"Coauthor Felix Landerer of JPL noted that during the same period warming in the top half of the ocean continued unabated, an unequivocal sign that our planet is heating up. Some recent studies reporting deep-ocean warming were, in fact, referring to the warming in the upper half of the ocean but below the topmost layer, which ends about 0.4 mile (700 meters) down"
What this study found was that melting ice and warming of the first 2000 meters accounted for virtually all of the sea level rise. Nice bit of editorializing on the part of bigwheel to suggest that this new data has any impact on "why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years." This does not suggest that the ocean has warmed less than we had previously thought. Only that the warming is occurring primarily in the first 2 kilometers of depth.
My plan is to dismiss the statistics with a wave of my hand. Meh, I say.
I never claimed to have statistically rejected a linear trend. I simply pointed out that the sea level rise appears to be accelerating. That is certainly true. Sea level was flat for thousands of years after deglaciation. It rose slowly in the 19th century. Faster in the 20th century. Faster still in the 21st (so far). On the surface, SLR appears to be accelerating. Reevaluation may be required if future data deviates, but based on the data available it is hard to reject acceleration. This agrees with the physics so even without statistical significance, a cohesive picture begins to emerge.
Regarding sensitivity, it would be nice if we could further constrain the confidence intervals on this. I'm not convinced that we can, but I am hopeful that sensitivity lies somewhere closer to the bottom or "most likely" value. I'm also optimistic about the progress that we are already making in addressing the issue, although I believe that a market driven the solution would be more efficient than feed in tariffs.
Regarding models predicting ENSO and PDO. There is no expectation that they will. Nor can they predict large volcanic eruptions. I think you may have missed the point of the recent paper that "threw out the crap models". The retained model runs were not necessarily more skillful and did not differ in their long term projections. They just happened to start from a similar phase in ENSO, but this was not due to skill. GCM’s cannot currently predict the relative timing of El Niños and La Niñas, which are known to be chaotic .
Every year without statistically significant warming that stretches out the "hiatus" has a small incremental negative effect on the best estimate of TCS
That is true, however we are currently in a negative phase of the PDO. As this reverses and temperature rise accelerates we will see that the opposite is true. Which is why it is hard at this point to narrow the confidence intervals further. I'm not sure that I want to delve too deeply into the fantastic paragraphs near the end of your essay but I do believe that we should base our decisions on our best available science.
I was replying to "Here is a graph...". It states that it LOOKS like SLR is already happening (duh!) and that the rise is accelerating
And so it does. the mean rate of global averaged sea level rise was 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm/yr between 1901 and 2010,
2.0 [1.7 to 2.3] mm/yr between 1971 and 2010, and 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm/yr between 1993 and 2010. http://thebritishgeographer.we... You may think that it is obvious but the person I was responding to was unaware.
As to whether or not the future projections... What part of this makes sense?
None of it. See for instance: Meehl et al. 2005, Rahmstorf 2007, Jevrejeva et al. 2009, Grinsted et al. 2010, Horton et al., 2008; Vermeer and Rahmstorf 2009, Rahmstorf et al. 2012, Jevrejeva et al. 2010, Jevrejeva et al. 2012, Marzeion et al. 2012, Radic et al. 2013, Slangen and van de Wal 2011, Giesen and Oerlemans 2013, Machguth et al. 2013, Meier et al. 2007, Pfeffer et al. 2008, Jeverjeva et al. 2012, Bengtsson et al. 2011, Fettweis et al. 2008, Mernild et al. 2010, Rae et al. 2012, Yoshimori and Abe-Ouchi 2012, etc, etc, etc.
Can you cite any studies that find otherwise? (or is your plan to simply dismiss the science with a wave of your hand?)
Whoa there cowboy! There is no curve fitting here. The instrumental record is just measurements. Future projections are based on physics. No curve fitting.
Apparently, the sun has nothing to do with climate.
Not sure I should engage with the "Science=cult" crowd, but... Of solar output affects surface temperatures, just not enough to counter the warming effect of CO2. Solar output has been dwindling since the 80's while global temperatures have been rising: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/p...
Here is a graph of arctic melting relative to models. You will note that the Arctic has melted much faster than the models predicted. We've already seen melting that we didn't anticipate until 2050. So perhaps some introspection is in order, but not quite the way you are suggesting: http://icons.wxug.com/metgraph...
Here is a graph of past, present, and future projections. It looks like sea level is already rising, and that the rise is accelerating. http://thebritishgeographer.we...
If you look into the deep past you find that sea level had been stable for about 10,000 years. Prior to that there was a period of rapid rise during deglaciation: http://thebritishgeographer.we...
when wind blows, if you're running a nuclear or coal plant, you cannot sell any of your produced electricity until your wind/solar competitors sold everything they produced
In a free market wouldn't coal be at a similar disadvantage? Solar/wind would sell for any price above 0 but coal could not sell below the cost of the resource. When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining the renewable utilities will always sell at market price - even if that drives the market price down to almost nothing. We really need to develop a market that can handle this. Probably that will mean dropping feed in tariffs and charging the consumer a market rate rather than subsidizing the consumer. New technologies will be required to help manage this. For instance your car would charge automatically when the rate drops below 5 cents (and possibly sell excess when the the price is quite high). It is going to require a revolution but given the trajectory of the cost of solar - that revolution is coming one way or the other.
The cuts to subsidies cannot keep up with the dropping cost of renewables. The subsidies should be cut further and renewables would still be profitable. At some point there will be a tipping point when cost for renewables drops below coal. Solar is going to be a disruptive technology on the order of the internet.
Ok. "At the end of 2012, there were 76GW (91GW in 2013) of electricity generating capacity installed in China, more than the total nameplate capacity of China's nuclear power stations,[3] and over the year 115,000 gigawatt-hours of wind electricity had been provided to the grid.[4] In 2011, China's plan was “to have 100 gigawatts (GW) of on-grid wind power generating capacity by the end of 2015 and to generate 190 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of wind power annually” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
For comparison: "As of the end of 2013 the capacity was 61,108 MW.[1] This capacity is exceeded only by China.[2] Projects totaling 12,000 MW of capacity were under construction at the end of 2013, including 10,900 MW that began construction in the 4th quarter.[1]" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
Not bad on either account. Here is a comparison of USA to China on solar power. The trend is very exciting and probably scares the pants off of traditional utilities: http://www.wolframalpha.com/in...
You don't have to admire their government to be concerned that China is leading the way to a new energy economy while a significant portion of the electorate in the west refuses to accept basic physics. We used to be the leaders and innovators. What happened? There is an energy revolution underway and we don't seem to want any part of it.
One wind turbine an hour. Can we compete with that? Shouldn't we at least try?
immediate proximity to a border has very little to do with trade,
How do you figure? Do you think it is a coincidence that 70% of Canadian exports are to the USA? Also, it is worth noting that two of Canada's provinces have revenue neutral carbon taxes. One has closed down all coal plants. They are making strides, but there is a concern that being too far ahead of the curve will put them at a disadvantage.
China is now producing one wind turbine every hour: http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/in... (while we squabble about whether radiative physics is a real thing or just Greenpeace propaganda)
Hey Phlinn,
In addition to my notes above, I just noticed that you can plot PDO in woodfortrees. Plot from 2002 and it shows negative: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/j...
The PDO cycle dominates over the short term, so if PDO is negative then atmospheric temperatures will be negative. PDO does not have a trend.over the long run so while it has a great effect on the 10 or 20 year trend, it has no effect on the long term trend.
HADCRUT3 has even less coverage than HADCRUT4. Why not use the latest and greatest? Regarding mathematical artifacts, replication over many different reconstructions using different methods and different data gives us confidence in the results. Regarding malfeasance, I'm not sure that the resignation of a journal's editor when it becomes clear that the journal is pushing an agenda at the expense of the truth is malfeasance. I'm not inclined to discuss conspiracy theories although I know these narratives are popular. Suffice it to say that I disagree.
Regarding plotting from 2002, yes the trend line is negative for some data sets. It is more negative if you plot from 2010. What does that tell us? Note that the data is consistently above the trend until about 2007. Note that the data cycles above and below the trend as PDO and ENSO wax and wane. What we are seeing is a steady upward trend with natural variability superimposed on top. We're below the trend line now and the indicators show that we should be. That means we will go back above when the indicators flip back to the positive part of their cycle.
When you look at the data, do you have any expectation that the next El Nino will not be the new hottest year on record? That's even with the PDO strongly negative. You can subtract ENSO and PDO from the trend with this tool and you end up with something closer to the real trend: http://scratch.mit.edu/project...
P.S. if you have kids then you should introduce them to Scratch. I've been showing it to my kids and I've become addicted:) Please pardon the Scratch evangelism:)
Yes, the RSS is an outlier. Should we put our faith in the minority report? Woodfortrees will show slope if you click the 'data' link at the bottom of the graph.
Be careful if you are suggesting that the various groups analyzing station temperature are all colluding to show the same result - a result that agrees with the UAH satellite reconstruction compiled by skeptics Spencer and Christy. The adjustments are all documented in the scientific literature. They appear to be necessary in order to make the data more accurately reflect the true global average temperature.
CRU does not have global coverage. CRU has been shown to have a cool bias due to the missing data. Even still, it does show an upward trend of 0.1C over the period. Please look again: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/h....
You can use woodfortrees.org to check for yourself. The folks you cited are using data sets without global coverage, and starting at the (then) 3 sigma El Nino anomaly. The missing data is important, but even still the trend shows a rise of 0.1C over the period: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/h...
I'm not sure why they drew a flat line through that data when the trend is actually up.
It is worth noting that the 3 sigma event that they chose as their starting point is now not that remarkable an event. Modest El Ninos will exceed that event at this point. Soon ENSO neutral years will top that event.
The data they omit is important. Here is a data set with near global coverage. It shows a rise of 0.14C over the period: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g...
Roundabouts with crosswalks circling them sounds ideal, but it's not how they do it where I live. As far as having traffic lights - what is the point of having a roundabout if you have traffic lights as well? That sounds like the worst of both worlds...
They are great for cars, but really bad for foot traffic. At a roundabout, pedestrians must wait until there is a gap in traffic to cross. There is no designated time for pedestrians to cross, like a walk signal, which means at a busy intersection you had better be quick if you want to make it through. You wouldn't want to place this anywhere people want to spend time. Only at busy intersections away from shops and destinations.
This same designated left turn lane came with bike lanes in Toronto and had the same effect. Prior to the bike lanes there was no dedicated parking. People would just park in the right lane - so effectively you only had one lane for cars and no room for a left turn lane. The bike lanes necessitated the designated parking which allowed for the designated turn lane. Traffic crawled before the bike lanes were implemented. It still crawls, but it crawls really fast now.
Reminds me of Asimov: "when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
A newscaster who uses a warm event as an example of the warming trend is less wrong than a contrarian blogger or talk radio host who uses a cold event to dismiss the trend.
Attribution studies are performed to determine whether a specific event can be attributed to climate change.
Aside from that, you need to look at the trends. People will tell you that climate != weather when you use one cold day to dismiss the warming trend. The world is warming. One cold day doesn't change that.
A news caster who finds an event that fits the trend and uses it as an example of that trend it is less wrong than someone who finds meaning in an event that contradicts the trend.
Slashdot Mirror
Who should we believe... The guy who thinks that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job and that Obama faked his birth certificate, or the scientists.... Tough choice...
"Coauthor Felix Landerer of JPL noted that during the same period warming in the top half of the ocean continued unabated, an unequivocal sign that our planet is heating up. Some recent studies reporting deep-ocean warming were, in fact, referring to the warming in the upper half of the ocean but below the topmost layer, which ends about 0.4 mile (700 meters) down"
What this study found was that melting ice and warming of the first 2000 meters accounted for virtually all of the sea level rise. Nice bit of editorializing on the part of bigwheel to suggest that this new data has any impact on "why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years." This does not suggest that the ocean has warmed less than we had previously thought. Only that the warming is occurring primarily in the first 2 kilometers of depth.
Hi rgb, I've replied to your anonymous response. I'm replying to you here so that it shows up in your notifications.
My plan is to dismiss the statistics with a wave of my hand. Meh, I say.
I never claimed to have statistically rejected a linear trend. I simply pointed out that the sea level rise appears to be accelerating. That is certainly true. Sea level was flat for thousands of years after deglaciation. It rose slowly in the 19th century. Faster in the 20th century. Faster still in the 21st (so far). On the surface, SLR appears to be accelerating. Reevaluation may be required if future data deviates, but based on the data available it is hard to reject acceleration. This agrees with the physics so even without statistical significance, a cohesive picture begins to emerge.
Regarding sensitivity, it would be nice if we could further constrain the confidence intervals on this. I'm not convinced that we can, but I am hopeful that sensitivity lies somewhere closer to the bottom or "most likely" value. I'm also optimistic about the progress that we are already making in addressing the issue, although I believe that a market driven the solution would be more efficient than feed in tariffs.
Regarding models predicting ENSO and PDO. There is no expectation that they will. Nor can they predict large volcanic eruptions. I think you may have missed the point of the recent paper that "threw out the crap models". The retained model runs were not necessarily more skillful and did not differ in their long term projections. They just happened to start from a similar phase in ENSO, but this was not due to skill. GCM’s cannot currently predict the relative timing of El Niños and La Niñas, which are known to be chaotic .
Every year without statistically significant warming that stretches out the "hiatus" has a small incremental negative effect on the best estimate of TCS
That is true, however we are currently in a negative phase of the PDO. As this reverses and temperature rise accelerates we will see that the opposite is true. Which is why it is hard at this point to narrow the confidence intervals further. I'm not sure that I want to delve too deeply into the fantastic paragraphs near the end of your essay but I do believe that we should base our decisions on our best available science.
I was replying to "Here is a graph...". It states that it LOOKS like SLR is already happening (duh!) and that the rise is accelerating
And so it does. the mean rate of global averaged sea level rise was 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm/yr between 1901 and 2010, 2.0 [1.7 to 2.3] mm/yr between 1971 and 2010, and 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm/yr between 1993 and 2010. http://thebritishgeographer.we... You may think that it is obvious but the person I was responding to was unaware.
As to whether or not the future projections ... What part of this makes sense?
None of it. See for instance: Meehl et al. 2005, Rahmstorf 2007, Jevrejeva et al. 2009, Grinsted et al. 2010, Horton et al., 2008; Vermeer and Rahmstorf 2009, Rahmstorf et al. 2012, Jevrejeva et al. 2010, Jevrejeva et al. 2012, Marzeion et al. 2012, Radic et al. 2013, Slangen and van de Wal 2011, Giesen and Oerlemans 2013, Machguth et al. 2013, Meier et al. 2007, Pfeffer et al. 2008, Jeverjeva et al. 2012, Bengtsson et al. 2011, Fettweis et al. 2008, Mernild et al. 2010, Rae et al. 2012, Yoshimori and Abe-Ouchi 2012, etc, etc, etc.
Can you cite any studies that find otherwise? (or is your plan to simply dismiss the science with a wave of your hand?)
Whoa there cowboy! There is no curve fitting here. The instrumental record is just measurements. Future projections are based on physics. No curve fitting.
Apparently, the sun has nothing to do with climate.
Not sure I should engage with the "Science=cult" crowd, but... Of solar output affects surface temperatures, just not enough to counter the warming effect of CO2. Solar output has been dwindling since the 80's while global temperatures have been rising: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/p...
Here is a graph of arctic melting relative to models. You will note that the Arctic has melted much faster than the models predicted. We've already seen melting that we didn't anticipate until 2050. So perhaps some introspection is in order, but not quite the way you are suggesting: http://icons.wxug.com/metgraph...
Here is a graph of past, present, and future projections. It looks like sea level is already rising, and that the rise is accelerating. http://thebritishgeographer.we...
If you look into the deep past you find that sea level had been stable for about 10,000 years. Prior to that there was a period of rapid rise during deglaciation: http://thebritishgeographer.we...
when wind blows, if you're running a nuclear or coal plant, you cannot sell any of your produced electricity until your wind/solar competitors sold everything they produced
In a free market wouldn't coal be at a similar disadvantage? Solar/wind would sell for any price above 0 but coal could not sell below the cost of the resource. When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining the renewable utilities will always sell at market price - even if that drives the market price down to almost nothing. We really need to develop a market that can handle this. Probably that will mean dropping feed in tariffs and charging the consumer a market rate rather than subsidizing the consumer. New technologies will be required to help manage this. For instance your car would charge automatically when the rate drops below 5 cents (and possibly sell excess when the the price is quite high). It is going to require a revolution but given the trajectory of the cost of solar - that revolution is coming one way or the other.
The cuts to subsidies cannot keep up with the dropping cost of renewables. The subsidies should be cut further and renewables would still be profitable. At some point there will be a tipping point when cost for renewables drops below coal. Solar is going to be a disruptive technology on the order of the internet.
Ok. "At the end of 2012, there were 76GW (91GW in 2013) of electricity generating capacity installed in China, more than the total nameplate capacity of China's nuclear power stations,[3] and over the year 115,000 gigawatt-hours of wind electricity had been provided to the grid.[4] In 2011, China's plan was “to have 100 gigawatts (GW) of on-grid wind power generating capacity by the end of 2015 and to generate 190 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of wind power annually” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
For comparison: "As of the end of 2013 the capacity was 61,108 MW.[1] This capacity is exceeded only by China.[2] Projects totaling 12,000 MW of capacity were under construction at the end of 2013, including 10,900 MW that began construction in the 4th quarter.[1]" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
Not bad on either account. Here is a comparison of USA to China on solar power. The trend is very exciting and probably scares the pants off of traditional utilities: http://www.wolframalpha.com/in...
Here is a comparision of USA to China on wind power. Also an exciting trend: http://www.wolframalpha.com/in...
It looks like China really needs to catch up on nuclear. If they start popping out nuclear plants like they do wind turbines we are in real trouble.
You don't have to admire their government to be concerned that China is leading the way to a new energy economy while a significant portion of the electorate in the west refuses to accept basic physics. We used to be the leaders and innovators. What happened? There is an energy revolution underway and we don't seem to want any part of it.
One wind turbine an hour. Can we compete with that? Shouldn't we at least try?
immediate proximity to a border has very little to do with trade,
How do you figure? Do you think it is a coincidence that 70% of Canadian exports are to the USA? Also, it is worth noting that two of Canada's provinces have revenue neutral carbon taxes. One has closed down all coal plants. They are making strides, but there is a concern that being too far ahead of the curve will put them at a disadvantage.
China is now producing one wind turbine every hour: http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/in... (while we squabble about whether radiative physics is a real thing or just Greenpeace propaganda)
The PDO cycle dominates over the short term, so if PDO is negative then atmospheric temperatures will be negative. PDO does not have a trend.over the long run so while it has a great effect on the 10 or 20 year trend, it has no effect on the long term trend.
HADCRUT3 has even less coverage than HADCRUT4. Why not use the latest and greatest? Regarding mathematical artifacts, replication over many different reconstructions using different methods and different data gives us confidence in the results. Regarding malfeasance, I'm not sure that the resignation of a journal's editor when it becomes clear that the journal is pushing an agenda at the expense of the truth is malfeasance. I'm not inclined to discuss conspiracy theories although I know these narratives are popular. Suffice it to say that I disagree.
Regarding plotting from 2002, yes the trend line is negative for some data sets. It is more negative if you plot from 2010. What does that tell us? Note that the data is consistently above the trend until about 2007. Note that the data cycles above and below the trend as PDO and ENSO wax and wane. What we are seeing is a steady upward trend with natural variability superimposed on top. We're below the trend line now and the indicators show that we should be. That means we will go back above when the indicators flip back to the positive part of their cycle.
When you look at the data, do you have any expectation that the next El Nino will not be the new hottest year on record? That's even with the PDO strongly negative. You can subtract ENSO and PDO from the trend with this tool and you end up with something closer to the real trend: http://scratch.mit.edu/project...
P.S. if you have kids then you should introduce them to Scratch. I've been showing it to my kids and I've become addicted :) Please pardon the Scratch evangelism :)
Yes, the RSS is an outlier. Should we put our faith in the minority report? Woodfortrees will show slope if you click the 'data' link at the bottom of the graph.
Be careful if you are suggesting that the various groups analyzing station temperature are all colluding to show the same result - a result that agrees with the UAH satellite reconstruction compiled by skeptics Spencer and Christy. The adjustments are all documented in the scientific literature. They appear to be necessary in order to make the data more accurately reflect the true global average temperature.
CRU does not have global coverage. CRU has been shown to have a cool bias due to the missing data. Even still, it does show an upward trend of 0.1C over the period. Please look again: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/h....
You can use woodfortrees.org to check for yourself. The folks you cited are using data sets without global coverage, and starting at the (then) 3 sigma El Nino anomaly. The missing data is important, but even still the trend shows a rise of 0.1C over the period: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/h...
I'm not sure why they drew a flat line through that data when the trend is actually up.
It is worth noting that the 3 sigma event that they chose as their starting point is now not that remarkable an event. Modest El Ninos will exceed that event at this point. Soon ENSO neutral years will top that event.
Satellite data compiled by skeptics Spencer and Christy shows 0.08C over the period: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/u...
The data they omit is important. Here is a data set with near global coverage. It shows a rise of 0.14C over the period: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g...
Roundabouts with crosswalks circling them sounds ideal, but it's not how they do it where I live. As far as having traffic lights - what is the point of having a roundabout if you have traffic lights as well? That sounds like the worst of both worlds...
They are great for cars, but really bad for foot traffic. At a roundabout, pedestrians must wait until there is a gap in traffic to cross. There is no designated time for pedestrians to cross, like a walk signal, which means at a busy intersection you had better be quick if you want to make it through. You wouldn't want to place this anywhere people want to spend time. Only at busy intersections away from shops and destinations.
This same designated left turn lane came with bike lanes in Toronto and had the same effect. Prior to the bike lanes there was no dedicated parking. People would just park in the right lane - so effectively you only had one lane for cars and no room for a left turn lane. The bike lanes necessitated the designated parking which allowed for the designated turn lane. Traffic crawled before the bike lanes were implemented. It still crawls, but it crawls really fast now.
Reminds me of Asimov: "when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."
A newscaster who uses a warm event as an example of the warming trend is less wrong than a contrarian blogger or talk radio host who uses a cold event to dismiss the trend.
Attribution studies are performed to determine whether a specific event can be attributed to climate change.
Aside from that, you need to look at the trends. People will tell you that climate != weather when you use one cold day to dismiss the warming trend. The world is warming. One cold day doesn't change that.
A news caster who finds an event that fits the trend and uses it as an example of that trend it is less wrong than someone who finds meaning in an event that contradicts the trend.