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The last time the state of Milankovitch Cycles was similar to what they are now was during the interglacial about 430,000 years ago. That one lasted about 30,000 years. But if "On the Effect of a New Grand Minimum of Solar Activity on the Future Climate on Earth" (Feulner & Rahmstorf 2010) is right then the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases has postponed any new ice age indefinitely. It's unlikely a new glacial period will happen any time soon certainly not in the lifetime of anyone alive today*.

*Assuming no breakthroughs in immortality.

GRACE can resolve nearly uncorrelated mascons that are blocks 400km on each side with a noise floor of ~1cm equivalent water height. (This is latitude dependent because GRACE's denser ground tracks near the poles allow for better resolution.) Each mascon has a mass of ~1.6 gigatons, and a fully-loaded coal train is ~10 kilotons, so GRACE falls short by about five orders of magnitude.

The improved laser ranging on the GRACE follow-on will increase sensitivity, and David Wiese analyzes improvements due to lowering the satellites' altitude and/or adding more satellites to the GRACE system.

You're right to suspect that detecting a tiny change in local gravity is limited by uncertainties in models such as atmosphere dynamics. I've discussed how GPS occultation data (among many other data sources) can be used to reduce these uncertainties.

Other anthropogenic effects such as groundwater depletion can already be detected with GRACE. Rodell et al. 2009 (PDF) and Tiwari et al. 2009 (PDF) observed this in northern India, and Famiglietti et al. 2011 (PDF) recently observed similar groundwater depletion in California.

GRACE can resolve nearly uncorrelated mascons that are blocks 400km on each side with a noise floor of ~1cm equivalent water height. (This is latitude dependent because GRACE's denser ground tracks near the poles allow for better resolution.) Each mascon has a mass of ~1.6 gigatons, and a fully-loaded coal train is ~10 kilotons, so GRACE falls short by about five orders of magnitude.

The improved laser ranging on the GRACE follow-on will increase sensitivity, and David Wiese analyzes improvements due to lowering the satellites' altitude and/or adding more satellites to the GRACE system.

You're right to suspect that detecting a tiny change in local gravity is limited by uncertainties in models such as atmosphere dynamics. I've discussed how GPS occultation data (among many other data sources) can be used to reduce these uncertainties.

Other anthropogenic effects such as groundwater depletion can already be detected with GRACE. Rodell et al. 2009 (PDF) and Tiwari et al. 2009 (PDF) observed this in northern India, and Famiglietti et al. 2011 (PDF) recently observed similar groundwater depletion in California.

That's a good question; I described the difference between climate and weather at the beginning of my article. I later updated it with a better analogy from NOAA: One way to distinguish between weather and climate is that the climate of your hometown will determine how many sweaters you have in your closet. The weather will determine if you should be wearing a sweater right now.

Many times the climate being discussed is global, so an average is taken over the entire Earth. For global temperatures, Santer et al. 2011 shows that one needs to average over ~17 years of data to obtain statistically significant climate trends. Here's another explanation by Tamino. Also, the Skeptical Science trend calculator helps visualize statistical significance.

I'm also a planetary geophysicist and generally agree with your assessment. I also note that the author is a terrestrial geologist. This is as far as I can tell, his first foray into planetary science, and so he may not be so familiar with the planetary literature. Plate tectonics has previously been hypothesized on Mars (Sleep, 1994). The press release suggests that somehow, for forty years, no one has seriously looked at Valles Marineris. It clearly has a tectonic origin, but I don't see evidence for plate tectonics.

Moderators, I am the author of the above comment that has been moderated "Troll"; the moderation was apparently done on the basis of replying comments. I ask you to check what my comment said, before moderating it as troll.

Here is what the Slashdot summary said.

the paper says, that scientists can claim with near certainty that events like the Texas heat wave last year, the Russian heat wave of 2010 and the European heat wave of 2003 would not have happened without the planetary warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases.

It ought to be clear from this that the Russian heat wave, in particular, is being blamed on putative global warming. Now, check the three links in my comment to confirm that they do indeed say exactly what my comment claims. The second link requires a password or subscription; here is an alternative link, from the American Geophysical Union (which publishes the journal):

http://www.agu.org/news/press/jhighlight_archives/2011/2011-04-13.shtml#five

You can confirm that the quote supplied in my comment is taken from that link.

The real trolls are the commenters who claimed that I was misquoting or misrepresenting. My comment is not a troll, and it should be moderated fairly.

I think that it says something about the current global warming debate that an accurate critical comment such as mine is moderated troll while blatantly false criticisms of my comment get moderated up to 5.

Duly noted.

the paper says, that scientists can claim with near certainty that events like the Texas heat wave last year, the Russian heat wave of 2010 and the European heat wave of 2003 would not have happened without the planetary warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases.

It ought to be clear from this that the Russian heat wave, in particular, is being blamed on putative global warming. Now, check the three links in my comment to confirm that they do indeed say exactly what my comment claims. The second link requires a password or subscription; here is an alternative link, from the American Geophysical Union (which publishes the journal):
http://www.agu.org/news/press/jhighlight_archives/2011/2011-04-13.shtml#five
You can confirm that the quote supplied in my comment is taken from that link.

The real trolls are the commenters who claimed that I was misquoting or misrepresenting. My comment is not a troll, and it should be moderated fairly.

I think that it says something about the current global warming debate that an accurate critical comment such as mine is moderated troll while blatantly false criticisms of my comment get moderated up to 5.

Roderick et al. 2007 shows that pan evaporation rates are dominated by changes in wind speed, with contributions from solar irradiance. You're right to guess that gravity is much weaker than these forces, so changes in gravity don't affect evaporation rates.

What are you talking about? Here are Muller's papers

This paper, in addition to three of the papers posted online in October 2011, have been revised based on input received through the peer review process. A fifth paper has been provisionally accepted for publication,

Provisional acceptance is a post peer review stage associated with getting the paper properly typeset,choosing which graphics to print in color, signing copyright transfer fees and other minutia that don't bear on the scientific value of the work.

Sorry but the total heat released by chemical combustion (and nuclear power) is so miniscule compared to the energy coming from the Sun that it can be ignored in any first order calculations. A 2008 study by Mark Flanner finds the total waste heat produced by human activities amounts to 0.028 W/m^2 while the total forcing from additional greenhouse gases we've emitted is 2.9 W/m^2, over 100 times as much. Waste heat is just not an issue.

Wow, he managed to get one through in 2011? Totally missed that. Probably because it actually doesn't say what he's been claiming in non-peer-reviewed research:

Temperature trend estimates vary according to site classification, with poor siting leading to an overestimate of minimum temperature trends and an underestimate of maximum temperature trends, resulting in particular in a substantial difference in estimates of the diurnal temperature range trends. The opposite-signed differences of maximum and minimum temperature trends are similar in magnitude, so that the overall mean temperature trends are nearly identical across site classifications.

Which had already been determined. I'm amazed that Watts was willing to put his name on a paper that basically undercuts his entire premise and says the same thing as papers he's been railing against for ages. Check out the lead author's summary of the paper, in particular the Q and A section. Although my favorite quote is:

we found that the global average surface temperature may be higher than what has been reported by NCDC and others as a result in the bias in the landscape area where the observing sites are situated.

Wow, Watts, you sure shot things out of the park with that one!

Ah the analysis that is clearly labeled CO2 is labeled incorrectly in multiple locations and is titled 'Preliminary_CO2_emissions_2010.xlsx'. That's a lot of mislabeling.

It's not the title of the file that's incorrect, it that there's no units in the spreadsheet. They're measuring the CO2 emissions in terms of the weight of the carbon (as they clearly do on the summary page). Again, rather than relying on a row of numbers with no unit labels in a preliminary excel spreadsheet, you could read the summary page that actually provides a nice graph and an explanation of what the number in the spreadsheet mean. It seems that you are only looking for evidence that confirms what you believe.

Couple that with the Department of Energy numbers that match up pretty well too, but I guess their data is mislabeled too.

Once again, it helps if you actually cite the source of your "evidence", I've linked to three different sources that each given a very similar number for their emissions estimate. But you're sure that they're all wrong because you saw a different number on a web page once? Frankly, I suspect if you did provide the source I would find the numbers are also in tonnes of carbon.

Let's see how much gas fraction can potentially yield from magma shall we?
From http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm05-sessions/ [agu.org] and I quote

It helps if you link properly to the file instead of the directory index the file is located in, I can only assume that you hoped I wouldn't find your reference and read because from the very same paragraph: "The cumulative emissions are estimated to be about 190 kt CO2 and 30 kt SO2.". Did you bother to read the entire paragraph? Once again the evidence explicitly says that your opinion is wrong and once again you've ignored the explicit declaration that you wrong to focus on another part of the evidence that could, if misinterpreted in just the right might support your opinion.

Frankly, you've managed to set a new low for Internet idiocy.

Ah the analysis that is clearly labeled CO2 is labeled incorrectly in multiple locations and is titled 'Preliminary_CO2_emissions_2010.xlsx'. That's a lot of mislabeling.

It's not the title of the file that's incorrect, it that there's no units in the spreadsheet. They're measuring the CO2 emissions in terms of the weight of the carbon (as they clearly do on the summary page). Again, rather than relying on a row of numbers with no unit labels in a preliminary excel spreadsheet, you could read the summary page that actually provides a nice graph and an explanation of what the number in the spreadsheet mean. It seems that you are only looking for evidence that confirms what you believe.

Couple that with the Department of Energy numbers that match up pretty well too, but I guess their data is mislabeled too.

Once again, it helps if you actually cite the source of your "evidence", I've linked to three different sources that each given a very similar number for their emissions estimate. But you're sure that they're all wrong because you saw a different number on a web page once? Frankly, I suspect if you did provide the source I would find the numbers are also in tonnes of carbon.

Let's see how much gas fraction can potentially yield from magma shall we?
From http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm05-sessions/ [agu.org] and I quote

It helps if you link properly to the file instead of the directory index the file is located in, I can only assume that you hoped I wouldn't find your reference and read because from the very same paragraph: "The cumulative emissions are estimated to be about 190 kt CO2 and 30 kt SO2.". Did you bother to read the entire paragraph? Once again the evidence explicitly says that your opinion is wrong and once again you've ignored the explicit declaration that you wrong to focus on another part of the evidence that could, if misinterpreted in just the right might support your opinion.

Frankly, you've managed to set a new low for Internet idiocy.

Ah the analysis that is clearly labeled CO2 is labeled incorrectly in multiple locations and is titled 'Preliminary_CO2_emissions_2010.xlsx'. That's a lot of mislabeling. LOL Couple that with the Department of Energy numbers that match up pretty well too, but I guess their data is mislabeled too. Even though you can calculate their data using known numbers like how much gasoline the US used (~140 billion gallons) and we know 1 gallon of gas converts to 19 lbs of CO2. But, let's forget that and use magic internet numbers that are 3.5 bigger than any analysis out there because they are all MISLABLELED. All of this simply on your say so and the quackery agenda.

Let's see how much gas fraction can potentially yield from magma shall we?
From http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm05-sessions/ and I quote
"Closed system ascent degassing calculations show that the volume fraction of gas increases to 8 vol% at 4-5 km and reaches 50 vol% at 1 km, where final solidification begins. The gas fraction can potentially increase to >60 vol% during solidification. Allowing for gas separation during extrusion, these results are consistent with observed dacite vesicle fractions averaging 25 vol% (Pallister et al. this session). Ascent degassing calculations also predict melt water contents similar to values measured on rare glassy dacite fragments last equilibrated at depths of 1.2-1.8 km (Mandeville this session)."
Hmm, seems the experts think that gas fraction can increase to 60% of volume. Isn't that amazing?!?

The Analysis in the spreadsheet is of CO2 levels, not Carbon.

It looks like the spreadsheet is mislabelled, from the page I linked: "Converted to carbon dioxide, so as to include the mass of the oxygen molecules, this amounts to over 33.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide".

Your 33.5 billion metric ton number is complete BS.

The same number is used on the Wikipedia page I linked and in this report from the EU JRC: "After a decline in CO2 emissions in 2009 of 1% (including a correction for the leap year 2008), global emissions have jumped by more than 5% in 2010, which is unprecedented in the last two decades, also the absolute figure of 1.8 billion tonnes of additional CO2, leading to about 33.0 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions for 2010."

Also, your analysis of Mt St Helens is ridiculous. You are citing flows of magma on the surface (lava and so on) and occasional emissions. Not the gas emitted in the eruption itself. Only a small part of the in the magma magma chamber is erupted as solids on the surface. Most volcanoes have several cubic miles of magma in their magma chamber. Of that, the majority of the magma, up to 60% BY VOLUME, is turned into CO2/SO2. That's where the explosive eruption comes from.

As far as I can tell you're pulling those numbers out of your ass, I can't find any evidence to substantiate your claims, you haven't provided any, and everything I do find says you're wrong.

I guess you can believe what you want. If you want me to believe your numbers on volcanoes and CO2/SO2 you're going to have to refer me to the specific paper or papers you got them from. I've spent an hour searching and haven't found anything that matches up with your claims. I did find one paper from AGU in 2011 that estimated that St. Helens in 1980 and Pinatubo in 1991 released 0.01 and 0.05 gigatons of CO2 respectively during their major eruptions. That's a far cry from what you're saying.

So again, if you want me to believe your numbers you're going to have to point me to the specific paper or papers to got them from.

The the best estimate of CO2/SO2 emissions from the Mt St Helen's eruption was estimated during a series of presentations on the erupation at about 0.2 gigatons (200 BILLION tons). http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm05-sessions The world-wide estimate is about 6 BILLION tons. http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html The problem with you quacks is your numbers aren't based in reality. You are literally a bunch of quacks who live in a word of fantasy. Your number aren't based on any real esitmates or scientific data.

On this date in 1962 my father recorded the detonation and the resulting pulse from a "laboratory" he had set up in his suburban house in the San Fernado Valley {Northwest Los Angelews] The resulting paper "Distant Electromagnetic Observations of the High-Altitude Nuclear Detonation of July 9, 1962" was the only non-classified scientific paper which was published in The Journal of Geophysical Research about the pulse see: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1963/JZ068i006p01781.shtml

Some where around here I have a 35mm Strip chart negative of the detonation as recorded by the oscilloscope camera... I would donate the film to a university library for preservation but I have no idea who'd be interested in it. At 89 years old my dad now suffers from dementia and does not remember much about his days as a pocket protector / slip stick using Space Scientist / Engineer

it's a big ball of gas.

It's worth pointing out that even though it is called a "gas giant", it doesn't mean it is bereft of a rocky core. It in fact does have a rocky core which is suspected of being icier than previously thought.

In addition, given the densities and temperatures to be found there, people generally assume there can't possibly be any life there. I don't know either way, but I would suspect there is a point within the atmosphere where heat and pressure reach some sort of "sweet spot" which allows bacteria to exist, similar to those found in this study.

I would say it is no less likely a source of life as any other of the weird places we've found it on this planet.

Your assumption would be incorrect. Natural variability means that short term temperature variations occur. A true measure of the temperature of the Earth would look not only at atmospheric temperatures but ocean temperatures as well (and even land temperatures). On average about 90% of the warming that occurs each year goes into the oceans. But cycles such as El Nino/La Nina cause large transfers of energy between the oceans and the atmosphere so in the short term the atmosphere can cool. A recent statistical analysis found that it takes 17 years of temperature records to distinguish the signal of the global warming trend from the short term noise of natural variability. So it's not realistic to expect temperatures to monotonically increase year after year. It's only examination of the longer term records that will give you the true trend in temperature.

True skepticism is not irrational. For example Richard Mueller of the BEST study was skeptical of the existing temperature analyses (CRU, GISS, NOAA) until he got the results from his work which matched the others well. He was willing to be convinced by the evidence. What's irrational is using the same old arguments time and time again which have been thoroughly debunked or are just unscientific to begin with. What's irrational is to be unwilling to be convinced by the evidence because it doesn't fit your worldview.

"Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale", Santer, et. al. 2011 says it takes at least 17 years of of temperature records to separate the signal of global warming from the noise of natural variability.

Here's the source you couldn't be assed to look up:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf

Science doesn't deliver certainty, it gives us the best we know. If you want certainty try religion.

Statistical research shows you need 17 years of temperature records to separate the signal of global warming from the noise of natural variation.

But with a full education you also know that the scientists who study solar influences on all do not claim the single value of TSI to describe those influences. Thus, your standard reply of "0.1%" and cycle vs long term becomes quite irrelevant.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011GL050702.shtml

And even small values can cause great changes if those values aggregate over time:

http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/apr/article/view/14754

Hmmmmmmmm...who to trust?

On one hand I see that cpu6502 suspects that our current warming spike is entirely natural.

On the other hand I see that the U.S. National Academies and the science academies of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russian, the UK, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, NASA, the American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Chemical Society, the American Meteorological Society, the Geological Society of America, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Australian Institute of Physics and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics think cpu6502 is wrong.

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=05192010
http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8+5energy-climate09.pdf
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/mtg_200702/aaas_climate_statement.pdf
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/ssi/american-physical-society.pdf
http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/positions/climate_change2008.shtml
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=1907&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1
http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.pdf
http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm
http://www.euro-acad.eu/downloads/memorandas/lets_be_honest_-_festplenum_03.03.07_-_final2.pdf
http://www.aip.org.au/scipolicy/Science%20Policy.pdf
http://www.iugg.org/resolutions/perugia07.pdf
http://planet3.org/2012/03/11/a-brief-guide-to-the-scientific-consensus-on-climate-change/

I'm a little surprised that Watts would use the Lenaerts paper. After all its results are based on Atmospheric Climate Models. Aren't those supposed to be totally wrong? And when you get into actual physical measurements using the GRACE satellites to detect changes in gravity, Antarctica, particularly West Antarctica is losing ice mass over all. (Velicogna 2009)

You were right! He's already been 'scrubbed' from the AGU Task Force on Scientific Ethics page! Those evil deniers are so sneaky!

http://www.agu.org/about/governance/committees_boards/scientific_ethics.shtml

It was there four days ago, according to google’s cache. Has he resigned/been fired already?

eeerrr, Hello all "Warming deniers". Solar influence alone (even if it's as low as during the Maunder Minimum) is not enough to induce a cooling trend. At most they will delay the warming that is coming by 5 or 10 years. There's a paper about that very subject. (Feulner & Rahmstorf, 2010)

The chemistry of the Earth's natural cycles and environs are identifiably altered under increased carbon dioxide uptake. Carbon dioxide forms acids with constituent components of the atmosphere, soil and water. Water is chemically neutral and oxygen readily balances out to the available reactions, contributing nothing to net chemical cycles on the Earth outside of return carbon that has been out of the cycles for thousands and millions of years (see Cretaceous Period vs the logic of biofuels and green chemistry).

However, I could be fair and ignore science and the world we currently live in, on the off chance your logic needs to be looked at for those circumstances. Actually, we don't have to, as if either of those were a current issue with similar consequences (and some of the conversation regarding the hydrogen economy suggests water could become some class of risk), we actually WOULD be having that conversation. That ISN'T our actual problem right now. Anything that had a similar long term consequence would cause the scientific community the SAME CONCERN.

Unlike you, however, I've actually thrown in some genuine, peer reviewed research. Feel free to add and any ACTUAL research you might have. None of that meta-research by people with readily confirmed biases. After all, my research sources come from a variety of institutions and have been around long enough to go past peer review and enter into the realm of confirmability.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2486.1998.00164.x/full
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985cca..proc..546B
http://wwwzb.fz-juelich.de/contentenrichment/inhaltsverzeichnisse/bis2009/ISBN-0-471-72017-8.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001/2000GB001278.shtml
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2004.00864.x/full
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/03-5055
ftp://ftp.imarpe.pe/Curso_Modelos/Biblio%20Arnaud%202/MEPS2008-Acidification.pdf%23page=5
http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/QwPqRGcRzQM5ffhPjAdT/full/10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163834
http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/3/414.short

Your time scale is off. Recently it was determined that it took at least 17 years to separate the global warming signal from the noise of weather. So if you cherry pick 1998 as the warmest year then we'll have to wait until at least 2015 before we can say anything definitive.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011GL050226.shtml Obviously the authors are paid shills of the tar sands industry. "Our analysis also leads to a relatively low and tightly-constrained estimate of Transient Climate Response of 1.3–1.8C, and relatively low projections of 21st-century warming under the Representative Concentration Pathways. Repeating our attribution analysis with a second model (CNRM-CM5) gives consistent results, albeit with somewhat larger uncertainties. "

Thanks; in the same spirit of mutual respect, let me point out that it's just as unlikely for the layperson to have an insight that has never occurred the academic community in a particular field, as it is for a "civilian" to come up with some clever technique that plumbers or carpenters or electricians or mechanics or programmers never thought of. This includes such insights as the everpopular "the AGW people forgot to take into account the changes in the sun!" of course, but also such runner ups as "they didn't account for heat islands".

"3.2.2.2 Urban Heat Islands and Land Use Effects ...
Studies that have looked at hemispheric and global scales conclude that any urban-related trend is an order of magnitude smaller than decadal and longer time-scale trends evident in the series (e.g., Jones et al., 1990; Peterson et al., 1999). This result could partly be attributed to the omission from the gridded data set of a small number of sites (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter3.pdf p.243

see also
the famous Peterson 2003 paper, abstract only http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/population/article2abstract.pdf

"We show examples of the UHIs at London and Vienna, where city center sites are warmer than surrounding rural locations. Both of these UHIs however do not contribute to warming trends over the 20th century because the influences of the cities on surface temperatures have not changed over this time." (abstract only; The graphs of temp vs time for several urban vs rural areas are absolutely parallel in rises and drops, but you don't get to see them for free)
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008JD009916.shtml

"Since the UHI effect is reduced in windy conditions, if the UHI effect was a significant component of the temperature record, then we would see a different rate of warming when observations are stratified by calm or windy conditions. The absence of such an effect (which is what Parker finds) is, conversely, evidence of a minimal UHI effect on the record."
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=43

" We find evidence of local human effects ("urban warming") even in suburban and small-town surface air temperature records, but the effect is modest in magnitude and conceivably could be an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records."
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=ha02300a

Of course, one picture etc. etc.... so look here http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1.gif and try to correlate that with urbanization; Note that the urbanized areas of the globe tend to be middle of the pack for warming; when the oceanic areas (which naturally warm less) are eliminated, you see that the urban areas tend to be on the low side of land surface warming estimates, which makes sense since the warming is, as predicted, larger near the poles, where urbanization is minimal. To put it another way; if you deleted all urban areas from the warming estimates on the grounds of eliminating urban heat islands, that would have the effect of raising the land warming estimate, not reducing it.

In this case it seems that most of the methane is locked up far deeper than will be affected by rising temperatures for the foreseeable future.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011EO490014.shtml

So, not good, but maybe not as bad as appears at first blush, thankfully...

Rgds

Damon

When scientists talk about trends like increasing sea level they're nearly always talking about the longer term trend. If you statistically analyze the past record you can determine how long a period you have to use for the trend signal to override the noise in the signal. A recent paper by Ben Santer et. al. states it takes at least 17 years of temperature records for the warming signal to show:

"Because of the pronounced effect of interannual noise on decadal trends, a multi-model ensemble of anthropogenically-forced simulations displays many 10-year periods with little warming. A single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18396555

Claims 111 to 213 mg of Hg ions per Kg of soil, which seems a wee bit high. mg per Kg is basically a wordy version of PPM. I'm not sure if that scales, that would imply all of China's dirt added together would be some multiple of the total planetary store of Hg, wouldn't it?. Note this is the dirt that is washed off the mountains annually, so its probably the highest possible soil concentration.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2005JG000061.shtml

Claims plain ole Canadian forest dirt has 200 ng/g aka PPB. That seems like a reasonable number. High enough to fit with historical coal burning, low enough not to instantly kill anything grown in it, etc. Note this is just "bulk dirt"

I suppose soil levels in China could very well be 1000 times higher than in a forest in rural Canada.

As for the thermometer, fever thermometers used to have somewhat less than a gram of metallic non-ionized mercury. I am no expert on rectal thermometers. But I'm willing guess "somewhere in the gram level" is about right. Think about it for a second, goatse aside, the orifice is usually smaller than the mouth the oral thermometers use.

So to make one thermometer, you need something like all the soil in an entire medium sized Canadian farm, or a couple shovel fulls of Chinese dirt.

The big problem is liquid thermometers were made with Hg decades ago, alcohol solutions a decade or two ago, and are electronic now. Somebody putting Hg in your rear in 2011 is making a weird internet video, not doing a legitimate medical procedure.

Another comparison:

"The projected 2010 anthropogenic CO2 emission rate of 35 gigatons per year is 135 times greater than the 0.26-gigaton-per-year preferred estimate for volcanoes."

"Scaling up CO2 releases of volcanic paroxysms to the 35-gigaton anthropogenic CO2 emission level is also revealing. For example, scaling up the 0.05-gigaton CO2 release of the 15 June 1991 Mount Pinatubo paroxysm to the current anthropogenic CO2 emission level requires 700 equivalent paroxysms annually."

"Similarly, scaling the 0.01-gigaton CO2 release of the 18 May 1980 Mount St. Helens paroxysm requires 3500 equivalent paroxysms annually."

If one considers the amount of magma released in these events and compares that to a super volcano event then one can conlude: "...these calculations strongly suggest that present-day annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions may exceed the CO2 output of one or more supereruptions every year."

source: http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-22.shtml, http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf

Another comparison:

"The projected 2010 anthropogenic CO2 emission rate of 35 gigatons per year is 135 times greater than the 0.26-gigaton-per-year preferred estimate for volcanoes."

"Scaling up CO2 releases of volcanic paroxysms to the 35-gigaton anthropogenic CO2 emission level is also revealing. For example, scaling up the 0.05-gigaton CO2 release of the 15 June 1991 Mount Pinatubo paroxysm to the current anthropogenic CO2 emission level requires 700 equivalent paroxysms annually."

"Similarly, scaling the 0.01-gigaton CO2 release of the 18 May 1980 Mount St. Helens paroxysm requires 3500 equivalent paroxysms annually."

If one considers the amount of magma released in these events and compares that to a super volcano event then one can conlude: "...these calculations strongly suggest that present-day annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions may exceed the CO2 output of one or more supereruptions every year."

source: http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-22.shtml, http://www.agu.org/pubs/pdf/2011EO240001.pdf

No, what I said is correct. He asked about the human contribution to global warming so I responded with figures about the release of fossil CO2 by humans, not human activity as a fraction of all greenhouse gases (already) in the atmosphere.

Your link is also correct but doesn't answer the question.

I couldn't find any overall figures for natural vs. human release of fossil CO2, but take a look at the effects of volcanoes vs. human activity:

http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-22.shtml

This link is also relevant:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-intermediate.htm

I do hear people say that 2 is wrong because, uh, because volcanoes do it or something.

Except they're, uh, contributing less than 2% of the human race's CO2 output per year:

http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-22.shtml

WASHINGTONâ"On average, human activities put out in just three to five days the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide that volcanoes produce globally each year. So concludes a scientist who reviewed five published studies of present-day global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions and compared those emissions to anthropogenic (human-induced) carbon dioxide output.

âoeThe most frequent question that I have gotten (and still get), in my 30 some years as a volcanic gas geochemist from the general public and from geoscientists working in fields outside of volcanology, is âDo volcanoes emit more carbon dioxide than human activities?â(TM)â says Terrance Gerlach of the U.S. Geological Survey. âoeResearch findings indicate unequivocally that the answer to this question is âNoâ(TM)â"anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions dwarf global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions.â

> Because that's the real issue that most skeptics have been questioning of late.

It's too late for finger pointing as we are already in a positive feedback system* with global warming. We are headed for really uncomfortable living conditions within the next 50 years and whether it's been produced thorough anthropogenic, or natural, means isn't the first question to ask. We need to figure out what the next step is with millions of communities under water along with the land masses they used to produce food. That's not something we want to have to try and solve at the last minute (but historically speaking, we probably will attempt to).

[*] - http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005GL025044.shtml

So go read the actual peer reviewed paper that article is based on. (Feulner & Rahmstorf 2010). They are not in the armchair climatologist class.

Here you are: On the effect of a new grand minimum of solar activity on the future climate on Earth, published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Why do you believe "I" have numbers, and why are you under the false impressions that "every" ocean scientist claims the oceans are getting more acidic? Why do you think "I" have a thesis?

Have you looked up what the global pH levels and the variance is yet? If not, you have no idea what you're talking about.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006.../2006GL026305.shtml

This is when you, many many posts ago, should've looked up the relevant papers yourself instead of posting in public.

The impacts of increases in atmospheric CO2 since the midst of the 18th century on average seawater salinity and acidity are evaluated. Assuming that the rise in the planetary mean surface temperature continues unabated, and that it eventually causes the melting of terrestrial ice and permanent snow, it is calculated that the average seawater salinity would be lowered not more than 0.61 from its current 35. It is also calculated –using an equilibrium model of aqueous carbonate species in seawater open to the atmosphere- that the increase in atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppmv (representative of 18th-century conditions) to 380 ppmv (representative of current conditions) raises the average seawater acidity approximately 0.09 pH units across the range of seawater temperature considered (0 to 30C). A doubling of CO2 from 380 ppmv to 760 ppmv (the 2 × CO2 scenario) increases the seawater acidity approximately 0.19 pH units across the same range of seawater temperature. In the latter case, the predicted increase in acidity results in a pH within the water-quality limits for seawater of 6.5 and 8.5 and a change in pH less than 0.20 pH units. This paper's results concerning average seawater salinity and acidity show that, on a global scale and over the time scales considered (hundreds of years), there would not be accentuated changes in either seawater salinity or acidity from the observed or hypothesized rises in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006.../2006GL026305.shtml

See, I don't do "politics". I do science. You should try it.

This is the problem that I have with climate change scientists and proponents. While we cannot be averse to the notion that what we do affects our own climate, the question is how and by how much? Despite all protestations to the contrary that evidence is simply not there, and when you question it the above is a classic example of what the discussion boils down to - surely if we are doing something then it must have an effect.

You appear to be ignorant of (a) all research into atmospheric feedbacks and forcings and (b) all research into climate modelling. There's a substantial body of work out there (hint: Google Scholar is your friend) ... perhaps you should read some of it. As for the question of how and how much, the IPCC report has a good summary of multi-model predictions, which in turn was based on Tebaldi et al., 2004, Greene et al., 2006 and Furrer et al., 2007 ...

Currently, we know that the earth is warming, and warming substantially faster -- and to a greater extent -- than any time previously in the last 800,000 years. We know that CO2 can act as a forcing on global temperatures (and thanks to extensive research in the 50s and 60s we know this very accurately). We know that human activity has substantially increased the atmospheric concentration of CO2. We know that other GHGs can also act as forcings or feedbacks. We know that the temperature rises we are currently seeing fit extremely well with the prediction that current climate change is a result of human activity increasing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. Furthermore, we do not know of any other cause that could explain the temperature rise we are observing. We know that models based on research into atmospheric forcings accurately model current and past climates, and also predict a rapid and significant temperature increase if we continue to increase the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere.

The most parsimonious explanation by far, based on current research, is that increasing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere has resulted in significant, rapid warming and will continue to cause significant, rapid warming.

Here's my citation.

It's your post.

Simply pointing out that some of the data used as the basis for the AGW conclusions is not as reliable as was believed when those conclusions were formed was enough for you to paint me as "one of them", was enough for your hackles to stand on-end and for you to personally attack me.

I'm not saying the conclusions are wrong. I'm saying they may be less right than initially believed. That's how things FUCKING WORK, dude. Get off your high horse, you're every bit as devoted to not changing your views as any other fundamentalist whacko.

Based on what was known, the AGW conclusions were not incorrect. New things become known. Conclusions must be revisited and the impact that the newly-discovered data uncertainty has on those conclusions must be evaluated.

Oh, and here you go, asshole.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005E%26PSL.229..183I
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/4/1331.full
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001/2000GC000146.shtml

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/science/02obtree.html

None of that necessarily means AGW conclusions are wrong, but it does mean that the assumptions that were made to establish historical data points were not as reliable as was believed at the time they were made. I do not recall hearing about anyone revisiting their AGW conclusions to determine what effect this new uncertainty may have on those conclusions -- because any suggestion that they need to do so is taken as an attack on the AGW conclusions. It is not. It's simply good fucking science.

If tomorrow we discover that assumptions that we made and believed to be true which were used in calculating the speed of light may not have been as true as we believed them to be at the time, that does not mean we have the speed of light *wrong* but it DOES mean that we need to re-determine if our calculations of the speed of light are still correct. To simply assume so and attack any suggestion otherwise is not science, it's blind faith. Lashing out just like any other religious fundamentalist. It's embarrassing, and frustrating to be painted as some sort of monstrous denier of reason when your goal is to not destroy but IMPROVE knowledge and understanding and to evolve conclusions and ideas as new evidence presents itself.

Here is a peer reviewed paper that says if the Sun's activity level returned to a new grand minimum like the Maunder minimum it would reduce the projected temperature rise in 2100 by no more than 0.3C. I think that's a reasonable basis for the assertion.

Since the paper is paywalled you can see a summary of it here.

here you go fuck head:

Increases in Longwave forcing inferred from Outward longwave
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
Trends in Forcings
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123222295/PDFSTART
Downward Longwave Radiation
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/philipona2004-radiation.pdf
Downward Longwave Radiation
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD011800.shtml
29000 data sets, press release:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080514/
29000 data sets
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2008/Rosenzweig_etal_1.html
Global Energy Imbalance:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2005/Hansen_etal_1.html
Isotopes:
http://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf

Here they are, but I doubt you will try to understand them:

First you need to understand this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longwave_radiation

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123222295/PDFSTART
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/philipona2004-radiation.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD011800.shtml
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080514/
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2008/Rosenzweig_etal_1.html
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2005/Hansen_etal_1.html
http://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf

"The claim is that we need to live like hippies and give all our money to Al Gore and friends or THE ENTIRE EARTH WILL BE RUINED FOREVER."
no one claims that. Only people claiming that people claim that.

" But global warming isn't a scientific issue - it's a political issue, "
No, it's a scientific issue, what to do about it is a political issue.

" so you've picked your side (democrat) "
hahaha, now your boiling it down to the side of the Aisle?
democrats like:
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Jon Huntsman
  Olympia Snowe
Susan Collins
  Chris Smith
  Tim Pawlenty
Bob Inglis

oh, wait those are all republicans, my mistake.

In order to support their religious base, The POLITICAL stance of the republicans has been 'no global warming' however if yo look at many of them and there votes, you can see a different picture.
But hey, I actually pay attention to these details, and like researching what different representatives vote for,.
What I don't understand is people like you, who are provably wrong, that keep on spouting your lies. Why?

A "true skeptic" would figure out that climate change is a real thing after less than a week of research, assuming a high-school-level science education. So the "true skeptics" should be a vanishingly small group with high turnover. You have to REALLY want to believe that it's an international conspiracy to have any doubts at this point.

Also check out this link, I had it in my sig for the last few weeks:

http://www.agu.org/news/press/pr_archives/2011/2011-22.shtml

A volcanic eruption is equal to 3-5 days of human activity.