General AGW discussion thread

[Stroller]

I'm just making a comment about the importance of not arbitrarily cherry-picking your data when drawing conclusions about what the future will look like.

I don't think William or I can be accused of making any predictions about the future on the multi-decadal scale the IPCC, NSIDC, BBC, NOAA, Big Jim Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, and Stephen Schneider et al have.

Do you?

Plus the fact that the 1900-2000 'global warming' period is a huge cherry pick anyway, from the bottom of a la nina dominated phase when solar energy accumulation had been declining for 100 years to the peak of an el nino dominated phase when solar activity had been increasing for 70 years to a several thousand year high.


http://s630.photobucket.com/albums/u...t-nino-ssa.jpg

[Stroller]

Another footnote to the discussion on the qualiy of the surface temperature record.

GIStemp's anomaly for africa Vs satellite data from UAH
http://i43.tinypic.com/2iszbjt.jpg

GISS has a trend of almost 0.2C/decade for Africa! Who are you trying to kid Jim?

Let's have a look at how well the surface stations cover Africa shall we.

http://i40.tinypic.com/511opd.jpg

oh dear.

How about Antarctica's trends according to GISS and satellite data?

http://i42.tinypic.com/an27et.jpg

Hmmm, opposite sign.

So, is this just an artifact of surface temperatures being 'different' to the lower troposphere temperatures measured by the satellites?

Well the other surface based series, HADcru agrees with the satellites over the last 12 years, whereas GIStemp has a trend of opposite sign globally too.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah...m:1997.5/trend

Seems to me if Jim Hansen wants to do something about global warming, the smart move would be to retire, and let his successor bring GIStemp back into line with the other series, and reality.

[orionjim]

...
Seems to me if Jim Hansen wants to do something about global warming, the smart move would be to retire, and let his successor bring GIStemp back into line with the other series, and reality.

Are you talking about this Jim Hansen?
Scientific American 6-25-2009


Jim

[Stroller]

Are you talking about this Jim Hansen?
Scientific American 6-25-2009

Jim

That's the fella. Clearly, if he took retirement at 68 (and who wouldn't given the chance?) he'd have more time for his political activism on 'global warming'.

I kind of suspect however, that he will hang on as long as possible, and keep the secrets of GIStemp 'adjustment' until they are pried from his cold dead fingers. Because then the jig will be up.

[Gillianren]

Clearly, if he took retirement at 68 (and who wouldn't given the chance?) . . . .

Someone who really loves what they do. If people are willing to pay you for it, why make them stop?

[Klausnh]

update: Pierce et al

"Comparing the
observations with results from two coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models (PCM and
HadCM3) that include anthropogenic forcing shows remarkable agreement between the
observed and model-estimated warming."

I can show a remarkable correlation between the rise in the price of stamps and global SST's too.
Nowhere in the paper is there any proposed mechanism for downwelling IR radiation to heat the ocean. There is simply an assumption that it must, in order to save the models.
Also there is no discussion of the effect the 30 year positive trend in the natural oceanic cycles, particularly in the S.E. Pacific and the Atlantic would have had on the results.

These two natural cyclic variations can account for most of the warming of the last 30 years.
Take account of the El Chichon and Pinatubo erruptions, and the case becomes even more obvious.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/...celerated.html

One interesting thing which does come out of the paper, is that Pierce et al observe that the ocean is emitting 2.2W/M^2 more than atthe start of their time period. How does this square with the mechanism posited by Gavin et al that increased downwelling IR caused by the co2 increase inhibits energy release from the oceans?

Considering what the oceanographer said, and that the oceans have more than 1000 times the thermal mass of the atmosphere, is it not more likely that the oceans increased heat emittance accounts for 2.2W/M^2 of the 3.7W/m^2 increase they claim is observed in the downward flux of IR, the balance being accounted for by heightened solar activity and the increase in co2 among other natural variables?

This would seem more likely than the atmospheric tail wagging the >1000 times larger oceanic dog.

from tisdale:

If we assume the Atlantic Ocean surface area is approximately 30% of the global ocean surface area, and assume the North Atlantic represented 50% of the Atlantic, the North Atlantic SST anomaly data can be scaled by a factor of 0.15 and subtracted from the Global SST data.

Doesn't that assume that temperatures are the same in all the oceans?

[Stroller]

from tisdale:

Doesn't that assume that temperatures are the same in all the oceans?

I think you need to remember global SST data is expressed as an anomaly too. So what is being discussed is departures from longer term averages in each ocean basin, not absolute temperatures.

I doubt if Bob Tisdale would try to claim all his methods for getting a handle on what's going on in the world's ocean basins are perfect, but that they are sufficiently accurate and relevant to be useful in seeing the bigger picture.

Given the uncertainties in historic SST data due to changes in measurement methods etc, I'd agree with him.

[lomiller1]

GIStemp's anomaly for africa Vs satellite data from UAH

Why not use the RSS satilite data instead? Could it be because the RSS stailtie data shows an even higher warmign trend then the GISS or HadCRU land station data?

[Stroller]

Why not use the RSS satilite data instead? Could it be because the RSS stailtie data shows an even higher warmign trend then the GISS or HadCRU land station data?

I don't have RSS data isolated for Africa, and I bet you don't either.but what I can show is that you are incorrect for global data over the 1979 -2009 period RSS has been operating.


http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gis...rom:1979/trend

[lomiller1]

It’s incorrect to say that either RSS or UAH has been “operating since 1979”. They use the same raw satellite data, and that data goes back to 1979.

They do crunch the data differently, but RSS definitely has more credibility given the debacle back in 2000 where UAH claimed there had been no warming at all only to have the RSS guys point out that was the result of a simple algebra error on the part of UAH.

Tamino has some good detail articles on them

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/rss-and-uah/

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/10/...le-in-uah-tlt/

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/...-up-with-that/

[Stroller]

They do crunch the data differently, but RSS definitely has more credibility given the debacle back in 2000 where UAH claimed there had been no warming at all only to have the RSS guys point out that was the result of a simple algebra error on the part of UAH.

The UAH and RSS teams have helped each other on occasion and thus has been possible because they are open about their methods.

I wish the same were true of GISTEMP and HADcru. Phil Jones has resisted all attempts under the freedom of information act in the UK. He said something like:

"Why would I give you my 25 years of data when you'll only try to find something wrong with it?"

Quite.

Not very scientific.

[HenrikOlsen]

Depending on the baseline of your average, your observation and William's are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Baseline is the average for 1961-1990

[Stroller]

1979 - 2009 trends in degrees C per decade

GISS: 0.159
HADCRUT: 0.159
RSS: 0.157
UAH: 0.128

And decadal trends since 2000

GISS: 0.102
HADCRUT: .0007
RSS: 0.0002
UAH: 0.0028

[William]

A trend of global cooling that happens for a long enough period of time that we can be sure it isn't like any of the previous shorter-term periods of cooling that I have pointed out to you many times in the past would be a start.

At one point I pointed out to you in a graph that you used to show the earth had been cooling over the past few years that there was a range of time that was the same size during which the earth was apparently warming by a truly astounding rate. (It turned out that was just another wiggle, too.) Tell me, if you had been looking at graphs 10 years ago, during that period, instead of now, would you be stocking up on air conditioned underpants?

Nauthiz, Let's assume for one New York minute that you are incorrect and the planet is about to abruptly cool. I doubt if you remember the winter of 1971 and 1972 in Vancouver.

The North Shore of Vancouver gets 44 inches of rain. With a current average winter January temperature of 3.4C. Now as the planet cools there will be 10 to 12 feet of snow in that area. You have no idea what the means.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkhfH...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMyH_...eature=related

Years or months with snowfall surpassing 100 cm (39.3 in) are not completely exceptional. Snowfall exceeding 100 cm occurred twice during the 1990s, and, in January 1972 alone, there was more than 120 cm (47.2 in) of snow. The snowiest year on record at Vancouver International Airport was 1971, which received a total of 242.6 cm (95.5 in), and the greatest snow depth reported was 61 cm (24 in) on January 15 of that year.

The most recent White Christmas occurred in 2008 after weeks of record breaking cold temperatures and four consecutive snow storms left over 60 cm of snow on the ground across Metro Vancouver. New snow also accumulated on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day giving it the title for Canada's whitest Christmas in 2008 with 41 cm on ground (48 cm at one point on Christmas Eve). Snow was also measured in the preceding year of 2007 where 1 cm was observed in the Vancouver International Airport. The previous official White Christmas occurred in 1998 when 20 cm of snow was on the ground on Christmas Day following 31 cm of snow and 20 mm of rain, 1996, and 1991.

[Ari Jokimaki]

Nice cherry pick.

Lets go back a year and look again:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti...rom:2007/trend

You're missing the point, as usual. I highlighted the ongoing trend because William is claiming that the Earth is experiencing a global cooling currently. However, temperature records show that the Earth has been warming since the beginning of 2008. That can be seen from your graph as well. Placing a linear trendline over a non-linear trend is not indicative of anything.

Or if we want to get away from annual/biannual swings how about the last 12 years:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah...m:1997.5/trend

Is 12 years still 'just weather' ?

If you want to view the situation of global climate, then why limit to 12 years and use monthly means? Let's look back 150 years and use 10 year means:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah...:1850/mean:120

Or better yet, 30 year means:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah...:1850/mean:360

Repeating the same unsupported nonsense doesn't make science either.

I gave you link to the paper, how is that "unsupported"? Citing results of a scientific paper is not science?

Bob tisdale shows very clearly how the more frequent el nino's during the 30 year long positive phase of the PDO have affected global temperature:

Tisdale's stuff is only about showing cute graphs where there is some natural variation over general warming trend caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Graphs are cherry-picked so that only those that best seem to support the "step change hypothesis" are shown. Where are the research papers on the subject?

Any putative effect of co2 on ocean temperature is dwarfed by natural variation as Gavin himself admits. As we have seen, ocean heat content is a function of insolation and cloud cover not co2.

No. What we have seen is you noticing some comments in a denialist blog which you then decided to copy here. You then admitted that you have no idea what is the current thinking on the subject, but went ahead claiming that the AGW effect is not sufficient to warm the oceans. You have been told and shown that radiative forcing is not considered to be the most prominent effect transferring the heat from the atmosphere to the ocean, but you practically ignore those, and continue to present your claims unchanged. You also claimed that you have done paper search on the subject. On that, you have done very bad work. There are hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of papers relating to the subject. Here are a few (including one textbook of the subject):

Air-sea bulk transfer coefficients in diabatic conditions - Kondo (1975)

Bulk Parameterization of Air-Sea Exchanges of Heat and Water Vapor Including the Molecular Constraints at the Interface - Liu et al. (1979)

Advective Ocean–Atmosphere Interaction: An Analytical Stochastic Model with Implications for Decadal Variability - Saravanan & McWilliams (1998)

Air-sea interaction - Csanady (2001)

Bulk Parameterization of Air–Sea Fluxes: Updates and Verification for the COARE Algorithm - Fairall et al. (2003)

Mechanisms controlling net air-sea heatflux
over the Southern Ocean - Czaja & Marshall (2006)

Already in 1992, air-sea interaction was included in climate models:
Tropical air-sea interaction in general circulation models - Neelin et al. (1992)

I included the last paper because you claimed that Pierce et al. assumed that there is a mechanism for radiative heating. I asked you to show where they make that assumption, which you obviously ignored because they don't make such an assumption anywhere, you just claimed they do. Another entry to the long list of false things you have tried to pass as facts here. First, like it has been said, radiative heating is not the most prominent mechanism. Second, Pierce et al. are using climate models, which have the heat transfer mechanisms built in, as shown above.

By the way Ari, this 'denialist blog' is science blog of the year. It polled around 4 times the number of votes realclimate got. Not that this proves anything, except perhaps that Joe public has got wise to the global warming hoax.

The sole purpose of the blog you keep citing is to spread confusion about climate science and agitate conspiracy theories involving climate scientists. It's a pseudoscience blog.

If you have any specific criticisms of the data presented on that blog, be specific about them. Just damning it as a 'denialist blog' makes you look a bit bombastic and silly.

I have previously made specific criticisms on the blogs by your heroes. Curiously enough, after I had shown that the methods in those blogs are not scientific, you ignored the specific criticisms. Time and time again these blogs are found out to spread false information, so it is just waste of time to read them and try to extract any possible correct stuff, as there doesn't seem to be any. Probability to waste your time to rubbish is very high in these blogs you keep citing. It's also curious that you seem to be ultra-critical towards any research methods climate science uses, but then any method is good enough if it comes from these denialist blogs.

I don't think William or I can be accused of making any predictions about the future on the multi-decadal scale the IPCC, NSIDC, BBC, NOAA, Big Jim Hansen, Gavin Schmidt, and Stephen Schneider et al have.

So, William's claims about Earth entering into an ice age are probably not multi-decadal then?

Plus the fact that the 1900-2000 'global warming' period is a huge cherry pick anyway, from the bottom of a la nina dominated phase when solar energy accumulation had been declining for 100 years to the peak of an el nino dominated phase when solar activity had been increasing for 70 years to a several thousand year high.

It has been shown that the Sun or the oscillations have not been causing the warming of the last century (Lean & Rind (2008), see especially figure 2).

[mugaliens]

The North Shore of Vancouver gets 44 inches of rain. With a current average winter January temperature of 3.4C. Now as the planet cools there will be 10 to 12 feet of snow in that area. You have no idea what the means.

LOL! It means that either those in Vancouver will learn to deal with the snow as do other people around the globe, or they'll just sit there.

Perhaps Vancouver will become the telecommuting capital of the world!

[HenrikOlsen]

Nauthiz, Let's assume for one New York minute that you are in correct and the planet is about to abruptly cool.

This is one of the most egregious misinterpretations I've seen in a long time.

It's plain and simple lying about what another member is saying to make your point and it is not an acceptable discussion method. Do it again and you'll be suspended.

[mugaliens]

The hottest year on record was 2005 followed by 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006.

Yet... 1979 2009 trends in degrees C per decade

GISS: 0.159
HADCRUT: 0.159
RSS: 0.157
UAH: 0.128

Massive change, there, for the "hottest" trend on record. I'm not impressed, Ronald.

Biochar combats global warming because the plants biochar (or just plain char) is made from absorb carbon from the air. Char is mostly carbon and is ploughed into the soil to improve soil quality. It can remain in soil for very long periods of time. Since there are many farmers willing to pay for char to plough into soil it is probably one of the cheaper ways of sequestering carbon.

Biochar won't do squat for global warming. It's impact will be less than the waves created by a dog lapping the waters of the Atlantic ocean.

I've yet to see definative evidence that our current global "warming" trend is due to manmade CO2, and not contrails, changes in ocean currents, or a fluctuation in the properties of the Local Interstellar Cloud through which we're travelling which may be influencing any number of atmospheric events here in Earth, in turn helping to raise or lower the Earth's temperature.

And I have looked! Hard! Most recently over the last six months, including throughout each and every one of the 14 IPCC TPs, Special Reports, and Synthesis Report I dowloaded from their site a few months back:



I have looked, but I have not found it, not there in the IPCC documents, nor on the several hundred papers, articles, and websites I've reviewed over the last decade.

What I've found instead is an impressive faith in the AGW principle combined with an earily familiar close-mindedness to the possibility of flaws in the current thinking - very reminiscent of a pattern of behavior common throughout mankind, both currently and anthropologically evidenced as endemic to our species.

I am not saying the AGW beliefs are unfounded. They're well-founded on an abundance of information. Unfortunately, the evidence is both inconclusive, and evidence to the contrary exists which is ignored, hushed, shushed, booed, and banned.

When this happens, it's no longer science. Politics, faith, informed beliefs - the human phenomenon that it is goes by many terms, but it's lost its objective, scientific edge, having devolved into a very few informed opinions which cascade into little more than mimmicked groupthink.

Back to biochar: I think if farmers are willing to pay for it to use it as fertilizer for its own sake, go ahead. I'd strongly recommend against any sort of taxpayer funded subsidies or government push for biochar, particularly if the justification has anything to do with global warming, and especially if they use terminology such as "Save the Planet."

That would be so wrong across so many fronts...

If you really want to save our planet:

1. Go nuclear, solar, and wind, now. Pull the rug out from under any barriers and build, build, build. It'll probably help our economy, too.

2. Immediately eliminate all air, land, and sea pollution to the maximum extent possible.

3. Electric transportation to the maximum extent possible.

4. Algae oil for those vehicles (airplanes) which are a little disconnected from any grid.

5. Build high-e homes using techniquese which are actually cheaper than current low-e hoes.

6. Stop fish farming! It uses 300% more fish per pound of harvested fish than natural fishing.

7. Drastically reduce natural fishing - let the oceans recover! Plant food on land. Use it as food (not fuel).

Don't get me wrong - NONE of the above recommendations have anything to do with reducing anthropgenic CO2 emissions, as that won't save the planet.

The above recommendations are all about jumping off a very unsupportable energy infrastructure (fossil) which in a couple of decades will have crumbled to nothing, leaving those who haven't vacated it in a world of hurt. They're also about minimizing energy waste and minimizing pollution impact on our planet, which will allow the most drastically damaged area of our planet - our oceans - to slowly recover so they may regain their former ability to support life in abundance on our planet.

Hopefully, we're not too late.

[Ronald Brak]

Mugaliens, do you doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas or that human activity has increased its level by about a third?

[Stroller]

The internal report the EPA top brass suppressed.

http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/DOC062509-004.pdf

“The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.”

Details of the suppression here:
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-9...warming-Part-1

[Stroller]

like it has been said, radiative heating is not the most prominent mechanism.

I missed that. What has been proposed as the most prominent mechanism for the transfer of heat from the atmosphere to the oceans? By who?

It has been shown that the Sun or the oscillations have not been causing the warming of the last century (Lean & Rind (2008), see especially figure 2).

They don't take account of accumulated heat in parts of the oceans not measured by sea surface temperatures.

Some papers for Ari to get his teeth into.

Chylek et.al 2007 Limits on climate sensitivity derived from recent satellite and surface observations. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S04, doi:10.1029/2007JD008740.

Douglass, D.H., J.R. Christy, 2009: Limits on CO2 climate forcing from recent temperature data of Earth. Energy & Environment, 20, 178-189

Spencer and Bracewell, 2008 Potential Biases in Feedback Diagnosis from Observational Data: A Simple Model Demonstration

Compo and Sardeshmukh, 2008: Oceanic influences on recent continental warming

[hhEb09'1]

Mugaliens, do you doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas or that human activity has increased its level by about a third?

I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

[William]

This is one of the most egregious misinterpretations I've seen in a long time.

It's plain and simple lying about what another member is saying to make your point and it is not an acceptable discussion method. Do it again and you'll be suspended.

Henrik,
My point is that the planet has in the past abruptly cooled, which I have provided ample data to support. The specific reason why (the mechanisms) are not understand, however, there is concurrent with the abrupt cooling events cosmogenic isotope changes.

I provided observational data above to support the assertion (for example increased sea ice both poles) that some significant change (cooling) is underway.

Yes, I agree the trend in planetary temperature at this point shows modest cooling.

Is there any possibility the GWG supporters could be incorrect?

[nauthiz]

But here's the key thing about that, as far as I'm concerned:

On one side, we have a whole herd people whose job is to study how the planet's climate works all having pooled their efforts to work out a scientific model that helps us better understand - in detail - what has happened in the past, and is now getting so good at making testable predictions that researchers are using computer simulations which implement the model to find and confirm new phenomena that occur in the real world. They are continuously testing the model, poking at all sorts of different spots to see what's weak and what breaks, and making improvements. They're surprisingly scrupulous about this, to the point that their most recent work on the state of the art is full to the brim of examples of stuff they'd like to work on some more, yes, but also to the point that they are able to come up with quantitative estimates of the amount of error that's introduced so we have an idea of just how well their work is doing.

On the other side, we have a committee of folks that has yet to produce anything like a theory. They are convinced that the mainstream theory is wrong, even though they seem to have a very shaky understanding of it - that bit being exacerbated by an inclination to consult blogs with a known history of questionable science rather than any of the more credible scientific resources that are out there. They seem to think that science consists of looking at graphs and doing eyeball extrapolations. They'll happily jump on examples of science so bad it clearly falls into the 'not even wrong' category without looking to see if the bandwagon has any wheels first, only to act as if that never happened as soon as someone points out that the author is a crank. Their method for criticizing the mainstream is to point out shortcomings of the mainstream theory - often ones that have already been resolved, or ones that everyone already knows about - and jump to the conclusion that this is damning evidence against the basic ideas of the theory without bothering to do any quantitative analysis to see what it really does to the error bars. The assumption seems to be that any little chip in the masonry will cause a building to collapse. If that is true, then it reflects a profound failure to understand how science really works.

In short, on one side we have what looks for all the world to me like science, and on the other side we have what looks for all the world to me like pseudoscience.

So that's what it boils down to for me. Come back with a genuine scientific challenge to the idea of anthropogenic climate change, and I'll be interested to see it. All this going nuts over graphs and weather reports doesn't impress me, and as far as I'm concerned continuing to post that stuff is whipping a dead horse. Same for posting blog posts in which someone sees a research article that details a mechanism we don't completely understand and decides that this is an earth-shattering development, even though a quick look at the IPCC report shows that it's old news.

Here's a start: If you want to show that the long-term trend for the planet is to stay about the same temperature or start cooling, you'd have to show that the planet is in thermal equilibrium, that it's emitting more energy than it absorbs, or that one of these two is about to happen very soon. I can think of a few ways to attack that. You can show that carbon dioxide does not absorb infrared radiation while letting shorter wavelengths past. You could show that all the spectrometers are wrong and greenhouse gas concentrations are not increasing rapidly as a result of human activity. You could show that photographers are wrong and the earth's albedo hasn't changed as a result of human activity. Or if none of those is fun, you could attack the first law of thermodynamics. Or you could propose a mechanism that will cause a major change to one of the abovementioned factors governing the system's overall thermal budget by reducing the atmosphere's CO₂ concentrations by 25% overnight or something like that. There are probably some other options too.

That'd be a much better tack to take; a lot of the details that have been talked about in this thread are interesting and important, but at the end of the day I think they might be distracting details for a lot of folks. What the anthropogenic global warming idea really boils down to is this: Net energy flux.

[Stroller]

Nauthiz, good post as far as the substantive parts go, which is the last line:

"What the anthropogenic global warming idea really boils down to is this: Net energy flux."

I would add: of the various parts of the climate system.

So, since we are all agreed that ultimately, the energy into the system comes from the sun, (we'll disregard geothermal for now) let's take a closer look at how that solar energy is modulated, absorbed and re-emitted in the largest and most general terms to start with, to see how far we can get in agreement.

For starters, can we agree that the ocean has more than 1000 times the thermal capacity of the atmosphere, and stores energy over much longer timescales than the atmosphere?

[lomiller1]

1979 - 2009 trends in degrees C per decade

GISS: 0.159
HADCRUT: 0.159
RSS: 0.157
UAH: 0.128

IOW the RSS satellite data agrees with two separate analysis of the surface station data, and the UAH data is the odd man out.

[nauthiz]

I like your idea of starting with the largest and most general terms, Stroller, but I don't think you started with the largest and most general terms. How about this question instead:

Is the earth (as a system) emitting more or less energy than it absorbs?


(Also - you really don't think the rest was substantive? So does that mean you don't think it matters whether opponents of anthropogenic climate change are scientifically literate or not? )

[Stroller]

I like your idea of starting with the largest and most general terms, Stroller, but I don't think you started with the largest and most general terms. How about this question instead:

Is the earth (as a system) emitting more or less energy than it absorbs?


(Also - you really don't think the rest was substantive? So does that mean you don't think it matters whether opponents of anthropogenic climate change are scientifically literate or not? )

The same applies to the AGW hypothesis' proponents so how about we drop the snark and get on with the science?

So, do we have a good direct observational measure of whether the earth is emitting more or less energy than it absorbs? Not that I'm certain that would give us any real answers, because I read recently that we wouldn't necessarily see a change even if the earth (or at least the bits of it we have a handle on measuring) was warming or cooling.

And don't forget that while we look at the measure of how much the planet is emitting, we need to take into consideration we may not know everything about the ways in which the earth deals with the various types of energy it absorbs apart from TSI. The reason we need to do that is we don't currently have a satisfactory explanation for this:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1720024.ece
"Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.
Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena."

[cope]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1720024.ece
"Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.
Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena."

From a letter to Nature by Lori Fenton (Carl Sagan Center), Paul E. Geissler (NASA Ames Research Center) and Robert M. Haberle (USGS), original investigators of possible climate change on Mars:

"Our results suggest that documented albedo changes affect recent climate change and large-scale weather patterns on Mars, and thus albedo variations are a necessary component of future atmospheric and climate studies."

This is hardly the conclusion of the article for the Times written by reporter Jonathan Leake but while his article (and all sorts of conclusions based on his article) appear all over the internet, the original research was quite a bit harder to track down.

Interestingly enough, they have generated their own model for predicting climate change on the basis of albedo variations and it predicts the .65 degree increase.

Also, one cited bit of evidence of this warming is the apparent shrinking of the south polar ice cap on Mars. Given that the missing ice is frozen carbon dioxide, wouldn't it seem reasonable that this would increase the abundance of carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere in a positive feedback process?

The letter to Nature (the full article is available for purchase) can be found here.

[Stroller]

Hi Cope, thanks for that. it does indeed raise lots of interesting questions, to which we don't currently have all the answers. Given that there is no detected life on Mars, maybe we can say a priori that any change in martian albedo has to be the result of a varying external input, and the sun is by far the biggest kid on the block.

What feedbacks may then increase the effect need to be measured. I don't know whether changes in co2 are monitored on Mars. Maybe someone else does.