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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 64251 to 64300:

  1. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    @8,The study does not deal with ice areas of less than 100km2.
  2. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    In a laboratory setting (constant temperature, no wind) how does ice melt? Any acceleration? (Please tell me to go away if I'm too ignorant. I'll still read your comments trying to understand.)
  3. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    What a horrible graphic! I don't understand what the maps mean, and I don't like the way they change before you can look at them properly. Why can't we have four separate maps with their own descriptions?
  4. Newcomers, Start Here
    I was going through the Most Used Climate Myths post.. I went through it in as much detail as possible.. My belief in human-induced climate change is based on some scientific facts as well as personal observation.. 'Course I'm no scientist..not even close..So when I come across people who say science on global warming can't possibly be accurate because we only have data running back to a 100 years.. And that the Earth's been here for many millions of years so any scientific analysis is inherently flawed.. I have to say, I am unable to come up with a compelling argument.. Now I don't know if this particular sceptical argument was addressed and I overlooked it.. So I'd like to know what the answer to this is..
  5. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    The Guardian has a table from the study here. Skip the silly intro by Leo Hickman, and just check out the table: Land-based ice has been lost at the rate of 536 (+/-93) billion tons per year over the period 2003-2010, and added 1.48 (+/-0.26) mm per year to sea level rise.
  6. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    For more on Crichton, see the Aliens Cause Global Warming thread and the salute here, and a scientific review of State of Fear here.
  7. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Paul D wrote:- "I did start reading it (like I started reading Hansens book) but got bored." Try a flea market; copies of Michael Chrichton's book "State of Fear" should be around for a five-and-dime price. It's the amazing story of an exile from the Caliphate of Baghdad discovering that the Vikings built a huge imitation volcano that destroyed the vineyards of Greenland and caused a 400-year cold hangover. They encoded their deception into the Sagas, where it was discovered by IPCC Scientists who were on the verge of starvation due to an impending Ice Age. Seriously, Crichton revealed it to Congress ... you can't make that stuff up.
  8. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    muoncounter@10: This doesn't give the percentages, but it does talk about the melting acceleration. Accelerating Greenland Mass Loss 2011 If I run accross the paper that gave values to ice and meltwater, I will post it.
  9. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    muoncounter@10: The water comes from melted snow/ice on Greenland. When the ice/snow turns to water and runs off, it is gone. I will try and find the paper that I read concerning this. Whether it is glacial calfing or running water isn't important to the mass. Once gone, it is gone. No, I am not questioning that Greenland is loosing mass. I am not even questioning that it is loosing mass at a greater rate per year for the past 20 years. IF you were talking about pure ice calfing, that changes the dynamics of the discussion. Note in my comment that I indicated "mass is lost".
  10. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Ian F: "If ice is melting but is being damned up in glacial lakes could this be another interpretation of the GRACE data." Why would ponding glacial meltwater produce such a large mass difference? From your link: Mountain regions from the Andes to the Himalayas are warming faster than the global average under climate change. Ice turns to water; glaciers are slowly reduced to lakes. Camburn#9: "more mass is lost per year by fresh water leaving than is by ice calfing." Do you have a source for this? Where is the fresh water coming from, if not melting ice? Are you seriously questioning the observations that Greenland ice is melting? It is not just GRACE data that support this.
  11. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Ian@8: A similiar mention should be made about Greenland as more mass is lost per year by fresh water leaving than is by ice calfing. In Greenland's case, no one on the continent is in peril because of this.
  12. Still Going Down the Up Escalator
    I'm with Eli: this whole thing reminds me of the McKitrick "there is no such thing as a Global Temperature" claim. Deltoid has done at least one discussion of this McKitrick nonsense. I also remember Bob Grumbine doing a takedown on how McKitrick's argument against the concept of a mean temperature, pointing out that McKitrick's version basically becomes a useless definition with no practical application. It was buried on Usenet, so finding stuff is a bit hard, but I did come up with this somewhat-related discussion: Google search of newsgroups Look for Grumbine's comments about half way down (although the link as presented puts you near the bottom of the thread). This Briggs stuff seems to be a new variant on the "if you don't know everything, you don't know anything" meme.
  13. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Here is a cross post on some ideas on this that I posted on Deltoid. I think that there may be a problem with the Nature paper. Anyone who researches what is going on in that area will have found that the most immediate problem there is the quickly growing glacial lakes which threaten to flood villages down the valley if they burst. Some of these lakes are huge. The Nature paper is based on GRACE data which measures gravity difference over time. If ice is melting but is being damned up in glacial lakes could this be another interpretation of the GRACE data. i.e. the glaciers are melting but the water is not moving to any significant extent but is staying close to where it melted thus making it seem as if the glaciers had not in fact melted. Here is a link to an article about these growing glacial lakes. I'm no expert in this area but it does seem another explanation for the GRACE data. Any one care to comment?
  14. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Re Camburn: While I was referring to another article, it is notable that The Guardian is reporting for 'the last 10 years' even though they refer to 8 years of results in the body of the text! And now there's even a Live Q&A What does the Himalaya glacier study mean for climate change?
    Asia's highest peaks have not lost ice over the past decade, according to new research. Glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber answers your questions.
    Well, here's question one:
    Professor Bamber - as a result of these findings is the scientific community concerned that people might start to believe some of the other things that Jeremy Clarkson says?
    Then there are questions about whether the rest of the cryosphere is actually melting after all, even though the report clearly states that it is, which is why the result in the Himalayas was an anomaly! It's like a text book study on how not to report something! [sigh]
  15. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    I was a little surprised not to see the name 'Fred Pearce' in there, frankly! ;-) What annoys me is that while, yes, this is all you could expect from the Daily Mail or WSJ, now The Guardian - and it really does know better - has done its bit to ensure the public will now remember the result as 'but they said the glaciers weren't melting after all'!
  16. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    bill@2: How would they get 10 years from this article? It appears to be either 6 years or 8 years. Unless Britian has developed a different parameter concerning time, a year is still a year.
    Moderator Response: [DB] Bill refers to a separate news article.
  17. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Bill - ".......and The Guardian's own reporting of it! It's clearly incongruous, at least if it's simplistically reported as 'the Himalayas have lost no ice in the last 10 years" Yes, strange how when it involves global warming the all-important context is missing. Imagine what would have happened if, when that asteroid last year was hurtling toward Earth, the media conveniently neglected to mention that it was going narrowly avoid a collision with Earth. They remembered the context then, why not now?
  18. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Bill, one of the SkS authors is putting together a post on this too. Needless to say, the accumulation of snow in the high Asian mountains is likely under conditions, such as the recent La Nina-dominant period, where a much warmer western tropical Pacific intensifies the Asian Monsoon, and dumps more snow on the high plateau. None of which changes the rapid loss of ice at lower elevations, being much warmer, or the rapid global loss of ice already underway.
  19. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Sadly, and predictably, this was cherrypicked and turned into a bunfight about the Himalayas. Even The Guardian is guilty of this. This doesn't seem to fit well with experience on the ground and The Guardian's own reporting of it! It's clearly incongruous, at least if it's simplistically reported as 'the Himalayas have lost no ice in the last 10 years'; it will be interesting to see how the discussion pans out
  20. NASA Mission Takes Stock of Earth's Melting Land Ice
    Is the time period between 2003-2010 6 years? Under the image, it indicates during 2003-2010 which would indicate 8 years. Which set of years is correct?
  21. Still Going Down the Up Escalator
    After this, I'll let you guys have the last word - I've spent far too much of my precious little free time here as it is. Tom Curtis @131 "Going back to your example, the formula for the linear regression of a time series does not have a slope of 0.175 C/decade (+/- 0.012°C/decade). Neither does the computer, or the pages of paper on which the calculation was performed. That slope is the property of the NCDC temperature data. In other words, it is simply incoherent to say the linear regression is a property of the mathematical manipulation rather than the data." This is a backwards interpretation of what I've attempted to argue, but perhaps I could have been clearer. The data we are attempting to model isn't a simple straight line, else we wouldn't attempt to model it with one. We could just look at it and calculate the slope and intercept. But we do plot some straight line onto this data, and attempt to estimate the parameters of that model based on the data. In a linear model y=a+bx+e, only the x and y are variables which we "observe" (even if we "observe" them with error which must be treated probabilistically; i.e. a model). The parameters a, b, and e must be "estimated", with their value and uncertainty dependent on your chosen method of estimation (OLS, MLE, LAD, etc.), and how you treat the underlying process. Simply, it's the linear model of temperatures which have a slope of 0.175 C/decade, not the temperature record itself (as you allege in the above quote). Not NCDC, or GISS, or HadCRU, or BEST. The temperature record helped to determine the slope of the linear model, but the temperature record and the model are not the same thing. As far as the "pragmatic distinction" goes, Tom seems to be hung up on the words "temperature" and "observation" - he's using a highly specific physical definition, rather than as a useful statistical designation (as I attempted to explain above @128). Both inferential and descriptive statistics assume that something, somewhere in the sample we are hoping to analyze is measured without error, and hope that this oversight doesn't greatly affect our conclusions. If we can, however, minimize or quantify and include as many sources of uncertainty as possible, that would be a good thing. Dikran @133 "You might want to ask yourself why Briggs hasn't already performed this analysis before making a fuss about it on his blog." Because he is not interested in the credible interval of the linear regression. He's not interested in the linear regression at all. He has calculated the predictive interval of the "observables" and found a much larger uncertainty in estimates of global temperatures than stated by BEST, with increasing uncertainty the further back we go. A linear regression is not the only (or necessarily ideal way) to answer a question about a change in some dataset. And no, not all of statistics is "predictive," but "prediction" is often implicitly assumed in some way in an analysis or interpretation, so perhaps it should be. In practice I too use descriptive parametric statistics, because that it the way the world works, but it's fun to opine on the way we should view things from an epistemological standpoint.
  22. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    ...Except that Church and White (2011) themselves estimate an accelerating sea level rise:
    The linear trend from 1900 to 2009 is 1.7 ± 0.2 mm year-1 and from 1961 to 2009 is 1.9 ± 0.4 mm year-1. However, there are significant departures from a linear trend. We estimate an acceleration in GMSL by fitting a quadratic to the time series, taking account of the time variable uncertainty estimates. From 1880 to 2009, the acceleration (twice the quadratic coefficient) is 0.009 ± 0.003 mm year-2 (one standard deviation). This estimate is slightly less than but not significantly different from the (one standard deviation) estimate of Church and White (2006) of 0.013 ± 0.003 mm year-2, but still significantly different from zero at the 95% level.
  23. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Steve Case - The Church and White 2006 paper, if that is what you are referring to, does show a jump in acceleration around ~1930. "The slopes are 0.71 ± 0.40 and 1.84 ± 0.19 mm yr^-1 respectively, respectively, implying an acceleration of 0.017 ± 0.007 mm yr^-2 (95%)" They relate this to the more rapid rise in temperatures (with a 20 year lag) beginning in the early 1900's. From their conclusions: "From 1993, the rates of rise estimated from tide gauge and altimeter data (after correction for GIA effects) are about 3 mm yr^-1, faster than the quadratic (about 2.3 mm yr^-1) at this time." (the quadratic for the entire 20th century). There are ~10 year +/- variations in the rate of sea level rise, but it's definitely accelerating if you look at all of the data, rising faster than quadratic in rate.
  24. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    I have a Nook and Barnes and Noble is only selling the hard copy, so far.
  25. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    I was just at the Amazon site for the book and I see that one R. Hooper has uploaded a inappropriate image of the product. I do not see any where to complain about this behavior for a customer image.
  26. The real doping scandal: Weather on steroids
    I think videos like these are an extremely worthwhile effort. They're simple, short, easy to understand. More climate scientists should endeavor to do these.
  27. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    #66 Skywatcher @ 8:59 According to the Church and White paper I've seen, the big jump in acceleration occurred in about 1925 for what reason I don't know.
  28. The real doping scandal: Weather on steroids
    Good point, Paul D, and we'd also have to pause frequently to observe the behaviour of passing seagulls. Cracking vid! Nice animations, nice level of humour, nice length. (Jerry Meehl's voice reminds me of Noam Chomsky!)
  29. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Point for those looking at the benefits of a Kindle version - I've made extensive 'highlights' clippings in the book, and they've all uploaded to my account at Amazon [Kindle] ready to be cut and pasted. I can also make notes, if I can bother with the fiddly keyboard (better than a phone, though!) Oh, and it's $9.99 and downloaded before I could check to see how fast it was downloading! I'll finish the ad now... Incidentally, this review came up #1 in a google search for 'mike mann hockey stick climate wars'. I realise google tailors its searches, but there's some hope this might act as a counterweight to all the 1 star review shenanigans, and, importantly, spread awareness of this Denialist tactic.
  30. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Steve Case, the current ice contribution to total sea level is relatively small, and so you won't see a geometric curve in the total SLR, such as the 20-year figures shown above, as it is hidden by other components. Accelerations in ice mass loss (such as observed, e.g. Veliconga et al 2009) will come to dominate the SLR budget if the accelerations in mass loss of the ice sheets continue. As it is, the SLR curve for the whole 20th Century shows acceleration too, not visible on a 20-year plot. Quite how fast the acceleration continues, once ice loss comes to dominate, is the matter of question, not whether the acceleration has started. David Stoney, thanks for the links. Always worth listening to what Bindschadler has to say about Antarctica, the first link is particularly informative.
  31. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Camburn #45: You really need to read the Quantifying Extreme Heat Events post, and comment on that post why you think it does not show an increase in extremes.
  32. The real doping scandal: Weather on steroids
    Would be better if the analogy was cricket, although the video would be a couple of days long :)
  33. CO2 lags temperature
    jzk - forcing from GHG = X; forcing from solar = Y; forcing from albedo = Z Temperature is function of X+Y+Z. If X stays same, and Y goes down, then temperature must drop. Now there is a lag, X will rise slightly while Y goes down, but once Y goes lower than X, the cooling starts and the negative feedbacks kick in to reduce first albedo, then water vapour and then CO2. It is worth noting though that the nature of milankovich cycle is that first change when cycle goes negative will be to albedo, as the effect is primarily on NH mid-high latitudes (where is forcing change is quite large compared to both GHG and global solar change).
  34. apiratelooksat50 at 07:10 AM on 10 February 2012
    Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Sphaerica at 37 I don't even know to say about your chauvinistic-militaristic comment. That's quite a stretch, even for you, and totally unfounded. If you noticed from my post I am first on the list at my local library when they receive the book, and I intend to read it.
  35. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Dorlomin (34) wrote: “I for one am disappointed the spoilers are getting removed.” I was too at first, but the only one I have noticed disappear is the “t**d” one, and when I checked that commenter’s past reviews it is clear that at least once in the past he had posted a poe.
  36. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    re: Camburn @45 Yet another "sounds like" like argument. It's one thing for Rush Limbaugh to spout a "sounds like" argument to an audience who don't demand better, but why make one here? And it's rather ironic to make a "sound like" argument in response to my question about what denialists's end game might be. I take it that there isn't any. Ah, Dives we hardly knew ye.
  37. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Camburn, It is only the frequency of extreme events that is something recent. Please cite a past year wehre they had anywhere near the amount of extreme weather that the globe has had in both of the past two years. 2012 is starting out with more of the same extreme weather. A major cause of the dust storms in the 1930's was poor farming practice. This was not the case last year in the Texas drought. You provide a perfect example of a denier who will never look at the data.
    Response:

    [DB] Please take the discussion of extreme weather to a more appropriate thread.

  38. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Camburn: Jeffrey Davis' comment was "increases in droughts, floods, and violent weather" [emphasis mine]. Given papers such as, if memory serves, one by Hansen, examined on this site this is an entirely reasonable statement. Does Jeffrey's wording actually strike you as the wording someone who was ignorant of past weather extremes would use?
  39. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    Thanks for an informative post and many useful comments. For what it may be worth, the term "collapse" should probably be approached with caution. Living near the southeast US coast and being uncertain about what the term might mean with regards to WAIS, I asked Robert Binschadler to help me out. He allowed that a "collapse" of WAIS might give rise to a 2 m/century SLR. Here's an interview with Binschadler Here's what's happened more recently at Pine Island Glacier Not comforting...
  40. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Jeffrey Davis@41: To remind you that weather extremes are not something recent, I can only advise you to study the dust storms in the US during the 1934-1936 period. America: The Story of US Narrated by Liev Schreiber has very good video of that time period. This is one example of extreme weather. Another would be the Mississippi Flood of 1927. Mississippi Flood of 1927 Extremes are not a recent event.
    Response:

    [DB] Please take discussions of extreme weather to a more appropriate thread.

  41. The real doping scandal: Weather on steroids
    Yes, good analogy and a funny video. Nicely done.
  42. The real doping scandal: Weather on steroids
    I like this. Pretty good actually.
  43. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    For a good laugh, click and read all of the "see all my reviews" buttons on amazon for ANY of the 1 star ratings of Mann's book... Some have no other reviews, and others are giving 5 stars to denier books, and frequently using language like "libtards" in their reviews... wow.
  44. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    #63 Sascha @ 02:28 As Skywatcher says, I think the rate of sea level rise increasing more than 100 times the current value is incredible, "argument from incredulity" he says. I like to go to the source of these sorts of claims and run the numbers. I'm always in fear of getting the sign wrong or getting decimal places wrong or going off half-cocked. Somewhere up thread it was pointed out that Dr. Hansen's curve isn't an asymptote but sigmoid or geometric. They were right. Eventually it has to level off. I can't go on forever. Considering that the geometric nature of that curve hasn't started yet, see my post #2 on this thread; I wonder when it will start. I would think anyone would.
  45. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Jeffrey, I've long wondered what the end game for climate denial is. There isn't one. A few people will cling to vocal denialism no matter what, but most will simply change the subject and move on to the next ideological battleground. And unless the media change greatly, it'll be considered impolite to question their judgment. As long as you're wrong for the right reasons, no apology is necessary. Anyone who's capable of shame would've felt it by now, in my opinion.
  46. CO2 lags temperature
    jzk, for a scientific article on the ice age cycle I'd suggest Shackleton 2000.
  47. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    re: 41 Sorry. Abraham was speaking to Dives there.
  48. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    I've long wondered what the end game for climate denial is. The increases in droughts, floods, and violent weather over the last few years are due to a modest .8C of warming. 2.5C? The mind reels. I'm constantly reminded of the line from the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke: Abraham said to Lazarus 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'
  49. Global Sea Level Rise: Pothole To Speed Bump?
    @ Steve Case #62 I am always interested in "contrarian" opinions ... they sometimes offer a glimpse of hope in - what I consider - a bleak picture. Do you not agree with the figures or with the conclusion? Would you be kind enough to tell me why or refer me to something to read which reflects your view?
  50. CO2 lags temperature
    jzk wrote: "Of course as temperature lowers, CO2 is absorbed, and that contributes to cooling. But first it must start its descent despite the presence of these warming gasses." Think about the actual physical factors involved. The Milankovitch forcing is due to orbital tilt. Why/how would GHG have any impact on when the 'sign' of that forcing changed? Yes, "it must start its descent despite the presence of these warming gases"... but there is absolutely no reason that it wouldn't do exactly that. That is, the change in atmospheric composition is obviously not going to change the orbit. You then agree that once the cooling from the orbital shift kicks in "CO2 is absorbed, and that contributes to cooling". So what exactly are you arguing for... in terms of a physical process? You seem to be stuck on some sort of idea that, 'because GHG make it warm, it cannot cool until the GHG are gone'... which is incorrect. The Milankovitch change in orbital forcing is not in any way restrained by the presence of GHGs. It switches to cooling as the orbit of the planet shifts. That cooling lowers the temperature of the oceans and allows them to absorb more CO2... which causes more cooling.

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