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Ari Jokimäki at 20:30 PM on 22 March 2012New research from last week 11/2012
Doc Snow, see the TOC of the issue in question. The Author of the article seems to be the Editor of Monthly Weather Review at that time. I bet that the name of the editor is in that issue somewhere. However, conveniently the PDF loading from that site stopped working for me, so I have to get back to you on that. -
CBDunkerson at 20:15 PM on 22 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
NickBoyce, see the SkS article on underground heat flow. The amount of heat traveling up from the planet's interior is very steady and very small compared to major surface heat fluxes. -
CBDunkerson at 20:02 PM on 22 March 2012Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Ruffy wrote: "About half of the energy in sunlight is near and short wave IR, and surely it is mostly this component of sunlight which heats the planet and is rebroadcast as longwave IR." So what do you imagine happens to the energy from visible light? Does it magically cease to exist or 'go away' somewhere? If so, why is it that white objects (which look white precisely because they reflect most visible light) do not heat up as much as black objects (which absorb most visible light)? Why does electromagnetic radiation in the range that we have arbitrarily labelled 'infrared' behave differently than that in the range we can see? -
adelady at 19:54 PM on 22 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
NickBoyce That may be interesting to some people. The one I really, really want to know about is temperature changes in ice. We all know there's a huge difference between the ice in our domestic refrigerators and the same ice in an industrial scale freezer. What I'd like to get a handle on is how much and how fast the internal temperature of icesheet ice changes in the years before it finally gets to zero and is available for melting. I have an uncomfortable feeling that some of that 'missing' heat could be concealed in still frozen ice where the temperature has changed by 10, 20 or maybe more degrees C. But it hasn't yet reached melting point. It's just weaker and more susceptible to variations in the wind, the weather and any meltwater from other ice that has passed that point. -
Sapient Fridge at 19:30 PM on 22 March 2012Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Dikran Marsupial, I know it's not a science paper but Wikipedia puts the sun's input to the planet at about 1 kilowatt per square meter of which "527 watts is infrared radiation, 445 watts is visible light, and 32 watts is ultraviolet radiation". There is also a graph showing the ultraviolet, visible and infrared boundaries linked to the "Sunlight" page. The source looks credible and contains a spreadsheet of the wattage values for each wavelength. Significan energy in wavelengths longer than 0.74µm is also shown in the blackbody emission graph of the sun and earth on the Science Of Doom's excellent page on back radiation. -
Doug Hutcheson at 18:52 PM on 22 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
The fossil fuel suits are laughing all the way to the bank.
I hope they're stacking all those dollar bills in a vault that's above the new high tide line "8-) -
Bernard J. at 18:38 PM on 22 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
Does anyone have figures on revenues by that industry? I know the profits of numerous individual firms are gigantic...
The apocryphal figure is one billions dollars profit globally per day. At first blush that might sound an exaggeration, but when one starts to look at the profits of individual companies, it suddenly becomes very reasonable. So, for every day that action is delayed, that day's one billion dollars is added holus-bolus to the profit pile. It's no wonder that the industry seeks to stir FUD where it can - and there is no end of ignoramus prepared to do the grunt-work for free. The fossil fuel suits are laughing all the way to the bank. -
Jose_X at 18:11 PM on 22 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
"Big oil" isn't so big? Does anyone have figures on revenues by that industry? I know the profits of numerous individual firms are gigantic, and profits don't even include costs the firms may take to promote their causes and let their many employees know what is in their best interest. If you have such a sweet income stream on the line, what might you do with that money (assuming you did not want to know too much about "hypotheticals")? -
Jose_X at 18:05 PM on 22 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
Why not have a Maddow page (and of any other interested media channels)? It would draw extra attention the the site and help Maddow and others who will not be able to do real-time correction of guests. She need only mention[*] that "as usual, our expert friends at sks will be documenting rebuttals and corrections to this and past climate interviews at http sks MoreMaddow." [*] I'm assuming certain details will be taken care of, such as how to refer to the site to limit everyone's liabilities, offer appropriate disclaimers, adhere to any legal restrictions, etc. -
Dikran Marsupial at 17:24 PM on 22 March 2012Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Ruffy, can you give a reference to a reputable scientific source for the claim of half of the energy in sunlight being near and short wave IR? -
NickBoyce at 16:35 PM on 22 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
In the first paragraph Glen Tamblyn asks: ''how can you work out whether the Earth is warming if you don't take account of all the places where it may be warming?'' Does anyone know by how much the earth's mantle and core are warming or cooling? Presumably, if we wish to get an accurate picture of by how the temperature of the earth as a whole is changing, we should find out; otherwise we would have a very incomplete picture. -
70rn at 16:31 PM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
EUV is possibly 'emitted ultra violet' - but thats about all I can think of... But this makes little sense, as that's mostly intercepted high up in the atmosphere, and wouldn't play much of a role in observed ssurface temp IMO. -
70rn at 16:25 PM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
@ Doug H Well I'm guessing SSL is Solar Cycle Length, but the author of that acronym tripped up phoenetically. As for the others? Well it's like lurking in millitary forums around here sometimes... -
Ruffy at 15:02 PM on 22 March 2012Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
From the introductory paragraph, surely this is incorrect: "The Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of visible light and ultraviolet radiation, which is then re-radiated away from the surface as thermal radiation in infrared wavelengths." About half of the energy in sunlight is near and short wave IR, and surely it is mostly this component of sunlight which heats the planet and is rebroadcast as longwave IR. -
muoncounter at 13:44 PM on 22 March 2012Sea level rise is exaggerated
Henry J#192: "So, is there a slight increase in the bulge at the equator?" No. From NASA 2005: They found Earth's oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) decreased by a small amount. It decreased about one part in 10 billion, continuing the trend of earthquakes making Earth less oblate. The article details that there is a long term trend and thus cannot be responsible for recently observed change. -
Bob Loblaw at 12:35 PM on 22 March 2012Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
There are two ways to look at the effect of human breathing and CO2: 1) what we exhale, and how we acquired that CO2 - fixed from the atmosphere by plants, so not a net contribution to atmospheric CO2 2) don't try to estimate the fluxes in and out, and just look at the change in storage. On that basis, I'm fairly sure (99-44/100ths % pure) that the 7 billion people we have now store more carbon (i.e., weigh more in total) than the 4 billion in the 1970s, so humans represent a net sink of carbon, not a source. Once climate change is bad enough that we see large decreases in the human population, we'll become yet another source of positive feedback as the stored carbon is released back to the atmosphere. -
Tom Dayton at 12:27 PM on 22 March 2012Sea level rise is exaggerated
Henry Justice, satellite measurements are just that--measurements. They measure what is there, so they cannot "null this effect out." Do they measure with sufficient spatial resolution to detect the differences in sea level between the equator and other regions? Yes. When someone wants a single statistic that summarizes the sea level across all regions of the Earth, that statistic (e.g., a mean--an average) necessarily will collapse across the equator versus other regions. -
Henry justice at 12:03 PM on 22 March 2012Sea level rise is exaggerated
Since the 2004 earthquake, the Earth's rotation has increased. So, is there a slight increase in the bulge at the equator? If so, the sea level will go down (except along the equatorial seas) until this effect is overtaken by ocean expansion and other factors. Or do the satellite measurements null this effect out? -
danno at 11:39 AM on 22 March 2012Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Methane from livestock is a different matter. -
danno at 11:37 AM on 22 March 2012Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
"When I was a kid in the 1970s, there were 4 billion people. Now there is 7 billion. So there should be more CO2 due to breathing now than in the 1970s, not to mention the increased livestock." We also now grow more food to feed the extra people. Any CO2 we breathe out was carbon we locked up in plants before eating them. -
Doug Hutcheson at 10:38 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
R. Gates @ 6 and owl905 @ 10, I am drowning in acronym soup here.- SSL: I only know of this as Secure Sockets Layer
- EUV: Google suggests "Extreme ultraviolet lithography" or "European University Viadrina"
- SWAG: Google suggests "Scientific Wild Ass Guess" or "Stuff We All Get"
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owl905 at 08:15 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Actually, given the number of other drivers and the shape of human impact on the biosphere before 1985, the solar correlation is very good. The divergence context here is the same as the divergence for tree rings ('the decline'), and the PDO - SKS - Temp v PDO Just off the SWAG, there are new factors that have caused "a disturbance in The Force". All the other factors are still there and still do their part - in fact, they may be good tests of the status of the imbalance. -
scaddenp at 07:48 AM on 22 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
Nordaus (eg. try here for some detail Furthermore, the costs are on basis "US is the world". Economic analysis has to compare global costs of mitigation versus cost of adaptation. I'm going with the published analyses over a spreadsheet, because like you, I am not an economist. -
scaddenp at 06:24 AM on 22 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
dunc461 - I am not an economist either. What I am challenging is the validity of the spreadsheet as compared to more sophisticated economic model, especially say DICE2007. -
nuclear_is_good at 06:22 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Technically a more elegant and complete description would be that solar forcing is a driver of climate in the absence of other more important drivers - and it was so before 1800. It appears also well correlated from 1800 to about 1980 - since for that interval the (somehow weaker) CO2 forcing was largely canceled by the negative aerosol forcing and the direction of the remaining CO2 forcing and solar forcing were both in the same direction, but once the aerosol forcing becomes less visible and the sun is no longer increasing in TSI the divergence becomes obvious. -
Yvan Dutil at 05:52 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Actually, Friis-Christensen made a mistake in his 1991 paper, when calculating the length of the last solar cycles. When corrected, the divergence is obvious. -
CBDunkerson at 05:51 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Roger, actually I'd say it was weak when they wrote it. If you look at the 'correlation' they initially found you'll see that there is no 'consistency of change'. That is, about half the time cycle length went up temperature went down - or vice versa. The only period where they both head in the same direction for any appreciable length of time is the rise in both between ~1910 and ~1940. So let's say we're looking at two sets of data and we see that both rose over the same time period. If we then plot them on the same graph and set the scales of each such that these rises appear to be parallel we can create an apparent 'correlation'. However, while the years before and after that period aren't wildly wrong, they don't show any strong correlation either. If there were a tight enough correspondence between these factors for the 1910-1940 cycle length rise to cause the temperature rise (or vice versa, which makes about as much physical sense) then we shouldn't be seeing the sharply inverse responses in some of the preceding and subsequent cycles. It is just a form of 'curve fitting'... which falls apart once you look outside the bounds which have been fit to 'correspond'. Just as the past 30 years show wild divergence you'd get the same going back before 1850. For example, solar cycle 4 around 1790 was 13.7 years long... that's way off the bottom of the chart. Meanwhile, solar cycle 8, at 9.8 years ~1840, was shorter than any of those shown on the chart and thus should have had the highest temperature anomaly... but there is no indication of sudden extreme heat in the 1840s and then immediately returning to globally colder temperatures. -
R. Gates at 05:37 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
I have been studying the relationship between SSL and global temperatures for years and have known about both the seemingly close correlation that seems to exist prior to about 1980, as well as the strong disconnect that occurred after that point. Of course, as pointed out, there are other potential solar influences outside of SSL that could show covariance with SSL, such as EUV's, so more research is certainly quite warranted. But what should be most obvious is that some other signficant forcing is now driving climate on a longer-term basis, such that solar, ENSO, and aersols and other natural variability are now playing a secondary role as "noise" that rides upon a much stronger signal. That signal of course is the forcing from the additional CO2, N20, and methane that are now at their highest levels in probably at least several million years. One final side-note to the SSL/Climate connection. If we believe there was some correlation in the past (prior to the large influx of anthropogenic GH gases), then we might rightly beleive that at least a Dalton and possible Maunder type cooling would be in the offing in the next few decades as SSL look to be lengthening for many decades. That we will likely not be seeing this cooling-- indeed, quite the opposite, speaks both to the strength of the anthropogenic signal, but also, to the rather tenous nature of the connection between SSL and climate. -
Roger D at 04:36 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Thanks for the article. So the correction is that solar cycle length and temperature stop correlating after about 1977 or so, instead of 1985? Seems to me that this "skeptic" argument is/ was weak after maybe a decade or so after the Friis-Christensen (1991) paper, and would be even weaker today - even if the 1991 paper was not falsified. -
Pete Dunkelberg at 04:03 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Thanks for this solar update. I suppose it is natural for scientists in the Nordic countries to have a special interest in the sun :) and I'm glad to see Skeptical Science being as global as possible. Many interesting figures from Stauning's paper are available here in small size. -
chizadek at 03:57 AM on 22 March 2012Rachel Maddow Debunks Climategate Myths Using Skeptical Science
Inhofe's comment about God reminds me of a joke about a Christian who keeps saying "God will save me" as he refuses various offers of help as rising floodwaters increasingly threaten and then take his life. In heaven he asks God why he didn't save him and the punchline has God replying, "I sent you a raft, a boat and a helicopter, what more did you want?" While I'm at it skeptics' focus on the lack of short-term warming reminds me of the joke about checking if a car indicator is working - "It is, it isn't, it is, it isn't..." -
mdenison at 03:52 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Previous SKS article What does Solar Cycle Length tell us about the sun's role in global warming? -
Albatross at 03:41 AM on 22 March 2012New research from last week 11/2012
Hi Ari, I'm really enjoying your weekly collection of new (and old) papers. Now if I could only find someone who does it exclusively for my field of research ;) Looking forward to next week's installment! -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:36 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
I always find it particularly concerning when I see charts showing the correlation between solar and T followed by the divergence of the two. The first thing that pops into my head is, T would be rising much faster if solar forcing had not been falling so precipitously. And it holds the chance that solar output will kick back in and push T even higher and faster. Nice update, though. Do I think "skeptics" will stop making the claim? Unlikely. Facts rarely get in their way. -
Doc Snow at 03:21 AM on 22 March 2012New research from last week 11/2012
Yes, the anonymous source gives a remarkably devastating illustration of the determined ignorance of certain folks... and why RTFL ('L' for 'literature') is such an important reminder. I'm really curious who the source of the Andrée data was--could it have been Nils Ekholm? He knew Andrée personally--they would have a falling-out the next year, as Andrée fell victim to his own (fatal) bout of hydrogen-loss denialism--and was collaborating with Arrhenius on papers at this time. And I don't as readily see Arrhenius, the other obvious candidate, writing for Wollny's Forschungen (from what I can gather of the latter publication.) Ari, how easy would it be for you to access the relevant Wollny's? At least one inquiring mind would love to know who wrote the article there! The values of CO2 are also worth noting--the 'volumes per 10,000' translate easily to ppm: 3.24 would be 324 ppm. A bit higher than Callendar's 274-292 ppm, but not unreasonably so, given the measurement technology of the day. (And contrast some of the values put forth by EG Beck.) -
jimb at 03:17 AM on 22 March 2012An Open Letter to the Future
re 15- here are a couple of links to the Saskatchewan oil sands/Bakken field. The one from the Pembina Institute is the most thorough (pubs.pembina.org/reports/sask-carbon-copy-report.pdf)- a second one from the Manitoba government outlines the possibilities of Bakken field exploitation in southeastern Saskatchewan (http://www.manitoba.ca/iem/mrd/geo/willistontgi/downloads/kreis_et_al_bakken-torquay_paper.pdf) The 'we' only refers to those who may have to re-evaluate the hope that the history of the Saskatchewan government as referred to by Alces @ 10 would keep that province from following Alberta's path once economic factors . Sorry that my computer skills are not up to providing direct links. Hope these help. -
dana1981 at 02:41 AM on 22 March 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Byron - thanks yes, I missed that. It looks like ICSC is at least funded by Heartland, so that appears to be a safe assumption. The post has been revised accordingly. -
miffedmax at 02:22 AM on 22 March 2012Stauning and Friis-Christensen on Solar Cycle Length and Global Warming
Sadly, it won't phase the deniers, because they're not interested in the science, just the denial. -
John Hartz at 02:17 AM on 22 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
@Dana: Recommend that you append the following statement to your OP. “The climate change hoax”, Miami Herald, Mar 21, 2012 This is an essay written by Andrew J. Gunther and James J. McCarthy, scientists who sit on the Board of Directors of the Union of Concerned Scientists, -
Albatross at 01:32 AM on 22 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
DoughH @39, No worries. And yes you are correct, Inhofe is a "dangerous fool"...unfortunately he will probably take that as a compliment. -
dunc461 at 01:02 AM on 22 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
scaddenp @83 To answer your question the source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source I used for the cost data states "The availability of various incentives including state or federal tax credits can also impact the calculation of levelized cost. The values shown in the tables below do not incorporate any such incentives."[11] Incentives, tax credits, production mandates, etc. are discussed in the overall comprehensive EIA report: "Annual Energy Outlook 2011".[12][13][14] I spent several hours this morning trying to find the specific data like I used for Nordhaus and Stern. If you could provided a site that has this kind of information I would greatly appreciate it. The one reference I did find http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation said that for a reduction in fossil fuels to 75% in 2050 Stern estimates a cost of 2% of GDP. Because my calculation are in today's dollars in assumes all costs rise at the same rate. I get a cost of 12% of %GDP. If I assume that GDP rises at the same rate as energy usage (or 2% above inflation) that % is reduced to 8% of GDP. In the case on the spread sheet I raised the cost of fossil fuels by 150% from $.02 to $0.05 /KWH to account for price increases above inflation. -
Byron Smith at 00:39 AM on 22 March 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Dana might have missed John Mashey's comment at #42 pointing out that Scott Armstrong's name ought to be highlighted red. -
John Mason at 20:45 PM on 21 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
layzej (#64), Good suggestion, but remember that I showed how Singer himself failed his own test, by simply repeating the Houghton misquote without checking its authenticity first. Given scrutiny, I reckon every single one of them would fail spectacularly! -
Ari Jokimäki at 20:18 PM on 21 March 2012New research from last week 11/2012
No worries, I do have a rough idea how many people read this every week. -
OPatrick at 19:58 PM on 21 March 2012New research from last week 11/2012
Still reading. (It worries me Ari that the small number of comments might lead you to think that not many people read this and you might stop providing this invaluable service. Can we have a 'thank you and still reading' button?) -
Philippe Chantreau at 17:56 PM on 21 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
To mods: apologies for entertaining trolls and contributing to pull the thread off-topic. Won't do it again. -
Doug Hutcheson at 16:58 PM on 21 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
Albatross @ 36, thanks for the link to the 'list of 17' article. Living in Australia, that sort of information does not hit our headlines, so I was unaware of the depth of his iniquity. I knew he was anti-science and wanted to investigate 'climate scientists' in general, but had not realised he had actually named his targets! What a buffoon. What a dangerous fool. -
owl905 at 15:55 PM on 21 March 2012Inhofe's Myths on Maddow
"If you regulate carbon, you regulate life." For Snubwub@1, it was basically a left-wing plot to institute state control over the individual(a Big Brother by e-outlet). Dana's take is it's a fraud smokescreen to prevent common sense regulation - like speed limits on roads. The first reaction here was more basic - haul out the pro-life vote - by making this seem like a backdoor form of birth control. It is really sleazy at any level. It's the same with the cap-and-trade tirade. If C&T hadn't worked as well as it did for the reduction of the acid-rain problem, that could be the US equivalent of the ABC crisis. Check the rollup on Inhoffe's presentation - big government, socialism, regulation, private science clubs, anti-life, brainwashing. He's pushed every button to avoid addressing the pollution problem. Maddow should have asked for a longer explanation of how God was going to solve it. -
Phil L at 15:30 PM on 21 March 2012An Open Letter to the Future
jimb 15 and 18: The Bakken and other oil finds will be developed, whether a right or left leaning provincial government is in power. The future of the Saskatchewan oilsands is uncertain because the deposits are so deep and borderline economic to extract. The company most involved in exploration and promotion of the Saskatchewan oilsands is under bankruptcy protection. -
5n0wf1ak3 at 14:06 PM on 21 March 2012Climate's changed before
The "myth" is Human belief of separation from nature. The first chlorophyllic plants 'industry' was tasked with the ( apparently disastrous Great Oxygenation Event) modification of the primitive atmosphere We need to remember that we are that original green slime. It did not pave the way for us - it did so for its own continuity, diversity and complexity.
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