Congratulations, Al

Congratulations to Al Gore, Davis Gugenheim, and Laurie David for winning the Academy Award for best documentary for the film An Inconvenient Truth. And congratulations to Mellissa Etheridge for winning the best-original-song Oscar for the same film.

Water, Water, Everywhere,

but not a drop to drink.

The march of the seasons is inexorable, and surely spring will follow winter. But one of the problems from global warming is that spring has been arriving earlier than usual (weather-wise, not astronomically).

Question for Believers

Someone suggested asking the question, “What would change your mind about Anthropogenic Global Warming?” I replied that I’m hesitant to ask in general, as I know that it would be an open invitation to obstinate skeptics to sling mud and spread misinformation. The discussion would probably quickly degenerate into pointless bickering.

Natural Variation

I recently encountered a post which made the following argument against the reality of global warming:

Once again I have the pleasure of poking the myth of Global Warming in the eye with a literary pointy stick. According to the “science” behind the theory, the more CO2 in the air, the higher the temperature should climb. Fair enough. However, according to this, 2006 was Earth’s 5th warmest year, it would appear that CO2 levels have dropped, else, 2006 would have been the warmest year.

The post goes on to critique the news report of 2006 being the 5th-warmest year on record, arguing at each turn that anthropogenic global warming is folly, in fact, that it’s a hoax.

Of course it’s the post which is folly. The idea that global temperature must rise and fall with each little rise and fall in CO₂ level ignores the fact that in addition to a trend due to global warming, there is also natural variation in the climate system. This is especially ironic, since denialists so often point to natural variation in the climate system to claim that modern warming isn’t unusual.

By Request

A reader on RealClimate wanted to see Fourier transforms of various signals related to paleoclimate. So, without much explanation and little helpful information(!), here they are.

Millerism

I noticed the following post on a wordpress blog this morning:

Dennis Miller made a return appearance to “The Tonight Show” Tuesday night.

Jay Leno, once again, asked his opinion of Global Warming. Dennis, once again, came through for those of us who see global warming for the overblown, agenda driven hoax that it is. Miller made the following statement: “So the temperature is supposed to have risen 1.8 degrees since 1906? Just how accurately were temperatures recorded back then?”

Think about it. We’re talking about a time when indoor plumbing had yet to be perfected, and we are now supposed to take it on faith that the gathering of climate statistics was on par with today’s research capabilities? Let’s say the scientists of the early 20th century were off by a degree or a little more, what does that say to today’s global warming alarmists? Ask the people in upstate New York or those of us in Michigan and the rest of the Midwest , what we think of Algores latest attempt to catapult himself into the big boy chair.

Temperatures were measured in 1906 with the same accuracy they’re measured today. For many stations, that’s the nearest degree Celsius, for many it’s the nearest degree Fahrenheit (which is 0.56 of a degree Celsius). Calibrating a thermometer is straightforward, and was just as much so in 1906 (or 1806 for that matter) as it is today, because it’s based on physics: water freezes at 0^oC and boils at 100^oC.

To the tune of “The farmer and the cowman should be friends”

Oh, republicans and democrats should be friends.
Oh, republicans and democrats should be friends. (Yee-haa!)
One side wants to go to war, the other wants to kiss Al Gore,
but that’s no reason why they cain’t be friends.

American voters should stick together,
American voters should all be pals.
Donkey dance with the elephant’s daughter,
elephant dance with the donkey’s gals.

I’d like to say a word for the republican,
if we must fight for freedom, he will!
There is no sacrifice too extreme to save our rights,
except of course a tax to pay the bill!

Oh, republicans and democrats should be friends.
Oh, republicans and democrats should be friends. (Yee-haa!)
One side wants to feed the mob, the other says, “hey get a job!”
but that’s no reason why they cain’t be friends.

I’d like to say a word for the democrat,
the freedom of your speech, he calls holy.
If someone makes it fail, he will fight both tooth and nail,
unless of course your speech is not “p.c.”

American voters should stick together,
American voters should all be pals.
Donkey dance with the elephant’s daughter,
elephant dance with the donkey’s gals.

Ice Ages in Detail

In a previous post, I discussed the textbook theory of the causes of glacial advance and retreat for the last few million years. I’d like to take a close look at one of the best available records of past climate, the “LR04 stack.”

There are many deep-sea sediment cores taken from around the world. Measurements of the ratio of different isotopes of oxygen, especially the ratio of ¹⁸O to ordinary ¹⁶O, give clues about past temperature and about the total global ice mass (and therefore the extent of ice sheets). The LR04 stack is the result of stacking 57 sediment cores covering the last 5.3 million years, and averaging their data (Lisiecki & Raymo 2005, Paleoceanography, vol. 20, PA1003). By averaging many sediment cores, the signal becomes more precise, and effects due to the specific location of a single sediment core are smoothed out. Note that in the following graph, time runs from right to left, with the most recent data on the far left. Upper values correspond to less ice mass (generally warmer conditions) while lower values correspond to more ice mass (colder conditions). Click on any of the graphs to get a large, and much clearer, view.

Uncivil War

I regularly use the tag surfer to see what other people are posting on the global warming issue. Every day, it seems, there are several angry posts about how global warming is a liberal conspiracy designed to topple the economy, send us down the pathway to communism, or knock us back to the stone age. Then there are posts about how the Bush administration is censoring science, ExxonMobil is lying to make huge temporary profits at the expense of our children’s lives, and if we don’t overthrow the denialists we’re all going to die.

Turn it off!

Like a lot of people, I like to make coffee in the morning. I generally brew about two cups, then drink ‘em slowly over the course of several hours. My coffee-maker keeps them nice and hot. But it occurred to me, that maybe it’s more energy-efficient to turn the coffeemaker off after it’s done brewing, then reheat my coffee in the microwave. Which uses more energy?

The calculation is pretty simple, actually. Electrical devices usually inform you of the amount of power they consume. But power is not the same as energy; power is the rate at which energy is consumed.