The Oxburgh report on the science done at the CRU has now been published and….. as in the first inquiry, they find no scientific misconduct, no impropriety and no tailoring of the results to a preconceived agenda, though they do suggest more statisticians should have been involved. They have also some choice words to describe the critics.
Carry on…
Great resources so some may learn how to do their own analyses quantitatively using statistics:
http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/elementary-concepts-in-statistics/#What%20are%20variables
The Statistics Homepage… start there.
http://books.google.com/books?id=5QgAfL1N6koC&printsec=frontcover&dq=statistics+in+climate+research&ei=uvjPS_ykCpD8lQSez8ToCA&cd=1#v=onepage&q=statistics%20in%20climate%20research&f=false
Statistical Analysis in Climate Research: Hans von Storch & Francis W. Zwiers.
689 FurryCatHerder: It still say the rain moves. If the rain moves, agriculture is disrupted, and the point is the disruption of agriculture, not the detail that is weather. What is the distance from South Texas to central Illinois or central Iowa? Something like 1000 miles, which is typical for how far the rain moves. BPL also moved the rain about that far. Don’t quibble over weather. Weather isn’t in the climate forecast. BPL said: “The rain moves.” 300 miles and 3000 miles are both the same order of magnitude as 1000 miles, so don’t quibble over that either.
“I’m going to give you an opinion that many here will not like:
Paywalling papers related to climate change is pretty sleezoid behavior.”
In your opinion.
But does it make it untrue?
No.
netdr #669
It can indeed be possible to predict long timescales much better than short ones.
My favourite analogy is tides; it’s next to impossible to predict how far up the beach the next wave will break, but very easy to accurately predict when high tide will be.
Just as next month’s weather may be harder to predict than the 2050 climate.
#669 netdr,
If we are making a prediction of the climate then we are likely to want the expected value over a longer period, the further in the future we are predicting. If we are making a prediction for ten years from now then we might want the expectationover a year. If we make a prediction for a century from now then we might want the expectation over a decade. The latter is likely to be more accurate.
Also, we do not estimate the sensitivity to changes in forcings of the climate is not estimated by calulating the rate of change and projecting it forward for a given period. Climate models are run for a period till their output fluctates about the mean values in the same way that the actual climate does. They are then run witht changed inputs in the same way until they fluctuate around new mean values. The difference between the outputs gives us the sensitivity to the changes. What we are looking at is changes in long term equilibrium conditions. The accuracy of these estimates will me more accurate as conditions have more time to reach new eqilibria.
Walter Crain #614:
> are you finnish? can you read him “in the original”?
I have to plead guilty to both charges…
> can i quote your translation for a “buddy” of mine?
Sure. Here’s the full translation, mainly for its entertainment value:
“Finnish professor’s controversial claim: CO2 can raise temperature only 0,1 degrees
Professor Jyrki Kauppinen and colleagues of the Physics Department of Turku University is preparing a sensational research paper, according to which carbon dioxide doesn’t raise climatic temperature practically at all.
Based on Kauppinen’s spectral measurements climate will warm only 0,1 degrees, if the concentration of carbon dioxide in the climate [sic!] doubles.
Kauppinen tells CO2-raportti, that a method is used in the research which no-one else has earlier thought of. In the study, summer and winter temperatures from various sources are compared, and from these one may infer, e.g., climate sensitivity.
Kauppinen also has harsh words for the climate panel IPCC, and considers the IPCC reports at least partly fraudulent.
According to [the Turku daily] Turun Sanomat, who was the first to report on the matter, Kauppinen intends to publish his research result in the June issue of the Journal Nature.
Kauppinen tells however to CO2-raportti, that the article is only just being written, and it hasn’t even been offered yet to any science journal for review. He hopes however that science journals would publish it.
Kauppinen is certain that at least journals in the field of physics will publish the study. According to Kauppinen it is possible that the study doesn’t end up in the respected science journals Nature or Science, because according to him, they try to avoid publishing climate sceptical studies.
Kauppinen does not consider himself a climate sceptic. He said that a couple decades ago he was a bit sceptic, but nowadays he is certain that CO2 does not raise temperature at least significantly.
Professor Kauppinen has not previously published work in the field of climatology.”
And the Finnish Meteorologial Institute writes:
“The Finnish Meteorological Institute regrets that claims that don’t stand up to climatological scrutiny, and have not been scientifically reviewed, are treated on public fora as if they were equivalent to scientific news items.
[…]
Kauppinen has not presented his research methods, which is why his claims of a small effect of carbon dioxide cannot be commented on or evaluated more precisely.”
(FMI does much more than weather: climate, space missions, and recently oceanography was added. World class folks.)
Ray #599, BPL #640,
Ray’s calculation made more sense to me when I thought (from his remarks about modern agriculture failing, and the reference to arable land, to which hunter-gatherers by definition are not confined) that he was referring to feeding the world on some form of agriculture without fossil-fuel inputs. CFU’s point seemed apposite to me.
BPL #654,
The AR4 (Box 11.1) describes projections to the end of the 21st century based on the A1B scenario showing: “Likely increase in risk of drought in Australia and eastern New Zealand; the Mediterranean, central Europe (summer drought); in Central America (boreal spring and dry periods of the annual cycle).”
None of which is good news, but isn’t there a certain gap between your vision of harvests failing globally by 2050 due to drought in all continental interiors, and what you can ascribe to IPCC projectons?
650 “Or is there some reason why farming will be impossible?”
Sea level rise will drown a lot of arable land. Soil degradation will seriously impair productivity. 15th century farming was heavily man-power intensive and also needed the pulling power of horses or bullocks…it would take time to build up stocks of draught animals and they require a lot of forage, where food-growing land is in short supply and poorly productive it might be difficult to afford draught animals, so the plough would be pulled by women or slaves. Lack of refrigeration meant that meat was stored under salt with everything that was not needed to produce next years young slaughtered, some vegetables were also salted, roots were stored buried in clamps and subject to severe loss.
No, not impossible, but difficult and almost certainly a lot less productive than in the 15th century.
Look, guys, if you’re writing for people in the United States, specifically, challenging religion is not going to help any conversation meant to educate people about climate science.
Think of it like the MWP or the PETM or the original hockey stick chart — they don’t _matter_ all that much to the current problem, they’re old (in different ways) and easy to argue about, and impossible to change, and climate science doesn’t rely on that.
Stop. Read what follows twice. Walk around the block. Think again.
“45% of Americans in 2008 answered true to the statement, “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.” The figure is similar to previous years and much lower than in Japan (78%), Europe (70%), China (69%), and South Korea (64%). The same gap exists for the response to a second statement, “The universe began with a big explosion,” with which only 33% of Americans agreed.”
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/04/evolution-big-bang-polls-omitted.html Get it?
You can care about the rate of change being too fast for biology, let alone for human enterprise, and respond appropriately _regardless_.
Choose your battle. Noble and glorious defeat takes everyone and their grandchildren down with you. It’s a stupid fight to be picking.
Ray@683
Interesting points! Can you direct me to your source on the CO2 20% (7/33) of the current Greenhouse warming?
Based on this, in a linear model (?) would not doubling CO2 emission give us aleast another 7 deg without feedback – which due to your point 4 and 5 will have a postive effect (increase the warming)?
Looks to me as the current models are way off on the effects of a doubling of C02?
Many Thanks
You can almost bet that even if more professional statisticians had been brought on board, that the denialists would be loudly claiming the old cliche,
“Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics! ;-)
Face it, climate scientists just can’t win…they’re too damn honest.
sam: “But you have to read Roy Spencer’s new book “The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists”.”
So for one unit of education, you want one unit of anti-education to be read?
Sam, consider: why are you giving equal time to someone who is willing to forgo science when it disagrees with his religious beliefs? Spencer is willing to accord the Bible a scientific accuracy in Genesis. If he’s willing to bend science that far, isn’t it pretty easy to imagine he’d bend science for political beliefs?
“B) Joe Public would have good access to them in an ideal world.”
So why should Joe Public get access to stuff he never paid for?
Or should we all chip in to a worldwide tax fund to pay for research?
I wonder what would happen if Yosef Public from Moscow raised 50 requests for US research data…
Sam #683, re: CO2 lags temperature, perhaps I should have started you out on the relevant SkepticalScience post or the IPCC FAQ. Anyway, if you still refuse to get this after Ray’s and Gavin’s explanations, your bad.
Gavin, Ray,
I was exactly talking about tuning of dynamical models, which is a big part of the FAQ you refered me to (and which I read some months ago, and which is very clear and very much appreciated)…
Correct me if I’m wrong, tweaking and tuning are synonyms, right?
Sorry it seems that I am again one of these “bloody” engineers who have made some modelling in their past and who are still in trouble to trust so complex simulations…In my case I once tried to model interactions between acoustic waves and combustion flame in a gas turbine..There were merely 3 equations in the play: Navier Stokes, Combustion and Acoustic waves (which is derived from compressible Navier Stokes). And I remember we had to add, amongst many other “handmade tuning” some artificial numerical buffer to avoid the system to diverge.
So I was a little bit in shock when I read “You put the physics and let them run”…
GCM, as far as I can understand is a “little bit” more complicated than that. But you are the experts, and I am still in the process of dissecting the (almost) full code provided here, so I stand corrected.
Sam says, “Hows about I make you a deal. I will buy and read, cover to cover, any book that you recommend on climate. But you have to read Roy Spencer’s new book “The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists”.”
Great. We can have a frigging pseudo-science book of the month club. What’s next? Velikovsky? The complete works of the Discovery Institute? Something in astrology or the anti-vaccination campaign, perhaps?
Sam, I studied physics for 10 years. I’ve been doing physics for 20 years. I took 2 years of my spare time and learned enough climate science so that I could follow the primary literature. Here’s a hint: You do not learn the science by reading blatant political screeds. You read the primary literature, or you read popularizations of the published literature by legitimate climate scientists. Spencer’s book does not deal with the literature. It is merely his musings on cherry-picked topics–musings his fellow climate scientists have found utterly unpersuasive.
Is it really so mysterious why scientists like me are frustrated when laymen who are utterly clueless and who have no understanding of the evidence
1)make seemingly authoritative pronouncements about science
2)utterly ignore it when scientists correct them and repeat the same tired zombie arguments
3)are corrected by the scientists with more of an edge
4)utterly ignore the correct information but whine about what meanies the scientists are
5)run off and declare victory to their fellow clueless twits.
You want me to soften my tone for widdow Sammy-wammy? Sorry, but this is a place to learn about science. Maybe you should come back when you actually want to learn.
DBB (662),
I intend to try again, but first I want to go through the paper and thoroughly revise it according to the reviewer’s comments. It’ll take me a while.
BPL: Try reading the AR4 report, then you’d know. But here’s the answer on a silver platter: With global warming you get more rain along coastlines and less in continental interiors.
Furry (663): If that’s the “Official” answer, you’ve just turned me into a complete and total opponent of everything that the AR4 advocates.
BPL: I’ve been waiting to hear that from you. No real surprise.
GCMs predict growing drought in continental interiors. Empirical evidence shows growing drought in continental interiors. What more do you want?
Sam (666),
Try here: http://BartonPaulLevenson.com/Lag.html
sam #686: “refuse to be re-educated?”
No, sam. You refuse to be educated.
flxible (671): Considering that I’ve long seen overpopulation as a very major problem, maybe I do revel in the prospect, specifically because “good and evil” do have some meaning to me, prompting my view that what’s selfishly being done to the biosphere is the evil
BPL: So all those people deserve to die early. Got it.
You’re like some far-right stereotype of environmentalists, ready to kill humans en masse to save the planet. Are you sure you aren’t a troll?
Walter Crain #614: no evidence on this issue that he’s a real scientist. Real scientists™ don’t go blabbing to the media about their latest greatest result before they’ve written the paper let alone had some sort of independent review in case they’ve forgotten to carry the 1, or some other blunder that blows the whole thing away.
“Based on this, in a linear model (?) ”
It’s a logarithmic one.
“705
Brian Carter says:
22 April 2010 at 4:14 AM
650 “Or is there some reason why farming will be impossible?”
Sea level rise will drown a lot of arable land.”
This doesn’t stop farming from working.
I can break or lose my hammer.
This doesn’t mean you can’t hammer nails into wood any more.
What that WOULD mean is that less than the current land extent that is usable for farming will not be available for farming.
But this doesn’t stop farming from working.
#718–
And let’s not forget that Spencer and Christy did indeed commit such a blunder once. Took a few years to catch it, too. “Tropical Tropospheric Trends” was the RC heading, IIRC.
There’s also this:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/spencers-folly-3/
(One can link back to part 1, if desired, to follow the full development of the argument, which is quite detailed.)
Neil@707
Where on Earth did you get the idea that CO2 forcing was linear in CO2 concentration. It is in fact logarithmic, and the best estimates are that a doubling will increase global temperatures by an average of 3 degrees.
The 7 degrees is a broadly accepted conservative estimate. Not sure what to give you for a source.
3K projected rise later this century because of failure at Copenhagen
This is from the BBC web site , which has always differed from the radio and TV. But beware , the former may be due for a cut.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8635765.stm
CM,
While it is true that hunter-gatherers are not confined to arable land, they do have to glean enough calories and protein to sustain themselves. To do that of poor, nonarable would probably not be possible. Look at where humans were found prior to the development of agriculture–it pretty much overlaps with our current range, except for very low population densities in the far North that hunted large animals and survived by fishing–neither of which will now sustain even the numbers the sustained previously.
Moreover, we will be talking about a seriously degraded environment for production of calories and especially protein. I think there is every reason to believe that global carrying capacity for hunter gatherers is aroung 100 million.
Now you may ask why I am looking at hunter-gatherers rather than primitive agriculture. Well, when did agriculture come into being? Roughly 10000 years ago, when the current era of relatively stable climate commenced. This may well not have been coincidence. After all, humans haven’t changed all that much even in 30000 years. Why did agriculture develop then? Could it be that the stable climate was needed for the caloric benefit of agriculture to exceed that of hunting and gathering? So what will happen to agriculture once the climate ceases to be predictable?
Again, it is not a risk we know how to bound.
“There’s also this:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/spencers-folly-3/”
As far as I can judge, Tamino deals only with linear perturbations around an equilibrium value, but this doesn’t describe properly limiting cycles that are inherently non linear. In this case the equilibrium value is unstable linearly (see predator-prey model for an example). Another probably is the assimilation of the average temperature to the effective temperature, which is not true. Varying the distribution of temperature on the globe (which IS a prediction of GCM) can change the average temperature without any change of radiative balance, and reci_procally (adding any non spherical component Ylm with l≠0 keeps the average temperature constant but changes the effective temperature).
dhogaza wrote of Roy Spencer’s new book: “If his argument’s sound, why do you think he’s having it published by a very openly extremist right-wing publisher, rather than submitting it for review by fellow scientists as is common practice in every field of science you can think of? Could it be because it’s utter silliness that would be shot to pieces and would never be published if he were to do so?”
Could it be that right-wing extremist publishers pay a lot better than peer-reviewed scientific journals? There is a lot of money to be made telling Ditto-Heads what they want to hear.
With regard to the off-topic comments about the proper Linnaean taxonomic classification of humans and chimpanzees, there are a lot of different possible ways to classify biological organisms. “Genus” and “species” are concepts, not objective biological realities. So let’s not fight about it.
What is interesting to me though, is how people seem to fall into two broad camps: those who seem to particularly value, and therefore emphasize, the commonalities and bonds between humans and other animals; and those who seem to particularly value, and therefore emphasize, the differences and distances between humans and other animals.
This does, I think, have some bearing on our responses to AGW. For those of us who recognize and value the other animals of the Earth as our brothers and sisters rather than as “resources”, AGW has an additional tragic dimension.
Climate Scientist Sues National Post for Libel
http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-scientist-sues-national-post
“Dr. Andrew Weaver, one of the most respected climate scientists in Canada and one of the best climate modellers in the world, has launched a libel suit against the National Post newspaper and its publisher, editors and three writer: Terence Corcoran, Peter Foster and Kevin Libin.”
Also being discussed at Deltoid:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/scientist_fights_back_against.php
“Enjoy this child’s treasury of global drought stories.
[Response: Also, see what the models suggest will happen. – gavin]”
ok, but where does the figure 10-12 (relative to 2100 and with > 700 ppm CO2, if I understand correctly) predict anything like the collapse of all harvest on the Earth in 2050 ? or even in 2100 ?
Neil asks:”Based on this, in a linear model (?) would not doubling CO2 emission give us aleast another 7 deg without feedback – which due to your point 4 and 5 will have a postive effect (increase the warming)?”
The absorption is linear for the first few ppm, then as the absorption reaches saturation, gradually becomes logarithmic. Statements about the 20% of greenhouse effect is the sum of all the increases from 0 to 391 ppm CO2, compared to the sum of the increases from all greenhouse gases, from 0 to whatever they are.
David B. Benson, (#660)
thanks for that link to a “simple” (hahaha) explanation… gotta say i love tamino’s statistical analyses. funny and informative. rabett’s pretty funny/smart too.
Martin, (#703)
thanks so much for that translation. really appreciate the effort. you know, i plan to have my design for the 9/11 “ground zero” memorial built soon. i have a really cool design no-one’s thought of. i only have “napkin sketches” so far, but i plan to submit a full design in june. i hope the panel will consider my design….
Philip, (#719)
understood. i just mean to say he has SOME credentials. and he has published some legitimate work. nice “tm” sign…
all,
you know, i know the data and science is there, but, as you guys must know, you (scientists) are losing the “PR” battle. more and more “people on the street”, people in my non-scientific circles, either
1)doubt the consensus, or worse 2)don’t trust scientists anymore…”climategate” dealt a serious blow, i’d say.
anyone have data on recent opinion polls on AGW? specifically, questions to non-scientists, like
1)what % of earth scientists do you think “believe in” AGW?
2)do you “believe in” global warming?
and of course, even if people (we) believe it’s happening, it’s another thing to get us to want to do anything about it. especially if we think it’s “gonna hurt”. it’s like with national debt. we all “know”, logically, that debts are unsustainable, but we put off dealing with it. debts are fun…
i love the idea of mann “fighting back” legally over the hockey stick distortions.
> Gilles
> … Varying the distribution of temperature on the globe
> (which IS a prediction of GCM)
> can change the average temperature
> without any change of radiative balance
Does anyone understand this? I realize English isn’t his first language.
Does “varying” mean “noticing variations in” or “altering”?
What does he think a GCM predicts? (Which GCM is he talking about?)
What does “change the average temperature” mean? (at some individual place? the global average? just by stirring?
Maybe he’s talking about changing the average surface temperature by bringing up deep cold water, but he says
> without changing the radiative balance
It’s so many odd things in such a small bundle it reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s creations. Does anyone follow any of this?
If so, perhaps creating a separate topic for Gilles, like they do over at Deltoid, would help him pull his ideas together?
Ray@727
“Where on Earth did you get the idea that CO2 forcing was linear in CO2 concentration”
I did not get it from anywhere – I was simply making the observation on your statement in your posting #683
“2)We know that CO2 accounts for more than 7 of the 33 degrees of greenhouse warming that keep Earth from turning into a snowball.”
If we get 7 deg warming from current levels of C02 then we should get 7 deg additional warming for a doubling if there was a linear relationship and we exclude any feedback effects.
So would I be correct in stating that if we double current levels of C02 (from ~380ppm) the logarithmic relationship gives us 3 deg? i.e. the more CO2 we pump in the less (by proportion) the temperature increases?
Interesting . . . .
I thought I heard somewhere that a significant factor in the 3 deg increase in temperature was based on the ice core analysis? i.e. when analysing past temperature changes and comparing them with levels of CO2 and factoring in the various known natural cycles it was estimated that the doubling of CO2 from ~100 ppm to 200 ppm created a warming of 3 deg? But if that is the case and the relationship is logarithmic then how can going from 100 to 200 give you 3 deg and going from 380 to 760 also give you 3 deg?
Guess I must be missing something – I am sure you will put me right ;-)
Gilles, OK, now you are pounding your pud. First, what matters is the energy distribution at TOA–as Tamino says, and there’s no reason to expect latitudinal variation of that. What is more, Tamino’s critique of the timescales Spencer has used is valid quite independent of your red herring.
BPL: “So all those people deserve to die early. Got it.
You’re like some far-right stereotype of environmentalists, ready to kill humans en masse to save the planet. Are you sure you aren’t a troll?”
No one “deserves” to die, especially “early”, but it happens, and science and “civilization” is making those decisions daily. I said nothing about “deserving”, and your imaginary mass murderer-savior must be someone you’ve seen in a TV melodrama. You lump me in an ‘-ist’ box so as to better dismiss me, but while the extreme nature of the label says something about your politics and religion it doesn’t really fit the picture of Bart the scientist. You were the one who initiated the “good vs evil” question, which I don’t see as relevant to any scientific discussion, I just fit my understanding of the current reality to your focus, it’s ranting about good and evil that’s trolling.
You insist the entire [admittedly unsustainable] population of the planet “reduce emissions to zero” in 5-10 years and dismiss overpopulation as a problem that has to be dealt with on some different, unspecified, time scale – I have a real problem with your evaluation on a practical level and am making objective observations. Our “faith based” society values human life more than anything including the biosphere; if there were some smaller number of us we could have our cake and eat it too. Edward thinks that’s out of his/mine/your/RC’s jurisdiction, but I think we need to figure out what that smaller number is and how to get there because extreme emission reductions are not in our immediate future and I know that letting “nature” continue it’s course will not be easier or more pleasant …. and I know I won’t be around to see the worst of it – meanwhile my emissions are about as low as possible in todays reality, I have chosen not to add to the population problem, and I contribute to rational sustainability in the community I’m an integral part of without being far-anything. Hoping for the same from all of you, but seeing the projections on agricultural possibilities here, I suspect few have any hands on understanding of primary production, especially from a bio-science perspective.
For anybody wanting to know the peer reviewed content of Roy Spencer’s book see that he writes on 20th April entry in his blog:
http://www.drroyspencer.com
Quote:
“About one-half of Blunder is a non-technical description of our new peer reviewed and soon-to-be-published research which supports the opinion that a majority of Americans already hold: that warming in recent decades is mostly due to a natural cycle in the climate system — not to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning.”
All looks a perfectly reasonable and honest approach to me. You don’t have to agree but the many discourteous comments here are lamentable.
Here’s something of interest:
““Energy: the Big Gamble” on PBS Nova contained blatant lies about the pending climate legislation in California. Funding for NOVA is provided by ExxonMobil, Pacific Life, David H. Koch… This is the same Koch family, that makes its billions off oil and gas, that Greenpeace found had spent $25 million from 2005 to 2008 funding climate denial. This show was designed to scare US voters, and initially, California voters who now face the oil industry’s ballot initiative to put a stop to pending climate legislation, AB32 to move the state to a clean energy economy.”
http://cleantechnica.com/2010/04/22/oil-industry-uses-pbs-nova-to-scaremonger-risk-of-clean-energy/
This just shows how the depths to which American media establishments have fallen – particularly in the area of “science journalism”.
Re: R.L. trying to be heard
Hate to say it, but in pop discourse these days
self-serving rhetoric = conclusive analysis.
I don’t know how to pound it home:
Rhetoric is not analysis. Rhetoric is not analysis.
The two things are different.
Different. Different means different. Different.
Rhetoric.
Is.
Not.
Analysis.
Logic and facts can be tested and verified.
Rhetoric is fancy b.s. designed to be persuasive and often attempts to mimic analysis.
Rhetoric can be defined and identified and subjected to analysis.
You want to LEARN, do good ANALYSIS.
You want to INFLATE YOURSELF WITH MINIMAL EFFORT, do RHETORIC.
Science is hard work.
Science makes your brain hurt.
Science requires lots and lots of training.
Science requires lots and lots of practice.
Science requires lots and lots of math. Sometimes
science tells you to WAKE UP.
Holy Moses. Suck it up for pity’s sake.
Mr. Gilles writes on the 22nd April 2010 at 9:13 AM:
“assimilation of the average temperature to the effective temperature”
please, what is your definition of “effective temperature” ?
sidd
@ Ray:
“Why did agriculture develop then? Could it be that the stable climate was needed for the caloric benefit of agriculture to exceed that of hunting and gathering? So what will happen to agriculture once the climate ceases to be predictable?”
You need to get Guns, Germs, and Steel for really good, scientific answers to those. It’s far more about geography and how the axis of the continents lay on the planet along climate bands than any sort of grand design.
Those bands were pretty big, btw.
Are y’all still predicting a mass extinction event? I read some of the IP4 report, especially the impacts section, and I still haven’t found that 95% loss of human population in there.
Stop blaming religion or poor educations or national membership for not embracing AGW. Y’all are your own credibility issue.
For Moderator:
I am shocked that there was no in line comments from the scientists on the board over this. The line has been that when one is over the top and making stuff up in favor of AGW, corrections come swiftly. This comment thread has proven this to be not quite correct.
Mass extinctions? 95% of the human population destroyed? Really? I haven’t read that anywhere on this site.
This is one conservative that appreciated and was concerned over the science. But it is clear that there are two sets of rules on criticism – one for “deniers” and one for the “enlightened.”
I will call my Congressman and Senator and ask that they vote against AGW legislation, and similarly pressure the White House to not cooperate with the UN over climate change. The scientists and their advocates are out of control.
[Response: Get a grip. The idea that ‘scientists’ and ‘advocates’ are ‘out of control’ comes from you intereaction with a single commenter here? Really? Commenters are responsible for there own comments and the editors do not necessarily endorse what is said. There is lots of stuff in the threads that is wrong or misguided, but there are only so many hours in a day. If you want to know what ‘scientists’ say, read the IPCC report, don’t waste time on blogs. If you want to raise strawman objections to political issues, carry right on. – gavin]
Thanks Ike. Off topic for the thread but close to home for me.
Irate comment posted, using the PBS feedback link, which I commend to your publication:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/feedback/reply.html
CFU, in general:
First, much of the RESEARCH is being paid for with tax dollars from various governmental entities around the world. NASA? Not private. NOAA? Not private. University of (insert state here)? Not private. (insert country here) Ministry / Department / Bureau of Climate / Science / Environment? Not private.
Second, the cost of =giving away= the articles is probably less than the cost of paywalling them. How? Those servers that insist I pay aren’t free or cheap. Splattering all over the Interwebs? Someone else pays.
Third, is Climate Change =important= or =profitable=? And don’t give me the “someone has to pay!”, because a lot of someones already paid, and the price for paywalled papers is often NOT cheap. After spending a fair amount of money downloading papers a few years back, I decided if it was important enough for me to read and stay informed, $25 or whatever was entirely too much and a sign of profiteering. And profiteering is pretty sleazy, whether it’s climate scientists or Microsoft …
Ray @ 729:
Hunter-gatherer civilizations never reached anywhere near 100 million humans, and I seriously doubt ever would have.
You’re making a very common mistake for people who don’t grow stuff or know how to grow stuff — it isn’t that food won’t grow if some small change happens (or even some larger change), it’s that planting seasons and harvest times change. The significance of that is that we have a highly mechanized and commercialized agricultural =industry= that doesn’t like unpredictability. Agriculture has also devolved into a much smaller set of crops because consumers want the exact same kind of corn each time they open a can.
Even in terms of longer term plants, such as trees and vines, the life expectancy of the plant is short enough that vineyards and orchards can be replanted in their normal life spans with different varieties or crops.
We’ve been doing this “agriculture” thing for 10,000 years and we’ve managed to survive a number of fairly long term climate shifts. The question, in my mind, is can we do a better job than trashing the climate just so we can prove how clever we are as a species.
Hank,
I can only assume he is talking about second order effects–e.g. deviations over the surface of the planet from a perfect black body. And of course, in bringing in the spherical harmonics (since he is leaving m unchanged and so with a cos(phi) dependence), he’s assuming variation with longitude. Again, none of this really matters at TOA.
Dunno, Hank. (#732)
What puzzles me is this: assuming that “prediction of GCM” refers to polar amplification of warming–which seems reasonable at first blush–we then are confronted with the implication that this means GCMs modeling GHG warming. Which is by definition in contradiction to “can change the average temperature without any change of radiative balance,” since GHG warming implies a change from radiative equilibrium. (And of course, those GCM runs do show warming under CO2 forcing.)
I think Gilles may have missed the context by not going back to “Spencer’s Folly Part I.” What Tamino was doing was showing that Spencer had essentially “proven” his conclusion by virtue of the assumptions that he made–a sort of inadvertent cherry-pick of (inappropriate) timescales.