129 Scientists sign Letter to UN Security General Ban Ki-Moon

[Jonger]

I have no idea why snowlover123 isn't banned from this forum. starting this thread alone should be enough to merit it. how many times do people have to debunk these meaningless petitions before he's cut off from posting endless nonsense in this subforum?

Why does it matter? The U.S government doesn't site this website for policy, its an amateur forum... Like the bloggers you so hate, irrelevant.

Yes, there may be scientists posting here, but they probably have other avenues to reach people that matter.

[Snow_Miser]

I have no idea why snowlover123 isn't banned from this forum. starting this thread alone should be enough to merit it. how many times do people have to debunk these meaningless petitions before he's cut off from posting endless nonsense in this subforum?

Asking for various posters to be banned because that poster disagrees with their views on a topic should be enough for that poster to be banned.

[blizzard1024]

#2 You can perform a rough calculation of the change in energy absorption or radiative forcing for a sea ice area anomaly of 2 million sq km from March to September as follows:

200Wm/2 = average insolation March to September

.8 = change in albedo

2,000,000,000,000m2 * 200W/m2 * .8 = 320,000,000,000,000 Watts

divide by the surface area of the earth = .6 W/m2

= a loss of 2,000,000 sq km of sea ice from March to September is a .6W/m2 forcing during those 6 months, divide by 2 to get the average annual RF = .3W/m2

Here is a paper which concludes a .7W/m2 RF if there is NO sea ice YEAR ROUND. It says the actual RF would be lower because there would be an increase in cloud cover.

http://www.npolar.no...edoFeedback.pdf

A .7W/m2 RF is only 20% of the RF for doubling CO2, and only ~10% of the forcing including all feedbacks ~7W/m2. Again, this if for a completely ice free arctic year round.

This study found only a .88W/m2 RF for all sea ice and land snow during the last glacial maximum.

http://140.208.31.10...les/ajb8701.pdf

#3 Again, you falsely state that "there must be breaking mechanisms" As Mallow and I have already explained, there DO NOT "have to be breaking mechanisms." Positive feedbacks are not the same thing as runaway positive feedbacks. If CO2 causes 1.2C of warming, then the positive feedbacks cause another .6C of warming, which causes another .3C of warming, which causes another .15C of warming. The total ends up being 2.4C of warming. And then warming STOPS. All by itself. With no "breaking mechanism."

If you're going to disagree with these numerous, detailed, peer-reviewed studies of climate sensitivity, you're going to have to do a whole hell of a lot better than "I think feedbacks are different for different causes of warming." Did it not occur to you that this MIGHT have occurred to some of the many experts in the field who have spent their lives studying this?

#4 The data is not based on "diaries." It is detailed ship and aircraft observation, much of which was undertaken specifically for the purpose of documenting ice extent. The satellite data goes back to at least 1972 and probably there is some satellite data incorporated to the mid 1960s. There is detailed documentation of the various sources and how they are used to create a contiguous record and detailed estimates of ERROR BARS. The paper uses complex statistical math to calculate what the level of uncertainty is. You saying "oh it's just diaries it's wrong" does nothing to dispute this. I suggest you actually read the paper, walsh and chapman 2001, in full and let us know if you find anything wrong with their math.

Also, I would like to note that most deniers have used a mere handful of ship reports to claim low historical sea ice extent, while ignoring the thousands of other ship aircraft and satellite observations.

#5 good

#6 Nobody tried to stifle Partridge's work. Partridge HIMSELF says that his work is EXTREMELY uncertain and he cannot conclude whether upper tropospheric water vapor is increasing or decreasing. You're just making things up now.

Dessler 2010 is also NOT a shorter time period. It encompasses 1973-2007.

Also I believe you are confused about the Lindzen and Spencer studies... they were looking at cloud feedback not water vapor. And their studies are deeply flawed as has been documented in several peer-reviewed studies. And their papers were not done in good journals with strong peer-review. You will have to link the specific studies if you want to discuss this.

As Skeptical Science states:

To claim that humidity is decreasing requires you ignore a multitude of independent reanalyses, including newer ones with improved algorithms, that all show increasing humidity. It requires you accept a flawed reanalysis that even its own authors express caution about. It fails to explain how we can have short-term positive feedback and long-term negative feedback (indeed there is no known mechanism that can explain it). In short, to insist that humidity is decreasing is to neglect the full body of evidence.

The theoretical basis for an increase in specific humidity with temperature is just so "duh" it almost doesn't even need empirical proof. Warm air holds more water. Duh.

First of all, didn't you have hear about relative humidity. Just because it warms does not necessarily mean that water vapor goes up. DUH. Warm air has a higher

saturation vapor pressure but does not mean that it will see such high vapor pressure or specific humidities. That is a DUH for you.

#2- you are just talking about sea ice. I meant the ice albedo feedback has to be a major mechanism in the 4-5C swings between glaciations and interglacials which includes large ice sheets covering huge areas of the NH. That's more than 2 million square kilometers man.

#3 Again, CO2 produces some warming through radiative transfer. ok. Dumb guy here understands this. So you maintain then that water vapor goes up. OK I get that. But that causes further warming with diminishing returns with the extra water vapor warming. What causes the diminishing returns...I would say probably cloud cover wouldn't you? Increasing water vapor without such increases in temperature eventually would lead to saturation which causes clouds. DUH. Oh, your are not a MET so I guess you may not know this. Cloud cover is poorly handled by models. period. and that, I believe, is key in addition to deep tropical convection in maintaining the earth's energy balance. Clouds and convection are the Achilles heal of models and I KNOW this. So what you are saying is that basically, in essence, CO2 sets a certain temperature of the globe and water vapor adjusts to it, except only at certain times when the Milankovitch mechanisms somehow overwhelm the effect of CO2 and then cools the climate before CO2 drops and then magically CO2 takes over again and then dominates. Water vapor and cloud cover passively follows CO2 levels. Ok. But this is hard to believe just by logic alone.

#4 I really would like to see the satellite data. If it exists prior to 1979 then where is it? Maybe it is in Walsh and Chapman 2001? I will try to find it and I will read this paper. I am very interested in this sea ice issue...if it was incredibly stable until the 1970s then drops like crazy that would be noteworthy. It would amaze if it is this way given how much the oceans can vary in temperature.

#6 I respect both Drs Lindzen and Spencer and just because they did not publish in "good" journals is a symptom of the time we live in. The reviewers of the "good" journals have a strangle hold on the science by not allowing any other ideas or dissenting papers in. Climategate proved that!

Have a good night.

[Snow_Miser]

Nice cherry picking starting in El Nino-ish periods and ending in a Nina-ish period. Bravo. Do you really expect to trick anybody using obvious cherry picking like this?

1999-2012 (which is approximately an ENSO neutral period) shows warming of .14C/decade on GISS, .16C/decade UAH, .05C/decade RSS. That produces an average of .12C/decade.

0-700m is MORE precise than 0-2000m OHC. That does not mean than 0-2000m is completely inaccurate It has established error bars and quantifiable error bars for the determining the significance of trends. The trend 2003-2008 was .77W/m2 +/- .11W/m2. That means that at LOWEST with 95% confidence the trend was .66W/m2.

This is further supported by rapidly rising sea levels due to thermal expansion.

There is not a lag between a forcing and change in OHC. Propose one plausible mechanism by which there would be a lag between forcing and OHC. If Geo-AA is exerting a strong negative forcing causing the earth's energy balance to become negative (by definition), this should become immediately apparent in declining OHC.

If Geo-AA has the hypothesized effect of the deniers, then OHC should have begun to fall rapidly 5 years ago. Instead, it continues to rise rapidly. As do surface temperatures when adjusted for ENSO.

Not sure why you are trying to contest that temperatures over the last decade to decade and a half have not either flatlined or declined. It's like trying to contest that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It's accepted as fact in the peer reviewed literature. See Perlwitz et al. 2009 for an example of AGW Advocates acknowledging that there has been no Global Warming for a decade.

We have had accurate data from the 0-700 meter range of the Ocean over the past 50 years or so. We have just started to get somewhat decent data from the deep oceans since 2003. That amount of time that we have had deep ocean data is insufficient for making such sure conclusions.

The peer reviewed literature disagrees with your unfounded assumptions once again. See Cazenave et al. 2009 which conclude that since the Steric portion of the Sea Level rise has flatlined (the sea level rise from thermal expansion), the recent rise in Sea Level (though even that has slowed in recent years) is not due to thermal expansion of the oceans, but due to ice melt, likely due to the fact that the Arctic has continued to warm even though the rest of the world has not.

If there was no lag between OHC and an imbalance, then we should be able to see this if we put a pot filled with water on a stove. That of course is not the case.

[LocoAko]

Climategate proved that!

OMG, you can't be serious with this ... how many times is this Climategate crap going to be brought up and subsequently destroyed?

[Snow_Miser]

If by significant you mean the former has had a net effect an order of magnitude greater than either of the latter two.

The sun is back near conditions it was early century and the PDO is negative. The AMO is primarily a symptom, not a cause, of global warming.

The PDO and the AMO can modulate any long term warming signal through changes in Global Cloudiness, thus providing a simple explaination with regard to why we saw strong warming in the early-20th Century and the late-20th Century. These oceanic oscillations also correlate well to multidecadal periods with no warming/slight cooling over the last 150 years.

The sun has been one of the main forcing agents of climate change for the past 1000-2000 years. When solar activity shot up in the past, the temperatures went up, and vice versa. This recent period of warming is no exception. With solar activity having shot up dramatically during the 20th Century, it probably represents at least a significant portion of that warming being due to the sun alone.

Usoskin et al. 2005

[blizzard1024]

The PDO and the AMO can modulate any long term warming signal through changes in Global Cloudiness, thus providing a simple explaination with regard to why we saw strong warming in the early-20th Century and the late-20th Century. These oceanic oscillations also correlate well to multidecadal periods with no warming/slight cooling over the last 150 years.

The sun has been one of the main forcing agents of climate change for the past 1000-2000 years. When solar activity shot up in the past, the temperatures went up, and vice versa. This recent period of warming is no exception. With solar activity having shot up dramatically during the 20th Century, it probably represents at least a significant portion of that warming being due to the sun alone.

Usoskin et al. 2005

This makes the most sense. Its the sun stupid. there are lags in the oceanic circulations that take time for the heat to come out. Just because

the sun leveled off does not mean the effects stop immediately. There will be a period where the heat is working through the vast oceanic conveyor circulations which dominate our climate. But the climate scientists now have ruled out the sun as a reason for the recent warming.... come on. their models tell them that. Models!!! Need I say more.

[skierinvermont]

Not sure why you are trying to contest that temperatures over the last decade to decade and a half have not either flatlined or declined. It's like trying to contest that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It's accepted as fact in the peer reviewed literature. See Perlwitz et al. 2009 for an example of AGW Advocates acknowledging that there has been no Global Warming for a decade.

We have had accurate data from the 0-700 meter range of the Ocean over the past 50 years or so. We have just started to get somewhat decent data from the deep oceans since 2003. That amount of time that we have had deep ocean data is insufficient for making such sure conclusions.

The peer reviewed literature disagrees with your unfounded assumptions once again. See Cazenave et al. 2009 which conclude that since the Steric portion of the Sea Level rise has flatlined (the sea level rise from thermal expansion), the recent rise in Sea Level (though even that has slowed in recent years) is not due to thermal expansion of the oceans, but due to ice melt, likely due to the fact that the Arctic has continued to warm even though the rest of the world has not.

If there was no lag between OHC and an imbalance, then we should be able to see this if we put a pot filled with water on a stove. That of course is not the case.

It is an accepted fact in the peer-review literature that if you select particular start points then the trend is flat or negative. Many start points yield flat or negative temperature trends because many start points yield strongly negative ENSO trends because of the switch to more Nina-like conditions in the Pacific. However, if we wish to diagnose the AGW+solar climate change, we need to select an ENSO neutral period. Starting in 2002, as deniers like you love to do, is NOT ENSO neutral. It is the MOST negative ENSO trend period one could select. Again, selecting an ENSO neutral period yields .12C/decade on GISS, UAH and RSS averaged together. FACT.

(I'll also note that you have not directly disputed the fact that the trend 1999-present, which is ENSO neutral, is .12C/decade. You've simply tried to ignore the issue of ENSO-neutrality).

2003-present is not insufficient for making solid conclusions. Again, there are established error bars, based on the sampling error, for OHC 0-2000m. These error bars are .77+/- .11W/m2. This includes the sampling error due to sparse data. Other recent studies estimate the total earth energy imbalance at .5+/-.43W/m2 (Loeb 2012).

Also, the Cazenave study you posted agrees with ARGO. It says the ARGO based estimate of SLR is .37mm/yr while the inferred SLR from GRACE is .3W/m2. Also, this estimate would be revised higher by the mass balance study Don just posted which revises down slightly mass loss from Greenland and Antarctica.

Finally, we do see a drop in OHC in a pot on the stove once the forcing goes negative. As soon as you turn the burner off, the forcing goes negative, and the pot begins to cool.

[skierinvermont]

First of all, didn't you have hear about relative humidity. Just because it warms does not necessarily mean that water vapor goes up. DUH. Warm air has a higher

saturation vapor pressure but does not mean that it will see such high vapor pressure or specific humidities. That is a DUH for you.

#2- you are just talking about sea ice. I meant the ice albedo feedback has to be a major mechanism in the 4-5C swings between glaciations and interglacials which includes large ice sheets covering huge areas of the NH. That's more than 2 million square kilometers man.

#3 Again, CO2 produces some warming through radiative transfer. ok. Dumb guy here understands this. So you maintain then that water vapor goes up. OK I get that. But that causes further warming with diminishing returns with the extra water vapor warming. What causes the diminishing returns...I would say probably cloud cover wouldn't you? Increasing water vapor without such increases in temperature eventually would lead to saturation which causes clouds. DUH. Oh, your are not a MET so I guess you may not know this. Cloud cover is poorly handled by models. period. and that, I believe, is key in addition to deep tropical convection in maintaining the earth's energy balance. Clouds and convection are the Achilles heal of models and I KNOW this. So what you are saying is that basically, in essence, CO2 sets a certain temperature of the globe and water vapor adjusts to it, except only at certain times when the Milankovitch mechanisms somehow overwhelm the effect of CO2 and then cools the climate before CO2 drops and then magically CO2 takes over again and then dominates. Water vapor and cloud cover passively follows CO2 levels. Ok. But this is hard to believe just by logic alone.

#4 I really would like to see the satellite data. If it exists prior to 1979 then where is it? Maybe it is in Walsh and Chapman 2001? I will try to find it and I will read this paper. I am very interested in this sea ice issue...if it was incredibly stable until the 1970s then drops like crazy that would be noteworthy. It would amaze if it is this way given how much the oceans can vary in temperature.

#6 I respect both Drs Lindzen and Spencer and just because they did not publish in "good" journals is a symptom of the time we live in. The reviewers of the "good" journals have a strangle hold on the science by not allowing any other ideas or dissenting papers in. Climategate proved that!

Have a good night.

#1 Yes I understand the difference between saturation vapor pressure and actual vapor pressure. However, airmasses with higher saturation pressures also tend to have higher actual vapor pressures. There is more moisture in the air at the equator than at the north pole. Moreover, the numerous sources I posted prove that there has been an increase in vapor pressure. Only the paltridge study, which does not make use of satellite data, finds a decrease which its own authors question the validity of by saying that they cannot conclude if it is decreasing or increasing.

#2 If you read my entire comment, you would see I was talking about all ice not just sea ice. The .3W/m2 was for a 2 million sq km anomaly in sea ice. .7W/m2 is for a complete annual absence of sea ice. The .88W/m2 was the difference between present and the LGM including both SEA ice and LAND ice. Albedo change alone cannot even come close to explaining the interglacials. Forcing probably changed by close to 20W/m2. Albedo only changed by .88W/m2.

#3 No, the diminishing returns are not caused by clouds. Yes, clouds are the largest uncertainty in models this is widely demonstrated and acknowledged by climate scientists. You are continuing to fail to understand a positive feedback. If the initial warming is 1.2C, and water vapor causes a .6C feedback, well then the feedback to that .6C will be half of what it was to the initial 1.2C (IE .3C). The feedback to this additional .3C of warming will be half of what it was to .6C (IE .15C). Only if the feedback is greater than the initial response does the warming become runaway and require a "breaking mechanism" to slow it down. For example of 1.2C of warming caused a 1.3C water vapor feedback the warming would become runaway because the feedback was greater than the initial response. The additional 1.3C would cause 1.4C more which would cause 1.5C more which would cause 1.6C more etc. etc. etc. until something stopped it. This is really quite basic and I urge you to try to wrap your head around it. You are clearly failing to understand the concept of a runaway feedback as numerous people have tried to explain to you. It's not difficult. You just need to stop and think.

#4 The Walsh and Chapman paper specifically state they use sea ice data back to 1972 and then they use several other historical data sets which may have incorporated some early satellite data as well (I'd have to go re-read Walsh and Chapman). It's quite clear in the abstract though that it is satellite data back to at least 1972. They use detailed statistical analysis to determine extent prior to then and provide quantified uncertainty estimates. Unless you have read the paper and are well versed in complex statistical techniques, you cannot dismiss these estimates.

#6 Wow. No response.

[blizzard1024]

#1 Yes I understand the difference between saturation vapor pressure and actual vapor pressure. However, airmasses with higher saturation pressures also tend to have higher actual vapor pressures. There is more moisture in the air at the equator than at the north pole. Moreover, the numerous sources I posted prove that there has been an increase in vapor pressure. Only the paltridge study, which does not make use of satellite data, finds a decrease which its own authors question the validity of by saying that they cannot conclude if it is decreasing or increasing.

#2 If you read my entire comment, you would see I was talking about all ice not just sea ice. The .3W/m2 was for a 2 million sq km anomaly in sea ice. .7W/m2 is for a complete annual absence of sea ice. The .88W/m2 was the difference between present and the LGM including both SEA ice and LAND ice. Albedo change alone cannot even come close to explaining the interglacials. Forcing probably changed by close to 20W/m2. Albedo only changed by .88W/m2.

#3 No, the diminishing returns are not caused by clouds. Yes, clouds are the largest uncertainty in models this is widely demonstrated and acknowledged by climate scientists. You are continuing to fail to understand a positive feedback. If the initial warming is 1.2C, and water vapor causes a .6C feedback, well then the feedback to that .6C will be half of what it was to the initial 1.2C (IE .3C). The feedback to this additional .3C of warming will be half of what it was to .6C (IE .15C). Only if the feedback is greater than the initial response does the warming become runaway and require a "breaking mechanism" to slow it down. For example of 1.2C of warming caused a 1.3C water vapor feedback the warming would become runaway because the feedback was greater than the initial response. The additional 1.3C would cause 1.4C more which would cause 1.5C more which would cause 1.6C more etc. etc. etc. until something stopped it. This is really quite basic and I urge you to try to wrap your head around it. You are clearly failing to understand the concept of a runaway feedback as numerous people have tried to explain to you. It's not difficult. You just need to stop and think.

#4 The Walsh and Chapman paper specifically state they use sea ice data back to 1972 and then they use several other historical data sets which may have incorporated some early satellite data as well (I'd have to go re-read Walsh and Chapman). It's quite clear in the abstract though that it is satellite data back to at least 1972. They use detailed statistical analysis to determine extent prior to then and provide quantified uncertainty estimates. Unless you have read the paper and are well versed in complex statistical techniques, you cannot dismiss these estimates.

#6 Wow. No response.

For #1 there is a lot of uncertainty about this at higher altitudes. Near the Earth's surface and in the boundary layer this is a correct statement. But at high altitudes all bets are off. The satellite data has its quirks too and the jury is still out. The other data sets show a mix because they use a mix of reanalysis data and satellite data. I also still believe we have no clue what clouds are doing and responding. Remember we also are putting out tons of extra aerosols which could lead to smaller drops and brighter clouds which leads to cooling if it is in the low altitudes. Of course we are flying planes and adding some water vapor to high altitudes which has a warming effect by creating more cirrus. How does convection tie into all this? The clouds and water vapor feedbacks are the Achilles heal of the difference between some modest warming and a disaster.

For #2 WOW for me too. I need to read that paper. I missed the land snow/ice comment. My bad. So they are concluding that the net albedo affect from losing the large ice sheets across Asia, northern Europe and North America only accounts for .18 W/m2? So their conclusion is that the sea ice accounts for .7W/M2 which dwarfs the land ice? That seems illogical given the large extent of the land ice during glaciations. Plus the glacial mass extended far to the south exposing it to more insolation year round...remember the sun stays up all day with a steeper angle down at 50 degrees N. Wow that is a shocking result.

#3 I get this diminishing returns. I do. So the theory states that CO2, a minor GHG dominates the major GHG, water vapor and clouds, by setting a global temperature that these major GHGs obey. This works well until the Milankovitch mechanisms somehow disrupt this balance. This occurs even though they are too weak to explain the glaciations alone without the CO2 feedback because the ice-albedo feedback is apparently very weak (only .88W/m2) as is in the peer reviewed literature. So for certain periods in the ice core records, CO2 will be increasing still and the temperatures go down and then water vapor responds then CO2 re-establishes itself as the dominate driver? Do I have it correct now? Something just smells fishy in this. sorry. wish I understood this better because to the causal observer it seems like CO2 passively following temperature in the ice core records. That is the logical conclusion BUT the atmosphere/oceans are never that easy.

#4 I looked for walsh and chapman 2001 but it is all pay stuff. I don't work for an agency that does climate work. We do weather forecasting. I can get AMS stuff free.

#6 Wow. I KNOW that many of the emails in climategate we taken out of context. Mann's trick to "hide the decline". Yeah I know that was bogus and taken way out of context. I felt sorry for Mann. But there were emails in their about removing editors who let a paper get through and "never letting that paper see the light of day" that were not taken out of context. There were some pretty damning stuff among just a few...most though WERE taken out of context. But that sentiment does exist. I saw a debate between Lindzen and Dressler. Dressler was bashing Lindzen because he smokes. He was reverting to ad hominem attacks. I couldn't believe it. It was terrible. I thought Dressler was a stand up guy. He proved otherwise during this and Lindzen did not get hostile at all...he played it cool. He looked like more of a pro than Dressler. I was shocked. There was a reviewer that wanted to stifle Patridges work...he stated that this would give the "other side" ammunition. This is not science. This is censorship. It is sad because as there is a lot to learn in the climate system and more factors than just CO2 influences it!

Anyway, my time is running out here and I am very busy as I bet you are too. Thanks for your replies. Sorry if I got a little angry. My goal is to learn and try to be convinced of CAGW. So far it just does not add up to me. Again, I believe in cleaner energy sources etc but not at the expense of the world's economy. take care.

[skierinvermont]

For #1 there is a lot of uncertainty about this at higher altitudes. Near the Earth's surface and in the boundary layer this is a correct statement. But at high altitudes all bets are off. The satellite data has its quirks too and the jury is still out. The other data sets show a mix because they use a mix of reanalysis data and satellite data. I also still believe we have no clue what clouds are doing and responding. Remember we also are putting out tons of extra aerosols which could lead to smaller drops and brighter clouds which leads to cooling if it is in the low altitudes. Of course we are flying planes and adding some water vapor to high altitudes which has a warming effect by creating more cirrus. How does convection tie into all this? The clouds and water vapor feedbacks are the Achilles heal of the difference between some modest warming and a disaster.

For #2 WOW for me too. I need to read that paper. I missed the land snow/ice comment. My bad. So they are concluding that the net albedo affect from losing the large ice sheets across Asia, northern Europe and North America only accounts for .18 W/m2? So their conclusion is that the sea ice accounts for .7W/M2 which dwarfs the land ice? That seems illogical given the large extent of the land ice during glaciations. Plus the glacial mass extended far to the south exposing it to more insolation year round...remember the sun stays up all day with a steeper angle down at 50 degrees N. Wow that is a shocking result.

#3 I get this diminishing returns. I do. So the theory states that CO2, a minor GHG dominates the major GHG, water vapor and clouds, by setting a global temperature that these major GHGs obey. This works well until the Milankovitch mechanisms somehow disrupt this balance. This occurs even though they are too weak to explain the glaciations alone without the CO2 feedback because the ice-albedo feedback is apparently very weak (only .88W/m2) as is in the peer reviewed literature. So for certain periods in the ice core records, CO2 will be increasing still and the temperatures go down and then water vapor responds then CO2 re-establishes itself as the dominate driver? Do I have it correct now? Something just smells fishy in this. sorry. wish I understood this better because to the causal observer it seems like CO2 passively following temperature in the ice core records. That is the logical conclusion BUT the atmosphere/oceans are never that easy.

#4 I looked for walsh and chapman 2001 but it is all pay stuff. I don't work for an agency that does climate work. We do weather forecasting. I can get AMS stuff free.

#6 Wow. I KNOW that many of the emails in climategate we taken out of context. Mann's trick to "hide the decline". Yeah I know that was bogus and taken way out of context. I felt sorry for Mann. But there were emails in their about removing editors who let a paper get through and "never letting that paper see the light of day" that were not taken out of context. There were some pretty damning stuff among just a few...most though WERE taken out of context. But that sentiment does exist. I saw a debate between Lindzen and Dressler. Dressler was bashing Lindzen because he smokes. He was reverting to ad hominem attacks. I couldn't believe it. It was terrible. I thought Dressler was a stand up guy. He proved otherwise during this and Lindzen did not get hostile at all...he played it cool. He looked like more of a pro than Dressler. I was shocked. There was a reviewer that wanted to stifle Patridges work...he stated that this would give the "other side" ammunition. This is not science. This is censorship. It is sad because as there is a lot to learn in the climate system and more factors than just CO2 influences it!

Anyway, my time is running out here and I am very busy as I bet you are too. Thanks for your replies. Sorry if I got a little angry. My goal is to learn and try to be convinced of CAGW. So far it just does not add up to me. Again, I believe in cleaner energy sources etc but not at the expense of the world's economy. take care.

#1 clouds are fairly uncertain. But water vapor is not. All of the studies, except paltridge which uses highly uncertain data from radiosondes, find increasing WV. The other studies are based on satellite data and reanalysis.

#2. No that's not what it says.. .7W/m2 was the difference between no sea ice and modern sea ice. .88W/m2 is the difference between modern sea+land ice and sea+land ice during the last ice age. Subtracting the former from the latter doesn't make any sense. Land ice is probably more than half of the .88W/m2. I was just listing various quantities to give you an idea of magnitude of the feedback.

Honestly I'm a bit surprised about the .88W/m2 between the LGM and the 20th century. It seems a little inconsistent with a .7W/m2 for complete loss of arctic sea ice. I would think that the difference between the LGM and 20th century would be 2-3X that of a complete loss of sea ice (between 1-2W/m2). The paper giving .88W/m2 was from the 1980s... but that shouldn't make a difference since it's a pretty basic calculation. I know I came across a more recent study on the albedo effect of glaciation, but I forgot what it says. Anyways, even if .88W/m2 is not exactly correct, I'm very confident in the .7W/m2 for a complete loss of sea ice, which should give you an idea of magnitude for a glaciation.

#3 Sounds about right except for the part about CO2 going up and temperature going down. I don't know of any period where this has happened. Also CO2 doesn't dominate over the other GHGs. All of the GHGs acted together to enhance the Milankovich cycles (as well as albedo). Sometimes CO2 is said to be the dominant thermostat setter because CO2 concentration on a geologic time scale is controlled by a lot of factors and can act independently of temperature. Water vapor on the other hand, generally is in direct proportion to temperature and is purely a feedback and unable to "set the thermostat." There are periods of time when geologic processes led to very high CO2 concentrations (in the 1000s) and this is said to have set the thermostat on high.

#4 Here is walsh and chapman. Usually googling the title will give you a free pdf. ftp://psc.apl.washington.edu/incoming/PolarFridays/2-walsh_2001.pdf

#6 I do agree there were some less than savory comments from scientists. But that's about it. The effort to stop the publication of a particular paper by boycotting the journal that it was published in sounds dirty, but if you read the paper it is a completely unscientific hack job. The editors of the journal were biased and did not subject the paper to proper peer-review. It was quite the controversy at the time, long before climategate. Everybody knew a decade ago that most scientists had boycotted this particular journal for improperly publishing a particular paper. It only became a scandal when the climategate emails were leaked and people forgot about the context.

[skierinvermont]

Yeah I may have misread the ice albedo forcing study or something. I found a somewhat more modern study that finds a forcing of

-2.9W/m2 for land ice

-.8W/m2 for sea ice

-.6W/m2 for vegetation changes

-2.2W/m2 for GHG changes

It also references two other studies that find:

-3.0 for albedo changes (land,sea, veg)

-3.5 for albedo changes (land, sea, veg)

-2.6 for GHGs

-2.8 for GHGs

These numbers make more sense to me than .88W/m2 I would have guessed 1.5 or 2, so 3-3.5 seems a bit high.

All three studies are early to mid 90s though. I'll see if I can find something more modern.

[Snow_Miser]

It is an accepted fact in the peer-review literature that if you select particular start points then the trend is flat or negative. Many start points yield flat or negative temperature trends because many start points yield strongly negative ENSO trends because of the switch to more Nina-like conditions in the Pacific. However, if we wish to diagnose the AGW+solar climate change, we need to select an ENSO neutral period. Starting in 2002, as deniers like you love to do, is NOT ENSO neutral. It is the MOST negative ENSO trend period one could select. Again, selecting an ENSO neutral period yields .12C/decade on GISS, UAH and RSS averaged together. FACT.

(I'll also note that you have not directly disputed the fact that the trend 1999-present, which is ENSO neutral, is .12C/decade. You've simply tried to ignore the issue of ENSO-neutrality).

2003-present is not insufficient for making solid conclusions. Again, there are established error bars, based on the sampling error, for OHC 0-2000m. These error bars are .77+/- .11W/m2. This includes the sampling error due to sparse data. Other recent studies estimate the total earth energy imbalance at .5+/-.43W/m2 (Loeb 2012).

Also, the Cazenave study you posted agrees with ARGO. It says the ARGO based estimate of SLR is .37mm/yr while the inferred SLR from GRACE is .3W/m2. Also, this estimate would be revised higher by the mass balance study Don just posted which revises down slightly mass loss from Greenland and Antarctica.

Finally, we do see a drop in OHC in a pot on the stove once the forcing goes negative. As soon as you turn the burner off, the forcing goes negative, and the pot begins to cool.

If ENSO were one of the main reasons for why the temperatures have flatlined, and the sun had little influence on this recent flatlining of temperatures over the last 10 years, we should be able to see that with Ocean Heat Content. Unfortunately, that's not the case. The 0-700 meter OHC dataset has slowed down dramatically. With the 0-2000 meter dataset only having seen good quality data over only the last 9 years, it is unclear with regard to whether the heat gain there has slowed there as well.

A recent dataset on OHC called the UKMO EN3 Ocean Heat Content dataset shows that OHC has slowed even moreso than the NODC OHC dataset.

The current monthly anomaly for Sea Surface Salinity and Temperature anomalies for the upper portion of the ocean are shown above for October 2012.

The dataset shows a slight decline in OHC in the 0-700 meter range over the last 8-9 years or so.

Of course, neither dataset comes even close to the Heat Content trend projected by Hansen et al. 2005's models.

There is also literally no trend in the 0-2000 meter OHC dataset as well.

The 0-2000 meter dataset is of course less reliable than the 0-700 meter dataset, and has seen quality data for less than a decade, so take this chart for what it's worth.

It's interesting that 17 years is required for the criteria for the temperature records to establish a new trend, but only 9 years is sufficient enough for the Ocean Heat Content records for establishing a new trend. Interesting double standard.

Your previous claim was that thermal expansion was likely responsible for the Sea Level Rise that occured over the last decade. However, as Cazenave et al. showed, since Heat Content did not increase significantly during this period, the Sea Level Rise during this period was caused not through thermal expansion but by ice sheets melting, which fits well, considering that the Arctic has continued to warm over the las decade, even though the Global Mean Temperature has either flatlined or declined slightly.

There is not an immediate response in Ocean Heat Content to a change in a forcing. There is a lag because of the thermal inertia of the oceans.

Mutliple studies have found this lag between solar activity and climate change.

El-Borie and Al-Thoyaib 2006

The authors of that paper found that the best correlations between solar activity and temperature can be established and future temperature changes can be predicted by allowing a 6-8 year lag between solar activity and climate changes.

Raspopov et al. 2007

(Raspopov and Dergachev, two of the authors of this paper, were both signers of the letter to Ban-Ki Moon).

The influence of ∼200-year solar activity variations (de Vries cyclicity) on climatic parameters has been analyzed. Analysis of palaeoclimatic data from different regions of the Earth for the last millennium has shown that ∼200-year variations in solar activity give rise to a pronounced climatic response. Owing to a nonlinear character of the processes in the atmosphere–ocean system and the inertia of this system, the climatic response to the global influence of solar activity variations has been found to have a regional character. The regions where the climatic response to long-term solar activity variations is stable and the regions where the climatic response is unstable, both in time and space, have been revealed. It has also been found that a considerable lag of the climatic response and reversal of its sign with respect to the solar signal can occur. Comparison of the obtained results with the simulation predictions of the atmosphere–ocean system response to long-term solar irradiance variations (T > 40 years) has shown that there is a good agreement between experimental and simulation results.

There is no physical justification for saying that there will not be a lag between a forcing and OHC.

[Scuddz]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/03/climate_change_deniers_write_another_fact_free_op_ed.html

[blizzard1024]

Yeah I may have misread the ice albedo forcing study or something. I found a somewhat more modern study that finds a forcing of

-2.9W/m2 for land ice

-.8W/m2 for sea ice

-.6W/m2 for vegetation changes

-2.2W/m2 for GHG changes

It also references two other studies that find:

-3.0 for albedo changes (land,sea, veg)

-3.5 for albedo changes (land, sea, veg)

-2.6 for GHGs

-2.8 for GHGs

These numbers make more sense to me than .88W/m2 I would have guessed 1.5 or 2, so 3-3.5 seems a bit high.

All three studies are early to mid 90s though. I'll see if I can find something more modern.

Thanks for the replies. Appreciate it. Always learning...that's my goal. I am a skeptical of a lot of complex problems, just like I am skeptical of weather forecasts at times. I am sometimes even skeptical of my own forecasts, especially if I am hitting a deadline and have to go with something with not enough time for proper analysis. When I have time to catch my breath and think more deeply after the shift is over, sometime I think of all the things that can go wrong!!! But labeling people as deniers, sceptics or even worse "evil" etc when you are dealing with such a complex problem I think is wrong. I am NOT directing this at you, just a general comment as you see this often in the media, politics, and usually by people who have no business commenting on this stuff. You are obviously knowledgeable. Thanks again.

[Snow_Miser]

http://www.slate.com...free_op_ed.html

A very poorly written article, with name calling and with many factual errors in it. The Met Office themselves have stated that there hasn't been any statistically significant warming since 1997, thus agreeing with Rose's article. It can clearly be seen with the error margins and the temperature trends during this timeframe that there hasn't been any statistically significant warming since 1997 on the Met Office HadCruT4 dataset.

There are also many studies that debunk the alleged "consensus" that the article promotes.

[WxUSAF]

Why are words like denialist, denier, skeptic, or even worse "environmental criminal" used against REAL scientists.

Many of these people are NOT real scientists. And when "scientists" like Joe Bastardi claim that global warming can't be happening because CO2 isn't well-mixed (because it's "heavier than air"), you lose whatever scientific credentials you previously possessed. I'm listening to Raymond Pierrehumbert speak right now at AGU. He'd laugh JB out of the room if he tried to spin that crap in a legitimate scientific forum.

[Snow_Miser]

Many of these people are NOT real scientists. And when "scientists" like Joe Bastardi claim that global warming can't be happening because CO2 isn't well-mixed (because it's "heavier than air"), you lose whatever scientific credentials you previously possessed. I'm listening to Raymond Pierrehumbert speak right now at AGU. He'd laugh JB out of the room if he tried to spin that crap in a legitimate scientific forum.

Not sure why everyone is focusing on one person or a few people that have signed this list that are not climate scientists. A significant portion of the people whom have signed are climate scientists.

[csnavywx]

Linzden's tactics parallel with that of a lawyer, and a practiced one at that. After listening to him, I think Hansen really said it best: He's there to win for his client and puts forth only favorable information to his case.

His "iris" theory and statement about a decrease in temperature over 20 years (made in 2004) have not panned out thus far and contradicts a great deal of research already on the books.

[WxUSAF]

Not sure why everyone is focusing on one person or a few people that have signed this list that are not climate scientists. A significant portion of the people whom have signed are climate scientists.

It doesn't matter if we go through their publication records or not. What they say in the letter is fundamentally wrong. Horrible cherry-picking of data, e.g., the Met Office chart. This letter is irrelevant.

[valkhorn]

Not sure why everyone is focusing on one person or a few people that have signed this list that are not climate scientists. A significant portion of the people whom have signed are climate scientists.

News flash, signing a petition isn't science.

[valkhorn]

A very poorly written article, with name calling and with many factual errors in it. The Met Office themselves have stated that there hasn't been any statistically significant warming since 1997, thus agreeing with Rose's article. It can clearly be seen with the error margins and the temperature trends during this timeframe that there hasn't been any statistically significant warming since 1997 on the Met Office HadCruT4 dataset.

There are also many studies that debunk the alleged "consensus" that the article promotes.

Show us these studies.

[Snow_Miser]

News flash, signing a petition isn't science.

I agree, though it is worth bringing up.

Consensus is not science either.

[Snow_Miser]

Show us these studies.

Sure.

Let's start with the Doran and Zimmerman 2009 study. Most of the criticisms of this study pertain to the rather ambiguous phrasing of their questions.

Granqvist 2009

In a summary of their survey on the opinion about global warming among Earth scientists (see Eos, 90(3), 20 January 2009), Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman conclude that the debate on the role of human activity is largely nonexistent, and that the challenge is “how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers” and to the public.

However, I argue that neither of these conclusions can be drawn from the survey. For example, one issue that is much discussed in the public debate is the role of greenhouse gas emissions in global warming. Perhaps there is not much debate about this issue among scientists, but this cannot be concluded from the survey, in which nothing is said about such emissions. In the second question of their survey, Doran and Kendall Zimmerman refer only to “human activity.”

Helsdon 2009

The feature article “Examining the scientific consensus on climate change,” by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman (see Eos, 90(3), 20 January 2009), while interesting, has a primary flaw that calls their interpretation into question. In their opening sentence, the authors state that on the basis of polling data, “47% [of Americans] think climate scientists agree… that human activities are a major cause of that [global] warming….” They then described the two-question survey they had posed to a large group of Earth scientists and scientifically literate (I presume) people in related fields. While the polled group is important, in any poll the questions are critical. My point revolves around their question 2, to wit, “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” Note that the opening sentence of their article uses the phrase “major cause” in reporting the results of the polling, while the poll itself used the phrase “significant contributing factor.” There is a large difference between these two phrases.

I tend to agree more with the second criticism than the first one, though they both bring up valid points. The second study raises a very important issue with the study that I have brought up many times on this forum.

[Snow_Miser]

It doesn't matter if we go through their publication records or not. What they say in the letter is fundamentally wrong. Horrible cherry-picking of data, e.g., the Met Office chart. This letter is irrelevant.

What is wrong with what they state? That there hasn't been any statistically significant warming since 1997? That is not incorrect.

[Snow_Miser]

His "iris" theory and statement about a decrease in temperature over 20 years (made in 2004) have not panned out thus far and contradicts a great deal of research already on the books.

Where is Lindzen's iris theory wrong? Numerous papers have found that the cloud feedback may be negative instead of positive, which is what Lindzen's iris hypothesis proposes.

[Snow_Miser]

And by the way, the amount of time needed to create a discrepency between the observed and projected warming rates is 15 years. This claim was made in 2008, and we have made it to the threshold of 15 years with no statistically significant warming. We can now say that there is a discrepency with the observed warming and the projected warming for the last 15 or so years.

http://www1.ncdc.noa...2008-lo-rez.pdf

Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.

[skierinvermont]

It's interesting that 17 years is required for the criteria for the temperature records to establish a new trend, but only 9 years is sufficient enough for the Ocean Heat Content records for establishing a new trend. Interesting double standard.

You are confused. This is not a "double standard." This is how statistics work.

It takes roughly 15 years to to have 95% confidence that the observed surface temperature trend will be positive, IF the underlying AGW forced trend is +.15C/decade. This is because of the short-term non-AGW variability (ENSO, TSI, convection etc.). Also there is some sampling error (+/-.03C/decade for a 15 year sample).

It takes much less time, maybe only 1 year, to be 95% confident that the observed OHC trend will be positive, IF the underlying AGW forced trend is ~.6W/m2. This is because no short term variability is strong enough to turn the energy balance of the oceans negative. If you include sampling error (because we don't actually know the change in OHC very precisely over a short period) then it might take 3 or 4 or 5 years to be 95% confident of a positive trend (depending on what exactly the sampling error is - I am not sure).

I will get to the rest of your post later. But hopefully this has helped clarify what might appear to be a double standard to someone unfamiliar with statistics.

[Snow_Miser]

You are confused. This is not a "double standard." This is how statistics work.

It takes roughly 15 years to to have 95% confidence that the observed surface temperature trend will be positive, IF the underlying AGW forced trend is +.15C/decade. This is because of the short-term non-AGW variability (ENSO, TSI, convection etc.). Also there is some sampling error (+/-.03C/decade for a 15 year sample).

It takes much less time, maybe only 1 year, to be 95% confident that the observed OHC trend will be positive, IF the underlying AGW forced trend is ~.6W/m2. This is because no short term variability is strong enough to turn the energy balance of the oceans negative. If you include sampling error (because we don't actually know the change in OHC very precisely over a short period) then it might take 3 or 4 or 5 years to be 95% confident of a positive trend (depending on what exactly the sampling error is - I am not sure).

I will get to the rest of your post later. But hopefully this has helped clarify what might appear to be a double standard to someone unfamiliar with statistics.

There remains a large discrepency between OHC datasets, so the certainty probably isn't as high as you suggest it is. The AGW warming trend is probably lower than 0.15 Degrees C, when considering solar and oceanic cycles, and the fact that we haven't warmed for 10-15 years. Even warmers like Dr. Ben Santer are now saying that the warming trend has been overestimated in a recent paper that he published.

From the paper:

On average, the models analyzed … overestimate the warming of the troposphere. Although the precise causes of such differences are unclear…

[skierinvermont]

There remains a large discrepency between OHC datasets, so the certainty probably isn't as high as you suggest it is. The AGW warming trend is probably lower than 0.15 Degrees C, when considering solar and oceanic cycles, and the fact that we haven't warmed for 10-15 years. Even warmers like Dr. Ben Santer are now saying that the warming trend has been overestimated in a recent paper that he published.

From the paper:

On average, the models analyzed … overestimate the warming of the troposphere. Although the precise causes of such differences are unclear…

The mere 6 months required to see a positive trend on OHC was for if we had perfect OHC data. In fact, it might even be zero, although a strong El Nino or volcano might temporarily make it negative for 6 months maybe a year. I think the OHC data sampling is good enough and error bars small enough that the longest we could go without seeing a rise is 4 or 5 years. A flatline could arise from a combination of sample error, and short term variability particularly a decline in TSI. That was just a guess though, maybe the sample error is large enough that it takes 6 or 7 years to get a positive trend 95% of the time.

Also, I agree the warming trend has recently been on the low side of modeled, but I do not believe it has fallen outside the confidence interval of a +.15C/decade trend. It may have fallen outside the confidence interval of a .20C/decade trend. Given the record low solar minimum for modern times, and the increased frequency of El Ninos, it is not surprising that we are on the low side of the confidence interval.