climate science
stoat | July 10, 2010This is me, tiptoeing towards the spotters guide to bloggers I promised. But I've been distracted, because I was pointed at Climate scientist: "Positive carbon-climate feedback is still very likely" -- and even without "a runaway feedback," warming will be "substantial and critical" Plus a review of recent research on amplifying feedbacks at ClimateProgress. I think most of it is by Brad Johnston, but there is an addendum by Romm. So, what is wrong with it?
First off, you have to wade through too much foam to get to the substance, which puts me in a bad mood. Once you know the structure of…
stoat | July 4, 2010A reader wrote:
I am a recent reader of your blog Stoat. I am very interested in the Climate Change issue but I am not a scientist. I read Joe Romm, Island of Doubt and General news about the subject. You are the first expert I have come across that seems to have a balanced opinion on climate change. I have searched through your archives but I can't really get a complete feel of what your opinion is. I get lost sometimes when you explain the technical stuff or use abbreviations for things that I don't know what the abbreviations are for. Could you do a blog post (in an untechnical format…
stoat | July 3, 2010So often you get folks who have some brilliant theory, but unaccountably lack the courage to write the thing up and submit it for publication. However, I'm pleased to report that Nicolas Nierenberg is not such a man, and he *has* written a paper: Early Climate Change Consensus at the National Academy: The Origins and Making of Changing Climate (blog post). Whether (like me) you think it is basically correct or (perhaps, I'm guessing, like Eli you don't) you will, I'm sure, welcome the way this is being played out in scholarly debate.
What's it all about? Broadly speaking, this is but a minor…
stoat | June 24, 2010 An unfair headline; but I think it is a known phrase: the "Dumb America" phenomenon, wherein the public has the hubris to believe that they really have something valuable to contribute to discussions that they can hardly begin to understand (I'm assuming that if you aren't part of DA then you're intelligent enough to realise I'm not talking about all Americans).
Yes, I'm talking about the comments in Under the Volcano, Over the Volcano by Willis Eschenbach at Wattsup (ht: mt). Incidentally, anyone tempted to complain about my sneering or elitist tone is invited to comment somewhere else. If…
stoat | June 8, 2010More boring links blogs stuff. But just for once I do actually have something else to say, so I'll try to clear this out asap.
* Do you need context to understand the CRU emails? Or can they be understood on their own? An analysis. No prizes for guessing the answer. But links to...
* The secret life of bugs which is a fun analysis of how much could you understand bugs from what was recorded about them? Answer, often not much. Mind you, some of the stuff in there is weird - how does The missing link to source code change-sets is one of the most problematic omissions. For the last bug of 70% of…
stoat | May 18, 2010David Appell has a rather dramatic graph:
It is from Roy Spencer. As DA says: I'm sure those skeptics who pored over every detail of the sea ice this winter will be touting this picture soon :-).
[Update: BCL points me to http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2009/07/pielke-sr-respnds.html which again suggests problems with UAH. Well, we all know we should use RSS anyway. Hopefully they will provide the funky interface
Update: Picture post: 'hottest April ever' says Nurture -W]
stoat | May 8, 2010Sorry about the CAPS, maybe physics folk are all RATHER SHOUTY. Never mind:
Abstract: In this journal, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner claim to have falsified the existence of an atmospheric greenhouse effect. Here, we show that their methods, logic, and conclusions are in error
Halpern et al., International Journal of Modern Physics B, Volume: 24, Issue: 10(2010) pp. 1309-1332 DOI: 10.1142/S021797921005555X. I'm pretty sure that has been blogged elsewhere, but call me Mr Sleepy. Anyway, a useful ref for those interested, and congrats to all involved for their patience with fools.
[…
stoat | April 16, 2010
Yes, I ripped it off Steinn. Nothing to see here, beyond people who shouldn't be here because their flights have been cancelled. Clear sunny skies, nice sunset, no hint of anything in front of the moon.
scientificactivist | April 6, 2010Oh boy, it was a real scorcher in our nation's capital today... at least by April standards! With temperatures in some locales surpassing 90 degrees, several area daily high temperature records were broken.
As I sweated through the day, I got to thinking: where are all of those oh-so-clever political cartoonists and global-warming-denying Republican politicians who just a couple of months ago were incessantly using February's record-breaking snows to "mock" the idea of global warming?
(Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...?)
The fact is that this is largely an irrelevant*** question (well,…
stoat | February 14, 2010As I was about to write up the latest smoggy stuff, I thought I'd better check out Eli in case he had written it up first. And lo, I thought, Condolences referred to the death of Christy's scientific reputation. But no, it is about real death. So I need to press on.
[[John Christy]] has been a bit of a skeptic for ages. Quite where he gets it from is unclear - perhaps because he and Spencer did the first version of the [[satellite temperature record]] and, well, they got it wrong. In that it showed cooling, and so they became the poster boys for the real septics like Singer and Michaels and…
stoat | January 25, 2010Reader enragedparrot asks the rather sensible question, which appears to have been somewhat neglected in the vast war of words of 2035, 2350, and quite what is the source for what: if 2035 is badly wrong, what is the right date?
The answer, of course, is that I don't know. But I may be able to tell you something useful along the way. If you've seen a better answer, please point me at it.
[Dragged from the comments: http://web.hwr.arizona.edu/~gleonard/2009Dec-FallAGU-Soot-PressConference-Backgrounder-Kargel.pdf is excellent -W]
So (forgive me, to clear more wrong stuff out of the way) 2035 is…
stoat | January 22, 2010Isn't this beautiful:
Story behind it from withouthotair.blogspot.com/2010/01/wind-farm-wakes.
stoat | January 21, 2010This is my first contribution for "Ask Stoat", and I'm doing it because it is low hanging fruit :-). I was going to do the even lower-hanging "airbourne fraction" but that will come. This is for Brian.
So, the issue is in the news because of the 2350 / 2035 kerfuffle, and links to Brian's other question, "What do you think of WG II?" I'll answer that one first, because I can think of a cutting answer, which is "I don't". Oh, cruel. But true: when I was in the game, I was interested in WG I stuff, which is to say, the physical basis. Someone has to be interested in impacts and adaption, of…
stoat | January 11, 2010The malign Nature effect, again refers.
In the hotly contested competition to see who are the biggest tossers in the british newspaper industry there has been an early entry this year by the Daily Mail: The mini ice age starts here based mainly on the fact that, oh, it has snowed a bit. And not helped by the UKMO pratting around with seasonal forecasts they know full well are worthless to the general public. Whether or not this makes the Mail more stupid that the Torygraph I leave for you to judge (incidentally, for you Johnny Foreigners lucky enough not to know what the Mail is, its a…
stoat | December 1, 2009 So says the Beeb. And they have a cute picture of whales next to icebergs to prove it. It would be natural to think this was occaisioned by That East Antarctic mass loss, in full (i.e. the new GRACE results) but apparently not, it is just a coincidence: Sea levels are likely to rise by about 1.4m (4ft 6in) globally by 2100 as polar ice melts, according to a major review of climate change in Antarctica. Conducted by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), it says that warming seas are accelerating melting in the west of the continent. . Before I continue onwards let me quote…
stoat | November 27, 2009Ah, a fertile theme for post names. Excellent.
So, much excitement over a new GRACE study in Nurture (Accelerated Antarctic ice loss from satellite gravity measurements, J. L. Chen et al.) indicating that Antarctica as a whole was losing mass: In agreement with an independent earlier assessment, we estimate a total loss of 190plusminus77 Gt yr-1, with 132plusminus26 Gt yr-1 coming from West Antarctica. However, in contrast with previous GRACE estimates, our data suggest that East Antarctica is losing mass, mostly in coastal regions, at a rate of -57plusminus52 Gt yr-1, apparently caused by…
stoat | November 16, 2009 Shamelss fanboy stuff I'm afraid.
The great Klotzbach wars have been playing for a little while now ([1], [2], [3], [4] etc etc), but the arbitrator has spoken and its time for the Dark Side to stop digging and throw in the towel.
Now you can settle down to enjoy a nice video and wonder what the moral might be.
Meanwhile, for a little light geek relief, try this.
stoat | November 10, 2009Says the Grauniad. Their not-very-useful article is about a Discussion Paper (as it calls itself) of Himalayan Glaciers, A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change by V.K.Raina, Ex. Deputy Director General, Geological Survey of India.
The Telegraph of India has an opinion. No idea if it is at all representative. Maribo has a lot of sense about the report; go read that and come back here if you need any more.
Back? OK then.
0) For the science, they say (I presume correctly) All the glaciers under observation, during the last three decades of 20th century have…
stoat | November 4, 2009Tiljander and od^4 refer.
Over the past few days, it has become clear to me that the entire issue of "flipping" or "upside-down-ness" of the Tiljander proxy is a red-herring.
Here's why:
Imagine a climate proxy, accurate over the last 2kyr, that shows (for example, let us suppose) a warm period around 1000 AD and which, undisturbed, would show the recent warming. Further suppose for definiteness that this proxy is of such a nature that increases in the proxy value represent increases in temperature. Imagine this proxy is contaminated with non-climatic signal over the last 200 years, enough…
stoat | October 29, 2009It seems like everyone wants to talk about Tiljander. I don't, particularly, but you gotta give the customers what they want, so here is a thread to discuss it if you like. The comment policy still applies, but I'll be laxer. Comments incorrectly paraphrasing others will be harshly dealt with. Vague rantings unsupported by clear evidence or links, ditto. Repeating what everyone else has already said, ditto (this isn't a vote).
Some useful links you may want:
Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia (Mea; includes…