@TMTisFree

Quote:

It is your interpretation of Hulme's claim. I don't care much because I was only pointing to him condemning consensus in Science.

Fine just denote Hulme stated that conditions of global warming are too complex for us to overcome. You backed the only limit to our resources was our intellect. Putting these together it's not a strech to see Hulme is showing limitations on his intellect.

Quote:

I think his point has a more epistemological interest (relative to your low level understanding that is) in line with his rejection of consensus in the climate field.

I have no problem with scientists rejecting consensus. Though they are wrong. Throughout the ages we can easily point to generally accepted paradigms of their day.

Quote:

A theory which has been unsuccessfully falsified. Not like AGW.

So you agree Einstein's theory of gravity is today a generally accepted paradigm?

Do note Newton's Theory was the generally accepted paradigm for nearly 250 years. It's still 'accepted'. It's not as correct as Einstein. Einstein's theory isn't correct either. It has various problems that physicists are working on. The effect on the nanoscale of gravity is about 1/5th what Einstein would predict, Black Holes are huge holes (pun intended), and satelittes are "off" by inches their predicted course.

Last edited by BrianK on 09-May-2009 at 02:29 PM.

@TMTisFree

Because you failed to read the post where I link Damocoles a number of articles to his question is no reason to go against the warnings of moderaters and begin you regiment of insults.

@All
Whilst I am not a scientist I have worked closely amongst them within a large R&D organisation for some 23 years and this has given me a great appreciation of the scientific method. I have watched this thread grow without looking at it until tonight and even then only the last few pages because I knew it would be emotive. The arguements are intriguing but I would like to ask the participants to "constrain" themselves. It is fantastic that our little community reflects greater society with a myriad of views voiced by very intelligent and educated people but the last thing we want is for members to fall out over issues not Amiga related.

The net provides a very safe environment for venting, be cautious. Debate is very, very healthy but from what I have seen this issue is starting to deteriorate, emotion is creeping in. Can I ask that all participants shake hands, take a deep breath and continue, this debate is needed in the greater context.

From my part, I live in a relatively small city which is normally pretty dry but we have had rain reduction for some years, during these years population has still grown (albeit modest) but no basic infrastructure (including water retention) has been improved or expanded to accommodate the growth, hence community perceptions are negatively affected. Is the rain reduction GW or part of a normal pattern? Consider this in a global view where population growth/MOVEMENT is occurring. My personal view is that mankind will bring wrath upon itself if we don't control our own growth.


ace

@BrianK

Quote:

Thus any conclusion, positive or negative, concerning the impact of GW is not valid.

Exactly what I said, reformulated: no conclusion possible because no evidence of any potential negative effects of hypothesized AGW. And no one but you have inserted AGW in the discussion.

Quote:

How do you conclude this fairly?

Observations data from the ARGO project:

Willis, J. K., 2008: “Is it Me, or Did the Oceans Cool?”, U.S. CLIVAR, Sept, 2008, Vol. 6, No. 2.
Loehle, Craig, 2009: “Cooling of the global ocean since 2003.″ Energy & Environment, Vol. 20, No. 1&2, 101-104(4).

Quote:

IMO you've proved the point to yourself. Here we see you agreeing that as the environment changes so will coral bleaching.

Not correct. Better: "as the environment changes so will coral adapt (bleach, recover, etc.)".

Quote:

Therefore as the climate gets warmer and increases CO2 we expect to see bleaching.

Expectations not justified. Rather observations of last 210 My demonstrate corals have adapted to higher levels both CO² and temperature.

Quote:

We can therefore measure such changes and the rate of bleaching to try to build the relationship. If it's a simple or complex relationship is meaningless to the question.

Not correct. Measurements prove nothing if a causation is not demonstrated. Even so, it told absolutely nothing useful about the future (no predictive ability) if the model ('the relationship') you build does not reflect both the reality and known observation of the past. As such the complexity of the model is a first order question (equation, quality check, predictability, reproducibility, etc.).

Quote:

There is no observation AGW has any negative effect, just the opposite.Quote: Wrong

Again not correct: despite past temperatures and CO² levels far higher than today, corals still exist. And no correlation of any kind between supposed AGW and coral changes.

Quote:

Yet a few posts later we see you use the same tactic against NOAA.

Not really. I merely pointed to your attention that NOAA correlation between coral bleaching and a natural event (1998's ENSO) has nothing to do with hypothesized AGW.

Quote:

You told us before that coral is a natural adaption to changing environmental conditions. Clearly the oceans have warmed in the last 150 years. The net effect to coral in the last 150 years is negative. Somehow these have no relation? Your posts here conflict themselves.

Again not really. What do you not understand in hypothesized AGW? Or care to explain why Pandolfi et al. (2003a), analysing 14 coral reefs all over the world, show that "all reefs were substantially degraded long before outbreaks of coral disease and bleaching" and "degradation of coral reef ecosystems began centuries ago [in the middle of the LIA]" long before any hypothesized AGW? They also wrote "recent widespread and catastrophic episodes of coral bleaching and disease have distracted attention from the chronic and severe historical decline of reef ecosystems. ...[A]ll of the reefs in our survey were substantially degraded long before the first observations of mass mortality resulting from bleaching and outbreaks of disease. ...[T]he only reasonable explanation for this earlier decline is overfishing, although land-derived pollution could have acted synergistically with overfishing in some localities." Sound familiar, no?

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@BrianK

Quote:

Fine just denote Hulme stated that conditions of global warming are too complex for us to overcome. You backed the only limit to our resources was our intellect. Putting these together it's not a strech to see Hulme is showing limitations on his intellect.

I agree but not surprising: he is an AGW believer .

Quote:

I have no problem with scientists rejecting consensus. Though they are wrong. Throughout the ages we can easily point to generally accepted paradigms of their day.

And the history is also overflowed with rejected ideas previously thought be true, thus defeating any appeal and interest to consensus in the Science framework.

Quote:

So you agree Einstein's theory of gravity is today a generally accepted paradigm?

His theory has not been falsified yet (to my knowledge), thus I can say it is a convincing theory, in the current state of Science. This does not means his theory will not be superseded at some point. Moreover I don't know what others think about it. And don't care, really.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@BrianK

Quote:

Because you failed to read the post where I link Damocoles a number of articles to his question is no reason to go against the warnings of moderaters and begin you regiment of insults.

I provided help to both of you, but instead of using the data your sole reaction is to rely once again on an appeal of authority about supposed insults? Deceptive.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@acefnq

Welcome!

May I note a couple of inconsistencies?
Quote:

without looking at it until tonight and even then only the last few pages...from what I have seen this issue is starting to deteriorate,

So you read a couple of posts and are able to detect a deteriorative trend in the thread? There really is no heated debate atm here, just the usual stuff (if I skip some name callings and adjectives here and there). For heated debates you should go back in posts and find some previous discussion in the beginning of this thread and/or any of the threads n°1 & 2 dealing with the physical irreality (or unphysical reality) of the AGW hypothesis.

Quote:

Can I ask that all participants shake hands, take a deep breath and continue, this debate is needed in the greater context.

Well, there are already so much arm-wavings and hyperventilated reactions I am not sure you prescription will be of great help to enhance the debate .

Quote:

no basic infrastructure (including water retention) has been improved or expanded to accommodate the growth

Do you know why?

Quote:

hence community perceptions are negatively affected.

This is interesting also. How?

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@TMTisFree

Quote:

I provided help to both of you, but instead of using the data your sole reaction is to rely once again on an appeal of authority about supposed insults? Deceptive.

You insulted you may apologize.

Also, no you didn't provide any help. Damocles asked "I'm looking for a good chart that dates back hundreds of millions of years that will show CO2 level, mean earth temp and coral population" There is NOTHING on your graph concerning coral population. NOTHING.

You provided a derailing graph and insults that I supposedly can't graph. Both completely and utterly worthless and one against behavior that moderators have requested people to stop doing in this thread.

Is it an appeal to authority. Certainly they run the thread and asked for people to stop insults. It is their board. When you insult you are going against their authority. Your point is off topic and out of line with requested actions on this thread and site.

@BrianK

Quote:

You insulted you may apologize.

I failed to see where. Hit the report button if you feel you have been insulted by me but I don't really see where.

Quote:

Also, no you didn't provide any help. Damocles asked "I'm looking for a good chart that dates back hundreds of millions of years that will show CO2 level, mean earth temp and coral population" There is NOTHING on your graph concerning coral population. NOTHING.

May I suggest you to read the 10th papers I provide then? I surely will not do all the work for you.

Quote:

You provided a derailing graph and insults that I supposedly can't graph. Both completely and utterly worthless and one against behavior that moderators have requested people to stop doing in this thread.

Ah this is that. Perhaps the turn of my question has confused you? I was referring to the data I provided to NoelFuller some hundred posts ago (the Vostok ice cores) from which he planned to build a plot I am still waiting for. Thus my little harmless joke was really not destined to you (and was not insulting anyone). Btw the plot embed in my post covers the temperature and the CO² data requested by Damocles: 2/3 of the data he requested so fully on topic + papers waiting for coral data to be extracted from: so 3/3 on topic.

Quote:

Is it an appeal to authority. Certainly they run the thread and asked for people to stop insults. It is their board. When you insult you are going against their authority. Your point is off topic and out of line with requested actions on this thread and site.

Not being a moderator, you are not in position to judge if I insulted you or anyone else. But if you feel so, you obviously have the right to report.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@TMTisFree

Quote:

Hit the report button if you feel you have been insulted by me but I don't really see where.

"Too much work for poor BrianK" -- I provided a number of links so they can see the work already done. Poor as in what financial? You have no clue. As in pathetic? Simply an insult. Which is repeasted later "added some more historic references for poor BrianK"\

"Will BrianK be able to plot this time " -- I can plot quite a bit and read the data which plots represents. A lie, an insult.

You requested to be reported... I have complied with your request.

Quote:

Not being a moderator, you are not in position to judge if

You are a liar again. When someone makes personal comments about me I am fully in the right to judge if they are insulting or not.

Instead of cutesy insults perhaps you can stay on topic! You may apologize.

Cooling correction - ARGO data problems

As usual the Argo graph showing ocean cooling posted above (#484) is a misrepresentation in that the story of the ongoing search to extract real data from the apparent data is not told.

Essentially sea level rise is continuing. It should consist of increasing mass because of melting of land ice, and thermal expansion. The data should add up but does not, chiefly because of faults in the ARGO system which shows increasingly lower temperatures that do not accord with reality.

Currently a subset of ARGO floats are in question because their pressure sensors are giving increasingly false readings, worse since 2007 i.e. colder temperatures lower down are being represented as coming from shallower water which is normally warmer. Finally, when the float gives a negative pressure at the surface it is seen to be faulty but the error creeps in very slowly. ARGO news here

With correction the cooling anomaly disappears. ARGO temperature readings showing very rapid ocean cooling should be matched by other data: sea level should be falling, but it is rising more from melting glaciers than from thermal expansion. See here "Sea Level Budget over 2003 - 2008: A Reevaluation from GRACE Space Gravimetry, Satellite Altimetry and Argo by Cazenave et al. 2008"

I guess that the cold meltwaters would lower ocean temperatures hence thermal expansion and this, with respect to surface temperature has been argued as the reason for recent increase in the area of arctic surface ice.

Quote:

Correction to Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean Josh K. Willis1, John M. Lyman2,3, Gregory C. Johnson2 and John Gilson4 Revised and Resubmitted 10 July 2007 to Geophysical Research Letters http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/Pdf/heat_2006.pdf Most of the rapid decrease in globally integrated upper (0750 m) ocean heat content anomalies (OHCA) between 2003 and 2005 reported by Lyman et al. [2006] appears to be an artifact resulting from the combination of two different instrument biases recently discovered in the in situ profile data. Although Lyman et al. [2006] carefully estimated sampling errors, they did not investigate potential biases among different instrument types. One such bias has been identified in a subset of Argo float profiles. This error will ultimately be corrected. However, until corrections have been made these data can be easily excluded from OHCA estimates (see http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/ for more details). Another bias was caused by eXpendable BathyThermograph (XBT) data that are systematically warm compared to other instruments [Gouretski and Koltermann, 2007]. Both biases appear to have contributed equally to the spurious cooling.

Willis was also an author of the paper referred to above.


A comprehensive story of the false data problem and its partial correction here:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php

Last edited by NoelFuller on 10-May-2009 at 08:57 AM.

@HenryCase

I've been wondering how Moore's Law fares with your numbers? It seems to have held for about 40 years!

Quote:

Moore's Law, the empirical observation that the transistor density of integrated circuits doubles every 2 years

Noel

@BrianK

'Poor' as someone faced with a potential difficulty and thought as such by someone else willing to help ("I can help for free.", "don't thank me"). Perhaps have a look at the definition of 'empathy' in the dictionary.

Quote:

"Will BrianK be able to plot this time "

You are confused: "this time" was referring to NoelFuller's planned plot from Vostok data.

Quote:

-- I can plot quite a bit and read the data which plots represents.

Fine then, waiting for it.

Quote:

You requested to be reported... I have complied with your request.

Your right to do so.

Quote:

You are a liar again.

And it is me insulting .

Quote:

perhaps you can stay on topic

I fear you have derailed the thread with your cheerleader whining.

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@NoelFuller

Quote:

As usual the Argo graph showing ocean cooling posted above (#484) is a misrepresentation in that the story of the ongoing search to extract real data from the apparent data is not told.

Not correct. The 2 papers I provided used the ARGO data with the biases removed (including one paper by the author of the correction himself, Josh Willis):
Willis, J. K., 2008: “Is it Me, or Did the Oceans Cool?”, U.S. CLIVAR, Sept, 2008, Vol. 6, No. 2.
Loehle, Craig, 2009: “Cooling of the global ocean since 2003.″ Energy & Environment, Vol. 20, No. 1&2, 101-104(4).

According to Pr Pielke "it is the change in ocean heat content that provides the most effective diagnostic of global warming and cooling." With the ARGO data Willis found essentially no ocean thermal expansion (measured by sea level) and a very slight decrease in upper ocean heat content. He said: Quote:

“Indeed, Argo data show no warming in the upper ocean over the past four years”

while Loehle using a different method shows a more marked decrease in heat content: Quote:

"I get slightly different results because I think I did my annual detrending better by fitting the declining amplitude with time"

Plotting the 2 results with models predictions gives:


Note that the Jason satellite shows also no sea level rise since 2005-2006. As oceans are the main heat stores of the planet, changes in oceanic heat status (with AMO, PDO, ENSO events) affect land and atmosphere weather/climate as well.

Edit: added Loehle's quote

Bye,
TMTisFree

Last edited by TMTisFree on 10-May-2009 at 10:03 AM.

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".

@Thread

Look, will you please keep the snippy comments to yourselves? (Mod's warning, in case you missed it, overlooked it)

And this comment is directed at everyone concerned. You might not agree what the other person's position is, however, that doesn't automatically give you the right nor does it give you permission to call people names, be overly sarcastic or word comments in a way that demeans or inflames the other.

Debate is good, as long as you keep an open mind. So are twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph explaining it's relevance to the thread. Or perhaps not.

Consider this the FINAL WARNING before vacation time begins being meted out, ok?

_________________
¤¤ Official Hyperion Zealot ¤¤

(No, I didn't type that with a straight face.)

@Yo

Quote:

Look, will you please keep the snippy comments to yourselves?

Thank you!

@NoelFuller

Thanks for the post. I watched the video. Very good and I recommend people taking the time to watch it.

In the 60s Ehrlich wrote a book about the impending world starvation crisis. At the time population was exponentially growing. Food growth at that time was making a linear progression. Late 60s our resourcefulness resulted in being able to bind nitrogen from the air and make fertilizer. Certainly an example of people identifying a problem and developing a solution. (NOTE: Yes I realize there are still food problems in the world.) Population rate of growth is slowing down. The question becomes when is the next related problem and how can we respond.

One recent article I was reading was on longevity. We know that animals live longer on a calorie restricted diet. It appears calorie restrictions cause the genes to express a protein which does a body good. (Of course this doesn't mean that all calorie restriction is good at some point it becomes a deteriment.) One of the chemicals that enhances the release of this protein is contiained in red grapes and red wine. Though the levels are very small and there is no physical way to consume that chemical in a day. Medical companies are working on creating a synthetic version. If accomplished people will be living longer and healthier. A long way around to say this would influence the human population if we added 30 years to everyone's life. Do no harm is a prinicple held by Drs. It's safe to say this fits into that picture of health for the individual. The next question asked is what is the impact to the globe when this is accomplished.

@NoelFuller
Great NASA article. Another site to read. NOAA .

Looking at the different datasets and translations I think scientists have another 5-10 years working to tighten and refine the science on Ocean Heat Content.

@TMTisFree

In the paper you cited Willis said,
Quote:

"After more scrutiny of the data,we eventually showed that the cooling was caused by a small warm bias in the old ocean observing system, along with a huge cold bias among a few instru-ments in the new one (Willis et al., 2008a). When the dust finally settled, rapid ocean cooling was gone (Figure1)."

The Argo news link I gave indicated the situation with Argo has grown worse but they hope to have 100 instruments available shortly that use a new pressure measuring system.

From the Grace Satelite measurements :
Quote:

"From the results presented in this study, we see that confronting independent estimates of ocean and land contributions to sea level with altimetry results leads to a rather coherent picture for recent years variations. This can be summarized as follows: since 2003, sea level has continued to rise but with a rate (of 2.5 +/-0.4 mm/yr) somewhat reduced compared to the 1993-2003 decade (3.1+/-0.4 mm/yr). Over 2003-2008, the GRACE-based ocean mass has increased at an average rate of ~1.9 mm/yr (if we take the upper range of possible GIA corrections as recommended by Peltier, submitted for publication). Such a rate agrees well with the sum of land ice plus land water contributions (i.e., GRACE-based ice sheet mass balance estimated in this study, GRACE-based land waters plus recently published estimates for the current glacier contribution). These results in turn offer constraints on the ocean mass GIA correction, as well as on the glacier melting contribution. The steric sea level estimated from the difference between altimetric (total) sea level and ocean mass displays increase over 2003-2006 and decrease since 2006. On average over the 5 year period (2003-2008), the steric contribution has been small (on the order of 0.3+/-0.15 mm/yr), confirming recent Argo results (this study and Willis et al., 2008)."

Pielke Sr's quote is an interpretation or emphasis.

As I read it

(a) thermal expansion is rather smaller than it was but is still occuring - not quite the same as cooling implies is it?

(b) a lot of heat is being currently absorbed in melting ice (latent heat*). I did read up on glacier melting and noted that most of the contribution comes from smaller glaciers, concerning which there are a number of reports and predictions this being indicative.

So the IPCC underestimated the contribution of ice melt to ocean mass but then they said they did not have enough data to evaluate this.

But either way heat is being absorbed and stored as evidenced in increased ocean mass and related sea-level rise.

For those that think "so what?" the underlying issue can be stated thus:
Is heat still being stored in the earth system, i.e. human forcings through growing emmisions of CO2 , or is it not as suggested by the current coolness relative to recent years? i.e. Is CO2 increase leading climate change? Whatever the evidence, some will say no. Most of us have difficulty distinguishing weather from climate. Climate scientists say to the contrary that the current cooler years were predicted by the big climate models which factor in AGW. They are still among the warmest years on record so can hardly be described as cold. More heat is entering the system than is leaving it as evidenced by sea level rise and ocean warming. Their answer is yes, Global warming thru human forcing remains.

As I recall one prediction is that the cooler period is likely to last about 10 years but I've come across suggestions of shorter periods and of course another big el Nino as in 1998 might herald a striking change.

I am also rather taken by this remark in a BBC report regarding arctic research from Spitzbergen:
Quote:

Professor Strom said that the effects of climate change were more pronounced in the winter. "The largest temperature changes happen in the winter. Yes, it's cold and we have snow, but you can see it with your own eyes: the glaciers are in retreat. "There is no excuse not to do something about cutting emissions and pollution," he said.

Here in NZ our eastern glaciers are in retreat while our western glaciers are advancing, due it is said to increased precipitation from a warmer Tasman Sea from whence all of the moisture in the affected area comes.

In the light of all this I consider the uncommented graph I objected to, still misleading by itself. My answer is that warming, unfortunately for us continues.

* "Heat absorbed or released as the result of a phase change is called latent heat. There is no temperature change during a phase change, thus there is no change in the kinetic energy of the particles in the material. The energy released comes from the potential energy stored in the bonds between the particles."

@Yo

Quote:

Look, will you please keep the snippy comments to yourselves?

Thank you!

Bye,
TMTisFree

_________________
The engineering approach to our non-problems: "build a better washer".
The scientific approach to our non-problems: "find a new energy source".
The environmentalist approach to our non-problems: "stop washing your shirts".