Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Trakar]

Incorrect, this is the result of the most recent polling of climate scientists. I stay abreast of the science and don't distract myself with politically motivated websites.

then why are all of your references from political punditry websites run by non scientists?

..as if scientists are lining up for grants to study Newtonian mechanics! That's such a hoot! Any recent advancements on the coefficient of friction?

Very few, if any, scientists determine what field of science to go into based upon the money they are going to earn researching that topic. Most devote to a field of interest and then try to figure out how to make a living doing the research. Newtonian/classical mechanics is still midely used and practically applied in industry, and space science, likewise, the study of the coefficient of friction is widely researched in materials science and industrial applications research.

I don't read RealClimate or Skeptical Science so I don't know much about these pseudoscience blogs.

Though these aren't pseudoscience blogs, they are blogs and I really would rather not use blogs to illustrate or discuss science regardless of whether they are run by peer-respected climatologists or ex-weathermen turned political pundit. If you and the others here are willing to forego any allusion to, or reference to or from blogs and stick to only peer-reviewed science published in field respected professional science journals and officially recognized and accepted outlets of mainstream science information, I will be happy to enjoin you in that effort.

For those that may be confused about Pseudoscience:

What is science? What is Pseudoscience?
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/pseudo/scipseud.htm

We list below a few qualities of, or symptoms of, pseudoscience. This is also a catalog of the many things that can cause mistakes and error in science. The history of science itself provides examples of some of these, but we hope that we have learned from the mistakes of our past history. Few pseudosciences exhibit all of these characteristics.


Pseudoscientists have deficient or superficial knowledge and understanding of well-established science.
Their proposals are therefore based on faulty understanding of very basic and well established principles of physics and engineering.
The inventors may not be at all aware of these flaws in their reasoning.
They feel that physics is unnecessarily complicated because physicists are 'blind' to simpler explanations.
Some complain that physics is "too mathematical" while others dazzle the innocent with mathematical gymnastics, mistakenly thinking that mathematics is physics, not understanding that it is only a modeling tool.
They obsessively focus on a narrow problem without grasping the powerful interconnectedness of physical theory. Therefore they may not be aware of the broader implications and consequences of their ideas.
They have inordinate confidence in themselves, plus an almost religious faith that their feelings, intuitions and hunches provide a reliable guide to scientific truth.
Anyone who fails to see their genius is labeled 'blind'. They love to compare themselves to innovators of the past whose ideas were initially rejected. "They laughed at Galileo, didn't they?"
Pseudoscientists are angry that their ideas are ignored by the scientific community. They behave as if scientists should drop whatever else it is they are doing to investigate speculative proposals, even though these proposals are not motivated by established scientific knowledge, and may be scientifically implausible.
Pseudoscientists have over-reliance on personal testimony of individuals, and other anecdotal evidence.
Pseudoscientists have an obsession with anomalous observations that seem not to fit established science theory.
Pseudoscientists often display an attitude of "If it feels right to me, it must be right."
Pseudoscientists feel that "Nothing is a coincidence."
Pseudoscientists have an obsession with finding "patterns" in data. Scientists must be pattern-seekers too, but it's a mistake to seek significance in patterns of things that have no possible connection or relation, such as patterns of stars in the sky (constellations), tea leaves, or ink blots.
Pseudoscientists often commit various abuses and misuses of statistics.
Pseudoscientists are motivated by considerations that lie outside the scope of science, or have already been thoroughly discredited. Example, the acupuncturists' acceptance of the reality of specific "energy pathways" in the human body. Another example: the creationists' view that science must be in harmony with their particular interpretation of the King James translation of the Bible.

...I willing to bet if you polled climate scientists you couldn't get 95% of them to agree this amounts to consensus on AGW

"Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change" - http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

...This brief report addresses the two primary questions of the survey, which contained up to nine questions (the full study is given by Kendall Zimmerman [2008]):

1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing
mean global temperatures?
(...)
In general, as the level of active research and specialization in climate science
increases, so does agreement with the two primary questions (Figure 1). In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2.
(...)

Please forward your wager amount to:
http://www.nrdc.org/joingive/

 

[CapelDodger]

Edited by arthwollipot: 

Edited out sacrificial text. Please do not do that.

... until then, however, they are accurate and well supported by the content of your own postings.

I second that. Anyone (expect 3bodyproblem) against?

 

[CapelDodger]

March issue of Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society is out...

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1938.toc

Interesting theme.

Interesting that it is the theme. See also http://www.researchresearch.com/ind...mplate=rr_2col&view=article&articleId=1032320

“This is strong language because the frustration is so huge and because scientists are being misunderstood. For far too long we have been tolerant of these post-modern ideas that more than one truth is valid. All this sort of nonsense does make you very frustrated in the end.”

The giant has woken, and the denial effort is going to get blown away. Its destiny is with the Hollow Earthers, the Millerite hold-outs, and other long-tail cults.

I hear that the WSJ will be publishing a letter of complaint from the computer bod misrepresented in the article BeAChooser swooped in to celebrate (yet another final nail in the coffin, what's not for BeAChooser to like?) on the 24th Feb. Whether they'll apologise, as the Torygraph has had to repeatedly about Delingpole, is probably a First Amendment issue.

Before that gem we have McIntyre defending himself, in his usual squirmy manner, over the Steig slander. The story there was meant to be the O'Donnel et al paper, but it was not to be. Steig made a reasonable, polite blog-post about it and they came out spitting and totally unprepared.

Before that was the oh-so-reasonable Lisbon bridge-making exercise, where people could discuss the phoney controversies so beloved of the denial-machine. Poorly-machined parts of the exercise couldn't resist a slander on a climate scientist, which boomeranged and overshadowed the whole silly show. (You know a show is silly when it involves two Philosophers of Science with post-normal leanings, and Judith Curry. You know it'll be badly-managed when McIntyre is involved. No wonder he rose without trace in his first professional career.)

Denier hysteria is rising, as we could all foresee it would. Those of us who wanted to, at least.

 

[CapelDodger]

That seems like a rather odd thing to notice and report back on.
Did it catch your eye?

Clever . Keeps the mods guessing.

Plus you deliberately left out her so called "Qualifications"

Dismissed out-of-hand.

"Joanne Nova finished her Bachelor of Science degree with first class honours, A+ grades and both the FH Faulding, and The Swan Brewery Prizes, at the University of Western Australia. She majored in Microbiology, Molecular Biology and doing honours research into DNA markers for use in Muscular Dystrophy trials. She also has a Graduate Certificate in Science Communication from the ANU, and worked for three years as an Associate Lecturer for the Graduate Diploma in Science Communication program at the Australian National University."

She's a scientist and has more than enough experience with collecting, recording and evaluating data sets.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/02/how-easily-it-is-to-get-fooled/

She's one scientist amongst many who aren't asking these questions. How many actually are?

All of which seems relevant to the issue at hand.

Clever again.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be a climate scientist in order to call for an audit of the recorded temperatures?

Anybody can call for things. What's their relevance?

The scientific world is barrelling ahead on climate science regardless of such calls. This experiment we're performing, in concert with the long-standing "more research is needed" policy which has resulted in more research being done (particularly on the oceans), is teaching us a lot about how climate works. Which is mostly as we expected.

What's unexpected is how ice and premafrost relate to climate. It turns out they're a lot more sensitive to climate than the experts (in ice and permafrost) expected. Not that I'm suggesting they're at fault in that. Ice-dynamics is a much harder problem than climate, and as for permafrost, who knew? "Studying permafrost" was a euphemism for "exiled to Siberia" when the experts were getting their expertise.

 

[Furcifer]

Good News out of the US

House votes 244-179 to kill U.S. funding of IPCC

Just before 2 a.m. on February 19, the war on climate science showed its grip on the U.S. House of Representatives as it voted to eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

link:http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2011/02/19/house-votes-244-179-to-kill-u-s-funding-of-ipcc/

They may have been exonerated by their respective Universities but the fall out from lying to the public and manipulating data is finally catching up with them. This should be a lesson for the rest of the climate cowboys; the public isn't going to pay for junk science.

 

[Zeph]

Hmmm, There seems to be an interesting assymmetry in these discussions.

Those accepting AGW have to assemble & adjust instrumental records, calibrate proxies for past eras, measure radiative imbalances, measure and account for ocean heat transfer, and produce ever more detailed models (among other things). They do that, and appear to most scientists (IPCC, national academies around the world, scientific professional societies around the world) to have made a very credible case for AGW.

On the other side, anti-AGW folks pick away at every little piece, looking for any flaw anywhere in the edifice of science the AGW folks have been creating. When an argument against AGW proves flawed, at MOST it gets discarded in favor of the next one, without in any way discrediting the credibility of the critic. Critics are not held accountable to similar standards.

In particular, critics of AGW are not expected to come up with any alternative explanation at even vaguely the same level of evidence or analysis, and they make bedfellows with other critics whose beliefs are radically at odds. Some say the greenhouse effect doesn't exist, other accept it but don't believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas, others say it is but is too rarified, others accept CO2 but question the sensitivity (feedback/amplification) factor, some think the sun explains it, some think cosmic radiation, some think it's not happening, some think it's happening but is all natural, etc. The critics are all over the map and their viewpoints are frequently in radical disagreement - except that they all want to bring down mainstream science before discussing their own irreconcilable differences or disputing each other (for the most part).

But it goes further. All they need to do is come up with a more accurate model, taking into account all the factors and feedbacks they believe relevant - and make a better prediction for the known record without including CO2 or with different sensitivity factors. If their non-AGW model can do a better job and withstand the same criticism they dish out, I'm quite sure AGW will tank in the scientific world.

But that isn't happening - the critics have no scientific ediface, connecting many different fields of research into a more or less coherent whole. They just nip at the heels of those who do, as best I can tell.

Suppose the shoe were on the other foot. Somebody proposed pumping the expected number of gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere and needed to do a scientific study to show that this would NOT produce major adverse results - an environment impact statement of sorts. That is, they need to produce models and science which has a high degree of certainty in reassuring the world that all that extra CO2 won't cause a problem. Then withstand scientific criticism.

As far as I can see, none of the critics of AGW is even slightly ready for that task. They try to foster doubt that AGW is "proven to their satisfaction", but they take on no burden of proving that CO2 won't cause harm. "Business as usual" gets all the benefit of any doubt of any sort which can be raised - rather than the reverse.

I suspect that someday historians of science will cite examples of this era to the effect that arguments that "Climate Science doesn't yet understand things fully" would paradoxicaly be used as reasons to CONTINUE perturbing the system, rather than the obverse!

I see this in some responses to the stated uncertainties of climate projections - critics seem to assume that all the uncertainties point to less than the central projection, but the uncertainties can also go the other way and result in much worse outcomes than the "maximal likelihood" estimate. In other words, if some study finds that there MIGHT be minimal effect on one end of the probability distribution (and there might be huge effect on the other end), it's assumed this is reassurance to forge full speed ahead, because just MAYBE it won't be a big problem, by the scientists own error bars! The scientists haven't proved (to the satisfaction of the critic) that the effect won't turn out to be at the low end of the predicted distribution.

Why is it so hard to grasp that FUD is not reassurance to go full speed ahead. If we were piloting a ship in rocky waters within the fog, and the main GPS says we're heading for a shoal if not outright grounding, why does somebody think that questioning its accuracy would encourage us to steam at top speed? Instead they need to produce a solid and reliable GPS reading which says we WON'T hit the rocks, before forging forward.

Even if somebody thinks the case for AGW hasn't been proven beyond doubt, consider whether there is "probable cause" to consider it possible. After extensive study, something like 95% of climate scientists accept it. A good majority of other scientists do as well. That doesn't mean it's true, but it does mean that AGW can't be quickly dismissed as ridiculous and obviously false. If 95% of the pilots for the harbor say the ship is heading for dangerous rocks, they could still be wrong - but to consider the course to be 100% safe so long as a few pilots still say it OK would be kind of foolish, no? If there's that much smoke, the possibility of fire can't be so easily dismissed.

And finally - the belief that any kind of mitigation would be an economic disaster is taken as self evident, and not in need of serious debate or examination. The standards of "proof" needed for that projection are incredibly less than for AGW.

Any options for making this a bit more balanced in terms of standards of evidence, and which foot the shoe belongs on?

 

[Zeph]

Utter nonsense. It's specifically because of my extensive scientific knowledge I realize how immature this science really is. My own opinions on this matter are backed by 95% of the climate science community. This is why I choose to fight the blind alarmism being expressed by mainstream AGW proponents who misrepresent the scientific consensus. There are published professional scientists still questioning the role of anthropogenic CO2 in climate change! Try and remember this is science and not politics or religion.

I'm trying to see the science you assert this is about. Please show your source for that 95% figure, so we can see if it's evidence based or faith based. That's a simple request which seems to not be getting dealt with. Claiming "extensive scientific knowledge", but appearing unwilling or unable to cross the gap between unsupported assertion and evidence, is not helpful to the cause you seem to be advocating.

Let's start with this: how many people are in the "climate science community" according to your sources, and how many of those back "your opinion"? 10000 and 9500? 1000 and 950? 100 and 95? 20 and 19? If you know of some survey, surely you as a scientifically astute individual know what the N of the survey was? What question was asked, specifically, of those N climate scientists? References?

 

[macdoc]

3b

What physics have you presented that I couldn't or didn't understand?

Most of your own ( and those vanishingly few references to actual science sources ) you either clearly do not understand or choose not to....as has been pointed out to you repeatedly by those that do understand the physics.

I just don't believe the alarmism is warranted

One of the few statements justified - you can always choose to stay uninformed - that's all you need for a "belief".

The fact is climate science is only beginning to understand feedback and forcing

wrong on many fronts

a) science in general is quite clear on feedback and forcing
b) climate science is as well.

Perhaps you need some sources which this is meant to address

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/678.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-to-feedbacks/

Since there is vanishingly little negative feedback the change all trends to an increasingly rapidly warming planet - ocean and atmosphere and cryosphere.
Some of the more serious positive feedback cycles are as yet nascent, but not for long as shown above and also with methane.
They will in due course overwhelm the kick off forcing of C02.

Reliable data from satellite sources is relatively new.

That's true but largely irrelevant as digital data is only a reference point for the enormous amounts of analogue signals from a wide variety of sources some going back hundreds of years as recorded data and others going back millennia and more as stored records in many formats.

Digital recordings simply are one more tool and even they do not have the incredible sensitivity to change over time offered by biome markers.

Lake Baikal biome is one in particular

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-...e-climate.html

We don't fully understand nuclear physics and even the most powerful supercomputers struggle to model correctly.
Yet build useful devices and make policy decisions that rely on what we DO understand.

We do not need "extra precision" to understand that

It's getting warmer
We're responsible due to burning of fossil fuels

That reality has been understood for a century or more and reinforced by the admission of the climate scientists back in 1995 employed by those companies most responsible for the bulk of emissions.
We are simply better equipped to chart it's unfolding and understand the consequences for the global climate even tho resolution for local climates regimes is still "work in progress" to provide better policy guidance to a given local.
Monsoons for instance are critical and work is still being done especially by those countries most impacted.

They are not sitting on their hands waiting for "more precision" - they are moving ahead with policy decisions based on the strong body of knowledge already in place and growing every day.

http://hendrawanm.wordpress.com/2011...limate-change/

Here is a good example

“Unprecedented increase in global temperature and widespread occurrences of climatic anomalies around the globe endorses that earth’s climate is undergoing a phenomenal change.
All over the globe warmest years and changes in sea level, glacier structure and rise in temperature occurred including India which witnessed increased trend in mean surface temperature. The year 2009 was the warmest year in the country in the past 100 years.
He added, “ Global Climate Models taking part in the IPCC 4th assessment report indicate that the increase in temperature in recent decade is most likely due to anthropologenic green house gases (GHGs).The current concentration of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere is 30% .
They are 3 times larger than highest levels seen during the past one million years.”
Discussing the possible effects of these changes on Indian summer monsoon, mean Indian summer Monsoon rainfall and responses, Prof Goswami categorically said that
"The effective predictions of monsoon weather demand quantum leap in improvement of observations, better prediction system and high computing power".
He explained, “The increasing trend in frequency and intensity of extreme rain events over Central Indian (CI) may be attributed to the increasing instability. While the extreme rain events over north-east India are declining in compliance with a decreasing trend in convective instability. The consequence of the energized high frequency scales are its influence on the potential predictability of monsoon weather. High active frequency scales would cause faster growth and saturation of very small initial errors. It reduces the potential predictability of weather scales through upscale cascade of errors. The average error doubling time computed using India Meteorological Department (IMD) daily gridded rainfall data from 1901-2004 over Central India. This error doubled in recent quarter of 100 year period and hence become almost difficult to predict during the recent decades.” Regarding cyclones and depressions Prof Goswami said the number of cyclones have decreased but depressions have increased.
Despite general consensus among models in predictions, they do not project the Summer Monsoon Rainfall over south Asia with fidelity.
Uncertainty on projection of Indian monsoon also arises from the fact that monsoon is affected by certain feed backs within the climate system.”

http://hendrawanm.wordpress.com/2011...limate-change/

Yet there is no question in his mind whatsoever that his nation's climate is changing due to increases in fossil C02 in the atmosphere.

Unlike some who remain in denial for spurious reasons....his is science based reasoning and not in denial of the reality of AGW.

“Unprecedented increase in global temperature and widespread occurrences of climatic anomalies around the globe endorses that earth’s climate is undergoing a phenomenal change.

He does acknowledge the need for better models to predict the local changes and consequences that forcing will engender

He is in no doubt about the primary forcing - nor should anyone with even a shred of understanding of the atmospheric physics.

'Course some even deny evolution for their own reasons or interests....despite the overwhelming evidence that they are wrong in their "belief".

 

[Furcifer]

I'm trying to see the science you assert this is about. Please show your source for that 95% figure, so we can see if it's evidence based or faith based. That's a simple request which seems to not be getting dealt with. Claiming "extensive scientific knowledge", but appearing unwilling or unable to cross the gap between unsupported assertion and evidence, is not helpful to the cause you seem to be advocating.

Let's start with this: how many people are in the "climate science community" according to your sources, and how many of those back "your opinion"? 10000 and 9500? 1000 and 950? 100 and 95? 20 and 19? If you know of some survey, surely you as a scientifically astute individual know what the N of the survey was? What question was asked, specifically, of those N climate scientists? References?

It's the most recent Harris poll. I believe it was around 500 climate scientists.
That's all I remember. It was discussed in another thread about the consensus poll. Some people just conveniently forgot.

 

[macdoc]

No you conveniently forgot - and have been questioned on it a number of times.
500 climate scientists eh? - let's see you back up your argument for once instead of laying off the responsibility to other's forgetfulness.

 

[macdoc]

Climate Change Affecting Food Safety

ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2011) — Climate change is already having an effect on the safety of the world's food supplies and unless action is taken it's only going to get worse, a Michigan State University professor told a symposium at this year's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

more

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110221101319.htm

snip

there are already a number of examples of climate change taking its toll on the world's food supply. One is Vibrio, a pathogen typically found in warm ocean water which is now becoming more common in the north as water temperatures rise.

"It's been moving further up the coast these past few years," he said. "There was an outbreak of it near Alaska in 2005 when water temperature reached 15 degrees Celsius."

not in some distance future - but NOW.

 

[macdoc]

You are making this up out of whole clothe?
I just spent some time looking at Harris Poll and climate scientists and there is nothing even remotely close to what you have repeated as fact time and again as "the latest poll".

This from a 2007 mail in survey limited to the US
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html

currently

Anderegg, Prall, Harold, and Schneider, 2010A 2010 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States reviewed publication and citation data for 1,372 climate researchers and resulted in the following two conclusions:

(i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.[105]

Doran and Kendall Zimmerman, 2009A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago received replies from 3,146 of the 10,257 polled Earth scientists. Results were analyzed globally and by specialization.
76 out of 79 climatologists who "listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change" believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 75 out of 77 believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures.
Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 82% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Economic geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in significant human involvement. A summary from the survey states that:
It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.[106]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scient...g.2C_Prall.2C_Harold.2C_and_Schneider.2C_2010

the debate is non-existent on those who actually understand long term climate processes.

Aside from that, science is not done by polls but by evidence and theory and the evidence is overwhelming and the theory sound.

Any remaining debate is in regard to how to deal with the consequences and how fast those consequences will arrive for various locales.
That would be NOW for some.
Soon for many.

 

[Furcifer]

You are making this up out of whole clothe?
I just spent some time looking at Harris Poll and climate scientists and there is nothing even remotely close to what you have repeated as fact time and again as "the latest poll".

From the page:

A need to know more
Overall, only 5% describe the study of global climate change as a “fully mature” science, but 51% describe it as “fairly mature,” while 40% see it as still an “emerging” science.

Edited by Tricky: 

Edited for civility.

...that means 95% of scientists don't find the field "fully mature".

Edited by Tricky: 

Edited for civility.

 

[Furcifer]

Since there is vanishingly little negative feedback the change all trends to an increasingly rapidly warming planet - ocean and atmosphere and cryosphere.

Edited by arthwollipot: 

Edited for civility

Only if you ignore clouds, which is the largest source of uncertainty in climate models.

Now that you know this maybe you'll take a more skeptical approach? Blind faith in a science that 95% of actual scientists don't find "fully mature" is the furthest thing from skepticism.

 

[macdoc]

Fully mature - shall I go back and quote how you massaged that ??? Without ONCE referencing the actual work despite numerous requests and you pretended some how it was current...rather than 4 years in the past.

Funny you did not quote the rest of the study or the others that ARE current.......
and I can guarantee not one of those 95% would give your sit on hands do nothing cuz we don't know enough argument the time of day.

Nuclear physics, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics to name just a couple are not "fully mature" either.

Nor would most disciplines be under such a vague premise and those scientists on the write in poll of a very limited scope - were honest enough to recognize the "fully mature" spin.

That is no way stops us from acting on what we DO know.

It's getting warmer
We're responsible by releasing fossil carbon
We have to act now to reduce the extent and onset of impact
We have to plan how to cope with a process that we have initiated and will impact the climate for thousands of years.

The rest is filling in the details as with any science category.

You are looking for a Hail Mary last minute bit of information to overturn a 100 years of atmospheric science.that CO2 is the current driver of climate change..you even claimed to find one....without a shred of support for it.

Ragged clothe more like.....not even shreds

Meanwhile back in the actual world of climate science....the consequences of our unintentional experiment with the atmospheric gas mix are being revealed and examined

Going to extremes

Filed under:

• Climate Science
• Hurricanes
• Instrumental Record
• Reporting on climate

— gavin @ 17 February 2011
There are two new papers in Nature this week that go right to the heart of the conversation about extreme events and their potential relationship to climate change. This is a complex issue, and one not well-suited to soundbite quotes and headlines, and so we’ll try and give a flavour of what the issues are and what new directions these new papers are pointing towards.

Let’s start with some very basic, but oft-confused points:

• Not all extremes are the same. Discussions of ‘changes in extremes’ in general without specifying exactly what is being discussed are meaningless. A tornado is an extreme event, but one whose causes, sensitivity to change and impacts have nothing to do with those related to an ice storm, or a heat wave or cold air outbreak or a drought.
• There is no theory or result that indicates that climate change increases extremes in general. This is a corollary of the previous statement – each kind of extreme needs to be looked at specifically – and often regionally as well.
• Some extremes will become more common in future (and some less so). We will discuss the specifics below.
• Attribution of extremes is hard. There are limited observational data to start with, insufficient testing of climate model simulations of extremes, and (so far) limited assessment of model projections.

The two new papers deal with the attribution of a single flood event (Pall et al), and the attribution of increased intensity of rainfall across the Northern Hemisphere (Min et al). While these issues are linked, they are quite distinct, and the two approaches are very different too.

continues



http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/02/going-to-extremes/

 

[macdoc]

Meanwhile the warming goes on.....

2.3.2011 9:16 am
January Marks New Record-Low for Arctic Sea Ice
Even as the ice in the Arctic continues to form as part of the normal winter cycle, the cycle is continuing to show signs of anything but normalcy.

Read more: Arctic Sea Ice Extent January 2011 Record - New Record for Arctic Sea Ice - The Daily Green

and the shipping interests are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of an open Arctic.

 

[BenBurch]

We appear to be on track for a record low sea ice extent and sea ice area in February.

If this is combined with a return of the arctic dipole this summer, we may have a record low end-of-season.

Very much on track for two record-low months in a row now.

Starting the season with much less ice means it won't take a whole lot to make a huge change in the end of season numbers.

 

[Trakar]

It's the most recent Harris poll. I believe it was around 500 climate scientists.
That's all I remember. It was discussed in another thread about the consensus poll. Some people just conveniently forgot.

The only Harris survey I see related to the issue is this one, which was an online open survey conducted back in 2009 which was a general public survey heavily spoofed on multiple heavily conservative political blogs.

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/vault/HI_FT_HarrisPoll_GlobalOmnibus_ClimateChange_US_Oct09.pdf

But this isn't new, isn't a polling of climate scientists, nor even a very well controlled survey of general public opinions. If, however, you can produce a different and more authentic to your claims poll, I'd be happy to review its results.

 

[Trakar]

...Is there anything you'd like to discuss about the science? How about the fact that it isn't near settled, and 95% of climate scientists think it is anything but "mature"?...

Still waiting on some support for this statement!

 

[Trakar]

Edited by arthwollipot: 

Edited for civility

Only if you ignore clouds, which is the largest source of uncertainty in climate models.

Now that you know this maybe you'll take a more skeptical approach? Blind faith in a science that 95% of actual scientists don't find "fully mature" is the furthest thing from skepticism.

There is little uncertainty with regards to the impact of clouds upon the climate system, there is some uncertainty as to how future conditions will precisely impact cloud formation, but this isn't a problem for understanding climate and climate impacts, it does make for some potential error bars in future predictions, but this isn't a problem in understanding what is forcing climate change, nor what we need to do to reduce and remove our contributions to that forcing.

The bar-lowering regarding your climate change assertions (from "95% of climate scientists" to "95% of scientists," and from "mature" to "fully mature") are duly noted, though I am unimpressed with the support for either side of the waffle at this point. I find it curious that despite the fact that nearly 60% of a diverse body of earth science researchers consider climate science to be a mature science (in varying levels of consideration) in a single, small sample survey conducted almost half a decade ago to be in any way supportive of your implications that most climate scientists agree with your perspective on the issues of climate science.