[Winstonm]

"It's this sort of thing that makes many people regard chemical solutions to problems with a somewhat jaundiced eye."

So, would you say that jaundiced eye is a side effect of the Roundup, too?

[PassedOut]

A Republican Scientist, His Work and a Climate Reckoning

Quote

On Dec. 11, another round of international climate negotiations, sponsored by the United Nations, concluded in Cancún. As they have for 18 years running, the gathered nations pledged renewed efforts. But they failed to agree on any binding emission targets.

Late at night, as the delegates were wrapping up in Mexico, the machines atop the volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean issued their own silent verdict on the world’s efforts.

At midnight Mauna Loa time, the carbon dioxide level hit 390 — and rising.

On track to hit 400 ppm in May, 2014.

[luke warm]

 PassedOut, on 2010-December-22, 00:42, said:

A Republican Scientist, His Work and a Climate Reckoning


On track to hit 400 ppm in May, 2014.

oh no!! we are doomed... DOOMED i say

[PassedOut]

Warm heart, cold feet

Quote

As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades, more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents. So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased.

The sun’s energy reflects off the bright white snow and escapes back out to space. As a result, the temperature cools. When snow cover is more abundant in Siberia, it creates an unusually large dome of cold air next to the mountains, and this amplifies the standing waves in the atmosphere, just as a bigger rock in a stream increases the size of the waves of water flowing by.

The increased wave energy in the air spreads both horizontally, around the Northern Hemisphere, and vertically, up into the stratosphere and down toward the earth’s surface. In response, the jet stream, instead of flowing predominantly west to east as usual, meanders more north and south. In winter, this change in flow sends warm air north from the subtropical oceans into Alaska and Greenland, but it also pushes cold air south from the Arctic on the east side of the Rockies. Meanwhile, across Eurasia, cold air from Siberia spills south into East Asia and even southwestward into Europe.

That is why the Eastern United States, Northern Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinarily snowy and cold winters since the turn of this century.

Pay attention, Atlanta!

[PassedOut]

Interesting article about the negative cloud feedback argument put forward by those unwilling to stop polluting our atmosphere with CO2: Feedback on Cloud Feedback

Quote

A positive cloud feedback loop posits a scenario whereby an initial warming of the planet, caused, for example, by increases in greenhouse gases, causes clouds to trap more energy and lead to further warming. Such a process amplifies the direct heating by greenhouse gases. Models have been long predicted this, but testing the models has proved difficult.

Making the issue even more contentious, some of the more credible skeptics out there (e.g., Lindzen, Spencer) have been arguing that clouds behave quite differently from that predicted by models. In fact, they argue, clouds will stabilize the climate and prevent climate change from occurring (i.e., clouds will provide a negative feedback).

In my new paper, I calculate the energy trapped by clouds and observe how it varies as the climate warms and cools during El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles. I find that, as the climate warms, clouds trap an additional 0.54±0.74W/m2 for every degree of warming. Thus, the cloud feedback is likely positive, but I cannot rule out a slight negative feedback.

It is important to note that while a slight negative feedback cannot be ruled out, the data do not support a negative feedback large enough to substantially cancel the well-established positive feedbacks, such as water vapor, as Lindzen and Spencer would argue.

I have also compared the results to climate models. Taken as a group, the models substantially reproduce the observations. This increases my confidence that the models are accurately simulating the variations of clouds with climate change.

As one would expect.

[Al_U_Card]

Worth it for the irony.

[luke warm]

 Al_U_Card, on 2011-January-11, 10:21, said:

Worth it for the irony.

heheh

[PassedOut]

Taking advantage of a new business opportunity: Weather Monitoring Company Turns to Greenhouse Gases

Quote

The company behind one of the largest networks of weather monitoring stations on the planet — and the purveyor of the ubiquitous WeatherBug application and Web site — is betting that providing greenhouse gas data will also prove to be a lucrative market.

AWS Convergence Technologies of Maryland plans to announce on Wednesday that it is rebranding itself Earth Networks, and that it will be making a capital investment of $25 million over the next five years to deploy a network of 100 greenhouse gas sensors at various sites around the planet — 100 in the United States, 25 in Europe and 25 more at locales yet to be determined.

The network, which will initially monitor concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane — two critical greenhouse gases — will be the first commercial venture of its kind and will substantially increase the density and level of detail of currently available greenhouse gas data.

Interesting idea, and the information will certainly be useful if they pull this off. (Hope they can add to 100 or 150 better than Tom Zeller, Jr.)

[Al_U_Card]

That device will come in handy HERE if it wasn't already obvious that "The best laid schemes o' mice and men.....etc."

[PassedOut]

Good to see that progress continues in measuring the various elements that affect climate change: A Better Yardstick for Solar Cycles

Quote

New research presented at a recent conference of the American Geophysical Union suggests that improvements in instruments deployed in space and in the equations done back on Earth will provide a more stable and dependable database to make conclusions about the sun’s influence. For example, a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters cites the measurements of a new space-based tool, the Total Irradiance Monitor, to argue that earlier measurements slightly overestimated total solar irradiance in the past three decades.

The paper, by Greg Kopp of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder and Judith L. Lean of the Naval Research Laboratory’s Space Sciences Division, presents the findings of one of three groups that have been using different yardsticks to examine the sun’s activity when it emerges from a period when sunspots have been at a minimum.

If measurements of the three new, more finely calibrated yardsticks match up, said Dr. Robert Cahalan, who leads the Climate and Radiation Branch at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, it could allow scientists to zoom in on changes in solar cycles over time. “Our real interest is one answer we’re still unsure of,” he added. “How does all this up-ing and down-ing in recent decades compare with, say, Galileo’s time, 400 years ago?”

“The reason we want to know that is if the sun has been brightening, then it has been causing part of the global warming. If it’s been dimming, it’s canceling part of the global warming,” he said. In the former case, the impact of human activity may not be as great as feared. In the latter, it may be worse.

In either case, we need to know the answer.

[luke warm]

 PassedOut, on 2011-January-19, 11:56, said:

Quote

“The reason we want to know that is if the sun has been brightening, then it has been causing part of the global warming. If it’s been dimming, it’s canceling part of the global warming,” he said. In the former case, the impact of human activity may not be as great as feared. In the latter, it may be worse."

In either case, we need to know the answer.

why? imagine for a moment it's the former case - what do you expect would happen?

[hrothgar]

 luke warm, on 2011-January-19, 16:42, said:

why? imagine for a moment it's the former case - what do you expect would happen?

I know that ready comprehension isn't one of your strong points, however, the author's use of the word "slightly" probably means that (one way or another) there wouldn't be significant changes to the results of the models. Indeed, the full blown article directly states

Quote

And while it is unlikely to affect their findings that human activity plays a major role in warming,
the new research will probably produce a better understanding of sunspot cycles and their impact on the Earth’s atmosphere.

With this said and done:

1. Passed Out's quote directly stated that scientists suspect that "earlier measurements slightly overestimated total solar irradiance".
2. The quote reading "The reason why we want to understand..." appears to be an attempt to frame the discussion. In no way is this a claim that the sun is brightening.

In any case, if the sun had gotten slightly brighter over the last decade, this probably means that the impact of C02 on global temperature isn't quite as strong as we thought.
However, the scientists are stating that they believe the bias is in the other direction.
The effects of C02 is probably (very slightly) stronger than was originally believed.
However, based on this article I'd still guess that there isn't any material change to the modls.

[luke warm]

 hrothgar, on 2011-January-19, 17:29, said:

The effects of C02 is probably (very slightly) stronger than was originally believed. However, based on this article I'd still guess that there isn't any material change to the models.

then if i understand what you're saying (which isn't likely since ready comprehension isn't one of my strong points) we don't really need to know the answer... that's what i thought

[Al_U_Card]

 luke warm, on 2011-January-20, 05:02, said:

then if i understand what you're saying (which isn't likely since ready comprehension isn't one of my strong points) we don't really need to know the answer... that's what i thought

From the NASA GISS personnel blurb for Dr. Hansen,

http://www.giss.nasa...ff/jhansen.html

in his own words…(my bolding)

One of my research interests is radiative transfer in planetary atmospheres, especially interpreting remote sounding of the earth’s atmosphere and surface from satellites. Such data, appropriately analyzed, may provide one of our most effective ways to monitor and study global change on the earth. The hardest part is trying to influence the nature of the measurements obtained, so that the key information can be obtained.

Pretty much sums it all up, I daresay.

[PassedOut]

 luke warm, on 2011-January-20, 05:02, said:

we don't really need to know the answer...

Have to disagree with you on this one.

'Me generation' politicians in the US like latch on to arguments from the fringe elements of climate science to avoid taking actions necessary to prevent calamity for future generations. Those fringe elements dispute the accuracy of models that show the serious damage caused by mankind's continuing to pour billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.

One of the fringe claims has been that the models are wrong because they do not sufficiently account for changes in the sun. Accurate measurements are important to make sure that changes in the sun are correctly accounted for. And now we know.

Another of the fringe claims has been that negative cloud feedback would mitigate the effects of the buildup of CO2. Last year accurate measurements tossed that claim into the garbage bucket also.

It is a fact that CO2 is a heat-trapping gas and that we are causing a rapid increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Those who deny the effects of that need to explain why the predictions of the models are wrong. And accurate measurements answer whether or not the models can be trusted.

In my view, learning the answer to questions like that is always useful.

[hrothgar]

 luke warm, on 2011-January-20, 05:02, said:

then if i understand what you're saying (which isn't likely since ready comprehension isn't one of my strong points) we don't really need to know the answer... that's what i thought

I don't think that there is enough information available to support this assertion.
Even if the results of the model don't change significantly, there still could be enormous value in improving its reliability.

[hotShot]

http://www.agu.org/p...0GL045777.shtml

Quote

The most accurate value of total solar irradiance during the 2008 solar minimum period is 1360.8 ± 0.5 W m⁻² according to measurements from the Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) on NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) and a series of new radiometric laboratory tests. This value is significantly lower than the canonical value of 1365.4 ± 1.3 W m⁻² established in the 1990s, which energy balance calculations and climate models currently use.

The numbers indicate that 2008 the suns radiation was 0.34% lower than it has been 1990.
http://green.blogs.n...r-solar-cycles/

Quote

With 2010 tying 2005 for the warmest year on record, and 10 of the last 13 years ranking as the 10 warmest ever, it becomes ever more difficult to sustain an argument that global warming is not occurring.

This means that we reached these temperature records with less radiation from the sun. This suggests that the atmosphere has absorbed the radiation more effectively, that it is a better heat trap than the assumed.

[luke warm]

 hotShot, on 2011-January-20, 09:34, said:

Quote

With 2010 tying 2005 for the warmest year on record, and 10 of the last 13 years ranking as the 10 warmest ever, it becomes ever more difficult to sustain an argument that global warming is not occurring.

This means that we reached these temperature records with less radiation from the sun. This suggests that the atmosphere has absorbed the radiation more effectively, that it is a better heat trap than the assumed.

does this mean it's already been answered, or are we talking about two different things?

[Al_U_Card]

UHI
Something else to consider

[Al_U_Card]

Climategate part 2