Four degrees of warming 'likely'

[caedmon]

One bad apple can spoil the whole barrel.

One bad set of data calls the entire set of data into question.

You have apparently never been a database administrator, or run a mission-critical file server.

[chris_coreline]

And you believe this...how? Because the scientists told you? Scientists, for whom Global Warming is paying their research bills? Scientists willing to manipulate the results to further "prove" their theories?

well i certanly would.

heres some shock news, the plant pathology labratory at which my father works is being payed by the concept that plants can die due to desiese, my father has yet to a) engineer a superplague or b) fabricate results... i wonder why

how about this: the garage at which my friends car is repaired is being payed by automotive malfunctions, they have yet to install any insenduary devices in my friends car to increate their business... i wonder why

"Conspiracy theories represent a knowen glitch in human reasoning. The theories are of cource ocasionally true, but their truth is compleetly uncorrelated with the believers certainty/ For some reason, sometime when people thing they've uncovered a lie, they raise confirmation bias to an art form. They cut context away from facts and arduyments and assemble them into reassuring litanies. and over and over ive argured helplessly with smart people consumed by theories they were sure were irrefutable, theories that in the end proved complete fictions" - Randall Munroe

[SteveShaw]

One bad apple can spoil the whole barrel.

One bad set of data calls the entire set of data into question.

You have apparently never been a database administrator, or run a mission-critical file server.

And this disqualifies me from what, precisely?

And you really do need to study the data before making those sweeping statements about bad apples. There is not just one set of data that can all be corrupted by one piece of faulty input. There is all the temperature data, the atmospheric composition data, sea-level data, glacier and polar ice data, solar input data, past climate data from fossil vegetation and pollen analysis, ice-core data and vast amounts of data from various attempts at atmospheric and climate modelling. Independent blocks of data. I thought of using that bad apples one myself, but I decided to avoid the cliche, as avoiding cliches has been my mission since Adam was a lad.

[Denny]

[Lorenzo]

The NAS report is probably the most in-depth objective evaluation of the evidence

Finally...some good concrete scientific information. That's the kind of information that is helpful. Thanks.

[hans]

Avoiding dangerous warming by 2100 'barely feasible'

For a 50:50 chance of keeping a global temperature rise within 2 °C by 2100, we must halve emissions by 2050. This is the message of climate models by Keywan Riahi of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, and colleagues. That means 70 per cent of global energy production must be zero-emissions by 2050.

To see if that target was realistic, the team used factors such as the average rate of technology diffusion in the past. Our prospects are poor even if we roll out sources like wind and nuclear power as fast as we can, plus any new ones that become available before 2050.

"We have only a slim chance," says Mark New at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich, UK. "It looks like we'll have to prepare for warming greater than 2 °C or hope that geoengineering will get us out of trouble."

Well I will not put my hopes on geo-enginnering!
I can't imagine technological fixes will do the trick.
But business is business and will try to exploit any green movement towards truly sustainable ways of living.
Now we get car adverts promising zero-emission cars, and trying to sell their current carbon burners with such promises. I am sure the advert people know their stuff, and know how gullible we human consumers are to fall for their ploys.

What is needed is a spreading of contentment, to counteract consumption.
Making music is part of this.
Happy playing!

[hans]

Major Antarctic glacier is 'past its tipping point'

A major Antarctic glacier has passed its tipping point, according to a new modelling study. After losing increasing amounts of ice over the past decades, it is poised to collapse in a catastrophe that could raise global sea levels by 24 centimetres.

Pine Island glacier (PIG) is one of many at the fringes of the West Antarctic ice sheet. In 2004, satellite observations showed that it had started to thin, and that ice was flowing into the Amundsen Sea 25 per cent faster than it had 30 years before.

Now, the first study to model changes in the ice sheet in three dimensions shows that PIG has probably passed a critical "tipping point" and is irreversibly on track to lose 50 per cent of its ice in as little as 100 years, significantly raising global sea levels.

[Lorenzo]

Interesting chart from NAS...

FIGURE 3-1 Seasonal temperature reconstructions based on historical evidence from Europe and China with standard errors (2 standard deviations for Europe, 1 standard deviation for China). Twentieth-century records (post-1950 for China) are based on instrumental data and do not show error bars. All data are subject to 30-year smoothing.

[Denny]

Rachel Pike: The science behind a climate headline

In 4 minutes, atmospheric chemist Rachel Pike provides a glimpse of the massive scientific effort behind the bold headlines on climate change, with her team -- one of thousands who contributed -- taking a risky flight over the rainforest in pursuit of data on a key molecule.


James Balog: Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss

Photographer James Balog shares new image sequences from the Extreme Ice Survey, a network of time-lapse cameras recording glaciers receding at an alarming rate, some of the most vivid evidence yet of climate change.

[I.D.10-t]

I see this as three different things.

1) I think that the evidence shows that some scientists lied. When this happens, those scientists need to be removed, names published and credibility destroyed. People like Hwang Woo-Suk shouldn't ever be allowed to work in science again. This is something that needs to be done by the scientific community policing their own.

2) Climate, where is it going and why. The why is important and needs to be understood. The NAS report looks like a good start and has multiple routes of investigation. This needs to be an open process.

3) Fossil fuel use. If you think climate change changes things, you are part of the problem. The economy is not an excuse for governments to punt this to the future. I don't understand why people didn't change things in the 70's oil shortage. I don't understand why we dump stuff into the air by burning it. We learned that the ocean is big, but if you use it as a toilet stuff washes up back on shore. Unfortunately many of us live in societies that make it almost impossible not to consume nonrenewable energy. This will change, and will need to be dealt with by the government. The sooner we start the better. With climate change people seem to want to continue using fossil fuels but just store the CO2.

In short, scientific misconduct does not change what is happening, and climate change doesn't equal reduction in fuel use.

[Lorenzo]

This is kind of what I was saying about location being of concern.

More from NAS...
All historical sources need to be evaluated critically, even for relatively recent times. For example, frost fairs were routinely held on the iced-over surface of the River Thames in London during the cold winters of the Little Ice Age, with the last one occurring in 1814. It would be quite wrong, however, to attribute their absence since that time solely to a rise in Northern Hemisphere winter temperatures: As London has grown and developed, the “urban heat island” effect has reduced the likelihood of frosts in the city center, and the replacement of the old London Bridge in the 1830s allowed greater uptide incursion of saltwater, which freezes less easily. Manley’s central England temperature series indicates that the winter of 1962–1963 was the third coldest since 1659, yet the Thames did not freeze below its tidal limit.

[SteveShaw]

This is kind of what I was saying about location being of concern.

More from NAS...
All historical sources need to be evaluated critically, even for relatively recent times. For example, frost fairs were routinely held on the iced-over surface of the River Thames in London during the cold winters of the Little Ice Age, with the last one occurring in 1814. It would be quite wrong, however, to attribute their absence since that time solely to a rise in Northern Hemisphere winter temperatures: As London has grown and developed, the “urban heat island” effect has reduced the likelihood of frosts in the city center, and the replacement of the old London Bridge in the 1830s allowed greater uptide incursion of saltwater, which freezes less easily. Manley’s central England temperature series indicates that the winter of 1962–1963 was the third coldest since 1659, yet the Thames did not freeze below its tidal limit.

Again, partial information is a bad, bad thing. Climate change scientists have been extremely careful to take account of urban heat islands in their analyses. You didn't think they would, huh? Any old armchair expert can come up with that but the scientific community, er, may have overlooked it? And the reason the Thames no longer freezes over is very simple. In the last two hundred years it has been constrained within narrower and narrower man-made embankments, and flows much faster through London as a result. Easy. Nothing to do with heat islands or false data. And simply replacing one bridge with another is hardly going to make enough difference. A bridge still lets water through. A bridge with big piers might slow the flow a bit, which I suppose would help to produce freeze-ups, but I hardly think it would be much of a factor.

[Lorenzo]

Well, we'll have to evaluate your sources critically won't we. BTW, don't be afraid to post your sources.

• The last Frost Fair
  The frost fair of 1814 began on February 1, and lasted four days. An elephant was led across the river below Blackfriars Bridge. A printer named Davis published a book, Frostiana; or a History of the River Thames in a Frozen State. This was to be the last frost fair. The climate was growing milder; also, old London Bridge was demolished in 1831 and replaced with a new bridge with wider arches, allowing a freer flow of the tide; additionally, the river was embanked in stages during the 19th century, which also made the river less likely to freeze. http://www.answers.com/topic/river-thames-frost-fairs

So, here's the data, now our job is to somehow deny it.

• Temperature measuring stations are placed mostly, 2/3rd, on places where effects of urban heat affects measurements, exhaust of air condition, parking lots, air ports jet engines exhausts, increased traffic, concrete grounds etc. cause incorrect measurements, i.e. too high temperatures
  • Globally, 12000 to 14000 stations during 1970-1989 were reduced to less than 8000 in year 1991, further to less than 6000 in year 2000 and to 1500 now and mainly located at airports. Stations were relocated from previous sites in forests and rural areas to urban sites. Measurements in cold Siberia were eliminated after the collapse of Soviet. Weather stations were moved from north to south, from high altitudes to low altitudes, all giving higher temperatures, see figure 1 by Ross McKitrick below.
  • 90 % of stations give 1-2 °C too high temperatures, i.e. more than IPCC claim for AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). Comments: Manmade AGW by moving and reducing measuring stations! During 1950 to 1989 with 12-14000 stations, average temperature is around 10,0 °C and 1990 to 2000 temperature is 11-12 °C, average around 11.5 °C thus an increase of 1.5 °C. See figure 1: 90 % of all air temperature measurements are taken over land, while land covers only 30 % of the planet and the oceans cover 70 %.
  • Satellites circling the globe measure since 30 years, thus covering land and sea, give more correct data for the air temperatures over land and sea.

[bradhurley]

• Temperature measuring stations are placed mostly, 2/3rd, on places where effects of urban heat affects measurements, exhaust of air condition, parking lots, air ports jet engines exhausts, increased traffic, concrete grounds etc. cause incorrect measurements, i.e. too high temperatures
  • Globally, 12000 to 14000 stations during 1970-1989 were reduced to less than 8000 in year 1991, further to less than 6000 in year 2000 and to 1500 now and mainly located at airports. Stations were relocated from previous sites in forests and rural areas to urban sites. Measurements in cold Siberia were eliminated after the collapse of Soviet. Weather stations were moved from north to south, from high altitudes to low altitudes, all giving higher temperatures, see figure 1 by Ross McKitrick below.
  • 90 % of stations give 1-2 °C too high temperatures, i.e. more than IPCC claim for AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). Comments: Manmade AGW by moving and reducing measuring stations! During 1950 to 1989 with 12-14000 stations, average temperature is around 10,0 °C and 1990 to 2000 temperature is 11-12 °C, average around 11.5 °C thus an increase of 1.5 °C. See figure 1: 90 % of all air temperature measurements are taken over land, while land covers only 30 % of the planet and the oceans cover 70 %.
  • Satellites circling the globe measure since 30 years, thus covering land and sea, give more correct data for the air temperatures over land and sea.

Lorenzo, you didn't post your sources.

Anyway, it's kind of irrelevant to dwell on whether the temperature record is accurate because there are so many other lines of evidence that the climate is warming.

1. Look at these photos from Alaska: http://www.climatechange.alaska.gov/photo.htm

2. Look at this story on a federal study published during the Bush Administration, which found that climate change is already affecting American agriculture: http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/a ... c54242d6d3

3. Ecological responses to climate change (published in the scientific journal Nature): http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 6389a.html

4. Sea ice is declining in the Arctic:


December 2009 had the fourth-lowest average ice extent for the month since the beginning of satellite records, falling just above the extent for 2007. The linear rate of decline for December is now 3.3% per decade.

(Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center)

5. Glaciers are melting: http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org ... ciers.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of ... since_1850 and numerous other sources (including many published scientific studies).

6. Sea level is rising: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/ (and many other sources could be cited).

Furthermore, it's hard to reconcile the validity of all these attacks on the science when you've got so many professional climatologists who've looked hard (and skeptically) at the evidence and still come to conclusions like this:

1. The statement of the academies of science of the G8 plus 5 other countries on climate change:

http://www.nationalacademies.org/includ ... mate09.pdf

2. The statement of the American Geophysical Union (50,000 members):

http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/positions/cl ... 2008.shtml

3. And finally this statement by the American Meteorological Society (14,000 members, including many well-known skeptics):

http://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2007climatechange.html

And it's worth noting that the scientifc journal Nature, arguably the world's most prestigious and respected journal, concluded that there was nothing in the CRU emails to suggest that the conclusions of the IPCC were unsound. It's also worth noting that the IPCC doesn't do original science itself (other than some scenario modeling); it just evaluates and synthesizes the thousands of peer-reviewed published studies in the scientific literature. Those studies are still out there even if you don't want to believe the IPCC. Take a few decades to read them and come to your own conclusions.

[SteveShaw]

Thank you, Brad. My having to stop to do the shopping then the cooking meant that you stepped into the breach and, much more politely and diplomatically than I could ever have done, informed Lorenzo of his Canute-like tendencies. Some people wouldn't believe a cricket bat was made of wood until it slapped them across the chops in a most timber-like fashion. Perhaps he'll finally throw his hands in the air now and admit that he's been playing devil's advocate all along.