Who says that the climate debate is not evolving? According to the daily newspaper the Guardian, a new application (‘app‘) has been written for iPhones that provides a list of climate dissidents’ arguments, and counter arguments based on more legitimate scientific substance. The app is developed by John Cook from ‘Skeptical Science‘. It’s apparently enough to have the climate dissidents up in arms – meaning that it’s likely to have some effect? Some dissidents are now thinking of writing their own app.
Here on RC, we have developed a wiki, to which I also would like to bring the reader’s attention. Furthermore, I want to remind the readers about other useful web sites, listed at our blog roll.
Jim, I wasn’t being entirely serious in my comment #84
[Response: I see it now–my mistake.–Jim]
Penguins in Antarctica to be replaced by jellyfish due to global warming
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/7263568/Penguins-in-Antarctica-to-be-replaced-by-jellyfish-due-to-global-warming.html
19 Feb 2010
“Rising temperatures in the oceans around Antarctica could lead to the continent’s penguins being replaced by jellyfish, scientists have warned.”
[…]
I’d say that if there were special things to do in life, one of them would be to voyage over to the Antarctic Peninsula to see the penguins. Rather sooner than later…
Adelie Penguin standing on melting ice during the Southern Summer
http://groundtruthinvestigations.com/datalinks/_ARC1988_Wn.jpg
Paulet Island, Antarctica
01-20-09
The great advantage of the denialists is that they can pick and choose what to be wrong about while you have to know pretty much everything in order to show why they’re wrong. That tactical advantage quickly translates into a strategic one, since sites like climateaudit can download lots of nonsense into hundreds of noobs quickly and easily, leaving science to scramble to answer each successive wave.
This app, and your wiki, make it much easier for just about anyone to bring science to bear on stupid, evening the odds.
Gavin, can you help me out here?
A numbr of commentators have stated that increased snow cover (in the U.S.) is consisyent with climate change.
But Frei, A. and G. Gong, (2005). Decadal to Century Scale Trends in North American Snow Extent in Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models. Geophysical Research Letters, 32:L18502, doi: 10.1029/2005GL023394.
using nine general circulation models (GCMs) of the global atmosphere-ocean system show that all nine models exhibit a clear and statistically significant decreasing trend in 21st century.
Who is correct here?
[Response: Frei and Gong are using a single index for snow-cover across North America, but the situation is somewhat spatially and temporally heterogeneous. I haven’t looked into this much myself but you can get a sense from the graphs available on the GISS website (for instance, 20C3M+SRES A1B ensemble). Choose ‘Snow Cover %’, choose a month (Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar) and a period (1980-2010 say) and plot the trend. You get decreases in the northern US, and slight increases in the southern US depending on month. Thus I’d say the picture is likely to be a little confused over short time periods with a lot of weather-related noise. Intensity of precipitation is forecast to increase pretty much uniformly, and so that might be a contributing factor to the southern US trends, but that is just speculation at this point. The bigger issue is that single years are not climate change, regardless of the sign of the anomaly. – gavin]
Well played, Andrew — I took you seriously, too.
> Andrew … Frank …
http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Poe%27s_Law
[Response: I’ve always felt that one should obey they law.–Jim]
Re: #94
“Tamino gives the wrong link? Yes, of course he should have been able to link to a post that hadn’t been written yet…..”
Perhaps he meant Goddard’s post (linked to from Tamino’s post) was wrong. If so, that’s progress.
Re: #99,
It’s hard to tell the difference these days. Some folks are actually that nutty.
Wilt, I have seen you ask the same questions in other comment areas (maybe the NYT?…everything is running together). You have made it to the right place and I hope that you are sincerely interested in getting educated responses (you are persistent if nothing else). Good work as always to those who continue to answer these questions, despite the redundancy.
Mesa (82) wrote:
“Very few legitimate scientific enterprises need their own PR machines.”
Very few fields of science have mutli-trillion dollar industries and extreme ideologues working so hard to confuse the public on the actual science. If people read actual science vs. believed personal blogs, poorly researched MSM articles, or talk radio, there wouldn’t be any need for an iPhone app or even web-sites like this. But alas, if real scientists want the public to understand real science they have to do expand their message beyond the typical scientific literature.
Pete Dunkelberg (#97),
Good points. 1989-2010 shows a strong downward trend in the AO index, ending on 2 very extreme values for Dec/Jan. A strong negative AO tends to push Arctic air far south. In winter, with increased precipitation, this seems likely to increase snow cover extent.
See “tabular format” for full data.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index.html
I would guess that models projecting snow cover extent, if they model AO, probably have a flat AO trend over the long haul (which is why longer periods of time need to be evaluated), although that’s an assumption.
Re Andrew Adams, Frank O’Dwyer and Molnar (nice name!) posts. I think Poe’s law is inadequate in this case; it isn’t just that someone will be fooled into thinking it’s not parody, but really the only sign that these posts are parody is that they are too rational to be real. Let’s give Jim a break – he’s new at dredging through all this muck.
How wonderful, I make mention at a dinner party that I think the models are unreliable and some priceless character says hang on a moment, whips out the iphone, fiddles, and tells me
While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.
Well that would sort me out. Of course it would certainly put an end to any further mention of climate change, but the discussions about why one would be carrying around an electronic global warming warning device should be hilarious. Does it have to be 10.
I guess I hang out with the wrong crowd.
And try and give it up for Lent.
Re:104 Confused on Climate says: 19 February 2010 at 5:23 PM
“…nine general circulation models (GCMs) of the global atmosphere-ocean system show that all nine models exhibit a clear and statistically significant decreasing trend in 21st century.”
I’ve noticed a divergence in forecast before. Some GCMs are predicting more overall precipitation. Some GCMs are predicting more regional drought. Are there any papers that attempt to reconcile this issue?
Would it be that anomalies like the AO and ENSO and other oscillatory weather patterns are amplifying effects? Such seems to be the case in Texas where 6 months ago a significant part of the state was enduring exceptional drought. But now, due to the current El Niño, the worst on the US Drought Monitor map are small regions of abnormally dry.
Thanks Jim.
Re: 81 wilt says: 19 February 2010 at 2:45 PM
“It seems to me that, with so many Real Climate contributors around that apparently are even better conditioned than Pavlov’s dogs, the Iphone app may not even be required anymore.”
Did you see that they’d found that on the iPhone? I think a more apt description of the situation would be “…with so many Real Climate contributor’s great minds thinking alike….”
New Guardian article on climate contrarians and new Naomi Orestres expose book being released.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/feb/19/climate-change-sceptics-science
Tim Jones says: “I’d say that if there were special things to do in life, one of them would be to voyage over to the Antarctic Peninsula to see the penguins. Rather sooner than later…”
See Madagascar, too. It’s amazing, but is being washed away into the sea sufficiently rapidly that it shows up in satellite records as altitude decreases!
Kevin McKinney and Gavin Schmidt, thank you for the wikis.
#115 Yes, the Jeffrey Sachs article is good. And here is another Jeffrey (Masters) http://www.wunderground.com/education/ozone_skeptics.asp comparing the tactics used by corporations to prevent action on reducing CFCs in the 1970s. The tactics used have been turned easily into the playbook for the climate change deniers.
This campaign by the corporations (and the right wing think tank/”libertarian” ideologues) is already big and getting bigger. The email hacking was like the artillery barrage at the start of an offensive in the First World War. And now the denier footsoldiers are swarming all over threads. We need to be better organised to counter all this. John Cook’s App (and site) is an excellent resource for ammunition, but we need to have a much better coordination of all of us rugged individualists or we are going to be swamped. The kind of loose and casual linking between blogs is no longer enough, but I’m not sure what the answer is.
Someone above asked for feed links rather than URLs. My apologies. Here is mine http://www.blognow.com.au/rss.php?w=mrpickwick. And while I am at it, George Mobius is doing very interesting things at http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/, particularly in relation to questions about energy use, and future organisation and economic structure of humans on the planet, after climate change really sets in.
Re: 81 wilt says: 19 February 2010 at 2:45 PM
“””“It seems to me that, with so many Real Climate contributors around that apparently are even better conditioned than Pavlov’s dogs, the Iphone app may not even be required anymore.””””
You seem to forget that RealClimate contributors are peer-reviewed publishing climate scientists whose work on climate change science holds up over time…I literally don’t of know any contrarians whose published peer reviewed work on science holds up over time except perhaps for Landsea (there might be a few others, but I don’t know of any)…and even Landsea says human caused climate change is going on.1 Your statement seems both irrational and bizarre.
1 Landsea 2005, Nature “Anthropogenic climate change has the potential for slightly increasing the intensity of tropical cyclones through warming of sea surface temperatures1.”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7071/abs/nature04477.html
For those concerned about global predictions regarding snow, consider that one parameter is snow cover, especially spring into summer, which determines global albedo. Less reflective snow, more heat. On the other hand, warmth can increase evaporation and result in heavier snowfall in the winter, but if it is heavy wet snow it melts faster and results in less cover. Two parameters that are not contradictory.
For those obsessing about the lack of a recent short term warming trend should look at the graph at http://hot-topic.co.nz/keep-out-of-the-kitchen/ (scroll down) and play with the slider. You will find that when you set up a 10-12 year period you will see that temperatures were declining or flat for a 10-12 year period just prior to 1978. Global warming stopped! You don’t even have to wait for the post 2000 period to question global warming.
Steve
David Horton:
“rugged individualists”
If you are a rugged ‘individualist’, why do you need to co-ordinate with others?
Regards
Anand
In my post on the earlier decline in the global record I made a mistake, it occurs just prior to 1997, not 1987. But I am sure that you all will agree that it still completely destroys the assertion that it is warming due to the release of fossil CO2.
Steve
#104 Confused on Climate
I should point out that while I think the long term trend will reveal increased precipitation patterns in higher latitudes, the short term is still weather and climate mixed… short term climate trends combined with natural variation and the chaos of weather.
Short term climate trends meaning: where we have reasonable climate attribution. In our current winter we have the negative phase Arctic Oscillation and an el Nino event that are influencing weather in the US. The negative AO is also having a big influence in Russia and Europe, but it’s all connected in various degrees.
The trick (he said trick) is being able to separate the signal for the noise on various scales. I believe this will become clearer over time as modeling improves along with resolution of data and understanding the oceanic cycles and their influence on climate… not to say that some of this is not understood, only that more understanding is always better…
hmmmm… I’m betting your still confused :)
Yes, climate is complex. I only know a ‘tiny fraction’ (I’m channeling John Coleman) of what some of the other folks in here understand. But if it helps think about this. The Science on the major parts of the signal is pretty solid. Some might say we are 99.99% sure on certain things. The things in this category could include things like what are the greenhouse gases, there is a greenhouse effect, humans have influenced the climate, humans have altered the climate, there are feedback mechanisms, etc.
In other words it will/has get/gotten warmer because we added GHG’s to the atmosphere and humans added the gases.
—
The Climate Lobby
Sign the Petition!
http://www.climatelobby.com
Since recent the snowfall amounts have been brought up I would like to ramble here a little if that’s ok. Things have advanced a lot since I was in the business but as far the weather this year that’s something a meteorologist should be looking into. We need to look at a few things. AO, temp differential, jet stream, el nino, and maybe a myriad of other things. i think its possible to find that these polar outbreaks typically occured around solar Max. That seems to have changed the last few years though. It is weather and it is regional. It probably would make climate scientists cringe to have forecasters doing long range outlooks and I can’t blame them, but there are areas that will overlap. Its more productive than saying the arctic isn’t melting because some temp gauges have been moved.
Steve Fish says:
“””In my post on the earlier decline in the global record I made a mistake, it occurs just prior to 1997, not 1987. But I am sure that you all will agree that it still completely destroys the assertion that it is warming due to the release of fossil CO2.”””
Where’s your published, juried peer reviewed work that holds up over time? What you are doing is pure pseudo science to try to confuse the public and you know it. Science is done in peer reviewed published works and you know that. It’s been done this way since the 1600s. 1
1. Climate Change 2007 states that the earliest studies on climate change were done in 1681: “Edme Mariotte noted in 1681 that although the Sun’s light and heat easily pass through glass and other transparent materials, heat from other sources (chaleur de feu) does not.
IPCC, 2007: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt,
M. Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 996 pp.
Pete Dunkelberg #24: thanks for the hint. The friends of science site looks good.
However unlike in science where having the important information in one place suffices, we need to have a lot of people doing blogging etc. with cross-links to defeat the subversion of search engines the denial bunch have achieved.
If anyone here who cares about the science (as opposed to caring about some other agenda) would like to join my new ning for discussing the science of climate change and supporting scientists in their right to work without harassment go to http://climatescience.ning.com/?xgi=0HXCPQ4ccSp01E and I will OK your membership. Please do not apply if you plan on posting personal abuse, blatant errors or denialist talking points. There are plenty of other places where you can do that. Once your content is up it will be up to you whether you choose to moderate comments. I will change this invitation URL if spammers overwhelm valid requests to join.
Oops, had a look at the actual content at “friends of science”. It’s actually denialist talking points once you look below the epidermis. Scrub sentence 1 of my previous comment – this further illustrates my point that it is really important not to let the denialosphere dominate the search space.
Denialism is incoherent. Which fantasy are they going to feature?
Yes Anand, a bunch of rugged individualists all working in our own way against overwhelming odds using communication to work towards a common goal. A bit like the French Resistance in World War Two perhaps.
Josh (#96): “Could someone please review this? It claims to be ‘the end of the AGW hypothesis’ – based on 3 peer reviewed papers.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_agw_smoking_gun.html ”
You got to love the logic of that writer. He basically so much as admits that the papers conclude exactly the opposite of what HE claims the data shows but dismisses their conclusions in favor of his own (mis)interpretation of the data. What he is missing is that “peer review” doesn’t just apply to data…It applies to the entire train of the scientific argument, including the conclusions drawn from the data. Otherwise, what is to stop me from saying, “Three peer-reviewed papers present data that compellingly contradict the silly hypothesis that the sun is powered by the process of nuclear fusion” and then cite data in three papers that actually conclude exactly the opposite?!?
It is kind of scary to read the comments in response to his piece though. I guess the readers of “The American Thinker” just eat that stuff up.
2 hours ago I explained it to a skeptical person in a way that he believed. I just told him the very simple thing.:
“CO2 is opaque to infrared. Visible light from the sun warms the ground. The ground radiates infrared. The CO2 won’t let the infrared go back into space. So the Earth gets hotter.”
That is all it took. Simple. No statistics. Honest looking face. No numbers. I suggest you program that into an iPhone app.
re: 115:
nit: that’s Naomi Oreskes…
I’ve reviewed Merchants of Doubt, and Naomi&Erik Conway have dug out amazing back history, meticulously documented. So, I second the motion to order one.
By the way, I am frankly astonished to see “Denial Depot” ( http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/ ) excluded from the RC blog roll. Surely in the interest of fairness and avoiding any appearance of suppression of “differently perceptive” viewpoints Denial Depot should be included in Real Climate’s list of “Other Opinions.” Denial Depot certainly qualifies in the “other” department.
Are you sure this thread is not just another media event like ” Whatevergate” and ” Daily Mangle”…….never mind the rubbish in the Guardian, lets get back to the scientific debate of issues.
wilt is just projecting.
How many times has he come here panting with excitement about how something has shown AGW wrong only to find out he doesn’t know what it is, but just started drooling at the idea as soon as he heard “AGW wrong”.
Or, indeed, about the pavolvian reaction to
1) It’s been cooling since (last time there was a maximum)
2) Romans grew wine in britain
3) It’s snowing, so there’s no AGW
etc.
“112
Ros says:
19 February 2010 at 6:52 PM
How wonderful, I make mention at a dinner party that I think the models are unreliable and some priceless character says hang on a moment, whips out the iphone, fiddles, and tells me”
Whereas Ros would rather not know if she’s wrong.
‘cos she doesn’t like being wrong, ya.
“Facts” are so boring, aren’t they. And being told your wrong is the sort of thing “elitists” do, innit. When they correct you, it just goes to prove they’re wrong, dunnit.
“131
Edward Greisch says:
20 February 2010 at 1:00 AM
That is all it took. Simple. No statistics. Honest looking face. No numbers. I suggest you program that into an iPhone app.”
Yah, funny that doesn’t work with most of the people coming on here asking “I’m confused about how AGW can be true”.
Maybe you had there a real, genuine seeker of information.
You don’t see many of them around today. The denialist-in-skeptics-clothing has nearly eradicated their natural habitat.
Edward, see, for example, whether confused gets that message that J P Reisman puts at the concludium of his post #123.
If your thesis is correct, confused should no longer be confused.
Completely Fed Up (#135) without any evidence suggests that I would have been using arguments like “1) It’s been cooling since (last time there was a maximum) 2) Romans grew wine in britain 3) It’s snowing, so there’s no AGW”. I have never used any of those arguments in any of my postings anywhere. I hesitate to call an opponent a liar but let us say that he is not telling the truth. It might be by mistake and in that case it’s officially not a lie but a distortion.
For this reason, and this reason alone, I decided to react to his remark. I have no intention to initiate a further discussion because I have observed over and over again (in all his responses to anybody that brings up a point of discussion) that he is not just completely biased but actually refuses to read first and respond then. That is the rule of the game in case you want to have a decent discussion among rational people.
wilt (54): Can you or any of your esteemed colleagues explain to me why it would be unlikely or even inconceivable that similar forces were present during 1975-1998 and caused most or all of the warming then?
BPL: Because we’ve been measuring them and they haven’t changed. We’ve been measuring solar output from satellites, we know what the volcanoes and cosmic rays have been doing, we have a good idea of the Earth’s albedo, etc. The only thing changing significantly in that period was carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. That, plus the fact that we know from radiation physics how greenhouse gases behave, is how we know the present warming is all or nearly all artificial.
wilt (59): it would be interesting to have a discussion on the long-term increase of winter snow cover on the Northern Hemisphere (I am writing long-term here because it’s happening since 1989
BPL: Try here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/cherry-snow/
@MarkB #98.
No, it isn’t a straw man.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962294,00.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012800041.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/science/earth/11climate.html
wilt (81): I don’t think that is a fair way to analyse Goddard’s document.
BPL: Of course you don’t. You’re a statistical illiterate.
Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of–most people are unfamiliar with most subjects, period. But militant ignorance, refusal to learn, is a moral failing. And being arrogant about it (cf the “Pavlov’s dogs” remark) just makes it worse.
@John #89, @Didactylos #92.
I suggest that you give this a read.
http://www.eee.columbia.edu/research-projects/water_resources/climate-change-snow-cover/index.html
@MarkB #98.
I would caution you to not confuse snow depth, or single precipitation events with snow extent.
Steve (122): it still completely destroys the assertion that it is warming due to the release of fossil CO2.
BPL: Look again:
http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Correlation.html
re. 132 John Mashey says:
“””re: 115:
nit: that’s Naomi Oreskes…
I’ve reviewed Merchants of Doubt, and Naomi&Erik Conway have dug out amazing back history, meticulously documented. So, I second the motion to order one.”””
_________________________________________________________________________
I appreciate the nit. I agree. Oreskes has a strong science, juried, peer reviewed history that has stood up over time under intense world-wide review. Her peer-reviewed group of works strongly supports a scientific consensus on human-caused climate change.
For non-scientists and the public…the below publication history (an effective case study in how science is done on a hotly sensitive subject) is how open, transparent science (with controversy) is done and has been done since the 1600s. If you want to contradict this, you need to publish in a open peer reviewed journal/conference/publication and have it stand up to world-wide review over time…This is science. This is what you have trusted your lives to and what has made your civilization function.
Even economists and oil engineers have published in the field of human-caused climate change.
___________________________________________________________________________
Oreskes’ case study (which is open access to the public)
Oreskes 2004, Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
Letters (peer review hostile discussion and responses) to Science
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1761-2005.32.pdf#search=%22%22Consensus%20About%20Climate%20Change%3F%22%20oreskes%22
Oreskes 2005, Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/306/5702/1686.pdf
Oreskes 2007
http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/Chapter4.pdf
___________________________________________________________________________
Contrarian published papers (none of which contradict human-caused climate change over time (although they try extremely hard).
Soon and Baliunas, 2003.
Soon et al, 2003.
Schwartz, 2007, Journal of Geophysical Research.
Scafetta and West, 2005.
Scafetta, N., and R. C. Willson, 2009.
Scafetta and West, 2006.
Scafetta and West, 2007.
McKitrick, McIntyre 2005.
Lindzen, 2001.
Miskolczi, 2007, Idojárás.
Tsonis , 2009, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS.
Craig & Lohle 2008.
Douglass et al.2007.
Klotzbach et al, 2009, J. Geophys. Res.
McClean et al, 2009, J. Geophys. Re.s
Gerlich and Tscheushner, 2009.
Essex, McKitrick, Andresen, 2007.
Chilingar, Khilyuk, Sorokhtin, 2008.
Nordell, 2008.
IPCC AR4, 2007 (synthesis and includes some contrarion work-McKitrick, McIntyre)
Lindzen and Choi 2009.
Ken@79 & – When there are papers published which talk about the hazards of less snow fall as a result of climate change, and the models predict less snow fall (…)
“(…) in reality we are seeing increasing snowfall trends”
and your reference on “Continental-scale snow cover extent“: “These results show that climate change associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions may indeed affect future snow cover extent“
Have we seen “increasing snowfall trends” in continental-scale snow cover extent?
Maybe the re-think needs to be on your comprehension?
104 and 113: on snowcoverage, drought, etc.
Ch11 of AR4WG1 (FIG 11.12) says the models predict increased winter precipitation over most of North America and decreased summer precipitation. More interesting is the 3rd row in that Figure which shows that the models are nowhere close to unanimity in the US.
Barton Paul Levenson (#140), thanks for your comments, although I do not agree completely. As for the solar effects, you may be familiar with Lockwood’s article in Nature indicating that the solar magnetic field that is linked to cloud formation has increased significantly up to the year 2000 (http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/1999/170_Lockwoodetal_nature.pdf). Apart from the sun and the other factors that you mention there may be others, for instance the recently published changes in stratosphere water vapor that appear to be responsible for an important part of the temperature increase during 1990-2000(Susan Solomon, Science, 2010). You will agree that the “What else could it be?” argument in favour of the CO2 effect is not the most convincing one.