In the End

[Pandora]

However you slice it, there was a 26% increase and not a further decrease.

sure, but it is utterly meaningless. Whether there was further ice loss from 2007 or not tells you nothing about whether global warming has stopped. You need longer time scales for this. Think of a fatally ill person. Just because he feels better then two days ago doesn't mean that his illness is gone.

One has to have a baseline to compare with to see if GW is advancing, halting or reversing.

yes, but the baseline has to be meaningful and CONSISTENT. You can't compare surface temperatures against 1998 (because this was a record year for surface temperatures) and at the same time arctic ice with 2007 (just because it was a record year for arctic ice). The selection of a baseline has to be driven by prior principles, and it should be long enough to make any statistic inference. Both 1998 and 2007 don't allow this (yet).
.

It will take more than a few years to see if a reversal trend has started so time will tell.

Exactly.

by the way, wood for tress now also has arctic ice extent. Look at this. I put a 12 month moving average on this to get rid of the summer/winter modulation.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-n/mean:12
the 2007 wiggle is nothing special, such drops and subsequent rises have occured before and will happen again; it tells us nothing about the long term trend.

[Will Robinson]

I think they are relevant when you take it in context of a political authority trying to alter our lifestyle and economy in a detrimental way all in the name of 'saving the planet' when the planet is heating up and cooling down on it's own schedule in spite of mans worst and proposed best action!

Why does politics make cooling that will happen in several thousand years more relevant? I don't get it.

Because the scare tactic has been the ice melts, the oceans swallow the people, what isn't flooded is drought stricken for centuries and we all die if we don't take drastic measures yesterday.
Well that is bull crap and if they dared tell the people that the 1/2 degree rise in temps over the last hundred years (whatever the number and timeline, I don't recall) that they are going all Chicken Little about is actually a part of the 10 degree rise over 10,000 years that we're currently riding toward the peak of right now.... and temps will then go back down as the cycle comes around the other way. All without the oceans swallowing us up etc. etc. etc. All regardless of having signed Kyoto or not....all regardless of having turned the U.N. into the world authority on wealth redistribuution in the name of saving the planet or not!

The planet says Heh! at the silly notion we humans can crank up it's heater to the point of hurting it!

[Pandora]

if they dared tell the people that the 1/2 degree rise in temps over the last hundred years (whatever the number and timeline, I don't recall) that they are going all Chicken Little about is actually a part of the 10 degree rise over 10,000 years that we're currently riding toward the peak of right now...

no idea where you got this from. I am not aware of any serious climate scientist proposing something like that. Of course, if you think this is because it is a large scale conspiracy/group think anyways, then we just have to agree to disagree on that.

[Pandora]

[he planet says Heh! at the silly notion we humans can crank up it's heater to the point of hurting it!

Again, I don't see the logic in this. We know that single volcanoe eruptions have large effects on the global climate system, but for some reason all the pollutants we put into the air over decades do not?

[woodchip]

if they dared tell the people that the 1/2 degree rise in temps over the last hundred years (whatever the number and timeline, I don't recall) that they are going all Chicken Little about is actually a part of the 10 degree rise over 10,000 years that we're currently riding toward the peak of right now...

no idea where you got this from. I am not aware of any serious climate scientist proposing something like that. Of course, if you think this is because it is a large scale conspiracy/group think anyways, then we just have to agree to disagree on that.

Maybe not the scientists but certainly profit driven people like Algore use it all the time. As do power driven politicians with agendas.

[woodchip]

However you slice it, there was a 26% increase and not a further decrease.

sure, but it is utterly meaningless. Whether there was further ice loss from 2007 or not tells you nothing about whether global warming has stopped. You need longer time scales for this. Think of a fatally ill person. Just because he feels better then two days ago doesn't mean that his illness is gone.

Agreed but my point was, if ever more CO2 is being pumped into the atmosphere, why would we be seeing such a massive extension of the ice sheet?

It will take more than a few years to see if a reversal trend has started so time will tell.

Exactly.

by the way, wood for tress now also has arctic ice extent. Look at this. I put a 12 month moving average on this to get rid of the summer/winter modulation.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-n/mean:12
the 2007 wiggle is nothing special, such drops and subsequent rises have occured before and will happen again; it tells us nothing about the long term trend.[/quote]

Again a 30-50 year time period does not a climate trend make (poetic eh?)

[Pandora]

Again a 30-50 year time period does not a climate trend make (poetic eh?)

Poetic but not true. A 30-50 year period definately makes a climate trend.

[woodchip]

Again a 30-50 year time period does not a climate trend make (poetic eh?)

Poetic but not true. A 30-50 year period definitely makes a climate trend.

Go back and look at my graph on page 2 of this thread and perhaps you will understand how inconsequential the last 50 years are in the larger scope of things. Over the last 10,000 years we are not even making a blip on the chart. We are still below the medieval cooling period. There is still not enough data to show whether man induced factors or natural causes are actually causing any warming. I have posted enough anomalys to show that surprises constantly crop up that indicate the models presented as fact are indeed rather lacking.

[Pandora]

Who cares about a scope this large? We can worry about what will happen in 10000 years when we have solved the current problem.

There is still not enough data to show whether man induced factors or natural causes are actually causing any warming. I have posted enough anomalys to show that surprises constantly crop up that indicate the models presented as fact are indeed rather lacking.

Woody, the problem is that you don't know all the data out there. There is indeed more than enough data showing that we are causing the current warming. As far as I can see, there is no other natural factor that would explain (and even predict):

a) warming of the lower athmosphere with
b) a simultaneous cooling of the upper athmosphere
c) less outwards radiation into space (at the frequency bands of CO2)
d) more inwards radiation onto the surface (at the frequency bands of CO2)
e) while none of the known natural factors are currently happening.

So what is important is not that there is a blip currently happening, but that the blip has a signature that cannot be explained by anything else but greenhouse gases. If points a to e would not be there, I would agree with you: we can read not much out of the blip alone.

[edited for clarity)

[Pandora]

argh! hit quote instead of edit.

[Will Robinson]

Who cares about a scope this large? We can worry about what will happen in 10000 years when we have solved the current problem....

When they give up wealth redistribution as a "solution" let me know and I'll listen to the new "solution".
As far as the actual proposed reductions in output they have proposed they are

a: too destructive to the economy thus they are never going to be undertaken and instead they are giving birth to feel-good-but-useless measures like Algores ponzi scheme where pollution continues but polluters pay him commisions to broker credits from countries that don't have the capacity to pollute on the same scale as those who would be forced to buy the credits...

and

b: if the planet is following it's own schedule of heating up many more degrees than we are raising it with our measly contribution and is going to follow that trend regardless of our best efforts, what kind of a solution do you have that will make a damn bit of difference in the face of such a relentless long term trend?!? At best you might hope to chip off a slight tip of one peak on the numerous upward ticks on the timeline but the big picture will show your best efforts as one slightly lower spike in a series of other spikes on a ten thousand year overall upward slope of temperature rise.

Politicians and anti-capitalists have taken control of the environmental movement. They have bought you guys out with grants and the power of their bully pulpits.
That may aggravate you scientists but until you run them out you will all suffer the guilt by association if you appear to be in support of their agenda.

[woodchip]

Woody, the problem is that you don't know all the data out there. There is indeed more than enough data showing that we are causing the current warming. As far as I can see, there is no other natural factor that would explain (and even predict):

a) warming of the lower athmosphere with
b) a simultaneous cooling of the upper athmosphere
c) less outwards radiation into space (at the frequency bands of CO2)
d) more inwards radiation onto the surface (at the frequency bands of CO2)
e) while none of the known natural factors are currently happening.

While A-D may be true, I would still have to argue E. Natural factors certainly drove temps up in the past to points way above what they are now. From a ABC clip of exploding eruptions:

"Scientists hope deep-ocean eruptions can tell them more about how the planet recycles heat and matter at the friction points where Earth's tectonic plates meet. They also hope to learn more about how carbon dioxide and sulfur gases cycle through the ocean."

In short we do not yet know what part Oceans and undersea vulcanism play in the warming of the atmosphere. From Nasa:

"According to their research, the eruptions preceded the mass extinction by a geological blink of the eye. The event occurred within 23 thousand years of the extinction and the underwater volcanic eruption had two consequences: first, nutrients were released, which allowed mass feeding and growth of plants and animals. When these organisms died, their decomposition and fall towards the sea floor caused further oxygen depletion, thereby compounding the effects of the volcanic eruption and release of clouds of carbon dioxide in to the oceans and atmosphere."

So we do know that undersea vulcanism can be instrumental in charging the atmosphere with high amounts of CO2. Is it happening now? I don't know. Does anyone?

Lastly one has to ask, will the temperature increase of a couple of degrees be worse than a temperature decrease of a couple of degrees. Would mankind be better off with a new ice age or could we survive a rise in the sea levels better? Remember, the Earth is past due for another cycle of mile high glaciers.
Want to cut back on CO2? Then lets not start playing games like Will points out. Stop the slash and burn farming techniques along the equatorial zone for a start. We had a long discussion on carbon sequestration by trees, so perhaps if we get everyone to plant a tree....

[Pandora]

So we do know that undersea vulcanism can be instrumental in charging the atmosphere with high amounts of CO2. Is it happening now? I don't know. Does anyone?

Certainly not through CO2. This has been measured, and the CO2 emitted by volcanoes is, if I remember correctly, one hundredth of the amount we humans are emitting.

According to their research, the eruptions preceded the mass extinction by a geological blink of the eye.

Well the "blink of an eye" was 28000 years.

[Pandora]

Again, Woody, what you have to refute is why it is not CO2 even though:

a) the proponents of a CO2 theory have predicted that the world will warm many decades ago if we continue to emit CO2. This has happened.
b) the skeptics, on the contrary, have at this time said the world would not warm, based on their knowledge of natural factors. They were wrong.
c) points a to d above also happened, which is entirely predicted by greenhouse gas theories of global warming, but not by any of the other natural factors.

This means that the whole complete pattern we are experiencing now is entirely predicted from first principles of AGW theory many years ago. Just statistically speaking, the chance that there is another factor that we have missed so far is miniscule, something like 1000 to 1 or smaller.

[Pandora]

by the way, the volcano argument is addressed in a recent post here.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Two-att ... anoes.html

edit:
what I find so frustrating is that skeptics come up with 100s of alternative explanations, but they don't do any research themselves, but just assume that noboby has thought of that before. This is, of course, very unlikely given the 10000+ people working in the field.

[flip]

Where do these 10000+ get their funding?

[Pandora]

Here in the UK, the salary typically comes from the University that employs them (if lecturer or above), and the money for the studies from the research councils or big science-focussed charities (e.g. Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust).

[Pandora]

For all those claiming global warming has stopped:

NASA GISS has released the estimated monthly temperature for December 2009, which closes out the year 2009, which closes out the decade of the 2000s. The result: 2005 is still the hottest calendar year, 2009 is the 2nd-hottest year ever, although it’s really in a statistical tie with 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007.

[snoopy]

For all those claiming global warming has stopped:

NASA GISS has released the estimated monthly temperature for December 2009, which closes out the year 2009, which closes out the decade of the 2000s. The result: 2005 is still the hottest calendar year, 2009 is the 2nd-hottest year ever, although it’s really in a statistical tie with 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007.

I'm confused. Is 2009 the second hottest year on record, or is it the same as all of those other years?

If I had to interpret what's being said, I'd say that it sounds like the average temperature across the decade has been pretty stable.

[Pandora]

Numerically, it is the second hottest year on record. Statistically, it can't be distinguished from these other hot years.

[Pandora]

If I had to interpret what's being said, I'd say that it sounds like the average temperature across the decade has been pretty stable.

no, it means that we CANT TELL from these data. Not significant does not mean that there is no difference, it means that we can't tell because of the noise in the data. The noise is relatively high if you are comparing (a) single years, and (b) short time intervals. That's what I was talking with Woody about above.

But: the noise is reduced if we look at decades rather than single years. This shows that the last decade was the highest on record, and this is significant, even when compared to 1990 to 2000.

[Pandora]

Woody: some evidence that it is not underwater volcanoes causing heating of the ocean which in turn heats the athmosphere.

a) heating in the southern hemisphere temperature lags heating in the northern hemisphere. The reason is that the southern hemi has more water, which heats more slowly. If, however, it was the oceans heating the athmosphere, you would expect reverse. Oceans should heat first, than the athmosphere.

b) there is lots of data (see link above) that shows that the recent warming signal in the oceas goes from the surface to the deep, rather than the reverse, consistent with a heating of the oceas through sunlight, rather than heating of the athmosphre through the oceans.

[Insurrectionist]

We got it wrong: UN climate change scientists admit error over Himalayan glacier report

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0d9c0q094

There is no end.

[Pandora]

because they made an error?

[SilverFJ]

The idea of climate change is pushed to help a global agenda.

[Pandora]

This might be the case, I am not sure. But this doesn't change anything about the scientific basis that it is happening.

[Duper]

unless it's bad \"science\". then you have worthless data and no conclusion.

[SilverFJ]

Exactly...It's being pushed with the un-true under the NAME of science.

[woodchip]

This might be the case, I am not sure. But this doesn't change anything about the scientific basis that it is happening.

Perhaps how the data is gathered may be at fault:

"Two months after “climategate” cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming.

Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada.

In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada.

Worse, only one station -- at Eureka on Ellesmere Island -- is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle."

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/ ... story.html

[Pandora]

Swift-boating climate science, yeah! Did you do any double checking whether any of the claims hold water? Could it be that these guys don't know what they are talking about or are deliberately misleading?

By the way, you never responded to my points about the volcanoes. Do you agree on my points above?

[Lothar]

Swift-boating climate science, yeah!

I'm not sure that's an analogy you want to draw, since the swift-boating guys actually had a point.

When it comes down to it, climate scientists have a credibility problem, which is why people like woodchip feel so confident in arguing against them (whether or not their arguments are any good.) People have trouble taking climate scientists seriously because climate scientists won't step up and defend their science from the Al Gore types, but instead will often go along with overblown arguments and political hijacking of their science. (And, honestly, I think the "deniers" meme has done more harm than good -- it's made honest skeptics feel attacked rather than engaged.)

When climate scientists start to step up and say "here's what the science says, but that doesn't mean you have to buy into what Al Gore is selling" the general public will become much more receptive to their points.

[Pandora]

I agree, Lothar. Climate scientists should address distortions from both sides, both from 'denialists' and 'alarmists'. Often this happens, of course, but is not reported as such. For example, the IPCC-glacier error Insurrectionist linked to above was initially brought to light by a climate scientist and IPCC reviewer. Another example is the flak Rahmstorf receives for his very high sea level rise predictions.

But this is not the only reason for the credibility problem of climate science. There *is* a widespread and well funded smear campaign against climate science that is, however, camouflaged as a grassroots movement of climate sceptics.

[VonVulcan]

LOL

[Duper]

LOL

x2

[Pandora]

Good that you find it funny --- I don't. Look at Woody's latest claim, that NASA would recently drop cold stations to inflate the warming trend. The guy promoting it is Joseph d'Aleo, a member of the Fraser institute, with a long history in challenging research on the cancer-smoking link, and who are funded by Exxon, among others.

Are they lying or actively misleading? Of course they are. They are talking about the GHCN network (the Global Historic Climate Network). GHCN gets monthly 'realtime' temperature updates from a large number of stations around the world. But the biggest bunch of the data does not come in real time, but only several years later --- that's why it is called the HISTORIC climate network. In a few years time we will have as many data points for 2009 as we had for the 1970. So it is not that NASA is fudging the record, they simply have to work with what they have available now.

Also, does it matter whether the sations are in cold locations? Of course not. What the GHCN data is based on is the temperature TREND in the data of the stations, not the absolute temperatures. It therefore does not matter whether they start out colder or warmer --- it is important how they develop from this point onwards.

So here you have a direct link between think tanks, \"researchers\", and a spread through the blogs like a wildfire. All without any substance to it. Are they actively misleading or simply stunningly incompetent? You take your pick.

[woodchip]

by the way, the volcano argument is addressed in a recent post here.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Two-att ... anoes.html

edit:
what I find so frustrating is that skeptics come up with 100s of alternative explanations, but they don't do any research themselves, but just assume that noboby has thought of that before. This is, of course, very unlikely given the 10000+ people working in the field.

What I find frustrating is people post links without reading the reference material in the links:

"For the first time, a so large quantity of data is considered altogether showing clearly that the geological flux
of carbon was previously significantly underestimated. Several lines of evidence show that non-volcanic C fluxes in «colder»
environments are much greater than generally assumed."

"Our survey shows that it is still very hard to arrive at
a meaningful estimate of the lithospheric non-volcanic degassing into the atmosphere. Orders of 102–103 Mt CO2/year can be
provisionally considered. Assuming as lower limit for a global subaerial volcanic degassing 300 Mt/year, the lithosphere may
emit directly into the atmosphere at least 600 Mt CO2/year (about 10% of the C source due to deforestation and land-use
exchange), an estimate we still consider conservative."
http://www.cabnr.unr.edu/gustin/ERS765/ ... cleJMB.pdf

Note key words like "underestimated" "meaningful" "assuming" "at least" and "conservative". Not only do we not accurately know how much carbon is produced volcanically, we do not know how much carbon is out gassed by the very ground we walk on. So tell me, how many co2 detectors do you think are planted around the world to measure co2 out-gassing from the ground?

[woodchip]

So if "Up to half" of the warming was due to natural oceanic effects, then the question is begged, would we be having a Global Warming discussion today if those effects did not occur? Or would the 1960's Ice Age apocalypts hold sway?

two things:

(1) AFAIK, not many climate scientits agree with his model, showing that it doesn't perform very well even when hindcasting temperature history that we know (the last 100 years), and predicts cooling events there that did not happen.

So first you first use Latif as a example and now you say he is of no significance? O-o

[Pandora]

So first you first use Latif as a example and now you say he is of no significance? O-o

Uhm, Woody, you brought up Latif, not me:

"Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start."

"Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent."

[Pandora]

besides, I don't say he is of no significance, I am saying that people are not convinced by his model. Besides, if you actually look at its output (i'll search for image if you'd like), it does show a reduced warming in the next decades, but certainly not a cooling.

[woodchip]

So first you first use Latif as a example and now you say he is of no significance? O-o

Uhm, Woody, you brought up Latif, not me:

"Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start."

"Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent."

From which I referenced your post earlier:

Here's Latif's response to the Daily Mail article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ojib-latif

and here's a graph of the 'cooling' his model predicts.



[oops - sorry, don't know how to make this smaller --- edit: fixed]