Yes I did read them. One shows data from a single weather station and implies the GISS adjustments are inappropriate without supplying a scientific basis for the implication. Another is Watts showing some nice pictures and going off on homogenized data which is something Menne didn't use in his paper.
LOL, whatever. Watts responses aren't peer reviewed science yet although I hear he an Pielke Sr. are collaborating on a paper they will try to get published. I'll be interested to see it if it is. Maybe it'll spur more studies like Menne's.
A recent study* using Anthony Watts surfacestations.org list of well and poorly sited weather stations found that the poorly sited stations actually introduced a slight cooling bias to the record. I guess they overcompensated for the UHI effect. Again, even if a thermometer is located in a poor site it can still measure temperature trends accurately. The events that lead to the UHI effect are usually rather abrupt such as putting up a building. The effect can often be seen in the record for the station and compensated for. I'd love it if you could show me actual scientific evidence that rural (presumably you mean well sited) stations have been corrected to mimic urban (presumably poorly sited) stations.
Of course the sun is the source of probably 99% of the energy on the surface of the Earth. But if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere the average temperature on the surface would be around -18C (0F). Instead it's 32C (58F) warmer because of greenhouse gases.
One point that needs to be made about the accuracy of thermometers. When you're examining how temperature changes over time the absolute accuracy of a thermometer isn't as important as its repeatability. If the thermometer gives the same reading for the same temperature all the time then it will accurately show temperature trends. Accurate thermometers to at least 1/10 a degree were available in the 1700's. The reason the mid-1800's is used for the start of modern day records is that there were finally enough temperature measurements spread widely enough around the globe to make a reasonable estimate of global temperature.
Maybe so but we tend to take changes in the vertical plane more seriously than in the horizontal. I can walk a mile on flat ground in 15 or 20 minutes. To go up a mile in elevation would take a lot longer even if I'm going vertically up a ladder.
I'm going to quibble a bit with your quibble. What clouds mostly reflect is visible light and the incoming radiative energy from the Sun is also mostly in the visible band. The energy doesn't get converted to infrared until it is absorbed by the surface for the most part.
Recent research has suggested that clouds may actually be a slight positive feedback. Have you ever noticed how it doesn't get as cold on a cloudy night. That's because clouds prevent radiation from the surface from escaping the planet. Water vapor itself is of course a positive feedback.
... and China, India and other up-and-coming industrial nations want no part of such an economy-killing proposal.
China is spending more than the USA on renewable energy and green technology. They recently committed to spending $400 billion over a period of years on the issue.
Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism.
Show me a quote where a climate scientist has said their work is above criticism. Responding to unscientific criticism is a waste of their time though so the mostly ignore it. If the debunking is scientific then it's valid. When McIntyre found some errors in the temperature records the climate scientists corrected them. It didn't change much though.
Yet the deniers spin it into "The scientists are suppressing the publishing of contrary science." Of course they ignore the fact the famous scientific skeptics like Spencer and Lindtzen do get papers published.
1. The actual relationship in not inverse, it is complex and CO2 can be both a feedback and a forcing. I guess it's just to complicated for simple minds.
2. Please provide a reference for this. But some factors may include that fact that the Sun was cooler in the past than it is now and the arrangements of the continents was different as well.
No, the rate of change has not been greater in the past, except maybe during the occasional catastrophic event such as a large asteroid hitting the Earth. We are seeing changes in 200 years now that normally took 2000-10000 years in the past, at least the past several million years. That places a severe strain on the biosphere.
The science of climate change is not a political issue. The physical world is the way it is (including the various human caused changes) and all we can do is try to understand it. What we are going to do about it is a political issue but if those political discussions are not based on reality they are unlikely to come up with a viable answer to the problem. In the past the world was able to come together to combat the threat of ozone depletion by banning CFC's. No reason it can't happen in this case either.
BTW, did you know that China is spending more on renewable energy and green technologies than the USA. Delaying our response the the issue puts the USA at a competitive disadvantage.
It sounds like you think CO2 is intercepting incoming solar radiation. CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't absorb much incoming solar radiation because it's mostly in the visible band where CO2 is transparent. The surface absorbs some of that incoming visible radiation and reradiates it mostly in the infra-red where CO2 has several absorption bands.
Ocean acidification means that the oceans are getting less base, not that they actually will have a pH less than 7. If the pH of the ocean ever gets even close to 7 we're toast.
The ocean food chain is highly dependent on phytoplankton and zooplankton. If acidification even causes a 5% drop in production it will send shockwaves through the food chain.
It's an area where we don't have a lot of information about what will happen but to just blithely say is won't be a problem is not justified either.
The last IPCC report was in 3 sections. The Working Group 1 section examined the science of global warming, IOW why it is happening. The WG2 section examined the effects we may see expressed as a result of global warming and the WG3 section examined what we can do about it. So far the errors found have been in the WG2 section which by their nature are somewhat speculative because we have no past history to know everything that might happen. If you want to debunk global warming you need to find some major errors in the WG1 section of the IPCC report.
Maybe if the climate "researchers" would open up their methodologies, source code and data, I might be able to understand it.
I doubt you would be able to really understand it but their methodologies are available in the peer reviewed literature they have published and more data and code than you could probably analyze in your life is available from the many links on this page.
Adaption will be forced on us whether we like it or not by the effects of global warming that are already in the pipeline. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do all we can to stop making the problem worse.
I thought you guys didn't trust anything that came out of Phil Jones mouth. Now all of a sudden when one of his statements can be misinterpreted to support your views he's right all of a sudden?
For the record what he said is that the observed warming of the past 15 years is just under the level of statistical significance which means a 95% confidence level. He also said that shorter periods (15 year) are less likely to reach the level of statistical significance than longer periods.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes I did read them. One shows data from a single weather station and implies the GISS adjustments are inappropriate without supplying a scientific basis for the implication. Another is Watts showing some nice pictures and going off on homogenized data which is something Menne didn't use in his paper.
LOL, whatever. Watts responses aren't peer reviewed science yet although I hear he an Pielke Sr. are collaborating on a paper they will try to get published. I'll be interested to see it if it is. Maybe it'll spur more studies like Menne's.
A recent study* using Anthony Watts surfacestations.org list of well and poorly sited weather stations found that the poorly sited stations actually introduced a slight cooling bias to the record. I guess they overcompensated for the UHI effect. Again, even if a thermometer is located in a poor site it can still measure temperature trends accurately. The events that lead to the UHI effect are usually rather abrupt such as putting up a building. The effect can often be seen in the record for the station and compensated for. I'd love it if you could show me actual scientific evidence that rural (presumably you mean well sited) stations have been corrected to mimic urban (presumably poorly sited) stations.
*The actual paper is On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record (Menne 2010) [PDF]. A synopsis of the findings can be read here. Of course the study only covers the continental USA, a mere 1.5% of the Earth's surface.
Of course the sun is the source of probably 99% of the energy on the surface of the Earth. But if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere the average temperature on the surface would be around -18C (0F). Instead it's 32C (58F) warmer because of greenhouse gases.
One point that needs to be made about the accuracy of thermometers. When you're examining how temperature changes over time the absolute accuracy of a thermometer isn't as important as its repeatability. If the thermometer gives the same reading for the same temperature all the time then it will accurately show temperature trends. Accurate thermometers to at least 1/10 a degree were available in the 1700's. The reason the mid-1800's is used for the start of modern day records is that there were finally enough temperature measurements spread widely enough around the globe to make a reasonable estimate of global temperature.
No, I could have been clearer. I wasn't arguing with your general message at all, just providing a little tidbit of science knowledge.
Yet 3mm of ocean rise may lead to 64mm or more of horizontal spread of the water surface on flat beaches.
Maybe so but we tend to take changes in the vertical plane more seriously than in the horizontal. I can walk a mile on flat ground in 15 or 20 minutes. To go up a mile in elevation would take a lot longer even if I'm going vertically up a ladder.
I'm going to quibble a bit with your quibble. What clouds mostly reflect is visible light and the incoming radiative energy from the Sun is also mostly in the visible band. The energy doesn't get converted to infrared until it is absorbed by the surface for the most part.
Recent research has suggested that clouds may actually be a slight positive feedback. Have you ever noticed how it doesn't get as cold on a cloudy night. That's because clouds prevent radiation from the surface from escaping the planet. Water vapor itself is of course a positive feedback.
grin
... and China, India and other up-and-coming industrial nations want no part of such an economy-killing proposal.
China is spending more than the USA on renewable energy and green technology. They recently committed to spending $400 billion over a period of years on the issue.
Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism.
Show me a quote where a climate scientist has said their work is above criticism. Responding to unscientific criticism is a waste of their time though so the mostly ignore it. If the debunking is scientific then it's valid. When McIntyre found some errors in the temperature records the climate scientists corrected them. It didn't change much though.
One the the CRU controversies involves a 2003 paper by Soon & Baliunas published in the journal Climate Research. The scientific criticism was that the paper "had conflated precipitation proxies and temperature proxies and that regional temperature changes were taken as global changes. Other objections included the allegation that SB03 reconstructed past temperatures from proxy evidence not capable of resolving decadal trends. If the criticisms are true then the paper should never have been published without major revisions to correct the errors. When the publisher wouldn't allow the chief editor to publish an editorial apologizing for the editorial failure he and several other editors resigned rather than be associated with a journal that would publish bad science. Some of the messages in the CRU hack were scientists questioning whether they want to be associated with such a journal either.
Yet the deniers spin it into "The scientists are suppressing the publishing of contrary science." Of course they ignore the fact the famous scientific skeptics like Spencer and Lindtzen do get papers published.
How about pseudoskeptic?
If your message is a troll it's an insightful troll.
One minor nit. I thought it was around 1960 when the tree ring proxies started going crazy.
1. The actual relationship in not inverse, it is complex and CO2 can be both a feedback and a forcing. I guess it's just to complicated for simple minds.
2. Please provide a reference for this. But some factors may include that fact that the Sun was cooler in the past than it is now and the arrangements of the continents was different as well.
No, the rate of change has not been greater in the past, except maybe during the occasional catastrophic event such as a large asteroid hitting the Earth. We are seeing changes in 200 years now that normally took 2000-10000 years in the past, at least the past several million years. That places a severe strain on the biosphere.
The science of climate change is not a political issue. The physical world is the way it is (including the various human caused changes) and all we can do is try to understand it. What we are going to do about it is a political issue but if those political discussions are not based on reality they are unlikely to come up with a viable answer to the problem. In the past the world was able to come together to combat the threat of ozone depletion by banning CFC's. No reason it can't happen in this case either.
BTW, did you know that China is spending more on renewable energy and green technologies than the USA. Delaying our response the the issue puts the USA at a competitive disadvantage.
"Indeed, weather is not climate. Climate is the expectation of weather-"
I think a good definition is that climate defines the bounds that weather is free to be chaotic in.
It sounds like you think CO2 is intercepting incoming solar radiation. CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't absorb much incoming solar radiation because it's mostly in the visible band where CO2 is transparent. The surface absorbs some of that incoming visible radiation and reradiates it mostly in the infra-red where CO2 has several absorption bands.
Ocean acidification means that the oceans are getting less base, not that they actually will have a pH less than 7. If the pH of the ocean ever gets even close to 7 we're toast.
The ocean food chain is highly dependent on phytoplankton and zooplankton. If acidification even causes a 5% drop in production it will send shockwaves through the food chain.
It's an area where we don't have a lot of information about what will happen but to just blithely say is won't be a problem is not justified either.
The last IPCC report was in 3 sections. The Working Group 1 section examined the science of global warming, IOW why it is happening. The WG2 section examined the effects we may see expressed as a result of global warming and the WG3 section examined what we can do about it. So far the errors found have been in the WG2 section which by their nature are somewhat speculative because we have no past history to know everything that might happen. If you want to debunk global warming you need to find some major errors in the WG1 section of the IPCC report.
Maybe if the climate "researchers" would open up their methodologies, source code and data, I might be able to understand it.
I doubt you would be able to really understand it but their methodologies are available in the peer reviewed literature they have published and more data and code than you could probably analyze in your life is available from the many links on this page.
Adaption will be forced on us whether we like it or not by the effects of global warming that are already in the pipeline. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do all we can to stop making the problem worse.
I thought you guys didn't trust anything that came out of Phil Jones mouth. Now all of a sudden when one of his statements can be misinterpreted to support your views he's right all of a sudden?
For the record what he said is that the observed warming of the past 15 years is just under the level of statistical significance which means a 95% confidence level. He also said that shorter periods (15 year) are less likely to reach the level of statistical significance than longer periods.