Pokerguy – I agree with you. Our two statements are not in conflict. Climate sensitivity to CO2 is an open question but the existence of some enhanced greenhouse effect to increases in CO2 is essentially a closed question.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by Patrick Brown
Comment on Open thread weekend by lolwot
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by timg56
Gates,
Perhaps you are anal retentive enough to think of wine molecules. I see no reason to go smaller than a glass of the stuff.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by Patrick Brown
“Climate models are only consistent with a short leash; observations are suggesting a longer leash.”
Some of the highest profile climate models (e.g., GISS Model-E, shown in my figure 4) are definitely short leash models. However, I am currently looking at all the CMIP5 models and there are several that do have large magnitude unforced variability (long leash). I hope that the spread of the magnitudes of unforced variability in these models is emphasized more in the future.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by David Springer
Frank you need to pay more attention to albedo. Where, when, and why it changes.
For instance melting ice eventually leads to global cooling. As ice melts the surface area of the ocean becomes larger. Ocean has a much lower albedo than land so this at first leads to global warming. However the warmer ocean with greater surface area leads to more snowfall in the winter which builds up glaciers on the continents. As the glaciers build they simultaneously increase albedo by more snowcover and by decreased surface area of the ocean as water is taken up by land-locked ice.
The hysteresis in this process is critical and constrains the minimums and maximums. However cloud cover always limits ceiling temperature. This is evident in all interglacial beginnings when temperature shoots up like a rocket then hits an impenetrable ceiling temperature each and every time. The ceiling is determined by oceans generating clouds at a rate which balances the blockage of insolation. However, there’s not such a convenient limit on the cold side and when the right conditions conspire the cooling phase doesn’t reverse. I suspect the perfect storm that ends an interglacial is orbital mechanics gradually moving towards a favorable condition for southward snow/ice cover progression (which is cooler summers and warmer winters in the northern hemisphere i.e. classic Milankovich) plus a grand solar minimum plus a few closely spaced major volcanic eruptions. Over thousands of years all three will line up sooner or later and boo-yah the interglacial ends.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by David Springer
A bit of self-reflection from Chief Kangaroo Skippy Elison.
An encouraging sign. The first step in recovery is knowing you have a problem.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by Jim D
I agree that what is missing in the leash analogy is something related to the time scales. On short time-scales, the dog can get a long way from the man (witness El Nino 1998), but as you average over longer and longer spans, the dog’s mean position drops to perhaps 0.1 C from the man at 30 years. It is a bit like Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle where larger energy perturbations have shorter lifetimes. This is why I continually advocate looking at 30-year running means because that really gives a good idea where the man is within 0.1 C.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by WebHubTelescope (@whut)
Budding scientists should stay away from the joke that The Cappy has become. Plenty of climate science research to review before one can appreciate the clown show.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by David Springer
Damn good point. The man/dog/climate analogy is comedic to start with and that’s the ultimate punchline for it! Bravo.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by Jim D
The leash is in some sense elastic. Strong perturbations are pulled back more strongly by energy conservation. Hotter ocean surfaces radiate faster.
Comment on Axioms of ecological policy by Bart R
kim | July 14, 2013 at 3:42 am |
Any measure not money is only a trick, and via jet stream changes, attribution is clear.
Hasn’t the Snowden case taught you, to question the President is treason? You’re shown to be wrong, by Unimpeachable Reason.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by WebHubTelescope (@whut)
Unctuous sanctimony. Leave him be Tony B.
Students have research libraries and access to staff and fellow students that they can bounce ideas off of. As if suggesting humility is the key to research success. Climate science is just a research field just like any other.
Comment on Climate vs weather prediction: should we rebalance? by AK
Comment on Axioms of ecological policy by Bart R
Punky | July 14, 2013 at 5:34 am |
Barack Obama has determined with the full might of executive power that the fossil fuel industry cost the USA alone $100 billion in 2012 alone.
The drillers of oil and burners of coal and frackers of volatiles get paid for what they do. Arguing that society benefits above the amount of a fair Market price is anti-capitalist crap. It’s communism, Punky, that you preach. The subsidies and gifts and favors to the fossil industries? Corporate communism.
It’s because of your corporate communism, your faith in a benefit the Market does not show to be real, that energy costs as much as it does, in hidden and indirect ways.
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by Patrick Brown
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comment.
You say that…
“Your discussion of the leverage that natural variability has on global-mean temperature on decadal timescales is misguided”
and that…
“There is no example of an unforced coupled ocean-atmosphere model, nor is their evidence in the Holocene, in which particular realizations abruptly generate changes as large as the observed trend.”
I am not sure where you are disagreeing with me because there could be large unforced multidecadal variability in global mean T that is still not large enough to account for the 0.8C warming. Nowhere in my post do I suggest that ALL the warming is unforced. In fact, the leash analogy agrees with the sentiment that global mean T is not a random walk as a random walk has no restoring force (no leash).
Also, as far as conservation of energy is concerned, be careful not to think of the climate system as unable to modulate its own energy balance through unforced variability. Quoting directly from the post:
“…unforced variability can also change the total amount of energy in the earth system by changing constituents of the surface or atmosphere that interact with the amount of solar energy coming in, or the amount of infrared energy leaving the earth (Herweijer et al., 2005). For example, if some internally generated change in an ocean circulation caused more heat to be distributed to polar latitudes; this could cause sea ice to melt. This melting sea ice would cause less solar energy to be reflected back to space (ice is much more reflective than open ocean) and thus this would increase the total amount of energy in the climate system.”
Comment on Open thread weekend by jim2
“The results show that the Earth albedo has gradually fallen up to 1997, likely causing most of the global warming through 1998. Since 2001 the albedo increased rapidly, which has stopped the warming and resulted in the current global cooling. The recent dimming of the Earth is likely due to increased low cloud cover. The albedo is shown below.”
http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/earth_albedo_bbso.jpg
From the web site:
http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/Climate_Change_Science.html
Comment on Unforced variability and the global warming slow down by Patrick Brown
Hi David,
I appears that you did not read the article carefully as I say:
“However, unforced variability can also change the total amount of energy in the earth system by changing constituents of the surface or atmosphere that interact with the amount of solar energy coming in, or the amount of infrared energy leaving the earth (Herweijer et al., 2005). For example, if some internally generated change in an ocean circulation caused more heat to be distributed to polar latitudes; this could cause sea ice to melt. This melting sea ice would cause less solar energy to be reflected back to space (ice is much more reflective than open ocean) and thus this would increase the total amount of energy in the climate system.”
Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by GaryM
The three posts could be combined in a single article, titled:
Why People Should Ignore Their Own Principles and Adopt the Policy I Want.
Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Alan Sexton
Bart, in my previous comment I am referring to Ed Dolan’s proposal.
I have no problems with voluntary participation in private endeavors, but taxes are not private.
Comment on Why Libertarians should support a carbon tax by Willis Eschenbach
Ah, wonderful, Mr. Ed has returned to lead us to sanity. Folks, don’t miss his next exciting installment, “Why The Brain-Dead Support A Carbon Tax” …
Judith, the quality of your guest speakers is getting … well, let me describe them as pathetic, and with more than a whiff of desperation in their arguments. Ed, though, is in a class all his own … I think it’s called “fourth” …
w.
PS—I did love his uncited, unreferenced, and frankly unbelievable claim that a carbon tax is “the least intrusive, least inefficient government intervention available” to deal with the problem … but then uncited, unreferenced, and frankly unbelievable claims seem to be Mr. Ed’s stock in trade.