Brandon,
This is a fully logical comment where you also show understanding on what the authors probably wanted to say by their somewhat questionable sentence.

Thanks Pekka Pirilä!

This is, however, not the only type of uncertainty or the only type of real options that’s influencing rational decision making. Other uncertainties and real options are due to the technological development that will provide alternatives for low-carbon energy production and for improved energy economy.

I agree. The reason I didn’t discuss what you describe is I was trying to keep things concise. There is a lot more I could have said, but I wanted to focus on the fact the authors are making a good case for not taking any drastic actions.

Personally, I would much rather people focus on figuring out just what we know and can do. I think it’d be much better if we had a solid plan/understanding for things before we made any policy decisions.

OK, R Gates – calculate the temperature rise for those joules. It won’t be squat.

Cheif Hydrologist:

When I say the planet I mean the planet.

Fair enough. It’s just that for as long as I can remember, when people talked about global warming, they talked about surface temperatures. I can think of hundreds of statements by people like Phil Jones and James Hansen where they discussed “global warming” without taking into consideration ocean temperatures. It seems ridiculous for people like R. Gates to try to pretend like that isn’t the case just because surface temperatures currently don’t support the “cause.”

If talking about global warming requires talking about ocean temperatures, people like Phil Jones deserve criticism for failing to do so. People like me, who are just responding to what climate scientists have said, don’t deserve to be called dishonest simply because we discuss what climate scientists have been discussing. If there is any dishonesty, it is on the part of people who are trying to change the subject while pretending like they aren’t.

The oceans warmed a little last decade but the atmosphere didn’t. What can we make of that? The oceans can warm if the atmosphere warms and net loss of heat from the surface decreases or it can warm because there is more incident short wave. Ergo a slight and temporary warming of the ocean did not arise from a warming atmosphere – it arose quite clearly in the CERES record from less reflected SW – cloud radiative forcing.

I don’t think your conclusion follows from what you say. I think instead of “did not arise,” you should have said, “may not have arisen.” I agree there is more than one way for the oceans to have warmed, but you haven’t given any reason for us to believe one particular way is responsible. I see the reason for uncertainty, but I don’t see a reason for being sure of your position.

There is quite a wealth of science on this and my primary objection is that these twits keep insisting that their simplistic narrative is utterly and unfailingly correct. We still need to moderate emissions but these space cadets are politically naive, inutterably over confident, economically illiterate, smarmy and not helping the cause at all.

I won’t give an opinion on any individuals in this comment, but I agree there are plenty of people who fit your description. For what it’s worth, I also agree taking action to reduce GHG emissions is a good idea.

Cheers to you as well!

Petty snark aside, this doesn’t make any sense. Even if Peter Lang’s understanding of a comment damned it, his understanding of it couldn’t explain why it was wrong. It might be able to indicate the comment is wrong, but that’s it.

If you’re going to rely on petty ad hominem tempterrain, you should try to do a better job of it. Otherwise, people might just start concluding anything you sarcastically respond to is right.

Chief,

Density difference of water vapor to planetary gases is the real point not being understood by scientists. The suns energy is given off by gases which too has to go through the different density of water vapor.
Where is water found in space?
It is found in ice which is on the cold scale compared to warm gases that can change density with heat and cold.
The time scale with planbetary rotation and the complexity of the different interacts to the planetary mechanics has very different time frames.
In planetary tilting, gases cross the equator and can go from pole to pole in an unknown time frame.
Water vapor, NEVER crosses the equator which is the maximum velocity in rotational speed.

‘I don’t think your conclusion follows from what you say. I think instead of “did not arise,” you should have said, “may not have arisen.”’

It is simply power flux. The oceans gain energy and therefore warmth from the sun. Oceans loose energy in IR from the surface microns – net IR up – and as convection and latent heat. Let’s say that atmopheric temperature doesn’t increase – then there is no mechanism for a change in net IR and the oceans don’t warm. Simple but convincing – other than to certain space cadets.

Chief Hydrologist:

It is simply power flux. The oceans gain energy and therefore warmth from the sun. Oceans loose energy in IR from the surface microns – net IR up – and as convection and latent heat. Let’s say that atmopheric temperature doesn’t increase – then there is no mechanism for a change in net IR and the oceans don’t warm. Simple but convincing – other than to certain space cadets.

Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me oceans could warm up because of atmospheric temperatures increasing, even if atmospheric temperatures weren’t currently increasing. The reason is if atmospheric temperature increase, it may take a while for ocean temperatures to “catch up.” The oceans might still be responding to the atmospheric temperature changes from ~10-15 years ago.

Does that offer a possible explanation for the increase in ocean temperatures you’ve referred to, or am I just missing something? If it’s the latter, I offer as an excuse the vodka people have been adding to my fruit punch.

Because it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s never mine. :p

blouis79,

To add to your point, there is no persuasive evidence that pricing carbon will achieve the desired results (making the climate better than it would be without carbon pricing). Kyoto was a complete dud, and the EU ETS is a failure. How much more evidence do we need that pricing carbon is a dud idea?

There is an alternative that will satisfy both the warmists and the economic rationalists. We’ll get there eventually. But first we’ve got to get to the point where most people recognise that the CO2 pricing idea is a dud. People are just not going to support policies that are economically damaging in the near term on the basis of beliefs about unrealistic future benefits. (The benefits are calculated by models. They accumulate benefits out to the year 2495 to justify their claims that benefits exceed the economic damages the carbon pricing will cause.

‘So Chief is right even though he’s only asking a question?’

Huh?

‘If you look at at Chief’s comments there are two obvious separate and distinct styles. The first style, which I did mock, sounds like its copied and pasted from elsewhere with a few words changed here and there. WHT calls it scientific salad. Its quite indigestable, whatever is in it. You’re right that I don’t understand it, but does Chief?’

It is all in my words and the fruits such as they are of many years of dedicated cogitation on these issues. Although the concepts are very difficult and of course emerge mostly from other people’s ideas. Is this not the nature of scientific progress? If you are incapable or unwilling to understand the ideas – again this is not my problem – try this one if you will – http://www.unige.ch/climate/Publications/Beniston/CC2004.pdf -but simply repeating your idiocy is not terribly impressive. You listen to webby? Nough said.

‘The second style is more more straightforward and this is, I suspect, the real chief talking. Like when he says “It is technically very simple to remove carbon directly from the atmosphere.” Is it? In the very large quantities that would be necessary? And ” what we get is tired old taxes”. So, even if it is technically feasible, how is it going to be funded? Is he also right in saying its all just going to happen, or should all just happen? If so where are his references? And how does all this follow from his telling us all just complicated climate, or should that be weather, is? It obviously doesn’t.’

It is technically very simple to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. This can then be reacted with hydrogen (produced from abundant and cheap energy) in the presence of a catalyst to produce a liquid fuel. It will happen when it is economically viable. There are other ways to reduce carbon in the atmosphere very effectively at a huge gains to agricultural productivity and human health. Carbon farming you asked about before – when I gave figures you ignored them. Why should I play your silly game.

‘OK but you’ve still not explained just how this can be used as an argument against a carbon tax, especially as Chief is supposed to be an advocate of GH gas controls.’

The tax is impractical and ineffective. That should in itself end it. It is just nonsense on all levels. The most important thing this century is maximised global economic growth. Then we have people like Bart who whine like a petulant child that we don’t have his consent. Tough.

‘And who are the “They” who not only “get all of the science wrong” – “but want on the basis of their groupthink nonsense to suspend democracy, centralise power, reduce the size of economies and ship deniers off to the gulag.”
And how does this follow from a discussion of, even the very simplest of, non-linear equations?’

You get all the science wrong – and I suspect it is the result of AGW space cadet groupthink.

If we are talking models then the core Navier-Stokes partial differential equations are the culprits. Oh dear – lost you and weeby yet again.

I guess I will just have to quote science.

‘The Earth’s climate system is highly nonlinear: inputs and outputs are not proportional, change is often episodic and abrupt, rather than slow and gradual, and multiple equilibria are the norm. While this is widely accepted, there is a relatively poor understanding of the different types of
nonlinearities, how they manifest under various conditions, and whether they reflect a climate system driven by astronomical forcings, by internal feedbacks, or by a combination of both. In this paper, after a brief tutorial on the basics of climate nonlinearity, we provide a number of illustrative examples and highlight key mechanisms that give rise to nonlinear behavior, address scale and methodological issues, suggest a robust alternative to prediction that is based on using integrated assessments within the framework of vulnerability studies and, lastly, recommend a number of research priorities and the establishment of education programs in Earth Systems Science. It is imperative that the Earth’s
climate system research community embraces this nonlinear paradigm if we are to move forward in the assessment of the human influence on climate.’ http://www.unige.ch/climate/Publications/Beniston/CC2004.pdf

Of course that presumes that you want to or are capable of mving forward. Somehow I think not.

‘Large, abrupt climate changes have affected hemispheric to global regions repeatedly, as shown by numerous paleoclimate records (Broecker, 1995, 1997). Changes of up to 16°C and a factor of 2 in precipitation have occurred in some places in periods as short as decades to years (Alley and Clark, 1999; Lang et al., 1999). However, before the 1990s, the dominant view of past climate change emphasized the slow, gradual swings of the ice ages tied to features of the earth’s orbit over tens of millennia or the 100-million-year changes occurring with continental drift. But unequivocal geologic evidence pieced together over the last few decades shows that climate can change abruptly, and this has forced a reexamination of climate instability and feedback processes (NRC, 1998). Just as occasional floods punctuate the peace of river towns and occasional earthquakes shake usually quiet regions near active faults, abrupt changes punctuate the sweep of climate history.’ http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10136&page=10

Shall we just ignore whole swathes of science because TT and Webby don’t understand or approve? What a poor sad joke.

Tempterrain , 20 july @ 6.36 pm:
re yer ‘indigestible’ comment. Well some things yer jest can’t solve with yer four box methodology or simple climate models, I guess, Tempterrain. Ah me, the irreducible compiexities of life … and climate science, here, under the Big Top.

‘We construct a network of observed climate indices in the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective behavior. The results indicate that this network synchronized several times in this period. We find that in
those cases where the synchronous state was followed by a steady increase in the coupling strength between the indices, the synchronous state was destroyed, after which a new climate state emerged. These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the
great climate shift of the 1970s. We also find the evidence for such type of behavior in two climate simulations using a state-of-the-art model. This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of
the size and complexity of the climate system.’ https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/aatsonis/www/2007GL030288.pdf

Let’s see – do I believe Anastasios Tsonis or webby and TT? What a terrible joke this is. They complain when I quote science and they complain when I make it up as I go. I call the process of making it up the synthesis part of analysis and synthesis. It is how we scientifically understand the world – but we should not get too carried away with our own perspicacity. Webby and TT are especially limited in regard to perspicacity.

Still counting angels, dancing on that model pinhead. I suppose we must, so count away. Will it never end? Surely the nocturnal boundary layer is not the climate debate endgame.

I’m trying. I sure hope I’m getting better. Some good days and some bad days. Thing is I don’t even have to try to make mtakes it just happens. As I said before I need more practices. I didn’t go to school here so I haven’t done any writtings. I’m glad you liked it, though. Thank you, Steven, I mean Mr. Mosher.

Chief,

If you have anything to contribute scientifically, the right place isn’t on blogs, it is in peer reviewed scientific journals.

The game you are playing is painfully obvious. You are trying to make yourself look cleverer than you are, by coming out with all this stuff about “noisy bifurcation”, “complex dynamical systems” , “highly nonlinear: inputs and outputs are not proportional..” etc etc which may or may not be correct, in an attempt to establish some credibility for later nonsense about removing democracy and introducing gulag type concentration camps.

Words don’t make for good mathematical models anyway, so you need to do a lot more than spout jargon to achieve anything scientifically useful. On the others hand, words may make for good arguments but the conclusion has to follow from those arguments and yours don’t. There is just no intelligible link between ” control variables and multiple negative and positive feedbacks” with all the right wing political guff that follows.

The problem isn’t too much democracy in the western countries, it’s a lack of it. The media in Australia is largely in the hands of unaccountable media barons and heavily influenced by commercial interests. There is one exception in radio and TV: the ABC who are the only organisation subject to some direct democratic accountability. And, curiously enough, they also the ones your side of the political spectrum regularly attack with a vengeance! Its pretty much the same story in the UK with the BBC.

It’s even worse in the USA. Hardly any of the media there are subject to any sort of democratic accountability. It’s more than just a bad joke that they have the best democracy that money can buy. It’s absolutely true. For every congress person there are 4 or 5 paid lobbyists. It’s not sensible people with moderate political opinions who are a threat to democracy in the USA. It’s the extreme right. Since the fall of the USSR they’ve gone off the idea of democracy very rapidly. Just Google the phrase “America is not a Democracy”. Those who are saying this equate the idea of democracy to mob rule. Taxation to them is no more than legalised theft.

So I’m happy to side with anyone who is genuinely concerned that democracy is under threat. But they’d have to be living in the real world to understand what’s happening, not some sort of fantasy land of their own creation.

As I understand “Radiative Forcing”, it arises because an increase in CO2 concentration AT THE LAYER WHICH CAN RADIATE TO SPACE causes the effectively radiated amount to be less than it was (due to increased absorption). This results in an energy imbalance AT THAT POINT.

What happens next is that THAT POINT heats up (or, in the case of most of the spectrum from Wavenumber 630-710, cools down) until the energy balance is restored. (NOTE: you don’t need any extra/less energy to do this!)

What is very unclear is how the energy imbalance translates to the Surface or to the Boundary Layer. IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter2 is silent on this, except for Fig2.2, which describes a process which, judging from radiosonde records, does not occur in nature. Nor does the bump (warm spot) shown in that diagram.

I would be grateful if someone could point me to an explanation of the process of imbalance translation from high-in-the-atmosphere to low-in-the-atmosphere or to the Surface. This process (“Radiative Forcing” changing to “Surface Forcing”) is assumed in the paper.

In terms of the paper, radiosonde records ( see http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html for twice daily coverage at many locations globally) clearly show decoupling of the boundary layer and the stratosphere from the adiabatic lapse rate layer.