Climate scientists keep getting it wrong

[Jackputaop]

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[waldo]

Remember all those extreme Hurricanes we are going to have?

http://policlimate.com/tropical/global_major_freq.png

no - you are confusing (purposely?) frequency with intensity. Continued uncertainty exists as to whether global warming is increasing hurricane frequency; however, there most certainly is increasing evidence that global warming is increasing hurricane intensity. In past MLW threads, I've detailed several studies that speak to the increased intensity of hurricanes relative to increased global warming... if you persist, I will dig them up and cite even more current like studies. Or, you can just stew over this IPCC AR4 summary position statement that says, "Tropical storm and hurricane frequencies vary considerably from year to year, but evidence suggests substantial increases in intensity and duration since the 1970s"... of course, that evidence is given in detail, fully cited, within the respective/related IPCC reports.

How about all the severe Tornadoes we should be having? Even with better than ever detection...

http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ef3-ef5-t.png

no - there is no formal position that speaks to expected/predicted increases in the severity of tornadoes relative to increased global warming. Again, from the IPCC AR4, a summary position statement: "Observational evidence for changes in small-scale severe weather phenomena (such as tornadoes, hail and thunderstorms) is mostly local and too scattered to draw general conclusions; increases in many areas arise because of increased public awareness and improved efforts to collect reports of these phenomena."

Could you imagine if the sun (the sun, impossible) had an impact on our climate? Strange but..

http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2012/09/06/radiation_s640x466.jpg?4180073ee5adc95ed997f421cfad488a40196023

well... you are a most timely denier, if nothing else. That lil' ditty you pump is just days old... but, of course, you must know this, to have referenced it. The article associated with your linked graphic appears within the "Washington Times"... a rag founded by Moonies... the authors of your associated article are notorious deniers, Willie Soon and William Briggs - both lacking any scientific credibility. You will note, your linked graphic/article does not associate with a formal study/paper; rather, this is from nothing more than a denier opinion article published in the BS rag, Washington Times. Most significantly, the two deniers who created/wrote your linked graphic/article improperly used and misinterpreted the data they attribute, by source, to the University of California - Berkely, "Earth Surface Temperature Project"; i.e, BEST. Let me cite this summary statement from the lead author of BEST, Richard Muller:

Just as important, our record is long enough that we could search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the historical record of sunspots. That fingerprint is absent. Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that variations in sunlight could have ended the “Little Ice Age,” a period of cooling from the 14th century to about 1850,

our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of the past 250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes

. This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we’ve learned from satellite measurements that solar activity changes the brightness of the sun very little.

... so, isn't it special that your referenced deniers chose to use the BEST data, arriving at a completely different result from the one the BEST lead author states he/his team arrived at - go figure! And, again, your denier referenced article is not a published study/paper... it is nothing more than a piece of denier crapola published in a POS rag newspaper.

now, gunrutz, many of the MLW usual denier suspects have tried your same schlock game, many times over... repeatedly trying to flog, "it's the Sun". Of course, I usually trot out something like the following... feel free to challenge it, hey?

… the scientists at the World Radiation Center, the guys who have been constructing a satellite based, ‘Composite Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) Time Series from 1978 to present, somehow… those guys have been unable to show the presence of any increased solar irradiance during the same periods significant earth’s temperature increases. All they show, is a repeat of similar standard 11 year solar cycle patterns, absent any increases in solar irradiance, absent any increased trend in solar irradiance to match that of earth’s temperature trend increase. Results graph showing no increase in solar irradiance –

here

:

... what about those scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Solar System Research… somehow… those guys have also been unable to show any increase in solar irradiance to account and associate with the recent earth’s warming. Results graph showing no increase in solar irradiance… showing no correlation between solar irradiance and earth’s recent increased warming –

here

Btw, some of the arctic sea ice sensing data is showing the decrease leveling out and maybe starting to increase which if true is actually early.

as if it wasn't clear earlier, you're obviously a devotee of the fake charlatan TV weatherman's WTFIUWT site! Even if your (rather, Watts' claims/emphasis were true)... so what!... is this really how you guys completely ignore 2012 as the all time record Arctic Sea Ice melt? In any case, the Arctic Ice 'Melt Season' length, in itself, is a measured trend... a trend that shows that over the last 30 years, there has been a 20-day Arctic-wide increase in the length of the Arctic Sea Ice melt season. Focusing in on a single years melt season length is simply a denier cherry-picking tactic.

Of course in the Antarctic there is more ice than normal, no doubt you fine people already knew that.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png

but I guess what you didn't know, is that it's the Antarctic Ice Sheet melt... not the Antarctic Sea Ice conditions, that is significant... and the Antarctic Ice Sheets are melting, increasingly. I guess what you didn't know is that the Antarctic Sea Ice regularly melts, every year, almost completely (summer to winter). But yes, there is an increase in the winter-time Antarctic Sea Ice, a small rate increase, one with substantial natural year-to-year variability. More pointedly, per the NSIDC (National Snow Ice Data Center), "the increase is attributed to a changing climate pattern, one associated with a gradual increase in the westerly circumpolar winds; a condition associated with the loss of ozone and increases in greenhouse gases."

really gunrutz... you should stick to pumping your gun frenzy in gun related threads... at least there you rarely need to deal with inconvenient things... like facts, hey?

[waldo]

But as I said, you sometimes disagree with yourself on this point.

yes, absolutely - MLW member, 'TimG', is a walking contradiction... but his past MLW posts can always be used to flush em out! When he does slip into his concern troll mode, when he (finally) acknowledges an anthropogenic association to global warming, he'll couch that in his favoured unsubstantiated "low climate sensitivity" BS... or... he'll revert to his simplistic, "no biggee/no problem - Adapt-R-Us... only" solution argument! Of course, there also is the other TimG; the guy who gets his back up when cornered and begins to thrash about claiming anthropogenic sourced CO2 is not the principal contributor/causal tie to global warming - yet, to this day, he won't/can't offer up just was is the "other alternate" principal contributor, other than CO2... we're still all waiting for that TimG revelation.

[waldo]

Of course they should! I mean they cause what is it now? 2% of the GHG emissions? If they took measures now, they may have reduced that to 1.9%!! Think of all the lives that could be saved from extreme weather if the people of the west voted to contribute 0.1% less to global GHG emissions!!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fly around Europe and absorb the culture with all these sick days that I've banked!! I hope my tickets aren't too expensive given the rising cost of oil! Woo socialism!! Obama!! Change!!!

huh!... the west at 2% of emissions??? Just what is your definition of, 'the west'? Considering the U.S. percentage of emissions is ~20%... with the EU27 at ~15% of emissions... notwithstanding all the western emissions effectively outsourced to China/India.

[waldo]

And why is it that "the West" must take responsibility for all the "poorest of our brothers"? It is precisely that kind of language and mindset that most repels a significant portion of our society from believing in or caring about global warming. It is this mindset that makes people like TimG believe that climate change is nothing but a way for leftists to redistribute wealth from the rich nations to the poor ones. By injecting socialist dogma into what should be a scientific and technical matter, you make it political, and thus a subject to the gridlock and inaction that is characteristic of our political systems.

considering it's the west that initially contributed the most, the significant most, to the bulk of cumulative emissions... considering it's the west that has, and continues to, effectively, outsource large numbers of emissions to 'developing countries' (China, India, etc.), there is a legitimate argument to be made that the west does bear a degree of responsibility. One could either accept the need for countries to rationalize that degree of responsibility in terms of the size of contributions to the 'climate funds' created as a part of climate talks... or one could beak off about, 'socialist dogma and wealth distribution'... like you just did, hey?

[waldo]

I believe such things as environmental disasters have occurred (oil spills and other nuclear disasters).

But not global warming

then you sir, are on the fringe of the fringe. No self-respecting denier, or fake skeptic, actually doubts global warming... I mean, it's an indisputable fact. You can say you don't agree with how the warming has occurred - you could do that! But to suggest there is, there has been no recent (relative timed) global warming... that's looney-tunes!

[waldo]

You also need to recognize that there are a lot of scientists who would be out of work if they can't find funding. This gives them a huge incentive to exaggerate and/or misrepresent the magnitude of the of whatever effect they think might exists. The need to find funding biases research more than any other factor out there.

ah yes, one of the many TimG go-to's... "job protection"! Here, since you appear to be on a roll, let me bring fair notice to this thread and offer full recognition to the suite of your many, many go-to's... a ready reference list, if I might:

... As has been repeatedly highlighted, your MLW posts, your stated positions are founded on, "themes of conspiracy, group think, ideological bias, confirmation bias, job protection, fraud, data manipulation, peer-review corruption, selling disaster porn, rent seeking, etc., etc., etc.".

[waldo]

Then why is there no ideas or proposals to encourage plankton (the Earths greatest consumer of CO2) growth?

In fact the best way to eliminate CO2 has always been to encourage the growth of CO2 consumers.

When obvious solutions are avoided then somethings up.

another silver-bullet geo-engineering solution... that has been/continues to be... "researched". Research that must deal with simple trials and commercial scale replication; notwithstanding, the impacts to oceans from iron seeding, the impacts to aquatic/marine life associated with lost oxygen related to decomposing plankton, impacts related to the ocean levels where plankton settles out (in terms of decomposition versus consumption versus the retention of CO2 near the ocean surface), impacts related to toxic plankton blooms, etc. Of course, the other side of increased CO2 absorption by the oceans as a part of the normal carbon cycle, relates directly to ocean acidification... and it's subsequent negative impacts on plankton growth itself. Do you see a self-defeating cyclic problem here? Gee, I wonder if there's a simpler solution... something about mankind working to reduce, to significantly reduce, CO2 emissions associated with the burning of fossil-fuels - what a concept!

[TheNewTeddy]

This is a waste of time. We argue about what's causing extreme weather without planning for it.

It's like arguing whether it's raining because of the nearby factories or not, all the while standing out in the rain getting wet.

[bleeding heart]

no - you are confusing (purposely?) frequency with intensity. Continued uncertainty exists as to whether global warming is increasing hurricane frequency; however, there most certainly is increasing evidence that global warming is increasing hurricane intensity. In past MLW threads, I've detailed several studies that speak to the increased intensity of hurricanes relative to increased global warming... if you persist, I will dig them up and cite even more current like studies. Or, you can just stew over this IPCC AR4 summary position statement that says, "Tropical storm and hurricane frequencies vary considerably from year to year, but evidence suggests substantial increases in intensity and duration since the 1970s"... of course, that evidence is given in detail, fully cited, within the respective/related IPCC reports.

no - there is no formal position that speaks to expected/predicted increases in the severity of tornadoes relative to increased global warming. Again, from the IPCC AR4, a summary position statement: "Observational evidence for changes in small-scale severe weather phenomena (such as tornadoes, hail and thunderstorms) is mostly local and too scattered to draw general conclusions; increases in many areas arise because of increased public awareness and improved efforts to collect reports of these phenomena."

well... you are a most timely denier, if nothing else. That lil' ditty you pump is just days old... but, of course, you must know this, to have referenced it. The article associated with your linked graphic appears within the "Washington Times"... a rag founded by Moonies... the authors of your associated article are notorious deniers, Willie Soon and William Briggs - both lacking any scientific credibility. You will note, your linked graphic/article does not associate with a formal study/paper; rather, this is from nothing more than a denier opinion article published in the BS rag, Washington Times. Most significantly, the two deniers who created/wrote your linked graphic/article improperly used and misinterpreted the data they attribute, by source, to the University of California - Berkely, "Earth Surface Temperature Project"; i.e, BEST. Let me cite this summary statement from the lead author of BEST, Richard Muller:

... so, isn't it special that your referenced deniers chose to use the BEST data, arriving at a completely different result from the one the BEST lead author states he/his team arrived at - go figure! And, again, your denier referenced article is not a published study/paper... it is nothing more than a piece of denier crapola published in a POS rag newspaper.

now, gunrutz, many of the MLW usual denier suspects have tried your same schlock game, many times over... repeatedly trying to flog, "it's the Sun". Of course, I usually trot out something like the following... feel free to challenge it, hey?

as if it wasn't clear earlier, you're obviously a devotee of the fake charlatan TV weatherman's WTFIUWT site! Even if your (rather, Watts' claims/emphasis were true)... so what!... is this really how you guys completely ignore 2012 as the all time record Arctic Sea Ice melt? In any case, the Arctic Ice 'Melt Season' length, in itself, is a measured trend... a trend that shows that over the last 30 years, there has been a 20-day Arctic-wide increase in the length of the Arctic Sea Ice melt season. Focusing in on a single years melt season length is simply a denier cherry-picking tactic.

but I guess what you didn't know, is that it's the Antarctic Ice Sheet melt... not the Antarctic Sea Ice conditions, that is significant... and the Antarctic Ice Sheets are melting, increasingly. I guess what you didn't know is that the Antarctic Sea Ice regularly melts, every year, almost completely (summer to winter). But yes, there is an increase in the winter-time Antarctic Sea Ice, a small rate increase, one with substantial natural year-to-year variability. More pointedly, per the NSIDC (National Snow Ice Data Center), "the increase is attributed to a changing climate pattern, one associated with a gradual increase in the westerly circumpolar winds; a condition associated with the loss of ozone and increases in greenhouse gases."

really gunrutz... you should stick to pumping your gun frenzy in gun related threads... at least there you rarely need to deal with inconvenient things... like facts, hey?

A truly excellent rebuttal. Well done!

[Wild Bill]

Would someone please move this thread to its proper forum?

That way those of us interested in Federal politics can not be bothered by yet another nit-picking, anal retentive climate change argument.

[PIK]

We produce 2.2% of all green house gases, but yet some canadians act as we are killing the earth all by ourselves. And to bring that down to 1%, would destroy this country, while china and india and others are pumping it out and are not slowing down, but yet it is all harpers fault. This is getting pathetic.

[waldo]

I don't blame our leaders. We elect them and they are accountable to us, and it's up to us to tell them if changes are necessary.

Are we fiddling while our planet burns?

Do we care?

This is a waste of time. We argue about what's causing extreme weather without planning for it.

It's like arguing whether it's raining because of the nearby factories or not, all the while standing out in the rain getting wet.

Would someone please move this thread to its proper forum?

That way those of us interested in Federal politics can not be bothered by yet another nit-picking, anal retentive climate change argument.

well Wild Bill... you could bring the thread back on track and align it with the OP... you could do that - or you could bitch about something that's a most inconvenient truth for partisan Harper supporters, like yourself. Of course, if you look back from the OP post, you'll quickly gain an appreciation of MLW member, 'TimG', weaving his special kind of magic... away from the OP focus/intent. But, as always, the waldo is here to help... to reinforce just what Harper Conservatives are doing/not doing, while falsely taking credit for Conservative policies that they claim are working to reduce CO2 emissions.

it was just a short while back that Harper Conservative Environment Minister Peter Kent released their updated Canada’s Emissions Trends Report... with a heavily emphasized (and false) claim taking credit for the fact that Canada is halfway toward reaching its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Wow - good job!

notwithstanding that lil' recession thingee where emissions associated with most of the developed global community being reduced, there is Harper Conservative trickery... and then there is reality:

Sept 2012 - Canada 'playing with numbers' on carbon target claims - Harper Conservatives accused of using accounting tricks to take credit for emission declines

Canada's claims of progress on meeting its carbon targets do not add up, according to an

independent analysis

published on Wednesday.

In August, the government said it was halfway to its 2020 emissions goal of a 17% cut on 2005 levels, but the analysis – the first to date – says Canada's cuts amount to one-third at best.

"They're [Canada] just playing with numbers to pretend they've actually done something to reduce their emissions," said Marion Vieweg, a policy analyst working with the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), an independent science-based assessment that tracks the emission commitments and actions of countries.

The Canadian government is taking credit for the emissions declines caused by the 2009 recession and the energy trend away from coal to gas, Vieweg told the Guardian from Bangkok at the close of the latest UN climate summit.

"There is no information in their reports about their policies that are actually driving emission reductions."

"The [stephen] Harper government has been working hard to reduce emissions," said the environment minister, Peter Kent, last month, announcing the government's statistics. Only a year ago the Harper government said it was 25% cent of the way to its 2020 target.

A big part of the difference is a change in the UN rules this year that allows Canada to claim emissions credits for its vast forests because they absorb CO2. But on the other side of the ledger, Canada is one of biggest logging nations and its forests have experienced massive fires and insect outbreaks that have killed hundreds of millions of trees in recent years. Those emissions are missing in Canada's new numbers and the Harper government assumes there will be few fires or insect problems over the next eight years to 2020, says Vieweg.

Meanwhile emissions from Canada's huge tar sands operations will represent 51% of the entire oil/gas sector in 2012, an increase from a share of only 20% in 2005.

Canada has been using current data and measuring it against old projections. And it has begun using a methodology previously only used by developing countries, the CAT report found.

"Canada is using accounting tricks to make it look like they are taking action when it's not," she said.

[TimG]

A truly excellent rebuttal. Well done!

Actually, it completely misrepresents the issues (normal for waldo). Here is a good summary of the range of views on extreme weather: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/forum_is_extreme_weather_linked_to_global_warming/2411/

The consensus is: we have no evidence that AGW is causing changes to extreme weather. Some people think that AGW will theoretically lead to more events but these are hypotheses without supporting evidence.

As far as the ice extent goes: we have no data and no proxies to tell us what the ice was doing more than 40 years ago. Claims of "record melts" must be taken with a grain of salt since a record over 40 years is meaningless when it comes to climate. There is some evidence that the ice is returning to levels from 3000-5000 years ago so we are well within normal variations for climate.

Edited September 10, 2012 by TimG

[cybercoma]

I love how TimG can never actually dispute any of the arguments waldo makes, instead coming back with claims of "misrepresentation."

[Wild Bill]

I love how TimG can never actually dispute any of the arguments waldo makes, instead coming back with claims of "misrepresentation."

I dunno, CC. If he is right when he says that we only have records for the past 40 years, surely that is a good point!

To Mother Nature, that is a millionth of a blink of an eye!

I find the apparent contradiction of some sources rather strange. We have a warming Arctic that is showing formerly frozen evidence from warmer times. What made those older times warmer? The implication today is that only changes caused by Man's industrialization are to blame for changes in climate. Somehow, I doubt if Monsanto can be blamed for what happened to the mastodons.

The picture seems confusing to me, because some always want to keep dragging everything back to Man being the prime mover of evil effects on the planet. This distorts the argument, like some religious whacko who drags in the idea of an Intelligent Designer to explain the evidence of evolution.

The arguments of many about climate change strike me as being very fundamentalist, at times.

[TimG]

I love how TimG can never actually dispute any of the arguments waldo makes, instead coming back with claims of "misrepresentation."

Read the link I provided. I don't waste my time responding to waldo because he has proven himself to be a dishonest debater that does not actually understand the skeptical arguments. All he does is paste boilerplate be steals from other sources. If he is given a rebuttal that he cannot respond to because it exceeds his understanding he will simply repeat random boilerplate ad infinitum. Edited September 10, 2012 by TimG

[bleeding heart]

The arguments of many about climate change strike me as being very fundamentalist, at times.

Please. They can't begin to match the sheer, childish lunacy of the denier camp.

[Wild Bill]

Please. They can't begin to match the sheer, childish lunacy of the denier camp.

That is your opinion. You are implying it is fact. If that is not a religious type of argument tactic then what is?

Apparently, deniers are heretics.

Edited September 10, 2012 by Wild Bill

[PIK]

The arab spring was because of climate change.

Edited September 10, 2012 by PIK

[waldo]

The arab spring was because of climate change.

piss off if you haven't anything to offer other than your tried and true troll input

[waldo]

Actually, it completely misrepresents the issues (normal for waldo). Here is a good summary of the range of views on extreme weather: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/forum_is_extreme_weather_linked_to_global_warming/2411/

The consensus is: we have no evidence that AGW is causing changes to extreme weather. Some people think that AGW will theoretically lead to more events but these are hypotheses without supporting evidence.

notwithstanding there was much more than an extreme weather focus in the waldo's excellent rebuttal to MLW member, 'gunrutz's' nonsense, did you actually read your linked content? Within your linked article, even if you discount the ramblings from the 'crazy old lady Curry' or the 'disingenuous fake skeptic, political scientist, Pielke Jr.', there are 4 other reputable working scientists who speak to increases in extreme weather associated with global warming... and you have the nerve to beak-off about "consensus". Did you not like my IPCC AR4 summary statements? Did you not like my earlier challenge to you concerning the just released, "IPCC - SREX --- Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation"?

quit your blustering... you have no/zero credibility - you're nothing but a fake skeptic poser... and a lousy hyper-contradicting one, at that!

As far as the ice extent goes: we have no data and no proxies to tell us what the ice was doing more than 40 years ago. Claims of "record melts" must be taken with a grain of salt since a record over 40 years is meaningless when it comes to climate. There is some evidence that the ice is returning to levels from 3000-5000 years ago so we are well within normal variations for climate.

wtf! "Normal variations" --- put up your evidence that speaks to "normal variations"! And what's this... no proxies??? Wadda bout these guys using a combination of Arctic ice core, tree ring, and lake sediment data to reconstruct past Arctic conditions? => Kinnard et al, 2011, Nature: --- Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years ... graphic image:

or... these guys: Walsh & Chapman, 2001, Annals of Glaciology ... graphic image:

[TimG]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110804141706.htm

Sea ice comes and goes without leaving a record. For this reason, our knowledge about its variations and extent was limited before we had satellite surveillance or observations from airplanes and ships. But now researchers at the Danish National Research Foundation for Geogenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark (University of Copenhagen) have developed a method by which it is possible to measure the variations in the ice several millennia back in time.

...

Our studies show that there have been large fluctuations in the amount of summer sea ice during the last 10,000 years. During the so-called Holocene Climate Optimum, from approximately 8000 to 5000 years ago, when the temperatures were somewhat warmer than today, there was significantly less sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, probably less than 50% of the summer 2007 coverage, which was absolutely lowest on record.

http://www.climate-cryosphere.org/videos/2012-ISMASS-Mass-Balance-of-the-Antarctic-Ice-Sheet-1992-2008.html

Jay Zwally, NASA Goddard, USA: Mass Balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet 1992-2008 from ERS and ICE Sat: Gains exceed losses

Edited September 10, 2012 by TimG

[bleeding heart]

That is your opinion. You are implying it is fact.

Ah...so you no longer hold to all your "facts" (not speculations, but declarative sentences) about climate scientists?

If that is not a religious type of argument tactic then what is?

Look at the rather oversized, industry-proselytized mote in thine own eye, first.

Apparently, deniers are heretics.

No, not heretics. That suggests a certain amount of rebellious legitimacy. They're clowns.

Edited September 10, 2012 by bleeding heart

[cybercoma]

That is your opinion. You are implying it is fact. If that is not a religious type of argument tactic then what is?

Apparently, deniers are heretics.

The two positions are not even remotely equal. All of the bluster of TimG is nothing more than an attempt to create a false equivalence.