Admiral_Bobski

Although not AGW related, here's another article from the same source as the last. CB

Article on rock depletion here CB

Once again we discover that something is "wrong" and assume it must be our fault. Lucky we can determine a statistically significant trend over 25 years, isn't it? ...er....

You are, in fact, the first person that came to mind that prompted me to add the "notable exceptions" parenthesis! I think you have shown that, especially over the past year, you have listened and altered your view when required. Closed-mindedness drives me absolutely mad. CB

So? What difference does it make if the exceptional circumstances are different? They're still exceptional. You just can't accept it unless it's all our fault, can you GW? CB

The thing is, GW, you don't "know" at all. I have shown you exactly where, how and why the way you have "understood things" is wrong and yet you persist in this false understanding. This is why I don't post in here all that often any more - nobody listens (with a few notable exceptions, of course). An argument cannot progress if people aren't willing to listen and alter their views accordingly. CB

Was the extent of blocking over the Winter not "exceptional" then? CB

There's that same old argument again! The argument which I have pointed out to be flawed time and time again. There are huge leaps of logic in your assertion which are not substantiated by any research of which I am aware. Please stop using this argument - it's bobbins! CB

Don't get me wrong - I agree with you absolutely (and I've said much the same thing on here before ). But reduction of consumption of fossil fuels could be done under the banner of "future sustainability" rather than supposed mitigation of environmental impacts. The future sustainability issue is an important one, but it is something we could transition to at a more comfortable, and safer, rate than this mad rush to cut CO2 to "mitigate global warming". It's not the process I object to: it is the headlong rush that I think unwise. CB

Of course, if the LI turns out to be correct and man's input is small (perhaps even insignificant) then it begs the question, "is there any point in reducing CO2?" I'm not advocating a Business As Usual approach, I hasten to add - I'm simply saying that if all of our mitigation will have next to no effect on temperatures then would our funding not be better spent on adaptation rather than mitigation? I have said before, one of the main reasons the human race is still here today is because we are masters of adaptation - more so than any other creature on the planet, because we are capable of altering our (local) environment. Is it not best to play to our strengths? CB

Well, we'll have to wait for those data to come in - if they come in. How long do you reckon it will take for the arctic permafrost to "properly release its GHGs"? CB

I was giving a rough approximation by eye I've learned an important lesson - never use eye-approximations when in a discussion with someone who knows the Arcane Arts of Statistics! CB

Not true, Iceberg. There is roughly 750,000 million tonnes of carbon in the air at any given time (give or take, obviously, as this is an annual global average). 9,000 million tonnes may well be over 1% of this figure, but this doesn't take into account the carbon cycle. The Mauna Loa CO2 data show an increase of about 20ppm per decade, or 2ppm per year. If we're currently at aroun 385ppm then the actual increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere (which will be roughly proportional to the increase in Carbon) is actually around 0.5% per year. CB

Actually, we are on an upswing of both the precession index (esin(ϖ)) and the upper-atmosphere insolation factor (Qday), as can be seen in this graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MilankovitchCyclesOrbitandCores.png Furthermore, the eccentricity of our orbit is on its way to one of its lowest ebbs and the axial tilt (which is approaching its minimum) is largely irrelevant in terms of total insolation. We've had this discussion before, I've shown this assertion to be wrong before, and yet you keep on trying to hammer the (inaccurate) point home. CB

I beg your pardon, Iceberg - I meant to say that there is something like 750,000 million tonnes in the atmosphere, not just the carbon cycle. CB

Furthemore, the extra amount still pales in comparison to the amount of carbon actively involved in the carbon cycle (which I believe is somewhere in the region of 750,000 million tonnes). CB

I honestly do find it a shame that you have no desire to engage in a discussion with regards a work-in-progress - discussion is the cornerstone of science! With regards SSN/SI, you say that SI is a better indication of the actual amount of energy the earth is receiving - but is it? Quite possibly, I grant you, but maybe not. As VP and I have said recently, the fact that the LI doesn't explicitly state a mechanism is really neither here nor there - it doesn't mean the LI is not "good science" just because a mechanism hasn't been proposed. The fact that SSN tallies with global temps is extremely interesting, and warrants (or may warrant) further investigation. I wasn't intimating that you, necessarily, claim that AGW began at the industrial revolution, but I have been rather scornfully rebuked in the past with comments such as "so you think it's just coincidence that global temps started to rise after the industrial revolution?" Is the insinuation not clear enough? Clearly not all AGW proponents are agreed on when, exactly, the human-induced phenomenon began... CB

Ah - Google Chrome. nuff said! CB

You might want to put that up as a link rather than a file, SC! http://wattsupwithth...a-being-global/ (I'm not having a go at you or anything - you should have seen the state of my maths this morning!) CB Better yet, full paper here: https://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org/bitstream/handle/1912/3188/ppnature08233_with_fig%26supple.pdf?sequence=1

Thanks VP Of course I've just noticed that in my edited substitution of Hooke's law at the end I have left out the constant - such are the perils of doing maths before noon! I think I need more coffee and cigarettes! CB

Hi VP It did take me a while to respond to GW's post because I wanted to double-check my understanding of Hooke's Law and I found that there is a superficial similarity - at first I thought there might be something in it, but despite the similar construction it is what those terms relate to which renders them different (and the "+C" term, of course!). Whereas the "k" term in Hooke's law is a constant, the "A" term in the LI is not (since "A", the "rate of leak", is dependent upon the other variables). If we look at the general solution to the LI we get: x(t) = ke-At+C/A, in which "k" is also a constant. By comparing the two constant-containing expressions we now have two very different equations. Having said that, my knowledge of maths is genuinely not as sharp as yours, so perhaps it is me who is misrepresenting (or misunderstanding) things. Could you clarify my assessment above please? (I'm starting to doubt myself!) Cheers, CB EDIT - of course, having said that perhaps what I have just written is nothing more than mathematical semantics: If the "F" in Hooke's law is equal to "x(t)", and the "x" in Hooke's law is equal to "e-At" then we're still left with just one outstanding variable, "C/A" (except of course the "kx" has now changed sign). Or, to put it mathematically, if F = x(t) and x = e-At and k is a constant then, F = kx + (C/A) Hmmm... EDIT! Bits in bold above I have just put in coz I left 'em out by mistake - oopsie!!

Have you no interest in contributing to the LI? Or even in engaging in an interesting hypothetical discussion, on the basis that an interesting correlation has been found? VP has, at least once before, produced a "predictive" graph (using an assumed solar cycle, obviously) that extends into the future. And your final line is the bit I find the most disconcerting. When exactly did global warming start? Because we were always told it was at the Industrial Revolution, but over the years it has become a shorter and shorter timeframe - I've even heard tell, in the past, that solar effects can account for virtually all warming up to 1980...where does that leave us? With 30 years of "man-made global warming"? Is that statistically significant? CB

That's all well and good, GW, but it's not hysteresis, and to describe hysteresis as such is something of a misrepresentation of the LI. CB

The OED definition is a little simplistic (though similar to definition 1 that I gave above), but in all fairness the phenomenon of hysteresis has been discussed at great length on the relevant threads and so there should be no need to fall back on dictionary definitions anyway. You are focusing a bit too much on "Mother Nature's checks and balances" - the fact is that hysteresis is a phenomenon which the world would exhibit, in some form, even if it were just a ball of rock with no atmosphere. The comparison with Hooke's law is not really valid, since hooke's law says nothing of lags which are dependent upon the prior state of the system, so your analogy isn't really appropriate. CB

You're missing a vital piece of the puzzle, GW. There is clearly no relevant link between global population and temperature, so any correlation that there might be (and I suspect it would be only a vague correlation anyway) is irrelevant. Your other suggestions are all the inverse of the SSN/temp example: we know that temperature can affect ice mass and evaporation rates, so any correlation can work in that direction. Can temperature affect sunspot numbers? Now, maybe I've not read all the papers there are out there on the subject, but somehow I think not... CB