Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Furcifer]

Neither can I. It's truly incredible that anyone could spend that long ranting about the wrong graph. As has been explained to you over and over again, that is not a graph of the CO₂ concentration. When people say that the increase in CO₂ concentration is not linear, pointing at that graph is utterly irrelevant.

Amusing that you continue to whine about "alarmist derails" though, given that the entire derail is a result of your refusal to look at the correct graph.

The "correct" graph is the one I choose, not you. This is just another heinous example of the goal post shifting rampant in this discussion.

No, the issue is about whether a completely different line is straight or curved. This graph is only relevant in that it gives a nice indication of just how curved the relevant line actually is.

So does a 1% increase in rate every year

And no, the issue is whether or not the slope is what it is because of the measures we're taking, the billions we're spending on mitigation, or not. Not whether one graph is a curve and another is a line. I know, because I brought it up.

 

[Furcifer]

What dodge? So far I'm the only one of the two of us that has provided any plots.

*sigh

(1990,1%) (1991,1%) (1992,1%) (1993,1%)

Plot it, see if it's curve or a line.

Edited by LashL: 

Moderated thread.

So is a heatwave is defined as being above 30 deg C and then that area gets a new mean warmed by 1 deg C, then a heatwave is now defined as a temperature greater than 31 deg C. Rubbish, the definition remains unchanged at 30 deg C. It's just that more days exceed that! Are you trying to be deliberately dense?

What nonsense. There was a heatwave right where I'm standing about 100 000 years ago, it was about 1C. A heatwave isn't about a temperatures above a certain fixed point, it's about a temperature above the mean.

Case in point, the first time I got to Vancouver I was in a cab and the driver was complaining about the heat wave. He was worried about it getting to 28C. Around here in southern Ontario that's a pleasant spring day. In India that's a chilly Summer night. It's relative.

So are cold snaps. In Florida a cold snap is a bit of frost. In Northern Ontario it's -45F. It's relative.

You don't know what you're talking about as usual.

Citation please.

First you read AR4, then we'll discuss it.

Citation please. What area under the graph, surely not under the entire graph (the sum of all outcomes)? The area under a graph exceeding a given value changes as it is displaced.
Here you go - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

The area under the curve can't exceed 1. Shifting it won't change that. Do you understand?

 

[Reality Check]

The Mauna Loa CO2 data does not vary linearly II

lol. Visibly curved? I beg to differ:

http://i55.tinypic.com/k9coyt.jpg

It's a straight line. It's linear. I can't believe I've been arguing this 3 weeks.

It's the wrong graph. It's linear on the wrong graph. I can't believe that you cannot understand that it is the wrong graph !

The data that shows the CO2 data from the Mauna Loa atmospheric observatory is the first graph.

The Mauna Loa CO2 data does not vary linearly.

I cited CO2 shame way back on the 9th of May 2011 but you seem to have not read the blog entry. The author takes the data (the first graph) and plots the difference per year (the second graph). He then fits a straight line to the difference data. That line would be flat if the original data was linear. The line is not flat.

We also have TShaitanaku's analysis:

He cited the data linked at the Mauna Loa monitoring site, did an analysis of

• The first 10 years of data - "This gives us a average increase during that first decade of record keeping of about 0.0027 or 0.27% roughly half of the current rates of increase"
• The last 10 years of data - Fitting a line to the data is inappropriate.

You then took The last 10 years of data, averaged the % increase per year to get 0.5%.


You missed the point: The % increase per year varies. It starts as as a decadal average of 0.27% and increased to a decadal average of 0.5%.

IOW the slope of the data changes, i.e. it is not linear.

 

[Furcifer]

It's the wrong graph. It's linear on the wrong graph. I can't believe that you cannot understand that it is the wrong graph !

*sigh

It's the "right" graph in so much as it shows how the rate is increasing at a linear rate.

The data that shows the CO2 data from the Mauna Loa atmospheric observatory is the first graph.

Yes, so what? We were talking about the rate of increase not the measured ppm. That's why it's the "wrong" graph.

Why is this so hard for someone with a University education to understand?

The Mauna Loa CO2 data does not vary linearly.

Yes it does when it's plotted to show the rate of increase.

We also have TShaitanaku's analysis:
IOW the slope of the data changes, i.e. it is not linear.

I said 30 years and I said "approximately" 1%.

It comes as no surprise you're avoiding the actual data set and trying to manipulate the numbers. The boys at the IPCC would be proud.

Is there any point to this? Other than the fact that 1% is slightly over estimated depending on if you look at CO2 or GHG's I just don't see the point. It's just childish foot stomping and it has amounted to the biggest diversion I have ever seen. Everyone gets it, the rate of CO2 being released on a yearly basis is increasing at about 1% per year. It's held fairly steady at that rate for about 30 years. This is most likely because it's not "business as usual".

Any study you read that uses a "business as usual" scenario should be discarded as fantasy. It's not "business as usual". You'd have to be a fool to think it's been "business as usual" for the last 30 years. You only have to look to the star in your fridge, the car in your driveway and the light over your head to realize it's not business as usual.

The only reason they use a "business as usual" scenario is because it is easy to calculate and easy to tune the models to. It's a technique and in no way reflects reality.

 

[CapelDodger]

The area under the curve can't exceed 1.

One what?

And yet again you aren't seeing the words :

"The area under a graph exceeding a given value changes as it is displaced."

Which is hardly controversial to most minds.

Shifting it won't change that. Do you understand?

Do you see the words "exceeding a given value"? Do you understand their meaning?

The term "heatwave" is often defined as days above a given temperature for meteorological and other reasons. For instance, certain public actions may be triggered in response, hospitals may receive extra payments to cover the unbudgeted cost, and so on. This won't change because the physiological impacts won't change even as mean temperatures increase.

Adjusting definitions to match the new normal does not make everything remain normal, unfortunately. On the positive side, some things will never change.

 

[Trakar]

One what?

And yet again you aren't seeing the words :



Which is hardly controversial to most minds.




Do you see the words "exceeding a given value"? Do you understand their meaning?

The term "heatwave" is often defined as days above a given temperature for meteorological and other reasons. For instance, certain public actions may be triggered in response, hospitals may receive extra payments to cover the unbudgeted cost, and so on. This won't change because the physiological impacts won't change even as mean temperatures increase.

Adjusting definitions to match the new normal does not make everything remain normal, unfortunately. On the positive side, some things will never change.

"positive" side?

 

[CapelDodger]

The mere fact that we are arguing with somebody over whether a visibly-curved trend is really a straight line shows how ridiculous this debate has become; Nobody except the trolls have any arguments to make, and their arguments are of the basic "white IS black" sort that never lead anywhere except frustration.

Time was never going to be the friend of the pseudo-substantive arguments put forth, and they've all fallen by the wayside. Christy and Lindzen are still touring with "low climate sensitivity" but without much conviction, which is entirely pointless anyway - if climate sensitivity is low, global sensitivity to climate change must be high, as evidenced by what's actually happening in the world. The big bad analogue model is not subject to public opinion or politically-inspired manipulation, and it is never wrong.

The cosmic-ray thing is still sputtering along, despite the "no trend in GCR's during the relevant period, thank you" which should really have closed it down from the start. (It's no use to deniers anyway during the up-phase of solar activity, which is where we are.) "Recent cooling" is so 2009, and where was the Heatland Climate Conflab this year? For that matter, where's Munchkin?

Trawling through text nit-picking talking points has gone the way of Wegman, and FOI is turning out to cut both ways. "Alarmism" is applied to old predictions which are coming to pass in droughts and deluge and ice-melt, with inconvenient mis-matches between new-normal climates and their established local agricultures. And people are noticing.

 

[Trakar]

...The only reason they use a "business as usual" scenario is because it is easy to calculate and easy to tune the models to. It's a technique and in no way reflects reality.

Excepting of course for the little inconvenient, to your dismissives, truth that emissions levels and effects/impacts have matched or exceeded BAU senario conditions for most of the last 2-3 decades with no indication that they are, or will, slow toward your perceptions of "reality."

Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions - http://www.pnas.org/content/104/24/10288.full.pdf+html

...CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industrial processes
have been accelerating at a global scale, with their growth rate
increasing from 1.1% y
1 for 1990–1999 to >3% y
1 for 2000–
2004. The emissions growth rate since 2000 was greater than for
the most fossil-fuel intensive of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change emissions scenarios developed in the late 1990s....

Evidence for super-exponentially accelerating atmospheric carbon dioxide growth - http://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.2832

...As for atmospheric CO2 content, we find that it is at least exponentially increasing and more probably exhibiting an accelerating growth rate, consistent with a FTS (nite-time singular) power law regime...

Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide? - http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0811/0811.1855v2.pdf

...Because the current state of the system, by nature, is tied to its unchangeable past, it looks unlikely that there will be any substantial near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in CO2 emission rates....

(These were rather rushed references, I will happily provide additional support for those interested)

 

[Trakar]

Time was never going to be the friend of the pseudo-substantive arguments put forth, and they've all fallen by the wayside. Christy and Lindzen are still touring with "low climate sensitivity" but without much conviction, which is entirely pointless anyway - if climate sensitivity is low, global sensitivity to climate change must be high, as evidenced by what's actually happening in the world. The big bad analogue model is not subject to public opinion or politically-inspired manipulation, and it is never wrong.

The cosmic-ray thing is still sputtering along, despite the "no trend in GCR's during the relevant period, thank you" which should really have closed it down from the start. (It's no use to deniers anyway during the up-phase of solar activity, which is where we are.) "Recent cooling" is so 2009, and where was the Heatland Climate Conflab this year? For that matter, where's Munchkin?

Trawling through text nit-picking talking points has gone the way of Wegman, and FOI is turning out to cut both ways. "Alarmism" is applied to old predictions which are coming to pass in droughts and deluge and ice-melt, with inconvenient mis-matches between new-normal climates and their established local agricultures. And people are noticing.

Speaking of which have we talked about Watt's surfacestation.org lately and how the paper that Pielke helped him get his name attached to analysing the surfacestation.org data actually found that the GHCN (Global Historical Climate Network) weather station data may have actually underestimated the actual warming that has occurred over the last half century?

Distribution of Landscape Types in the Global Historical Climatology Network
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010EI371.1?journalCode=eint

Abstract

The Global Historical Climate Network version 2 (GHCNv.2) surface temperature dataset is widely used for reconstructions such as the global average surface temperature (GAST) anomaly. Because land use and land cover (LULC) affect temperatures, it is important to examine the spatial distribution and the LULC representation of GHCNv.2 stations. Here, nightlight imagery, two LULC datasets, and a population and cropland historical reconstruction are used to estimate the present and historical worldwide occurrence of LULC types and the number of GHCNv.2 stations within each. Results show that the GHCNv.2 station locations are biased toward urban and cropland (>50% stations versus 18.4% of the world’s land) and past century reclaimed cropland areas (35% stations versus 3.4% land). However, widely occurring LULC such as open shrubland, bare, snow/ice, and evergreen broadleaf forests are underrepresented (14% stations versus 48.1% land), as well as nonurban areas that have remained uncultivated in the past century (14.2% stations versus 43.2% land). Results from the temperature trends over the different landscapes confirm that the temperature trends are different for different LULC and that the GHCNv.2 stations network might be missing on long-term larger positive trends. This opens the possibility that the temperature increases of Earth’s land surface in the last century would be higher than what the GHCNv.2-based GAST analyses report.

 

[Furcifer]

Excepting of course for the little inconvenient, to your dismissives, truth that emissions levels and effects/impacts have matched or exceeded BAU senario conditions for most of the last 2-3 decades with no indication that they are, or will, slow toward your perceptions of "reality."

If that's the case then the climate is going to do what the climate is going to do. Time to adapt.

In the Detroit area last year a flood did a bunch of damage. This year the same thing (amusing how suddenly a 1 in 100 year storm happens 2 years in a row, then it isn't a 1 in 100 year storm is it? Anyhoo...) Apparently people had just finished fixing their basements when this flood hit. "Thousands of dollars wasted" on repairs that were destroyed last week.

Too bad they didn't spend $10 on a 1-way basement drain

Evidence for super-exponentially accelerating atmospheric carbon dioxide growth - http://arxiv.org/pdf/1101.2832

Sooper.

Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide? - http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0811/0811.1855v2.pdf
(These were rather rushed references, I will happily provide additional support for those interested)

Nobody cares. What people want to know is how much it's going to cost if this is indeed true, or if they should buy and air conditioner. (or install a $10 valve).
More importantly is if is is growing at a sooper exponential rate why isn't Kyoto and CFL's doing anything? If CO2 emissions are rising in step with population growth and modernization/industrialization then there's nothing that can realistically be done to stop it. You can't expect Pakistan to do what Norway is doing that's all there is too it.

Unless you plan to do it by force

 

[Furcifer]

One what?

This is basic statistics.

"What" varies depending on the the data. Maybe you're more familiar with 100%? Same thing.

The term "heatwave" is often defined as days above a given temperature for meteorological and other reasons.

I don't suppose you want to source this?

This is yet another example of what I find alarmist, internet "experts" on climate science making claims that aren't supported by the actual experts. In AR4 a heat wave would be loosely defined as an event that happens about 1-10% of the time. At least as we are taking about it in terms of extreme weather events.

I think you're closer to the mark here than the 30C nonsense someone else made up.

Adjusting definitions to match the new normal does not make everything remain normal, unfortunately. On the positive side, some things will never change.

That's exactly what the alarmists are doing though. They've found a nice time in human history to define as "normal" then run around like a chicken with their heads cut off screaming "It's changed oh noes!"

Or they've decided how fast it should change and then run around screaming "It's changing too fast!".

There was a glacier about 1 mile thick right where I'm standing right now. So yah it's warmed. Considerably. And there have been numerous "heat waves" since there was a glacier here. The most considerable heat wave in this areas history was about 1C, changed the land considerably. More than any 30C heat wave that's for sure.

Knowing that I wouldn't go around lecturing people about "adjusting the definition" that's for sure.

 

[INRM]

Title: Lobbyists Who Cleared 'Climategate' Academics Funded by Taxpayers and BBC
URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/en...cademics-funded-by-taxpayers-and-the-BBC.html

The little-known not-for-profit company works behind the scenes at international conferences to further its aims.

One of its key supporters headed the official investigation into the so-called "Climategate emails", producing a report which cleared experts of deliberately attempting to skew scientific results to confirm that global warming was a real threat.

Another scientific expert linked to the group came forward to praise a second independent investigation into the Climategate affair which also exonerated researchers.

Set up with the backing of Tony Blair, then the Prime Minister, and run by a group of British MPs and peers the organisation, Globe International, started life as an All Party Group based in the House of Commons.

It is now run as an international climate change lobbying group flying its supporters and experts club class to international summits to push its agenda.

 

[Furcifer]

And people are noticing.

lol,

Fear of Climate Change Falling PrecipitouslyApril 29, 2011 article

"The results of a recent survey conducted by the Gallup organization reveal that Americans and Europeans have much more to worry about (statism? crushing national debt?) than climate change"

"Majorities in developed countries that are key participants in the global climate debate continue to view global warming as a serious threat, but their concern is more subdued than it was in 2007-2008. In the U.S., a slim majority (53%) currently see it as a serious personal threat, down from 63% in previous years."

Thankfully people are noticing and they've noticed there's nothing to worry about. Cutting funding to the IPCC was a start, so was shutting down the cap and trade nonsense. Rational minds are prevailing.

Mind you, not worrying is a far cry from not doing anything. Alarmists have trouble separating the two.

 

[Reality Check]

*sigh

It's the "right" graph in so much as it shows how the rate is increasing at a linear rate.

*sigh
It's the "wrong" graph amd it shows how the rate of increase is increasing at a linear rate.

Yes, so what? We were talking about the rate of increase not the measured ppm. That's why it's the "wrong" graph.

No - We are talking about the measured ppm and its rate of increase. Neither of which is linear:
The Mauna Loa CO2 data and rate of increase do not vary linearly.
The Mauna Loa CO2 rate of increase does not vary linearly

Why is this so hard for someone with a University education to understand?

I understand it. You obviously still do not.

Yes it does when it's plotted to show the rate of increase.

No it does not - that is not a plot of the Mauna Loa CO2 data. It is a plot of the annual differences in the data.

I said 30 years and I said "approximately" 1%.

Then you are still wrong: The Mauna Loa CO2 rate of increase does not vary linearly over that 30 years even by '"approximately" 1%.

Is there any point to this?

The point is clearing up the basic misunderstandings that you have about CO2 concentrations:

1. The measurements at Mauna Loa do not fit a straight line (are not linear).
2. The measurements at Mauna Loa start at one rate in the first decade and end up at a higher rate in the last decade (do not have the same rate throughout the 30 year period).

Everyone gets it, the rate of CO2 being released on a yearly basis is increasing at about 1% per year.

Wrong: you do not get that we are talking about the Mauna Loa data. This is the actual concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, not the amount that we emit.

Any study you read that uses a "business as usual" scenario should be discarded as fantasy. It's not "business as usual".

I agree. The current awareness of global warming and the role that the CO2 we release plays in it means a BAU scenerio would be a fantasy.

The only reason they use a "business as usual" scenario is because it is easy to calculate and easy to tune the models to. It's a technique and in no way reflects reality.

That is not right. AFAIK, the BAU scenario is as complex as any other.
In fact a single BAU scenario does not exist. There are various scenarios that various authors have called "business as usual".
This is explicity pointed out for the SRES scenarios in 2000, Emissions Scenarios

The new set of SRES scenarios presented here is designed to respond to the IS92 weaknesses identified in the 1995 IPCC scenario evaluation and to incorporate advances in the state of the art since 1992. As in the case of the IS92 scenario series, also in this new set of SRES scenarios there is no single central case with respect to all characteristics that are relevant for different uses of emissions scenarios and there is no objective way to assign likelihood to any of the scenarios. Hence there is no "best guess" or "business-as-usual" scenario.

I definitely know that models are not "tuned" to the scenerio. They are tuned to the existing data.

 

[steenkh]

Mind you, not worrying is a far cry from not doing anything. Alarmists have trouble separating the two.

An alarmist is somebody who sees a danger where there is none. It is thoroughly proven that there is a danger, so people who worry are hardly alarmists.

On the other hand, denialists are people who do not see a danger where there is one. You seem to fit the bill, and the number of denialists is steadily rising. Why do you think it is so?

 

[Trakar]

Title: Lobbyists Who Cleared 'Climategate' Academics Funded by Taxpayers and BBC
URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/en...cademics-funded-by-taxpayers-and-the-BBC.html

So,...its a conspiracy? a white wash? all scientists, corals, thermometers, God Hisself!? THey are all in on this grand plot to make a bunch of politicized idiots who don't know science from science diet look like the idiots they already look like. Seriously?!

Or could this just be one more example of Enqui..er, Telegraph "gin the controversy" PR pieces?

 

[Trakar]

If that's the case then the climate is going to do what the climate is going to do. Time to adapt...

The point is to stop doing the things that are going to compound the problems we are already destined for. We may not be able to avoid the frying pan, but this just makes it all the more imperative that we avoid stoking and then leaping into the fire!

 

[Trakar]

lol,

Fear of Climate Change Falling PrecipitouslyApril 29, 2011 article

"The results of a recent survey conducted by the Gallup organization reveal that Americans and Europeans have much more to worry about (statism? crushing national debt?) than climate change"

"Majorities in developed countries that are key participants in the global climate debate continue to view global warming as a serious threat, but their concern is more subdued than it was in 2007-2008. In the U.S., a slim majority (53%) currently see it as a serious personal threat, down from 63% in previous years."

Thankfully people are noticing and they've noticed there's nothing to worry about. Cutting funding to the IPCC was a start, so was shutting down the cap and trade nonsense. Rational minds are prevailing.

Mind you, not worrying is a far cry from not doing anything. Alarmists have trouble separating the two.

People go through desensitization, and individual prioritizations. Most people do start focussing on immediate issues often while overlooking the fact that more immediate problems and worries are often the mere symptoms of longer term, underlying issues. But more importantly, the monied interests have a much more compliant audience and much better public persuasion soapbox than anywhere else on the planet.

Public understanding of climate change in the United States.
Weber, Elke U.; Stern, Paul C.
American Psychologist, Vol 66(4), May-Jun 2011, 315-328. doi: 10.1037/a0023253

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/66/4/315/

Abstract
This article considers scientific and public understandings of climate change and addresses the following question: Why is it that while scientific evidence has accumulated to document global climate change and scientific opinion has solidified about its existence and causes, U.S. public opinion has not and has instead become more polarized? Our review supports a constructivist account of human judgment. Public understanding is affected by the inherent difficulty of understanding climate change, the mismatch between people's usual modes of understanding and the task, and, particularly in the United States, a continuing societal struggle to shape the frames and mental models people use to understand the phenomena. We conclude by discussing ways in which psychology can help to improve public understanding of climate change and link a better understanding to action.

THE POLITICIZATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND POLARIZATION IN THE AMERICAN PUBLIC’S VIEWS OF GLOBAL WARMING, 2001–2010

http://news.msu.edu/media/documents/2011/04/593fe28b-fbc7-4a86-850a-2fe029dbeb41.pdf

Talking Past Each Other?
Cultural Framing of Skeptical and Convinced Logics in the Climate Change Debate

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/83161/4/1154_Ahoffman_finalFeb11.pdf

Abstract

This paper analyzes the extent to which two institutional logics around climate change – the climate change “convinced” and climate change “skeptical” logics – are truly competing or talking past each other in a way that can be described as a logic schism. Drawing on the concept of framing from social movement theory, it uses qualitative field observations from the largest climate deniers conference in the U.S. and a dataset of almost 800 op/eds from major news outlets over a two-year period to examine how convinced and skeptical arguments of opposing logics employ frames and issue categories to make arguments about climate change. This paper finds that the two logics are engaging in different debates on similar issues with the former focusing on solutions while the latter debates the definition of the problem. It concludes that the debate appears to be reaching a level of polarization where one might begin to question whether meaningful dialogue and problem solving has become unavailable to participants. The implications of such a logic schism is a shift from an integrative debate focused on addressing interests to a distributive battle over concessionary agreements with each side pursuing its goals by demonizing the other. Avoiding such an outcome requires the activation of, as yet, dormant “broker” frames (technology, religion and national security), the redefinition of existing ones (science, economics, risk, ideology) and the engagement of effective “climate brokers” to deliver them.

 

[Furcifer]

*sigh
It's the "wrong" graph amd it shows how the rate of increase is increasing at a linear rate.

Yah but it's right enough and I said that 3 weeks ago. (you'd have to use some mad skillz to figure out the increase is about 1% per year from that graph, but it's possible.

No - We are talking about the measured ppm and its rate of increase. Neither of which is linear:

And like I said 3 weeks ago, expressed as a yearly percentage increase in rate it's linear and 1% every year. Approximately.

The Mauna Loa CO2 data and rate of increase do not vary linearly.
The Mauna Loa CO2 rate of increase does not vary linearly

It does expressed as a percentage. This is why scientists use a 1% increase in rate. Although it isn't ideal it's effective.

I understand it. You obviously still do not.

I understand fully, and I see the mistake you're making. I see how it's expressed as an exponential increase and linearized and expressed as an approximate 1% increase every year. You obviously still do not.

No it does not - that is not a plot of the Mauna Loa CO2 data. It is a plot of the annual differences in the data.

And the difference in data expressed as a percentage every year is increasing at 1%. Every year, in a linear fashion.

Then you are still wrong: The Mauna Loa CO2 rate of increase does not vary linearly over that 30 years even by '"approximately" 1%.

No, like I said if you're having trouble plot it. 1%,1%,1%,1% every year for 30 years. It's linear, and approximately correct if you include all of the GHG's

The point is clearing up the basic misunderstandings that you have about CO2 concentrations:

1. 
   
   I don't have any misconceptions. You on the other hand don't seem to have grasped the whole picture.
   
   

   [*]The measurements at Mauna Loa do not fit a straight line (are not linear).
   [*]
   /showthread.php?postid=7228564#post7228564"]The measurements at Mauna Loa start at one rate in the first decade and end up at a higher rate in the last decade (do not have the same rate throughout the 30 year period).

   
   Of course they aren't identical. The increase fluctuates from month to month and year to year.
   
   

   Wrong: you do not get that we are talking about the Mauna Loa data.

   
   This is just incorrect. I don't know how you could read my posts and make this mistake. Although you continue to make basic mathematical mistakes as well so it's not entirely surprising. There's a single source for this data we're talking about and it's Mauna Loa.
   
   

   This is the actual concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, not the amount that we emit.

   
   True, and the true anthropogenic amount is unknown. Either way it affects the climate.
   
   

   I agree. The current awareness of global warming and the role that the CO2 we release plays in it means a BAU scenerio would be a fantasy.

   
   And yet a lot of model predictions are based on this and then reported as if it were actually business as usual.
   
   

   That is not right. AFAIK, the BAU scenario is as complex as any other.
   In fact a single BAU scenario does not exist. There are various scenarios that various authors have called "business as usual".

   
   It's a simplification none the less.
   
   

   I definitely know that models are not "tuned" to the scenerio. They are tuned to the existing data.

   
   The scenario happens to match the existing data in this case.
   
   Perhaps I should have made this more clear. I believe the "business as usual" scenario arose from tuning the models to the existing data and then letting them run forward. Much like lining up the sights on a gun, once everything is in line they run the model and follow the trajectory to the target. Typically the target is a doubling of CO2 but not always.

 

[Mikemcc]

*sigh

(1990,1%) (1991,1%) (1992,1%) (1993,1%)

Plot it, see if it's curve or a line.

Edited by LashL: 

Moderated thread.

That's an entirely seperate arguement where you are arguing the indefensible. We've repeated shown that the increase in CO2 concentration is not linear, nor is the rate of increase, it's accelerating! You've been told this countless times. I've linked to Tamino's post three times. If you have a problem with that analysis please feel free to critique it.

What nonsense. There was a heatwave right where I'm standing about 100 000 years ago, it was about 1C. A heatwave isn't about a temperatures above a certain fixed point, it's about a temperature above the mean.

A strawman, we're discussing conduitions now, not 100,000 years ago.

It depends on the definition. I will grant you that the WMO definition for a heatwave does refer to a number of days above a limit above the mean for that location. But this is looking at individual occurances (weather), not trends over long periods (climate). This can only be done when using a consistant definition.

There are many areas where heatwaves are defined by discrete temperatures,

A formal, peer-reviewed definition from the Glossary of Meteorology is:[4]

A period of abnormally and uncomfortably hot and usually humid weather.
To be a heat wave such a period should last at least one day, but conventionally it lasts from several days to several weeks. In 1900, A. T. Burrows more rigidly defined a “hot wave” as a spell of three or more days on each of which the maximum shade temperature reaches or exceeds 90 °F (32 °C). More realistically, the comfort criteria for any one region are dependent upon the normal conditions of that region.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_wave

Case in point, the first time I got to Vancouver I was in a cab and the driver was complaining about the heat wave. He was worried about it getting to 28C. Around here in southern Ontario that's a pleasant spring day. In India that's a chilly Summer night. It's relative.

So are cold snaps. In Florida a cold snap is a bit of frost. In Northern Ontario it's -45F. It's relative.

More strawmen, comparing absolute temperatures in different points around the globe is ridiculous.

You don't know what you're talking about as usual.

Ad hom arguements as well. Especially since it's you that has shown ignorance of basic maths (difference between linear, and quadratic curves) and statistics (the behaviour of a normal distribution)

First you read AR4, then we'll discuss it.

Whoa, that's some dodge. I'll just take it that means that you have no idea of where to link to for your claim.

The area under the curve can't exceed 1. Shifting it won't change that. Do you understand?

The value of 1 only equals toa normalised curve, that's why I used the phrase 'sum of all probabilities' (IIRC). As pointed out by CApelDodger you seem to have a blindness towards the key phase of the area under the curve exceeding a given value (I've bolded the text so that you don't miss it this time.)