What Is Causing The Warming ?

[Admiral_Bobski]

In all probability true C=Bob.

Foolish indeed to deny the impacts of the many minor, short term peturbation cycles, that we are now aware of but what of the thing that drives our recent records beyond the 'norm' of the past 'X' thousands of years?

Maybe only a fool would deny the probability that human waste and destruction can be seen as the 'novel item' ,in this global system, that can be seen to posses the potential to drive the change we see above and beyond recognised natural 'peturbation cycles'?

I'm not starting this argument again.

Bye.

CB

[VillagePlank]

... of the past 'X' thousands of years? ...

I don't mean to burst your bubble - but I'm still waiting for your link to the paper that describes past climate of greater than 0.5 million years ago. I've looked and I can't find anything of any particular use - essentially anything with reference to the CO2/Temp link.

Of course, it's not to suggest that I think you are making all this stuff up as you go along ....

Edited November 3, 2009 by VillagePlank

[Admiral_Bobski]

...And I notice that you side-stepped the Sun issue, Gray-Wolf...

CB

[Iceberg]

I think this thread might have gone Off topic, which bit of what is causing the warming ?, is this refering to ?.

and what are the questions.? I've rather got lost.

Cheers

Iceberg.

[Iceberg]

I am sure this will bore some people but I've just been doing a few calculation.

Going with Hadley, if we finish the year in the same vain as the last 6 months, this will be the 4th or 5th warmest year on record.

If things cool down quite a bit then it will be the 6th.

A prediction for next year, we will have a top 3 year finish.

My prediction for this year was a top 5 finish.

[jethro]

I guess it's taken 30 years to get this warm, stands to reason it will take as long to cool back down again.

Caveat...if we are going to cool.....

[Iceberg]

It will take alot longer than 30 years if we keep recording years in the top 10 or top 5 and monthly in the top 3 or top 2 ! :unsure:

[jethro]

But the key word is IF. Personally speaking, if we're to see a period of cooling, I'd expect to see a period of reasonably static temps first.

[VillagePlank]

I am sure this will bore some people but I've just been doing a few calculation.

Going with Hadley, if we finish the year in the same vain as the last 6 months, this will be the 4th or 5th warmest year on record.

If things cool down quite a bit then it will be the 6th.

A prediction for next year, we will have a top 3 year finish.

My prediction for this year was a top 5 finish.

I would have gone for an even higher - perhaps record breaking year - and I'm still expecting one in the next two or three years. Everything, as they say, is going to plan.

Funny that - climate model couldn't forsee it - but the leaky integrator proposes exactly such a thing. Next few years are going to be crucial - the LI suggests that because we are currently 'using up' latent solar activity, that at some point the hysteresis will end - and the closer we get to a net zero the more sensitive the climate is to lack of volcanic eruption and ENSO factors - so a wildly fluctuating climate with a general trend of down until the sun comes back on board - think at least a third of the way into the solar cycle (depending on magnitude) before we see influence on our climate - which puts some sort of at time scale on it (7 years?)

EDIT: and before we hit that first third of the cycle my 'way out there' prediction is coldest CET recorded for a century; certainly worth a friendly and humourous virtual pint bet, I think

Edited November 7, 2009 by VillagePlank

[Gray-Wolf]

V.P., how slow a response do you put solar at? 3 years ago we were descending into this extended min. and the past 3 months have shown fairly regular (relative to the previous 12 months) cycle 24 spots arising so we to be exiting exiting Min..

We are in a period of Mod. to strong Nino atm so won't some masking of the reduced solar input be occurring right now (and for at least the next 6 months)?

The other area I'm at a loss to understand is why you choose to exclude the energy that is utilised in ice melt ,permafrost melt, ocean temp raises etc.?

Surely it is easy to come up with atmospheric similarities (of temp change) without resorting to GHG's if we discount the huge amounts of energy that we know are being spent on tasks other that atmospheric warming?

If we are to discover 'What is causing the warming' then surely we need parade all known suspects and explore all the areas that have been demonstrably impacted (above and beyond natural variation) thus far ?

[VillagePlank]

V.P., how slow a response do you put solar at?

In my opinion, it's variable - there's no two year, three year, or ten year lag; it is entirely dependent on the energy already in the system.

Incidentally, melting ice-caps (or whatever) use up the energy in the system quicker which is modelled with the LI because ice-extent is included in the 0.91 correlation modelled over on the LI thread. For comparison, the CO₂ correlation over time is 0.71 - as published in the Petite et al paper.

So, whilst it's conventient to presume that the LI is mainly focused on external climate forcings, that notion only constitutes one forcing - with ice-extent, volcanoes, and ENSO, contributing the other 3/4 of the forcings modelled.

More astute readers will note that I use the term 'energy' This is an incorrect usage, since the solar forcing included in the LI, whilst a component of it must necessarily be radiative insolation, because it is using sunspot data, the LI is including other effects of the sun - perhaps GCR's, perhaps other things - that fall outside of the direct radiative forcing category (although it is almost certain that such effects can be decomposed into a radiative forcing)

Edited November 7, 2009 by VillagePlank

[Iceberg]

Not updated this for a little while, but since it's the end of Nov.

Is Spencer(the AGW skeptic) about to admit that this November has been the warmest he has ever measured ?

We'll find out in approx 1 weeks time.

Looking at how he calculates it and the various figures it will be a close run thing.

[Pingo]

The warming is due to the hitherto unexplained escape from the Little Ice Age (approx 2c globally). The increased atmospheric improvement ratio of CO2 is a minor factor which have bettered the climate by around 0.05c - 0.1c based, but predominantly climate scientists are not able to fully explain the warming. It is probable that solar fluctuations are implicated, though the precise mechanism is still awaiting identification. We have a crucial ten years ahead in which the CO2 hypothesis and the solar hypothesis are in opposite corners. We should be able to tell by 2015. Climate legislation should wait till then save for making a pleasant situation (moderate warmth) into a terrible one.

[Iceberg]

That sounds very much like the LI hypothesis Pingo.

I am still looking forward to VP's paper of this, as yet a few people have suggested it but without in my knowledge any mechnism for the storage of the solar heat ?, do you have a mechanism that might account for it.?

BTW I should add that ENSO should be providing more input into global temps now and will probably from this month onwards start to effect the final figures more.

I am sure there will be a article on watts saying how Novembers temps are all linked into ENSO, the problem with this though is that there have been colder Novembers with warmer ENSO events.

[Iceberg]

Not updated this for a little while, but since it's the end of Nov.

Is Spencer(the AGW skeptic) about to admit that this November has been the warmest he has ever measured ?

We'll find out in approx 1 weeks time.

Looking at how he calculates it and the various figures it will be a close run thing.

Spencer has update for November and it is.......THE WARMEST ON RECORD.

Yep whilst most skeptics are concentrating on the tittle tattle of the CRU hack. The real data according to the well known skeptic Spencer shows that November has been the warmest on record, not much to be heard about the REAL data on watts.

Of course it doesn't say that AGW is a dead cert, but it does, along with the last 6 months worth of data hopefully put to bed the absurd notion of cooling recently and the notion that CRU are somehow cooking the global temperature record. Quite simply they arn't as EVERY single global dataset, whether made by skeptic or AGW scientist shows global warming.

[jethro]

Just a few thoughts....

One month is meaningless - that's weather, not climate. If all those dream charts in the Model thread come off and the NH is plunged into a deep freeze for a large part of the winter, will it disprove AGW?

No decision can be reached on whether or not data has been manipulated until AFTER the investigations.

Regardless of whether the temperature record shows warming/cooling/levelling off it still is largely speculative as a measure of AGW. That old problem of causation and correlation is still up in the air.

[Iceberg]

Just a few thoughts....

One month is meaningless - that's weather, not climate. If all those dream charts in the Model thread come off and the NH is plunged into a deep freeze for a large part of the winter, will it disprove AGW?

No decision can be reached on whether or not data has been manipulated until AFTER the investigations.

Regardless of whether the temperature record shows warming/cooling/levelling off it still is largely speculative as a measure of AGW. That old problem of causation and correlation is still up in the air.

I agree that 1 month is weather and not climate.

If they plunged us into a deep freeze so that the globe suffered the coldest Jan on record then I am sure there are many on here that would say it were the start of a cooling trend. The fact that so many of the last few months have been very very high can't be ignored, especially in light of being two years into a solar minimum, negative PDO etc (LI excepted).

All of the worlds global temperature data sets(using a variety of data devices) show a very very strong correlation, therefore it's highly likely that there has not been any data manipulation by CRU or if there has it's largely irrelavent in the outcome.

It's not regardless as the premise of AGW is "Warming" if the earth isn't on a warming trend(stripping out the factors we know about) then AGW cannot obviously be happening.

There is no problem of causation and correlation except for Skeptics, for those that support AGW theory it's pretty straight forward, it's personal choice as to whether you accept the science or not.

[Solar Cycles]

Just a few thoughts....

One month is meaningless - that's weather, not climate. If all those dream charts in the Model thread come off and the NH is plunged into a deep freeze for a large part of the winter, will it disprove AGW?

No decision can be reached on whether or not data has been manipulated until AFTER the investigations.

Regardless of whether the temperature record shows warming/cooling/levelling off it still is largely speculative as a measure of AGW. That old problem of causation and correlation is still up in the air.

I stated the very same to Dev in another thread jethro, there does seem a tendency to cherry pick temps when it suites. If this winter turns out to be the coldest for 50 years, what does that prove?

[Iceberg]

It would be nice if you could cherry pick any global cold temperatures, but quite simply nothing but warm to very warm has been happening. !

[Solar Cycles]

I agree that 1 month is weather and not climate.

If they plunged us into a deep freeze so that the globe suffered the coldest Jan on record then I am sure there are many on here that would say it were the start of a cooling trend. The fact that so many of the last few months have been very very high can't be ignored, especially in light of being two years into a solar minimum, negative PDO etc (LI excepted).

All of the worlds global temperature data sets(using a variety of data devices) show a very very strong correlation, therefore it's highly likely that there has not been any data manipulation by CRU or if there has it's largely irrelavent in the outcome.

It's not regardless as the premise of AGW is "Warming" if the earth isn't on a warming trend(stripping out the factors we know about) then AGW cannot obviously be happening.

There is no problem of causation and correlation except for Skeptics, for those that support AGW theory it's pretty straight forward, it's personal choice as to whether you accept the science or not.

Sorry you posted this before I had chance to read it. I'd go along with that Iceberg!

It would be nice if you could cherry pick any global cold temperatures, but quite simply nothing but warm to very warm has been happening. !

In the last 6 months Iceberg!

[VillagePlank]

... any mechnism for the storage of the solar heat ?, do you have a mechanism that might account for it.?

A simple question. Does the temperature of the ocean, correlate directly with the strength of the solar energy upon it? If it doesn't why can it therefore be cooler, or perhaps warmer - as observationally observed in the SST anomaly record?

As a prelude - just started rewrite of the LI, today, actually - any system that is dynamical must necessarily exhibit hysteresis. The first 'controversy' that this raises is that, if true, tf means that the climate system cannot be determined deterministically, and that, therefore, attempts to do so severely limit such an attempts success.

Edited December 5, 2009 by VillagePlank

[jethro]

There is no problem of causation and correlation except for Skeptics, for those that support AGW theory it's pretty straight forward, it's personal choice as to whether you accept the science or not.

No that's not true, certainly not from my point of view it isn't. I don't choose which data to believe, I don't select what to accept and what to ignore. I'm neither believer nor sceptic, I'm a fence sitter.

There is still a problem with correlation/causation in the science. I know Captain Bob has raised this issue many, many times too, I'm not aware of anyone pointing him to papers which solve this issue. Are there any I've missed?

Negative PDO or not, we've still got an El Nino to factor into recent temps.

[VillagePlank]

If correlation was so important, then, I suspect, that the demonstrated correlation of the LI, r=0.91, would be used to trump the CO2 correlation which, comparatively, is condemned to a lowly r=0.71. It's not correlation that is important it is the confidence level in that correlation. I don't have a result for the LI, yet, but the CO2 one, as I understand it, exceeds the 95% boundary, which means that it is almost certain, from ice core records, that implied temperatures and CO2 are related. Which way round, and by how much, is where the debate must be.

Edited December 5, 2009 by VillagePlank

[Methuselah]

I wonder why we don't see any coldest months on record at all, in global terms??

[Gray-Wolf]

Which way round, and by how much, is where the debate must be.

Do you not think that it works both ways? When temps are up more CO2 finds it's way into the system and when it cools CO2 gets locked away from the system.

If you 'up' CO2 by other means (either naturally or by mans hand) won't we find that the planet can (potentially) retain more heat?

If we sequester CO2 from the atmosphere wouldn't it's loss mean that the planet could not hold onto as much heat?