In The News

[Yorkshiresnows]

Well YS where shall we start, CO2 is not insignificant; doubling produces a 1C warming without feedbacks. Of course, water vapoiur is an even more potent greenhouse gas and this warming causes more evaporation hence more water vapour and more warming a feedback

Ocean cycles ie atmosphere ocean interactions have been included in climate models over the last decade AR4 reports research it doesn't lead it

As for Roy Spencer he has withdrawn this result in his latest paper (not his blog) he rightly points out that you cannot deduce cloud feedbacks on climate from short terrm satellite data

Really. Are we talking about the same issue. The role of low cloud cover ? Have you read his book? I've got his paper in front of me, where exactly do you see this withdrawal. Do not forget, to get his latest paper published he had to sanitise and tone down the message. However, its still there. So you honestly believe that all of the additional water vapour will not lead to an increase in cloud cover ...... come on !!! The IPCC even state that this is a big area of uncertainty. It would only take an increase in cloud cover of 0.5 to 1.0% to account for all of the 20th century warming. Factor in changes in PDO and the probability that this would likely affect cloud cover and the uncertainties start to increase.

You state that 1C from a doubling of CO2 is not insignificant. Okay, yes, I agree. But the real deal here is that the IPCC rely on the role of water vapour to act TOTALLY in a positive feedback way to generate the 2-5 degrees or whatever it is projections ...... and there is mounting evidence to suggest that this is simply not the case.

There is also the observational fact that the IPCC forecasts have been way off the mark. Why ? ....... Maybe because there are cyclical events they have not fully understood. None of us do. However and I am with Joe laminate floori on this one, the PDO IS A KEY PLAYER ...... we will see soon enough ...... but looking at the turnaround of the recent El-Nino to super La Nina, I am confident.

Don't get me wrong, we have warmed and CO2 is a greenhouse gas. I just do not buy its significance, not from what I have read and continue to find out.

I'll vote to reduce greenhouse gases and live a more sustainable life, it makes common sense. However, I feel as though I have torn through a veil and do not believe that Co2 is the route cause of the recent warming.

By the way, no disrespect to any of you, I know that this is a polarising area of debate !!

Y.S

Y.S

[PersianPaladin]

Current observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a "Perspectives" article in this week's issue of Science. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) warn in the new study that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments are inadequate to track this "missing" heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system.

http://www.physorg.com/news190558013.html

[NorthNorfolkWeather]

Current observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on Earth in recent years, according to a "Perspectives" article in this week's issue of Science. Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) warn in the new study that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments are inadequate to track this "missing" heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system.

http://www.physorg.com/news190558013.html

So, how has heat been measured to date? Usually from ground or ocean based sensors, or satellites. Now surely the ground based sensors cannot be questioned, they are the ones that point out that heat is increasing (even if some of it is bad siting or UHI).

Oceanic sensors, mounted on buoys measure the surface temperature, looking at the Unisys SST anomaly charts seems to suggest that it's cooler than average rather than warmer. There are some deep ocean sensors, are they saying that they aren't registering a rise? or the fact that, as water is such a good conductor of heat, and there is so much of it, the amount of heat produced, when spread over the oceans is insignificant?

Satellite based, should be most accurate, but unless there's a method I don't know of cannot measure deep ocean.

So, just as an outside possibility, could it be that we are not reading the heat as there is no heat as it's been radiated off into space?

[NorthNorfolkWeather]

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5989/277.1.full

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827893.400-goodbye-grey-skies-hello-extra-warming.html

More on the unfolding story of cloud feedbacks? Apart from the observed higher temps now needed to fire up tropical storm clouds (due to raised ambient temps) we can see better how the warming planet will deal with high level/low level clouds. not looking good for those of us wanting the lower range of TAR4 temp predictions?

How is the sciencemag.org article proof of your statement when it concludes with "Although the results of Clement et al. are suggestive of a positive low-cloud feedback, it may not be possible to robustly establish the sign of this feedback based on the evidence currently available."?

As for the New Scientist article they ran a model, with their (guessed) increased parameters of CO2 and temperature and get a quote of ""If this holds, we will find ourselves at the higher end of [temperature] predictions," says team member Ralf Bennartz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison."

<Sarcasm mode ON>

Very convincing

<Sarcasm mode off>

Edited December 8, 2010 by NorthNorfolkWeather

[Gray-Wolf]

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/TBA--LTonly.pdf

The actual paper is above and the 'news item below;

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101208125801.htm

[Gray-Wolf]

http://news.discovery.com/earth/antarctica-melting-warming-penguins-101214.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

This is the first rumblimgs of it as the meeting was only yesterday but it appears my fears of deep ocean warming (and it's re-surfacing) are being made real with the Antarctic ice shelfs being the first casualty?

[keithlucky]

http://news.discover...#mkcpgn=rssnws1

This is the first rumblimgs of it as the meeting was only yesterday but it appears my fears of deep ocean warming (and it's re-surfacing) are being made real with the Antarctic ice shelfs being the first casualty?

More lies and exaggerationAS we shiver in the coldest start to winter in living memory, you may wonder whatever happened to global warming. Good news! Doomsday is indefinitely postponed. Three years ago, the UN inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (iPCC) made blood-curdling fore- casts of melting ice caps causing sea levels to rise 13ft by 2100. such low-lying countries as The Maldives and Bangladesh would be submerged. London and New York would be swamped.

Last week, the Met Office downgraded the prediction to a “worst case†threat of only 6ft. in a masterpiece of understatement, even this is said to be “unlikely†and a more plausible figure is eight inches. As this is just a game of think-of-a-number, we might as well consult Mystic Meg, especially as only five weeks ago the Met Office predicted a “milder than average winterâ€.

[osmposm]

Keith, I have asked you this before - you didn't reply - and I ask you now again. Please, please try not to cut and paste large sections of writing by other people without making it clear that is what you are doing. We are interested in what you have to say, not what Neil Hamilton said in the Daily Express: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/217018/Green-hysteria-means-we-face-a-bleak-future . Either make it clear you are quoting somebody else, or else post a link to it with your thoughts and comments.

You are, in any case, shooting yourself in the foot with that one. The Daily Express does not command a great deal of respect on here; and I was unaware that Neil Hamilton had expertise in anything much other than demanding cash to ask questions & table motions in the House of Commons, suing people, losing safe parliamentary seats and being a professional media buffoon.

Certainly he demonstrates his complete ignorance of both climatology and meteorology by making two major statements that are untrue:

(1) The IPCC did not, as far as I am aware, ever predict that sea levels could rise 13ft by 2100. It is complicated, because of exactly what is included in their estimates and what is not, but the range predicted in 2007 by them up to (effectively) 2095 was basically 0.18m - 0.59m, plus another possible (but wildly uncertain) 10 or 20cm from something unmodellable called "ice dynamics". If you want to read more, try this http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/ ; but it is complicated. Very simplistically, though, the IPCC 2007 worst-case scenario was for a rise of 59cm (the main stuff) + 20cm (unknown ice dynamics) = 79cm....to which we add another + 5cm for the final 5yrs to 2100. Grand Total 84cm. 84cm is 33 inches, or 1.37 ft. Not 13 ft. (Their bottom estimate was even more difficult to quantify, but it's about 18 or 19 cm...or maybe 28 or 29cm to 2100. That's just 7 to 11 inches.)

Do you think it's worth listening to (and repeating) a man who either lies, or else doesn't know the difference between 13ft and 1.3 ft?

(2) The Met Office did not predict a milder than average winter five weeks ago - publicly, anyway - for the simple reason that they have not issued a long-range forecast for this winter at all. Various journalists looked at probability maps on the website - working tools, work-in-progress if you like, with a warning above that reads "Raw data are displayed for use by international meteorological centres. This does not constitute a seasonal forecast for a given location" - and made their own imagined forecasts based on what they saw there. The maps did indeed show higher probability for a warmer scenario (mainly 40-80%) than for an average (up to 20-40%) or colder one (up to 20%) for the winter overall.

So....firstly, the Met Office did not have enough confidence in these raw tools to turn them into a forecast - they've tried that before, and now clearly acknowledge that the variability of their success in the last few years means they cannot sensibly be used to make one currently. Secondly, even if you do insist on using the figures in precisely the way they ask you not to, you have percentages, not predictions. If I said to you, I think there's a 40% or 60% chance of something, would you think that means I'm predicting it? And thirdly, I've no idea what the rest of winter's going to do, and I'm damned sure Neil Hamilton doesn't either.

Once again, do you think it's worth listening to (and repeating) a man who isn't interested in what the Met Office actually did say, because what they didn't say makes a much better story for his Express readers to huff and puff about?

[Gray-Wolf]

Depending how you measure it 'Winter' starts on Dec 1st or Dec 22nd (so hasn't even begun yet!. The odds look like a warmer Jan/ Feb than the past few years and so the 'stats pointing to this may well prove true.

As with confirming AGW predictions it is the data that will prove/disprove the 'predictions' not other folks predictions?

The AGU offerings will be backed by a paper over the next month or two and the 'data' showing both the warming of the deep ocean legs of the global circulation and it's re-surfacing over the past years.

Folk should be mindful that the longer legs of the deep circulation take over 100yrs to complete the journey and we know we had a warming prior to the globally 'cooled' period (40's to 80) which is now just about to start showing it's hand.

Seeing as some of the upwelling occurs off Antarctica we should turn our attentions to the changes at Pine Island (and the warm waters basally melting the shelf there) and also keep a weather eye on the Ross sea and it's embayment (and the humongous 'crack' I've prattled on about these past 4 years).

As an aside the 'cool drivers' we have heard so much about will also be set to be 'moderated' by both GHG's and also this 're-surfacing' warmer waters .Don't be fooled by the very small differences we are talking here......it takes a lot of energy to raise the oceans surface by that amount ....as we are keen on telling the folk who think hydrothermal vents have melted the Arctic!......and this energy will now not be spent 'warming' the water by this 'small' amount but on other 'warming ' processes.

[knocker]

Polar bears no longer on thin ice?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40682752/ns/us_news-environment/

[knocker]

Global Surface Temperature Change.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Hansen_etal.pdf

Global Temperature and Europes Frigid Air.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2010november/TemperatureAndEurope.pdf

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/15/fox-news-climate-change-email

Fancy 'Fox' being so biased?

[paul tall]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/15/fox-news-climate-change-email

Fancy 'Fox' being so biased?

Why do you put a question mark after every statement? Including stuff where you are offering an opinion rather than asking a question?

Also, "The email reads: "We should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."

It goes on to say: "It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies."

No evidence of bias there, other than the allegation that some time MUST be set aside for those that oppose The Climate Change Industry, however as every debate has two sides, why SHOULDN'T a news channel insist that the other side of the coin be shown?

You are biased, if you want a definition of biased.

[Gray-Wolf]

Why do you put a question mark after every statement? Including stuff where you are offering an opinion rather than asking a question?

Also, "The email reads: "We should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question."

It goes on to say: "It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies."

No evidence of bias there, other than the allegation that some time MUST be set aside for those that oppose The Climate Change Industry, however as every debate has two sides, why SHOULDN'T a news channel insist that the other side of the coin be shown?

You are biased, if you want a definition of biased.

How odd?

Seems that the more 'Fox' you watch the less you believe 'science'

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/12/survey-more-fox-news-more-climate-doubts/1

.....Blitverts?

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.embraceaustralia.com/australia-gets-a-taste-of-uk-chill-8538.htm

more climate 'extremes'.......funny so many seem to be occuring around the globe over recent years?

Must be the media coverage.......:smiliz19:

[VillagePlank]

http://www.embraceaustralia.com/australia-gets-a-taste-of-uk-chill-8538.htm

more climate 'extremes'.......funny so many seem to be occuring around the globe over recent years?

Perhaps you'd like to respond to this? It's been there for days, now ....

Edited December 21, 2010 by VillagePlank

[Methuselah]

I heard some bloke on LBC yeasterday, saying how a couple of cold winters in the UK disproves GW theory...What rubbish! Only a sustained period of falling GLOBAL temperatures can do that...

And, as yet, there is none...

Edited December 21, 2010 by Pete Tattum
Missing-out key words is silly!

[knocker]

SORCE's Solar Spectral Surprise.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solarcycle-sorce.html

[VillagePlank]

I heard some bloke on LBC yeasterday, saying how a couple of cold winters in the UK disproves GW theory...What rubbish! Only a sustained period of falling GLOBAL temperatures can do that...

And, as yet, there is none...

Refer them to my blog, here; it's a tired old argument, and I wrote that piece particularly to refer people who argue that point.

[knocker]

Place your bets. What odds on global cooling?

According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8°Celsius (1.4°Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade.

http://earthobservat...ew.php?id=47628

Images credit NASA

Edited December 21, 2010 by weather ship

[paul tall]

If the globe is starting to cool, surely the trend would not become apparant for a decade or two anyway?

So if for example (and I'm not saying this is the case) the last two years of UK cooling happened to be the first two years of a global cooling trend, it wouldn't really be apparant against warming of the last century yet.

On another note, any reason why NASA started their study at 1880, was that a particular cool point?

What if they had started the study in 1800?

Edited December 21, 2010 by paul tall

[VillagePlank]

So if for example (and I'm not saying this is the case) the last two years of UK cooling happened to be the first two years of a global cooling trend, it wouldn't really be apparant against warming of the last century yet.

... and, furthermore, we would still likely be posting positive anomalies against the long term 'average' for quite some time, possibly three decades, even if the world did cool down.

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.prwatch.org/node/9830

More on Fox's unacceptable 'bias' towards dis-information.

We must be mindful that over 94% of science can see that we are warming due to our activities. A 'balanced' viewpoint would surely reflect this and do 9 times more showing of AGW against 1 questioning it?

To give things 50/50 air time is a distortion of the facts?

[knocker]

Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf#page=1&view=FitH

[Gray-Wolf]

Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions.

http://www.pnas.org/...age=1&view=FitH

We appear to have plenty of folk who understand 'lag's' where solar is concerned but struggle with lag's in the climate system from a sudden, and continued, jump in GHG's?

We are still not fully feeling the impacts of the GHG's we have already liberated to the atmosphere (a 'lag' often mistaken for proof positive that GHG's are not an issue) but we will soon enough esp with positive feedbacks from the Arctic helping alter circulation patterns.

As with any 'collapse' the initial signs of imminent collapse are small (cracks in the dams surface) but can tell of the rapid period of change to come.