Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Joe L. Ogan on 03/06/2011 18:24:38

Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Joe L. Ogan on 03/06/2011 18:24:38
I believe the weather we have been having is unusual.  I would like to know if it is a result of Global warming.  Thanks for comments.  Joe L. Ogan
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CZARCAR on 03/06/2011 19:46:11
ocean is warmer & probly a causative factor. The debate is whether the warming is affected by man or part of a nature cycle
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 04/06/2011 02:07:01
Yes.

And it will accelerate as I expect it. The worst threats isn't storms droughts tornadoes. To me it's the oceans acidity increasing, and it's ability to take up CO2 diminishing. The food fish we eat will disappear, as the reefs they use. The plankton are already diminished, with their demise around the corner as I see it. When that happens we have destroyed the oceans first food chain, and the effects that bear on all trusting in that food will come to haunt us as the ripples widen. When they are gone the process they make of taking up and disposing of CO2 will also disappear leaving a lot more CO2 in the ocean making its acidity accelerate. All living things 'live' on each other, the shoes you use, the food you eat, it all come from somewhere. Destroying the food chain we also destroy our children's  future.

This one is a little old, and it doesn't mention it all, but it's still interesting.
Oceans  Reflux. (http://horseflyriver.ca/salmonfestival/teacher-info/info3/Ocean%20Reflux.doc)
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 04/06/2011 06:43:53
You need to first ask what weather patterns Joe is talking about, and perhaps where he is.

Such a knee-jerk reaction to blame everything on "Global Warming" and "CO2" is a disservice to climatology science, and the argument in general.

Great Britain and Europe had 100 year low temperatures last winter.  Perhaps you could argue that it was unseasonably mild and that one would have expected 200 year lows without global warming.  However, please be very careful blaming snow and ice on warm weather.

With 38 years of Records, Mt. Bachelor in Oregon now has hit the record for greatest seasonal snowfall of 665"
http://www.mtbachelor.com/winter/mountain/mountain_experience/season_recap.html

Again...  record snowfalls are generally not attributable to global warming.

The cold weather that much of Europe and North America had this last year has to do with Arctic Weather Patterns which essentially create weather patterns shifting warmer air northward (relatively speaking) and cold weather southward.

There was discussion of "Blocking Patterns" earlier which may be attributable to weak solar cycles (more on that later).  There was also a strong negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) last winter.

Average sea surface temperatures for the last 12 months have been very neutral.  Again, the question might be whether one would have expected them to be colder. 

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anomaly.html
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.osdpd.noaa.gov%2Fdata%2Fsst%2Fanomaly%2F2011%2Fanomnight.6.2.2011.gif&hash=bd8c352596f432b1de4322f5ef078028)

Since mid-2010 we've been in an La Niña dominated ocean current pattern.
Note the big blue "arrow" west of Central America. 

It has actually weakened over the last couple of months, with now a warm area extending along the equator with a quite a warm area near Panama and Peru.

The La Niña weather patterns control much of the actual weather around the Pacific, and even into the Atlantic.

However, there are some other sea surface patterns too.  Note the blue area extending up along the Pacific Coast of North America and towards Alaska.  While somewhat related to the La Niña temperatures, it is considered a separate phenomenon called Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/

We also seem to be in a warm Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) sea surface pattern which brings warm water to the North Atlantic, although it may have weakened somewhat in the last year or so.  The AMO was negative from the mid 60's to mid 90's, and shifted positive in the late 90's.  It could continue in the warm phase for another decade or two.

Anyway, in Oregon, we've had temperatures that have been below normal almost every day for the last 2 or 3 months, with daily average temperatures in the range of 5°F below average.  I'm certainly not blaming that on Global warming, but rather on La Niña and the cold PDO. 

This cold North Pacific along with the Arctic Weather Patterns and warm South Atlantic are creating some wicked temperature extremes across the USA and spawning many viscous tornadoes. 

When you look at the tornado statistics, initially it may appear as if we are having an increasing number of occurrences.  However, there is a large reporting bias with the weaker tornadoes, due to better detection equipment and better reporting, and perhaps increasing urbanization.  This is especially noted with the weakest of the tornadoes.

Looking at the stronger tornadoes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F5_and_EF5_tornadoes

The tornado outbreaks this year really are too different from those clustered around 1974 and a few years before and after. 

Right now we are also in the early parts of a weak solar cycle (#24) which shares many characteristics of the weak solar cycle from about 1965 to 1976 (#20).

Whether it is related to the weak solar cycle, or the PDO/AMO/La Niña, the period from 1965 to 1976 also had 20 F5 Tornadoes, and set many temperature and snowfall records.
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 04/06/2011 12:11:23
Clifford I've had this debate for five years now and I'm telling Joe exactly what I expect. That you, or for that sake me too, don't like it has nothing to do with what I expect. I wouldn't expect it if I didn't believe that I'm right here. The results of the Climate changing will be what I say. We are fast going for a tipping point, or possibly already past one. And I never liked lies.
==

Eh, lies as in telling the 'sanitized version'.
I'm through with that.
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CZARCAR on 04/06/2011 16:17:11
Anybody got a SUBSTANTIVE comment on Piers Corbyn?
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 04/06/2011 17:21:05
Well, if you're not happy with him, you might want to try your local fortune teller.
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Joe L. Ogan on 04/06/2011 17:32:44
I am surprised to hear people in the scientific world expressing doubt about Global Warming.  I had thought that it was a generally accepted fact.  Are you guys really on the other side of the argument or are you just playing Devil's advocate?  Thanks for comments.  Joe L. Ogan
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 04/06/2011 18:27:34
Joe,

You asked:
I believe the weather we have been having is unusual.  I would like to know if it is a result of Global warming.  Thanks for comments.  Joe L. Ogan

As I mentioned, you did not specify what you thought was unusual.  I believe it is inappropriate to have a blanket statement that anything that seems "different" is part of Global Warming. 

There truly is no "normal" weather.  For example, one might calculate average May rain being 0.05" of rain a day.  However, that doesn't mean that it is expected to rain every day.

Should we blame the Japan Earthquake and the subsequent Fukushima meltdown on Global Warming?

Is there contention about the existence of some warming...  probably not.  But, some people do question the magnitude of the changes and the projected consequences.

As humans, we have changed our environment significantly, some for the better, some for the worse.  I believe it is a disservice to all to concentrate solely on a single aspect of these changes.
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 04/06/2011 20:51:27
Don't know about that :)
But I got Joe's question alright. He's wondering about what I'm wondering about too. Nowadays I look at the weather expecting the unexpected every day :) We had some 'tromb's' (tornadoes) it seems today, very unusual, in the wrong part of the country, and at the wrong time of year too.

I expect such things to become more, freaky weather, with storms becoming stronger, not necessarily more of them, even though I myself think so, but definitely stronger. Cat 5 will become usual in the next decades. Snow where no snow been seen and droughts in other places. The ocean already moves faster due to the heat magazined in it.

So Joe's question is to the point as far as I see.
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CZARCAR on 04/06/2011 21:37:12
Rhodesia was breadbasket of Africa
Zimbabwe's excuse for failure/demise is that the climate changed & droughts resulted?
Rhodesia was what is now Zimbabwe
Title: Re: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: imatfaal on 04/06/2011 23:20:53
I think some of the worst excesses of colonial rule coupled with some of worst excess of post-colonial rule also have something to do with that
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 06/06/2011 11:43:12
We should distinguish between "weather" and "climate". Weather can be, locally, very variable on both a short and longer term so Clifford is right to ask for clarification as to the meaning of the original question. On the other hand it is fair to say there is wide agreement that the climate is changing on a worlwide scale and that a large majority now agree it is due to global warming.

There are still disagreements as to the causes of the global warming and it seems apparant that the original deniers of global warming have now just backed off (in the face of irrefutable evidence) to the position of "well OK, but it's not man-made". Whilst this is a perfectly respectable position to take, it does sound like they made a decision based on a political position and are unwilling to change their minds. It is interesting how popular opinion within countries follows the interests of their countries' main fiscal requirements. There are obvious cases but a good example is Canada where one might expect an ultra-green attitude from a country with such huge natural resources for clean power production. In fact Canada, and a majority of Canadians, are not supporters of the cause of global warming to be due to CO2. This view is more understandable when you realise that Canada is a huge exporter of oil, mainly to the USA (it is also the USA's biggest supplier). It is surprising how much national interests influences individuals' views on scientific evidence which few would understand. This certainly speaks volumes about how independently we all think about a whole variety of subjects.

Global warming affects local weather in ways that are not obvious. It does not mean that everywhere is warmer for example. If the Gulf Stream shuts down Northern Europe will end up with much colder winters for example. One thing that will happen is that weather patterns will generally have more energy in them, so there will be more extremes - stronger winds, heavier rain (when there is rain), more snow (where it snows) and it may be we are seeing some of this but it is possibly too early to be sure. Rising sea levels will be a huge problem but we won't see the consequences of this for some decades.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 06/06/2011 13:57:06
Beautifully put Graham :)
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 07/06/2011 01:06:24
While Canada and Russia risk huge climate changes, the countries also would likely reap benefits from global warming.  Thus, it is not just oil concerns in Canada, but they also have bitter cold winters.

However, again the question was ill defined. 

As far as weather.  The USA has been hammered by tornadoes this year.

Look at the NOAA graph and one sees a pattern of increasing tornadoes.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/tornadoes/2010/13
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww1.ncdc.noaa.gov%2Fpub%2Fdata%2Fcmb%2Fimages%2Ftornado%2F2010%2Fannual%2F2010annual_torncount.png&hash=e89d7b570464f5a664a7bb32d695ba61)

You might be struck by the count jumping from about 200 in 1950 to over 1200 in 2010. a six-fold increase.

However, there are many articles indicating that more of the weak tornadoes are being detected now than had happened in the past.  I.E.  We now are close to the technology to detect every single dust devil.

If you only look at the stronger tornadoes (F3 to F5), one sees a much different picture.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drroyspencer.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FTornadoes-vs-temperature-US.png&hash=a1bd89c61772170c27e497efd45dce16)

One might actually be tempted to conclude that the warmer weather brings fewer or weaker tornadoes to the USA.

My guess is that prior to 1980, a lot of weak tornadoes went unreported, but some were reported as being stronger than they actually were, and the true trend is much flatter than presented in either graph.

The hurricane trends are a bit more difficult to define as the annual number are much lower, especially with the stronger Category 4&5 hurricanes.  So, much of the predictions of more stronger hurricanes is still in the realm of theory rather than observations.

As mentioned, Great Britain is somewhat unique in that it lies at the same latitude as much of Canada, as well as Russia, and even extends as far north as Southern Alaska.  Temperatures are more mild than would otherwise be expected due to the gulf stream.

A collapse of the gulf stream would be hard on Great Britain.  However, two years worth of harsh winters don't indicate an imminent gulf stream collapse.  It is believed that it has slowed in the past only as a response to a catastrophic dumping of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean, much faster than the oceans could mix the fresh/salt water, and much faster than we are seeing with gradual glacier melt.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 07/06/2011 06:15:30

However, there are many articles indicating that more of the weak tornadoes are being detected now than had happened in the past.  I.E.  We now are close to the technology to detect every single dust devil.


I think you could be right about that. About twenty years ago we experienced an event in NJ. There was a path of destruction no more than 100 yards wide that ran right across our town. It uprooted some huge trees and dumped them on a house on our street about four houses from ours, while there was hardly a leaf out of place at our place.

It was obviously the result of a small tornado, but I don't think it was ever declared as such. I think they might have said something along the lines of a "funnel cloud" had touched down.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 07/06/2011 09:20:39
Clifford, the plots are interesting and it certainly would not be too surprising that some aspects of statistics are biassed by the limitations of precision of past equipment. I do have a problem with taking for granted statements from Dr Spencer though. Like I said before, it seems that this debate is based on political belief and then fitting the science to suit and he is a prime example, even though he is one of the more well qualified people in the ranks.

As believer in intelligent design he goes down a few notches in my estimation. He holds the view that global warming is not man made. He also says that variation in cloud cover provides negative feedback and that the IPCC models are wrong. He therefore denies that there is a significant problem with global warming at all, though he is slightly less dogmatic on this issue.

It seems another case of believing the climate scientist that supports one's own prejudices. It should be noted that the majority of climate scientists do not agree with Dr Spencer. Despite this, and because it has become (in the USA) a conservative vs liberal debate, the science has taken a back seat with just selected views being pulled out to support preformed opinion.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 07/06/2011 10:47:34
Here is another tornado paper for you to review.

http://www.plainschase.com/secondary/MS%20Prop.pdf

The scale on the main chart is too low, but it is good to review.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 07/06/2011 11:34:56
Thanks Clifford. As I said, this does not surprise me and think this is quite believable. The problem is that it is a "straw man" argument against global warming. If the argument has been used that the number of tornados in the USA has increased in recent times (the last 20 years) in a way to show the effects of global warming then this is rather poor science and it should not have been used in this way. Again it is looking at "weather" rather than "climate" and the timescales are not really long enough to form an opinion. We should rather be looking at changes since (say) 1850. I notice, for example, that F1, F2 and F3 tornados showed an increase from 1950 to 1973. It is always difficult to rely on measurements when the baseline methods have changed.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 07/06/2011 15:24:30
==Quote=

Globally (not just in the North Atlantic), there is an average of about 90 tropical storms every year. According to the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4), globally "[t]here is no clear trend in the annual numbers [i.e. frequency] of tropical cyclones."

However, in the North Atlantic there has been a clear increase in the frequency of tropical storms and major hurricanes. From 1850-1990, the long-term average number of tropical storms was about 10, including about 5 hurricanes. For the period of 1998-2007, the average is about 15 tropical storms per year, including about 8 hurricanes. This increase in frequency correlates strongly with the rise in North Atlantic sea surface temperature, and recent peer-reviewed scientific studies link this temperature increase to global warming.
===

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.skepticalscience.com%2Fpics%2FNATS_frequency.gif&hash=c9503f7dffea6ef92637b831d6d750c7)

Image from here. (http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming.htm)
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 07/06/2011 22:01:51
Right below the graph (link above) is noted:

Quote from: http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming.htm
But while the numbers are not contested, their significance most certainly is. Another study considered how this information was being collected, and research suggested that the increase in reported storms was due to improved monitoring rather than more storms actually taking place.

I certainly would have to question a study that finds 100% of the effect during a single decade, or part thereof from about 2000 to 2007.  It certainly doesn't show much of a linear trend.

In fact, you should also average in about a 20 year period from 1970 to 1990 that seemed to have lower than average tropical storms.

Reading through the comments, there are a lot of questions on whether there are significant differences in the number and intensity of storms actually making landfall which would lead me to believe that some of the increasing number would be due to better tracking of storms in the middle of the oceans.

If warming is a global phenomenon, then we should be looking at global storms.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 08/06/2011 00:25:15
Yep Clifford, I agree, there are a lot of interesting comments. And I recommend you for reading them :) I always look at the comments myself. But to make it short, I stand on the side of them, that really believe that there is a trend :)
==

This one is interesting. (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/02/going-to-extremes/)
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: JP on 08/06/2011 04:10:58
==Quote=

Globally (not just in the North Atlantic), there is an average of about 90 tropical storms every year. According to the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4), globally "[t]here is no clear trend in the annual numbers [i.e. frequency] of tropical cyclones."

However, in the North Atlantic there has been a clear increase in the frequency of tropical storms and major hurricanes. From 1850-1990, the long-term average number of tropical storms was about 10, including about 5 hurricanes. For the period of 1998-2007, the average is about 15 tropical storms per year, including about 8 hurricanes. This increase in frequency correlates strongly with the rise in North Atlantic sea surface temperature, and recent peer-reviewed scientific studies link this temperature increase to global warming.
===

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.skepticalscience.com%2Fpics%2FNATS_frequency.gif&hash=c9503f7dffea6ef92637b831d6d750c7)

Image from here. (http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming.htm)

Nice plot, but is it statistically significant?  If you pick at data enough you can find some subset that shows a line going in the direction you want.  That doesn't necessarily mean it's significant. 

I'm not arguing against working to slow or halt climate change.  I think it's going to cause major problems, and possibly an increase in frequency or severity of storms.  The plot might show a real phenomena that will get worse.  I just haven't seen a convincing case for it yet.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 08/06/2011 07:25:15
Looks like a typical "marketing department" graph. It would also be a bit less sensational if the origin of the y-axis was zero.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 08/06/2011 07:32:33
Another wrinkle http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110606/sc_nm/us_climate_forests_1
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 08/06/2011 07:49:03
Whether it's sufficient?
Probably not JP, Climate and statistics are both non-linear phenomena, at least climate :)

When the devil gets old he cite statistics :)

Statistics is what it is, one statistician making a graph/plot, another calling it 'biased'. But it reflects what I think is true. And the link I gave follows it up, with the comments. And the next link makes it even clearer, and helps to define what it is discussed. It's not storms per se, it's a lot of things.

It's your local weather changing, for better or worse, probably worse. It's the night temperature changing globally. It's more, or less rain. It's seasons for the farmers getting disturbed. We have a food crisis this year, not that we in the rich countries notice. When the oceans acidity takes its toll we're gonna have a billion, if I remember right, that will find it harder to get food from the sea.

Weather is in the end your climate, but locally. And Earth is not a linear system, so small changes globally can mean great changes locally.

"Gerry Quinn @ 120 and 121

As a weather forecaster, I would expect some rather dramatic changes in extremes with a 1C rise in temperatures. This is especially relevant in the sub/tropics, and in more poleward locations that receive subtropical advection. That’s because this would also raise the dew points by about the same 1C. Considering energy partition at fairly typical tropical temperatures and RH (70% for a crude estimate) over 2/3 of the extra thermal energy goes into evaporating water. This latent energy is made available downstream by increasing the CAPE (convectively available potential energy), thus energizing thunderstorms, tropical systems, etc.

Models are typically not gridded finely enough to resolve convective instability. That’s why an important task for warm season forecasting in the mid latitudes of the humid U.S. is evaluating the low level moisture, and the potential for instability. Even 1C extra dew point at, say, 850 mb is enough to cause a “loaded gun” barely capped airmass to blow in spectacular convection.

Poleward transport of moisture and instability by narrow low level jets, another feature not well resolved by models, also results in many flooding episodes, as well as severe convection.

Considering that the capacity of air to hold water vapor increases nearly exponentially with temperature, I think a 1C increase is truly a big deal, and will add substantial extra energy to some already strong systems, models or no."

And "the last ice age was only about 5 or 6 deg C colder than today, and that was effectively a different planet. The change by 2100 will be the same order of magnitude if we are unlucky - this is not some trivial change we are talking about."

Ah, but in the other direction :)
So no, I'm not predicting an ice age.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: JP on 08/06/2011 08:01:36
It's your local weather changing, for better or worse, probably worse.

Unless you're in Montana.  :)

But seriously, What worries me about unfounded claims about what climate change is doing is that some of them are bound to be wrong.  This is such a politically charged issue that those who oppose climate change legislation will jump all over any failed prediction to promote their views.  It's also just plain bad science to hype such claims when there isn't enough evidence to back them up!  I suspect a lot of it is the media's fault for blowing things out of proportion, but when I see graphs like the ones on the previous page without error bars, statistical analysis of the results or detailed discussion of the potential errors, I get worried. 

For comparison, I worked a bit in high-energy physics at Fermilab.  Every result there had to include a huge analysis of possible errors and results had to be quoted with error bars, saying exactly how certain the physicists were of seeing something new.  When you hear that physicists at the LHC have discovered a new particle, you can expect them to be sure they've actually discovered it.  Even if those dealing with weather aren't quite so sure about their findings, it would be nice to see how sure they are. 
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 08/06/2011 09:31:36
Sure, but this is climate JP, the whole Earth is our 'particle detector' here. If we want the same kind of certainty as you got at Fermilab we gonna need us some serious 'Borg technology', and a lot of probes, the oceans for example.

"We will overcome your climate. Resistance is futile"

It would be nice if that worked :) The models gets changed with new findings, but as we also seem to stop a lot of research, and don't want to spend the money it will cost to get all that data? There is one thing that is very easy to see for me at least. IPCC is constantly revising its trends upwards for each report it delivers. It's always choosing the lower more moderate path, and never in line with the actual climate. It seems to prefer it to be, not extrapolating, instead hoping for almost linear significances, proving their point.

Its like LHC, with 99 % of its probes taken away.
It's not the same.

But satellites seems a extremely cost effective alternative, if we just could 'afford' them :)

ahem.

Take a look here. (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49440)
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: JP on 08/06/2011 10:57:04
But you're missing the point!  I'm saying the plots being thrown around here are pretty meaningless and I daresay sensationalistic without some context.  If they're being related to climate change, we need numbers of how confident we are in the measurements and how confident we are that they represent an actual trend, not natural variation.  Otherwise you can't make any claims that climate change has caused, for example, an increase in tornadoes in the US this year.  If a single number, maybe "we are X% sure that the increase in storms shown in this plot is directly attributable to climate change."

Of course those numbers won't be anything like the 99.9999% confidence of particle experiments, but it would be nice to know it it was 90% or 60% or 20%.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 08/06/2011 12:40:43
Here you can find some statistics JP.

Are Category 4 and 5 hurricanes increasing in number? (2005) (http://www.wunderground.com/education/webster.asp) and rebuttals too.

And here's a interesting link Dusty hurricanes. (2007) (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2007/13apr_dustyhurricanes/)

As most of the weather phenomena in our world everything seems linked to everything else. To attach a secure vote of confidence to a open non-linear system? Can you do that? Myself I think it's about how you limit your 'system', and also about what consequences that are known at the time a specific paper is written. If you take any peer reviewed paper I'm sure you will find limitations for its validity.

And I did not state that that graph is the absolute truth, I just showed that there can be other interpretations. My views are not based on it, okay? It's statistics, and depending on your definitions statistics seems able to define a lot of contradictory 'facts'.
==

And there seems to be some evidence for hurricanes becoming worse.
Hurricanes are getting fiercer (http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080903/full/news.2008.1079.html) from Nature 2008.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: JP on 08/06/2011 14:32:48
As most of the weather phenomena in our world everything seems linked to everything else. To attach a secure vote of confidence to a open non-linear system? Can you do that?

Depends on the system.  I know a bit about nonlinear dynamics in physics and with enough study, I could probably put bounds on a system's behavior.  I couldn't do it for climate or weather, but I'm not a climate scientist!  Part of their job is to study put bounds on those systems.

There is a lot of good research out there that does this, and a lot of controversy.  From what I've read, there just isn't enough good data to say conclusively in most cases what will happen weather-wise as a result of climate change.  That was my complaint.

By the way, re-reading the page from which that graph was taken (and what I should have posted in the first place instead of a complaint about the lack of error analysis) is:
Quote
But while the numbers are not contested, their significance most certainly is. Another study considered how this information was being collected, and research suggested that the increase in reported storms was due to improved monitoring rather than more storms actually taking place.

And to cap it off, two recent peer-reviewed studies completely contradict each other. One paper predicts considerably more storms due to global warming. Another paper suggests the exact opposite – that there will be fewer storms in the future.

So yes, the experts seem to believe that plot is pretty hard to take at face value at least.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 08/06/2011 18:12:12
We have had 30 years of scare-mongering about our use of fossil fuels causing dangerous changes to global climates and the scare-mongers blame every natural damaging weather event on us but ignore the fact that such events are not peculiar to the last 200 years. All that we can do is protect ourselves as much as we can against their effects. It is pure speculation that humans are causing any of it and we certainly have no way of controlling any of it on a global scale.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 08/06/2011 18:47:37
Yep, that's why I left the link too. I figured that it was a good example of 'graphs' and my views about them, not that I wanted to steer anyone to my view but anyone following them, reading the comments, would get a good first expression of the difficulties with choosing parameters.. When I look at it I find it incredibly complicated. It's a whole Earth that we want to define suddenly, and all the way to the sun too.

We need a he* of a lot more probes to do a really good job, but as it is I think those working with it do the best they can. And they have convinced me at least :) But not me relying on the graphs, well, some graphs are more probable than others of course, but it's reading the papers and watch the overall developments that will show you if there is a trend. And that we all can do, it's no rocket science.

But I'm not really into arguing about it anymore :)
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 08/06/2011 19:16:08
And Yelder, that's not true :)

As I said, there are some simple connections between what we see now and our industrial revolution. CO2 is a big one to me. And it doesn't get better by the acidity created.

"The upper layer of the world’s ocean has warmed since 1993, indicating a strong climate change signal, according to a new study. The energy stored is enough to power nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs per each of the roughly 6.7 billion people on the planet continuously over the 16-year study period “We are seeing the global ocean store more heat than it gives off,” said John Lyman, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, who led an international team of scientists that analyzed nine different estimates of heat content in the upper ocean from 1993 to 2008.

The team combined the estimates to assess the size and certainty of growing heat storage in the ocean. Their findings will be published in the May 20 edition of the journal Nature. The scientists are from NOAA, NASA, the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom, the University of Hamburg in Germany and the Meteorological Research Institute in Japan.

“The ocean is the biggest reservoir for heat in the climate system,” said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and one of the scientists who contributed to the study. “So as the planet warms, we’re finding that 80 to 90 percent of the increased heat ends up in the ocean.” A warming ocean is a direct cause of global sea level rise, since seawater expands and takes up more space as it heats up. The scientists say that this expansion accounts for about one-third to one-half of global sea level rise."

We have other evidence in ice cores, tree rings, sediments etc that all point to that this warming we see today is a 'new phenomena', extremely well correlated to our industrial revolution. All glaciers is receding now as I understands it, and in some decade(s) we will be able to open the Arctic for shipping. That mean that the old thick ice that once existed now is the same type of ice that you will find in your lake at winter, melting to each summer.

Myself I don't find it meaningful to argue about that. And the time to start acting only exist in a small time-window as I think. Maybe twenty years? Not more than fifty as a educated optimistic guess. Or maybe we missed the train, but if so, we can still minimize the effects. And you better hope that it is man made and that we can reverse it by reducing our manmade carbon footprints. Because if it's not, well, it's constantly accelerating and..
==

Here you have a good discussion about oceans acidity. (http://e360.yale.edu/feature/an_ominous_warning_on_theeffects_of_ocean_acidification/2241/) It's worth reading.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 08/06/2011 20:02:28
As I was saying yor_on, there is a lot of scare-mongering and there are lot of scare-mongers. Fortunately they are making less and less impression on the general population who are getting wise to the nonsense, especially after the Climategate revelations, the Hockey Stick Illusion and the UN’s COP15 fiasco in Copenhagen.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 08/06/2011 20:09:47
It's your local weather changing, for better or worse, probably worse.
Unless you're in Montana.  :)

That is a big part of the problem with this entire argument.

Everyone believes that today we are at a "Climate Optimum", and that increasing or decreasing the temperature by 2°C or so would lead to severe negative consequences.  Yet, we believe that the planet has been as much as 8 to 10°C warmer or cooler in the past.

Most people agree that dropping the temperatures by a half a dozen degrees Celsius could be devastating for humanity, but even so, there would likely be parts of the world that would reap benefits from an overall cooler planet.

Likewise, if the planet warms, it will likely bring huge benefits to Russia and Canada, and perhaps other areas too.  Water distribution will change and some currently arid and marginal areas may get more water, and some will get less.

One of the problems is that we are already draining some very large rivers, but in many cases it is the population that puts more stress on our water resources than climate alone.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 08/06/2011 20:41:04
Maybe in America Yelder?

There climate seems to have become a political issue more than a question for science. It's a little ironic as America also have some of the best climate scientists in the world. Maybe you think you can 'debate' it away, I don't think so myself though. And what I don't like with this political definition of climate is that it makes people assume that this is exactly what it is.  A debate.

It's gone past a debate.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CZARCAR on 08/06/2011 20:55:49
http://beta.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/intense-northeast-heat-storms_2011-06-07
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 08/06/2011 21:26:26
As for benefits?

I think of earth as stochastic system, non-linear, where everything goes into each other. There is no way to be sure on what country's, or where, you will survive a climate disaster best to my eyes. It's easier to see who first is going to pay the price, and that will as always be the poorest countries.


When it comes to Russia they have their tundra becoming bogs just now. That's also where the methane pipelines rest that is expected to warm Europe, now, and in the future. Methane are also released under the oceans, Methane release from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. by Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov. (http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsymposium.serdp-estcp.org%2Fcontent%2Fdownload%2F8914%2F107496%2Fversion%2F1%2Ffile%2F1A_Shakhova_Final.pdf&ei=r9LvTZ-jKIH_-gb68pGjCA&usg=AFQjCNFtVUZ--zStgra5BP2FYkTvGnmgRg)
==

Seems that this link to their pdf is gone? :( So, if you missed getting the pdf, the best I can offer for the moment is Interview with Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov: Arctic seabed methane stores destabilizing, venting 2010. (http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/03/natalia-shakhova-igor-semiletov-arctic.html)
=

But there is another, more immediate problem. A Warming Tundra Releases Carbon Dioxide. From 2009. (http://news.softpedia.com/news/Warming-Tundra-Releases-Carbon-Dioxide-118363.shtml) And here you have a 'worst case scenario' from 2011 Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source. (http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/02/17/207552/nsidc-thawing-permafrost-will-turn-from-carbon-sink-to-source-in-mid-2020s-releasing-100-billion-tons-of-carbon-by-2100/) 

Now, I sincerely hope this is wrong. It's a rather dramatic description, there are also some links to the studies he refer too in it. And this is what scares me most. Because I think of earth as a non-linear system, I also expect it able to 'tip' from one 'stable' configuration to another 'stable' configuration fairly quick, quicker than you would ever expect in fact. And this scenario would be a 'tipping' to me.

So yes, I'm worried, if that was what you meant by scaremonger Yelder? And not over pleased over the way it seems to have become a political issue in the States.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 08/06/2011 23:08:07
http://beta.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/intense-northeast-heat-storms_2011-06-07
Whew...
That looks HOT!!!  At least for this time of year.
Also warmer than normal in Russia, Norway, Sweden, and parts of Antarctica (although I don't think it ever really gets hot in Antarctica).

Here, on the opposite side of the country, yesterday was 3°F below normal, and I don't anticipate today to be any warmer.

The cold West and warm East is one of the reasons for the vicious storms in the middle.

Overall, this year has been cooler than recent years.

http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/weather/
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/extreme/gfs/current/raw_temp_c.html
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Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 09/06/2011 07:21:41
Back to Joe's original question, I think the answer is a definite maybe.

For a start, we probably should not even use the term "Global Warming" unless we can unambiguously measure the globe's temperature. As far as I know, we can't. Let the media use the term if they wish to, but unless scientists can agree on a method of measurement, the term should not be part of their vocabulary.

What we do know is that we (humans) are altering the composition of the atomsphere in ways that can trap heat in our atmosphere and can have a profound effect on ocean acidity. In other words, we are conducting a gigantic experiment on our planet without the necessary metrology to even quantify the effects properly, or predict the outcomes.

Is this a good idea? Personally, I think it's a very bad idea to tinker with a mechanism that you don't really understand, particularly when your future depends on it. On the other hand, the mechanisms that keep global politics and economics running are probably about as well understood as the effects of altering the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, so it may be just as dangerous to tinker too much with them.

The bottom line is that we really don't have a very good handle on what's going on, and, even if we did, there does not appear to be a quick fix.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 09/06/2011 08:36:09
Geezer, that is a very good post!

I would just add that politics and economics can be changed with a relatively short timescale but changing the climate can be reversible only on a very long timescale and we do not have any idea how to do it. Personally, I would take the cautious approach, even if slightly inconvenient in the short term.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 09/06/2011 08:55:53
Clifford, Geezer, JP, you can offer logical arguments and facts till the cows come home and it has not the least impression on the scare-mongers and doom merchants. To them we humans are destroying the earth, even though they continue benefiting from all of the improvements that humans have made and continue to make at an increasing pace. Some people just have to have something to be scared of.

Christopher Booker, who writes extensively in the Daily Telegraph on the myth of catastrophic human-made climate change, wrote an excellent book “Scared to Death” <link removed> and I picked up a copy for nowt at a second-hand shop in Watford as a reward for buying a recycled desk chair for my wife. (I’m fully against the scare-mongering over our use of fossil fuels – as long as it is clean use - but all for reusing, refurbishing, repairing and recycling rather than disposing). Perhaps the biggest problem we humans have that threatens existence is greed and too many of us suffering from the L’Oreal Disease.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: peppercorn on 09/06/2011 10:37:27
I don't why most people seem to concentrate on worrying about (or equally arguing against) temperature change per se.

Bottom line is, just as the planet's climate is a dynamic system, so are natural, living systems.

Who cares if the global mean of CO2 (or whatever) was factors greater in the past?  The key point is always going to be Rate of Change. - As Graham inferred.

The question should be, not 'What happened last time CO2 levels were at today's (or tomorrow's predicted) levels?'.
It should be 'When was the rate of change this great?' and 'If we can find out, what were the effects on life?'.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 09/06/2011 11:21:05
Yelder, I think you are falling into the same category as those you call scaremongerers. There is a huge amount of politics involved here with a lot of financial weight being put behind people trying to discredit the informed opinion of a majority of those involved in climate science. As Gore said, this is an "inconvenient truth", and as the famous cartoon implied, the "reassuring lie" is an easier pill to swallow, especially as most businesses and politicians are not looking much further that their next balance sheet or the next election. Now it is reasonable to question the science, and nobody with any scientific understanding of this would claim certainty in the predictions. Unfortunately this doubt factor is an easy one to exaggerate and ridicule. And guess what, this is what is being done. It is so easy for people to project the equally scaremongering image of the people who say that we should try to do something about the changing climate as sandal-wearing hippies who think we should live in caves. The reality is that a majority of genuine climate scientists have enough convincing evidence to register a lot of concern about climate change. I think they could often do without the hysteria of support from the uninformed loonies who just present the strawmen arguments that enable the equally uninformed, but politically aware, opposition to present a seemingly convincing opposition.

According to wikipedia: Christopher Booker "often takes a stance which runs counter to mainstream views on a number of issues, including global warming, the link between passive smoking and cancer,[2] asbestos[3] and the Darwinian theory of evolution."

So he is much more believable then!!!
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 09/06/2011 14:51:43
Don't fool yourself :)

We won't change a thing. We' haven't yet and I doubt we ever will, we're better at reacting at our front door than on what we see on our telly. 99.9% of the changes I see is just cosmetics, like the Kyoto deal. The only way to change it is by us committing to changing it, and we're noway near that idea, as proven in this discussion.

So I do not expect any changes to be made, and neither do you. It would cost you to do them, and we're comfortable as we are right? The summers may become a little hotter, the weather more unpredictable, but he* :)

Stay indoors :)
==

As for if we should react?
Sure we should, and we will, when it's at our front door.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 09/06/2011 20:12:14
What I want to know is how Graham found out I wear sandals and live in a cave.

It's true to say that nothing very dramatic has happened to address the issue, but it's also true to say that there has been some significant progress. At least we are talking about it, and there is far more awareness of the problem than there was, say, twenty years ago. Consequently, a lot of smart people are working on things that can all make a contribution.

For no particular reasons I find myself in the "somewhere in the middle" camp on this one. I think it's a real problem that requires urgent attention, but adopting "knee jerk" cures to try to fix it could turn out to be worse than the actual disease. I certainly do not think we should cover our eyes and chant "go away nasty problem".   
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: imatfaal on 09/06/2011 21:51:58
Damn - I must be losing it, I find myself agreeing with Geezer.  Regardless of the veracity of the claims and counter-claims, I hope that one upshot is a re-examination of our use of resources and energy.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: JP on 11/06/2011 08:54:28
So regarding the original question, it sounds very likely that climate change is influencing the weather somehow, and it's a definite "maybe" that it's responsible for the increase in major storms/tornados?
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 11/06/2011 14:31:57
Graham, I think it may be a case of each to his own. In “An Inconvenient Truth” Gore offered many distortions of fact (AKA lies). Have a look at “35 Inconvenient Truths – The Errors in Al Gore’s Movie” by Lord Christopher Monckton of Brenchley http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/press_releases/monckton-response-to-gore-errors.pdf (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/press_releases/monckton-response-to-gore-errors.pdf).

Nigel Lawson (Lord Lawson of Blaby) said in his article “The REAL inconvenient truth: Zealotry over global warming could damage our Earth far more than climate change”
Quote
Over the past half-century, we have become used to planetary scares. .. late Sixties .. a population explosion .. global starvation. .. later .. the world was running out of natural resources. By the Seventies .. a new Ice Age. .. the latest scare, global warming, has engaged the political and opinion-forming classes to a greater extent than any of these. .. this fashionable belief has led the present Labour Government, enthusiastically supported by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, to commit itself to a policy of drastically cutting back carbon dioxide emissions - at huge cost to the British economy and to the living standards not merely of this generation, but of our children's generation, too. .. most of those scientists who speak with such certainty about global warming and climate change are not climate scientists, or Earth scientists of any kind, and thus have no special knowledge to contribute
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=1:latest&id=51:agw-zealotry-could-damage-our-earth-far-more-than-climate-change (http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=1:latest&id=51:agw-zealotry-could-damage-our-earth-far-more-than-climate-change). Try his book “An Appeal To Reason: A Cool Look At Global Warming” amazon link deleted.

As the registration page for The Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change on June 30 – July 1, the “Global Warming Conference - Restoring the Scientific Method” says
Quote
Dozens of think tank cosponsors and hundreds of scientists will gather in an effort to “restore the scientific method” to its rightful place in the debate over the causes, consequences, and policy implications of climate change. The theme of the conference, “Restoring the Scientific Method,” acknowledges the fact that claims of scientific certainty and predictions of climate catastrophes are based on “post-normal science,” which substitutes claims of consensus for the scientific method. This choice has had terrible consequences for science and society. Abandoning the scientific method led to the “Climategate” scandal and the errors and abuses of peer review by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
http://climateconference.heartland.org/ (http://climateconference.heartland.org/).

What’s your opinion about Steven Scheider-’s promotion of scare-mongering by scientists and his reluctance to condemn them if they considered presenting a misleading picture to the general public (i.e. lying)?  As Pete Ridley pointed out on his question about the misleading demonstration in the BBC’s “Climate Wars” program “What does Iain Stewart's CO2 experiment Demonstrate” http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=38723.0 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=38723.0)
Quote
There are those who support the view which Professor Steven Schneider expressed in 1989 about the manner in which climate science should be presented. He said "To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest" http://www.john-daly.com/schneidr.htm (http://www.john-daly.com/schneidr.htm). My interpretation of that statement is that it is up to each of us to decide whether to lie or not. This is expected of politicians and those who earn their living through the media but not of those in a position of trust like physicians and researchers
I think that Pete Ridley’s opinion on that is close to the bulls-eye.

I agree that
Quote
There is a huge amount of politics involved here
although I think that it’s a gross understatement. The whole thing is driven by the power-hungry like Strong, Gore, Soros, etc. supported by political organisations like the UN and EU for reasons far removed from controlling the global climates.

You forgot to mention the even more huge amount of taxpayers money going into spreading the propaganda that humans are destroying the planet?

As for Wikipedia, I suspect that the comment you refer to was written by one-time Wikipedia moderator, staunch supporter of the AGW hypothesis, one-time member of Michael Mann’s “Hockey Team” publicity section  Realclimate, software engineer Dr. William Connolleyhttp://scienceblogs.com/stoat/about.php (http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/about.php). Many of us were delighted when he had his Wikipedia editing privileges withdrawn.

yor_on, many of us look forward to seeing Kyoto expiring quietly in its sleep with nothing to replace it. After the UN’s 2009 COP15 fiasco in Copenhagen (destoyed by the Climategate revelations) and the 2010 COP16 comedy in Cancun we can look forward to a final derailment in Durban of the UNFCCC AGW band-wagon after COP17 http://www.cop17durban.com/COP_17/Pages/default.aspx (http://www.cop17durban.com/COP_17/Pages/default.aspx). Hopefully that will be the last of the UN’s wasteful extravaganzas (but of course, being politicians they’ll find some other way of hosting a luxury break at taxpayers’ expense).

Maybe then they'll start addressing real global problems like the disgusting waste by us in the developed economies and the disgraceful poverty in many of the developing or stagnant economies. Perhaps then our leaders will concentrate on putting resources into what we can do something about, like improving  technology for protecting humans from whatever weather extremes and other catastrophes that Nature decides to throw our way – but that is just wishful thinking, after all, they are politicians.
   
As imatfaal says
Quote
I hope that one upshot is a re-examination of our use of resources and energy
but not a further waste of resources installing things like those useless wind turbines or systems for sequestering that essential, life-supporting substance CO2 from our industrial, commercial and domestic emissions. Yes, lets research alternative energy sources so that we are ready for when those wonderful fossil fuels expire, but that won’t be for centuries yet. Put those wasted resources to good use minimising genuine pollutants from our emissions, improving repairing and preventing unnecessary damage to the natural envirnment, but most importantly of all, helping humans throughout the world to improve their enjoyment of life.

JP, you comment “that climate change is influencing the weather somehow, and it's a definite "maybe" that it's responsible for the increase in major storms/tornados?” surprises me. In my ignorance I thought that it was weather, in terms of temperature and rainfall, that were the basis of Koppen’s definitions of those different global climates (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/322068/Koppen-climate-classification). Sounds a bit like the cart before the horse, like CO2 driving temperature rather than the correct way round.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: imatfaal on 11/06/2011 18:34:00
Yelder - Graham made a very good point that there is too much politics and not enough science in this debate and I am afraid your last post exemplifies that!  This is a science website and yet the links/quotes you have provided are
Chris Monckton - a hereditary peer and very right wing politician
Nigel Lawson - a conservative chancellor of the exchequer and right wing politician
Heartland Institute - a libertarian thinktank that denies link between secondary smoking and cancer
Pete Ridley - a forum contributor
Me
Britannica.com

You have amply demonstrated the politicization of this debate.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 11/06/2011 19:51:25
Pete, I mean Yelder, I'm not quite sure I understand your point. Are you saying you don't believe the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing, or do you agree that it is, but you don't believe it can trap heat in the atmosphere?
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 12/06/2011 11:31:54
Imatfaal, although as you say
Quote
This is a science website
it is not only my comments on this forum that have brought politics into the discussions. If you don’t believe me have another read of the comments on this topic. The scientific debate about the causes of changes in global temperature (whether hotter or colder) and rainfall (more or less) - used as the basis for defining the different global clmates (see Koppen) was destroyed by interference from the power-hungry, the politicians and the environmentalists long before I became involved.

Geezer, can you point to anywhere that I (or Pete Ridley for that matter)) ever said that 
Quote
the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing[/quote
or that I
Quote
don't believe it can trap heat in the atmosphere
? No, I thought not.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 12/06/2011 18:22:42
This month's Scientific American features an interview with Richard A. Muller who was wheeled in to testify before Congress on climate change. Everyone thought he was going to take the "denial" view but he shocked everyone by saying that generally the mainstream climate scientists had done a good job and their predictions were holding up well against observation. He was particularly pleased that Jim Hansen (NASA Goddard Institute) welcomed his looking into this because he welcomed a critical look that was devoid of politics. Like most of us, he does not like the politics overriding the good science, whichever side is taken.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 12/06/2011 23:37:06
Hi graham.d, can you provide a link to any research paper of Professor Muller’s that cover the process and drivers of the different global climates? I haven’t been able to find any on his CV http://muller.lbl.gov/ (http://muller.lbl.gov/).
It seems that his testimony simply supports the claim that mean global temperature has been increasing since the Little Ice Age, which will come as no surprise to most of us who are sceptical of the speculative claim that it has been caused mainly be our use of fossil fuels.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 13/06/2011 08:27:57
Hi Yelder, I just read Scientific American (June 2011 issue) on Saturday, but have no other reference to hand.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 13/06/2011 09:30:46
Hi graham.d, I doubt very much if you or anyone else will find any worthwhile research paper from Professor Muller showing what has been the major cause of any global warming or cooling during the past 200 years.

As Professor Barry Brook of Adelaide University acknowledged back in April 2009, 
Quote
There are a lot of uncertainties in science, and it is indeed likely that the current consensus on some points of climate science is wrong, or at least sufficiently uncertain that we don’t know anything much useful about processes or drivers. But EVERYTHING? Or even most things? Take 100 lines of evidence, discard 5 of them, and you’re still left with 95 and large risk management problem
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/ (http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/).

The first sentence is the most important one, the third being simply waffle such as the IPCC uses to give the impression of being able to quantify that uncertainty.

I don't think that Professor Muller has changed that state of uncertainty about the processes and drivers of the different global climates (e.g. as defined by Koppen).

Quote
Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
– nope, it’s Mother Nature doing her usual thing.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 13/06/2011 10:00:04
As I understand it Muller has done related research and was asked to review the situation as it stands. He does not claim to be a world expert on the subject (though is well informed) but is well known for taking a critical view on physical theories and is a proven, strong proponent of scientific skepticism.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 13/06/2011 13:20:25
Hi again graham.d, I had a read of Professor Muller’s testimony http://berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Muller_Testimony_31_March_2011 (http://berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Muller_Testimony_31_March_2011) and two things stand out for a sceptic like me.

Muller said
Quote
According to the most recent IPCC report (2007), the human component became apparent only after 1957, and it amounts to “most” of the 0.7 degree rise since then
I could be wrong but I think that is a rather distorted version of what the IPCC AR4 WG1 actually said. More correctly this was
Quote
Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-understanding-and.html#footnote12 (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-understanding-and.html#footnote12) which is somewhat different to what Muller testified. If you can point me to the part in AR4 WG1 where that bit about 1957 is stated then I’d appreciate it because I haven’t found it. Maybe Muller misinterpreted
Quote
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been measured directly with high precision since 1957
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/097.htm (http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/097.htm), which I believe was simply referring to the start of Keeling’s measurements http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/).  Muller also omitted to mention that very important piece of IPCC speculation, “very likely”.

Muller also said
Quote
I suggest that Congress consider the creation of a Climate-ARPA to facilitate the study of climate issues .. I was asked what legislation could advance our knowledge of climate change. After some consideration, I felt that the creation of a Climate Advanced Research Project Agency, or Climate-ARPA, could help .. Climate-ARPA could be an organization that provides quick funding to worthwhile projects without regard to whether they support or challenge current understanding
. Now I wonder which organisations he has in mind to receive such funding - the University of California, Berkeley’s Earth Surface Temperature Project perhaps? After all, "money talks" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q).

As always, I’m happy to be corrected if I have misunderstood something.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 13/06/2011 14:40:25
AR7 WG1 states right on the first page... "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.[12] This is an advance since the TAR’s conclusion that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”.

The report was prepared in 2007 so 2007 minus 50 years is 1957.

My only point in citing Muller was the SciAm interview and the point that he was thought likely, based on his previous critical views of established theories, to take a similar view on the Global Warming debate. Now that he has generally endorsed this view there are a some people trying to discredit him - including you it seems. Of course he would promote the idea of Berkeley getting funding but if that's all there was to it he would have told Congress what they wanted to hear, wouldn't he?

Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 13/06/2011 15:42:48
Hi again graham.d, I think that you might have misunderstood my
Quote
If you can point me to the part in AR4 WG1 where that bit about 1957 is stated then I’d appreciate it because I haven’t found it
That bit about 1957 is Muller’s statement that
Quote
According to the most recent IPCC report (2007), the human component became apparent only after 1957, and it amounts to “most” of the 0.7 degree rise since then
not just a tiny piece about 1957. It’s the fact that Muller appears to me to have taken that enormous jump from a speculative “very likely” to a confident
Quote
the human component .. amounts to “most” of the 0.7 degree rise since then
That’s just the kind of distortion of the WG1 scientific report that was presented in the SPM and the politicians involved love to see - the removal of uncertainty by any means possible.

Of course I may have missed some important item in AR4 WG1 so if you spot anything pleas let me know.

As for
Quote
some people trying to discredit him
I think that most of us sceptics are more concerned about trying to get to the facts rather than discrediting anyone. There are those who bring discredit upon themselves through distorting the facts, whether deliberately, through ignorance or accidentally.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: graham.d on 13/06/2011 17:25:03
I think that most of us sceptics are more concerned about trying to get to the facts rather than discrediting anyone.


Unfortunately, that is certainly not true in most cases. Mostly I perceive a strong desire to discredit arguments. This desire is often not based on science except when used to defeat self-selected strawman arguments. It is my perception that people have made up their minds and then try to find arguments to support their preconceived ideas. In the USA and, to a slightly lesser extent in the UK, this debate has turned into a political right wing vs left wing argument. It is hard to see how that can be justified scientifically or on any "just trying to get the facts" basis. On almost every other subject, relatively ignorant people would accept the views of those renowned as experts in the field, the vast majority of whom seem to hold a consistant view on this issue. They may be wrong; the science does not give clear cut answers on these subjects.

It just seems to me that a cautious, less risky route, would be to encourage cooperation in reducing carbon emissions, which at the same time would elongate the period over which the world's oil reserves would last. Industrialised nations would not suffer in the medium term because the alternatives to high usage of fossil fuels involve the development of clever technology which they are best placed to take advantage from. That all this is politically difficult is why this has turned into a politically led debate. Why do you think whole nations have net views on this subject that seem in line with what is in their short term interest? This is not one of human nature's best traits I'm afraid.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 13/06/2011 18:22:28
Hi again graham.d, yes, I agree with your first paragraph and acknowledge that there are too many on both sides of the discussion who simply try to win the argument rather than get to the facts. Regarding your second paragraph I do not agree that our use of fossil fuels presents a serious risk to the different global climates and do not support the notion that global economic growth should be hindered just because some people wish to apply the over-precautionary principle.

When I talk about economic growth I’m thinking about the developing economies, not the developed ones with their dependence upon our over-indulgence and waste, stemming from that other trait of many of us, greed.

Yes fossil fuels will run out eventually, but not for a very long time, when the energy companies can be depended upon to make available appropriate alternatives. There’s coal and natural gas galore still waiting to be extracted and put to good use, as long as it is done with minimal pollution and damage to the environment. Of course I do not consider that essential life-supporting substance CO2 to be a pollutant.

Clever technology exists already for extraction and clean use of fossil fuels but at the moment only nuclear is available as a sensible alternative (other than some niche applications for hydro, solar, wind, etc.).

I think that we need to be careful discussing these issues here because we may cause the thread to be locked as a consequence of straying off-question. That has happened before has it not.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CZARCAR on 13/06/2011 18:40:36
assuming that today 95% CO2 is from nature & 5% from man, before fossil fuels it was 100% nature from volcanoes & forest fires which pollute & block the sun with particulates & allow some cooling from blocked sunlight
PBS has a documentary "Global Dimming" which is interesting
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 13/06/2011 18:46:12
It's interesting that those who advocate no need to reduce fossil carbon output are also prone to cherry picking the science to discredit it.

If the science is faulty, meaning we don't really have a good handle on cause and effect, isn't it incredibly cavalier to continue dumping vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere?

Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 13/06/2011 18:47:19
Sure, there exist technologies reducing CO2, like modern cars. It's just that it's not enough. The problem is the way CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds, or thousand, of years depending on what importance you give to it.

If you accept that we contribute to it, also called 'man made or anthropogenic' which I actually expect you to do then the idea here is that we need to 'stop it'. Reducing it won't change a thing for the next hundred of years, and only slightly for the next couple of hundred of years. And while it's acting the tundra gets warm, introducing new CO2 in the atmosphere, with the methane coming as an added layer of acceleration.

And that's the problem. We're not used to this. Read a Jules Verne, and you'll see the way we imagine Nature. We expect us to be able to act, but only when it's at the 'front door', as that is when it 'threatens us'. But the man made portion won't disappear when we finally act. It will stay up there.

We don't have any Jules Verne solutions for scrubbing the atmosphere, and all our JV ideas of seeding the ocean etc, scrubbing it from CO2 and acidity are just that,Jule Verne. They may look sweet to politicians wanting to keep their 'jobs' and to those benefiting economically from a status quo but they won't work. It's a non-linear system, Earth.

As for a 'global cooling'?

Not as I know it. That doesn't mean that we can guarantee what way a non-linear system will tip. But so far all indications point to a warming, not a cooling.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 13/06/2011 21:46:30
Hi Graham.d. you may recall me mentioning software engineer William Connolley in my comment of 11th June @ 14:31 (another of my comments that the moderator chose to hide from view). In following up on your comment about people trying to discredit Professor Muller I came across this staunch supporter of the CACC doctrine doing just that. His 5th April article “Muller is Rubbish” http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2011/04/muller_is_rubbish.php (http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2011/04/muller_is_rubbish.php) includes
Quote
Why then is he rubbish? Because he is still basically clueless about climate science
It isn’t usual for me to think along the same lines as Connolley but I was unable to seriously argue against much of what he wrote in that article.

Connolley's article also links to some others that make interesting reading, including Anthony Watts’ “Letter of response from Anthony Watts to Dr. Richard Muller testimony 3/31/2011” http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/response_to_muller_testimony.pdf (http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/response_to_muller_testimony.pdf).
 
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 13/06/2011 22:56:10
assuming that today 95% CO2 is from nature & 5% from man, before fossil fuels it was 100% nature from volcanoes & forest fires which pollute & block the sun with particulates & allow some cooling from blocked sunlight
PBS has a documentary "Global Cooling" which is interesting

In any given year, it may be that 5% of the total carbon cycle is due to fossil fuels.

But if we can assume that the "industrial" CO2 increases has been from 280ppm to 380ppm, (or from 0.028% to 0.038%) then that is a 35% total increase.

CO2 is produced in nature by all animals, as well as most bacteria, yeasts, and molds.  Volcanoes are just a minor component of the carbon cycle.

We put about 30 gigatons of CO2 into the air every year.  That is a LOT of carbon.

Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 13/06/2011 23:45:00

That is a LOT of carbon.


That is an understatement  [;)]
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CZARCAR on 14/06/2011 16:14:36
"Global Dimming" program was about the week after 9/11 when US planes were grounded which resulted in a brighter, bluer sky & raised "pan evaporation rates" @ weather stations. Made me think if cars ran on clean, non-polluting  methane, the weather would be more violent due to global warming
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 15/06/2011 12:42:48
Hi CZARCAR, reference your comment of 13th June @ 18:40 can you provide a link to your source of 5% human emissions? IPCC AR4 WG1 Figure 7.3 http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-7-3.html (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-7-3.html) seems to present a different picture, with human emissions (fossil fuels, land use change) being 28GtC (102GtCO2) compared with natural emissions of 190.2GtC (697GtCO2), i.e. 4% from humans so your assumption isn’t far out (if the IPCC figures and my manipulation of them can be trusted).

Hi KliffordK, too many of us are forced to make assumptions (aka guesses) relating to climate change because of insufficient evidence or lack of clarity. Let me make the assumption (please correct me if I’m wrong) that when you say that
Quote
the "industrial" CO2 increases has been from 280ppm to 380ppm
you are implying that this CO2 increase is directly and totally due to our use of fossil fuels since the start of the industrial revolution. If my assumption is correct then is your assumption that we have cause a 35% increase flawed in any way? My understanding of those figures from the IPCC is that natural emissions account for 96% of that 35% increase. Of course we have to be a bit suspicious of those pre-industrial figures don’t we. After all, they come from air “trapped” in ice, which may not be a reliable record of the real atmospheric composition.

Your (and Geezer’s) concern about
Quote
30 gigatons of CO2 into the air every year.  That is a LOT of carbon
needs to be viewed in the context of natural emissions of CO2, which according to the IPCC amount to 697GtCO2 per year. Doesn’t that make natural emissions (87% of the total) look far larger by comparison? Also, let’s not overlook the IPCC statement that
Quote
Gross fluxes generally have uncertainties of more than ±20%
. On top of that the estimated concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than a mere 0.04% even during this claimed unusually warm period.

Of course, if global temperatures continue the trend of the past 12 years or even start to fall then might not CO2 levels even start falling, with the risk of positive feedback driving us towards another ice age, with more floods, more droughts, more hurricanes and tornadoes, more earth quakes and volcanoes, polar bears frozen to the ice sheets. Thank goodness that’s all wild speculation based upon unfounded assumptions.

While I was looking up information on the mean ocean temperature rise during the past 200 years I was reminded of Graham.d’s quote (at 14:40 yesterday) from the IPCC’s AR4
Quote
most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations
and of Professor Muller’s interpretation of it
Quote
According to the most recent IPCC report (2007), the human component became apparent only after 1957, and it amounts to “most” of the 0.7 degree rise since then
Those claims provide another example of conclusions drawn from an assumption that remains to be validated.

Looking at the GISS http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif) and HADCRUT http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif) estimates of mean global temperature I can see no rising trend at all until about 1977 so what do you think Muller spotted from 1957 that I have missed. After all, he’s Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley so must know what he’s talking about, despite what people like Connolley http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2011/04/muller_is_rubbish.php (http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2011/04/muller_is_rubbish.php), Watts http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/response_to_muller_testimony.pdf (http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/response_to_muller_testimony.pdf), Pielke Sr http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/01/pielke-sr-on-the-muller-testimony/ (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/01/pielke-sr-on-the-muller-testimony/), Tamino - Grant Foster? – http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/richard-muller-love-fest/ (http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/richard-muller-love-fest/), etc. say.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 15/06/2011 12:58:14
When JP, yor_on, Geezer and graham.d. started discussing the politicisation of CO2 on 8th & 9th June I mentioned Lord Lawson (my comment of 11th June @ 14:31 - for some reason hidden by the moderator  [:(!]). Lawson’s 11th June article “A fatuous obsession: The Coalition's absurd energy policy is damaging industry and adding hundreds of pounds to every family's fuel bills” is well worth reading. He says
Quote
The first, as more and more eminent scientists are finding the courage to point out (the most recent being the distinguished physicist Professor William Happer of Princeton University), is that it is far from clear that there is a serious problem — let alone a catastrophic one — of global warming at all
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002333/Nigel-Lawson-says-Coalitions-absurd-energy-policy-damaging-industry-adding-hundreds-pounds-familys-fuel-bills.html#ixzz1PHOoKHWR (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002333/Nigel-Lawson-says-Coalitions-absurd-energy-policy-damaging-industry-adding-hundreds-pounds-familys-fuel-bills.html#ixzz1PHOoKHWR).

I’m a bit puzzled by Lawson’s
Quote
the most recent being .. Professor William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University, because he has been presenting his sceptical arguments for at least a couple of years. It seems that his most recent article was “The Truth About Greenhouse Gases: The dubious science of the climate crusaders” http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases (http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases) in which he says
Quote
I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The “climate crusade” is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types—even children’s crusades—all based on contested science and dubious claims
  Happer made a statement on climate change before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in February 2009 http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=84462e2d-6bff-4983-a574-31f5ae8e8a42 (http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=84462e2d-6bff-4983-a574-31f5ae8e8a42) part of which can be seen at http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/william-happer-wants-to-party-like-its-79999999-bc (http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/william-happer-wants-to-party-like-its-79999999-bc) (don’t be fooled by the date of July 10, 2002 as it is just a hang-over from one of his earlier statements probably due to re-using the same document - http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Homeland_Security_National_Labs.asp (http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Homeland_Security_National_Labs.asp).

Talking about
Quote
eminent scientists .. point out .. that it is far from clear that there is a serious problem — let alone a catastrophic one
reminds me of others like Happer. While searching for a link between Grant Foster and Tamino I came across “Dog Brothers Public Forum” http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?action=printpage;topic=1454.0 (http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?action=printpage;topic=1454.0) which may find of interest as it mentions numerous scientists who converted from supporters to deniers of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change hypothesis, including paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa, environmental geochemist Dr. Jan Veizer, professor emeritus of University of Ottawa, and paleoclimatologist Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor of the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Ottawa. It also mentions Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski who Pete Ridley talked about on his “Another Hockey Stick Illusion?” thread http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=24442;sa=showPosts (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=24442;sa=showPosts).
 
There's also an interesting comment about
Quote
Global Warming Ruled a Religion by British Judge

Another very interesting article published by the SPPI on 10th June “Lindzen-Choi ‘Special Treatment’: Is Peer Review Biased Against Nonalarmist Climate Science?” http://sppiblog.org/news/lindzen-choi-%E2%80%98special-treatment%E2%80%99-is-peer-review-biased-against-nonalarmist-climate-science (http://sppiblog.org/news/lindzen-choi-%E2%80%98special-treatment%E2%80%99-is-peer-review-biased-against-nonalarmist-climate-science) was drawn to my attention yesterday. It also includes a reference to Happer but more importantly describes the sort of treatment that sceptical scientists are subjected to when submitting papers for publication, just as the Climategate E-mails indicated. The comment about Happer said
Quote
Attachment2.pdf. This attachment begins with what we regard as a libelous description of our choice of reviewers. Will Happer, though a physicist, was in charge of research at DOE including pioneering climate research. Moreover, he has, in fact, published professionally on atmospheric turbulence. He is also a member of the NAS
.

The article is well worth reading – enjoy.

There’s also an interesting article “Politicization of Climate Change & CO2” http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/p/sundry-papers.html (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/p/sundry-papers.html) which originally appeared on The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition site http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=1 (http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=1).
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: imatfaal on 15/06/2011 15:35:25
Yelder - I think it would be best if we avoided this thread becoming a repository for blog postings by politicians and interested by-standers.  We have all agreed during this thread that the issue of climate change is highly politically charged and that sectarian "lines in the sand" have been drawn by both sides.  Let us try to keep to scientific questions, answers, and refutations and allow those who wish to read further to find those articles for themselves.

The OP was "Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?" - let's leave the question of Prof Muller's rectitude and other multi-lateral mudslinging and try and advance the scientific debate on the original question. 

Thanks - imatfaal/matthew
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 15/06/2011 19:03:08
Hi Imatfaal, I have no problem with that provided everyone else is encouraged to do the same.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: peppercorn on 15/06/2011 21:13:20
Hi Imatfaal, I have no problem with that provided everyone else is encouraged to do the same.

And to that end it has been shrunk.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 15/06/2011 22:37:54
Of course, if global temperatures continue the trend of the past 12 years or even start to fall then might not CO2 levels even start falling, with the risk of positive feedback driving us towards another ice age, with more floods, more droughts, more hurricanes and tornadoes, more earth quakes and volcanoes, polar bears frozen to the ice sheets. Thank goodness that’s all wild speculation based upon unfounded assumptions.

When looking at the CO2 trends, the concentration has increased EVERY YEAR since the beginning of the records.  It is not a perfectly linear trend, but it would be difficult to conclude that it is only temperature related.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.esrl.noaa.gov%2Fgmd%2Fwebdata%2Fccgg%2Fiadv%2Fgraph%2Fmlo%2Fmlo_co2_ts_obs_03437.png&hash=4a725e474a0c9312e959c8f0e647b04d)

The Mauna Loa Methane trends are far less linear with indications that the levels this year will mildly decrease again, so it would be far easier to argue a temperature dependence, and that we may be reaching a peak, whether or not humans were the cause of the estimated more than doubling of the concentration from pre-industrial levels.

 [ Invalid Attachment ]



Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 15/06/2011 22:48:04
Here is another article about hurricanes, or North Atlantic Tropical Storms.

It indicates that the increase in count of the storms may be due to better detection of the storms lasting less than 2 days.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2010JD015493.shtml
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/cms-filesystem-action?file=user_files/gav/publications/vvks_10_shorties.pdf

Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 15/06/2011 23:18:09
Clifford. You lost me writing "When looking at the CO2 trends, the concentration has increased EVERY YEAR since the beginning of the records.  It is not a perfectly linear trend, but it would be difficult to conclude that it is only temperature related." ?

Are you stating that CO2 isn't correlated to the temperature, or do you mean that you doubt it is a 'forcing' of it?

"Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the concentrations of most of the greenhouse gases have increased. For example, the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by about 36% to 380 ppmv, or 100 ppmv over modern pre-industrial levels.

The first 50 ppmv increase took place in about 200 years, from the start of the Industrial Revolution to around 1973; however the next 50 ppmv increase took place in about 33 years, from 1973 to 2006. Recent data also shows the concentration is increasing at a higher rate. In the 1960s, the average annual increase was only 37% of what it was in 2000 through 2007."

Physicsmaior. (http://physicsmaior.wordpress.com/physics-2/)

"Measurements from Antarctic ice cores show that just before industrial emissions started, atmospheric CO2 levels were about 280 parts per million by volume. From the same ice cores it appears that CO2 concentrations stayed between 260 and 280 ppm (Parts per million) during the preceding 10,000 years. However, because of the way air is trapped in ice and the time period represented in each ice sample analyzed, these figures are long term averages not annual levels. . .

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the concentrations of many of the greenhouse gases have increased. The concentration of CO2 has increased by about 100 ppm (i.e., from 280 ppm to 380 ppm). " So the CO2 is accelerating, just as our carbon 'foot prints'.

2009 I wrote this. If I look at the worlds coal consumption 2008 of 3 300 million ton, then 2 000 million ton was consumed by Asia. And you know what, we are coming out from our recession now says our ‘economists’. So now we can start all over again. The steel production is up as from August 2009 to 106.5 millions ton according to ‘World Steel’. And China have in ten years gone from 124 millions tons, to now over 500 millions ton steel yearly. And its coal consumption have raised from 1998, 652 million tons to over 1400 millions tons last year according to the oil company BP energy-statistics. And sixty eight  percent of the worlds electric power is generated by fossil fuels today, mostly coal and ‘natural gas’ (methane).

Statistical Review 2011 by The firm formerly known as Beyond Petroleum :) BP. (http://www.bp.com/assets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2011/STAGING/local_assets/pdf/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2011.pdf) The global carbon dioxide emissions are rising faster than ever. China's carbon dioxide emissions rose 10.4% in 2010 compared with the previous year. China and India industrialise on the relatively cheap coal for their powerplants.

"Global carbon dioxide emissions are widely seen as a major factor responsible for an increase in world temperatures. They grew 5.8 percent last year to 33.16 billion tonnes, as countries rebounded from economic recession, BP said. China's emissions accounted for 8.33 billion tonnes. Its energy consumption swelled by over 11 percent last year, compared to global growth of 5.6 percent. The International Energy Agency estimated last month that global CO2 emissions rose by 5.9 percent to 30.6 billion tonnes in 2010, mainly driven by booming coal-reliant emerging economies. BP data showed that China accounted for a quarter of global emissions. The United States was the second largest emitter, showing a 4.1 percent rise in emissions last year to 6.14 billion tonnes." With the coal consumption by OECD nations accelerating at its fastest pace since 1979. So if you're an investor, buy coal shares and make a killing :) Be sure to spend it in time though. Maybe on getting one of those domes?
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Geezer on 16/06/2011 00:20:48
There is an interesting (or even somewhat disturbing) article by Lee R Kump (Penn State) in July Sci-Am. It outlines data indicating that the current rate of CO2 injection into the atmosphere is orders of magnitude greater than the conditions that led up to the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum).

I presume these findings are published, but I'm afraid I don't have a link.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 16/06/2011 00:22:36
yor_on

I was just replying to Yelder who had seemed to suggest that the increased CO2 levels weren't caused by man, but rather that the temperatures and other natural cycles were driving the increasing atmospheric CO2, which is likely the case for pre-industrial revolution CO2 variation, but unlikely for post-industrial revolution CO2.

There is, of course, a shift in equilibrium points with the increased temperatures, but we now have more CO2 in the atmosphere driving the CO2 back into the oceans rather than driving it out of the oceans.

Since temperatures have varied over the last few decades worth of CO2 records, but each year we record additional increases of the gas with no decreases beyond the annual variation, then one would not expect a mild drop in temperatures alone to be sufficient to drive significantly lower CO2 levels (other than changes in the use of air conditioning, heating, and vehicle fuel).
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 16/06/2011 00:32:37
Then both you and Yelder are going against all what climate scientists think themselves knowing Clifford :) You better have something more than graphs if you want to prove such a thesis. I could link you to some papers discussing why we think CO2 forces the raise of temperatures but you can find it easy enough yourself I think :)
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 16/06/2011 01:15:14
The problem is our CO2 and we need to stop producing it, now. We can't wait for Jules Verne to build his Earth encompassing machine' to scrub our oceans and atmosphere clean from our wastes. And if you're serious you should realize what an impossible pipe dream such a thing is. Sh*, we can't even keep our own towns clean, and now we expect us to take care of the oceans? And the Atmosphere?  ahem, you serious? as one might wonder there :)

And without taking care of the CO2, it will accumulate in the atmosphere, and our sinks, whereof a major part will be our oceans. And when the acidity killed of the marine food-chain a billion humans will notice it first handedly, the rest of us will experience the repercussions second handedly. And in a worse scenario the ocean will become saturated, not able to take care of the CO2 any more instead 'breathing' it back, accelerating it beyond any understanding. And the funniest thing is that I could see that 2007 while some of you still think that it doesn't exist :)

So CO2
Acidity
Foodchains
Arctic getting open waters
No Arctic anymore, we will have to give it some other name :)
polar bears will be gone
Krill, plankton will be gone.
Food fish will be gone.
oxygen in the oceans will decrease
Storms will get worse.
The tundra will become bogs.
shallow waters in the Arctic are already releasing methane.
As well as in the Siberian tundra.
And what's worse, they release CO2 too.
The methane pipes Russia transport methane in will have to be moved, somewhere else, probably under the oceans as that is a smart way of hiding leaks :)And that they already do (Nordstrom etc)

Awh, sh* what's the use :)
==

I could go on and on and on, but if you think our knowledge today is 'political agendas' and 'scaremongering' it won't make a difference, will it? But Raypierre (a climatologist) wrote something really good the 6 of December 2010 in RealClimate, about priorities, you should read it.

Losing Time, Not Buying Time.. (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/losing-time-not-buying-time/)
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 16/06/2011 01:50:56
And in a worse scenario the ocean will become saturated, not able to take care of the CO2 any more instead 'breathing' it back, accelerating it beyond any understanding.

The CO2 in our oceans is based on partial pressures and equilibriums, there is no saturation, at least not in the same way that water can become saturated with salt.

That is essentially why your soda-pop has fizz.

The equilibrium point is slowly creeping up, but it is far lower than our current atmospheric CO2 concentrations, in part because it takes some time for sea surface concentrations to absorb the atmospheric CO2, then to mix with deeper ocean layers.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 16/06/2011 02:07:44
I said a 'worst case scenario' :)

there are some to me at least and that's one of them. Then you have the idea of a tipping, if that happens we're stuck as far as I understands it. That's where the increasing releases of methane comes in, they may not stay that long but while they're 'acting' on the climate they may push it to another balance as I suspect (assuming a 'spike'¨for that). But that's all 'worst case scenarios' and nobody knows for sure. But the acidity is already here, and that is due to the oceans taking up CO2.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 16/06/2011 02:50:29
Rereading you. You're right Clifford, I should have been clearer there. I meant meant saturation as in 'A condition in which a 'quantity' no longer responds to some external influence' which then should be when the ocean no longer will take up CO2. You might assume that it then would be in a new equilibrium, dead but not 'burping', but the ocean have its own ways.

"Studies by CU-Boulder and other institutions in the past several years have shown sharp declines in Arctic sea ice in recent decades and a loss in ice mass from Greenland, which some believe could combine to alter North Atlantic circulation and disrupt ocean circulation patterns worldwide."

And rising temperatures will release carbon dioxide, with the melting ice (The Arctic primarily, but also Antarctica which is a 'black horse' in all calculations.) increasing the ocean mix, lifting up CO2 from the deep cold ocean. And the warmer the ocean gets, the more CO2 it will release, a little like leaving that soda-pop in the sun. It's also so that the warmer it becomes the more 'fluid' it should be as I think of it, easier to set in motion. *Maybe it will be massive 'burps'? It seems as it has happened before.

"A University of Colorado at Boulder-led research team tracing the origin of a large carbon dioxide increase in Earth's atmosphere at the end of the last ice age has detected two ancient "burps" that originated from the deepest parts of the oceans. The new study indicated carbon that had built up in the oceans over millennia was released in two big pulses, one about 18,000 years ago and one 13,000 years ago, said Thomas Marchitto and Scott Lehman of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, who jointly led the study. While scientists had long known as much as 600 billion metric tons of carbon were released into the atmosphere after the last ice age, the new study is the first to clearly track CO2 from the deep ocean to the upper ocean and atmosphere and should help scientists better understand natural CO2 cycles and possible impacts of human-caused climate change.

"This is some of the clearest evidence yet that the enormous carbon release into the atmosphere during the last deglaciation was triggered by abrupt changes in deep ocean circulation," said Marchitto. Marchitto and Lehman are both faculty members in the CU-Boulder geological sciences department. While much of the CO2 released by the oceans after the end of the last ice age about 19,000 years ago was taken up by the re-growth of forests in areas previously covered by ice sheets, enough remained in the atmosphere to pump up CO2 concentrations significantly, the authors said. Today, CO2 levels are higher than at any time in at least the past 650,000 years because of increased fossil fuel burning.

"The timing of the major CO2 release after the last ice age corresponds closely with deep-sea circulation changes caused by ice melting in the North Atlantic at that time," said Lehman. "So our study really underscores ongoing concerns about the ocean's capacity to take up fossil fuel CO2 in the future, since continued warming will almost certainly impact the mode and speed of ocean circulation." The team analyzed sediment cores hauled from the Pacific Ocean seafloor at a depth of about 2,300 feet off the coast of Baja California using an isotopic "tracer," known as carbon 14, to track the escape of carbon from the deep sea through the upper ocean and into the atmosphere during the last 40,000 years. Extracted from the shells of tiny marine organisms known as foraminifera -- which contain chemical signatures of seawater dating back tens of thousands of years -- carbon 14 is the isotope most commonly used to radiocarbon date organic material like wood, bone and shell.

They found the carbon 14 "age" of the upper ocean water was basically constant over the past 40,000 years, except during the interval following the most recent ice age, when atmospheric CO2 increased dramatically. The study shows the carbon added to the upper ocean and atmosphere at the end of the last ice age was "very old," suggesting it had been stored in the deep ocean and isolated from the atmosphere for thousands of years, said Marchitto. "Because carbon 14 works both as a 'tracer' and a 'clock,' we were able to show that the uptake and release of CO2 by the ocean in the past was intimately linked to how and how fast the ocean circulated," said Marchitto.

Humans have pumped an estimated 300 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, and the oceans have taken up about half of it, said Lehman. "If the oceans were not such a large storage 'sink' for carbon, atmospheric CO2 increases in recent decades would be considerably higher," he said. "Since the uptake of CO2 on Earth's land surface is being offset almost entirely by the cutting and burning of forests, any decrease in the uptake of fossil fuel CO2 by the world's oceans could pose some very serious problems," Lehman said.

"When the ocean circulation system changes, it alters how carbon-rich deep water rises to the surface to release its carbon to the atmosphere," said Interim Director of INSTAAR Jim White, a climate scientist who was not involved in the study. "This is important not only for understanding why glacial times came and went in the past, but it is crucial information we need to understand how the oceans will respond to future climate change."

Studies by CU-Boulder and other institutions in the past several years have shown sharp declines in Arctic sea ice in recent decades and a loss in ice mass from Greenland, which some believe could combine to alter North Atlantic circulation and disrupt ocean circulation patterns worldwide.

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder 2007."

And another study done recently by Tas van Ommen from the Australian Antarctic Division, in Hobart 2011 says; 

"Previous studies have suggested that it takes between 400 and 1300 years for this to happen, 'We now think the delay is more like 200 years, possibly even less.' The new results come from Siple and Byrd ice cores in western Antarctica. Van Ommen and colleagues dated CO2 bubbles trapped in the ice, and then compared their measurements with records of atmospheric temperatures from the same time period. As expected, when temperature increased, carbon dioxide followed, but at both Siple and Byrd the time lag was around 200 years – much shorter than previous studies found. Previous estimates used cores from regions with low snowfall, van Ommen says, leading to a very gradual trapping of the carbon dioxide in the ice. This increased uncertainty in timing. Also, many previous studies used only one ice core site."


Here you have a example of it Release of carbon dioxide from the equatorial Pacific Ocean intensified during the 1990:s. (http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2003/oct03/noaa03-131.html) What one need to know here is that all oceans are becoming constantly worse on taking up new CO2. There are several studies over that. Also that the Arctic and Greenland are melting faster that expected. It becomes a equation with a lot of unknowns that may accelerate it beyond expectations, as I think of it. All weather patterns we see are results of a whole earth, oceans included, it all goes into each other. That's why climate models constantly get updated and more complex, and that's also why you won't find those on the net. They crave some serious computer capacity to run.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: CliffordK on 16/06/2011 03:33:57
Ocean "Burps"?

Most studies indicate that the CO2 increases trail the temperature increases by a period of time, although there is discussion about whether that is an artifact.  They also indicate what appears to be a more significant lag between the falling of ocean/atmospheric temperatures and the falling of CO2 levels.

Salinity may have multiple feedbacks, including a density gradient and the ability of cold surface water to displace deep ocean water, as well as changing the temperature at which water reaches its maximum density, both of which could have sever effects on the ocean temperatures and currents.  But, that would depend on the ability of polar fresh water to overwhelm the oceans natural circulation which might require the abrupt release of some giant freshwater lakes with ice dams which don't exist at this time.

Some things happen quickly, others slowly.
One iceberg in Antarctica, calved in March 2000 didn't fully melt until sometime after November 2006. 
A collapse of the Greenland icecap, or the West Antarctic icecap would likely take centuries.  If a huge ice lake was to form, then future generations might choose to attempt to slowly drain it, rather than risk a catastrophic freshwater release.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 16/06/2011 03:49:10
I gave you the studies. You don't need to believe them Clifford. Now, what you state there is your own beliefs. As I did when it came to my two major worries, a tipping, and acidity. But what I wrote about above is studies, not beliefs. 
==

Although, the acidity is already here, and getting worse.

"Most studies indicate that the CO2 increases trail the temperature increases by a period of time, although there is discussion about whether that is an artifact." Ah, so you think that temperature drives CO2 then Clifford? Instead of the opposite. It makes it easier to understand. Could you link me those papers which you see proving that?
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: imatfaal on 16/06/2011 09:52:12
Yoron - lots of your last but one post is in quotes but I couldn't find a citation or link.  So the rest of us can follow the argument could you edit in a link or citation?  Thanks


EDIT - for clarity

Sorry Yoron I was unclear.   [:I]
I meant this one:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=39689.msg359134#msg359134

Cheers - matthew
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 16/06/2011 20:43:34
Yesterday @ 15:35 it was suggested that
Quote
Yelder - I think it would be best if we avoided this thread becoming a repository for blog postings by politicians and interested by-standers.  ..  Let us try to keep to scientific questions, answers, and refutations .. The OP was "Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?" - let's .. try and advance the scientific debate on the original question

Joe Ogan’s comment supporting his original question on 3rd June was
Quote
I believe the weather we have been having is unusual.  I would like to know if it is a result of Global warming
making it quite clear that he was asking about the cause of recent weathr events, not the cause of global warming.

It was also suggested that
Quote
I think it would be best if we avoided this thread becoming a repository for blog postings by politicians and interested by-standers.  ..  Let us try to keep to scientific questions, answers, and refutations and allow those who wish to read further to find those articles for themselves
I took that to be a rebuke for posting comments and linking to articles that deviated from Joe’s original question and assume that the rebuke was directed at all who are commenting on this thread.

Jo was not asking what was the cause of global warming but the first response
Quote
The debate is whether the warming is affected by man or part of a nature cycle
immediately took things off-course, with an immediate scare-mongering comment about our use of fossil fuels causing a global catastrophe. The very first link posted on this thread was not to a scientific paper about the cause of recent weather events but to a Discover magazine article on “Ocean Acidification: A Global Case of Osteoporosis” http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/16-ocean-acidification-a-global-case-of-osteoporosis/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C= (http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/16-ocean-acidification-a-global-case-of-osteoporosis/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=). The article wasn’t even written by a scientist, simply a journalist.

CliffordK tried very hard to bring the comments back on course with his
Quote
Such a knee-jerk reaction to blame everything on "Global Warming" and "CO2" is a disservice to climatology science, and the argument in general
along with some very helpful information but once again we had some scare-mongering, e.g.
Quote
We are fast going for a tipping point, or possibly already past one

So it continues, with even CliffordK being sucked away from the original question into commenting on the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures.

What tickles me is that one of the very first comments here on 4th June @ 23:20 was
Quote
I think some of the worst excesses of colonial rule coupled with some of worst excess of post-colonial rule also have something to do with that
This had absolutely nothing to do with the original  question but not a squeak from moderation. A similar point was made on 04th May @ 21:09 on the “What does Iain Stewart's ‘CO2 experiment’ Demonstrate” thread http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=38723.50 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=38723.50) when saying
Quote
forum moderators appear to set their own rules here so we visitors have to abide by them

I suggest that the best answer
Quote
to Joe's original question, I think the answer is a definite maybe. .. The bottom line is that we really don't have a very good handle on what's going on, and, even if we did, there does not appear to be a quick fix
(09/06/2011 @ 07:21  http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=39689.25 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=39689.25)).

Hypotheses about the causes and effects of global warming abound but we really have a very poor understanding of how Nature controls global weather events that are used as the basis for our definitions of the different global climates. Much more research is required before we can confidently answer such questions. Meanwhile we will have CACC doctrine disciples and deniers alike speculating about what “might” “could” “should” happen “if” this that and the other.

To keep the speculation going, here’s a link to a 2008 article “Episodes of relative global warming” (http://www.cdejager.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/2009-episodes-jastp-71-194.pdf (http://www.cdejager.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/2009-episodes-jastp-71-194.pdf)) by Jager and Duhau in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics concludes
Quote
The three main results of this study are the following: First, there exists a relation between solar activity and average tropospheric temperatures. Next, this relation depends both on the toroidal and the poloidal component of solar magnetism. The seven temperature sets that we studied here, evidently give different results but it is gratifying that they agree qualitatively in confirming the dependence of tropospheric temperature on both components of solar activity. The third result is that a comparison of observed with calculated temperatures shows residual peaks and valleys. Some of these are significant, appearing in all seven data sets studied here.

These results may be of importance for understanding the solar mechanisms that influence climate. The refereed literature contains 15 global or NH temperature data sets. Obviously all must be studied in order to further check the above results. It is also necessary to discuss the heliophysical and climatologic aspects of these findings. Such a study is presently underway with colleagues

Here’s a copy of one of their graphs, taken from “World Climate Report - The Web’s Longest-Running Climate Change Bog: Solar Story Update” (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2010/05/26/solar-story-update/ (http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2010/05/26/solar-story-update/))

(I must be going blind because I can't see the "Insert into message" Link that is supposed to be by the filename that I wanted to insert).

Figure 1. Observed minus predicted temperatures based solar activity (from de Jager and Duhau, 2009)

That World Climate Report article also references a paper “Possible solar forcing of 400-year wet-dry climate cycles in northwestern China” by Wu JingLu; Yu ZiCheng; Zeng Hai'Ao; Wang NingLian in Climatic Change 2009 Vol. 96 No. 4 pp. 473-482. This says
Quote
Our results suggest that solar activities might have played a significant role in driving wet-dry climate oscillations at centennial scales in the interior of Eurasian continent

From the other side we have “Comments on - Episodes of relative global warming, by de Jager en Duhau - ” by Gerbrand Komen (http://home.kpn.nl/g.j.komen/zon.pdf (http://home.kpn.nl/g.j.komen/zon.pdf)). Physicist Professor Komen concluded
Quote
1. The statement by de Jager (2008) and dJ-D concerning the nature of recent warming is NOT supported by their statistical relation between solar magnetic variations and terrestrial temperatures.
2. Correlations between solar magnetic activity and terrestrial NH temperatures are likely to be contaminated by other forcings, not only in the 20th century but also in earlier centuries.
3. Models forced with solar irradiance variations and other established physical mechanisms have successfully simulated the evolution of the NH-temperature in the period under consideration, confirming the existence of a certain amount of correlation between NH temperatures and solar activity, especially in the period prior to the 20th century, where two temperature minima coincide with the Maunder and the Dalton minimum. The magnitude of the temperature variations is consistent with estimates in solar irradiance and volcanic forcing.
4. Attribution to solar magnetic variation through an unknown mechanisms as made by dJ-D seems premature, since the reconstructed NH temperature can also be understood in terms of solar irradiance variations and other known physical processes.
One may hope that a future more detailed analysis announced by De Jager and co-workers will help clarify these issues

“Hear, hear” to that last sentence, meanwhile disciples and deniers of the CACC doctrine will continue speculating about the processes and drivers of global climates about which
Quote
we don’t know anything much useful
(13/06/2011 @ 09:30:46 http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=39689.50 (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=39689.50)).
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 16/06/2011 21:51:06
Joe, here’s some more speculation for you:
- “All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while” (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/14/all-three-of-these-lines-of-research-to-point-to-the-familiar-sunspot-cycle-shutting-down-for-a-while/ (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/14/all-three-of-these-lines-of-research-to-point-to-the-familiar-sunspot-cycle-shutting-down-for-a-while/))
- “Solar Cycle 25” (http://sc25.com/about.php (http://sc25.com/about.php)) – interesting graphs
or you might like the first two articles linked at NASA’s Science News (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/ (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/)).
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 16/06/2011 22:29:37
Yelder, I guess you belong to the crowd wanting anything but mainstream climatology to be correct right? And would prefer if you, and those defining it as such could be left in peace too?

Sorry.

No deal :)
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 17/06/2011 02:24:46
Ah, okay Imatfaal, yeah, its three comments although I cite the 'Boulder comment' first but without sourcing it as it comes back again with the source, after I commented on the first citation. hope that makes sense? :)

I wrote some stuff elsewhere without being on the net some year(s) ago, using downloaded sources, and first I thought you meant such a one. But if you see anything inside a citation mark I usually let them be exactly as they was written, except when clarifying some strange term they may use, but if so I also make it in a parenthesis, hopefully so, that is :)

Anyway, what Clifford questioned brings up an very important point. That I worry about the CO2 is because I see it as a 'temperature forcing'. Meaning that I believe it to drive up the temperature. If it would be the other way around then we would have to look elsewhere for why the temperatures increase, as CO2 then, even if increasing the temperature, only would be a 'feedback signal' from other processes driving up temperatures globally.

It's a little like your pan with hot milk, and the finger you dip in it to feel of the temperature. The milk may be hot, but it's not the finger 'forcing' it to be so, but the stove.

And there's been a lot of discussions/arguments around this subject, as Clifford rightly points out. But the consensus amongst climatologists is that CO2 is a real, and important 'forcing' of the temperature, becoming a 'stove' of sorts, storing 'energy' inside the molecule to then release it (as heat) in the atmosphere, primarily kinetically due to collisions with other molecules. And as you know, there is a lot of molecules in the air :)

If we instead look at water vapor it's mainly considered a 'feedback'. That just means that even though vapor too will increase the temperature it's not 'driving' it, It's a reaction of it getting warmer, and also conserving 'heat' but short term only (weeks) whereas CO2 does it over millennium, with its major impact being over one to two centuries, or so. Climatologist often speaks of the 'tail' meaning the length you might expect 'something' having a noticeable influence on the climate, and there it seems as if a millennium is where we expect CO2 to be. And that is quite some time historically seen.

Hansen, who seem to have been right so far are starting to worry about our CO2. He want us to cut it down to 1988 concentration of 350 ppm. If you're wondering where CO2 is now you can take a look here at Earth CO2 homepage. (http://co2now.org/) It seems to constantly update itself. What he worries about is Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica. He wrote a famous paper decades ago pointing out that the west Antarctica ice sheet could break loose, as valid today as it was then (I linked it several times, you should read it). The reason it rest there is due to its mass, if 'under-ice' streams hollow that sheet out, as well as it simultaneously melts from above, losing its mass as it gets lubricated from down under it can start to move. The same phenomena that we now see on Greenland with some glaciers 'walking away' to the ocean. But as I said, it's a very 'dark horse', and we just don't know? In a recent paper he discuss how he expects the melt water to disturb the oceans and disrupt currents, driving cold CO2 filled water up from its depths. You can read more about that at Bits of Science (http://www.bitsofscience.org/hansen-paleoclimate-2-degrees-892/) with links to the recent paper.

I think he is right, all indications point to it that I've seen. That mean actual expeditions to the Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland, measuring and testing what really is going on. Not theory, but as physics would call it, 'real experiments' :) That you then will theorize around what your experiments shows is another thing. But I've always found it nice to have some real live stuff to think about. It gives you a more intuitive feel for what is happening I think.

Anyway, we need to take CO2 seriously enough to act. We have the Internet, and I think it's time now. Because it's not something that you can turn away from your frontdoor when you, once and for all, find yourself forced to face it. When that time comes it will be too late. Read this Perceptions of Climate Change. (http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2011/20110327_Perceptions.pdf) It's Hansen discussing how people perceive the weather, comparing it to how it really is. Primary for USA, but a good read for us all I think. 
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 17/06/2011 04:45:43
If you want to see what is needed for measuring a open system as Earth and defining it to a high probability, you can start with counting the amount of different molecules in the air, then try to find what possible interaction they can make, not forgetting that they change, CO2 getting a stronger heat uptake with its height for example, convection, humidity etc etc. Then you need to do the same for the molecules in the ocean, and streams, up and down drafts, winds, temperature, density, chemistry changing. Then you need to combine it to each other, dynamically changing as the climate change, and see that it fits in your model. Then you need to consider ice sheets melting, glaciers melting (India, Pakistan etc and their rivers disappearing), melt (fresh) water as compared to salt water, mixing, and its impact on salinity and underwater streams. Then the acidity of course. Then the effect all fish swimming in the oceans might have on convection, streams, mixing etc. And shipping of course, what chemicals we turn lose as we wash out tanks at sea, what their propellers might do in form of mixing in air etc. and that plastic island that floats around somewhere, made by all that stuff we throw away, the size of Texas? Was it? and sewer pipes and what might come out from them. Then , radiation and the suns variations, deserts, forests, savannas, bogs freeing CO2 as they warm up, tundra, shallow seas in the arctic with Methane clathrates, clouds and how they act from under, and above, in form of scattering radiation etc. How the relative humidity may change the local weather creating local cloud covers masking the warming. And a million things more, like how plants and trees breath, and how much depending on type as well as how that might change with all other factors, fertilizers, chemical wastes, bees pollinating, and I don't know what :). Finally you need to consider that famous butterfly flapping, creating some 'weather', somewhere :)

Ah well, then you just have to put one and thirtyeleven together to get that linear prediction of a probability :) And make a graph ::))

I actually believe we can count on it, and that we do so statistically. The problem is to find the right 'connections', and how they interact with each other, and then break it down to a planetary model. Expecting climatologists to be able to do it 'overnight' is to give them an impossible task though. And there are most probably other 'forcings', some we just noticed recently, like water vapor at very high height (which not is the type of water vapor I discussed that we meet 'down here' btw.), and there we're just learning about how it might work.

Doesn't mean that it wasn't CO2 that set it all into motion though.
And it doesn't mean that stopping our man made CO2 won't make a difference.


Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 17/06/2011 11:11:24
It seems that there are some commenting here either do not understand Joe’s original question. For example, in the comments posted on 16th at 22:29 and today at 02:24 and 04:45 I can see nothing that attempts to answer it. I can see no science whatsoever, only 1300 words that amount to what moderator JP referred to as “editorial comments” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/editorial)
Quote
.. unless you have something new to add to your original question, aside from editorial comments .. in this thread please stick to the question at hand, .. this is primarily a science Q&A site, not your personal blog
(http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=38723.msg353414#msg353414).

Perhaps I missed some science buried within those words so if anyone spotted any then please would you point it out for me.

Joe, do you feel that you are being helped by the responses here. I see that you haven’t been back since 4th June.


Please don't tell other users how to behave on the forum.  If you have a complaint, tell the mods.

Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 17/06/2011 14:18:03
We’ve seen a lot of opinion and speculation from CACC disciples here so lets balance the discussion with some denier opinion and speculation.

Ref. 16/06/2011 22:29:37:-
Sceptics want scientists involved in climate research to significantly improve the present poor understanding of the processes and drivers of the different global climates. I’m not aware of any sceptics who wish to be left in peace on this important issue.

Ref. today at 02:24:46:-
Many sceptics recognise that atmospheric CO2 has a small forcing effect on global temperatures (less than 2C for a doubling if all other drivers were to remain constant). There are plenty scientists looking elsewhere for other drivers having much greater significance that CO2 (dipping fingers in hot pans of milk is not really a helpful contribution to the science). They also understand that the tiny proportion of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere absorbs a small proportion of the IR emitted by the earth and passes a lot of that small amount of energy on to other atmospheric molecules, some of which cannot emit IR. CO2 can but can pass energy on to those that can, particularly H2O, which emits over a much broader range of IR than CO2 and is present in the atmosphere in much lager proportions. (There’s no way of knowing where to expect CO2 to be in a millennium.)

As for Hansen, he’s the scaremonger who, with his buddies Al Gore and Tim Wirth set out to frighten the US congress into the CACC camp. “In the summer of 1988, global warming first captured the imagination of the American public. In early June of that summer Senator Al Gore (D-TN) organized a congressional hearing to bring attention to the subject, one that he had been focusing on in Congress for more than a decade. The hearing that day was carefully stage-managed to present a bit of political theater, as was later explained by Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO), who served alongside Gore in the Senate and, like Gore, was also interested in the topic of global warming. “We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it. What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn't working inside the room.” (http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/publications/special/climate_fix/book_clips.html).
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 17/06/2011 14:47:32
As I said Yelder there are two main schools, in reality a untold number I suspect, of thought there. One is the one where CO2 is a forcing and are accelerating a warming. I'm one of those guys. Then we have your school of thought that don't believe in that CO2 'force' anything, and as a guess, it's all about 'natural variations' in climate. Which then mean that we can't do a thing, just sit back and try to enjoy the 'ride'.

The saddest thing about it seems to be that even scientists gets involved in those kind of thoughts, placing disciplines against each other when they instead should try to cooperate. Solar radiation is a perfect example of that, and geosciences. As for your tries to politicize the subject? That's not cool, it's just a way of whipping up supporters that see life in those terms. As 'P o l i t i c a l' in essence.

It's not political Yelder, and you only have a very short stay here. You can do so much better than that.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: JP on 17/06/2011 16:26:30
As a mod here:

Yelder, please don't tell other users what to post or complain about the moderation in public threads. 

Also, please don't break forum rules, which can be viewed here:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=8535.0

This is not up for debate.  Future violations will lead to post deletions.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 17/06/2011 17:42:09
As for Joe, Yelder, I think he's a really nice guy that's been around for the longest time, with some really good, down to earth, questions. I expect him to be perfectly capable to make up his own mind in his own good time. Just like me :) Or you.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 17/06/2011 19:44:18
I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to repeat this but once again
Quote
Many sceptics recognise that atmospheric CO2 has a small forcing effect on global temperatures (less than 2C for a doubling if all other drivers were to remain constant)
Please take note of the “small forcing” bit. I certainly do not believe that
Quote
it's all about 'natural variations' in climate. Which then mean that we can't do a thing, just sit back and try to enjoy the 'ride'
What I and many others believe is that our emissions of CO2 from our use of fossil fuels has an insignificant impact compared with natural process and drivers. As a consequence we have to continue doing what humans and other forms of life have had to do since becoming a part of this wonderful world, live with whatever Nature throws our way.

For the moment our understanding of global climate processes and drivers is too poor for us to be able to do anything else. Until that understanding improves significantly all we can do is control our very limited immediate environments. Attempting to do this on a global scale is very risky, as Stephen Schneider said way back in 1989 ( even though he was talking on a program about global cooling, a big media scare at that time.

I fully agree that scientists
Quote
should try to cooperate
but as Climategate showed (see http://www.climate-gate.com) there are those having their own agenda who try very hard to gag sceptics.

I can’t see how I am to blame for politicising the debate. That started long before I became involved. I simply linked to one of many articles about it (http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=374&Itemid=1).

If
Quote
It's not political Yelder
is talking about the CACC propaganda being pushed out by supporters of the UN’s IPCC then that is simply wrong. It certainly isn’t science.
If
Quote
you only have a very short stay here
is referring to living on this wonderful earth enjoying a wonderful life then sadly, that’s true, but I’ve been lucky and suspect that others commenting here have been too. There are millions who don’t have it so good and can barely eke out an existence. That's the big global catastrophe, not global warming or cooling or climate change. Most of us who are fortunate enough to live in one of the developed economies could
Quote
do so much better than that
if that is referring to how we use the resources available to us, but maybe that wasn’t what was meant.

The comment was made that
Quote
The reason (the west Antarctica ice sheet) rest there is due to its mass, if 'under-ice' streams hollow that sheet out, as well as it simultaneously melts from above, losing its mass as it gets lubricated from down under it can start to move
Taken along with the opinions of some that our use of fossil fuels is warming the globe catastrophically the unwary might be fooled into thinking that we were causing that movement. That is of course incorrect. As the Climate Institute says
Quote
Glaciers and ice sheets are large, slow-moving assemblages of ice
(http://www.climate.org/topics/sea-level/index.html), but this is not a post-industrialisation phenomenon. It has always been the case when glaciers and ice sheets existed.

Quote
Before "global warming" started 18,000 years ago most of the earth was a frozen and arid wasteland. Over half of earth 's surface was covered by glaciers or extreme desert.  Forests were rare. Not a very fun place to live
(http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html). Thank goodness for that global warming, which happened then despite humans using very very little in the way of fossil fuels. Of course it wasn’t a non-stop period of warming since then. There have been cooling periods along the way and there will be again.

Unfortunately we look to have been entering one for the past 12 years. As ex-biologist Fred Dardick (http://conservativespotlight.com/?page_id=2) said in The Canada Free Press says
Quote
We are in the midst of the convergence of 3 major solar, ocean, and atmospheric cycles all heading in the direction of global cooling. Last year the Southern hemisphere experienced its coldest winter in 50 years and Europe just went through two particularly cold winters in a row, and the cooling trend has only just begun. The likelihood of a repeat of the Year Without a Summer in 1816 or The Great Frost of 1709 is growing with every day. .. Even though disaster is staring the world in the face, far too many climate scientists remain beholden to liberal anti-human politics to do anything useful about it. At a time they should be sounding the warning siren for society to prepare for possible food and energy shortages, most still amazingly insist that an insignificant atmospheric molecule (CO2) is more responsible for warming the Earth than the Sun
(http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/36664).

The Space and Science Research Corporation (http://www.spaceandscience.net/id1.html) has an article by Director John L. Casey saying
Quote
Based on the data from the AMSR-E instrument on board the NASA Aqua satellite, sea surface temperatures just posted this week showed their steepest decline since the satellite was made operational in 2002. This major drop from the warm temperature levels seen in 2010 is also echoed by a dramatic decline in atmospheric temperatures in the lower troposphere, where we live, with the data coming from NOAA satellites. At present rates of descent, both ocean and atmospheric temperatures are likely to soon surpass the temperature lows set in the 2007-2008 period. Even with a small correction that is usually seen after such a rapid drop, there is no doubt that the Earth is entering a prolonged global cooling period and will soon set another record drop in temperatures by the November-December 2012 time frame as was forecast in the SSRC press release from May 10, 2010
(http://www.spaceandscience.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/ssrcpressrelease2-2011globalcooling.pdf).

Now Joe, that’s really scary - BBbbrrrrr - but I hope that it helps you to understand a bit more about the process and drivers of global climates and weather events.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 17/06/2011 22:00:18
You will see a lot of strange stuff happening Yelder. That Earth globally 'heats up' doesn't state that we won't see a lot of other stuff, like seasonal coolings locally. A simple cloud layer should do that for you. What we do see is that the temperature globally is on the raise, the CO2 driving it. What you might want to argue is what the drivers are, and to me, CO2 is one, the main one I know of. But you have the suns variations as a possible driver, as well as that stratospheric water vapor (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-water-vapor-in-the-stratosphere-slowing-global-warming) I mentioned. and there are probably more forcings interacting too, for good or bad. As the way CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and halogenated hydrocarbons, used by industries, causes depletion of the ozone layer.

And although sarcasm can be fun, if you really want to prove your point you should use studies instead proving the point you're trying to make.
==

Take a look at the annual report NOOA made for 2010 Global Highlights. (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2010/13) As well as NASA:s studies from 2010, studying CO2, temperature is all about CO2. (http://en.wikipedia.org) and please, refute it by a study, not by branding it 'political'.
==

As for me stating that Greenland's glaciers are on the move? That's an old fact. The greening of Greenland by Fiona Harvey; from Financial Times 2009. (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/91635aac-c207-11de-be3a-00144feab49a.html) In it she writes "In 2002, when researchers measured the Jakobshavn Isbrae, which drains 6.5 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet, it was moving only half as quickly as it is today, and pouring only half the present volume of ice into the fjord. The earliest known maps of this glacier date from the 1850s, but observations of it have intensified since the 1950s. They track the marked acceleration of the ice over recent decades, and show its speed increasing dramatically in the past few years. The Hellheim glacier, draining 4 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet, tells a similar story. Its speed increased from 8km a year in 2000 to 11km a year in 2005, and has since accelerated.

The reason the glaciers are speeding up is simple: Greenland is getting warmer. Jacqueline McGlade, director of the European Environment Agency, says: “The amount of ice that is being lost is far more than we thought. Greenland is warming faster than the computer models predicted, and that is a worry.” The Arctic has warmed at three times the rate of the rest of the world in the past 100 years, and temperatures continue to rise. Ola Johannessen, chief of Norway’s Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre, has worked on ice for more than 30 years. He has never seen anything like the current situation. “There is no doubt that what we are seeing is the result of global warming. The glaciers are moving faster. Ice is being lost from the Greenland ice sheet, and that will raise sea levels.”

The Chinese have this 'saying' "may you live in interesting times." And I think we do.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 18/06/2011 19:47:18
I suspect that long before industrialisation even some of the more intelligent forms of life recognised
Quote
strange stuff happening
when the earth cools (e.g. sun obscured) and warms (e.g. sun visible). That sort of “stuff” has been going on since the beginning. The claim that
Quote
the temperature globally is on the raise, the CO2 driving it
is pure speculation. There is no point in arguing about the drivers because we don’t know enough about them to do that. The best we can do at present is discuss the possibilities and try to identify what they might be and what is the significance of each.

I think that most of us recognise the sun as the major driver, supplying the bulk of the energy that heats up the world, but not in a consistent manner. To say
Quote
you have the suns variations as a possible driver
appears to me to be playing down the significance of those variations because scientists seem to recognise the sun’s variations are not a "possible” but at least as a probable driver. (e.g. see the link in my comment yesterday @ 19:44:18 http://www.cdejager.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/2009-episodes-jastp-71-194.pdf).

There is an interesting 2008 paper “Temperature response in the Altai region lags solar forcing” by Eichler et al. In which the abstract says
Quote
The strong correlation between reconstructed temperature and solar activity suggests solar forcing as a main driver for temperature variations during the period 1250–1850 in this region. The precisely dated record allowed for the identification of a 10–30 year lag between solar forcing and temperature response, underlining the importance of indirect sun-climate mechanisms involving ocean-induced changes in atmospheric circulation. Solar contribution to temperature change became less important during industrial period 1850–2000 in the Altai region
(http://europa.agu.org/?uri=/journals/gl/gl0901/2008GL035930/2008GL035930.xml&view=article).

Switzerland’s largest research centre for natural and engineering sciences The Paul Scherrer Institut (primarily financed by the Swiss Confederation) has an article about this which paraphrases (distorts?) that last sentence of the paper’s abstract as
Quote
The strong rise in temperature in the Altai between 1850 and 2000 can not be explained by solar activity changes, but rather by the increased concentration of the greenhouse gas CO2 in the atmosphere
(http://www.psi.ch/media/temperature). It includes an interesting graph that suggests a good correlation between solar modulation (blue) and Altai temperature deviation when corrected for the lag.
 [ Invalid Attachment ]
There would appear to be no sound reason for doubting that the solar variation drives the temperature variation rather than the other way round but the real question that remains to be answered is concerning the last 160 years of temperature variation.

The Stanford Solar Center (funded by NASA) has an article “Global Warming” (http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/glob-warm.html) which in the section Solar Variability & Global Warming” includes a graph for the period 1855-2000
 [ Invalid Attachment ]
This shows the usual global mean temperature anomaly (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/) estimated from those dubious measurements that Anthony Watts et al. write about in their peer-reviewed paper “Analysis of the impacts of station exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology Network temperatures and temperature trends” (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/11/the-long-awaited-surfacestations-paper/). Also shown is the usual estimate of global atmospheric CO2 change arrived at by merging the measurements of atmospheric CO2 content on top of an active volcano (Mauna Loa) with those dubious attempts to reconstruct past concentration from air trapped in ice (discussed by Dr. Zbiniew Jaworowski in his numerous papers, including “CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time” http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/zjmar07.pdf).

The graph suggests a correlation of estimated global mean temperature with both solar activity and estimated atmospheric CO2 content. Of course a correlation does not indicate a cause/effect relationship and much more research is required before we will know what causes global temperatures to change and even more research is required before we know what causes the different global climates to change in the way that they do.

To claim that “What we do see is that the temperature globally is on the raise, the CO2 driving it .. CO2 is one, the main one I know of ..” stretches the imagination somewhat. As CliffordK said QUOTE: Such a knee-jerk reaction to blame everything on "Global Warming" and "CO2" is a disservice to climatology science, and the argument in general UNQUOTE (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=39689.msg358005#msg358005).


BTW, the very interesting paper “Solar Influences on Climate” by Gray et al. (http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/2009RG000282.pdf) covers the subject in great detail.

PS:

Please can someone tell me how to remove the miniature diagrams that appear at the bottom of my post.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 19/06/2011 11:22:02
So you won't answer any of the studies with anything else than your own opinions then Yelder. And then you lift up some magic graphs that you want to use to prove what? That it's all due to the sun? And CO2 becoming some imaginary driver, according to you? And so we're back to a debate where all opinions seems as possible right. Well, you can fill this with graphs and the sun is a driver too, nobody doubts that. But whether it has driven us to the climate we see today?

Nope.

As the studies could show you, if you would read them, no more graphs please, answer the studies I gave you instead. And stop trying to play out solar scientists against other disciplines. It makes me wonder what you are Yelder?
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 19/06/2011 12:25:50
It’s such a shame that so many disciples of the CACC doctrine have to resort to distorting what others say because they can’t present a reason for rejecting what sceptics like me really say. As an example
Quote
you want to use to prove .. That it's all due to the sun? And CO2 becoming some imaginary driver, according to you?
is a complete misrepresentation of what I have said anywhere.

I challenged the unsubstantiated claim that
Quote
the temperature globally is on the raise, the CO2 driving it
with
Quote
scientists seem to recognise the sun’s variations are not a "possible” but at least as a probable driver
and provided evidence of this.

On 16th June @ 21:51:06 I pointed to two recent articles in NASA Science News (http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/) about the sun and its impact upon earth. One of those concludes
Quote
To understand what causes low interplanetary magnetic fields and what causes coronal holes in general. This is all part of the solar cycle. And all part of what causes effects on Earth
(http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/solar-minima.html). The other says
Quote
But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation .. All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while. “If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”
(http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/4032/drop-in-suns-activity-expected).

Yesterday @ 19:47:18 I said
Quote
I think that most of us recognise the sun as the major driver .. scientists seem to recognise the sun’s variations are not a "possible” but at least as a probable driver
and linked to further evidence.

Nothing there claims to
Quote
prove ..  That it is all due to the sun
simply that the sun is the major driver.

On 17th June @ 14:18:03 then again at 19:44:18 I said
Quote
Many sceptics recognise that atmospheric CO2 has a small forcing effect on global temperatures (less than 2C for a doubling if all other drivers were to remain constant). There are plenty scientists looking elsewhere for other drivers having much greater significance that CO2
Nothing there attempts to
Quote
prove .. CO2 becoming some imaginary driver
On the contrary, it recognises CO2 as being a real driver, albeit far less significant than others, such as H2O.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 19/06/2011 18:04:06
Awh.

Now I see :)

Want to link me the stud(y)ies stating your thoughts, so I can read it?
Just link me to it, but try to avoid 'pay sites' please.
Pointing at solar variables is all good and proper, but I prefer something more substantial, like a study proving it.

Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 19/06/2011 21:36:53
It was reassuring to see an acknowledgement here that
Quote
the sun is a driver too, nobody doubts that
however
Quote
But whether it has driven us to the climate we see today? Nope
requires scientific evidence to support it, otherwise it is pure speculation. I am puzzled about what is meant by
Quote
Want to link me the stud(y)ies stating your thoughts, so I can read it?
because once again it is not clear what is being asked for. I’ll make an assumption that the request for links to studies stating my thoughts is referring to my thoughts about solar impacts on the different global climates (http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/koppen.htm).

I expect that the comment
Quote
stop trying to play out solar scientists against other disciplines. It makes me wonder what you are Yelder?
will appear as nonsense to sceptics and others who recognise the significant uncertainties within most of the numerous disciplines involved in trying to improve our poor understanding of the processes and drivers of the global climates.  As I pointed out on 13th June @ 09:30:46 biologist Professor Barry Brook of Adelaide University acknowledged back in April 2009,
Quote
There are a lot of uncertainties in science, and it is indeed likely that the current consensus on some points of climate science is wrong, or at least sufficiently uncertain that we don’t know anything much useful about processes or drivers. ..
(http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/).

Saying
Quote
Pointing at solar variables is all good and proper, but I prefer something more substantial, like a study proving it
and asking
Quote
Just link me to it, but try to avoid 'pay sites' please
is puzzling because I recall providing ten links to relevant pages only yesterday. It appears that no attempt has been made to read and understand them. I repeat
Quote
BTW, the very interesting paper “Solar Influences on Climate” by Gray et al. (http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/2009RG000282.pdf) covers the subject in great detail

Here’s a sample from that free 53-page October 2010 study published by the
Quote
.. Stanford Solar Center .. provides teachers, students, and the interested public with the latest information about the Sun. .. Stanford scientists study the Sun via two space-based instruments, the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, as well as a ground-based telescope called the Wilcox Solar Observatory on the Stanford University campus ..
(http://solar-center.stanford.edu/).

Quote
Understanding the influence of solar variability on the Earth’s climate requires knowledge of solar variability, solar-terrestrial interactions, and the mechanisms determining the response of the Earth’s climate system. We provide a summary of our current understanding in each of these three areas. Observations and mechanisms for the Sun’s variability are described, including solar irradiance variations on both decadal and centennial time scales and their relation to galactic cosmic rays. Corresponding observations of variations of the Earth’s climate on associated time scales are described, including variations in ozone, temperatures, winds, clouds, precipitation, and regional modes of variability such as the monsoons and the North Atlantic Oscillation. A discussion of the available solar and climate proxies is provided. Mechanisms proposed to explain these climate observations are described, including the effects of variations in solar irradiance and of charged particles. Finally, the contributions of solar variations to recent observations of global climate change are discussed.

.. A full understanding of the influence of solar variability on the Earth’s climate requires knowledge of .. the short- and long-term solar variability, .. solar-terrestrial interactions, and .. the mechanisms determining the response of the Earth’s climate system to these interactions .. There have been substantial increases in our knowledge of each of these areas in recent years and renewed interest because of the importance of understanding and characterizing natural variability and its contribution to the observed climate change .. Correct attribution of past changes is key to the prediction of future change.

.. Of greater importance to climate change issues are longer-term drifts in this radiative forcing. .. However, observations indicate, at least regionally, larger solar‐induced climate variations than would be expected from this simple calculation, suggesting that more complicated mechanisms are required to explain them. .. A great number of papers have reported correlations between solar variability and climate parameters. One relatively early association .. examined historical evidence of weather conditions in Europe back to the Middle Ages, including the severity of winters in London and Paris, and suggested that during times of few or no sunspots, e.g., during the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715), the Sun’s radiative output was reduced, leading to a colder climate. Although many of the early reported relationships between solar variability and climate have been questioned on statistical grounds, some correlations have been found to be more robust, and the addition of more years of data has confirmed their ignificance. ..

Mechanisms proposed to explain the climate response to very small solar variations can be grouped broadly into two categories. The first involves a response to variations in solar irradiance. .. The second mechanism category involves energetic particles, including solar energetic particle (SEP) events and GCRs. .. At stratospheric heights .. This region of the atmosphere has the potential to affect the troposphere immediately below it and hence the surface climate. Estimated stratospheric temperature changes associated with the 11 year SC show a signal of 2 K over the equatorial stratopause (50 km) with a secondary maximum in the lower stratosphere (20–25 km ... The direct effect of irradiance variations is amplified by an important feedback mechanism involving ozone production, which is an additional source of heating .. The origins of the lower stratospheric maximum and the observed signal that penetrates deep into the troposphere at midlatitudes are less well understood and require feedback/transfer mechanisms both within the stratosphere and between the stratosphere and underlying troposphere .. While the testing of solar influence on climate via changes in solar irradiance is relatively well advanced, the GCR cloud mechanisms have only just begun to be quantified. ..

In the context of assessing the contribution of solar forcing to climate change, an important question is whether there has been a long-term drift in solar irradiance that might have contributed to the observed surface warming in the latter half of the last century. Reconstructions of past TSI variations have been employed in model studies and allow us to examine how the climate might respond to such imposed forcings. The direct effects of 11 year SC irradiance variations are relatively small at the surface and are damped by the long response time of the ocean-atmosphere system. However, model estimates of the response to centennial time scale irradiance variations are larger since the accumulated effect of small signals over long time periods would not be damped to the same extent as decadal-scale responses. .. There are also large uncertainties in estimates of long‐term irradiance changes ..

the low level of scientific understanding of the solar influence is noted [IPCC, 2007]. The uncertainty is probably also underestimated because of the poorly resolved stratosphere in most of these models. Nevertheless, IPCC [2007] concludes that changes in the Sun have played a role in the observed warming of the Earth since 1750, but these changes are very small compared to the role played by increasing long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. .. The purpose of this review is to present up-to-date information on our knowledge of solar variability and its impact on climate and climate change, as an update to previous reviews ..

Further observations and research are required to improve our understanding of solar forcing mechanisms and their impacts on the Earth’s climate.

I hope that these snippets are enough to encourage those who, rather than try to improve their understanding of this very complex subject, simply repeat CACC dogma, submit their own beliefs and opinions to study the available material in an open-minded way. Careful study of this document by Gray et al. should help to improve the reader’s appreciation of the complexity of the processes and drivers of the different global climates, but it relates to only one of many different scientific disciplines, each of which has a lot more research to do before we can do little more than speculate about how Nature controls weather and climate.

BTW, I ask again, please can someone tell me how I can remove those mini-images that appeared at the bottom of my comment on 18th June @ 19:47:18.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 20/06/2011 00:40:13
You can't :)

Anyway, feel free to link me to your real source(s).
That way we can see what you're building your conjecture on. There must be some you use?
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 20/06/2011 12:27:46
Maybe it is time to take a close look at the level of scientific expertise in that highly complicated scientific subject of the processes and drivers of the different global climates has been demonstrated by authors of the articles linked to by a resident disciple of the CACC doctrine.

04/06/2011 02:07:01: “Ocean Reflux” (http://horseflyriver.ca/salmonfestival/teacher-info/info3/Ocean%20Reflux.doc) is by Kathleen McAuliffe,
Quote
Education: .. Trinity College Dublin, in Ireland, obtaining a M.A. in natural science after graduating with first-class honors. Her final year thesis on electro-encephalography (EEG) recordings of the human brain was presented at the Eastern Psychology Association Conference in 1977
(http://www.kmcauliffe.com/bio/) – hhmm!!

07/06/2011 15:24:30: The link to the graph “annual frequency of north Atlantic tropical storms” came from CACC disciple John Cook’s Skeptical Science blog in an article by Graham P Wayne (http://gpwayne.wordpress.com/about/). As far as I can ascertain neither “computer geek” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/apr/28/climate-change-denial-skeptical-science) John nor novelist (http://gpwayne.wordpress.com/about/) Graham are unbiased sources of information. The graph was copied from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change who’s founder and President is Eileen Claussen
Quote
Education: B.A. from George Washington University in English Literature (although she started out in Political Science). Her M.A. came from the University of Virginia
(http://papedia.wikispaces.com/Eileen+Claussen) - another hhmm!
As far as I can ascertain the Pew Centre is concerned with impacts of climate change, not causes.

Perhaps links to more reliable and less biased sources of information on the precesses and drivers of the different global climates would be more convincing. There is a saying “Birds of a feather stick together” which seems to fit the bill here.

I’ve only touched on the first two links so far but will look at the others. I don’t expect any significant difference as I see that the next one is to Michael Mann’s “Hockey team” back-room lot Realclimate.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: BenV on 20/06/2011 12:59:13
Yelder, please refrain from your attack on specific scientists and instead justify your arguments with science.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 20/06/2011 16:48:01
Hi BenV, I’m afraid that you have lost me with your claim that I am attacking specific scientists, unless you are referring to the people at Realclimate. Which specific scientists are you talking about?
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: BenV on 20/06/2011 17:15:19
Maybe it is time to take a close look at the level of scientific expertise... ...demonstrated by authors of the articles linked to by a resident disciple of the CACC doctrine.
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As far as I can ascertain neither “computer geek” John nor novelist (http://gpwayne.wordpress.com/about/) Graham are unbiased sources of information.

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Education: B.A. from George Washington University in English Literature (although she started out in Political Science). Her M.A. came from the University of Virginia
- another hhmm!

Now kindly cease attacking individuals - if you wish to debate science, do so with more science.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: Peter Ridley under another name on 20/06/2011 18:32:45
BenV, ta for the clarification. I now understand that you’re not talking about scientists, just anyone. But I hope that objection that you have to personal attacks is not selective but applies to anyone who is doing it against anyone else.
Title: Is the unusual weather we have been having a result of global warming?
Post by: yor_on on 22/06/2011 00:23:41

Yelder, way to go :) But you still haven't presented any studies? And there are quite a few out there. I'm sure you have some to choose between. Present it to us, with a explanation to how you see it, and its importance for your arguments.

As Billy Swan once said.
"It will help" :)

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