In The News

[Yorkshiresnows]

For me the bottom line is that:

1) we have warmed - no question, particularly over the latter part of the 20th century ... from 1979.

2) This warming has stalled somewhat (arguably) over the past 10 years (this years El-Nino Spike is reduced compared to1998)

2) The PDO has been in a +state since 1979

3) Accurate monitoring of the global temps started ....... around the late 70's

4) The AMO has been in a +state, combining with the +PDO to create perfect warming conditions (if the Earths oceans are warm ....... !!!)

5) Solar activity has been very high over this same period.

So, even without any possible contribution from human derived greenhouse gas emissions ..... I'd suggest that we would have likely seen warming on some scale.

The IPCC calculate the effect of the WEAK greenhouse gas (Co2) by assuming that all feedbacks are positive. We have seen good and recent evidence from Dr Roy Spencer that low level cloud feedbacks are not factored in (being heavily negative) and that the assumptions regarding increasing water vapour as a result of a warming climate being all positive are not well understood and a weak link in the whole AGW theory (IPCC fourth summary states this is an area of uncertainty). We also have increasing evidence that solar activity has a part to play ..... and we are currently entering a period of low solar activity ......as foreseen by Landscheidt.

We know that past climate has been very likely variable with the MWP and LIA being prime examples (with good evidence posted previously to show that these were global events). The conclusions from some papers suggest that the MWP was warmer than today ....and of course there was the Roman warm period before that (I've dismissed the Hockey stick papers for the trash they are, but folks can make up their own minds on that score ..... see previous threads and posts)..

So, we are now in a -PDO (since from around 2007), and low solar activity. Current ENSO is a big La Nina. At the end of the next 30 years we should have a definite answer as to exactly how potent human derived greenhouse gas emissions (predominantly Co2) are.

If the climate continues to warm then the cyclical argument is dead. If the next few years show the climate cooling, We need to re-visit what exactly has been going on these past few years.

Y.S

[Guest mycroft]

You really are a terribly literal person Mycroft. obviously many scientists have no interest in climate, when we talk of the scientific community we mean those involved with climate. Blimey I can see it now, in a recent survey 93% of scientists involved in the hair dying industry stated that they strongly Disagreed that bottle blondes were contributing to the Albedo effect and thus pushing down global temperatures.

Sorry should have inserted the word "climate" before,and yes i was being very literal

after all according to these climate scientists and the warmnista's were are talking of

literally devastating our climate system and planet aren't we!

No comment on the % of modelers...thought not,like so much of our current generation too content to sit behind a computer screen running simulations then trying to pass it off as hard science facts

EDIT

Top post Y.S.

Edited September 26, 2010 by mycroft

[Guest mycroft]

time for some light relief this could be fun.....or not with the beebs history of competions?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9029000/9029232.stm

[weather eater]

Sorry should have inserted the word "climate" before,and yes i was being very literal

after all according to these climate scientists and the warmnista's were are talking of

literally devastating our climate system and planet aren't we!

No comment on the % of modelers...thought not,like so much of our current generation too content to sit behind a computer screen running simulations then trying to pass it off as hard science facts

EDIT

Top post Y.S.

Seems to me, that first of all you have tried to use the survey to suggest that AGW theory is not that well supported by scientists in the climate field, and then when it is pointed out that the survey fails in that regard, you have resorted to questioning the credentials of those involved. Personally I have no idea how many scientists are involved in climate and climate related fields, but I suspect its more than the 375 surveyed. So maybe whatsupwiththat should look up and ask just scientists in climate related fields who are not involved in computer simulations.

I really am a simple fellow Mycroft, I’m not an expert in climate, just a run of the mill bloke doing the best for my family. I have an interest in weather and climate because I was interested in aviation as a kid, and when I was at high school I was lucky to take an exam in aviation studies, and part of that subject was meteorology.

With climate change I ask myself a simple question, who do I want to believe, a small minority of the scientists involved, right wing think tanks, politicians, and bloggers, plus websites with a clear agenda. Or the bulk of the scientific climate community, people whose studies have taught us what we know about or increased our knowledge of natural cycles, sun spot cycles, PDO, etc etc.

What I find really difficult to grasp on these pages, is why certain posters seem to assume that any climate scientists who support AGW theory have not taken on board any of the counter arguments. That they know nothing about natural cycles, the effect of clouds etc, despite the fact that many of those scientists, have been instrumental in uncovering how those natural cycles and forcing’s work. That they only don’t speak out because their funding may be cut, which is just pretty standard conspiracy theory stuff and a rather desperate argument to boot.

YS has just set out why his theory as to why we have warmed and why he thinks we have now turned the corner, but does he really think that those scientists who business it is to study climate, climate history and natural climate cycle’s, have not taken their own knowledge on board, I find that difficult to believe, especially when you take into consideration that its likely to be their research that he’s taken his angle from. Its like me telling an engineer who built a rocket how his rocket works and that he hasn’t got a clue.

Edited September 26, 2010 by weather eater

[jethro]

Anyone know if this is correct?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055500/global-cooling-and-the-new-world-order/

[weather eater]

Anyone know if this is correct?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100055500/global-cooling-and-the-new-world-order/

Is it corroborated anywhere else, or is it just another, we know who our audience are, so this story may sell a few more papers. Don't get me wrong Jethro all newspapers of whatever persuasion are capable of just making things up. Just read flat earth news.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1285543567&sr=8-1

[sunny starry skies]

Jethro, it's James Delingpole... are you remotely surprised? But meanwhile we're still on track for one of the warmest, if not the warmest year on record. Funny how people keep crying about global cooling when it's still warming and has been warming for decades.

mycroft, I was talking about the future (2C), not the past, in the context of 2C rise being a conservative prediction of warming due to double CO2. And do you understand the difference between adding/removing energy from the climate system, and adding/removing energy just from the oceans? The oceans are part of the climate system and can, of course, gain heat from or lose heat to other parts of the climate system. They cannot create their own heat, and if they lose heat, it goes somewhere else in the climate system, it doesn't magically vanish. Skeptics suggest that the ocean 'cycles' are driving warming, yet the heat content in the oceans is steadily rising, and the top-of-the-atmosphere energy balance is positive (ie at the place where energy arrives and leaves the climate system, more energy is arriving than leaving). Coincidentally, this energy is being trapped at the absorbtion wavelengths of the CO2 molecule...

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998-intermediate.htm

We're also back to the predictive question - why do you think climate forecasting should be chaotic? Is it because you're thinking of it as a glorified weather forecast? It is a boundary condition problem, much like the difference between forecasting the weather in 10 days time being compared to forecasting the weather in January. You'll have a large range in each, driven by synoptic patterns, but held within two boundaries for each forecast. But you could put good money on the January weather being colder on average. The boundaries in climate forecasting are primarily determined by ENSO, volcanic, solar, aerosols and GHG values. ENSO drives a lot of the interannual variability, but the upward trend of CO2 means that each decade's worth of interannual variability is warmer than the last decade. It's exactly the reason why you can't base a climate trend on a few years of data, just as you can't identify the trend between seasons on a week's worth of weather.

97% of climate scientists figure comes from two recent papers: Doran 2009 and Anderegg 2010:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm

Observation, replication, prediction... Warming due to GHGs has been predicted repeatedly for most of the last century, and is now observed directly by independent means. Observations are consistent with predictions. Observations of warming and of the causes of warming have been replicated by numerous independent studies with different methodologies. In fact, more so than most other disciplines due to the sensitivity of the subject!

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009.php

Y.S., if clouds are the global saviour, how do you explain past climate variations, which demonstrably operated with positive feedbacks, or more specifically, why would clouds moderate temperatures in the present day when they have not moderated temperatures for any past climate change, given that observed changes are larger than the forcings that drive them?

You should read: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/09/introduction-to-feedbacks/

Also: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Pacific-Decadal-Oscillation-intermediate.htm

Or do you think that cloud moderation is only applicable for the modern human-induced warming?

Ocean oscillation (PDO, AMO) show no overall trend, but the same ocean basins (and global oceans) are warming... because in order to highlight the oscillation data, the warming trend has been removed.

Something newsworthy, the quite shocking scale of Wegman's bias, plagiarism and distortion has been collected and published in a single document by John Mashey. The report that pretended to be an independent review of Mann's hockey stick and of climate science quite blatantly wasn't in the least bit impartial or professional:

Executive summary: http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/strange-scholarship-v1-0-exec.pdf

Full report and description of the background here: http://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/

The Wegman report is evidentially not a reliable source of information for anything to do with climate science.

[VillagePlank]

"I'd stake a large wager that alarmism, and denialism are +/- 5 standard deviations, respectively, from the mean." sounds like an awful lot to me. Presumably it's possible to put a figure on plus or minus 5 standard deviations to the temperature from a set mean? Say 1951-80?

Really it's just an expression of how extreme alarmism, and denialism really is.

[Guest mycroft]

Seems to me, that first of all you have tried to use the survey to suggest that AGW theory is not that well supported by scientists in the climate field, and then when it is pointed out that the survey fails in that regard, you have resorted to questioning the credentials of those involved. Personally I have no idea how many scientists are involved in climate and climate related fields, but I suspect its more than the 375 surveyed. So maybe whatsupwiththat should look up and ask just scientists in climate related fields who are not involved in computer simulations.

I really am a simple fellow Mycroft, I’m not an expert in climate, just a run of the mill bloke doing the best for my family. I have an interest in weather and climate because I was interested in aviation as a kid, and when I was at high school I was lucky to take an exam in aviation studies, and part of that subject was meteorology.

With climate change I ask myself a simple question, who do I want to believe, a small minority of the scientists involved, right wing think tanks, politicians, and bloggers, plus websites with a clear agenda. Or the bulk of the scientific climate community, people whose studies have taught us what we know about or increased our knowledge of natural cycles, sun spot cycles, PDO, etc etc.

What I find really difficult to grasp on these pages, is why certain posters seem to assume that any climate scientists who support AGW theory have not taken on board any of the counter arguments. That they know nothing about natural cycles, the effect of clouds etc, despite the fact that many of those scientists, have been instrumental in uncovering how those natural cycles and forcing’s work. That they only don’t speak out because their funding may be cut, which is just pretty standard conspiracy theory stuff and a rather desperate argument to boot.

YS has just set out why his theory as to why we have warmed and why he thinks we have now turned the corner, but does he really think that those scientists who business it is to study climate, climate history and natural climate cycle’s, have not taken their own knowledge on board, I find that difficult to believe, especially when you take into consideration that its likely to be their research that he’s taken his angle from. Its like me telling an engineer who built a rocket how his rocket works and that he hasn’t got a clue.

No i was using it to point to the much used and abused 97% figure i beleive it comes from an IPCC report and we all know they like to use figures,quotes,from obscure sources so i personally do not take thse figures as gospel,as for the conspiracy theory stuff i'll leave that to the dark side of the argument.

I to am a simple family man with no background in science, but i think am savvy enough to know when some one is trying to put something to me that is not quite right,w could argue all day every day and its not going to change a damn thing you have your view,and i have mine and they seem to be a mile apart,Y.S.post sums up my postion to a tee,

All we are all doing is playing pseudo scientist on here but that what the forums are for, i try to enjoy the debate and not to take it too seriously,IT WON'T CHANGE ANY POLITICAL POLICY

Edited September 27, 2010 by mycroft

[jethro]

Weather eater & SSS - Having trained and worked in the media business for years (newspapers, mags and books) I'm pretty familiar with how they work, hence not taking anything at face value.

I do find it rather curious that given the current situation with climate, time would be spent discussing global cooling. There are various versions of this story on the net, all saying the same thing. Saying something over and again or even many people saying the same thing doesn't however make the statement true.

Does anyone know if it is true?

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.adn.com/2010/09/25/1471943/walruses-move-inward.html

We've been hearing a lot about this over the past 3 years. Seeing as the locals use them as a food source you'd expect any 'cyclical' event like the changes we're seeing would form part of their folk lore. It does not.

[Devonian]

Really it's just an expression of how extreme alarmism, and denialism really is.

Ahh, I was taking the mathematical you too literally . Anyway, am I close with my definitions?

Edited September 27, 2010 by Devonian

[barrel1234]

The thing that concernes me most about Human forced global warming is that the government is always preaching about carbon emissions and joining in on the human global warming issue. HOWEVER, surely the biggest challenge for modern times will be GLOBAL POPULATION, I rmember doing some research about a year ago on how Human population is likely to increase within the next century or so and although I cant remember the exact figures I do remember that it is very scary to see how populated our small planet will become, for me this IS the subject for debate and action far more than global climatic change. Resourses, energy consumption, habitat destruction - For me I am certain that this should be the number one issue, yet we hear very little about it from politics and in the press. So if this issue is being ''overlooked'' to this extent in my view it makes me wonder if there is far too much emphisis on Global warming isuues.

I would appreciate peoples views on this.

[Devonian]

The thing that concernes me most about Human forced global warming is that the government is always preaching about carbon emissions and joining in on the human global warming issue. HOWEVER, surely the biggest challenge for modern times will be GLOBAL POPULATION, I rmember doing some research about a year ago on how Human population is likely to increase within the next century or so and although I cant remember the exact figures I do remember that it is very scary to see how populated our small planet will become, for me this IS the subject for debate and action far more than global climatic change. Resourses, energy consumption, habitat destruction - For me I am certain that this should be the number one issue, yet we hear very little about it from politics and in the press. So if this issue is being ''overlooked'' to this extent in my view it makes me wonder if there is far too much emphisis on Global warming isuues.

I would appreciate peoples views on this.

I agree with you.

But, I guess, firstly, as a climate forum we look at climate issues. And secondly, while it's hard to argue the case for action about climate change without facing fire from interested parties, you face most every religion as well if you call for population 'control'. I don't think getting human population'under control' is impossible but it's got to be more difficult that sorting AGW (and we're nowhere near doing that, if anything we're less likely to do something now than we were in the past).

So, I think we'll see a lot more people than we have now on this planet as the century advances. 'Good' for humans, of doubtful value to the life trying to share the planet with us..

[barrel1234]

It could be argued that Targets on climate issues would be far easier to reach if global population was at a reasonable level. Just as a note I dont agree that a big population increase would be 'good news' for humans as we would have to share ever decreasing resources and could in turn lead to hardships in the future assuming that there will be a ceiling on tecnological advancement rates. But I do agree that it would be extremely unpopular for a governments to implement or even imply that we need to start thinking about controlling populations, with the exeption of China of course that brought in their 1 child policy - I remember once China said that they had done more than any other country to reduce CO2 emissions by preventing so many births therefore reducing the future need for energy......... although its a bit of a cop out comment from them I can't help thinking that they kinda had a point.

[Devonian]

It could be argued that Targets on climate issues would be far easier to reach if global population was at a reasonable level. Just as a note I dont agree that a big population increase would be 'good news' for humans as we would have to share ever decreasing resources and could in turn lead to hardships in the future assuming that there will be a ceiling on tecnological advancement rates. But I do agree that it would be extremely unpopular for a governments to implement or even imply that we need to start thinking about controlling populations, with the exeption of China of course that brought in their 1 child policy - I remember once China said that they had done more than any other country to reduce CO2 emissions by preventing so many births therefore reducing the future need for energy......... although its a bit of a cop out comment from them I can't help thinking that they kinda had a point.

I did say 'good' not good :winky:

[Yorkshiresnows]

<br />Seems to me, that first of all you have tried to use the survey to suggest that AGW theory is not that well supported by scientists in the climate field, and then when it is pointed out that the survey fails in that regard, you have resorted to questioning the credentials of those involved. Personally I have no idea how many scientists are involved in climate and climate related fields, but I suspect its more than the 375 surveyed. So maybe whatsupwiththat should look up and ask just scientists in climate related fields who are not involved in computer simulations.<br /><br />I really am a simple fellow Mycroft, I’m not an expert in climate, just a run of the mill bloke doing the best for my family. I have an interest in weather and climate because I was interested in aviation as a kid, and when I was at high school I was lucky to take an exam in aviation studies, and part of that subject was meteorology.<br /><br />With climate change I ask myself a simple question, who do I want to believe, a small minority of the scientists involved, right wing think tanks, politicians, and bloggers, plus websites with a clear agenda. Or the bulk of the scientific climate community, people whose studies have taught us what we know about or increased our knowledge of natural cycles, sun spot cycles, PDO, etc etc. <br /><br />What I find really difficult to grasp on these pages, is why certain posters seem to assume that any climate scientists who support AGW theory have not taken on board any of the counter arguments. That they know nothing about natural cycles, the effect of clouds etc, despite the fact that many of those scientists, have been instrumental in uncovering how those natural cycles and forcing’s work. That they only don’t speak out because their funding may be cut, which is just pretty standard conspiracy theory stuff and a rather desperate argument to boot.<br /><br />YS has just set out why his theory as to why we have warmed and why he thinks we have now turned the corner, but does he really think that those scientists who business it is to study climate, climate history and natural climate cycle’s, have not taken their own knowledge on board, I find that difficult to believe, especially when you take into consideration that its likely to be their research that he’s taken his angle from. Its like me telling an engineer who built a rocket how his rocket works and that he hasn’t got a clue.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Hi There

The views I express have been made reading up on a load of research papers as well as varous book publications.

What I initially found most troubling was that up until the third IPCC assessment report (maybe even the fourth, though I am uncertain on this), that ocean cycles and possible -feedback mechanisms associated with changes in cloud cover were never factored into the IPCC climate models. The projections that they run with assume a HUGE positive feedback effect via water vapour changes to the atmosphere (around 300% !!!) ...... which are controversial to say the least.

I've been looking at the work of Dr Roy Spencer as well as others such as Peter Taylor, Theodore Landscheidt and also the issues over the famous hockey stick papers. On top of that I have been following much of what Joe laminate floori over on Accu weather has been discussing on his blog. Much of this is controversial and you will find many on here that take an opposite view to myself ...... fair enough.

I would direct you to Roy sepncers Blog: http://www.drroyspencer.com/

Anyway, these are just my views and we'll just have to see how thing transpire from here on.

Cheers

Y.S

[sunny starry skies]

Er, Y.S., you keep repeating this false assertion about 'assumed' feedbacks.  In fact the feedbacks are a natural product of the physics in the models, not specifically coded in. They are also observed.  You seem to be trying to mislead people into thinking that the feedbacks don't actually exist, that climate scientists invent them for fun or something.  Without the positive feedbacks, it is impossible to cycle from glacial to interglacial state and back again - climate sensitivity to CO2 variations would be ~1C/doubling, and glacial-interglacial transitions would have been a fraction of their size.  What produces the feedbacks - rather simple physics!  The ice-albedo feedback is obvious, the water vapour feedback is also straightforward (warmer air holds more water vapour), and there are a host of otehr positive feedbacks.  They are not 'assumed', as you would have to break the physics in order to remove the feedback, for example assuming that both light and dark surfaces reflect equally well.

Feedbacks and climate sensitivity have also been tested by assessing the response to large volcanic eruptions, such as Pinatubo (e.g. Wigley et al 2005). The model response and climate sensitivity is observed as predicted.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/09/introduction-to-feedbacks/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/detailed-look-at-climate-sensitivity.html

Wigley et al 2005: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004JD005557.shtml

Water vapour has been observed to increase at 0.41 kg/m² per decade since 1988 (Santer et al 2007), corresponding to ~7%/degree C warming, in line with predictions.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/39/15248.full.pdf

http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas-intermediate.htm

Observed ice-albedo feedback in the Arctic: "Increasing solar heating of the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas, 1979–2005: Attribution and role in the ice-albedo feedback" Perovich et al 2007

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL031480.shtml

Positive feedbacks are real and observed, and all plausible estimates of climate sensitivity from palaeoclimate or models indicate a net positive feedback, ruling out clouds from preventing our current global warming.

A thought-provoking review of a recent paper by Freudenburg and Muselli on the IPCC's underestimation of climate threats:

"The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?"

http://www.skepticalscience.com/freudenburg.html

"Asymmetry of Scientific Challenge is a theory that attempts to quantify bias in media reporting, and the effect it has on the science itself as well as public opinion. Freudenburg and Muselli 2010 examines this phenomena and finds that far from the predictions of climate science being exaggerated, there is a systematic bias that may diminish or conceal the true potential dangers we all face, and that this bias may seriously affect the work of bodies such as the IPCC."

This supports the notion that the majority of recent research finds IPCC AR4 values underestimate changes or rates of change.

[Yorkshiresnows]

<br />Er, Y.S., you keep repeating this false assertion about 'assumed' feedbacks.  In fact the feedbacks are a natural product of the physics in the models, not specifically coded in.  They are also observed.  You seem to be trying to mislead people into thinking that the feedbacks don't actually exist, that climate scientists invent them for fun or something.  Without the positive feedbacks, it is impossible to cycle from glacial to interglacial state and back again - climate sensitivity to CO2 variations would be ~1C/doubling, and glacial-interglacial transitions would have been a fraction of their size.  What produces the feedbacks - rather simple physics!  The ice-albedo feedback is obvious, the water vapour feedback is also straightforward (warmer air holds more water vapour), and there are a host of otehr positive feedbacks.  They are not 'assumed', as you would have to break the physics in order to remove the feedback, for example assuming that both light and dark surfaces reflect equally well.<br /><br />Feedbacks and climate sensitivity have also been tested by assessing the response to large volcanic eruptions, such as Pinatubo (e.g. Wigley et al 2005).  The model response and climate sensitivity is observed as predicted.<br /><a href='http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/09/introduction-to-feedbacks/' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.realclima...n-to-feedbacks/</a><br /><a href='http://www.skepticalscience.com/detailed-look-at-climate-sensitivity.html' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.skeptical...ensitivity.html</a><br />Wigley et al 2005: <a href='http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004JD005557.shtml' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.agu.org/p...4JD005557.shtml</a><br /><br />Water vapour has been observed to increase at 0.41 kg/m² per decade since 1988 (Santer et al 2007), corresponding to ~7%/degree C warming, in line with predictions.<br /><a href='http://www.pnas.org/content/104/39/15248.full.pdf' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.pnas.org/.../15248.full.pdf</a><br /><a href='http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas-intermediate.htm' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.skeptical...ntermediate.htm</a><br /><br />Observed ice-albedo feedback in the Arctic: "Increasing solar heating of the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas, 1979–2005: Attribution and role in the ice-albedo feedback" Perovich et al 2007<br /><a href='http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL031480.shtml' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.agu.org/p...7GL031480.shtml</a><br /><br />Positive feedbacks are real and observed, and all plausible estimates of climate sensitivity from palaeoclimate or models indicate a net positive feedback, ruling out clouds from preventing our current global warming.<br /><br />A thought-provoking review of a recent paper by Freudenburg and Muselli on the IPCC's underestimation of climate threats:<br />"The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?"<br /><a href='http://www.skepticalscience.com/freudenburg.html' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.skeptical...reudenburg.html</a><br /><br />"Asymmetry of Scientific Challenge is a theory that attempts to quantify bias in media reporting, and the effect it has on the science itself as well as public opinion. Freudenburg and Muselli 2010 examines this phenomena and finds that far from the predictions of climate science being exaggerated, there is a systematic bias that may diminish or conceal the true potential dangers we all face, and that this bias may seriously affect the work of bodies such as the IPCC."<br /><br />This supports the notion that the majority of recent research finds IPCC AR4 values underestimate changes or rates of change.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

You have your views and I have mine.

I've presented evidence for all my claims and I am not stamping these views aS necessarily correct. Only that there is a counter argument backed up by science that deserves certainly more respect that some folks are prepared to give.

You have rubbished Roy Spencer's work and publications on here many times, even dismissing him as some sort of nut, and yet I can only presume you have not read much of his work, as he is a leading expert in his field, former NASA scientist and responsible for much of the temperature satellite monitoring programming that went into the NASA Aquar Satellite (the most advance global monitoring system currently available).

The deal with the IPCC climate models is correct, the climate system is assumed to be hyper sensitive and all effects of an increase in water vapour content of the atmosphere positive ..... its the only way to project the type of temperature increases the IPCC have with a doubling of CO2 (which on its own would amount to between 0.5 to 1.0 degrees C on the ground). I have never stated that there are no positive feedbacks, just that it is highly unlikely that an increase in water vapour content of the atmosphere is not going to lead to an increase in global cloud cover (which would be highly negative). Also there is a great deal of uncertainty around the very issue of a positive feedback response to water vapour:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/

There's multiple other papers you can access and look at, many of which have been posted previously over the summer months, the latest being:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Spencer-Braswell-JGR-2010.pdf

I've also read the IPCC summary reports. As for misleading people, I'm sorry but I think it is the other way around, but its a free world and folks can make up their own mind. All I've done is presented my view.

You can take it or leave it ...... but I would rather you do not levy charges at me such as 'misleading people', you are not a climate expert, but an amateur ... just like myself with his/her opinion.

Here is the latest from Dr Spencer on the issue of water feedback:

Five Reasons Why Water Vapor Feedback Might Not Be Positive

September 14th, 2010

Since it has been a while since I have addressed water vapor feedback, and I am now getting more questions about it, I thought this would be a good time to revisit the issue and my opinions on the subject.

Positive water vapor feedback is probably the most “certain†and important of the feedbacks in the climate system in the minds of mainstream climate researchers. Weak warming caused by more carbon dioxide will lead to more water vapor in the atmosphere, which will then amplify the weak warming through water vapor’s role as the atmosphere’s primary greenhouse gas.

Positive water vapor feedback makes sense intuitively. Warmer air masses, on average, contain more water vapor. Warmer air is associated with greater surface evaporation rates, which is the ultimate source of almost all atmospheric water vapor.

And since water vapor is the atmosphere’s main greenhouse gas, most scientists have reasonably inferred that climate warming will be enhanced by increasing water vapor amounts. After all, water vapor feedback is positive in all of the IPCC climate models, too.

But when one looks at the details objectively, it is not so obvious that water vapor feedback in the context of long-term climate change is positive. Remember, it’s not the difference between warmer tropical air masses and cooler high-latitude air masses that will determine water vapor feedback…its how those air masses will each change over time in response to more carbon dioxide. Anything that alters precipitation processes during that process can cause either positive or negative water vapor feedback.

Here are some of those details.

1) Evaporation versus Precipitation

The average amount of water vapor in the atmosphere represents a balance between two competing processes:

(1) surface evaporation (the source), and

(2) precipitation (the sink).

While we know that evaporation increases with temperature, we don’t know very much about how the efficiency of precipitation systems changes with temperature.

The latter process is much more complex than surface evaporation (see Renno et al., 1994), and it is not at all clear that climate models behave realistically in this regard. In fact, the models just “punt†on this issue because our understanding of precipitation systems is just not good enough to put something explicit into the models.

Even cloud resolving models, which can grow individual clouds, have gross approximations and assumptions regarding the precipitation formation process.

2) Negative Water vapor Feedback Can Occur Even with a Water Vapor Increase

Most atmospheric water vapor resides in the lowest levels, in the ‘turbulent boundary layer’, while the water vapor content of the free troposphere is more closely tied to precipitation processes. But because the outgoing longwave radiation is so much more sensitive to small changes in upper-layer humidity especially at low humidities (e.g. see http://www.drroyspencer.com/Spencer-Braswell-97-BAMS.pdf), it is possible to have a net increase in total integrated water vapor, but negative water vapor feedback from a small decrease in free-tropospheric humidity. See #4 (below) for observational support for this possibility.

3) Cause Versus Effect

Just because we find that unusually warm years have more water vapor in both the boundary layer and free troposphere does not mean that the warming caused the moistening.

There are a variety of processes (e.g. tropospheric wind shear causing changes in precipitation efficiency) which can in turn alter the balance between evaporation and precipitation, which will then cause warming or cooling as a RESULT OF the humidity change – rather than the other way around.

This cause-versus-effect issue has been almost totally ignored in feedback studies, and is analogous to the situation when estimating cloud feedbacks, the subject of our most recent paper (http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Spencer-Braswell-JGR-2010.pdf).

Similar to our cloud feedback paper, evidence of causation in the opposite direction is the de-correlation between temperature and humidity in the real world versus in climate models (e.g. Sun et al., 2001).

4) Evidence from Radiosondes

There is some evidence that free tropospheric vapor has decreased in recent decades (e.g. the Paltridge et al., 2009 analysis of the NCEP Reanalysis dataset [http://www.drroyspencer.com/Paltridge-NCEP-vapor-2009.pdf]) despite this being a period of surface warming and humidifying in the boundary layer. Miskolczi (2010) [http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/E&E_21_4_2010_08-miskolczi.pdf]used the radiosonde data which provide the main input to the NCEP reanalysis to show that the resulting cooling effect of a decrease in vapor has approximately counterbalanced the warming influence of increasing CO2 over the same period of time, leading to a fairly constant infrared opacity (greenhouse effect).

Of course, water vapor measurements from radiosondes are notoriously unreliable, but one would think that if there was a spurious drying from a humidity sensor problem that it would show up at all altitudes, not just in the free troposphere. The fact that it switches sign right where the turbulent boundary layer pushes up against the free troposphere (around 850 mb, or 5,000 ft.) seems like too much of a coincidence.

5) The Missing “Hot Spotâ€

Most people don’t realize that the missing tropospheric “hot spot†in satellite temperature trends is potentially related to water vapor feedback. One of the most robust feedback relationships across the IPCC climate models is that those models with the strongest positive water vapor feedback have the strongest negative lapse rate feedback (which is what the “hot spot†would represent). So, the lack of this negative lapse rate feedback signature in the satellite temperature trends could be an indirect indication of little (or even negative) water vapor feedback in nature.

Conclusion

While it seems rather obvious intuitively that a warmer world will have more atmospheric water vapor, and thus positive water vapor feedback, I’ve just listed the first 5 reasons that come to my mind why this might not be the case.

I am not saying that’s what I necessarily believe. I will admit to having waffled on this issue over the years, but that’s because there is evidence on both sides of the debate.

At a minimum, I believe the water vapor feedback issue is more complicated than most mainstream researchers think it is.

Y.S

[Guest mycroft]

Quote from Y.S

At a minimum, I believe the water vapor feedback issue is more complicated than most mainstream researchers think it is.

The whole climate system is more complicated then they think!, they are only now coming round the accepting that ocean cycles,and the sun play a part in the system!And we get called the "flat earthers"

[Yorkshiresnows]

<br />Quote from Y.S<br />At a minimum, I believe the water vapor feedback issue is more complicated than most mainstream researchers think it is.<br /><br />The whole climate system is more complicated then they think!, they are only now coming round the accepting that ocean cycles,and the sun play a part in the system!And we get called the "flat earthers" <img src='http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/rofl.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />  <img src='http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/rofl.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /><br />

<br /><br /><br />

Hi Mycroft

Yes, agree these are the most suprising elements

(by the way, that was a quote from Roy Spencer that I took from the blog).

For some reason, I've lost all the formatting tools from Netweather and all replies give the above jumbled mess !!! .... most frustrating.

Y.S

[Devonian]

Quote from Y.S

At a minimum, I believe the water vapor feedback issue is more complicated than most mainstream researchers think it is.

The whole climate system is more complicated then they think!, they are only now coming round the accepting that ocean cycles,and the sun play a part in the system!And we get called the "flat earthers"

Can you name me someone, anyone, who think the Sun doesn't play a role in the climate? Indeed can you name me someone who doesn't think that nearly every bit of energy involved in the climate comes frome the Sun? I'd be shocked if you could.

[Gray-Wolf]

Can you name me someone, anyone, who think the Sun doesn't play a role in the climate? Indeed can you name me someone who doesn't think that nearly every bit of energy involved in the climate comes frome the Sun? I'd be shocked if you could.

I have no idea why they should think that Dev, So folk don't think the sun plays a part in climate and that ocean circulation isn't involved in redistributing heat/cold around the planet??? Very odd.

Edited September 28, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[Guest mycroft]

Hi Mycroft

Yes, agree these are the most suprising elements

(by the way, that was a quote from Roy Spencer that I took from the blog).

For some reason, I've lost all the formatting tools from Netweather and all replies give the above jumbled mess !!! .... most frustrating.

Y.S

Edited September 28, 2010 by mycroft

[knocker]

I know it's a bore, but some things need oft repeating. One such thing being: 'denialism' is NOT the same as scepticism!

One is reminded of C.S.Lewis. Denialists are masters of what he termed 'bulverism', a method of argument that avoids the need to prove that someone is wrong by first assuming their claim is wrong and then explaining why the person could hold such a fallacious view.