OK guys: ReCaptcha is way over the line. When it’s not showing something that I have no idea what the hell it is, it’s putting in umlauts and other accents. Such things are not on my keyboard.
I’m not the only one who has complained *recently*.
Seriously: this pain-in-the-ass is a disservice to your readers. Do you really need to annoy, and sometimes offend, your most ardent followers who are working for the same cause? What’s the purpose of this blog anyway?
Brian Dodgesays
“What is the explanation for the 60 year cycle?”
Improper windowing, filtering, and edge effects on a dataset too short for meaningful Fourier analysis of 60 year frequency components over ~160 years of data.
I suggest as an exercise in understanding that you do the following –
Create a synthetic 160 year dataset which combines random numbers with a 1 year sin function. Compare the results of Fourier Analysis with Rectangular, Hann, Hamming, Blackman, Tukey, Kaiser, and so on, windows.
Add (non periodic) synthetic trends to the dataset; one trend starting at the midpoint of the dataset, as a first approximation to Industrial Revolution forcing, and a larger trend for the last quarter, as a first approximation of the increasing growth in population and fossil fuel consumption. Repeat the FA, and compare results.
Add a triangular negative impulse, with a rapid rise, 10-20 years, and slower decay, starting in 1930, as a first approximation to cooling from the rise and decline of sulfate emissions from high sulfur fuel consumption and the clean air act. Repeat the FA, and compare results.
If you want to test the null hypothesis “there is no AGW trend”, you can’t use a tool such as Fourier analysis which not only doesn’t test for trends, but can give false results when there are trends.
@ Tamino #503 – I ignore the punctuation and accents and it goes through fine (ie you don’t need to bother with them, just copy the letters and numbers). If I can’t read the Captcha text at all, I click on the redo arrows and get another.
“… One of the words displayed by reCAPTCHA is from an old book which is being digitized. As such it is not graded — it cannot. Indeed, occasionally it may be blank, or just a bit of noise.
On the word that is checked, the user is (by default) allowed to be off by one letter. It has been found that this increases the user experience while not degrading security by a large amount. This is tuned dynamically based on many factors.”
Hank Roberts, I came over here to read comments on the paper by Song and Colberg regarding deep ocean heating that you just posted the link. Song and Colberg claim that deep ocean heating could be contributing one third of the observed SLR of 3.1 mm per year.
If someone can translate that into a heating rate, say 3 to 4 x 10^21 joule per year, and compare it to upper level OHC buildup, that would be helpful. The Song and Colberg result seems to imply that deep ocean heating can almost close the planetary energy budget.
Some global warming denialist named Pete Ridley does not like the fact that I use the nom-de-plume “Snapple” on my blog.
Ridley writes in the comments on Desmogblog (1-21-11) that he has “low regard for those who hide behind false names.”
Ridley even makes the ludicrous threat that some ex-CIA operative named Kent Clizbe might track me down with the help of his CIA friends: “I’m sure [ex-CIA operative] Kent [Clizbe] could easily use his CIA contacts to track [Snapple] down…”
In fact, the not-very-sincere Pete Ridley actually has enormous regard for DENIALISTS who hide behind false names: Pete Ridley celebrates the misdeeds of anonymous cyber-criminals who hacked into the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), stole the scientists’ emails, and posted them on a Russian server in Tomsk right before the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen.
The cyber-criminals, who did not give their names, hypocritically called themselves “honest men.”
Why doesn’t Pete Ridley ask the cyber-criminals to identify themselves if they are really “honest men”?
The CIA does not track down people who have blogs that explain the CIA position on global warming. The head of the CIA climate change unit is named Larry Kobayashi, and he doesn’t sound anything like the supposed ex-CIA case officer Kent Clizbe. For one thing, Larry Kobayashi sounds like an educated person who is trying to help the whole world avert a terrible catastrophy, and Kent Clizbe sounds to me like a real phony in his self-promoting Internet articles.
CIA employees don’t take orders from the likes of Kent Clizbe about whom to hunt down. In fact, Kent Clizbe is probably an embarrassment to the CIA, if he was ever in the CIA in the first place. After all, Kent Clizbe disparages both the FBI and the CIA analysts in his articles on the Internet. He harrasses climate scientists while the CIA gives them security clearances.
The CIA is probably mortified that an ex-employee is emailing professors and claiming that they will get millions of federal dollars if they denounce the famous scientist Dr. Mann, who demonstrated global warming in his famous “hockey stick” graph. The only people who are trying to discredit Dr. Mann are political subversives who are on the take from the fossil fuel companies and their blogger-dupes.
It seems to me that ex-CIA operative Kent Clizbe is undermining the CIA instead of supporting their mission of addressing the national security threat of climate change.
Here is a really fake religious site called “Real Catholic TV” that tries to make it appear that “real Catholics” don’t believe in global warming, although the Vatican says officially that there is global warming.
The site is nothing to do with the Vatican and even confuses people with a big logo that says CIA at the top. They trade on the CIA logo by calling themselves the Catholic Investigative Agency (CIA), though they have a tiny disclaimer at the bottom saying they aren’t the real CIA.
They aren’t real Catholics, either.
The Vatican says there is global warming. Children and college students learn about global warming in Catholic schools. It’s a social justice issue that needs to be addressed by real science. The Vatican supports the UN report on climate change.
Here is a fake organization that claims to be made of Evangelicals—the Cornwall Alliance. Monckton, who disparaged John Abraham’s Catholic University as a “Bible college,” is part of that. The ornwall Alliance is really an anti-religious site that disparages Christians who are worried about global warming. They characterize the Christians who are concerned about global warming as being like members of a “cult.”
If religious organizations were really against global warming, the denialists would not need to make up FAKE religious organizations.
Sometimes science sites seem like they accept this propaganda from fake sience organizatons. It would be better if scientists gave major Christian denominations credit for believing in global warming.
Plenty of religious people look to religion for moral guidance while also having a scientific outlook. Global warming is a moral issue, and educated Christians look to great scientists for guidance about how to solve this problem.
To clarify something, reCaptcha is an effort to do some impossible Optical Character Recognition on old books. That is, they give you two words, one of which they know, and the other they don’t. You can’t always be sure which word is which, but usually it is obvious. Usually the “unknown” word is not a real word, or has bizarre features in the characters.
But the reason for the two word strategy is to kill two words with one stone, so to speak. By getting a human user to translate both words, they verify that the translator is a human being with one, and they store the translations of the other, helping them to digitize the source (i.e. when enough people translate a word a “saucilicious” they know that must be what’s actually printed in the book, even though it’s not in any real dictionary).
You are actually helping Google to digitize old printed books.
So don’t just skip the bad word. Take a shot at it. You won’t be penalized for getting it wrong, because they don’t themselves know what the right answer is (yet).
P.S. Tamino… if you have a Mac, generating spécîäl characters is really easy. If you have a Windows PC… get a Mac.
A misplaced reply to Tom Szabo — your belated reply to me at the end of the now-closed thread ‘getting it right’ claimed Alaska proves that day length favors giant vegetables. Partly true, Tom, that was my point. Plants that are not day-length-dependent, like those pumpkins and squash, don’t “bolt”–they just get bigger. Look up “day length” and the plant name.
is troubling on several levels. First is the rapidity and quantity of CO2 they predict will be released by thawing of northern hemisphere permafrost. Second, as I read it, their assumptions are quite conservative. They limit the source of the CO2 to a thin layer, and do not include all areas of permafrost, and more importantly, they assume that the GHG released will be CO2, not methane, and they do not reintroduce the released CO2 into their future predictions of temperature. As tundra and boreal soils are typically water saturated, it is likely that a large proportion of the GNG’s released will be in the form of methane. Also, there analysis does not include methane from the East Siberian Continental Shelf.
It would be nice to see a review of the climate modeling aspects of this study on Real Climate.
@ Snapple – thanks for finding religious astroturf groups
“The opinions expressed on RealCatholicTV.com are those of the individuals responsible for [realcatholictv.com]…all of whom are Catholics in good standing who strive to conform to the teaching and laws of the Church.”
those opinions are:
“global warming accomplishes:
1. Population Control
2. Global Governmental Cooperation
3. Earth Worship instead of God Worship
Global Warming is a Government power grab via population reduction.
Pseudoscience and Hyper-sensationalism are being used to promote the global warming agenda, just as they were in the early 20th century eugenics movement. In fact, global warming is the evolution of the early eugenics programs.”
“God created our world with wisdom and love and when he had finished his great work of creation, God saw that it was good.”
“Today however the world is confronted with a serious ecological crisis. The earth is suffering from global warming as a result of our excessive consumption of energy.”
“With the apostle Paul we can affirm: creation has been delivered into the power of destruction, it groans as in the pains of childbirth.”
“We cannot deny that human beings bear a heavy responsibility for environmental destruction. Their unbridled greed casts the shadow of death on the whole of creation.”
“Together Christians must do their utmost to save creation. Before the immensity of this task, they must unite their efforts. It is only together that they can protect the work of the creator.”
I wonder if it’s a sin to lie about being a good Catholic?
ClimateSight has a post about “Extinction and Climate.” Read it — it’s one of the most important global warming posts I’ve ever seen.
The author of that blog is Kate, a young woman (18 or 19 years old I think) who is an undergraduate studying climate science. And she’s one of the best writers on the subject around. She combines genuine knowledge, perspective, and a cool head to get right to the point.
Sometimes the utter stupidity of our politicians drives me to the brink of despair. Then I remember we’ve got Kate on our side. It gives me hope.
Thank you very much. Climategate really opened my eyes. I am no expert, but I could see that the denialists were lying to me and persecuting the scientists. I can’t believe this is happening in America.
I think that climate scientists need to know that the Catholic Church and many Protestants are following what the scientists are learning. We want to teach our children what is true.
Educated Christians follow scientific issues and can see through all that HOCUS-POCUS of denialism. We can see that denialists like Marc Morano, Inhofe, Barton, Cuccinelli, etc. are trying to TRICK us. They are bad people and bad leaders.
Catholic schools use science books that teach about global warming. The Vatican says this is happening. The National Academies, all our scientific agencies, the Pentagon and the CIA say this is happening.
I hope the scientists will keep fighting for our civilization even though some of our “leaders” aren’t leading. They are just taking money from the energy companies and lying to us.
I am so angry that we have all these selfish politicians ruling us.
The climate scientists are the real leaders because they are trying to help our civilization learn how to change so that we can survive and move forward.
It is terrible that our politicians are so arrogant, stupid, and greedy that they can’t appreciate these smart scientists.
One of the religious leaders of the Cornwall Alliance, Dr. James Tonkowich, denigrates Christians who believe in global warming when he makes this bigoted, anti-religious allegation (scroll to the third picture of him):
“Global warming is the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. Al Gore has taken a role corresponding to that of St Paul in proselytizing the new faith …. My skepticism about [anthropogenic global warming] arises from the fact that as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect the scientific method has been abandoned in this field.”
If you only read the home page, it seems that Dr. Tonkowich is claiming that he said these words and that he is a trained physicist, but if you click on the link, Dr. Tonkowich is actually quoting another person: “So wrote Atmospheric Physicist Dr. John Reid, quoted in a new report on more than a thousand scientists who dissent over the claims about man-made global warming.”
That seems a very deceptive to me. Also, these one thousand scientists do not represent the scientific consensus. Almost all climate scientists say there is global warming. The National Academies says that global warming is happening.
It is hard to believe that this dishonest clergyman was once a leader of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Dr. Kent Hill, who led the IRD in the 1980s, would never have misrepresented himself like Dr. Tonkowich does.
Christians who believe in global warming are not cultists who have embraced a “new belief system;” rather, many Christians are educated people who read what our scientists and our religious leaders are learning about global warming. Educated Christians follow the discoveries of modern science and don’t swallow the stupid lies of the denialist “scientific” and “religious” organizations.
We know they are often just the mouthpieces of the fossil-fuel industry.
Details so you can see how Dr. Tonkowich seems to claim he is a physicist.
A blogger who calls himself Pete “the ferret” Ridley (his own appelation) is threatening to “ferret” me out and tell the world my real name.
Ridley has already claimed over at DeSmogBlog that Kent Clizbe (the off-message ex-CIA dude who spams college professors and offers them millions to denounce Dr. Mann) can easily find out who I am with the help of his CIA contacts.
Actually, Pete “the ferret” Ridley can easily find out who I am by asking Virgina’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to blow the lid on Snapple. I write to his deputy W. Russell all the time and complain about the persecution of our scientists.
Since Cucinelli can’t seem to expose Dr. Mann, he might have to settle for exposing old ladies who teach Catholic school. Perhaps he would like to round up all the Holy Sisters who teach Catholic children about climate science, while he’s at it. We don’t teach the “other side” because it’s not science and it’s not religion.
…but the Vatican says there is global warming. It’s not really a hard pick, like Thin Mints or Do Si Dos.
Cuccinelli homeschools, but the kids who attend Catholic school might end up discussing science and religion on that Facebook the young people use to foment revolution.
Cuccinelli might actually make a lasting, if unintentional, contribution to climate science and trigger a Facebook revolution against foreign tyranny in Virginia, all in one fell swoop. Cuccinelli is always encouraging Virginians to remember their revolutionary roots, and I hear him loud and clear!
Ridley says I am a coward not to use my real name on my obscure blog and that he has a “low regard for those who hide behind false names.”
The low regard of hypocritcal ferrets who threaten me with Clizbes does not especially trouble me. We are used to that in Soviet Studies.
Actually, the not-very-sincere ferret has a high regard for the annonymous hacker-criminals who stole the CRU emails. The criminal hackers are also big fat hypocrites who call themselves “honest men.”
Perhaps Pete “the ferret” Ridley grew up in the USSR where accusations of disseminating the CIA or Vatican line could get you charged with anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda; but so far, supporting the CIA and the Vatican line is not a crime in Virginia.
If you like irony, check the ferret’s droppings in the comments.
Pete Ridley, eh!? See if you can spot him on this page.
There might be info there you might find useful, too.
Radge Haverssays
Tamino 520
Joe Read. There’s just not sufficient mockery in the known universe to heap upon the heads of him and his ilk. Classic exhibit of inflammation brought on by blockage of the meritocracy.
Hank quoted:
“Law has its own tests of what is law, and those tests validate much that is immoral and illogical…”
Yeah, perhaps it’s time to grab some hammers and take a good long, hard look at those tests.
I don’t see ClimateSight listed at RC. Seems like a fair enough addition.
Hunt Janinsays
I want to say something about the 2010-2011 Queensland floods in my book-in-progress on climate change/sea level rise. If anyone has clear, well-founded ideas on the CAUSES of these floods, please contact me off-list.
J Bowerssays
British Government Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington goes on the offensive against pseudo-science, calling for it to be tolerated as much as racism is.
Dellingpole’s upset, so Beddington must be doing something right ;)
ghostsays
Phillip # 476, someone somewhere on one of the climate blogs wrote that Compo was preparing a corrective piece for the WSJ’s mis-characterization of his work. Maybe that time has come and gone without publication, or maybe it’s still coming, I dunno. It seems to me that climate story corrections are not WSJ’s cuppa, but I could be wrong.
David B. Bensonsays
In aid of Beddington’s efforts:
Massimo Pigliucci
Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk
University of Chicago Press, 2010.
J Bowerssays
Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science
Robert L. Park, Ph.D
1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.
John E. Pearsonsays
530 Bowers on Park:
I like Park but I don’t think this is what is going on in the case of the attack on climate science. He’s kind of describing your run-of-the-mill crackpot. The attack on climate science is orchestrated by economic and political interests.
It is quite distinct from your random run-of-the-mill crackpot, although It often sounds indistinguishable from random crackpots.
I recently had occasion to read part of a document that Fred Singer’s disinformation organization sent to congress. Of course Lindzen and Happer signed it followed by the usual gang of idiots. Roy Spencer’s name wasn’t on it. I wonder why?
Martin Vermeersays
sambo #490,
you need to read more. Some of the techniques described would give you serious prison time if not used in her Majesty’s service… and all that’s stopping them is them being such nice folks :-(
Yes, there’s plenty more people capable of doing things like this.
john byattsays
# 523
check the comments of the Ferret on this blog they even printed up my name address and phone number for him,
Dr. Will Happer said in Senate testimony that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind.Strangely, Dr. Will Happer, who made this claim in his Senate testimony, did not include any footnotes in his testimony.
Later, footnotes were added by SPPI that often cited a non-scientist who is known to mischaracterize his sources, Lord Monckton. Then it was published by the SPPI–that “scientific” institute whose main address is a post office box in a Virginia parcel post store. When I went there to see the SPPI, I thought my GPS was messed up; however, it really is a mailbox in a parcel post store.
The altered document was also on the Virginia Mining Association site.
I have all the details about this documented here. I am not a scientist, but seeing how Happer’s paper was footnoted after his testimony was one of the things that showed me how dishonest a few “scholars” are.
At first, I thought that a Princeton scientist like Dr. Happer would probably be furious that a non-scholar had taken it upon himself to actually change his Senate testimony by adding footnotes that were not in the official testimony.
In fact, however, the Happer Lab site directs the reader to the adapted SPPI testimony instead of to Happer’s official Senate testimony:
There are several places on the web where you can find his testimony—here are two:
The Environment and Public Works Blog
The Science and Public Policy Institute
The first link is a press release from Marc Morano.
A question. Can someone who knows this text book by Richard Lindzen answer this? I assume that there is nothing in there that is controversial. Is my assumption correct? I ask because I’m trying to work through some atmospheric physics with an old friend and have been told that I’m only willing to read stuff by people who “agree with me”, when in fact I’m only willing to read climate science by actual climate scientists. The difficulty my friends is having is that there are zillions of people with opinions on climate science who aren’t climate scientists, and, silly me, I don’t want to waste my time reading all that stuff.
“… After I last wrote about online astroturfing, in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them. Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression that there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. I’ll reveal more about what he told me when I’ve finished the investigation I’m working on….”
“… After I last wrote about online astroturfing, in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them. Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression that there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. I’ll reveal more about what he told me when I’ve finished the investigation I’m working on….”
This probably belongs in The Bore Hole, but I can’t post there.
RE Unforced Variations-Feb (I noticed the thread is reopened.): I don’t mean to resurrect the issues but want to tie up some loose ends and, since asked, succinctly explain my comments for the record.
1) Planck radiation and line spectral radiation are not the same thing. This was my initial and primary assertion and I am 98% certain it is correct. My position was clear and explicit IMO (though the reader determines this in the end, not the writer) and can be seen at comments # 152 and 202, et al, of the Unforced Variations-Feb thread. No one has provided me a satisfactory scientific/physical explanation why they are essentially the same thing (and it’s been in the ring here a couple of times before) — though some have tried. For a quick example, raypierre said (441) “…points of the statistical mechanics of radiation and how that relates to quantum states (lines) that are in fact completely understood…” which is scientific and with which I agree but does not actually address the question.
The other two are sidebars that grew out of the above.
2) Gases emit planck function radiation, albeit maybe small. I’m 75% certain of this. Many papers and texts support me; many explicitly disagree. (Though detailed explanations of the physical generation of Planck radiation I find are strangely sparse.)
3) I don’t see how earth’s back radiation adds up. This was just a late aside and a curiosity of mine, though does relate to #2, above. I need to study this further.
IMO the above two were also clearly stated. I think it’s not that the other commenters don’t understand my question as it is their annoyance that I don’t readily accept some of their answers, which sometimes are non-scientific declarative rebuttals of the “is so” — “is not” variety. But again maybe this is just me.
I’ve been on RC for a few years attempting to learn the science and have picked up some education along the way. (90%+ of my climatology blog time is spent on RC.) But it has become evident to me (and you all) over the past many months that much of my questioning and assertions generate copious and diffused back and forth comments that are more hindrance than help to RC. I’ll check out RC from time to time but I think it’s time for me to bow out for a while.
ps — for Hank and Chris Colose: the referenced graph was made backwards from what I expected and I just misread it.
pps — this is belated because I lost my internet connection for a while.
Once you read through the whole introduction, noting the points around p. xxxvi and xxvii might be helpful. I think you’re working through the history of the idea (to the extent any of us can without doing the math). I wonder if you can point to any particular description of one of the ways this stuff was for a while understood and say that’s the one you believe.
If none of it makes sense, the math is probably essential to understanding.
There must be an online course for this somewhere.
Ray Ladburysays
Rod, you may think that was clear. It was not. Try with simple declarative sentences. And maybe also consider how, if the atoms of a gas can emit in a continuum, what is to stop the electrons from spiraling into the nucleus?
David B. Bensonsays
Frabjous day!
The local lending library finally was ready to lend out Principles of Planetary Climate by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert.
[Response: Calloo, Callay! –raypierre]
Isotopioussays
Gavin,
I’ve changed my mind, since La Nina is fading quite quickly now (along with my odds), I bet 2011 will not be one of the Top 10 warmest years on record.
Just a bit of fun, gisstemp is fine by me. I propose that if I lose the bet, I will be put into the borehole for life.
If I win however, You have to put one of your comments of my choosing into the borehore.
I think 2001 is the 10th warmest…(0.47 deg C)
Wanna bet?
Patrick 027says
Re Rod –
1. capping earlier discussion of line broadenning and multiple lines – you could have many many lines packed closely together but if each is of zero or infinitesimal width, you’d still have zero or infinitesimal* flux over the spectrum even with nonzero spectral (monochromatic) fluxes at the lines (for emission – or zero/infinitesimal absorption for absorption spectrum given a continuous band of incident radiation). (*well, infinity * infinitesimal can equal some non-infinitesimal number, but anyway…)
It is the line broadenning that allows such lines to actually fill some nonzero fraction of a spectrum and if gaps start to be filled, produce a continuous distribution of nonzero absorption and emission over the spectrum; having many closely spaced lines reduces the amount of broadenning necessary to fill in the gaps significantly.
Given such filling of gaps, sufficiently thick isothermal layers can produce a spectrum of radiation approaching a Planck spectrum, over an absorption/emission band. The line centers require less thickness in a layer to approach that spectrum but the fluxes found at the gaps may diverge depending on how temperature varies through other farther layers whose emissions are able to affect the fluxes found at some location, due to reduced opacity.
If the atmosphere had sufficiently large optical thickness extending to the surface (ie not counting higher level clouds, ozone layer, etc.) over the whole LW portion of the spectrum, then the backradiation would tend toward a Planck spectrum and amount corresponding to the temperature found at or near the surface, because most of what ‘can be seen’ from the surface, given the opaqueness of such an atmosphere, would be near the surface and have temperatures near that of the surface (we can just require larger optical thickness to balance larger temperature gradients near the surface (nocturnal inversions, etc.) to bring about this condition).
The “Rod” business: Planck’s Theory of Heat Radiation? That’s 520 pages, and the google reader won’t even give me enough pages to read the suggested ones.
Ray’s comment is like a question I would ask if given the opportunity: Why are there no classical atoms? Because the electrons would radiate and spiral into the nucleus and down would come baby, atoms and all.
Patrick generally makes sense I think, but each spectral “line” must really be a band of some small but finite width, else there would be no radiation hence no people. QED by reductio ad absurdum. The width is guaranteed by Heisenberg uncertainty I presume. Pressure broadening of the bands, at first seeming nonsense because pressure is a bulk property of the gas, is caused by collisions which distort the electric field of the molecule for some small fraction of the time, the fraction being greater at greater pressure (more frequent collisions).
To what extent do we get small sections of radiation-matter equilibrium and the Planck curve at surface pressure?
Wajed Alisays
Hi guys
could anybody enlighten me about the interpretation of this paper here?
I know it has been briefly touched upon before here. They are discussing the earth´s albedo, and their conclusion puzzles me somewhat:
“Summarizing, over the roughly defined periods: i) 1960–1985: The Earth’s albedo may have increased by as much as 7 W/m2 [Gilgen et al., 1998; Stanhill and Cohen, 2001; Liepert, 2002]; ii) 1985–2000: the Earth’s
albedo has decreased by a quantity from 2–3 W/m2 [Wielicki et al., 2002; Pinker et al., 2005] to 6–7 W/m2 [Palle´ et al., 2004; Wild et al., 2005]; iii) 2000–2004: the trends for two of the data sets in Figure 1, are toward an albedo increase of about 2 W/m2 [Palle´ et al., 2004] and
2oK [Casadio et al., 2005] and a large peak in 2003 with a drop in 2004, while CERES data shows a decrease of about 2 W/m2 [Wielicki et al., 2005]. Newly updated ISCCP data seems to support the increasing trend shown by the ES and OBT”.
The size of the forcings in this appear, prima facie, just wildly unreasonable to me. How do the suggested 6-7 watts per square meter from the allegedely decreasing albedo fit into the temperature rise from 1985 to 2000? And if the albedo INcreased by about the same value from 1960 until 1985, then what is one to conclude, given the fact that the temperature rose significantly in both these intervals (1960-85 and 1985-2000)?
Is the albedo suggested to be an independent forcing according to this research? Are these values reasonable and replicable? How do they compare with the forcing from GHGs? And what are the implications for the future global warming in this? Hope someone can help me! Thx, W
SteveFsays
Very interesting paper in Nature this week:
Thuiller, W. et al. (2011) Consequences of climate change on the tree of life in Europe. Nature, 470, 531-534.
they conclude:
“Linking phylogenetic and biogeographic information can help identify regions of past production and present maintenance of biodiversity (so-called cradles and graves)14, but projecting them into the future is challenging. Our study addresses this challenge and presents a unique large-scale assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on the evolutionary history of plants, birds and mammals. Although our assessment integrates uncertainty in phylogenetic reconstructions, it should be noted that projected changes in evolutionary history are also inevitably sensitive to the species distribution and climate models used. To address this problem, we have used cutting-edge bioclimatic ensemble forecasting methodologies. Because high-resolution climate projections have large uncertainties (owing to the difficulty of simulating local climates and the inaccuracy of interpolation techniques15), we have included three well-known global change models encompassing a large variation in future climate and shown that our results were robust to this variation. Accordingly, we show that although different metrics of species vulnerability to climate change tend not to be randomly distributed with regards to the tree of life, the loss of European phylogenetic diversity is not greater than expected under a model of random extinctions4. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species provides clear evidence that extinction risk is selective among particular groups such as the amphibians, birds and mammals16. The prevalence of threatened species differs significantly among these groups and among the families and orders within each group9, 16. The fossil record also provides evidence of phylogenetically clustered extinctions, although the previous five mass extinctions provide examples of less extreme selectivity17, 18. Our projections do not predict a large drop in total phylogenetic diversity, but they do suggest a future restructuring of the spatial distribution of the tree of life. Phylogenetic diversity over Europe will be homogenized owing to the reshuffling of species assemblages and the migration of the tree of life into higher latitudes and elevations.”
> Pressure broadening … caused by collisions which distort the
> electric field of the molecule
And stretch-tug-and-wrinkle broadening — distortion of the fields and bonds — with temperature change of the bits that are holding one another tighter and closer together when they’re making liquids and even more in solids.
Same stuff all the way down; different constraints on how the bits move.
Patrick 027says
Re 546 Pete Dunkelberg – the effect of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is considered one of broadenning mechanisms.
Captcha knows latex. use underscores for subscripts!
Re: #497 (Didactylos), #499 (Ray Ladbury), and #500 (John E. Pearson)
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
(repeated 3 times so David Harper would think it’s periodic)
OK guys: ReCaptcha is way over the line. When it’s not showing something that I have no idea what the hell it is, it’s putting in umlauts and other accents. Such things are not on my keyboard.
I’m not the only one who has complained *recently*.
Seriously: this pain-in-the-ass is a disservice to your readers. Do you really need to annoy, and sometimes offend, your most ardent followers who are working for the same cause? What’s the purpose of this blog anyway?
“What is the explanation for the 60 year cycle?”
Improper windowing, filtering, and edge effects on a dataset too short for meaningful Fourier analysis of 60 year frequency components over ~160 years of data.
I suggest as an exercise in understanding that you do the following –
Create a synthetic 160 year dataset which combines random numbers with a 1 year sin function. Compare the results of Fourier Analysis with Rectangular, Hann, Hamming, Blackman, Tukey, Kaiser, and so on, windows.
Add (non periodic) synthetic trends to the dataset; one trend starting at the midpoint of the dataset, as a first approximation to Industrial Revolution forcing, and a larger trend for the last quarter, as a first approximation of the increasing growth in population and fossil fuel consumption. Repeat the FA, and compare results.
Add a triangular negative impulse, with a rapid rise, 10-20 years, and slower decay, starting in 1930, as a first approximation to cooling from the rise and decline of sulfate emissions from high sulfur fuel consumption and the clean air act. Repeat the FA, and compare results.
If you want to test the null hypothesis “there is no AGW trend”, you can’t use a tool such as Fourier analysis which not only doesn’t test for trends, but can give false results when there are trends.
compare http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2010/05/expect-global-cooling-for-2-3-decades-easterbrook/
with http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-there-60-year-pacific-decadal.html
@ Tamino #503 – I ignore the punctuation and accents and it goes through fine (ie you don’t need to bother with them, just copy the letters and numbers). If I can’t read the Captcha text at all, I click on the redo arrows and get another.
http://code.google.com/apis/recaptcha/docs/troubleshooting.html#incorrectwords
“… One of the words displayed by reCAPTCHA is from an old book which is being digitized. As such it is not graded — it cannot. Indeed, occasionally it may be blank, or just a bit of noise.
On the word that is checked, the user is (by default) allowed to be off by one letter. It has been found that this increases the user experience while not degrading security by a large amount. This is tuned dynamically based on many factors.”
Found that in a thread titled \atypical characters\ in the Google Group for ReCaptcha.
(its URL gets blocked by the spam filter, go figure …)
Confirmed on 2nd try — Tamino, try just typing the one word that’s readable and ignoring the other one.
http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/deep-ocean-warming-solves-the-sea-level-puzzle/
Hank Roberts, I came over here to read comments on the paper by Song and Colberg regarding deep ocean heating that you just posted the link. Song and Colberg claim that deep ocean heating could be contributing one third of the observed SLR of 3.1 mm per year.
If someone can translate that into a heating rate, say 3 to 4 x 10^21 joule per year, and compare it to upper level OHC buildup, that would be helpful. The Song and Colberg result seems to imply that deep ocean heating can almost close the planetary energy budget.
Here’s a recent Tellus paper written by folks at NSIDC:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0889.2011.00527.x/abstract
It indicates melting permafrost may have a more positive permafrost carbon feedback than previously thought.
This is the place for off-topic comments, right?
Some global warming denialist named Pete Ridley does not like the fact that I use the nom-de-plume “Snapple” on my blog.
Ridley writes in the comments on Desmogblog (1-21-11) that he has “low regard for those who hide behind false names.”
Ridley even makes the ludicrous threat that some ex-CIA operative named Kent Clizbe might track me down with the help of his CIA friends: “I’m sure [ex-CIA operative] Kent [Clizbe] could easily use his CIA contacts to track [Snapple] down…”
In fact, the not-very-sincere Pete Ridley actually has enormous regard for DENIALISTS who hide behind false names: Pete Ridley celebrates the misdeeds of anonymous cyber-criminals who hacked into the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), stole the scientists’ emails, and posted them on a Russian server in Tomsk right before the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen.
The cyber-criminals, who did not give their names, hypocritically called themselves “honest men.”
Why doesn’t Pete Ridley ask the cyber-criminals to identify themselves if they are really “honest men”?
The CIA does not track down people who have blogs that explain the CIA position on global warming. The head of the CIA climate change unit is named Larry Kobayashi, and he doesn’t sound anything like the supposed ex-CIA case officer Kent Clizbe. For one thing, Larry Kobayashi sounds like an educated person who is trying to help the whole world avert a terrible catastrophy, and Kent Clizbe sounds to me like a real phony in his self-promoting Internet articles.
CIA employees don’t take orders from the likes of Kent Clizbe about whom to hunt down. In fact, Kent Clizbe is probably an embarrassment to the CIA, if he was ever in the CIA in the first place. After all, Kent Clizbe disparages both the FBI and the CIA analysts in his articles on the Internet. He harrasses climate scientists while the CIA gives them security clearances.
The CIA is probably mortified that an ex-employee is emailing professors and claiming that they will get millions of federal dollars if they denounce the famous scientist Dr. Mann, who demonstrated global warming in his famous “hockey stick” graph. The only people who are trying to discredit Dr. Mann are political subversives who are on the take from the fossil fuel companies and their blogger-dupes.
It seems to me that ex-CIA operative Kent Clizbe is undermining the CIA instead of supporting their mission of addressing the national security threat of climate change.
Here is a really fake religious site called “Real Catholic TV” that tries to make it appear that “real Catholics” don’t believe in global warming, although the Vatican says officially that there is global warming.
http://www.realcatholictv.com/cia/04GlobalWarming/
The site is nothing to do with the Vatican and even confuses people with a big logo that says CIA at the top. They trade on the CIA logo by calling themselves the Catholic Investigative Agency (CIA), though they have a tiny disclaimer at the bottom saying they aren’t the real CIA.
They aren’t real Catholics, either.
The Vatican says there is global warming. Children and college students learn about global warming in Catholic schools. It’s a social justice issue that needs to be addressed by real science. The Vatican supports the UN report on climate change.
Here is a fake organization that claims to be made of Evangelicals—the Cornwall Alliance. Monckton, who disparaged John Abraham’s Catholic University as a “Bible college,” is part of that. The ornwall Alliance is really an anti-religious site that disparages Christians who are worried about global warming. They characterize the Christians who are concerned about global warming as being like members of a “cult.”
http://www.cornwallalliance.org/
If religious organizations were really against global warming, the denialists would not need to make up FAKE religious organizations.
Sometimes science sites seem like they accept this propaganda from fake sience organizatons. It would be better if scientists gave major Christian denominations credit for believing in global warming.
Plenty of religious people look to religion for moral guidance while also having a scientific outlook. Global warming is a moral issue, and educated Christians look to great scientists for guidance about how to solve this problem.
509, Hank and Tamino,
To clarify something, reCaptcha is an effort to do some impossible Optical Character Recognition on old books. That is, they give you two words, one of which they know, and the other they don’t. You can’t always be sure which word is which, but usually it is obvious. Usually the “unknown” word is not a real word, or has bizarre features in the characters.
But the reason for the two word strategy is to kill two words with one stone, so to speak. By getting a human user to translate both words, they verify that the translator is a human being with one, and they store the translations of the other, helping them to digitize the source (i.e. when enough people translate a word a “saucilicious” they know that must be what’s actually printed in the book, even though it’s not in any real dictionary).
You are actually helping Google to digitize old printed books.
So don’t just skip the bad word. Take a shot at it. You won’t be penalized for getting it wrong, because they don’t themselves know what the right answer is (yet).
P.S. Tamino… if you have a Mac, generating spécîäl characters is really easy. If you have a Windows PC… get a Mac.
A misplaced reply to Tom Szabo — your belated reply to me at the end of the now-closed thread ‘getting it right’ claimed Alaska proves that day length favors giant vegetables. Partly true, Tom, that was my point. Plants that are not day-length-dependent, like those pumpkins and squash, don’t “bolt”–they just get bigger. Look up “day length” and the plant name.
For Paul K2: at the bottom of the page at Ari’s site, he points to:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/deep_ocean_warming.html — try there.
To quote Monty Python, “now for something completely different”, the recent article by Schaefer et al. in Tellus
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0889.2011.00527.x/full
is troubling on several levels. First is the rapidity and quantity of CO2 they predict will be released by thawing of northern hemisphere permafrost. Second, as I read it, their assumptions are quite conservative. They limit the source of the CO2 to a thin layer, and do not include all areas of permafrost, and more importantly, they assume that the GHG released will be CO2, not methane, and they do not reintroduce the released CO2 into their future predictions of temperature. As tundra and boreal soils are typically water saturated, it is likely that a large proportion of the GNG’s released will be in the form of methane. Also, there analysis does not include methane from the East Siberian Continental Shelf.
It would be nice to see a review of the climate modeling aspects of this study on Real Climate.
Can one of you scientists please look at this video? This is NOT the position of the Catholic Church.
http://www.realcatholictv.com/cia/04GlobalWarming/
@ Snapple – thanks for finding religious astroturf groups
“The opinions expressed on RealCatholicTV.com are those of the individuals responsible for [realcatholictv.com]…all of whom are Catholics in good standing who strive to conform to the teaching and laws of the Church.”
those opinions are:
“global warming accomplishes:
1. Population Control
2. Global Governmental Cooperation
3. Earth Worship instead of God Worship
Global Warming is a Government power grab via population reduction.
Pseudoscience and Hyper-sensationalism are being used to promote the global warming agenda, just as they were in the early 20th century eugenics movement. In fact, global warming is the evolution of the early eugenics programs.”
Catholic teaching on AGW (from http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/weeks-prayer-doc/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20080630_week-prayer-2009_en.html) is:
“God created our world with wisdom and love and when he had finished his great work of creation, God saw that it was good.”
“Today however the world is confronted with a serious ecological crisis. The earth is suffering from global warming as a result of our excessive consumption of energy.”
“With the apostle Paul we can affirm: creation has been delivered into the power of destruction, it groans as in the pains of childbirth.”
“We cannot deny that human beings bear a heavy responsibility for environmental destruction. Their unbridled greed casts the shadow of death on the whole of creation.”
“Together Christians must do their utmost to save creation. Before the immensity of this task, they must unite their efforts. It is only together that they can protect the work of the creator.”
I wonder if it’s a sin to lie about being a good Catholic?
ClimateSight has a post about “Extinction and Climate.” Read it — it’s one of the most important global warming posts I’ve ever seen.
The author of that blog is Kate, a young woman (18 or 19 years old I think) who is an undergraduate studying climate science. And she’s one of the best writers on the subject around. She combines genuine knowledge, perspective, and a cool head to get right to the point.
Sometimes the utter stupidity of our politicians drives me to the brink of despair. Then I remember we’ve got Kate on our side. It gives me hope.
Dear Brian Dodge,
Thank you very much. Climategate really opened my eyes. I am no expert, but I could see that the denialists were lying to me and persecuting the scientists. I can’t believe this is happening in America.
I think that climate scientists need to know that the Catholic Church and many Protestants are following what the scientists are learning. We want to teach our children what is true.
Educated Christians follow scientific issues and can see through all that HOCUS-POCUS of denialism. We can see that denialists like Marc Morano, Inhofe, Barton, Cuccinelli, etc. are trying to TRICK us. They are bad people and bad leaders.
Catholic schools use science books that teach about global warming. The Vatican says this is happening. The National Academies, all our scientific agencies, the Pentagon and the CIA say this is happening.
I hope the scientists will keep fighting for our civilization even though some of our “leaders” aren’t leading. They are just taking money from the energy companies and lying to us.
I am so angry that we have all these selfish politicians ruling us.
The climate scientists are the real leaders because they are trying to help our civilization learn how to change so that we can survive and move forward.
It is terrible that our politicians are so arrogant, stupid, and greedy that they can’t appreciate these smart scientists.
One of the religious leaders of the Cornwall Alliance, Dr. James Tonkowich, denigrates Christians who believe in global warming when he makes this bigoted, anti-religious allegation (scroll to the third picture of him):
“Global warming is the central tenet of this new belief system in much the same way that the Resurrection is the central tenet of Christianity. Al Gore has taken a role corresponding to that of St Paul in proselytizing the new faith …. My skepticism about [anthropogenic global warming] arises from the fact that as a physicist who has worked in closely related areas, I know how poor the underlying science is. In effect the scientific method has been abandoned in this field.”
If you only read the home page, it seems that Dr. Tonkowich is claiming that he said these words and that he is a trained physicist, but if you click on the link, Dr. Tonkowich is actually quoting another person: “So wrote Atmospheric Physicist Dr. John Reid, quoted in a new report on more than a thousand scientists who dissent over the claims about man-made global warming.”
That seems a very deceptive to me. Also, these one thousand scientists do not represent the scientific consensus. Almost all climate scientists say there is global warming. The National Academies says that global warming is happening.
It is hard to believe that this dishonest clergyman was once a leader of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Dr. Kent Hill, who led the IRD in the 1980s, would never have misrepresented himself like Dr. Tonkowich does.
Christians who believe in global warming are not cultists who have embraced a “new belief system;” rather, many Christians are educated people who read what our scientists and our religious leaders are learning about global warming. Educated Christians follow the discoveries of modern science and don’t swallow the stupid lies of the denialist “scientific” and “religious” organizations.
We know they are often just the mouthpieces of the fossil-fuel industry.
Details so you can see how Dr. Tonkowich seems to claim he is a physicist.
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2011/02/astroturf-religious-organizations-deny.html
A blogger who calls himself Pete “the ferret” Ridley (his own appelation) is threatening to “ferret” me out and tell the world my real name.
Ridley has already claimed over at DeSmogBlog that Kent Clizbe (the off-message ex-CIA dude who spams college professors and offers them millions to denounce Dr. Mann) can easily find out who I am with the help of his CIA contacts.
Actually, Pete “the ferret” Ridley can easily find out who I am by asking Virgina’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to blow the lid on Snapple. I write to his deputy W. Russell all the time and complain about the persecution of our scientists.
Since Cucinelli can’t seem to expose Dr. Mann, he might have to settle for exposing old ladies who teach Catholic school. Perhaps he would like to round up all the Holy Sisters who teach Catholic children about climate science, while he’s at it. We don’t teach the “other side” because it’s not science and it’s not religion.
Cuccinelli cites the Kremlin’s official press agency RIA Novosti in his suit against the EPA. http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2010/10/attorney-general-cuccinelli-ties-his.html
…but the Vatican says there is global warming. It’s not really a hard pick, like Thin Mints or Do Si Dos.
Cuccinelli homeschools, but the kids who attend Catholic school might end up discussing science and religion on that Facebook the young people use to foment revolution.
Cuccinelli might actually make a lasting, if unintentional, contribution to climate science and trigger a Facebook revolution against foreign tyranny in Virginia, all in one fell swoop. Cuccinelli is always encouraging Virginians to remember their revolutionary roots, and I hear him loud and clear!
Ridley says I am a coward not to use my real name on my obscure blog and that he has a “low regard for those who hide behind false names.”
The low regard of hypocritcal ferrets who threaten me with Clizbes does not especially trouble me. We are used to that in Soviet Studies.
Actually, the not-very-sincere ferret has a high regard for the annonymous hacker-criminals who stole the CRU emails. The criminal hackers are also big fat hypocrites who call themselves “honest men.”
Perhaps Pete “the ferret” Ridley grew up in the USSR where accusations of disseminating the CIA or Vatican line could get you charged with anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda; but so far, supporting the CIA and the Vatican line is not a crime in Virginia.
If you like irony, check the ferret’s droppings in the comments.
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2011/02/pete-ridleys-big-fat-double-standard.html
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-arent-kent-clizbe-and-ken.html
Re Snapple
Pete Ridley, eh!? See if you can spot him on this page.
There might be info there you might find useful, too.
Tamino 520
Joe Read. There’s just not sufficient mockery in the known universe to heap upon the heads of him and his ilk. Classic exhibit of inflammation brought on by blockage of the meritocracy.
Hank quoted:
Yeah, perhaps it’s time to grab some hammers and take a good long, hard look at those tests.
I don’t see ClimateSight listed at RC. Seems like a fair enough addition.
I want to say something about the 2010-2011 Queensland floods in my book-in-progress on climate change/sea level rise. If anyone has clear, well-founded ideas on the CAUSES of these floods, please contact me off-list.
British Government Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington goes on the offensive against pseudo-science, calling for it to be tolerated as much as racism is.
http://www.researchresearch.com/index.php?option=com_news&template=rr_2col&view=article&articleId=1032320
Dellingpole’s upset, so Beddington must be doing something right ;)
Phillip # 476, someone somewhere on one of the climate blogs wrote that Compo was preparing a corrective piece for the WSJ’s mis-characterization of his work. Maybe that time has come and gone without publication, or maybe it’s still coming, I dunno. It seems to me that climate story corrections are not WSJ’s cuppa, but I could be wrong.
In aid of Beddington’s efforts:
Massimo Pigliucci
Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk
University of Chicago Press, 2010.
Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science
Robert L. Park, Ph.D
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/signs.html
Condensed:
1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.
530 Bowers on Park:
I like Park but I don’t think this is what is going on in the case of the attack on climate science. He’s kind of describing your run-of-the-mill crackpot. The attack on climate science is orchestrated by economic and political interests.
It is quite distinct from your random run-of-the-mill crackpot, although It often sounds indistinguishable from random crackpots.
I recently had occasion to read part of a document that Fred Singer’s disinformation organization sent to congress. Of course Lindzen and Happer signed it followed by the usual gang of idiots. Roy Spencer’s name wasn’t on it. I wonder why?
sambo #490,
you need to read more. Some of the techniques described would give you serious prison time if not used in her Majesty’s service… and all that’s stopping them is them being such nice folks :-(
Yes, there’s plenty more people capable of doing things like this.
# 523
check the comments of the Ferret on this blog they even printed up my name address and phone number for him,
a very strange person indeed ,
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com/2011/02/true-unbelievers.html
Dr. Will Happer said in Senate testimony that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind.Strangely, Dr. Will Happer, who made this claim in his Senate testimony, did not include any footnotes in his testimony.
Later, footnotes were added by SPPI that often cited a non-scientist who is known to mischaracterize his sources, Lord Monckton. Then it was published by the SPPI–that “scientific” institute whose main address is a post office box in a Virginia parcel post store. When I went there to see the SPPI, I thought my GPS was messed up; however, it really is a mailbox in a parcel post store.
The altered document was also on the Virginia Mining Association site.
I have all the details about this documented here. I am not a scientist, but seeing how Happer’s paper was footnoted after his testimony was one of the things that showed me how dishonest a few “scholars” are.
At first, I thought that a Princeton scientist like Dr. Happer would probably be furious that a non-scholar had taken it upon himself to actually change his Senate testimony by adding footnotes that were not in the official testimony.
In fact, however, the Happer Lab site directs the reader to the adapted SPPI testimony instead of to Happer’s official Senate testimony:
There are several places on the web where you can find his testimony—here are two:
The Environment and Public Works Blog
The Science and Public Policy Institute
The first link is a press release from Marc Morano.
Links and full story here:
http://legendofpineridge.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-did-drhapper-let-science-and-public.html
Antarctic Creature’s Growth Rate Mysteriously Doubles
http://www.livescience.com/12941-polar-carbon-sink-ross-sea-expedition.html
A question. Can someone who knows this text book by Richard Lindzen answer this? I assume that there is nothing in there that is controversial. Is my assumption correct? I ask because I’m trying to work through some atmospheric physics with an old friend and have been told that I’m only willing to read stuff by people who “agree with me”, when in fact I’m only willing to read climate science by actual climate scientists. The difficulty my friends is having is that there are zillions of people with opinions on climate science who aren’t climate scientists, and, silly me, I don’t want to waste my time reading all that stuff.
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Atmospheric-Physics-Richard-Lindzen/dp/0521018218/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298471213&sr=1-2
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/02/23/robot-wars/
“… After I last wrote about online astroturfing, in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them. Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression that there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. I’ll reveal more about what he told me when I’ve finished the investigation I’m working on….”
“… After I last wrote about online astroturfing, in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them. Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression that there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. I’ll reveal more about what he told me when I’ve finished the investigation I’m working on….”
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/02/23/robot-wars/
This probably belongs in The Bore Hole, but I can’t post there.
RE Unforced Variations-Feb (I noticed the thread is reopened.): I don’t mean to resurrect the issues but want to tie up some loose ends and, since asked, succinctly explain my comments for the record.
1) Planck radiation and line spectral radiation are not the same thing. This was my initial and primary assertion and I am 98% certain it is correct. My position was clear and explicit IMO (though the reader determines this in the end, not the writer) and can be seen at comments # 152 and 202, et al, of the Unforced Variations-Feb thread. No one has provided me a satisfactory scientific/physical explanation why they are essentially the same thing (and it’s been in the ring here a couple of times before) — though some have tried. For a quick example, raypierre said (441) “…points of the statistical mechanics of radiation and how that relates to quantum states (lines) that are in fact completely understood…” which is scientific and with which I agree but does not actually address the question.
The other two are sidebars that grew out of the above.
2) Gases emit planck function radiation, albeit maybe small. I’m 75% certain of this. Many papers and texts support me; many explicitly disagree. (Though detailed explanations of the physical generation of Planck radiation I find are strangely sparse.)
3) I don’t see how earth’s back radiation adds up. This was just a late aside and a curiosity of mine, though does relate to #2, above. I need to study this further.
IMO the above two were also clearly stated. I think it’s not that the other commenters don’t understand my question as it is their annoyance that I don’t readily accept some of their answers, which sometimes are non-scientific declarative rebuttals of the “is so” — “is not” variety. But again maybe this is just me.
I’ve been on RC for a few years attempting to learn the science and have picked up some education along the way. (90%+ of my climatology blog time is spent on RC.) But it has become evident to me (and you all) over the past many months that much of my questioning and assertions generate copious and diffused back and forth comments that are more hindrance than help to RC. I’ll check out RC from time to time but I think it’s time for me to bow out for a while.
ps — for Hank and Chris Colose: the referenced graph was made backwards from what I expected and I just misread it.
pps — this is belated because I lost my internet connection for a while.
Rod, see if you can identify your belief with any of the ideas in the history:
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=5C5wSPs2XCYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=Planck+radiation+and+line+spectral+radiation+are+not+the+same+thing.+&ots=wi_zcGjJFl&sig=KB3S6tYiVkww2-xuhYQydcj2n-o#v=onepage&q&f=false
Once you read through the whole introduction, noting the points around p. xxxvi and xxvii might be helpful. I think you’re working through the history of the idea (to the extent any of us can without doing the math). I wonder if you can point to any particular description of one of the ways this stuff was for a while understood and say that’s the one you believe.
If none of it makes sense, the math is probably essential to understanding.
There must be an online course for this somewhere.
Rod, you may think that was clear. It was not. Try with simple declarative sentences. And maybe also consider how, if the atoms of a gas can emit in a continuum, what is to stop the electrons from spiraling into the nucleus?
Frabjous day!
The local lending library finally was ready to lend out
Principles of Planetary Climate by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert.
[Response: Calloo, Callay! –raypierre]
Gavin,
I’ve changed my mind, since La Nina is fading quite quickly now (along with my odds), I bet 2011 will not be one of the Top 10 warmest years on record.
Just a bit of fun, gisstemp is fine by me. I propose that if I lose the bet, I will be put into the borehole for life.
If I win however, You have to put one of your comments of my choosing into the borehore.
I think 2001 is the 10th warmest…(0.47 deg C)
Wanna bet?
Re Rod –
1. capping earlier discussion of line broadenning and multiple lines – you could have many many lines packed closely together but if each is of zero or infinitesimal width, you’d still have zero or infinitesimal* flux over the spectrum even with nonzero spectral (monochromatic) fluxes at the lines (for emission – or zero/infinitesimal absorption for absorption spectrum given a continuous band of incident radiation). (*well, infinity * infinitesimal can equal some non-infinitesimal number, but anyway…)
It is the line broadenning that allows such lines to actually fill some nonzero fraction of a spectrum and if gaps start to be filled, produce a continuous distribution of nonzero absorption and emission over the spectrum; having many closely spaced lines reduces the amount of broadenning necessary to fill in the gaps significantly.
Given such filling of gaps, sufficiently thick isothermal layers can produce a spectrum of radiation approaching a Planck spectrum, over an absorption/emission band. The line centers require less thickness in a layer to approach that spectrum but the fluxes found at the gaps may diverge depending on how temperature varies through other farther layers whose emissions are able to affect the fluxes found at some location, due to reduced opacity.
If the atmosphere had sufficiently large optical thickness extending to the surface (ie not counting higher level clouds, ozone layer, etc.) over the whole LW portion of the spectrum, then the backradiation would tend toward a Planck spectrum and amount corresponding to the temperature found at or near the surface, because most of what ‘can be seen’ from the surface, given the opaqueness of such an atmosphere, would be near the surface and have temperatures near that of the surface (we can just require larger optical thickness to balance larger temperature gradients near the surface (nocturnal inversions, etc.) to bring about this condition).
New paper on the AMO references Keenlyside et al.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n2/full/ncomms1186.html#/ref47
The “Rod” business: Planck’s Theory of Heat Radiation? That’s 520 pages, and the google reader won’t even give me enough pages to read the suggested ones.
Ray’s comment is like a question I would ask if given the opportunity: Why are there no classical atoms? Because the electrons would radiate and spiral into the nucleus and down would come baby, atoms and all.
Patrick generally makes sense I think, but each spectral “line” must really be a band of some small but finite width, else there would be no radiation hence no people. QED by reductio ad absurdum. The width is guaranteed by Heisenberg uncertainty I presume. Pressure broadening of the bands, at first seeming nonsense because pressure is a bulk property of the gas, is caused by collisions which distort the electric field of the molecule for some small fraction of the time, the fraction being greater at greater pressure (more frequent collisions).
To what extent do we get small sections of radiation-matter equilibrium and the Planck curve at surface pressure?
Hi guys
could anybody enlighten me about the interpretation of this paper here?
http://www.iac.es/galeria/epalle/reprints/Palle_GRL_2005.pdf
I know it has been briefly touched upon before here. They are discussing the earth´s albedo, and their conclusion puzzles me somewhat:
“Summarizing, over the roughly defined periods: i) 1960–1985: The Earth’s albedo may have increased by as much as 7 W/m2 [Gilgen et al., 1998; Stanhill and Cohen, 2001; Liepert, 2002]; ii) 1985–2000: the Earth’s
albedo has decreased by a quantity from 2–3 W/m2 [Wielicki et al., 2002; Pinker et al., 2005] to 6–7 W/m2 [Palle´ et al., 2004; Wild et al., 2005]; iii) 2000–2004: the trends for two of the data sets in Figure 1, are toward an albedo increase of about 2 W/m2 [Palle´ et al., 2004] and
2oK [Casadio et al., 2005] and a large peak in 2003 with a drop in 2004, while CERES data shows a decrease of about 2 W/m2 [Wielicki et al., 2005]. Newly updated ISCCP data seems to support the increasing trend shown by the ES and OBT”.
The size of the forcings in this appear, prima facie, just wildly unreasonable to me. How do the suggested 6-7 watts per square meter from the allegedely decreasing albedo fit into the temperature rise from 1985 to 2000? And if the albedo INcreased by about the same value from 1960 until 1985, then what is one to conclude, given the fact that the temperature rose significantly in both these intervals (1960-85 and 1985-2000)?
Is the albedo suggested to be an independent forcing according to this research? Are these values reasonable and replicable? How do they compare with the forcing from GHGs? And what are the implications for the future global warming in this? Hope someone can help me! Thx, W
Very interesting paper in Nature this week:
Thuiller, W. et al. (2011) Consequences of climate change on the tree of life in Europe. Nature, 470, 531-534.
they conclude:
“Linking phylogenetic and biogeographic information can help identify regions of past production and present maintenance of biodiversity (so-called cradles and graves)14, but projecting them into the future is challenging. Our study addresses this challenge and presents a unique large-scale assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on the evolutionary history of plants, birds and mammals. Although our assessment integrates uncertainty in phylogenetic reconstructions, it should be noted that projected changes in evolutionary history are also inevitably sensitive to the species distribution and climate models used. To address this problem, we have used cutting-edge bioclimatic ensemble forecasting methodologies. Because high-resolution climate projections have large uncertainties (owing to the difficulty of simulating local climates and the inaccuracy of interpolation techniques15), we have included three well-known global change models encompassing a large variation in future climate and shown that our results were robust to this variation. Accordingly, we show that although different metrics of species vulnerability to climate change tend not to be randomly distributed with regards to the tree of life, the loss of European phylogenetic diversity is not greater than expected under a model of random extinctions4. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species provides clear evidence that extinction risk is selective among particular groups such as the amphibians, birds and mammals16. The prevalence of threatened species differs significantly among these groups and among the families and orders within each group9, 16. The fossil record also provides evidence of phylogenetically clustered extinctions, although the previous five mass extinctions provide examples of less extreme selectivity17, 18. Our projections do not predict a large drop in total phylogenetic diversity, but they do suggest a future restructuring of the spatial distribution of the tree of life. Phylogenetic diversity over Europe will be homogenized owing to the reshuffling of species assemblages and the migration of the tree of life into higher latitudes and elevations.”
> Pressure broadening … caused by collisions which distort the
> electric field of the molecule
And stretch-tug-and-wrinkle broadening — distortion of the fields and bonds — with temperature change of the bits that are holding one another tighter and closer together when they’re making liquids and even more in solids.
Same stuff all the way down; different constraints on how the bits move.
Re 546 Pete Dunkelberg – the effect of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is considered one of broadenning mechanisms.