Here we combine our earlier data with measurements taken in 2009 to show that the temperature and volume of deep water in Pine Island Bay have increased. Ocean transport and tracer calculations near the ice shelf reveal a rise in meltwater production by about 50% since 1994. The faster melting seems to result mainly from stronger sub-ice-shelf circulation, as thinning ice has increased the gap above an underlying submarine bank on which the glacier was formerly grounded. We conclude that the basal melting has exceeded the increase in ice inflow, leading to the formation and enlargement of an inner cavity under the ice shelf within which sea water nearly 4C above freezing can now more readily access the grounding zone.
The remarkable success of the anti-science position on climate change is due in large part to the development of a successful narrative plot that casts scientists as evil schemers against the public. The attempts made by scientists to respond with scientific evidence to the attacks have not been a success.
Global warming skeptics were clearly taken by surprise by the BEST results and their reaction tells us a lot on their way to approach the question. I had expected that they would fall in good order to their second line of defense; that is to saying that, “yes, global warming exists, but it is not caused by human activity”. Instead, they reacted with a vicious counterattack against the BEST study and its authors, with Richard Muller turning almost overnight from hero to traitor and being vilified in all possible ways.
It was already clear that the debate on global warming was not a scientific debate, but it is starting to be clear now how remote from science the position of the skeptics is. Their whole interpretation of climate science pivots around a single narration. It says that a group of evil scientists manipulated the temperature data in order to show a warming that doesn’t exist. They were caught red-handed when their private emails were made public in what we call the “Climategate” scandal.
No wonder that the denial side doesn’t want to abandon this narrative. It would not be the same thing for them if they were forced to battle climate science on the question of whether warming is caused by human activity or not. That becomes a battle of facts vs. facts as there is no equivalent fancy story that tells us of how evil scientists are.
If that is all that climategate amounts to, then ok. Some guy didn't want to broker a deal between the data owners and the 'skeptics'. So what? Everyone who was interested in science went straight to the source. Those more interested in blogging about being refused access to the data also had their needs met.
This is the scandal that rocked climate science? Wow. Talk about over hyped!
The fact that they could get the data from other sources is irrelevant.
Well, it's relevant if you are interested in science. If your motives are disingenuous then you would keep pestering people who didn't own the data rather than getting it from those who did.
Probably broke the law? Either he did or he didn't. So far he has not been convicted of anything and I am not aware of any pending charges. (Are the cops in on the conspiracy?) It looks like you are more interested in making allegations than you are in science. You can try to obfuscate the truth by weaving narratives about the personalities. The science is clear. It has been confirmed by multiple parties using multiple methods. The world is warming. We are responsible.
Their critics wanted a copy of the primary data to see if they would arrive at the same results of the CRU
Then they should have negotiated with the owners of the data. That is what dozens of other interested parties did. They were all able to show that the CRU results are robust. Are the 'skeptics' incompetent or are they just aware that having the data is not an effective way to sew doubt, but pestering scientists and weaving narratives is.
Some people who are interested in truth are not at all interested in environmentalism. This is why your preference for environmentalism over truth did not impress them.
I remain unconvinced by the preponderance of evidence presented that we are the major cause, or one of the most significant causes.
We can measure how big an impact we are having on the climate. The direct impact of CO2 can be calculated by: Delta F = 5.35 ln (C/C0}W/m^2), where C0 is the reference carbon level and C is the current carbon level (in parts per million). This is derived from measurement, not theory or guesswork.
So we don't have to guess at the impact of carbon. We know that it is currently 1.8 W/m^2 greater now than during pre-industrial times. 1.8 watts over the surface of 5.1*10^14 m^2 is 9.1^15 watts, or in standard American units, about 52000 Hiroshima bombs per hour. This is enough (if sustained long enough for the system to reach equilibrium) to warm the Earth.
We also don't have to guess what impact various feedbacks are having. A warmer atmosphere holds more water. We can measure the increase and we know the impact of doubling water vapor (also from measurements) so we can quantify that feedback. Likewise methane is released when permafrost thaws. We can measure that increase, and we know the impact etc, etc.
GISS methods have been published for over a decade. The code and data is available on their website. That you still think this is unavailable is proof that certain vocal individuals are more interested in casting doubt on science than in discovering the truth.
CO2 is only a greenhouse gas (in that it has a higher heat capacity than the average of the remaining atmospheric components
That is not even remotely what defines a greenhouse gas. No wonder you are confused. A greenhouse gas is opaque to infrared light. it has nothing to do with heat capacity.
It doesn't look like these papers relate to whether recent record droughts or other extreme weather events can be attributed to climate change. There is a consensus regarding whether and why the globe is warming. I'm not certain that there is a consensus on attribution of extreme weather events - although there is certainly evidence. I'm waiting for the next IPCC report.
How can you say "not according to the science"? You look at weather records and you'll see that in the late 70s and early 80s we had some incredible heatwaves.
If you are talking about some place in specific that is not mentioned in the papers above (or southern USA which is also experiencing unprecedented heat and drought), but not the global mean temperature in general, then yes. There are places where at some point in the past there was a heatwave greater than one experienced lately - but I wouldn't rely on your or your fathers intuition. Go look it up. In general, records hot days are outpacing record cold days by a large margin, and by an even larger margin over the last few years.
The actual scandal was that Jones was refusing access to his data and methods
I'm shocked to hear that the right wing media misled me, however even your 'real' scandal doesn't hold water. He didn't have any data to withhold., CRU doesn't collect data, they just analyze it. As for the methods, they were fiendishly hidden in the published literature. Their work was replicated dozens of times by those interested in science. Those interested in casting doubt on science focused on the personalities and their individual transgressions.
First off, they would not reveal all the sources of their data. Some of it was public, true, but some of it was arranged via private business arrangement with international sources, not all of which they would name. And they would not release those data, precisely because of their claim that the sources wanted confidentiality.
The sources were governments who wanted money, not confidentiality. You don't need to use the exact same weather stations to replicate the results. Roy Spencer didn't even use weather stations for UAH. He used satellite data. The BEST team didn't go to CRU for data, they went to the sources (and likely payed). NASA didn't go to CRU for the data, they went to the sources. Hobbyist gathered publicly available data. All performed an independent analysis and came up with the same answer. The fact that they all came to the same answer using different data and different methods means that we can trust the result. This is science. Very highly corroborated science.
Simply running the same code against the same data proves nothing. This is what the skeptics seem interested in. They are not interested in science, only on casting doubt on science.
But as I pointed out above, that data was not actually available, so they could not. Some of the data, as you point out, was available from both CRU and NASA. But by not means all of it
No no no no no! That is flat out wrong! NASA doesn't OWN any data to release. They don't own any weather stations. Anyone can get the data from the owners - just like NASA did - just like BEST did - just like hobbyists did - and replicate the findings.
NASA did (about a decade ago) package up and publish on the web ALL of the data that they used, but there was no impediment to replicating their results prior to that release. When it was released, there was no epiphany from the skeptic crowd. They simply moved on to pester CRU.
If the skeptics were interested in science then they would have created a reconstruction of their own and publish the methods and findings.. Roy Spencer did this with UAH. Mueller did this with BEST. These guys were interested in science. Both found (to their surprise) that yes, temperatures are rising by the amount that NASA and CRU have stated. That is true skepticism
The 'skeptics' that you refer to are not interested in science. They are only interested casting doubt on science.
Water vapor is the only current significant greenhouse gas.
Atmospheric water vapor increases as the world warms (which as you point out further warms the world).
My argument is entirely over CO2 and I am arguing that it is only a minor one at that.
The direct impact of CO2 can be calculated by: Delta F = 5.35 ln (C/C0}W/m^2), where C0 is the reference carbon level and C is the current carbon level (in parts per million). This is derived from measurement, not theory or guesswork.
So we don't have to guess at the impact of carbon. We know that it is currently 1.8 W/m^2. 1.8 watts over the surface of 5.1*10^14 m^2 is 9.1^15 watts, or in standard American units, about 52000 Hiroshima bombs per hour. This is enough (if sustained long enough for the system to reach equilibrium) to warm the Earth. As you point out, a warmer Earth has more atmospheric water. We can measure the increase and we know the impact (also from measurements) so we can quantify that feedback. Likewise methane is released when permafrost thaws. We can measure that increase, etc, etc.
So we don't need to rely on intuition to determine the relative impact of CO2. This can be measured.
When the weather is unseasonably cold or wet, "weather isn't climate". When the weather is unseasonably warm, "the weather is affected by climate change"
Right. You can't take a cold/hot day as proof that global warming has ended/advanced. You would need to do some science to show that..That is what was done here.
Which is it? For the record, the weather is pretty much the same as it was 30 years ago when we had record-breaking heatwaves in the late 70s and early 80s.
If AGW eventually turns out to have any validity, Jones, Mann and friends should not get any credit for their theory because their refusal to release the data made it (at the time) impossible to verify any of their findings.
Nonsense. It's not their data. They did not collect it, they just compiled it. It can be obtained by others the same way that they obtained it. They have no power to block that. In fact NASA has had it nicely bundled and available on the internet for almost a decade.
Both the paleoclimate reconstructions and instrumental reconstructions have been replicated dozens of times by scientists and hobbyists - all well before climategate. If the skeptics really believed that the findings were invalid then they would 'do some science' of their own and find out the truth. As it turns out, no matter how you slice or dice it you get the same answer. So instead of doing science they focus on the personalities and their private emails.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a great site that lets you compare the various temperature reconstructions (as well as CO2 and solar output). woodfortrees.org
A paper published in Nature back in December describes the cause: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v4/n8/full/ngeo1188.html
Here we combine our earlier data with measurements taken in 2009 to show that the temperature and volume of deep water in Pine Island Bay have increased. Ocean transport and tracer calculations near the ice shelf reveal a rise in meltwater production by about 50% since 1994. The faster melting seems to result mainly from stronger sub-ice-shelf circulation, as thinning ice has increased the gap above an underlying submarine bank on which the glacier was formerly grounded. We conclude that the basal melting has exceeded the increase in ice inflow, leading to the formation and enlargement of an inner cavity under the ice shelf within which sea water nearly 4C above freezing can now more readily access the grounding zone.
http://planet3.org/2011/11/02/narrative-and-science-in-the-debate-on-climate-change/
The remarkable success of the anti-science position on climate change is due in large part to the development of a successful narrative plot that casts scientists as evil schemers against the public. The attempts made by scientists to respond with scientific evidence to the attacks have not been a success.
Global warming skeptics were clearly taken by surprise by the BEST results and their reaction tells us a lot on their way to approach the question. I had expected that they would fall in good order to their second line of defense; that is to saying that, “yes, global warming exists, but it is not caused by human activity”. Instead, they reacted with a vicious counterattack against the BEST study and its authors, with Richard Muller turning almost overnight from hero to traitor and being vilified in all possible ways.
It was already clear that the debate on global warming was not a scientific debate, but it is starting to be clear now how remote from science the position of the skeptics is. Their whole interpretation of climate science pivots around a single narration. It says that a group of evil scientists manipulated the temperature data in order to show a warming that doesn’t exist. They were caught red-handed when their private emails were made public in what we call the “Climategate” scandal.
No wonder that the denial side doesn’t want to abandon this narrative. It would not be the same thing for them if they were forced to battle climate science on the question of whether warming is caused by human activity or not. That becomes a battle of facts vs. facts as there is no equivalent fancy story that tells us of how evil scientists are.
If that is all that climategate amounts to, then ok. Some guy didn't want to broker a deal between the data owners and the 'skeptics'. So what? Everyone who was interested in science went straight to the source. Those more interested in blogging about being refused access to the data also had their needs met.
This is the scandal that rocked climate science? Wow. Talk about over hyped!
The fact that they could get the data from other sources is irrelevant.
Well, it's relevant if you are interested in science. If your motives are disingenuous then you would keep pestering people who didn't own the data rather than getting it from those who did.
Probably broke the law? Either he did or he didn't. So far he has not been convicted of anything and I am not aware of any pending charges. (Are the cops in on the conspiracy?) It looks like you are more interested in making allegations than you are in science. You can try to obfuscate the truth by weaving narratives about the personalities. The science is clear. It has been confirmed by multiple parties using multiple methods. The world is warming. We are responsible.
Their critics wanted a copy of the primary data to see if they would arrive at the same results of the CRU
Then they should have negotiated with the owners of the data. That is what dozens of other interested parties did. They were all able to show that the CRU results are robust. Are the 'skeptics' incompetent or are they just aware that having the data is not an effective way to sew doubt, but pestering scientists and weaving narratives is.
Impossible. Back then people were worried about global cooling, not global warming.
Every gas has a heat capacity, but not every gas is opaque to infra red. Simply comparing the heat capacity will give you a very wrong answer.
Some people who are interested in truth are not at all interested in environmentalism. This is why your preference for environmentalism over truth did not impress them.
I remain unconvinced by the preponderance of evidence presented that we are the major cause, or one of the most significant causes.
We can measure how big an impact we are having on the climate. The direct impact of CO2 can be calculated by: Delta F = 5.35 ln (C /C0}W/m^2), where C0 is the reference carbon level and C is the current carbon level (in parts per million). This is derived from measurement, not theory or guesswork.
So we don't have to guess at the impact of carbon. We know that it is currently 1.8 W/m^2 greater now than during pre-industrial times. 1.8 watts over the surface of 5.1*10^14 m^2 is 9.1^15 watts, or in standard American units, about 52000 Hiroshima bombs per hour. This is enough (if sustained long enough for the system to reach equilibrium) to warm the Earth.
We also don't have to guess what impact various feedbacks are having. A warmer atmosphere holds more water. We can measure the increase and we know the impact of doubling water vapor (also from measurements) so we can quantify that feedback. Likewise methane is released when permafrost thaws. We can measure that increase, and we know the impact etc, etc.
So we don't need to rely on intuition to determine the relative impact of CO2. This can be measured. If you compare this forcing to others (such as solar variability) it becomes clear that this is now the most significant. So much so that even while solar output drops, temperatures continue to rise: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12/plot/uah/offset:0.225/mean:12/plot/rss/offset:0.14/mean:12/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:136/scale:0.01/offset:-0.8
GISS that won't provide the methods
GISS methods have been published for over a decade. The code and data is available on their website. That you still think this is unavailable is proof that certain vocal individuals are more interested in casting doubt on science than in discovering the truth.
CO2 is only a greenhouse gas (in that it has a higher heat capacity than the average of the remaining atmospheric components
That is not even remotely what defines a greenhouse gas. No wonder you are confused. A greenhouse gas is opaque to infrared light. it has nothing to do with heat capacity.
Of course he's not a real skeptic. His opinion was swayed by facts and reason.
It doesn't look like these papers relate to whether recent record droughts or other extreme weather events can be attributed to climate change. There is a consensus regarding whether and why the globe is warming. I'm not certain that there is a consensus on attribution of extreme weather events - although there is certainly evidence. I'm waiting for the next IPCC report.
How can you say "not according to the science"? You look at weather records and you'll see that in the late 70s and early 80s we had some incredible heatwaves.
If you are referring to either of the regions referenced in the papers, then no. The recent droughts were unprecedented. If you are talking about the globe on average, then no. Though the 70's were hot compared to previous decades, and the 80's were hotter still, they were both much cooler than the 2000's. Here are the various temperature reconstructions: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/mean:24/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:24/plot/uah/offset:0.225/mean:24/plot/rss/offset:0.14/mean:24
If you are talking about some place in specific that is not mentioned in the papers above (or southern USA which is also experiencing unprecedented heat and drought), but not the global mean temperature in general, then yes. There are places where at some point in the past there was a heatwave greater than one experienced lately - but I wouldn't rely on your or your fathers intuition. Go look it up. In general, records hot days are outpacing record cold days by a large margin, and by an even larger margin over the last few years.
The actual scandal was that Jones was refusing access to his data and methods
I'm shocked to hear that the right wing media misled me, however even your 'real' scandal doesn't hold water. He didn't have any data to withhold., CRU doesn't collect data, they just analyze it. As for the methods, they were fiendishly hidden in the published literature. Their work was replicated dozens of times by those interested in science. Those interested in casting doubt on science focused on the personalities and their individual transgressions.
First off, they would not reveal all the sources of their data. Some of it was public, true, but some of it was arranged via private business arrangement with international sources, not all of which they would name. And they would not release those data, precisely because of their claim that the sources wanted confidentiality.
The sources were governments who wanted money, not confidentiality. You don't need to use the exact same weather stations to replicate the results. Roy Spencer didn't even use weather stations for UAH. He used satellite data. The BEST team didn't go to CRU for data, they went to the sources (and likely payed). NASA didn't go to CRU for the data, they went to the sources. Hobbyist gathered publicly available data. All performed an independent analysis and came up with the same answer. The fact that they all came to the same answer using different data and different methods means that we can trust the result. This is science. Very highly corroborated science.
Simply running the same code against the same data proves nothing. This is what the skeptics seem interested in. They are not interested in science, only on casting doubt on science.
But as I pointed out above, that data was not actually available, so they could not. Some of the data, as you point out, was available from both CRU and NASA. But by not means all of it
No no no no no! That is flat out wrong! NASA doesn't OWN any data to release. They don't own any weather stations. Anyone can get the data from the owners - just like NASA did - just like BEST did - just like hobbyists did - and replicate the findings.
NASA did (about a decade ago) package up and publish on the web ALL of the data that they used, but there was no impediment to replicating their results prior to that release. When it was released, there was no epiphany from the skeptic crowd. They simply moved on to pester CRU.
If the skeptics were interested in science then they would have created a reconstruction of their own and publish the methods and findings.. Roy Spencer did this with UAH. Mueller did this with BEST. These guys were interested in science. Both found (to their surprise) that yes, temperatures are rising by the amount that NASA and CRU have stated. That is true skepticism
The 'skeptics' that you refer to are not interested in science. They are only interested casting doubt on science.
Water vapor is the only current significant greenhouse gas.
Atmospheric water vapor increases as the world warms (which as you point out further warms the world).
My argument is entirely over CO2 and I am arguing that it is only a minor one at that.
The direct impact of CO2 can be calculated by: Delta F = 5.35 ln (C /C0}W/m^2), where C0 is the reference carbon level and C is the current carbon level (in parts per million). This is derived from measurement, not theory or guesswork.
So we don't have to guess at the impact of carbon. We know that it is currently 1.8 W/m^2. 1.8 watts over the surface of 5.1*10^14 m^2 is 9.1^15 watts, or in standard American units, about 52000 Hiroshima bombs per hour. This is enough (if sustained long enough for the system to reach equilibrium) to warm the Earth. As you point out, a warmer Earth has more atmospheric water. We can measure the increase and we know the impact (also from measurements) so we can quantify that feedback. Likewise methane is released when permafrost thaws. We can measure that increase, etc, etc.
So we don't need to rely on intuition to determine the relative impact of CO2. This can be measured.
"I suspect the answer may be hidden in the paper."
And I strongly suspect that it is not.
I guess there's only one way to find out...
When the weather is unseasonably cold or wet, "weather isn't climate". When the weather is unseasonably warm, "the weather is affected by climate change"
Right. You can't take a cold/hot day as proof that global warming has ended/advanced. You would need to do some science to show that..That is what was done here.
Which is it? For the record, the weather is pretty much the same as it was 30 years ago when we had record-breaking heatwaves in the late 70s and early 80s.
Not according to the science.
If AGW eventually turns out to have any validity, Jones, Mann and friends should not get any credit for their theory because their refusal to release the data made it (at the time) impossible to verify any of their findings.
Nonsense. It's not their data. They did not collect it, they just compiled it. It can be obtained by others the same way that they obtained it. They have no power to block that. In fact NASA has had it nicely bundled and available on the internet for almost a decade.
Both the paleoclimate reconstructions and instrumental reconstructions have been replicated dozens of times by scientists and hobbyists - all well before climategate. If the skeptics really believed that the findings were invalid then they would 'do some science' of their own and find out the truth. As it turns out, no matter how you slice or dice it you get the same answer. So instead of doing science they focus on the personalities and their private emails.
Where is the hockeystick graph for Mars, which has CO2 concentrations far beyond anything achievable on Earth?
Mars has about 0.0048 of the atmosphere that Earth has (by mass). Most of it is CO2, but there ain't much of it.
What I can't understand is how the Earth's temperature has remained essentially static (with a slight downward trend) for the last 12 years.
Because they haven't. Here are all the major temperature reconstructions. All agree that the last 12 years showed warming. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/offset:-0.074/mean:12/from:1999/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:12/from:1999/plot/uah/offset:0.225/mean:12/from:1999/plot/rss/offset:0.14/mean:12/from:1999
Seriously, how can you imagine that there has been a slight downward trend when 2010 was the hottest year on record?