trevw

popped to waitrose to pick up some extra supplies - that's about it :-) now just got to wait.. Is it me or is the precipitation on the radar not really building up as much as was expected?

Netweather Forecast from the 6z is still suggesting sleet for the first batch south of and including winchester from what I can see.. hopefully it will tip back the right side of marginal.. although interestingly the netweather precipitation chart for the 6z GFS seems to show snow :-)

looks like more snow potential for the south from the northerly compared to the 6z, how does it compare to the runs we were having before? (didnt't get a chance to look at the model output from any of the previous obviously good runs)

Perhaps we need to be careful not to be too fixed on a single sequence of feedbacks and have more of a branching tree? I would argue that some of the warmer moister air might rise, but as the effect is small this would probably be overridden by local conditions and the warmth might be transferred to land/oceans/ice or just cause lower atmosphere air in general to be fractionally warmer? on my understanding is co2 gets excited to a higher energy state by absorbing a photon of incoming short wavelength em radiation (UV?) it then drops to a lower energy state emitting a photon of longer wavelength em radiation (IR?) which is more redily absorbed by other elements of the atmosphere so tends to increase the total energy contained within the atmosphere (including oceans) by delaying the emission of said energy to space and while doing so also absorbs incoming solar radiation as above resulting in a positive feedback in some areas causing more moist air near the surface which absorbs incoming solar radiation resulting in a positive feedback?

I believe they deliberately change the context of one of their first quotes (by Dr. Joanne Simpson), they show: in context with the last section of the above 'snipped' quote she said: The first implies disbelief, the second is a sensible position and one that I think is hard to argue with They also attribute the quote to Dr. Kiminori Itoh when I think this was said by Dr. Akasofu? While they have similar views and one quotes the other it points to a lack of rigor..then it bounds on to the warming stopped in 1999 thing, which is a little thin. Seems to be a bit of a rant really (something that both sides of the argument are guilty of at times), best to treat articles written in that tone with extreme skeptisism I feel. Trev

even the members of the political parties don't agree with all the policies of their party, think its safe to say the same is true of a majority of voters :-) is there really a party that you believe whoose stated position on every topic mirrors your own?? Edit: Is this on topic? It seems a natural evolution of the discussion, was he right or wrong to do as he did is a political question and very much I would say to do with the way our democratic system should/does work?

I guess the same will happen with AGW once we run out of fossil fuel to burn and natural CO2 sequestration processes start to reduce the amount in the atmosphere? (is it still sequestration when it's natural by the way, or does that imply intent?) although there'll presumeably be quite a delay before the resources are replaced so the same thing could happen again.. surely though over a geological timescale global warming is 'almost irrelevent' - assuming there is some kind of geologist to look after the next ice age and beyond then it will just be some odd climate behaviour during a few thousand years while one previous civilization/species stripped the planet of some stored energy and resources, and maybe caused themselves and the flora/fauna of the time some serious issues in the process?

not sure the C of E take any line other than that the old testament is metaphorical? I would defend the rights of anyone to believe most things I can think of (perhaps not to act on those beliefs in all cases) But if they exercise that 'right' in a manner which casts doubt on their ability to reason clearly then I see no problem with the opinions of such people being weighted accordingly. The whole creationist thing is an aside anyway. My main point was that the idea of government being 'the dog' and scientists being 'the tail' is a distinctly 'George Bush' like view of how science should inform public policy - i.e. tell us what we tell you we want to hear.. I would rather a government that accepts that their knowledge in an area of scientific interest is likely far less and more biased than their scientific advisors. I certainly don't want MPs determining policy on the basis of a Google 'I feel lucky' search or similar on the subject.. (edit) hence I would say he is wrong as he is going against the scientific advice the government are receiving..

nope, just that those with such extreme religious views may not be taken seriously - at least initially.. I guess if someone with such a view were to demonstrate a track record of clear scientific thought processes then you might be able to ignore it as an eccentricity? Much like if someone were convinced they were napolean or some such.

really? the 'tail'? the politicians says wag and the scientists say which way? Sounds like a bad idea to me.. would have thought a model where the elected representatives are the frontal lobes of the dogs brain while the scientists are the information centres of the brain would be a better bet..? on creationism - obviously everyone has the right to believe what they choose, but if someone chooses to believe in the creation myth then they've surely got to expect a slightly dubious reaction to any scientific assesments they make on other subjects?

I just said evidence for 'a level' of forcing is incontrovertible, not its magnitude, distribution or effects! that for me is where it gets interesting..

as it stands I would say that statement is blatently untrue, the evidence for a level of warming forcing from mans contribution is based on simple physical processes and is incontrovertible.. the evidence for the level of agw predicted by the IPCC and others is less definite and is (as you say) largely based on climate models (these are not circumstantial but could still have significant flaws) and coroborating circumstantial evidence.. I sort of see the second as trying to pin down the likely extent of the affects of the first, I lean towards believing the current estimates but understand those who feel they are overblown ( and to an extent those who feel that negative feedbacks will counter the warming over some timescale).. I don't understand those who deny the underlying mechansim and at least the potential for the effects to be serious and hence the need to continue to investigate

I'm afraid I don't.. :o I came across this after reading your question (http://www.ecofuture.org/pop/rpts/mccluney_maxpop.html) no idea on the qualifications of the people who wrote this (am just leaving work so can't read in too much detail) - but near the end there is a table relating the max population to living standards and it ranges from 2 billion people living sustainably living like the americans currently do to 40 billion with the standard of living of people currently in northwest africa.. so I guess there are a few more variables to be considered.. In the article they take into account soil erosion etc. from the looks of things, I guess there might be other factors they have not thought of..?

I would have said you could but there is a point at which the former would constrain or reverse the latter.. One only rules out the other if you are starting from a point at which the world is already supporting the maximum number of people.

what's falling out of the precipitation showing on the radar just north of london.. anyone know if we expect it to strenghten or die out?

I'd be interested to see an example from one of Hansen/Manns papers that demonstrate a complete lack of understand of natural forcings.. I suspect it might be easier to find errors/misdirection on the watts up with that blog myself?

On the religion question I'm afraid I come from the school of thought that groups gods with fairies, ghost and other myths.. Invented either to entertain or to explain things that a culture at a certain level of development finds hard to explain.. Every deity I have heard of seems so obviously created by the culture that invented it that I find it hard to understand why anyone would believe in (what seems to me) such an obvious fiction.. Also, I'm no expert on the history of war and terrorism etc. but throughout history has not religion caused more death and misery and been the excuse for more human injustice than any other cultural construct? (admittedly it has created some beautiful and lasting buildings on the bones of the poor who starved to pay the taxes required to build them) Obviously a lot of good is also done in the name of religion and it has inspired the work of numerous artists, but I would be interested in some kind of quantitative comparison (if such a thing were possible to do I imagine this would be the kind of paper that might get you lynched if it came out pointing the wrong way.. B) ) I guess this is all going 'a touch off topic' but interestingly (to me) I found the delivery of John Coleman's statements on the video somewhat reminiscent of a kind of religious sermon, lots of statements informed purely by belief but little in the way of substance or evidence, just reassuring statements that everything will be fine. Trev

So Essan, is that Global temps can fall with AGW? So more CO2 can lead to cooling? BFTP isn't the point just that if you have a temperature graph zigzagging and wavering up and down all over the place then adding a steady warming will not stop it doing this.. Your zigs will just get slowly higher over time while on average your zags no longer go as low - So as we enter a period when the natural forcings combine in such a way as to cool the climate (such as now) you would expect to see the temp dropping, just not as much as it would have without the slow but steady background warming..? I can imagine that this is a frustratingly hard hypothesis to disprove if you believe the proportion of warming caused by us is low but resorting to the suggestion that a few years of platea/slight cooling trend does the job is scraping the barrel a bit if you ask me. Also the absolute certainty that is used when making the statements reminds me somewhat of pressure sales techniques I've been at the wrong end of (this is a comment on the tone of various blogs I've read rather than anyone on here particularly) On a related note I'd not thought about this before but I read something recently about the fact that while El Ninos increase the recorded temps they actually cause significant reduction in the overall 'heat content' of the 'biosphere' (not sure if that's the right word for atmosphere including seas but can't think of anything else). This is because the warm patch of ocean emits much more heat into space. La Nina would obviously have the opposite effect, depressing measured temps while causing less emission into space and effectively storing up heat. Given this I would imagine a strong El Nino (losing heat) followed by a weak La Nina (depressing temps but not gaining as much heat as lost) then neutral conditions would result in a period of reduced temps as well. I've not heard anyone else saying this it just seemed to follow logically..? Trev

I was under the impression the stratospheric cooling was due at least in part to reduced long wave radiation reaching it from the surface due to increased CO2? No argument there, I only meant that with water vapour level changes due to human activities other than emitting GGs If we rectify those changes (where possible) the correction to the water vapour level is very quick as opposed to with CO2 where the elevated CO2 level lasts circa 100 years (unless CO2 is scrubbed from the atmosphere and sequestered)

I have never seen anything in print or elsewhere that suggests that water vapour is not a more effective GG than CO2, the proposition as I understand it has always been that by changing the level of CO2 and other GGs we are adding a climate forcing of n W/m2 this in turn will result in numerous feedbacks one of which is increased amounts of water vapour which will also cause a warming - a new equilibrium would then be reached at a temp greater than that which would be caused by the increase in CO2 equivalent alone.. To suggest that the 'CO2 school' now admit water vapour is a more effective GG is to suggest that at one point they didn't and that they have now come around to your way of thinking which isn't really the case as I understand it. Water vapour level changes that are directly caused by us would of course be another forcing on the climate, I guess one difference being that CO2 increases linger for around a 100 of years (I think) while water vapour emissions would persist for a much lesser time.

also, has anyone noticed that the main chart on cryosphere is lagging behind the actual date all of a sudden? It seemed to get stuck at the start of september for a time and never caught back up.. It also appears that all the sub-area graphs are ahead of the main graph by a few pixels with pretty much all of them showing a downwards movement.. I wonder if they are doing as much verification as they can before calling it? Perhaps area wise we have allready passed last years min? Trev

the link to the peer reviewed papers doesn't find any documents.. could be a glitch on the site, will try again another day. The other link that seems relevant to the quote I have scan read and it eems very interesting but I need to read it in more depth (lots of references) but while relevant to the article it still doesn't change the fact that the quote talks of ocean currents contributing to the melt but D'Aleo describes the quote as agreeing that the melt is all down to natural cycles. This puts me sort of 'on guard' while reading his article. Cherry picking something from the linked article it seems to put great weight on the fact that the temps in south west greenland closely track the AMO - which it mentions in brackets is a measure of Atlantic temps 0-70degN - since southwest greenland lies in the atlantic between 60-70degN isn't that a given? Since the AMO is just a measurement of the affects of a cycle then what would be interesting to me is whether there is a trend up or down in the peak and trough temps of the AMO rather than stating the obvious (well, seems obvious to me but that might be lack of understanding ) that natural cycles also affect temperatures? Trev That's not a forecast, it's the 'median' curve from 1971-2000.. interesting to see in their year on year comparisons that they show a reduction again in old ice from last year.. Is there a site that has similar stats for the whole arctic?

my main issue with that document is the bit where they say about the nsidc saying previously that natural warming cycles were responsible for the melt, then adding a quote which says nothing of the sort.. merely that changes in ocean circulation are making a contribution ( changes possibly due to AGW for all the quoted information says ) It is the writer of the article who is imposing his own assumptions and making 2+2 = 5. Now, I'm not saying that the ocean circulation changes definitely aren't natural but it is not convincing when quotes are wilfully misrepresented in that manner and tends to make me discount what that person has to say On the record high snow and ice cover, obviously we all know that the ice was unusually thin, also the amount was roughly the same as 1984 from what I can find.. another la nina year I believe? I'm fairly sure also that I read somewhere that open water going into autumn/winter at the poles could lead to more snow. Not sure that it proves anything as a single standalone year. Will be interesting to see if we get the same late,rapid,widespread refreeze this year and whether we get high snow levels again? All in all the article strikes up a tone of 'AGW is dead long live natural cycles' without even attempting to convince anyone who doesn't already heartily agree.

Perhaps there was a large area of ice at just greater than 15% concentration that is now starting to dip lower than 15%? - this would present itself as a sharp acceleration in melting while in reality the melting could actuall be slowing drastically (not saying this is happening, just that it is possible) - as long as it is still going on and there is a large enough area that only needs a little more melt to get it under the threshold..

From what I've observed CT seems to lead the NSIDC data.. I would have said we have passed the crossover point where the NSIDC extent data continues to fall whereas the CT area graph starts to level off. I thought perhaps this might be because NSIDCs extent is only really interested in the ice edge whereas the the CT data is area and as the higher lattitude 'holes' in the pack start to freeze back up this starts to balance the melting at the fringes. Or maybe I've got this confused and it is because of the threshold concentrations they use? Whichever, the lag can be seen by the fact that last years CT graph levelled out mid august but the NSIDC graph was still on a slowing decline for a further month. That said, if the nsidc graph 'tip' isn't straightened out by some revisiting of the data in the next day or so which seems unlikely as they've just posted an update then the extent is retracting at quite a rate now, and CTs area still dropping towards last years minimum as well.. (albeit slowly) cheers Trev