General AGW discussion thread [Archive] - Page 14

nauthiz

2009-Dec-30, 04:45 PM

http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

That's a reconstruction that is very heavily weighted toward the northern hemisphere. It uses only three sub-equatorial sources. One of them is only barely in the southern hemisphere (it's the closest to the equator of all the proxies), and the other two are both from the southern end of Africa and sit right on the Tropic of Capricorn. Two of the three continents in the southern hemisphere are completely unrepresented.

By contrast, nine of them are well north of the Tropic of Cancer; three of those are north of the Arctic Circle.

If there was is any effect such that, for example, temperature anomaly tended to be greater at the extreme latitudes and lesser in the equatorial areas at the time, then Loehle's statistical methods (simple mean) are also questionable. (Say what you will about the HadCRUT reconstruction using measurements that aren't evenly distributed, at they very least they acknowledge that fact and take steps to account for it. . . and this paper, by contract, is far more suspect on that front because it does not.)

Not to mention that he just doesn't seem to really know what he's doing. For example:

Data in each series were smoothed with a 30-year running mean. This should help remove noise due to dating and temperature estimation error. If data occurred every 100 years, each point would be stretched by the smoothing to cover 30 years.
:doh:

As far as the utility of using non-treering proxies goes - I haven't read as much on sediment cores, how do they compare with tree rings as far as reliability goes? I notice a lot of the results are pollen proxies - my first instinct is to think that pollen should be just as subject to confounding by non-temperature factors as tree rings and for quite similar reasons, owing to both coming from plants.

Stroller

2009-Dec-30, 04:53 PM

Loehle, of course (http://www.bautforum.com/1633704-post2556.html). :lol:

Well, it seems that your interest to bad methodology is rather selective.

At least Loehle is upfront about what he has done and openly discusses potential shortcomings in the paper.

More than can be said for the hockey jockeys who hide their data for 10 years before we discover their hockey stick is skewed by a single 9 standard deviation tree from a selectively picked subset.

The bewitched larch of Yamal.

Your analysis of his methodology is incorrect anyway, he subtracts the means from each series before combining them. Then he recalculates 18 times dropping one series at a time to ensure no one series is skewing the result. Then he recalculates 18 times with a random sample of 14 from the 18.

Compare that with the 'robustness' of Mann's or Briffa's methods.

I note your link to one of your earlier posts contains a link to a blog. Is this a sneaky way of circumventing the new rule? If you get away with it, I'll use it too. ;)

Stroller

2009-Dec-30, 05:01 PM

That's a reconstruction that is very heavily weighted toward the northern hemisphere. ... Two of the three continents in the southern hemisphere are completely unrepresented.

By contrast, nine of them are well north of the Tropic of Cancer; three of those are north of the Arctic Circle.

my first instinct is to think that pollen should be just as subject to confounding by non-temperature factors as tree rings and for quite similar reasons, owing to both coming from plants.

There is a general shortage of long time series southern hemisphere studies. However, a couple of pages back I gave references to south American and Australasian studies which all show the MWP there too, so I'm not too worried by their non-appearance in Loehle's paper. If you look at the correction also included with the pdf at the link I gave, you'll see some of your concerns addressed. Pollen studies I'm unsure about. I guess we'll both have to read a bit before we can come to any conclusion about that. However, I doubt the method works on how fat the pollen grains are. ;)

Just so people know what we're talking about, here's Loehle's reconstruction of temperature from non tree ring proxies.

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/loehle.jpg

Trakar

2009-Dec-30, 05:01 PM

In the "real world" of doom mongerers and alarmists perhaps.

Maybe they misread a report by a proper scientist (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8387737.stm).

Even when caught in bare faced plagiarism and at best sloppy misreading, at worst deliberately falsifying and misleading, the IPCC Authors deny they have been caught with their pants down.

These people know no shame.

You do realize that your entire rant was irrelevent to Ari's post and point, absolutely zero bearing and consequence, don't you?

Stroller

2009-Dec-30, 05:34 PM

You do realize that your entire rant was irrelevent to Ari's post and point, absolutely zero bearing and consequence, don't you?

You are of course entitled to your perspective, though I disagree with it. Especially considering the timing of the 2007 Keller paper, IPCC AR4, and the egregious error (one among many) it contains.

I note that the document linked by Ari says:

"Moberg's reconstruction [of the Medieval Warm Period]
essentially agrees with the many other higher frequency studies (including the Mann's hockey stick) in
showing a NH average temperature about as warm as in the 1940s and significantly below current
temperatures."

The question of how far 1930/40's N.H. temps really were below those we are currently enjoying (!) is debatable.

captain swoop

2009-Dec-30, 05:45 PM

The original rule announcement you link says "blogs and newspapers"

The British Broadcasting Corporation (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8387737.stm) is neither a blog nor a newspaper.

So as much as you would love to shut down the debate and avoid the exposure of the distortions and misrepresentations of these 'scientists', you are on a loser with this one.

Regarding you beef about Hansen et al 2007, I told you I would answer your question when you answered mine asked previously. There are several claims you have made which I debunked but you never owned up to. I'll find them and start linking those if you want to play that sort of game.

And neither is it a Peer Reviewd Publication. It is a TV company. I have just expanded the restriction to cover News Reports including TV News and Websites produuced by TV news companies and Broadcasters.
We want to keep this hard as it is to some kind of scientific standard of debate.
I would also advise against any of you playing 'thas sort of game'

nauthiz

2009-Dec-30, 05:58 PM

I guess we'll both have to read a bit. . .

I've already started. I asked the question in order to see if anyone else could help speed up the process of finding information a bit, because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of easily-accessible information about pollen proxies out there on the Internet.

But while we're on the subject of reading, I'd like to highlight a contrast that still nags at me:

A ways back I gave reference to one that goes so far as to produce a temperature anomaly map for the MWP. You dismissed it with some static about "hockey jockeys" or something like that and some text lifted from a blog post that focuses on a completely separate part of the paper from the bit I was trying to talk about.

Then later on you provide a paper to support a point about temperature reconstructions. I read the paper and gave responses based on my own reading of it, and focused on specific aspects of the contents of the paper.

Also, it is extremely frustrating that you provide quotes to the sources you're siting, but not hyperlinks. Even a link to the abstract would be helpful. To be frank, it makes a body wonder if you might be deliberately trying to make it harder for people to read your sources. And I do find a list of individual sites to be rather uncompelling; I wouldn't be surprised if I could compile a list that exclusively consists of proxies that do not indicate warmth around 1000AD in no time at all by simply selectively pulling references out of bibliographies. What I'd really like to see is if someone has constructed a map that indicates that the MWP was not a geographically variable phenomenon.

William

2009-Dec-30, 05:59 PM

William is mispresenting my position. I said: "According to our current body of observations, there has not been global cloud cover changes that could explain the whole of the warming (Warrent et al., 2007; Evan et al., 2007)." Whole being the keyword there. William then provided a quote from Evan et al. where William had bolded a few selected sentences:

Ari,

Before you have a position you need to think about the problem. Do not skip that step.

As noted we can also look at the current planetary temperature data. If the planet abruptly cools the scientific measuring issues will likely be solved.

It is ironic, even though the sun has abruptly changed, there are people that are arguing that solar changes will not affect planetary temperature. Is there data that shows the planet is cooling?

I am curious how this problem will work itself out.

I will try to explain the scientific approach.

1) Paleoclimatic Data (What has happened in the past?)

There is paleoclimatic data that shows past cooling and warming correlates with solar magnetic cycle changes. The planet's climate changes cyclically, sometimes abruptly. There is cosmogenic isotope changes that correlate with the climate changes.

There is no scientific question that abrupt climate changes and long term cyclic climate changes have happened before. The question is what caused them. There is also no doubt the cosmogenic isotope changes are concurrent with the abrupt climate changes.

It appears almost certain that solar magnetic cycle changes are causing the planetary temperature changes. The question is how.

If anyone has an alternative mechanism or logical explanation please present it.

http://www.bautforum.com/science-technology/70431-general-agw-discussion-thread-108.html#post1651579

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~jnorris/reprints/NorrisGwattRevised.pdf

2) Current cloud measuring problems

The papers you link to show that it is difficult to measure clouds and that satellite data does not agree with land based measurements.

That fact does not prove changes in planetary albedo has not a significant cause of the 20th century warming.

The paper also notes that the General Climate Models do not correctly take into account cloud cover.

The land based measurements show a massive increase in low level clouds for the period when the planet has warmed which should cause the planet to cool.

There are multiple possible explanations including the surface observer data set is incorrect or biased. (i.e. The locations were the surface observers could be over sampled or the change in planetary cloud cover is not random.)

Those arguing for a positive rather than a negative feedback response would support an increase in low level clouds when the planet warmed. The problem is the increase in low level clouds is so large the planet would have cooled if there was not an offsetting forcing change.

The papers you link to do not attempt to solve the measurement problems or to resolve how planetary clouds actual did change.

The scientific problem is not just that the satellite data is difficult to interpret but rather what is actually happening.

Observed Interdecadal Changes in Cloudiness: Real or Spurious?

Despite the greater sensitivity of Earth’s radiation budget to variations in cloudiness than to equivalent percentage variations in CO2 concentration (Slingo 1990), we currently do not know whether clouds are changing so as to mitigate or exacerbate anthropogenic greenhouse warming (Moore et al. 2001). One leading reason for this uncertainty is that global climate models (GCMs) do not correctly or consistently represent clouds and their radiative effects (e.g., Bony et al. 2006). The severe deficiencies in GCM simulations of cloudiness motivate the investigation of how observed clouds have changed over the past several decades, a period of rapidly rising global temperature.

Individual surface synoptic cloud reports were obtained from the Extended Edited Cloud Report Archive (Hahn and Warren 1999) globally over land during 1971-1996 and globally over ocean during 1952-1997. The land cloud reports came from stations assigned official numbers by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the ocean cloud reports, primarily made by Volunteer Observing Ships, came from the Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (Woodruff et al. 1987).

A very large discrepancy occurs between the low-level cloud cover time series; the surface data exhibit a generally increasing trend over ocean whereas the satellite data exhibit a generally decreasing trend over land and ocean (Figure 1).

Surface observers report that low-level cloud cover has increased by about 5 %-sky-cover between 1952 and 1997 over the ocean, corresponding to an approximate 5 W m-2 decrease in energy absorbed by the climate system if cloud albedo remained constant during that time period. Such a large change in net CRF is physically implausible and indicates that there has either been a substantial decline in cloud albedo or that the surface-observed low-level cloud cover trend is spurious. Consequently, it is currently not possible to ascertain whether recent multidecadal variations in clouds have mitigated or exacerbated anthropogenic global warming. More research needs to be done to identify and remove apparent artifacts from the satellite and surface cloud datasets.

This paper by Palle looks at the science.

As noted, Marsh and Svensmark [2003] have shown planetary cloud cover closely tracks GCR levels using satellite data that has a direct view of low level clouds. The satellite data track GCR levels up until around 1994.

Post 1994, cloud levels no longer track GCR. Post 1994 there is an increase in solar wind burst which are hypothesized to remove cloud forming ions.

What it appears is that increased GCR causes an increase in low level clouds and a reduction in high level clouds.

Comment:
Low level clouds cool the planet. High levels clouds warm the planet.

http://solar.njit.edu/preprints/palle1265.pdf

Possible satellite perspective effects on the reported correlations between solar activity and clouds

[6] The ISCCP global mean cloud cover record (Figure 1a) shows a slight increase from 1984 to 1987, followed by a strongly significant decreasing trend from 1987 to 2001 (totaling about 4% in 14 years), with about half (2–3%) due to low clouds and half (2%) to high clouds. Mid-level clouds, on the other hand, have increased by 1% or less. Marsh and Svensmark [2003] have suggested that the ISCCP post-1994 low cloud data may suffer from a calibration error, however no such error has been reported by the ISCCP group. In fact, such an error now looks unlikely as the total (and low) cloud amount decrease is consistent
with independent measurements of: (1) reflected SW and outgoing IR radiation from space [Wielicki et al., 2002; Cess and Udelhofen, 2003]; (2) surface solar radiation measurements from radiometer data (B. Liepert and M. Wild, personal communication) and, (3) since 1994, earthshine albedo measurements [Palle´ et al., 2004a].

[13] Marsh and Svensmark [2003] studied the effects of overlapping cloud layer on the correlation between low clouds and GCR. They defined areas of unobstructed view of low clouds and determined a strong correlation with GCR over those areas. The discrepancies with the work presented here are probably due to the different ISCCP cloud subset used in their analysis. Marsh and Svensmark [2003] used the ISCCP data from 1983–1994.

[17] In view of the above results, we need to ascertain what could lead to a negative correlation between high clouds (altitude > 3 km) and a positive correlation of low clouds with GCR. Either a physical mechanism related to the flux of GCR is acting on both low and higher cloud layers (with opposite sign) at the same time (or only on the high clouds if the low cloud signal is artificial), or there are dynamical changes associated with all cloud types that make it more likely for clouds to form at higher or lower altitudes depending on the solar cycle stage. In the latter case, a possible Sun-Earth connection would act, not through the creation of more or less cloudiness, but through a redistribution of the cloud types, perhaps following mechanisms similar to those proposed by Haigh [1996] and others.

tusenfem

2009-Dec-30, 06:57 PM

Ari,

Before you have a position you need to think about the problem. Do not skip that step.

William, stop these snary insulting remarks! You have done that more often and it stops here!

Also a 2 point infraction for linking to a blog here (http://www.bautforum.com/science-technology/70431-general-agw-discussion-thread-108.html#post1651624).

William

2009-Dec-30, 07:21 PM

William, stop these snary insulting remarks! You have done that more often and it stops here!

Also a 2 point infraction for linking to a blog here (http://www.bautforum.com/science-technology/70431-general-agw-discussion-thread-108.html#post1651624).

tunsenfem,

Sorry for the snarly insulting remarks.

What I linked is not a blog.

What I linked to is a science site which is neutral and is germane to this discussion.

Trakar

2009-Dec-30, 08:24 PM

Note there are hundred of papers written confirming that there has been cyclic warming and cooling of the planet.

Thousands even, but what percentage of these attempt to suggest and empirically support that solar cycles are the sole (or even primary) causation of the warming and cooling cycles?

An abrupt Solar Magnetic Cycle change is currently underway.

Really? it seems rather like a long and drawn-out extended transition to my understandings of such.

Solar wind speed is not picking up. The sunspots that are being produced are weaker and weaker magnetically. (See solar cycle 24 for details. Next Livingston solar spot magnetic measurements is scheduled for January 24th.)

again not supporting of my definition of *abrupt.*

What has happened in the past when there was an abrupt solar magnetic cycle change? Abrupt cooling of the planet.

Please support these assertions with published references: (a) That this is an "abrupt solar cycle change." (b) That all (or even most) previous abrupt solar cycle changes have resulted in planetary cooling.

lomiller1

2009-Dec-30, 09:16 PM

He adapted his flawed ones, and continued to use the discredited Graybill bristlecone pine tree ring series Wegmen said should never be used again.

All the more reason to question Wegman, since he has absolutely no qualifications to make such a statement. He is a statistician, not a biologists or tree ring specialist. Malcolm Hughes, Mann’s co-writer on that paper, however, is one of the worlds preeminent experts on that particular subject.

Bristlecone pine tree rings in fact make excellent temperature proxies.

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/48/20348.full

William

2009-Dec-30, 09:19 PM

Thousands even, but what percentage of these attempt to suggest and empirically support that solar cycles are the sole (or even primary) causation of the warming and cooling cycles?

Really? it seems rather like a long and drawn-out extended transition to my understandings of such.

again not supporting of my definition of *abrupt.*

Please support these assertions with published references: (a) That this is an "abrupt solar cycle change." (b) That all (or even most) previous abrupt solar cycle changes have resulted in planetary cooling.

Hi Trakar,

I have a couple of hundred papers concerning the past abrupt climate changes and the past cyclic climate changes.

As I noted the past abrupt climate changes do correlate with cosmogenic isotope changes.

I can if you want provide a link to the papers but let's wait a couple of months for more sunspot data and planetary temperature data then we will have new data which can be compared to what the papers said.

GCR is currently at the highest level in 50 years due to recent the solar change. In the past when GCR was low the planet cooled. The speed of the solar wind affects the size of the solar heliosphere. There is a time lag for the heliosphere to shrink when the solar wind speed is reduced.

When I said cycle 24 was interrupted that is based on the solar magnetic field of individual sunspots becoming less and less. As a consequence of the reduction in the magnetic field strength of individual sunspots the sunspots are becoming lighter in color.

The solar large scale magnetic field is the lowest ever measured. The change from solar cycle 23 to cycle 24 has abrupt. The Maunder minimum was preceded by a rump solar cycle. During the Maunder minimum there is evidence of a solar cycle, however, there were no optically visable sunspots.

Stroller

2009-Dec-30, 09:29 PM

Also, it is extremely frustrating that you provide quotes to the sources you're siting, but not hyperlinks. Even a link to the abstract would be helpful. To be frank, it makes a body wonder if you might be deliberately trying to make it harder for people to read your sources. And I do find a list of individual sites to be rather uncompelling;

I agree it's frustrating, but as you can see, rules are changing by the hour and penalty points are being dished out for linking to science information elsewhere on the internet.

I wouldn't be surprised if I could compile a list that exclusively consists of proxies that do not indicate warmth around 1000AD in no time at all by simply selectively pulling references out of bibliographies.

Be my guest, I'd be very interested to see what you find.

What I'd really like to see is if someone has constructed a map that indicates that the MWP was not a geographically variable phenomenon.

I have links to such maps, but I dare not provide them to you for fear of being penalised by the moderators.
One comment on temporal variability: If you take the trouble to read Loehle's paper, you'll find that he discusses the uncetainty around carbon dating and the way this can spread dates of peaks in temperature. Another thing to consider is the fact that during the instrumental record, the peaks and troughs in temperature and their amplitudes vary in date between counties too. Interestingly, the shifting patterns seems to relate to the movement of near surface geomagnetism, but that discussion will wait for another time.

tusenfem

2009-Dec-30, 09:44 PM

tunsenfem,

Sorry for the snarly insulting remarks.

What I linked is not a blog.

What I linked to is a science site which is neutral and is germane to this discussion.

if the name is: solarscience.auditBLOGS it seems to me pretty clear what it is and at the top of the page is says a BLOG of solar physics,

Need I be any clearer?

tusenfem

2009-Dec-30, 09:52 PM

I agree it's frustrating, but as you can see, rules are changing by the hour and penalty points are being dished out for linking to science information elsewhere on the internet.

You seem to link to papers, but then be sure these are real papers.
In the whole the first penatly points have only been "dished out" tonight to William. We have decided to let the stuff that you posted go by, which might just apease you, apparently not.

If you can give the title of the paper and the journal in which it wat published you can easily enough also give the hyperlink to said paper.

I would llke to have a discussion with real papers, not by blog, or news papers of television channel websites. Is that too much to ask? If so, this thread is dead.

Trakar

2009-Dec-30, 09:58 PM

Trakar,

What do you allege the papers you link to say?

It is not necessary for me to allege anything, I provided links to the full papers so that anyone with the necessary proficiency could read them for themselves.

Douglass et al, showed that the tropical troposphere should warm more than the surface. It appears everyone is in agreement that statement is correct.

Actually, what Douglas et al actually say is:

We have tested the proposition that greenhouse model simulations and trend observations can be reconciled. Our conclusion is that the present evidence, with the application of a robust statistical test, supports rejection of this proposition. (The use of tropical tropospheric temperature trends as a metric for this test is important, as this region represents the CEL and provides a clear signature of the trajectory of the climate system under enhanced greenhouse forcing.) On the whole, the evidence indicates that model trends in the troposphere are very likely inconsistent with observations that indicate that, since 1979, there is no significant long-term amplification factor relative to the surface. If these results continue to be supported, then future projections of temperature change, as depicted in the present suite of climate models, are likely too high.

The papers I offered, reject and refute this finding and the methodology applied by Singer, Christy, Pearson and Douglass to derive this finding.

Climate models and theoretical expectations have predicted that the upper troposphere should be warming faster than the surface. Surprisingly, direct temperature observations fromradiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend. However, non-climatic biases have been found in such measurements. Here we apply the thermal-wind equation to wind measurements from radiosonde data, which seem to be more stable than the temperature data. We derive estimates of temperature trends for the upper troposphere to the lower stratosphere since 1970.Over the period of observations, we find a maximumwarming trend of 0.65±0.47K per decade near the 200 hPa pressure level, below the tropical tropopause. Warming patterns are consistent with model predictions except for small discrepancies close to the tropopause. Our findings are inconsistent with the trends derived from radiosonde temperature datasets and from NCEP reanalyses of temperature and wind fields. The agreement with models increases confidence
in current model-based predictions of future climate change.

The papers you link to do not show Douglass et al's findings are in correct and the tropical troposphere warmed more than the surface.

I find your reading and comprehension of the papers, and their findings to be wanting, and lacking of substantive merit.

The second paper does no resolve the issue. Santer et al, in addition does not use all of the available satellite data. Santer et al, choose to truncate their analysis and did not use all of the available satellite data which was available to Santer et al when they published their paper.

Santer et al's conclusion is: "a partial resolution of the long-standing ‘differential warming’ problem has now been achieved" that is as long as one does not use the satellite data 2005 to 2008.

I evidently made an error and linked the Santer 2008 paper instead of the Santer 2005 (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Santer_etal.pdf)paper that I had intended, it is no real biggy as they are both on the same general topic and both report largely the same findings. But what Santer (2005) actually found was:

The RSS T2LT, T2, and TFu trends are physically consistent (all three layers warm as the surface warms), whereas the UAH data show trends of different sign in the lowerand midtroposphere. These results support the contention that the tropical warming trend in RSS T2LT data is more reliable than T2LT trends in other observational data sets. This conclusion does not rest solely on comparisons with climate models. It is independently supported by the empirical evidence of recent increases in tropospheric water vapor and tropopause height (26, 36), which are in accord with warming but not cooling of the free troposphere.

...Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets, and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability, and application of an inappropriate statistical ‘consistency test’.

i.e. A hint that something is fundamental incorrect with the set of AGW hypotheses is the fact the planet has not warmed in the last 8 years and has based on the ocean temperature cooled 2003 to 2008.

The primary problem with your hint, is that there is no reliable evidence of anything but warming in global surface temps, average atmospheric temps and ocean temps.

Trakar

2009-Dec-30, 10:25 PM

Back in the real world, Keller (2007) (http://www.thescientificworld.co.uk/headeradmin/upload/2007.03.91.pdf) provides nice discussion on the problems of past reconstructions and MWP (see page 7 of the PDF). He concludes with this simple observation:

That is indeed one of the main issues, despite the ability of contrarians to mount semantic and techincal arguments (that generally and ultimately fail after much wrangling and a modicum of serious analysis), the mounting tsunami of empiric and practical evidence and experience is quickly relegating their protestations to the far outlier fringes, formerly reserved for flat-earthers and young-earth creationists.

Stroller

2009-Dec-30, 10:32 PM

If you can give the title of the paper and the journal in which it wat published you can easily enough also give the hyperlink to said paper.

The problem with this is that usually papers are hidden behind a paywall unless you have institutional access. Often, a copy of the paper is available elsewhere on the internet, in preprint form or as webpages on a scientist's personal website or (horror) blog. Maybe we will need to submit links for prior approval to you. Hope you don't mind the extra workload.

I would llke to have a discussion with real papers, not by blog, or news papers of television channel websites. Is that too much to ask? If so, this thread is dead.

There are issues around the peer review process involved in the AGW debate. For obvious reasons, these are not being discussed in the peer reviewed literature. If your intention is to prevent free speech on these broader issues, then as you say, the thread is dead.

Stroller

2009-Dec-30, 10:34 PM

That is indeed one of the main issues, despite the ability of contrarians to mount semantic and techincal arguments (that generally and ultimately fail after much wrangling and a modicum of serious analysis), the mounting tsunami of empiric and practical evidence and experience is quickly relegating their protestations to the far outlier fringes, formerly reserved for flat-earthers and young-earth creationists.

Uh-huh? And to think poor William gets penalty points for linking to a David Hathaway quote on a politically neutral website while Trakar spouts this sort of vitriolic diatribe with apparent impugnity.

William

2009-Dec-30, 10:38 PM

It is not necessary for me to allege anything, I provided links to the full papers so that anyone with the necessary proficiency could read them for themselves.

The primary problem with your hint, is that there is no reliable evidence of anything but warming in global surface temps, average atmospheric temps and ocean temps.

Hi Trakar,

Let's wait for the new planetary temperature data. As noted GCR is at its highest level in 50 years.

You have made a number of good points.

Perhaps we will have some new papers to discuss later.

nauthiz

2009-Dec-30, 10:39 PM

What's wrong with posting links to a paper that's hosted on a personal site in order to avoid a paywall?

Trakar

2009-Dec-30, 10:45 PM

I've already started. I asked the question in order to see if anyone else could help speed up the process of finding information a bit, because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of easily-accessible information about pollen proxies out there on the Internet...

My first inclination would be to suggest looking in the IPCC references, but those are quickly becoming dated and lacking in the more current and numerous studies published over the last several years.

Let me think about it a bit, and I'll see what I can come up with.

Trakar

2009-Dec-31, 12:10 AM

Hi Trakar,

I have a couple of hundred papers concerning the past abrupt climate changes and the past cyclic climate changes.

Read my request carefully, I'm not asking for papers supporting the idea of abrupt climate change, or papers supporting past cyclic climate changes.

As I noted the past abrupt climate changes do correlate with cosmogenic isotope changes.

In every case? I'd like to see these references.

I can if you want provide a link to the papers but let's wait a couple of months for more sunspot data and planetary temperature data then we will have new data which can be compared to what the papers said.

The current data seems to contradict your suppositions, so I'm not objectionable to allowing the accumulation of additional data.

A few tidbits that may help in your considerations:

"Atmospheric data over a solar cycle: no connection between galactic cosmic rays and new particle formation," http://atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/21525/2009/acpd-9-21525-2009.pdf (http://atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/21525/2009/acpd-9-21525-2009.pdf)

Testing the link between terrestrial climate change and Galactic spiral arm transit (http://www.leif.org/EOS/0906-2777.pdf)

Can cosmic rays affect cloud condensation nuclei by altering new particle formation rates? - http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037946.shtml (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037946.shtml)

Transitional solar dynamics and global warming (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TVG-4W4CWMS-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1150462243&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ae64b7015264f8c81bb2885b61716f22)

Stroller

2009-Dec-31, 12:28 AM

What's wrong with posting links to a paper that's hosted on a personal site in order to avoid a paywall?

We're about to find out, Trakar has just linked to a paper on solar physicist Leif Svalgards site.

Maybe William will be forgiven for quoting Solar physicist David Hathaway too.

Or maybe it's only sceptics who get penalty points.

Trakar

2009-Dec-31, 12:35 AM

What's wrong with posting links to a paper that's hosted on a personal site in order to avoid a paywall?

I don't think host site is that serious an issue, I, personally, wouldn't mind or think it that big of an issue linking to a stored copy of a journal paper on a blogsite, provided it was a .pdf or word document copy of the published journal paper. That wouldn't be that different than referenceing scientific papers from the author's homepage, university or official research institute website, or anything along that venue. The prodlem comes more from the verbatium cut and pastes from blog discussions of the issues or papers, containing fragments of the paper's material rather than a full contextual presentation of the paper's content so that issues of personal (re)interpretation of cherry-picked selections and snippets from papers does not become an issue (again).

nauthiz

2009-Dec-31, 12:39 AM

My first inclination would be to suggest looking in the IPCC references, but those are quickly becoming dated and lacking in the more current and numerous studies published over the last several years.

Let me think about it a bit, and I'll see what I can come up with.

That's where I had been thinking of going, too. I've just been procrastinating on it because the computer I've been stuck on lately tends to choke on those giant PDFs.

Trakar

2009-Dec-31, 12:41 AM

We're about to find out, Trakar has just linked to a paper on solar physicist Leif Svalgards site.

Maybe William will be forgiven for quoting Solar physicist David Hathaway too.

Or maybe it's only sceptics who get penalty points.

Please demonstrate where it has been indicated by the moderators that we could not link to published scientific papers on the author's personal or professional website?

Trakar

2009-Dec-31, 12:45 AM

That's where I had been thinking of going, too. I've just been procrastinating on it because the computer I've been stuck on lately tends to choke on those giant PDFs.

I know there's an HTML version of the the IPCC reports somewhere let me give a look.

nauthiz

2009-Dec-31, 12:48 AM

Let me think about it a bit, and I'll see what I can come up with.

BTW, no need to spend too much time on this. I had just been wondering if someone knew offhand.

William

2009-Dec-31, 02:58 AM

Read my request carefully, I'm not asking for papers supporting the idea of abrupt climate change, or papers supporting past cyclic climate changes.

Trakar,

Thanks for the links.

I will get back later to this subject when or if there is a few months of significant cooling planetary temperature data. The solar cloud modulation hypotheses needs significant planetary cooling to occur. The question then is what is the mechanism, rather than theoretical discussions.

GCR is high now, so there must either be significant planetary cooling or the GCR cloud hypotheses are not correct. I see unexplained planetary cooling as a make or break criterion for the cloud modulation mechanisms. As I am not sure what the delay will be, assuming there will eventually be significant unexplained cooling, I am in a waiting mode.

I found the 2009 ion particle nucleation paper that you provided a link to, to be interested. I am curious what Svensmark's response will be concerning that paper. One issue that needs to be addressed in the study is it is alleged that cloud forming ions are removed via electroscavenging due to solar wind bursts. (That solar wind bursts occurred post 1994.)

As the solar wind bursts create a charge differential it is expected that there will also be a charge difference for different locations on the planet's surface. The location where the ions study is done may therefore be important as to the study results. There is a new finding of peculiar large area discharges in the ionosphere at high latitudes.

The specific mechanism concerning ion mediate nucleation is complicate based on my understand of Svensmark's work. Svensmark alleges that the ions are re-used and ions affect the efficiency of how the water droplets are formed in clouds. The question is not only number of particles but how effectively and how quickly water condensates around the particles. Svensmark's work shows the ions also change the lifetime of the water droplet in the cloud and the size of the water droplet. Both of those factors affect the cloud's albedo and the lifetime of the cloud which affects how much radiation is reflected back into space.

Palle's data shows significant changes in high altitude clouds which negatively correlates with GCR. The high altitude clouds warm the planet via a greenhouse affect. It is possible the most of the GCR affect is at high altitudes not for low level clouds. I do not understand how high levels of GCR stop high altitude clouds from forming.

Svensmark and Marshall (2003) have shown correlation of low level planetary cloud cover and GCR for the period 1983 to 1994. They were aware of the satellite viewing problem that Ari's paper noted and selected regions where they had a clear viewing angle.

Ari's other paper shows a land based observations showing a large increase in low level clouds 1994 to 2005.

As Ari's review paper provide planetary cloud data that points in more than one direction (ground base study shows a significant increase in the low level cloud which should have cooled the planet) and satellite data which shows a decrease in low level planetary clouds, it is difficult to form any hypotheses without resolution of the problem of how to measure planetary cloud cover, low and high. Again, there needs to unexplained significant planetary cooling kick start the scientific investigation.

Ari Jokimaki

2009-Dec-31, 06:15 AM

I've already started. I asked the question in order to see if anyone else could help speed up the process of finding information a bit, because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of easily-accessible information about pollen proxies out there on the Internet...
Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.fi/) is the thing you need.

I know there's an HTML version of the the IPCC reports somewhere let me give a look.
IPCC website (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html) has it. They have just recently changed it like that (it was about time too).

Ari Jokimaki

2009-Dec-31, 06:41 AM

Svensmark and Marshall (2003) have shown correlation of low level planetary cloud cover and GCR for the period 1983 to 1994. They were aware of the satellite viewing problem that Ari's paper noted and selected regions where they had a clear viewing angle.
Selecting regions of course makes the analysis non-global, and it also doesn't correct the fault. There is a recent paper by Clement et al. (2009) (http://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/observational-and-model-evidence-for-positive-low-level-cloud-feedback.pdf) that to my knowledge is the first one that has actually corrected for the ISCCP-fault (but this paper is not global analysis either). As a result, they found that clouds work as a positive feedback to surface temperature. That then means that climate sensitivity is not low, especially as it is already quite well established that also the water vapor feedback is positive (Huang & Ramaswamy, 2008 (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~yhuang/research/2008GL034859.pdf) and Dessler et al., 2008 (http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/229/Dessler_et_al_2008b.pdf), for example).

tusenfem

2009-Dec-31, 02:57 PM

What's wrong with posting links to a paper that's hosted on a personal site in order to avoid a paywall?

In that case there is nothing wrong.

William

2009-Dec-31, 03:58 PM

Selecting regions of course makes the analysis non-global, and it also doesn't correct the fault. There is a recent paper by Clement et al. (2009) (http://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/observational-and-model-evidence-for-positive-low-level-cloud-feedback.pdf) that to my knowledge is the first one that has actually corrected for the ISCCP-fault (but this paper is not global analysis either).

Ari,

Thanks for the links.

I do not see how the paper that alleges to show positive feedback determines what the cause of the ocean warming was. I believe the question of negative vs positive feedback would be re-looked at if the planet significantly cools. Part of the problem from the analysis standpoint is there is more than one variable changing.

The Argo ocean data set appears to be independent. If there is significant planetary cooling it will show a change.

The Norris review paper that you provided a link to shows a significant increase in planetary cloud cover (the planet should cool by in excess of 2.5 w/m2, based on the increase) based on weather station and ship estimates of planetary cloud cover while the satellite data shows a reduction in planetary cloud cover (the planet should warm by 1.5 w/m2 based on the satellite data). Palle's earthshine data supports the reduction in planetary albedo.

There is something fundamentally incorrect with the measurements and with the fundamental assumptions. The assumption that high level and low level cloud cover is random is likely the problem.

The Svensmark and Marshall's 2003 paper looked at high latitude regions where the simple GCR mechanism is strongest.

I will get back later to this subject (planetary climate change & its causes) when or if there is a few months of significant cooling planetary temperature data. The solar cloud modulation hypotheses needs significant planetary cooling to occur to reopen the discussion. The question then is what is the mechanism, rather than theoretical discussions.

GCR is high now, so there must either be significant planetary cooling or the GCR cloud hypotheses are not correct. I see unexplained planetary cooling as a make or break criterion for the cloud modulation mechanisms. As I am not sure what the delay will be, assuming there will eventually be significant unexplained cooling, I am in a waiting mode.

Ari Jokimaki

2009-Dec-31, 04:23 PM

I do not see how the paper that alleges to show positive feedback determines what the cause of the ocean warming was.
When feedbacks are determined, there is no need to know what caused the warming. Feedbacks are effects to the warming, not to what caused the warming. If the surface is warmed by carbon dioxide, there is a positive cloud feedback (according to Clement et al.) and positive water vapor feedback. If the surface is warmed by changes in the Sun, there is similarily a positive cloud feedback and positive water vapor feedback. And so on...

Trakar

2009-Dec-31, 05:50 PM

Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.fi/) is the thing you need.

IPCC website (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html) has it. They have just recently changed it like that (it was about time too).

Figures it would be someplace obvious! last place I was likely to look for it, too!

nauthiz

2009-Dec-31, 06:05 PM

Hey, this is nice! Last time I went back to this page, they had so little available as HTML that it didn't seem worthwhile.

William

2009-Dec-31, 07:51 PM

When feedbacks are determined, there is no need to know what caused the warming. Feedbacks are effects to the warming, not to what caused the warming. If the surface is warmed by carbon dioxide, there is a positive cloud feedback (according to Clement et al.) and positive water vapor feedback. If the surface is warmed by changes in the Sun, there is similarily a positive cloud feedback and positive water vapor feedback. And so on...

Ari,

I believe you are mistaken.

If there is warming how does one know if it is feedback warming as opposed to the original forcing change. There are a multitude of processes affecting planetary temperature. If only one variable changes (forcing warming or cooling) then it is possible to isolate the response. If one knows the magnitude of the forcing change then one can calculate whether there is negative of positive feedback.

The forcing calculation (complete planet response all systems) has already been done with volcanic eruption cooling forcing which is a step change. It is possible to analysis a system response to a step change to determine whether the system has positive or negative feedback and to estimate feedback magnitude.

If the feedback is positive the system response to a step change is oscillatory. The response to a volcanic step change is an over damped response which would indicate the system has negative rather than positive feedback.

The analysis to determine if planetary clouds magnify warming (positive feedback) as opposed to cool the planet by reflecting more sunlight into space requires theoretical assumptions concerning cloud mechanisms. If one underestimates the increase in cloud albedo and over estimates the contribution of the water greenhouse effect the calculation could show the feedback is positive when in fact it is negative.

As the planet's response to step change cooling and the planet's long term response to a 38% increase in atmospheric CO2 and to 300% and 500% higher atmospheric CO2 levels in the past all seem to show negative feedback rather than positive feedback it seems likely that there is something incorrect in the basic cloud mechanism assumptions in the paper that alleges to show the cloud feedback response is negative rather than positive.

This type of steady state and step change analysis is common to validate and develop models of complex systems. i.e. One validates the reasonableness of the assumptions by known large scale input changes and responses. The papers written by Shaviv take that approach. (For example.)

On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget by Nir Shaviv

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0409123

There is a new paper which is under review that attempts to address the theoretical cloud mechanisms. I had a look at the paper and was surprised at the number of assumptions that must be made.

Another indication that the feedback response is negative rather than positive would be unexplained planetary cooling. In the event planetary cooling occurs there would likely be a month by month change in theoretical positions to explain the observations. The current planetary temperature is at the low end of the AR4 prediction which has wide error bands. Planetary cooling needs to move below the AR4 prediction to assist in the resolution of the theoretical issues.

William

2009-Dec-31, 11:50 PM

Hi Ari,

Happy New Year!

It looks like 2010 will be an interesting year for those of us who are interested in climate science. As per my constant email notes, I am a hold out for the big freeze. 2010 will be a make or break year for the GCR hypotheses.

Feedbacks is another issue that may be worked out.

I have a chance to look into the feedbacks. This is what I have found on the other side of the issue.

Spencer alleges that he has found evidence to support Linzen's Cloud Iris effect.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007.../2007GL029698.shtml

Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations

We explore the daily evolution of tropical intraseasonal oscillations in satellite-observed tropospheric temperature, precipitation, radiative fluxes, and cloud properties. The warm/rainy phase of a composited average of fifteen oscillations is accompanied by a net reduction in radiative input into the ocean-atmosphere system, with longwave heating anomalies transitioning to longwave cooling during the rainy phase. The increase in longwave cooling is traced to decreasing coverage by ice clouds, potentially supporting Lindzen's “infrared iris” hypothesis of climate stabilization. These observations should be considered in the testing of cloud parameterizations in climate models, which remain sources of substantial uncertainty in global warming prediction.

This paper by Spencer and Braswell claims that normal cloud changes can make it appear there is positive cloud feedback.

Spencer has a presentation were he shows the planet's response to forcing is slightly negative rather than positive. Spencer claims if he is correct the planet would warm around 0.75C rather than 3C for a doubling of CO2. The 0.75C number is the same number that Shaviv claims.

For Shaviv to be correct there needs to be cooling in 2010.

Time will tell.

Best Wishes

William

http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer-and-Braswell-08.pdf

Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-01, 08:28 AM

If there is warming how does one know if it is feedback warming as opposed to the original forcing change.
It is difficult. Because of the ocean thermal inertia, there is a delay in SST response to the forcing. However, that delay is not very long, so it is difficult to see in the observations (Nigam, 1997 (http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442(1997)010%3C2447:TAWTCP%3E2.0.CO%3B2) mentions a response delay of about one month, Braconnot et al., 2000 (http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442(2000)013%3C1537:OFIRTK%3E2.0.CO%3B2), say it's 2-3 months). Clement et al. did it so that they looked at lot of different models to see which matches the observational results, and the one that did, had the clouds acting as positive feedback to the warming:

Our observational analysis indicates that increased SST and weaker subtropical highs (Fig. 4A) will act to reduce NE Pacific cloud cover, as indeed occurs in HadGEM1 under increased greenhouse gases (Fig. 4B).
And:

Although we cannot evaluate the exact causes of these cloud changes without additional experiments, the decreased cloud cover in subtropical stratocumulus regions appears to result from warmer SST and a weakening of the large-scale atmospheric circulation in the Pacific in this model.
The question of whether low-level clouds act as a positive or negative feedback to climate change has been an issue for decades. The analysis presented here provides observational evidence that this feedback is positive in the NE Pacific on decadal time scales.

William

2010-Jan-01, 12:19 PM

Hi Ari,

The paper you quote that showed positive feedback from clouds when the planet warms only looked at long wave radiation. (Infrared).

The total energy calculation requires a sum of both long wave radiation (Infrared) that is reflected into space and short wave radiation that is reflected into space. (Sunlight that is reflected back into space by the clouds.)

When long wave and short wave radiation that is reflected into space are added together the sum shows the feedback is negative.

If you scroll down in this paper (very last page, after the written part of the paper) there is a graphical comparison that shows the measured feedback to the feedback assumed value that is currently used in the General climate models.

On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data

By Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Climate feedbacks are estimated from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget from the latest version of Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) nonscanner data. It appears, for the entire tropics, the observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs.

Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE, though it is difficult to pin down such high sensitivities with any precision. Results also show, the feedback in ERBE is mostly from shortwave radiation while the feedback in the models is mostly from longwave radiation. Although such a test does not distinguish the mechanisms, this is important since the inconsistency of climate feedbacks constitutes a very fundamental problem in climate prediction.

http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf

http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/erbe/erbssat.gif

This is a picture of the NASA satellite that provided the data for analysis.

http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/erbe/erbssat.gif

buzgz

2010-Jan-01, 03:13 PM

This paper seems to be saying anthropogenic CO2 has not been increasing.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml

The paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract says :

This study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data including their uncertainties. It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero.

There's got to be a catch.:cry:

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-01, 04:06 PM

This paper seems to be saying anthropogenic CO2 has not been increasing.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml

The paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract says :

There's got to be a catch.:cry:
There was a thread about this:
http://www.bautforum.com/science-technology/96437-new-study-rocks-agw-mainstream.html

There is another study by Le Quere et al. (2009) who show that the airborne fraction is increasing:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/full/ngeo689.html

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-01, 04:52 PM

The paper you quote that showed positive feedback from clouds when the planet warms only looked at long wave radiation. (Infrared).

The total energy calculation requires a sum of both long wave radiation (Infrared) that is reflected into space and short wave radiation that is reflected into space. (Sunlight that is reflected back into space by the clouds.)
Clement et al. found that when greenhouse gases increased, the cloud cover decreased. Decrease in cloud cover means less reflection, so more shortwave energy gets to the surface of the Earth. That's the positive feedback. Also, it is not even true to say that they only looked at longwave radiation, they did have a data set of the short wave radiation too ("Additional independent information on total cloud amount, low-level cloud amount, and surface radiative fluxes is provided by the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (17, 18) (ISCCP)." and "The regression of adjusted shortwave and longwave cloud radiative effects from the ISCCP Flux Dataset on NE Pacific SST reveals that the change in net cloud radiative effect warms the ocean by about 6 W m−2 K−1 (fig. S4).")). So they used shortwave data from ISCCP flux dataset.

If you scroll down in this paper (very last page, after the written part of the paper) there is a graphical comparison that shows the measured feedback to the feedback assumed value that is currently used in the General climate models.

http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf
Lindzen & Choi have been discussed here before. I'll repeat some of my points:

1. The study is limited to tropics.

2. They mention:

The anomalies include a semiannual signal due to the temporal aliasing effect that needs to be eliminated [Trenberth, 2002]. The relevant sampling error of the tropical monthly ERBE data is about 1.7 W m–2 for SWR and 0.4 W m–2 for OLR [Wielicki et al., 2002a, b]. This spurious signal, particularly in the SWR, can be removed in a 36-day average, reducing the SWR error to the order of 0.3 W m–2.
So, they know that there is a false signal in the data, and they know how to eliminate it. Nevertheless, their action is not to correct the data:

However, in this study, the 36-day average was not applied because we wish to relate monthly SSTs to monthly ERBE TOA fluxes.
They may relate the monthly values all they want, but with the false signal in the data, the comparison doesn't mean much.

The fun doesn't stop here, though. They have just said that they are not correcting the data because they want to compare monthly values, but then they say anyway:

Instead, the moving average with a 7-month smoother was used for the SWR anomalies alone;
They left data uncorrected because they don't want to mess monthly values, but then they go ahead and mess them for one dataset? And they do it by using strange value of 7 months, which they don't explain. They do say that they are later going to show that this smoothing doesn't affect their results. But later they show it by comparing it to equally strange smoothing values of 3 and 5 months. Let us also emphasize this: they only smoothed one dataset out of the three they are using.

3. The study is limited to short time variations (from few months to less than 2 years), of which they use only 9. They don't study long time response at all. They say:

Simple calculations as well as GCM results suggest response times on the order of decades for positive feedbacks and years or less for negative feedbacks [Lindzen and Giannitsis, 1998, and references therein].
Assuming that this claim is correct, by limiting their study to timescales of years or less, they are focusing their study only to the feedbacks they are claiming to be negative. In other words, they are not even trying to study positive feedbacks by their own words.

I'll add one thing, and this is a huge flaw:

4. They do a very strange thing when they are handling the direct response to the SST change. They say:

In the observed ΔOLR/ΔT, the nonfeedback change of 4 W m–2 K–1 is included. Also ΔSWR/ΔT needs to be balanced with ΔOLR/ΔT.
It is correct that ΔOLR/ΔT contains the nonfeedback change. If one wants to study the feedbacks, the nonfeedback change needs to be taken out. But the later part of the above quote is false. There is no reason why ΔSWR/ΔT should need to be balanced for the nonfeedback change. ΔSWR/ΔT is the change in Earth's albedo, and Lindzen & Choi are claiming that a change in SST would cause a direct response in Earth's albedo. Think about it. Think about sea surface getting one degree warmer. How do you think that would change Earth's albedo directly? It doesn't. Lindzen & Choi are claiming it does, and even in exactly same amount as the change is in outgoing longwave radiation.

That is how Lindzen & Choi arrive to negative feedback, they simply insert it into the equations, and claim that they are "balancing" things.

Oh, and talk about balancing. Let's assume that despite what I just said, we would need to balance the situation. We have a situation where on the other end of the seesaw we have OLR and SWR is on the other end of the seesaw. OLR has extra 4W/m^2, so the seesaw is tilted to OLR side. How do we balance the situation? We could take the 4W/m^2 off the OLR to balance it. We could put 4W/m^2 to SWR to balance it. Solution of Lindzen & Choi:

From the consideration, FLW = –ΔOLR/ΔT + 4 and FSW = –ΔSWR/ΔΤ – 4.
They did both. They took 4W/m^2 out of the OLR and put it to SWR. Now the seesaw is tilted to SWR side, and there we have the "negative feedback".

Klausnh

2010-Jan-01, 07:25 PM

This paper seems to be saying anthropogenic CO2 has not been increasing.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml

The paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract says :

There's got to be a catch.:cry:Interview with the author (http://jonesthenews.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/bristol-research-does-not-support-climate-change-denial/)

Martin Jones: "The people who deny climate change is real could use this to say "well there you go, you know, it's all fine we don't need to do anything".

Wolfgang Knorr: "That would be a very superficial interpretation of the results because still almost half of the CO2 we emit says in the atmosphere and that's enough to cause global warming"

William

2010-Jan-01, 07:38 PM

Clement et al. found that when greenhouse gases increased, the cloud cover decreased. Decrease in cloud cover means less reflection, so more shortwave energy gets to the surface of the Earth. That's the positive feedback. Also, it is not even true to say that they only looked at longwave radiation, they did have a data set of the short wave radiation too ("Additional independent information on total cloud amount, low-level cloud amount, and surface radiative fluxes is provided by the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (17, 18) (ISCCP)." and "The regression of adjusted shortwave and longwave cloud radiative effects from the ISCCP Flux Dataset on NE Pacific SST reveals that the change in net cloud radiative effect warms the ocean by about 6 W m−2 K−1 (fig. S4).")). So they used shortwave data from ISCCP flux dataset.

Lindzen & Choi have been discussed here before. I'll repeat some of my points:

1. The study is limited to tropics.

Ari,
Lindzen and Choi's study is limited to the tropics as the study methodology requires a delta in ocean surface temperature which they then compare top of the atmosophere sum of the long wave and short wave radiation to what the General Climate Models predicted. The tropical ocean has large surface temperature deltas which is required for the analysis.

It should be noted that there is published cloud temperature data which completely supports Lindzen and Choi finding. The authors of the paper that used cloud temperature data to determine if the cloud feedbacks are positive or negative have stated that their data and analysis is an independent verification of the Lindzen and Choi's finding.

Lindzen and Choi's finding is that when the planet warms cloud cover increases which reflects more energy into space. The clouds therefore dampen and resist any forcing change that would try to warm or to cool the planet.

If there was positive feedback the clouds would amplify any forcing change, rather than resist a forcing change. A system with positive feedback will oscillate and will grow larger and larger or smaller and smaller if the forcing change is cooling.

It is very unusual for a physical system to have positive feedback. Positive feedback to a forcing change makes a system unstable. The system will then oscillate and will for long term reach higher and higher values or lower and lower values in response to a negative forcing change.

Do you understand the difference between positive and negative feedback?

I would be interested in how the cloud feedback mechanism could be positive. Please elaborate on that hypothesis.

Lindzen & Choi's finding is that there is an increase in net radiation energy when the ocean temperature increases, as more short wave radiation is reflected into space. (Cloud cover or cloud albedo increases when the ocean temperature increases.)

Lindzen & Choi's finding is there is a net decrease in radiation when the ocean temperature decreases, as less short wave radiation is reflected into space. (Cloud cover or cloud albedo decreases when the ocean temperature drops.)

Lindzen and Choi's finding makes physical sense. Have you noticed that when there is an increase in planetary clouds that the planet cools, in the location where the clouds occur?

What am I missing? Lindzen and Choi's finding is the earth climate's system has fundamental stabilization that resists warming and cooling to keep the planet from freezing or over heating. That is exactly what one would expect from fundamental paleoclimatic analysis.

This is a net energy calculation that shows clouds feedback response to a forcing change that tries to warm the planet or cool the planet is negative rather than positive. (i.e. The cloud response acts to resist the change in planetary temperature rather than amplify it.)

Your other comment is how Lindzen and Choi take their finding that the planetary cloud response is negative rather than positive and convert it to determine planetary response to a doubling of CO2.

That is a different question.

What Lindzen and Choi have shown is the response in clouds in the tropics to any forcing warming or cooling is to resist the change.

Lastly you have a question concerning the calibration of the ERBE satellite data. The ERBE calibration issue has been resolved.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf

On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data

Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
Received 16 June 2009; revised 14 July 2009; accepted 20 July 2009; published 26 August 2009.

The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs. Therefore, the models display much higher climate sensitivity than is inferred from ERBE, though it is difficult to pin down such high sensitivities with any precision. Results also show, the feedback in ERBE is mostly from shortwave radiation while the feedback in the models is mostly from longwave radiation. Although such a test does not distinguish the mechanisms, this is important since the inconsistency of climate feedbacks constitutes a very fundamental problem in climate prediction.

The Test
1. Run the models with the observed sea surface temperatures as boundary conditions.
2. Use the models to calculate the heat radiation emitted to space.
3. Use satellites to measure the heat radiation actually emitted by the earth.

Reexamination of the Observed Decadal Variability of the Earth Radiation Budget

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Wong-Wielicki-et-al-2006-J-Climate.pdf

Using Altitude-Corrected ERBE/ERBS Nonscanner WFOV Data

This paper gives an update on the observed decadal variability of the earth radiation budget (ERB) using the latest altitude-corrected Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE)/Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) Nonscanner Wide Field of View (WFOV) instrument Edition3 dataset. The effects of the altitude correction are to modify the original reported decadal changes in tropical mean (20°N to 20°S) longwave (LW), shortwave (SW), and net radiation between the 1980s and the 1990s from 3.1, 2.4, and 0.7 to 1.6, 3.0, and 1.4 W m 2, respectively. In addition, a small SW instrument drift over the 15-yr period was discovered during the validation of the WFOV Edition3 dataset. A correction was developed and applied to the Edition3 dataset at the data user level to produce the WFOV Edition3_Rev1 dataset. With this final correction, the ERBS Nonscanner-observed decadal changes in tropical mean LW, SW, and net radiation

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-02, 05:04 PM

It is very unusual for a physical system to have positive feedback.
I disagree.

Positive feedback to a forcing change makes a system unstable.
Who said that Earth's climate should be stable? However, the positive feedback is not unlimited. In Earth's climate the positive feedback means that for a little bit of warming you get slightly more warming.

The system will then oscillate and will for long term reach higher and higher values or lower and lower values in response to a negative forcing change.
Not true. It would go where the forcings dictate + little bit more from the positive feedback. Earth's climate is different issue than an operational amplifier.

Do you understand the difference between positive and negative feedback?
Yes, but do you?

I would be interested in how the cloud feedback mechanism could be positive. Please elaborate on that hypothesis.
I have understood it so that warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, so less water vapor gets condensed to clouds.

Have you noticed that when there is an increase in planetary clouds that the planet cools, in the location where the clouds occur?
If we would have clouds here right now, it would be warmer. It always is warmer here in winter, if there's clouds.

What am I missing? Lindzen and Choi's finding is the earth climate's system has fundamental stabilization that resists warming and cooling to keep the planet from freezing or over heating. That is exactly what one would expect from fundamental paleoclimatic analysis.
"Fundamental paleoclimatic analysis" shows that you can't have the abrupt climate changes evident in paleoclimatic data without positive feedbacks. It's curious that even when I showed you very fatal flaws from L&C analysis, you keep citing them as truth. Correct for their 4W/m^2 trick, and you will see that the model results and observations agree in their work.

Your other comment is how Lindzen and Choi take their finding that the planetary cloud response is negative rather than positive and convert it to determine planetary response to a doubling of CO2.
I have no idea what you mean here. It would be nice if you would indicate clearly to which parts of my post you are responding.

Lastly you have a question concerning the calibration of the ERBE satellite data. The ERBE calibration issue has been resolved.
ERBE calibration issue has been resolved long before L&C's paper, but the point was that L&C don't calibrate the data even when they know it has to be done and how it should be done. They deliberately work with faulty data and they freely admit it in the paper.

There's also one thing you must not forget; L&C only work with short period effects (so does the Spencer work you cited before). Their analysis happens in monthly scales while AGW occurs in decadal scales. So at any case, even ignoring the fatal flaws in their work, L&C:s work is not very relevant to AGW.

lomiller1

2010-Jan-03, 12:52 AM

Ari,
It is very unusual for a physical system to have positive feedback. Positive feedback to a forcing change makes a system unstable.

Not true. Low gain positive feedback systems are usually stable, in fact. Since there is no giant energy source being modulated by energy from the sun we can be fairly certain the gain the climate system must be below 1 (with some unit conversion) Therefore as long as feedbacks are not large, we can expect a stable system.

We expect therefore is a stable system that moves more then expected due to small inputs and has the possibility of rapid shifts to new equilibrium points due to the feedback factors not being linear. All this is in fact seen in the paleoclimate data.

Lindzen and Choi's finding is that when the planet warms cloud cover increases which reflects more energy into space. The clouds therefore dampen and resist any forcing change that would try to warm or to cool the planet.

Why doesn’t this prevent cooling into glaciations or warming from that glaciations? To overcome such a negative feedback and cause/end a glaciation you would need a massive forcing, instead what we find is that the forcing which are know to trigger glaciations are very small, something that can only happen with positive feedback.

lomiller1

2010-Jan-03, 12:58 AM

If we would have clouds here right now, it would be warmer. It always is warmer here in winter, if there's clouds.

Clear sky in winter generally means very very cold. It's particularly clear here right now...:mad:

William

2010-Jan-03, 01:01 AM

I disagree.

Hi Ari,

I believe I understand where your mind is at end of 2009.

Let's take a break from trying to convince each other and let's wait for new material and data to discuss.

This is an update December, 2009 of what I have been able to find out and where my mind is at concerning this subject.

There are indications the movers and the shakers in the climate community may be preparing for a change from positive to negative cloud feedback. As we are aware scientifically if the cloud feedback is strongly negative a doubling of CO2 will warm the planet 0.75C to 1C (range depends on the relative high latitude affects). This is a very big change as the IPCC has been predicting 3C to 5C for the last 20 years.

The AGU 2009 fall meeting included a very detailed 2 hour presentation of the solar cycle 24 anomaly. The presentations showed how the solar magnetic cycle in the last 30 years was the highest activity in 10,000 years. There were review papers on everything affecting the heliosphere, how cycle 24 compares to past cycles, how the GRC is affected by the heliosphere and so on. (The point is the AGU invited these people to talk on these subjects for a reason.)

The presenters were each specialists in their fields: solar cycle details, solar cycle prediction, solar magnetic cycle long term history (last 10,000 years), solar heliosphere. Everyone noted that they do not know what will happen next however based on past patterns the most likely scenario is a Dalton minimum which would bring the sun to an activity level of the 1800's.

The presenters noted that anomalous solar wind bursts continued right up until the end of 2008. (Caused by coronal holes that appeared in the solar equator position rather than at the poles of the sun.) The GCR increased in 2009 however due to the tilt of the heliosphere the full GCR affects of the weakened heliosphere have not been seen on the earth. The heliosphere magnetic strength may drop as low as 1 nT as compared to the previous lowest value of 5 nT.

In addition to the solar cycle 24 presentation, the AGU asked Roy Spencer to make a presentation at the December, 2009 AGU meeting to explain his paper that shows the cloud response to a warming planet is negative rather than positive.

Roy Spencer's presentation (and his published paper) showed previous analysis on feedbacks confused cause and effect. If cloud cover is reduced the ocean warms (Think solar modulation of planetary clouds during the period when the analysis is being done.) The analysis must be careful to determine what is the dog and what is the tail. Spencer stated that his presentation was well attended, roughly 300 people, however, everyone has very quite and very serious. (I would assume because they are thinking about the implications of Spencer's findings.)

There have been three additional papers submitted that all show the cloud feedback response is negative. Norris the author of the cloud review paper you provided a copy of stated he has a paper prepared for submission that shows cloud feedbacks are negative.

For practical reasons the climate community appears to be getting ready to change on this item (This is my reading of the people and their motives and logic.) There have been two papers recently published that warn of planetary cooling. (There is a reason why the two papers warning of planetary cooling were written and published. i.e. There is data the planet is cooling. PDO has changed. )

The current planet warming for the 38.8% increase in CO2 is slightly less than no feedbacks either clouds or changes to planetary albedo (I am repeating what Spencer stated.)

Assuming the cloud feedback calculation is strongly negative, roughly 75% of the twentieth century warming was due to some thing else (I am again repeating what Spencer stated.) I would assume everyone who has listening to the solar presentation would be thinking about the fact the sun was at its highest activity level in 10,000 years during the last 20 years of the 20th century and the sun is moving to a Dalton minimum and will be thinking about Svensmark's cloud modulation mechanisms.

I would assume there are early indications the planet is starting to cool. For example Joe Bast ardi's comments (which are based on observations not theory) that current atmospheric patterns now match the cool periods in 1980's.

Now if the planet significantly cools (Assuming Svensmark is correct based on what happens, not theory), how long will it take the scientific community to change positions? My point is Spencer's published paper and talk will change minds if the planet is cooling.

I am now waiting for more data or papers. I will advise when I have something new.

Best Wishes

William

lomiller1

2010-Jan-03, 01:12 AM

William

2010-Jan-03, 03:26 AM

Why doesn’t this prevent cooling into glaciations or warming from that glaciations? To overcome such a negative feedback and cause/end a glaciation you would need a massive forcing, instead what we find is that the forcing which are know to trigger glaciations are very small, something that can only happen with positive feedback.

Lomiller,

There is proof (published papers) that show the cloud feed back is strongly negative. The logic argument is now backwards.

If the cloud feedback is strongly negative, then there must be a massive forcing mechanism which interrupts the cloud stabilization mechanism.

As the sun appears to moving to a Dalton minimum perhaps there will be data one way or the other to determine what the correct mechanism is. (i.e. Is the cloud feedback positive or negative and can solar GCR changes cool the planet?)

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml

Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock

Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.

http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/elias/teaching/Bond.pdf

Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene

Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Atlantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire Holocene. The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantics approximately 1500-year cycle. The surface hydrographic changes may have affected production of North Atlantic Deep Water, potentially providing an additional mechanism for amplifying the
solar signals and transmitting them globally.

The last drift-ice cycle is broadly correlative with the so-called Little Ice Age (LIA) and Medieval Warm Period (MWP) (Fig. 2). Although the regional extent and exact age of those two events are still under debate, our records support previous suggestions that both may have been partly or entirely linked to changes in solar irradiance (25). The large 2s errors in calibrated ages (typically between 6100 and 6150 years) (Web table 1), however, preclude any direct comparison of our drift-ice indices or the subtropical North Atlantic temperature records with the distinct decades-long Wolfe, Spo¨rer, Maunder, and Dalton solar minima (26). However, the solar-climate links implied by our record are so dominant over the last 12,000 years that it seems almost certain that the well-documented connection between the Maunder solar minimum and cold decades of the LIA could not have been a coincidence.

lomiller1

2010-Jan-03, 07:38 AM

If the cloud feedback is strongly negative, then there must be a massive forcing mechanism which interrupts the cloud stabilization mechanism.

We already know what forcing trigger glaciations and they are tiny, while you have no proposed energy source massive enough to overcome the earths thermal inertia and a strong negative feedback. FYI this would requite an external energy source (not the sun) many orders of magnitude larger then the asteroid impact that killed off the dinosaurs.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-03, 07:42 AM

Clear sky in winter generally means very very cold. It's particularly clear here right now...:mad:
Here too. And -20°C...

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-03, 08:21 AM

There is proof (published papers) that show the cloud feed back is strongly negative. The logic argument is now backwards.
I just showed you Clement et al. who show that the cloud feedback is positive on decadal scales. So far you have presented flawed studies looking at cloud responses to short time weather events (well, actually they didn't even look at cloud responses directly like Clement et al. did).

Here's Loeb et al. (2007) (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007.../2006GL028196.shtml) discussing the observational situation of cloud feedback:

As a minimum, radiation budget instruments should be stable enough to detect a change in net cloud forcing corresponding to a 25% cloud feedback. A 25% cloud feedback would reduce or amplify the influence of the anthropogenic radiative forcing by the same amount. Estimates of anthropogenic total radiative forcing in the next few decades are 0.6 Wm-2 per decade [IPCC, 2001, Figure 9.13]. A 25% cloud feedback would change cloud net radiative forcing by 25% of the anthropogenic radiative forcing, or 0.15 Wm-2 per decade. The global average shortwave (SW) or solar reflected cloud radiative forcing by clouds is ~50 Wm-2, so that the observation requirements for global broadband radiation budget to directly observe such a cloud feedback is approximately 0.15/50 = 0.3% per decade in SW broadband calibration stability [Ohring et al., 2005]. Achieving this stability per decade in calibration is extremely difficult and has only recently been demonstrated for the first time by the ERBS and CERES broadband radiation budget instruments [Wong et al., 2006; Loeb et al., 2007].
If you are going for the iris hypothesis, then you should be aware that it was shown wrong by observations already several years ago, right after Lindzen et al. first proposed it in 2001 (Hartmann & Michelsen, 2002 (http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/IRIS_BAMS.pdf), Harrison, 2002 (http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/83/4/pdf/i1520-0477-83-4-597.pdf), Lin et al., 2002 (http://clouds.eos.ubc.ca/~phil/courses/eosc582/iris_articles/wiris1.pdf), Fu et al., 2002 (http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/2/31/2002/acp-2-31-2002.pdf), Del Genio & Kovari, 2002 (ftp://eos.atmos.washington.edu/pub/breth/CPT/delgenio-kovari_jcl02.pdf), Chambers et al., 2002a (http://clouds.eos.ubc.ca/~phil/courses/eosc582/iris_articles/wiris2.pdf), Chambers et al., 2002b (http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/39709.pdf), Chambers et al., 2002c (http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442(2002)015%3C3719%3AEONCDF%3E2.0.CO%3B2), Lin et al., 2003 (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1294732), Lin et al., 2004 (http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/~tak/wong/f15.pdf), Rapp et al., 2005 (http://rain.atmos.colostate.edu/research/pubs/rapp2005.pdf)).

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/200...GL017115.shtml

Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin.
There is lot of more recent research on the subject, and the origin of the 1500 year cyclicity is not so unknown anymore, it seems to be a combination of solar forcing and thermohaline circulation changes (Debret et al., 2007 (http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/33/07/66/PDF/cp-3-569-2007.pdf), Dima & Lohmann, 2009 (http://www.awi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Research/Research_Divisions/Climate_Sciences/Paleoclimate_Dynamics/NewManuscripts/dima_lohmann_text.pdf), Ditlevsen & Ditlevsen, 2009 (http://www.web.mek.dtu.dk/staff/od/papers/PD_OD_JCLI2430_100408.pdf)).

William

2010-Jan-03, 06:52 PM

I just showed you Clement et al. who show that the cloud feedback is positive on decadal scales. So far you have presented flawed studies looking at cloud responses to short time weather events (well, actually they didn't even look at cloud responses directly like Clement et al. did).

Here's Loeb et al. (2007) (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007.../2006GL028196.shtml) discussing the observational situation of cloud feedback:

As Spencer has pointed in his paper and his presentation at the fall 2009 AGU, the problem with a decade length cloud feedback study is there may be other factors that change planetary cloud cover (i.e. GCR changes and solar wind changes) during the period. If planetary cloud cover was reduced for other reasons during the study period, then the analysis would indicate positive feedback which would be incorrect.

Lindzen et Choi's methodology to isolate the atmosphere's (clouds and water vapour) response to warming was to look at shorter periods where they could isolate the change in total energy reflected to space to confirm it was not due to the change of another variable.

Lindzen et Choi's study showed strongly negative feedback to an increase in warming or cooling. Physically what that means, if their result is correct, is that the tropical clouds stabilize the planet's temperature and resisting warming or cooling.

You have not stated a technical reason why if the clouds' response to warming was truly positive feedback why multi-years are required before the effect is observed.

Palle et al has shown planetary albedo decreased 1994 to 2000. (See figure 2) in this paper. Decreased albedo would result in warming of the planet. Post 2000 planetary albedo has increased however the planet has not warmed.

http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Palle_etal_2008_JGR.pdf

Inter-annual variations in Earth's reflectance
1999-2007.

In this paper, we have demonstrated that the agreement between earthshine and CERES reflectances have shown a dramatic improvement after CERES data were re-calibrated and earthshine data were re-analyzed. In the common period, earthshine, CERES along with ISCCP-FD data show a trendless albedo. However, preceding CERES, earthshine and ISCCP-FD reflectances show a significant increase before flattening and holding the increase. This implies a reduction in the net sunlight reaching Earth. In the context of the recent climate change, it is important to point out that the physical causes behind these large decadal variations in albedo are still unknown, and that we just don't know yet whether we should expect the albedo changes observed during the modern period to persist into the future.

Figure 2: Top panel: Annual mean Earth albedo anomalies, as derived from ISCCP FD data, over the period 1984-2006 are plotted in black. Also, plotted in blue, are the annual mean anomalies measured by earthshine (note that annual means are only plotted for the years with complete data coverage). Bottom panel: Annual mean albedo anomalies, as derived from ISCCP FD (black), earthshine observations (blue) and CERES data (red).

Determine what cloud mechanism(s) are correct or incorrect based on observations.

It may be more productive rather than attempting to determine by discussing papers whether cloud feedback is negative or positive, to predict what will happen in 2010/2011 due the abrupt GCR increase and secession of the solar wind bursts.

The following are the two different hypotheses.

1) Cloud feedback is negative. Based on this hypothesis roughly 75% of the 20th century warming was due to something else (This is what Roy Spencer is stating). Let's assume Svensmark's cloud modulation mechanisms reduced GCR and solar wind bursts reduced the planetary albedo 1994 to 2000, causing 75% of the warming during that period. Palle's planetary albedo data shows the planet's albedo was reduced 1994 to 2000.

Now as GCR has increased 19% and the solar wind bursts have almost stopped. (It is expected the solar windbursts will stop now as the Dalton like cycle 24 is starting up.), Therefore if 75% of the 20th century warming (0.6C x 0.75 = 0.45C was due to the reduced cloud cover the planet should now cool roughly 0.4C.

Now if the solar magnetic cycle strength returns to the level in the 1800's and if Svensmark's mechanisms are correct, there will be an additional cooling of 0.4C. (Temperature in 1880's is 0.4C less than the 1950 to 1970 average.)

The total cooling if Spencer & Lindzen et Choi are correct (cloud feedback is strongly negative) and Svensmark is correct (GCR and solar wind bursts modulate planetary clouds) is 0.4C + 0.4C = 0.8C.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

Comments:
The solar wind bursts have continued right up until December, 2009 however they are now starting to get weaker and weaker, as the solar magnetic field is getting weaker and weaker.

If the 75% of the 20th century warming was due to the changes in planetary cloud cover, we should start to see significant year by year cooling.

The time constant of the planet to response to a forcing change is shorter if the cloud feedback response is negative. The estimates are roughly 5 years for planet to reach 70% of the new equilibrium value. (i.e. The planet should cool 70% times 0.8C = 0.56C in roughly five years.)

2) Cloud feedback is positive. Svensmark's cloud modulation mechanisms do not work.

If this assertion is correct then the only change to planetary temperature should be reduced to reduced solar TSI. If these assumption are correct 2010 & 2011 should be record warm year.

William

2010-Jan-03, 06:58 PM

There is lot of more recent research on the subject, and the origin of the 1500 year cyclicity is not so unknown anymore, it seems to be a combination of solar forcing and thermohaline circulation changes (Debret et al., 2007 (http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/33/07/66/PDF/cp-3-569-2007.pdf), Dima & Lohmann, 2009 (http://www.awi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Research/Research_Divisions/Climate_Sciences/Paleoclimate_Dynamics/NewManuscripts/dima_lohmann_text.pdf), Ditlevsen & Ditlevsen, 2009 (http://www.web.mek.dtu.dk/staff/od/papers/PD_OD_JCLI2430_100408.pdf)).

The most recent analysis indicates changes to the North Atlantic drift current cannot cause cyclic massive cooling of the planet. (Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere cools at the same time.)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090513130942.htm

Cold Water Ocean Circulation Doesn't Work As Expected

The familiar model of Atlantic ocean currents that shows a discrete "conveyor belt" of deep, cold water flowing southward from the Labrador Sea is probably all wet.

A 50-year-old model of ocean currents had shown this southbound subsurface flow of cold water forming a continuous loop with the familiar northbound flow of warm water on the surface, called the Gulf Stream.
"Everybody always thought this deep flow operated like a conveyor belt, but what we are saying is that concept doesn't hold anymore," said Duke oceanographer Susan Lozier. "So it's going to be more difficult to measure these climate change signals in the deep ocean."

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.999,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx

The Source of Europe's Mild Climate

The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth by Richard Seager

If you grow up in England, as I did, a few items of unquestioned wisdom are passed down to you from the preceding generation. Along with stories of a plucky island race with a glorious past and the benefits of drinking unbelievable quantities of milky tea, you will be told that England is blessed with its pleasant climate courtesy of the Gulf Stream, that huge current of warm water that flows northeast across the Atlantic from its source in the Gulf of Mexico. That the Gulf Stream is responsible for Europe's mild winters is widely known and accepted, but, as I will show, it is nothing more than the earth-science equivalent of an urban legend.

Recently, however, evidence has emerged that the Younger Dryas began long before the breach that allowed freshwater to flood the North Atlantic. What is more, the temperature changes induced by a shutdown in the conveyor are too small to explain what went on during the Younger Dryas. Some climatologists appeal to a large expansion in sea ice to explain the severe winter cooling. I agree that something of this sort probably happened, but it's not at all clear to me how stopping the Atlantic conveyor could cause a sufficient redistribution of heat to bring on this vast a change.

Trakar

2010-Jan-03, 07:27 PM

The most recent analysis indicates changes to the North Atlantic drift current cannot cause cyclic massive cooling of the planet. (Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere cools at the same time.)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090513130942.htm

Actually, this changes the picture very little, from the traditional view. It simply removes the previously supposed but unevidenced deep, cold return belt current, and replaces it with a diffuse, more tributary-like return current. If you overlay the warm water current with cold fresh water, or disrupt its circulation pattern in any number of other ways, there would still be climate disruptions along the former course of its flow.

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.999,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx

And if you read beyond the headlines and bullet points, you'll see that the article confirms that the gulf stream is indeed responsible for a great deal of Europe's moderate temperatures, though it does so in conjunction with atmospheric and geographic interactions that aren't a part of the earlier, more simplistic understanding of "warm waters heat Europe" common explanation. and of course, there is this in the paragraphs following your quoted section:

But from what specialists have long known, I would expect that any slowdown in thermohaline circulation would have a noticeable but not catastrophic effect on climate. The temperature difference between Europe and Labrador should remain. Temperatures will not drop to ice-age levels, not even to the levels of the Little Ice Age, the relatively cold period that Europe suffered a few centuries ago. The North Atlantic will not freeze over, and English Channel ferries will not have to plow their way through sea ice. A slowdown in thermohaline circulation should bring on a cooling tendency of at most a few degrees across the North Atlantic—one that would most likely be overwhelmed by the warming caused by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases. This moderating influence is indeed what the climate models show for the 21st century and what has been stated in reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Instead of creating catastrophe in the North Atlantic region, a slowdown in thermohaline circulation would serve to mitigate the expected anthropogenic warming!

William

2010-Jan-03, 07:44 PM

Actually, this changes the picture very little, from the traditional view. It simply removes the previously supposed but unevidenced deep, cold return belt current, and replaces it with a diffuse, more tributary-like return current. If you overlay the warm water current with cold fresh water, or disrupt its circulation pattern in any number of other ways, there would still be climate disruptions along the former course of its flow.

Trakar,

What Seager's article notes is Europe is much warmer in the winter because the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere travels west to east.

Comment:
I would highly recommending reading Seager's article.

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.999,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx

Because the jet stream flows from west to east, in the Northern Hemisphere the East coast of the US experiences a much colder winter than the west coast of the US.

In addition Seager explains how a Rossby wave is create as the jet stream blow across the Rocky mountains on the North American continent. The Rossby wave when it reach the UK can bring even warmer air from the Atlantic to the UK.

What Seager explains is the 75% of Europes warming is due to the west to east jet stream. A reduction of 25% is not a sufficient to cause dramatic cooling in Europe or in the Northern Hemisphere.

Seager's analysis quantify the mechanisms which shows a complete stoppage of the North Atlantic drift current would cool Europe in the winter by about 2C. (No difference the summer.)

I do not understand your second comment concerning the fact that the ocean great conveyor does not exist. Do you know what the polar see-saw is?

Trakar

2010-Jan-03, 08:02 PM

I would highly recommending reading Seager's article.

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.999,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx

I concur. It is an interesting article, I simply don't think it comports well with what you are trying to establish and assert.

I do not understand your second comment concerning the fact that the ocean great conveyor does not exist. Do you know what the polar see-saw is?

My second comment is in direct relation to the article you link and even quotes from it, you should read it all the way through carefully.

((For those interested Seager et al paper is available online - http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf))

William

2010-Jan-03, 11:42 PM

I concur. It is an interesting article, I simply don't think it comports well with what you are trying to establish and assert.

My second comment is in direct relation to the article you link and even quotes from it, you should read it all the way through carefully.

((For those interested Seager et al paper is available online - http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf))

Trakar,

I said a complete shutdown of North Atlantic Drift current would result in cooling of the Northern Hemisphere in the winter of a few degrees. That is exactly what Seager states. Seager notes that drop is not even as significant as the Little Ice Age.

If you see something different in Seager's article which I would recommend to everyone, maybe you can quote it.

http://www.americanscientist.org/include/popup_fullImage.aspx?key=hBLaeJ1XhfL5+TVW3Qq5Wt0Os cjVJv13

When Battisti and I had finished our study of the influence of the Gulf Stream, we were left with a certain sense of deflation: Pretty much everything we had found could have been concluded on the basis of results that were already available. Ngar-Cheung Lau of the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and Princeton University had published in 1979 an observational study in which he quantitatively demonstrated the warming and cooling effects that large-scale waves in the atmosphere had in Europe and eastern North America, respectively. In the 1980s, atmosphere modelers such as Brian J. Hoskins and Paul J. Valdes at the University of Reading in England and Isaac M. Held and Sumant Nigam at GFDL had shown how such stationary waves, including those forced by mountains, warm western Europe. In the late 1980s, two other GFDL researchers, Syukuro Manabe and Ronald J. Stouffer, had used a coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model to determine the climate impacts of an imposed shutdown of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Their modeled climate cooled by a few degrees on both sides of the Atlantic and left the much larger difference in temperature across the ocean unchanged.

Why doesn't the ocean exert a greater influence on North Atlantic climate? According to scientists' best estimates, the ocean and atmosphere move about an equal amount of heat in the deep tropics. But at mid-latitudes, the atmosphere carries several times more heat. Thus, if one considers the region north of, say, 35 degrees North, the atmosphere is much more effective than the ocean in warming winter climates. Also, the winter release of the heat absorbed during the summer is several times greater than the amount of heat that the ocean transports from low to high latitudes in a year. Hence it is the combined effect of atmospheric heat transport and seasonal heat storage and release that keep the winters outside the tropics warmer than they otherwise would be—by several tens of degrees.

Trakar

2010-Jan-04, 06:34 PM

Trakar,

I said a complete shutdown of North Atlantic Drift current would result in cooling of the Northern Hemisphere in the winter of a few degrees. That is exactly what Seager states. Seager notes that drop is not even as significant as the Little Ice Age.

Very big difference between "both sides of the N. Atlantic" and the "Northern Hemisphere." exactly what difference in temperatures (annual and seasonal averages) do you percieve to have been involved in the LIA?

tusenfem

2010-Jan-04, 07:46 PM

again there are too many pop-sci links here about something for which apparently there is a(n old) refereed published paper.

Trakar

2010-Jan-04, 10:16 PM

again there are too many pop-sci links here about something for which apparently there is a(n old) refereed published paper.

Agreed, I offered the paper as a means of continuing what may be a fruitful excursion, if we agreed to use it as the reference rather than the more recent pop-sci article referencing the author's opinions concerning the same material covered in the paper, would the discussion fit more apprpriately within the AGW discussion guidelines?

for reference:
"Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe’s mild winters?"
Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. (2002), 128, pp. 2563–2586
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf (http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf)

Abstract/Summary

Is the transport of heat northward by the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift, and its subsequent release into the midlatitude westerlies, the reason why Europe’s winters are so much milder than those of eastern North America and other places at the same latitude? Here, it is shown that the principal cause of this temperature difference is advection by the mean winds. South-westerlies bring warm maritime air into Europe and northwesterlies bring frigid continental air into north-eastern North America. Further, analysis of the ocean surface heat budget shows that the majority of the heat released during winter from the ocean to the atmosphere is accounted for by the seasonal release of heat previously absorbed and not by ocean heat-flux convergence. Therefore, the existence of the winter temperature contrast between western Europe and eastern North America does not require a dynamical ocean. Two experiments with an atmospheric general-circulation model coupled to an ocean mixed layer confirm this conclusion. The difference in winter temperatures across the North Atlantic, and the difference between western Europe and western North America, is essentially the same in these models whether or not the movement of heat by the ocean is accounted for. In an additional experiment with no mountains, the ow across the ocean is more zonal, western Europe is cooled, the trough east of the Rockies is weakened and the cold of north-eastern North America is ameliorated. In all experiments the west coast of Europe is warmer than the west coast of North America at the same latitude whether or not ocean heat transport is accounted for. In summary the deviations from zonal symmetry of winter temperatures in the northern hemisphere are fundamentally caused by the atmospheric circulation interacting with the oceanic mixed layer.

DrRocket

2010-Jan-04, 11:46 PM

The main take-away would be that "a consensus believe..." oft used in arguments is either inaccurate or oversimplified. 650 (not 650 random citizens, 650 who presumably know what they're talking about) is certainly a statistically significant dissent. I always wondered what Feynman, often railing against "cargo cult science", would say. Of "Nuclear Winter" proposed by Sagan, et al., he said, "those guys don't know what they're talking about". I suspect if he were alive today, he'd be saying something similar.

I believe the status is--there is no proof, certainly not in the sense of General Relativity or Quantum Electrodynamics, that temperature observations are anything more than natural climate cycles. I think the "burden of proof" should be high in science, as it is in physics, chemistry, and even the very complex medicine.

Well said

A bit more light and considerably less heat would help the debate immeasurably.

William

2010-Jan-05, 02:43 AM

The paper and the American Science Article are by same Author Richard Seager.

The paper and the article both say the same thing. A complete interruption of the North Atlantic Drift current would only result in a Europe that is roughly 2F (about 1C) colder in winter.

Seager quotes other scientific papers that support that assertion.

http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~david/Gulf.pdf

Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe’s mild winters?

R. SEAGER, D. S. BATTISTI, J. YIN, N. GORDON, N. NAIK, A. C. CLEMENT3 and M. A. CANE

http://www.americanscientist.org/include/popup_fullImage.aspx?key=hBLaeJ1XhfL5+TVW3Qq5Wt0Os cjVJv13

The Source of Europe's Mild Climate

The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth
Richard Seager

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.999,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx

William

2010-Jan-05, 02:52 AM

Trakar

2010-Jan-05, 02:53 AM

Well said

A bit more light and considerably less heat would help the debate immeasurably.

Perhaps it was well stated, but the nature of the situation with regards to the character of the findings and evidences in regard to human forced climate change is misrepresented in that statement.

The primary understandings with respect to the current episode of climate change are well understood and accepted as a virtual certainty (90+% - and these confidences are growing, not shrinking) by all mainstream researchers within the climate and associated fields of study (paleo-climate, atmospheric physics, planetary and geophysics, etc.,).

• Human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.

• The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.

• An “unequivocal” warming trend of about 1.0 to 1.7°F occurred from 1906-2005. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans.

• The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.

• Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.

Other areas are less well verified and hold somewhat lower confidence levels, but these alone are sufficient to establish that some changes in the status quo are neccesary to prevent drastic ecological and economic damage, the sooner these changes are instituted the less dramatic they will have to be. More than a decade has already been wasted. If we don't make the changes necessary, they will be forced upon us by the consequence of our inactions.

Trakar

2010-Jan-05, 03:37 AM

This has been an exceptionally cold winter in North America this year. Citrus crop futures are up as there is an expected hard freeze in Florida this week. I see record cold weather in China.

Joe Bast eri predicted a cold winter in both North America & Europe, in August of 2009.

http://www.accuweather.com/news-top-headline.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&date=2010-01-04_17:27

2008 was also a cold year in North America. There was a paper published that appealed to La Nina as the cause. This however is a El Nino year.

It will be interesting to see what the December, 2009 temperature anomaly is.

The el nino did not begin until late summer this year and did not fully develop until late October/November. Regardless, 2009 was a record warm year globally, as for the Winter of 09-10, it is only a week or two old so we will have to wait a bit before we can qualify how it is progressing, but in N.America and Europe it doesn't look good for those predicting an exceptionally cold season as the period leading up to the start of the season were on track as near record warm periods both globally and in these two regions.

Global Data:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/2009+2005+2007.pdf

N. American Data:
November 3rd warmest on Record
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=national&image=timeseries02&byear=2009&bmonth=11&year=2009&month=11&ext=gif&id=110-00

Atraveller

2010-Jan-05, 05:09 AM

Regardless, 2009 was a record warm year globally, as for the Winter of 09-10, it is only a week or two old so we will have to wait a bit before we can qualify how it is progressing, but in N.America and Europe it doesn't look good for those predicting an exceptionally cold season as the period leading up to the start of the season were on track as near record warm periods both globally and in these two regions.

N. American Data:
November 3rd warmest on Record
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=national&image=timeseries02&byear=2009&bmonth=11&year=2009&month=11&ext=gif&id=110-00

Hi Trakar, I though your summary was very clear and concise. Thanks for that.

Further to your comment on 2009 - it is southern hemisphere summer, but the Australian BOM released it's annual report: BOM 2009 News release (http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20100105.shtml) 2009 is the second hottest year on record in Australia, and the decade ending 2009 is the hottest decade on record. 0.48 C above the 1961 - 1990 decade average.

Paradoxically - Australia is getting wetter. Rainfall accross the tropical areas of Australia has increased, with record rainfall in the outback.

The BOM is charting this as positive proof of GW...

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-05, 07:04 AM

What Seager's article notes is Europe is much warmer in the winter because the jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere travels west to east.
This is not the first time William pushes the Seager et al. (2002) as a proof that Gulf stream doesn't warm Europe. We "discussed" it previously here (post #588) (http://www.bautforum.com/science-technology/70431-general-agw-discussion-thread-20.html#post1453139). William has misunderstood the paper. It addresses the role of the Gulf stream only for the difference between Europe and North-America, not if the Gulf stream warms northern parts of the Earth generally. This is what I said about Seager et al.:

"Seager et al. (2002) (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/gs/pubs/Seager_etal_QJ_2002.pdf) claim that ocean is not principal cause for temperature differences between western Europe and eastern North America. William interpreted this so that it is an urban myth that stoppage of Atlantic drift has been cause for abrupt cooling periods in paleoclimatic record. I find that interpretation curious, as Seager et al. are not studying that at all, they are studying that: "Is the transport of heat northward by the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift, and its subsequent release into the midlatitude westerlies, the reason why Europe’s winters are so much milder than those of eastern North America and other places at the same latitude?" This is also emphasized by Wood et al. (2003) (http://www.ambiente.sp.gov.br/proclima/artigos_dissertacoes/artigos_ingles/globalwarmingandthemohalinecirculationstability.pd f) (see page 3 where they mention Seager et al. paper). Many other papers show evidence for the important role of Atlantic circulation for climate, Alley (2003) (http://isis.ku.dk/kurser/blob.aspx?feltid=83073) for example: "In looking at the freshening of the North Atlantic, the modelled response to known forcings is sufficiently similar to observed anomaly patterns to support the contention that North Atlantic changes caused abrupt climate changes."."

tusenfem

2010-Jan-05, 10:23 AM

http://www.accuweather.com/news-top-headline.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&date=2010-01-04_17:27

You post (a blog) this AFTER I make a comment that:

again there are too many pop-sci links here about something for which apparently there is a(n old) refereed published paper.

What don't you understand about warnings?

Another infraction for you.

Moose

2010-Jan-05, 04:38 PM

These little semantics games of the form "it's not a blog, it's an X" end right now. Listen well, my pretties, because I'm going to spell this out in explicit terms.

If your argument hinges on anything other than evidence from a reputable peer-reviewed journal, don't do it. Period. I don't care if you have a deathbed note from Walter Cronkite saying it's okay. Don't. Do. It.

parejkoj

2010-Jan-05, 05:57 PM

Boy, I missed something somewhere. Can you show me where you got your terminology and percentages (90+% and virtual certainty)? Also, are you implying these numbers are for GW or AGW?

Although I'm not Trakar, I'll try and put some words in his mouth. There is almost complete consensus that global warming is happening and that it is currently dominated by anthropogenic sources.

1. The IPCC AR4 report (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthes is_report.htm). The IPCC is publicly peer reviewed (http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/ipcc/).

2. Oreskes 2004 (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686) (published in Science) and Oreskes 2007 (http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/Chapter4.pdf) (published in Climate change : what it means for us, our children, and our grandchildren, a collection of articles by MIT press).

3. The climate change statements of all major scientific organizations.

Any claim that this is not the consensus has to explicitly refute Oreskes' papers. No one has successfully done so, on this thread, or anywhere else.

orionjim

2010-Jan-05, 07:12 PM

Although I'm not Trakar, I'll try and put some words in his mouth. There is almost complete consensus that global warming is happening and that it is currently dominated by anthropogenic sources.

1. The IPCC AR4 report (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthes is_report.htm). The IPCC is publicly peer reviewed (http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/ipcc/).

2. Oreskes 2004 (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686) (published in Science) and Oreskes 2007 (http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/Chapter4.pdf) (published in Climate change : what it means for us, our children, and our grandchildren, a collection of articles by MIT press).

3. The climate change statements of all major scientific organizations.

Any claim that this is not the consensus has to explicitly refute Oreskes' papers. No one has successfully done so, on this thread, or anywhere else.

In my opinion the IPCC Report is just that, a report. It could be argued that that it is or isn’t peer reviewed but I have no intention of going there.

The two Naomi Oreskes links you provided are to magazine articles not peer review papers.

Trakar

2010-Jan-05, 07:16 PM

Although I'm not Trakar, I'll try and put some words in his mouth...

Sorry, somehow I missed this response by Orionjim, but, not only do those words fit my mouth(fingers) pretty well, they have a rather familiar flavor(feel) as well!

I get a little hard of reading occassionally, especially during the holidays (and their immediate aftermath!).

BTW - Happy New Year All!

Moose

2010-Jan-05, 07:43 PM

I've been PMed with a fair point. I'm going to clarify my earlier instruction thusly:

Evidence used to support a non-trivial technical claim must be substantive. That means having been through peer-review. The cite doesn't necessarily have to be _of_ a journal _if_ the source is cited in such a way that interested parties can find (and critique) the original data.

This means that a secondary source is acceptable if it directly cites a primary source and there's some reasonable standard of responsibility for the information they put out.

Because of their citing standards, news articles from reputable sources (BBC yes, Daily Mail, no) are acceptable to support trivial claims, or as a simple point of interest. Such articles will not be considered suitable as evidence of a substantive or technical claim.

Technical claims may be supported by articles or non-refereed papers from major scientific institutes (think IPCC, NASA, NOAA, etc) if those articles either directly contain peer-reviewed data, or clearly cite peer-reviewed journal articles or equivalent primary sources that contain data that is relevant to the claim.

The standard that should be met is that substantive claims need to be supported by relevant data whose origin and methodology can be examined and critiqued. If that original data and/or methodology cannot be directly examined, it's not fair game.

nauthiz

2010-Jan-05, 08:05 PM

There is almost complete consensus that global warming is happening and that it is currently dominated by anthropogenic sources.

There was a survey (http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf) of active climate scientists from last year that suggests that this might be a bit of an overstatement. The survey indicated that 95% of active climate scientists agree that the earth is warming and that at human influence is a significant factor of contemporary climate change. That would seem to indicate that climatologists who doubt the IPCC's conclusions may be a small minority, but they're not an insignificant minority.

Trakar

2010-Jan-06, 03:59 AM

There was a survey (http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf) of active climate scientists from last year that suggests that this might be a bit of an overstatement. The survey indicated that 95% of active climate scientists agree that the earth is warming and that at human influence is a significant factor of contemporary climate change. That would seem to indicate that climatologists who doubt the IPCC's conclusions may be a small minority, but they're not an insignificant minority.

Survey quote:

...Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2. This is in contrast to results of a recent Gallup poll that suggests that only 58% of the general public would answer yes to our question 2. The two areas of expertise in the survey with the smallest percentage of participants answering yes to question 2 were economic geology with 47% (48 of 103) and meteorology with 64% (23 of 36).

It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to
policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate
among scientists.
edit note - I pulled the html address of the gallup poll out of the quote because the posting auto-editor is improperly mutilating the link and I don't know how to correct the issue.

Of course, this is a survey rather than a true poll, and is biased toward those who were motivated to respond. Without a fuller understanding of the surveyed scientists' positions and understanding it is hard to say exactly what those who answered in the negative to either question really intended, particularly as those who felt that the the rise was mostly directly due to human forcing was actually higher than those who felt that the temperature was actually rising (only by a little less than a point, but still). The authors have also published a response to the peer commentary their study has generated.

"Reply to Comments on 'Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change'" - http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009EO270010.shtml

parejkoj

2010-Jan-06, 05:41 AM

In my opinion the IPCC Report is just that, a report. It could be argued that that it is or isn’t peer reviewed but I have no intention of going there.

Opinion doesn't enter in to it. Are you disputing the public review process (http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/ipcc/) that I linked to? If so, why? If anything, this was significantly more thorough and robust than any single paper's peer review. Why are you rejecting one of the most thoroughly reviewed scientific reports, in any field, ever?

Is the IPCC report perfect? Of course not! Does it represent the consensus view of climate scientists? Emphatically yes.

The two Naomi Oreskes links you provided are to magazine articles not peer review papers.

Yes, Oreskes 2004 is a magazine article: it was published in Science! I do not know whether the 2007 article was reviewed, or if so how. If you dispute the facts in either article (Have you read Oreskes 2004? It is very short. If you have questions about it, feel free to ask them here...), do your own research on climate change publications, write up a response and submit it to Science. So far, no one has successfully disputed the 2004 paper's claim that almost no peer reviewed publications in climate science (as of ~2003) dispute the consensus position. Do you have reliable evidence to the contrary?

nauthiz:

I was just looking at a copy of Zimmerman's full paper (I think it was her thesis) today: it's a very interesting, quite long and fairly thorough. Apparently the complete version may be published online at some point this year. Trakar has mostly responded about it, but it essentially echoes my point on the consensus. Only 2 out of ~75 respondents who claimed to have published papers in climate science journals disagreed with the consensus view.

The astronomer who had shown the paper to me commented that a similar survey of astronomers about any given astronomy topic would be unlikely to find as much agreement. And I certainly agree.

orionjim

2010-Jan-06, 08:56 PM

Opinion doesn't enter in to it. Are you disputing the public review process (http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/ipcc/) that I linked to? If so, why? If anything, this was significantly more thorough and robust than any single paper's peer review. Why are you rejecting one of the most thoroughly reviewed scientific reports, in any field, ever?

Is the IPCC report perfect? Of course not! Does it represent the consensus view of climate scientists? Emphatically yes.

Yes, Oreskes 2004 is a magazine article: it was published in Science! I do not know whether the 2007 article was reviewed, or if so how. If you dispute the facts in either article (Have you read Oreskes 2004? It is very short. If you have questions about it, feel free to ask them here...), do your own research on climate change publications, write up a response and submit it to Science. So far, no one has successfully disputed the 2004 paper's claim that almost no peer reviewed publications in climate science (as of ~2003) dispute the consensus position. Do you have reliable evidence to the contrary?

[...]

You seem like you are itching for a fight. Why – I have no idea.

I submitted a post asking Traker a question. After it was posted, Moose had a post saying that only links to reputable peer reviewed journals would be acceptable.

I knew that the only way that Traker could answer my question would be to reference the IPCC Report and since it technically isn’t a peer reviewed journal Traker couldn’t answer my question without breaking the rules as they stood at that moment, so I deleted the question.

You replied with four links, two links to the IPCC Report, that at that point in time was a violation of rules (it wasn’t a respectable peer reviewed journal). You also had two other links, one to an article by Naomi Orsekis and another link to a portion of a book she is writing. Both of these links were also against the rules of this site at that point in time.

As far as me disputing either the IPCC Report or the Naomi Orsekis articles is something your mind has conjured up.

Trakar

2010-Jan-06, 09:58 PM

nauthiz:

I was just looking at a copy of Zimmerman's full paper (I think it was her thesis) today: it's a very interesting, quite long and fairly thorough. Apparently the complete version may be published online at some point this year. Trakar has mostly responded about it, but it essentially echoes my point on the consensus. Only 2 out of ~75 respondents who claimed to have published papers in climate science journals disagreed with the consensus view.

The astronomer who had shown the paper to me commented that a similar survey of astronomers about any given astronomy topic would be unlikely to find as much agreement. And I certainly agree.

In my personal opinion, if 100 top theoretical physicists were asked a similar question with regards to the Theories of Relativity, I would be surprised to find that none would respond negatively. This doesn't mean that I would expect to find a significant cadre of Archimedes' Plutonium universe advocates, but I could see a handful answering in the negative because their personal perspective might be more nuanced. For instance, Newtonian phyics is a fine first-order approximation of the practically observed and experienced universe, in most instances. The seperate Theories of Relativity add to and refines our understanding allowing us a broader, more encompassing perspective on underlying mechanisms and methods of interaction. Several "blind-spots" seem to indicate that there are, at least some further layers of understanding yet to be realized. This doesn't mean that they think the Theories of Relativity are wrong, they just may not want to associated with any assertion that the Theories of Relativity are complete TOEs in and of themselves. I would much like to see a similar survey among all scientists and primary researchers of all the major fields of study, and not in relation to climate change, but rather in regards to their own area of study and research, then we would have a usefull scale to compare this survey against.

Its important to remember that concensus does not create science, but, good, solid empirical science does generate concensus.

Trakar

2010-Jan-06, 10:40 PM

You seem like you are itching for a fight. Why – I have no idea.

I submitted a post asking Traker a question. After it was posted, Moose had a post saying that only links to reputable peer reviewed journals would be acceptable.

I knew that the only way that Traker could answer my question would be to reference the IPCC Report and since it technically isn’t a peer reviewed journal Traker couldn’t answer my question without breaking the rules as they stood at that moment, so I deleted the question.

You replied with four links, two links to the IPCC Report, that at that point in time was a violation of rules (it wasn’t a respectable peer reviewed journal). You also had two other links, one to an article by Naomi Orsekis and another link to a portion of a book she is writing. Both of these links were also against the rules of this site at that point in time.

As far as me disputing either the IPCC Report or the Naomi Orsekis articles is something your mind has conjured up.

"Conjured," as in scrying?

As I explained, I didn't see your posted question (your explanation that you deleted it after further consideration probably helps to explain the reason I didn't see it).

Parejkoj actually responded in much the manner I would have. I consider the IPCC to be what it is, an international scientific congress, with the leading climatologists and scientific climate research institutes on the planet providing both an internal peer review of the entire scientific body of work in the field of climate science since the last IPCC report, composing a concensus review and summary of that work in the form of the IPCC reports and then submitting the report to the world for professional and public review.

Any serious individual or group contention with the IPCC report would be generated through the public and professional publication/review and become subject of consideration or rebuttal in the next IPCC report. That is a rigorous peer-review process, that is much higher of a standard than any individual science journal that I am aware of.

Each individual element of the IPCC document is fully and amply supported in referenced paper and publication. It makes little difference to me whether you wish to treat the IPCC report as a primary scientific source, or a secondary scientific reference source. Same data either way. In general, I prefer more current references and researches where they are available, but that's just me.

orionjim

2010-Jan-07, 12:52 AM

"Conjured," as in scrying?

As I explained, I didn't see your posted question (your explanation that you deleted it after further consideration probably helps to explain the reason I didn't see it).

...

I wasn't trying to hide anything, I just didn't want to cause problems with the changing rules.

BTW, for the record I had suggested that this site use the IPCC Report as a guide to posting.

I'll ask my question again:

Perhaps it was well stated, but the nature of the situation with regards to the character of the findings and evidences in regard to human forced climate change is misrepresented in that statement.

The primary understandings with respect to the current episode of climate change are well understood and accepted as a virtual certainty (90+% - and these confidences are growing, not shrinking) by all mainstream researchers within the climate and associated fields of study (paleo-climate, atmospheric physics, planetary and geophysics, etc.,).
[…]

My question was, where did you get your definition? Especially the virtual certainty and 90+%?

nauthiz

2010-Jan-07, 01:08 AM

Especially the virtual certainty and 90+%?

That's the most famous finding of IPCC AR4.

orionjim

2010-Jan-07, 01:29 AM

That's the most famous finding of IPCC AR4.

Well, that certainly explains it.

Trakar

2010-Jan-07, 05:40 AM

I wasn't trying to hide anything, I just didn't want to cause problems with the changing rules.

I didn't think so, nor mean to imply that this had been the case, and I apologize if any took that meaning from my words. I merely meant that the fact that you deleted your post, might well explain why I didn't see it or respond to it myself.

BTW, for the record I had suggested that this site use the IPCC Report as a guide to posting.

I don't know that I'd use the IPCC Report to limit discussion, as its findings are usually a minimum of year or so out of date by the time the report is released, and the time between such reports is great enough that there is a significant gap in new data and understandings to account for between the production of one report and the production of the next report. A handy reference, but rooted more in the past and historic than up to the moment data and understandings, IMO.

I'll ask my question again:

My question was, where did you get your definition? Especially the virtual certainty and 90+%?

I was not quoting a definition, but rather employing my own qualification of the understandings, which I then proceeded to quantify with the "90+%" explanation. The IPCC goes a bit further than my quantification, indicating a scientific virtual certainty (>99%) about several primary areas. If you would prefer to stick to the IPCC definition and quantification, I will cede my milder personal considerations.

orionjim

2010-Jan-07, 07:23 PM

...
I was not quoting a definition, but rather employing my own qualification of the understandings, which I then proceeded to quantify with the "90+%" explanation. The IPCC goes a bit further than my quantification, indicating a scientific virtual certainty (>99%) about several primary areas. If you would prefer to stick to the IPCC definition and quantification, I will cede my milder personal considerations.

Oh! I’m sorry; I didn’t realize you were just giving your opinion. It sounded so official I thought you were quoting from some major source.

Because if you were making a general statement like that using the only real reference that I’m aware of, the IPCC Report, it would have read:

Perhaps it was well stated, but the nature of the situation with regards to the character of the findings and evidences in regard to human forced climate change is misrepresented in that statement.

The primary understandings with respect to the current episode of climate change are well understood and accepted as likely (66+% - and these confidences are growing, not shrinking) by all mainstream researchers within the climate and associated fields of study (paleo-climate, atmospheric physics, planetary and geophysics, etc.,)
Bold = my changes

Now I know that you are going to rush to the IPCC Report and come back and try and prove to me that it should be “very likely (90+%...), but remember you were making a general statement and the IPCC Report regards the possibility of human influences in different categories at different probabilities and you should be including all of them.

Disinfo Agent

2010-Jan-07, 08:56 PM

Ivan Viehoff

2010-Jan-08, 12:25 PM

In statistics, a 95% degree of confidence is considered sufficient in common circumstances. In other words, a 5% discrepancy (1 in 20) is indeed non-significant. This is not a definition that the IPCC just made up on the spot; it's a standard statistical criterion.
The 95% referred to was not a statistical 95% confidence limit, it was 95% fraction of a population. Quite different.

A 95% confidence limit refers to a 95% probability that a certain statistical test is satisfied. 95% of scientists believing something does not equate to a precisely 95% probability that what they believe is correct. In fact it is hard to know what it does mean without further information.

kzb

2010-Jan-08, 12:53 PM

It's 95% of climate scientists. So who defines what a climate scientist is? It is an in-crowd (no different to any other walk of life actually). People who support the current paradigm get academic positions and get published, people who don't, don't. So it's no surprise that 95% of climate scientists support the current paradigm. But it's no measure one way or the other of objective truth.

parejkoj

2010-Jan-08, 05:54 PM

It's 95% of climate scientists. So who defines what a climate scientist is?

Those who have published articles about climate science in the peer reviewed literature. That's how Zimmerman's report defines it.

It is an in-crowd (no different to any other walk of life actually). People who support the current paradigm get academic positions and get published, people who don't, don't. So it's no surprise that 95% of climate scientists support the current paradigm. But it's no measure one way or the other of objective truth.

Are you suggesting some kind of conspiracy? Do you have any evidence for this view?

captain swoop

2010-Jan-08, 09:47 PM

If anyone is suggesting a conspiracy this is not the place for it

nauthiz

2010-Jan-08, 10:10 PM

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it's not a conspiracy so much as a general culture of summarily dismissing any data that doesn't fit with the front-running theory, and that this is causing a compelling scientific case against the mainstream theory to be suppressed. What would we expect to see if that were the case?

Presumably, it'd be the following:

1. Empirical observations that do not match model predictions will not be presented in any of the top-tier journals.

2. Strong papers which express ideas that do not match the mainstream would not get published in the top-tier journals, so their authors would be forced to find other outlets. As a result, we should see a lot of high-quality papers which directly challenge the mainstream theory appearing in the "pulp" journals.

3. The details of the existing mainstream model should remain very static over time, since you can't fix problems in the model if you're ignoring anything that suggests there's a problem with the model.

captain swoop

2010-Jan-08, 11:22 PM

As far as I can see this is a conspiracy theory, I plainly stated in my previous post that this is not the place for conspiracy. IF you disagree with this then report the post don't argue it in the thread

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-09, 07:39 AM

There's some new research available on cosmic ray issue. It has been shown in many fronts now that cosmic rays don't have much effect on the climate, but still some scientists bother to answer Svensmark's papers, my hat is off to these scientists. Svensmark's hypothesis has evolved as time has gone by, and currently it is the forbush events that seem to be important. The latest Svensmark paper already has two responding papers:

Cosmic ray decreases and changes in the liquid water cloud fraction over the oceans - Laken et al. (2009) (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040961.shtml)
abstract:

Svensmark et al. (2009) have recently claimed that strong galactic cosmic ray (GCR) decreases during ‘Forbush Decrease (FD) events’ are followed by decreases in both the global liquid water cloud fraction (LCF) and other closely correlated atmospheric parameters. To test the validity of these findings we have concentrated on just one property, the MODIS LCF and examined two aspects: 1) The statistical chance that the decrease observed in the LCF is abnormal. 2) The likelihood of the observed delay (∼5 to 9 days) being physically connected to the FD events. On both counts we conclude that LCF variations are unrelated to FD events: Both the pattern and timing of observed LCF changes are irreconcilable with current theoretical pathways. Additionally, a zonal analysis of LCF variations also offers no support to the claimed relationship, as the observed anomaly is not found to vary latitudinally in conjunction with cosmic ray intensity.

(in press) Sudden Cosmic Ray Decreases: No Change of Global Cloud Cover - Calogovic et al. (2010) (http://www.agu.org/contents/journals/ViewPapersInPress.do?journalCode=GL)
abstract:

Currently a cosmic ray cloud connection (CRC) hypothesis is subject of an intense controversial debate. It postulates that galactic cosmic rays (GCR) intruding the Earth’s atmosphere influence cloud cover. If correct it would have important consequences for our understanding of climate driving processes. Here we report on an alternative and stringent test of the CRC-hypothesis by searching for a possible influence of sudden GCR decreases (so-called Forbush decreases) on clouds. We find no response of global cloud cover to Forbush decreases at any altitude and latitude.
Not very surprisingly, Forbush events turn out to be climatically unimportant.

William

2010-Jan-09, 05:14 PM

Not very surprisingly, Forbush events turn out to be climatically unimportant.

Ari,
No one is saying a Forbush event will cool the planet. Based on your comment it appears you do not have a understanding of what a Forbush event is.

A Forbush decrease is a rapid decrease in the observed galactic cosmic ray intensity following a coronal mass ejection (CME). It occurs due to the magnetic field of the plasma solar wind sweeping some of the galactic cosmic rays away from Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbush_decrease

http://www.springerlink.com/content/662166078h432877/

A Forbush event is a short duration event when GCR is reduced. There are other complications however during Forbush events caused by the CME that creates a space charge differential in the ionosphere which removes cloud forming ions.

The papers you link to do not take into account the ionospheric changes which can remove ions from specific locations in the atmosphere.

You provided another paper that stated GCR changes have no affect on the abundance of fine aerosol particles. Svensmark's study finds that to be incorrect.

The papers you quote are of course ignoring the elephant in the room. GCR is currently at the highest level in 40 years and will continue to climb (See Solar Cycle 24 where the solar specialists discuss the change) The sun appears to be moving to a deep magnetic minimum. (Same as the 1790 to 1830 Dalton Solar Cycle Minimum?).

If there was not cyclic significant warming and cooling in the paleoclimatic record that happens to coincide with cosmogenic isotope changes, we might be sympathetic to the skepticism.

The paleoclimatologist community and Historians have given names to the past cycle climate changes. Medieval Warm period, Little Ice Age, and so on.

It appears however that a group of scientists are in denial concerning the current abrupt increase in GCR, Svensmark's research, and what was happened in the past when there was an abrupt increase in GCR.

Obviously, if Svensmark's mechanism is correct the planet will start to cool. What would be logically prudent would be to allow a face saving way out of the years of denial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum

Have there been any anomalous "weather" changes recently? Yes. Please do your own searches, to find out about the anomalous "weather" changes.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/svensmark-forebush.pdf

Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds by Henrik Svensmark et al.

Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth’s surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases, and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum approx. 7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays, and so does the fraction of low clouds seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and in the International Satellite Cloud Climate Project (ISCCP).

Parallel observations by the aerosol robotic network AERONET reveal falls in the relative abundance of fine aerosol particles which, in normal circumstances, could have evolved into cloud condensation nuclei. Thus a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-09, 05:54 PM

As usual, everybody else are supposedly ignorant about the mechanisms and ignoring all the relevant stuff...

If there was not cyclic significant warming and cooling in the paleoclimatic record that happens to coincide with cosmogenic isotope changes, we might be sympathetic to the skepticism.
I think you should watch Richard Alley's AGU lecture. There's an interesting thing relating to this after about 40 minutes (the part about the Laschamp event). About 40,000 years ago, there was a large spike in cosmic rays but it didn't have any effect on temperature.

Effect of cosmic rays to the climate have been studied all over, they are of no significance.

kzb

2010-Jan-09, 06:05 PM

It's not necesssary to bring in any special conspiracy theory. This in-crowd phenomenon is widespread throughout science in my experience and indeed in life in general. That is all I was suggesting.

William

2010-Jan-09, 07:25 PM

As usual, everybody else are supposedly ignorant about the mechanisms and ignoring all the relevant stuff...

Ari,
You did not reply to my comment. You appear to be avoiding discussing issues which disproof "the hypothesis".

Are you denying the existence of past cyclic climate change? (Medieval Warm Period & Little Ice Age and so on and so on. It is cyclic.) Are you denying the existence of cyclic abrupt climate change? What is the alternative explanation for the forcing mechanism(s), besides the solar mechanism and cyclic geomagnetic field changes? (P.S. There is a good section in Kirkby's paper that discusses the Laschamp geomagnetic field minimum.)

I am trying to get you to discuss and accept the facts concerning the paleoclimate record and to present the alternative mechanisms to cause what is observed, as I know there are no other viable mechanisms. (That is why I presented Richard Seager's papers that show the complete stoppage of the Atlantic Drift current could not have caused even minor climate change such as the Little Ice Age.) No wants to discuss the paleo record because it strongly supports Svensmark, Kirkby, and Shivav's Hypotheses.

There are two parts to paleoclimatology and climatology. The past is a clue as to what will happen in the future. The past abrupt cyclic climate changes happened for a reason. There is a cyclic forcing mechanism. The cyclic forcing mechanism has nothing to do with CO2 levels.

The second part is what Svensmark, Kirkby, Tinsley, and so on are doing. As there are concurrent cosmogenic isotope changes with past abrupt climate changes, they are trying to determine how changes in the solar magnetic cycle modulate planetary climate.

Richard Alley and others discovered the evidence of cyclic abrupt climate change in the Greenland Ice Sheet data. When cyclic abrupt climate change was first discovered, the climatologists thought the Greenland ice core data must be due to damaged and distorted ice cores, as there was no known mechanism that could cyclically cause the planet to warm and cool. (1470 year cycle, 4000 to 8000 year cycle, and the less sever Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age type cycle.)

(The evidence of abrupt climate change is muted in the Antarctic Ice Sheet data because of the polar see-saw. An increase in cloud cover causes the Antarctic ice sheet to warm as the albedo of the ice sheet is greater than clouds and clouds warm due to the water greenhouse affect. It is this fact that explains why abrupt climate change was not discovered until the 1990s.) Because there everyone doubted the existence of cyclic abrupt climate changes, two additional ice cores where drilled into the Greenland Ice Sheet to confirm that cyclic abrupt climate change is what really does occur.

The question is what is causing the cyclic abrupt climate change and less sever climate cycles such as the Medieval warm period and the Little Ice Age.

There has been no alternative forcing mechanism (besides solar and concurrent geomagnetic field changes) to explain the cyclic abrupt climate.

Alley's book Ice Chronicles (which I would recommend) notes there is a very strong 1470 year cyclic in the paleoclimatic record and notes the most likely forcing mechanism is solar. He references Gerald Bond's work.

There is close correlation of increases and decreases in planetary temperature with both changes in GCR intensity and magnitude and solar wind bursts.

The solar wind bursts are caused by coronal holes which in the 20th century moved down from the solar poles to the solar equator. The coronal hole creates a long steady solar wind burst which when it strikes the earth's ionosphere creates a space charge differential which removes cloud forming ions.

http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MSAIt760405/PDF/2005MmSAI..76..969G.pdf

Once again about global warming and solar activity K. Georgieva, C. Bianchi, and B. Kirov

We show that the index commonly used for quantifying long-term changes in solar activity, the sunspot number, accounts for only one part of solar activity and using this index leads to the underestimation of the role of solar activity in the global warming in the recent decades. A more suitable index is the geomagnetic activity which reflects all solar activity, and it is highly correlated to global temperature variations in the whole period for which we have data.

In Figure 6 the long-term variations in global temperature are compared to the long-term variations in geomagnetic activity as expressed by the ak-index (Nevanlinna and Kataja 2003). The correlation between the two quantities is 0.85 with p<0.01 for the whole period studied.It could therefore be concluded that both the decreasing correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity, and the deviation of the global temperature long-term trend from solar activity as expressed by sunspot index are due to the increased number of high-speed streams of
solar wind on the declining phase and in the minimum of sunspot cycle in the last decades.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JA014342.shtml

If the Sun is so quiet, why is the Earth ringing? A comparison of two solar minimum intervals by S. E. Gibson et al.

Observations from the recent Whole Heliosphere Interval (WHI) solar minimum campaign are compared to last cycle's Whole Sun Month (WSM) to demonstrate that sunspot numbers, while providing a good measure of solar activity, do not provide sufficient information to gauge solar and heliospheric magnetic complexity and its effect at the Earth. The present solar minimum is exceptionally quiet, with sunspot numbers at their lowest in 75 years and solar wind magnetic field strength lower than ever observed. Despite, or perhaps because of, a global weakness in the heliospheric magnetic field, large near-equatorial coronal holes lingered even as the sunspots disappeared. Consequently, for the months surrounding the WHI campaign, strong, long, and recurring high-speed streams in the solar wind intercepted the Earth in contrast to the weaker and more sporadic streams that occurred around the time of last cycle's WSM campaign. In response, geospace and upper atmospheric parameters continued to ring with the periodicities of the solar wind in a manner that was absent last cycle minimum, and the flux of relativistic electrons in the Earth's outer radiation belt was elevated to levels more than three times higher in WHI than in WSM. Such behavior could not have been predicted using sunspot numbers alone, indicating the importance of considering variation within and between solar minima in analyzing and predicting space weather responses at the Earth during solar quiet intervals, as well as in interpreting the Sun's past behavior as preserved in geological and historical records.

Comment:
Richard Alley's presentation at the AGU was a tirade, not a scientific presentation which is ironic as Alley's book Ice Chronicles has an entire chapter on abrupt climate change. Alley stated in the AGU presentation that he no longer presents the paleoclimate record during his lectures as it confuses the students. He said that CO2 was the one knob on the climate machine.

I would assume Alley had not read Lindzen's paper that shows the cloud feedback to be negative which would mean CO2 changes cannot cause the ice epochs which happen to correlate with passage of the solar system through the galaxy's arms at which time there are very high GCR levels until the solar system completes passage through the spiral arm.

Alley in his book Ice Chronicles noted that the abrupt cyclic cooling is an order of magnitude greater than anything experienced by man in the written record. It was Alley's book that got me interested in abrupt climate change and the related mechanisms.

Of course CO2 changes cannot cause abrupt cyclic climate change.

tusenfem

2010-Jan-09, 08:14 PM

Of course CO2 changes cannot cause abrupt cyclic climate change.

Of course that depends on what your definition of "abrupt" is. which I don't think you have ever specifically stated here.

Trakar

2010-Jan-09, 09:13 PM

Oh! I’m sorry; I didn’t realize you were just giving your opinion. It sounded so official I thought you were quoting from some major source.
(...)
Now I know that you are going to rush to the IPCC Report and come back and try and prove to me that it should be “very likely (90+%...), but remember you were making a general statement and the IPCC Report regards the possibility of human influences in different categories at different probabilities and you should be including all of them.

Not at all, those are your words not mine, I'll stand by mine.

"The primary understandings with respect to the current episode of climate change are well understood and accepted as a virtual certainty (90+% - and these confidences are growing, not shrinking) by all mainstream researchers within the climate and associated fields of study (paleo-climate, atmospheric physics, planetary and geophysics, etc.,)."

and then the listing of these basic considerations:

• Human activities are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.

• The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.

• An “unequivocal” warming trend of about 1.0 to 1.7°F occurred from 1906-2005. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans.

• The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.

• Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.

Now, if you wish to dispute that the IPCC reports assert confidence levels to the above issues at anything other than the scientific certainty level, then please make your case. If you want to argue that my personal level of confidence is at odds with those used in a professional assessment, we can do that as well, you are perfectly correct I should have said >99% instead of 90+%, I cede the issue to your technical correction, now, can we return to the preliminary issue, which you seem to be raising with regards to what is and is not supported at the scientific certainty level of consideration by the IPCC report,...or am I misunderstanding your statements?

seriously, I mean I even originally qualifed my remarks with:

Other areas are less well verified and hold somewhat lower confidence levels, but these alone are sufficient to establish that some changes in the status quo are neccesary to prevent drastic ecological and economic damage, the sooner these changes are instituted the less dramatic they will have to be. More than a decade has already been wasted. If we don't make the changes necessary, they will be forced upon us by the consequence of our inactions.

jlhredshift

2010-Jan-09, 11:30 PM

Not at all, those are your words not mine, I'll stand by mine.

"The primary understandings with respect to the current episode of climate change are well understood and accepted as a virtual certainty (90+% - and these confidences are growing, not shrinking) by all mainstream researchers within the climate and associated fields of study (paleo-climate, atmospheric physics, planetary and geophysics, etc.,)."

and then the listing of these basic considerations:

Now, if you wish to dispute that the IPCC reports assert confidence levels to the above issues at anything other than the scientific certainty level, then please make your case. If you want to argue that my personal level of confidence is at odds with those used in a professional assessment, we can do that as well, you are perfectly correct I should have said >99% instead of 90+%, I cede the issue to your technical correction, now, can we return to the preliminary issue, which you seem to be raising with regards to what is and is not supported at the scientific certainty level of consideration by the IPCC report,...or am I misunderstanding your statements?

seriously, I mean I even originally qualifed my remarks with:

The five bolded points, I have no qualms about.

Other areas are less well verified and hold somewhat lower confidence levels, but these alone are sufficient to establish that some changes in the status quo are neccesary to prevent drastic ecological and economic damage, the sooner these changes are instituted the less dramatic they will have to be. More than a decade has already been wasted. If we don't make the changes necessary, they will be forced upon us by the consequence of our inactions.

My bold

Do you have a citation for what future "drastic" changes will occur.

William

2010-Jan-10, 12:07 AM

Of course that depends on what your definition of "abrupt" is. which I don't think you have ever specifically stated here.

Abrupt climate change is defined by some paleoclimatologists as a change that occurs over less than 30 years. (Roughly a generation.) There are small, medium, large, and extra large abrupt climate changes in the paleorecord.

As the speed of occurrence of the climate change event decreases, as the magnitude of the climate change increases, and as the length of the climate period increases it becomes very difficult to explain the observations using a mechanism with changes in atmospheric CO2 or ocean current stoppage.

Ocean current changes was the old standby however as Seager quantified (and listed other papers that quantified) the temperature changes from a complete stoppage of the North Atlantic Drift cannot even explain the little Ice Age, there is no cyclic mechanism to change ocean currents, and changes in ocean currents cannot simultaneously cool both hemispheres and there is now evidence of both hemisphere repeatably cooling.

Humans have not in written history experience the extra large strongest abrupt climate changes such as the 8,200 year BP cooling event or the Younger Dryas cooling event.

When we look at mechanisms, the question as to where the planetary cloud feedback is negative or positive changes the magnitude of the cyclic forcing mechanism, it also changes the time constant for the system to reach equilibrium. If the cloud feedback is negative the time constant is short, roughly 4 years +/- 1 year, a positive feedback function lengths the time constant to 10 to 20 years and makes the planetary climate unstable (Should show evidence of oscillation.)

The evidence of a cycle itself points to a solar type mechanism. If we assume the nontreering data proxy data shows how planetary temperature has changed over the last 2000 years, then there is both a cycle to explain and relatively sharp changes in planetary temperature. (Figure 1 in this paper.)

P.S.
See the note that the data has been smoothed with a 30 year filter and that drops at the end data set does not indicate the planet is cooling. The drop at the end of the data set occurs because the proxy data when down and in the 1960 to 1970's and the data is truncated at the point.

A 2000-year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based on Non-Treering Proxies

The time series produced by the simple mean of smoothed deviations (Fig. 1) shows quite coherent peaks. Note that the use of smoothed data (30-year running mean) means that peaks and troughs are damped compared to annual data (Loehle, 2005). Some of the input data were also integrated values or sampled at wide intervals. Thus it is not possible to compare recent annual data to this figure to ask about anomalous years or decades. The data show the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly. The series ends with a downtick because the last set of points are averages that include the cool decades of the 1960s and 1970s.

http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

orionjim

2010-Jan-10, 02:32 AM

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-10, 08:27 AM

You did not reply to my comment.
Past has shown me that when I reply to several of your comments, you only concentrate on one of them and ignore the others. So I'm not responding to your every comment no more. I'm concentrating to one or two points at time.

Are you denying the existence of past cyclic climate change? (Medieval Warm Period & Little Ice Age and so on and so on. It is cyclic.) Are you denying the existence of cyclic abrupt climate change?
Of course not. I have discussed past climate changes in this thread a lot, so I cannot imagine why you even ask these.

What is the alternative explanation for the forcing mechanism(s), besides the solar mechanism and cyclic geomagnetic field changes?
These have been told you several times, and was also explained in the Alley's lecture you seem to be claiming to have watched. Changes in Earth's orbit causes the initial warming, then some feedbacks react to that and among those feedbacks is increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide which then starts to make the climate change far bigger than it would be with only the orbital forcing. Carbon dioxide caused additional warming then causes more feedbacks to kick in (Hansen et al., 2008 (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_etal.pdf), Ruddiman, 2006 (http://www.falw.vu/~peef/teaching/orbital_forcing/assets/Ruddiman_2006_QSR.pdf), Timmermann et al., 2009 (http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/users/axel/journal_of_climate_degl_revision.pdf)). This is the rough picture how one gets the past climate changes. And besides, the "cyclic geomagnetic changes" is an alternative explanation. It has already been shown that cosmic rays don't have an climatically significant effect to the cloud cover (Kristjánsson & Kristiansen, 2000 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2000/2000JD900029.shtml), Udelhofen & Cess, 2001 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001/2000GL012659.shtml), Kristjánsson et al., 2002 (http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/2002GL015646.pdf), Laut, 2003 (http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Laut2003.pdf), Solanki & Krivova, 2003 (http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/natalie/PAPERS/warming.pdf), Damon & Laut, 2004 (http://www.realclimate.org/damon&laut_2004.pdf), Kristjánsson et al., 2004 (http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/kkk_asr_2004.pdf), Benestad, 2005 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023621.shtml), Sloan & Wolfendale, 2007 (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0706/0706.4294v1.pdf), Lockwood & Fröhlich, 2007 (ftp://ftp.pmodwrc.ch/pub/Claus/Publications/ProcRSA_463_2447_2007.pdf), Sloan, 2008 (http://www.ikfia.ysn.ru/pdf/Cosmic_Ray_Symp/s1.37.pdf), Sloan & Wolfendale, 2008 (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0803/0803.2298v1.pdf), Kristjánsson et al., 2008 (http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7373/2008/acp-8-7373-2008.pdf), Lockwood & Fröhlich, 2008 (http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/2008/Lockwood_PRSA2.pdf), Lockwood, 2008 (http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/2008/Lockwood_PRSA3.pdf), Erlykin et al., 2009a (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0901/0901.0515v1.pdf), Erlykin et al., 2009b (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0906/0906.3959v2.pdf), Pierce & Adams, 2009 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037946.shtml), Kulmala et al., 2009 (http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/21525/2009/acpd-9-21525-2009.pdf), Erlykin et al., 2009c (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0906/0906.4442v2.pdf), Duplissy et al., 2009 (http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/18235/2009/acpd-9-18235-2009.pdf), Overholt et al., 2009 (http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0906/0906.2777.pdf), Laken et al., 2009 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040961.shtml), Calogovic et al., 2010). Note that Kristjánsson et al. (2002) say about ISCCP data: "The correlations are considerably lower when multichannel retrievals during daytime are used than retrievals using IR-channels only." Curiously, Svensmark et al. (2009) (http://agbjarn.blog.is/users/fa/agbjarn/files/svensmark_bondo.pdf) have chosen to use only ISCCP IR-channels.

Richard Alley's presentation at the AGU was a tirade, not a scientific presentation...
Alley's lecture was totally based on peer reviewed science. Here it is for everyone to see (I do recommend this for everyone, it's an excellent lecture):
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

I would assume Alley had not read Lindzen's paper that shows the cloud feedback to be negative which would mean CO2 changes cannot cause the ice epochs...
1. Cloud feedback has nothing to do with CO2 forcing. Cloud feedback works the same regardless what is causing the warming. If you want to warm the Earth by cosmic rays (which we have seen in this thread to be not realistic), then the claimed negative cloud feedback would work also in that case, and you couldn't produce "ice epochs". You simply cannot make large climate changes if climate feedback is negative.

2. You have been shown several reasons why Lindzen's work is wrong, but you continue to push it as if it would be a proven thing. There's a new paper coming up on this subject by Trenberth et al. (GRL, in press):

http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/papersinpress.shtml#id2009GL042314
Trenberth, K. E., J. T. Fasullo, C. O'Dell, and T. Wong (2010),
Relationships between tropical sea surface temperature and top-of-atmosphere radiation,
Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL042314, in press.

They show among other things that Lindzen & Choi had selected their data interval start points so that they show a negative feedback. Selecting datapoint differently only by month or less completely vanished the negative feedback Lindzen & Choi "found". From the presented figure they show that Lindzen & Choi had selected really peculiar points to start/end the data intervals.

Another paper also in press by GRL is:

Chung, E.-S., D. Yoemans, and B. J. Soden (2010),
An assessment of climate feedback processes using satellite observations of clear-sky OLR,
Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL041889, in press.

They say:

In spite of well-known biases of tropospheric temperature and humidity in climate models, comparisons indicate that the intermodel range in the rate of clear-sky radiative damping are small despite large intermodel variability in the mean clear-sky OLR. Moreover, the model-simulated rates of radiative damping are consistent with those obtained from satellite observations and are indicative of a strong positive correlation between temperature and water vapor variations over a broad range of spatiotemporal scales.

William

2010-Jan-10, 06:35 PM

Past has shown me that when I reply to several of your comments, you only concentrate on one of them and ignore the others. So I'm not responding to your every comment no more. I'm concentrating to one or two points at time.

Of course not. I have discussed past climate changes in this thread a lot, so I cannot imagine why you even ask these.

These have been told you several times, and was also explained in the Alley's lecture you seem to be claiming to have watched. Changes in Earth's orbit causes the initial warming, then some feedbacks react to that and among those feedbacks is increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide which then starts to make the climate change far bigger than it would be with only the orbital forcing. Carbon dioxide caused additional warming then causes more feedbacks to kick in (Hansen et al., 2008 (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_etal.pdf), Ruddiman, 2006 (http://www.falw.vu/~peef/teaching/orbital_forcing/assets/Ruddiman_2006_QSR.pdf), Timmermann et al., 2009 (http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/users/axel/journal_of_climate_degl_revision.pdf)). This is the rough picture how one gets the past climate changes. And besides, the "cyclic geomagnetic changes" is an alternative explanation. It has already been shown that cosmic rays don't have an climatically significant effect to the cloud cover (Kristjánsson & Kristiansen, 2000 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2000/2000JD900029.shtml), Udelhofen & Cess, 2001 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001/2000GL012659.shtml), Kristjánsson et al., 2002 (http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/2002GL015646.pdf), Laut, 2003 (http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Laut2003.pdf), Solanki & Krivova, 2003 (http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/natalie/PAPERS/warming.pdf), Damon & Laut, 2004 (http://www.realclimate.org/damon&laut_2004.pdf), Kristjánsson et al., 2004 (http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/kkk_asr_2004.pdf), Benestad, 2005 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023621.shtml), Sloan & Wolfendale, 2007 (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0706/0706.4294v1.pdf), Lockwood & Fröhlich, 2007 (ftp://ftp.pmodwrc.ch/pub/Claus/Publications/ProcRSA_463_2447_2007.pdf), Sloan, 2008 (http://www.ikfia.ysn.ru/pdf/Cosmic_Ray_Symp/s1.37.pdf), Sloan & Wolfendale, 2008 (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0803/0803.2298v1.pdf), Kristjánsson et al., 2008 (http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7373/2008/acp-8-7373-2008.pdf), Lockwood & Fröhlich, 2008 (http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/2008/Lockwood_PRSA2.pdf), Lockwood, 2008 (http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/2008/Lockwood_PRSA3.pdf), Erlykin et al., 2009a (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0901/0901.0515v1.pdf), Erlykin et al., 2009b (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0906/0906.3959v2.pdf), Pierce & Adams, 2009 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037946.shtml), Kulmala et al., 2009 (http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/21525/2009/acpd-9-21525-2009.pdf), Erlykin et al., 2009c (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0906/0906.4442v2.pdf), Duplissy et al., 2009 (http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/18235/2009/acpd-9-18235-2009.pdf), Overholt et al., 2009 (http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0906/0906.2777.pdf), Laken et al., 2009 (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040961.shtml), Calogovic et al., 2010). Note that Kristjánsson et al. (2002) say about ISCCP data: "The correlations are considerably lower when multichannel retrievals during daytime are used than retrievals using IR-channels only." Curiously, Svensmark et al. (2009) (http://agbjarn.blog.is/users/fa/agbjarn/files/svensmark_bondo.pdf) have chosen to use only ISCCP IR-channels.

Ari,
Are you claiming that orbital insolation changes at 65N and changes of CO2 levels in the atmosphere are causing the cycles and changes that are observed in the 2000 year proxy temperature data? The following nontreering proxy temperature data shows how planetary temperature has changed over the last 2000 years. There is both a cycle to explain and relatively sharp changes in planetary temperature. (See Figure 1 in this paper.)

A 2000-year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based on Non-Treering Proxies

The time series produced by the simple mean of smoothed deviations (Fig. 1) shows quite coherent peaks. Note that the use of smoothed data (30-year running mean) means that peaks and troughs are damped compared to annual data (Loehle, 2005). Some of the input data were also integrated values or sampled at wide intervals. Thus it is not possible to compare recent annual data to this figure to ask about anomalous years or decades. The data show the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly. The series ends with a downtick because the last set of points are averages that include the cool decades of the 1960s and 1970s.

http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

What is your explanation for the temperature changes over the last 2000 years? Paleoclimatologists and Historians have given names to the recent millenium cold and warm periods "the Medieval Warm period" and the "Little Ice Age". The 1470 year cycle has been followed for 22 cycles.

I sincerely do not understand the logic behind your postings and the papers you post. It appears to me that you and the authors of the papers you link to are pushing a specific hypothesis and ignoring past paleodata and the current data that does not support it. The papers you link to do not disprove Svensmark, Shivav, Kirkby, Tinsley, and so on's work. I sincerely do not understand why the papers in question assert they do.

Svensmark, Shivav, Kirkby, Tinsley, and so on developed the GCR level, the solar wind burst, and the geomagnetic field modulation of planetary cloud cover hypotheses because of what is observed in the past. Cosmogenic isotope changes do correlate with past planetary temperature changes.

You have not answer my question. What is causing the temperature changes in the 2000 year record? What is the alternative mechanism?

There is no mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 levels can cyclically suddenly increase or decrease. Insolation does not suddenly increase or decrease in a short period. Insolation or CO2 levels in the atmosphere cannot cause the cyclic pattern observed in the 2000 year record. As the observed time period increases there are specific cyclic abrupt temperature events with very larger planetary temperature changes in a very short duration which again correlates with cosmogenic isotope changes.

The evidence of cyclic changes and sharp changes in the last 2000 years, in the last 30,000 years points, again and again, to a solar mechanism.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Sunspot_Numbers.png

I look at this graph and then compare it the 2000 year temperature data and the 30,000 year record. (Number of sunspots is not the best proxy to look at. What is clear is the sun does change. The geomagnetic field variance parameter Ak which changes in relationship to the strength and rate of change of the solar wind speed is a better parameter.)

The sun is currently in a deep solar magnetic minimum. Solar wind speeds are currently less than 300 km/s which three years ago was believed to not be possible. See the AGU presentations. (Solar cycle 24 thread.)

What is going to happen to planetary temperatures now? In the past the planet cooled. Is there any recent evidence of some change?

My point is it appears these issues (whether solar changes can affect planetary temperature, whether cloud feedback is positive or negative, and the relative amount of the 20th century warming due to CO2) will be settled based on the observed changes to planetary temperature cause by the cycle 24 minimum.

If there is not significant cooling of the planet the solar modulation of planetary cloud cover mechanisms will be proved to be incorrect.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Sunspot_Numbers.png

The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton, lasting from about 1790 to 1830.[1] Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Dalton Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. The Oberlach Station in Germany, for example, experienced a 2.0°C decline over 20 years.[2] The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, also occurred during the Dalton Minimum.

The precise cause of the lower-than-average temperatures during this period is not well understood

Trakar

2010-Jan-10, 06:46 PM

As usual, everybody else are supposedly ignorant about the mechanisms and ignoring all the relevant stuff...

I think you should watch Richard Alley's AGU lecture. There's an interesting thing relating to this after about 40 minutes (the part about the Laschamp event). About 40,000 years ago, there was a large spike in cosmic rays but it didn't have any effect on temperature.

Effect of cosmic rays to the climate have been studied all over, they are of no significance.

Strongly second all of Alley's lectures (there are several available for review).

parejkoj

2010-Jan-10, 06:48 PM

Alley's lecture was totally based on peer reviewed science. Here it is for everyone to see (I do recommend this for everyone, it's an excellent lecture):
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

Thanks for linking that, Ari: it's a great talk.

Along those lines, there was a special session at the AAS meeting this year on "Low Energy Astrophysics," which included a talk by Professor Joseph Romm (of climateprogress.org). The session was based on the Astro 2010 white paper of the same name (http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.3384). I was only able to attend a small portion of it because of scheduling constraints, but if any recordings of the talks surface, I'll post links to them here.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-10, 07:02 PM

Are you claiming that orbital insolation changes at 65N and changes of CO2 levels in the atmosphere are causing the cycles and changes that are observed in the 2000 year proxy temperature data? The following nontreering proxy temperature data shows how planetary temperature has changed over the last 2000 years. There is both a cycle to explain and relatively sharp changes in planetary temperature. (See Figure 1 in this paper.)
So, you're pushing Loehle again. Loehle:

- has not been published in peer-reviewed journal (E&E is not a scientific journal).

- contains little tree-ring data despite claiming to be free of tree-ring data. Loehle admits this in the paper, but if one wants to be tree-ring free, then what is the point of including some tree-ring data anyway? If you want to be tree-ring free, then don't use tree-ring data at all.

- has selected almost all proxies are from North-Atlantic area. See the distribution of proxy locations in Figure 1 (page 14 of PDF). Compare the distribution to the Figure 2 of Mann et al. (2009) (http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/articles/MannetalScience09.pdf). As we can see, almost all Loehle's proxies have been selected from areas where MWP was warmest.

- makes the "reconstruction" by simply taking a mean of all proxies. Think about a situation where you have two buckets of water, same amount in each bucket. Bucket A has water temperature of 10 degrees C, and bucket B has water temperature of 20 degrees C. If we would join these two buckets, the total water temperature would be 15 degrees C. Now, consider a situation where we have three thermometers, and we should measure the temperature using all of them. We place one thermometer in bucket A and two thermometers in bucket B. This is an ideal world in our example, so thermometer in bucket A reads 10 degrees C. Both thermometers in bucket B give a reading of 20 degrees C. But how should we compute the total temperature? Loehle just takes mean of all the measurements, so in this example Loehle's method yields (10+20+20)/3 = 16.7 degrees C. But if we calculate first the mean temprature of each bucket separately, and then calculate the total mean temperature from the means of individual buckets, we get:

TA: 10/1 = 10 degrees C
TB: (20+20)/2 = 20 degrees C
total (TA + TB) /2 = (10+20)/2 = 15 degrees C

Note also that if we would have had two thermometers in bucket A, Loehle's method would give (10+10+20)/3 = 13.3 degrees C. This means that Loehle's method emphasizes the section that has most measurements. As we saw above, Lohle had selected most proxies from area where MWP was warmest. By this reconstruction method of taking a simple mean of all proxies Loehle further amplifies the already selected warm appearance of MWP.

Loehle's reconstruction simply is not a reconstruction of Earth's global surface temperature (or "planetary temperature"). To answer your question: no, I'm not suggesting that whatever Loehle's thing is showing is caused by "orbital insolation changes at 65N and changes of CO2 levels in the atmosphere". If you are pondering why there's apparent cyclicity showing in Loehle's construction, you have to understand that it basically shows (if we pretend for a while that it actually shows something) only the North Atlantic situation. What could be causing apparent cyclicity in North Atlantic? Well, perhaps you should try NAO.

William

2010-Jan-10, 08:42 PM

So, you're pushing Loehle again. Loehle:

Loehle's reconstruction simply is not a reconstruction of Earth's global surface temperature (or "planetary temperature"). To answer your question: no, I'm not suggesting that whatever Loehle's thing is showing is caused by "orbital insolation changes at 65N and changes of CO2 levels in the atmosphere". If you are pondering why there's apparent cyclicity showing in Loehle's construction, you have to understand that it basically shows (if we pretend for a while that it actually shows something) only the North Atlantic situation. What could be causing apparent cyclicity in North Atlantic? Well, perhaps you should try NAO.

Ari,

Loehle does not add the series together. You are mistaken. Loehle smooths the proxy data using a 30 year filter and then adds the anomaly or each series.

He then to validate the method randomly takes a sub sample of proxy data and shows the shape of the planetary temperature change is the same.

Note the proxy data also include South Africa data.

The proxy data series he uses are standard series such as the Greenland Ice Temperature inferred from ice bore temperatures. There is another paper that uses only ice sheet bore temperatures which matches his findings.

What is the algorithm that Mann et al uses to create the curve shown in his paper? What is the data source Mann et al use? Why are the graphs so different?

There dozen of papers that discuss cyclic climate change. Mann et al has smoothed out the data and made the Medieval warm period go away.

Note Loehl provides a link to all of the data in his paper.

http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025

Data were obtained for long series that had been previously calibrated and converted to temperature. No tree ring data were used. After an extensive search, all data were used that had at least 20 dates over the 2000-year period. The series used were: GRIP borehole 18O temperature (Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998); Conroy Lake pollen (Gajewski, 1988); Chesapeake Bay Mg/Ca (Cronin et al., 2003); Sargasso Sea 18O (Keigwin, 1996); Caribbean Sea 18O (Nyberg et al., 2002); Lake Tsuolbmajavri diatoms (Korhola et al., 2000); Shihua Cave layer thickness (Tan et al., 2003); China composite (Yang et al., 2002) which does use tree ring width for two out of the eight series that are averaged to get the composite, or 1.4% of the total data input to the mean computed below; speleothem data from a South African cave (Holmgren et al., 1999); SST variations (warm season) off West Africa (deMenocal et al., 2000); SST from the southeast Atlantic (Farmer et al., 2005); SST reconstruction in the Norwegian Sea (Calvo et al., 2002); SST from two cores in the western tropical Pacific (Stott et al., 2004); mean temperature for North America based on pollen profiles (Viau et al., 2006); a phenology-based reconstruction from China (Ge et al., 2003); annual mean SST for northern Pacific site SSDP-102 (Latitude 34.9530, Longitude 128.8810) from Kim et al. (2004); and Spannagel Cave (Central Alps) stalagmite oxygen isotope data (Mangini et al., 2005). This gave a total of eighteen series with quite wide geographic coverage (including tropical) and based on multiple proxies.

Data in each series were smoothed with a 30-year running mean. This should help remove noise due to dating and temperature estimation error. If data occurred every 100 years, each point would be stretched by the smoothing to cover 30 years. All data were then converted to anomalies by subtracting the mean of each series from that series. This was done instead of using a standardization date such as 1970 because series date intervals did not all line up or all extend to the same ending date. With only a single date over many decades and estimation error, a short interval for determining a zero date for anomaly calculations is not valid.

A test of sensitivity to individual series was performed. Individual series were dropped and the mean recomputed, with all other steps the same. These eighteen series plotted in overlay (Fig. 2) show the same pattern as the original (Fig. 1). This plot demonstrates that no single series has undue influence on the result. Random subsets of fourteen series were constructed and still show the same basic pattern (Fig. 3). Weighting the China composite or the North American pollen reconstruction more heavily also altered only details of the reconstruction. These results indicate that the reconstruction is robust to details of the series employed.

William

2010-Jan-10, 09:05 PM

So, you're pushing Loehle again. Loehle:

- has not been published in peer-reviewed journal (E&E is not a scientific journal).

Ari,

Loehle's paper shows a cyclic change in planetary temperature which other authors have also found. Note Loehle uses Greenland Ice Sheet ice core temperature which has the cyclic pattern in it.

Loehle's data shows cyclic warming and cooling. Loehle's paper is not controversial.

Based on what has happened before the planet should now cool.

http://www.gg.rhul.ac.uk/elias/teaching/Bond.pdf

Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene

Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Atlantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire Holocene. The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantics approximately 1500-year cycle. The surface hydrographic changes may have affected production of North Atlantic Deep Water, potentially providing an additional mechanism for amplifying the
solar signals and transmitting them globally.

The last drift-ice cycle is broadly correlative with the so-called Little Ice Age (LIA) and Medieval Warm Period (MWP) (Fig. 2). Although the regional extent and exact age of those two events are still under debate, our records support previous suggestions that both may have been partly or entirely linked to changes in solar irradiance (25). The large 2s errors in calibrated ages (typically between 6100 and 6150 years) (Web table 1), however, preclude any direct comparison of our drift-ice indices or the subtropical North Atlantic temperature records with the distinct decades-long Wolfe, Spo¨rer, Maunder, and Dalton solar minima (26). However, the solar-climate links implied by our record are so dominant over the last 12,000 years that it seems almost certain that the well-documented connection between the Maunder solar minimum and cold decades of the LIA could not have been a coincidence.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017115.shtml

Timing of abrupt climate change: A precise clock

Many paleoclimatic data reveal a approx. 1,500 year cyclicity of unknown origin. A crucial question is how stable and regular this cycle is. An analysis of the GISP2 ice core record from Greenland reveals that abrupt climate events appear to be paced by a 1,470-year cycle with a period that is probably stable to within a few percent; with 95% confidence the period is maintained to better than 12% over at least 23 cycles. This highly precise clock points to an origin outside the Earth system; oscillatory modes within the Earth system can be expected to be far more irregular in period.

Trakar

2010-Jan-10, 10:10 PM

Do you have a citation for what future "drastic" changes will occur.

All of the drastic changes associated with between 6-10C of average global temperature change will bring about over the next few centuries if a majority of people around the globe don't start taking this a whole lot more seriously than Copenhagen is demonstrative of. The PETM event provides a bit of an analogy, of course there were different continental configurations and asociated different air and sea current patterns, but we've already sensitiszed the planet to dramatic climate shifts by wiping out the species diverstiy stockpiles that help nature to adapt and transition into a changing environment. It will be interesting to see if our species (once again) is up to the challenge of surviving its own ignorance.

The challenges are many-sided, the reward is progress, the penalty may well be part of the answer to Fermi's paradox.

A bit more concretely, the Stern Review Report tackles many of the economic impacts: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm

The US Dept. of Defense has a take on the Geopolitical ramifications:
http://www.climate-talks.net/2005-ENVRE130/Climate-U/20040126-Fortune-Pentagon-and-Climate.pdf

And there are a few individual takes:

https://cfwebprod.sandia.gov/cfdocs/CCIM/docs/AGU-2008-poster_SAND2009-1143P.pdf

http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&listenv=table&multiple=1&range=1&directget=1&application=fm08&database=%2Fdata%2Fepubs%2Fwais%2Findexes%2Ffm08%2 Ffm08&maxhits=200&="GC43D-07"

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1755-1315/6/6/062003/ees9_6_062003.pdf?request-id=63e11101-5608-4183-a479-0938473b0940

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786.full

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/38/14239.long

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1704.full

I think my qualification as "drastic" is appropriate to these types of considerations. Now if your objections are to the definitive used, the simple facts are that the Earth's surface temperaure is demonstrably and causally related to atmospheric composition, the increasing CO2 in our atmosphere demonstrably and causally related to human society emissions, if we keep emitting the way we have been for the last half century, for the next century, 6-10C might not have to wait the extra few centuries for gas ratios and temperature to equilibrate.

If you want to argue that my consideration and perspectives are mistaken and that different situations are likely, that's a discussion to have. If you want to argue that the climate isn't changing, or that CO2 levels do not impact climate, or any other against the mainstream science,...then this isn't the place for it.

I am willing to admit and acknowledge that my personal perspecitve is probably not in perfect accord with the majority of mainstream climatologists, but there are enough major, mainstream climate researchers who are expressing similar-termed considerations, that I don't consider my perceptions to be extreme outliers either,...but I'm open to entertaining the premise if you insist, what's the ultimate result? That I have a personal consideration that might be slightly more conservative on some issues and slightly more radical on other issues with respect to areas of less than scientific certainty in the mainstream consideration of the field? In the end, I default to the mainstream perspective, as that is where the acknowledged education, experience and expertise reside.

Trakar

2010-Jan-10, 10:27 PM

Let’s start here: where did you get the term “virtual certainty”? The IPCC uses the term “virtually certain” and it carries with it a probability of 99%. The IPCC uses “very likely” for 90% probability. Are you using some other reference? If so what is it?

Why is this important? Read this:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4_UncertaintyGuidanceNote.pdf

NOTE TO MODS
You should read the link also. Part of the problem of this thread is people using their own terms and numbers. We should use a standard. Until we do this, this nonsense will continue!

I was not submitting a paper for use in the IPCC study, I was posting a message on the BAUT general science and technology discussion boards. I made an appropriate (self-qualified at the time of posting) statement and you are attacking it because I qualified my statement differently than the IPCC qualified thier own similar findings and considerations? If you want to absolutely remove every aspect of individual opinion or personal perspective from this issue, and only cite references directly from approved mainstream sources, then there is indeed no room for further discussion, the mainstream perspective is what it is, if you have a problem with it, publish.

William

2010-Jan-10, 11:16 PM

Hi Ari,

These papers support Loehle's analysis.

http://courses.washington.edu/pcc589/2009/readings/Dahl_Jensen.pdf

Past Temperatures Directly from the Greenland Ice Sheet

The temperature signals of these periods have been obliterated by thermal diffusion because of their short duration (25). After the termination of the glacial period, temperatures in our record increase steadily, reaching a period 2.5 K warmer than present during what is referred to as the Climatic Optimum (CO), at 8 to 5 ka. Following the CO, temperatures cool to a minimum of 0.5 K colder than the present at around 2 ka. The record implies that the medieval period around 1000 A.D. was 1 K warmer than present in Greenland. Two cold periods, at 1550 and 1850 A.D., are observed during the Little Ice Age (LIA) with temperatures 0.5 and 0.7 K below the present. After the LIA, temperatures reach a maximum around 1930 A.D.; temperatures have decreased during the last decades (26). The climate history for the most recent times is in agreement with direct measurements in the Arctic regions (27).

The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea

The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea
Sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, and flux of terrigenous material oscillated on millennial time scales in the Pleistocene North Atlantic, but there are few records of Holocene variability. Because of high rates of sediment accumulation, Holocene oscillations are well documented in the northern Sargasso Sea. Results from a radiocarbon-dated box core show that SST was sim 1°C cooler than today sim 400 years ago (the Little Ice Age) and 1700 years ago, and sim 1°C warmer than today 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period). Thus, at least some of the warming since the Little Ice Age appears to be part of a natural oscillation.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/274/5292/1503

http://www.springerlink.com/content/g15qv13t1v12np00/

Glacial geological evidence for the medieval warm period

Abstract It is hypothesised that the Medieval Warm Period was preceded and followed by periods of moraine deposition associated with glacier expansion. Improvements in the methodology of radiocarbon calibration make it possible to convert radiocarbon ages to calendar dates with greater precision than was previously possible. Dating of organic material closely associated with moraines in many montane regions has reached the point where it is possible to survey available information concerning the timing of the medieval warm period. The results suggest that it was a global event occurring between about 900 and 1250 A.D., possibly interrupted by a minor readvance of ice between about 1050 and 1150 A.D.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-11, 06:28 AM

Loehle does not add the series together. You are mistaken. Loehle smooths the proxy data using a 30 year filter and then adds the anomaly or each series.
You misunderstand the point. Loehle's method adds the series so that it treats all the series as if they would have been made in the same place. The method amplifies any trends that shows in the region that has most series. Loehle has selected the series almost exclusively from areas where the MWP was strongest, so already the selection introduces a bias to the "analysis". Loehle's method to combine the series with simple means further amplifies the selection as I explained with my bucket-analogy. There's no way Loehle's construction can be considered as global analysis.

Oh, and did I mention it is published in a non-scientific journal?

These papers support Loehle's analysis.
Two local ones and one from 1993. Closest thing you get to a modern global analysis is Mann et al. (2009), which shows that MWP did not match current temperatures globally. MWP showed in many areas, but globally it is a minor event. It is no surprise that it shows in the glacier forefields like Grove & Switsur (1993) report but note that they are not claiming that MWP was comparable to current times. They just seem to note that it shows up in their records.

Furthermore, even if you would find indisputable proof that MWP was far warmer than current times everywhere in the Earth, that wouldn't still make Loehle's work any better.

jlhredshift

2010-Jan-11, 01:16 PM

All of the drastic changes associated with between 6-10C of average global temperature change will bring about ... snip.

If the term "drastic" is to be associated with a 6-10C change in global temperature, then I agree.

Ivan Viehoff

2010-Jan-11, 05:19 PM

The sun is currently in a deep solar magnetic minimum....
You display a graphic showing sunspot numbers over time, with an unattributed quote which refers to the 1816 "year without a summer" occuring in a sunspot minimum, thus leaving people to think that causality is implied. Another rhetorical trick - omitting mention of relevant important facts. The coldness of 1816 is likely due to the volcanic aerosol of the Tambora eruption in 1815, the largest eruption for over 1000 years.

orionjim

2010-Jan-11, 05:29 PM

I was not submitting a paper for use in the IPCC study, I was posting a message on the BAUT general science and technology discussion boards. I made an appropriate (self-qualified at the time of posting) statement and you are attacking it because I qualified my statement differently than the IPCC qualified thier own similar findings and considerations? If you want to absolutely remove every aspect of individual opinion or personal perspective from this issue, and only cite references directly from approved mainstream sources, then there is indeed no room for further discussion, the mainstream perspective is what it is, if you have a problem with it, publish.

My Bold

If it “is what it is” then what is it? Is it simply “your self-qualified opinion", or do you have a source? I am using a source that I think is the mainstream definition. I could be wrong. If I am, then please tell me what it is.

tusenfem

2010-Jan-11, 06:29 PM

orionjim and Trakar (and anyone else wanting to jump in) this discussion stops here right now.
If you want to have discussion here, then tone it down significantly.

Trakar

2010-Jan-11, 09:32 PM

orionjim and Trakar (and anyone else wanting to jump in) this discussion stops here right now.
If you want to have discussion here, then tone it down significantly.

Apologies, I didn't realize there was any tone to the exchange until you pointed it out. I'm not sure I really understand what was being questioned or discussed throughout the exchange anyway, regardless, again my apologies to the Mods and other participants.

Jetlack

2010-Jan-12, 09:20 AM

orionjim and Trakar (and anyone else wanting to jump in) this discussion stops here right now.
If you want to have discussion here, then tone it down significantly.

Why have a go at Orion Jim? What exactly did he say in his last comment that you define as needing to be toned down? Please provide the quote you found so offensive.

Sorry but getting fed up real quick about your dodgy biased moderation where you wait for an agw proponent to lose it and then come down on both the pro-and anti view in equal measure. You've done this to me several times hence why ive not bothered posting lately because i dont TRUST your motives - to put it bluntly.

i am happy to provide the evidence if you so wish to take this further.

And ban me if you wish, i really could not give a toss.

tusenfem

2010-Jan-12, 12:24 PM

Why have a go at Orion Jim? What exactly did he say in his last comment that you define as needing to be toned down? Please provide the quote you found so offensive.

Sorry but getting fed up real quick about your dodgy biased moderation where you wait for an agw proponent to lose it and then come down on both the pro-and anti view in equal measure. You've done this to me several times hence why ive not bothered posting lately because i dont TRUST your motives - to put it bluntly.

i am happy to provide the evidence if you so wish to take this further.

And ban me if you wish, i really could not give a toss.

If you have a complaint about what is posted, then report it, you are long enough here to know the rules.

One infraction for you (which you may report if you don't like it).

Swift

2010-Jan-12, 03:37 PM

The December 21, 2009 issue of Chemical & Engineering News (the weekly publication of the American Chemical Society) had a review article on Global Warming and Climate Change (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/87/8751cover.html). This is how the editor describes the article on the Editor's Page (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/editor/87/8751editor.html):

The cover story focuses on the science behind the debate on global warming and climate change by Senior Correspondent Stephen K. Ritter.

...

However, in late summer I asked Ritter, one of C&EN’s most rigorous, objective, and experienced science reporters, to look carefully at the criticisms leveled against the idea that human activities are causing Earth’s climate to change. I asked him to talk to scientists on both sides of the debate and prepare a fair assessment of where the science is today.
This article may be of less interest to those who are actively debating this issue in this thread, but it may be helpful for those who would like a more detailed background on the issues. It includes discussions with scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), which is one of the lead groups opposing the IPCC.

Among the issues covered are climate models, temperature data, some of the physics and chemistry involved in this issue, etc.

nauthiz

2010-Jan-12, 04:46 PM

It was interesting, though I feel that it gave too much time to NIPCC. I'd have much preferred to see a bit more space given to folks like Spencer & Christy, who do make some cogent skeptical points.

The NIPCC report, on the other hand, devotes the final 14% of its space to the Oregon Petition and opens with several pages of largely political commentary on the whole AGW thing, particularly the IPCC. It gets somewhat better in the middle but remains marred by the way it never actually gets around to expressing a coherent opinion (it comes across as more of a cobbled-together collection of not-always-mutually-consistent gainsaying) and will often attempt to rubbish positions that are built on the conclusions of a large number of mutually-supportive papers by pointing out a single paper that disagrees, oftentimes one that has serious methodological flaws. And it's guilty of trying to lower its own hurdles by, for example, focusing on the "hockey stick" paper to the exclusion of all the other newer, better reconstructions.

I can't help but suggest that this C&EN report contains the same sort of false balance that we often see when mainstream news outlets write on scientific issues.

(Oh, and somewhat randomly - the folks who published the NIPCC report are located next door to where I work, which is kind of neat.)

Trakar

2010-Jan-14, 05:42 PM

Trakar

2010-Jan-14, 06:02 PM

Robert Tulip

2010-Jan-15, 11:45 PM

Hello,
I attended a talk today where the problem of methane clathrates in the ocean was discussed. The assertion was made that global warming of a few degrees could cause massive release of methane hydrates, producing a sudden extinction event like that posited at the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago.

Methane hydrates and global warming (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/12/methane-hydrates-and-global-warming/) at realclimate.org states

The juiciest disaster-movie scenario would be a release of enough methane to significantly change the atmospheric concentration, on a time scale that is fast compared with the lifetime of methane. This would generate a spike in methane concentration. For a scale of how much would be a large methane release, the amount of methane that would be required to equal the radiative forcing of doubled CO2 would be about ten times the present methane concentration. That would be disaster movie. Or, the difference between the worst case IPCC scenario and the best conceivable ‘alternative scenario’ by 2050 is only about 1 W/m2 mean radiative energy imbalance. A radiative forcing on that order from methane would probably make it impossible to remain below a ‘dangerous’ level of 2 deg above pre-industrial. I calculate here that it would take about 6 ppm of methane to get 1 W/m2 over present-day. A methane concentration of 6 ppm would be a disaster in the real world.

The atmosphere currently contains about 3.5 Gton C as methane. An instantaneous release of 10 Gton C would kick us up past 6 ppm. This is probably an order of magnitude larger than any of the catastrophes that anyone has proposed. Landslides release maybe a gigaton and pockmark explosions considerably less. Permafrost hydrates are melting, but no one thinks they are going to explode all at once.

There is an event documented in sediments from 55 million years ago called the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum, during which (allegedly) several thousand Gton C of methane was released to the atmosphere and ocean, driving 5° C warming of the intermediate depth ocean. It is not easy to constrain how quickly things happen so long ago, but the best guess is that the methane was released over perhaps a thousand years, i.e. not catastrophically [Zachos et al., 2001; Schmidt and Shindell, 2003].

There is extensive commentary on the real climate thread. I would be interested if BAUT members have views on the topic of the risk of a methane hydrate mass release caused by anthropogenic global warming. The wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis provides more recent information.

Looking up methane hydrate on BAUT, there is a 2004 thread that states "Methane from methane hydrates in the oceans exists in quantities that dwarf all other sources of fossil fuel. These hydrates represent a substantial environmental danger since many events (an impact, for instance) could release the methane into the atmosphere in very large quantities. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide; and such an event could overwhelm, in an hour, any contributions humans have made to atmospheric gases in the last few centuries. It might be worth figuring out how to use this stuff up, but there's so much of it, millennia would be required." I see there are also a fair few mentions of the PETM.

Thanks

Robert Tulip

William

2010-Jan-16, 01:44 AM

Hello,
I attended a talk today where the problem of methane clathrates in the ocean was discussed. The assertion was made that global warming of a few degrees could cause massive release of methane hydrates, producing a sudden extinction event like that posited at the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago.

Methane hydrates and global warming (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/12/methane-hydrates-and-global-warming/) at realclimate.org states

Methane has a lifetime of only 8.3 years in the atmosphere as opposed to CO2 which would remain in the atmosphere indefinitely if there were not processes that continually naturally sequester CO2 into sediments onto the ocean floor and into sedimentary rock. (For example, fossil fuels.)

As long as the release of methane is gradual it will be removed from the atmosphere. (It is converted to water vapour and to CO2.).

The deep ocean is currently around 4C to 8C. The deep ocean will remain cold unless the Antarctic ice sheets melt. Warming of the planet is not going to release methyl hydrates from the ocean. There is no physical possibility of that happening.

The oceans are so cold that there is no mixing of water except at the poles. When the ocean was warmer, before the massive extinction that occurred during the current ice epoch, there was mixing of surface water and deep water which brought nutrients from the deep ocean that are required for ocean plant life at the surface. There are currently vast dead regions of the ocean due to a lack of nutrients. Contrary to urban legend the biosphere of this planet increases when it is warmer and decreases when it colder. Remember there are currently ice sheets on both poles, we are at the end of the interglacial period, the glacial period last for around 100,000 years. Humanity almost became extinct during the last glacial minimum.

Comment:
The Antarctic ice sheet have an average thickness of 7000 feet so that only the peaks of the Antarctic mountains pierce the ice sheets. As one moves higher the air is colder. As one moves to higher latitudes the planet is also colder.

http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/images/edu_scisat_grade6-factsheets-trans_temperature_profile.jpg

The Greenland ice sheet was around 2.5 C warmer during the Climate Optimum (8,000 to 4000 years ago) of the current interglacial the Holocene. There was no out of controlled CH4 release during that period. The planet is not however going to warm 2C due to a doubling of CO2 which is another question.

The plant has cooled 2.5C since the Climate Optimum and has since warmed around 0.4C to 0.6C depending on which group does the calculation.

The Last Glacial Maximum, the Climatic Optimum, the Medieval Warmth, the Little Ice Age, and a warm period at 1930 A.D. are resolved from the GRIP reconstruction with the amplitudes -23 kelvin, +2.5 kelvin, +1 kelvin, -1 kelvin, and +0.5 kelvin, respectively. The Dye 3 temperature is similar to the GRIP history but has an amplitude 1.5 times larger, indicating higher climatic variability there.

http://courses.washington.edu/pcc589/2009/readings/Dahl_Jensen.pdf

Now the Greenland ice sheet will only be 2C warmer if the surround ocean is also 2C warmer.

Robert Tulip

2010-Jan-16, 03:59 AM

Warming of the planet is not going to release methyl hydrates from the ocean. There is no physical possibility of that happening.

The oceans are so cold that there is no mixing of water except at the poles. When the ocean was warmer, before the massive extinction that occurred during the current ice epoch, there was mixing of surface water and deep water which brought nutrients from the deep ocean that are required for ocean plant life at the surface. There are currently vast dead regions of the ocean due to a lack of nutrients. Contrary to urban legend the biosphere of this planet increases when it is warmer and decreases when it colder. Thank you William. As I understood the claim, the suggestion is that we are so rapidly adding to the CO2 level of the atmosphere that runaway methane is a real possibility. I don't know.

Thanks for the mention of the dead regions of the ocean. A map of ocean deserts (http://nasadaacs.eos.nasa.gov/articles/images/2009_oceans_oceancolor.jpg) suggests these are now fifty million square kilometers in size. This map is from a NASA paper, An Ocean Full of Deserts (http://nasadaacs.eos.nasa.gov/articles/2009/2009_oceans.html), which says ocean deserts are growing rapidly, apparently due to global warming.
The team’s results were noteworthy. Polovina said, “We were very surprised. We looked at the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean—we saw the same trends all over the globe. Over nearly the past decade, regions with low surface chlorophyll were expanding into nearby ocean basins. The total area lost was quite enormous.” The area of new global ocean desert added up to 6.6 million square kilometers (2.5 million square miles), representing about a 15 percent expansion in the area of the least productive waters between 1998 and 2006. Plus, the connection to sea surface temperature was clear. “The expansion of low-productivity waters matched up with significant increases in sea surface temperature,” Polovina said.

RenaissanceMan

2010-Jan-16, 05:10 AM

William

2010-Jan-16, 01:31 PM

Thank you William. As I understood the claim, the suggestion is that we are so rapidly adding to the CO2 level of the atmosphere that runaway methane is a real possibility. I don't know.

Hi Robert Tulip,

It appears planet wide phytoplankton has increased 4 percent, with the increase occurring along the coast. I have not heard an explanation as to why there is a sudden significant increase in phytoplankton activity along the continental shelve. Increases in atmospheric CO2 will make rain water slightly more acidic so there will be more dissolved nutrients in it. As one would expect that ocean temperatures would have also increased along the coast in addition to the deep ocean, the assertion that the reduction in phytoplankton activity in the specific regions of the deep is due to an increase in ocean temperature may not be correct.

I have not heard of any mechanism reason why increases in ocean surface temperatures would reduce the amount of phytoplankton in the deep ocean. Another possible hypothesis would be that the increase in ocean surface temperature were due to reduced cloud cover in the regions. Increased sunlight caused the phytoplankton to exceed limited micro nutrient availability in specific deep ocean regions.

Attached below is a paper by Greg Watson that discusses the deep ocean nutrient restriction. For those who support CO2 sequestration, it appears adding parts per billion of iron to the ocean will result in significant increases in phytoplankton.

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/wgg0302.pdf

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=26204

Gregg and his colleagues published their new study in a recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters. The researchers used NASA satellite data from 1998 to 2003 to show that phytoplankton amounts have increased globally by more than 4 percent. These increases have mainly occurred along the coasts. No significant changes were seen in phytoplankton concentrations within the global open oceans, but phytoplankton levels declined in areas near the center of the oceans, the mid-ocean gyres. Mid-ocean gyres are “ocean deserts”, which can only support low amounts of phytoplankton. When viewed by satellite, these phytoplankton-deprived regions look deep-blue, while in aquatic regions where plant life thrives, the water appears greener.

Phytoplankton amounts have increased by 10.4 percent along global coast regions, where the ocean floor is less than 200 meters (656 feet) deep. Ocean plant life has greened the most in the Patagonian Shelf and the Bering Sea, and along the coasts of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, Southwest Africa, and near Somalia. Both the Patagonian Shelf and the California/Mexican Shelf showed large increases in phytoplankton concentrations of over 60 percent.

captain swoop

2010-Jan-16, 02:53 PM

Human-made greenhouse gases represent only .28% of the total.

So therefore if we were to cut this amount in half, or .14%, it would be insignificant.

One analysis shows that if the Kyoto Accord were fully implemented, the net result would be insignificant on the global climate, but the financial result would be catastrophic.

So naturally the socialists and leftists want to plunge the earth into a permanent depression for zero benefit.

http://theglobalwarmingscam.blogspot.com

It has been posted many times that Blogs are not to be used as a ref in this thread. Your post also contains quite a strong political message. Please read the rules for posting linked at the bottom of this post.
I am issuing you with an infraction for this post

RenaissanceMan

2010-Jan-16, 11:08 PM

... It includes discussions with scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), which is one of the lead groups opposing the IPCC.
...

As we have seen recently, the IPCC bunch is extremely biased and dishonest.
This is fundamentally anti-scientific and anti-intellectual.

Moreover, we constantly hear, and read the comment "peer-reviewed" this, and "peer-reviewed" that. What the cheaters and liars have confirmed in their e-mails is that they have controlled and lied with their "peer-reviewed" papers.

There are other crucial considerations. Among them are the subject of redundant hypocrisy. While the entire *green* world, from Al Gore, scientific ignoramus, on down, lectures to everybody else, they all go about their business as if they were trying to burn as much fossil fuel as possible in the shortest possible time.

I rode my bicycle to a hypocrites' green-fest at the local public university, which is of considerable size and whose particular name is of absolutely no consequence. While there, I noted a parking lot full of cars, and one (1) other bicycle besides my own.

Expecting precisely this, I passed out fliers I printed up at home and distributed them to the attendees of the hypocrites' green-fest. I asked them why they didn't videoconference, and eliminate the considerable carbon footprints their green-fest was leaving behind. They were dumbfounded, and had not a word in response.

Finally a well-dressed man in a goatee asked me to leave. "Why?" I asked.
"Is this a public forum?" "Yes," he replied.

And I'm a member of the public.

"You're disrupting the meeting" he complained.
Indeed, passing fliers out is not free speech to the left, it's "disruption."

However when they blow their whistles and shout down any conservative speakers, or deny them even entrance to speak to the students at any university, that IS "free speech" left-wing style.

Finally, on the issue of intellectual pretensions, it is instructive to consider the words of the President of the Royal Society, one Lord Kelvin (you may have heard of him) said in 1895 that "Heavier than air flight is impossible."

Scientists would of course taken that to the bank. But a certain two bicycle mechanics, Orville and Wilbur, were not scientists. They did not take much stock in what might today be called "peer-reviewed papers."

No, they just set about methodically experimenting with airflow, and lift, and
directional control, and built a heavier than air craft that worked incredibly well.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gases constitute .28% of the total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. .28%.

The fatuous pretense that we SHOULD induce a permanent global depression, ostensibly for the good of mankind, is the greatest hoax since Marxism. The two are closely related.

captain swoop

2010-Jan-16, 11:38 PM

RenaissanceMan

2010-Jan-16, 11:59 PM

RenaissanceMan You obviously didn't read my previous post. If you did you don't seem to have taken it on board.
Please read the ruls for posting to the board, they are linked at the bottom of this post.
It has been pointed out several times in this thread by the Moderators that it is for discussing the SCIENCE of AGW. Posts like your last one are disruptive and your plitical comments are against the rules of the board. Stop Now

1. Citing the percentage of anthropogenic greenhouse gases is eminently scientific.

2. Citing the unscientific nonsense prattled by people with political axes to grind is likewise scientific.

3. Evidently you are intent on stifling debate. Doing so is most unscientific of you. Stop Now.

captain swoop

2010-Jan-17, 12:06 AM

1. Citing the percentage of anthropogenic greenhouse gases is eminently scientific.

2. Citing the unscientific nonsense prattled by people with political axes to grind is likewise scientific.

3. Evidently you are intent on stifling debate. Doing so is most unscientific of you. Stop Now.

If you have a problem with a post then report it with the triangle at the top of the post. If you have a problem with Moderation then report the post, the whole of the moderation team willthen see it and be able to act.
I am not trying to stifle debate I am trying to keep the thread on topic and withing the rules of both the thread and the board as a whole.
I am awarding you another infraction.

RenaissanceMan

2010-Jan-17, 06:06 AM

If you have a problem with a post then report it with the triangle at the top of the post. If you have a problem with Moderation then report the post, the whole of the moderation team willthen (sic) see it and be able to act.
I am not trying to stifle debate I am trying to keep the thread on topic and withing (sic) the rules of both the thread and the board as a whole.
I am awarding you another infraction.

:::: Clicking heels::::::

Everyone toe the line. All hail the "Moderators" whose dictates will NOT be questioned.

Global Warming *scientists*, chief among them, the semi-literate Al Gore, absolutely LOVE to present *scientific* graphs of carbon dioxide concentrations coupled with temperature *changes*, real or imaginary or faked.

Trouble is, they present carbon dioxide concentrations alone. From a zero base, their *changes* look much different than the atmosphere does in its entirety.

Here is one such misleading scammy graph:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Now consider the baseline. It isn't even ZERO!!!

Sure, it's *accurate* but so is a graph with the total picture of our atmosphere, only more so, if I may paraphrase the not-so-great Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al "Invented the internet" Gore.

Look at the wall nearest you. It is probably 8 feet high. This is our graph, showing 100% of the atmosphere's content.

6.32 feet up from the floor represents the nitrogen component.

The next 1.52 feet represents oxygen.

7.84 feet of the 8 foot high graph, therefore, is purely nitrogen and oxygen. The balance is a mixture of other things, often water with a trace of carbon dioxide, bane of socialists everywhere who would control your life in minutest detail, a la Big Brother.

Now 388 ppm represents .003104 of a foot on the graph. This is supposedly the concentration of carbon dioxide now at Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

The real joke is that the INCREASE is a scant 10 ppm, or 8 feet divided by 100,000 on our graph.

Their *reality* is your higher gas bill, higher electric bill, higher subsidies of third world ****holes everywhere, and worst of all, control over more and more of your everyday lives.

Nobody could possibly even NOTICE a rise of .00096 inches on our wall sized graph.

But, hey, that's *science* as it is practiced by knaves and liars.

By the way, the reason the Global Warming Scammers didn't show the *increase* in temperature corresponding to their graph lie is that the temperature did NOT change over that same period, as their cockamamy scam pretends it should.

pzkpfw

2010-Jan-17, 07:31 AM

:::: Clicking heels::::::

Everyone toe the line. All hail the "Moderators" whose dictates will NOT be questioned.

Discussion works better for everyone when there are some rules and guidelines. (For example, anarchy just leads to shouting.)

The rules and guidelines at BAUT are not hard to follow.

Another infraction awarded.

Trakar

2010-Jan-18, 10:35 PM

Methane has a lifetime of only 8.3 years in the atmosphere as opposed to CO2 which would remain in the atmosphere indefinitely if there were not processes that continually naturally sequester CO2 into sediments onto the ocean floor and into sedimentary rock. (For example, fossil fuels.)

As long as the release of methane is gradual it will be removed from the atmosphere. (It is converted to water vapour and to CO2.)...

Well, the 8.3 years is a rough estimate (which you'd not usually associate with a tenths level of accuracy, ".3") based upon half-life oxidation rates, assuming lower atmosphere STP and composition. If we are talking about trickling amounts, in accordances with historic experiences, then this is sufficient, and here, the worse problem isn't the the short-term methane enhancement, but rather the additional oxidation of this methane into the long-term additional CO2 such methane generates, and what effect if any the accompanying drop in environmental oxygen will play on the planet's biosphere? If we are talking about peak emission event rates that are evidenced occassionally in the geologic record, then its more unclear how the large fluctuations of CH4 will be handled within the environment.

...The plant has cooled 2.5C since the Climate Optimum and has since warmed around 0.4C to 0.6C depending on which group does the calculation.

Cite or reference

"...The plant has cooled 2.5C since the Climate Optimum,..."

"...and has warmed around 0.4C to 0.6C,..."

Please? If this is just your opinion, I've no problem with that, and would be interested in how you support the opinion. If it is a more general mainstream paleoclimate consideration, it seems counter to much of my understandings of both the nature of the "Climate Optimum" and global temperatures over the last 8000 years or so, either way, I'd be very interested in reconciling this discrepancy in understandings.

William

2010-Jan-19, 03:16 AM

Well, the 8.3 years is a rough estimate (which you'd not usually associate with a tenths level of accuracy, ".3") based upon half-life oxidation rates, assuming lower atmosphere STP and composition. If we are talking about trickling amounts, in accordances with historic experiences, then this is sufficient, and here, the worse problem isn't the the short-term methane enhancement, but rather the additional oxidation of this methane into the long-term additional CO2 such methane generates, and what effect if any the accompanying drop in environmental oxygen will play on the planet's biosphere? If we are talking about peak emission event rates that are evidenced occasionally in the geologic record, then its more unclear how the large fluctuations of CH4 will be handled within the environment.

Cite or reference

"...The plant has cooled 2.5C since the Climate Optimum,..."

"...and has warmed around 0.4C to 0.6C,..."

Please? If this is just your opinion, I've no problem with that, and would be interested in how you support the opinion. If it is a more general mainstream paleoclimate consideration, it seems counter to much of my understandings of both the nature of the "Climate Optimum" and global temperatures over the last 8000 years or so, either way, I'd be very interested in reconciling this discrepancy in understandings.

Trakar,

Methane Release:

A concern was been raised in the news media that as CH4 is a more powerfully greenhouse gas than CO2. True. It does however have a short lifetime in the atmosphere (8.3 years) as it is lighter than most molecules in the atmosphere and hence moves up to the stratosphere where it broken apart by UV to form water and CO2. There is no reason why very slow warming (with it appears a decade of no warming) will suddenly cause a massive release of CH4. The deep ocean is not going to warm.

There are no scientific papers that support the assertion that gradual warming that has not as of yet exceeded natural variation, is going to cause a massive release of CH4. The argument is by analogy. There was an unknown reason for the Permian extinction. CO2 levels during the Pemian were a couple orders of magnitude higher than current (20 times). Massive fast releases of CH4 are not going to happen.

The myth starts with a strawman. There is a great deal of methane in Northern Permafrost and in the deep ocean as methane clathrate. True. The planet was gotten warmer in the 15 years. Yes. Also true.

CO2 has increased from 0.028% to 0.038% a 38% increase with a logarithmic forcing function. That is also true. The planet is now 0.5C warmer than the 1950 to 1970 average. How much of the 0.5C warming is due to natural changes and how much is due to the 38% increase in CO2 is ignored. 100% of the 0.5C warming above the 1950 to 1970 average is assumed to be due to CO2. Now that there is evidence of cooling there are multiple sources stating that the cooling is due to a natural phenomena, the polar decade oscillation, which has changed from a warming position to a cooling position.

Wouldn't a logical question be could a portion of the 20th century warming have been due to the Polar decade oscillation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate

Temperature Variance in the Holocene

There are multiple proxy methods of determining past temperatures. They support the findings in these papers. There is a 1500 year cycle forcing function that is capable of producing a small, medium, large, and extra large cooling event.

Past Temperatures Directly from the Greenland Ice Sheet

http://courses.washington.edu/pcc589/2009/readings/Dahl_Jensen.pdf

A Monte Carlo inverse method has been used on the temperature profiles measured down through the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) borehole, at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and the Dye 3 borehole 865 kilometers farther south. The result is a 50,000-year-long temperature history at GRIP and a 7000-year history at Dye 3. The Last Glacial Maximum, the Climatic Optimum, the Medieval Warmth, the Little Ice Age, and a warm period at 1930 A.D. are resolved from the GRIP reconstruction with the amplitudes -23 kelvin, +2.5 kelvin, +1 kelvin, -1 kelvin, and -0.5 kelvin, respectively. The Dye 3 temperature is similar to the GRIP history but has an amplitude 1.5 times larger, indicating higher climatic variability there. The calculated terrestrial heat flow density from the GRIP inversion is 51.3 milliwatts per square meter. 3 temperature is similar to the GRIP history but has an amplitude 1.5 times larger, indicating higher climatic variability there. The calculated terrestrial heat flow density from the GRIP inversion is 51.3 milliwatts per square meter.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/274/5292/1503

The planet has been 2.5C warmer than current the average temperature before the planet warmed 0.5C during Climate Optimum there were still ice sheets both poles. The atmosphere is colder as one move to higher latitudes and to high elevations. The Antarctic ice sheet has an average thickness of 7000 ft. The Antarctic Ice and the Greenland Ice are not going to melt.

Similar strawman argument is used with the ice sheets as with Permian extinction. Polar Ice Sheets contain a great deal of water. True. Polar Ice Sheet suddenly melt.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/274/5292/1503

The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea
Lloyd D. Keigwin

Sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, and flux of terrigenous material oscillated on millennial time scales in the Pleistocene North Atlantic, but there are few records of Holocene variability. Because of high rates of sediment accumulation, Holocene oscillations are well documented in the northern Sargasso Sea. Results from a radiocarbon-dated box core show that SST was 1°C cooler than today 400 years ago (the Little Ice Age) and 1700 years ago, and 1°C warmer than today 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period). Thus, at least some of the warming since the Little Ice Age appears to be part of a natural oscillation.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-19, 07:45 AM

William's references are from 1998 and 1996 and they are both from one location. Davis et al. (2003) (http://www.bosci.net/papers/Holocenetemperaturefrompollenrecords.pdf) show an example how different things can be locally. They show the holocene temperatures in different sides of Europe. Note that the mid-holocene climate optimum (about 8 to 5 thousands of years ago) doesn't show at all in the whole Europe temperature reconstruction. It shows up in North-East Europe and little bit in Central-East Europe, but South-West Europe shows strong cooling at the same time. Note also that none of the regions show +2.5 degrees C warmer holocene climate optimum (and the reconstructions shown don't even show the modern warming, they are anomalies against year 1890 values).

Trakar

2010-Jan-19, 08:20 PM

Trakar,

Methane Release:

A concern was been raised in the news media that as CH4 is a more powerfully greenhouse gas than CO2. True. It does however have a short lifetime in the atmosphere (8.3 years) as it is lighter than most molecules in the atmosphere and hence moves up to the stratosphere where it broken apart by UV to form water and CO2. There is no reason why very slow warming (with it appears a decade of no warming) will suddenly cause a massive release of CH4. The deep ocean is not going to warm.

Well, Ari seems to have started at the bottom of your post working upward, so I'll tackle a few of the understanding differences I notice in the first sections of your post and then we can move down as we resolve them.

First, exactly how does UV light convert CH4 (methane) into CO2 and H2O?

Now, its been a few decades since my last Chem class, but unless those teachings have drastically failed me its going to be nearly impossible to get a balanced decomposition of CH4 by UV to produce CO2 and H2O. Looks more like an oxidation reaction, that doesn't necessarily require UV, but does require O2. Looks to me like a balanced equation should be more along the lines of CH4 + (2)O2 --> CO2 + (2)H2O.

And looking at the mass issue, 1 ton of CH4 eventually yeilds nearly 3 tons of CO2 (2 Oxy atoms being much more massive than 4 Hydro atoms). Again 8.5 year half-life persistence is a fair approximation for atmospheric oxidation under current conditions, but doesn't necessarily hold well in a massive release senario.

Sorry to rush here, but this will have to do until this evening, real life is intruding into my time once again.

William

2010-Jan-20, 02:53 AM

Well, Ari seems to have started at the bottom of your post working upward, so I'll tackle a few of the understanding differences I notice in the first sections of your post and then we can move down as we resolve them.

First, exactly how does UV light convert CH4 (methane) into CO2 and H2O?

The UV light creates OH which then reacts with the methane molecule

http://www.igac.noaa.gov/newsletter/21/methane_sink.php

The atmospheric sink of methane

Loss of atmospheric methane is dominated by the reaction with the hydroxyl radical (OH) in the troposphere:

CH4 + OH ® CH3 + H2O R1

In addition there is minor methane removal through other sinks. Loss rates that have been suggested are: Absorption in the soil, transport to the stratosphere where methane reacts with OH, Cl and O(1D) and reaction with Cl in the atmospheric boundary layer. Together these minor sinks account for approximately 10 - 15 % of the total loss of atmospheric methane. The methane loss rate is therefore first of all determined by the total atmospheric burden of OH and its changes in time.

Chemical processes determining the OH distribution and the methane lifetime The local abundance of OH is determined by the local abundance of source and sink gases: CO, CH4, O3, nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHC), NO and water vapour, as well as the intensity of solar UV-B radiation. Based on the methyl chloroform loss rate in the atmosphere Prinn et al., (1995) and Kroll et al. (1998) estimated an average global OH concentration of approximately 1x10^6 molecules/cm3. However, the concentration varies significantly over the day, with season, and with geographical location. The main production of OH (and odd hydrogen) in the troposphere occurs through the photo dissociation of ozone by UV-B radiation followed by the reaction with of exited state oxygen with water vapor:

William

2010-Jan-20, 02:59 AM

Ari,

The proxy temperature data supports the assertion the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were significant global temperature changes. Note this study has proxy data that is planet wide.

That assertion is not surprising as there is a cyclic forcing agent that caused the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/ReplytoBBCnewsAug2004-d/ClimateResearchSoonBaliunas03.pdf

Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the
past 1000 years

ABSTRACT: The 1000 yr climatic and environmental history of the Earth contained in various proxy records is reviewed. As indicators, the proxies duly represent local climate. Because each is of a different nature, the results from the proxy indicators cannot be combined into a hemispheric or global quantitative composite. However, considered as an ensemble of individual expert opinions, the assemblage of local representations of climate establishes both the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period as climatic anomalies with worldwide imprints, extending earlier results by Bryson et al. (1963), Lamb (1965), and numerous intervening research efforts. Furthermore, the individual proxies can be used to address the question of whether the 20th century is the warmest of the 2nd millennium locally. Across the world, many records reveal that the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.

Climate proxy research provides an aggregate, broad perspective on questions regarding the reality of Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period and the 20th century surface thermometer global warming. The picture emerges from many localities that both the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm epoch are widespread and near-synchronous phenomena, as conceived by Bryson et al. (1963), Lamb (1965) and numerous researchers since. Overall, the 20th century does not contain the warmest anomaly of the past millennium in most of the proxy records, which have been sampled world-wide. Past researchers implied that unusual 20th century warming means a global human impact. However, the proxies show that the 20th century is not unusually warm or extreme.

Trakar

2010-Jan-20, 05:09 AM

Okay, again, my apologies for the interruption, but I have an hour or so, so let me see if I can get the rest of the issues of interest to me in this post addressed, or at the least responded to.

(...) There is no reason why very slow warming (with it appears a decade of no warming) will suddenly cause a massive release of CH4. The deep ocean is not going to warm.

An average of +1C per century predicted as likely by climate projections a decade ago, is not "very slow warming," with respect to climate change issues, and the ~0.2C/decade warming we've actually experienced over the last 3 decades (roughly 2x the early projections) certainly is not "very slow warming." (and for the record this last decade has been the warmest in recorded history, likely the warmest in the last several thousand years and possibly the warmest in several million years. (http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/GlobalWarmingThreatProfJamesHansenNASA.pdf)

There are no scientific papers that support the assertion that gradual warming that has not as of yet exceeded natural variation, is going to cause a massive release of CH4.

Well, actually there are published supports for the contention you seem to be dismissing:

(…)The results suggest that while many deep hydrate deposits are indeed stable under the influence of rapid seafloor temperature variations, shallow deposits, such as those found in arctic regions or in the Gulf of Mexico, can undergo rapid dissociation and produce significant carbon fluxes over a period of decades. Citation: Reagan, M. T., and G. J. Moridis (2007), Oceanic gas hydrate instability and dissociation under climate
change scenarios, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L22709, doi:10.1029/ 2007GL031671. - http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/publications/Hydrates/reports/G302_GeophysicalReview_Nov07.pdf

(…)The most pronounced event, event 1, began at peak Dansgaard-Oeschger stadial 22 (85 ka) with a duration of 18 k.y. During this episode, incursions of Atlantic Intermediate Water caused a bottom-water warming of up to 8 °C. The amplitude, timing, and geographic pattern of the δ13C events suggest that this bottom-water warming triggered clathrate instability along the East Greenland slope and a methane-induced depletion of δ13CDIC (DIC— dissolved inorganic carbon). Since δ13C event 1 matches a major peak in atmospheric CH4 concentration, this clathrate destabilization may have contributed to the rise in atmospheric CH4 and thus to climate warming over marine isotope stage 5.1.
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/33/11/873.full.pdf+html
And these are just a limited number of results that turned up with a very cursory search of topic, including this following paper which I found interesting as it did comparative depth studies of clathrate stabilization as a part of their investigations and found that while even the moderate levels of warming initially predicted by the IPCC TAR4 projections could produce significant methane release through shallow deposit clathrate destabilization, it found that there was a negative feedback to the clathrate destabilization in rising sea levels (the deeper the deposit the more stabile they become).

The recent work of Reagan and Moridis (2007) has shown that even a limited warming of 1 K over 100 years can lead to clathrate destabilization, leading to a significant flux of methane into the ocean water, at least for shallow deposits. (…)The role of sea-level rise by 2100 will be to further stabilize methane clathrates, albeit to a small amount as the sea-level rise is expected to be less than a few meters.
Citation: Lamarque, J.-F. (2008), Estimating the potential for methane clathrate instability in the 1%-CO2 IPCC AR-4 simulations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L19806, doi:10.1029/2008GL035291.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL035291.shtml

The argument is by analogy. There was an unknown reason for the Permian extinction. CO2 levels during the Pemian were a couple orders of magnitude higher than current (20 times). Massive fast releases of CH4 are not going to happen.

20x?! Are you seriously proposing that the Permian saw atmospheric CO2 levels that registered more than 7600 ppm? The highest levels I’ve ever seen suggested were more on the order of 7-8x the current level at their peak. Considering that you think the current temp rises are “slow” and non-existent, I doubt I would agree with your definitions and expectations for massive, fast CH4 releases.

... Now that there is evidence of cooling there are multiple sources stating that the cooling is due to a natural phenomena, the polar decade oscillation, which has changed from a warming position to a cooling position.

I see no evidence of cooling,
cite or reference?

Trakar

2010-Jan-20, 06:45 AM

The UV light creates OH which then reacts with the methane molecule

http://www.igac.noaa.gov/newsletter/21/methane_sink.php

Hmmm, CH4 + OH --> CH3 + H2O

Doesn't look anything like the directly UV catalyzed oxidation reaction you were describing before?
(re: "...as it is lighter than most molecules in the atmosphere and hence moves up to the stratosphere where it broken apart by UV to form water and CO2...")

The methyl radical produced is itself a greenhouse gas along with the ozone and CO and CO2 that are the usual eventual end products of its production in the oxidation of methane within the lower atmosphere (troposphere).

Regardless, the OH radicals are limited in their ability to oxidize CH4 and the atmospheric sink is limited in its ability to produce OH radicals to react with the CH4. In the event of massive releases, this sink like so many others, would be overwhelmed, greatly enhancing the atmospheric half-life of methane

I had a reference that went into the details of this but I can't seem to locate it right now, I want to say that it was called "People and Gas Hydrates," but I can't seem to locate either an online reference or locate my copy of the paper, but I will keep looking for it.

Meanwhile here are a few more of the references I am basing my side of the discussion upon:

More than 250 plumes of gas bubbles have been discovered emanating from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin, in a depth range of 150–400 m, at and above the present upper limit of the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ). Some of the plumes extend upward to within 50 m of the sea surface. The gas is predominantly methane. Warming of the northward-flowing West Spitsbergen current by 1°C over the last thirty years is likely to have increased the release of methane from the seabed by reducing the extent of the GHSZ, causing the liberation of methane from decomposing hydrate. If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of Teragrams of methane per year could be released into the ocean.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL039191.shtml

References:
"Methane Hydrate and Climate" - http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/TNT/WEB/Workshops/hydrates/presentation/Archer_presentation.pdf

Methane releases associated with major rapid geologic warmings:
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0904/full/climate.2009.24.html

Trakar

2010-Jan-20, 07:31 AM

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/ReplytoBBCnewsAug2004-d/ClimateResearchSoonBaliunas03.pdf

Why should the largely discredited decade old paleoclimate proxy study by two astrophysicists be taken as authoritative in a field where there exists volumes of paleoclimate proxy studies by legitimate and noted paleoclimatologists which refute Soon and Baliunas' findings?

Looking at the study it wasn't even a work of original research and investigation but rather a literature survey. Even the publisher of the journal in which the paper was originally published acknowledged that the paper suffered from serious flaws and agreed with the mainstream scientific assessments of its failures and flaws. (I'd post a link to the Harvard Crimson's review of Soon and Baliunas' fumble and the journal's publisher's comments, but the Harvard crimson article isn't a good primary or secondary reference - Google the editor's name "Otto Kinne" and "Harvard Crimson").

In the words of the legitimate climate researchers who have reviewed the paper and the editors associated with the journal the paper was published in:

Dr. Malcolm Hughes of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona:

"The Soon et al. paper is so fundamentally misconceived and contains so many egregious errors that it would take weeks to list and explain them all." (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=000829C7-70D9-1EF7-A6B8809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=4)

Dr. Michael Mann:

“Serious scientists will tell you over and over again that this was a deeply flawed study that should never have been published,” “Scientifically this study was considered not even worthy of a response. But because it was used politically, to justify policy changes in the administration, people in my field felt they had to speak out.”

Dr. Hans von Storch, the editor-in-chief of the journal which published the paper, who resigned over the journal's publication of the paper:

"After a conflict with the publisher Otto Kinne of Inter-Research I stepped down on 28. July 2003 as Editor-in-Chief of Climate Research; the reason was that I as newly appointed Editor-in-Chief wanted to make public that the publication of the Soon & Baliunas article was an error, and that the review process at Climate Research would be changed in order to avoid similar failures. The review process had utterly failed; important questions have not been asked, as was documented by a comment in EOS by Mann and several coauthors. (The problem is not whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the 20th century, or if Mann's hockey stick is realistic; the problem is that the methodological basis for such a conclusion was simply not given.)" (http://coast.gkss.de/staff/storch/CR-problem/cr.2003.htm)

Harvard climate scientist, James McCarthy stated in a Rolling Stones interview (link available upon request):
"It was sham science," ... "It's almost laughable, except that this study was held up by the (Bush)administration as a definitive refutation of the temperature record."

Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (referenced by Soon and Baliunas in their paper):
"The fact that it has received any attention at all is a result, again in my view, of its utility to those groups who want the global warming issue to just go away," (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000829C7-70D9-1EF7-A6B8809EC588EEDF)

Mann et al critique of the Soon - Baliunas paper:
"On Past Temperatures and Anomalous late-20th Century Warmth"
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2006Q2/211/articles_optional/Mann_on_Soon2003.pdf

(note - I acknowledge that some of the links above are not primary or secondary science sources but they are primary sources of direct quotes from interviews with the primary scientists involved. This being said, I do not wish to engage in any improper linkage and will be happy to remove the direct links included in the post or acknowledge and accept moderator disabling of the links if such is deemed improper - In either event those seeking these links or others that I have self-filtered please PM for the links)

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-20, 07:37 AM

The proxy temperature data supports the assertion the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were significant global temperature changes. Note this study has proxy data that is planet wide.

That assertion is not surprising as there is a cyclic forcing agent that caused the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/Re...Baliunas03.pdf
I was talking about your claims on holocene climate optimum which occurred >5000 years ago. You offer a paper that discusses things during last 1000 years.

And at any case, Soon & Baliunas (2003) has been thoroughly debunked by:

Jones & Mann (2004) (http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/JonesMannROG04.pdf) (Finds clear flaws from Soon & Baliunas)
Osborn & Briffa (2006) (http://climateknowledge.org:16080/figures/Rood_Climate_Change_AOSS480_Documents/SpInt004_Osborn_Warming_Spatial_0306.pdf)
Juckes et al (2007) (http://www.clim-past.net/3/591/2007/cp-3-591-2007.pdf)
Mann et al (2009) (http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/articles/MannetalScience09.pdf)

(I see that Trakar already answered to this also while I was writing this.)

But like I said, my argument was about holocene climate optimum to which you didn't say anything.

Trakar

2010-Jan-20, 08:14 AM

I was talking about your claims on holocene climate optimum which occurred >5000 years ago. You offer a paper that discusses things during last 1000 years.

And at any case, Soon & Baliunas (2003) has been thoroughly debunked by:

Jones & Mann (2004) (http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/JonesMannROG04.pdf) (Finds clear flaws from Soon & Baliunas)
Osborn & Briffa (2006) (http://climateknowledge.org:16080/figures/Rood_Climate_Change_AOSS480_Documents/SpInt004_Osborn_Warming_Spatial_0306.pdf)
Juckes et al (2007) (http://www.clim-past.net/3/591/2007/cp-3-591-2007.pdf)
Mann et al (2009) (http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/articles/MannetalScience09.pdf)

(I see that Trakar already answered to this also while I was writing this.)

But like I said, my argument was about holocene climate optimum to which you didn't say anything.

Your response was much more concise and appreciated. I was shocked by the offering of the Soon/Baliunas paper given its history and nature. I especially like your Osborn/Briffa offering (it had slipped my mind) which took the validated proxy data from among the collection S&B used and applied the proper and appropriate methodology resulting in surprisingly familiar outcomes!

"The Spatial Extent of 20th Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years" - abstract - Periods of widespread warmth or cold are identified by positive or negative deviations that are synchronous across a number of temperature-sensitive proxy records drawn from the Northern Hemisphere. The most significant and longest duration feature during the last 1200 years is the geographical extent of warmth in the middle to late 20th century. Positive anomalies during 890 to 1170 and negative anomalies during 1580 to 1850 are consistent with the concepts of a Medieval Warm Period and a Little Ice Age, but comparison with instrumental temperatures shows the spatial extent of recent warmth to be of greater significance than that during the medieval period.

William

2010-Jan-21, 03:16 AM

I was talking about your claims on holocene climate optimum which occurred >5000 years ago. You offer a paper that discusses things during last 1000 years.

(I see that Trakar already answered to this also while I was writing this.)

But like I said, my argument was about holocene climate optimum to which you didn't say anything.

Ari,

I provided a paper that shows the Greenland Ice Sheet was 2.5C warmer than 1950 to 1970 average for 2000 years. The Greenland Ice Sheet has cooled and warm cyclically with a downward trend since that period. (Medieval Warm period and the Little Ice Age.)

The cyclic Millennium length changes coincide with GCR changes. You have not provide an explanation for the Millennium cyclic climate changes. Do you know about abrupt climate change?

You and Trakar appear to not be following the recent scientific discussions in the climate community.

There is evidence the planet's response to a forcing change is negative rather than positive. As there are massive cyclic changes in the paleo temperature record that means the massive planetary changes require a very strong forcing function.

Younger Dryas (12900 year BP) abrupt cooling event is an extra large version of the cyclic cooling. The 8200 year BP present is medium version of cyclic cooling. The Little Ice Age is a small version of the cyclic cooling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

The Younger Dryas saw a rapid return to glacial conditions in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere between 12,900–11,500 years before present (BP)[5] in sharp contrast to the warming of the preceding interstadial deglaciation. It has been believed that the transitions each occurred over a period of a decade or so,[6] but the onset may have been faster.[7] Thermally fractionated nitrogen and argon isotope data from Greenland ice core GISP2 indicate that the summit of Greenland was ~15°C colder during the Younger Dryas[6] than today. In the UK, coleopteran (fossil beetle) evidence suggests mean annual temperature dropped to approximately 5°C,[8] and periglacial conditions prevailed in lowland areas, while icefields and glaciers formed in upland areas.[9] Nothing of the size, extent, or rapidity of this period of abrupt climate change has been experienced since.[5]

In western North America it is likely that the effects of the Younger Dryas were less intense than in Europe; however, evidence of glacial re-advance[12] indicates Younger Dryas cooling occurred in the Pacific Northwest.

Other features seen include:

* Replacement of forest in Scandinavia with glacial tundra (which is the habitat of the plant Dryas octopetala).
* Glaciation or increased snow in mountain ranges around the world.
* Formation of solifluction layers and loess deposits in Northern Europe.
* More dust in the atmosphere, originating from deserts in Asia.
* Drought in the Levant, perhaps motivating the Natufian culture to invent agriculture.
* The Huelmo/Mascardi Cold Reversal in the Southern Hemisphere began slightly before the Younger Dryas and ended at the same time.
* Decline of the Clovis Culture and extinction of animal species in North America.

Trakar, Quoting people who say the same thing as you is not a scientific argument. Have you looked at Manne's paper's methodology. What data source did he select to make the Medieval warm period go away? If a one data source is removed for his paper does the finding remain the same? Think of this as scientific problem as opposed to an argument.

The discrepancy between how much the planet has warmed and how much is predicted by the IPCC is now greater than 40%.

Why Hasn't Earth Warmed as Much as Expected?
Stephen E. Schwartz, Robert J. Charlson, Ralph A. Kahn, John A. Ogren, Henning Rodhe

The observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) over the industrial era is less than 40% of that expected from observed increases in long-lived greenhouse gases together with the best-estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity given by the 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Possible reasons for this warming discrepancy are systematically examined here. The warming discrepancy is found to be due mainly to some combination of two factors: the IPCC best estimate of climate sensitivity being too high and/or the greenhouse gas forcing being partially offset by forcing by increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols; the increase in global heat content due to thermal disequilibrium accounts for less than 25% of the discrepancy, and cooling by natural temperature variation can account for only about 15%. Current uncertainty in climate sensitivity is shown to preclude determining the amount of future fossil fuel CO2 emissions that would be compatible with any chosen maximum allowable increase in GMST; even the sign of such allowable future emissions is unconstrained. Resolving this situation, by empirical determination of Earth's climate sensitivity from the historical record over the industrial period or through use of climate models whose accuracy is evaluated by their performance over this period is shown to require substantial reduction in the uncertainty of aerosol forcing over this period.

A second issues is the satellite data is statistically at odds with the GISS temperature trend. (satellite data shows less warming when trended than the GISS adjusted temperature which indicates the methodology used in the GISS global temperature calculation is flawed by 0.1C to 0.15C.

http://courses.washington.edu/pcc589/2009/readings/Dahl_Jensen.pdf

Past Temperatures Directly from the Greenland Ice Sheet

A Monte Carlo inverse method has been used on the temperature profiles measured down through the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) borehole, at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and the Dye 3 borehole 865 kilometers farther south. The result is a 50,000-year-long temperature history at GRIP and a 7000-year history at Dye 3. The Last Glacial Maximum, the Climatic Optimum, the Medieval Warmth, the Little Ice Age, and a warm period at 1930 A.D. are resolved from the GRIP reconstruction with the amplitudes -23 kelvin, +2.5 kelvin, +1 kelvin, -1 kelvin, and -0.5 kelvin, respectively. The Dye 3 temperature is similar to the GRIP history but has an amplitude 1.5 times larger, indicating higher climatic variability there. The calculated terrestrial heat flow density from the GRIP inversion is 51.3 milliwatts per square meter.

Trakar

2010-Jan-21, 04:58 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

Wiki really isn't an authoritative source so much as a "popular" source. It is perhaps a good place to find more authoritative references and to start an investigation into a topic about which you know little or nothing, but it is not a valid source upon which to base opinions or considerations in a scientific discussion.

Trakar, Quoting people who say the same thing as you is not a scientific argument.

It is called supporting your argument with published and peer-reviewed science.

Have you looked at Manne's paper's methodology.

I have read most of Mann's papers, I'm guessing that you are referring to the papers Ari and I have linked in the last few posts? Evidently, you have not read Mann's papers, as they generally support the idea of a medieval warm period, with appropriate the appropriate qualification that the term best describes a sporadic NA regional phenomenon, not an encompassing global event:

The paper I linked:
"...The specific notions of the 'Little Ice Age' and 'Medieval Warm Period' arose, understandably, from the Eurocentric origins of historical climatology [e.g. Lamb, 1965]. While relative hemispheric warmth during the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries, and cool conditions during the 15th to the early 20th century are evident from reconstructions of hemispheric-mean temperature (Figure 1), the specific periods of coldness and warmth differ from region to region (Figure 2) from those for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. Rather than indicating inconsistency, the difference between such regional and
hemispheric-scale anomalies follows naturally from the physics governing atmospheric variability..."
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2006Q2/211/articles_optional/Mann_on_Soon2003.pdf

The paper Ari linked:
"...We argue, on the basis of differences between regional and true hemispheric/global temperature trends evident during the instrumental period that past warm/cold periods can only be determined from truly hemispheric- and global-scale series. Inferences from regional data in isolation will clearly provide a biased view of larger-scale changes. Over longer periods (e.g., the past couple millennia), differences are clearly apparent between individual
proxy series and the hemispheric/global composites (see our Figures 4 and 5). ‘‘Medieval Warm Period’’ and ‘‘Little Ice Age’’ are therefore restrictive terms, and their continued use in a more general context is increasingly likely to hamper, rather than aid, the description of past large-scale climate
changes. We recommend that paleoclimatologists avoid the use of such terms and instead refer to anomalous climate periods by calendar dates, as is the practice in the description of more modern climate changes..."

What data source did he select to make the Medieval warm period go away?

If you have evidence of some scientifically disingenuous process employed by Mann in the production of his research and paper, present it. Insinuations and unsupported or unsubstantiated assertions with regards to Mann's work are without merit here, or in the mainstream scientific community.

The discrepancy between how much the planet has warmed and how much is predicted by the IPCC is now greater than 40%.

Cite or reference?

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-21, 06:03 AM

I provided a paper that shows the Greenland Ice Sheet was 2.5C warmer than 1950 to 1970 average for 2000 years.
I know you did because I specifically responded to that by saying:

William's references are from 1998 and 1996 and they are both from one location. Davis et al. (2003) (http://www.bosci.net/papers/Holocenetemperaturefrompollenrecords.pdf) show an example how different things can be locally. They show the holocene temperatures in different sides of Europe. Note that the mid-holocene climate optimum (about 8 to 5 thousands of years ago) doesn't show at all in the whole Europe temperature reconstruction. It shows up in North-East Europe and little bit in Central-East Europe, but South-West Europe shows strong cooling at the same time. Note also that none of the regions show +2.5 degrees C warmer holocene climate optimum (and the reconstructions shown don't even show the modern warming, they are anomalies against year 1890 values).
So, now we have repeated what we have said. Why did we have to repeat them?

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-21, 06:28 AM

The discrepancy between how much the planet has warmed and how much is predicted by the IPCC is now greater than 40%.

Cite or reference?
It's latest climate-sensitivity-is-quite-low paper from Schwartz:
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/pubs/BNL-90903-2009-JA.pdf

But William has misunderstood tha paper rather badly. Schwartz first looks how much warming should be caused by GHG's only + the feedbacks ignoring all other forcings. Then Schwartz compares the result to observed warming and finds the 40% number (and that number is also reported falsely by William; discrepancy is not 40 %, the observed warming is less than 40% of expected). Next Schwartz proceeds to tackle the problem of this "discrepancy" and arrives to the result that climate sensitivity must be lower than thought or that there might be some other forcings at play.

Well, we know that there are other forcings at play but for some reason Schwartz approaches the issue as if it would be entirely new finding. In this thread we have encountered the study of Lean & Rind (2008) (http://www.leif.org/research/LeanRindCauses.pdf) who already solved the problem Schwartz is presenting as a new one. We know that aerosols cause much cooling which already makes the resulting warming much less than expected from GHG's. That might not be enough though and Schwartz discusses that in the paper, and I think that's pretty much the point of Schwartz's paper - that the aerosol forcing has lot of uncertainty - which is not much of a news item, we knew that one too already.

To sum up, the study of Schwartz (2010) does not suggest that observed warming differs greatly from expected warming from all forcings, it just explores the question if we know all forcings well. The thing has quite strange approach in my opinion, and that approach will undoubtedly result in this paper being trumpeted as yet another that shows AGW false and that climate change is not happening after all (I already saw it happen yesterday elsewhere). What I think is very bad in Schwartz (2010) is the failure to cite the already existing research on the role of other forcings (Lean & Rind, 2008, for example).

Trakar

2010-Jan-22, 12:23 AM

It's latest climate-sensitivity-is-quite-low paper from Schwartz:
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/pubs/BNL-90903-2009-JA.pdf

But William has misunderstood tha paper rather badly. Schwartz first looks how much warming should be caused by GHG's only + the feedbacks ignoring all other forcings. Then Schwartz compares the result to observed warming and finds the 40% number (and that number is also reported falsely by William; discrepancy is not 40 %, the observed warming is less than 40% of expected). Next Schwartz proceeds to tackle the problem of this "discrepancy" and arrives to the result that climate sensitivity must be lower than thought or that there might be some other forcings at play.

Well, we know that there are other forcings at play but for some reason Schwartz approaches the issue as if it would be entirely new finding. In this thread we have encountered the study of Lean & Rind (2008) (http://www.leif.org/research/LeanRindCauses.pdf) who already solved the problem Schwartz is presenting as a new one. We know that aerosols cause much cooling which already makes the resulting warming much less than expected from GHG's. That might not be enough though and Schwartz discusses that in the paper, and I think that's pretty much the point of Schwartz's paper - that the aerosol forcing has lot of uncertainty - which is not much of a news item, we knew that one too already.

To sum up, the study of Schwartz (2010) does not suggest that observed warming differs greatly from expected warming from all forcings, it just explores the question if we know all forcings well. The thing has quite strange approach in my opinion, and that approach will undoubtedly result in this paper being trumpeted as yet another that shows AGW false and that climate change is not happening after all (I already saw it happen yesterday elsewhere). What I think is very bad in Schwartz (2010) is the failure to cite the already existing research on the role of other forcings (Lean & Rind, 2008, for example).

Ah! I hadn't run across the Schwartz paper yet, thank-you for the links and the assessment, I will review them as I get the time, my schedule is tightening up over the next few weeks so my visits to the board will become much more sporadic after this weekend.

Atraveller

2010-Jan-22, 01:29 AM

William

2010-Jan-22, 02:59 AM

News release from NASA:

Decade warmest on record (http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_10-017_Warmest_temps.html)

This seems to reinforce the news release from the Australian BOM:

BOM - decade warmest on record (http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20100105.shtml)

Ari,
The problem with the pollen proxy data is there may problem with the proxy mechanism. Manne originally specifically cherry picked proxy data to get the answer he wanted. His second paper used a new proxy method that is not supported by other proxies. The Greenland Ice Sheet core temperature is a direct measurement.

As I said what is currently happening to the sun appears to be either a medium or and an extra large forcing change. Single sunspots in the cycle are starting to produce strong flares. The sunspots have an anomalously short life time. It appears there is more to come besides very high GCR. The high GCR should start to produce cooling of high latitude regions. The affect will be greatest in the summer period for the high latitude region in question.

There is more than proxy data to show the planet was warmer during the Holocene Optimum.

I would assume you do not understand that the Sahara desert blooms when the planet warms. The has already been increased rainfall in the Sahara, due to the 0.5C warming.

Trakar,

The fact is that planet has warmed 40% less than predicted by the IPCC models and the heat is not hiding in the ocean. When the author of the paper states the planet is less sensitive to forcing that means the feedback to forcing is negative rather than positive. If that is correct the planet will not warm 3C to doubling of CO2 levels. Roy Spencer's estimate based on his feedback measurements is 0.75C.

This is a linked puzzle. If the planet's response to a change in forcing is negative (Planetary cloud cover increase or decreases to resist a change in planetary temperature.) then a large forcing function is required to create the glacial/interglacial cycle and the abrupt cyclic climate changes.

Did you notice I have provided links to two papers that show the planet's response to a change in forcing is negative not positive? The January 19, 2010 paper is the third.

http://hol.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/6/901

Shorelines in the Sahara: geomorphological evidence for an enhanced monsoon from palaeolake Megachad

Nick Drake

The Sahara Desert is the most extensive desert on Earth but during the Holocene it was home to some of the largest freshwater lakes on Earth; of these, palaeolake Megachad was the biggest. Landsat TM images and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital topographic data reveal numerous shorelines around palaeolake Megachad. At its peak sometime before 7000 years ago the lake was over 173 m deep with an area of at least 400 000 km2, bigger than the Caspian Sea, the biggest lake on Earth today. The morphology of the shorelines indicates two dominant winds, one northeasterly that is consistent with the present-day winds in the region. The other originated from the southwest. We attribute it to an enhanced monsoon caused by a precessionally driven increase in Northern Hemisphere insolation. Subsequent desiccation of the palaeolake is recorded by numerous regressive shorelines in the Sahara Desert.

Atraveller,

It should be noted that the satellite data does not support the assertion that 2009 was the warmest Southern Hemisphere year of the decade.

This year is the El Nino year so we would expect some warming. Note 2008 was the coldest year of the decade.

WASHINGTON -- A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.

Atraveller

2010-Jan-22, 05:23 AM

It should be noted that the satellite data does not support the assertion that 2009 was the warmest Southern Hemisphere year of the decade.

This year is the El Nino year so we would expect some warming. Note 2008 was the coldest year of the decade.

Which satellite data are you looking at that does not support this?

The satellite data from the Australian BOM site certainly does support it.

climate maps (http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/global/averagemaps.cgi)

Do you have a citation or a refference you can point me to?

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Jan-22, 05:55 AM

Manne originally specifically cherry picked proxy data to get the answer he wanted.
As you are accusing Mann of dishonesty, kindly provide proof for it.

Trakar

2010-Jan-22, 06:34 AM

Ari,
The problem with the pollen proxy data is there may problem with the proxy mechanism.

Manne originally specifically cherry picked proxy data to get the answer he wanted.

His second paper used a new proxy method that is not supported by other proxies.

The Greenland Ice Sheet core temperature is a direct measurement.

Cite or reference supporting any of the contentions you asserted above?

The fact is that planet has warmed 40% less than predicted by the IPCC models and the heat is not hiding in the ocean.

Cite or reference (with specific quote that supports this contention) please.

When the author of the paper states the planet is less sensitive to forcing that means the feedback to forcing is negative rather than positive.

Do you have any idea what you are actually saying in the above sentence?

Did you notice I have provided links to two papers that show the planet's response to a change in forcing is negative not positive? The January 19, 2010 paper is the third.

So far the only papers you have proffered are ones that have been demonstrated to be fundementally and scientifically flawed in method and finding.

http://hol.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/6/901

Interesting paper intriguing findings, care to quote exactly what you find of relevence to the discussion at hand?

lomiller1

2010-Jan-22, 06:07 PM

Ari,
Manne originally specifically cherry picked proxy data to get the answer he wanted.

No, he weighted the proxies based on how well they reproduced the measured temperatures. All proxies used this same methodology; absolutely no cherry picking was involved.

Ari,
His second paper used a new proxy method that is not supported by other proxies.

His later papers didn't use PCA, this isn't a proxy method it's a method for isolating a single common signal in noisy data that contains multiple signals.

Ari,
The Greenland Ice Sheet core temperature is a direct measurement.

No, it's a proxy

William

2010-Jan-23, 12:34 AM

Cite or reference supporting any of the contentions you asserted above?

Cite or reference (with specific quote that supports this contention) ease.

Do you have any idea what you are actually saying in the above sentence?

So far the only papers you have proffered are ones that have been demonstrated to be fundementally and scientifically flawed in method and finding.

Interesting paper intriguing findings, care to quote exactly what you find of relevence to the discussion at hand?

Trakar,

This is the difference between negative and positive feedback.

A doubling of CO2 is theoretically estimated to cause an increase in forcing of 3.8 W/m^2. Note it is not a fact that there will be 3.8 W/m^2 forcing. That is a theoretical calculation. It is possible the forcing due to a doubling of CO2 is less than 3.8 W/m^2.

Now if the planetary feedback is negative planetary cloud cover will increase as the planet warms in response to the 3.8 W/m^2 of CO2 warming. An increase in planetary cloud cover will result in an increase in amount of sunlight reflected into space.

Negative feedback is a good thing not a bad thing from the standpoint of stability of the earth's biosphere. If there is a massive volcanic eruption which cools the planet, cloud cover will reduce to counteract the cooling.

Likewise if there is a massive CH4 release from Methane clathrate from the deep ocean, planetary clouds will increase to protect the planet from over heating.

Now if the planetary feedback is positive then there is a greater change in planetary temperature which amplifies the original forcing change. Positive forcing is a bad thing in physical systems as the system becomes unstable and will oscillate as there are lag times in system response. Positive feedback will also cause system to continue to increase until the system reaches a physical limit.

It should be noted that the CO2 forcing is logarithmic not exponential. The first increase in forcing from 280 ppm to 300 ppm had the greatest effect. Each incremental increase in CO2 has less and less and affect on the planetary temperature than than the last 20 ppm increase. The forcing asymptotically reaches a limit. It saturates.

Venus is different than the earth because its atmospheric pressure is 90 times that of the earth. Gases under very high pressure start to act like liquids. Under 90 atmosphere the CO2 no longer absorbs a very narrow frequency which explains the high temperature of Venus.

If planetary feedback is zero, the planet warms around 1.5C to the 3.8W/m^2 increase due to doubling of CO2.

Now the IPCC is predicting 3C to 5C warming for the 3.8W/m^2 of forcing due to a doubling of CO2.

Now for those who are not following the details of planetary temperature change. The question is not is the planet warming? but rather how much has the planet warmed due to the 39% increase in CO2 from 0.028% to 0.0389%.

As noted below the planetary temperature rise due to a 40% increase in CO2 is less than 40% of what is predicted by the IPCC, assuming 100% of the 20th century temperature rise was due to CO2.

As it appears even if 100% of the twentieth century warming was due to CO2, the actual measured temperature increase is less than 40% of what the IPCC predicts.

That would support negative feedback (increase in planetary cloud cover) rather than positive feedback which is a good thing.

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2009JCLI3461.1

Why Hasn't Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? Stephen E. Schwartz, Robert J. Charlson, Ralph A. Kahn, John A. Ogren, Henning Rodhe Issued January 19th, 2010

The observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) over the industrial era is less than 40% of that expected from observed increases in long-lived greenhouse gases together with the best-estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity given by the 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Possible reasons for this warming discrepancy are systematically examined here. The warming discrepancy is found to be due mainly to some combination of two factors: the IPCC best estimate of climate sensitivity being too high and/or the greenhouse gas forcing being partially offset by forcing by increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols; the increase in global heat content due to thermal disequilibrium accounts for less than 25% of the discrepancy, and cooling by natural temperature variation can account for only about 15%. Current uncertainty in climate sensitivity is shown to preclude determining the amount of future fossil fuel CO2 emissions that would be compatible with any chosen maximum allowable increase in GMST; even the sign of such allowable future emissions is unconstrained. Resolving this situation, by empirical determination of Earth's climate sensitivity from the historical record over the industrial period or through use of climate models whose accuracy is evaluated by their performance over this period is shown to require substantial reduction in the uncertainty of aerosol forcing over this period.

lomiller1

2010-Jan-24, 08:38 AM

It is possible the forcing due to a doubling of CO2 is less than 3.8 W/m^2.

It could also be larger…

Trakar,

Now if the planetary feedback is negative planetary cloud cover will increase as the planet warms in response to the 3.8 W/m^2 of CO2 warming. An increase in planetary cloud cover will result in an increase in amount of sunlight reflected into space.

Unlikely since we already know the planet warms considerably when faced with much smaller forcing.

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2009JCLI3461.1

The major positive and negative forcings are quite well documented and when they are all used they reproduce the climate over the last 100 years nicely. It seems odd a new paper should want to speculate about aerosols offsetting CO2 increases when the fact they do is already published.

http://www.cawcr.gov.au/bmrc/clfor/cfstaff/jma/meehl_additivity.pdf

catfish20

2010-Jan-26, 12:59 AM

Hi guy's this is my first post here and due to time constraints I haven't really put in my time lurking and figuring things out, hopefully you will forgive me. I'm in a debate on another forum and could use some help. Some guy posted the following two messages as a refutation of all AGW science. I'm not very physics smart so if someone can decipher this and help me counter it or point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

When it is this sloppy and the phenomena is one of heat transfer and not temperature, it is far better to try to understand the system rather than record temperatures everywhere to the 1/100th of a degree. After all, it isn't temperature which is the hypothetical effect of increased large molecule, polyatomic atmospheric gas components (green house effect) but heat transfer!

So, what are the modes of heat rejection of the atmosphere? Simple, if you know heat transfer. Heat transfer is driven by temperature difference, NOW temperature is important! So we need to know not just temperature but temperature difference through the entire atmosphere!

The atmosphere is composed of 5 layers, the bottom 3 being most important to atmospheric insulative effects. First is the troposphere. This layer is named such because it is in a constant state of turn over. This is weather which also represents the greatest heat rejection mechanism of the Earth, transporting as much as 50% of the total solar energy flux back up through latent heat effect. Realize the troposphere has a lapse rate of 3-3.5 degrees F per 1000 feet of elevation. This is due to a combination of heat transfer through the tropopause and the adiabatic cooling of rising air masses (low pressure zones). Because dry, heated air expends its energy by performing work on the atmosphere, the net heat rejection is minimal. It is only when water vapor condenses that significant heat rejection happens.

Above the tropopause, the atmosphere reverts to stability in the stratosphere, so named because it does not mix but is layered with temperature proportional to altitude. Due to the much lower pressure, the primary mode of heat transfer IS radiational. But because the pressure is as low as 1/1000th that of sea level, mean free path increase enables much greater kinetic energy of the atmosphere. And as such, much greater heat rejection.

Above the stratosphere, the middle layer of the atmosphere is also aptly named the mesosphere. And again, there is a lapse rate. And an even bigger surprise, WEATHER! Yes, the mesosphere has weather patterns but usually only in the summer months when noctilucent clouds may be seen at higher latitudes. And like the troposphere, these weather patterns are due to heat rejection process to the next layer, the thermosphere.

The thermosphere is much like the stratosphere, having positive temperature increase with altitude.

and

I have been using proven science, from the Beer-Lambert Law to Stefan-Boltzman Law to DISPROVE the idea that large polyatomic gas molecules will cause warming in any significant amount.

AGW is at best, an UNPROVEN HYPOTHESIS. To prove it requires specific violation of the two above LAWS of physics.

Yes, scientists HAVE overlooked basic laws. Consider the long-held idea stomach ulcers were caused by excessive acid. Well, germ theory of disease proved that wrong when helicobacter pylori were identified and antibiotic therapy proved efficacy. And in my experiences, I have found serious errors in basic math, physics and chemistry in research.

jlhredshift

2010-Jan-26, 01:58 PM

Well, at least he did not start a new thread.

Welcome and please see the previous 114 pages.

And to quote Mike Alexander; "we're off to the races".

lomiller1

2010-Jan-26, 06:43 PM

So, what are the modes of heat rejection of the atmosphere? Simple, if you know heat transfer. Heat transfer is driven by temperature difference, NOW temperature is important! So we need to know not just temperature but temperature difference through the entire atmosphere!

The only significant way heat escapes the top of the Earths atmosphere is via emission of infrared. The only significant way heat gets into the atmosphere is via EM waves coming from the sun, primarily in the visible spectrum. Right now the earth is estimated to be receiving ~3 W/m^2 more energy from sunlight then it radiates back into space as IR. This is primarily due to atmospheric CO2 reducing the change for an IR photon to escape the top of the earths atmosphere.

Ivan Viehoff

2010-Jan-27, 11:10 AM

So, what are the modes of heat rejection of the atmosphere? Simple, if you know heat transfer. Heat transfer is driven by temperature difference, NOW temperature is important! So we need to know not just temperature but temperature difference through the entire atmosphere!
This seems entirely to ignore opacity effects. You know that when it is cloudy (1) that reduces sunlight getting in so the day is colder (2) that reduce surface warmth escaping to space at night, so the night is warmer. So it should be obvious to you that opacity is important to heat transfer. The key point about CO2 is that it has some opacity to infrared but not visible, depending upon its concentration, thus slowing down upward heat transfer from the lower levels of the atmosphere, and making the surface warmer. In fact the lower atmosphere is already entirely opaque to infrared because of the CO2, so in the lower levels more doesn't make much difference. What increasing CO2 does is increase opacity in upper levels of the atmosphere.

JESMKS

2010-Jan-27, 04:21 PM

lomiller1

2010-Jan-27, 06:21 PM

Maybe this has been discussed somewhere in the past 115 pages of this thread, but I'm wondering why CO2, being opaque to IR, and reduces the amount of heat radiating from the earth, why isn't it opaque to incoming IR from the sun and reduces the amount of heat that warms the earth?

Frequency of EM emitted is a function of temperature. The Sun, being much hotter then the earth doesn’t emit long wave IR it emits much higher frequencies. Over half of the energy it gives of is visible light; most of the rest is near visible UV and near visible IR. The amount of energy it emits in the bands where CO2 is opaque is almost zero.

The Earth, on the other had emits mostly long wave IR, and a reasonably significant percentage of that that is in bands where CO2 is the only gas that is opaque.

JESMKS

2010-Jan-27, 06:39 PM

Thank you lomiller, that is a good explanation, and one that I can understand.

catfish20

2010-Jan-27, 06:58 PM

Maybe this has been discussed somewhere in the past 115 pages of this thread, but I'm wondering why CO2, being opaque to IR, and reduces the amount of heat radiating from the earth, why isn't it opaque to incoming IR from the sun and reduces the amount of heat that warms the earth?

It might be the number of photons received during the day vs number of molecules. It could also be that the earth receives this energy across the EM spectrum, but the IR is most important for escaping heat.

I'm just guessing though.

<beaten to the punch by an actual answer! lol>

JESMKS

2010-Jan-27, 11:34 PM

I guess my next question would be: Have scientist, in the laboratory, been able to actually measure a difference in the reduction of long wave IR with a change of CO2 concentration as small as 70ppm (This is about the change that has occurred in the atmosphere since 1960)?

parejkoj

2010-Jan-28, 12:00 AM

Not just in the lab... (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/full/410355a0.html) Also see the other articles linked in this post (http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm).

William

2010-Jan-30, 12:30 PM

The planet's atmosphere and energy balance must be analyzed as a system.

As noted above atmospheric CO2 has increased by 40% from 0.028% to 0.039%. As warming due to increased atmospheric CO2 is logarithmic the majority of the predicted increase in CO2 greenhouse forcing (67%) due to a doubling of CO2 should have already occurred.

No one is arguing that there will be no change due to doubling atmospheric CO2 levels from 0.028% to 0.046%. The scientific discussion is will the warming due to increased CO2 be dangerous and bad as opposed to minor and good.

Each new issue of the IPCC document continues to predicted that there is a high probability that a doubling of CO2 will result in a 3C increase in planetary temperature. The planet has warmed based on satellite measurements 0.5C over the 1950 to 1970 average which is a cold period.

The amount of actual planetary warming is less than 40% of what the IPCC has predicted.

The IPCC assumes the planet's response to increased forcing is positive feedback which means the planet amplifies the forcing change as opposed to negative feedback. Positive feedback makes systems unstable as the temperature continues to increase. A system that has positive feedback will oscillate.

If the planetary response is negative then the planet resists forcing changes that try to warm or cool the planet. Negative feedback stabilizes planetary temperature.

This new paper by Susan Solomon et al is interesting. What they found is that 30% of the 20th century warming was due to increases in water in the stratosphere, as opposed to CO2 increases.

The water in the stratosphere has now decreased by 10% which is one of the reasons why the planet has stopped warming.

The question to ask is why is stratosphere water vapour changing?

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1182488

Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming

Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here, we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% compared to estimates neglecting this change. These findings show that stratospheric water vapor represents an important driver of decadal global surface climate change.

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2009JCLI3461.1

Why Hasn't the Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? Stephen E. Schwartz, Robert J. Charlson, Ralph A. Kahn, John A. Ogren, Henning Rodhe Issued January 19th, 2010

The observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) over the industrial era is less than 40% of that expected from observed increases in long-lived greenhouse gases together with the best-estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity given by the 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Possible reasons for this warming discrepancy are systematically examined here. The warming discrepancy is found to be due mainly to some combination of two factors: the IPCC best estimate of climate sensitivity being too high and/or the greenhouse gas forcing being partially offset by forcing by increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols; the increase in global heat content due to thermal disequilibrium accounts for less than 25% of the discrepancy, and cooling by natural temperature variation can account for only about 15%. Current uncertainty in climate sensitivity is shown to preclude determining the amount of future fossil fuel CO2 emissions that would be compatible with any chosen maximum allowable increase in GMST; even the sign of such allowable future emissions is unconstrained. Resolving this situation, by empirical determination of Earth's climate sensitivity from the historical record over the industrial period or through use of climate models whose accuracy is evaluated by their performance over this period is shown to require substantial reduction in the uncertainty of aerosol forcing over this period.

Ivan Viehoff

2010-Feb-01, 03:25 PM

No one is arguing that there will be no change due to doubling atmospheric CO2 levels from 0.028% to 0.046%.
Actually, sad to say, quite a few people still are. But I'm glad you are no longer one of them.

Ivan Viehoff

2010-Feb-01, 03:33 PM

As warming due to increased atmospheric CO2 is logarithmic the majority of the predicted increase in CO2 greenhouse forcing (67%) due to a doubling of CO2 should have already occurred.
In what sense logarithmic? Please make precise what it is you are saying that is logarithmic.

Why should the warming be fast? I realise you are talking about the warming from the CO2 alone, and not from the (more controversial) positive feedback effects, which are one of the delayed effects. But if CO2 increase (alone) causes the net heat coming in to the surface to increase by x W/m2, then warming will carry on until something results in the heat losses from the surface to increase by x W/m2. I thought this equilibration took time-scale of some decades.

kzb

2010-Feb-03, 06:21 PM

I hate to admit it but I'm actually finding myself in the same position as Nigel Lawson, the ex-chancellor of the Thatcher government.

On one hand, CO2 must have some intrinsic warming effect, so a bit of caution is advised in pumping it out without limit, as some skeptics appear to think we can. Even if there just a chance of significant warming we should limit CO2, on the precautionary principle.

On the other hand, the various climate positive and negative feedbacks seem very uncertain. I think the economic solutions are nuts and I hate the whole climate change bandwagon. Some wheels seem to have dropped off the bandwagon recently and I for one am pleased.

But I also am not confortable in getting into bed with Nigel Lawson :)

buzgz

2010-Feb-05, 02:31 AM

Strange

2010-Feb-05, 10:50 AM

The satellite based temperature of the lower atmosphere for January, 2010, has been measured to be the warmest of any January in the 32 year satellite-based data record.

The warmth of the NH led the way.

Could someone explain why it seems so cold ?

Because it's winter? :)

Seriously, without knowing what temperature you are referring to, it is impossible to answer. Is this a specific date, or an average for the whole of January? What location? An average for a country, continent, the whole planet?

buzgz

2010-Feb-05, 02:58 PM

Because it's winter? :)

Seriously, without knowing what temperature you are referring to, it is impossible to answer. Is this a specific date, or an average for the whole of January? What location? An average for a country, continent, the whole planet?

The whole month for the whole planet.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/02/january-2010-uah-global-temperature-update-0-72-deg-c/

cope

2010-Feb-05, 03:42 PM

Could someone explain why it seems so cold ?

The very article you linked to contains this:

"This record warmth will seem strange to those who have experienced an unusually cold winter. While I have not checked into this, my first guess is that the atmospheric general circulation this winter has become unusually land-locked, allowing cold air masses to intensify over the major Northern Hemispheric land masses more than usual."

lomiller1

2010-Feb-05, 05:35 PM

It was exceptionally warm here, so probably all of central NA was well above average. We had about 10 straight days in January where temperatures got close to zero or above. Normal high is in the -15 to -20 deg C range. Other then a 2.5 cold snap in late Dec, this is probably the warmest winter I can remember. Even that cold snap wasn’t really exceptional, we always get a few periods each winter where record lows are challenged.

buzgz

2010-Feb-05, 05:41 PM

The very article you linked to contains this:

"This record warmth will seem strange to those who have experienced an unusually cold winter. While I have not checked into this, my first guess is that the atmospheric general circulation this winter has become unusually land-locked, allowing cold air masses to intensify over the major Northern Hemispheric land masses more than usual."

I read the article. I think the true answer as to why the satellite measures record warmth for the NH during an especially cold winter has to do with the warmth of the oceans, but I really don't understand what all this means.

Calling this January the warmest in 32 years has to be a tough sell. There will be non-believers, and I think I'm one.:confused:

Larry Jacks

2010-Feb-05, 05:47 PM

And so it begins:

India forms new climate change body (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7157590/India-forms-new-climate-change-body.html):

The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.

Climategate: Is It Criminal? (http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/climategate_is_it_criminal_1.html):

The potential criminality of the Climategate scandal is exactly the issue that is being investigated by authorities in Britain. The British Parliament has convened hearings to investigate East Anglia University and the Climate Research Unit to uncover unethical and illegal activities.

...

The British investigation, headed up by Phil Willis, M.P., focuses on four areas: data manipulation, data suppression, violations of the Freedom of Information Act, and data integrity. Clearly, the recently uncovered e-mails will play a big role in this investigation. A new thread in this web has appeared recently concerning a separate investigation conducted by the European Law Enforcement Organization Cooperation (aka Europol). Investigators have found evidence of a complex carbon-trading scam on the European Climate Exchange. Just three short weeks ago, three British subjects were arrested in an apparent scam worth billions of dollars. Much of the criminal activity alleged involves tax evasion.

Trading on the European Climate Exchange is open to the world market, but the carbon credits only involve the European Union (EU) nations giving brokers the ability to hide trading activities in other countries and avoid paying taxes. This is known as a Carousel Fraud. Curiously, this thread of tax avoidance is also spun into the tangled web of e-mails from East Anglia University. In one of the e-mails dated 6 March 1996, two members of the Jones Gang, Stepan Shiyatov and Dr. Kieth Briffa, discuss how to avoid paying taxes in Russia.

parejkoj

2010-Feb-05, 06:15 PM

I read the article. I think the true answer as to why the satellite measures record warmth for the NH during an especially cold winter has to do with the warmth of the oceans, but I really don't understand what all this means.

Calling this January the warmest in 32 years has to be a tough sell. There will be non-believers, and I think I'm one.:confused:

I'm confused: you don't think it's the warmest year globally because it was cold where you live? Do you notice the disconnect there?

Take a look at this plot of the global temperature anomaly for December 2009 vs. 1951-1980 (December mean) (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2009&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=12&year1=2009&year2=2009&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg). Notice anything? If you want to generate your own such maps, you can play with the input parameters on this page (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/).

tusenfem

2010-Feb-05, 07:00 PM

And so it begins:

And so it ends too. Larry Jacks you have enough posts to know that such kind of political (even though "slightly concealed") are not welcome here, and also if you have followed the thread, you know that links to blogs and newspapers are no longer wanted in this thread.

This results in an infraction.

buzgz

2010-Feb-05, 08:23 PM

I'm confused: you don't think it's the warmest year globally because it was cold where you live? Do you notice the disconnect there?

A few points. We are talking about the warmest January in 32 years, not the warmest year. The greatest positive (warmest) anomaly was in the Northern Hemisphere. And, we are talking about the lower atmosphere, where nobody lives.

Can you address the relationship between the temperature of the lower atmosphere (where I'm guessing it's always cold), and the surface temperature ? That would be helpful, and was the point of my original post on the subject.

In retrospect, I should have been more clear on this. Sorry.

Larry Jacks

2010-Feb-06, 09:38 PM

And so it ends too. Larry Jacks you have enough posts to know that such kind of political (even though "slightly concealed") are not welcome here, and also if you have followed the thread, you know that links to blogs and newspapers are no longer wanted in this thread.

This results in an infraction.

In case you have not noticed, this thread is now on page 115 with over 3440 posts. Please tell me the page and post number where this restiction resides. There is nothing that appears on the current displayed page that indicates the restriction. And why does this one thread get to make such a restriction when it apparently doesn't apply anywhere else?

nimbus2506

2010-Feb-07, 01:29 AM

(was searching last 30 pages for other reasons; thought I'd look for this also while I'm at it.)

Going through the last few pages of the thread I see τhat the usual gang is at it again. Therefore, there will be some extra rules here, like, the following kind of posts/expressions I wish no longer to see (taken out in no particular order):

hysteria
deniers
elephants
agenda
emoticons unless really necessary
ridiculing, dishonesty accusations
whine
Pot, kettle, black
creationist
...

I could go on with a lot more.

If you have ANYTHING to say here in this thread you will do it in a scientific manner (and no I do not take pointing to the alleged fraud at CRU or at the Australian group as an excuse that you can do the same here). You will found your comments on a good basis, which is peer reviewed papers (that you can easily find through ADS (http://esoads.eso.org/ads_abstracts.html)) and not through re-interpretations from blogs or newspapers.

It is time this thread grows up, and leave the childish bickering behind.

http://www.bautforum.com/1634545-post2612.html

I'll make it official. Keep the politics out of this thread. I need little excuse to close this thread and/or give out some infractions.

And if people see questionable posts, please do not take moderation into your own hands. Report the post.

http://www.bautforum.com/1642121-post2927.html

Larry Jacks

2010-Feb-07, 10:50 PM

This thread has outlived it's questionable usefulness.

joema

2010-Feb-18, 04:53 PM

I have an earnest question: is there any scientific consensus on when anthropogenic global warming began? Temperature graphs start increasing in the early-to-mid 20th century. Do most climate scientists attribute that to man-made causes?

If it began before WWII, that implies the emissions of that era were sufficient to imbalance the earth's natural carbon cycle at that time.

Yet pre-WWII emissions were roughly 1/7th of today -- roughly 4,000 million metric tons CO2 per year, vs today's 30,000 million.

This would imply that from a biosphere equilibrium standpoint, the maximum sustainable man-made emissions must be less than 1/7th of today. Is that the general consensus?

lomiller1

2010-Feb-18, 07:54 PM

joema

2010-Feb-18, 08:36 PM

Anthropogenic warming goes back to the 1800’s at least, but were comparable in magnitude to natural forcing until about 1950. Since then natural forcing seem to have declined while anthropogenic forcing have increased and dominated climate behavior.

http://www.cawcr.gov.au/bmrc/clfor/cfstaff/jma/meehl_additivity.pdf
Thanks for that paper. Is there some consensus on a maximum "safe" annual GHG emission level? Despite so much discussion on this topic, it's hard to find specifics like this.

E.g, the The Safe Climate Act of 2009 discusses 17% of 2005 emissions by 2050. However is that a long-term "safe" level, or just a hopefully-achievable goal?

17% of 2005 emissions is significantly above the peak emission level just prior to WWII, when AGW was already underway. And that's comparing 1940 peak vs 2005 peak.

The area under the emission curve from 1900 to 1940 is proportionally even smaller relative to the post-WWII era. Considering that, how could 17% of 2005 levels be safe long term?

lomiller1

2010-Feb-18, 10:50 PM

Most of the discussion seems to surround developing CO2 targets. These targets would then drive CO2 emissions cuts. One consequence of this approach is that the longer we wait the deeper the emissions cuts need to be. The current cuts probably won’t do it, so more will need to follow, but keep in mind that per person CO2 emissions in much of the EU are already 50% of what the US emits, France is down at 25%. There is room to make substantial cuts to CO2 emissions while maintaining a robust first world economy.

joema

2010-Feb-19, 04:46 AM

...keep in mind that per person CO2 emissions in much of the EU are already 50% of what the US emits, France is down at 25%. There is room to make substantial cuts to CO2 emissions while maintaining a robust first world economy.
Per-capita emissions are misleading. The EU workforce is less productive than the U.S, so it takes more workers to produce the same GDP. Of course if you divide total emissions or total energy consumption by a larger, less-productive workforce, it appears every person is somehow thrifty. To a significant degree, it's just an illusion.

This is a major problem because it implies there's a solution in hand. IE, the wasteful nations must simply handle emissions like Europe.

However emissions per GDP unit are a more revealing indicator. We also must consider emissions don't stop at arbitrary boundaries, such as the current EU states.

Geographic Europe's average CO2 emissions per normalized GDP unit are 0.5 kg per PPP dollar: http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/env_co2_emi_kg_per_2000_ppp_of_gdp-kg-per-2000-ppp-gdp&int=-1&id=EUR

By contrast the U.S. CO2 emissions per normalized GDP unit are 0.56 kg per PPP dollar: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_co2_emi_kg_per_2000_ppp_of_gdp-kg-per-2000-ppp-gdp

There is little difference. It appears there's less room to make cuts than first appears.

Atraveller

2010-Feb-19, 05:30 AM

Atraveller

2010-Feb-19, 05:37 AM

Is it against the rules of this thread to post a link to an Op-ed piece?

Friedman at the NY times has an interesting perspective on climate change

Global Weirding (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/opinion/17friedman.html?em)

Ronald Brak

2010-Feb-19, 05:56 AM

tusenfem

2010-Feb-19, 08:35 AM

Jetlack

2010-Feb-19, 09:01 AM

Ivan Viehoff

2010-Feb-19, 10:21 AM

Per-capita emissions are misleading. The EU workforce is less productive than the U.S, so it takes more workers to produce the same GDP. Of course if you divide total emissions or total energy consumption by a larger, less-productive workforce, it appears every person is somehow thrifty. To a significant degree, it's just an illusion.
....
Geographic Europe's average CO2 emissions per normalized GDP unit are 0.5 kg per PPP dollar: http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/env_co2_emi_kg_per_2000_ppp_of_gdp-kg-per-2000-ppp-gdp&int=-1&id=EUR
...
By contrast the U.S. CO2 emissions per normalized GDP unit are 0.56 kg per PPP dollar: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_co2_emi_kg_per_2000_ppp_of_gdp-kg-per-2000-ppp-gdp

A very popular argument among apologists for the US's large carbon output, but it's really an argument by distraction from the main issue.

The main issue is not a country's production, but its consumption.

It's all very well to say that the USA can produce a car for so many kg of carbon but someone else produces it for a bit more carbon, and therefore it should be produced in the US. But at the end of the day responsibility for carbon consumption lies how many cars the USA consumes as opposed to other people consuming those cars. (Though we really need to consider the lifetime carbon of those cars - US cars are on average of poor fuel efficiency: and it may well be worth expending a bit more carbon in producing more fuel efficient cars.)

If a country is more efficient at producing something for lower carbon output than another country, then global trading of carbon permits should allow production to move towards more carbon-efficient production systems. (Though in fact trade theory predicts produciton moves towards locations with comparative advantage, not absolute advantage, but lets not go into that just now.)

The world needs, for example, Australia to produce iron ore. If it has large extractive industries and very small population, then inevitably it has large carbon emissions per capita. Likewise as a result of Canada's extractive industries it has high carbon per capita. It doesn't mean that the Australian and Canadian consuming sectors are necessarily inefficient by developed world standards (I don't know whether they are or aren't). They are doing that extraction on behalf of many others who will consume, and that consumption really ought to be counted against the carbon account of the consumers, not the producers.

This is not special pleading on behalf of my own country. My own country, Britain, has reduced its carbon output of late. It supposedly, therefore, has one of the very best carbon records on the planet. But we cheated. What we have actually done is outsource our carbon to other countries. Consumption has gone up, world carbon output has gone up as a consequence, it just wasn't emitted locally. In my view, that's cheating. What counts is our consumption, not our production. We could specialise in services and close all of our high carbon stuff, but we would still be consuming and driving the world's total carbon output.

tusenfem

2010-Feb-19, 01:12 PM

amazing a moderator still shilling for the AGW agenda.

Now thats impartiality for you!

As a member of BAUT I am allowed to have my own opinion about the validity of AGW.

Then again, this is just a paper on the dependence of cloud cover and cosmic rays, which may or may not have an influence on climate.

I posted the link to this paper because William is a strong proponent of cosmic ray generation of clouds.

joema

2010-Feb-19, 02:03 PM

The difference between the per capita CO2 emissions of France and the United States is not an illusion caused by different levels of productivity. It is a result of France using much less fossil fuel than the United States. Worker productivity per hour in France is 94% that of the United States while France produces only around 30% of the per capita CO2 emissions of the United States. Obviously the 6% difference in productivity is not causing this huge difference in emissions. The fact that France uses fossil fuels for less than 11% of it electricity generation makes a very real and non-illusory difference.
Your numbers are wrong -- French worker productivity is about 85% of the U.S., but your point is essentially correct -- about France. http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Press_releases/lang--en/WCMS_083976/index.htm

France is just one country. The worker productivity of Europe in general is lower, which throws off most per capita comparisons. That is why per GDP comparisons are more revealing and less misleading.

France CO2 emissions per GDP dollar are about 1/2 that of Europe or the United States: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_co2_emi_kg_per_2000_ppp_of_gdp-kg-per-2000-ppp-gdp

So France is interesting in this regard, but is hardly a proxy for all of Europe.

One reason France has fairly low CO2 emissions per GDP is they use nuclear fission for 79% of their electricity: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_ele_pro_fro_nuc_sou_of_tot-electricity-production-nuclear-sources-total So it's not magic -- just science. But is there a meaningful lesson here? Presumably the point of mentioning France with reference to the U.S. is the implication they have a solution useful to the carbon emissions problem -- that's the discussion topic.

So what would it take for the Europe or U.S. to "be like France" and have similar low fossil fuel consumption for electricity? Let's examine that:

French electrical consumption was 447 billion kWhr in 2007, vs the 3.9 trillion kWhr for the U.S. About 79% of France's electrical production was nuclear based -- that definitely lowers carbon emissions. On average, France's 59 nuclear plants each produce about 447E12 watt hrs * .79 / 59 = 6E12 watt hrs per year.

For the U.S. to be like France would require how many of these fission plants? 3.9E15 watt hrs * .79 / 6E12 watt hrs per year = 513 new nuclear reactors.

joema

2010-Feb-19, 02:48 PM

A very popular argument among apologists for the US's large carbon output, but it's really an argument by distraction from the main issue.
It's an answer to an "argument by distraction" -- that of focusing on per-capita statistics when per-GDP statistics are more revealing.

US cars are on average of poor fuel efficiency: and it may well be worth expending a bit more carbon in producing more fuel efficient cars.
This is another argument by distraction, and typifies the disproportional focus on the transportation sector when discussing energy or emission problems.

Personal and commercial transportation energy only constitute about 20% of total world energy consumption: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption

If every car on earth disappeared overnight and was replaced by magic carpets, total energy consumption would only decrease by 20%. Since world energy consumption grows by about 2% per year, in about 12 years consumption (hence carbon emissions) would regain roughly the same levels as before cars vanished (PDF): http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/world.pdf

That illustrates the severity of the problem. Marginal improvements to vehicle efficiency are a good idea, but will not materially change the overall picture.

lomiller1

2010-Feb-19, 03:30 PM

You are skewing the numbers by including the poor contries in the EU. The difference in CO2 emissions per capita persists and ever grows when you only look at the wealthiest EU countries.

For example France has a GDP per capita of $42000 yet emits 1/4 the CO2 per person as the US. Denmark, Norway and Ireland have higher GDP per captia then the US yet emits only half as much CO2 per person. Germany and Japan have slightly lower GDP per captia then the US but also emit only 1/2 as much CO2 per person.

joema

2010-Feb-19, 04:25 PM

You are skewing the numbers by including the poor contries in the EU...
Emissions don't stop at EU boundaries, or at only certain wealthy states. It's a global problem. If comparing U.S. to Europe, it's fair to include all European states, not just selected ones.

If picking only certain states, you could equally pick only certain states from the U.S. E.g, Washington State gets 60% of their electricity from renewable hydropower.

....Denmark, Norway and Ireland have higher GDP per captia then the US yet emits only half as much CO2 per person...
Norway and Denmark both have significantly worse energy consumption per GDP unit than the U.S: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_Intensity.png

Norway has the highest per-capita consumption of electricity: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_ele_con_by_hou_and_oth_con_percap-households-other-consumers-per-capita

Does that mean they're wasteful or environmentally irresponsible? No. Just like the U.S, structural differences in the nation's economic and energy systems account for much of this.

Each year the energy and carbon efficiency of most advanced nations improves. The U.S. is no different in that regard: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0105.html

lomiller1

2010-Feb-19, 06:21 PM

Emissions don't stop at EU boundaries, or at only certain wealthy states.

Irrelevant. We are trying to determine the potential economic costs of CO2 emissions, The fact that France achieves good levels of GDP/Person with much smaller CO2 emissions per person proves very substantial cuts can be made with minimal economic impact using current technology.

Norway and Denmark both have significantly worse energy consumption per GDP unit than the U.S: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_Intensity.png

Also irrelevant. We are not discussing energy consumption we are discussing CO2 emissions and what effect reducing them would have on the economy. Using energy that results in less CO2 emission is a perfectly acceptable way to reduce CO2 emissions.

joema

2010-Feb-19, 07:18 PM

Irrelevant. We are trying to determine the potential economic costs of CO2 emissions, The fact that France achieves good levels of GDP/Person with much smaller CO2 emissions per person proves very substantial cuts can be made with minimal economic impact using current technology.
France gets 79% of their electricity from nuclear reactors. This contributes to their low per-capita CO2 emissions. The U.S. would have to build about 500 new reactors to achieve that -- that's five times the number currently in operation. What works for France isn't necessarily technically or politically viable for other countries. I think France also reprocesses nuclear fuel. For the U.S. to use the France's "current technology" to lower CO2 emissions, this would entail massive nuclear fuel reprocessing.

Also irrelevant. We are not discussing energy consumption we are discussing CO2 emissions...
It's common to discuss energy consumption in this context. If you look up the thread a few posts, you'll see other posters mentioning how much energy the U.S. consumes. You didn't complain about THAT being irrelevant.

lomiller1

2010-Feb-19, 09:58 PM

France gets 79% of their electricity from nuclear reactors. This contributes to their low per-capita CO2 emissions. The U.S. would have to build about 500 new reactors to achieve that -- that's five times the number currently in operation.

The US has at least 5X the resources to build them with so if France can build 100 reactors there is no fundamental reason the US couldn’t build 500. Look at it this way, the US also needs to build 5X as many highways, does that mean France will inevitably have a better highway system?

I think France also reprocesses nuclear fuel. For the U.S. to use the France's "current technology" to lower CO2 emissions, this would entail massive nuclear fuel reprocessing.

So reprocess the fuel…

It may have it’s drawbacks but it’s still better then unchecked CO2 emissions.

It's common to discuss energy consumption in this context. If you look up the thread a few posts, you'll see other posters mentioning how much energy the U.S. consumes. You didn't complain about THAT being irrelevant.

Energy consumption is also one way to cut CO2 emissions. This doesn’t change the fact that we are concerned with reducing CO2 emissions, and energy consumption may or may not be a part of that.

joema

2010-Feb-19, 10:43 PM

The US has at least 5X the resources to build them with so if France can build 100 reactors there is no fundamental reason the US couldn’t build 500. Look at it this way, the US also needs to build 5X as many highways, does that mean France will inevitably have a better highway system?...So reprocess the fuel…It may have it’s drawbacks but it’s still better then unchecked CO2 emissions...
Conceptually I agree with you. I'm not saying it's technically impossible. I just wanted to make clear there were hurdles to doing it -- political and technical.

To build reactors on that scale would require widespread use of breeder reactors and plutonium recycling, as there's not enough fuel using the current, inefficient "once through" cycle. This would probably require something like the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). This appears technically achievable, solves most of the waste problem, plutonium recycling problem and fuel availability problems. However I doubt politically if it would ever work: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Ronald Brak

2010-Feb-20, 03:43 AM

One reason France has fairly low CO2 emissions per GDP is they use nuclear fission for 79% of their electricity: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_ele_pro_fro_nuc_sou_of_tot-electricity-production-nuclear-sources-total So it's not magic -- just science.

Personally, I've always been of the opinion that the reason France's electricity sector produces less CO2 emissions per kilowatt-hour than United States was because of their reliance upon non-fossil fuel generating capacity, rather than because they were invoking the powers of the supernatural.

But is there a meaningful lesson here? Presumably the point of mentioning France with reference to the U.S. is the implication they have a solution useful to the carbon emissions problem -- that's the discussion topic.

So what would it take for the Europe or U.S. to "be like France" and have similar low fossil fuel consumption for electricity? Let's examine that:

French electrical consumption was 447 billion kWhr in 2007, vs the 3.9 trillion kWhr for the U.S. About 79% of France's electrical production was nuclear based -- that definitely lowers carbon emissions. On average, France's 59 nuclear plants each produce about 447E12 watt hrs * .79 / 59 = 6E12 watt hrs per year.

For the U.S. to be like France would require how many of these fission plants? 3.9E15 watt hrs * .79 / 6E12 watt hrs per year = 513 new nuclear reactors.

As the United States will probably build over 470 gigawatts of generating capacity over the next thirty years, equal to over 1,000 average French reactors, this doesn't seem to be a problem.

Mind you, this capacity certainly doesn't need to be nuclear, it just needs to be low emission. For example, France is currently investing in large scale wind farms as it is cheaper than new nuclear.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Feb-20, 05:46 AM

William

2010-Feb-20, 02:16 PM

An interesting paper (for William or more likely against William) was just published in GRL:

Sudden cosmic ray decreases: No change of global cloud cover (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009GL041327.shtml) by J. Calogovic et al. (Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L03802, doi:10.1029/2009GL041327)

There appears to be a either a measurement problem problem with the paper you linked to or there is a data problem. The following is a paper that shows there is a reduction in cloud water content with a Forbush decrease in cosmic ray counts.

Comment;
The cloud albedo is dependent on water droplet size. Clouds reflect more sunshine into space when the water droplet size increases. The area of cloud cover is only one parameter that needs to be measured.

It should be noted that there is paleoclimatic data that shows there is close correlation with planetary temperature and GCR changes. There is smoking gun evidence to support the assertion that there is a causal relationship.

The question "Does or does not GCR affect planetary cloud cover? will be decided by the affects of the current massive increase in GCR and the change in the solar magnetic cycle (it appears the sun is moving toward a Dalton like cycle minimum). Based on what has happened before the planet will cool.

It is interesting that record snowfall is being attributed to global warming. GCR has rapidly increased in the last year. Is there any change in "weather"? The El Nino event is starting to weaken. It will be interesting to see how the "weather" changes this summer and next winter.

As the paper I linked to above noted planetary warming is less than 40% of what is predicted by the IPCC based on current CO2 levels. Something is fundamentally incorrect with that theory.

As Susan Soleman's paper notes, 30% the 20th century warming was due to changes in stratospheric water content. Soleman's paper notes that stratospheric water content was started to decrease which is causing the planet to cool. Tinsley predicted an inverse relationship between GCR intensity and stratospheric water content. (Stratospheric water warms the planet via the H2O greenhouse affect.)

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/svensmark-forebush.pdf

Cosmic ray decreases affect atmospheric aerosols and clouds
Close passages of coronal mass ejections from the sun are signaled at the Earth’s surface by Forbush decreases in cosmic ray counts. We find that low clouds contain less liquid water following Forbush decreases, and for the most influential events the liquid water in the oceanic atmosphere can diminish by as much as 7%. Cloud water content as gauged by the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) reaches a minimum approx. 7 days after the Forbush minimum in cosmic rays, and so does the fraction of low clouds seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and in the International Satellite Cloud Climate Project (ISCCP). Parallel observations by the aerosol robotic network AERONET reveal falls in the relative abundance of fine aerosol particles which, in normal circumstances, could have evolved into cloud condensation nuclei. Thus a link between the sun, cosmic rays, aerosols, and liquid-water clouds appears to exist on a global scale.

William

2010-Feb-20, 02:33 PM

Here's the PDF (I think Calogovic et al. was mentioned before in this thread when the paper was available by "in the press" service):

http://crosbi.znanstvenici.hr/datoteka/442903.2009GL041327.pdf

The preliminary results from the Cern's CLOUD-project were also officially published this week (Duplissy et al. 2010), but this has been mentioned here also before because the journal gives papers out right after they have been submitted and the whole peer review happens in public (again, not much to cheer for the cosmic ray hypothesis supporters):

http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/9/18235/2009/acpd-9-18235-2009.html

Ari,

Something does appear to be modulating cloud droplet size (see my comment above) and stratospheric water content.

It appears that the planetary response to a change in forcing (increase in CO2 levels by 40%) is negative feedback (planet resists changes) rather than positive (planet amplifies changes). That has a number of implications concerning what is required to cause the past cyclic abrupt cooling events. (The existence of a very large cyclic forcing mechanism. Insolation changes at 65N cannot possibly have caused the glacial/interglacial cycle.)

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1182488

Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming

Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here, we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000 to 2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% compared to estimates neglecting this change. These findings show that stratospheric water vapor represents an important driver of decadal global surface climate change.

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2009JCLI3461.1

Why Hasn't the Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? Stephen E. Schwartz, Robert J. Charlson, Ralph A. Kahn, John A. Ogren, Henning Rodhe Issued January 19th, 2010

The observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) over the industrial era is less than 40% of that expected from observed increases in long-lived greenhouse gases together with the best-estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity given by the 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Possible reasons for this warming discrepancy are systematically examined here. The warming discrepancy is found to be due mainly to some combination of two factors: the IPCC best estimate of climate sensitivity being too high and/or the greenhouse gas forcing being partially offset by forcing by increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols; the increase in global heat content due to thermal disequilibrium accounts for less than 25% of the discrepancy, and cooling by natural temperature variation can account for only about 15%. Current uncertainty in climate sensitivity is shown to preclude determining the amount of future fossil fuel CO2 emissions that would be compatible with any chosen maximum allowable increase in GMST; even the sign of such allowable future emissions is unconstrained. Resolving this situation, by empirical determination of Earth's climate sensitivity from the historical record over the industrial period or through use of climate models whose accuracy is evaluated by their performance over this period is shown to require substantial reduction in the uncertainty of aerosol forcing over this period.

joema

2010-Feb-20, 05:38 PM

buzgz

2010-Feb-20, 10:22 PM

As the United States will probably build over 470 gigawatts of generating capacity over the next thirty years, equal to over 1,000 average French reactors, this doesn't seem to be a problem.

This seems like good news, but I was under the impression that the U.S. was against the addition of significant nuclear energy. Do you have a reference for this ?

Why must the alternative to global warming be the reduction of CO2 produced ? It would seem that if the warming was going to produce great problems, then ideas for reducing warming (but not carbon) would be well received. From my memory ( I have no references), they have not been.

Perhaps I'm wrong and someone could provide examples of alternate methods of cooling being embraced.

Ronald Brak

2010-Feb-20, 11:59 PM

This seems like good news, but I was under the impression that the U.S. was against the addition of significant nuclear energy. Do you have a reference for this ?

It's the natural turnover of infrastructure. In thirty years time almost all the existing coal, gas and nuclear plants in the United States will reach the end of their operational lifespan and be replaced with new capacity. But at the moment it doesn't look like this capacity will be nuclear. With many proposed nuclear plants delayed or cancelled the the percentage of electricity generated by nuclear in the US looks set to decline. Just how much total capacity will increase depends on things such as the electrification of transport and whether or not the bulk of the United States adopts efficiency standards on par with those currently in place in California.

Why must the alternative to global warming be the reduction of CO2 produced ? It would seem that if the warming was going to produce great problems, then ideas for reducing warming (but not carbon) would be well received. From my memory ( I have no references), they have not been.

Unfortunately increased carbon dioxide levels causes problems beyond just warming such as increased acidification of the oceans. Also, reducing CO2 emissions is also generally the cheapest way to reduce climate change. However, there are places where just cooling things down is helpful. For example, white roofs reflect heat back into space and cut down on cooling costs, reducing energy use and CO2 emissions.

William

2010-Feb-21, 12:06 AM

Could someone please explain this: atmospheric CO2 has been notably increasing since 1900: http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate/page/3062.aspx

This is presumably in line with emissions from burning fossil fuels.

However pre-WWII emissions were about 1/7th of today: http://www.pewclimate.org/facts-and-figures/international/historical

Yet this was sufficient to already cause a steady increase in atmospheric CO2 before WWII, seen in the 1st graph above.

The natural background flux is is about 213 GtC per year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle

That means prior to WWII, the human fraction of total carbon emissions peaked at roughly (1 GtC/yr) / (213 GtC/yr) or 0.4%. That seems like a tiny amount, proportionally.

If an additional 0.4% contribution to the natural background flux overwhelms the earth's natural carbon cycle, it seems like that cycle is highly intolerant of any disturbance, whether man-made or natural. This implies the earth has almost no compensatory mechanisms and carbon emissions must equal carbon sinks, whether those are man made or natural.

I realize this is not a scientific statement but just intuitive. I don't doubt man has greatly damaged earth's environment in various ways. But if current AGW viewpoint is true, that means it was happening before WWII and at the then-current emissions level. When comparing the pre-WWII emissions level to the natural carbon flux, it seems very small.

That implies that at any point in the distant past, any natural change to the source/sink cycle of 0.4% would have created a runaway warming event. IOW the actual *amounts* of natural carbon emissions and sinks somehow stayed almost perfectly equal over millions of years. As unlikely as that seems, maybe they stayed mathematically balanced withing 0.4% else we wouldn't be here, IOW the anthropic principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

But from an intuitive standpoint it just seems a carbon cycle which is that easily overwhelmed is unlikely to have preserved life on earth for very long.

Your point is interesting. There is believed to be a feedback mechanism that regulates atmospheric CO2. How fast that feedback mechanism operates is not known. As atmospheric CO2 increases rainwater becomes slightly more acidic which increases weathering of rocks. That has a benefit to ocean life as it increases the amount of trace nutrients that are carried into the oceans. One hypothesis is that due to the increased trace nutrients ocean life sequesters more CO2 which hence regulates the atmospheric CO2.

Basic observations concerning the carbon cycle do not have an explanation which indicates the fundamental science concerning this subject is not understood.

This subject should have a separate thread.

For example, during the glacial phase of the current glacial/interglacial cycle, atmospheric CO2 should increase rather than decrease by 30%. Calculations indicate that the shrinkage of the biosphere due to desertification and because of the ice sheets more than offsets the greater amount of CO2 that colder ocean can hold. This problem has been known for 20 years. There is currently no accepted explanation.

This paper is a review paper that asks the same question that you do.

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~als/GBC/lectures/lecture_11_m_apr-27_-_quant/edmond_huh_2003.pdf

Non-steady state carbonate recycling and implications for
the evolution of atmospheric PCO2

The search is for feedbacks or other mechanisms that will act to stabilize the atmospheric composition in the habitable range that appears to have obtained without significant interruption
for at least the past 700 m.y. and probably much longer.

There is no doubt, given the fossil and isotopic records, that there has been a steady deterioration in Earth surface temperatures over the last 60 m.y., from essentially global tropical conditions with ocean bottom water temperatures of approx. 12C to the present ice age conditions [6]. In the contemporary Earth surface environment, CO2 is close to being a limiting nutrient for terrestrial vegetation, especially C3 plants (trees, shrubs, etc.). Strongly enhanced growth is observed in greenhouse experiments with artificially increased PCO2 [7], and greatly reduced growth results at PCO2 150 ppmV (c.f. preindustrial interglacial value is V280 ppmV). C4 plants, mainly grasses, are much more resilient to both low PCO2 (limit V20 ppmV) and low PH2O. Between 8 and 5 Ma, a drastic change in the relative preponderance of C3 and C4 plants occurred in response to decreasing PCO2 [8].

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Feb-21, 07:24 AM

There appears to be a either a measurement problem problem with the paper you linked to or there is a data problem. The following is a paper that shows there is a reduction in cloud water content with a Forbush decrease in cosmic ray counts.
Laken et al. (2009) (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/bal22/Laken%20et%20al%202009.pdf) have already shown that apparent correlations from Svensmark et al. (2009) do not present a causal relationship. Calogovic et al. (2010) study gives support for the Laken et al. study. You have been shown both of these papers before and yet you keep offering Svensmark et al. as only truth on the matter. Laken et al., by the way, are using same data as Svensmark et al., so it will be interesting to see you try to explain how the measurement or data errors you are claiming only affect others but not Svensmark et al.

I cannot help noticing that Svensmark et al. once again play with uncorrected ISCCP data. Already the Svensmark & Friis-Christensen (1997, "SF97") (http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/05_afdelinger/sun-climate/full_text_publications/svensmark_96_variations%20of.pdf) which presented the original cosmic ray claims was based on cloud changes produced by ISCCP viewing angle problem. Just compare SF97 figure 2 and Evan et al. (2007) (http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~dvimont/Papers/Evan_etal_GL028083.pdf) figure 3. The figure 3 presents the cloud data from areas less affected by viewing angle problem by black dashed line and you can see that in the black dashed line the large cloud changes SF97 base their correlation has completely vanished. The whole cosmic ray issue is based on spurious cloud trends in ISCCP cloud data.

William

2010-Feb-21, 06:37 PM

Laken et al. (2009) (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/bal22/Laken%20et%20al%202009.pdf) have already shown that apparent correlations from Svensmark et al. (2009) do not present a causal relationship. Calogovic et al. (2010) study gives support for the Laken et al. study. You have been shown both of these papers before and yet you keep offering Svensmark et al. as only truth on the matter. Laken et al., by the way, are using same data as Svensmark et al., so it will be interesting to see you try to explain how the measurement or data errors you are claiming only affect others but not Svensmark et al.

Ari,
Science is trying to understand what is happening not a debating game. Think about the observations. A Forbush event is a massive interruption to the heliosphere and the ionosphere. The paper you quote does not disprove Svensmark's finding that there is a 7% reduction in the cloud water content (based on satellite measures) during a Forbush event. The paper states that they do not like the time delay or that the observation is not statistically significant. The paper you quote provides a long list of papers from different authors that supports Svensmark's finding. The paper you quote includes this curious sentence:

A growing body of work has claimed that solar activity may indirectly influence cloud cover on Earth via a modulation of the GCR flux [Svensmark and FriisChristensen, 1997; Pudovkin and Veretenenko, 1995; Todd and Kniveton, 2004; Harrison and Stephenson, 2006]. Some researchers have suggested that such a relationship may have even contributed a significant portion of the anomalous climate changes observed in recent decades [Svensmark, 2007]. Due to the enormous sociological importance of climate change it is essential to carefully examine such claims in great detail.

There are delays in observing the Forbush effects due to the time delay as the ionosphere adjusts.

There are other papers that support Svensmark's findings.

For example.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/662166078h432877/

Rainfalls during great Forbush decreases

The changes of rainfall values during great Forbush decreases recorded by the low-latitudinal neutron monitor of Huancayo (47 events from 1956 through 1992) were examined. The data on precipitations were taken from the State of São Paulo and from the Amazonian region, Brazil. As a rule, the data from more than 50 meteorological stations were used for each events. The main result is the following: during strong decreases of cosmic-ray flux in the atmosphere (great Forbush decreases) the precipitation value is decreased. The effect of rainfall changes is seen more distinctly if wet seasons are considered.

I notice you have no response to the paper that I linked to above the shows planetary warming is less than 40% of what is predicted by the IPCC. In addition Susan Soloman's paper (Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming) which shows 30% of that warming was due to changes in stratospheric water content which has since reduced.

And lastly, as I have said. This is not a game. If Svensmark's science is correct the planet will cool. The planet did cool in the past when the solar magnetic cycle moved to a Dalton minimum.

After all the name calling and claims that the time to look at the science are over, it will be interesting to see what will be the public response to significant cooling.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Feb-21, 07:35 PM

I notice you have no response to the paper that I linked to above the shows planetary warming is less than 40% of what is predicted by the IPCC. In addition Susan Soloman's paper (Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming) which shows 30% of that warming was due to changes in stratospheric water content which has since reduced.
I already addressed Schwartz et al. here (http://www.bautforum.com/1664720-post3409.html), so I won't play your games of endless repeat with this one. You have misinterpreted the paper.

You claim that Solomon paper shows that 30 % of 20th century warming was due to increases in water in the stratosphere. The paper doesn't say that, the 30 % figure is for the warming during 1990's. Solomon paper shows that stratospheric water vapor can be a strong factor in short time changes, i.e. in weather. However, look Solomon's paper more closely and you will see that it shows what looks like awful lot of positive water vapor feedback.

I notice that you have no response to the SF97 vs. ISCCP problems I mentioned.

Ari,
Science is trying to understand what is happening not a debating game.
...
And lastly, as I have said. This is not a game.
...
After all the name calling...
This happens almost every time with you; you start making this kind of comments trying to make it look like I'm only playing some sort of debate game here. Are you suggesting that I'm dishonest? On a related note, you haven't answered this. (http://www.bautforum.com/1665299-post3414.html)

William

2010-Feb-21, 11:11 PM

I already addressed Schwartz et al. here (http://www.bautforum.com/1664720-post3409.html), so I won't play your games of endless repeat with this one. You have misinterpreted the paper.

Ari,
I presented a link to Schwartz paper that show the planet was warmed less than 40% of what is predicted by the IPCC. The implications of Schwartz's paper is that climate sensitivity is negative rather than positive which means the planetary response to a doubling of CO2 will be less than 1C not 3C to 6C.

Your response is to say Schwartz should have quoted another paper that shows the warming that has occurred, is at a peculiar latitude that differs from what the IPCC predicted latitude.

Then you provide a link to my past comment concerning Mann's recent paper which made the Medieval warm period go away. As the are dozen's of papers and Historical evidence such as location of Northern settlements, ancient texts, and so on, that all support the assertion that the Little Ice Age and the Medieval warm period exist. I must admit I think Mann is incorrect. I do not know why Mann's paper does not agree with the Historic record and dozen of papers.

Do you have an explanation to that puzzle Ari?

http://www.amazon.ca/Little-Ice-Age-Climate-1300-1850/dp/0465022723

Excerpt from the book "The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850"

THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD
I beseech the immaculate Master of monks
To steer my journeys;
May the lord of the lofty heavens
Hold his strong hand over me.
—Anonymous, Hafgerdinga Lay
("The Lay of the Breakers")

(Little Ice Age)
THE GREAT FAMINE
When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us.... There was less relief available for misfortune and for sickness; they came in a more fearful and more painful way. Sickness contrasted more strongly with health. The cutting cold and the dreaded darkness of winter were more concrete evils....

But one sound always rose above the clamor of busy life and, no matter how much of a tintinnabulation, was never confused with other noises, and for a moment, lifted everyone into an ordered sphere: that of the bells. The bells acted in daily life like concerned good

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2009JCLI3461.1

Why Hasn't the Earth Warmed as Much as Expected? Stephen E. Schwartz, Robert J. Charlson, Ralph A. Kahn, John A. Ogren, Henning Rodhe Issued January 19th, 2010

The observed increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) over the industrial era is less than 40% of that expected from observed increases in long-lived greenhouse gases together with the best-estimate equilibrium climate sensitivity given by the 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Possible reasons for this warming discrepancy are systematically examined here. The warming discrepancy is found to be due mainly to some combination of two factors: the IPCC best estimate of climate sensitivity being too high and/or the greenhouse gas forcing being partially offset by forcing by increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols; the increase in global heat content due to thermal disequilibrium accounts for less than 25% of the discrepancy, and cooling by natural temperature variation can account for only about 15%. Current uncertainty in climate sensitivity is shown to preclude determining the amount of future fossil fuel CO2 emissions that would be compatible with any chosen maximum allowable increase in GMST; even the sign of such allowable future emissions is unconstrained. Resolving this situation, by empirical determination of Earth's climate sensitivity from the historical record over the industrial period or through use of climate models whose accuracy is evaluated by their performance over this period is shown to require substantial reduction in the uncertainty of aerosol forcing over this period.

http://www.leif.org/research/LeanRindCauses.pdf

How natural and anthropogenic influences alter global and regional
surface temperatures: 1889 to 2006

To distinguish between simultaneous natural and anthropogenic impacts on surface temperature, regionally as well as globally, we perform a robust multivariate analysis using the best available estimates of each together with the observed surface temperature record from 1889 to 2006. The results enable us to compare, for the first time from observations, the geographical distributions of responses to individual influences consistent with their global impacts. We find a response to solar forcing quite different from that reported in several papers published recently in this journal, and zonally averaged responses to both natural and anthropogenic forcings that differ distinctly from those indicated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose conclusions depended on model simulations. Anthropogenic warming estimated directly from the historical observations is more pronounced between 45_S and 50_N than at higher latitudes whereas the model-simulated trends have minimum values in the tropics and increase steadily from 30 to 70_N.

lomiller1

2010-Feb-22, 03:06 AM

Yet this was sufficient to already cause a steady increase in atmospheric CO2 before WWII, seen in the 1st graph above.

It wasn’t sufficient to explain the pre WWII warming. To explain 1900-1940 warming you need to include changes in the Suns energy output and a relatively long period without major volcanic eruptions.

If an additional 0.4% contribution to the natural background flux overwhelms the earth's natural carbon cycle, it seems like that cycle is highly intolerant of any disturbance, whether man-made or natural. This implies the earth has almost no compensatory mechanisms and carbon emissions must equal carbon sinks, whether those are man made or natural.

Most of the carbon cycle consists of the same carbon being absorbed and re-released over an over again. Nearly all the carbon released in the normal carbon cycle was absorbed within years or decades. IOW there is no real way the natural carbon cycle can be anything but balanced because there is no new carbon involved.

Ivan Viehoff

2010-Feb-22, 12:29 PM

It's an answer to an "argument by distraction" -- that of focusing on per-capita statistics when per-GDP statistics are more revealing.
...
This is another argument by distraction...
Fine to nitpick the minor side issues, but how about addressing the key point I made?

Which is that we should be looking at a nation's consumption, not production, as the measure of what contribution it makes to global carbon output. It makes sense to produce stuff where it is most efficiently produced. And to that extent per capita and per gdp statistics are both capable of being grossly misleading, as they both depend upon what is the rest of the economy you are averaging a particular activity over.

Production carbon-efficiency across the globe won't happen unless there is global trading of carbon permits. Which won't happen unless the developing world is a given what they consider to be a "fair" share of the initial allocation of carbon permits.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Feb-22, 12:50 PM

Ari,
I presented a link to Schwartz paper that show the planet was warmed less than 40% of what is predicted by the IPCC.
No, you didn't. Schwartz et al. (2010) say in their introduction that if we only look at greenhouse gases, then the observed warming is less than expected. You parrot this as if it would be their conclusion, but it actually is just a starting point of their investigation. To determine the expected total warming in contrast to expected warming only from GHG's one needs to look at all the forcings. Schwartz et al. do this later in their paper and their conclusion is that either climate sensitivity is at the low end of expected range or that there are some forcings we don't know properly (well basically their conclusion is that there is lot of uncertainty in aerosol forcing, which is not a new finding).

The implications of Schwartz's paper is that climate sensitivity is negative rather than positive which means the planetary response to a doubling of CO2 will be less than 1C not 3C to 6C.

Nonsense. Schwartz et al. say: "The warming discrepancy is found to be due mainly to some combination of two factors: the IPCC best estimate of climate sensitivity being too high and/or the greenhouse gas forcing being partially offset by forcing by increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols;" IPCC's best estimate being 3K. How you go to negative climate senstitivity from there? Schwartz et al. also discuss this, provide a quote where they suggest that climate sensitivity is negative.

Then you provide a link to my past comment concerning Mann's recent paper which made the Medieval warm period go away. As the are dozen's of papers and Historical evidence such as location of Northern settlements, ancient texts, and so on, that all support the assertion that the Little Ice Age and the Medieval warm period exist. I must admit I think Mann is incorrect. I do not know why Mann's paper does not agree with the Historic record and dozen of papers.
In the post I linked to I asked you to provide evidence for Mann's dishonesty you claimed. You didn't provide any evidence for that here either. You are also trying to build a straw-man argument here; Mann hasn't claimed that Little Ice Age and the Medieval warm period don't exist. He is simply suggesting, and has shown evidence that MWP was not globally as warm as present. Where are the "dozen of papers" showing in a global analysis that MWP was warmer than present?

Ok, now it's your turn to repeat your arguments once again.

William

2010-Feb-23, 04:10 AM

Nonsense. Schwartz et al. say: "The warming discrepancy is found to be due mainly to some combination of two factors: the IPCC best estimate of climate sensitivity being too high and/or the greenhouse gas forcing being partially offset by forcing by increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols;" IPCC's best estimate being 3K. How you go to negative climate senstitivity from there? Schwartz et al. also discuss this, provide a quote where they suggest that climate sensitivity is negative.

Ari,
You do not understand the implications of Schwartz et al's finding. Try Roy Spencer's blog. Compare one hypothesis to other.

The implication is that the planet's response to a change in forcing is negative rather than positive. That is what is meant by "less sensitive". There is no proof aerosols increased.

Negative feedback is consistent with Spencer's and Lindzen's recently published papers. Spence was invited to make a presentation of his findings at this Fall AGU meeting.

If the planet's response to forcing is negative rather than positive than the entire dangerous climate change problem goes away. The estimate response to a doubling of CO2 is less 1.2C. (It is 1.2C if the planet's response is zero feedback.) Based on the recent data (negative feedback) a doubling of the CO2 will cause the planet to warm less than 0.75C.

The goal of the last climate summit was a maximum of 2C. Mission accomplished.

Ari Jokimaki

2010-Feb-23, 07:05 AM

Once again you are ignoring all the questions presented to you and just repeating your arguments over and over. You have been told before how badly flawed Lindzen's latest work is (http://www.bautforum.com/1653168-post3299.html) and yet you keep pushing it. When one is testing a hypothesis, the evidence against the hypothesis is extremely important. One can easily find some supporting evidence for any hypothesis, but even one contradicting piece of evidence is enough to falsify the hypothesis. You are only collecting supporting evidence and ignoring all the contradictory evidence. A good example is that when you are shown observations that don't fit to Svensmark's hypothesis, you just offer one or two more papers that have reported some supporting evidence and then claim that papers showing contradictory evidence must be in error.

Atraveller

2010-Feb-24, 01:52 AM

I think this is probably the best place for this link:

USGS chart Ice Shelves Disappearing (http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2409&from=rss_home)

Swift

2010-Feb-24, 03:28 AM

Most of the carbon cycle consists of the same carbon being absorbed and re-released over an over again. Nearly all the carbon released in the normal carbon cycle was absorbed within years or decades. IOW there is no real way the natural carbon cycle can be anything but balanced because there is no new carbon involved.
My bold.

But are hydrocarbons such as coal or crude oil, that have been sequestered in the Earth for hundreds millions of years, part of the current natural carbon cycle? I would think not. So, if we dig them up and burn them, aren't we in effect adding new carbon (or at least carbon that has been hidden away for millions of years)?

Sure, it will eventually reach a new equilibrium, but, not at the same equilibrium it was at before.

jlhredshift

2010-Feb-24, 05:34 AM

Atraveller

2010-Feb-24, 06:17 AM

My bold.

But are hydrocarbons such as coal or crude oil, that have been sequestered in the Earth for hundreds millions of years, part of the current natural carbon cycle? I would think not. So, if we dig them up and burn them, aren't we in effect adding new carbon (or at least carbon that has been hidden away for millions of years)?

Sure, it will eventually reach a new equilibrium, but, not at the same equilibrium it was at before.

In The 11th Hour - Steven Lipkis had a great way of explaining it.

He refered to current Carbon (and Current Sunshine) - and ancient Carbon (and ancient Sunshine)

I wish I could find a transcript - but paraphrasing his point - Until the end of the 18th century, humans lived on current sunshine (and current carbon) and the system was balance - no net gain or loss other than naturally occuring.

At the start of the industrial revolution we began to use ancient sunshine (and sequestered carbon - or ancient carbon) and that has begun to unbalance the system.

buzgz

2010-Feb-26, 10:28 PM

The IPCC seems to be thrown under the bus by the Institute Of Physics in it's memorandum submitted to the UK Parliamentary Committee :

http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Consultations/Energy_and_Environment/file_39010.pdf

The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of over 36,000 and is a leading communicator of physics-related science to all audiences, from specialists through to government and the general public. Its publishing company, IOP Publishing, is a world leader in scientific publishing and the electronic dissemination of physics.

The Institute is pleased to submit its views to inform the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee's inquiry, 'The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia'.

The submission details our response to the questions listed in the call for evidence, which was prepared with input from the Institute's Science Board, and its Energy Sub-group.

What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?

1. The Institute is concerned that, unless the disclosed e-mails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research in this field and for the credibility of the scientific method as practised in this context.

2. The CRU e-mails as published on the internet provide prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law. The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital. The lack of compliance has been confirmed by the findings of the Information Commissioner. This extends well beyond the CRU itself - most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other international institutions who are also involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change.

3. It is important to recognise that there are two completely different categories of data set that are involved in the CRU e-mail exchanges:

� those compiled from direct instrumental measurements of land and ocean surface temperatures such as the CRU, GISS and NOAA data sets; and

� historic temperature reconstructions from measurements of 'proxies', for example, tree-rings.

4. The second category relating to proxy reconstructions are the basis for the conclusion that 20th century warming is unprecedented. Published reconstructions may represent only a part of the raw data available and may be sensitive to the choices made and the statistical techniques used. Different choices, omissions or statistical processes may lead to different conclusions. This possibility was evidently the reason behind some of the (rejected) requests for further information.

5. The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented; for example, the apparent suppression, in graphics widely used by the IPCC, of proxy results for recent decades that do not agree with contemporary instrumental temperature measurements.

6. There is also reason for concern at the intolerance to challenge displayed in the

e-mails. This impedes the process of scientific 'self correction', which is vital to the integrity of the scientific process as a whole, and not just to the research itself. In that context, those CRU e-mails relating to the peer-review process suggest a need for a review of its adequacy and objectivity as practised in this field and its potential vulnerability to bias or manipulation.

7. Fundamentally, we consider it should be inappropriate for the verification of the integrity of the scientific process to depend on appeals to Freedom of Information legislation. Nevertheless, the right to such appeals has been shown to be necessary. The e-mails illustrate the possibility of networks of like-minded researchers effectively excluding newcomers. Requiring data to be electronically accessible to all, at the time of publication, would remove this possibility.

8. As a step towards restoring confidence in the scientific process and to provide greater transparency in future, the editorial boards of scientific journals should work towards setting down requirements for open electronic data archiving by authors, to coincide with publication. Expert input (from journal boards) would be needed to determine the category of data that would be archived. Much 'raw' data requires calibration and processing through interpretive codes at various levels.

9. Where the nature of the study precludes direct replication by experiment, as in the case of time-dependent field measurements, it is important that the requirements include access to all the original raw data and its provenance, together with the criteria used for, and effects of, any subsequent selections, omissions or adjustments. The details of any statistical procedures, necessary for the independent testing and replication, should also be included. In parallel, consideration should be given to the requirements for minimum disclosure in relation to computer modelling.

Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate?

10. The scope of the UEA review is, not inappropriately, restricted to the allegations of scientific malpractice and evasion of the Freedom of Information Act at the CRU. However, most of the e-mails were exchanged with researchers in a number of other leading institutions involved in the formulation of the IPCC's conclusions on climate change. In so far as those scientists were complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices, there is need for a wider inquiry into the integrity of the scientific process in this field.

11. The first of the review's terms of reference is limited to: "...manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice..." The term 'acceptable' is not defined and might better be replaced with 'objective'.

12. The second of the review's terms of reference should extend beyond reviewing the CRU's policies and practices to whether these have been breached by individuals, particularly in respect of other kinds of departure from objective scientific practice, for example, manipulation of the publication and peer review system or allowing pre-formed conclusions to override scientific objectivity.

How independent are the other two international data sets?

13. Published data sets are compiled from a range of sources and are subject to processing and adjustments of various kinds. Differences in judgements and methodologies used in such processing may result in different final data sets even if they are based on the same raw data. Apart from any communality of sources, account must be taken of differences in processing between the published data sets and any data sets on which they draw.

The Institute of Physics

February 2010