The numbers are in for the year-end summary of temperature for 2008, with “year-end” referring to the end of the climatological year (December through November) rather than the calendar year (January through December). Of course this will lead to lots of spin in the denialosphere, and RealClimate has a post about it, so I stole the title from their post — I can’t let them have all the fun!
Without further ado, here are the annual (climatological year) averages for GISS temperature data:
I’ve already made numerous posts about the proper (and improper) statistical treatment of temperature data — and I’ll keep doing so until everybody who can get it, does get it. There’s no statistically valid evidence at all — none — that global warming has stopped, or even slowed.
But at this point, I think I’ll just show you what denialists will use to “spin” the data:
Get it?
450 responses so far ↓
Gerda // December 17, 2008 at 5:47 pm |
lol! yes i get it :-)
a picture paints a thousand words.
J // December 17, 2008 at 6:24 pm |
Nice post. Short and to the point.
Looking back at the “You Bet” post from January, if you plug in the 2008 GISTEMP annual mean, it looks like it comes in just inside your confidence interval around the recent warming trend (i.e., it doesn’t fall in the “not-warming wins” side). Your “Update” to that post said the threshold for 2008 was 0.3946.
Of course, this is D-N rather than J-D, so I suppose if December is really, really cold, 2008 might be the first data point in that “not-warming” zone. If I’m figuring this right, the December land/ocean temp would have to come in below -0.06 to bring the 2008 average below your threshold. Considering that the last three months have been 0.52, 0.58, and 0.58, this seems very unlikely to happen.
Slioch // December 17, 2008 at 6:42 pm |
Tamino: Off topic I know. But you are sitting there waiting for responses, so I’m going to jump in, sorry.
It is probably my computer incompetence, but I cannot work out how to access your previous articles unless I previously saved their URL. Is there an Open Mind index/archive from which I can retrieve previous pearls, for my own interest and to cast before the swine?
[Response: If you go to the main page, you can scroll up and down to see links to the most recent 10 posts. At the bottom of the main page is a link to "older entries" which you can use to access those (10 at a time, with an "older entries" link at the bottom of each). There's also a calendar for the month at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar which has the dates of posts highlighted, which are links to those days' posts, as well as a link below it to the previous month's calendar (which will have a link to the month before that, etc.). And just above that little monthly calendar is a search feature (the box that says "To search, type and hit enter") if you know what you're looking for.]
Ross // December 17, 2008 at 7:57 pm |
Why is the top graph so completely different from the 30 year satellite record of mid-tropospheric temperatures. It should show no net temperature increase in the time!
[Response: The top graph shows over 120 years of data; the satellite data only cover 30. You might be talking about the satellite data reduction from UAH (Univ. of Alabama at Huntsville), from the team led by denialist Roy Spencer; you'd be better served with the reduction from RSS (Remote Sensing Systems), or from the Univ. of Maryland, or the Univ. of Washington. And you might even be looking at monthly data from satellite measurements, whereas these are annual averages.
And even if you do use the satellite record from UAH, whether you use monthly or annual data there's still an upward trend. I repeat: there's still an upward trend, for every data set, including every reduction of satellite data -- despite what denialists may have told you.
Then of course there's the fact that lower-troposphere temperature isn't surface temperature. Add in the fact that satellites do not measure lower-troposphere temperature at all -- they measure temperature in extremely thick bands of the atmosphere, so the lower-troposphere temperature has to be "estimated" from combining the data from multiple channels, in order to remove an estimate of the cooling trend in the stratosphere; that's why there are so many different "reductions" of satellite data, none of which agree with each other.
It sounds like you've been totally hoodwinked by denialist propaganda.]
Red Etin // December 17, 2008 at 8:39 pm |
If society had spent a trillion dollars over the past 10 years, some might have been claiming that the effect of reducing CO2 in the atmosphere was now having an effect. The current warming trend, with fluctuations, is probably natural.
[Response: I wouldn't be among those claiming that CO2 reductions had caused the apparent reduction in warming, because there is no reduction -- it only looks that way to statistical ignorati.
The current warming trend is caused by human activity.]
David B. Benson // December 17, 2008 at 8:44 pm |
Tamino — Well done!
t_p_hamilton // December 17, 2008 at 8:49 pm |
J:”If I’m figuring this right, the December land/ocean temp would have to come in below -0.06 to bring the 2008 average below your threshold. Considering that the last three months have been 0.52, 0.58, and 0.58, this seems very unlikely to happen.”
Also, considering that the monthly temperare anomaly has not been negative since 1992.
Red Etin // December 17, 2008 at 9:31 pm |
I said “having and effect” and not anything about a reduction. Let agree that if we were to reduce CO2 inputs and this were to have an effect on the trend of increasing temperature , the first sign would be a levelling off – just as has happened over the past 10 years. And we haven’t done a thing – we just kept emitting CO2. So what will we expect to see if we spend a trillion or two on CCS?
[Response: The "levelling off" is just a statistical fluctuation; not only are such fluctuations possible, they're inevitable. It's a huge mistake to interpret fluctuations as changes of trend -- they aren't -- but it's an excellent propaganda tactic. Read this.
Unfortunately, even if we completely halt greenhouse gas emissions today we'll still see more man-made global warming because we haven't yet experienced all the warming that's "in the pipeline." The best we could hope for is that it won't accelerate the way it's going to if we keep up "business as usual."
If we don't act soon to limit, even eliminate, emissions, then it won't just be bad, it'll be terrible. Try food shortages, lack of clean water, and millions -- if not hundreds of millions -- of climate refugees. Try open warfare between neighboring countries competing over dwindling resources. The financial cost of climate change will be a helluva lot more than "a trillion or two." And the cost in terms of human misery -- I count that far greater.
You sound a lot like a smoker who complains that nicotine gum costs too much for you to try to quit. Newsflash: smoking cigarettes is more expensive. Lung cancer is far more expensive -- and brings lots of non-financial misery to boot.]
Dave A // December 17, 2008 at 9:49 pm |
So, explain to me again how your first graph relates to GISS’s inability to define SAT?
Please explain also how when Steve M showed 1934 was warmer in the US than 1998 the GISS response was that the US was only 2% of the globe’s surface and thus this had no effect on global temperatures. Yet Mann’s use of BCPs found in a tiny, tiny area of that 2% somehow had global significance?
It would be nice to have a reasoned answer rather than invective.
[Response: You've done nothing but trot out a bunch of meaningless garbage, starting with the detestable (and meaningless) meme about "GISS's inability to define SAT." You're either too stupid to know the difference between temperature and temperature change, or you'll sink to any low to discredit the truth.
Your entire comment is invective -- but you sure don't want it in return!]
Dave A // December 17, 2008 at 10:38 pm |
Tamino,
Thanks. Note you didn’t say anything about Mann’s BCPs.
But here’s an honest quote from Mark Serreze and Andrew Barrett
As climate scientists, we must constantly grapple with imperfect models and imperfect observations. The challenge is trying to make sense of both.
The implication here is surely that the results could also be imperfect? Wouldn;t it be better all round if this was acnowledged more often?
http://climatesci.org/2008/12/15/emerging-arctic-amplification-by-mark-c-serreze-and-andrew-p-barrett/
[Response: Results are imperfect? Wow!
I've never denied that, or even implied a denial of it. And the good people at RealClimate post about it all the time.
So you've gone from a comment full of nothing but invective (with an appeal for no invective in reply), to a statement of the obvious which is nothing but a straw-man argument. And you threw in an attempt to change the subject (Mann's BCP) for good measure.
The problem is not that climate scientists don't acknowledge imperfection; that's bread-and-butter for working science. The problem is that denialists take a time span which is way too short to draw any useful conclusions about trend, then pontificate about a "cooling phase" over the last decade with no acknowledgement that their analysis (if there is any) isn't merely imperfect, it's just plain wrong. The problem is that they can't face the truth so they try to hide it by omitting all the data that shows how empty their arguments are. The problem is that when you're faced with a post showing just how ridiculous (by which I mean, worthy of ridicule) their strategy is, you slander the surface temperature record and throw in a potshot at bristlecone pines to boot.]
cce // December 17, 2008 at 11:57 pm |
McIntyre did not show that “1934 was warmer in the US than 1998.” 1934 and 1998 are and were tied. McIntyre showed that there was a 0.15 degree warm bias in the US from 2000 to 2007, or about a 0.003 degree warm bias for the world. The accumulated difference between UAH and RSS is ~30 times larger, yet for some reason, “skeptics” don’t feel a strong urge to audit Spencer and Christy.
Phil. // December 18, 2008 at 12:51 am |
Dave A
“Please explain also how when Steve M showed 1934 was warmer in the US than 1998″
How many more times must we have this canard repeated? Steve M showed no such thing, it had already been shown by Jim Hansen years earlier!
From 2001:
“The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the
GISS analysis (Plate 6). This contrasts with the USHCN data, which has 1998 as the warmest year in the century.
In both cases the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree. The main
reason that 1998 is relatively cooler in the GISS analysis is its larger adjustment for urban warming. In comparing
temperatures of years separated by 60 or 70 years the uncertainties in various adjustments (urban warming, station
history adjustments, etc.) lead to an uncertainty of at least 0.1°C. Thus it is not possible to declare a record U.S.
temperature with confidence until a result is obtained that exceeds the temperature of 1934 by more than 0.1°C. “
bob // December 18, 2008 at 12:59 am |
In addition, as of recent months the “last 10 years” no longer covers the 1998 el nino. So the trend for the last 10 years is now upwards even going by the UAH record.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1999/plot/uah/from:1999/trend
Someone tried to pull the “temperature declined over the past 10 years” argument on me only yesterday.
Ross // December 18, 2008 at 1:27 am |
What upward trend?
Yes, I’m looking at the satellite “RSS AMSU Global Monthly Mean Mid-Tropospheric Temperature Anomolies” for 30 years, as shown here http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe-m.html
[Response: Clearly you didn't do any analysis because the trend is easy to confirm. Linear regression indicates an upward trend which is statistically significant despite the strong autocorrelation of the data.
I'm constantly plagued by two kinds of false claims: those like you who haven't done any analysis at all but still declare a result (which is just plain wrong), and those who do analysis but don't know what they're doing, so they too declare a result (which is just plain wrong).]
Ray Ladbury // December 18, 2008 at 1:53 am |
Dave A., Your comments really demonstrate a lot more about your lack of understanding of science than they do about the state of the science itself. You look wherever you can for any hint of uncertainty, perceiving it as a weakness. It’s not. Acknowledging and quantifying the uncertainties allows scientists to be more confident in what they do know. Yes, there are uncertainties in the temperatures. There are not, however, systematic errors that could mimic a consistent rising trend. Yes, there are uncertainties in the proxies. That’s why it’s a good thing you have a whole bunch of them telling you the same thing. For the consensus view to be significantly wrong, so many independent lines of evidence would have to be wrong that the probability is virtually nil. That’s science.
Hank Roberts // December 18, 2008 at 2:28 am |
Dave’s here to waste the scientists’ time.
Good at it, too.
cce // December 18, 2008 at 5:05 am |
Rather than getting information from the aptly named “Junk Science,” go directly to the source, updated monthly with linear trend so that even the near blind can see the warming. i.e. http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html
Or compare the 4 usual suspects all on one graph as yearly averages (to 2007):
http://cce.890m.com/giss-vs-all.jpg
And why bring up TMT?
“It is important to note that although the MSU2/AMSU5 combination is called TMT or Temperature Middle Troposphere, this channel also has significant (5% to 15%) weight in the stratosphere, so that any tropospheric warming may be partly masked by the contribution of stratospheric cooling.”
http://www.ssmi.com/data/msu/support/Mears_and_Wentz_TMT_TTS_TLS_submitted.pdf
Slioch // December 18, 2008 at 9:49 am |
Tamino, thanks for the route map to find your old posts. It is still a bit tedious to find something a year or so old, but I guess you have more important things to do.
Could you post a link to the data source for your graph above: I had assumed it would be column 15 (N-D) in this:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
but the temp. anomaly for D-N 2008 there is given as 0.55C, whereas your graph shows about 0.42C, (with other years similarly displaced). What am I missing?
[Response: It's the column "D-N" for the file "GLB.Ts+SST.txt"]
Philippe Chantreau // December 18, 2008 at 10:46 am |
Funny comment about the trillion dollar, Red Etin. Reminds me of the ‘trillions” that Baliunas forecasted as cost of phasing out CFCs.
I note that it did not take 10 years for some to spend close to that (how much more or less is anyone’s guess, given the lack of transparency and accountability) on an unnecessary war. It took even less time for the Wall Street geniuses to need close to a trillion for patching up their pathetic mess.
Quite frankly throwing a trillion in changes to lower CO2 emissions looks like a better way to spend than any of these 2 examples.
J // December 18, 2008 at 1:37 pm |
Ross writes:
Yes, I’m looking at the satellite “RSS AMSU Global Monthly Mean Mid-Tropospheric Temperature Anomolies” for 30 years, as shown here http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe-m.html
If you’re looking for a comparison with surface temperatures, you’d be better off using the RSS lower troposphere product instead of their mid troposphere product. Unless your goal is to mislead people, of course.
And in general I’d recommend avoiding sites with names like “junkscience.com” unless junk science is what you’re after.
J // December 18, 2008 at 2:06 pm |
Tamino writes: Response: Clearly you didn’t do any analysis because the trend is easy to confirm.
Indeed. As of this month the trend over the (almost) 30-year RSS TLT record (Jan 1979-Nov 2008) is +0.16 C/decade.
And, oddly enough, the trend in the GISTEMP surface temperature data for the same period is also +0.16 C/decade.
That’s right. The satellite and surface temperature trends are essentially identical.
In an ideal world, Ross would now apologize for wasting everyone’s time, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Red Etin // December 18, 2008 at 2:11 pm |
Philippe Chantreau
Philippe,
IMHO, society has 3 main global problems. Global war mongering, global poverty and global disease (do you need to see any evidence for these?). I think we can and should fix these before about “man-made global warming”, convincing evidence of which still remains elusive.
RE
[Response: Convincing evidence is overwhelming -- but you're not willing to be convinced.]
dean_1230 // December 18, 2008 at 3:53 pm |
[quote] Tamino said:
Response: The “levelling off” is just a statistical fluctuation; not only are such fluctuations possible, they’re inevitable. It’s a huge mistake to interpret fluctuations as changes of trend — they aren’t — but it’s an excellent propaganda tactic. Read this.
[/quote]
Uh, no. You didn’t prove it WAS natural fluctuation , you proved it COULD BE natural fluctuation. Only time will tell one way or the other.
[quote]
Unfortunately, even if we completely halt greenhouse gas emissions today we’ll still see more man-made global warming because we haven’t yet experienced all the warming that’s “in the pipeline.” The best we could hope for is that it won’t accelerate the way it’s going to if we keep up “business as usual.”
If we don’t act soon to limit, even eliminate, emissions, then it won’t just be bad, it’ll be terrible. Try food shortages, lack of clean water, and millions — if not hundreds of millions — of climate refugees. Try open warfare between neighboring countries competing over dwindling resources. The financial cost of climate change will be a helluva lot more than “a trillion or two.” And the cost in terms of human misery — I count that far greater.
[/quote]
And how is that different than the entire history of the human race? Bordering countries have been in open warfare against each other for dwindling resources since the invention of the first weapon. Only the last few generations have had the luxury of plentiful food, and that’s only in the developed nations. Undeveloped nations have never had such a luxury.
Steven Earl Salmony // December 18, 2008 at 5:09 pm |
How hubris, corruption and greed resulted in the colossal collapse of the global economy.
In a world in which too many politicians are posers; too many economists are deluded; too many business powerbrokers with great wealth are con artists, gamblers and cheats; and too many of their absurdly enriched minions/’talking heads’ in the mainstream media parrot whatsoever serves political convenience and economic expediency, Jim Hansen’s truth about global climate change is buried amid cascading disinformation and anti-information derived from a `tool box’ of pernicious rhetorical devices.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
Ray Ladbury // December 18, 2008 at 5:26 pm |
dean_1230, so shall we put you down as advocating a return to the middle ages? What is your point: people have always suffered and so they should suffer more in the future?
Dean, don’t want to practice psychology over the internet, but have you considered Prozac?
t_p_hamilton // December 18, 2008 at 5:38 pm |
[quote] Tamino said:
Response: The “levelling off” is just a statistical fluctuation; not only are such fluctuations possible, they’re inevitable. It’s a huge mistake to interpret fluctuations as changes of trend — they aren’t — but it’s an excellent propaganda tactic. Read this.
[/quote]
dean_1230:”Uh, no. You didn’t prove it WAS natural fluctuation , you proved it COULD BE natural fluctuation. Only time will tell one way or the other. ”
Time told us already that the “cooling” from 1982-1992 was a statistical fluctuation. Some people are just slow learners.
dean_1230 // December 18, 2008 at 7:41 pm |
Ray,
My point is that Tamino warns that AWG will result in a new thing called “open warfare”, as if that’s something that has seldom happened. Even a cursory view of history shows that it’s happened since the beginning of recorded time.
I’m not saying that warfare is good… or desirable, just that it has always existed. Humans have only needed an excuse to start fighting each other (and sometimes not even that).
and I don’t need prozac… nor does my best friend, harvey :-)
dean_1230 // December 18, 2008 at 7:50 pm |
T_P,
One of my major issues with all sides in this discussion is exaggeration. Tamino’s linked article does a very good job of saying that the current (and potentially shortlived) cooling is totally consistent with AGW.
But even with what I consider a good argument that the current cooling should be met cautiously, if the temperatures cool over the next 10 years (as some people are claiming will happen due to PDO &/or solar activity), then Tamino’s analysis will have been shown to be wrong.
Only time will tell one way or the other. Right now, we don’t know what the long range implications of the temperatures over the last two years really is.
dhogaza // December 18, 2008 at 8:48 pm |
The same as the long range implications of previous La Niña episodes.
Why should anyone expect this one to be different?
And some people blame the collapse of the stock market on Pluto moving into Capricorn next month.
I don’t pay much attention to them, though.
t_p_hamilton // December 18, 2008 at 9:32 pm |
Dean_1230:”But even with what I consider a good argument that the current cooling should be met cautiously, if the temperatures cool over the next 10 years (as some people are claiming will happen due to PDO &/or solar activity), then Tamino’s analysis will have been shown to be wrong.”
IF the physics changes, sure, we expect to see changes in temperature trends. Trends, not transient noise.
“Only time will tell one way or the other. Right now, we don’t know what the long range implications of the temperatures over the last two years really is.”
None, since they arise from short term noise, which averages out over the time period in question. Scientists were not surprised by the cool 2008. What is alarming is that it was as warm as it was!
Dave A // December 18, 2008 at 10:57 pm |
the problem is not that climate scientists don’t acknowledge imperfection; that’s bread-and-butter for working science.
I agree that privately climate scientists acknowledge the imperfections but that is NOT how their science is presented to the public and the politicians.
Where are the uncertainties in the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers or the press releases put out by scientific institutions?
Where, for example , does Mann express any uncertainty about his, yet again, novel statistical analysis in his recent PNAS paer?
David B. Benson // December 18, 2008 at 11:06 pm |
Dave A // December 18, 2008 at 10:57 pm — IPCC documents use ‘likely’, ‘highly likely’, ‘most likely’, and so on, in a carefully defined fashion.
Think about it.
Maybe even read IPCC AR4 WG1 report, although I’ll admit it is a slog.
Hank Roberts // December 18, 2008 at 11:14 pm |
> where are the uncertainties
http://www.google.com/search?q=Where+are+the+uncertainties+in+the+IPCC+Summary+for+Policy+Makers%3F
By the way, Dave, have you ever wondered what’s in ketchup, and why that isn’t printed on every bottle, package, and ad?
Because it’s defined where you can look it up.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfCFR/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=155.194
luminous beauty // December 19, 2008 at 12:11 am |
DaveA,
A quick word count of Mann08 gives 20 usages of the word uncertainty. 22 if you count the references.
Say what, again?
Hank Roberts // December 19, 2008 at 2:01 am |
Watch for it:
http://www.desmogblog.com/policy-communications-inc-astroturf-shell-game
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 2:17 am |
Dave A., you have a tendency to look at what scientists are saying and interpret as if it were coming from a layman. A layman equates uncertainty with lack of knowledge. To a scientist, the uncertainty is part of the knowledge. We know where the uncertainty lies and about how large it is or we don’t have a model. To say we have uncertainty about some aspects of climate science does not mean we don’t know what we do in fact know. In other works, uncertainty about clouds does not imply uncertainty about greenhouse forcing in a dynamical model.
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 2:20 am |
Dean_1230, OK, so we’ve always had war and want. Still, your point? Are you saying that we shouldn’t care about creating conditions where the arrival of the 4 horsemen of of the Apocalypse becomes a virtual certainty? Sorry, Dude, don’t buy it.
Philippe Chantreau // December 19, 2008 at 7:18 am |
Dave A, the public and politicians have a poor understanding of uncertainty. If medical science always disclosed uncertainties and unknowns, people would panic inthe doc’s office. Unjustifiably so, but they would.
Because of the rigor of the process and the successes achieved, in the popular imagination science leads to certainty, it’s mathematical. Not quite so, as we know.
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 1:43 pm |
Ray,
My point is that exaggeration is never useful in science. Claiming that warfare will suddenly become the norm due to AGW denies the historical precedent that warfare has always been the norm. That’s fearmongering and has no place in science. Nor does your “4 horsemen of the apocalypse” statement.
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 2:51 pm |
dean_1230,
Warfare is not the norm. Famine is not the norm. Disease is not the norm. Yes, they occur, but they do so sporadically. At any given time, most of the countries on Earth are at peace, in good health, etc. Climate change does present a significant probability of increasing competition for food, water, land, etc. at the same time global population speeds toward 9-10 billion. I don’t consider that something we can afford to be sanguine about. The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse were famine, pestilence, war and death. If, as seems likely, climate change decreases agricultural productivity and availablity of water and habitable land and allows tropical diseases to become endemic outside their normal ranges, do you suspect any of the 4 will decline the invitation?
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 4:06 pm |
Ray,
History says otherwise… Warfare IS the norm. Maybe not global warfare. Globalization, though, has had a major effect on warfare. WWI & II may not be anomalies with respect to future warfare and you can’t make the claim that either were due to AGW. If you follow the history of warfare, you’ll see that the trench warfare of WWI was a direct result of the new weapons that were introduced around the time of the American Civil War. WWII was a direct result of WWI. If the Cold War had turned hot, then WWIII would have been a direct result of WWII. It would be naive to think that WWIII isn’t going to happen… regardless of what we do about the environment. (a short list of “world wars” have to include WWI & II, The French & Indian wars, Alexander, the Mongol Hordes, the Barbarians at the gates, etc). And when the masses weren’t organized against each other, small kingdoms were constantly at each other’s throats. History just doesn’t support your comments.
Famine has always existed, but is actually less of a problem now than in previous generations. This, however, has caused a different problem. Overpopulation. Are we at a point where the world cannot grow enough food for the population? Right now, no. Agricultural techniques have kept up with the demand. Will that be the case in the future? I do know that new techniques are in the works (hydroponics & genetic manipulation, for example) that have significant promise, but whether it’s enough remains to be seen. Our generation is one of the first in the history of the human race that hasn’t had to work to survive (being defined as having food and shelter)… survival is almost guaranteed. We don’t work for those… we work for the extras that life can bring us.
Disease/pestilence is also caused and hastened by globalization. The Florida citrus industry is under attack from canker and greening that originated in SE Asia. We are also having serious troubles with non-native species invasions (zebra muscles in the great lakes, for example). We are not able with current techniques to contain these invasions. While these don’t attack humans, we’re not immune to those that do. The Avian flu would not be a major concern if it weren’t for the ease of travel to and from the far west. Likewise, the introduction of European diseases on the Native American civilizations did much to seal their eventual doom. You ask what if tropical diseases start moving from their natural habitat… well, they already are due to globalization.
You say that the approaching apocalypse will be due to AGW… It could very well be that the 4 approach now and that they have nothing to do with AGW at all!
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 4:40 pm |
Dean_1230, The facts are that war has not typically affected the majority of the human population at any given time–and when it has, the results haven’t been particularly pleasant. In any case, I would think that you would have to be astoundingly obtuse to not get the point that increasing competition for resources in a world with population already straining supplies to the limit.
Let me try to simplify it:
Climate change=decreased resources=bad
Got that, or does the transitive property give you trouble?
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 5:00 pm |
Ray,
You’d have to be incredibly blind to understand that one of the primary reasons the human race has prospered is due to our ability to adapt to any situation. I have no doubt that whatever the future brings (be it the big 4 or be it a new ice age), mankind will figure out a way to survive.
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 5:05 pm |
oops… my last post should have read “blind NOT to understand”
Jim Eager // December 19, 2008 at 5:31 pm |
Survive? I don’t know about you, but I’d like to aim for something a little higher than mere survival.
Hank Roberts // December 19, 2008 at 6:26 pm |
I think Dean got it right the first time. The notion that humanity has prospered by adapting ignores the big difference — humanity changes the environment. The ‘naked ape’ is very poorly adapted to almost every environment in the world and is exploiting almost all of them beyond the dreams of avarice.
guthrie // December 19, 2008 at 7:07 pm |
A way to survive? You seem to assume that we can never deal with problems before they become survival issues, and also to not be bothered about the deaths and destruction which occur because nothing was done.
Hurricane KAtrina is a prime example. The failure of the levees was predicted. The city did apparently have the capability to evacuate people, but didn’t use it. The Feds had the ability to deal with the disaster, but didn’t use it as well as they could. The disaster was predicted, but people didn’t do anything about the predictions, and as a result lots of people died.
But yet others survived. Should be ignore the fact that those tasked with preventing the deaths failed, and applaud some fake Darwinian process?
Ray Ladbury // December 19, 2008 at 7:13 pm |
dean_1230, You know, there was a time when humans weren’t doing so well. You can tell this because there was a constriction in the genetic diversity and we’re all descended from a small number of survivors. In particular, the era of human civilization has been one of abnormal climatic stability–all the agricultural infrastructure of civilization was developed during this period. So, I’m curious. How do you think we’ll “figure out a way to survive” when our cereal crops fail, and when you say “we’ll survive” do you mean human civilization or small bands of hunter gatherers–you know like we were for most of our existence?
dean_1230 // December 19, 2008 at 7:56 pm |
Ray,
If I was a betting man, I’d bet on the latter. I’ll always take a farmer/hunter/gatherer over a “civilized” person when we’re talking about survival. At some point, something will arise that will take a big bite out of our population. Again, look at the history of the earth and you’ll see that happening again and again. Mammals were more adaptable than reptiles and so were able to survive.
Whether civilization survives depends on more than just physical adaptability. For civilization to survive we have to trust that our leaders are doing what’s best for civilization (does anyone now think that they are???). One such example of them NOT doing that is the aforementioned Hurricane Katrina. That’s a prime example of our leaders knowing the risks, knowing the destruction that would ensue and deciding with every appropriations bill that neglected the problem that the city of New Orleans wasn’t worth the money.
Of course, it could be that our leaders were trying to tell us to stop living along the coast or in swamps, but then that would cramp our lifestyle…
Ray, you mention that humans have flourished during a period of “abnormal climatic stability”. So what’s to say that this stability isn’t about to end? Would we even recognize the end if that stability if it was happening? How long have other stable climatic periods lasted?
JCH // December 19, 2008 at 8:49 pm |
Just because people have survived head-on collisions doesn’t mean we have to go along with some idiot’s arguments for driving on what has become the wrong side of the road.
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 10:14 pm |
Hank,
I have never wondered what is in ketchup, perhaps because I think it is disgusting!
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 10:22 pm |
David B Benson,
Of course I am aware of the words the IPCC use, though they are not particularly helpful and do not in any way suggest there may be problems with their overall premise.
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 10:34 pm |
Ray,
Are you trying to tell me that ‘trends’ don’t happen in science ( they certainly happen in every other walk of life!).
How many times have so-called scientific orthodoxies been later shown to be false?
dhogaza // December 19, 2008 at 10:46 pm |
Oh, Lord, so first you claim they don’t discuss uncertainty, now when shown wrong you claim they do discuss uncertainty but you don’t find the words “particularly helpful” (despite their being precisely defined).
And as far as problems with their overall premise … which premise would that be? That CO2 is a GHG? Which unassailable observation do you have in mind?
In the sense you mean, i.e. not only false but so wrong as to thoroughly mislead our thinking about the natural world … not often.
Why don’t you list some of your favorites for us?
David B. Benson // December 19, 2008 at 10:49 pm |
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 10:22 pm — I have no idea what you mean by ‘overall premise’, but the science is sound and is correct. The unknowns are all fairly minor.
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 11:28 pm |
Dhogaza,
How are terms like ‘likely’ , ‘highly likely’ etc scientific?
Perhaps if they admitted upfront that the underlying science was imperfect it would be better.
Lastly, you’ve previously claimed to know my political views, without ‘knowing’ anything about me, now you claim to know the ’sense’ in which I write something.
Arrogance springs to mind.
dhogaza // December 20, 2008 at 12:42 am |
They’re precisely defined in the document.
ALL of science is imperfect. They’re assuming a target audience with triple-digit IQ.
Yet I don’t see a long list, nay, not even a short list, of “scientific orthodoxies which have been proven false” in any sense pertinent to climate science.
dhogaza // December 20, 2008 at 12:58 am |
Dave A doesn’t “get it”, but his opinion doesn’t count.
However, Barrack Obama certainly does get it, and his opinion DOES count.
Great choice of science advisor …
dhogaza // December 20, 2008 at 12:59 am |
Eh, should’ve been in the open thread, sorry ’bout that.
David B. Benson // December 20, 2008 at 1:08 am |
Dave A // December 19, 2008 at 11:28 pm — Go read about Bayesian reasoning and inductive logic. Tese ideas, often treated informally, are the essence of scientific thinking.
Ray Ladbury // December 20, 2008 at 2:26 am |
Dean_1230, Well, there we will have to disagree. I’ll take civilization over barbarism any day. Civilization has brought us relative peace, science, communication, culture, not to mention a lifespan more than 30 years. The period of climatic stability is ending because we are ending it–and rapidly. It is the rapidity of the change that really puts us at risk.
Ray Ladbury // December 20, 2008 at 2:38 am |
Dave A., “Trends” happen all the time in science–rising trends, falling trends, statistically significant trends. But trends in the sense of fashions? Nope. Scientists are interested in what works–in what helps them understand the world around them. Scientific orthodoxies shown to be false? Well, first, what the hell is a scientific orthodoxy? Second, if you mean, standard models and theories, the answer is not that often, especially in the physical sciences. Medicine is different. It’s not really a science, as any good doctor will tell you.
Let’s look at a real scientific revolution, shall we? Relativity overturned classical mechanics, but Einstein was very careful to show that at low velocity, relativity reduced to classical dynamics. Quantum mechanics? Well, ever hear of the correspondence principle? It essentially elevates what Einstein did to a general principle and uses it to elucidate the structure of the new theory. So, no, really, scientific “orthodoxies” aren’t really shown to be false too often. Science is the most conservative of human activities. Nothing is ever really discarded. We just build on the foundations.
Now here’s the real question, Dave. Why are you scared of science? Why not learn enough about it so they you at least aren’t always arguing against straw men?
Gavin's Pussycat // December 20, 2008 at 9:10 am |
Dave A brings to mind the story about the driver who tried to talk himself out of a speeding ticket by referring to Relativity Theory.
“But officer, are you aware that all velocities are relative?”
;-)
Hank Roberts // December 20, 2008 at 12:37 pm |
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/wais?mm=C41A-0495
It will be fun to watch the surfacestations people pick up on the temperature study (above) while trying to ignore the newly announced (below) study on high clouds and hurricanes by the same satellite team.
For the impatient, the first documents a seasonal heat island effect by comparing a ground station instrument that may be affected by human activity nearby, to temperature data from the AIRS satellite. The location is the Dome C Antarctic field station site. Look for this shocking news soon at a wattsup page.
The tropical storm study is just a press release
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-242 about an AGU presentation this week, no link yet.
dhogaza // December 20, 2008 at 2:45 pm |
But does the article show a *photograph* of the satellite? If not, how can I trust anything the article might say?
Layman Lurker // December 20, 2008 at 4:32 pm |
Science based question for Ray: When using noise to reconcile observed temperature trends with GCM projections, how much of the noise can or should be traced back to uncertainties in forcings and feedbacks?
Ray Ladbury // December 20, 2008 at 5:00 pm |
Layman Lurker, I would suggest your question would be better answered by a modeling expert (my expertise is in radiation physics), but I don’t think it makes sense to look at it that way. Uncertainties in forcing would produce errors affect the mean, whereas noise would be due to short-term variations. The latter would tend to increase the spread. That’s my SWAG.
Crabby // December 20, 2008 at 5:50 pm |
Tamino,
I gather you are implying that ten years of non-warming is insufficient to suggest a trend. What is your minimum number of data points for trend significance? Technically, two points make a trend, but I am sure we can all agree that two points are not enough to accurately suggest a climatological trend. But, from a climatological point of view, do ten points differ much from only 180 points? What of the proxy data that suggests much warmer periods have occurred in the past, without the input of industrial man’s awful carbon footprint?
If you are going insist you have a global understanding of climate forcings, and dismiss those who disagree with you as intellectually inferior denialists, you better be prepared to defend your model’s inability to explain ancient climatological conditions too. It might also be appropriate for you to consider what kind of science consists of enforced orthodoxy. In addition, a re-thinking of the name of your website might be in order.
[Response: There are well-established methods for determining the probable error in an estimated trend rate, which take into account the size of the signal (if there is one), the size of the noise, and the nature of the noise process. That's the basis for stating that 10 years in not long enough, and it's also the basis for stating that 120 years (where did you get 180?) is enough. In fact, the 33 years since 1975 is enough.
I do not dismiss "those who disagree with me" as "intellectually inferior denialists." I label those who make obviously mistaken claims (like "global warming stopped in 1998") and promote them as fact even after it's been thoughly proved to them that there's no basis for such claims, as denialists.
I have no idea what you're referring to as "my" model, but climate models from actual climate scientists do an outstanding job explaining ancient climate conditions. Just because you don't understand it...
No kind of science consists of forced orthodoxy -- the implication that modern climate science is such, is an outright lie. It might be appropriate for you to consider what kind of "science" consists of provably wrong claims, repeated again and again even after being disproved, cherry-picking all-too-brief time spans to give a false impression to the statistically naive, and outright lies about the state of scientific knowledge.
But your comment name seems appropriate.]
Hank Roberts // December 20, 2008 at 6:41 pm |
Yep, ask a modeler. Remember models are run multiple times to create a range of possible outcomes — and there are a lot of different kinds of models. You’d want to ask how that particular researcher’s model is handling those.
Dave A // December 20, 2008 at 9:06 pm |
Ray,
But trends in the sense of fashions? Nope. Scientists are interested in what works–in what helps them understand the world around them.
You trying to tell me that scientists aren’t also human beings and that they don’t follow the the herd? You must be joking.
Can you imagine a scientist who has doubts about AGW getting a job with Jim Hansen or Phil Jones?
It wouldn’t happen!
Dave A // December 20, 2008 at 9:09 pm |
GP,
Merry Xmas to you too :-)
dhogaza // December 20, 2008 at 9:56 pm |
An avowed Creationist got his PhD with Stephen Jay Gould.
You really don’t understand much, do you?
Oh, BTW, you owe me a list, since you seem to be implying that the answer is “often”.
Layman Lurker // December 20, 2008 at 11:35 pm |
Ray, thank you for the suggestion. The question popped into my head while reading your comments about uncertainty so I thought it right to direct it to you.
BTW, merry christmas Tamino, Ray. I enjoy reading this blog and through the comment threads.
Ray Ladbury // December 21, 2008 at 3:50 am |
Dave A., Scientists are very human. They make mistakes. They feud. They have flaws. However, they are uniformly ambitious. You don’t wind up in science by coasting, no matter how smart you are. If I want to succeed in science, I do so by publishing research that elucidates important aspects of what we are studying. To do that, I need the best techniques, facts, etc. available. Most scientists will work with total jerks if they can give them that. And you know the reputation scientists have for sartorial splendor. It’s because they don’t much care if people mind if they wear black socks with their sandals. The same carries over into most of their lives.
Look, Dave, science when done right illuminates the beauty in the world as nothing else can–not poetry, not music, not literature, not even being in love. And the only way you get to see that beauty is by relentlessly pursuing whatever it is that best reveals it. That’s never going to be what’s fashionable.
Richard Steckis // December 21, 2008 at 4:59 am |
“Look, Dave, science when done right illuminates the beauty in the world as nothing else can–not poetry, not music, not literature, not even being in love.”
Spoken like a person that has no soul!
Crabby // December 21, 2008 at 5:40 am |
[edit: quoting my entire response is unnecessary]
When I referred to “your model” I was referring to your obvious “open-minded” adherence to a global warming theory that makes man responsible for Earth’s climate. I assume you are aware that the computer models that serve as the basis for the theory have been modified repeatedly, largely because they have been unable to correctly account for the recent temperature anomalies. Are these the models you claim are capable of accounting for paleoclimatic events? Further, are these the same models whose predictions justify imposing stark changes in energy policy and consequent alterations in lifestyle?
[Response: Right off the bat you show how ignorant you are. The basis for "global warming theory" is not computer models. It's basic physics. That's why "global warming theory" has been around at least 50 years (and one could argue, more than 100 years) longer than computers have even existed.
There is no conflict between computer model results and "recent temperature anomalies."
The rest of your comment is nothing but denialist talking points which have been refuted again and again, but keep coming up because folks like you refuse to learn. Use of the term "denialist" has nothing to do with the holocaust, it refers to the fact that you're so deep in denial you have abandoned all connection with reality.]
The very essence of science is skepticism, and you claim no enforced orthodoxy exists, yet many AGW activists, including their chief guru, James Hansen, have called for criminal trials for those who are skeptical. I can show you other examples, but references to Hansen’s threats on his critics can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange
In connection with YOUR criticism of skeptics, the use of the term “denialist” trivializes both the holocaust and it victims as well as any legitimate questions raised for those who support global warming. That type of ad hominem attack ought to be off limits for one with an “open mind”.
Finally, you also missed my point with reference to your disparagement of those who have noticed a non-warming decade. If you can casually wave off 10 years, why not 30 years? Indeed, since climatic timescales are so vast, even a 1000-year trend would look like a spike in
the noise of a paleoclimatic record. Short as you claim the last decade was, it failed to show warming, despite a concomitant rise in CO2 levels. You may feel entitled to ignore that inconvenient fact, but I can assure you it is not lost on skeptics, and attempts to ignore it or rationalize it could easily be taken as a different kind of denial.
moveandshakemarketing // December 21, 2008 at 6:55 am |
AGW is of serious concern irrespective of past history of wars, famines, droughts, and chaotic and noisy weather patterns. I do want to say that Tamino may want to educate the bloggers more instead of just insulting them and Mr. Ladbury may need to be more direct as opposed to misconstruing some of the comments. Still Tamino and Mr. Ladbury are correct in their statements that AGW trends are far more important than one or two years of slight cooling.
Ray Ladbury // December 21, 2008 at 1:03 pm |
Richard Steckis,
Spoken like a person who has never done science.
Ray Ladbury // December 21, 2008 at 2:17 pm |
move and shake,
I’ll cop to low tolerance for anti-science and a propensity for snark. However, most of what I say is in fun, and that may not come through in two dimensions on a computer screen.
Snark or no, anyone who wants to can find plenty to educate themselves with on these pages. For those who are not interested in educating themselves…, well what good are fish in a barrel otherwise.
Ray Ladbury // December 21, 2008 at 2:30 pm |
Crabby, I don’t expect you to understand this, but your post illustrates a common mistake made in the denialosphere:
You assume there is a “Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming”. ‘Tain’t so. There is a body of generally accepted theory about how Earth’s climate works–the consensus view–and anthropogenic causation of the current warming epoch is a inevitable consequence of that theory if we dramatically increase greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
The only way to overturn that consequence is to come up with a better theory that reduces the importance of CO2. Good luck with that. CO2 has some very special properties that leave a very definite signature–it’s well mixed, long-lived in the environment, and a powerful IR absorber. Without CO2, it’s even hard to explain why Earth is habitable.
So, I ask: Why not learn the science, so that you don’t post pure drivel, devoid of any relevance to the debate?
dhogaza // December 21, 2008 at 2:40 pm |
No scientist claims that man is responsible for Earth’s climate. Science tells us that man’s activities play a role in shaping Earth’s climate, along with a variety of things in nature (most notably the sun).
When you start a post with a statement that’s this far off the mark, people aren’t going to bother to read further.
TCOisbanned? // December 21, 2008 at 3:27 pm |
Ray,
Leaving aside all AGW for the moment, there is a large literature of articles on how science can be affected by grantsmanship, trendiness, brown-nosing, etc. And anyone who’s done their time has seen some as well. That doesn’t mean that nothing gets done…some does. But let’s not hold it up as some uber-meritocracy of truth pursuers. (I expect mathematics may actually be like that, but don’t know for sure.)
I only say this, because you have this interesting tendancy to want to opine on the culture and work habits of scientists, to explain them to deniers who have read about science but not done it. And those deniers are wrong at times. But so are you (cf. NASA not having a tendancy to 9-5er civil servants, not having read Katzoff, etc.)
P. Lewis // December 21, 2008 at 3:28 pm |
Not content with perverting science (again!), we have to contend with attempts to pervert the meanings of English words too (again!), it seems.
And
Add the bits together, Crabby, and you get denialists interested in nothing but perpetuating denialism in the name of science. I think such people belonging to such a doctrine may reasonably also be called perverters and perverts, since by reading the SOED definition of perversion we get …
Denialist or pervert, whichever seems to fit you best. You choose.
Jim Eager // December 21, 2008 at 8:26 pm |
It is crabby’s framing of the language to equate himself and his side with the victims that trivializes the holocaust.
It is only those in denial of the reality of AGW who are propagating this framing.
Crabby // December 21, 2008 at 10:29 pm |
Tamino,
Nonsense. The basis for global warming was, and continues to be, a proposed connection between CO2 and temperature. Both demonstrated a period of increase, hence they have are hypothesized to be causally connected. The computer models are part and parcel of that hypothesis. Their value, obviously, depends on their predictive ability. Based on the frequent fine tuning needed to make them conform to the past record, one is justifiably skeptical about their predictive abilities.
[Response: You continue to exhibit the most astounding ignorance. The warming effect of CO2 is based on pure physics, it's infrared activity, which is a direct consequence of the fundamental laws of physics. That was demonstrated experimentally by Tyndall in the 19th century. The warming effect of CO2 on global climate was explored quantitatively by Arrhenius in a seminal work published in 1896.
All of which was long before either global warming, or CO2 increase, were even observed. Yet you say "Both demonstrated a period of increase, hence they have are hypothesized to be causally connected." Are you really that ignorant, or are you just trying to push buttons?
The "freqent fine tuning" meme is nothing but a denialist ploy. Of course models are changed as we learn more about the history of climate forcings, about the microphysics of clouds and turbulence, and as computers become more powerful so we can perform calculations on a finer spatial and temporal grid. Despite the limitations of past knowledge and computing power, they've been making good predictions for over 15 years now.]
I note that your response to my questions has been based on generalities and insult rather than substance. I can understand your reluctance.
Ray,
LOL
So I am part of the “denialosphere”? Is that smug-think among you true-believers?
I understand that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, along with water, methane, CFCs and others. The fact is, the global warming hypothesis (you’re right, I was wrong to elevate it to a theory) is based on a presumption that CO2, particularly the added burden introduced by man, is the primary contributor to a “greenhouse effect” that is primarily responsible for recent increases in temperature. I say primarily because, as I have already posted, the hypothesis, along with its supporting computer models has been continuously revised to make it agree better with historical data. An example is a recent grudging acceptance of an increase in the importance of the sun in the model. Remarkably, variations in the output of the sun, the principle source of energy in the solar system, have been largely dismissed in favor of concentrations of a naturally occurring gas that many in your camp portray as a pollutant.
Do you really believe that science operates on “consensus”, like the selection an American Idol – the most popular wins? It was once the consensus that Newton’s “corpuscular” theory of light was wrong – leading, of course, to Newton’s self-imposed exile. During the mid 1800s, it was the consensus that those earning a PhD in physics knew all there was to know. It was, during the late 1800s, a consensus that Dalton’s atomic theory was false. It was once a consensus in in the U.S.S.R. that organisms, particularly agricultural organisms, could pass on acquired traits (Lysenkoism), and Lysenko was supported for years by a complete consensus of the U.S.S.R Academy of Sciences. I could go on, but the point is, science is not consensus nor is it ever “settled” as has been claimed by those in your camp. Where does skepticism fit into your settled consensus formulation? Science is the pursuit of truth and, even with the most firmly established theory, there remains the possibility that further data and investigation will require us to revise our ideas – as has been done with the computer models. So, let me ask, what are the consensus talking points about the recent decade of non-warming? Pretend it didn’t happen? Blame it on El Nino/La Nina? Revise the numbers?
dhogaza,
Your response to my post was the least insulting, so perhaps you can tell me. Is it standard procedure here to begin by demeaning a person’s intelligence and knowledge when they don’t agree? It really doesn’t matter to me, because I am unlikely to continue making posts you won’t have to read, because questions and challenges here appear to be blasphemy in the temple of AGW true believers.
Former Skeptic // December 21, 2008 at 11:53 pm |
Crabby.
Are you being serious in your posts, or are you just here for the lulz? I have to admit your total ignorance of facts, combined with your make-believe “truths” did make me laugh.
Still, if you are still here — I doubt you will be, because you are scared of being shown how massively wrong you are — care to list your sources for why you think the AGW “hypothesis” *chuckle chuckle* is false? I’d like to see how many are legit.
Pat Cassen // December 21, 2008 at 11:56 pm |
Crabby:
I think you’ve walked into the wrong class. This one has prerequisites. Perhaps you’re looking for the debate club?
Pat Cassen // December 21, 2008 at 11:57 pm |
Modest prerequisites, that is.
Ian Forrester // December 22, 2008 at 12:08 am |
Crabby said: “Is it standard procedure here to begin by demeaning a person’s intelligence and knowledge…?”
Crabby, I only demean a person’s intelligence when they show by the rubbish that they post that they know absolutely nothing about what they are pretending to be “experts” in. Your recent post is a good example of this. You come here and demean the good work of honest scientists who have shown, by their dedicated work, that increases in CO2 produced by humans is raising the global mean temperature at a rate which has not happened in recent geological time.
You are both arrogant and ignorant in your comments which show that you know absolutely nothing about either science or the scientific method.
Your comment about Newton’s “self-imposed exile” is absolute rubbish.
Newton did have a two year “self-imposed exile” from Cambridge but that was due to the plague. ( He spent a lot of time under the apple tree during this period).
You deniers sure get more and more desperate after every paper shows the increasingly devastating effects the warming has on the earth.
Jim Eager // December 22, 2008 at 12:37 am |
I think crabby is, well, crabby, because now that Obama has selected an outstanding group of science advisers it is quite clear that 1) the “debate” (more like petulant braying) is well and truly over, and 2) his side’s campaign of deliberate obfuscation and delay has finally come to the end of it’s effectiveness.
It’s time to, in the words of Steven Chu, take the job away from the lobbyists and give it to the engineers to get to work on solving the problem.
Richard Steckis // December 22, 2008 at 10:54 am |
Ray: “”Spoken like a person who has never done science.”
I have done enough science to know that it does not even come close to art when describing the emotive notions of the human mind.
Mary Hinge // December 22, 2008 at 12:16 pm |
It is alway a source of amusement to me how deniers always bring in a religious element when their argument is lost. I am sure this demonstrates their own subconcious beliefs that as God created the world then Man cannot harm it ( a similar thought process to the denialists of Evolution by Natural selection), and I’m sure this explains the high demographic bias of right-wing religious followers that submit their anti AGW opinion.
There was a cracking piece written in ‘The Phoenix’ (an Irish satirical magazine) that explained that Sarah Palin was skeptical on the theory of gravity. Forget what all the credible scientists were telling her, in her opinion it was angel glue that kept things on the ground and she would get this alternative theory taught in schools. it probably loses a lot in translation (from English to American English) but you get the idea!
John Finn // December 22, 2008 at 12:37 pm |
You come here and demean the good work of honest scientists who have shown, by their dedicated work, that increases in CO2 produced by humans is raising the global mean temperature at a rate which has not happened in recent geological time.
It happened between 1915-44. And almost certainly happened in northern europe between the 1690s and 1730s and almost certainly lots of other times as well.
In anticipation that you’ll respond by showing me a spaghetti graph of proxy reconstructuins or similar. None – not one – of the reconstructions is able to replicate the late 20th century warming which leaves us with 2 possible conclusions
1. Proxy reconstructions are unable to capture the true variability of climate .
2. The thermometer record is wrong.
Take your pick .
Gavin's Pussycat // December 22, 2008 at 1:40 pm |
> 1. Proxy reconstructions are unable to capture the true variability of climate .
> 2. The thermometer record is wrong.
3. Proxy reconstructions calibrated on the 20th century up to 1980 are indeed unable to realistically capture the true enormity of what we have done over the last three decades, and are doing to the global climate system: not just overall temperature rise, but re-drawing the climate zone map and re-mixing atmospheric chemistry (funny how the same folks that argue that more CO2 will “fertilize” agriculture forget about fertilization when it is inconvenient for their argument).
Barton Paul Levenson // December 22, 2008 at 1:46 pm |
Crabby,
The greenhouse effect is definitely real. We’d all be dead without it. Without the greenhouse effect, Earth would be frozen solid. This is easy to demonstrate with some very simple radiation physics and math no more complicated than algebra.
The amount of flux density (power per unit area) absorbed by Earth’s climate system is
F = (S / 4) (1 – A)
Here S is the “Solar constant,” the flux density from sunlight at Earth’s distance from the sun. A is the “bolometric Bond albedo,” the fraction of sunlight reflected back into space. According to Lean’s (2000) reconstructions of the solar constant, S has been about 1,366 watts per square meter for the past 50 years or so. NASA gives Earth’s albedo as 0.306.
Plug these values in and you get an absorbed climate flux of 237 W/m^2. Now, invert the Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law to find out what radiative equilibrium temperature this corresponds to:
Te = (F / σ)^0.25
Here sigma is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, which is about 5.6704 x 10^-8 W/m^2/K^4 in the SI. This gives a temperature of Te = 254 K.
But water freezes at 273 K. If sunlight were the whole story, Earth would be frozen over. The fact that the mean global annual surface temperature is about 288 K is due to the greenhouse effect. Most of it is due to water vapor and clouds, most of the rest is due to carbon dioxide.
Ray Ladbury // December 22, 2008 at 1:48 pm |
John Finn, Hmm, I wonder if there could be another explanation…. Hmm. What could it be…? Anyone? Beuhler?
Ooh! Ooh! Maybe what we are doing to the climate is unprecedented , at least since the PETM.
Ray Ladbury // December 22, 2008 at 1:49 pm |
Richard Steckis, I amend my diagnosis:
Spoken like a man who has never done REAL science.
Ray Ladbury // December 22, 2008 at 1:54 pm |
Crabby, Wow an expert in revisionist history as well as pseudo-science. My hero.
Ray Ladbury // December 22, 2008 at 2:02 pm |
TCO, You have to draw a distinction between individual scientists and science itself. Yes, the former are susceptible to every weakness that everyone else is. However, in the end, what succeeds in science is the idea that has the greatest explanatory and predictive power. In that sense, science is the closest to a meritocracy that humans have arrived at. I agree that the process is not always pretty, and those contributing to it may not have the most simon pure of motives or agendas. But you gotta admit, the sausage is damn good.
John Finn // December 22, 2008 at 3:19 pm |
3. Proxy reconstructions calibrated on the 20th century up to 1980 are indeed unable to realistically capture the true enormity of what we have done over the last three decades, and are doing to the global climate system
They don’t do a great job before the calibration period See here
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/briffa2001/plate3.gif
Note the pre-calibration period from around 1850 up. to about 1900 . Observations and proxies are going in different directions. In fact the only time they agree is actually during the calibration period which is a bit rubbish really.
Ooh! Ooh! Maybe what we are doing to the climate is unprecedented , at least since the PETM
Is this a song? Whatever the response above applies here as well.
luminous beauty // December 22, 2008 at 4:27 pm |
Ray,
Poor Richard also speaks like someone who has never done any REAL art.
nanny_govt_sucks // December 22, 2008 at 6:59 pm |
OK, I’ll bite. Where specifically is this work by a scientist that shows specifically that increases in CO2 (not any other GHG) produced by humans (not any other source) is the sole or primary cause of any recent global warming AND that this rise is unique in recent geologic history.
Please no computer models.
Ian Forrester // December 22, 2008 at 8:03 pm |
NGS, please go and take a course on elementary English comprehension. It would make you look a little less stupid if you actually understood what you are responding to.
It seems that all AGW deniers suffer from the same lack in elementary subjects, English grammar, spelling, comprehension as well as being completely ignorant of the sciences they are so eager to criticize.
dhogaza // December 22, 2008 at 8:20 pm |
Scientists, nanny, scientists, not work by “a scientist”. It’s a body of work by many, you’re well aware of its existence, and you’re on record as rejecting it despite clearly not understanding it.
Spending time trying to educate you is a waste of time.
nanny_govt_sucks // December 22, 2008 at 8:25 pm |
Grow up Ian. do you have a reference for your claim or do you not?
Ian Forrester // December 22, 2008 at 8:29 pm |
NGS, go back and read what I wrote. I did not write what you are claiming I wrote. You are the one who needs to grow up.
Phil Scadden // December 22, 2008 at 8:46 pm |
“please no computer models”.
What are you saying? Please dont try a quantitative approach because I much prefer arm-waving arguments? Stick to politics! You would happy to project say, the path a satellite to Jupiter without a computer model? In a system as complex as climate, I fail to see you how do quantitative models without computers.
Dave A // December 22, 2008 at 9:29 pm |
Phil S
Yes a system as complex as the Earth’s climate needs computer models to enable understanding. But those models also need realistic inputs and some basis in accurate real world measurements. Go read some of Stainforth’s papers to find out why they are not yet fit for purpose.
Dave A // December 22, 2008 at 9:39 pm |
Ray.
Have a good Christmas!
It must be so ‘tiresome’ for you to have to respond to the questions of people who have questions.
John Finn // December 22, 2008 at 10:45 pm |
It seems that all AGW deniers suffer from the same lack in elementary subjects, English grammar, spelling, comprehension as well as being completely ignorant of the sciences they are so eager to criticize.
We’ll take that as a “don’t know” then.
David B. Benson // December 22, 2008 at 10:59 pm |
Wow, so many on this thread who have no read Weart’s book.
And its even on the web, so there is no much excuse.
Ray Ladbury // December 22, 2008 at 11:10 pm |
Dave A., On the contrary, my effort here and on RC demonstates that I am more than happy to answer questions when people really want to understand. What gets tiresome are “questions” from people who don’t want to understand the science because they’re afraid understanding would undermine their “objectivity”
May you have a wonderful Saturnalian orgy, yourself!
TCOisbanned? // December 22, 2008 at 11:30 pm |
Ray, I think progress gets made, but at times it is amazingly inefficient. Science is actually big business, when you think how much money goes through NSF, DOE, NASA, NIH, etc. It does not surprise me that people depandant on the largesse romanticize the mission.
Sausage edible but not as good as the sausage makers like to say.
And I been in the belly of the beast, man.
Hank Roberts // December 22, 2008 at 11:40 pm |
> please no
I knew that sounded famliar.
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/greenland-redux/#comment-780
Phil Scadden // December 23, 2008 at 1:13 am |
Dave A – how hard is it to find follow up on Stainforth’s work? Stainforth is attempting to quantify the risks associated with the uncertainities in the models. Hardly “not fit for purpose” – more like really scary. I use similar techniques for estimating risk in the quantities of hydrocarbon production from a geological basin. I wish I had better data, better constraints on the thermal history but dont so better to work with what you have and understand the implications of the uncertainities. The probability of NO oil always grabs the attention of would-be prospectors.
David B. Benson // December 23, 2008 at 1:40 am |
How much does a 7 km deep dry hole, on land, cost?
Ray Ladbury // December 23, 2008 at 1:59 am |
TCO, Believe it or not, some of us who do science do so because we actually like doing it. Of the satellites I’ve worked on this decade, one has seen one black hole swallow another and seen the biggest gamma-ray burster to date. One has quantified the ice loss at the poles. Others are measuring weather, gravity, and so on. I think that’s pretty cool, and I am more than satisfied in my role as an oompa-loompa of science on these projects. Yes, there are 9-5 civil servants, and larcenous contractors. There are also people who will do whatever it takes to make the bird work. Like it or not, science works, and it works despite the foibles and frailties of its practitioners.
When you find something that works despite human frailties, be it markets, trial by jury, democracy or science, you cleave to it.
Richard Steckis // December 23, 2008 at 3:12 am |
Ray. Define REAL science.
Luminous. Define REAL art.
Phil Scadden // December 23, 2008 at 3:25 am |
7km deep dry? I am guessing this dry rock geothermal query. Cost is pretty dependent on WHERE you are drilling as well as depth, final bore diameter, and especially what rock etc. I dont have much of handle on onshore drilling costs but guessing in excess of US$20m for a reasonable bore diameter, drilling into sediment and not granite/gneiss.
dhogaza // December 23, 2008 at 4:51 am |
Since you, in the beginning, described your BS degree as being a “graduate degree”, why don’t you take a shot?
It might help rehab your disgrace from your original lie.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 23, 2008 at 12:07 pm |
nanny writes:
1. John Tyndall demonstrated in 1859, from lab work, that carbon dioxide was a greenhouse gas.
2. Carbon dioxide has been rising. This was suggested theoretically by Arrhenius in 1896, backed up tentatively by Callendar in 1938, and shown definitely by Keeling et al. in the 1950s and ever since.
3. The new carbon dioxide is coming from fossil fuel burning. This is shown by its radioisotope signature. The r.s. of fossil fuel CO2 was first demonstrated in ambi-ent air by Hans Suess in 1955.
4. The globe has been warming. This is shown by land surface temperature records, sea surface temp. records, borehole temp’s, balloon radiosonde temp’s, satellite temp. observations, melting glaciers, rising sea level, tree lines moving toward the poles, earlier hatching dates for eggs of insects, frogs and birds, and tropical diseases moving into temperate zones.
5. The output of sunlight and the flux of galactic cosmic rays have not changed for approximately 50 years. But global warming turned up sharply starting 30 years ago.
So in short, we have theoretical reason to think it’s carbon dioxide, the evidence backs it up, and there’s no competing hypothesis with good evidence.
Ray Ladbury // December 23, 2008 at 1:36 pm |
Richard Steckis, Real science is that which increases our understanding of the world around us. Note that in suggesting you haven’t done real science, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. For if you have indeed participated in generating real science and failed to appreciate its beauty, that would be sad for you indeed.
You will note that I never said that I didn’t appreciate art or music or being in love. I merely said that it illuminates beauty in the world as nothing else can. I’ll stand by that statement proudly, with no fears of what it says about my humanity or my soul to anyone who truly understands what science means to the human experience. And to the rest… their opinion isn’t worth worrying about.
Dano // December 23, 2008 at 5:06 pm |
BPL:
NaGS just rehashes a standard denialist argument, one that is making the rounds again (IOW: recycled yet again).
But thank you for taking the time for a nice compendium.
Best,
D
Pat Cassen // December 23, 2008 at 6:24 pm |
“Like it or not, science works, and it works despite the foibles and frailties of its practitioners.
When you find something that works despite human frailties, be it markets, trial by jury, democracy or science, you cleave to it.”
-Ray Ladbury
Thanks for that one, Ray. Hope you don’t mind if I borrow it occasionally.
John Finn // December 23, 2008 at 7:10 pm |
5. The output of sunlight and the flux of galactic cosmic rays have not changed for approximately 50 years.
But solar activity has been consistently higher in those 50 years than it was in the previous 50, resulting in a slow steady warming of the world’s oceans – like a pot of water over a gas flame. The flame doesn’t increase but the water still warms.
But global warming turned up sharply starting 30 years ago.
Coincidentally just as the PDO shifted to a warm phase. In much the same way it shifted to a warm phase in ~1915 which, funnily enough, was just about the time the last major warming period began. And to complete the treble it shifted to a cool phase in around 1940 …. guess what happened then?
Hank Roberts // December 23, 2008 at 7:52 pm |
Cherries, John Finn?
You need to eat a little of everything for a balanced diet, not just pick off the dessert plate.
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Graphics/tn_RadiativeForcing.jpg
Phil. // December 23, 2008 at 7:53 pm |
John Finn // December 23, 2008 at 7:10 pm
“But global warming turned up sharply starting 30 years ago.”
Coincidentally just as the PDO shifted to a warm phase. In much the same way it shifted to a warm phase in ~1915 which, funnily enough, was just about the time the last major warming period began. And to complete the treble it shifted to a cool phase in around 1940 …. guess what happened then?
Your dates don’t appear to coincide with this graph of the PDO index:
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
Care to elaborate?
Hank Roberts // December 23, 2008 at 7:54 pm |
Another look at putting all the pieces together in an image. Pick any individual item and you can argue this must be THE answer. Look at them all together, and one answer emerges.
http://chriscolose.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/meehl-attribution.gif
Ian Forrester // December 23, 2008 at 7:59 pm |
John Finn said: “But solar activity has been consistently higher in those 50 years than it was in the previous 50″.
This is completely false and is churned out again and again by the AGW denial machine.
For real number check out:
w w w.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
David B. Benson // December 23, 2008 at 8:09 pm |
John Finn // December 23, 2008 at 7:10 pm — Yes, yes, there are all those minor fluctuations in this or that. I opine you need to learn to view
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/10yave.jpg
the decadal averages from the HadCRUTv3 global surface temperature product, as a straight line trend together with fluctuations, i.e., ‘noise’. No this is easy enough to do by eye. What straight line trend do you see?
Dave A // December 23, 2008 at 10:47 pm |
Phil,
As the PDO pattern was only identified in 1997 how can we be sure reconstructions back to the early 20th C are correct?
David B. Benson // December 23, 2008 at 11:47 pm |
Dave A // December 23, 2008 at 10:47 pm — El Nino (ENSO) indicies are the difference in temperature at two locations. The one maintained by CSIRO (in Oz) uses temperatures going back to the latter part of the 19th century. Now the PDO is a PCA component of some time series; I assum those ENSO indicies.
S2 // December 24, 2008 at 12:18 am |
The world started warming in the middle of the Maunder Minimum? :)
The next time you use this, I suggest you use 1715 to circa 1790 (the end of the Maunder to the start of the Dalton), it might make you sound more credible.
(But don’t let Singer and Avery hear you, this is still in the middle of their precious LIA)
John Finn // December 24, 2008 at 1:10 am |
This is completely false and is churned out again and again by the AGW denial machine
For real number check out:
w w w.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
Ok, Ian, I’ve checked out the ‘real’ numbers and I still say I’m right. Solar activity was higher in the second half of the 20th century than it was in the first.
John Finn // December 24, 2008 at 1:19 am |
Cherries, John Finn?
I don’t understand. BPL mentions warming over the past 30 years and I point out that the onset of warming coincides with the warm PDO shift. I also added that the previous warming period also coincided with a warm PDO shift and that the mid-20th century cooling coincided with a cool PDO shift.
How is that cherry picking? I’ve used all the data available, i.e. surface thermometer observations going back 100+ years. There have only been 2 warming periods in that time so I’m not sure what else I can do.
John Finn // December 24, 2008 at 1:34 am |
the decadal averages from the HadCRUTv3 global surface temperature product, as a straight line trend together with fluctuations, i.e., ‘noise’. No this is easy enough to do by eye. What straight line trend do you see?
I didn’t say there was a straight line. I said there were 2 warming periods and 1 cooling (or non warming) which coincided with PDO shifts.
I also speculated that the underlying warming trend (i.e. that which is not amplified by ocean factors) may be due to a more active sun in the post-1950 period than in the pre-1950 period.
This was in response to BPL who seems to imagine that because the the solar activity hit a peak in~1960 then the sun could not have a warming effect after that. This, though, is a bit like saying that if you turn a gas flame under a pot of water on to full power for one minute then turn it to half power for 20 mins the maximum temperature of the water will be reached after one minute.
I don’t think there’s any disputing that bulk heating of the oceans is caused by solar energy – or perhaps there is?
[Response: A solar increase (if there was one -- Dr. Svalgard would disagree) would certainly cause warming. But if it peaked in 1960 then the warming rate would decline after that, a phenomenon which is contradicted by observation. And how would a solar increase cause surface warming and stratospheric cooling?
Do you think that greenhouse gases (specifically, CO2 and methane) have no effect? Do you think sulfate aerosols have no effect?]
Ian Forrester // December 24, 2008 at 3:01 am |
John Finn, what is rubbish is you trying to claim that the recent rise in temperature over the past 50 years is due to increasing insolation. That is the rubbish put out by the AGW denier machine.
Ray Ladbury // December 24, 2008 at 3:03 am |
Pat Cassen, Weasel words are my specialty. Feel free.
malcolm // December 24, 2008 at 8:17 am |
Is climate science capable of predicting global temperature in a 1 to 10 year time frame? Apparently not. Should we expect it to be? That seems like a question worthy of debate.
But every time the question gets asked, abuse follows. That isn’t science, that just ideology. The refusal to debate genuine empirical questions is serious credibility issue.
But every time you abuse a genuine enquiring skeptic, you lose ground. Why do you think skepticism is growing? The public knows a pig when it hears it squeal – and is has the sense to see through the logic chopping and contradictions of blogs like these.
[Response: You're not asking a question, you're just employing "this deserves to be debated" as an excuse to launch into a diatribe. You complain about abuse, but apparently you just want to abuse us.
I know a hypocrite when I hear you.]
John Finn // December 24, 2008 at 11:18 am |
John Finn, what is rubbish is you trying to claim that the recent rise in temperature over the past 50 years is due to increasing insolation. That is the rubbish put out by the AGW denier machine.
Ian, you asked me to check out the “numbers”. I assume you meant the sunspot numbers – so I checked them and they are higher in the late 20th century than in the early 20th century. So I was right on this.
Now it’s possible the sun has very little direct effect, i.e from TSI alone, but that’s a separate issue PLUS it also creates a problem for the AGW case since the IPCC’s “detection and attribution studies” assume a strong solar effect in the early 20th century to come to the conclusion that GHGs must be a significant factor in recent global warming. This leads on to Tamino’s response.
[Response: A solar increase (if there was one -- Dr. Svalgard would disagree)
I tend to agree with him. I think solar effects on global temperatures can only be measured over many decades if not centuries (see below). But it should be noted that Dr S does not agree with the AGW consensus position.
would certainly cause warming. But if it peaked in 1960 then the warming rate would decline after that,
I don't agree with this. The main effect of an increase in solar output will be the warming of the earth's oceans. Because of the heat capacity of the oceans, this may not become evident for
a 100 years or more (according to Carl Wunsch). It will be several decades at the very least. Remember, also, that oceans can be warmed by solar energy in 2 ways. 1) direct increase in solar output: 2) a reduction (or even just a shift) in cloudiness which allows more energy into the ocean.
And when will the ocean warming become most evident?
When the warm waters of the oceans are in contact with the atmosphere during El Nino events. That's when the themometers which are dotted around the surface of the globe will detect warmer temperatures.
And when do we appear to get most El Nino events?
During positive phases of the PDO - or that's what it appears from the limited data we have.
a phenomenon which is contradicted by observation. And how would a solar increase cause surface warming and stratospheric cooling?
Tamino - you "corrected" me when I used a linear fit to calculate the warming trend since 1940. Well, from what I've seen the stratosphere temperatures are highly non linear. The strat record has 2 major features which occur at the time of the El Chichon and Pinatubo eruptions respectively. In both cases, the immediate effect is a sharp upward spike in stratospheric temperatures - followed by a rapid decline. The temperatures then tend to settle at a level which is lower than the pre-eruption background levels. BUT there appears to be no trend after that. Why this happpens I don't know - perhaps volcanic eruptions destroy solar absorbing chemicals such as ozone?? this opens a whole new can of worms, though, so let's not go there.
Do you think that greenhouse gases (specifically, CO2 and methane) have no effect? Do you think sulfate aerosols have no effect?]
GHGs aound 0.5 – 1 deg per doubling.
Volcanic (stratosphere) aerosols have a temporary cooling effect (2-3 years).
Industrial aerosols – very little effect. They last, at most, ~10 days and are usually “rained out” long before then. To use Mann & Jones words – aerosols are “regionally specific”. They don’t have a widespread effect . If aerosols had a big impact, my home city would have cooled far more than the global average during the 1940s/1950s/1960s. It didn’t. It cooled about a quarter as much as the Arctic.
It’s that ocean circulation thing again.
[Response: You're willing to make up a fantasy about volcanic eruptions destroying solar-absorbing chemicals, without even considering the consequences. You dismiss industrial aerosols with a "at most, ~10 days and are usually "rained out" long before then" wave of the hand (it's more like 12 days to two months).
You'll reduce the estimated greenhouse warming to less than what would follow from a simple application of the Stephan-Boltzmann equation, which would require negative feedback in the climate system, a hypothesis contradicted by paleoclimate behavior and the behavior of known feedbacks.
And you ascribe a very strong forcing trend to ocean oscillations, with no real understanding of what that implies either.
You're willing to stretch credulity far beyond the outer limits if it'll enable you to deny AGW -- but you won't believe AGW unless the almighty himself carves it in stone. Maybe not even then.]
Ray Ladbury // December 24, 2008 at 1:33 pm |
John Finn, Any change in solar irradiance is simply too small to explain the warming we’ve seen–that is clear from the fact that there is debate over whether such an increase even occurred.
Your sensitivity range for CO2 doubling of 0.5-1 degree is simply ludicrous. No one has yet devised an Earthlike climate model based on such a sensitivity–it utterly fails to capture either paleoclimatic behavior or the response of climate to a perturbation like a volcanic eruption. And even if your speculation made any sense from a physical perspective, there is the small matter of explaining simultaneous tropospheric warming AND stratospheric cooling.
Your tendency to focus only on a tiny subset of the evidence causes you to underestimate the evidence favoring anthropogenic causation.
Ray Ladbury // December 24, 2008 at 1:41 pm |
Malcolm, Great. Find me a genuine skeptic–someone who analyzes purported alternatives as skeptically as he does greenhouse mechanisms. Because I really don’t know any such people. The so-called skeptics I know either have a pet theory they are trying to promote or they reach out and grab any crazy idea that comes along.
Now, as to your idea about climate science predicting climate on yearly scales…well as soon as we figure out how to predict every volcanic eruption, ENSO, PDO, and solar fluctuation, maybe we can get to work on that. In the mean time, the theories are more than adequate to identify and explain a steady, nearly linear, long-term rise in global temperatures.
Ian Forrester // December 24, 2008 at 3:35 pm |
John Finn, there is no long term correlation between sun spot numbers and global temperature (except for the Maunder minimum which is probably just coincidence).
I don’t think you looked at my link because it has nothing to do with sun spot numbers.
You are just echoing the garbage put out by the AGW denier machine.
Go and do some real reading of the science and you might learn something, especially about the little you actually know about climate science.
Dano // December 24, 2008 at 4:15 pm |
John Finn, Any change in solar irradiance is simply too small to explain the warming we’ve seen–that is clear from the fact that there is debate over whether such an increase even occurred.
Your sensitivity range for CO2 doubling of 0.5-1 degree is simply ludicrous.
Ray, there is a new talking point (!) out there that takes the forcing of CO2 alone without feedbacks (!). The gullible and credulous state as gospel that the warming will only be ~1º because of 2x CO2 alone – there’s no problem!!!!!!
Best,
D
Ray Ladbury // December 24, 2008 at 5:34 pm |
P. Lewis, Yeah, I’ve encountered it. My question is this:
How does the climate know that the added forcing is coming from CO2 so that it can not apply there but still apply to every other forcing. This is one argument that borders on Intelligent Design: Intelligent climate!
Ray Ladbury // December 24, 2008 at 5:35 pm |
Oops! Sorry Dano. That was for you.
Red Etin // December 24, 2008 at 6:36 pm |
“Response: You sound a lot like a smoker who complains that nicotine gum costs too much for you to try to quit. Newsflash: smoking cigarettes is more expensive. Lung cancer is far more expensive — and brings lots of non-financial misery to boot.”
I never smoked; I don’t drink alcohol, either. I believe in reducing waste, including not wasting energy, food and land, but I like driving my 318i, my MX-5 and my GPZ500 (one at a time). I use buses and trams every week.
I think the current slow warming trend, and the recent levelling out are natural variations and not out of the ordinary. I think we’ll adapt where necessary and we have the time to do so. I think warming effects are equally likely to be beneficial (esp in Scotland!) as adverse. I think cooling will follow the warming, as it always has.
dhogaza // December 24, 2008 at 8:11 pm |
But you have zero data to back up any of those thoughts.
This paragraph is a perfect example of the difference between wishful thinking and the way science approaches the problem of understanding how the world works.
David B. Benson // December 24, 2008 at 8:42 pm |
Ian Forrester // December 24, 2008 at 3:35 pm — The Maunder minimum would have contributed some small portion of the cooling during LIA. However, the decline in CO2 from about 280 ppm to 260 ppm (and then back up again by 1850 CE) would certainly have a global cooling effect. LIA has now been determined to be global, although the effect on temperatures at Vostok was quite small indeed.
David B. Benson // December 24, 2008 at 8:53 pm |
John Finn // December 24, 2008 at 1:34 am — That’s right, I said there is a straight line trend. For the entire 158 years. Due to increased CO2 alone (unfortunately, I don’t know how to take methane, black carbon, etc., increases into account to produce a better fit). On top of that there is ‘noise’ such as volcano eruptions, very small changes in solar irradiance, various ocean oscillations, etc. Ignore that. Look fo0r the single straight line trend. What do you see? Think it is due to increased CO2?
Of course it is, the physics is solid. You could read about it in “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
Review of above:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E7DF153DF936A35753C1A9659C8B63
Red Etin // December 24, 2008 at 8:58 pm |
dhogaza
“But you have zero data to back up any of those thoughts.”
But I have Occam’s Razor.
“warming trend, and the recent levelling out are natural variation” – all the data that was ever collected go into this “thought”. There is quite some manipulation of data needed to show different.
“we’ll adapt where necessary and we have the time to do so” – mankind and the biolosphere in general have adapted to every previous climate change.
“warming effects are equally likely to be beneficial as adverse” – does anyone have better data about the future than I have?
“I think cooling will follow the warming, as it always has. ” qed
dhogaza // December 24, 2008 at 9:52 pm |
April 1 is months away, I suggest you save this material for then.
David B. Benson // December 24, 2008 at 10:44 pm |
Red Etin // December 24, 2008 at 8:58 pm — Ockham’s Razor isn’t as good as the physics. Read the book linked in my previous post. Also read David Archer’s “The Long Thaw” for just how long temperatures will remain too high.
In earlier mass extinctions more than half to most species went extinct. Continuing to add CO2 makes another such event more likely. Read Peter Ward’s “Under a Green Sky”.
For predictions of a hotter future, read Mark Lynas’s “Six Degrees” and the two different books both entitled “Hell and High Water”.
Learn first, offer opinions when such are actually informed.
malcolm // December 24, 2008 at 10:59 pm |
Tamino – fair enough. I was just trying to fit in, but happy to drop any abusive tone, provided I don’t get abused myself.
Ray Ladbury – here are some of the questions that interest me.
(1) The Sun – I don’t really understand the skeptic argument about low solar activity. I think it is that while the Sun gets hotter, but the reduced solar wind promotes more cosmic bombardment and cloud formation, increasing aldebo. Although do clouds have different effects at different levels? I’d really like to be pointed towards the key arguments, some evidence that this can be modelled, especially the multiple mechnisms that may be at work, and ideally some data, such as space based measurement of planetary aldebo.
(2) Canaries in coal mines. There is an argument that Arctic warming is the canary in the coal mine. But isn’t the same argument applied to the tropics and the Antartic, where warming is not so present? Also, wasn’t the recent sea ice loss due to unusual weather, rather than climate? So what does the balance of evidence show on these canaries? If you have enough canaries, some of them are bound to fall off the perch for other reasons.
(3) Warming has stopped in 1998. Eyeballing the graphs, this is clearly not true as 1998 is an outlier. But there does seem to be a peak about 2001 or so. Could be a fluctuation … could be a turning point. The common counter argument is that the apparent cessation is due to contrasting ENSO events in 1998 and 2008. But there were three warm ENSO in the intervening years, which nobody seems to talk about. Doesn’t that suggest the underlying global temperature for 2002-2006 is even lower than the recent data suggests?
(4) How can we have a runaway positive feedback event when this didn’t occur at times of higher atmospheric carbon in the geological record?
Well, that’s just a few questions of many that I have. So far my tentative conclusions based on the data and arguments I can access are that:
- The earth is warming.
- This is partly due to AGW.
- But the AGW effect is probably a third of what people think.
- And is likely swamped by other natural variations.
I’m open minded, but I find it hard to get anybody to debate the data, or make transparent arguments from evidence. Most of the debate seems to be about expressions of power, ridicule and bullying. That gets my back up immediately.
Merry Christmas
dhogaza // December 24, 2008 at 11:52 pm |
This one’s simple to dispense with. Climate science does not predict runaway greenhouse warming on Earth. This makes your point a strawman, though I imagine it’s unintentional and that you’ve simply picked it up on some denialist site that claims that climate science predicts this.
If so, that should inform you to some extent of the quality of some of the stuff you’ve been reading, right?
You should start by reading what climate scientists actually claim the science supports. Real Climate is an invaluable resource. Denialists will tell you it’s a propaganda site, but in reality it’s run by professional climate scientists.
dhogaza // December 24, 2008 at 11:55 pm |
Another reason to read about the science. Ignore the “debate” and concentrate on the science.
Have you formed your opinion about modern biology by reading Creationist sites? It appears you’ve been doing the equivalent in regard to climate science.
Trace the links at Real Climate and read, please.
Kipp Alpert // December 25, 2008 at 12:02 am |
David B. Benson:Chris Colose has great paers on the physics of global warming Iand 2and another great one on skeptics versus deniers versus the black helicopter people.KIPP
David B. Benson // December 25, 2008 at 12:34 am |
malcolm // December 24, 2008 at 10:59 pm — Regarding your point 3: read again this thread by Tamino, before the comments. If you need more, there are earlier threads by Tamino explaining just what statistically significant inferences there are in the global temperature record; also how these are obtained.
Regarding your point 1: that is the #1 denialist postion. Turns out that changes in TSI, averaged over at least one sunspot cyle, have only a quite minor impact on global temperature. Changes in global warming (so-called greenhouse) gases have a most dramatic impact over a scale of centuries.
Regarding the relevant timescales of cliate, and many other matters climatological, I recommend reading W.F. Ruddiman’’s “Earth’s Climate: Past and Future”, possibly after having read his popular “Plows, Plagues and Petroleum”.
John Finn // December 25, 2008 at 1:34 am |
Ray, there is a new talking point (!) out there that takes the forcing of CO2 alone without feedbacks (!). The gullible and credulous state as gospel that the warming will only be ~1º because of 2x CO2 alone – there’s no problem!!!!!!
What’s new about it? What evidence is there for positive feedbacks. If all feedbacks are positive why doesn’t the earth continue to warm after an El Nino, for example. Or after the early 20th century warming period? or after the MWP? or when it came out of the LGM? Whatever the cause of the warming these positive feedbacks should kick in.
[Response: There is tremendous evidence for positive feedbacks, not the least of which is the response of the atmosphere's water vapor content to the cooling induced by the Pinatubo explosion.
And it's nearly certain that those feedbacks did come into play in consequence of all previous warmings (and coolings). But you seem to have the mistaken notion that "feeback" leads to unlimited changes -- not so; they amplify the basic response, but only by a finite amount.]
The Maunder minimum would have contributed some small portion of the cooling during LIA. However, the decline in CO2 from about 280 ppm to 260 ppm (and then back up again by 1850 CE) would certainly have a global cooling effect. LIA has now been determined to be global, although the effect on temperatures at Vostok was quite small indeed .
And what was it that caused the CO2 levels to fall and then rise again? The lower (then higher) temperatures, perhaps?
That’s right, I said there is a , straight line trend. For the entire 158 years.
David B
That really is interesting. I’d like to return to this in more detail at some point. But for now can you just confirm the following:
1. You have a linear temp trend from ~1850 which can be attributed entirely to the growth in atmospheric CO2 levels.
2. Could you also say what that trend is and
3. Quantify the factors which have limited the trend in recent years. You must have factored in a hefty dose of aerosols (or something similar ) to obtain the same trend throughout the entire 150+ year period.
Even if we accept that there was actually a real (as opposed to natural varibility) increase in CO2 concentrations between 1850 and 1900, and also allowing for log forcing response to CO2 it’s a bit of a stretch to make the case for a consistent underlying linear trend due to human influences alone. Even the die-hards at RC accept that earlier warming had to have had natural causes.
Ian Forrester, you say
I don’t think you looked at my link because it has nothing to do with sun spot numbers
Tell me, Ian, What is the point you were trying to make. You provided a link. Now tell me what it is that I should have picked up from it. Apart, that is, from the fact that I’m a hopeless denier.
John Finn // December 25, 2008 at 1:59 am |
John Finn, Any change in solar irradiance is simply too small to explain the warming we’ve seen–that is clear from the fact that there is .debate over whether such an increase even occurred.
Depends on the timescale and doesn’t necessarily just depend on TSI. A small reduction in cloud cover would allow more solar energy to enter the oceans.
Your sensitivity range for CO2 doubling of 0.5-1 degree is simply ludicrous.
Why is it? It represents a forcing which is a bit less than that proposed by the IPCC (i.e 5.35*ln(2)).
[Response: Even with no feedbacks, the response to doubling CO2 is 1.1 to 1.2 deg.C. And there are feedbacks.]
No one has yet devised an Earthlike climate model based on such a sensitivity–it utterly fails to capture either paleoclimatic behavior
Believe me , Ray, anyone can capture whatever they want with models. The justification for 0.75 deg per w/m2 comes from the LGM and in my opinion (but more importantly a number of other highly qualified scientists) it’s a crock! . I’m not prepared to elaborate on that now, though.
or the response of climate to a perturbation like a volcanic eruption.
Some volcanic eruptions (not all) actually prevent sunlight reaching the earth. This is a far less complex case than for ghg forcing. Why do you think comparisons can be made?
And even if your speculation made any sense from a physical perspective, there is the small matter of explaining simultaneous tropospheric warming AND stratospheric cooling.
Have you a link which shows that the stratosphere is cooling?
What is the trend in the stratosphere since 1995, say?
Ray Ladbury // December 25, 2008 at 2:55 am |
Malcolm
1)You seem to be alluding to the putative mechanism where by somehow a tiny change in a flux if high-energy galactic cosmic rays averaging about 6 particles per square cm per second is amplified into a global forcing sufficient to warm the entire planet by about 0.6 degrees C. No validated mechanism whereby this could happen is currently known, and even if it were, GCR fluxes haven’t changed for at least 50 years.
2)Oceans represent a huge heat reservoir that diminishes the immediate effect of climate change in the Southern hemisphere. In the tropics, solar forcing is more dominant. That means that the landlocked polar regions of the North are the canary. Yes, odd weather was partly behind the unprecedented melting, but the melting has been ongoing for decades–that’s climate, not weather that has ultimately brought us to the point where fluctuations in weather could bring us to zero Summer ice.
3)ENSO events have only a short term influence on climate. If anything El Nino results in very slightly more energy loss by the climate and La Nina the reverse. The trend is still pretty steady, as Tamino has shown repeatedly. If denialists want us to believe warming stopped in 2001, then we also have to believe it stopped at least 3 more times in the past 20 years–and then started right back up again.
4)Straw man–that’s not what the theory predicts.
As to your contention that warming is a third of what we think it is–good luck getting a climate model to look anything like Earth in that case. Sensitivities less than about 2 degrees are precluded by paleoclimatic and volcanic eruption data. What is more if you exclude the data that preclude 2 degrees, you significantly increase the probability that sensitivity is more than 4.5 degrees.
Read Spencer Weart’s book and the other references Dave Benson has recommended.
Ray Ladbury // December 25, 2008 at 3:03 am |
Red Etin, Wow, and you conclude all this without even a vague notion of the science or the evidence. Impressive!
Warming all natural variation. Hmm. Gee, where does all that energy come from?
“warming effects are equally likely to be beneficial as adverse” –well for some species, perhaps. Poison ivy might do very well out of the deal; blue-green algae. However, given that all the infrastructure of human civilization was developed during the past 10000 years of exceptional climatic stability, human civilization probably won’t fare so well. I’d say just about anybody has better information that you do.
Cooling will follow warming–sure in a few thousand years.
Look, Red, why not actually try and learn the science, rather than relying on your own “common sense”. People get paid to figure this stuff out. Look and see what they have to say–you know the experts?
luminous beauty // December 25, 2008 at 3:13 am |
“I’m open minded, but I find it hard to get anybody to debate the data, or make transparent arguments from evidence.”
Just arguing data is pointless. Without physical meaning it is just numbers in a row.
The radiative physics of greenhouse gases is as rock solid as gravity.
Human industry has increased the portion long-lived, well mixed greenhouse gases by ≈40% and it continues to increase exponentially.
The best quantification from a number of independent lines of evidence, both ab initio calculation and empirical observation indicate that a doubling of these gases will increase the average temperature of the earth by about 3C.
That is about half the temperature increase from the last ice age over several millenia compressed into a century.
If you don’t think that will cause significant disruption of the climate, you are not thinking.
I don’t think the evidence could be more transparent.
Kipp Alpert // December 25, 2008 at 3:30 am |
Ray Ladbury:Where’s the beef. So it’s cold this Year. Well the Enso is neutral the PDO is cool, the AMO and NAO is neutral and the AO is a bit warm. Global warming doesn’t rest upon the shoulders of natural variations.The CO2 in the biosphere the oceans and the atmosphere don’t suddenly disappear. We are in a world of rapid climate change. Every year you will see that smoothing out the graph might be more difficult as Global Warming is not normal. An indicator of it’s reality is that it will cause changes in temperatures from hot to cold, too much rain and too little. Global warming is like spring to summer or fall to winter. Large unexpected changes, will vacillate, in a more pronounced way then we have ever experienced. Just look at how fast the Arctic is melting. Other tipping points could come at any time and that is why we should be alarmed. In CT. for the last three years it was warm with little snow. This year seems like it could be the coldest year on record.However when everything is overstated or played, for the consuming skeptic they will say”wow is it the beginning of another Ice age”.
Why bother explaining to them about inter-glacials. Just remind them that it has always been warmer after the CO2 and other GHG’s became a part of our atmosphere. How about explaining to them that life wouldn’t exist without CO2. KIPP
Red Etin // December 25, 2008 at 10:21 am |
Kipp
” Just look at how fast the Arctic is melting.”
Look here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
Last summer and winter, the ice extent increased over the previous year.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 25, 2008 at 10:23 am |
John Finn writes:
For a steady heat source, the rate of increase of heating would be greatest at the beginning and decline toward an equilibrium. That’s not what we’re seeing.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 25, 2008 at 10:27 am |
Red Etin writes:
Increased drought in continental interiors and more violent weather along coastlines leading to possible agricultural collapse would be beneficial? How about a billion people in Asia losing their primary fresh water sources because the glaciers they depend on are shrinking? Or sea level rise generating about 100 million refugees? This must be some strange new use of the word “beneficial” I’ve never encountered before. Beneficial in Screwtape’s worldview?
Red Etin // December 25, 2008 at 10:31 am |
Ray Ladbury
“you conclude all this without even a vague notion of the science or the evidence”
- no sense of irony then, Ray. Without evidence you draw conclusions about my science. I’d be happy to match my science qualifications against anyone’s.
If the evidence was clear cut, there would not be debates between alarmists and denialists.
John Finn // December 25, 2008 at 11:08 am |
[Response: There is tremendous evidence for positive feedbacks, not the least of which is the response of the atmosphere’s water vapor content to the cooling induced by the Pinatubo explosion.
Ok – show me the “tremendous” evidence . Water Vapour (or water) is not just a cause of warming – it’s also can produce cooling (e.g. by evaporation). I don’t accept this simplistic view that warming cases more wv … which causes more warming.
Since ~1900, the data suggests my estimate of <1 deg per CO2 doubling is closer than the IPCC’s 3 deg. We have had about 0.7 deg not all of which is due to CO2. Obviously this can’t be confirmed without more data, but I doubt any more than 0.4 deg is down to CO2. Increased CO2 is responsible for a forcing of ~1.6 w/m2 leaving a temp response of ~0.25 deg /w/m2 or just under 1 deg per doubling.
Of course, we are supposed to have “warming in the pipeline”. Where ? Where is this heat hiding? In the oceans? How? How is the relatively tiny amount of heat in the atmosphere transferring itself to the vast heat store that is the oceans?
By LW radiation? I’ve tried to get a discussion going on this before but with no luck. Liquid water absorbs IR only down to a depth of a few micron (less than the thickness of a human hair).
The sun heats the oceans. CO2 may have some effect on the atmosphere. Those that put forward the idea that the heat from increased CO2 is somehow “hiding” somewhere need to have an open debate with a number of expert sceptics (there are plenty to choose from now) so their ideas can be fully explored. I won’t hold my breath, though.
Ray Ladbury // December 25, 2008 at 2:05 pm |
John Finn, Great, since you claim you can get a model to do whatever you want, we’ll wait for yours to be published! ‘Til then, though, if it’s OK with you, we’ll go with the models that actually exist.
Meantime:
http://www2.nspo.org.tw/ASC2008/4th%20Asian%20Space%20Conference%202008/oral/C13-01.pdf
and
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap15/future_gcm.html
It’s pretty clear Stratospheric temperatures have still cooled. There’s less thermal inertia in the stratosphere than in the troposphere, so fluctuations there can be more pronounced. You have to look at long-term trends, not just a few years.
Ray Ladbury // December 25, 2008 at 2:11 pm |
Red Etin,
I think I see your problem:
1)You think credentials can be substituted for a thorough understanding of the science.
2)You seem to think that “credentials” transfer across scientific disciplines… or have you published a significant number of papers in peer-reviewed journals on climate change?
Thanks to Hank Roberts for finding this and to Jim Prall (U of Toronto) for compiling the list, you can compare your ouvre to that of real scientists:
http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/climate_authors_table.html
Here’s a hint–the appropriate reaction would be humility.
luminous beauty // December 25, 2008 at 3:49 pm |
John Finn,
There is nothing to discuss. Your concern has been answered, both here and at RC.
It is the same effect as that of heat lamps used in buffet restaurants. Radiating the surface of a cooked piece of chicken with IR slows the rate at which that piece of chicken cools.
QED
In addition, sea water, unlike a piece of chicken, is a freely circulating liquid in constant flux, which means that the constantly replenishing warm surface layer gets mixed with lower levels by advection.
It is said three times is the charm. Do you get it, now?
dhogaza // December 25, 2008 at 4:07 pm |
Hmmm … anyone can claim to be a great scientist but posts like this …
Tend to make be believe you’re not.
dhogaza // December 25, 2008 at 4:17 pm |
This blog was a lot better before it attracted those with the usual denialist arguments who are now spamming every thread.
Tamino would post something interesting from the POV of statistical analysis and climate science. People would discuss on-topic, even our denialist friends such as TCO.
Now all the “poof fairies are responsible” people come and post the same drivel regardless of the original post.
Maybe Tamino should do a time-series analysis of the diminishing signal-to-noise ratio of his blog from the beginning ’til now … :)
Red Etin // December 25, 2008 at 4:39 pm |
Ray,
“You think “…
“You think”…
Thanks for the analysis.
Nice to see the “Open Minds” and work. Not so open when a contrary view appears!
Ray Ladbury // December 25, 2008 at 5:08 pm |
Dhogoza, particularly annoying are the ones who seem to think that if you can’t “prove” them wrong in 2 paragraphs, then they must be right.
Climate science has a 150 year history. You’d think they would consider that maybe, just maybe, someone had something relevant to say in that period.
Jim Eager // December 25, 2008 at 5:34 pm |
Red Etin: “Last summer and winter, the ice extent increased over the previous year.”
Never mind that extent does not equal volume or mass.
But hey, go for it anyway, right?
luminous beauty // December 25, 2008 at 5:54 pm |
Red ‘Half-a-Loaf’ Etin,
It is difficult to tell exactly what you think, indeed, whether you think at all, what with all the specious hand waving and argumentum ad nauseum.
The evidence is as clear as a bell. You should check your cognitive functions.
Kipp Alpert // December 25, 2008 at 6:27 pm |
Rd Etin: Curious that your graph extends all the way back twenty years. The Arctic has shrunk to be the size from the Mississippi to California.
I can show you images that indicate the Arctic has melted by one third. Also in known History both the passages are open at the same time.Have you seen one map of the permafrost that is melting around the Arctic. Those methane clathrates that are already known to exist are melting. You can see them bubbling up to the surface all the time, and many Indegenius
peoples are being forced to move.Finally you can’t prove anything with a twenty year time frame. KIPP
Lee // December 25, 2008 at 6:32 pm |
Etin says:
“If the evidence was clear cut, there would not be debates between alarmists and denialists.”
(facepalm)
By this argument, the evidence for evolutionary theory isn’t “clear cut.” Hell, by this argument, the evidence for a non-geocentric, non-flat earth isn’t “clear cut.”
Dude, disputes manufactured by people with a interest in dispute are not evidence that the science has a problem.
Hank Roberts // December 25, 2008 at 7:36 pm |
Etin’s reading from a corporate litigation playbook.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=sound+science
Kipp Alpert // December 25, 2008 at 7:52 pm |
Red Etin: Jim Egan said ” Never the same volume or mass”. You see when you have ice in the Arctic, it is not like ice on your pond. Even if it isn’t Glacial, it is truely very thick. The Ice you are talking about might not hold a whole NHL team. You note the difference between a denier and a skeptic. Good point. Oh’ and if you are alarmed, that is your issue. Someone who denies has a reason to say I don’t believe in this because of what! They never would believe it because of their allegience to Reagen And Bush. You can offer up any science, and a denier won’t believe it.There faith is more political and less scientific. Is that what you are? KIPP
Ray Ladbury // December 25, 2008 at 8:08 pm |
Red Etin, One thing I find amazing is that somebody with “scientific credentials” would mistake what goes on on a blog for scientific debate. Looking at the peer-reviewed literature, denialists don’t have much to say.
Red Etin // December 25, 2008 at 8:19 pm |
Kipp Albert
I’ve been on the ice. North Slope, AK and Svalbard, Norway.
Luminous Beauty
“The evidence is as clear as a bell. You should check your cognitive functions.”
I see, this site is for “Open Minds” to make personal attacks.
Kipp Alpert // December 25, 2008 at 8:58 pm |
I just read an article you had about the word denier as apposed to skeptic.I think all good scentists must be skeptical because they are not only trained for a very responsible effort to find the truth. Like Physical Doctors they have a code of ehtics, and use John Locke and others in their physics. Ethics is a part of their work. I have been at the accuweather global warming blog for a year now and I have trudged through, with little aid against a swarm of liars, rightwing zealots, paranoid natural variation addicts, and those who misrepresent, disinform, misinform, stall, cheat, and then tell you what you said was wrong,when you didn’t utter a word. I have felt the anger from the denier side and it is much more real, and dirty then anyone realizes. Well Reagan did it,and Bush did it.
So therefore it’s right. Argumentum populum. I have read one global warming skeptic on my blog in a year. The problem is that no matter what is said or done,in the end, Global Warming does not exist. Secondly, if you do believe it exists you are a pinko, greenie, kool aide drinker,
moron, compulsive comformist, Hansen loving, Gore following whore of Karl Marx, Che Giuvera, Fidel Castro, Stalin, Hitler, and President of the Osman’s Family Christmas Album fan club. My biggest regret that I present to the residing lemur is, Show me the Science!!!I have quoted with permission, Dennis Hlinka, Chris Colose, Spencer Weart, Dr. James Hansen, Steve Bloom and many more. So you may guess from my tone that I have no objectivity. Secondly deniers are the ones who will rope a prop from a wind turbine, make a little wooden seat, than charge tickets for a ride,get back in their Hummer and ride sixty miles back to Their McMansion. Yes, and the energy saver devices they use will make them feel better too.A toaster that makes eight pieces at a time. A three thousand dollar refrigerator that, when opened turns on the projection TV, the alarm the electronic fence for their three shi Tzu’s, wake up the seventeen year old French Opar’girl, and of course Jose who doesn’t have his papers yet. Then the wife comes home and Dad Jumps out of bed with the opar’ only to find his exchange student Omar, has just blown up the nieghbors house. Now he is the only one in the family that would die for alah and believes in global warming! Well Christmas is almost over. Share amongst yourselves, already! Merry Christmas,Kipp Alpert.
1. to deny access to secret information.
4. to withhold something from, or refuse to grant a request of: to deny a beggar.
5. to refuse to recognize or acknowledge; disown; disavow; repudiate: to deny one’s gods.
6. to withhold (someone) from accessibility to a visitor: The secretary denied his employer to all those without appointments.
7. Obsolete. to refuse to take or accept.
—Idiom8. deny oneself, to refrain from satisfying one’s desires or needs; practice self-denial.
dhogaza // December 25, 2008 at 9:20 pm |
Red Etin continues to impress with his powerful and convincing skewering of the work of a large number of hard-working scientists.
In other news, when I was a bit younger, I was able to beat Michael Jordan one-on-one without ever breaking a sweat.
luminous beauty // December 25, 2008 at 9:33 pm |
Red Etin,
When you demonstrate you can actually articulate a reasoned, sensible and intelligent argument rather than a string of unsupported assertions of opinion culled from contrarian talking points, I promise to let up on questioning the quality of your reasoning skills.
If said argument proves to hold any salt, I promise to apologize for having made an untoward inference.
Have we got a deal?
Hank Roberts // December 25, 2008 at 9:57 pm |
Google “red etin”
This sort of statement suggests lack of research.
Rate of change is the crucial difference about the anthropocene, compared to any past event. Look at the ecological journals, where responses are already seen failing as climate changes.
“warming effects are equally likely to be beneficial as adverse” – does anyone have better data about the future than I have?
Hank Roberts // December 25, 2008 at 10:01 pm |
And yeah, if you come here and intentionally post stuff aimed at riling up those with the shortest fuses, you can succeed in getting people to start popping off, and if you persist, you may succeed in pretending to be the injured party, claiming eeeevildoers lurking here attacking you.
You can also do better than that. Hard argument works if you cite sources. Otherwise no matter whether you have a basis or not, nobody knows you’re not bloviating.
Cite your sources when you make claims like “equally likely to be beneficial” and “better data about the future than I” — from the science journals, both on ecological change and on physics.
I recommend a hard look at the ozone/chlorofluorocarbon science, where physicists and chemists figured out something no one anticipated using remote measurement and projection soon enough to avoid a major problem. Or do you not believe in that either?
malcolm // December 25, 2008 at 10:58 pm |
David, Ray – thanks for the comments and references. Much appreciated. Just following up on a couple of points
(3) Can the climate models at least “backcast” the variation we have seen over the last few years? It’s not just measurement error, as multiple methods show the same monthly variation. So can we explain these variations once we have the data on ENSO, volcanic action and the like, or is much of the effect of climate and weather on global temperatures we still don’t understand?
(4) On the “runaway” events, I was thinking more of permafrost methane. But actually, Dr Hansen is starting to talk about possible runaway Greenhouse effects (although to be fair to him, based on burning all coal and oil-shale, which has no analogue in the paeloclimate record). But there does seem to be a lot of alarmist AGW rhetoric about “saving the planet” and invoked doom scenarios. Are there any climate scientists speaking up to rebut these outlandish claims? Or have I missed something – and they are not so outlandish as they seem?
Also, this “peer-reviewed” argument seems curious. Don’t many of the arguments here rely on material not in the peer-reviewed literature? I read, for example, that the methods behind GISS temperature data are not public domain. I also think the argument from authority lacks credibility for those who have studied the history, philosophy or sociology of science.
And philosophy of science is a big part of my of my concern. My *perception* is that climate science fails to make accurate predictions, and then is modified afterwards to save the phenomena – a classic case of an unfalsifiable theory, in Popperian terms. Hope I’m wrong, but so far the only accurate prediction I can find is Arctic melting. Perhaps climate science is supported on an abductive rather than predictive basis, but if so it is important to make that clear.
… asking in a genuine spirit of enquiry
Kipp Alpert // December 25, 2008 at 11:14 pm |
Hank Roberts; You mean denialism has an adjoining science to it. I thought it was stealing or cheating.BTW Mr.Etan:Just because you were in the Arctic doesn’t make it any thicker. You must have seen many of the indigenous people there returning to terra firma. The trees, they grow sideways. They are moving real Americans
out of their land, their natural Habitat, to work in those Sarah Palin Moose Burger Franchises. This is the best we can do for those people who are more American than you or I. The point is that Global Warming is starting there, and other South Sea Islands, which are presently flooding. As Spencer Weart wrote it is to bad that Americans who have caused much of the GHG”s might be the last to notice it. Did you talk to any Indigenous Americans when you were there.
KIPP
Kipp Alpert // December 25, 2008 at 11:49 pm |
Red Etin: So your using that same stale graph here, that you used on Real Climate. You must look at the colored Graphs, with kelvin colored temperatures that will also give you the temperature anomalies. Again, for the first time humans have known, both the Northwest Passage and the Southern passage were open at the same time this summer. That wasn’t because it was colder. You seem so intransigent about this topic, when all that you may need is to look back at pictures of the Arctic from say 1950. As a Photographer trust me, they speak volumes .
KIPP
dhogaza // December 26, 2008 at 12:33 am |
Malcom, you really need to do your own homework. Scientists aren’t hiding anything from you.
However …
GCMs don’t *claim* to be able to model the noise in the climate system. The models do give rise to ENSO-like events, etc, but not the timing and precision as to exactly when or the magnitude of *individual* real-life variation.
Along with resolution issues (the smaller the grid, the more computation time is needed, and these models chew through a very large amount of computing horsepower), we don’t have anything like the precise measurements of the initial conditions (ocean temps, etc) such a model would require, even if one could show that it’s theoretically possible.
But why do we care? The models used to develop modern airplanes are conceptually similar, and they give us useful results. So to GCMs.
Yet I don’t hear people saying “aeronautical engineering is a crock of shit because the models don’t track each and every molecule of air flowing over each and every molecule of the airframe”, etc etc.
Why not?
Is it because people asking for impossible precision from climate models have an agenda that they don’t apply to the aerospace industry?
Kipp Alpert // December 26, 2008 at 1:01 am |
Malcom:I would like to answer your questions and statements but can;t do both at the same time.GISS Data sets are highly correlated. There are points of danger at different times, according to different Scientists. Having a peer review is like getting the results from several heart surgeons. Instead of speaking first, ask in a logical way, so you could help me understand what you are asking. Then we could talk about each issue more intelligently. Thanks,KIPP
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 2:35 am |
Malcolm, Where are you getting your idea that climate science does not make verifiable predictions? Why would you think that things are modified a posteriori? Do you really think that the climate consensus would be endorsed by every single professional organization of scientists, by the NAS–hell, by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff if such shenanigans were going on?
On “backcasting” you have to consider that even if you put in everything we know deterministically thate is still considerable variability in the climate. Climate models don’t make predictions, but rather trace scenarios. The same is true of backcasting–some realizations will come very close while others will miss. However, the models have done a very good job getting trends right, and that is sufficient to recognize the current threat from climate change.
As to the magnitude of the threat, things are a lot better constrained on the lower bound than on the upper bound. Some past warming events have indeed led to mass extinction events–not a threat to the planet, but not something you’d like to experience. There are several stages in dealing with a potential threat. First, you have to assess whether the threat is credible. You want to do this with very conservative models–and that is what we’ve done with GCMs. Next, you want to guage the seriousness of the threat–to bound the risk it poses. In essence, that is what Hansen is doing–asking how bad could this thing be. He is genuinely concerned that we cannot at present identify a credible upper bound on the cost to human civilization. There are indeed scenarios where our complicated infrastructure could be crippled beyond repair. Hansen is trying to call attention to this, and in doing so he is not outside the mainstream of scientific opinion, though maybe at the edge of that mainstream. And given that decision makers have yet to take any meaningful action, one wonders what it would take to get their attention.
Hank Roberts // December 26, 2008 at 2:37 am |
Malcolm, you wrote
“I read ….” but where did you read that? Did you check whether it was true before copypasting?
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 3:00 am |
Red Etin, In your hurry to show us the wounds I’ve inflicted, you seem to have forgotten my question:
Have you published any peer-reviewed papers in a field relevant to climate science?
I’m sure it’s just an oversight. After all, I’m sure you wouldn’t come on here claiming your “credentials” and information were as good as anybody’s if you were just blowing smoke, would you? Would you?
dhogaza // December 26, 2008 at 5:14 am |
Of course s/he would. My denialist xmas stocking at the mantle is flowing over, after all.
So, Red Etin, *WHY* do you do this?
I’m interested in the psychology behind your “earth-is-flat” insistence that modern science is all wrong, especially since you claim to be a scientist (specializing in flat-earth earth science, I’m sure).
Kipp Alpert // December 26, 2008 at 5:47 am |
Malcom:I cannot add much to what the distinguished Ray Ladbury had to say. I have a Philosophy Major from B.U. and the name Karl Popper came to mind. I believe he tried to create a layman’s handbook for critical rationalism, as opposed to inductive reasoning.
As an economics professor I can see where his rationalism is pointed to. Since religion has lost it’s social force who is going to keep these nutty professors in check. First of all, not nutty social scientists, or critical rationalists, that don’t know the difference between a thermometer and
particle physics. The one problem with scientists and the IPCC is the IPCC is too conservative. Dr. James Hansen has had to tone down his message, because he was directed to do so just recently. So if very knowledgeable people tell you we are near tipping points, and have a positive feedback loop in the Arctic, I would like to learn more. For my children and Humanity. Climate science isn’t chess, and critical rationalism has already been assumed by any good scientist. The problem is that “the People” and their unwillingness to change is very dangerous. There are many tipping points in our future and not just the Arctic. We know about the methane clathrates in the oceans and below the ground under the permafrost. We know that half of the Great Coral Reef is dead. We are running out of carbon sinks, so scientists
are trying to pump up colder water from the bottom of the oceans, and drop tree darts where deforestation exists. They won’t bring back an ecosystem, but they will try to keep co2 from going to the atmosphere, causing more warming and positive feedback loops. The net radiative forcing from co2 is much higher than the sun
(W/m2). We stopped Christmas lights this year, and I rather give up my car, and walk to the station, then have one child die from starvation. Did you volunteer this Christmas, or has social science made you realize that all of these poor people are below our human pay grade. KIPP
Kipp Alpert // December 26, 2008 at 5:56 am |
Malcom:P.S.I have never heard ENSO and Vocanic Action in the same sentence berfore?
Read The IPCC AR4 report. KIPP
malcolm // December 26, 2008 at 5:56 am |
dhogaza – thanks for that, I take your point. I can now see, despite my earlier expectations, that annual global temperatures can be chaotic with our current level of measurement and computing.
Hank – it’s true that I haven’t read all the GISS documentation, and am relying on second hand criticisms. However, I have done what I reasonably can, and compared data sets for the last few years. GISS is quite different from not just the satellite data, but also HadCrut. The other global data-sets show 1998 as the hottest year. GISS stands alone in having four subsequent years of similar or hotter temperatures. To me, that suggests some measurement or calibration issues with that particular data-set.
I realize there are alot of institutional resources aligned with GISS, which will encourage people to defend it. However, GISS doesn’t seem to be required for the AGW hypothesis – HadCrut will do the job perfectly adequately.
But why the difference between surface and satellite temperatures? It’s no good just saying that satellites aren’t really measuring the same thing, as the correlations with surface temperatures appear extremely high. Is there some theory that would explain the difference between surface and near-surface temperatures while still being consistent with the AGW hypothesis? This seems to me to be important for the credibility of the surface temperature records.
BTW – many thanks to those who are engaging with my questions. We can’t thrash out every wrinkle, but I really appreciate the time and effort.
One more question, on top of the HadCrut/Satellite one:
What about the claims that the PDO will virtually assure cooling for the next 15-20 years? Is that credible, or generally supported?
Red Etin // December 26, 2008 at 9:57 am |
Ray,
Have you published any peer-reviewed papers in a field relevant to climate science? – my papers are mostly on marine biology, chemistry and geology. This doesn’t stop me understanding astronomy.
JW Heslop-Harrison published peer reviewed papers in a field relevant to climate science and I wouldn’t trust these.
When your great list of scientists is shown to be incorrect in the AGW theory, you’ll be able to say “the best scientists in the world got it wrong”?
There is no “threat” from climate change, you’re just on a train that you can’t get off now.
Red Etin // December 26, 2008 at 10:15 am |
Kipp,
“Just because you were in the Arctic doesn’t make it any thicker” – Certainly true, nor thinner. Thickness is still difficult to determine and is very much influenced by multi-year accumulation and wind effects.
“The trees, they grow sideways” – Trees?- none at all where I was.
“Global Warming is starting there” – on what evidence?
“South Sea Islands, which are presently flooding” – I trust the Dutch when it comes to sea level predictions.
“Did you talk to any Indigenous Americans when you were there” – yes, they have various opinions about what climate their ancestors experienced in the past. They are mostly worried about emigration of their children (for schooling and work), loss of language, import of certain bad practices and loss of traditional hunting rights and practices.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 26, 2008 at 11:53 am |
John Finn writes:
Google “Clausius-Clapeyron relation.” Also, see if you can’t find out what the major greenhouse gas on Earth is.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 26, 2008 at 11:54 am |
John Finn writes:
The upper ocean is turbulent, John. There’s also this thing called “conductance.”
John Finn // December 26, 2008 at 12:02 pm |
In addition, sea water, unlike a piece of chicken, is a freely circulating liquid in constant flux, which means that the constantly replenishing warm surface layer gets mixed with lower levels by advection.
So it mixes does it? the “constantly replenished warm surface ” of ~0.015mm thickness warms by an increased amount due to 1.6 w/m2 additional forcing – a forcing which we can’t even detect because of the huge variability in downwelling IR.
Yet, you are prepared to say, with a straight-face, that mixing this warmed layer causes trillions of gallons of water to warm by an amount which can actually be measured.
Or perhaps you’re not because your chicken analogy suggests that you think that the IR absorbed ocean skin slows the rate of ocean cooling which is more in line with the RC viewpoint .
A guest contributor, in an RC post, pointed out the issue of IR penetration (or lack of) and tried to demonstrate the increase in skin temperature due to increases in LW radiation (i.e. cloudy v sunny conditions). He concluded that there was, indeed, a relationship of 0.002 deg for every 1 w/m2 increase. How significant this value is I’m nor sure but I doubt if you can dismiss the hypothesis of no effect. Whatever – we’re still only talking about 2- thousandths of a degree. We also need to remember the oceans have been warming for several decades when COO2 fprcing was even less.
It is said three times is the charm. Do you get it, now?
No I don’t, LB. I think it’s a crock and I think you showing applications of the use of IR in keeping food warm are not relevant to the size and scale of the world’s oceans.
A nice fire provides heat for a room. Lighting a match in wembley stadium won’t change the stadium temperature one bit.
The mechanism by which increased IR is supposed to warm the ocean is far from
Ray
It’s pretty clear Stratospheric temperatures have still cooled.
No it’s not. Stratospher
There’s less thermal inertia in the stratosphere than in the troposphere, so fluctuations there can be more pronounced. You have to look at long-term trends, not just a few years
It is said three times is the charm. Do you get it, now
John Finn // December 26, 2008 at 12:06 pm |
Sorry left a load of rubbish in the last post. Please ignore, or preferably delete the bit which starts “the mechanism” to the end of post.
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 1:02 pm |
John Finn, I’m having trouble finding the part of the post you wouldn’t want me to ignore.
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 1:07 pm |
Red Etin, My expertise is in radiation physics–but then I’m not claiming I understand climate science better than ALL the experts. So, Red, dose your argument feature any actual evidence or logic, or are you satisfied with blatant assertion [edit].
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 1:08 pm |
Kipp Alpert, I do believe that is the first time “distinguished” has been used in the same sentence with my name–though I do have the gray hair.
Red Etin // December 26, 2008 at 3:29 pm |
Ray,
I’ve not met anyone yet who can satisfactorily put together all the sciences, physics, atmospheric chemistry, biology, oceanography, hydrology that contribute to the “climate sciences”, and the statistics that go along with it. So I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I read and applying professional judgement.
dhogaza // December 26, 2008 at 4:07 pm |
I’m tempted to give you an answer, but I’m going to resist doing so.
GO FIND OUT YOURSELF.
You have no basis for being skeptical of climate science if you haven’t even taken the time to learn something about it other than denialist talking points.
Your position largely boils down to “I don’t know anything about climate science, but I’m sure all those scientists are wrong”.
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 4:39 pm |
Malcolm, Satellite datasets are inherently more complicated than terrestrial measurements. For one thing, most of the instruments making the “temperature” measurements are actually intended to look at other things besides temperature. Then there is the fact that you have to combine datasets across several different satellites, each with its own biases and errors. I forget how many iterations we’ve been through now where UAH had to modify its algorithm because of some fundamental discrepancy. Suffice to say that if I want to know whether to put on a jacket before I go out, I won’t be consulting a satellite to tell me.
Hank Roberts // December 26, 2008 at 5:14 pm |
Duh.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/
——excerpt follows, see original for graphics mentioned ———
…. During a recent cruise of the New Zealand research vessel Tangaroa, skin sea-surface temperatures were measured to high accuracy by the Marine-Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (M-AERI), and contemporaneous measurements of the bulk temperature were measured at a depth of ~5cm close to the M-AERI foot print by a precision thermistor mounted in a surface-following float. The M-AERI is a Fourier Transform Infrared spectroradiometer that has very accurate, NIST-traceable, calibration. The skin temperature can be measured with absolute uncertainties of much less than 0.1ºK The thermometer in the surface following float is accurate to better than 0.01ºK. Both are calibrated using the same equipment at the University of Miami.
Clearly it is not possible to alter the concentration of greenhouse gases in a controlled experiment at sea to study the response of the skin-layer. Instead we use the natural variations in clouds to modulate the incident infrared radiation at the sea surface. When clouds are present, they emit more infrared energy towards the surface than does the clear sky. The incident infrared radiation was measures by a pyrgeometer mounted on the ship, and the emission from the sea surface was calculated from the Stefan-Boltzmann equation using the skin temperature measurements of the M-AERI. The difference between the two is the net infrared forcing of the skin layer. If we can establish a relationship between the temperature difference across the skin layer and the net infrared forcing, then we will have demonstrated the mechanisms for greenhouse gas heating the upper ocean. That is seen in the flow chart on the right.
The figure below shows just the signal we are seeking. There is a clear dependence of the skin temperature difference on the net infrared forcing. The net forcing is negative as the effective temperature of the clear and cloudy sky is less than the ocean skin temperature, and it approaches values closer to zero when the sky is cloudy. This corresponds to increased greenhouse gas emission reaching the sea surface.
Figure 2: The change in the skin temperature to bulk temperature difference as a function of the net longwave radiation.
There is an associated reduction in the difference between the 5 cm and the skin temperatures. The slope of the relationship is 0.002ºK (W/m2)-1. Of course the range of net infrared forcing caused by changing cloud conditions (~100W/m2) is much greater than that caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases (e.g. doubling pre-industrial CO2 levels will increase the net forcing by ~4W/m2), but the objective of this exercise was to demonstrate a relationship.
To conclude, it is perfectly physically consistent to expect that increasing greenhouse gas driven warming will heat the oceans – as indeed is being observed.
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 5:19 pm |
Red Etin says: “I’ve not met anyone yet who can satisfactorily put together all the sciences, physics, atmospheric chemistry, biology, oceanography, hydrology that contribute to the “climate sciences”, and the statistics that go along with it. So I am left to draw my own conclusions from what I read and applying professional judgement.”
OK, now let me get this straight–You are saying that the subject matter of climate science is so vast and complicated that no one can understand it. So your solution is to rely on your own limited understanding of the subject matter and forego the counsel of the actual experts? Are you concealing from us some deep well of understanding of the relevant science or are you suffering delusions of adequacy?
Let’s see where your misunderstanding lies:
1)Do you disagree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas?
2)Do you disagree that greenhouse gasses account for about 33 degrees of Earth’s absolute temperature?
3)Do you dispute that CO2 accounts for 7 of those 33 degrees?
4)Do you think that CO2 magically stops being a greenhouse gas at 280 ppmv?
5)Do you contend that there is some magical negative feedback that kicks in at current temperatures and stops them from rising to significantly higher levels?
That’ll do for now.
dhogaza // December 26, 2008 at 5:30 pm |
Sorry, but you haven’t shown any “professional judgement” in your posts here.
And it’s funny that you mentioned statistics in your laundry list … since up above you pointed to one year of ice data in an effort to contradict a statistical trend, something no one with even a minimal understanding of statistics would do.
dhogaza // December 26, 2008 at 6:30 pm |
Obviously, the latter. Recall that earlier he stated that his published work was in marine biology, geology, etc – but that doesn’t stop him from understanding astronomy. Nor, apparently, given the context, climate science. Even though he’s certain that climate scientists don’t understand climate science …
Red Etin // December 26, 2008 at 6:47 pm |
“you pointed to one year of ice data in an effort to contradict a statistical trend”
Drivel – I did no such thing. Sea ice data is needed over decades to centuries to understand the patterns. I’ve never seen a proper explanation of the last 30 years of satellite Arctic ice extent data. It would take a knowledgeable oceanographer plus meteorologist, which I am not. But I’ve seen plenty of posts on the 2007 summer minimum as evidence of “end of Arctic summer ice”.
[Response: Most of the statements I've seen about changes in the arctic heralding the "end of arctic summer ice" come from precisely the experts who've spent a lifetime studying it.
And for your information, there's more data than just that from the satellite era.]
Red Etin // December 26, 2008 at 7:09 pm |
1)Do you disagree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? – CO2 traps heat (call it a greenhouse gas if you want). It is one of several.
2)Do you disagree that greenhouse gasses account for about 33 degrees of Earth’s absolute temperature?
- Earth would be around minus 15-20 without greenhouse gases.
3)Do you dispute that CO2 accounts for 7 of those 33 degrees?
- I think temperature rise can cause CO2 to increase also. (this can be demonstrated in a simple microbial culture if you increase temp, additional CO2 is given off)
4)Do you think that CO2 magically stops being a greenhouse gas at 280 ppmv?
- Can we delete the “magically”? I don’t expect its properties to change.
5)Do you contend that there is some magical negative feedback that kicks in at current temperatures and stops them from rising to significantly higher levels?
- Can we delete “magical”. I think all CO2 will become part of the carbon cycle and be taken up by plant life.
luminous beauty // December 26, 2008 at 7:56 pm |
John Finn,
You’re not sure?
.002K/W/m^2 * 1.6W/m^2 = .0032K difference in absolute skin effect temperature.
As can be seen in the results of Minnet’s experiment, the skin effect when LW radiation is net 0 = 0.1K. (latent and conductive heat transfer differential)
.oo32K/0.1K * 100 = 3.2% relative increase in skin effect temperature.
Hypothesis of no effect falsified.
simple // December 26, 2008 at 8:10 pm |
As a layman, I see from your first chart a very simple pattern – flat-rise-flat-rise … flat???
In the next 5-10 yrs. if temps rise, then AGW wins. If it’s flat, AGW loses. In the eyes of public opinion, it’s just that simple.
[Response: AGW is real, whether you believe it or not. And everybody loses.]
dhogaza // December 26, 2008 at 8:19 pm |
Where’s your evidence that biomass will increase to this extent?
Why don’t professionals studying the problem reach the same conclusion?
dhogaza // December 26, 2008 at 8:25 pm |
I said …
Red Etin said
But earlier Kipp said
And Red responded
Look here:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.area.jpg
Last summer and winter, the ice extent increased over the previous year.
In which he pointed to one year’s data in an effort to refute the statistical trend referenced by Kipp.
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 8:55 pm |
Red Etin says: “I think all CO2 will become part of the carbon cycle and be taken up by plant life.”
Uh, Red, the CO2 increas has been exponential since the 1700s. Just when is your miraculous plant growth to begin sucking it out of the atmosphere. How will that work in areas that are desertified by climate change? How will it work in areas denuded of topsoil by extreme rainfall events?
Do you have any evidence that your “greening” event will suck up all the CO2 or are you just betting the future of civilization on a hunch?
Dave A // December 26, 2008 at 8:57 pm |
Ray,
“Suffice to say that if I want to know whether to put on a jacket before I go out, I won’t be consulting a satellite to tell me.”
Well then Ray you are obviously just going to have to rely on your own judgement since GISS and HADCRUT also rely on constant adjustments and are also the subject of considerable doubt about their reliability.
malcolm // December 26, 2008 at 9:13 pm |
dhogaza – about your patronizing comments on the inter-series agreement. It’s comments like that which fuel skepticism. My point it perfectly reasonable, and there is no special theory required to evaluate inter-series agreement. You’re just giving me a rude blow-off by saying you have to become expert in a sub-field to even ask a question.
Your argument seems to be that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that I’m wrong, and you can’t be bothered to deign to explain. It reminds me of a priesthood more than a science, and is an expression of power rather than knowledge. Well two can play at that game: here you go.
- The forecasting methods used in Climate Science are wrong, but I can’t be bothered to tell you – just go and read the forecasting literature.
[Response: I hope you're not just echoing Armstrong's drivel. Climate science forecasts don't depend on "forecasting methods" in the time series sense at all -- they're based on the laws of physics.]
- The public statements on climate science are not logical inferences from the scientific findings, but are instead explained by sociological factors in politics and science. I can’t be bothered giving you the details – go are study logic and sociology yourself. Have you published in peer-reviewed work on sociology?
If your reaction to a question about substantial oddities in the data is to brush them off, why should you expect political support for your program. Have you forgotten, you are asking a lot of the public.
Maybe you think this blog is an inappropriate forum – I’ve tried other less technical blogs, and can’t get satisfactory answers. I’ve been trying to access literature, I’ve been looking at the data. But I don’t have the time to completely retrain. So I’ve gravitated here to try to understand what is going on. But if my questions are unwelcome, I’ll stop.
And if the answer is that only the priests are allowed to interpret the Bible, then my scepticism will become stronger.
[Response: If you've received a less-than-warm response, it's because of slanders like this.]
David B. Benson // December 26, 2008 at 9:25 pm |
John Finn // December 25, 2008 at 1:34 am — For CO2 decline during LIA, read “Plows, Plagues and Petroleum” to understand the cause; the decline and re-rise in CO2 concentration is readily noted in Antarctic ice cores.
Regarding the straight line trend for CO2: He know the yearly emissions of CO2 since around 1750 CE; we know the CO2 concentrations since long before then from Vostok and Dome C ice cores; we know the concentration since 1958 CE from the Keeling curve. From this we can determine that the warming due to increased CO2 is approximately linear since at least 1850 CE.
So the change in temperature ought to be approximately linear plus noise. That is a hypothesis which can be tested against a more complex one, say one which takes into account the increases in methane. Or estimated increases in NOx, black carbon and so on. All that becomes rather complex; I’m satisfied that CO2 alone does an adequately decent job of explaining the temperature changes on a centennial scale.
David B. Benson // December 26, 2008 at 9:29 pm |
Red Etin // December 26, 2008 at 7:09 pm — Carbon dioxide is part of the carbon cycle, which you obviously do not (yet) understand. At least 1/3 of the CO2 emissions are taken up by the oceans, not part of biomass.
Heard of ocean acidification?
Red Etin // December 26, 2008 at 10:06 pm |
“in an effort to refute the statistical trend” – the overall linear trend in this data since the start of the satellite is irrefutably downwards. I didn’t make an effort to refute it. However, I wait to see in future years whether if continues to trend down or rises further after the 2008 rise. I have not yet seen a good explanation of the trend in Arctic ice (meteorologic, oceanographic) so I can’t comment myself. Ice extent has oscillated preiously an ice-free Arctic seems to have existed in past times (5000-9000bp). [Ref: The Nordic Seas}
[Response: It seems to me that the Arctic hasn't been ice-free (even during summer) for 700,000 years. What's your source? Is "The Nordic Seas" a book, and if so, by whom?]
Ray Ladbury // December 26, 2008 at 10:31 pm |
Dave A., You have once again fallen victim to the Everything-you-don’t-understand-must-be-easy fallacy. I have a feeling this happens to you a lot. If you don’t understand the difference between data analysis for a many-times oversampled, terrestrial network and a series of single, one-of-a-kind, very complicated instruments that weren’t even designed to measure what you want, maybe you should try to avoid making your ignorance appear to be stupidity.
David B. Benson // December 26, 2008 at 10:31 pm |
malcolm // December 26, 2008 at 9:13 pm — It is unclear to me what answers you need which are not to be found in textbooks. Start with Ruddiman’s “Earth’s Climate: Past and Future”; progress eventually to Ray Pierrehumbert’s
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateBook.html
and to his CaltechWater.pdf available from his publications page.
Many here ware willing to help you find literature suited to politely raised questions.
vibenna // December 27, 2008 at 12:12 am |
Thanks David.
P. Lewis // December 27, 2008 at 12:20 am |
Re “ice-free Arctic” assertion. I’d hazard the source is this, a story that ol’ 20 W hisself blogged on when it surfaced.
John Finn // December 27, 2008 at 10:52 am |
John Finn, I’m having trouble finding the part of the post you wouldn’t want me to ignore.
Very funny, Ray. I did realise I’d left myself wide open after I’d posted.
.002K/W/m^2 * 1.6W/m^2 = .0032K difference in absolute skin effect temperature.
.oo32K/0.1K * 100 = 3.2% relative increase in skin effect temperature.
Hypothesis of no effect falsified.
LB
I was questioning the uncertainty of the 0.002 deg value. From the RC scatterplot of the measured data, it looks as though ZERO would fall well within 2-sigma error bars.
Also remember ocean warming has gone on throughout the past century (and probably before) when ghg forcing was considerably less than 1.6 w/m2. If (a big if) the heated skin layer is the mechanism for ocean warming, then the oceans temps should be racing ahead now. There’s no excuse. There’s been no major volcano for 18 years.
And finally this is the concluding paragraph of the RC post:
“Of course the range of net infrared forcing caused by changing cloud conditions (~100W/m2) is much greater than that caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases (e.g. doubling pre-industrial CO2 levels will increase the net forcing by ~4W/m2), but the objective of this exercise was to demonstrate a relationship.”
Ok I see what you mean, LB. All my questions have been answered. Clearly “The science is settled”.
Red Etin // December 27, 2008 at 11:05 am |
The Nordic Seas: An Integrated Perspective
H. Drange, T. Dokken, T. Furevik, R. Gerdes and W. Berger (Eds.)
AGU Monograph 158, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC
Barton Paul Levenson // December 27, 2008 at 11:51 am |
malcolm writes:
I believe the correlation between theNASA GISS and Hadley Centre CRU land-ocean temperature anomalies is something like 97%.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 27, 2008 at 12:04 pm |
Red Etin writes:
It doesn’t trap heat. It absorbs IR, and radiates it. And calling it a greenhouse gas is what everybody in the field has done since John Tyndall showed it was one in 1859.
Correct. -19 in my estimation, depending on what values you use for the Solar constant and the Earth’s bolometric Bond albedo.
Sure it can, but what relevance does that have to present conditions? In a natural deglaciation temperature does indeed lead CO2, although the greenhouse effect of CO2 then in turn raises the temperature. The extra CO2 is coming out of the oceans, due to the decrease of CO2 solubility in seawater with higher temperatures.
But that’s not what’s happening now. The new CO2 is primarily from fossil fuel burning. We’ve known that about since Hans Suess showed the radioisotope signature of fossil fuel CO2 in ambient air in 1955. The oceans are presently a net sink for carbon dioxide, not a source.
It’s already part of the carbon cycle, and plant life and other sinks can’t take it up fast enough to deal with the rate at which we are adding more. Which is why the amount is rising. Duh.
Ray Ladbury // December 27, 2008 at 1:59 pm |
John Finn,
When you say “the science is settled” are you being sarcastic or are you in fact satisfied that IR can warm the oceans? (Hard to tell with you.)
Since what is at issue is whether energy can mix below the surface, a factor of 25x in the irradiance won’t affect the conclusion–or do you have some mechanism in mind where the oceans magically discriminate between IR from CO2 and clouds.
Sekerob // December 27, 2008 at 4:30 pm |
And then there is the thing that the particular isotope marked CO2 from fossil fuel is not well metabolized by plants.
JCH // December 27, 2008 at 4:47 pm |
I think he’s talking about this post on RC:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/langswitch_lang/tk
Hank Roberts // December 27, 2008 at 5:15 pm |
> Carbon cycle
Timing matters. Nature is handling maybe half the carbon we’re burning.
“How much of the CO2 increase is caused by human activity?”
“Two hundred percent!” — think it through.
Read about it: paper here:
http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/Understanding_public.html
Model here:
http://www.sustainer.org/tools_resources/climatebathtubsim.html
Watch how what’s taught changes.
Here’s PielkeJr from 2007, when the science available was only hinting in a few papers about detection of warming in much of Antarctica:
http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/pielke/classes/atoc7500/
Here’s where what’s published about what we know starts to change:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n11/abs/ngeo346.html
tamino // December 27, 2008 at 7:38 pm |
I suspect that Red Etin has misinterpreted what he’s read. According to chapter 7 of CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Product 1.2: Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes, perrenial sea ice has, in all likelihood, persisted throughout the entire holocene:
The claim that the arctic was free of sea ice for an extended period of 4,000 years is simply not credible.
The report also indicates that present arctic temperatures are anomalously warm for at least the last 1600 years:
They also report that the recent loss of arctic sea ice is not explainable by natural processes:
Red Etin // December 27, 2008 at 8:42 pm |
Tamino
“perrenial sea ice has, in all likelihood, persisted throughout the entire holocene”
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP11A0203F
Though the above ref gives a somewhat different view:
“We therefore conclude that for a priod (sic) in the Early Holocene, probably for a millenium or more, the Arctic Ocean was free of sea ice at least for shorter periods in the summer”
Without cutting and pasting more from “The Nordic Seas”, there is a reference in there to Svalbard glaciers being entirely melted back then. The current Svalbard glaciers are large and impressive; the Arctic land (and sea) must surely have been quite a different environment under these past warm conditions.
[Response: I don't think the existence of beach ridges on the north Greenland coast is nearly as strong evidence as the sediment cores from the central arctic ocean; I'd say the authors have made an extreme (and unjustified) extrapolation.
And: even IF (very big if) there were periods of ice-free arctic during the time suggested in the above link, that's a very far cry from your original claim of 4,000 years of no perennial sea ice in the arctic. I repeat, I suspect you've misinterpreted what you read.
As for Svalbard glaciers being absent during the early holocene, that's also a time period when the Laurentide ice sheet was still present. Again, you're relying on evidence from the arctic perimeter, and different parts of it tell a different story.]
Red Etin // December 27, 2008 at 8:46 pm |
Tamino,
“The recent ice loss does not seem to be explainable by natural climatic and hydrographic variability on decadal time scales, and is remarkable for occurring when reduction in summer sunshine from orbital changes has caused sea-ice melting to be less likely than in the previous millennia since the end of the last ice age. The recent changes thus appear notably anomalous; improved reconstructions of sea-ice history would help clarify just how anomalous these changes are. ”
We seriously lack a description of the meteorologic and oceanographic conditions that cause the current summer winter minima and maxima. Over the period of the satellite data there is probably sufficient data for someone to interpret the data. The reconstructions suggested in “The Nordic Seas” are long overdue.
Hank Roberts // December 27, 2008 at 8:57 pm |
> the particular isotope
Which isotope are you talking about?
> marked CO2 from fossil fuel is not well
> metabolized by plants.
How do you suppose it got into the fossil material, then?
Hint: half-life, carbon dating, ratios.
Hank Roberts // December 27, 2008 at 9:00 pm |
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87
Dave A // December 27, 2008 at 9:25 pm |
Hey,
“Paleoclimatic proxy records of the last two centuries agree well with hemispheric and global data (including instrumental measurements) (Mann et al., 1999;”
I thought you guys were telling us MBH 98/99 were ‘old science’ and things had moved on. Perhaps they haven’t ‘moved’ as much as you like to make out.
dhogaza // December 27, 2008 at 9:40 pm |
DaveA, *all* subsequent work by credible scientists supports the basic result of Mann99.
You know this.
Quit repeating the same old crap over and over again, please.
Get over yourself, and get over Climate Audit.
John Finn // December 27, 2008 at 9:44 pm |
John Finn,
When you say “the science is settled” are you being sarcastic or are you in fact satisfied that IR can warm the oceans? (Hard to tell with you.)
Ray
Tho oceans are warmed by the sun. The question is whether increasing ghgs can reduce the rate of cooling – and, in particular, whether a possible ~0.0032 deg increase in the ocean skin layer over ~150 years has any effect.
I think that is some way from being proven. In fact, when I look at the Levitus et al 2005 paper which charts the fluctuations in ocean temperatures since the 1950s, I think it highly unlikely.
So, Ray, to answer your question, I was, in fact, being sarcastic.
dhogaza // December 27, 2008 at 9:46 pm |
An addendum …
DaveA, if Mann99 had been discredited by subsequent work, as judged by competent professionals in the field, they’d stop citing his work.
The fact that subsequent work has shown that the basic conclusion reached by Mann99 is solid, doesn’t mean folks will automatically start citing that subsequent work rather than Mann99. Mann’s got precedence here, his work was seminal, and has withstood a decade of vehement attack from the Right.
So the fact that “science has moved on” and that Mann99 is still cited is not a contradiction.
Now you’re going to get to see a lot of people cite Mann08 in the next several years. I hope your heart’s up to it!
Dave A // December 27, 2008 at 9:47 pm |
Ray,
You obviously see problems with the results of satellite measurements. If you are correct this means NOAA must have a lot of problems with much of its mapping, especially SST.
Likewise, Tamino’s recent post on snowfall and the Rutgers Global Snow Lab information must be doubtful, especially as the section from their website that he helpfully posted after my question about how they obtained their data (thanks for that Tamino) says the following
“the satellite-derived product will be superior to maps of snow extent gleaned from station data, particularly in mountainous and sparsely inhabited regions.”
and
” whereas maps based on ground station reports may be biased, due to the preferred position of weather stations in valleys and inplaces affected by urban heat islands, such as airports.”
Want to reconsider?
[Response: This is beneath even you. The MSU satellites simply don't measure lower-troposphere temperature, so elaborate methods are devised to infer it from the measurements of other channels. Add to that the fact that there are numerous well-documented problems with this reduction procedure (especially from UAH) and that the satellite "temperature" record is from the combined data of over a dozen satellites, and the result is clear: the *estimates* (not measurements) of lower-troposphere temperature are problematic.
None of which reflects on the work of other satellites or their instruments.]
Red Etin // December 27, 2008 at 9:49 pm |
“your original claim of 4,000 years of no perennial sea ice in the arctic”
What I said was:
“Ice extent has oscillated pre[v]iously an ice-free Arctic seems to have existed in past times (5000-9000bp). ”
I think the authors are suggesting some time during these 4000 years, not for the whole 4000 years.
John Finn // December 27, 2008 at 9:53 pm |
Phil (Dec 23rd)
Your dates don’t appear to coincide with this graph of the PDO index:
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
Care to elaborate
Care to look aat your graph again?
Dave A // December 27, 2008 at 9:59 pm |
Ooops,
Sorry about that double post earlier
John Finn // December 27, 2008 at 10:16 pm |
s2 (Dec 24th)
The world started warming in the middle of the Maunder Minimum? :)
No.
The next time you use this, I suggest you use 1715 to circa 1790 (the end of the Maunder to the start of the Dalton), it might make you sound more credible.
The next time you post I suggest you check your dates.
From wikipaedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_minimum
“The Maunder Minimum is the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715 , when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted…..”
The 1690s represented the lowest point of the maunder minimum. Solar activity picked up after that and temperatures rose by ~2 deg in matter of ~30 years.
Hank Roberts // December 27, 2008 at 10:46 pm |
Here’s a comparison of the effects of volcanic eruptions (though not known to be due to volcanos, at the time)
http://www.ipernity.com/blog/31300/81185
… 1816 was the second coldest year in the northern hemisphere since AD 1400, after 1601 following the 1600 Huaynaputina eruption in Peru. The 1810s are the coldest decade on record, a result of Tambora’s 1815 eruption and other suspected eruptions somewhere between 1809 and 1810 (see sulfate concentration figure from ice core data). The surface temperature anomalies during the summer of 1816, 1817 and 1818 were −0.51, −0.44 and −0.29 °C, respectively. As well as a cooler summer, parts of Europe experienced a stormier winter. …”
This refers to “Between 1650 and 1710, a period known as the Maunder Minimum”– the included “map represents the temperature difference between 1680 (during the Maunder Minimum) and 1780 (a period of normal solar activity) calculated by a general circulation model.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology_Understanding/
dhogaza // December 27, 2008 at 11:37 pm |
You forgot to say “in Europe”, John. That little detail’s interesting.
The second paper linked by Hank outlines a very nice story of science at work, real science, not the sniping, accusation-based, personalized, politically driven that characterize the “scientific” efforts of people like Watts and McI.
A story of how GCMs got the big picture right after Pinatabu, other than the following winter’s warming over Eurasia – except models built to explore changes in the stratospheric ozone.
What happened afterwards over a period of time is a good read.
Will our denialists here take the time to read – and understand – the reference?
Hank Roberts // December 27, 2008 at 11:43 pm |
Scenarios:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/0705312271j17720/
John Finn // December 28, 2008 at 11:36 am |
You forgot to say “in Europe”, John. That little detail’s interesting.
This isn’t necessarily the case. We can only be sure about Europe because we have direct themometer measurements. There is ample evidence that the effects of the LIA (including the Maunder Minimum) were far more widespread and affected many regions of the world – including the US.
A story of how GCMs got the big picture right after Pinatabu, other than the following winter’s warming over Eurasia – except models built to explore changes in the stratospheric ozone.
Why does everyone imagine Pinatubo is somehow this great test that validates GCMs. In climate terms I would have thought a volcanic eruption is relatively simple to model. i.e. A volcano erupts. A measurable amount of aerosol dust is ejected high into the stratosphere. The dust then encircles the globe which causes a proportion of sunlight to be refelected back into space. Many of the parameters involved could be estimated with a reasonable degree of accuracy e.g. water vapour.
I don’t have a problem with this. But this is not the same as modelling the effects of increasing ghgs over several decades. BPL writes in an earlier post
“It [ghg] doesn’t trap heat. It absorbs IR, and radiates it.”
Does it ? I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.
John Finn // December 28, 2008 at 11:46 am |
The fact that subsequent work has shown that the basic conclusion reached by Mann99 is solid,
Dhogaza
Is there any point in my posting link such as this one
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/briffa2001/plate3.gif
Neither Mann99 nor any of the “subsequent studies” you mention are able to replicate the observed temperatures outside of the calibration period. In the Post 1980 period there is a huge divergence between actual temperature readings and the proxies. I the pre-1900 period thermometer readings and proxies are actually heading in the opposite direction.
The reason many of the studies “agree”, is because they’re all using the same data.
dhogaza // December 28, 2008 at 5:59 pm |
Actually there’s no point in your posting anything.
I’m placing my bets on science, real science, and nothing you write will change my mind.
John Finn // December 28, 2008 at 7:03 pm |
Actually there’s no point in your posting anything.
I’m placing my bets on science, real science, and nothing you write will change my mind
And that tells us all we need to know. I assume it doesn’t bother you that the “real science” may be wrong.
John Finn // December 28, 2008 at 7:34 pm |
I’ve just noticed this.
Since what is at issue is whether energy can mix below the surface, a factor of 25x in the irradiance won’t affect the conclusion–or do you have some mechanism in mind where the oceans magically discriminate between IR from CO2 and clouds.
No, Ray. The issue is not about mixing. The issue is about the rate of cooling and whether the increase in CO2 over the past century (reportedly ~1.6 w/m2) has suppressed the rate of cooling to such an extent that the oceans have warmed. It is, therefore, the IR from CO2 which is very much the key consideration. Unfortunately, Luminous Beauty hasn’t chosen to return to this discussion as I still think their may be some misunderstanding on what the Minnett study (as described on RC) is saying.
Also, Ray you mention a factor of “25x irradiance”. The 25x factor does come about until CO2 actually doubles (4 w/m2). At the moment the CO2 increase only represents 1.6% of the highly variable ~100 w/m2 AND it has only reached that level in the past decade or so. If though, Ray, you are making the point that small percentage changes in cloud cover would, overwhelm any effect from CO2 then …..
… Congratulations!!, you’re halfway to becoming a climate sceptic.
Ray Ladbury // December 28, 2008 at 7:54 pm |
John Finn, Well, except there is no mechanism that would account for such changes in cloud cover. Again, your climate science seems to be entirely derived from Disney’s First Law: Wishing will make it so.
As to cooling, there are two mechanisms of concern–radiation and evaporation. Adding CO2 will certainly decrease the net IR flux away from the surface, and evaporation is pretty well understood. Again, you seem to assume some unknown mechnanism dominates. The paleoclimate disagrees.
dhogaza // December 28, 2008 at 8:02 pm |
Oh, yes, it would bother me a lot. I might have to become a creationist, a 9/11 truther, an HIV denialist, and take up smoking.
Philippe Chantreau // December 28, 2008 at 8:08 pm |
John Finn, indeed, what is the point? You had that same argument back in February 06, it was every bit as irrelevant as now.
You are misreading that graph now just as badly as you did back in 2006. This was pointed to you in the following thread, where your post (#8) is very appropriately answered.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/a-new-take-on-an-old-millennium/langswitch_lang/ja#more-253
dhogaza // December 28, 2008 at 8:16 pm |
Highly variable, but with no trend, which means it contributes nothing to any long-term change in ocean temperatures.
Though I suppose you’re going to hang your hat on GCMs … throwing out known science for imaginary “I wish it were true” pseudo-science.
Or some imagined but unmeasured solar influence.
As Minnett himself says in his RC article:
dhogaza // December 28, 2008 at 8:17 pm |
cosmic RAYS I meant not general circulation models (GCMs)…shouldn’t be trying to do two things at once, I guess.
David B. Benson // December 28, 2008 at 8:20 pm |
To repeat what I believe I already wrote, there is evidence from many locations in the northern hemisphere and from some in the southern hemisphere indicating that LIA was global (but does not seem to have affected Vostok very much). An important component of LIAwas the decline of CO2 concentrations from about 280 ppm to about 260 ppm and then a recovery to 280 ppm again by 1850 CE.
David B. Benson // December 28, 2008 at 8:22 pm |
John Finn // December 28, 2008 at 7:03 pm — The major uncertainties are related to clouds and aerosols. But even these are a second or third order effects.
luminous beauty // December 28, 2008 at 9:07 pm |
John Finn,
Please explain why a 3.2% decrease in the ocean surface temperature gradient won’t have a significant effect over time on the amount of solar energy retained in deeper water?
A good and sufficient reason, please? Dismissing the question with another incredulous hand wave won’t do.
Clouds come and clouds go, but long-lived well mixed greenhouse gases function pretty much everywhere all the time. It’s like interest.
Would you turn your back on an investment that paid 3.2% interest above inflation?
Ray Ladbury // December 28, 2008 at 9:19 pm |
Dave A., You know, about 99% of your picture of climate science is directly attributable to your ignorance of how science is done. First, as to Mann et al. 98–it is cited because it was the first multiproxy reconstruction to extend back so far in time. There were shortcomings, as is expected with any first effort of such scope. However, subsequent reconstructions reaffirmed the basic conclusions. (Had they not, by the way, this would have argued for a much higher climate sensitivity–careful what you wish for.)
As to satellite reconstructions–they are tough. No two satellites ever launched were identical. The GOES satellites, though were specifically designed to make measurements to construct the products NOAA provides and to provide a degree of continuity in those products (I know this from experience, BTW). This is a far cry from using measurements by a series of unrelated satellites to reconstruct something they were never designed to look at. It can be done, but it is difficult. This is why I don’t fault Christy et al. for the multiple major revisions they have had to make in their reconstruction methodology. What they’re trying to do is damned hard. But then you operate under the illusion that everything you don’t understand must be easy… so pretty much everything looks easy to you.
John Finn // December 29, 2008 at 1:40 am |
Please explain why a 3.2% decrease in the ocean surface temperature gradient won’t have a significant effect over time on the amount of solar energy retained in deeper water?
Ok, LB, but first why don’t you tell me why it will have a significant effect “over time”. I reckon the onus is on you to prove (or show) the effect rather than on me to disprove it. A couple of points, though
1. Just remember that the 3.2% change in the difference between ’skin’ and sub-surface is a recent measurement so (if the ghg theory is right) it will be less than that in previous decades.
BUT more importantly
2. Tell me why you think there is actually a (skin-subsurface) difference between clear and cloudy days.
cheers
Could you also take into account the fact the 3.2% is
John Finn // December 29, 2008 at 2:16 am |
John Finn, Well, except there is no mechanism that would account for such changes in cloud cover.
Ray, I don’t need a mechanism. Observations tell us that cloud cover varies. It varies at every regional level and over every timescale. Climate Modellers admit that the big unknown factor is clouds. Clouds can cool – by reflecting sunlight or they can warm – by reducing the the flow of outgoing IR. A slight shift in cloud cover can change have an effect on a global scale.
Dhogaza writes of downwelling IR (see above)
Highly variable, but with no trend, which means it contributes nothing to any long-term change in ocean temperatures.
Partly correct but if there’s no trend how are the oceans being warmed? The increase in CO2 supposedly increases the amount of IR “back radiation”. By acknowledging that there is no trend, Dhogaza is effectively saying that the impact of CO2 is lost in the “noise”.
First Ray – now Dhogaza. Both now honorary semi-sceptics :-)
Ray Ladbury // December 29, 2008 at 2:24 am |
John Finn, And yet it is an empirical fact that ocean temperatures have been warming. So, if the forcing were not due to greenhouse gasses, what accounts for it. If you don’t have an alternative explanation, then we are faced with a dilemma–either you are wrong or established physics is wrong. Hmm, which to choose…which to choose?
Hank Roberts // December 29, 2008 at 3:25 am |
> difference between clear and cloudy
Did you read the earlier posting that included a longer excerpt including
“… at sea to study the response of the skin-layer. Instead we use the natural variations in clouds… The incident infrared radiation was measures by a pyrgeometer …”
dhogaza // December 29, 2008 at 4:07 am |
Because variablity in cloud cover, which has no trend, isn’t responsible, while GHG forcing is.
Last response by me, unless I choose to simply insult you, rather than engage you.
Life’s too short for the burning stupid, OK?
And, of course, I said no such thing.
So you’re willing to base your arguments on lies regarding what blog respondents like me say. And what scientists say.
If this were *my* blog, I’d expletive deleted you.
But it’s not, I’ll just ignore you.
Clearly, you don’t have the brains to overturn all of climate science.
No Nobel for you. Sorry!
dhogaza // December 29, 2008 at 4:12 am |
As a last effort, no, I wrote of your stating that input into the ocean via the sun, modulated by clouds, is much greater than GHG inputs.
I pointed out that there’s no trend regardless of the magnitude, because the ocean long ago reached equilibrium with solar input, modulated by clouds.
GHG retardation of IR output from the ocean is on *top* of that equilibrium, like interest on a deposit, mentioned above. It doesn’t matter if the magnitude is low, it will accumulate.
Anyway, thanks for playing long enough to make clear the fact that you don’t know diddly.
You’re now in the troll category (again).
Ray Ladbury // December 29, 2008 at 9:44 am |
John Finn says, “Ray, I don’t need a mechanism.”
Uh, well, actually you do, because it is you that is claiming that cloud cover varies differently somehow in a world with higher CO2. That’s how the game works. Want to overturn the current system, come up with a better theory. Don’t nibble around the edges like a friggin’ bottom feeder. Climate science is too mature for that. There are too many independent lines of evidence that support the current consensus. Don’t like it? Great, find a theory that better explains all that evidence. If not,… have you considered church?
John Finn // December 29, 2008 at 12:35 pm |
> difference between clear and cloudy
Did you read the earlier posting that included a longer excerpt including
“… at sea to study the response of the skin-layer. Instead we use the natural variations in clouds… The incident infrared radiation was measures by a pyrgeometer …”
Indeed I did, Hank. My use of the terms “clear” and “cloudy” be an over simplification of conditions but, broadly speaking, that will cover the range of variability that was measured. What is it that you think I’ve misunderstood?
John Finn // December 29, 2008 at 1:03 pm |
Dhogaza
You say
Because variablity in cloud cover, which has no trend, isn’t responsible, while GHG forcing is.
How do you know? How can you possibly know? Firstly, I’m not sure it’s true to say that there isn’t (or never has been) a trend in cloud cover over the past 50 years or so, but leave that aside for the moment.
You acknowledge, as does the Minnett article, that cloud variability accounts for differences of ~100 watts/m2 in net radiation flux. Actually, I’m surprised it’s not more than this as the average “back radiation” is, according to Trenberth (I think??), ~324 w/m2 which makes me think it will be much less in clear sky conditions and much more in cloudy conditions. Anyway let’s not dwell on that, but if anyone (BPL?) can help with this I’d be grateful. But even with differences of ‘only’ 100 w/m2 a possible trend of ~0.2 w/m2 per decade due to ghg forcing is not going to be detected.
Just to clarify. I am saying that any increase in trend due to ghg forcing will be lost in the “noise”. By acknowledging the large variability in downwelling IR, you are indirectly agreeing with me.
Ray Ladbury // December 29, 2008 at 2:25 pm |
John Finn says, “Just to clarify. I am saying that any increase in trend due to ghg forcing will be lost in the “noise”.”
Over the short term, that is true. Over the long term it is not. The observation of the skin effect does demonstrate a mechanism, while the long-term warming demonstrates its efficacy.
Got an alternative theory involving known physics? Go ahead. We’ll wait.
luminous beauty // December 29, 2008 at 2:51 pm |
John ‘I don’ need no stinking mechanism’ Finn,
The boundary layer effect is a well established and essential principle of thermodynamics. If your body had a boundary layer differential of ZERO, you would very quickly die!
That you don’t understand basic principles of physics, means that your opinion about physical processes counts for exactly ZERO.
I’m not arguing with you, John, I’m trying to educate you, but you seem to be intent on proving that old saw; “One can lead a fool to knowledge, but one can’t make one think.”
Hank Roberts // December 29, 2008 at 3:18 pm |
> > difference between clear and cloudy
You asked if there was any evidence for measurement showing a difference. That’s what they were measuring, as I read the article.
dhogaza // December 29, 2008 at 6:47 pm |
What’s the mechanism? There won’t be a trend unless there’s a mechanism. Can’t be TSI, it’s not changing significantly.
Without a mechanism, you are in essence asking us to trash known physics in favor of Magic Poof Fairies.
dhogaza // December 29, 2008 at 6:52 pm |
And … Las Vegas loves people like you. Their business depends on this kind of thinking.
And the fact that some people understand the wrongheadedness is why states like Nevada and New Jersey have outlawed card counting at the Blackjack table … because a small trend wins out over trendless noise given enough time.
David B. Benson // December 29, 2008 at 7:48 pm |
John Finn // December 29, 2008 at 1:03 pm — First read enough of Ray Pierrehumbert’s
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateBook.html
to profit from his co-authored CaltechWater.pdf, linked on his publications page. From fairly basic principles one expects no change in average cloud cover: I don’t understand this well enough to explain in simpler terms than Professor Pierrehumbert has already done.
Hank Roberts // December 29, 2008 at 8:34 pm |
> without a mechanism
I would not go that far. That risks falling into the “sound science” logic used so effectively by the tobacco companies to delay action for decades while the epidemiology was well established but no cellular level mechanism had been nailed down.
Climatology is epidemiology — ask Tamino if there’s a trend, regardless of whether there’s a known mechanism. That’s one way nowadays scientists can figure out where there’s something to look for!
David B. Benson // December 29, 2008 at 8:59 pm |
According to the study in
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081227214927.htm
global precipitation is increasing. Which is what Pierrehumbert states “should happen” in CaltechWater.pdf.
Dave A // December 29, 2008 at 9:46 pm |
Ray,
“You know, about 99% of your picture of climate science is directly attributable to your ignorance of how science is done”
Let’s see, is it done like this?
1. Write a paper with 17 (wink,wink) co- authors
2. Submit paper to a journal that does not require submission of back up data
3. Make explicit to the Editor of the said Journal which “peer reviewers” you think are suitable to review the work and which are not.
4. Despite being publically funded refuse reasonable requests for access to the back up data
5. Congratulate oneself (and the many co-authors) on a job well-done
dhogaza // December 29, 2008 at 10:45 pm |
That response, DaveA, is a bit of an own goal.
But it makes clear where you get your “science”. CA.
Ray Ladbury // December 29, 2008 at 11:06 pm |
Dave A., I don’t know of any journals that deal with backup data, so that isn’t even worth considering. I also don’t know of any requirement that one share data with anybody who acts like an A**hole. Asking nicely usually works well.
Care to substantiate 3), or shall we just put it down to your being a congenital liar?
Ray Ladbury // December 29, 2008 at 11:10 pm |
Hank, Epidemiology has its place at the early stage of an analysis. Climate science is way past that stage–as evidenced by the fact that GCMs are dynamical models, not statistical models. Epidemiological studies are always fraught. It is easy to confound two correlated trends with cause and effect. Once the mechanism is understood, that is a much more remote possibility.
David B. Benson // December 29, 2008 at 11:26 pm |
Dave A // December 29, 2008 at 9:46 pm — To save editor’s time (and the time of people asked to review who decide to decline), man journals request paper authors to recommend referees. I’ve never heard of recommending non-referees for journal papers, but this is increasingly common for NSF research grant proposals. That is, NSF has a place in all the bunf for filling in such names.
Hank Roberts // December 30, 2008 at 12:00 am |
Ray, no argument, and likely the wrong word on my part. Meant to say a lot of the details remain to be filled in, particularly about what’s being discussed specifically — clouds/humidity/boundary layer heating.
We know the wind mixing the surface makes a difference; I recall some plankton species, by moving up and down, physically mix the upper layer of the ocean significantly every day. Those are mechanisms that remain to be worked out and attributed where and when they occur.
Hank Roberts // December 30, 2008 at 12:02 am |
Dave A forgot
“Get into your time machine …..”
Heck, if you go back far enough, there’s no peer review. Go back half a millenium and there are no scientists.
Or instead, as Joan Baez puts it, when forced to choose between a hypothetical and reality, choose reality.
P. Lewis // December 30, 2008 at 1:26 am |
Dave A said
I checked three journals at random (not a statistically relevant sample I’d admit), from different publishers, and the following extracts are what those journals’ article submission guidelines for authors/peer review policies state:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Authors must recommend three appropriate Editorial Board members, three NAS members who are expert in the paper’s scientific area, and five qualified referees. The Board may choose someone who is or is not on that list or may reject the paper without further review.
Hydrological Processes Authors are encouraged to suggest the names and full contact details of referees on the understanding that the editor has the final decision on the selection of referees.
Nature All contributions submitted to Nature journals that are selected for peer-review are sent to at least one, but usually two or more, independent reviewers, selected by the editors. Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent reviewers and may also request that the journal excludes one or two individuals or laboratories. The journal sympathetically considers such requests and usually honours them, but the editor’s decision on the choice of referees is final.
Says it all Dave A, doesn’t it?
Science rotten to the core? Or Dave A hasn’t got a clue?
I know which way I’m voting.
gmo // December 30, 2008 at 3:54 am |
“oceans are warmed by the sun.”
This has been gnawing at me and I cannot tell for sure – does John Finn really believe that IR radiation cannot heat the oceans?
If he believes that, why should he think anything can be heated by IR radiation?
How could one come up with enough solar-only (or just non-IR) energy to keep the oceans at a stable temperature? Assuming oceans at zero degC with 0.9 emissivity, SB says ~283 W/m^2 emission, saying nothing of evaporation. How can the oceans possibly take in at least that much energy if IR absorption is disallowed?
dhogaza // December 30, 2008 at 4:31 am |
I think he believes that if you unplug your refrigerator and open the freezer compartment door, that the ice inside won’t melt.
I could be exaggerating, he might only believe that if you unplug it and DON’T open the freezer compartment, that the ice inside won’t melt.
(couldn’t help the snark)
JCH // December 30, 2008 at 4:36 am |
I guess I’m confused by the confusion.
Isn’t the .002 based upon the degree of blocking the sun by clouds? When it is cloudy, the skin is uniformly cool because the upper boundary of the skin layer gets less long wave, and the ocean loses more heat. When it is clear, the long wave heats the upper boundary of the skin layer and that causes heat to be retained in the bulk layer.
With the human contribution of additional GHGS, you get additional heating of the upper boundary of the skin layer, and an even warmer ocean results – unavoidable.
Barton Paul Levenson // December 30, 2008 at 10:26 am |
Hank Roberts writes:
Actually, I think Joan Baez put it like this: “She cried, ‘Oh, Willy! Don’t murder me!/I’m not prepared for eternity’.”
Did you mean John Baez?
John Finn // December 30, 2008 at 1:15 pm |
Ok
There appears to be a number of posters who are either misinterpreting what I’ve said or are simply attributing statements to me that I never made. So I’m doing one last post on this. I shall be referring to the Minnett RC article (in italics) throughout this post. First, though, let’s outline the issue in the broadest terms.
Bulk heating of the oceans comes from the Sun. The reason for this is that much of the sun’s energy is in the visible and uv part of the spectrum which can penetrate deep into the ocean. IR energy, on the other hand, can only penetrate a few micron into liquid water . At typical CO2 absorption wavelengths, ~99% of IR will be absorbed within the thickness of a human hair. However, the presence of downward IR, can control the rate of cooling . This is one of the reasons that deserts, for example, have such large diurnal temperature variation.
Now let’s see what the Minnett article says
However, some have insisted that there is a paradox here – how can a forcing driven by longwave absorption and emission impact the ocean below since the infrared radiation does not penetrate more than a few micrometers into the ocean? Resolution of this conundrum…..
Ok – they seem to be saying pretty much what I’ve said above and they note that there is a “conundrum”. However, they then go on to say
… is to be found in the recognition that the skin layer temperature gradient not only exists as a result of the ocean-atmosphere temperature difference, but also helps to control the ocean-atmosphere heat flux. (The ’skin layer’ is the very thin – up to 1 mm – layer at the top of ocean that is in direct contact with the atmosphere). Reducing the size of the temperature gradient through the skin layer reduces the flux.
What they are saying here is that as the temperature difference between skin layer and the sub-surface water reduces, the flow of heat from the ocean below will also decrease, so, in Minnett’s words:
leaving more of the heat introduced into the bulk of the upper oceanic layer by the absorption of sunlight to remain
This is a perfectly reasonable assumption.
Right – now for the observations. You can all read how measurements were taken here (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/why-greenhouse-gases-heat-the-ocean/langswitch_lang/ja#more-321. Minnett found the following:
The slope of the relationship is 0.002ºK (W/m2)-1.
First, let’s note that this is not a CO2 signal. This is a relationship that would have been found 100 years ago, 200 years ago or 1000 years ago. The question is whether the increase in CO2 has provided a “permanent” underlying reduction in temperature gradient of, presumably ~0.003 deg at present, and ~ 0.001 deg in 1960.
Secondly, where are the error bars on this trend. The data looks pretty noisy. Let’s say the NULL hypothesis is that there is no trend. Does the data force us to reject the NULL hypothesis – and at what level of confidence. In other words how certain are that the trend is non-zero.
Let’s also consider how measurements were taken and the reasons why the reduced temperature gradient was observed. Note the experiment involves cloud variation. When it’s very cloudy it’s generally not very sunny – and when it’s sunny it’s generally not very cloudy. On sunny days, as we’ve already noted, the sub-surface waters will heat up while evaporation from the skin will increase – hence a ‘large’ temperature gradient. On cloudy days the sub-surface waters remain cool and skin evaporation will decrease – hence a ‘small’ temperature gradient. This temperature gradient effect is specific to clouds and not may not necessarily be the same for CO2 – since CO2 will not reflect the solar warming effect of the sub-surface water
Next, is there actually a detectable trend in downwelling IR. As has been pointed in earlier posts, there is huge variability in cloud cover alone .Yet we are supposed to believe that an increase of less than 0.2 w/m2 per decade can not only be detected but can be attributed as the cause of ocean warming. This is the concluding part of the Minnett article.
Of course the range of net infrared forcing caused by changing cloud conditions (~100W/m2) is much greater than that caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases (e.g. doubling pre-industrial CO2 levels will increase the net forcing by ~4W/m2) [but only 1.6 w/m2 at present – added by me], …
They conclude with
but the objective of this exercise was to demonstrate a relationship.
This is a somewhat lame conclusion and is suggestive of someone who is unclear about what exactly it is they’ve found. Let me put this to you all. If I came on this blog one day and wrote something like
“If all Greenland’s ice sheets melted it would only raise sea levels by 1 inch”
I doubt many of you would have been happy just to note that a relationship exists between ice, heat and the presence of water. Tamino, BPL, Ray would be among the first to dive in and provide precise details regarding the volume of Greenland ice, global sea surface area, ice densities and such like to show that my estimate was garbage. No-one has made any attempt to quantify the reduction of heat loss due to the above relationship. And until they do, it’s not possible to say a) if it’s significant or trivial; b) if they’ve taken all factors into account.
And on a final, final note. There is a recent study, sponsored by the NOAA Climate Program Office, by Compo & Sardeshmukh (2008) which appears in Climate Dynamics . The paper makes a number of points which run counter to conventional AGW theory, but of particular interest here is this statement.
“Although not a focus of this study, the degree to which the oceans themselves have recently warmed due to increased GHG, other anthropogenic, natural solar and volcanic forcings, or internal multi-decadal climate variations is a matter of active investigation.”
If I could just paraphrase, it appears that
The degree to which oceans recently warmed due to various factors is a matter of active investigation. It appears that the science is far from settled.
If anyone wants to respond to this post – please keep it relevant to the points made in the post. Otherwise this is my last word on the matter and we’ll just have to watch and wait to see where the data leads us.
JCH // December 30, 2008 at 1:58 pm |
Using CO2 as an example…
The amount of fossil CO2 present today is the cloud. The amount of fossil CO2 present next year is the sunny day. It’s going to be more. Because it is more, it will heat the upper boundary of the ocean skin more and that will cause heat to be retained in the ocean bulk. I assume this is a tiny amount of heat.
The point of his discussion is about the heating of the UPPER BOUNDARY of the skin layer.
Each year man introduces additional fossil CO2, and that additional CO2 will add heat to the upper boundary of the skin, and more heat will be retained in the ocean.
Unlike the .0002, the CO2 action is accumulative.
That sunny days heat up the bulk more than cloudy days is interesting, but the ‘coon is not up that tree. What he’s illustrating is fossil CO2’s impact upon exactly how much of the heat in the upper ocean escapes a skin layer with a hotter UPPER BOUNDARY.
dhogaza // December 30, 2008 at 2:35 pm |
Since he’s taking his ball home rather than play the game, might I suggest his post simply be ignored?
He’s not interested in learning. His misinformation won’t impact science. He won’t be back. Let him suffer silence…
Gavin's Pussycat // December 30, 2008 at 3:05 pm |
John Finn, if you are really interested in
understanding this thing, I suggest you scroll back
to my earlier comments on the matter, and think them
through. Your beliefs and disbeliefs have little
relevance to what is factually the case. And I really
cannot rub it in any harder.
May I suggest again that you do the sum I suggested,
how much a cumulative forcing of 0.2 W/m2 per decade
heats up a water layer of 200 m thickness, decade
after decade? Hint: a quadratic function of time. All
you must know is water’s specific heat, 4.2 J/g/K. I
Assume 1 g = 1 cm^3. I’m serious, you will find it
enlightening.
John Finn // December 30, 2008 at 3:52 pm |
JCH
When you talk about ‘he’ are you referring to Minnett or something from an earlier post?
The Minnett experiment simply shows that there is a relationship between the net LW radiation flux and the temperature gradient through skin boundary layer. It does not address CO2 specifically.
luminous beauty // December 30, 2008 at 4:13 pm |
John Finn,
http://cires.colorado.edu/news/press/2008/oceanPredictorWarming.html
luminous beauty // December 30, 2008 at 4:21 pm |
damn HTML!
Ray Ladbury // December 30, 2008 at 4:27 pm |
John Finn,
OK, I don’t have the numerical data in front of me, so I am just going by what I am seeing in the chart.
First, it is true that the data are noisy. That is why Minnett took many, many readings. Second, what matters is the trend, and the trend in the data with forcing is undeniable. What is more, I see no way that the data would be consistent with zero trend or that the data support anything other than a linear trend.
At a less certain level: The strongest correlations seem to be early and late in the day, when the sun’s rays contain more red/IR than at mid-day. This would seem to be inconsistent with you contention that heating of water below the surface by visible light confounds the results. I really don’t understand this point in any case. It’s going to take a helluva lot longer to heat up the bulk ocean than it is to heat up a 1 mm layer.
Tamino, have you considered asking Peter for the data and conducting a more detailed analysis. It might be worth it just to get John to shut up.
Ian Forrester // December 30, 2008 at 5:00 pm |
John Finn said: “Bulk heating of the oceans comes from the Sun. The reason for this is that much of the sun’s energy is in the visible and uv part of the spectrum which can penetrate deep into the ocean”.
That is just plain wrong and it very easy to see why it is wrong. If what you said was true the temperature of a large body of water should track the sun i.e. the water should be warmest when the sun is at it’s highest (June 21 in the NH). However, if you check the temperature of the Great Lakes, for example, you will see that they reach temperature maxima in mid to late August, which corresponds to the air temperature curve..
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6sv6wp
How do you explain that if it is solar radiation which you think is warming the lakes?
Hank Roberts // December 30, 2008 at 6:56 pm |
Ian, I’m not sure logic looking at lakes trumps citation on this. Just quickly checking,
http://www.google.com/search?q=heating+of+the+oceans+comes+from+the+sun
John’s statement can be supported, overall:
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oceansandclimate.htm
Most of the sunlight absorbed by earth is absorbed at the top of the tropical ocean. The atmosphere does not absorb much sunlight. It is too transparent. … Sunlight passes through the air and warms the surface of the ocean, just as it warms the surface of your coat.
[Figurel --annual mean insolation world map]
Heating of earth’s surface by solar radiation, in W/m2, calculated from the ECMWF 40-year reanalysis. Notice that most of the heat absorbed by earth goes into the tropical ocean. From Kallberg et al 2005.
Hank Roberts // December 30, 2008 at 7:37 pm |
Ah, memory creaks, groans, and coughs up enough words to search successfully, they were “phytoplankton stir ocean”:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2006/2006-10-16-09.asp#anchor2
——–excerpt——-
“… the sum of all that phytoplankton-fueled stirring may equal climate control.
“By interpreting existing data in a different way, we have predicted theoretically that the amount of mixing caused by ocean swimmers is comparable to the deep ocean mixing caused by the wind blowing on the ocean surface and the effects of the tides,” said lead author William Dewar of Florida State University.
Biosphere mixing appears to provide about one third the power required to bring the deep, cold waters of the world ocean to the surface…. forthcoming issue of the “Journal of Marine Research.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/313/5794/1717a
——–
Next hunt will, as time allows, be for some papers actually describing observations of this in blooms of particular kinds of plankton that move up and down over the day/night cycle.
And, if the populations of _those_ beasties were to suddenly change, removing or increasing that sort of mixing, it could be a surprising feedback.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/earth-02p.html
—-excerpt—–
Suitland – Aug 19, 2002
Since the early 1980s, ocean phytoplankton concentrations that drive the marine food chain have declined substantially in many areas of open water in Northern oceans, according to a comparison of two datasets taken from satellites.
At the same time, phytoplankton levels in open water areas near the equator have increased significantly. Since phytoplankton are especially concentrated in the North, the study found an overall annual decrease in phytoplankton globally.
The authors of the study, Watson Gregg, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and Margarita Conkright, a scientist at … (NOAA) National Oceanographic Data Center, Silver Spring, Md., also discovered what appears to be an association between more recent regional climate changes, such as higher sea surface temperatures and reductions in surface winds, and areas where phytoplankton levels have dropped.
——
gmo // December 30, 2008 at 7:47 pm |
Though IR radiation is absorbed by the skin layer, does energy from IR radiation heat liquid water any further than a ~1mm skin layer in direct contact with the boundary?
That is still my fundamental question for this supposed mechanism/idea/whatever. Saying nothing about their accuracy at least I believe I can see the thinking behind a GHG IR radiation trend being hard to see because the forcing is small compared to clear/cloudy sky differences and the idea of the skin layer serving like a valve for heat.
But I do not see how one can go to those or any other steps if energy from IR radiation is not allowed to heat water beyond the skin layer. It was noted in a response to a comment to that RC post that downwelling IR provides about twice the heat input to the ocean that shortwave radiation does.
Thus I am trying to understand what seems to be a huge disconnect by again asking the more fundamental question – does John Finn (or anyone else) not hold that IR radiation heats liquid water beyond the skin layer?
Hank Roberts // December 30, 2008 at 7:58 pm |
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/313/5794/1768
“Measurements in a coastal inlet revealed turbulence that was three to four orders of magnitude larger during the dusk ascent of a dense acoustic-scattering layer of krill than during the day, elevating daily-averaged mixing in the inlet by a factor of 100. Because vertically migrating layers of swimming organisms are found in much of the ocean, biologically generated turbulence may affect (i) the transport of inorganic nutrients to the often nutrient-depleted surface layer from underlying nutrient-rich stratified waters to affect biological productivity and (ii) the exchange of atmospheric gases such as CO2 with the stratified ocean interior, which has no direct communication with the atmosphere.”
Ray Ladbury // December 30, 2008 at 8:52 pm |
Dhogoza says of John Finn: “Since he’s taking his ball home rather than play the game, might I suggest his post simply be ignored?
He’s not interested in learning. His misinformation won’t impact science. He won’t be back. Let him suffer silence…”
Wanna bet?
Dave A // December 30, 2008 at 9:08 pm |
Ray
Perhaps the IJC isn’t a journal?
I note, however, David B’s response
“To save editor’s time (and the time of people asked to review who decide to decline), man journals request paper authors to recommend referees. I’ve never heard of recommending non-referees for journal papers, but this is increasingly common for NSF research grant proposals. That is, NSF has a place in all the bunf for filling in such names.”
Interesting is it not?
P Lewis
See above. Nobody is saying Nature etc do not have policies but the IJC obviously does not and therefore this might call into question the reasons why Santer et al published there and also the hoopla from the climate science community that accompanied its publication.
David B. Benson // December 30, 2008 at 9:54 pm |
All scientific and engineering research journals have editorial boards which set the journal’s policies.
luminous beauty // December 30, 2008 at 11:12 pm |
Dave A,
Why should Santer provide, gratis, publicly available data, just because Steve McIntyre is too lazy to compile it independently?
Why should Santer provide, gratis, intermediate products of his analysis from publicly available analytic tools, just because Steve McIntyre is too lazy to conduct an independent analysis?
gmo // December 30, 2008 at 11:51 pm |
But how to get the general audience really to grasp the situation, seeing the noise but still understanding the underlying trend? Taking a simplistic trend of ~0.0184 degC (+/-0.092) per year, approximately 3 out of 7 years we would expect to be cooler than the previous year, and 1 of those 3 we could expect to be at least 0.1 degC cooler.
Especially considering the noise casting any cooling as evidence disputing “global warming”, how can the broader public best come to grasp this situation? A baseball team that wins 60% of its games is quite good even though that means a lot of losses, just like 60% of years being warmer than the previous means a major heat-up over the long-term even though there would be frequent cases of last year being warmer than this.
Ray Ladbury // December 30, 2008 at 11:58 pm |
OK, Dave A., I want you to try really, really hard and put yourself in the position of a journal editor. Do you want to publish a paper that is wrong? Probably not, right? It would be bad for the reputation of the journal, right? So, do you think maybe you might think twice if you think the reviewers have too close a relationship to the authors?
You wheels-within-wheels conspiracy nuts are amazing. You don’t even come up with motivations that make sense for the conspirators.
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 12:54 am |
Ray, Ray, you always have to factor in Energy’N'Environment. It’s what people know, and for those who like that kind of thing, it’s what they like.
Funhouse mirror effect.
John Finn // December 31, 2008 at 1:39 am |
GP
May I suggest again that you do the sum I suggested,
how much a cumulative forcing of 0.2 W/m2 per decade
heats up a water layer of 200 m thickness, decade
after decade? Hint: a quadratic function of time. All
you must know is water’s specific heat, 4.2 J/g/K. I
Assume 1 g = 1 cm^3. I’m serious, you will find it
enlightening.
Yes I know what you’re saying but is that what’s happening. If the oceans were receiving an extra 0.2 w/m2 per decade from the sun, then it’s true the extra heat going into the oceans over 2 or 3 decades, say, would certainly be noticable (I’ll do the calculation later). In fact, this is one of the reasons there is such uncertainty over the issue. A slight reduction in cloudiness or a slight increase in TSI and after half a century you’ve got a warmer ocean.
But what’s being proposed is not that extra energy is going into the oceans. It’s that CO2 forcing is increasing (or has increased) the temperature of the very thin top layer of the ocean by a tiny (barely measurable amount) which is reducing the flow of heat from the water below. Hence more heat remains in the toceans.
I find this implausible and, judging, by the content of the links I provided there are many others who are not yet convinced that we know the true cause of ocean warming.
John Finn // December 31, 2008 at 2:11 am |
Thus I am trying to understand what seems to be a huge disconnect by again asking the more fundamental question – does John Finn (or anyone else) not hold that IR radiation heats liquid water beyond the skin layer?
gmo
I’m asking questions just like you. However, it’s certainly true that IR will only penetrate a few micron into liquid water. Given the IR wavelength and the transmission, the path length can be calculated from the Beer-Lambert -Bouguer Law. I’ve also heard from people who maintain that the temperature of water just underneath the surface will remain unchanged if an IR beam is directed at the surface.
But the Minnett article does it for me. This was a guest post on the RC site – not on CA or WUWT. I don’t believe they would have ommitted to mention a key mechanism for IR heating if one (other than the one proposed) existed.
Thanks, BTW, for your response and the reasonable tone of your comments.
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 5:02 am |
“… All of the infrared radiation is absorbed in the top meter of the oceans. This is the process that “heats” the ocean. …”
Let’s see if the table comes through; if not click the link below.
Radiation — direct transmission
wl inversely related to surface T
Sun: 6,000°C — visible
Earth: 18°C — infrared
Absorbtion of solar radiation by the oceans
Radiation reaching the sea surface:
visible
infrared
(ultraviolet)
Absorbtion — efficient, but wl-dependent
Depth % absorbed wavelengths absorbed
1 m 60 infrared (heats surface waters)
10 m 80 longer visible
150 m 99 [only short, green-blue-violet light remains]
ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu/02SprgClass/geo117/lectures/Lect15.html
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 5:07 am |
http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/11/23/what-bob-carter-and-andrew-bolt-fail-to-grasp/
“… air temperatures have risen by about 0.5C over the last few decades. But that is not where the real action is. You see, most of the extra solar energy trapped by the Earth’s slightly thicker blanket of greenhouse gases has not gone into raising air temperatures. It’s poured into the vast oceans (which contain about hundreds of times the volume of the atmosphere), and been ‘used up’ in causing the phase change required to turn polar and mountain ice into water. This has lead to rising sea levels from thermal expansion of the water as it gains heat, as well as contributions from melting glaciers and mountain ice caps, sea ice albedo changes, and mass loss from major ice sheets (Greenland and West Antarctica).
Indeed, it has been shown that about 90% of this additional energy has be used to heat water and about 7% to melt ice. Only about 3% is left over to warm the air. So we shouldn’t be at all surprised if air temperatures show the weakest response to the enhanced greenhouse effect – at least in the short term….”
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 5:12 am |
Animals and Colour Vision, Fish
Many fish, including piranhas and goldfish, can see infrared light at wavelengths invisible to us. This helps them to see in murky water, where the longer …
http://www.colour-experience.org/flying/animals_and_colour/animals_6.htm
http://segate.sunet.se/cgi-bin/wa?A2=FISH-SCI;8wOgvw;20010221213540-0500
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 5:17 am |
Using an infrared remote device (note this is a rather weak source) and a video camera as a detector:
http://www.optics.rochester.edu/workgroups/berger/EDay/EDay%20Visible%20and%20Invisible%20Light.doc.
3. If desired, show absorption spectrum of water (data here downloaded from website http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water, data of Kou et al., plotted using Matlab), confirming significant absorption in this region. The units of absorptivity are log scale; 1 cm pathlength through water at the peak of this absorption leads to a decrease in light by a factor of exp(-absorptivity * 1 cm). …
The several posts above are all in the spirit of this thread:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=713157
John Finn // December 31, 2008 at 10:33 am |
GMO, Hank
GMO: Hank may have provided us with the answer to your question
In the first of his recent posts (31/12/2008 at 5:02 am), he quotes from an academic link, i.e.
Depth % absorbed wavelengths absorbed
1 m 60 infrared (heats surface waters)
10 m 80 longer visible
150 m 99 [only short, green-blue-violet light remains]
This seemed a bit at odds with Minnett and other references, but then we must remember IR (at all wavelengths) is also emitted by the sun. So it’s probably true that IR will heat water, as you clearly thought , but not at the wavelengths relevant to CO2
If you scroll to the bottom (or near) of this link you will find a graphic which gives the absorption coefficients (A) of water as a function of wavelength.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
Note that around 15 micron (667 cm-1), A > 1000. Transmission in water is given by
T = exp(-A*L)
Plug in the values T=0.99 (99% transmission) ; A=1000; and you can get L, the path length. You’ll probably need to re-arrange the formula. I’m sure it will also be possible to find IR wavelengths which do penetrate to depths of 1m.
Therefore, my statement above, which reads
“Bulk heating of the oceans comes from the Sun. The reason for this is that much of the sun’s energy is in the visible and uv part of the spectrum which can penetrate deep into the ocean”.
should be amended to include some reference to relevant IR wavelengths as well as visible and UV parts or the spectrum.
But the source is still the Sun.
P. Lewis // December 31, 2008 at 2:35 pm |
What a crock of s**t!
I can’t comment on Santer et al. because I haven’t read it and am unaware of their conclusions, though I do know (vaguely) that SMcI has been pursuing things in his inimitable Quixotic fashion with Glenn McGregor with regard to some data storage deficiency (I think). But that is immaterial to your quoted statement(s) about IJC.
Now I copy-edited IJC for about 4 or 5 years (up until about 3 or 4 years ago) and was privy to many, many referees reports on papers and authors’ correspondence with the editors about referees comments. [And IJC has in the past published dissenting research/views from the AGW consensus (something by von Storch et al. springs vaguely to mind during my "tenure", IIRC).]
I will be passing your comment(s) above on to Wiley the publisher of the International Journal of Climatology, and the Royal Meteorological Society (whose journal it is) will quickly get to know of this, as will Glenn McGregor.
Publishers take great exception to libel/slander and defamation (of and in their publications and of and by their authors) and fraudulent research.
Now, I’m not sure whether your statements to the effect that IJC has no policy (on peer review) constitute such a transgression. So far as I’m aware, and to your obvious advantage, such a policy is not stated publicly in the journal or on the journal’s websites, but that does not mean it does not have a strict peer review policy. I find it incredible that any paper submitted to IJC did not go through a strict peer review. And I know from personal experience that (having once mentioned something to the publisher along the above lines) that the editors take great pride in their journal and its peer review process.
But what seems not to your advantage are the inferences as to why Santer et al. published in IJC.
I look forward to the fallout. At the very least it might bring the RMetS’s IJS policy, which I’m sure is as strict as any other rank-one journal, into print.
Sadly, I think the reponse at this time will likely be to ignore the ramblings of the generally unthinking and ineducable — which is a great shame, as people should be able to be held to account for what they say and what the imply.
luminous beauty // December 31, 2008 at 3:24 pm |
John Finn,
Your understanding is just getting colder and colder.
1.) Net IR at the surface of the oceans is negative. IR is how the planet cools, not how it warms.
Yes, it is the sun that provides all the energy. Differences in down-welling IR controls the rate of cooling.
2). Down-welling IR is not just in the wave-lengths absorbed by greenhouse gases. It is broadened by excited air molecules. Every material substance in the universe, at Earth-like temperatures and densities, is radiating in a broad spectrum of IR. Otherwise IR thermometers wouldn’t be reliable.
luminous beauty // December 31, 2008 at 4:00 pm |
Hank,
This tale expresses much of the spirit of this whole thread:
http://www.khamush.com/tales_from_masnavi.htm#The%20Elephant
G. Karst // December 31, 2008 at 4:12 pm |
Isn’t it time to back up and ask the primary question before we get side-tracked into secondary questions.
What is the ideal climate for the planet???
I suggest it is not the current climate.
We have millions of years of climate to choose from. Once we have answered this question, then we can form some opinion on what GHG concentrations should exist. Until that fundamental question is answered with global consensus, any action taken would be foolish.
It is insane to think that the current ice age is the optimum condition for the planet. Our goal, should be, to end this cycle of ice ages. GHG may be the best tool we have, to end this curse. Come on people… Lets keep our eye on the ball.
[Response: You've done nothing but repeat one of the most naive "straw man" arguments. The ideal climate for earth is: stable.
It's not any particular climate that's the problem, it's climate change.]
luminous beauty // December 31, 2008 at 4:46 pm |
John,
One aspect of the Minnett study I would ask you to consider is the fact that up-welling minus down-welling IR approaches zero as cloud cover increases.
G. Karst // December 31, 2008 at 5:17 pm |
Even the most rabid GW proponent must admit that the consequences of global cooling would be catastrophic for the 7 billion humans requiring dinner on a regular basis. Canada, northern USA, northern Europe, would no longer be able to feed the world, should avg temps drop by a half degree.The same is not true on the upside.
Increasing temps along with increasing rain due to increasing evaporator surfaces, will increase food yields in the temperate zones. The primary problem is a relocation of people out of coastal flood areas, where they should not have built, to begin with. Humans have done this many times in the past, without the benefits of our modern technology.
So IF the climate is indeed warming, RELAX. At least we are moving in the safe direction. Adaptation is our specialty. Carbon is the basis of ALL life. Abundant bio-available carbon means abundant LIFE. This is proven over and over in the geological record. Frozen water feeds nobody.
[Response: I haven't seen any evidence that increased temperatures will increase food yields. As for increased precipitation, that's predicted for continental edges but increased evaporation is likely to lead to greater *drought* in continental interiors -- places like the U.S. grainbelt.
And statements like "Carbon is the basis of ALL life" indicate just how infantile your understanding is. So what? Carbon as atmospheric CO2 is a threat to climate stability. Did you fall for the pathetic "CO2 -- we call it life" compaign, or were you one of the designers?
You're very close to, maybe you've even surpassed, the "stupid threshold."]
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 5:25 pm |
Bravo, P. Lewis, well said and well done.
____________________________
Nitpicking: how primates show they care
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 5:34 pm |
PS, Google finds hits for highly popular rants at the adit site but also finds some useful information a bit further down in a search:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/4735/home/ForAuthors.html
“… Instructions To Authors … International Journal of Climatology
To facilitate even faster peer-review times IJOC has launched an online submission system … the system will allow authors to check the status of their paper throughout the peer review process.”
Some authors put their review drafts on their own websites:
http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/addendum_A%20comparison%20of%20tropical%20temperature%20trends%20with%20model_JOC1651%20s1-ln377204795844769-1939656818Hwf-88582685IdV9487614093772047PDF_HI0001
dhogaza // December 31, 2008 at 6:13 pm |
We also have to admit that the earth being hit by an object the size of the moon would be catastrophic.
However, there’s no evidence of either event being on the near-term (geologically speaking) horizon.
So quit wasting our time, OK?
dhogaza // December 31, 2008 at 6:14 pm |
So’s water. Yet people still drown.
David B. Benson // December 31, 2008 at 6:21 pm |
G. Karst // December 31, 2008 at 4:12 pm — THe ideal climate for humans and other life forms is that of the Holocene. That’s what agriculture is adjusted to.
We left the Holocene in, say, 1850 CE, or if you prefer, 1985 CE. Anyway it is too hot now. It will get worse and worse.
G. Karst // December 31, 2008 at 6:27 pm |
Stupid is what stupid does.
A comment describes a view.
A thesis provides evidence and conclusions. I have not seen any of those on this COMMENT page.
I thought this was a page for comments.
Scientific America published a 13% increase in rainfall. Some ( not all ) will fall on interior land masses and deserts.
In any event, the world will not be getting drier, unless the world cools and more water is locked up in ice.
Again… check the geological record
As to increased temp and moisture increasing yield…
1 tomato plant yields 1/2 pound of tomatoes at 55F.
1 tomato plant yields 40 pounds at 80F.
Draw your own conclusions. I am not going to spoon feed you any more science. Do your own thinking.
[Response: You haven't yet given us any science and we're certainly not expecting any from you in the future.]
gmo // December 31, 2008 at 6:41 pm |
It seems luminous beauty is guiding toward what I still for some reason want to figure out. Perhaps I can clarify…
The oceans are heated by solar radiation. This means that there is a _net_ influx of solar radiation into the oceans. For the understood reasons it so happens that there is only influx of solar radiation into the oceans. Perhaps with a minor caveat the oceans are just too cool to emit radiation in the wavelengths spanned by “solar radiation”.
The oceans are cooled by IR radiation. This means that there is a _net_ outflux of IR radiation out of the oceans.
Is John Finn (or anyone else) saying that there is in no influx (not _net_ influx, _no_influx_period_) of energy due to IR radiation into the oceans beyond a thin surface layer?
It has always seemed abundantly obvious to me. Find one of the Kiehl & Trenberth radiation budget graphics – solar only comes into the surface (having a warming effect), terrestrial IR both leaves and enters the surface but leaves in a greater amount (thus having a net cooling effect). I will listen to someone who says that is wrong – I never even considered it could be wrong, plus I know my being wrong about something does not mean I am wrong about everything!
Thus the little quest to determine if someone is believing what seems to me head-shakingly wrong, that beyond not just not having _net_ inward flux of energy from IR radiation beyond the thin surface layer there is _no_ inward flux of energy _at_all_ from IR radiation beyond the thin surface layer.
Related to this is my perhaps misinformed impression of at least some of those who think Miskolczi or something involving “maximum entropy” shows the greenhouse effect must be constrained considerably below what standard theory says. Is there really a belief that an object (say, the earth’s surface) cannot become warmer because of receiving some amount of radiant energy emitted by a cooler object (say atmospheric gases or clouds)?
John Finn // December 31, 2008 at 7:07 pm |
LB
1.) Net IR at the surface of the oceans is negative. IR is how the planet cools, not how it warms.
Yes, it is the sun that provides all the energy. Differences in down-welling IR controls the rate of cooling.
Which is pretty much what I wrote in the long-winded post (December 20 at 1:15 pm).
2). Down-welling IR is not just in the wave-lengths absorbed by greenhouse gases. It is broadened by excited air molecules. Every material substance in the universe, at Earth-like temperatures and densities, is radiating in a broad spectrum of IR. Otherwise IR thermometers wouldn’t be reliable.
I have no problem with this statement either. But I’m not sure why it contradicts anything I’ve written.
John Finn // December 31, 2008 at 7:09 pm |
Sorry that should be “December 30″ not “December 20″.
David B. Benson // December 31, 2008 at 7:10 pm |
G. Karst // December 31, 2008 at 6:27 pm — I am a subscriber to Scientific American, have been for many decades. I have never seen such a rainfall figure.
It is obviously outrageously wrong, possbily by simply missing a decimal point.
About 1.3% is about right, methinks. But do remember that most rain falls back into the oceans.
John Finn // December 31, 2008 at 7:25 pm |
GMO
The oceans are heated by solar radiation. This means that there is a _net_ influx of solar radiation into the oceans. For the understood reasons it so happens that there is only influx of solar radiation into the oceans. Perhaps with a minor caveat the oceans are just too cool to emit radiation in the wavelengths spanned by “solar radiation”.
Yes.
The oceans are cooled by IR radiation. This means that there is a _net_ outflux of IR radiation out of the oceans.
Yes.
Is John Finn (or anyone else) saying that there is in no influx (not _net_ influx, _no_influx_period_) of energy due to IR radiation into the oceans beyond a thin surface layer?
No. I’m saying that there is no influx beyond a thin surface layer at wavelengths which are relevant to CO2 (i.e. ~15 micron).
This is from an earler post (Dec 31 @ 10:33 am)
If you scroll to the bottom (or near) of this link you will find a graphic which gives the absorption coefficients (A) of water as a function of wavelength.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
Note that around 15 micron (667 cm-1), A > 1000. Transmission in water is given by
T = exp(-A*L)
Plug in the values T=0.99 (99% transmission) ; A=1000; and you can get L, the path length. You’ll probably need to re-arrange the formula. I’m sure it will also be possible to find IR wavelengths which do penetrate to depths of 1m.
LB
John,
One aspect of the Minnett study I would ask you to consider is the fact that up-welling minus down-welling IR approaches zero as cloud cover increases.
Yes I know. That shows up on the graph. As conditions become cloudier net flux -> 0.
Ian Forrester // December 31, 2008 at 7:30 pm |
G Karst said:
“1 tomato plant yields 1/2 pound of tomatoes at 55F.
1 tomato plant yields 40 pounds at 80F”.
That is junk for two reasons.
Firstly, no-one is even talking about 25 degree F changes in temperatures.
Secondly, you give no reference, so it is completely worthless, probably something you made up to try and impress us.
For real results on how temperatures affect plant growth see the following paper:
“Rice yields decline with higher night temperature from global warming”
PNAS July 6, 2004 vol. 101 no. 27 9971–9975
It can be read at:
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/27/9971.full.pdf+html
Here is a quote:
“Here we report that annual mean maximum and minimum temperatures have increased by 0.35°C and 1.13°C, respectively, for the period 1979–2003 and a close linkage between rice grain yield and mean minimum temperature during the dry cropping season (January to April). Grain yield declined by 10% for each 1°C increase in growing-season minimum temperature in the dry season, whereas the effect of maximum temperature on crop yield was insignificant. This report provides a direct evidence of decreased rice yields from increased nighttime temperature associated with global warming”.
luminous beauty // December 31, 2008 at 7:51 pm |
John,
Then you agree that the mechanism (surface temperature gradient) by which a body of water loses excess energy isn’t somehow magically unaffected by a change in atmospheric radiative balance?
G. Karst // December 31, 2008 at 7:54 pm |
Re: David B. Benson
Because you have asked nicely, I will give one more spoonful.
Sci American link – https://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=planning-picnic-in-warming-world-satellite-forecasts-more-rain&posted=1#comments
“In addition, the satellites reveal that evaporation and precipitation are increasing much faster than the models predict. “The observations suggest that maybe global rainfall will increase at a higher rate—three times higher according to these results—than climate models predict,” Wentz says. “The additional rain may be beneficial for some of the drier areas and pose a significant climate risk for other areas of the world.”
If the climate warms just two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)—as predicted by the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report—13 percent more water vapor will be in the atmosphere at the end of this century, the scientists note. Rainfall will likely increase by a similar amount”
As stated, there is a real problem with modeled climate. If there was such a thing as a stable climate, it would be easy to model, with a straight line graph. Even though many at this site, would like it, alas, it just isn’t so.
Philippe Chantreau // December 31, 2008 at 8:13 pm |
Karst: “Canada, northern USA, northern Europe, would no longer be able to feed the world”
That seems to imply that they are now. Yet a sizeable portion of “the World” is malnourished. Another sizeable portion (no pun intended) is obese, and getting worse. Hmm. Is this all really as simple as you describe?
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 8:50 pm |
David, the increase in water vapor and precipitation isn’t news, though seeing it confirmed is going to be useful in planning.
As to the sinkhole’s logic, it makes more sense to look at what actually happens when precipitation increases — bigger storms and more of them — than to forecast bigger tomatoes because there has to be a pony here somewhere.
There are outflow fans of debris all over the world that date back millenia to the last time this sort of thing happened. In a few places they’ve now started flooding again — whether due to recent logging of the catchment basins or change in storm intensity nobody’s figured out; likely both.
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309055423
I’ve posted this several times before when this issue has come up, it’s not the only paper, just a handy summary well illustrated as a place to start:
Abrupt increase in seasonal extreme precipitation at the Paleocene …
http://ic.ucsc.edu/~jzachos/eart120/readings/Schmitz_Puljate_07.pdf
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 9:23 pm |
PS, note the SciAm article is from March 2007; again, this is not news, and there is a good bit of commentary available that needs to be read, e.g.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11977-warming-will-bring-more-rain-study-claims.html
which begins: ”
Climate experts have cast doubt on the conclusions of a new study predicting that a warmer world would lead to more rainfall – a contradiction of the prediction of most climate change models – which was based on just 20 years of data…..”
The author of the study agrees 20 years is too short; it’s the total available to date.
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 9:36 pm |
Since it’s New Year’s Eve, homework help:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/317/5835/233
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/39/15248.abstract
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5895/1481 (“… extremes…”)
http://cel.isiknowledge.com/InboundService.do?product=CEL&action=search&SrcApp=Highwire&UT=000247968600039&SID=4D8cPHngihmmpgL8pBF&Init=Yes&SrcAuth=Highwire&mode=CitingArticles&customersID=Highwire&viewType=summary
luminous beauty // December 31, 2008 at 9:41 pm |
John,
You do understand that increasing cloudiness reduces the rate at which the ocean below loses its stored solar energy?
Then you can tell me what is wrong with this statement:
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 9:45 pm |
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a794083871~db=all
International Journal of Remote Sensing, Volume 29, Issue 14 2008 , pages 4207 – 4217
DOI: 10.1080/01431160701840190
How consistent is the satellite derived SST-LHF relationship in comparison with observed values?
“Time series data for sea surface temperature (moored buoy), wind speed, air temperature, sea level pressure, relative humidity, short wave radiation and rainfall were collected close to the Lakshadweep islands for five months from July 2000 to cover two seasons, namely summer monsoon and autumn. Day and night passes of TMI data for the same period were analysed to compare with the observed values. Daily mean values were then generated from both satellite-derived as well as observed parameters and daily latent heat flux (LHF) … , the observed LHF-SST relationship was inverse as the SST during this season seldom fell below 27°C. On the contrary, the satellite derived LHF-SST relationship exhibited a direct correlation. It is also observed that the satellite underestimation of SST increases linearly on either side of a threshold value of 28.5°C. Although the SST over the eastern Arabian Sea was generally above 27°C, the satellite underestimation often produced SSTs less than 27°C, thereby supporting a linear relationship with LHF, as suggested by Zhang and McPhaden. Similarly for SSTs higher than 28°C, the satellite underestimation prevented a further decrease of LHF (to sustain the linear relationship) by virtue of the inverse relationship for SSTs higher than 28°C. The overestimation of SST and wind speed in the satellite scenario generates a virtual enhancement of LHF values without cooling the sea surface. The linear relationship between SST and LHF is thus nothing but a virtual display of the observed inverse SST-LHF relationship. ”
Note Zhang got a lot of attention quite recently. I’ll put a pointer at RC back to this thread.
David B. Benson // December 31, 2008 at 10:08 pm |
G. Karst // December 31, 2008 at 7:54 pm — Thanks, that wasn’t in the print edition as best I recall. Further it is a prediction, not the amount that rainfall has already increased. For that, somewhere there is a recent paper stating an increase of around 1.5% in the last 18 years.
As several have pointed out, increased rainfall globally does not imply that the precipitation will be evenly distributed. For examples, Central Chile, Patagonia, southern Australia, U.S. Greaat Plains and Eastern Europe are all predicted to experience droughts. I think East Africa is headed that way as well.
Also, the Southern Asian monsoon may well simply all fall back into the ocean, never making it to land.
TCOisbanned? // December 31, 2008 at 10:15 pm |
Hank, would a cooling be beneficial in creating more rice growth and smaller storms?
Ray Ladbury // December 31, 2008 at 10:19 pm |
G. Karst, There is a whole lot more to growing crops than temperature and the amount of rainfall. First, there is HOW the rain falls. If it all falls in huge downpours in the spring, that’s not going to increase yields. If it all falls in impulsive events in the fall, your crop rots before it ripens. The best science suggests more impulsive downpours, not less.
And that is the beginning–it is also likely that tropical pests, weeds and diseases will expand their range into temperate regions. Dude, there is a reason why the temperate zones are the breadbasket of the world. You might want to look into things a wee bit more. As it stands you are confusing fetid with fertile.
Dave A // December 31, 2008 at 10:31 pm |
Ray,
Ok, Ray , I want you to think really, really hard about this. Do you think you can seriously write a paper with 17 (seventeen) co-authors?
So, do you think maybe you might think if you were the editor that, as most of the possible reviewers were also authors of the paper, it had in a sense peer reviewed itself? This might not have happened of course, but….
Dave A // December 31, 2008 at 10:39 pm |
P Lewis,
Interesting that your initial response talked about taking a random sample of journals and emphasising their policies but said nothing about your involvement with IJC or its policies.
Any particular reason for that? If IJC has adequate policies why not come out right away and say that?
David B. Benson // December 31, 2008 at 11:14 pm |
Hank Roberts // December 31, 2008 at 8:50 pm — Increase in precipitation is news, although certainly expected. However, the actual attempts to devise global precipitation products are somewhat suspect, since these are not giving the same answers: the group lead by researchers in Italy claim no increase in 28 years (their 29th year was presented at the Fall AGU meeting, but I haven’t seen what they now conclude); two other groups, over a shorter time span up to present, give some upward trend, but these two products do not agree on the numerical value of the trend.
dhogaza // January 1, 2009 at 12:27 am |
That’s the team that did the research. Typically, of course, the paper will actually be *written* by a subset of those who’ve got their names stuck on it.
Hank Roberts // January 1, 2009 at 1:07 am |
TCO– rate of change is the problem; local conditions are where to watch the results. You know this.
Cheers.
David — agreed; also new is that cite I posted on matching satellite data to observation. I haven’t seen an AGU summary either. It’s far less certain than wossname is suggesting.
Hank Roberts // January 1, 2009 at 1:11 am |
Dave, ‘authors’ contributed something to the paper, not necessarily the actual writing. There’s much else involved.
As you’d know if, well, never mind the hypothetical.
Go to the journal’s website to see the links for its peer review procedure, if you want to actually, well, never mind. As above.
TCOisbanned? // January 1, 2009 at 2:06 am |
hank:
1. You didn’t answer the question. (Don’t assume I’m playing gotcha.)
2. If rate of change is the important thing, why did you not mention that earlier? Also, given that year to year variability way swamps trended change/year, I don’t see how rate of change is the important thing.
John Finn // January 1, 2009 at 2:11 am |
Then you can tell me what is wrong with this statement:
LB
The statement you refer to is still ok. I can sort of see where your heading with this but the sun is still the driver of heating.
I probably need to think this through a bit more before replying, but consider the case where the effect of clouds cancels out the effect of radiation loss from the oceans. i.e.
LW Up = LW Down – equilibrium
Can we now turn off the sun? No – because the sun replenishes the energy that the atmosphere (clouds) loses to space. If the sun’s output increases then the earth will warm – and if it’s energy is channelled more directly at the earth (because of lower cloud albedo) then the earth will also warm because the increase in solar energy willl be greater than the increase in outgoing LW radiation.
I have no idea if this post makes sense as I’ve had a bit too much to drink. But, I’m not sure the original question (by LB) is relevant to the issue as to whether or not there is a CO2 signal in ocean warming. I need to sleep on it.
Have a happy, but not too warm :-), 2009!
Ray Ladbury // January 1, 2009 at 2:17 am |
Dave A., I am an author on papers with at least that many authors on a regular basis. On my thesis, we had a couple of dozen authors, and that was considered a small experiment. I have authored precisely one paper where I was sole author–and that status raised eyebrows. Science is a complicated endeavor. Research teams are large.
Dave, really, you are just embarrassing yourself here trying to find skulduggery where there clearly is none. Maybe you might want to look into normal publishing practices a bit further before make such accusations. Or you can keep providing entertainment. Your choice.
Ray Ladbury // January 1, 2009 at 2:19 am |
Tamino, Just a hypothetical: Would it be considered abusive to inform Dave A. that he’s an idiot?
[Response: You'll have to form your own opinion about whether or not he is one, and whether or not you should say so. You can both form your own opinions about whether or not it's abusive.]
TCOisbanned? // January 1, 2009 at 2:30 am |
Ray, you did high energy physics. 17 person papers are much rarer in this field.
P. Lewis // January 1, 2009 at 2:31 am |
Dave A said
What an utter ignoramus you are! Your comments only paint a good picture of how clueless in these matters you really are.
Copy-editing is hardly “involvement” with a journal, and especially not with its editorial and peer review policies or its publisher’s policies. It’s probably no more an involvement with a journal’s policies than buying petrol is to being involved in extraction and refinement of West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil!
Anyway, the first mention of IJC was by you (December 30, 2008 at 9:08 pm), but this well after> (December 30, 2008 at 1:26 am) I entered my random sample of journal peer review policies into the discussion!
Until that mention I had no inkling you would want me to include IJC in (what would not then have been) a random sample. How could I? I’m not a bloody mind reader!
So there was no reason why I would necessarily mention it in a random sample of journals’ peer review policies. Anyway, there was also no reason to include it since I knew that IJC doesn’t print its peer-review policy on the back inside cover “Notes for Contributors” (which is not to say it doesn’t have one — I know it does, and it is not dissimilar to other journals’ policies), whereas the ones I randomly chose did have readily available policies in print to copy and paste. And anyway, what purpose would be served by me reporting a journal’s peer review policy with no ability to cross-reference it?
As it happens I mentioned Hydrological Processes, which up until about 18 months ago I also copy-edited. Do you want the full list of some ~90 science journals I’ve copy-edited in my career and the 40-odd books?
The only concern in the original list was to present policies from journals with different publishers (and IJC and HYP are both published by Wiley). Perhaps if I’d listed 10 journals’ policies at random I might have made mention of IJC’s (but I doubt it for the reason already given).
As I’ve said already … Says it all Dave A, doesn’t it?
Science rotten to the core? Or Dave A hasn’t got a clue?
I know which way I’m voting. (Still!)
dhogaza // January 1, 2009 at 2:58 am |
TCO, with all due respect, you appear to be highly ignorant about how ecosystems function.
You’re a smart guy, but for once why not admit that specialists actually know WTF they’re talking about.
Barton Paul Levenson // January 1, 2009 at 11:35 am |
gmo writes:
YES. I’m engaged in a long, running debate on landshape.org (“The Power of Numeracy”) with a couple of fools who insist, absolutely insist, that the atmosphere can’t be warming the ground because the ground is warmer than the atmosphere. I keep asking them, “infrared light hits the ground. The ground absorbs the infrared light. What happens to the energy the light carried? Where does it go?” I have yet to receive an intelligible answer, perhaps because they realize that answering it would destroy their whole argument.
John Finn // January 1, 2009 at 2:28 pm |
BPL
Have you followed this whole discussion or are you just responding to GMO’s question.
But wrt to your response are you sure you are correct? I don’t believe the cooler atmosphere can warm the warmer ground, since net LW radiation at the surface is negative. It’s possible, though, that the atmosphere can reduce the rate at which IR is lost and so reduce the rate at which the surface cools (via LW outflow). Examples: Dry air, desert regions tend to cool quickly. Clear skies on winter nights tend to produce more frosts than cloudy nights. These are general observations which don’t consider more specific meteorological and geographical factors.
The recent discussion here, though, has focused on the role of CO2 in warming the world’s oceans.
GMO
I reckon my earlier response to you is broadly correct. That is, “some” LW radiation (mainly solar) may contribute to ocean warming, but most of the LW radiation emitted by the atmosphere can only penetrate a few micron.
Regarding CO2: Not only does the tiny amout (~1.6 w/m2 reportedly) due to additional CO2 forcing only penetrate a few micron, it’s effect will be undetectable in the “noise” of much larger cloud variation (100+ w/m2).
Hank Roberts // January 1, 2009 at 3:02 pm |
Have you ever found a cite for this “few micron” number? Seems like a meter is more than a “few” microns. Isn’t it a whole lot of microns?
How about the note that fish appear to be able to see in the infrared, as a piscatologist do you know for sure?
Sekerob // January 1, 2009 at 3:33 pm |
How nice to see 1.6 w/m^2 being used by a denialist, when we know that solar maximum / minimum cycle flux is about 1.2 w/m^2 or 0.1%. Thanks for confirming the point that the sun’s variation is insignificant, with a mean of 0.6 w/m^2, thus man having permanently added 1 watt.
Do follow the AGGI index. Next update is due sometime later in April 2009.
[Response: Don't forget that the solar flux must be distributed over the entire surface of the earth, which is 4 times its cross-sectional area, so a 1.2 W/m^2 change in solar output is only 0.3 W/m^2 of TOA climate forcing. This is further reduced by albedo (~0.3), so a 1.2 W/m^2 change in solar output is only 0.21 W/m^2 of climate forcing.]
Ray Ladbury // January 1, 2009 at 3:34 pm |
John Finn, Please think about Barton’s post: IR is emitted from the ground in an amount and with a spectrum determined (mainly) by its frequency. Some IR is incident on the ground and absorbed. Where does that energy go if not into heating. Likewise with the oceans: IR is incident on the surface and is absorbed. It must heat the water, no? And more IR impinges and is absorbed, etc. Now eventually that energy has to go somewhere, right? I mean the top millimeter of the ocean isn’t boiling, is it? And it can’t radiate away any more energy than its temperature allows. So, either the IR from below has to decrease (due to the skin effect, maybe?), or… what? In Watergate, Deep Throat said “Follow the money.” In physics, follow the energy.
TCOisbanned? // January 1, 2009 at 3:59 pm |
Dhog: The rate of change danger is a new one to me. Would like to see a paper on it, or some popular treatment at more lenght than Hank’s quick comment.
I agree thatI’m not an expert. Just figured we are allowed to chat about stuff here. That’s what it’s all about: a science based bull session.
Philippe Chantreau // January 1, 2009 at 4:39 pm |
John Finn:
“It’s possible, though, that the atmosphere can reduce the rate at which IR is lost and so reduce the rate at which the surface cools (via LW outflow).”
Hallelujah! John Finn finally understood something. GH effect does not heat the surface, it impairs its cooling. You got the utmost basic principle down. Good. Persevere and you might realize how solid all that science, that so many here advocate for, actually is.
Hank Roberts // January 1, 2009 at 5:19 pm |
> rate of change
Global Climate Change: Background Material
Earth’s climate has always changed; it is the rate of change that is of current concern to scientists. Carbon is critical to the biosphere and must continue …
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_4_1.htm
The 2007 Assessment of Climate Change
shows that the rate of change as projected exceeds anything seen in nature in the past 10000 years. Moreover, the inertia of the climate system and the long …
http://www.ucar.edu/oga/pdf/trenberth_testimony%202-07.pdf
The first 2 top hits using Google for:
“rate of change” +climate
Hank Roberts // January 1, 2009 at 5:24 pm |
Scholar finds (recent)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?num=50&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&scoring=r&q=%22rate+of+change%22+%2Bclimate&as_ylo=2008
luminous beauty // January 1, 2009 at 6:21 pm |
John,
How’s the head this morning?
May I offer some musical medicine for the mental muddle?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DH70wYWsK0&feature=related
Happy New Year!
TCOisbanned? // January 1, 2009 at 8:11 pm |
Hank!
You are not properly disaggregating and thinking through concepts. The rate of change is an issue because over a long time, it leads to a changed level. Not because of the rate itself. So that torpedos, your original rate comment. Rate doesn’t stress the plants. Changed (sustained) temp does.
Think man, think.
TCOisbanned? // January 1, 2009 at 8:13 pm |
I mean, here. Let’s say I reduced the rate by half, but doubled the period. How would that effect on the plants differ? And you haven’t answered my cold question yet.
Gosh darn it. Both sides make me so mad sometimes.
but Jolliffe loves me. ME!
TCOisbanned? // January 1, 2009 at 8:16 pm |
Let’s say that we have the current rate of 3deg/century over a one year period. Are the plants stressed from that rate? Sheesh.
Oh…and go learn some about nuclear physics. THere’s a place where rate itself (not level) or rate times time, can have an effect.
David B. Benson // January 1, 2009 at 8:55 pm |
TCOisbanned? // January 1, 2009 at 8:11 pm — It is clear you need to learn (much) more about plant physiology and also biological evolution rates.
Think about rate of change during past mass extinctions, for example.
Dave A // January 1, 2009 at 9:17 pm |
Hank,
“‘authors’ contributed something to the paper, not necessarily the actual writing. There’s much else involved. “
I’m sure there is but what did they contribute? How can anyone tell when the back up data is withheld?
One could speculate that all they ‘contributed’ was putting their name to the paper
dhogaza // January 1, 2009 at 9:40 pm |
This particular argument from personal authority is in actuality an argument from personal ignorance.
TCO, may I humbly suggest you do a little reading of things with words like “population ecology” and the like in the title.
And, again, for once accept the fact that specialists in a field might just understand it better than you do. Especially when you make clear the fact that you understand nothing of it?
Dave A // January 1, 2009 at 9:48 pm |
P Lewis,
If a copy editor is such a ‘lowly’ position why was your previous post so threatening?
gmo // January 1, 2009 at 9:55 pm |
BPL:
Thanks for the confirmation – I was reading at landshape.org when I formed that impression but did not really want to go back to address my curiosity.
John Finn:
I believe others have cited methods by which energy from the skin layer can make its way below that layer, so I would not expect to make you think energy from terrestrial IR can go below the skin layer. But I suppose I could ask, how you think any heat can get any deeper than the depth sunlight can penetrate? If solar radiation can only penetrate a relatively small amount of the average ocean depth, how does energy get lower than that?
I wonder if there is some confusion applying the general average to every individual case. The greenhouse effect has the net effect of reducing the OLR. It sounds like there is thought the greenhouse “forcers” (gases, clouds) are like a weight on the surface, as though GHGs or clouds make the ground too tired to emit as much radiation as it would in their absence. The ground is emitting the same, but increased GHGs/clouds are emitting more IR back to the surface than had been the case. The water level in the bathtub is decreasing more slowly, not because the drain is being closed but because some of the water going down the drain is being run through the faucet and back into the tub.
On a clear, cold winter night with neutral temperature advection, would it be impossible for clouds that came late in the night to cause the temperature to increase? That is not the “global warming” process – that is the net reduction of cooling. It is to illustrate the point that the decrease in net energy loss (and the net energy loss itself) is a sum where one of the components is energy gain.
luminous beauty // January 1, 2009 at 9:57 pm |
One could speculate on how many fairies Dave A sees dancing on the rim of his tea cup.
Eli Rabett // January 1, 2009 at 10:13 pm |
John Finn, that’s another golden oldie. IR energy thermalized at the ocean surface, a few mm/microns/whatever, is rapidly mixed lower by conduction and convection. You have a problem with that?
Ray Ladbury // January 1, 2009 at 10:18 pm |
TCO, An example: rate of change is significant because rates of adaptation vary. Thus, you may have eggs hatching earlier in a predator insect, but not in thier prey. Adaptation to change is not instantaneous, and for rapid change, the consequences of delay are more severe.
dhogaza // January 1, 2009 at 11:06 pm |
Rate of adaptation, the disruption of synchronous cycles between species in an ecosystem, and the pace at which an ecosystem can “migrate” (i.e. shift geographically in response to warming), it’s not a bad list for TCO to start thinking about … or better, reading about.
Dave A // January 1, 2009 at 11:32 pm |
Luminous B
“One could speculate on how many fairies Dave A sees dancing on the rim of his tea cup.”
One could indeed, except I never use a teacup.
John Finn // January 1, 2009 at 11:35 pm |
John Finn, that’s another golden oldie. IR energy thermalized at the ocean surface, a few mm/microns/whatever, is rapidly mixed lower by conduction and convection. You have a problem with that?
Yes.
For a start that’s not the mechanism discussed by Minnett in the Realclimate article which is referenced earlier on this thread.
GMO
John Finn:
I believe others have cited methods by which energy from the skin layer can make its way below that layer,
Then why doesn’t the Minnett article mention these “other methods”. The article admits there is an apparent “conundrum” – and then suggests it’s resolution coms about due to heating of the ocean skin boundary layer.
But I suppose I could ask, how you think any heat can get any deeper than the depth sunlight can penetrate? If solar radiation can only penetrate a relatively small amount of the average ocean depth, how does energy get lower than that?
There’s a big difference between a few metres and a few micron. A few metres down heat cannot readily escape and mixing will occur. A few micron energy can take the “path of least resistance” and radiate back into the atmosphere.
This, again, is from the Minnett article (I do wish others would read it apart from LB & GP).
….leaving more of the heat introduced into the bulk of the upper oceanic layer by the absorption of sunlight to remain
Please note what Minnett is saying, i.e. heat is introduced into the upper oceanic layer by sunlight. Also note tha this article is entitled “Why greenhouse gases heat the ocean”
John Finn // January 1, 2009 at 11:53 pm |
Look, guys
Could I ask those who’ve joined this discussion recently please read my earlier post (December 30 @1:15 pm). There is also a sort of follow up post (Dec 31 @ 10:33 am) which relates wavelengths, absorption coefficients and path lengths. (for Hank in particular)
Thanks.
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 12:06 am |
What’s the most probable way energy absorbed in water will be transferred? How frequently will a water molecule, after absorbing energy from an IR photon, interact physically with another water molecule so that energy will be transferred?
What’s the approximate time interval during which a water molecule is — if it holds on to energy from absorbing a photon — likely to get rid of it by emitting a photon?
If the energy absorbed by water molecules at the top of the ocean were removed by the molecule evaporating, or by the molecule emitting an infrared photon upward, where would the energy go — into the atmosphere, one way or the other.
Once you’ve put a packet of energy into a water molecule in liquid water — where all the molecules are basically exchanging energy all the time by contact and close physical interaction far more often than by emitting infrared photons — where will it go?
I hate to suggest logic; it might be more useful to suggest an experimental approach.
Let’s see, what if we
Put an infrared laser above a pot of water, pointed down.
Arrange to measure the temperature of the air above the spot where the laser reaches the surface.
Arrange to detect infrared at various depths in the water, and the temperature at various depths in the water.
Arrange to measure the temperature of the surrounding water and of the surrounding air over the water.
Put it in a closed box so we’re not losing a lot to the wind blowing through the room.
What heats up?
Predictions?
Can this be tested?
Seems rather off topic here, but perhaps someone with an experimental turn of mind would want to host the experiment, if it hasn’t already been done as a science fair project.
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 12:19 am |
Hmmmm ….
http://www.google.com/search?q=infrared+laser+heating+water
http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/CP/article.asp?doi=b210609d
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/12980/abstract
That’s an interesting one. They ran the IR laser crosswise through a stream of water. “When a liquid water beam with a diameter larger than 50 um was irradiated by a 50 W infrared laser in a direction at right angles to the liquid beam, plumes (i.e. jetlike streams), due to the explosive vaporization of the liquid, were observed from both the illuminated and the shadow faces of the liquid beam. When the diameter of the liquid beam was decreased (20um), the generated plume became non-directional and the droplets formed became much finer.
Sounds like when the IR crossed a stream narrower than 20 um through the water, the water molecules in the middle of the stream were unable to get rid of their heat into the streaming water, and the whole cross section heated enough to boil. But with a stream of water with a bigger cross section, a diameter up toward 50um, only the water molecules adjacent to the air were getting rid of heat into the air (“plumes” on the illuminated and shadow side). I’d guess the water molecules “deeper inside” the stream were getting rid of the heat to other water molecules.
Ya think?
But this is really getting off topic. Just trying to take a little visit back to the stable and count the horses’ teeth, to see if it can be done that way.
dhogaza // January 2, 2009 at 12:28 am |
There’s no “only” in there, however …
When an unknown internet troll reaches the opposite conclusion of a paper’s author, I know where to put my money …
Ray Ladbury // January 2, 2009 at 1:15 am |
John Finn says, “There’s a big difference between a few metres and a few micron. A few metres down heat cannot readily escape and mixing will occur. A few micron energy can take the “path of least resistance” and radiate back into the atmosphere. ”
Ah, now here’s a misconception. If the IR photon has been absorbed, then the “heat” is in the form of molecular vibration of the absorbing H2O molecule. How does such vibrational energy follow the “path of least resistance”. Now the water could radiate another IR photon, but that’s governed by its temperature, so either the water is heated and so radiates more (and coincidentally gives rise to a skin effect) or the heat has to be transmitted down below. Be very careful to define what you mean by “heat”.
TCOisbanned? // January 2, 2009 at 1:35 am |
You guys don’t even understand the difference between a RATE having an impact versus the LEVEL having an impact (said level as a result of a rate over time).
Ray, give me a PAPER on this. I get the CONCEPT just fine. And in your explication, you don’t explain how a very small RATE, one less than year to year variability is to have an effect based on RATE.
TCOisbanned? // January 2, 2009 at 1:36 am |
have you even been WATCHING? while Tamino schooled the “downturn” denialists on how much smaller the rate is versus the year to year variation? Did ya think about the implications? Sheesh.
David B. Benson // January 2, 2009 at 1:44 am |
TCOisbanned? // January 2, 2009 at 1:35 am — Please do not shout.
If the rate of change of temperature or whatever is faster than the organism can evolve, that species goes extinct.
Got it?
TCOisbanned? // January 2, 2009 at 1:53 am |
Uh yeah. I get that. I got it before. I’m on to second order interpretations already. Do please try to keep up.
Sorry for shouting, but I swear people on the internet make me so angry, angry, angry.
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 1:55 am |
TCO, look at biogeochemical cycling generally, or as a particular example ocean pH. Slow increases in CO2, no problem. Current rate of increase, far faster than natural.
C’mon, do you really mean to say you ‘ve never heard that rate of change is the reason this is such a problem?
TCOisbanned? // January 2, 2009 at 2:06 am |
I mean if I half the rate of warming, but wait for 200 years, versus regular rate but 100 years, do you seriously expect major differences? When the year to year variability is 10 times the trend? And we have period excursions of several years? Oh and I’m still waiting for a paper. Come on people. Don’t just try to defend yourselves. Try to think. Try to discuss things. Drink beers and draw period tables on napkins. This is the way of the science kafee klatchs.
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 2:07 am |
Standard recommendation: read the footnoted sources and the more recent articles citing this one. Look particularly at how the ocean buffers slow changes in CO2 but is not buffering the contemporary rate of change, and the implications for plankton populations.
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/5/1425.abstract
Rates of change in natural and anthropogenic radiative forcing over the past 20,000 years
The rate of change of climate codetermines the global warming impacts on natural and socioeconomic systems and their capabilities to adapt. Establishing past rates of climate change from temperature proxy data remains difficult given their limited spatiotemporal resolution. In contrast, past greenhouse gas radiative forcing, causing climate to change, is well known from ice cores. We compare rates of change of anthropogenic forcing with rates of natural greenhouse gas forcing since the Last Glacial Maximum and of solar and volcanic forcing of the last millennium. The smoothing of atmospheric variations by the enclosure process of air into ice is computed with a firn diffusion and enclosure model. The 20th century increase in CO2 and its radiative forcing occurred more than an order of magnitude faster than any sustained change during the past 22,000 years. The average rate of increase in the radiative forcing not just from CO2 but from the combination of CO2, CH4, and N2O is larger during the Industrial Era than during any comparable period of at least the past 16,000 years. In addition, the decadal-to-century scale rate of change in anthropogenic forcing is unusually high in the context of the natural forcing variations (solar and volcanoes) of the past millennium. Our analysis implies that global climate change, which is anthropogenic in origin, is progressing at a speed that is unprecedented at least during the last 22,000 years.
One of the citing papers is this overview that pulls together many different forcings:
Mid- to Late Holocene climate change: an overview
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.06.013
luminous beauty // January 2, 2009 at 2:12 am |
Dave A,
So how many dancing fairies do you see on the rim of your non-existing tea cup, then?
TCOisbanned? // January 2, 2009 at 3:43 am |
Hank, after the first sentence of the introduction, none of the rest of the paper examines how rate of change impacts adaption. The rest of the whole paper is on MEASURING the rate. BTW, I am very sympathetic to measurements of rates of different forcings (or different times of temp rise) to get implications of the abnormality of the 20th century.
I scanned the second paper and found nothing on rate-based adaption issues. Please point to a specific section.
dhogaza // January 2, 2009 at 4:15 am |
Yes, we do. Quit with your drunken allegations that you’re the smartest right-wing science denialist on the internet, and therefore smarter than every specialist in every field of intellectual exploration, OK?
You’re not even the heaviest drinker, much less the smartest.
Go do your own literature search. “I’m so smart that I know the experts are wrong, but I’ve never read anything, so please spoon-feed me stuff so I can piss on it and claim I’m smarter than them”.
Pretty much the denialist meme you’re following, here. Compared to your efforts, McI is a Nobel candidate.
dhogaza // January 2, 2009 at 4:16 am |
Actually, TCO, you *might be* the smartest right-wing science denialist on the internet, come to think of it.
That’s sort of like saying the Detroit Lions are the best high school football team in Michigan, though.
dhogaza // January 2, 2009 at 4:22 am |
And since you’re so effing smart, has it ever occurred to you that our knowledge of how rate drives mass extinction rates has NOTHING TO DO WITH CLIMATE CHANGE?
We know about this from OTHER STUFF, so yeah, it’s totally reasonable that a paper’s going to focus on measuring the rate of change due to AGW and then APPLY THAT TO WELL-ESTABLISHED SCIENCE regarding what happens with there’s a rapid rate of change.
Biologists and paleontologists have been studying the issue long before climate change science arose as a serious concern. They’re applying what climate science tells us to knowledge grown over the last couple hundred years or so.
Good grief, you’re arrogant and ignorant in a combination that’s only seen in science denialists.
TCOisbanned? // January 2, 2009 at 4:56 am |
So the response was not targetted to the question under discussion.
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 4:59 am |
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?num=50&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&cites=3510593179269997035
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/294/5540/151
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?num=50&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off&cites=8494906234160821045
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 5:14 am |
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/211/19/3059?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&fulltext=climate+change+&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
JCH // January 2, 2009 at 5:41 am |
Minnett indicates the skin layer immediately below the few microns of penetration remains cooler than the bulk layer next to the bottom of the skin. If that is the case, how much downward mixing can there be?
Wouldn’t the the few microns at the top of the skin lose most its heat to the atmosphere?
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&listenv=table&multiple=1&range=1&directget=1&application=sm06&database=%2Fdata%2Fepubs%2Fwais%2Findexes%2Fsm06%2Fsm06&maxhits=200&=%22A44A%22
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUSM.A44A..02M
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 6:55 am |
http://www.springerlink.com/content/03l14201338n7113/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126882.700-more-polar-bears-going-hungry.html
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
John Finn // January 2, 2009 at 9:16 am |
John,
How’s the head this morning?
It was not too bad actually
May I offer some musical medicine for the mental muddle?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DH70wYWsK0&feature=related
Yes – very appropriate. Well chosen.
John Finn // January 2, 2009 at 9:56 am |
Now the water could radiate another IR photon, but that’s governed by its temperature, so either the water is heated and so radiates more…..
or, perhaps, evaporate more.
..(and coincidentally gives rise to a skin effect) or ….
Yes – At last! That is what the Minnett article is saying. It then goes on to ’show’ using cloud variation that there is a relationship between net IR and the temperature gradient through the ocean skin layer. It is this reduced temperature gradient which is supposed to reduce the heat flow from the ocean below.
It is not the existence of the skin effect itself that I am questioning. It’s whether increased ghgs (CO2) have warmed the oceans by this mechanism. I’ve listed about 5 reasons why in the post (Dec 30 @ 1:15 pm).
One of the reasons given was that clouds can amplify the skin effect in ways that CO2 cannot.
Clouds can have a dual effect in that, they not only alter the net LW flux at the surface but, in the words of the Joni Mitchell
“clouds they only block the sun…”
[See, LB, I do use your links]
This means clouds also have a cooling effect on the sub-surface water – so further reducing the temperature gradient.
In summary – the 0.002 deg per w/m2 relationship which was found by Minnett has a number of uncertainties and may be less for CO2 anyway. Also any effect from CO2 forcing (~1.6 w/m2 since ~1850) would be undetectable in the huge variatiability in natural cloud patterns.
P. Lewis // January 2, 2009 at 10:11 am |
What are you on about Dave A? It seems your confusion, or ignorance, knows no bounds.
I suggest you take a look here.
John Finn // January 2, 2009 at 11:17 am |
Hank, GMO, Ray, Eli et al
RE: LW penetration into oceans
There are some who still appear to be questioning the depth of penetration of IR radiation into liquid water.
This is from the Minnett article which was posted (and approved by RC, I assume) on Realclimate in Dec 2006.
However, some have insisted that there is a paradox here – how can a forcing driven by longwave absorption and emission impact the ocean below since the infrared radiation does not penetrate more than a few micrometers into the ocean?
Now I could, at this point, simply suggest that anyone who has a problem with this statement should take it up with Minnett and/or Realclimate. But, being an obliging sort, I made some effort to resolve the apparent contradiction between Hank’s academic link which mentions “IR down to depths of 1m” and the Minnett statement.
In at least 2 previous posts, I have provided this link which gives the absorption coefficients (A) of water as a function of wavelength.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
(scroll to near end)
Note that around 15 micron (667 cm-1), A > 1000. The Absorption Coefficient (A) is a key variable in the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer law which relates path length and transmission.
From the link provided it can be seen that A varies considerably across the IR spectrum. It is, for example, much lower in the Near IR range than at longer wavelengths.
At wavelengths typical of those emitted by the earth’s atmosphere (10-20 micron) , A is ~1000.
For any given transmission as A increases L (the path length) decreases.
The 2 statements (Hanks’ link and Minnett’s) are, therefore, not inconsistent. Shorter wave IR radiation, i.e. from the sun, could well penetrate deeper into the ocean and so provide direct heating. IR at wavelengths emitted by the atmosphere will not penetrate beyond a “few micron”
Deech56 // January 2, 2009 at 12:42 pm |
RE: David B. Benson // January 2, 2009 at 1:44 am “If the rate of change of temperature or whatever is faster than the organism can evolve, that species goes extinct.”
Just being a picky biologist, but did you mean “adapt?” Evolution implies speciation, extinction and all that, which complicates things quite a bit. But your point still stands.
OK, back to the physical sciences.
Barton Paul Levenson // January 2, 2009 at 1:37 pm |
John Finn writes:
Well, you’re wrong.
NET heat transfer is always from the warmer object to the cooler one. But radiation from the cooler object can still fall on the warmer one, and the warmer one’s temperature will be higher than if that source weren’t present.
I’ll ask you what I asked Jan Pompe and jae on landshape.org: IR from the air hits the ground. The ground absorbs it. What happens to the energy carried by the IR photons? Where does it go?
Barton Paul Levenson // January 2, 2009 at 1:45 pm |
dhogaza writes:
Q. What do you call 40 guys in Michigan watching the Superbowl on TV?
A. The Detroit Lions.
dhogaza // January 2, 2009 at 2:11 pm |
What’s the question under discussion? There’s no question (within science) that rate of environmental change is important in population ecology, etc.
There’s no question that you’re ignorant about the basic science.
I guess the relevant question then is … who is responsible for your education? You, or Hank?
luminous beauty // January 2, 2009 at 2:40 pm |
John,
Clouds don’t block the sun at night, but they continue to block up-welling IR. Down-welling IR from CO2 causes the open sky to act just a little more like clouds without blocking sunlight. It may not be instantaneously discernable in the transient hurly-burly of changing weather, but it is a measurable and measurably constant gradient (1.6W/m^2 is a measurement) that is inexorable over time.
As we have seen, since over the last 30 years the signal has risen above the noise.
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 4:41 pm |
http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/personal/pminnett/Main/main.html
Tamino, perhaps appropriate to invite (sigh) clarification here since the RC thread isn’t open? Or perhaps if any of the RC contributors are following this they might reopen it there. Keeping the confusion in one place, with pointers to that, could help.
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 5:28 pm |
Ah, or just looking for recent articles by Dr. M. could inform the discussion, rather than focusing solely on one sentence in one old RC topic that got people confused. If confusion isn’t the optimum.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%2Bminnett+%2Bocean+%2Binfrared+%2Bwarming
http://www.ghrsst-pp.org/Peer-reviewed-articles.html
Ray Ladbury // January 2, 2009 at 6:22 pm |
John Finn, Think about what we mean by a skin effect. Normally, air temperatures are cooler than the bulk ocean temperatures. The skin effect softens that gradient, so that conduction to the atmosphere is slower. Your absorption coefficients imply that 63% of the IR radiation at 15 microns is absorbed in the first 10 microns–that right there will decrease the gradient and thereby increase the skin effect.
Also, your contention that the energy due to increased CO2 is too small to have an effect simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Minnett’s results look pretty linear with energy, and in reality, you are dealing with the IR energy from the entire greenhouse effect–all 33 degrees of it. Or do you have some mechanism whereby the ocean discriminates against IR photons emitted by CO2 released in the last 200 years?
Here’s a pretty good reference:
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceancolor/scifocus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp.shtml
Do please read it.
G. Karst // January 2, 2009 at 6:50 pm |
Re: Hank
I see… The data is wrong, it is the model that is correct.
So you an advocate of correcting data through models. Very scientific!!!
I will stick to the old science of correcting modality to reality.
Sekerob // January 2, 2009 at 7:12 pm |
[offtopic] tco, if inferring with your “kafee klatchs” you also have any language skills, you most probably are the type that learned to say good morning in Austrian and then put in your CV that you are fluent in double dutch.
It’s kaffeeklatsch btw[/offtopic]
dhogaza // January 2, 2009 at 8:25 pm |
That’s exactly what happened to the satellite temperature reconstructions from the University of Alabama, Huntsville.
And, guess what, the interpretations of the satellite data was WRONG.
dhogaza // January 2, 2009 at 8:29 pm |
Though the data wasn’t, strictly speaking, corrected using the models. It was known that either the satellite reconstructions, or the models, were wrong, and this led to the discovery of errors in the UAH’s work and subsequent correction of them. The models (and surface temperature data) emerged from the scuffle unscathed, even though the Wall Street Journal ran a large-headline editorial when the UAH first announced “global cooling!”. The Journal ran their editorial under a headline saying something like “the wooden stake through the heart of the global warming myth!!!!”. And never retracted it when the wooden stake turned out to be a toothpick that couldn’t even prick the skin of that so-called myth…
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 8:38 pm |
Karst, no, you don’t see — you picked one blog posting from last year and are pointing to that as the source for your claim.
I just pointed to what you’d find if you looked at the journal for the paper behind that blog post and then followed the usual library method for checking for more recent work.
Ta.
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 8:54 pm |
> probably true that IR will heat water, as you
> clearly thought , but not at the wavelengths
> relevant to CO2
John, most of the energy at the bottom of the atmosphere is spread out among the air molecules and water vapor molecules by collisions, with the infrequent emission of an infrared photon as one of the greenhouse gas molecules happens to vibrate at a key frequency instead of banging into another molecule to get rid of some energy.
There’s no particular unique channel for energy handled only by CO2, no single channel occupied only by one wavelength that only CO2 can emit and can’t be absorbed below the surface of the ocean.
If it’s banging around in a CO2 molecule it’ll get bumped into a nitrogen molecule and bounced off a surface water molecule, warming the ocean. Or any of the many other ways the energy can average itself out in the immediate vicinity.
Look at later work by the same author.
Take your ideal CO2 photon; it hits the surface water. Say it is immediately re-emitted upward. Its mean free path is maybe one centimeter before it’s absorbed again.
Next time some of that energy bounces around it’ll come in a form that _can_ go deeper.
David B. Benson // January 2, 2009 at 9:05 pm |
TCOisbanned? // January 2, 2009 at 1:53 am — This method of communication is frought with potential misunderstandings.
Learn to deal without anger.
And please do not shout anymore. (Words in all caps are considered to be extremely impolite and some moderated blogs simply ban comments containing such.)
Hank Roberts // January 2, 2009 at 10:05 pm |
> how far a photon goes before hitting a molecule
“… the photon mean free path (mfp) which is typically tens of meters….”
PDF] ►Radiative effects of sub-mean free path liquid water variability observed in stratiform clouds
A Marshak, A Davis, W Wiscombe, R Cahalan – Journal of Geophysical Research, 1998
http://modis-atmos.gsfc.nasa.gov/_docs/Marshak%20et%20al.%20(1998a).pdf
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?num=50&cites=1732754879245658346
gmo // January 2, 2009 at 10:25 pm |
John Finn:
No, I have no problem with the very general idea that terrestrial IR radiation does not penetrate deeper than the skin layer. That is well-known. You can drop that discussion as far as I am concerned.
My problem on that is with the idea that the energy introduced by that radiation that is absorbed by the skin layer cannot move any deeper than the skin layer. The skin layer is not permanent in that the molecules that compose it are constantly changing. Thus it is counter-intuitive to me that energy incident upon the skin layer would be unable to mix beyond that layer, that the only energy transfer is inward from below and outward at the top. What about the times the skin is actually warmer than the bulk?
Maybe my intuition is wrong, but citing that the Minnett RC post does not mention is not convincing, nor were the sources I dug up online that explained the physical processes involving the skin layer. A rough example “energy budget” diagram would be nice if that was possible.
So I remain curious about this, but my interest is waning. By initially talking in term of “heating” I may have imprinted the concept of “make warmer” rather than “make warmer than would otherwise be the case”. There does not seem to be anything interesting beyond the answer since it is well known the skin layer is on average cooler and the net heat flux is upward out of it. It does not affect the science behind Minnett’s “how GHGs warm the oceans.”
More interesting would be your explanation for why you apparently think more generally absorbed radiant energy from a colder object cannot cause a warmer object to have a greater temperature than it would have in the absence of that energy input. That and of course interpretation of the Minnett results. You seem to accept that there has indeed been overall ocean warming and that (seemingly in spite of the above stance in this paragraph) the skin layer can be warmed by IR radiation and thus can affect the skin-subskin temperature gradient. But then…?
Do you dispute the mechanism, that changing that gradient would affect the net flux of heat out of the ocean? (if so, why?) Or is it that you think since the very short term variability in downward IR flux from the atmosphere is large there is no way a long-term trend that is small compared to the short-term fluctuations can be found? (if so, why?) Or is it that you think clouds are going to have a greater effect on the solar radiation input and thus the other side of the skin-subskin gradient? (if so, why?) Have you considered the effect of wind on that gradient? What about changes in evaporation/precipitation? You seem to accept the process but take its occurrence and thus noise in the end result as evidence against the process.
Even with all sorts of ups and downs from other processes I do not see how a constant background forcing always in the same direction can be neglected when the process is accepted just because it is a few percent of the noise magnitude. That seems like throwing out a global 0.02degC/yr SAT trend because other factors like ENSO can cause much greater degC/yr changes.
David B. Benson // January 2, 2009 at 10:52 pm |
Deech56 // January 2, 2009 at 12:42 pm — I don’t know the exact meaning of “adapt” in biology, but if it includes “adapt via evolution’ as well as “adapt by learning”, then fine. I doubt that micro-organisms and plants are capable of the latter.
dhogaza // January 3, 2009 at 12:16 am |
However, they can adapt via micro-evolution …
Couldn’t resist that, and it’s not just a joke.
An example of an adaptation that hasn’t yet, at least, led to a speciation event would be the fact that Cooper’s hawks in the west that migrate long distances are about 1/3 lighter, but roughly the same dimensionally, than their eastern counterparts. Less wing-loading, easier soaring, potentially less energy consumed per mile of migration. A lot of inhospitable habitat between the forests of idaho and montana and those of southern arizona and mexico where they winter.
Now, if the rate of change of the aridity of the intermountain west had happened more quickly than selection led to the dominance of lighter yet nearly full-sized Cooper’s hawks (compared to eastern specimens), what would’ve happened to the species? Extinction, no, but probably would have a more limited range than we see, in actuality.
Rate matters.
Ray Ladbury // January 3, 2009 at 4:09 am |
GMO, If you look at the link I provided, it discusses the disruption of the skin layer via turbulence and its reformation within a matter of seconds. Pretty cool stuff actually. But the relevance here is that you have both effects–just not simultaneously.
Hank Roberts // January 3, 2009 at 4:36 am |
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&listenv=table&multiple=1&range=1&directget=1&application=fm06&database=%2Fdata%2Fepubs%2Fwais%2Findexes%2Ffm06%2Ffm06&maxhits=200&=%22A21D-0848%22
AB: The Marine Atmosphere Emitted Radiance Interferometer (M-AERI) is a sea-going hyper-spectral radiometer that measures spectra of atmospheric infrared radiation in the wavelength range of 4 to 18 μm with a spectral resolution of 0.5 cm-1 . These spectra can be used to retrieve profiles of temperature and humidity in the lower troposphere. A new spectrum is available approximately every 10 minutes. Thus, the M-AERI can be employed for continuous monitoring of the distribution of temperature and humidity in the marine atmosphere. M-AERI is the marine version of the AERI instrument that is deployed at a number of ARM sites. The retrieval of atmospheric profiles of temperature and humidity from AERI instruments relies on an iterative solution of the radiative transfer equation that requires initial “first guess” profiles. For the ARM observing sites, these are derived from statistics of many years of local radiosonde data. Profile retrievals over the oceans from sea-going M-AERIs, however, present several particular challenges, one being that radiosonde databases representative of marine conditions are not available. It is therefore necessary to use a different approach. Here, we explorer the use of ECMWF numerical forecast as a provider of the ‘first guess’ for M-AERI retrieval. Examples of the retrievals of temperature and humidity profiles, and total precipitable water, will be presented along with comparisons with other methods of characterizing the lower marine atmosphere.
Hank Roberts // January 3, 2009 at 5:25 am |
http://www.onr.navy.mil/sci_tech/32/reports/docs/po/04/pobrown.pdf.
Microphysics of Air-Sea Exchanges
John Finn // January 3, 2009 at 12:15 pm |
I made rather an unfortunate typo error in the final sentence of the previous post. It should obviously read ‘public’
[Response: Although I don't usually, I decided to edit the post to make this simple correction. Having done so, I accidentally hit the "delete" button rather than the "approve" buttion. Unfortunately, wordpress has no mechanism to recover things accidentally deleted. My apologies, you'll need to re-submit the comment.]
Deech56 // January 3, 2009 at 12:58 pm |
RE: David B. Benson // January 2, 2009 at 10:52 pm “I don’t know the exact meaning of “adapt” in biology, but if it includes “adapt via evolution’ as well as “adapt by learning”, then fine. I doubt that micro-organisms and plants are capable of the latter.”
I think we’re probably both intending the same thing, and you are correct, but I hope you don’t mind if I use this opportunity to refine this train of thought. I apologize in advance if this seems too simplistic.
When I think of the term “adaptation,” I think of such things as food and range changes – a skewing of pre-existing variation. Dhogaza provided a pretty good example. In a changing environment, generalists will …uh… generally fare better.
A species will survive if it can adapt to a changing climate – if it has an pre-existing variation so that individuals can be selected naturally in high enough numbers to maintain a population. If change is relatively slow, 40% (an arbitrary number) may survive – and a variation skewed in a favorable direction will result. If change is rapid, maybe 1% (another arbitrary number) may survive – if the population density if too low to allow for efficient grazing or predation, and reproduction, the species will go extinct.
What we can say is that the rate of introducing new variations through mutations is pretty slow (well, actually, this can be rapid for micro-organisms, and the swapping of genetic material is another story), and will be overwhelmed by any rapid, or long term, climate changes.
To go back to TCOisbanned’s point about whether 3 degrees/century would be bad, in a world of fragmented ecosystems, we could be looking at some serious trouble. Add the effects of acidifying oceans, and the fact that terrestrial plants can only change ranges as fast as their seeds can be dispersed, and we have real cause for worry. But 3 degrees (or whatever) this century isn’t necessarily the end of the road, is it?
The predictions of mass extinctions are out there, and the books you recommended earlier (“Six Degrees” and “Under a Green Sky”) highlight this.
Ray Ladbury // January 3, 2009 at 1:50 pm |
Tamino, In playing around with the GISS datasets, I decided to look at the variability seems to decrease slightly as time increases. I looked at the standard deviations, and there is a slight trend toward smaller standard deviation at later times (although the smallest standard deviations seem to be associated with the aerosol-dominated period 1945-75). The trend persists (indeed becomes more significant) as I increase the averaging period.
Haven’t yet looked at higher moments. Any ideas why this might be? Could easily be coincidence, as the trend is small.
[Response: Over what time scale are you computing standard deviations? I don't note any significant trend when working on 1-yr, 5-yr, or 10-yr time scales.
One thing to be aware of is that if you compute the standard deviation of the data, it's the combination ("in quadrature") of contributions from the noise and the signal. Roughly, the variance during a given time interval is the sum of the variances of the signal and noise. That may explain the lower variance (hence standard deviation) during the "level" interval 1945-1975, as the signal variance is less (no real trend) but the noise variance is about the same.]
Ray Ladbury // January 3, 2009 at 3:41 pm |
Hi Tamino, Looking more closely, I think you are right. It’s the middle period where there’s a real effect and it skews any attempt to find a trend. Looking at the three periods, the standard deviation for the period 1945-1980 is about 40-45% lower than the previous or subsequent period.
[Response: I removed the trend, as estimated by a lowess smooth, and looked at the residuals. I don't see any trend in the variance on time scales of 1, 5, or 10 years, which doesn't mean there isn't one, just that it's not large enough to be clear.
HadCRU data does show a change in variance, with much larger noise in the very early part of the data. This is no surprise, since they start in 1850 and data were a lot more sparse back then.
I think Eli Rabett has looked into this, and might have some interesting results.]
dhogaza // January 3, 2009 at 5:57 pm |
And this doesn’t even consider the ripple effect of such a change on a particular ecosystem in which the species lives. Remove a small percentage of pines in the Great Basin and you may not have any impact in piñon jays. Remove most of them, and even this wide-ranging, but non-migratory species may well disappear. Piñon jays stash seeds for winter use and along with Clark’s nutcracker are responsible for pines showing up in odd places (such as isolated stands on high mountain slopes) where the seeds would never disperse on their own (pine cones tend to drop straight to the ground). Seed dispersal by birds could conceivable help pines move northwards as climate changes, but if pines are removed so rapidly that those bird species largely disappear, the pines lose their legs.
And that’s just a simple interaction. My story’s speculative to some extent, but based on real knowledge (we know the role that corvids play in the dispersal of certain species of pine).
In reality, we know relatively little about interactions in functioning ecosystems, because ecological systems are intimidatingly complex.
People who handwave and confidently state, without knowledge, that “rate of change doesn’t matter” are just blowin’ smoke.
John Finn // January 4, 2009 at 11:39 am |
Tamino
[Response: Although I don't usually, I decided to edit the post to make this simple correction. Having done so, I accidentally hit the "delete" button rather than the "approve" buttion. Unfortunately, wordpress has no mechanism to recover things accidentally deleted. My apologies, you'll need to re-submit the comment.]
Ok – no problem. I’ll let it drop as the topic seems to have gone a bit quiet. Thanks for letting me know, anyway.
Eric Adler // February 22, 2009 at 10:40 pm |
I am sorry that I found this thread so late.
My comments on the ocean skin will probably not be read but here goes anyway.
If one sets up the heat flux equations for what happens within a thin skin in which the IR radiation falls, and one assumes a steady state, one can directly calculate what happens to the energy flux through the top and bottom surfaces of the skin, as a result of a change in flux of down-welling radiation dQ.
This will result in a change in surface skin temperature dTsk which can be calculated conservation of energy:
If the surface skin of the ocean goes to a new steady state there will be changes in the rates of 4 processes.
Three of them involve flow of energy upward into the air away from the skin layer, and one of them involves the upward flow heat from below where the solar radiation has made the bulk of the ocean warmer than the skin.
Since these changes and the change in temperature are small we can use a linear approximation for the change in these processes with skin surface temperature dTsk.
Increase in flow of energy away from the surface
1) Increased flux of upward radiation using the stefan boltzmann equation we get a change (assuming dTskin is small)
dFru=e*sigma*3*T^3*dTsk
2) Heat flux increase due to evaporation increase dFev= (dRev/dTsk)*Lev*dTsk
where Rev is the rate of evaporation and Lev is the latent heat of evaporation per unit of mass.
3) Convection/Conduction upward toward the air. dFcair=(dFcair/dTsk)*dTsk
The 4th flux is the upward motion of heat from below to the surface. Flow of heat is driven by a temperature difference, so this flux will be reduced because the temperature difference between the ocean below and the surface above has been reduced.
So the change is dFcw= -|(dF/cw/dTsk)|dTsk.
where the minus and absolute value symbols have been used to expressly emphasize that the change in flux is negative.
By conservation of energy, in the steady state we can solve for the temperature change at the surface, by equation the change in arriving energy flux to the change in departing energy flux.
So we have
dG+dFcw=dFev+dFru+dFcair.
which becomes dTsk=dG/(e*sigma*3*T^3+(dRev/dTsk)*Lev+(dFcair/dTsk)+|(dF/cw/dTsk)|)
and the rate of buildup of heat in the ocean bulk becomes:
|(dF/cw/dTsk)|dTsk=|(dF/cw/dTsk)|*dG/(e*sigma*3*T^3+(dRev/dTsk)*Lev+(dFcair/dTsk)+|(dF/cw/dTsk)|)
This clearly is a positive number and increases with increasing dG.
I leave the lookup of the heat transfer constants to the reader. The important thing to demonstrate is that this process results in a slight increase in skin layer temperature and a buildup of heat in the layer the ocean region just below the skin layer, assuming that the solar radiation taken up by that layer remains constant.
Richard // September 22, 2009 at 12:38 pm |
It’s true that we deceive ourselves by choosing a short segment of data to posit that we are in an era (error) of global cooling.
We also need to address soot, another significant cause of global climate change, because it would have a greater short-term effect, and costs less, and has immediate positive health impacts. See:
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/01/soot214.html
We also need to realize that addressing global climate change would provide numerous other economic, health, and environmental benefits:
1. Reduced burning of fossil fuels would lower air pollution.
2. Lowered ground pollution (such as mountain-top removal coal mining).
3. Improved health from less soot and other air pollutants.
4. Slowed depletion of fossil resources.
5. Less water pollution from coal ash and other fossil-fuel combustion products.
6. Less acidification of sea water (CO2 in seawater becomes carbonic acid) leading to coral reef destruction. See: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/july8/global-warming-corals-070209.html
7. Green jobs and businesses.
Thus there is every reason to embrace the reality of global climate change and immediately take actions to mitigate it.