct in emnphasising oceans, as I believe you could be, then someone ought to have made the same sort of estimations for oceans as has been done for the atmosphere.
So what I need to know before I can start a discussion is what is the effect of a theoretical doubling of CO2 on the joules of energy that reside in the oceans? Until I have that figure, all I can discuss is what is happening in the atmosphere; since this is all the proponents of CAGW ever seem to talk about.
Good question Jim…now that I understand it. Not sure anyone has actually made that calculation,but I could be mistaken. The past 50 year trend seems to be about .5 x 10^22 joules of energy stored per year down to about 2000m, pretty consistently, though data is quite sparse in the earlier years.
A better choice for estimates on ocean heat content changes is probably looking at the paleodata the last time we saw greenhouse gases at these levels. Here, we are led to the mid-Pliocene, where we saw oceans with heat content 50 to 75 x 10^22 joules higher down to around 700m, translating to temperatures in the upper layers of around 3C higher, with even higher average tempertures of the ocean at higher latitudes.
R. Gates, you write “Not sure anyone has actually made that calculation”
Thank you. Now let me proceed. I am trying to prove that CAGW is a hoax. I am attempting to do this by showing that the way the proponents of CAGW have claimed that CAGW exists, is by using highly dubious, and potentially wrong, physics to estimate the no-feedback climate sensitivity. So the issue is what is the effect of a theoretical doubling of CO2 on global temperatures? Oceans are only relevant to the discussion if we have the equivalent of the no-feedback climate sensitivity for oceans. Since we seem to agree that this number does not exist, then we cannot discuss it, and I will continue to concentrate on what happens in the atmosphere.
Three things Jim,
1 Just because I’m not aware of anyone who has made the calculation for how much energy the oceans will gain by a doubling of CO2 doesn’t mean that it is not out there somewhere in research. It is quite possible in fact been done.
2. If you are trying to prove CAGW a “hoax”, first define exactly what YOU mean by CAGW. End of life on earth? End of human life? End of civilization? Radical biosphere shifts? Dramatic reduction of human life?
3. Any discussion of CAGW, or even AGW, that does not include a comprehensive discussion of the oceans is absolutely pointless and meaningless, as the net flow of energy (i.e. the W in your CAGW) is from oceans to atmosphere. How can you meaningfully talk about a warming surface without talking about the source of some of that warming first…which is the oceans.
Skeptical Gates, “A better choice for estimates on ocean heat content changes is probably looking at the paleodata the last time we saw greenhouse gases at these levels. Here, we are led to the mid-Pliocene, where we saw oceans with heat content 50 to 75 x 10^22 joules higher down to around 700m, translating to temperatures in the upper layers of around 3C higher, with even higher average temper(a)tures of the ocean at higher latitudes.”
Northern higher latitudes maybe. There was some remodeling done about 4.5ma ago, a new window of sorts was installed in the southern high latitudes.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fa_IDVMYqrM/UHBo7G5aA1I/AAAAAAAAESc/DW9qH5j3RSo/s912/past%2520few%2520million%2520years%2520of%2520tropical%2520ocean%2520temperatures.png
At least that is want the Herbet et al. tropical ocean data appears to imply.
thanks for that Captn. Indeed, Northern high latitudes have a bit more paleodata available, with the suspicion that as we’ve move into the Arctic areas we saw yet even more warming of the oceans in the mid-Pliocene, not dissimilar to the actual effects we are seeing today from our greenhouse gas increases.
R. Gates you write “Three things Jim,”
Thanks for the comments. None of them deter me in any way. I am engaging the proponents of CAGW on their turf, not mine. I dont have to consider anything other than what the proponents of CAGW have claimed. It is their definiton of CAGW matters, not mine. If they want to talk about oceans, I am ready to join in.
> I am engaging the proponents of CAGW on their turf, not mine.
That’s why Jim Cripwell does not budge from Judy’s.
Here would be a better turf:
http://scienceofdoom.com
R. Gates and Jim Cripwell
Hold on, guys.
IPCC assumes (based on Myhre et al.) that 2xCO2 will result in “radiative forcing” of 3.7 W/m^2, which will result in around 1 °C warming of the atmosphere. With model-derived feedbacks this should be 3 °C.
The same “radiative forcing” of 3.7 W/m^2” should result in theoretical warming of the ocean of:
Mass of ocean = 270 times the mass of the atmosphere
Specific heat of sea water = 4 times the average specific heat of our atmosphere
dT = 1.0/(270*4) = 0.00093 °C
Or, if we multiply by 3 for effect of IPCC-assumed feedbacks:
dT = 3*0.00093 = 0.0028°C
But, hey, let’s assume that only the “top 100 meters” of ocean get warmed.
These have a mass of roughly 8 times the mass of the atmosphere
dT = 1.0/(8*4) = 0.031 °C
Or, if we multiply by 3 for effect of IPCC-assumed feedbacks:
dT = 3*0.031 = 0.093 °C
Yawn!
That’s the warming one would theoretically see if all of the “radiative forcing” warmed the ocean alone.
Hansen’s “pipeline” hypothesis assumes that roughly 50% of the past GH warming is still “hidden in the pipeline”, and he posits that the “pipeline” is the “ocean”, so the above warming estimates can be cut in half.
Face it guys, it’s peanuts. It couldn’t even be detected if it really were to exist (which is highly doubtful).
We only have semi-reliable measurements of ocean temperature since ARGO replaced the spot measurements from the old expendable XBT devices (which introduced a “warming bias”) in 2003. ARGO has since then shown slight cooling (not warming), which team leader, Josh Willis has referred to as a “speed bump”..
Summary: there is no evidence that the ocean is warming; theoretical warming which could occur from CO2 “radiative forcing” is negligible.
Max
R. Gates
You may be shooting yourself in the foot by diverting the climate change discussion away from the (fairly reliably measured and non-warming) surface atmosphere to the ocean (poorly measured and non-warming, since ARGO measurements replaced the old expendable XBT devices, which introduced a warming bias).
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(oceanography)
Willis referred to this slight cooling as a “speed bump”.
Let’s wait a bit until we can see if there has really been any ocean warming. This may be a red herring (pardon the expression).
Max
Manacker,
No doubt there was problems with earlier ocean heat content measurements but the ARGO floats are doing a great job of showing us general trends now, though it would be nice to have more consistent measurements down to even greater depths.
Combined with ARGO data, extrapolations of current trends from paleodata gives us an even better general sense of the increases we’re seeing in ocean heat content over the long-term. In short, we can have a high-degree of confidence that the oceans are accumulating energy, and have been doing so for many decades. We seem to be headed rapidly back to the ocean heat content similar to the mid-Pliocene.
Why ARGO and not CERES and MODIS?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES_MODIS-1.gif
Why xbt and not ERBS?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Wong2006figure7.gif
It is as if they don’t want to know.
Chief, Denial must be a river through the Hadley Center. The mid-pliocene temperatures was rather alarming. With two poles on the planet, it would seem that one would consider the one with the most ocean if one is concerned about ocean heat content.
Amazing. Max is capable of misreading a nursery rhyme. It’s like Texans, who have the Robin Hood legend completely backwards: they think the hero is the Sheriff of Nottingham, and I kid you not.
Willis referred to the bogus statistically significant cooling as being a “speed bump”.
After he realized there was an error, he referred to the “speed Bump” as follows:
“I think ocean cooling isn’t real.”
Chief et. al.,
Of course with ocean heat content we care about energy storage in the ocean, and less about ocean ocean surface temperatures, which frequently tell us about heat flux or energy leaving the ocean, rather than about energy remaining in it. The ARGO floats are the best current way we have of actually measuring ocean energy or heat content. Certainly not something that you can get from satellite data.
This calculates ocean energy based on sea levels and not sea surface temperature.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Wong2006figure7.gif
This more recently calculates ocean heat content based on ARGO.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=vonSchuckmann-OHC.gif
The missing heat that Trenberth saw in the CERES record is found in the oceans. Seems logical. There was a recent paper on this. Data is the key to understanding and always has been. As we find from Newton’s fourth rule for natural philosophy.
‘In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions. This rule should be followed so that arguments based on induction be not be nullified by hypotheses.’
You can see the warming in CERES net radiative flux – positive up by convention.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif
But all the change in energy in CERES was in the shortwave. Which is why I posted the CERES/MODIS graph.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES_MODIS-1.gif
It is known without any doubt that ENSO is associated with changes in cloud radiatve forcing. This is the point you keep missing gates. And seemingly all of the other cult of AGW groupthink space cadets. It feels like groundhog day again.
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
Amidst the whispers and the rumbles,
Wonder other ears don’t tumble.
=================
JCH
Willis conceded that ARGO measurements showed slight cooling, even if this was “not of statistical significance”.
But he did not say that there was warming based on ARGO measurements.
Get your facts straight, JCH.
Lying backfires.
Max
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) said: ”when the key effects related to Earth’s energy imbalance actually are in the ocean”
WRONG again, Gates, wrong!.
The earth’s energy imbalance is in the center of the earth; because 99% of the Faulty Line is on the bottom of the sea – on one part is released extra heat, and that creates El Nino – then on another part of the oceans more heat from the center is released, by submarine volcanoes / hot vents, other times less is released. Which means: if is warmer than normal in some part of the oceans – it means is: minus that heat in the center of the earth! If heat is in the magma, or in the sea, or in the plutonium; is called: ”stored heat” it’s NOT part of the global temperature; stop misleading yourself and others. get some truth, you will sleep better: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/global-temperature/
Yeah gatesy – what do you have to say about that?
stephanthedenier’s post is beyond mere words for finding a description…but this image properly sums it up:
http://www.out-grow.com/img/HorseManure3.jpg
I think that’s pretty crude – and probably not within the blog rules. That’s what happens when you don’t have a rational and mature argument – isn’t it gatesy?
Fuel for the fire.
==========
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) said: ”stephanthedenier’s post is beyond mere words for finding a description”
WRONG again Gates, wrong! You are powerless to argue against REAL proofs; so you are avoiding the subject and diverting attention away. Perfect proof, how scared you are from solid, undeniable proofs. On the witness stand, under oath – you will not use those gutter tactics.
Your 7 days a week, scaring children; will not be lucrative forever… On the witness stand, you will be facing; what is on my blog… have a happy insomnia. .
Are there any calculations anywhere of the heat transfer from the Faulty :-) Lines on the ocean bed ?
Well perhaps crimes against humanity is a bit of a slippery slide. Hasn’t someone been down that track before? But – hell it’s only gatesy – and perhaps a few of his friends. tt for sure. We can send them to UNtopia for re-education.
Nothing crude about the picture at all. It represents a graphical illustration of a modified version of the source of most of the energy that we use here on the surface of the planet, which is solar. stephanthedeniers discussion about tectonic energy warming the oceans and causing El Nino, etc. was countered with this picture of modified solar energy– the real source of energy for both the oceans and we surface dwellers….
stephanthedenier said: (to R. Gates)
“Perfect proof, how scared you are from solid, undeniable proofs. On the witness stand, under oath – you will not use those gutter tactics.”
____
I am going to court now? Wow. Take some meds dude.
If you want to talk science, then fine, but to ramble on about witness stands, etc. Really dude…
Generally, tectonic energy is about 1/1000 of the energy of incoming solar. Not going to be driving the weather systems (including ENSO) with this relatively small energy source. The biggest way tectonic energy affects our weather is through volcanic eruptions, which both block sunlight in the short-term, and can add greenhouse gases in the longer-term.
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) | October 7, 2012 at 3:17 pm | said: ”I am going to court now? Wow”
Gates, people go to jail for $1000 bucks; trillion dollars has being already wasted, for preventing the NON-EXISTENT global warming and to make it even more stupid; ‘to prevent climate from changing…?”
You are a very prolific liar, candidate for the witness stand, same as Tony. Reason you are so much shamelessly lying, is because you think that: regarding climate, anything goes. Wrong, Offenders will be prosecuted – punishment will fit the crime. You cannot plead ignorance; because I presented the real proofs – you are avoiding those proofs; as ‘safety in numbers” b] you can plead insanity, but, because every lie of yours is calculative… i wish you good luck.
stephanthedenier,
Thank you for all these inspiring comments. I don’t know how I ever missed them.
You’re my new hero.
There is Chuck Norris, but then there is you.
Particular Physicist | October 7, 2012 at 3:27 asked: ”Are there any calculations anywhere of the heat transfer from the Faulty Lines on the ocean bed ?”
No, because you people are busy in searching / blaming galactic dust and sunspots. All the heat released from the faulty lines and geothermal heat on the bottom of the sea, which is 2/3 of the surface area of the planet. b] bottom of the sea on average is 2km closer to the center than the land. (1km down in the mine-shaft is 40C) heat released from the bottom. into the water is 100% absorbed by the water.
on the other hand, lots of sunlight is reflected from the water as mirror effect – plus, heat absorbed close to the surface is wasted by increased evaporation. Physicist; experiment: how much less heat is needed to boil a pot of water from the bottom than from the top. Stick around, as long as you have an open mind. my English vocabulary is very limited, but yours is not – you make it, to sound english
Are there any calculations anywhere of the heat transfer from the Fault Lines on the ocean bed ?”
Stefan : No
Than how can you say how much effect this heat is having ?
go read SteveFs derivation on Lucia’s. its the closest thing to a no feedbacks first order estimate from known physics
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/a-simple-analysis-of-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity/
Basically 1.5C no feedbacks. That is 1.5C for an increase of 3.7watts.
so a climate sensitivity of around 0.4 to 0.5 C per watt
Doubling c02 gives you 3.7 watts or roughly 1.5C no feedbacks.
i’ve seen similar derivations to around 1.2C for 3.7 watts.
There are these numbers
Climate sensitivity to a change in forcing ( say .5 C per watt)
Additional watts from doubling .. 3.7
Feedbacks.
there isnt a lot a sense of arguing about the core sensitivity number
there is no science suggesting that 3.7 watts is wrong.
its all about the feedbacks.
A) net negative will give you numbers less than 1.5C per doubling
B) net positive will give you numbers 1.5C an above
( roughly roughly speaking )
the problem with claim A is that you you have to do actual science to show this and not just arm wave.
the sad thing is that some really smart people have excluded themselves from the discussion by saying things they dont have to. Focusing on feedbacks gets you to the table to discuss actual science.
I had a look at the cited link.
The calculation is erroneous.
The error is in the assumption that the planet is a blackbody, and that Stephan’s law applies.
But neither is true. The Earth is nothing like a blackbody when viewed from Space.
The radiation from the planet comes from several “surfaces” all of which are at different temperatures at different latitudes:
1. The Surface
2. The tops of the clouds
3. In the wavenumber 630-710 region , from the “top” of the CO2, varying from about 10km to over 30km
4. From water vapour (various heights depending on frequency)
5. From ozone.
None of the emissions from gases in the atmosphere are blackbody –Stephan’s Law does not apply to radiation from cold gases. Nor does it apply to radiation from multiple, unstable levels.
The estimate by the author is therefore entirely flawed.
go read SteveFs derivation on Lucia’s. its the closest thing to a no feedbacks first order estimate from known physics
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/a-simple-analysis-of-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity/
Ok
“The average solar intensity above the atmosphere is ~1366 watts per square meter. Earth’s average albedo is ~ 32%, meaning the intensity of what is absorbed is ~232.2 watts/M2, averaged over the Earth’s surface.”
It doesn’t seem to me one can know how much energy is absorbed by knowing solar flux at TOA and albedo [or bond albedo].
Or snow white to pitch black plus quantity of solar flux are factors which define the amount of energy absorbed.
In addition one should not be asserting that the night side of planet earth absorbs the energy from the sun.
Or planet painted the surface black or white will not make all the difference in temperature of the planet. A black painted surface will be warmer than white painted surface, but it’s not very significant difference.
Or the earth per square meter absorbs more sunlight energy than the Moon does. The Moon has warmer surface, but it does not absorb more energy, and the amount of energy absorbed is important in terms of average global temperature when the sun goes down.
Regolith or powdery surface of the lunar is great insulation. A block of steel on the moon will get a warm as the lunar regolith, but a block steel will absorb more energy, and it will remain warmer longer than the regolith after the sun goes down. The few bare rocks on the moon do this same thing- they remain warm, longer, and this due to them absorbing more energy. And the color of the rocks have little to do with it’s temperature or amount of energy absorbed.
Or it paved over the entire planet Earth with blackest asphalt or whitest
concrete it’s not going to make much difference in the average global temperature. It will have small difference in average temperature. But if you instead used black and white sand the difference would greater- it would lower the average temperature because sand absorbs less energy than compared solid paving. Or if compared black sand to concrete paving the concrete should have a higher average temperature- paving will keep the nights warmer be cause it absorbs more energy.
Of course the clouds on earth are mainly what is meant by “albedo is ~ 32%”. And really, they talking about patches of clouds- thousands square km of clouds and thousands square km of there not being clouds. And averaging clouds and no cloud into an albedo is about as stupid as averaging the solar energy of sunlit side with nightside of the Planet.
A planet with complete cloud coverage [giving you close to a 100% albedo is not Hugely different than a planet no clouds. It’s possible that no cloud planet could have lower average global temperature.
Or if huge region on earth is covered with clouds it doesn’t mean it can not be fairly warm. And clouds at night generally make it warmer night.
So amount of clouds or the color of the ground can make a difference, but they are not the sole or even most important effects upon whether Earth is snowball or a hot house.
Mosher
Do you not also need to focus on natural variation to get the table to discuss actual science ?
Let’s compare Moon, Mars and Earth.
The average temperature of Earth on night side is around 0 C or warmer.
The average temperature of Moon on night side is around 100 K.
The average temperature of Mars on night side is say 180 K.
Let’s turn off the Sun.
How long does it take to cool the Earth to say 150 K?
Months? Years?
With the Moon we know within 2 weeks it’s warmest temperature will be around 100 K [it cools this much every 28 day long lunar day every lunar nite.
With Mars in a day it will reach it’s night time temperature of 180 K- so in a day the warmest place on Mars will be about 180 K. And in about a day Mars’ atmosphere will start freezing out- it snow CO2. And probably within 2 weeks Mars will be covered in about 4″ of CO2 snow and have atmosphere similar the the Moon- as in no atmosphere worth mentioning, but it will still have the remaining 3% nitrogen part of the mars’ atmosphere, actually: “Carbon Dioxide (CO2) – 95.32% ; Nitrogen (N2) – 2.7%”
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
So 2.7 % left of it’s very thin atmosphere should survive for 2 weeks or more.
So for Mars to reach 100 K that Moon reaches in 2 weeks, Mars might take as long as a month. Keep in mind Mars has about 28 times more CO2 in it’s atmosphere as compared to Earth.
Now what happens with Earth?
Trying to figure what happens over time with Earth, is harder than the Moon. Because Moon shows us what it does when the sun isn’t shining on it during it’s 2 weeks of night.
We can get vaguely similar clues by looking at what happens in a small region of Earth at it’s poles when it has 6 months of night [winter in arctic circle]. Problem is that warmer parts of earth adds a bit of warming to this region when it is in 6 months of it’s yearly darkness.
Let’s ask would the warm equator cool as quickly as the polar regions when the sun goes down during fall Equinox?
Now what is going to keep the Earth warm will be mainly it’s oceans, and secondarily it’s rather substantial atmosphere. And I don’t think the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will make much difference- perhaps add at most an hour more warmth, in comparison the water vapor in atmosphere might add week or more- but none of this has anything to do with either of their “radiant properties”.
But the big thing is the Earth oceans.
And the oceans in the tropics hold a vast amount of heat. Compare the arctic ocean to tropical oceans. There may be less than 1/2 inch of warm arctic ocean water- anywhere about 15 C. Whereas in tropics it has 100 meters of it.
Basically one ignore this 1/2 inch of less of possible warm arctic water, and say this ocean surface temperature is about 2 C.
So the tropics or up to 38 degrees latitude [about half the surface area of the planet] has about average temperature of say 20 C in top 100 meter.
It seems if the arctic ocean had such warm water, there is good possibility [or good guess] that polar ice sea would not form in one six month winter season. And therefore it’s reasonable that it could take as long as six months before the the half of the world got much below 270 K.
In the other half of the world there could be sea ice forming or formed on all these oceans. And the present cold regions, would getting ever colder over those 6 months. And it seems it could cold enough to start freezing out the CO2. So global CO2 could be dumping at polar regions and have some warming effect from phase transition- and so could get 6 inches or more CO2 snowfall in these rather small regions.
After it stopped snowing CO2, polar temperature could lower down below 150 K [-123 C].
After 6 months the average global temperature may be 0 C + [-100 C] divided by 2 or -50 C [or 220 K]. But question was 150 C, so probably less than 1 year.
So I guessed about Earth Moon, and Mars.
Anyone want to try a guess about Venus?
Question, if sun blinked out, how long would it take Venus to cool to 150 K?
Sure, it’s harder, but …
?
Time’s up.
Venus:
Flux, W/m2: 2643
Albedo 0.8
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2002Q4/211/notes_greenhouse.html
I assume what is meant by .8 Albedo is that only 20% is absorbed which also means 20% is emitted, minus the geothermal heat [which is regarded as insignificant]
So going calculate heat capacity of Venus atmosphere in joules and
then the energy that leaves Venus per second in joules, and then divide them to get the number of seconds.
Venus: Total mass of atmosphere: ~4.8 x 10^20 kg
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html
Carbon Dioxide – Specific Heat:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/carbon-dioxide-d_974.html
How hot is the average Venus atmosphere?
Above reference says “Average temperature: 737 K (464 C)”
But that near the surface temperature and I want total mass average temperature of atmosphere. Oh well just use 737 K
So 737 K minus 150 K is 587 K amount which has to cool
“CO2 at 500 K: 1.014 kJ/kgK
Roughly, 590 kJ/kgK times 4.8 x 10^20 kg. Which is
2.8 x 10^23 kJ or
2.8 x 10^26 joules [watts per second]
Next:
Venus diameter is 12,104 km
6052 squared times pi is 115 million square km. Or
1.15 x 10^14 square meters
times this by 2643 times .2 And so:
~6.08 x 10^16 joules per second emitted.
2.8 x 10^26 joules divide by 6.08 x 10^16 joules
Which is 2.8 x 10^10 joules divided by 6.08
So 4.6 x 10^9 seconds.
And seconds in year: 3.15 x10^7
1.4 x 10^2 years
So 140 years to cool to 150 K
Though probably more accurate to say 100 to 200 years
Anyways- 100 to 200 years. Longer than I thought.
So, why does Venus seem to take about 100 times more time than Earth?
First I assumed once the entire surface of ocean of earth was frozen that the Earth’s atmosphere would get little warming from the ocean- I wasn’t concerned about *the need* freeze the entire ocean completely solid- which could take forever and hard to try to get any number on the rate it would do this.
Oh, also I remember doing some calculation regarding Earth’s ocean and believe it has more thermal energy than Venus. I should do that again:
Earth: Total mass of hydrosphere: 1.4 x 10^21 kg
Water: 4.204 kJ/kgK
Energy to lower entire ocean by one K: 5.8 x 10^24 joules
Compare to Venus 2.8 x 10^26 joules to lower by 587 K
And to freeze entire earth ocean
Latent heat of melting – 334 kJ/kg
4.67 x 10^26 joules
But as I said one only has to freeze the top of the oceans.
Even if the sun disappeared and the top layer of the oceans froze, maybe up to 10 meters or more, that ice would then insulate the remaining liquid ocean underneath, keep a fairly steady temperature with some very small amount of energy coming from the tectonic energy of the Earth’s core itself, and it would be quite likely that some forms of life would live on in that ocean, much like it does near hydrothermal vents now. Of course the atmosphere above that ice would dry out a all water vapor would quickly be deposited as snow on the surface, and eventually it would get cold enough that all CO2 would fall to the surface as well. It would be ice planet Earth, where the surface was quite inhospitable but under the ice, or deep in caves, survivable if you we’re some very simple life form.
gbaikie & physicist| October 7, 2012 at 6:24 pm said: ”Time’s up. Venus: Flux, W/m2: 2643 Albedo 0.8”
gbaikie, the most important factor is missing; because my ”REAL’ proofs are ignored: listen very carefully::: ” every spot on the earth is Illuminated by the sunlight about 50% of the time. Because Venus is closer to the sun – about 55% of the Venus surface area is illuminated at any time – therefore 45% is in darkness at any given time. Therefore, the extra 10% surface area illuminated on Venus, IS ACCUMULATIVE!!! On the earth one polar cap is in permanent darkness, on Venus both polls are permanently sunlight. Imagine the difference in having 10% of surface area more in permanent sunlight on the equatorial regions on Venus, but not on the earth
b] if you are seating on the moon, when the earth is between the moon and the sun – you will notice that: most of the sunlight goes trough the earth’s crown – not on Venus, (that small extra accumulative benefit is overlooked by everybody)
c] on the earth oxygen & nitrogen are taking the heat from the ground – up, to be wasted. If my formulas are respected; would have known how the earth regulates heat – NOTHING to do with CO2, but O&N
Physicist, if you put this in proper English, will prevent Venus to be used for confusion by the swindlers and by the ignorant
“gbaikie, the most important factor is missing; because my ”REAL’ proofs are ignored: listen very carefully::: ” every spot on the earth is Illuminated by the sunlight about 50% of the time. Because Venus is closer to the sun – about 55% of the Venus surface area is illuminated at any time – therefore 45% is in darkness at any given time. Therefore, the extra 10% surface area illuminated on Venus, IS ACCUMULATIVE!!!”
Because the sun is not a point of light but is a disk, more than 50% of a planetary surface can receive a 1/8 or 1/4 Or More of the Sun than 50%, but it can’t receive more 50% coverage with full disk in sky [actually the bigger solar disk slightly less area get the full disk- but yes if talking getting some portion of the light from the solar disk, you get slightly more 50% of surface area getting some kind of sunlight.
The diameter size of the sun’s disk is about 1/2 degree or it’s the radius is about 1/4 of degree. 15 degrees of 180 degree arc is 1 hour Or 1 degree arc is 4 mins. So it adds about 1 minute to the day- one for morning and 1 for evening- 2 minutes total as far as light.
Or in terms of kilometer distance. 40,000 km circumference divided 360 equals 111.11 km per degree. So 27.77 km each side or combining both side 55.55 km.
Now Venus. It’s atmosphere [as Earth’s atmosphere does] complicates it.
So first start with it airless like the Moon. First the Moon is less than 1/3 Venus [or Earth’s] diameter. And Sun at Venus distance is something like twice the diameter of disk size as compared to earth distance. So were just comparing difference in “apparent size” the moon is smaller as compared to Venus at Venus distance as compared to sun- or we don’t see this 55% more sunlit moon.
But as other effect, at Venus distance the sun would be about 1 degree arc [compared to Earth’s 1/2 degree arc]. And on airless Venus it’s twice number [111.11 km combining both sides of morning and evening].
Now of course Venus isn’t airless. In fact in has a lot atmosphere and sunlight on Venus surface is sort of like sunlight on Earth when the sun is behind thin clouds, Though one can also sort of describe like diffused rather large size fuzzy ball. So the atmosphere kind of makes the sun look bigger. This might add bit more light at morning and night, but the sunlight needs to go thru far more atmosphere at morning and nite and therefore could be very dim or even obscured.
“b] if you are seating on the moon, when the earth is between the moon and the sun – you will notice that: most of the sunlight goes trough the earth’s crown – not on Venus, (that small extra accumulative benefit is overlooked by everybody)”
I think you talking about if looking earth on oppose side of sun you see red ring around earth [it’s got some name] or Earth’s atmosphere glows red. I think Venus atmosphere too thick to see something similar with Venus. Though one could see thru Venus atmosphere at it’s higher elevation where atmosphere far less dense.
I have not seen such pictures and not sure what it looks like.
I think the 1.4 to 1.5C figure is a good one for the the TCR, but of course, the name of the game is feedbacks, and also of course, the 1.4 to 1.5C figure is not even mentioning methane and N2O forcing, which are not inconsequential at their also rapidly growing levels.
Mosher places his faith on no-feedback climate sensitivity on a blog post by an anonymous author.
Isn’t that just precious? ROFLMAO
Steven Mosher
You imply that to claim “negative overall feedback” (claim A) “you have to do actual science to show this and not just arm wave.”
Doesn’t the same hold for the claim of “positive overall feedback” (claim B)?
And, Steven, this is the claim being made by IPCC, based on model-simulations, but not “actual science” (Feynman).
THAT’s the “claim” being debated.
Max
PS A side question: Do you include S+B 2007 (showing net negative cloud feedback) or L+C 2009/2010 (showing overall net negative feedback) as “actual science”?
The published literature has a no-feedback climate sensitivity range beginning from a low of
0.240K per W/m2 (Ramathan 1998, cited in IPCC 2001)
to a high of
0.313K per W/m2 (Bony 2006, cited in IPCC 2007)
A CO2 doubling increases forcing by 3.7W/m2 so the no-feedback climate-sensitivity per CO2 doubling is (according to IPCC):
IPCC 2001 0.888K
IPCC 2007 1.158K
For brevity one might choose 1K or to be more in line with consensus 1.1K.
Mosher for some as yet undetermined reason would rather go with an anonymous blog author’s estimate of 1.5K. I’ll take a pass on that and focus on the published literature rather than the anonymous blog literature for what I should hope should be obvious reasons.
As to how much these are based on “known physics” let me tell you something about known physics. Known physics doesn’t yield answers to the no-feedback climate sensitivity ranging from 0.88K to 1.16K. These are combinations of known physics and empircal data used in place of unknown physics. If the physics were really known we’d get a precise answer. Imagine the sorry state of physics if we only knew the strength of the eletromagnetic force to +-15% or the mass of a proton to +-15%. To state the no-feedback climate sensivity is determined from known physics could only be stated by someone who knows very little about physics. In other words someone like Steven Mosher.
Jim Cripwell has posed a serious question, one which I also believe has been insufficiently discussed.
The usual way that the “no-feedback” temperature change is calculated is to calculate the temperature change at a ficticious uniform-temperature surface in the middle of the atmosphere, then assume that that temperature change is uniform from the surface to the tropopause, through the magic of an immutable lapse rate..
That is incorrect science, as the First Law is not obeyed. A 1.2DegC change in temperature at the Surface requires between 8 and 12W/m of energy imbalance at the Surface. Where does that come from?
If ALL of the “Radiative Forcing” (a term for energy imbalance high in the atmosphere) were to be translated (by magic) to the Surface, the HIGHEST average surface temperature change would be 0.6DegC. That’s the maximum that 4W/m^2 gets you at the surface with no feedbacks (consequences of increased temperature).
In order that the planetary energy budget be in balance, the temperature increase has to be higher the higher you go – the lapse rate is not constant, it changes. That’s what IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter2 Fig 2.2 shows – a non constant lapse rate. (I also think the diagram is totally in error.) Lapse rates are very dynamic as is the position of the Tropopause – see radiosonde measurements at http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html
When I looked at Guam, I saw a change in Tropopause height of over 1km in 12 hours. At polar locations the Tropopause height can change by 5km in 12 hours, and I have also seen temperature changes of over 20 degrees in 12 hours at height in the atmosphere. The conclusion is that the upper atmosphere is anything but regular and stable. Lapse rate changes happen hourly.
A second and never discussed question is how an energy imbalance makes its way to the surface and affects the surface temperature. (NB Only surface conditions affect the Surface). An upper atmosphere energy imbalance manifests immediately as a change in temperature at the unbalanced location. How, pray, does that reach down 10km and change the surface temperature?
Have you tried to ask this serious question at Science of Doom?
Please go:
http://scienceofdoom.com
and report your results.
Fraud or cheating:
It is the same symptoms as seen in sport and gambling. When the money involved cross some line it is bound to happen. It could be doping or it could be match fixing, but when the stakes are high enough then it is gone to a happen.
There are in my opinion only two ways to prevent it: Reduce the money available or reduce the gains.
It’s pretty clear that the climate debate (once hyped as the defining debate of our century) has fizzled in US politics.
Gone are the days when a British Prime Minister (in this case Gordon Brown) warn us that we have 50 days to save the planet.
But anyone who watched the fiascos at Copenhagen, Cancun etc. could have anticipated this.
Sure, it’s still a multi-billion dollar big business for the time being (and those don’t die overnight).
Looks like the politicos have other things to talk about, which interest the voters more.
Max
Max,
From a policy standpoint, AGW is dead. The warmists just don’t know it yet. Climate-gate along with the current ever lengthening span with no additional warming post 1998, have been key factors. I’d also throw in the collapse of the world-wide debt bubble.
“no additional warming post 1998”
Is that myth never going to die?
Take HadCRUT3.
Total warming from 1970 to the end of 1998: 0.47C
Total Warming from 1970 to present: 0.65C
0.65 – 0.47 = 0.18
So that’s 0.18C warming post 1998. 28% of the warming since 1970.
lolwot, technically you are correct, but the oceans are the big dog and since they have a lot more thermal inertia than the atmosphere, that would be the data that is more relevant to our immediate climate future. If you really want to get predictive about things, the southern oceans really tend to be climate tattle tails.
There are a few change point analysis procedures that are somewhat useful. Some are so simple even a red neck can do it :)
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/10/just-for-fun-climate-shifts.html
“no additional warming post 1998″
Is that myth never going to die?
Nope! There is no actual data that can kill it. 2012 will end another year that is not warmer than 1998. 2013 will be another year that is not warmer than 1998. Every year with no additional warming makes the myth more of a truth. This new cycle is a repeat of what has happened many times in the past ten thousand years and is happening again.
Just look at the actual data.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Sep_2012_v5.5.png
lolwot,, you wite “Is that myth never going to die?”
You are deliberately misquoting what was said. The key word is “additional”. It is true that all the data we have on global temperatures shows that the world has been warming ever since the LIA. The question is, has there any ADDITIONAL warming over and above this background rise, which seems to have been going on at a rate of about 0.06 C per decade.
Yes, global temperatures are still rising. They have not stopped rising……. YET. But the key point is that there has been no ADDITIONAL warming. There is no CO2 signal in any temperature/time graph.
No I am not misquoting what was said. You are.
“Yes, global temperatures are still rising. They have not stopped rising……. YET.”
bookmarked.
“But the key point is that there has been no ADDITIONAL warming. There is no CO2 signal in any temperature/time graph.”
CO2 signal would be global temperatures still rising. Nothing about “additional warming”.
Capt’nDallas
Repetition is good for the slow learner; big print also helps.
I now “get it”. How did you “see” the lags in the peaks in the first place?
Keep talking, I’m listening.
HiR008, “I now “get it”. How did you “see” the lags in the peaks in the first place?”
Every Perturbation in a Fluid causes “waves” and a large enough perturbation “resets” the wave periods. You just follow the waves back to the source or perturbation. In an Ideal fluid, each perturbation would generate the same pattern of waves, since the Earth is far from ideal, each pattern is different. The differences, noise, are the signals indicating changes in conditions. You just need a repeatable method to compare the differences, change point analysis.
Then the common patterns or recurrences can be used like a carrier frequency in radio communications.
BTW, Since there is a continuous shift in the “carrier”, the Drake Passage Erosion and the fluctuation of the ACC in three dimensions appears to be the most likely cause for the 400ka shift. That seems to be why Lea gets a paleo sensitivity of 5 to 9 C while Astor comes up with 0.7 to 1.5C, the carrier drifted.
lolwot, yiu write “CO2 signal would be global temperatures still rising. Nothing about “additional warming”.”
Wrong. What little empirical data we have shows that global temperatures have been rising ever since the LIA. Precisley what the rate if rise was before CAGW was supposed to have started, is unclear, but since around 1850 the rate seems to have been around 0.06 C per decade. If CO2 has a major effect on global temperatures, then in the CAGW era, global temperatures should be rising at a rate signiuficantly more than 0.06 C per decade, which seems to be the background rate due to natural causes. This increased rate above 0.06 C per decade would be the CO2 signal. This additonal warming, according to the empirical data, is not happening. There is no CO2 signal.
you assume the warming since circa 1950 wasn’t caused by CO2 and so conclude it wasn’t caused by CO2.
That’s circular reasoning.
If all the warming since 1950 was caused by CO2 then obviously we wouldn’t need any “additional warming” for that warming to be caused by CO2.
lolwot, you write “you assume the warming since circa 1950 wasn’t caused by CO2 and so conclude it wasn’t caused by CO2.”
Garbage. I am assuming nothing at all. I rely on empirical data which does not make any assumptions.
The empirical data shows that global temperatures have been rising ever since the LIA. What has caused this rise, we dont know, but it cannot because of excessive amounts of CO2, because there were no factors causing CO2 levels to rise until post WWII. What the rate of rise of temperature was prior to 1850 we are not sure, but there is no reason to believe it was radically different from what we know of the trend since 1850.
The empirical data seems to show that the rate of rise since 1850 has been linear and steady, and around 0.06 C per decade. This trend in rise of temperature has not changed over any period of time for which we have the data, including the post WWII era.
I have no idea what caused the warming since 1950, and I make no assumptions about it. All I am saying is that the rate of rise of temperature has not changed at all, since we had good data starting around 1850. However, we know from empirical data that since WWII the rate of rise of CO2 has risen dramatically. So we have a dramatic rise in CO2 concentrations and no change in the temperature trend. That means that there is no CO2 signal.
lolwot | October 5, 2012 at 10:27 pm said: ”Total warming from 1970 to the end of 1998: 0.47CTotal Warming from 1970 to present: 0.65C 0.65 – 0.47 = 0.18”
lolwot, CO2 is NOT a GLOBAL warming gas! Therefore, the extra imaginary warming, must be from your own hot air and farting released…?
well numbnut? :lol:
I see assumptions.
Assumptions about data and about numbers.
But I don’t see any physicai assumption.
This is the usual signal processing trick.
Climate is more than a numerical signal.
In other words, those of John Nielsen-Gammon, trends are not the only evidence:
> A flat trend over any time period only shows that other forcings or natural processes are canceling the warming effect of Tyndall gases over such a period. There are lots of time-varying forcings and natural processes with a variety of periods: ENSO (2-7 years plus longer-term variations), solar (11 years plus longer-term variations), PDO (50-70 years), for example. Any of those could be strong enough to cancel the Tyndall gas effect during half its phase. We know for certain that ENSO is more than strong enough to do that, but yet, over the long haul, the magnitude of global warming has recently exceeded the magnitude of ENSO variability. So, in addition to a flat trend over some period of years, I’d want evidence that it was not merely a temporary flat trend. In the absence of such evidence, I’d settle for a trend longer than half a PDO cycle, or 35 years or so. With such evidence, the trend could be as short as a year, because I’d be swayed not by the trend but by the evidence.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/9411951921
Perhaps Jim Cripwell should stop by John Nielsen-Gammon’s blog and try his signal processing tricks.
There’s theory, there are observations.
Ever the twain shall meet.
==================
lolwot
You write:
NO.
Not as long as the HadCRUT3 temperature record (the one used by IPCC) shows that “the myth” is FACT.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend
The record shows that global temperature has cooled very slightly since 1998. Please explain.
Max
willard, you write “Perhaps Jim Cripwell should stop by John Nielsen-Gammon’s blog and try his signal processing tricks.”
Again, please stop putting words in my mouth. I discuss a specific subject, on a specific issue, and somehow it is interpreted that I think I am stating some profound universal truth, that applies outside the specific case I was commenting on. If you are going to criticize what I write, then PLEASE, keep the discussion to what I have specifically written; not what you think I might have meant to say.
Which words have I put in your mouth, Jim Cripwell, and how does it relate to my suggestion that you go argue with one of the blogging theoricians?
As far as I’m concerned, you’re simply doing the signal processing trick.
Without any physical explanation, what you’re saying does not matter much for climate science. Unless you have a better explanation of the climatic phenomena than the one we have, the one we have stays on the table. Considering the level of your comments, you might need to “inference to the best explanation” to know what this means.
This addresses what you’re talking about. Your comment does not address this criticism.
To do a web search for “inference to the best explanation”, that is.
> Precisley what the rate if rise was before CAGW was supposed to have started, is unclear, but since around 1850 the rate seems to have been around 0.06 C per decade.
Here’s how Vaughan Pratt might answer this signal processing trick:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/24537022416
Notice how Vaughan Pratt infers to the best explanation.
Paying due diligence to these claptraps could very well be a full-time job.
The CAGW policy movement is ot dead. It has been shot, and is lying apparently dead on the floor, just like Michael Meyers in his hockey mask at the end of the movie Halloween, Now is no time to turn your backs on him.
Anyone who has ever watched a good horror movie knows that it’s not enough to shoot the villain. You have to cut his freakin’ head off.
If Obama wins re-election in November, it won’t matter that the majority of the American people are against decarbonization/Copenhagen/CAGW policies. The majority of the American people were and are against socialized medicine. That didn’t stop Obamacare. The EPA’s first decarbonization regs, for coal, have already been issued and just await the election to rise up from the floor and start stalking the local teenagers again.
Coming to a theater near you in December 2012 (if The One wins) – “Michael Mann and his hockey stick come back to life in ‘CAGW II – Revenge of the IPCC.'” (No one will be allowed to leave the energy economy 15 minutes after the progressive takeover has begun.)
“If Obama wins re-election in November, it won’t matter that the majority of the American people are against decarbonization/Copenhagen/CAGW policies. The majority of the American people were and are against socialized medicine. That didn’t stop Obamacare. The EPA’s first decarbonization regs, for coal, have already been issued and just await the election to rise up from the floor and start stalking the local teenagers again.”
I tend to think this monster will play a lot more golf, and he could perhaps find more time for traveling around the world.
And Congress still holds the purse, if Congress is having an agency which making them look bad- the agency is constant enough in annoying them, they could simply decide to defund it.
And just the threat removing the money, tends to get any bureaucracies attention. Even screaming zealots can be quite pliant when they facing no funding- though perhaps this concept will be tested.
I think it is still a mystery what Obama will do if re-elected. I don’t think Obama knows, nor of course does any of his millions of supporters.
Though I don’t know if it particularly matters even if Obama had some clear plan, as his proposed budgets have been ignored by the Dems.
It seems a possibility we could see the most extreme example of lame duck president in the history of the US. And therefore anyone who think the power of the Executive has been becoming too powerful, might see some relief in an Obama second term.
Though I think all the guys surrounding Obama are the bigger wild card, they could be much more engaged in their work and they seem to have a very significant degree of unaccountability, so it’s anyone’s guess what kinds of ruinous activity they may be engaged in.
gbalkie,
Congress does indeed have the purse string. But it is unlikely the GOP will win veto proof majorities in both the House and Senate. Though there is the possibility that enough Dems will want to avoid political suicide that they will help roll back the worst of the coming (if Obama wins) EPA decarbonization regs.
As far what Obama wants to do…he has been telling us explicitly for years. And it ain’t good. Unrestrained buy the need to be re-elected, there is every reason to believe he will become even more autocratic.
Max said:
Do you want evidence for that? Select ‘Climate Change” here and look at the activity chart. http://www.carboncapturereport.org/
Tells a story doesn’t it?
Peter Lang
The activity chart you cited confirms other data that tell me that the CAGW gravy train, with its bandwagon of climate doom-sayers, enviro lobby groups, green industry representatives, tax-hungry politicians, sensationalist science reporters, fuzzy-headed academics and Hollywood media darlings is slowing down.
Is is about to lose a wheel and headed for the ditch?
What will be the next bandwagon?
Stay tuned.
Max
Yes. There is an enormous amount of info in those reports. They come out daily. You can even drill down to see what you’ve been saying on blogs over the pas Five years or so.
I’ve been checking what I’ve been saying … everything is correct :)
Yes, the UN’s IPCC was right in their assertion that AGW had occured, but wrong in asserting that worse was to come. Linear thinking about future climate has been discredited by both classical and quantum thermodynamics. Has this seeped through to the wise heads in the Royal Society yet? We await Prof Curry’s reports with interest.
> Linear thinking about future climate has been discredited by both classical and quantum thermodynamics.
Interesting. I would like to know more about this idea.
See my website above. I am about to imptove the explanations.
Apparently you truly believe that “… the vagaries of natural climate variability have led to a (temporary) slowdown of the rise in both global average temperature and global average sea level.” I don’t dispute your right to believe it if you have thought it through. But have you really? Let’s take that temporary slowdown of global temperature first. The fact that there has not been any warming in the twenty-first century must then mean that some unknown vagary of climate is responsible for that. But is it just possible that this vagary might be the new normal that climate is throwing at us, like it or not? I personally believe that in the natural world nothing happens without a cause. You must have the same belief if you think that the warming not only has a cause but that the cause is us. And if the warming has a cause, lack of warming likewise has a cause even though you don’t know it and are calling it a vagary. I personally prefer laws of nature to vagaries. We all have heard that the warming is caused by the enhanced greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide that gets in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. Its amount is constantly increasing and has been increasing during all these years that there has been no warming during this century. Is it just possible that maybe that carbon dioxide is not the cause of the greenhouse effect that is supposed to fry us if we don’t stop it right now? Ferenc Miskolczi thinks so and in 2005 he came out with a theory that said so explicitly. He was studying the absorption of infrared radiation by the greenhouse gases at NASA and concluded that for a stable climate to exist the infrared optical thickness of the atmosphere had to be 1.867…This corresponds to 30 percent transmittance in the infrared. But what happens if we put more carbon dioxide in the air? According to Arrhenius it will start to absorb more outgoing infrared radiation and the transmittance of the atmosphere will then drop below the optimum 30 percent. It turns out that this does not happen. According to Miskolczi the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have established that optimum value by interacting through various feedbacks. If something changes the optical thickness they will re-establish it by mutual feedbacks. In practice it boils down to carbon dioxide and water vapor. Once carbon dioxide is in the air it cannot be changed. But water vapor can be changed because it has an essentially infinite source/sink in the oceans. What happens when more carbon dioxide is released in the air is that the amount of water vapor diminishes to compensate for the absorption by that extra carbon dioxide. This is equivalent to negative feedback from carbon dioxide, the exact opposite of positive feedback IPCC uses in their calculations. That positive water vapor feedback was not part of the original Arrhenius theory but is a later ad hoc addition. It so happens that the sensitivity of carbon dioxide to doubling is only one degree Celsius. To get those higher sensitivities they need to predict dangerous global warming they absolutely must have positive water vapor feedback. And now this upstart Miskolczi tells them that they can’t have it. The first thing that happened after that was that NASA started to censor Miskolczi’s work. He could not stand it and quit. But in the meantime he had doped out a way to test his theory. Using NOAA database of weather balloon observations that goes back to 1948 he was able to show that the transparency of the atmosphere in the infrared had been constant for 61 years. And the value of its optical thickness was 1.87 as predicted by his theory. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air increased by 21.6 percent during this time interval. This means that the addition of this amount of carbon dioxide to air had no effect whatsoever on IR absorption by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. Let me put it another way: the enhanced greenhouse effect, the one allegedly responsible for global warming, does not exist. There is a theory that explains why that is so and empirical observations going back to 1948 proving it. And here are the consequences. First, all predictions of dangerous warming ahead that use the greenhouse effect are false. Second, No observations of global warming can be greenhouse warming. This includes the well-known observations of Arctic warming used to tell us that anthropogenic global warming is real. I have proved that Arctic warming is caused by Atlantic Ocean currents carrying warm Gulf Stream water north. There are actually no observations of warming left that can be called greenhouse warming.
Next, sea level. There is no slowdown of global average sea level. Sea level rise has been at a steady 2.46 millimeters per year for the last eighty years as determined by Chao, Yu and Li in 2008. And something that has been linear that long is not about to change anytime soon. Satellites report approximately 3 millimeters per year rise, within a statistical uncertainty of that eighty year trend. Extrapolating this trend to a century gives 24.6 centimeters, not the twenty feet that Al Gore claims in his Nobel Prize-winning movie. At this rate the Maldives and other coral islands should not worry because the growth of corals can handle that degree of rise as they have in the past.
Your comment deserved a link Arno Arrack! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Say, haven’t Canada’s high-Arctic ice-shelves … that have been stable geological fixtures for the past 4,000 years … all disappeared in the last five years? :shock: :shock: :shock:
The coming decade of sea-level data will be very interesting, eh? … since the observed rise is 20 millimeters in the last 16 months! :shock: :shock: :shock:
PS: Arno, your recent, lucid, simple explanation of why James Hansen’s climate-change physics is right was very enjoyable!
Thank you, Arno Arrack! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Here’s the data linearly de-trended:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/cwresid.jpg
That overall U shaped curve indicates overall acceleration in the data.
Have another complimentary sea level graph on me
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/images/news/indic/msl/MSL_Serie_MERGED_Global_IB_RWT_GIA_Adjust.png
So much for the idea “sea level has stopped rising”.
Lets hope the acceleration over the 20th century doesn’t continue!
@lolwot
Please indicate where I can find data that shows an ‘acceleration over the 20th century’
It might help also if you explained to the rest of us what you mean by ‘acceleration’ in case we are taking at cross purposes.
Thanks.
Lolwot,
Do you know what acceleration means?
If the rate of sea level rise continues at 3 mm per year for another century is it totally irrelevant.
3mm/year is a whole 30 cm per century.
Just to make sure I’m not wrong I looked at my trusty school ruler – helpfully marked in both imperial and metric. 30 cm is just slightly less than 12 inches. Not quite a foot.
In Central London – which has been a major trading port since Roman times 2000 years ago – the average tidal range is about 14 feet. For those unfamiliar with the motions of the sea (*) this means that the effective sea level goes up (or down) by 14 feet every 6 hours or so. The rate of tidal change is about 1.2cm/minute. it happens regularly and predictably and is quite unremarkable. We are used to it. Life carries on.
Please can somebody explain how we are going to suffer greatly if a rate of 3mm/annum is added to an existing rate of 120mm/minute. I’ve been asking this simple question for four years now and had precisely zero sensible answers. Somebody must have a good idea…surely!
(*) I think ,of course of the ‘Sea Level Research Group – hilariously located in Boulder, Colorado…about as far from the sea in both horizontal (1200 miles to Crescent City, Oregon) and vertically (5,430 feet) as it is possible to imagine. Perhaps they placed it there as the supreme of expression of post-modern irony? Or maybe the expression about booze ups and breweries has some force here – as in so much reality divorced academic work.
Latimer Alder,
During the Durban climate conference, at which there 16,000 delegates, a letter to the Editor of the Australian asked:
Latimer Alder,
During the Durban climate conference, a letter to the Editor of the Australian asked:
A letter the next day said:
Acceleration means the rate of sea level rise has increased over time.
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/cwdata.jpg
So assuming 3mm/year will continue might not be wise.
@peter lang
Nice.
16,000 dipsticks in town and not one of them near a full can of oil………
Your graph goes up a bit., slows down a bit, goes up a bit then slows down again. I see no overall acceleration. But instead a pretty constant rate with a few fluctuations.
My underwear remains relentlessly dry while you, mon brave, are clutching at straws.
Here’s the trends in the data:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/cwrate1.jpg
It’s clearly accelerating.
lolwot,
The data on sealevel is baffling – and the two graphs that you presented represent misuse of statistical analysis. They are comparable to some skeptic graphs that we see here and which have been constructed to prove the opposite message.
The one that shows residual from linear trend tells the obvious fact that the timeseries appears to have a break around 1930. What is the explanation? I have no idea.
The second one is a dramatic example of misleading graphics as it represents the trend from various past dates to the latest observation (I don’t know, whether only one point is used or a little more, but that makes little difference for the argument). There’s no doubt that the latest observation is above the trend and therefore leads to this graph but the very wide error bars are in this case fully justified and totally correlated as all trends drop simultaneously if the latest point drops and as almost all error comes from the uncertainty of the latest one or few points. It’s not right to think that there are any independent uncertainties and that the continuing rising trend of the graph would provide additional evidence compared to just two or three points picked from that graph.
Even Girma can present better justified graphics.
Those on the side of science – and the scientists themselves in particular – should never show this kind of graphics.
@lolwot
There is something very wrong with the graph you cite here
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/cwrate1.jpg
And that is the error bars. It seems that for the data back in 1880 – well prior to modern ‘accurate’ ways of measuring sea level (eg satellites) – there was almost no error at all in the rate of change.(eg 1.5+/- 0.1) But now the errors are huge. For 2002 it is shown as 3.0+/-1.5).
Frankly I do not believe that our ability to measure sealevel changes has decreased over time, and hence that the graph you present of supposed acceleration has much real substance.
And it seems the NOAA agrees with me
‘Though the current rate is well documented, the altimeter record is still too short to be certain whether we are observing a long-term acceleration of global average sea level rise, or a case of climate variability’
http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/article/2009/climate-change-sea-level
lolwot
re “its clearly accelerating”
So what?
Your burden to support your hypothesis. You have not examined WHY sea level is accelerating!
You have only presumed that your “evidence” conclusively proves anthropogenic global warming. It doesn’t!
You first have to look at ALL the causes for sea level rise, and compare that to the uncertainties in each, and examine causation. You have to differentiate between anthropogenic global warming and:
Satellite drift
Long term rise from the Little Ice Age.
Ocean oscillations, like the
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
The Pacific Centennial Oscillation.
Solar cycles.
Galactic cosmic rays and cloud variations
Dams – storage, and
Irrigation! – especially groundwater mining and its consequent depletion.
Consider the uncertainties involved:
Altimeter accuracy requirements for detecting changes in sea level rise, G D Quartly
Consider:
Model estimates of sea-level change due to anthropogenic impacts on terrestrial water storage Yadu N. Pokhrel1,2,3, et al. Nature Geoscience DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1476
Contrast
Robustness of Semi-Empirical Sea Level Projections</a Stefan Rahmstorf et al. 2011
The challenges in long-term altimetry calibration for addressing the problem of global sealevel change Fu et al. 2012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2012.06.005
Weighing the ocean: Using a single mooring to measure changes in the mass of the ocean Hughes et al. 2012, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L17602, doi:10.1029/2012GL052935, 2012
These show major impacts you have not considered with high uncertainties.
Fan
For a historical record of sea level, which goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, see:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg
It is apparent that the rate of SL rise bounces all over the place on a decadal basis, but that there has been no acceleration in the rate of SL rise, as claimed by IPCC (in fact the second half of the 20th century saw a slightly slower rate of rise than the first).
Max
Next, sea level. There is no slowdown of global average sea level. Sea level rise has been at a steady 2.46 millimeters per year for the last eighty years as determined by Chao, Yu and Li in 2008. And something that has been linear that long is not about to change anytime soon. …
Spoken just like General Custard, moments before his troopers got whipped like a souffle.
After June 30, 1972 until June 30 1982 10 leap seconds were added in 10 years.
After Dec 30, 1998 until Dec 30, 2012 3 leap seconds were added in 14 years and no more expected soon
Earth shine data shows that Albedo of Earth has increased.
Temperature data shows no warming since 1998.
The data just keeps hammering the Consensus Climate Theory and Models.
Spin rate of Earth increases when oceans drop and increase when oceans rise. Spin rate has increased. Oceans have dropped and that is in the NIST data.
JCH
Check out the long term tide gauge records (see my earlier post), rather than spout off silly analogies with General Custer.
Max
JCH
The guy’s name was “Custer” – not “Custard”.
You apparently know as little about history as you do about climatology.
Max
I personally believe that in the natural world nothing happens without a cause.
Exactly!
When the oceans are cold and the Arctic is closed, it snows much less and Earth warms.
When the oceans are warm and the Arctic is open, it snows much more and Earth Cools.
I also personally believe that in the natural world nothing happens without a cause.
The First Presidential Debate.
The “climate” priorities of the presidential candidates was shown by no mention either of “climate” or of “warming”during the debate! Will this create a “climate of uncertainty”? Perhaps we can infer their priorities by their comments on “energy” during the debate! e.g.,
Obama said:
Romney said:
Policies
Compare these debate highlights with the candidates’ posted summary and detailed climate and energy policies.
Obama’s Energy Plan
Climate Change
Securing American Energy
Romney’s Jobs Plan
See Romney’s full Energy policy including:
Another interesting point from the UK report;
“Careful attention should be paid to communicating around topics known to be susceptible to misinterpretation. A particular example is ‘uncertainty’, where scientific and public interpretations of the term can diverge. Scientists need to be aware that, by their choice of wording, they may unwittingly alter the way a statement is interpreted….”
@michael
Would it be too much to expect that anybody who calls him or herself a ‘scientist’ would have known this since about age 13?
Surely part of the essence of science is to be as precise an unambiguous as possible so that misinterpretations are minimised.To show all one’s working so that it can be checked. To provide sufficient detail that others can reproduce the results (or not).
To do so, scientists should try to use direct and precise language. Many sciences use the formalised language of mathematics to communicate…partly because it is (largely) unambiguous. And an early course in my undergraduate chemistry degree was entitled ‘Effective Writing for Scientists’.
I found this interesting too – also from the UK report
‘Cultural factors influence the way the public assimilate and process information and these should be taken into account when designing a communications approach. Opportunities to do this include: encouraging a range of talented science communicators from different backgrounds; giving thought to how climate scientists might work with others to embed scientific statements in broader messages using diverse communications channels’
Same old pig….they’re just trying to find some more attractive lipstick :-)
And the abstract says
‘Moreover, one-third of the UK public do not trust climate scientists to tell the truth about climate change’
Actually it is worse than that. Reading deep into the text we find:
‘Just over one-third (38±3%) of respondents agreed that ‘climate scientists can be trusted to tell us the truth about climate change’,
so nearly two thirds of the respondents do not actively trust climate scientists to tell the truth…..which should be a cause for great concern for them. If less than half your eventual paymasters actively trust you even to do a simple thing like tell the truth – let alone to make predictions, provide sound policy advice and guide the public’s opinion (as is the purpose of the piece), then you are in deep doodoo.
And finally its should give the lie to that oft-peddled myth – however it is expressed:
‘Trust Us, We’re Climate Scientists’
We don’t.
Simples!
Latimer Alder
The 67% who do not trust climate scientists in the UK is close to the survey result in the USA where 69% thought climate scientists falsified the data.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/69_say_it_s_likely_scientists_have_falsified_global_warming_research
Would you buy a used and battered hockey-shtick from this climatologist?
[No thanks, not me.]
Max
Lati, you dill.
The advice is not to us the word ‘uncertainty’, as is correct scientific usage, but to express it in temrs of risk, which is better understood by the public at large.
“And the abstract says
‘Moreover, one-third of the UK public do not trust climate scientists to tell the truth about climate change’
Actually it is worse than that. Reading deep into the text we find:
‘Just over one-third (38±3%) of respondents agreed that ‘climate scientists can be trusted to tell us the truth about climate change’,
so nearly two thirds of the respondents do not actively trust climate scientists to tell the truth…..which should be a cause for great concern for them. If less than half your eventual paymasters actively trust you even to do a simple thing like tell the truth –……
And finally its should give the lie to that oft-peddled myth – however it is expressed: ‘Trust Us, We’re Climate Scientists’
We don’t.
Simples!” – Lati,
yes, simple indeed from Lati.
And just as wrong.
If you include those who don’t idageee witht he statment, that makes it over 60%.
But the real message is the one Lati and his ilk will studiously ignore. Theelephant in the room is that climate scientists are by far the most trusted group.
Others just far far worse.
And the realkicker for the denialist, delusionist, conservative/liberterians like Lati – the second most trusted group are; environmental groups.
The least trusted?
Another kick in the nuts for the Lati’s – business and industry, who scarely score above zero in the trust stakes.
No wonder they invest in their various astro-turf groups and throw cash at FUD activities; climate scientists are the most trusted group to give advice about climate – oh noes!!!!!
@michael
I suppose you might draw some faint consolation from the argument that
‘We’re not trusted to tell the truth, but there are others even more not trusted than us’
A bit like Aston Villa and Birmingham City supporters. Villa guys don’t mind losing 5-1 at home so long as City lose 6-0…and vice versa. That both are plunging headlong to relegation wouldn’t matter in such a race to the bottom.
So I hope that the consolation will keep you warm in the long cold winter nights.
‘60% don’t trust us….but look over there ..68% don’t trust *them*. Victory!
Utterly bonkers……………………………
It’s really simple – scientists are the most trusted group – bar none.
I know that conflicts with your denialist delusionist dogma.
But you’ll just have to suck it up.
@michael
I don’t have a denialist delusionist dogma of any description.
But if I had 60+% of people not trusting me, I’d view it as a serious problem, not as a cause for celebration.
Your choice…I can’t do anything about it for you. But ignoring it because you see some other group even less trusted than you guys is a severe case of not seeing the wood for the trees.
Titanic lookout on starboard bow (Sundance): ‘Iceberg 800 yards ahead on starboard bow, Captain’
Lookout on port bow (Butch Michael): ‘Phew…we’re all right over here then. The nearest iceberg I can see is over 2000 yards away. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble’
Lati,
You deluded fool – there is group that enjoy complete trust of the public ie 100%
Scientist are at the top of the pile, and everyone else is below.
Your preferred sources – industry/business – are down in the toilet at almost 0% trust. That’s why they push their FUD via front-groups and astro-turf.
“…no group…”
Erratum – there is one small group with 100% trust. The denier delusionist dogmatics who have 100% trust in anyone who tells them there is nothing to worry about.
Michael
In general, this may be so (especially if compared with used car salesmen, gypsy fortune tellers, politicians and hedge fund managers.)
But climate scientists do not share this public trust, as the surveys in the UK and USA have shown.
IPCC’s “consensus process”, exaggerations and fabrications plus the related Climategate excesses and whitewash attempts have blown this for them, and it’s a pity.
But to deny it would be simply sticking your head in the sand.
Max
max,
It’s terribly simple.
Climate scientists are the most trusted group in relation to cimate.
The most.
Deal.
Look at the trend. Five years ago climate science owned the world and its imagination. Now, not so much.
==========================
@michael
You say
‘Your preferred sources – industry/business – are down in the toilet at almost 0% trust’
I wonder where you got the idea that ‘industry/business’ are my preferred sources? I have never expressed any such preference. Perhaps you have confused me with somebody else?
Lati,
So here we have another green/neo-socialist cult of AGW groupthink space cadet. I don’t supose you think anything he says is worth more than a single rat’s arse. You don’t suppose they imagine that their base is more than a few percent of the population do you? That would add to the delusions. C’est la geurre climatique.
Cheers
Diddums chief – scientusts are the most trusted people in regards to climate.
Apparently too many people were engaging in a meaningful discussion for Michael so he had to start in with his nonsense.
Trouble for you Hippy Mick – is that you are a cult of AGW goupthink space cadet and no one believes you.
Michael, you are off the hook.
I’d say Michael is “off the wall” if he truly believes “scientists are the most trusted people in regards to climate.”.
Polls confirm that scientists are the most trusted people in regards to science.
https://picasaweb.google.com/114996523280151499742/IndiaJpegs?authuser=0&feat=directlink#5781110504479148610
Don’t confuse max with the facts.
Tom,
Yes.
@lolwot
You and Michael both persist in the delusion that being a bit less bad than some other guys is a virtue to be applauded.
Returning to my football analogy. I bet Wycombe Wanderers supporters (hi Stu!) gain great consolation that Barnet are beneath them. But both of them are in a position to be relegated.
BTW – your cited poll seems to be for India only. You may be pleased that scientists are seen as marginally less corrupt than Indian politicians. But its hardly something to boast about methinks.
Here’s a poll of Americans:
Climate scientists are the most trusted group.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/ClimateTrust.jpg
I am more than happy with 74% trust. For a nation where a sizable proportion of the population thinks the theory of evolution is a lie so will automatically distrust scientists.
It fits perfectly that if most Americans trust twaddle like creationism, they’ll trust today’s climate science too.
Actually I am guessing a sizable number of the pollees who don’t trust climate scientists are also creationists, or are generally crackpots or people who listen to conspiracy radio and don’t trust scientists EVAH. I bet a large proportion don’t trust doctors either.
There is a large intersect between creationists and climate deniers. For example both groups try to justify why scientists disagree with them by alleging a conspiracy. Both argue that scientists only accept the theory because they are chasing grant money, or are too scared to speak out in case they lose their jobs. Yet both push lists of “dissenting scientists” to convince people there is no consensus.
lolwot, “Actually I am guessing a sizable number of the pollees who don’t trust climate scientists are also creationists, or are generally crackpots or people who listen to conspiracy radio and don’t trust scientists EVAH.”
I would guess that most of the pollees that say that don’t trust climates scientists are normal, rational, folks that can read.
Lolwot’s spin dressed up as ‘guesses’ are about as convincing and honest as Lewandowski’s.
For one thing, the only conspiracists around are all in the alarmist camp – those who think there’s some secret agreement amongst government scientists to pursue the truth rather than their paymaster’s interests.
“those who think there’s some secret agreement amongst government scientists to pursue the truth rather than their paymaster’s interests.”
Don’t forget about those who believe there was a secret conspiracy in the 60s to land man on the moon!
Well, if the poll is from Cook’s site, it must be true.
“You and Michael both persist in the delusion that being a bit less bad than some other guys is a virtue to be applauded. ” – Lati
Deluded.
Not “less bad”
The most.
The best.
More than any other.
Enjoy.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Wong2006figure7.gif
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES_MODIS-1.gif
Do disasters pay scientists handsomely?
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2012/09/10/sea-level-acceleration-not-so-fast/ says so. But it doesn’t provide any graphs of slowing trends of trends of derivatives, so it’s not like we can really tell.
I’d like to see some hard figures, because if you can prove it, I’m sure American ingenuity would find a better way to exploit it. I’m sure the USA could bottle and export disaster like nobody else, and with the power of the internet to email certificates any state could bury the world in scientists by turning the certification process into an online video game.
So. Where’s the actual hard number proof? None of this Jo Nova armwaving or other Australian fabulism, and not the utterly invalid deceleration of acceleration of acceleration stuff like they do with sea level — which is shooting up more and more every year if you sit down and figure out what that ‘good news’ chart really says; we’re talking about money now not climate, and so the topic should be handled with some seriousness.
And while we’re separating seriousness from sheer fictional frivolity, this claim that the rate of global warming has fallen is opposite of fact, when one doesn’t waste time looking at sub-decadal blips, so please don’t point to Bill Gates and call him a scientist who made money from disasters, however awful Microsoft’s products have historically been.
Also, “..science departments are lavishly funded compared with the humanities..” bears some looking at. What are the expenses of an Arts or Humanities program? Some ink, some rolling paper, some absinthe and a clay pipe, and your University is set for all its Fine Arts, Business and Humanities. Heck, throw in hard liquor and you’ve established a Law program. Science costs money, and requires some measure of sobriety.
As for skewing Left, I have to call that a myth as someone whose business life has taken him across America dealing with academia. The perception among the lesser educated that the better educated are less conservative seems no more than an indictment of conservatism by the stupid. If anything, academics are more to the Right in America, by and large.
Looking forward to hearing more about the workshop.
Bart R
Several billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on global warming research.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/how-much-of-your-money-wasted-on-climate-change-try-10-6-million-a-day/
If IPCC were not selling the “catastrophic AGW” premise, this would not be the case.
So “catastrophe” is a big-time money-generator.
Al Gore made a buck or two on his “AIT” film, which sold “catastrophe”. In fact, he has amassed a large fortune since he left politics, by selling climate “catastrophe”.
James E. Hansen has made a few extracurricular bucks selling the same theme.
Of course, there are many folks and organizations lined up at the trough – and the climate scientists, themselves, will only get a small part of the taxpayer funded gravy.
But there is no doubt that “catastrophe” sells well.
Max
> If IPCC were not selling the “catastrophic AGW” premise […]
Citation needed.
“anthropogenic warming could lead
to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible depending upon the rate and magnitude of the
climate change. Partial loss of ice sheets on polar land could imply meters of sea level rise, major
changes in coast lines and inundation of low-lying areas, with greatest effects in river deltas and
low-lying islands” -Patchy
http://www.ipcc.ch/docs/COP17/IPCC_chair_speech_COP_17.pdf
“approximately 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal
species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average
temperatures exceed 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius”,
Bad Andrews,
Thank you for the two quotes, taken from the same speech by Pachauri in 2011-11 at Durban.
Let’s emphasize the qualifiers for the first one:
> anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change. Partial loss of ice sheets on polar land could imply meters of sea level rise, major changes in coast lines and inundation of low-lying areas, with greatest effects in river deltas and low-lying islands.
The second one also has some qualifiers:
> Approximately 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average temperatures exceed 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius.
I fail to see how they are premises, let alone one premise.
As far as I can tell, they are conclusions based on the empirical evidence collected and presented in the IPCC reports.
Do you disagree with these claims?
What are your counter-arguments?
Do you have a better explanation?
***
More to the point, how is it related to any catastrophe sold by this alleged premise?
In fairness, we should mention two instances in that very same speech for the string “catastroph”:
> It was Gandhi who said: “A technological society has two choices.
First it can wait until catastrophic failures expose systemic deficiencies, distortion and selfdeceptions… Secondly, a culture can provide social checks and balances to correct for systemic distortion prior to catastrophic failures”.
There seems to be no other instances.
It seems, though, that Pachauri and Gandhi might agree about the main objective of the auditing sciences. Unless, of course, there is some disagreement about the object of the expression “systematic distorsion”.
As far as I am concerned, Judy’s presents a daily interpretation of one very plausible meaning of that expression.
Maybe it’s just a vocabulary thing [1].
[1] http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/31268600509
manacker | October 6, 2012 at 9:03 am |
You appear to have misunderstood the question. It’s my fault, really. I often forget that for some of Judith’s foreign readers English isn’t their first language and Capitalism isn’t their first economic principle. We shouldn’t expect understanding of plain English or plain economics.
You haven’t shown any rich scientists out of all these tax dollars, at all. You haven’t shown these tax dollars wouldn’t have been spent if not for disasters. You haven’t shown the least correlation between the spending and disasters. You’ve missed the point entirely.
I’m always offended by the expenditure of taxpayer dollars, regardless of how necessary. Then again, everything seems odious to me at first blush, so I need to understand what’s being claimed at a detailed level before I set myself to deciding if that initial knee jerk is warranted or not.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/how-much-of-your-money-wasted-on-climate-change-try-10-6-million-a-day/ in detail:
First point is to look at the qualifications of the source to discuss issues of finance and economics, since the topic falls within that arena.
Art Horn’s bio claims he is an out-of-work television meteorologist. Hardly a promising start when we’re hoping for informed accountancy, but let’s not poison the well with reasonable expectations.
A brief review of his other blog entries reveals he’s more of a politically opinionated hack with a chip on his shoulder who will say anything regardless of how wrong to score points with what appear to be the substantial readership traffic his blog draws from his own near relatives.
So we can be skeptical of your source, not that we wouldn’t be anyway.
What does this source actually claim, using it’s Star Trek accounting?
The ‘neighborhood’ of $4 billion a year (or $10.6 million a day).
“This year, your government will spend in the neighborhood of $4 billion on global warming research, despite the fact that there has been no global warming since 1998, and despite all of the billions that have been spent so far yielding no conclusive evidence that using fossil fuels to make energy has any significant effect on Earth’s temperature.”
Has there been no global warming since 1998? The only way to make that claim is to ignore all data before 1998, pretend the Arctic sea ice extent isn’t a meaningful indicator, interpret the shifting patterns of weather extremes casually, to be purposely more simple than the circumstance allows the reasonable person.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/last:240/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/last:240/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:240/trend:12/plot/rss/last:240/trend/plot/uah/last:240/trend/plot/none
If you accept AGW is real (which is a matter of accepting simple arithmetic on the data), and you understand statistics then you understand that below 17 years, any one sample is more than 5% likely by virtue of sampling noise (natural variability and other anthropogenic influences) to not reflect the actual longer-term trend. We get about one flat or negative such trend in twenty at the 17-year level, more at the 16 or 15 or lesser level, fewer at the 18 or 19 or longer level. So we’d expect to see flats and drops in the temperature trend on these scales, even even if this were the most rapid surface warming the planet has ever seen. (Isn’t it?)
Drawing conclusions with such absolute certitude from the data on such a short span as ‘since 1998’ is therefore extremely dubious. Should we accept accounting advice from a source that’s so bad at math and logic?
“The human component of carbon dioxide that is injected into the air each year is very small, on the order of 3%. Half the carbon dioxide emitted into the air by human activity each year is immediately absorbed into nature. Carbon dioxide is 8% of the greenhouse effect; water in the air is 90% of the greenhouse effect. By volume, carbon dioxide is currently at about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere, increasing at about 2 parts per million annually. In other words, carbon dioxide is increasing at a rate of .5% per year. Since human activity adds 3% of the carbon dioxide that gets into the air each year, the human component of the increase in carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year is 3 % of .5%, or just .015%.”
Oh. Ouch. Bzzzt. That’s a big fail on Accounting 101. The human component of CO2 added over and above the net and sum of other CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is a rising 3%, like an interest rate on the full working capital of a business in a year. The rise from 280 to 390 ppmv CO2 in 260-odd years tells us that the actual rate of contribution to CO2 by humanity in excess of the carbon cycle’s ability to absorb it is less than 3%, but it is still positive, treated as compounded rate. Art Horn’s specious 0.015% attribution is so baseless as to be without meaning. Why are you using him for your argument? Do you want yourself to look bad?
Why not go directly to http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/ if discussing R&D requests?
If we do, then we see that despite growing rates of weather disasters the US government is spending less and less every year on climate and weather research. That in and of itself tends to falsify the claim that disasters pay scientists handsomely. Otherwise, we’d expect the rate to go up. (I felt I had to state that last sentence explicitly for those readers who can’t tell up from down, as it appears I’m replying to one now.)
Year by year, the 2003 request http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/04pch16.htm and later indicate substantive drops in many areas of research funding, and only modest increases, despite the disasters of the past decade.
And much of this is research that would have happened without regard to AGW, C- or otherwise. There’s essentially zero money spent on climate change by the US government in response to climate change itself. We know the climate change is real. We know the government isn’t responding to it with spending.
‘A brief review of his other blog entries reveals he’s more of a politically opinionated hack with a chip on his shoulder who will say anything regardless of how wrong to score points…’
Does anyone think…projection?
Bart R
No. It is YOU who have misunderstood.
The premise was that “disaster” or “catastrophe” sells well.
The billions of taxpayer dollars currently funded to global warming research are going there (arguably) because politicians feel there is a potential “catastrophe” from “global warming” on the horizon, as they have been indoctrinated to believe by IPCC, and they want to find out what is causing it and how it could be avoided with policy actions.
IOW were there no IPCC and hence no posited global warming “catastrophe” on the horizon, politicians would not allocate billions of dollars to fund global warming research programs.
Cause and effect at work here, Bart.
That the media love potential “catastrophe” stories and have, thus, jumped on the dire IPCC forecasts like a fly on a cow patty, is obvious.
And then there are all the guys who really benefit financially from the hysteria (Al Gore for one, but also green lobby groups and many industrialists who see some “gravy” flowing their way).
[Has nothing to do with whether climate researchers themselves are “getting rich” – I do not believe that this is the case, even if a few scientists turned advocates, like James E. Hansen, have done quite well.]
Max
Chief Hydrologist | October 6, 2012 at 1:38 pm |
Yeah, I thought it, but I didn’t want to stoop to such a low blow against Max.
manacker | October 7, 2012 at 8:45 am |
I’d think as the guy framing the question, I’d be the better interpreter of what I meant by it than some foreigner. Wouldn’t you?
So you’re in error when you claim, “The premise was that “disaster” or “catastrophe” sells well.”
Which is it? Disaster or catastrophe? Be precise when translating, please. To a native speaker, they are not exactly the same thing.
Because if we’re discussing DAGW vs. CAGW, then the apparently commonplace definition appears to have developed for CAGW is that climate sensitivity with feedbacks is non-negligible(trivial to prove by virtue of the fact of previous known changes in climate that couldn’t be accounted for by a low-feedback climate system); while I haven’t heard a definition of DAGW, I’d venture that were disasters plausibly attributed to AGW it would suffice. We already know to fair confidence that extreme weather is frequently AGW-induced. In fact, we know it to a mathematical certainty, as a simple outcome of Chaos Theory.
As for ‘sells well’, it appears you’re also mistaken there. While disaster movies sell well, real-life disaster sells miserably by every measure. We can’t get people to remember how many disasters there have been, we can’t get them to think about them well in advance without prompting or reminders. Disaster bounces off the public awareness like water off a duck’s back. It’s a non-seller. Impending disaster, where someone may be about to die.. I’ll grant that is a big seller. After they’ve passed, unless one can exploit a human-interest angle on misery, the media just are never interested.
Back to the point, you’ve mistaken the premise. The premise is, “scientists get rich from disasters.”
“The billions of taxpayer dollars currently funded to global warming research are going there (arguably) because politicians feel there is a potential “catastrophe” from “global warming” on the horizon, as they have been indoctrinated to believe by IPCC, and they want to find out what is causing it and how it could be avoided with policy actions.”
And here you introduce another false premise.
First, it appears you’re speaking of US taxpayer dollars, which as a foreigner I’m not sure you’re well-equipped to discuss, as you seem to prefer socialism as your economic system over there in Euro-land. And if you’re not talking about American tax dollars, who cares?
Second, when I go to the root source of your root source and read their detailed reports on submissions for climate science funding, it turns out almost all of the funding requests are for things that would have happened notwithstanding AGW, like research on hurricanes and tornadoes, or studies that are needed not because climate change sells well but because things that do sell well — like crops — require accurate knowledge of the start and end of growing season which is changing due to AGW. So it isn’t even barely arguable that this spending is due catastrophe on the horison. If a fair judge were attributing the cause of such extra spending, they’d have to rule that it was the people who caused AGW in the first place by burning carbon who were to blame for the extra burden on taxpayers.
And what’s with the parentheses around global warming? Weren’t you one of the people asserting earlier and often that no one denies global warming? Explain your self-contradiction.
“IOW were there no IPCC and hence no posited global warming “catastrophe” on the horizon, politicians would not allocate billions of dollars to fund global warming research programs.”
What a mindboggling and ill-informed position to take.
Global warming certainly preceded the IPCC, as you well must realize. Absence or presence of an IPCC does not alter climate sensitivity, the GHE, AGW caused by burning of carbon, the loss of Arctic Sea Ice, or in most ways that can be measured more than a small fraction of the taxpayer dollars you falsely claim are spent because of them. Most of the spending goes to rote scientific research that has been stuck in the climate category mainly because when you say ‘meteorology’ to politicians they think of television weathermen, who in the USA (you’d know, were you not a foreigner) are very poorly regarded as pretty-faces who couldn’t handle reporting, music or interviews. The spending either would have happened anyway, or the increases are due mainly to the large changes in climate that have already come to pass requiring new studies to update information that has changed as a result.. except for the large swath of funding used to research how to put oil drilling rigs in the Arctic now that it’s ice-free in the summer, and such other tax subsidized research for the benefit of private industry.
“Cause and effect at work here, Bart.”
The only cause apparently at work is a case of confirmation bias; it’s effect, begging the question to the point of absurdity.
That the media love potential “catastrophe” stories and have, thus, jumped on the dire IPCC forecasts like a fly on a cow patty, is obvious.
The media? The Murdoch-owned media like Fox that consistently denies AGW is real? Keeping in mind that the IPCC’s forecasts have been among the milder of the forecasts as a group. Half your friends who oppose AGW and the IPCC do so because good science conflicts with their new ice age hypotheses and cosmic chaos zodiacism. What proportion of media reports related to weather and climate do you think Americans have seen that cite chapter and verse the IPCC forecasts, other than in disparagement?
Because in America, what sells better than disasters is science-bashing. But I see you’re spreading that practice over in Europe, too, so you must be aware of that.
“And then there are all the guys who really benefit financially from the hysteria (Al Gore for one, but also green lobby groups and many industrialists who see some “gravy” flowing their way).”
Al Gore started rich, and was in a good position to choose any topic to profit off of by public speaking. I’m sure his wife would have been happier had he chosen to speak out against profanity in music, for instance, and he’d have made at least as much money from that.
[Has nothing to do with whether climate researchers themselves are “getting rich” – I do not believe that this is the case, even if a few scientists turned advocates, like James E. Hansen, have done quite well.]”
Hansen did better as one of the many climate researchers in the world who almost all came to the same conclusion about climate (by a ratio of some 33:1) than he would have as a leading expert on the atmosphere of Venus? I doubt that. Venus is a hot, exotic, alien world; when Hansen left Venus to focus on down-to-Earth issues he couldn’t have predicted that space would fall out of the public eye so dramatically, or that climate’s zenith was coming. By all measures, Hansen was taking a huge risk in his career, and solely because he cared about the legacy we leave his grandchildren’s generation.
So I’d have to say you are practicing an irrational and unfounded form of mudslinging here, and don’t have a leg to stand on.
Bart R makes a subtle point about CAGW that I had missed until now. Catastrophe is a mathematical expression for a discontinuous large jump in a system, and doesn’t relate to human outcomes. There is a branch of mathematics called catastrophe theory. In this sense the title CAGW distinguishes it from a more imperceptible or more gradual AGW, making it more like a step function that relates closely to the idea of tipping points. This is a mathematical definition I could use, as I was reluctant to use it from the human outcome meaning, because you can’t have a purely scientific theory about human impacts.
JimD, Catastrophe theory and Chaos theory are closely related. They both show that a system is more “sensitive” to impacts at different points in time and space.
So it is kinda of odd for you to consider catastrophe theory for the C is AGW and not in the AGW itself, especially since so many of the “skeptics” are not skeptical of the potential impact of a doubling of CO2, but of the wisdom of defining “A” sensitivity of climate to a doubling of CO2.
Like the denial of the “Climate Science” community that there are longer term natural “unforced variations” that are not only not unforced, but are somewhat predictable and are just a natural part of the complex fluid dynamics of the planet.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/10/can-climate-be-predicted.html
You and others became convinced before considering the complexity.
Cap’n –
How many is “so many?”
capt. d., the difference between warm paleoclimates and now is the CO2 content. Skeptics have not explained the last billion years of climate change before invoking unforced variations in the present climate. The CO2 change is putting us back tens of millions of years in atmospheric constitution. In tennis terms, they have made an unforced error by ignoring the paleoclimate lessons and laws of physics.
“Unforced error” would be a good title for a topic post.
JimD, Unforced Error would be a great term for climate science. The internal oscillations are real Jimbo, Tsonis, Douglas and a few others are applying different methods to isolate synchronization and determine the settling times, that is advancing climate science.
Saying that CO2 cause warming 5.0 million years ago is called ignorance. The system is non-ergodic so what impact CO2 had then will not be the same now.
Joshua, “Cap’n –
especially since so many of the “skeptics” are not skeptical of the potential impact of a doubling of CO2,…
How many is “so many?”
Hard to say, but the list appears to be growing. Aster, Stott, Tsonis, Douglas, Schwartz are just a few with recent papers.
The firm belief that paleoclimate was all unforced is an error. The skeptics are “jumping the shark” if they push it to that extreme. They have to believe something was forced.
JimD, “The firm belief that paleoclimate was all unforced is an error. ” No one said, “all” unforced, you interpretation is the error. “unforced variations” is a joke term used by climate scientist. Impact do not travel instantaneously through oceans. There are various settling times that vary by latitude and thermal mass. The time required to “settle” for each relevant thermodynamic boundary layer is misinterpreted as unforced when they are just delays or decays rates that differ. That is just Fluid Dynamics.
> I’m sure the USA could bottle and export disaster like nobody else […]
There seems to be a trend there:
http://www.stockwatch.com/Quote/Detail.aspx?symbol=DIS®ion=U
What caught my eye this week – Al “We’re all going to die from global warming” Gore claiming that altitude was the reason Obama was an empty suit in his first debate against Romney.
Wait, no, I’ve got it… Anthropogenic CO2 warmed the air in Denver, and the excess heat inhaled by Obama caused his brain to melt like Arctic sea ice. Or is it that it froze like Antarctic sea ice? Either way, it has to be the fault of big oil and Heartland.
What caught my eye this week is that GaryM entered into an electoralist mode.
Willard,
Since the future of the CAGW gravy train will likely be decided in a little over 4 weeks, I am surprised it isn’t being discussed even more braodly.
GaryM,
When you say “will likely”, does it mean there’s a “> 66%” probability?
If so, may I have your code and data, pretty please with some sugar on it?
Most of the observed decrease in CAGW funding expected after November 6, 2012 will very likely be due to the observed decrease in progressive political power concentrations.
“Very likely” as used in this comment shall have the same meaning as the term is defined in the IPCC AR4 – ie. we don’t really know, but we claim a confidence level >90% anyway.
Say, GaryM –
You must have missed this, my brother:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/02/rs-workshop-on-handling-uncertainty-in-weather-climate-prediction-part-i/#comment-249251
> Most of the observed decrease in CAGW funding expected after November 6, 2012 will very likely be due to the observed decrease in progressive political power concentrations.
Does not sound like a prediction, but like an estimate based on an analog simulation.
This “CAGW funding” is interesting: does it include David Wojick’s 100k to build the Heartland Institute K-12 program?
willard
When someone says “will likely…in 4 weeks”, you don’t need “code and data”.
All you have to do is wait 4 weeks.
Max
PS Was Gary referring to the US presidential election?
Willard and Gary
If you watched the Romney-Obama debate you’ll recall that Romney stated he would look at each government spending program critically and only ensure funding for those that are really needed.
Let’s see how he views the billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on global warming research, if and when he becomes the next US President.
On va voir.
Max
Manacker,
I’m afraid that when someone says something like “will likely…in 4 weeks”, waiting 4 weeks will only tell us if the prediction was correct, if it was a prediction. And whatever the result of that prediction (or else), we do need code and data, since what we need to audit how justified this claim is. And since this prediction (or else) is based on something else than GaryM’s gut feeling or wishful thinking, we don’t need to wait four weeks to see the code and data.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the seriousness of GaryM’s claim, which was only meant as an electoralist sloganeering?
willard, the expected federal budget cuts do not include my little Heartland project, but they may include NSF’s $33 million climate education propaganda project.
David Wojick,
Are you implying that the expression “expected federal budget” is equivalent to “CAGW funding”?
As far as I am concerned, your K-12 propaganda project could very well be subsumed under this heading. Unless, of course, you promise not to mention CAGW.
Of course if you squint at it right and skew your head – any interpretation of wood for trees trendology can prove whatever you wish. Of course if sub-decadal to millennial natural variability has anything to do with anything – it is best to wait as long as it takes for things to turn around. Theory and data notwithstanding.
Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Niña or diminish El Niño impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”
So perhaps there is some minor suggestion that the world is not warming for a decade or three more – but it is best to concentrate on 3mm/year of ocean rise. The latter will have by definition dire consequences for the poor and oppressed. That it was minus 5mm last year was a blip caused by La Nina. Oh wait. It is best not to wonder why such minor changes of global temperature and sea level are of consequence at all – best to simply repeat the memes of the cult of AGW groupthink space cadets. It saves having to think at all and supplies the thrill of confirmation of your own cosmic importance and a little moral frisson. We all need a bit of frisson now and then.
I guess I should get serious and suggest that carbon is not a rivalrous good – that there are many points where practical interventions could be made and perhaps we should get a little inventive. But it just seems like groundhog day again.
Chief Hydrologist | October 6, 2012 at 3:38 am |
And I see Australia is leading the world in its contribution to reducing CO2, by getting rid of that noxious Barrier Reef thingie. 50% reduction in those nasty CO2 emitting corals in just a quarter century? Well done Oz.
Was that a hydrology project?
Well let’s see – 48% percent storms, 42% percent crown of thorns and 10% bleaching. A few big storms? We ain’t seen nothin’ in recent times to match the mega storms of previous centuries. Recruitment for the crown of thorns is said to respond to nutrient enrichment from runoff. This is something I have been talking and writing about and working on for 25 years. My disappointment is that we have wasted a generation pursuing AGW nonsense instead of concentrating on the present. It is the reason why species are still disappearing. Conservation farming is a big answer for this – now if only we could manage landscapes more generally better.
There was a recent coral conference in Cairns we discussed on this blog. Where were you. The sad thing is that we are far from lonesome in the world.
I am a diver and environmental scientist – you are a duplicitous piece of …
Chief Hydrologist | October 6, 2012 at 5:58 am |
25 years of talk and writing, and 50% loss of coral? Perhaps if you only talked, it would be 49.99% loss instead?
I somehow doubt the wasted generation pursuing AGW can take the credit for Australia’s success at ridding the world of coral, any more than one could blame the Spice Girls for the phenomenal achievement.
And really, 48% storms? Do you actually believe that? Almost half of the coral loss is because of something that had absolutely no effect on coral area in the mega storms of previous centuries?
Do you have any actual data?
“his is something I have been talking and writing about and working on for 25 years. My disappointment is that we have wasted a generation pursuing AGW nonsense instead of concentrating on the present. It is the reason why species are still disappearing.”
What drivel.
AGW has impeded action on COT by zero, zip, nada.
It was recognised as a huge problem when i was studying coral reef biology back in the 80’s. And it was well-kown that far too little was being spent on research and action. AGW had nothing to do with that.
A certain arch-conservative, reflexively anti-environment state govt, otoh………
The data is in the report. Check it out why don’t you? The coral grows back – the point is to reduce the occurence of disturbance by reducing runoff of nutrients.
And the opportunity cost of the cult of GW groupthink space cadets is enormous. Instead of resources going to landscpae management – it all went on feel good fairy floss.
You don’t know much environmental science or hydrology do you?
I am making a list – it seems highly in vogue. I have webnutcolonoscope as the attack smurf and you as Delusional Spice.
@michael
‘It was recognised as a huge problem when i was studying coral reef biology back in the 80′s. And it was well-kown that far too little was being spent on research and action’
Somebody studying coral reef biology knew that ‘far too little was being spent on research’
Wow. That’s a BIG surprise! A bunch of researchers think that far too little is being spent on their own pet subject.!
Why am I somewhat underwhelmed by this shocking piece of news?
In today’s bumper edition of Non News this week:
Bishop of Rome says ‘I see a lot of attractive traits in Catholicism’,
Bruin the Bear reveals his arboreal defecation obsession,
Lawyers walking paycheque Mike Mann ‘Why I’m suing everybody I have ever met, corresponded with. thought about, been in the same country as…and a load of people I haven’t even contemplated yet and
Michael the Researcher ‘I want more money’
buy now…sure to be a sell out!
So Mick is an Australian as well. Studying coral biology no less. Well Mick – I think you are an obnoxious cult of AGW groupthink green/neo-socialist space cadet.
Bjelke-Petersen hasn’t been in power since 1987 – Labor has been in power for most of the intervening period. It seems a bit of a long bow to blame Sir Joh for something that happended since 1985. You may be suffering a bit of an acid induced flashback. I suggest you take two bongs and see your Reiki therapist in the morning.
Skippy,
” It seems a bit of a long bow to blame Sir Joh for something that happended since 1985.”
Read what I wrote.
Idjit.
‘A certain arch-conservative, reflexively anti-environment state govt, otoh………’
So which 80’s government were you referring to? Liar and fool – not a good look.
Sorry skippy,
Didn’t realise you were so slow.
I’m typing this slowly, so you can understand.
Failure to address COT adaquetely at time I was referring to (1980’s) clearly had nothing to do with attention being diverted by concerns over AGW.
OTOH – Conservative anti-environment pollies – definitely.
Geddit?
I remember reading the 1st IPCC report in 1990. Since then the issue has dominated the environomental agenda. Things such as landscape management essentially dropped off the public radar. Crown of thorns is control is about landscape managment – and in this the responsibility since the late 80’s was primarily with Labor governments – and the arch conservative.
‘Interviews with trochus divers from the Torres Strait indicate that crown-of-thorns (COTS) outbreaks may have occurred in the early part of the 19th century. However, the first documented outbreak was recorded from Green Island in 1962. It was the first of three major COTS outbreaks, which have had a major impact on many reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. The other two outbreaks occurred between 1978–1991 and 1993–2005.
Put together, these COTS outbreaks account for 42 per cent of coral damage on the Great Barrier Reef since the mid 1980s. Only cyclones account for a larger proportion of loss of coral cover (48 per cent).
COTS outbreaks follow a pattern whereby they tend to spread south from the Cairns region, migrating to the Innisfail region between three and five years later, hitting the Townsville area five to eight years later, and reaching as far south as the Mackay region about 12–15 years after the start of the outbreak.’ GBRMPA
So Sir Joh should have solved the problem but not Peter Beatie? Amazing. It is typical of pissant progressives – that first of all they make a dumb statement and then lie and insult to defend it to the death. It is bizarre to try to make a political point of a politician who has not been in power for 25 years – someone coming from a different era – for something that happened in the last 27 years. You are truly pathetic.
As your own quote shows -COT has been a major problem since the 1970’s.
AGW had zero impact on the response throughout the 1980’s and minimal through the first half of the 90’s.
If you think AGW has stopped action on COT you’re living in fantasy land.
I remember being at Michaelmas Cay in the early 80’s and thinking it was pretty nice……until someone showed me a photo of the same place in the 1930’s.
I guess the failure to address sedimentation and run-off was also down to AGW.
We lost half out seagrasses well before that and the reasons for that were obvious – crown of thorns not as muchat the time – the solutions were obvious but progress was starved for oxygen and resources. We have wasted a generation and – despite such things as the Blueprint for a Living Continent – http://www.wentworthgroup.org/uploads/6.%20blueprint_for_a_living_contintent.pdf – things are little improved. When people think environmental pressure – they think climate change. When they think water – they think climate change. When they think biodiversity – they think climate change. It is utter nonsense.
There is just so much space and no more in the realm ofthe public arena – in economic terms there is an opportunity cost. We have a $10 billion fund for carbon and a many billion tax plus many more billions more for renewable energy – but hardly anything at all for wide scale landscape management. There is so little room and so little resources for feral species, fire regimes, restoration of lands and riparian areas, reversing habitat fragmentation, etc. These are the measures of terrestrial and aquatic health and not the utter nonsense that comes from the obsession with carbon that is the cult of AGW groupthink space cadets. It is such a recipe for failure – and yet where is the impetus for change? Yes the failure to address landscape pressures has lost in the competition with a psychopathological obsession with industry and carbon – and it is still far from improving. Yet all you can think of is blaming Sir Joh – forgive me but I think you’re barking mad.
Sure, we must keep our room clean, else it becomes unlivable.
===============
“Yet all you can think of is blaming Sir Joh ” – Skippy.
Skip, believe me, you have no need to try to be stupid.
Where was your billions for ‘landscape management’ in the 1970’s, the 1980’s????
Didn’t exist.
People who blame climate science for the failure to address other problems (especially ones that existed long before any concerns about CO2) are not engaging in a rational discussion.
They are grinding their political/ideological axes.
It is difficult to imagine something less rational than your nonsense. It is you grinding some delusional axe from decades ago still about a politician long dead. Why is that – Hippy Mick? Isn’t it time you joined the 21st century?
Sea level fans may be interested in the new paper “The 2011 La Niña: So strong, the oceans fell”, see http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL053055.shtml . Don’t take it as the last word however.
Funny, I thought with the advent of the big global chillar, all that rain would have formed new, LIA-style glaciers.
Funny boy – it takes at least a decade. Don’t ya know energy accumulats in the oceans.
Alter, Lat i’ mer.
============
or mal de mer?
Fortunately GRACE satellite measurements show us exactly where that ocean water mass went to, and very little of it went to the cryosphere in building glaciers. It mainly fell as rain in areas that saw huge flooding events. In the back of your mind, keep the thought: Greenhouse warming= accelerated hydrological cycle. It will serve you well.
“Fortunately GRACE satellite measurements show us exactly where that ocean water mass went to, and very little of it went to the cryosphere in building glaciers. It mainly fell as rain in areas that saw huge flooding events. In the back of your mind, keep the thought: Greenhouse warming= accelerated hydrological cycle. It will serve you well.”
So more hydro power and more water for irrigation?
The evidence is not clear cut and simple cult of AGW groupthink space cadet memes is rather silly.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/pan-evaporation-trends-and-its-relation-to-the-diagnosis-of-global-warming-comments-on-a-new-article-by-roderick-et-al-2009/
There is data – but given the short length is inadvisable to draw any conclusion. Simple theories are of no use at all and contaminate even what should be the most sophisticated public communications.
http://www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/12/5/market-profile/accelerating-water-cycle.html
This for instance is quite bizarre. The ocean/surface stores are ultimately a zero sum game and don’t contribute to ling term sea level chnges. The differences in groundwater stores can however be decadal and longer infuence – but we are talking millimetres.
So what are the implications of this? You might say “more water – that’s good”. However, if these trends continue there will be an indication that the water cycle is spinning faster, and with it some negative things certainly happen. One is the increased land contributions to global mean sea level rise. People don’t think much about the land contributing to sea level rise, but it does in a significant way, in addition to the ice sheets.
Given that we will be seeing an increasing frequency of storm events in the future, when you get an extreme event sitting on top of a generally rising sea level, it can have a great impact.
R. Gates
Before one gets too carried away with projected future catastrophic sea level rise or Antarctic ice mass loss and where this is going, based on GRACE results, check:
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1122/2011GL049277/body.shtml
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1122/2011GL049277/2011GL049277.pdf
http://geodesy.ceegs.ohio-state.edu/course/refpapers/Han_JGR_GRACE_aliasing_04.pdf
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/06/grace-under-fire/
Max
SOLAR BLOW TO LOW CLOUD COULD BE WARMING PLANET
By Philip Ball
For the climate sceptics who doubt that human release of greenhouse gases is the main cause of global warming, one of the more plausible alternatives is that changes in the Sun might be responsible. Researchers in Denmark now show how and where a link between global cloudiness and solar activity could affect climate in unforeseen ways.
Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Marsh of the Danish Space Research Institute in Copenhagen have focused on cosmic rays. These are very-high-energy rays that are similar to X-rays, but are packed with even more energy. In the latest issue of Physical Review Letters, Svensmark and Marsh reveal evidence that a decrease in solar activity allows more cosmic rays to enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and that this in turn affects cloud formation.
The idea that cosmic rays can influence cloud formation was put forward by Svensmark in 199723, when he showed that there was a correlation between total cloud cover over the Earth and the influx of cosmic rays produced by catastrophes in our Galaxy. The rays are thought to collide with particles or molecules in the atmosphere, leaving them electrically charged, or ‘ionized’. These ionized particles then seed the growth of cloud water droplets.
The heat output of the Sun rises and falls roughly every 11 years. This ‘solar cycle’ is usually traced out by the recurrent appearance of sunspots, although the change in the Sun’s heat output is tiny — about 0.1. This is too small to have a direct effect on climate. But various indirect influences are possible, and the cosmic rays fall into this category.
The Sun helps to protect the Earth from cosmic rays. It constantly releases charged subatomic particles. These stream through the Solar System as the solar wind, carrying with them an imprint of the Sun’s magnetic field. It is these ‘field rays’ that interact with, and partially shield the Earth from, cosmic rays.
The strength of the solar wind depends on the level of solar activity, and so varies with the sunspot cycle. When the solar wind blows less forcefully, more cosmic rays streak through our atmosphere.
Clouds have a strong yet subtle effect on climate. Clouds that form low in the sky are relatively warm and made up of tiny water droplets. These tend to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space. High clouds are colder, consisting mostly of ice particles, and they can have the opposite effect of warming the Earth by trapping heat.
By studying satellite measurements of different cloud types since 1980, Svensmark and Marsh have found that only low-altitude clouds (less than 3.2 kilometres above the Earth) seem to vary in step with the rise and fall of the cosmic-ray flux. Clouds higher than these appear insensitive to changes in the flux. “It is imperative to understand which cloud types are influenced by galactic cosmic rays,” the researchers say.
They argue that the imprint of the solar magnetic field in the solar wind has increased over the past century. So the shielding from cosmic rays will have increased, decreasing the formation and cooling influence of low clouds and providing a possible contribution to the observed global warming of the past 100 years.
http://www.nature.com/news/2000/001206/full/news001207-6.html
This moldy oldie was de-bunked long ago.
BTW, when you cut and paste, mind the footnotes, and you won’t make the mistake of changing the year 1997 to the year 199723.
Is the increase in human CO2 emission cooling the planet ?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2004/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2004/trend
No Girma, it’s not. Move on to your next question.
R. Gates and Girma
Next question:
Is the increase in human CO2 emission warming the planet?
Answer: NO
(see wood for trees HadCRUT3 record since 1998)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/trend
Max_OK
CAGW was debunked long ago, as well.
But, hey, it still lives on in the minds of a few doomsdayers like James E. Hansen, despite the fact that the failure of his very own 1988 forecasts have falsified it.
Max_not from OK
Girma | October 6, 2012 at 7:32 am said: ”SOLAR BLOW will warm the planet”
Girma!… There are 15000 satellites in orbit – all of them with expanded solar panels – preventing the normal sunlight to get to the ground; plus there is lots of space junk – every day less sunlight comes down; and that is cumulative!!! We will all freeze, including you, Girma! This hypotheses of my, you should include in your woo-doo science.
Re science fraud in retracted papers:
What about the science fraud of AGW/CAGW basic premises in the Greenhouse Effect energy budget of KT97 and kin?
I’ve posted something on this here Myrrh | October 6, 2012 at 6:53 am but it hasn’t come out at the bottom of the page appearing instead before posts two days ago:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/02/rs-workshop-on-handling-uncertainty-in-weather-climate-prediction-part-i/#comment-249173
It’s much worse than the example I give from Richard Courtney that the ‘models’ are all arbitrarily tweaked and all different describing worlds other than our Earth, yet we’re supposed to kow tow to the idea that ‘models prove the science is real and consensus justified’, but the basic premise of “anthropogenic forcing” itself has never be shown to be a physical reality.
How can it be? The real world physical properties of Carbon Dioxide are incapable of being the ‘supermolecule’ of the models, and so the supermolecule of all the “97% scientist consensus”. This is blatant science fraud, that it has been introduced into the general education system now makes it difficult to see. No wonder then that those who know this is complete physical idiocy want “science” to be re-defined.
For the simple reason that they are politically funded, and the left is for more politics.
The recently released UAH September 2012 global lower tropospheric temperature anomaly is +0.34 deg. C, making it the third warmest September in the 33-year history of this series. Only 2009 and 2010 had warmer Septembers, with anomalies of +0.38 and +0.48 respectively.
@Max_OK
So its cooled since 2009 and 2010?
Thought it was a bit chilly.
The UAH anomalies show the globe has cooled since the beginning of the century if you look at the data the right way.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2000/plot/uah/from:2000/trend/plot/none
You won’t see the cooling unless you turn your monitor up-side-down or stand on your head.
…whatever it takes.
Re Latimer Alder |comment, October 6, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Latimer, the topic is “Week in review 10/5/12.”
The September UAH global temperature anomaly was released during the week in review, which is news for the week, and that’s why I posted about it.
Your characterization of my post as “entirely unprompted” is puzzling.
@max_Ok
OJ – I understand why you posted it.
But whether unprompted or not you can not have your high ground cake ‘I take the long view,,,,,,’ and eat it ‘look children the last month was third highest’
Latimer,
Again I am puzzled by your comment. You should know that 33 years is as “long view ” as you can get with UAH data. The series doesn’t go back any farther than that.
Please re-read my post , and note that I put the September 2012 UAH anomaly in the context of the series’ 33-history.
So I’m not trying to “have my cake and eat it too.” In fact I don’t even like cake, so if I had some, I wouldn’t try to eat it too. I would just give it away.
It’s past my bedtime. Good Night or Good Morning.
No, it’s warmed since 2011. You must have misplaced your thinking cap.
The UAH anomalies show the globe has cooled since the beginning of the century if yo look at the data the right way.
@max_ok
Let me put it another way in case I was not clear.
It is a bit cooler now than it was 2 and 3 years ago. And last year was quite a lot cooler than it was 2 and years ago. Yes? Or No?
If no, where am I wrong?
You are correct, if your vision of climate change spans a measly 3 year period. I take a broader view of the UAH anomaly, and consider the entire 33-year history. This means I’m 10 times smarter than you or, looking ate it another way, only 1/10th as dumb as you.
And it’s cooler than it was 1000, 2000 and 5000m and 8000 years ago, and 5, 10 and 50 million years, and most of the past 500 million years. In fact the planet is damned cold and well below its normal operating temperature. It’s performing like a car running with the choke out (for those who understand what that means).
Peter is right.
Dang these modern unreliable surface temp records and these bloody ‘paleo-reconstructions’ , but we sure as hell know exactly the state of the global temp 5000 yrs ago.
LOL.
Michael
Don’t laugh too loudly.
Remember that “he who laughs last…”
In general it is commonly known that the subjective interpretation of dicey proxy data from carefully selected time periods of our geological past can provide “evidence” for almost anything one wants to prove. (Sort of like reading tea leaves.) Therefore paleo-climate studies and their conclusions are generally to be taken with a large grain of salt.
To be more specific, these studies may give some useful information on rough temperatures of the distant past, but are practically worthless when it comes to attribution of climate changes.
So Peter Lang probably has a valid point regarding past temperatures, while climatologists, such as Richard Alley, who cherry-pick periods in out geological history to prove attribution of climate changes to “the climate control knob, CO2”, do not.
Lesson to be learned: The devil’s always in the detail, Michael.
Max
“nterpretation of dicey proxy data from carefully selected time periods of our geological past can provide “evidence” for almost anything one wants to prove. (Sort of like reading tea leaves.) ” – max
Then I take it you don’t realise that Peter is referring to a single (1) proxy for his global temp 5000/8000 yrs ago??
LOLing hardest.
@Max_OK
You say
‘You are correct, if your vision of climate change spans a measly 3 year period. I take a broader view of the UAH anomaly, and consider the entire 33-year history’
Hmmm
How then I can reconcile that view with the original entirely unprompted post from you
‘The recently released UAH September 2012 global lower tropospheric temperature anomaly is +0.34 deg. C, making it the third warmest September in the 33-year history of this series. Only 2009 and 2010 had warmer Septembers, with anomalies of +0.38 and +0.48 respectively.
That September was ‘third warmest’ seems to have some special significance for you …and you were keen to draw it to our attention…which belies your claim to be ‘taking the broader view’ and ‘consider[ing] the entire 33-year history.
You are probably a climateer, but even you guys must realise by now that you cannot have your cake and eat it.
I, like almost all “skeptics,” don’t trust any of the ways that we measure warming. The supposed “records” are all bogus – and manipulatde and doctored by AGW cultists who are intent on destroying life as we know it in their quest to install a tyrannical one-world government that will take us back to the Stone Age.
But of course as we hears “skeptics” say all the time (just after we state that “skeptics” are not monolithic), almost all “skeptics” agree that the Earth is warming.
Obviously, since we don’t trust any of the scientific evidence, we all just take it on faith that the Earth is warming. Who needs evidence?
True skeptics are skeptical about things they like as well as things they don’t like. People skeptical only about what they dislike are lacking in the integrity necessary to be true skeptics.
Joshua
Don’t “take it on faith that the Earth is warming”.
It has warmed, in fits and spurts, since 1850, with two statistically indistinguishable warming cycles (early- and late-20th century) of around 30 years each, a slightly less prominent late 19th century warming cycle and two 30-year cycles of slight cooling in between, all on an axis of underlying warming of around 0.06C per decade.
The same surface temperature record tells us that it has stopped warming for now (since 1998 or 2001). Trenberth has referred to this “unexplained lack of warming” as a “travesty”, opining in an interview that the “missing heat” may be radiated “out to space” with “clouds” acting as a “natural thermostat” (an opinion that seems to make sense). The UK Met Office has simply said it could be due to natural variability.
How long the present slight cooling will continue is anyone’s guess. Will it become another ~30-year cycle of slight cooling as we have already seen before?
Who knows? Not me. Not you. Not IPCC. Not James E. Hansen.
We’ll just have to wait and see, Joshua.
Max
Manacker,
You have the perfect example right under your nose.
> Trenberth has referred to this “unexplained lack of warming” as a “travesty” […]
What should scientists do when confronted with such an enigma?
Do they ditch out the data or the theory?
Ditching the theory renders the data meaningless:
> To create data you need a theory.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/805840691
If you ditch your data, how will you be able to do empirical science?
You have all the epistemological problems all under your nose, Manacker, and yet you play ad hoc games.
Let’s all embrace uncertainty.
***
For those interested in paying due diligence to Manacker’s touchdown dance, here’s the exchange between Senior and Trentberth:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/is-there-missing-heat-in-the-climate-system-my-comments-on-this-ncar-press-release/
Lots of interesting discursive patterns in that exchange.
A measure of Willard’s corruption: He reads Pielke Pere and still flaps the alarmist claptrap.
=============
Sooner or later, dearest aoidos,
Humans must embrace both
Uncertainty and corruption
The latter being the only certainty
Of which two famous instances are
Death and taxes.
The Klimazwiebel reference cited showed that climate alarm skepticism is strongest in the USA, the UK and Australia and suggested that English-language blog sites had much to do with this.
I can imagine that this is true.
At first, almost all of the blog sites were openly conveying the same message as IPCC and using censorship or “comments” by the site moderator to ensure that opposing or contradicting views were pooh-poohed or simply cut out.
But then this changed. Several new English-language sites popped up in the USA, the UK and Australia, which allowed opinions that conflicted with IPCC’s “consensus” position.
These sites are now more popular than the “pro-IPCC” sites.
People are slowly getting better informed.
Climategate helped open many people’s eyes – this was also all in English, with primarily UK (plus some US) “actors”, as was the book by Steven Mosher and Thomas W. Fuller, which gave a blow-by-blow description of the affair. Andrew Montford’s book on the Hockeystick affair was also in English.
Several other books have been written on the subject of “climate change” and, again, most of these are in English language.
So it is probably safe to say that the English-speaking general public is generally better informed on the scientific and policy issues surrounding the ongoing debate.
I see that here in Switzerland. Those Swiss acquaintances, who do not speak fluent English or read English-language books and articles, and rely primarily on mainstream media articles in their own language for information, are generally more poorly informed on these issues than those who do.
Makes sense to me.
Max
T
“People are slowly getting better informed.”
Yes, thanks to the internet more and more people believe the greenhouse effect is a myth and the Earth is only 6000 years old.
Thank you for your comment. We need to shut down the internet immediately.
That’s because the people peddling the greenhouse effect have been found to be utterly untrustworthy. Don’t blame the messenger.
Uh wait, you ARE blaming the messenger…
Ur…right. Quick, somebody shoot the messenger so the damn facts stop getting out.
lolwot
The first part of your statement would be correct if modified to the “catastrophic greenhouse effect”, as the evidence cited here has shown.
The second part sounds like BS to me.
Data?
Max
Max
Are you a Swiss?
> Propagandists use this technique to persuade the audience to follow the crowd. This device creates the impression of widespread support. It reinforces the human desire to be on the winning side. It also plays on feelings of loneliness and isolation. Propagandists use this technique to convince people not already on the bandwagon to join in a mass movement while simultaneously reassuring that those on or partially on should stay aboard. Bandwagon propaganda has taken on a new twist. Propagandists are now trying to convince the target audience that if they don’t join in they will be left out. The implication is that if you don’t jump on the bandwagon the parade will pass you by. While this is contrary to the other method, it has the same effect: getting the audience to join in with the crowd. The Institute of Propaganda Analysis suggests we ask ourselves the following questions when confronted with this technique. What is the propagandist’s program? What is the evidence for and against the program? Even though others are supporting it, why should I? As with most propaganda techniques, getting more information is the best defense. When confronted with Bandwagon propaganda, consider the pros and cons before joining in.
http://mason.gmu.edu/~amcdonal/Propaganda%20Techniques.html
PIOMASS calculated arctic sea ice volume for September is critically low.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2_CY.png
Over 80% reduction since 1979. More than half remaining volume lost since 2006. Zero imminent?
lolwot
You got tour seasons wrong here. It’s early October and the long, cold Arctic winter is about to set in (as it does every year).
Again the Arctic sea ice will grow from its all-time late summer low of 4.0 million square km (43% below the 1979-2000 baseline) to around 14.7 msk end-April 2012 high (1.8% below the baseline).
Happens every year lolwot.
At the same time Antarctic sea ice, now at 19.2 msk (2.7% above the 1979-2000 baseline) will begin to shrink to around 8 msk end April 2012 low (9.2% above the baseline).
This also happens every year.
Yawn!
Max
Nice denial of a downwards trend. You should turn your denial professional and get heartland funding.
lolwot
Who’s denying what?
Don’t be silly.
Late summer Arctic sea ice has declined significantly (over 40%) while late winter Arctic sea ice has declined very slightly, i.e. 1.9% since the 1979-2000 baseline. IOW the seasonal summer losses essentially come back in winter.
Late summer Antarctic sea ice has grown significantly (9.2%), but at a lower rate than Arctic decline, while late winter Antarctic sea ice has grown only very slightly, i.e. 2.7% since the same baseline. IOW the seasonal summer losses are smaller but do not recover as well in winter as in the Arctic
That’s what I wrote before and those are the facts as reported by NSIDC.
Do you deny that Antarctic sea ice is growing (as IPCC did in AR4)?
Max
I posted that the PIOMASS arctic sea ice volume model suggests over 80% reduction since 1979. More than half remaining volume lost since 2006.
You posted something that *sounded* like disagreement. It only sounded like disagreement mind you, it was actually more of a diversion. An obfuscation kind of thing I guess.
Max
1970-2000 was the warming phase of the globe. Why are some surprised that the sea ice are melting?
I am sure if we take for the sea ice the trend for the period 1940 to 2000, the drop will not be that much, because it is the ice that was formed during the cooling phase from 1940-1970 that has been melting during the warming phase 1970-2000.
Girma
You are right, of course. Prior to satellite observations there were other periods of Arctic warming (notably in the 1930s/1940s), with a period of cooling from then until the 1970s.
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL026510.shtml
Russian studies (Polyakov et al.) confirm smaller ice extent in the 1940s, which then recovered by the 1970s to a new high, before the modern satellite record started.
I once analyzed the temperature record at Ilulissat, Greenland, mouth of the Sermeq Kujalleq or Jacobshavn glacier (record goes back to the early 20th century)..
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2620/3797223161_16c1ac5e39_b.jpg
This showed a sharp warming over the first half of the 20th century and a very slight cooling since then, with an overall very slight cooling trend over the entire century.
From around 1945 to the late 1970s there was cooling, and it has warmed again since then.
The data all point to a cyclical nature of Arctic temperature and sea ice extent, not that much different from the global record.
Max
I suspect cyclic Arctic ice is one of the reasons for the persistent attempt, centuries ago, to find the Northwest Passage.
===================
“although extensive uncertainties remain, especially before the sixteenth century—both the duration and magnitude of the current decline in sea ice seem to be unprecedented for the past 1,450 years.”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Kinnard_2011_sea_ice_med.jpg
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7374/full/nature10581.html
“The ice loss that we see today — the ice loss that started in the early 20th Century and sped up during the last 30 years — appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100602193423.htm
“Changes in the extent of seasonal ice were investigated using historical and satellite observations for the period 1870–2003. The seasonal ice zone (SIZ) has been gradually expanding since 1870, with a marked acceleration over the past three decades, and has migrated north to encompass all peripheral Arctic seas. ”
http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2008/2007GL032507.shtml
For those who have any notion that the decreasing Arctic sea ice over the past few decades is something of a shorter-term cycle, see:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/1-kinnard2011.jpg
Obviously Max you’ve not grasp the true nature and significance of the volume loss in Arctic sea ice and what it means in the long run, and neither, might I point out, have most of the models predicting the rate of sea ice decline for the Arctic. The models are still catching up to reality (except, it seems, for PIOMAS).
An ice free Arctic by 2020 quite possible, by 2030 almost a certainty. That’s one tipping point that has already been crossed.
R. Gates, you write “An ice free Arctic by 2020 quite possible, by 2030 almost a certainty. That’s one tipping point that has already been crossed.”
Do you have a prediciton as to what is goint to happen to Antarctic sea ice? Will it continue to have a negative correlation with Arctic sea ice, and keep on setting more and more maximum extent records in September of each year? Or will it, at some time, follow your alleged trend of Arctic sea ice, and, at some time in the future, will Antarctic sea ice at maximum start to decrease in extent? And if so, about when?
Many models show Antarctic sea ice eventually (later this century) following the same downward trend as Arctic sea ice, but then, the models have been wrong about how fast the Arctic sea ice would decline, so who knows?
R Gates
In order to write my next aticle on the Arctic i spent some time last week at the Scott Polar institutute in Cambridge going through the archives. Probably the most intriguing item was a contemporary letter from a clairvoyant who had been asked to try to find the location of the lost Franklin expedition.
I made a lot of notes, but you might find this of interest as it is a composite of my impressions of the stuff i read, starting with a book;
‘Observational data of the drifting station 1950-51-by m somov
Volume 1 of 3 of this Russian north pole station on an ice floe”
Middle of june onwards ‘the melting of the snow and ice took place very quickly although the air temperature remained close to freezing’
‘the sun shone…could walk about without a coat…some even tried to get a sun tan.’
‘because of the thaw an enormous amount of water accumulated on the ice’
‘walking was only possible if one wore high rubber boots reaching above the knees’ (because of the water sitting on the ice.
‘many problems because of the thawing.’
Described how later in the season some high spots became dry and these were little hillocks in a sea of icy water sitting on solid ice.
My Note; Arctic obviously greatly affected by how sunny it is, by storms, rip tides, much of the water is actually sitting on ice and the terrain of cliffs and headlands and floating ice often overlaid with fog made it difficult to see to navigate -the old time explorers didn’t have sat nav or radar and might have found say the north west passage if they had modern technology. Also there is a great deal of ice breaking by ordinary ships as well as ice breakers today. The old wooden ships would have been very cautious about getting into pack ice that would not deter modern vessels.
—– ——–
I couldnt help wondering
a) Whether the north east and north \west passages would have been discovered earlier if our ancestors had the advantage of modern navgational aids
b) How satellites can distinguish between open water and water floating on top of ice.
All the best
tonyb
Tony,
Very interesting, as usual Tony. Certainly there is a natural cyclical component to the Arctic sea ice, which seems to be the noise now riding upon an external forcing and related feedbacks. The current trajectory of Arctic summer sea ice seems to be pretty dramatically pointing to an ice free condition sometime in the near future (5 to 15 years?). This certainly has not happened in recorded human history. It would take an equally (or perhaps greater) dramatic cooling of the Arctic and associated waters entering the Arctic to turn this trajectory around. Some opposite forcing great enough to counter anthropogenic forcing. A large, or series of large volcanic eruptions could do it I suppose. Certainly something akin to the Toba eruption of around 70,000 years ago could…but then, we’d have a whole new set of issues to deal with and the state of the sea ice would be distant concern at best.
Most warming in recent times was entirely natural. Cooling is certainly on the cards over the next decades.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=chylek09.gif
There is a decadal influence on ice cover.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=arcticice.gif
Feels like groundhog day again.
R gates
thanks for your kind comments. Here is the article behind the link you posted showing a graph of the last 1450 years of arctic sea ice
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Arctic-sea-ice-hockey-stick-melt-unprecedented-in-last-1450-years.html
its comprised of data from tree rings and an unrepresentative ice core.Hmmm. It appearsfrom thisto Newfoundland that the sea ice levels during the LIA and the MWP were around the same, which makes one wonder how the Vikings managed to get around and how their Bishops visited them in Greenland.
Ice levels were low for hundreds of years around the 11th century. Something also seems to have been happening around the 1550’s when the British mounted their first expedition to find a sea route from Europe to China-The North East passage. This route was based on a map from a few decades earlier drawn by a russian explorer..Theres an interesting book about in the Scott polar archives.
Its qute clear from the available material that ice levels have fluctuated considerably in the past. How today fits in I cant comment until I have evaluated all the material I have gathered
tonyb
Tony,
Given your keen interest in the LIA causes, etc. you might want to check out this paper:
http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/4817/2012/cpd-8-4817-2012.pdf
Greenland ice cores examined in high resolution over the past 4000 years. Of particular interest related to the LIA is of course the volcanic data and the solar data, namely large negative forcings from both, with big time volcanic activity seeming to kick off the whole party in about 1250 A.D. Volcanic activity then occurred at intervals throughout the LIA, with of course the negative forcing from the Maunder and Dalton solar minimums.
Overall, and excellent paper (especially for its very fine temporal resolution. .
The date is Octrober 6th 2012. There are currently no tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic region. To date there have been 18 named storms, 8 hurricanes and 1 major hurricane (Cat. 3 or greater). No major storm has made landfall on the USA so far in this hurricane season.
Now I know that the hurricane season does not end until 30th Novemebr, but all the indications are that the really major hurricane effects for the North Atlantic region are over for this season. I know this could turn out to be wrong. But it looks like we are going to be setting an even greater record for the length of time between major hurricanes making landfall on the USA, and no sign whatsoever, that hurricane frequency and intensity are increasing as a result of CAGW.
Japan has been affected by 15 typhoons so far in 2012, which I thought was interesting.
JimD, that would be related to the shift in the ENSO “trend” which appears to trigger the AMO. The one biggest flaw with the models is that they do not include realistic ocean oscillation data. Other than that, the models are pretty impressive.
lolwot says , 6/10 @8.36am, that polls confirm that scientists are the most trusted people in regards ter science…
Some of us have jest lost our faith in polls post Lewandowsky. Polls employing fake data and where a desired outcome is ter be achieved … fer noble cause of course.
How convenient for you to lose your “faith” in polls just in time for me to post some inconvenient poll data.
That way you needn’t process it and can go on believing the myth that no-one trust climate scientists!
Sample survey question:
Who would you most trust?
(a) gypsey fortune tellers
(b) Car salesmen
(c) Climate scientists
How unfortunate for you that the poll included.
-Climate Scientists
-Other kinds of Scientists
-Television Weather Reporters
-The Mainstream News Media
And the poll results show the most trusted group is Climate Scientists. I guess most people polled were using common sense!
Oh, and don’t forget – industry/business.
The types who fund front groups like Heartland.
And you know their level of public trust – almost zero.
AGW science is hanging by a thread…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444223104578034480670026450.html
can you follow it?
Most people who say they trust climate scientists, do so for political correctness reasons. Which is no doubt the motive of whoever ran this poll.
Let’s see your data.
“Most people who say they trust climate scientists, do so for political correctness reasons. Which is no doubt the motive of whoever ran this poll.”
Two sentences and two conspiracy theories.
Oh I get it, let’s pretend like children that there are no ulterior motives shall we ? You trust the likes of Lewandowski too do you? And are a Climategate denier as well?
Just show us the data.
I myself would probably answer climate scientists, but I would think it was kind of a rigged question. If it had also had IPCC in there as well it would have been a better question. Eventually science will get it right. I don’t know what that answer will be, but my conviction right now is that many of the dangers are being exaggerated and it needs more science.
If there was a question about who would you trust more with medical advice, it would shock no one that people would say doctors. Kind of lame that you are making a big deal out of such a stupid question.
” If it had also had IPCC in there as well it would have been a better question.”
I reckon 99% of the population don’t even know what the IPCC is.
In the UK when people hear IPCC they think of the Independent Police Complaints Commission
Beth
Me too. I love ’em. An’ I only got pick-pocketed once.
Max
(e) gipsy fortune teller
Poor Beth – takes refuge in nonsense.
Is this the same Max who can’t even read focus group results and understand them?
Yikes.
Michael
Naw.
That’s Max_OK.
‘Nuther guy.
Max_not from OK
Max,
You seem to forget about your touchdown dances on your own line of 20:
Do you have an RSS reader?
If not, please go get one.
Willard
Like the ancient Sphynx, you speak in riddles.
Max
Manacker,
An RSS reader can help you track the comments of a website:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator
With an RSS reader, following conversations becomes possible.
Please try one.
A whole new meaning to “trickle down” climate-change economics, eh? :?: :?: :?:
It is notable that by short-term monetary economic measures, this bad behavior had strictly *positive* value, in “stimulating” the local economy.
Just imagine how wealthy the locals would become, if these events happened daily, eh? :( :oops: :cry: :?:
Walter Starck famously observed so poignantly that being taken over by a mania leads to a disconnect from the real world and it is that disconnect that, often leads to a zenith of zealotry… just before increasingly obvious reality finally forces them to make some small admission of error.. While there is good scientific evidence that atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing from the burning of fossil fuels, and that carbon dioxide does indeed absorb infared heat radiation of certain frequencies, it is purely speculation that this will cause a climate catastrophe.
Fanny
Sounds like this Aussie group did almost as much damage up north as that shipload of environmentalists that got themselves stuck in the Antarctic sea ice and had to get rescued or the aborted Arctic excursion of environmentalists wanting to get to the North Pole to “prove” that the ice was thinning, who got stuck in the ice.
At least this Aussie bunch didn’t need an expensive rescue mission.
Max
Manacker, as an alternative to short-sighted corporate valuation, please let me commend to you the longer-sighted values of communities like Season’s End, in particular their terrific new video series Climate Change in Colorado: Beyond Seasons’ End
Because that’s the real point, eh Manacker?
Ideology-first economists who ask “What is the optimal depreciation rate of ecosystems like Yosemite, Denali, and Yellowstone?” are totally missing the point, eh? :?: :?: :?:
These economic idiots appreciate “the price of everything & the value of nothing”, eh? :shock: :shock: :shock:
That ideology leads to swiftly to destruction by booze-fueled morons, eh? :shock: :shock: :shock:
Fanny
Morons are morons, whether they are “booze filled” or on a quest to “prove” that the Arctic ice was disappearing (and then getting bogged down in it, so they had to be saved) or on a quest to the Antarctic to “prove” some other horrible environmental evidence of global warming (and then getting stuck in the ice, so they had to be rescued).
Max
What planet do you live on, manacker? It does not appear to be a planet inhabitated by serious foresighted people, eh?
Fan
Oh come now Fan, citing an icelandic example to illustrate melting actic ice-whatever next?
Even Scott Mandia acknowledges the warm climate Iceland enjoyed in the Mwp and they are enjoying again now.
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/decline_of_vikings_iceland.html
I’ive been to iceland and its a fascinatng place, but very few other countries can benefit from ‘renewable’ geo thermal energy.
As for the ice breaker going through the North East passage, the British made their first expedition to find the route in 1553 during a warm period. If they had ice breakers and modern navigational aids they may have made it (some say the Russsians did make it around the same time)
tonyb
Hmmmm … so the Icelanders have elected an uncommonly intelligent president, eh Climatereason? ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
The Iceland voters appreciate that “Nature cannot be fooled”, eh? ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
And so “We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately”, eh? ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Smartly done, Icelanders! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
I read he supports a law that would jail idiots who post stupid smiley faces
Rob
Their President obviously does not know the history of his own country, whilst Fan seems to have a over supply of smileys and an undersupply of historical knowledge.
Rather than putting him in jail though why don’t we just fine him $10 a smiley the money to be paid to denizens monthly-thats 200$ just from his post above
With my first pay out I could buy a gallon of petrol which costs one smiley fine here in the UK. Its no fun having a green govt who enacted a climate change law that is slowly bankruptng the country and threatening to caiuse powe cuts within three years.
tonybr
Is shale gas in the USA really such a lost cause ?
Say Lolwot and Michael, “Consensus is the last refuge of the scoundrel.’
H/t Samuel Johnson.
Samuel Johnson might have had strange sex habits, then.
And here’s more evidence of that:
> The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
@gates
So you say CO2 affects the ocean heat directly – ie not via the well-known greenhouse effect on the atmosphere? Which would mean that even if the greenhouse effect on the atmosphere didn’t exist, the oceans would still warm.
How?
So @Gates is in effect saying the greenhouse effect is a red herring (sorry, couldn’t help myself) ? – the oceans are not warming as a result of the air warming. So, something else then. Well that’s impressively radical.
Erica,
The oceans are warming as a result of the alteration of atmospheric chemistry– i.e. increased amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is no different than putting on a thicker jacket in the wintertime to keep your core body temperature warmer. The ocean is the Earth’s non-tectonic core body. Net energy flows from ocean to atmosphere. Thinking about this issue from an energy flow perspective and what is thermodynamically possible is the best way to grasp it.
Now, from this basic warming effect of increased greenhouse gases we must then look at all the feedback effects, positive and negative, that result from warmer oceans, such as warmer ocean currents moving energy to toward the poles, more energy at deeper levels of the oceans from downwelling, acceleration of the hydrological cycle, changes to the cryosphere, etc.
All this is not to say that increased greenhouse gases do not also warm the atmosphere as well, at least the troposphere, for certainly they do, but this warming of the troposphere is not then transferred into the larger energy sink of the ocean, but only regulates how much heat is transferred back from ocean to atmosphere.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system. ‘
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-3-23.html
Hey I guess these low fequency variations are real. Feels like groundhog day again.
Skeptical … Gates (say why don’t you get a shorter handle?)
“…The oceans are warming as a result of the alteration of atmospheric chemistry– i.e. increased amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
… Net energy flows from ocean to atmosphere”
So what are the consequences of this changed chemistry of the atmosphere, on the temperature of the ocean, and the net energy flow from ocean to atmosphere ?
Presumably for the temperature of the ocean to increase due to the net energy flow from ocean to atmosphere having decreased, the temperature of the atmosphere at sea-level must have increased, due to the chemical changes to the atmosphere (the CO2/greenhouse effect).
In other words, the chain of events in this scenario is
(1) first the atmosphere warms, a result of increased CO2 chemistry
(2) later the oceans warm, a result of a lower net energy flow from ocean to atmosphere, which is a result of a lower ocean-atmosphere temperature gradient, which is result of a higher sea-level atmospheric temperatures.
So unless we the atmosphere first warming, we cannot attribute ocean warming to this. It must be due to some other reason/s. And although there has been atmospheric warming for 100+ years there hasn’t been any since about 1998. And yet the oceans are still warming, you say.
So unless there is a ~15-year lag, the oceans must be warming for that other reason/s. And which also means CO2 is off the hook.
Erica,
You still seem to not grasp the basic energy flow within the system. The atmosphere doesn’t warm the ocean, but only serves as a governor to restrict the flow of energy from the ocean back to space. The vast majority of energy in the ocean comes from sunlight. The ocean serves as a storage battery for this energy. The atmosphere serves as a resistor to the release of that energy back to space. The greater the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the greater the resistance to the release of that energy, and since the amount of energy entering the oceans from sunlight varies only slightly over time, when you increase resistance to the release of that energy as we’ve done through the increasing greenhouse gases, the oceans will inevitably gain energy, ad they have been doing by about .5 x 10^22 joules per year over the past 50 years very consistently.
R Gates
Nowhere do I suggest or assume that net heat flows from atmosphere to ocean. Indeed I take your comments regarding the reverse effect on board in toto, along with the notion that the atmosphere temperature acts as a governor of heat transfer from ocean to atmosphere. So I really don’t understand why you feel the need to point this out.
I won’t repeat my whole earlier post, but merely note that in terms of your own argument, a necessary precondition for ocean warming is atmospheric warming, since as you mention the latter governs the former.
The problem here though, is that the latter hasn’t been happening since 1998, and yet you say the oceans have continued warming. So whatever is warming the oceans, it isn’t a warmer atmosphere slowing down the loss of heat from the oceans to itself.
Erica,
The past 10 years have been the warmest 10 year period for tropospheric temperatures and the past 10 years have been the warmest 10 year period for ocean heat content, both as measured by modern instruments and when compared to a composite of the best paleoclimate data we have. I’m not sure what you mean by suggesting that the atmosphere hasn’t warmed along with the oceans? Also, it should be pointed out, the past 10 years have been the highest 10 year period for CO2, methane, and N2O levels in somewhere around a million years. Do you honestly think these all are not related?
Those who deny these basic facts certainly deserve a different title other than “skeptic”.
R Gates
Much of what you say here I agree with, but yet again you duck the point put to you. Let me again state it, starting from a little earlier in the discussion.
In response to the well-known observation that average atmospheric temperatures have risen for about 14 years now, you made the following argument
(1) oceans temperatures HAVE still been rising.
And since they are a far greater heat sink, this means the earth is still warming.
(2) The net energy flow is ocean->atmosphere, not atmosphere->ocean, in view of their relative temperatures.
(3) With (2) in mind, the atmosphere governs heat loss from the ocean; the warmer the atmosphere is, the less the ocean will cool into it.
—
Now (2) and (3) taken together, mean that for ocean temperature to rise by this mechanism, the atmospheric temperature must first rise.
Your problem for your theory is : the atmosphere has in fact NOT warming these 14 years, yet the oceans you say HAVE still warming. So whatever is warming the oceans, it is NOT a warming atmosphere.
So what is it ?
Rising CO2 reduces the energy heading into space. If that causes an imbalance then the planet will accumulate energy until balance is restored. That alone doesn’t tell us where the energy will be accumulated. Over a number of years the ocean could accumulate energy but the atmosphere does not.
“Rising CO2 reduces the energy heading into space.”
That conclusion might be result of the incorrectly solved Earth heat transfer problem. The surface is cooled by non-radiative modes pre-dominantly, while the atmosphere is cooled by radiation exclusively. Over 90% of the planetary cooling power is the atmospheric radiation, not the surface radiation.
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
Sullivan,
You must think about net energy flows in the ocean-atmosphere system to really grasp the significance of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The majority of the energy that enters the ocean is from SW solar radiation, and it is only then transferred to the atmosphere at a rate based partially on the steepness of the thermal gradient between the ocean skin layer and the atmosphere. Greater greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere alter the thermal gradient right at the ocean skin layer. The very top of the ocean skin layer is continually affected by LW radiation coming from the atmosphere. In fact, the LW can’t penetrate much beyond that very top ocean skin layer, but that’s all it needs to penetrate to alter the thermal gradient across the skin layer. If the top of the ocean skin layer is slightly warmer with increased greenhouse gas warming, it means the thermal gradient across the ocean skin layer becomes less steep, energy flows less readily from ocean to atmosphere, and the oceans accumulate energy.
The warming of the bulk of the ocean mass from increased CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is not mainly from the direct warming of the oceans by the atmosphere (this is thermodynamically impossible), but rather, the fact that increased greenhouse gases act as a governor or control nob to regulate the rate at which energy is transferred from ocean to atmosphere. This is, in a sense, no different than how a jacket keeps the core of your body warm on a cold winter day. There is no energy being imparted from the jacket to your body, but the jacket serves to control the rate at which your body loses energy to the colder air outside the jacket. In this case, the oceans represent your body’s core, and similarly overall, the net energy flow is from your body’s core to the jacket, just as the net energy flow is from the ocean to atmosphere, and not the other way around.
“Greater greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere alter the thermal gradient right at the ocean skin layer.”
Linky?
Thanks in advance for supporting this statement with experimental data published in a peer reviewed journal. Real Climate and Skeptical Science don’t count as peer reviewed journals, by the way. They count as blogs and might lead you to the literature but they themselves are not the literature.
R Gates
Restated in your terms then : for the ocean-atmosphere gradient to become less steep and so inhibit ocean-to-atmosphere heat transfer, the atmosphere at the surface must have warmed up (due to increased CO2, let’s assume).
But of course it hasn’t for the last decade or more.
Which means that if indeed the oceans are warming, it cannot be because of the atmosphere (and therefore also not because of CO2 levels).
Sullivan, simply put, the sun heats the ocean and the CO2 prevents that heat from escaping so easily. Standard stuff.
It’s not that simple when the ocean is free to evaporate in response. This is “standard stuff” over dry land because rocks aren’t free to evaporate but it’s different over water. The standard stuff as you call it includes three means of heat leaving the earth’s surface – latent, radiative, and conductive. Each path, when available, will carry a portion of the energy away from the surface proportional to its resistance. DC electrical circuits work the same way with parallel resisters and so do manifolds in fluid pipelines. Over dry land we have only two paths from surface to atmosphere – conduction and radiation. If we give the radiative path more resistence, which happens with more CO2, the only possible response is a rise in surface temperature. Adding a latent path changes things because increased evaporation doesn’t require an increase in surface temperature but rather an increase in the latent heat of vaporization which is afforded by the increased downwelling radiation. A pound of water vapor at 15C carries a hugely larger amount of energy of than a pound of water at 15C. In fact as evaporation happens the skin layer becomes colder than the water below it because evaporation removes more heat than is absorbed to cause the evaporation. That’s because the extra energy picks off the warmest water molecules closest to a phase change and leaves the colder ones behind.
Feel free to give an alternative physical explanation for why the skin layer is cooler than the water below it. Good luck!
“Over dry land we have only two paths from surface to atmosphere – conduction and radiation. If we give the radiative path more resistence, which happens with more CO2, the only possible response is a rise in surface temperature.”
Some elaboration is in order for that. What happens is that the higher temperature allows more energy to escape radiatively through the atmosphere’s IR window. More energy will also escape by conduction through a higher delta-T between surface and air causing what’s called thermals that can be seen as shimmering over the desert and can be ridden by sailplanes and raptors. You need a spectroscope to see the increase in energy in the IR window but it’s there and was observed by high flying aircraft with downward-looking instruments.
David: ‘Over dry land we have only two paths from surface to atmosphere – conduction and radiation…’ My thirsty tomato plants tell me there is plenty of evaporation from their leaves, as from all green plants undergoing photosynthesis.
Your tomato plants on are on moist land, obviously, or they could not transpire. I specifically stated *dry* land.
@Jim D
Yes, and which must obviously warm the atmosphere in the process – which we know is NOT happening. So either the standard stuff is plain wrong, or natural variation is swamping it.
Sullivan,
The past 10 years were the warmest 10 year period in the troposphere on instrument record, with ocean heat content also being at its highest recorded levels. These are the basic facts. Natural variability may have dampened this period to not have been even warmer, but we should not expect this to continue.
R. Gates
You state:
The first part is true, in that the cooling trend of the recent decade has been less pronounced than the warming trend of the previous decade, so that, by definition, the temperatures for the most recent decade are higher on average. Duh! (4th-grade arithmetic).
Ocean heat content claims are a bit more dicey. There were no reliable measurements before around 2003, when ARGO measurements replaced the old spot measurements from the expendable XBT devices (which introduced a warming bias). The ARGO measurements have NOT shown increases in ocean heat content, but rather slight cooling (referred to by team leader, Josh Willis, as a “speed bump”). So we cannot say with any certainty that “ocean heat content is at its highest recorded level”.
Let’s not use clever “wordsmithing”, in order to deny that both the atmosphere and the ocean appear to be cooling at present, even if only very slightly.
Max
.
Max,
With a high degree of confidence we can say that the past 10 years were the warmest 10 year period of lower troposphere and warmest 10 year period of ocean temperatures on instrument records. There is no clever words-smithing going on here at all. This is simple and straight forward. Your insistence that our data for the oceans does not allow us to make this statement is quite in error. We have a high degree of confidence that the oceans are at their highest levels of heat content in quite some time.
Fortunately, we can also know several of the reasons why the past 10 years were rather flat (at a higher levels) in the troposphere based on known physical forcing mechanisms. These being (in no particular order of importance):
1). A series of moderate volcanoes increasing aerosols
2) A cool phase of the PDO favoring more and stronger La Nina periods whereby less heat is released from ocean to atmosphere
3) A less active sun
4) An increase in human aerosols from China and other regions in Asia.
A most telling piece of data comes from last years La Nina. Normally of course we see lower tropospheric temperatures during La Ninas as less net energy is released from ocean to atmosphere, and such was the case last year– with one big difference. It was the warmest La Nina year on record.
RGates
It is interesting that the worlds most scrutinised temperature data set has shown a marked decline over the last decade (although it remains as a high level) This year it has been at the levels of 1730 and two years ago it was at the same level as the first year in the CET record,1660).
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
As regards this being the warmest La Nina on record, when was this record established?
tonyb
Tony,
I left this link for you elsewhere, Just wanted to make sure you saw it. Great article on the record from the Greenland Ice Core, especially of interest to you might be the big increase in volcanic activity just prior to the start of the LIA (and during as well). Also of course the Maunder and Dalton shown in this study:
http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/4817/2012/cpd-8-4817-2012.pdf
R Gates
Here is the source of your claim about this being the warmest La nina on record
“Global temperatures in 2011 have not been as warm as the record-setting values seen in 2010 but have likely been warmer than any previous strong La Niña year, based on preliminary data from data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_935_en.html
Note the qualfication of ‘likely’. It seems the first records appear to have started around a century ago but were suspect as Tahiti pressure measurements were largely missing until the 1980’s so the full picture could not be seen.
tonyb
Tony,
2011 was the warmest La Nina year on record. This is significant, as it continues to set the baseline for increasing temperatures higher, with the natural variations of ENSO, PDO, and solar cycles fluctuating on a continually increasing longer-term baseline. Interesting that even a weak solar cycle and cool phase of the PDO, along with increased aerosols could not bring this La Nina down lower.
RGates
Many thanks for the link to the LIA/Greenland study. It looks very interesting and even better, it is not behind a paywall.
As I may have said to you before, one of my projects is to try to trace the change in the climate from MWP to LIA. In fact I am going to the Met Office library tomorrow to borrow Jean Groves book on the LIA and also research more material.
We are fortunate round here to have some good records locally of the period from 1100 to 1400AD, some of which I recently researched at the Medieval Exeter Cathedral. I am concentrating on the 1250AD decades as this appears to be the recognised period of the LIA start, largely because of ice cores.
However, blessed if I can find any downturn in the climate during that period-for example no monies paid to the poor for hardship from the Cathedral. I wonder if the volcanoes around 1250 emitted lots of sulphur which got recorded in the ice cores but didn’t actualy affect the climate. However its early das and hard evence of the downturn around 1250 might of course come to light.
Anyway, many thanks for the link.
tonyb
Tony,
One last graph for you that is worth studying. Shows the coincidence of volcanic activity and global temperatures over the past 800 years or so:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/02/MFRFigu2d.jpg
Will the full article here:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/the-mysterious-missing-eruption-of-1258-a-d/
Incredible. People are disputing the standard stuff, and I didn’t even get to the part about the warmer ocean resulting in more water vapor in the atmosphere which is a positive feedback.
More water vapour in the atmosphere is negative feedback, it’s called the Water Cycle. Without water our real atmosphere would be 67°C .., think deserts.
Moist, hot air rises because lighter than air, and as water vapour reaches the cold heights it releases its heat, heat always flows from hotter to colder, and condenses back to liquid water or ice forming clouds and it then comes back down to the Earth’s suface – all pure clean rain, and fog and dew, is carbonic acid as water and carbon dioxide have a great attraction for each other, water in the atmosphere sweeps up into its arms all the carbon dioxide around; in this carbon dioxide shares the same residence time in the atmosphere as water, 8-10 days. Water has a very high heat capacity and transfers this from the surface to the cold heights and away through evaporation.
That is the Water Cycle. That is what is basic in the real world.
> That is the Water Cycle. That is what is basic in the real world.
Thales agrees with Myrhhh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales#Water_as_a_first_principle
Jim D | October 7, 2012 at 12:12 pm said: ”warmer ocean resulting in more water vapor in the atmosphere which is a positive feedback”
Jimmy boy, water is NOT a “”positive feedback””, but a ”POSITIVE STARVEBACK”!!!
Water vapor makes milder climate – day and night temperature closer. Minus water vapor = extreme between day and night. Overall temperature is always the same!!!
Same as: if you have in the left pocket $90 and in the right one $10 – then you put from from the left into the right pocket another $30 = you will have $40 in one $60 in the other, instead of $90 to $10; but that’s not going to make you richer or poorer. On mid pacific islands the difference between day / night is 3-5C, in Sahara difference between day and night is 30C
Blaming water vapor and CO2, but referring as ”green” is the biggest hippocricy, since the homo-erectus invented the language. No wander you are lacking capacity to understand the most simple facts, coordinating everything to fit the Hansen’s lies, is turning you into a cuckoo. Your attitude is bordering on fanaticism and lunacy. Get a doze of reality: . http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/water-vapor/
> Blaming water vapor and CO2, but referring as ”green” is the biggest hippocricy, since the homo-erectus invented the language.
Quite an understatement.
God I miss bender.
Jim D : more water vapor in the atmosphere which is a positive feedback.
Even though this means more albedo ?
Albedo, the foaming cleanser
Puts the sparkle back in the denser.
=============
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) | October 7, 2012 at 12:39 pm said: ”With a high degree of confidence we can say that the past 10 years were the warmest 10 year period of lower troposphere”
Gates, learn something that is correct for a change, and can be replicated every day: – when ”lower troposphere” warms up extra -> vertical winds INCREASE, instantly; and equalize in a jiffy!!! 1] in Sahara, in 12h ”lower troposphere” cools by 35C, yes, in 12h. 2] in Fiji, in those same 12h, cools only by 4-5C; because day temperature is not much different than night temp – because: proportion in difference of temperature between lower and upper troposphere is much less!!!
So, repeat after me: -”a] when is no H2O, or CO2, or any other pollutant in the upper atmosphere, to intercept some of the sunlight – the colder is there, but the hotter it gets closer to the ground -> the MORE vertical winds speed up, and equalize in a jiffy, not in 10 years, not in 10 years, not in 10 years”. Don’t be same sleaze as Tony Brown, when confronted by real proofs, have some dignity and admit that your fanaticism is completely wrong AND back to front. If you are interested to learn what’s correct and what’s wrong, why is wrong, on my blog
Well, Max, *IF* they showed yer the data that verified their claims of
(a) unprecedented global warming and
(b) the data confirming CAGW due to rising levels of man produced carbon emissions
*THEN* you and others like yer would have the opportunity ter critically analyse and test their claims. But considering the efforts Steve McIntyre went to ter get the Hocky Stick data, don’t hold yer breath waiting )
The data certainly does confirm CAGW as real. To see why lets review the three primary effects of rising CO2:
1) disruption of radiative flow in the atmosphere because CO2 is a strong greenhouse gas
2) A drop in surface ocean pH because of increased absorption of CO2 into the upper ocean.
3) Increased plant fertilization because CO2 is “plant food”
Through these three primary effects CO2 touches almost all aspects of ecosystems, weather and climate on land and in the ocean. Secondary effects include but are not limited to:
– increasing ocean, land and atmospheric temperatures
– reductions in glaciers, ice sheets, snowcover, etc
– raising sea level
– altering the amount and properties of clouds, which in turn alters the amount of sunlight received by the Earth
– altering weather and climate patterns
– altering ecosystems and food chains
What guarantee do we have that these impacts will be small enough to avoid catastrophe? Unfortunately the predictive science is still a work in progress and can’t yet offer us any guarantees.
Maybe we can find an example from Earth’s history where CO2 rose as fast as it was doing today and no catastrophe occurred? Unfortunately no such luck. No-one has found evidence of any past CO2 rise as sharp and fast as the current one.
So what CAGW catastrophes could conceivably occur? Examples include (but are certainly not limited to):
– die back of the amazon rainforest
– collapse or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation
– alteration of other ocean currents
– massive release of carbon trapped in permafrost
– mass extinctions triggered by alterations of ecosystems
– increased droughts and floods in some areas
– alteration of regional weather patterns with disastrous impact
– crop failures and famines
Until the science is good enough to disprove all the above potential catastrophes (and more), CAGW is real. It’s important to make the world aware of this CAGW threat so that decisions can be made. After-all it would be bad if people one day woke up to disaster and exclaimed: “But I didn’t know that could happen!”
“The data certainly does confirm CAGW as real.”
It doesn’t.
Andrew
@lolwot
So…..because we see increased plant growth etc, therefore there is Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Genious.
@lolwot
You cite
‘ A drop in surface ocean pH because of increased absorption of CO2 into the upper ocean’
Please provide links to actual observational evidence showing that this theoretically possible effect is actually happening. Then we can all assess the strength of this part of your case.
Thanks.
lolwot
I get a “déjà vu all over again” feeling when I read your long post listing “potential catastrophes” from AGW, based on three main contributing factors
– increased global temperature
– decreased ocean pH
– plant response to increased atmospheric CO2.
This has all been refuted on another thread, where I have demonstrated, based on actual real-life data, that factors 1 and 3 are likely to have a positive, rather than catastrophically negative, impact for humanity and that we do not know enough about the constraints, extent or environmental response to any human CO2-caused ocean pH changes (factor 2) to conclude that these would have “catastrophic” consequences.
Let’s not rehash the same old, tired arguments that have already been shot down once.
It gets boring.
Max
For all who enjoy cartoons, it turns out that Josh’s Royal Society — Handling Uncertainty in Climate cartoons *ARE* available on-line.
On the other hand, the link that Judith Curry supplies still points (in the end) to Marc Fleurbaey and Stéphane Zuber’s dry-as-dust analysis Climate policies deserve a negative discount rate.
Please let me say, that Judith Curry is IMHO showing excellent judgement! Josh’s cartoons describe climate-change issues from a short-term childish perspective … whereas Josh never touches the long-term adult perspective of Fleurbaey and Zuber’s analysis!
Is Judith Curry asking us all to reflect, that rational climate-change debate requires a GROWN–UP focus? :?: :?: :?:
Is Judith affirming (in effect) “Rational climate-change skepticism must embrace long-term implications and responsibilities.” :?: :?: :?:
LOL … good luck with *THAT* enterprise, Judith! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Every politician, huckster, demagogue, and con-artist bases their “con” … upon the premise that *MANY* folks prefer to live in a Josh-style cartoon universe! ;) :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
WUWT caught with its pants down again
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2012/10/04/wuwt-taking-incompetence-to-a-whole-new-level/
The failure of AGW pseudo-scientists to admit Mann’s ‘hockey stick’ is nothing more than a religious symbol and the Left’s refusal to concede that the Earth has been in a cooling trend for the past 10,000 years is a moral breach that dishonors reason.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articlePictures/globalcool3.jpg
WUWT was also caught acting unethically in allowing commenter Smokey to be supported in his discussions by a WUWT Mod – dbs – who was actually Smokey.
Smokey and dbs appear to have been missing from WUWT for quite some time now.
http://wottsupwiththat.com/2012/08/29/reach-for-the-stars-now-becomes-retreat-to-the-past/#comment-4516
Let’s wish Smokey the best.
I’ve heard that physical work can be good for the soul [1].
Too bad Willard Tony never had his own bending machine.
[1] http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/18/curry-reviews-lindzen-and-choi/#comment-216477
Wow
If these two pretty minor supposed ‘transgressions’ are the worst you can find, then I think that WUWT must be doing a pretty good job of getting you guys severely worried. Maybe I’ll start reading it more closely.
Compared with Climategate it looks like AW is pretty squeaky clean.
These are by no means the worst, they just happen to going on right now.
Should we discuss the hypocrisy of berating Muller for science by press release followed by Watts’ own press release about his draft surface stations project? Or his lack of willingness to publish his code or data? Or his unwillingness to accept that he is wrong when patient scientists try to explain to him in words of one syllable where he misses the point? Or his ad hom attacks and willingness to release personal details about posters he disagrees with?
Probably not the time and place to go in to these here but there are plenty of other blogs that record these issues for posterity.
@louise
‘there are plenty of other blogs that record these issues for posterity’
Sorry – still not convinced that these are very bad misdemeanours. Not like forgery or career threats or any of the climategate shenanigans. It may be that Mr Watts does some things that you dislike, but you’ve not made a case that he’s the evil archcriminal of the climate battlefield that you would like him to be.
But in case anybody’s interested, please place links to the ‘plenty of other blogs’ that you cite so we can read all about them.
> Not like forgery or career threats or any of the climategate shenanigans.
Look, an abstract squirrel.
> [Y]ou’ve not made a case that he’s the evil archcriminal of the climate battlefield that you would like him to be.
Mindreading a strawman.
@lolwot
I agree that it is bad practice to provide graphs without correct attribution.
So how do you feel about this one
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/ClimateTrust.jpg
which you cited in your post here earlier today
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/#comment-249271
Th graph has absolutely no information to help track down is original source, Nor does the link you provided…to a ‘sceptical science’ picture gallery.
Sauce for the goose, my dear lolwot, is sauce for the gander.
@louise
Did you check the date on the article that Connolly (the same guy who keeps getting banned from wiki??) complains about?
Here it is
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/10/when-the-ipcc-disappeared-the-medieval-warm-period/
The date is March 2010. Two and a half years ago. Only just after the glorious liberation of Climategate.
And the supposed error was in a piece clearly labelled
‘Guest post by Frank Lansner’
So whatever your beefs with Watts (and boy has he got you all worried), if you need to say that
‘they just happen to be going on right now’
about an article that old, then you really really are clutching at straws. You need to find some real dirt Louise, otherwise you are just serving to enhance his already influential reputation
> The date is March 2010. Two and a half years ago.
Indeed, an old article karaoking an old myth about the MWP and the IPCC. The karaoke usually contains a refrain about the Deming Affair:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/DemingAffair
The Deming Affair is an important ingredient in our good Bishop’s political hit job.
***
> Only just after the glorious liberation of Climategate.
Look, squirrel, this time not an abstract one.
It even has a name: YesButClimategate.
Liberating the mails. hmm that one has not gotten the traction I thought it would.
My strange tractor broke down straight out of the bifurctory.
==============
When will people admit George Bush got it right? So long as global warming is a political issue — and that is all it will ever be until the Western economy falls on its face like it did in Greece — AGW it will never be anything more than the blame game for the 47%’rs (until they become more than 50% at which time they will simply re-write history and none of this will have happened).
Speaking of George Junior, here would be a number to audit:
> 3 trillion and beyond.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/3650541306
That’s an estimate of the Irak occupation, which might be considered a bit more than the Bush administration’s 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion.
Wy not blame Allah?
allahaudit.org does not seem to be taken.
Go for it:
Fame and fortune awaits you.
What is your recommendation to the children in the Muslim world, learn more about capitalism or wear a bomb belt?
If you kill their parents, they’ll wear a bomb belt.
Very interesting, please continue.
@lolwot
Shock horror. Watts mislabelled a graph and failed to provide attribution.
If that is the worst crime he has committed, then you guys are really having to resort to clutching at straws.
Compare and contrast:
Latimer Adler:
> Shock horror. Watts mislabelled a graph and failed to provide attribution.
William M. Connolley:
> [Considering the source of the author’s graph, Frank Lansner] was deliberately lying to his audience. But more amusingly, all his audience is so incompetent that they fail to realise they are being lied to. […] The discussion the segues off into boreholes but Lansner never gives an honest answer, or even addresses the real point. Oh, and don’t get me started on how incompetent his fig 2 is.
@willard
Do you have a substantive point to make?
If so, please make it clearly and directly.
Thanks.
He’s got a bass case, ‘splodin’ in bills.
===========
Apologies to the Parrot Catcher; he was a much better man.
===============
Latimer Adler,
Connolley’s point was to provide evidence that Frank Lansner lied to Willard Tony’s audience, and that most of his audience did not even bother to audit (paraphrasing with the relevant operative word) Lansner’s claim before raising their pitchforks. And that when audited, Lansner did not acknowledge his mistake.
Connolley’s point was not what Watts mislabelled a graph. It was not even the main point. It was not even Watts anyway.
So my point would be that you have caricatured Connolley’s point. In other words, you did not pay enough due diligence before trying to minimize Connolley’s point. Not unlike Willard Tony’s audience did, incidentally.
Thank you for providing me a chance to clarify what I meant.
@willard
If the worst charge you can lay at my door is that I ‘caricatured’ Connolly’s point then I will sleep easy in my bed at night, secure in a job well done.
In UK we call it ‘taking the piss out of an arrogant smug git’, but if you feel ‘caricaturing’ more suits the Climate Etc audience, I’m cool with that.
That you and Connolly can get so violently excited by a 30 month old occurrence in a guest post on a voluntary blog just shows how much Watts work has got you all terrified. Not so long ago it was beneath your notice as you sheltered in the haven of Real Climate. Those were the days – when people tuned in to Schmidt and Mann to hear the party line. Now nobody listens to them and you are running scared of a TV weatherman
Just imagine what would happen if McIntyre’s indefatigable forensic skills were combined with Watts’ wide readership………
@willard
I forgot to congratulate you on writing a post that was almost comprehensible without a higher degree in riddle solution. You’re learning. Keep it up!
And If I were AFOCBS I’d give you an encouraging smiley.
Latimer Adler,
Since the only thing you did was to caricature Connolley’s points, and that you would not care less about the skill of your reading, then I am glad that we’re in violent agreement. Well done!
***
You now claim:
> Not so long ago it was beneath your notice as you sheltered in the haven of Real Climate.
I’d like you to substantiate that claim. As far as I can recall, I have not commented much on RC. Perhaps you’re cool with saying falsities?
***
You also claim:
> [Y]ou are running scared of a TV weatherman.
I’d like you to substantiate that mindreading. As far as I’m concerned, Willard Tony is such an easy target that I don’t think it is worth my time paying due diligence the the mud he slings day in day out. This is the second reading of my mind you are providing us so far free of charge in this thread alone.
***
> Just imagine what would happen if McIntyre’s indefatigable forensic skills were combined with Watts’ wide readership………
It is not difficult to imagine, since Willard Tony karaokes about anything that gets out of CA. For instance, just today we have this:
> Over at Climate Audit, Steve reports on the Update for the FOI for the Wahl Attachments[.]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/07/questions-on-the-cru-email-backup-server/
And also this:
> This new paper in GRL takes on the well-known buckets-vs-inlets issue (Steve McIntyre also visited the issue several times) related to ship based sea surface temperature measurements and as a result, produces an improved dataset.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/07/resolving-the-biases-in-century-scale-sea-surface-temperature-measurments-reveals-some-interesting-patterns/
***
Speaking of Willard Tony and the Auditor, this bit is interesting.
> Anthony sent me his draft paper. In his cover email, he said that the people who had offered to do statistical analysis hadn’t done so (each for valid reasons). So I did some analysis very quickly, which Anthony incorporated in the paper and made me a coauthor though my contribution was very last minute and limited. I haven’t parsed the rest of the paper.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/31/surface-stations
The first comment from that same thread comes from Ron Broberg:
> Any chance that the list of stations and their site ratings will be made available soon?
This question has yet to be answered in that thread. Do you know if and when it was made available?
There’s this other question from Ron Broberg:
> Will you [the Auditor] continue your association with the paper if the relevant data (stn ids and siting classifications) is not made public and archived in a timely manner?
No direct answer to that question in that thread. But we do have this declaration from the Auditor:
> Anthony had asked me long ago to help with the statistical analysis, but I hadn’t followed up. I had looked at the results in 2007, but hadn’t kept up with it subsequently.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/07/27/anthonys-announcement/
This contrasts with Willard Tony’s:
> This pre-publication draft paper, titled An area and distance weighted analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends, is co-authored by Anthony Watts of California, Evan Jones of New York, Stephen McIntyre of Toronto, Canada, and Dr. John R. Christy from the Department of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama, Huntsville, is to be submitted for publication.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/
Has this been corrected yet?
Many thanks!
“Just imagine what would happen if McIntyre’s indefatigable forensic skills were combined with Watts’ wide readership……”
The readership would vanish. Anthony has a very simple formula. It’s not what most critics think. That’s because they don’t read it without reacting emotionally. Intellectuals can suspend their emotional reactions and figure it out. You can practice this skill by reading things like letters to Penthouse and analyzing their rhetorical structure. Or watching Vivid and commenting on the cinematography.
If you look at it dis passionately it will be really clear, but you have to bracket what you believe and look at the thing itself.