Global warming slowing down??

Lucreto

Great read Sparks

I would just have said watchthe last 2 or 3 episodes Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

FWVT

Sparks wrote: »

Haven't found 2012 and 2013, but 2007-2011 is just more of the same ten-year trend:

A trend that is not running away as we are led to believe. Given the huge difference in detection now compared to 50 or 100 years ago it is not impressive at all.

Sparks

FWVT wrote: »

A trend that is not running away as we are led to believe. Given the huge difference in detection now compared to 50 or 100 years ago it is not impressive at all.

Hold up there a moment please, you're talking about predictions there.

But the original query was about observations:

markfla wrote: »

we were warned about increases in Hurricanes, tornadoes etc. and severe storms when the fact of the matter is there has been no observable increase in the last decade of these. In fact hurricanes have fallen off and there's no increase in tornadoes
...
Global sea ice the last two years has been on the increase

All those graphs I posted weren't of predictions, they were of observations. Things that have happened and been measured, and I was very clear about that:

Sparks wrote: »

Well, that's just wrong about hurricanes and tropical storms:

And the power in those storms is also increasing and seems correlated to sea surface temperature:


Now you might say correlation is not causation, but the climatologists and meteorologists said it before you did; but those are observations, not predictions, so even if you disagree with what's causing them, you don't get to say they're not happening...

(and similarly about the ice measurements).

You then asked about further observations after those graphs ended:

FWVT wrote: »

What about since 2007?

And that's when I posted the other set of graphs that you're now deriding.

But through all of that chain, we've been talking about observations. Not predictions. That ten-year trend? It's an observation. Not a prediction. You might not think it's terribly impressive, but that doesn't mean it's not actual ground truth.

And bluntly, when 97% of the scientists working in a field have reached a consensus on a basic point, as they have here, you need to have some pretty stonking good evidence to point to if you want to dismiss that consensus (and so far, that's not been forthcoming from anywhere - we've seen sporadic data presented that subsequently falls apart under analysis and we've seen tinfoil-hat-level conspiracy theories and that's about it). The Sagan standard applies!

Carl Sagan wrote:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Thargor

Great posts Sparks thanks.

markfla wrote: »

how I see it is, we were warned about increases in Hurricanes, tornadoes etc. and severe storms when the fact of the matter is there has been no observable increase in the last decade of these. In fact hurricanes have fallen off and there's no increase in tornadoes although the record on these is patchy before the satellite era. The increase in rain over these isle has abated and been attributed to the north Atlantic oscillation. Global sea ice the last two years has been on the increase...I understand variability can happen on a trend over time but we are being told the ocean is taking the heat...why the increae in sea ice. I'm very very far from an expert but from I've been picking up recently I've been getting sceptical of the whole thing not because I think there is a big political conspiracy, I just think we may have got it wrong? I had read up on sudden strat warming, geopotential height differences and affects on the jet stream, albedo effects, multi decadal oscillations etc. in a genuine effort to understand GW but maybe there is something we're missing going on what's being observed.

Any thoughts on the graphs Sparks posted compared to your statement above? Has the data been tampered with just to get grants and impose "green taxes" and "red tape"?

FWVT

Sparks wrote: »

Hold up there a moment please, you're talking about predictions there.

But the original query was about observations:


All those graphs I posted weren't of predictions, they were of observations. Things that have happened and been measured, and I was very clear about that:



(and similarly about the ice measurements).

You then asked about further observations after those graphs ended:

And that's when I posted the other set of graphs that you're now deriding.

But through all of that chain, we've been talking about observations. Not predictions. That ten-year trend? It's an observation. Not a prediction. You might not think it's terribly impressive, but that doesn't mean it's not actual ground truth.

And bluntly, when 97% of the scientists working in a field have reached a consensus on a basic point, as they have here, you need to have some pretty stonking good evidence to point to if you want to dismiss that consensus (and so far, that's not been forthcoming from anywhere - we've seen sporadic data presented that subsequently falls apart under analysis and we've seen tinfoil-hat-level conspiracy theories and that's about it). The Sagan standard applies!

I never once mentioned the word forecasts, I was talking purely about observations. I'm not sure what your argument is all about.

Now, as I said before and will repeat again, the OBSERVED increase in hurricanes /tropical storms over the past few decades does not live up to the hype that we are hearing about, albeit mostly in the media, for which I have zero time. Taking your graphs as evidence, coupled with the increase in detectability, I again reckon that there should have been a greater increase in activity than there has been.

By the way, about 3 years ago, in a former life on this site, I argued the point about the effects of the respective phases of the PDO and AMO on global temperature trends, and that the leveling off was predictable with their current phases. People like Mindgame ridiculed my assertion, yet he iss one of those supporting this recent research in the original BBC post.

I firmly believe that our part in driving the global temperature rise is outweighed by natural forcings on a larger timecale. Zoom out on the time series and you will see that the recent decades are noise on a larger trend, which is noise on an even larger trend, and so on ad infinitum.

Cue the quote of 97% of cats again...

Sparks

FWVT wrote: »

I never once mentioned the word forecasts, I was talking purely about observations.

Er, no, you weren't. You said:

A trend that is not running away as we are led to believe.

You can't say something is running away without making predictions (specifically that the trend will continue beyond where your observations end with the same pattern you've seen to that point).

Nobody said that in the entire chain of posts. Someone said hurricanes have been decreasing in the last decade; I posted the observations that said they had not, but had been increasing; you asked what about the years after the observations I posted ended; I posted what observations I could find for those years; then you made a comment about predictions. Which we weren't talking about.

Now, as I said before and will repeat again, the OBSERVED increase in hurricanes /tropical storms over the past few decades does not live up to the hype that we are hearing about, albeit mostly in the media, for which I have zero time.

(a) Nobody is suggesting, even in the crazy fringes, that we introduce green taxes or carbon credits or tinfoil hats on the basis of what the tabloids print. That would be lunacy. So we can not only give the media zero time, but zero characters in posts on here as well.

(b) The IPCC is not the tabloids, nor is it part of the media at all. And its predictions are so far proving to be overly conservative (as the graphs for land ice coverage show so far). And individual climatologists like Hansen have made predictions over the last few decades which we've now seen by observation were quite accurate.

So the hype in the press is off but the science isn't; isn't this something we've heard over and over and over again with the media ad infinitum and isn't it time we stopped judging science based on what the media uses to hawk its ad spacereports?

I firmly believe that our part in driving the global temperature rise is outweighed by natural forcings on a larger timecale. Zoom out on the time series and you will see that the recent decades are noise on a larger trend, which is noise on an even larger trend, and so on ad infinitum.

Except that we already know that what we're seeing doesn't match anything on the longer timescales. Yes, you have the 120kyear cycles, but what we're seeing now is working a hundred times faster than those, and nobody's found any natural cycle that explains what we're now seeing. Despite centuries of looking.

Cue the quote of 97% of cats again...

So professionals studying this for decades all over the world are wrong and you, a random dog on the internet, are right.

Again, cue the Sagan Standard. There's no law says you're wrong, but where's your evidence that you're right? You've just said that there is some, when you talk about zooming out on time series, you've obviously got something in mind there, so what is it?

odyboody

Here is a very small sampling of what current and former UN scientists have to say about the UN’s climate claims and its scientific methods.
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists.” – Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“Temperature measurements show that the [climate model-predicted mid-troposphere] hot zone is non-existent. This is more than sufficient to invalidate global climate models and projections made with them!”- UN IPCC Scientist Dr. Steven M. Japar, a PhD atmospheric chemist who was part of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Second (1995) and Third (2001) Assessment Reports, and has authored 83 peer-reviewed publications and in the areas of climate change, atmospheric chemistry, air pollutions and vehicle emissions.
UN IPCC Scientist Kenneth P. Green Declares ‘A Death Spiral for Climate Alarmism’ – September 30, 2009 – ‘We can expect climate crisis industry to grow increasingly shrill, and increasingly hostile toward anyone who questions their authority’ - Dr. Kenneth Green was a Working Group 1 expert reviewer for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001
‘The whole climate change issue is about to fall apart — Heads will roll!’ -South African UN Scientist Dr. Will Alexander, April 12, 2009 – Professor Alexander, is Emeritus of the Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and a former member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters.
“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,” Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007. – Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” – Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil… I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science.” – South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.
“The claims of the IPCC are dangerous unscientific nonsense” – declared IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr Vincent Gray, of New Zealand in 2007. Gray was an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990, author of more than 100 scientific publications. (LINK) & (LINK)
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.” – Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
UN IPCC Lead Author Tom Tripp Dissents on man-made warming: ‘We’re not scientifically there yet’ – July 16, 2009
The UN IPCC’s Kevin Trenberth’s claim that the UN IPCC is an “very open” also needs examining. The IPCC summary for policymakers is used to scare politicians and goad the public into action. The UN is all about politics.
UN special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland declared “it’s completely immoral, even, to question” the UN’s alleged global warming “consensus,” according to a May 10, 2007 article. Sounds scientific, doesn’t it?
Dr. John Brignell, a UK Emeritus Engineering Professor at the University of Southampton who held the Chair in Industrial Instrumentation at Southampton, accused the UN of “censorship” on July 23, 2008. “Here was a purely political body posing as a scientific institution. Through the power of patronage it rapidly attracted acolytes. Peer review soon rapidly evolved from the old style refereeing to a much more sinister imposition of The Censorship. As Wegman demonstrated, new circles of like-minded propagandists formed, acting as judge and jury for each other. Above all, they acted in concert to keep out alien and hostile opinion. ‘Peer review’ developed into a mantra that was picked up by political activists who clearly had no idea of the procedures of science or its learned societies. It became an imprimatur of political acceptability, whose absence was equivalent to placement on the proscribed list,” Brignell wrote.
Research by Australian climate data analyst John McLean revealed that the IPCC’s peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired. (LINK) (LINK) (LINK) & (LINK) McLean’s research revealed that the UN IPCC peer-review process is “an illusion.” McLean’s study found that very few scientists are actively involved in the UN’s peer-review process. The report contained devastating revelations to the central IPCC assertion that ‘it is very highly likely that greenhouse gas forcing has been the dominant cause of the observed global warming over the last 50 years.” The analysis by McLean states: “The IPCC leads us to believe that this statement is very much supported by the majority of reviewers. The reality is that there is surprisingly little explicit support for this key notion. Among the 23 independent reviewers just 4 explicitly endorsed the chapter with its hypothesis, and one other endorsed only a specific section. Moreover, only 62 of the IPCC’s 308 reviewers commented on this chapter at all.” Repeating: Only four UN scientists in the IPCC peer-review process explicitly endorsed the key chapter blaming mankind for warming the past 50 years, according to this recent analysis.
Here is a small sampling of what current and former UN scientists have to say about the UN IPCC’s “very open” process.
(Below are excerpts from various U.S. Senate reports which Climate Depot’s Morano authored during his years at the U.S. Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.)
One former UN IPCC scientist bluntly told the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee how the UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers “distorted” the scientists work. “I have found examples of a Summary saying precisely the opposite of what the scientists said,” explained South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.
In an August 13, 2007 letter, UN IPCC Scientist Dr. Madhav Khandekar, a retired Environment Canada scientist, lashed out at those who “seem to naively believe that the climate change science espoused in the [UN's] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) documents represents ‘scientific consensus.’” Khandekar continued: “Nothing could be further than the truth! As one of the invited expert reviewers for the 2007 IPCC documents, I have pointed out the flawed review process used by the IPCC scientists in one of my letters. I have also pointed out in my letter that an increasing number of scientists are now questioning the hypothesis of Greenhouse gas induced warming of the earth’s surface and suggesting a stronger impact of solar variability and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns on the observed temperature increase than previously believed.” “Unfortunately, the IPCC climate change documents do not provide an objective assessment of the earth’s temperature trends and associated climate change,” Khandekar concluded.
Paul Reiter, a malaria expert formerly of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, participated in a past UN IPCC process and now calls the concept of consensus on global warming a “sham.” Reiter, a professor of entomology and tropical disease with the Pasteur Institute in Paris, had to threaten legal action to have his name removed from the IPCC. “That is how they make it seem that all the top scientists are agreed,” he said on March 5, 2007. “It’s not true,” he added.
Hurricane expert Christopher W. Landsea of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, was both an author a reviewer for the IPCC’s 2nd Assessment Report in 1995 and the 3rd Assessment Report in 2001, but resigned from the 4th Assessment Report after charging the UN with playing politics with Hurricane science. Landsea wrote a January 17, 2005 public letter detailing his experience with the UN: “I am withdrawing [from the UN] because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.” “I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound,” Landsea added.
In addition, a Greenpeace activist co-authored a key economic report in 2007. Left unreported by most of the media was the fact that Bill Hare, an advisor to Greenpeace, was a lead co- author of a key economic report in the IPCC’s 4th Assessment. Not surprisingly, the Greenpeace co-authored report predicted a gloomy future for our planet unless we follow the UN’s policy prescriptions.
The UN IPCC’s own guidelines explicitly state that the scientific reports have to be “change[d]” to “ensure consistency with” the politically motivated Summary for Policymakers.
In addition, the IPCC more closely resembles a political party’s convention platform battle – not a scientific process. During an IPCC Summary for Policymakers process, political delegates and international bureaucrats squabble over the specific wording of a phrase or assertion.
Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit, one of the individuals responsible for debunking the infamous “Hockey Stick” temperature graph, slammed the IPCC Summary for Policymaker’s process on January 24, 2007.
McIntyre wrote: “So the purpose of the three-month delay between the publication of the (IPCC) Summary for Policy-Makers and the release of the actual WG1 (Working Group 1) is to enable them to make any ‘necessary’ adjustments to the technical report to match the policy summary. Unbelievable. Can you imagine what securities commissions would say if business promoters issued a big promotion and then the promoters made the ‘necessary’ adjustments to the qualifying reports and financial statements so that they matched the promotion. Words fail me.”
Former Colorado State Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. also detailed the corruption of the UN IPCC process on September 1, 2007: “The same individuals who are doing primary research in the role of humans on the climate system are then permitted to lead the [IPCC] assessment! There should be an outcry on this obvious conflict of interest, but to date either few recognize this conflict, or see that since the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda, they chose to ignore this conflict. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow,” Pielke explained. He added: “We need recognition among the scientific community, the media, and policymakers that the IPCC process is obviously a real conflict of interest, and this has resulted in a significantly flawed report.”
Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher: “The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round…A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact.”

OldRio

Thargor wrote: »

Great posts Sparks thanks.
Any thoughts on the graphs Sparks posted compared to your statement above? Has the data been tampered with just to get grants and impose "green taxes" and "red tape"?

Well some do have form you know.

Thargor

Odyboody that wall of text contains some serious BS, the hockey stick graph has never been debunked for example, it only gets more confirmation the more peer reviewed studies are done into it, plenty of references for this at the bottom of the wiki article:

More than two dozen reconstructions, using various statistical methods and combinations of proxy records, support the broad consensus shown in the original 1998 hockey-stick graph, with variations in how flat the pre-20th century "shaft" appears.[13][14] The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report cited 14 reconstructions, 10 of which covered 1,000 years or longer, to support its strengthened conclusion that it was likely that Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the 20th century were the highest in at least the past 1,300 years.[15] More than a dozen further reconstructions, including Mann et al. 2008 and PAGES 2k Consortium 2013, have supported these general conclusions.

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

So any "scientists" claiming to be responsible for debunking it are to be treated with suspicion. A load of the other names on it don't seem to have any presence on Google apart from a few entries asking if anyone knows who they are or where their job titles came from.

While the large blob of text you copied and pasted might look impressive if hard to read without any formatting, if you actually look at the entries very few if any seem to point to any actual evidence backing up those peoples opinions, definitely not the 97% consensus you get from peer reviewed studies that support evidence of man made climate change.

Thargor

OldRio wrote: »

Well some do have form you know.

But do you disagree with the graphs? I mean he claims that hurricanes arent happening with any increased frequency, so someone shows him evidence of a large spike in hurricane activity and he just disappears, probably to reappear in another climate change thread in a months time claiming again that there's been no observed increase in hurricane activity, its really frustrating to read this kind of behavior on Boards and other forums over and over again.

FWVT

Sparks wrote: »

Er, no, you weren't. You said:

You can't say something is running away without making predictions (specifically that the trend will continue beyond where your observations end with the same pattern you've seen to that point).

Eh, hang on, you posted the original graph to counter the claim that hurricanes are on the decrease (which I don't agree with, by the way), claiming that yes they are increasing, in line with predictions. All I did was point out the missing data in your graph, that paint a different picture. I did not discuss forecasts.

Nobody said that in the entire chain of posts. Someone said hurricanes have been decreasing in the last decade; I posted the observations that said they had not, but had been increasing; you asked what about the years after the observations I posted ended; I posted what observations I could find for those years; then you made a comment about predictions. Which we weren't talking about.



(a) Nobody is suggesting, even in the crazy fringes, that we introduce green taxes or carbon credits or tinfoil hats on the basis of what the tabloids print. That would be lunacy. So we can not only give the media zero time, but zero characters in posts on here as well.

(b) The IPCC is not the tabloids, nor is it part of the media at all. And its predictions are so far proving to be overly conservative (as the graphs for land ice coverage show so far). And individual climatologists like Hansen have made predictions over the last few decades which we've now seen by observation were quite accurate.

So the hype in the press is off but the science isn't; isn't this something we've heard over and over and over again with the media ad infinitum and isn't it time we stopped judging science based on what the media uses to hawk its ad spacereports?

Except that we already know that what we're seeing doesn't match anything on the longer timescales. Yes, you have the 120kyear cycles, but what we're seeing now is working a hundred times faster than those, and nobody's found any natural cycle that explains what we're now seeing. Despite centuries of looking.


So professionals studying this for decades all over the world are wrong and you, a random dog on the internet, are right.

Again, cue the Sagan Standard. There's no law says you're wrong, but where's your evidence that you're right? You've just said that there is some, when you talk about zooming out on time series, you've obviously got something in mind there, so what is it?

Sparks

odyboody wrote: »

Here is a very small sampling of what current and former UN scientists have to say about the UN’s climate claims and its scientific methods.

Actually, you've just swiped the content from here without attributing it. Mind you, if you *had* attributed it, we'd know who you're talking about; we'd know he's got a history of preparing lists like that.

There are two problems with those lists: the first is that they're usually like the Oregon Petition - whose 34,000 scientists saying climate change was a fraud turned out to include the Spice Girls (Dr. Geri Halliwell signing it twice), Charles Darwin, I C Ewe, and a few of the Star Wars characters, and whose 340 actual* PhDs didn't have PhDs in climatology.
*I say "actual" but when someone did the legwork after discovering that the Spice Girls didn't actually have a singer who was a qualified climatologist, it turned out that they were only able to find one actual climate scientist on the list who still agreed with the petition.

If you want the actual story on the people in that list, someone went through all of them if you want to do the reading. But to take a few, Itoh is not an IPCC scientist, nor is he an climatologist - he's an industrial chemist. Ahluwalia has been quoted out of context there (that quote is lifted from the US Senate Minority Report which got quite a few complaints from scientists who were annoyed it had misquoted them in order to make it sound like they disagreed with the IPCC when they didn't). And the caveats go on like that for rather a long while.

Oh, and "expert reviewer"? Sorry, but no, if you want to be an IPCC AR4 expert reviewer (or AR5, but the AR6 process isn't out yet), you send them an email asking to be one, they send you a draft of the upcoming report and you can send them comments back; the only qualification required is that you agree not to publish or comment on the draft before the final report is published. No academic or other qualifications are required. Wanna be an AT4 reviewer? You too, can be a leading climate scientist!

The second problem with those lists is that they're a list of quotes.

Last time I checked, magic wasn't a thing, so just saying words didn't change the physical universe - so quotes don't quite outrank data when it comes to science. And as fun as it can be to read them, it doesn't matter if an engineer thinks the IPCC is daft, it doesn't affect the amount of land ice out there...

Sparks

FWVT wrote: »

Eh, hang on, you posted the original graph to counter the claim that hurricanes are on the decrease (which I don't agree with, by the way), claiming that yes they are increasing, in line with predictions.

Right up until you said "in line with predictions" you were correct (more or less - I'd argue that it's hard to "claim" hurricane data because they're kindof big and people tend to notice them).

There wasn't any prediction mentioned in that chain of posts; you brought those in out of nowhere, citing nothing (not even the specific predictions you were thinking of).

All I did was point out the missing data in your graph, that paint a different picture. I did not discuss forecasts.

Except that there was no missing data in that graph; the graph was drawn when that "missing" data was in the future and thus not data at all because the events hadn't happened yet. The other graphs were drawn later with additional data that wasn't available when the first graphs were drawn.

And all those graphs were of observations. No predicting involved. Data from past events, portrayed in graph form. Even the trend line is based on past data; it's analysis, not prediction.

markfla

Thargor wrote: »

But do you disagree with the graphs? I mean he claims that hurricanes arent happening with any increased frequency, so someone shows him evidence of a large spike in hurricane activity and he just disappears, probably to reappear in another climate change thread in a months time claiming again that there's been no observed increase in hurricane activity, its really frustrating to read this kind of behavior on Boards and other forums over and over again.

Hey precious, only out of bed as I'm working nights. Do take a look at the time I posted before you get your panties in a twist. There's a reason I said the last few years hurricane frequency is down, I'm fully aware of trends but he posted a chart that's not current and inclusive of the last few years since his chart ends. Anyway I'll be back later as I'm on my phone in bed.

Sparks

Except that the only way you can get hurricane frequencies to have decreased in the last few years is to (a) make assumptions about how many you didn't observe in the 19th century because of the lack of satellites and other observational challenges; and (b) only look at the ones that made landfall in the US. Do anything else and there's no decrease.

In other words, you only see the decrease you're talking about if you don't look at observations, but make predictions about what you would have seen if you'd had weather satellites in then 1800s. There's irony there...

markfla

Sparks wrote: »

Except that the only way you can get hurricane frequencies to have decreased in the last few years is to (a) make assumptions about how many you didn't observe in the 19th century because of the lack of satellites and other observational challenges; and (b) only look at the ones that made landfall in the US. Do anything else and there's no decrease.

In other words, you only see the decrease you're talking about if you don't look at observations, but make predictions about what you would have seen if you'd had weather satellites in then 1800s. There's irony there...

Hi sparks, good reply to my original post. You're probably right if its just in context of US landfall which has fallen off regarding frequency of hurricanes and would be what I've been going off so I'd accept your argument on that. You mention a two year time span for looking at sea ice levels would be too short a timespan and I agree but indications are looking like global sea ice will be up again for this year which is at the crux of what I'm trying to understand... If sea temps are up should we have seen an uptick in sea ice at all the last few years since those record lows or is it still within natural variably on a downwards trend. And even still I understand that three years is still too short in the context of climate.

Anyway as a side note I'm not a "denier", just a punter looking for answers and appreciate your post sparks, I've worked with creationists in the US for years, I know what science denial looks like.

Iancar29

I seriously think the majority of these posts should be in the conspiracy forum , its actually baffling .

Red Nissan

Hurricanes in the Atlantic and Tornadoes in the USA are rather cyclical. They follow a 7 year cycle which is influenced by the El Nino, La Nina events.

We can expect to see an increase in Atlantic Hurricanes in the coming five years to reach an near endemic proportions before they almost disappear again.

Tornadoes follow a similar pattern and we are more or less into the second year of the current cycle. The US had one Tornado event before May this year. A problem with Tornadoes is that if an EF5 is observed in the country side where it does no damage, then it effectively and officially does not exist.

Satellite mapping is showing that there tends to be the same amount of events so just knowing the number is not the full picture, we still have a constant stream of disturbances flowing out of Africa as any other year but this year is proving rather quite for Tropical Storms and Hurricanes in the Atlantic.

Our impact from same can largely be dependent on the position of the jet stream, so in an active year for Atlantic Hurricanes in Ireland we might be sparred due to the Jet Stream.

OldRio

Thargor wrote: »

But do you disagree with the graphs? I mean he claims that hurricanes arent happening with any increased frequency, so someone shows him evidence of a large spike in hurricane activity and he just disappears, probably to reappear in another climate change thread in a months time claiming again that there's been no observed increase in hurricane activity, its really frustrating to read this kind of behavior on Boards and other forums over and over again.

Bless, life must be hard. How do you cope?

Lies damned lies and statistics. The same data can be used for and against an argument. As for the graph? see posts above.

There is a self serving scientific and political lobby feeding from the same trough. It seems anyone who dares question any part of this meets with the new 'Spanish Inquisition' (Cue Monty Python sketch)

Oneiric 3

Sparks wrote: »

That was a valid question twenty years ago, not so much today because it's been settled.

You obviously misunderstood the context of which the question was written in. I'll phrase it a little differently:

So what if global warming/climate change is man-made or not? I am here trying to learn and understand, as I am sure many others are, so the question, while it might seem a tad flippant, is far from it.

Sparks wrote: »

Yes

And...? in what way does it really matter?

Sparks wrote: »

Think you might find you've understated its importance

I think you'll find, if you had read my post right, that I did no such thing. I asked a question, not state an opinion in this particular case. But I am all ears if you would like to answer it next time around

Sparks wrote: »

It's not just a case of crying because your grandkids won't ever see a coral reef

Who's crying though?

it's the economic impact of the change that's going to wallop us

That sounds like a pretty definite statement. Is it possible that you could point me to some peer reviewed socioeconomic based research papers that back up this claim?

Sparks wrote: »

Are you kidding?

You already know the answer to that, so bit of a pointless question, no?

Ah, right, I see. So if they don't comment on climate change denial then climate change isn't happening and if they do comment on it, their professional qualifications are suspect?

Sorry, but I don't think you do.

Quick question, what are your professional qualifications?

I don't have any professional qualifications, I am just a poor, uneducated working class catholic boy who grew up in the slums.

What are your own professional qualifications? It is pretty obvious you are a well-learned authority in the this subject, so I am assuming you are a climate scientist?

I mean, you're the one arguing that 97% of the world's climatologists are wrong

I am? Where exactly in my post did I declare and argue that "97% of the world's climatologists are wrong"?

Sparks

markfla wrote: »

Hi sparks, good reply to my original post. You're probably right if its just in context of US landfall which has fallen off regarding frequency of hurricanes and would be what I've been going off so I'd accept your argument on that.

It's even worse than that - it's the adjusted landfall figures that show a decrease, and the adjustment is a best guess for how many we would have seen prior to the invention of weather satellites and the like.

You mention a two year time span for looking at sea ice levels would be too short a timespan and I agree but indications are looking like global sea ice will be up again for this year which is at the crux of what I'm trying to understand... If sea temps are up should we have seen an uptick in sea ice at all the last few years since those record lows or is it still within natural variably on a downwards trend. And even still I understand that three years is still too short in the context of climate.

That's been studied quite a bit - this is a pretty decent quick explanation:

If the Southern Ocean is warming, why is sea ice increasing? There are several contributing factors. One is the drop in ozone levels over Antarctica. The hole in the ozone layer above the South Pole has caused cooling in the stratosphere (Gillet 2003). A side-effect is a strengthening of the cyclonic winds that circle the Antarctic continent (Thompson 2002). The wind pushes sea ice around, creating areas of open water known as polynyas. More polynyas leads to increased sea ice production (Turner 2009).

Another contributor is changes in ocean circulation. The Southern Ocean consists of a layer of cold water near the surface and a layer of warmer water below. Water from the warmer layer rises up to the surface, melting sea ice. However, as air temperatures warm, the amount of rain and snowfall also increases. This freshens the surface waters, leading to a surface layer less dense than the saltier, warmer water below. The layers become more stratified and mix less. Less heat is transported upwards from the deeper, warmer layer. Hence less sea ice is melted (Zhang 2007).

Despite that counterintuitive result, the overall trend is kindof clear - a loss of sea ice globally, even if the Antarctic sea ice is trending upwards:


(Don't forget though, while the free-floating sea ice is stable or even increasing in the Antarctic, the land ice there is definitely decreasing, as the other ice graphs above show).

Sparks

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

So what if global warming/climate change is man-made or not?

Because if we're the forcing factor, then we can ameliorate the effects (it's too late to avoid them now, but that doesn't mean we can't minimise damage).

That sounds like a pretty definite statement. Is it possible that you could point me to some peer reviewed socioeconomic based research papers that back up this claim?

Google Scholar is a wonderful thing.
Or, you could just follow [url=

https://twitter.com/ElaineByrne/status/500922023745294336]Elaine

Byrne of the Sindo on twitter[/url] as she's out in Kiribati reporting on climate change at the moment...

I don't have any professional qualifications, I am just a poor, uneducated working class catholic boy who grew up in the slums.
What are your own professional qualifications? It is pretty obvious you are a well-learned authority in the this subject, so I am assuming you are a climate scientist?

Nope, just an engineer who found the topic interesting (and a parent who was wondering what his kid was going to be facing in the next fifty years).
Thing is, I'm not the one saying that 97% of the world's experts on the topic are wrong...


(btw, "poor working class catholic boy who grew up in the slums"? Please. You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.)

I am? Where exactly in my post did I declare and argue that "97% of the world's climatologists are wrong"?

Here:

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

This seems to be a popular swipe by middle-man type advocates of AGW to somehow dismiss and belittle those that may have an alternative view on climate. Yet I not heard any climate scientist coming out with personal remarks like this. And if I was to, I would sincerely question their academic credentials and the institution/s they earned them in.

Oneiric 3

Sparks wrote: »

Google Scholar is a wonderful thing.
Or, you could just follow Elaine Byrne of the Sindo on twitter as she's out in Kiribati reporting on climate change at the moment..

Ta muchly

Sparks wrote: »

Please. You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

[/QUOTE]

Yes, I know I was / am. What is with the rest of the post though?

Here

Seriously? I'll ask again, where did I say that 97% of the world's climatologists are wrong?

Thing is, I'm not the one saying that 97% of the world's experts on the topic are wrong..

And who is saying that you are?

Thargor

OldRio wrote: »

Bless, life must be hard. How do you cope?

Lies damned lies and statistics. The same data can be used for and against an argument. As for the graph? see posts above.

There is a self serving scientific and political lobby feeding from the same trough. It seems anyone who dares question any part of this meets with the new 'Spanish Inquisition' (Cue Monty Python sketch)

Same old nonsense, how is this conspiracy of hundreds of thousands/millions of scientists and politicians being coordinated? "Lies damned lies and statistics", the old cliche wheeled out by anyone who knows they've been proven wrong

OldRio

Thargor wrote: »

Same old nonsense, how is this conspiracy of hundreds of thousands/millions of scientists and politicians being coordinated? "Lies damned lies and statistics", the old cliche wheeled out by anyone who knows they've been proven wrong

Deary me. I agree with the opening OP.


'Proven wrong' ?
I think you are mistaken.

Sparks

OldRio wrote: »

'Proven wrong' ?
I think you are mistaken.

No, he's correct. We're way past the point where the scientific consensus is high enough that we accept something as true. If this was physics, this would be the point a decade after the mercury observations in 1919 -- the consensus says Einstein was right and Newton wasn't. The debate's over and the engineers are going to wind up building GPS satellites using Einstein's math, not Newton's. If this was medicine, we'd be in the 1870s with Snow and Pasteur's work proving germ theory over miasma theory. If it was religion, we'd be in the late 1760s, with every church in Europe finally going "er, okay, the scientists were right, fit the lightning rod so we don't have to rebuild the church steeple again this year". If it was biology, we'd be in the 1920s laughing at the americans over the snopes monkey trials because evolution was just accepted everywhere else.

Instead it's climatology and the data's in, the debate is done, and we know it's happening and we know it's us causing it. The only major question left now is "What do we do about it?"

OldRio

I am discussing the OP. That an exaggeration has taken place.

Red Nissan

Sparks wrote: »

Instead it's climatology and the data's in, the debate is done, and we know it's happening and we know it's us causing it. The only major question left now is "What do we do about it?"

Overall, regardless of this particular issue, the planet itself is leaving the Ice Age, as far as we know, no humans have lived here, ice free.

Calibos

Red Nissan wrote: »

Overall, regardless of this particular issue, the planet itself is leaving the Ice Age, as far as we know, no humans have lived here, ice free.

So basically you are saying we shouldn't be thinking of investing hundreds of trillions in weaning ourselves off oil or carbon sequestration tech or renewables but instead need to be thinking about investing hundreds of Trillions in 100metre tall tidal barriers around our first world cities and coastlines and helping a few billion people in the rest of the world resettle from their flooded coastal lands to the new temperate zone in empty Siberia.

Sounds like either way, we're screwed

Oneiric 3

Thargor wrote: »

Same old nonsense, how is this conspiracy of hundreds of thousands/millions of scientists and politicians being coordinated? "Lies damned lies and statistics", the old cliche wheeled out by anyone who knows they've been proven wrong

You don't think that your own response might be just a little on the old cliche side too?


Going back to my earlier statement (well, more just an observation really), there seems to be an idea of a 'them' - the 'climate deniers" - whatever that actually means) and an ''us' -those in the know, the righteous ones) in the whole climate debate outside of academia. As I said earlier, I have yet to hear the real climate academics, researchers and so forth coming out or getting involved with such nonsense. Possibly because they have good understanding of human nature and an understanding that not everyone is going to accept, or even understand, new theories or facts at an equal pace.

Which makes me wonder, do we, as the middle-men, the non-academics, need that divide? Do we need that 'nemesis', the bad guys, the climate deniers, etc to perhaps give that little extra sense and purpose to this (or any other) particularly cause, whether it is a cause worth fighting for or not? I realize I am just thinking out loud, but it is something that I cannot help but ponder.

Calibos wrote: »

So basically you are saying we shouldn't be thinking of investing hundreds of trillions in weaning ourselves off oil or carbon sequestration tech or renewables but instead need to be thinking about investing hundreds of Trillions in 100metre tall tidal barriers around our first world cities and coastlines and helping a few billion people in the rest of the world resettle from their flooded coastal lands to the new temperate zone in empty Siberia.

Sounds like either way, we're screwed

Another idea (I know, silly) would be to invest all those trillions into improving the lives of the world's millions of destitute, sick, hungry and worn torn people that are suffering way beyond what our privileged comprehension can endure as we speak. Perhaps put something also into medical research, improved education and health services for everyone etc, the list is endless really.

Meteorite58

I like this brief excerpt from a Christopher Hitchens interview and his views on global warming, ' we don't have another planet on which to run the experiment'.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij500baQFNw

FWVT

Sparks wrote: »

Right up until you said "in line with predictions" you were correct (more or less - I'd argue that it's hard to "claim" hurricane data because they're kindof big and people tend to notice them).

There wasn't any prediction mentioned in that chain of posts; you brought those in out of nowhere, citing nothing (not even the specific predictions you were thinking of).

Could you please stop with this forecast vs observation argument as it's getting a little tiresome at this stage. Your whole reason for posting, and the thread in general, is about the recent observations versus what they "should" be. The OP said they're not in line with what we were told they would be, you are saying that they are, and you repeatedly use the IPCC reports, which are forecasts, as your basis. You have referred to doomsday forecasts like "our poor grandkids won't see a coral reefs", etc., so like it or not you are talking about the IPCC FORECASTS. You posted graphs of observations as support for your claim that what we are observing is in line with what we were told would happen, i.e. the forecasts.

Except that there was no missing data in that graph; the graph was drawn when that "missing" data was in the future and thus not data at all because the events hadn't happened yet. The other graphs were drawn later with additional data that wasn't available when the first graphs were drawn.

And all those graphs were of observations. No predicting involved. Data from past events, portrayed in graph form. Even the trend line is based on past data; it's analysis, not prediction.

And I repeat, why post an old graph which is not up to date? You did so because it has the maximum hockey-stick appearance. That's a problem I have. Many of the graphs stop a decade ago. Just Google Image the words "global temperature" and see how many of the results actually run up to 2012 or 2013. Not many. The up-to-date graphs you had to post afterwards just don't look as shocking as your initial one.

Anyway, my stance is this. I 100% agree that we should be focusing all of our efforts on developing alternatives to fossil fuels, not because I believe they will cause problems for our climate, but because we will run out of them at some point and there are cleaner alternatives.

I am also 100% against conspiracy theories, as anyone who reads my online articles will notice. There are headbangers in both camps, so I listen to neither. I am well qualified to form my own opinion based on all that's out there. That opinion is that, in the overall scheme of things, WE are not causing a huge problem for our grandkids. The climate is doing what it does -changing - but our part in this is not big. We are rebounding from a cool period, so the overall trend is upwards, with spikes and level periods. This background trend does not correlate with our increase in CO2 production since 1850. The rate of increase in temperature since then was ahead of the rate of increase in CO2, by too much. The temperature should be almost off the scale at this stage if the small increase in CO2 150 years ago had anything to do with the observed warming. It didn't, which begs the question, why didn't it? It is claimed that only the last few decades are down to us, the earlier (almost equal) warming decades were primarily not.

The levellings off of the turn of the 20th century and the '50s-'70s are similar to the current levelling. They all coincide with particular PDO and AMO phases, however the current levelling should be less pronounced if the increasing CO2 is having a larger and larger driving influence. Yes solar activity is low, which proves, nature is the real driving force.

I also question why we are being warned that ALL future scenarios from climate change will be invariably bad, in every region of the world. It will be misery for all. Are there no places that will benefit? None at all? I have yet to hear of any. I attended the Met Eireann talk on the outlook for Ireland in 2100 and it painted a very benign picture, with only slight changes by then, none of them dramatic. That's just one small country in a large world but still, if these forecasts are correct then our grandkids have zero to be worried about. Climate change is not all bad. We are mere tenants on this planet and we have always had to adapt to changes in its climate. Why do we think we are any different now?

Bongalongherb

Hang on while I stick all of this random theory model specific algorithms together into a snowball into my new theoretic computer and see what it shows for the weather cycles in 30 years. Ah yes, the model production useless variables are like my theory and fit my theory belief system, astonishing.

The input is flawed.

No human at this time can predict the long-term weather cycle of this planet, it is extremely complicated, chaos theory scenario.. As for global warming...well, there is a feeling of change, but it is only a natural cycle of this planet and sun-spot/solar-flare proximity forwarded to this planet and how these complex universal random chaos laws intermingle with our tiny world.

Don't take my word for it, but add in the moons gravitational pull as well as electromagnetic forces and it gets even more chaotic.

Red Nissan

FWVT wrote: »

Climate change is not all bad. We are mere tenants on this planet and we have always had to adapt to changes in its climate. Why do we think we are any different now?

Because the world power will change. Ancient bread baskets of the world may return as current deserts bloom reliably and start to support crops again after thousands of years of dry climate [current climate].

I don't think the story is about oil, think weather and climate change and think where oil came from and could these regions return to arable sustainability in the near future?

Akrasia

OldRio wrote: »

I am discussing the OP. That an exaggeration has taken place.

To everyone who thinks that this 'pause' in global warming proves that the projections are wrong, you are just demonstrating a lack of understanding of graphs.

Go back and look at any of the temperature record graphs. There isn't a single graph, either historical, or projected that shows the temperatures increasing every single year with each year being a record high global average surface/air temperature.

There are always short term variations that can last even for a decade or more. The difference between a world with Anthroprogenic global warming and a world without Anthroprogenic global warming is that without AGW, there would be periods of declining temperatures as part of the normal trend. With AGW, these periods have been replaced with stagnant temperatures, or even just a 'slowdown' in temperature increases.

The irony of the global warming denialism about this 'pause' is that the temperatures still increased during the period under discussion. They are claiming global warming stopped during a time when global temperatures increased (and this is not to mention the fact that a vast amount of energy is also being added to the oceans through warming during this period.

We know that periodically the heat stored in the oceans gets transferred to the atmosphere (through changes in ocean currents that divert warmer water to places with colder air thus increasing conduction of heat from ocean to atmosphere) and the excess heat in the deep ocean is building up so that we could see some spectacular weather events in the next few years if and when these transfers take place.

Duiske

Sparks wrote: »

Well, you think that, but when 97% of the world's climatologists all specifically agree that mankind is causing this, I'm just gonna go with their evidence-based statements. If you have evidence that contradicts those 97%... well, why haven't you published yet? You'd be famous...

This has been brought up time and again. Can you please point us to the survey where "97% of the world's climatologists all specifically agree that mankind is causing this".

Oneiric 3

Akrasia wrote: »

We know that periodically the heat stored in the oceans gets transferred to the atmosphere (through changes in ocean currents that divert warmer water to places with colder air thus increasing conduction of heat from ocean to atmosphere) and the excess heat in the deep ocean is building up so that we could see some spectacular weather events in the next few years if and when these transfers take place.

What kind of 'spectacular' weather events? More spectacular than weather events say a year ago, 23 years ago, 418 year ago, 18,794 years ago?

FWVT

Akrasia wrote: »

To everyone who thinks that this 'pause' in global warming proves that the projections are wrong, you are just demonstrating a lack of understanding of graphs.

Go back and look at any of the temperature record graphs. There isn't a single graph, either historical, or projected that shows the temperatures increasing every single year with each year being a record high global average surface/air temperature.

There are always short term variations that can last even for a decade or more. The difference between a world with Anthroprogenic global warming and a world without Anthroprogenic global warming is that without AGW, there would be periods of declining temperatures as part of the normal trend. With AGW, these periods have been replaced with stagnant temperatures, or even just a 'slowdown' in temperature increases.

The irony of the global warming denialism about this 'pause' is that the temperatures still increased during the period under discussion. They are claiming global warming stopped during a time when global temperatures increased (and this is not to mention the fact that a vast amount of energy is also being added to the oceans through warming during this period.

Are you quite sure about that bit in bold? I don't see any warming since around 2001, so almost half a climatic period.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

OldRio

Akrasia wrote: »

To everyone who thinks that this 'pause' in global warming proves that the projections are wrong, you are just demonstrating a lack of understanding of graphs.

Go back and look at any of the temperature record graphs. There isn't a single graph, either historical, or projected that shows the temperatures increasing every single year with each year being a record high global average surface/air temperature.

There are always short term variations that can last even for a decade or more. The difference between a world with Anthroprogenic global warming and a world without Anthroprogenic global warming is that without AGW, there would be periods of declining temperatures as part of the normal trend. With AGW, these periods have been replaced with stagnant temperatures, or even just a 'slowdown' in temperature increases.

The irony of the global warming denialism about this 'pause' is that the temperatures still increased during the period under discussion. They are claiming global warming stopped during a time when global temperatures increased (and this is not to mention the fact that a vast amount of energy is also being added to the oceans through warming during this period.

We know that periodically the heat stored in the oceans gets transferred to the atmosphere (through changes in ocean currents that divert warmer water to places with colder air thus increasing conduction of heat from ocean to atmosphere) and the excess heat in the deep ocean is building up so that we could see some spectacular weather events in the next few years if and when these transfers take place.

Well I would never be as bold as to suggest that everyone who disagreed with me 'are just demonstrating a lack of understanding of graphs.'
Everyone ? You mean everyone? Wow. Some statement.

Akrasia

OldRio wrote: »

Well I would never be as bold as to suggest that everyone who disagreed with me 'are just demonstrating a lack of understanding of graphs.'
Everyone ? You mean everyone? Wow. Some statement.

If the 'pause' means global warming has stopped or was exaggerated, then this was true for the period between 1989 and 1995 when there was a 'pause' in global warming followed by a rapid surge and rapidly increasing temperatures.

The graph above is flat because 2008 was a cold year and this drags down the 5 year average, but 2008 was still hotter than any year prior to 1998, so even an outlier cold year this decade would have broken global temperature records 10 years before.

The graph posted above stops showing the rolling average at 2011. If you plot it out to 2013 the global temperature is higher than the previous peak in 2007

The current year so far is tied with 2002 as the third warmest on record (for the period January to July http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/) and if this is maintained for the rest of the year, it will certainly drag the 5 year rolling average back into the rapidly increasing trend that the climate models predict

(Unfortunately)

Weathering

My initial point was that they didn't foresee for this "pause" when they made their predictions. So when they said it would be x warmer by 2050 they didn't factor in those years when there would be a pause in warming. Just because there was rapid warming after a supposed "pause" before doesn't mean it will happen again.

For ex if they predicted temperatures would increase by 2 Celsius by 2050 without factoring in x amount of years with a pause in warming/slowing down of warming then I would tend to think the warming by 2050 would be less than the 2 Celsius they previously predicted. As I said before I don't dispute climate change I just don't trust their predictions much any more.

Red Nissan

Akrasia wrote: »

(Unfortunately)

It is what it is, we are potentially facing extinction, that's how serious the situation really is.

It's not unfortunate, it's an opportunity wasted by an experiment, ie mankind, mankind's journey here to today is nothing short of miraculous, the wee wobbles that nearly wiped us out since our journey began some 65 millions years ago after a series of global extinction events allowed us the opportunity [as shrew] to take advantage of the situation.

To now, perhaps on the cusps of the end of that journey, and what do we do?

I say go out with dignity. Have a party, we blew it, we should be perhaps 5,000 years more advanced, we are a failure and we all know what nature does with those, we are no different.

When they shoot the cows, I'll know it's serious.

FWVT

Akrasia wrote: »

The graph above is flat because 2008 was a cold year and this drags down the 5 year average, but 2008 was still hotter than any year prior to 1998, so even an outlier cold year this decade would have broken global temperature records 10 years before.

No, the graph above is flat because the each year is no warmer than the previous. In other words, there is no net warming.

The reason why there are so many record-breaking years recently is that the bar has been raised to this new level. This plateau lies above the long-term average, so of course these years are going to be above average, in record-breaking territory. There is nothing alarming about that if the flatline continues. The big question is will it?

FWVT

And getting back to Sparks' claims of increasing tropical activity, for which he could find no up-to-date data, I would like to ask him for his comments on these graphs.

flutered

scientests seem of the view that the leaking methene gas wells along the east coast of the u.s. do more damaage than china and india, there are more that are not known about scattered about the oceans of the planet.

Akrasia

Weathering wrote: »

My initial point was that they didn't foresee for this "pause" when they made their predictions. So when they said it would be x warmer by 2050 they didn't factor in those years when there would be a pause in warming. Just because there was rapid warming after a supposed "pause" before doesn't mean it will happen again.

For ex if they predicted temperatures would increase by 2 Celsius by 2050 without factoring in x amount of years with a pause in warming/slowing down of warming then I would tend to think the warming by 2050 would be less than the 2 Celsius they previously predicted. As I said before I don't dispute climate change I just don't trust their predictions much any more.

The models are approximations of reality, a best guess rather than a prediction.

The predictions are amalgamations of the various different models, and they make their predictions dependent on variables that are uncertain. It is wrong to expect climate models to be weather forecasts. The central message is that increasing CO2 output traps more heat which is distributed within the oceans and atmosphere by various mechanisms, some of which are better understood than others. All climate scientists will emphasise uncertainty in the climate models, and the IPCC only discusses the future climate in terms of how likely they think certain scenarios are, and not how certain they are.

The consensus is overwhelming that if we carry on the Business as Usual scenario of emissions, we are likely to see catastrophic climate change in the next hundred years and beyond that may be unstoppable once certain positive feedback loops are activated.

Akrasia

Red Nissan wrote: »

It is what it is, we are potentially facing extinction, that's how serious the situation really is.

It's not unfortunate, it's an opportunity wasted by an experiment, ie mankind, mankind's journey here to today is nothing short of miraculous, the wee wobbles that nearly wiped us out since our journey began some 65 millions years ago after a series of global extinction events allowed us the opportunity [as shrew] to take advantage of the situation.

To now, perhaps on the cusps of the end of that journey, and what do we do?

I say go out with dignity. Have a party, we blew it, we should be perhaps 5,000 years more advanced, we are a failure and we all know what nature does with those, we are no different.

When they shoot the cows, I'll know it's serious.

I presume you're joking?

I'm actually quite optimistic about our capacity to innovate out of this mess, we have the ingenuity and there are loads of potential technologies that could allow us to move to a post fossil fuel world, but we really really need to move past this climate change denial bullsh1t and work together to find solutions to our problem.

Akrasia

FWVT wrote: »

No, the graph above is flat because the each year is no warmer than the previous. In other words, there is no net warming.

The reason why there are so many record-breaking years recently is that the bar has been raised to this new level. This plateau lies above the long-term average, so of course these years are going to be above average, in record-breaking territory. There is nothing alarming about that if the flatline continues. The big question is will it?

Ok, now I know you don't know how to read graphs

Thargor

FWVT wrote: »

No, the graph above is flat because the each year is no warmer than the previous. In other words, there is no net warming.

The reason why there are so many record-breaking years recently is that the bar has been raised to this new level. This plateau lies above the long-term average, so of course these years are going to be above average, in record-breaking territory. There is nothing alarming about that if the flatline continues. The big question is will it?

Wow...

Akrasia

FWVT wrote: »

And getting back to Sparks' claims of increasing tropical activity, for which he could find no up-to-date data, I would like to ask him for his comments on these graphs.

The first graph shows a significant strengthening of storms on average over the last 40 years

The second graph shows the frequency of storms diminishing. Both of these graphs are consistent with global warming predictions. There isn't a strong consensus about whether or not there will be more storms, but it definitely predicts that on average, storms will be more powerful (Tropical storms get their energy from the ocean, and warmer oceans feed more energy into the storm systems they create)