Dr. Ricky Rood's Climate Change Blog

Quoting Xandra:
it is important to use the appropriate SATIRE-based reconstruction , which we do here, employing a reconstruction based on magnetograms. The accuracy of this model on months to years timescales is significantly higher than that of a model developed for long-term reconstructions used by the ACRIM team for such an analysis. The constructed ‘mixed’ ACRIM — SATIRE composite shows no increase in the TSI from 1986 to 1996, in contrast to the ACRIM TSI composite.

And they got that result because their SATIRE model was callibrated to the PMOD dataset. They then claimed that this somehow disproved the analysis in Scafetta and Willson 2009.

If it was calibrated to the ACRIM dataset, the paper would have had a different conclusion.

Quoting Xandra:

Lee et al. (1995) compares the ERBS satellite data with the Nimbus HF data and found the HF data drifted significantly over the period of the ACRIM gap while the ERBS data shows a slight cooling.

When Scafetta and Willson 2009 used Kirvova's Magnetic Proxy model to bridge the ACRIM Gap to see which one is more reliable, they came to the conclusion that it matches up more with the ERB/NIMBUS7 data, not the ACRIM data.

From the paper:

The relative difference between Nimbus7/ERB and
KBS07 during the ACRIM gap (Figure 2a) changed by
0.023 % (+0.31 W/m2) across the gap, significantly less
than the 0.063 % (0.86 W/m2) assessed by Fro¨hlich in the
PMOD composite. Additionally there is a virtually insignificant
ERB-KBS07 TSI difference of 0.006 % (+0.08 W/m2)
for the one year intervals before and after the 29th of
September 1989, the date of Fro¨hlich’s proposed Nimbus7/
ERB ‘glitch’. Clearly Fro¨hlich’s step function sensitivity
shift of 0.034 % (±0.47 W/m2) that day is not supported by
the KBS07 proxy model.[19] We can apply the KBS07 model as an independent
test of ERBS/ERBE uncorrected degradation during the
ACRIM gap [Willson, 1997; Willson and Mordvinov,
2003]. The ERBE-KBS07 ratio changes by 0.034 %
(0.47 W/m2) between the pre- and post ACRIM gap
comparisons (Figure 2b). This is approximately equal to the trend difference between ACRIM and PMOD compositesduring solar cycles 21–23, within computational
certainty, and clearly supports the contention of uncorrected
ERBE degradation during the ACRIM gap.
[20] The ERB and ERBE comparisons with KBS07
provide strong, independent evidence contradicting the
claims of Lee et al. [1995], Fro¨hlich [2004, 2006] and
Fro¨hlich and Lean [1998] that (1) ERBS/ERBE is the most
reliable comparison database during the ACRIM gap; (2) that
Nimbus7/ERB experienced a large increase of sensitivity
during the ACRIM-Gap and (3) that Lean’s proxy reconstruction
can faithfully reconstruct the TSI.

So why has Kirvova's Magnetic Proxy model had more of a discrepency with ERBE/ERBS instead of NIMBUS7/ERB? Also note that when KBS07 is filled in for the ACRIM Gap, the PMOD dataset suddenly displays a secular trend, like ACRIM, at approximately at a 0.05% increase per minimas, indicating this proxy is more in line with the ACRIM dataset than the PMOD dataset, and that the NIMBUS7/ERB data is more reliable than the ERBE/ERBS data because of a smaller discrepency between NIMBUS7/ERB and KBS07 than ERBE/ERBS.

Quoting Xandra:

Krivova & Solanki (2003) compares TSI to UV levels. UV levels fluctuate more than TSI - a trend would be more visible. As UV correlates closely with TSI, Krivova concludes PMOD is more accurate and there has been little secular trend in TSI over the past few decades.

No, they didn't "comapre TSI to UV levels" since we have not been measuring UV levels during the timeframe that TSI increased between minimas as a whole. They used a reconstruction, their SATIRE model, which had already been callibrated to the PMOD dataset beforehand, and since they find that " UV correlates closely with TSI" then they claim that since PMOD shows TSI not going up between minimas over the last 30 years, then the UV irradiance is not going up, therefore refuting ACRIM.

Circular reasoning at its finest.

Quoting Xandra:

A reconstruction of TSI using sunspot numbers Krivova et al. (2007) found the minimum of cycle 23 was lower than the minimum of cycle 22, in contrast to the ACRIM composite.

Scafetta and Willson 2009 showed that when you apply this magnetic flux proxy model to the ACRIM Gap, where there is not certain data, you get an increase in TSI in both the ACRIM and PMOD datasets.

Why?

Quoting Xandra:

Frohlich (2005) compared the results of all three composites – PMOD, ACRIM and IRMB - to a proxy reconstruction of TSI based on magnetograms observed at the Kitt Peak solar observatory. The PMOD composite correlates with the magnetogram-reconstructed TSI with common variance 0.83, significantly better than ACRIM (0.62) or IRMB (0.63).

And I could say that there could be something wrong with PMOD, because it is the only composite to actually agree significantly more with this proxy than ACRIM and IRMB, having a correlation coefficient of 0.83 since two proxies are in a disagreement with it. (The same two composites that show an increase in TSI between minimas.)

Quoting Xandra:

since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone"

And this is not according to the ACRIM composite, but three TSI proxies, so therefore you may want to revise your original post.

Scafetta and West 2008, using the ACRIM composite came to the conclusion that nearly up to 70% of the warming could be solar induced over the last 50 years, if the ACRIM dataset is to be used.

We estimate that the Sun
could account for as much as 69% of the
increase in Earth’s average temperature,
depending on the TSI reconstruction
used.5

Quoting Xandra:

In september 2008, Qing-Bin Lu predicted that the Antarctic ozone hole would be the biggest ever that year. Unfortunately for Lu, the hole was merely about average for the decade – a result that wasn't too supportive for his theory.

It could also be due to the fact that his lag time could be slightly off.

Quoting Xandra:

When it comes to PDO and AMO so are these just natural oscillations and example of internal variability, not an external radiative forcing. They just move heat around from oceans to air and vice-versa and have not the ability to either create or retain heat. Therefore they're not capable of causing a long-term warming trend, just short-term temperature variations.

Wrong.

The PDO and the AMO are indicies of Global Weather patterns across the globe. When they go negative, there is a tiny shift up in Global Cloud Cover, reflecting sunlight and cooling the Globe off slightly.

This is in fact a radiative forcing, but these oceanic cycles are oscillations, so you were only half wrong.

Spencer 2008

Quoting Xandra:

As long as you take your information from anti-scientific blogs such as this, this and this you will have a hard time getting a Ph.D. in atmospheric science.

That's telling.

The images whose URLs did come from blogs were present in the very peer reviewed papers that I had linked you to.

Therefore your attempt at a "diss" failed to epic proportions, and you have only embaressed yourself by revealing to everyone that you didn't even bother to open the links to the peer reviewed papers, or else you would have seen the images present in the peer reviewed papers.

Quoting Xandra:

Learn some basic physics instead.

Learn how to click on a link with your mouse first before you accuse anyone of not knowing "basic physics."

Quoting percylives:
Some of you skeptics must be getting paid by the word. Any writers of monstrous posts should realize that brevity is much more affective.

All I have to do is look out at the black walnut tree in my backyard that is leafing out in the first week of April to know that things have changed around here.

Or to recognize that this past winter in central Virginia while an outlier is part of the new warmer climate. It was not unlike some of the more vigorous winters on the southeastern tip of Louisiana during the 1950's and 60's.

I wish it weren't so, but things are a'changin', 'round here, big time.

Maybe you'll get the message in the summer if the temps get to 25 degrees above normal. Maybe.

You have confused weather and climate to epic proportions in this post.

Quoting greentortuloni:


You're starting to lose me. If this graph of mathane is your idea of methane that is leveling off, then I disagree.

Would you say it's increasing at the same rate as what it was in 1984?

If it has slowed down to nearly no trend since 1998 (but an apparent slight increase) then it has leveled off from what the initial rate of increase was. That is my terminology for "leveling off."

Quoting greentortuloni:

I don't agree with everything Nea has to say, or any of the others for that matter, but keep it real or you'll come across as just another denialist nutcase.

Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant by "leveling off."

I certainly do not want to come off as a "denialist nutcase."

Quoting Snowlover123:


.....

And what is this "smoking gun?" What's the evidence to support it?
..............

Snowlover,

Humanity puts over 3 additional cubic miles of fossilized CO2 into the atmosphere everyday from just the petroleum we burn for energy.

That's not counting the additional CO2 from coal and natural gas we burn, or the massive changes in the CO2 cycle we have caused by deforestation.

Humanity is holding the "smoking" gun, not much question about that.

Quoting Snowlover123:


You have confused weather and climate to epic proportions in this post.

If you read the first sentence in the third paragraph perhaps you'll recognize I give weather and climate both their respective dues.

Like Dr. James Hansen I think the warmer weather outliers will be much warmer, such as the weather in Europe 2003, Russia 2010, Texas 2011, or the Midwest and East in March 2012 in a warmer climate.

No single winter or summer makes a climate but I've been living in this one spot since 1983 and I can tell you in the past 29 years the weather has gotten warmer. And that's getting very close to a climatic comment. For example, when I first moved here we went below zero almost every year. In the last five years we had one below zero cold outlier morning. In the last decade the ground has rarely frozen to any depth at all but when I first moved here we had to endure a week or two of slop and ruts in the driveway every spring when it defrosted.

I'm curious. Has it gotten colder, warmer or stayed the same in your neighborhood over the past 30 years? Have you asked anyone? When you do ask a farmer, forester, or boatman, someone who has had to deal with 30 years of weather.

.

.

.

Quoting percylives:


Snowlover,

Humanity puts over 3 additional cubic miles of fossilized CO2 into the atmosphere everyday from just the petroleum we burn for energy.

That's not counting the additional CO2 from coal and natural gas we burn, or the massive changes in the CO2 cycle we have caused by deforestation.

Humanity is holding the "smoking" gun, not much question about that.

And where did you prove that this is the main cause of the warming? I have shown that the diurnal temperature has not increased nor decreased during the last century and over the last 30 years in the highest quality weather stations, which indicates that Solar Activity could be a cause of the warming that occured in both of these timeframes, since TSI does not impact the diurnal temperature range, and temperature anomalies crept up during both of these timeframes.

Increased TSI has also been reaching the surface, and it is statistically significant in spots.

Ozone Depletion has primarily caused the stratospheric cooling observed, which is seen with temperatures not continuing to cool over the last 15 years while GHG concentrations rose, and the large temperature swings in the stratosphere occured with volcanic eruptions, which have known CFCs, ozone depleting chemicals that reach the stratosphere in unusually strong volcanic eruptions, and Ozone Depletion occurs.

The ACRIM dataset shows that TSI increased by 0.05% between SC 21 and 22, which would explain 70% of the temperature increase during this timeframe.

The fact that the climate is also insensitive to Greenhouse Gas emissions makes it doubtful that CO2 is responsible for most of the warming over the last 50 and 30 years.

Quoting percylives:


Like Dr. James Hansen I think the warmer weather outliers will be much warmer, such as the weather in Europe 2003, Russia 2010, Texas 2011, or the Midwest and East in March 2012 in a warmer climate.

Dr. Hansen was way off on his ENSO prediction, which made him to predict that 2012 would be the warmest year ever. Would you like me to link that up for you?

Quoting percylives:

No single winter or summer makes a climate but I've been living in this one spot since 1983 and I can tell you in the past 29 years the weather has gotten warmer.

Yes, Globally averaged temperatures have risen since 1983, but that doesn't point to what the cause of this warming is.

In addition, a localized area doesn't prove anything. Antarctica has been cooling over the last 30 years as measured by UAH. Does that mean the globe as a whole is cooling?

Quoting percylives:


I'm curious. Has it gotten colder, warmer or stayed the same in your neighborhood over the past 30 years? Have you asked anyone? When you do ask a farmer, forester, or boatman, someone who has had to deal with 30 years of weather.

I would love to answer your question, but I haven't lived for thirty years yet. ;)

Quoting Snowlover123:
Good grief, I think my post was too long to fit into one actual post.

LOL! Yes, these posts do seem to grow in size. When I consider the lengths of your posts, and combine that with the lengths of my posts, I begin to wonder if we should not coauthor a book together. May I suggest that we first decide upon a title and then we just fill in the blanks from there? ;-)

At least one of us should try to keep the dog entertained. There is no telling how it will react, should it become bored. The two of us working in conjunction with each other should be able to manage to keep the dog entertained. Hopefully, we do not need to wait another 20 years to see what happens?

I will be heading home soon. I will be back later. I will attempt to answer your posts then.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:


LOL! Yes, these posts do seem to grow in size. When I consider the lengths of your posts, and combine that with the lengths of my posts, I begin to wonder if we should not coauthor a book together. May I suggest that we first decide upon a title and then we just fill in the blanks from there? ;-)

At least one of us should try to keep the dog entertained. There is no telling how it will react, should it become bored. The two of us working in conjunction with each other should be able to manage to keep the dog entertained. Hopefully, we do not need to wait another 20 years to see what happens?

I will be heading home soon. I will be back later. I will attempt to answer your posts then.

In 20 years I hope to have my Ph.D in Atmospheric Science, so we can go from there. ;)

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:


Perhaps it is not reading comprehension that you suffer from, in general. Perhaps you just cannot comprehend what I write. I shall try to keep it simple, for you.

Great, the simpler and more concise, the better.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

That would be sloppy reasoning, if that is what I said. You were making a case for clouds as being a factor, perhaps the primary factor, in the warming over the past 30 years. I merely stated that we have had clouds for, well much longer than 30 years. What we have not had is the rise to the degree of CO2 over the past 30 years that we do have. Now, if you wish to say that this a claim that the warming over the past 30 years is because of the CO2, then you are free to say so. I was more directly stating that we have always had clouds and without the warming/cooling effect on our current climate that you seem to imply that it has. In other words, why do you place so much emphasis on the clouds and ignore the rising CO2 levels? You nearly claim that the CO2 had no impact at all on our climate. It's the clouds, right? ... Keep it simple. What has changed over the past 30 years? The clouds, or the amount of atmospheric CO2? Does this make a claim that one is responsible for the warming and not the other? No, but one of the keys to troubleshooting a system is asking, "What was the last thing that has changed?".

Yes I was in my blog post. My previous reasoning is flawed, because I had assumed that Co2 has increased in a linear progression over the last 21 years when it has increased exponentially, so the contribution from CO2 is probably much higher than what is stated in the blog post.

Clouds have in fact been decreasing, according to ISSCP, they've decreased by about roughly 3-4%, although it's hard to tell if it's a legitimate decrease or not, since there is no data for clouds before 1983.



Your reasoning that we have had Clouds for all these years is also flawed, because we have NO IDEA WHAT CLOUDS WERE DOING before 1983, so we cannot make assumptions about what is the driver here. A decrease in Tropical Cloud Cover, which has also been observed, would have a greater RF than Global Cloud Cover as a whole, since this is where energy is transferred all throughout the Globe via oceanic currents and through moving air masses.



I am willing to hypothesize that the recent decrease in Cloud Cover has to do with the recent increase in TSI as shown on the ACRIM dataset, because there is a HUGE and significant correlation between direct solar activity variations and Cloud Cover on Earth.


Quoting paper:

To investigate whether galactic cosmic rays (GCR) may influence cloud cover variations, we analyze cloud cover anomalies from 1900–1987 over the United States. Results of spectral analyses reveal a statistically significant cloud cover signal at the period of 11 years; the coherence between cloud cover and solar variability proxy is 0.7 and statistically significant with 95% confidence. In addition, cloud data derived from the NCAR Climate System Model (CSM) forced with solar irradiance variations show a strong signal at 11 years that is not apparent in cloud data from runs with constant solar input. The cloud cover variations are in phase with the solar cycle and not the GCR. Our results suggest that cloud variabilities may be affected by a modulation of the atmospheric circulation resulting from variations of the solar‐UV‐ozone‐induced heating of the atmosphere.

If the ISSCP Cloud datasets are correct, this could help to validate ACRIM even further, if the Cloud Cover Changes are simply not a response to the changing indicies of the PDO and AMO.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

Now this is an example of direct claim. A claim without any supporting evidence for the claim. Do you wish to provide such evidence now?

Sure.

Solheim et. al 2011

Quoting Paper:

Some of the cycles appear to correspond to known
cyclic variations in the Moons' orbit around Earth, while others
may correspond to solar variations. Notwithstanding the
physical explanation for such cyclic variations, which is not
the main focus of the present study, wavelet analysis of climatic
and meteorological records represents a potentially
useful means for climate analysis, as a supplement to Fourier
analysis. In contrast to Fourier analysis, the wavelet analysis
provides information on the time-dependant dynamics of
observed recurrent climate variations, which is especially important
to understand the physical explanation for observed
variations and to evaluate the future development.
(2) The present warm period following the Little Ice Age since
about 1800 AD can be reproduced by a simple three input
period only approach, based on the Greenland GISP2 temperature
record. Apparently the present period of warming
since the LIA to a high degree may be the result of natural climatic
variations, known to characterise at least the previous
4000 years.
(3) Both investigated records show high natural variability and
exhibits long-term persistence, although on different time
scales. The strength and persistence of several of the identified
natural cyclic variations suggests that a natural cycle based
forecasting of future climate may be potentially feasible, at
least for limited time ranges. Our empirical experience suggests
a realistic forecasting time range of about 10–25% of
the total record length. In the case of Greenland, such forecasting
suggests that the present post LIA warm period is likely
to continue for most of the 21st century, before the overall
Late Holocene cooling may again dominate, but this being
dependant on the magnitude of the anthropogenic greenhouseenhancement.
(4) Fourier and wavelet analyses deconstruct data series into their
fundamental components. Natural cycles that have remained
strong over several decades or centuries are likely to continue
without major changes into at least the near future, and will
therefore be essential for forecasting any future climatic development.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

I do not ignore natural forcing and I do look for other causes than AGW. Only a fool would suggest that natural variations, minus man's efforts, has no play in the climate. Equally, only a fool would suggest that AGW is a minor player beyond the natural causes for climate change. Something initiated the climate change. Ask yourself, what has changed in the environment to account for the climate change? Was there a super volcano? Was there a more pronounced increase in volcanic activities? Has there been a sudden increase in the movement of tectonic plates? Has there been more prolonged and intense solar activity? Has there been a meteor/asteroid strike that would alter our climate? Has Earth tilted on its axis? Has Earth's orbit around the sun changed? .. What has changed, Snowlover123, that would initiate a change in the climate? KISS. Why do you so quickly try to omit the one change we are certain of when it comes to finding the initiator of a climate change? Why do you so quickly dismiss CO2? Simply because it fits your purpose?

So I am a "fool" because I don't agree with your conclusions on Climate Change.

The answer to your question lies in the bolded section of your quoted post.

The answer to why CO2 is not a driver of climate is simply because the climate is not sensitive to increased CO2 emissions, and CO2 alone can not explain the warming, simply because the climate is not that sensitive to Carbon Dioxide.

Take Zeebe et. al 2009 for example, which found that past changes in climate change can not be ascribed to Carbon Dioxide alone, an indication that the Climate is not sensitive to CO2.

Or take the NASA TERRA satellite for example, which has been measuring radiative energy imbalances and changes on Earth for 12 years now.



The plot above shows monthly energy imbalance changes measured by TERRA and compared to temperature anomalies from 2000-2007. The plot above shows two types of energy changes. Radiative spirals and linear striations. The radiative spirals can be attributed to a radiative forcing, primarily the Cloud Forcing, which is responsible for most of the chaos over this timeframe. The linear striations are periods where the radiative forcing was weak. The radiative forcing obscures the true feedback signal by reducing the slope of the true feedback. This was documented in Spencer and Braswell 2010.

Since the linear striations are periods where radiative forcings were minimal, we can find the true feedback of the climate system from these striations. The true feedback has a significantly higher slope than if one were to take the contaminated feedback with the radiative spiral.

This gives a value of 8 w/m^2 per Degree C which is a VERY strong negative feedback, compared to the traditional method, which would give you strong positive feedback of 0.7 w/m^2 per Degree C.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

Fine. Name one large positive feedback that has offset the other large positive feedbacks. All observations has shown that the climate is still warming. Where is the offsetting feedback that should have canceled out the warming? Is this another, "Well, give it another 20 years and we shall see?" answer?

Name one *hypothetical* positive feedback? Okay, how about declining snow cover in the polar ice caps creating a large positive feedback that creates methane releases that creates even more warming? This has not been obsevered, but it would be a tipping point if it were to happen.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

Do you mind sharing your reading choices with us? ... When you have finished reading this sentence you will have read that water consists of a combination of mercury and silicon atoms. Do you wish to cite this as evidence of such? If not, do you resort to selective reading choices that most fits what you want to believe?

Let's start with Ban-Weiss et. al 2011...

Land use and land cover changes affect the partitioning of latent and sensible heat, which impacts the broader climate system. Increased latent heat flux to the atmosphere has a local cooling influence known as 'evaporative cooling', but this energy will be released back to the atmosphere wherever the water condenses. However, the extent to which local evaporative cooling provides a global cooling influence has not been well characterized. Here, we perform a highly idealized set of climate model simulations aimed at understanding the effects that changes in the balance between surface sensible and latent heating have on the global climate system. We find that globally adding a uniform 1 W m − 2 source of latent heat flux along with a uniform 1 W m − 2 sink of sensible heat leads to a decrease in global mean surface air temperature of 0.54 ± 0.04 K. This occurs largely as a consequence of planetary albedo increases associated with an increase in low elevation cloudiness caused by increased evaporation. Thus, our model results indicate that, on average, when latent heating replaces sensible heating, global, and not merely local, surface temperatures decrease.

Or this multi-institutional study group...

Superparameterization is a recently developed form of global modeling in which the parameterized moist physics in each grid column of an AGCM is replaced by a small cloud-resolving model (CRM). It holds the promise of much more realistic simulations of cloud fields associated with moist convection and turbulence. Superparameterization is computationally expensive, but multiyear simulations are now feasible. The Colorado State University and UW cloud CPT groups collaborated on the first climate sensitivity analysis of a superparameterized AGCM (Wyant et al. 2006b). The Khairoutdinov-Randall (2001, 2005) superparameterized CAM3, hereafter CAM-SP, was used. Each CRM in CAM-SP has the same vertical levels as CAM3, 4 km horizontal resolution, and one horizontal dimension with 32 horizontal gridpoints.

Following Cess et al. (1989), climate sensitivity was assessed by examining the TOA radiative response to a uniform SST increase of 2K, based on the difference between control and +2K 3.5 year CAMSP simulations. Fig. 2 compares the results to standard versions of the NCAR CAM3, GFDL AM2 and GMAO AGCMs. All these models have similar clear-sky responses, so we just plot the +2K changes in longwave (greenhouse) and shortwave (albedo) cloud radiative forcings (ΔLWCF and ΔSWCF). Since ΔSWCF tends to be larger than ΔLWCF. boundary-layer cloud changes (which have little greenhouse effect compared to their albedo enhancement) appear to
be particularly important. The CAM-SP shows strongly negative net cloud feedback in both the tropics and in the extratropics, resulting in a global climate sensitivity of only 0.41 K/(W m-2), at the low end of traditional AGCMs (e.g. Cess et al. 1996), but in accord with an analysis of 30- day SST/SST+2K climatologies from a global aquaplanet CRM run on the Earth Simulator (Miura et al. 2005). The conventional AGCMs differ greatly from each other but all have less negative net cloud forcings and correspondingly larger climate sensitivities than the
superparameterization. The coarse horizontal and vertical resolution of CAM3-SP means that it highly under-resolves the turbulent circulations that produce boundary layer clouds. Thus, one should interpret its predictions with caution. With this caveat, cloud feedbacks are arguably more naturally simulated by superparameterization than in conventional AGCMs [conventional climate models], suggesting a compelling need to better understand the differences between the results from these two approaches.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:


Correct! I am jumping for joy! Do you also know that when methane breaks down that CO2 is one of the components produced? Are you aware that CO2 has decades of staying power in the atmosphere? Time for a little more reading, perhaps?
Your graphic shows methane levels for two regional zones. Do you suggest that this is true globally? Are you also aware that the graphic ends mid 2009? Would you like to extend this beyond mid 2009?

Yes, one near Iceland and one near the equator, just to give a general sense of the Methane releases going on.

Your link is only half a year after this graph was last updated, so there is really nothing impressive going on with your link that is somehow radically different than the graph that I posted.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

Member Since: April 1, 2010 Posts: 9 Comments: 2512

Note: I edited the first part of the post Rookie, so the first part is actually below the second part of my reply to you.

What does everyone think about the tornadoes in Texas? Saddening stuff what's going on in the Fort Worth area.

Quoting swampdooogggg:
It's very simple. He can't keep up with you, and he knows it. It explains to resorting to the ad hominem attacks, doesn't it? You seem to be one person he refuses to debate out of fear of getting his butt handed to him just like the first time. So it's no wonder why he doesn't want to put his gloves on and jump into the ring. I bet it's times like this when he kicking himself in the head saying to himself over and over "Dammit, why didn't I copy and paste MichaelSTL's blogs into my Excel workbook when I had the chance before he was banned?"

What a travesty I tell you.

Hi swamp.

It would definitely explain the ad-homs he was throwing at me earlier, and the lack of peer reviewed papers to back up any of his points.

And BTW I forgot about STL!

Quoting Snowlover123:


And where did you prove that this is the main cause of the warming? I have shown that the diurnal temperature has not increased nor decreased during the last century and over the last 30 years in the highest quality weather stations, which indicates that Solar Activity could be a cause of the warming that occured in both of these timeframes, since TSI does not impact the diurnal temperature range, and temperature anomalies crept up during both of these timeframes.

Increased TSI has also been reaching the surface, and it is statistically significant in spots.

Ozone Depletion has primarily caused the stratospheric cooling observed, which is seen with temperatures not continuing to cool over the last 15 years while GHG concentrations rose, and the large temperature swings in the stratosphere occured with volcanic eruptions, which have known CFCs, ozone depleting chemicals that reach the stratosphere in unusually strong volcanic eruptions, and Ozone Depletion occurs.

The ACRIM dataset shows that TSI increased by 0.05% between SC 21 and 22, which would explain 70% of the temperature increase during this timeframe.

The fact that the climate is also insensitive to Greenhouse Gas emissions makes it doubtful that CO2 is responsible for most of the warming over the last 50 and 30 years.

Proofs are for mathematics, I just showed a very possible "smoking gun". The one that almost every scientist on the planet agrees on, BTW. Mother Nature doesn't give a hoot what any of us say.

You are the one who babbles on and on belaboring a very weak argument. Personally, I hope you are right and my grandchildren won't experience the hell I see coming for them.

I do believe I've read that CO2 isn't the primary greenhouse gas, water vapor is. But the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is directly related to the atmosphere's temperature so the radiative forcing (warming) from humanity's CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases is magnified by the increased water vapor supported. I think that's called a positive feedback.

But again, I hope all the scientists on the planet except the one or two you quote are wrong. Good luck.

Quoting swampdooogggg:
I give you credit Some1Has2BTheRookie. You are very mild mannered, modest, and also intelligent. You'll plus good posts, even if they are by members on the other side of the fence. Kudos. While I often don't agree with what you usually say, I enjoy your insight all the more.

I am very appreciative of your kind words towards me, swampdooogggg. I would be less than honest if I did not admit that the civil conversations I am given in return influences the tone that I will use in my posts.

Nymore, iceageacoming, Snowlover123 and others have shown me respect. My showing them respect becomes that much easier for me because of this.

As far as my giving a "+" to any post is concerned, should the post make a valid point or caused me to use a deeper level of thought, then I have no problem acknowledging this with a deserved "+".

Thank you again, for your kind words, swampdooogggg. I shall strive to help assure that you never have to regret offering them to me.

Quoting Snowlover123:


Dr. Hansen was way off on his ENSO prediction, which made him to predict that 2012 would be the warmest year ever. Would you like me to link that up for you?



Yes, Globally averaged temperatures have risen since 1983, but that doesn't point to what the cause of this warming is.

In addition, a localized area doesn't prove anything. Antarctica has been cooling over the last 30 years as measured by UAH. Does that mean the globe as a whole is cooling?



I would love to answer your question, but I haven't lived for thirty years yet. ;)

Let's not get too smug about 2012 yet. You may have to eat those words. But, I hope at the end of the year we'll determine that Dr. Hansen was pessimistically wrong and I bet he does too.

You can also fall victim to using too wide a brush. The Antarctic Peninsula has been warming according to most studies so let's just say some parts of Antarctica may have cooled.

In my little part of the world the warming started before 1983. I've been here since then and have never seen the James River frozen over (maybe a skim of ice once) but my neighbors told me that in the early 1900's horse-drawn wagons loaded with railroad ties crossed the river on the ice. I also had an abandoned ice house (kind of cave) on my property where the folks who owned the place back then would bring the blocks of ice they cut out of the frozen river to store for the summer months before refrigeration got here. Sound a lot like some climatic change has occurred in central VA over the past century.

Remembering back to my own youth, I figured you hadn't lived 30 years. I'm guessing you're in the 15-19 range. No matter. But I knew everything back in those years. That's why I asked you to try to learn something from those farmers, foresters, and boatmen I mentioned. Maybe even an avid gardener who has tilled the same backyard for 30+ years can help you. See what they say. One little hint; if they tell you something you disagree with, remember they've seen it, and you haven't, so don't argue with them. Just thank them for their time.

Quoting Snowlover123:


In 20 years I hope to have my Ph.D in Atmospheric Science, so we can go from there. ;)

I have a feeling that you will do well with your PhD. This also explains why you look at all of the scientific evidence concerning the climate change. I am still confused as to why you seem to easily dismiss what we do know in your quest to learn what we do not yet know. I suspect that as you gain further knowledge that you will see that the AGWT cannot be so easily dismissed. The one climate theory that persists, even with all of the attempts to disprove it. There has to be a reason for this that is beyond anyone's desires for it to persist. Would you not agree?

Quoting Snowlover123:
What does everyone think about the tornadoes in Texas? Saddening stuff what's going on in the Fort Worth area.

Bad, of course, but it could have been much, much worse. That's what I've been watching all day.

I see a good deal was posted since last night. Some of the issues we were discussing have been discussed since in depth with other posters. So I'll note them but I won't ask you to re-state your case. :)

Quoting Snowlover123:
The SATIRE model that they use is robustly flawed.

I believe Xandra addressed this adequately. I understand that that didn't satisfy you, but you hold a very much minority and speculative position. However, you are correct that the issue hasn't been settled adequately yet.

Quoting Snowlover123:
I'll tell you this- if we warm in the next 30 years, while all of the other natural factors point otherwise, I'll switch sides and become the loudest advocate for Man-Made Global Warming.

I have copied this to my hard drive and will hold you to it...okay, I didn't and I won't. I do hope you'll hold yourself to it...and I don't think you'll have to wait 30 years.

Quoting Snowlover123:
If Fall et. al 2011 is correct in their premise of no diurnal trend in temperatures over the last 100 and 30 years, then there is no way the warming can be attributed to Greenhouse Gases, and it opens the possibility up for ACRIM to be right with its TSI increasing, because increased TSI (which causes warming) does not impact the diurnal temperature range.

If...the biggest word in the English language.

Quoting Snowlover123:
Which of my sources are "dicey?" I have tried to stick to mainly the peer reviewed literature.

Peer-reviewed doesn't mean correct. You have used at least one such paper that is just a couple of weeks old and that goes against the science as it is understood. That doesn't mean it's wrong, of course. However, it can only be taken as speculative until such time that other scientists can read and review it.

Quoting Snowlover123:
I shouldn't have to perform a statistical analysis for your claim.

Then perform one for your claim --that is that there is an increase in solar activity over the last thirty years. You, sir, are the one who is disagreeing with the vast majority of climatologists.

Quoting Snowlover123:
That alone should tell you that there are some robust errors going on with the Benestad and Schmidt 2009 paper.

The source of that complaint is Pielke. To my knowledge, he has not backed up that claim in the peer-reviewed literature. If you can direct to where Pielke's complaint appears in peer-review, I'd appreciate it. If you can't, then I will just assume it is another of Pielke's blog rants with no basis in reality. (Pielke, btw, is one of those "dicey" sources I was referring to {or to which I was referring, if you insist on grammatical correctness}).

Quoting Snowlover123:
I have already adressed the Scafetta Widget link. The attempt at a rebuttal from that website was very poor and flimsy.

I understand that you didn't like it, but that doesn't make it wrong. In point of fact, it was an adequate rebuttal. When Scafetta's model is run into the past it fails epically. Therefore, it can be discarded.

Quoting Snowlover123:
Where is Spencer cherrypicking?

I'll let Spencer answer that: "By requiring all three population classes to be present for grids to be used in the analysis, we get the best ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison between stations of different population densities. The downside is that there is less geographic coverage than that provided in the Jones dataset, since relatively few grids meet such a requirement."

Even if he's right about what he analyzed, it is a very small subset of the data. Basically, Spencer wasted time.

Quoting Snowlover123:
Actually, Antarctica hasn't been warming at all in the satellite record over the past 30 years, as measured by UAH, which probably has something to do with the Ozone Hole impacting the Jet Streams and weather patterns down there.

As measured by UAH, but they're not the only game in town. ;) Fortunately, others have studied the topic and published their results. It's pretty interesting. I've taken the liberty of bolding a couple of the most interesting passages.

Tropospheric temperatures in the Antarctic are retrieved by linearly combining satellite-borne Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) channels 2 and 4 observations. We show good agreement between satellite-inferred temperature trends and radiosonde observations. It is illustrated that the Antarctic troposphere has cooled in the summer and fall seasons since 1979, in agreement with Thompson and Solomon (2002). It is shown that significant tropospheric warming prevails during Antarctic winters and springs, but we also find significant winter cooling over half of East Antarctica. We find the largest winter tropospheric warming of about 0.6 K/decade for 1979–2005 between 120°W and 180°W. Homogeneous winter tropospheric warming over Antarctica from the ERA-40 reanalysis is not supported by the MSU observations. While MSU stratospheric temperatures exhibit the expected large cooling during the spring and summer seasons, we also find large stratospheric warming over half the southern hemisphere high latitudes in the winter and spring seasons.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL02910 8.shtml

If you can, please explain the portions I bolded in the above abstract. How can Antarctica be cooling in the winter if the Sun is the cause while simultaneously warming in the winter when the Sun is completely absent? I doubt it's UHI. :)

Quoting Snowlover123:
With ANY warming, you get melting of snow and ice at the poles. This in turn decreases the amount of ISR being reflected off of the snow and ice and you get more sunlight being absorbed into the snow and ice free land than before, resulting in more warming than before.

Of course. We see that with melting in the summer.

But I didn't ask about warming at the poles alone. I asked why, if the Sun is the primary cause of the current reason, are the poles warming more than the tropics? The tropics have the sun beating down on them all year, and at a much higher angle, too! So, if the Sun is the cause we should see considerable warming of the tropics and very little at the poles. That is the opposite of what is happening (with allowances made for ozone over the Antarctic).

Quoting Snowlover123:
There is no "smoking gun" that most of Global Warming is anthropogenic.

I'm pretty sure I just posted one. :)

But if you need one more, then I have another question for you: If CO2 has such a small effect, then why does the Earth not freeze? What's keeping it warm? The physics that explain the temperature historically and currently on Earth tell us that the warming is primarily due to human activity (and most of that CO2). If our theories about the current warming are wrong, then our theories about the atmosphere have always been wrong and there is another reason why the Earth isn't an 8,000 miles in diameter snowball. What gives?

Quoting percylives:


Let's not get too smug about 2012 yet. You may have to eat those words. But, I hope at the end of the year we'll determine that Dr. Hansen was pessimistically wrong and I bet he does too.

This is an important point. I sincerely doubt that there are very many people who want AGW to be true. It's a bad time any way you slice it.

I'd be more than happy to change my opinion on it...again. But the evidence for human-caused AGW is overwhelming.

Quoting percylives:
Some of you skeptics must be getting paid by the word.

Brevity is the soul of wit, not science, percy. Some of these issues are deep and complex and require far more discussion than even our longest posts here allow.

That said, I will admit to being more windy than necessary on occasion.

But I make up for it by being outrageously pompous, so it all evens out...or something. :)

Quoting Snowlover123:


Great, the simpler and more concise, the better.

"Yes I was in my blog post. My previous reasoning is flawed, because I had assumed that Co2 has increased in a linear progression over the last 21 years when it has increased exponentially, so the contribution from CO2 is probably much higher than what is stated in the blog post."

Yes, it is easy to get caught up in a blog mode. CO2 was around 355 ppm in 1990. Today's CO2 level is over 393 ppm. This is nearly a 40 point increase over 21 years. This is why I suggest that the next strong, extended period of solar activity, in conjunction with a strong, extended El Nino, will probably bring about a warming of the climate beyond what we have previously observed and beyond what would be expected of such an event. Yes, we will have to wait to see if this comes to be, but I think the odds will not be in our favor. That much heat being trapped by greenhouse gases and the heat being released into the atmosphere by a strong, extended El Nino has to have an impact on the climate. Will more clouds during this period irradiate enough heat back into space to prevent the solar heat from reaching the surface? Since an increase in clouds would require more water vapor in the atmosphere we could still have problems. Water vapor is far more efficient than is CO2 at causing a greenhouse effect. My line of reasoning is that the increased water vapor and the increased cloud cover would, at best, cancel each other out. Is an increased cloud cover enough to overcome the increased water vapor? Should this be true, then it may be our only saving grace. Do you have any studies on this?

"Your reasoning that we have had Clouds for all these years is also flawed, because we have NO IDEA WHAT CLOUDS WERE DOING before 1983, so we cannot make assumptions about what is the driver here."
I would suggest that my reasoning is no so flawed. We know that there was rain for as long as there has been a recorded history. My making an assumption that we had clouds before 1983 is therefore not a flawed assumption. No clouds, no rain. There have been historical floods, even Biblical floods, before 1983.

"A decrease in Tropical Cloud Cover, which has also been observed, would have a greater RF than Global Cloud Cover as a whole, since this is where energy is transferred all throughout the Globe via oceanic currents and through moving air masses."
I agree with you on this, but now, cloud cover in the tropics, prior to 1983, may very well come into play. The equatorial regions of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans covers a large area of the tropics. While there were ships traversing these areas and they did note the weather conditions, most shipping lanes are well north or south of the Equator. WWII warships observations could probably provide us more data the the then tropical clouds than most commercial shipping lanes could, but this is just my guess. Even the vast majority of commercial air traffic lanes are well north of the tropics. Still, we are not completely void of any information from the tropics prior to 1983.

"I am willing to hypothesize that the recent decrease in Cloud Cover has to do with the recent increase in TSI as shown on the ACRIM dataset, because there is a HUGE and significant correlation between direct solar activity variations and Cloud Cover on Earth."
I am afraid that I am not versed on this and therefore I could not even give you an educated guess on this. Once I have studied this some, I may feel comfortable enough to make a comment on this.

"So I am a "fool" because I don't agree with your conclusions on Climate Change."
You would not be fool simply because you don't agree with my conclusions on climate change. My conclusions, concerning climate change, are based on what the climatologist have concluded concerning climate change. I am not a climatologist. ... Not even close. When you look for the reasons that drive our climate, you would be foolish to ignore the Laws of Physics, the greenhouse effect and basic Chemistry. I did not decide what these are either. ... I am old, but not that old.

"The answer to why CO2 is not a driver of climate is simply because the climate is not sensitive to increased CO2 emissions, and CO2 alone can not explain the warming, simply because the climate is not that sensitive to Carbon Dioxide."
I would have to go back and check, but I believe that I said that CO2 is the initiator of the climate change. I have seen no other evidence to the contrary that a rising CO2 level also saw the warming the warming of the climate. Other players, certainly, have had their influence, but you cannot just dismiss the rising CO2 levels either.

"for example, which found that past changes in climate change can not be ascribed to Carbon Dioxide alone, an indication that the Climate is not sensitive to CO2."
That is a rather strong claim to make based solely on past climate changes. When there have been past climate changes it has usually been the result of solar variations, orbital changes, a change in the tilt of Earth's axis, massive volcanic eruptions, a speed up in tectonic plate movement, increased and more dispersed land area causing a decreased open waters, meteor/asteroid strikes and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. None of these events would dismiss the sensitivity of the climate to a rise in CO2 levels. These are all things that we have not experienced in recent history. What is left? ... BTW, this would also possibly help to explain why past climate warmings were followed by an increase of atmospheric CO2 levels as well instead of the rising CO2 levels having to predate any warming. We do see a rise of CO2 that is also associated with a rise in global temperatures. They seem to go hand in hand. That is my hypothesis on this.

"The plot above shows monthly energy imbalance changes measured by TERRA and compared to temperature anomalies from 2000-2007. The plot above shows two types of energy changes. Radiative spirals and linear striations. The radiative spirals can be attributed to a radiative forcing, primarily the Cloud Forcing, which is responsible for most of the chaos over this timeframe. The linear striations are periods where the radiative forcing was weak. The radiative forcing obscures the true feedback signal by reducing the slope of the true feedback.
Seven years is too short of a time frame to show any long term trends. We need 23 years more data to see a long term trend. Yes, on this, it is wait and see. BTW, should you choose to excel at your future career, then I suggest to not use Spencer as a source. Spencer has long been known to jump the gun on many of his studies. Just saying.

Did I miss anything? I hope not.

I am out, for the night. I am tired and I am not even going to proof read this before I post it. It is what it is. ;-) .. Allow me to make grammatical and/or spelling corrections later?

I enjoyed the conversations. I hope that we may continue them.

Quoting Birthmark:>

Brevity is the soul of wit

As if I was not confused already. sigh

Now I am not sure if I am lacking soul, wit or both. :-)

Hey! Perhaps I regained some of both? Was this brief? crosses fingers and hopes

I better quit typing, before I blow it again.

Goodnight, to all!

Quoting Snowlover123:


A lot of the nastiness towards myself by specific members on this board I think has largely to do with their idea that I'm somehow preventing action on reducing CO2 emissions.

I am all for reducing CO2 emissions. I am all for switching to Green Energy like Solar Energy. I agree that we MUST get rid of fossil fuels AS FAST as possible.

Denialists who say that it's too expensive to switch to solar energy haven't lived in a place where pollution is already having its ill-effects on the environment.

The thing is, arguing publically that global warming is not man made is just ammunition for the denialist side.

The effect of what you do is to cause harm to the planet and to America even if your motivation is different.

So i don't understand why you are arguing this. The standard critique of denialists is that if the denialists are right and global warming is a myth, nothing happens if we switch to green energy. If the denialists are wrong (which i think they are) then continuing our oil ways will lead to the death of billions.

Denialists counter this argument with (as you stated) absurd arguments about the cost of changing to a renewable infrastructure.

Since you agree that we should change to renewable infrastructure as soon as possible, this leaves only the academic reason for your arguments. While your argument may be technically sweet to you, the result is counter to the progress that you want to occur.

So I don't understand your motivation. The best I can come up with is some Ralph Naderish/Tea Partish idea of principle regardless of effects... but you seem too smart for that.

So what is your motivation for posting?

Climate Prediction running predictions using models with varying factors (i.e. sensitivity analysis I guess) predicts 1.4 to 3 degree rise in temperature. --> Note I didn't read it, that headline is taken from the scrapping not the source.

Link

Link

Quoting Pier16:

Really? That's all you got. Well, since your handle is Neapolitan, couldn't I use your logic and erroneously assume you are inclined to a warm bias, being that the word "Neapolitan" is a native of the city Naples, Florida?

I signed up four minutes ago exactly, with the hope of contributing something positive to the discussion. But I just could not help myself on addressing your comment to snowlover first.

That's all for now. I'll be around.

Welcome to the show, it has been this way for years.
As you can detect, some are disposed to drawing incorrect conclusions with no evidence.
Be careful, with a handle like that you might be accused of Tide Bias, or worse yet, no sea level
increase LOL
Check out some of the regulars, very informative but
mostly on the main Jeff Masters Blog. You know when you read them.


I've always wanted to be a scientist. That way, I could get a bunch of
grants and do research into whether money can really buy happiness."
- Kyannke.

Quoting percylives:


Proofs are for mathematics, I just showed a very possible "smoking gun". The one that almost every scientist on the planet agrees on, BTW. Mother Nature doesn't give a hoot what any of us say.

So have I, expect I provided evidence from peer reviewed papers to support my claims wheras you have yet to do so.

Quoting percylives:

You are the one who babbles on and on belaboring a very weak argument. Personally, I hope you are right and my grandchildren won't experience the hell I see coming for them.

It's not a "weak argument." The TSI increase on ACRIM can explain no diurnal temperature change over the last 30 years, it can explain the increasing TSI at the surface, and it can also explain the decrease in Cloud Cover, which I have posted can be directly explained by solar activity, thus strengthening the case for the ACRIM dataset even further.

Quoting percylives:

I do believe I've read that CO2 isn't the primary greenhouse gas, water vapor is.

Good, because CO2 is not the strongest Greenhouse Gas. Water Vapour ranks as number 1 as you've said, and the OLR reduction from Cloud Cover ranks as number 2. That's why it's so crucial to get Cloud Feedbacks less certain, because they play a HUGE role on the Climate.

Quoting percylives:

But again, I hope all the scientists on the planet except the one or two you quote are wrong. Good luck.

I've quoted many more than just one or two...

.

Quoting percylives:


Let's not get too smug about 2012 yet. You may have to eat those words.

In order to average out like 2010 and 1998 did on the UAH dataset, we would have to warm VERY considerably from where we are now in negative territory to average out like those warm years averaged out.

Quoting percylives:

You can also fall victim to using too wide a brush. The Antarctic Peninsula has been warming according to most studies so let's just say some parts of Antarctica may have cooled.

The warming in the Antarctic Penninsula is cancelled out by most of the cooling trends in eastern Antarctica to get a statistically insignificant cooling trend.

Quoting percylives:

Remembering back to my own youth, I figured you hadn't lived 30 years. I'm guessing you're in the 15-19 range. No matter. But I knew everything back in those years. That's why I asked you to try to learn something from those farmers, foresters, and boatmen I mentioned. Maybe even an avid gardener who has tilled the same backyard for 30+ years can help you. See what they say. One little hint; if they tell you something you disagree with, remember they've seen it, and you haven't, so don't argue with them. Just thank them for their time.

I don't argue that you haven't seen local climate changes by your area. I respect your claim of local climate change. I argue that you cannot extend this to a Global Scale, as I have shown with Antarctica, even though the planet is warming.

Good grief, I think my post was too long to fit into one actual post.

Here's the rest of it.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:


Correct! I am jumping for joy! Do you also know that when methane breaks down that CO2 is one of the components produced? Are you aware that CO2 has decades of staying power in the atmosphere? Time for a little more reading, perhaps?
Your graphic shows methane levels for two regional zones. Do you suggest that this is true globally? Are you also aware that the graphic ends mid 2009? Would you like to extend this beyond mid 2009?

Yes, one near Iceland and one near the equator, just to give a general sense of the Methane releases going on.

Your link is only half a year after this graph was last updated, so there is really nothing impressive going on with your link that is somehow radically different than the graph that I posted.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

Sea ice extent? The sea ice extent is variable from year to year and is largely due to winds and currents moving the ice around and temperature. Why not take a look at the sea ice volume? You know, surface area and thickness combined. We have seen an increase in the loss of volume and there is no other theory that explains this better than the AGWT. There are other forces at play, but these forces are more easily exercised once the ice has thinned. Winds, currents and warmer waters have a much greater impact on thin, broken ice than it does on thick, packed ice. Mass and friction being what it is.

No, we have modeled the decrease in volume. We have not been actually able to measurre it. The preliminary results from Cryosat-2 indicate that the PIOMAS model is running a bit on the low side of things.

How can you possibly say that a warmer current leading to the Arctic due to a positive AMO is not the driving factor of the ice decline, when I have shown to you already, that there is a multidecadal relationship with the AMO and Arctic temperatures?

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

I could cheat and simply ask for your evidence that the variability in sea ice extent is not caused by AGW. But, that it tit for tat, isn't it? First, I never said that sea ice extent was effected by factors other than AGW.

I am asking you about the DRIVER, not if something contributes or not. (The driver, by the way, is the factor that contributes the most to temperature changes in case you didn't know.)

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

Here is what you fail to to do:

Saying that AGW is not the main driver doesn't mean that I have to somehow rewrite basic chemistry and physics.

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:

Until you have done these things, you have only engaged in circular thinking. "Yes, but...", "What if?" and "Well there are other considerations."

What we do know about the climate has absolutely zero implications for what we don't know about the climate. However, what we don't know about the climate could possibly impact what we do know about the climate, which is why these uncertainties need to be resolved.

You put it perfectly:

"You are still keeping the dog entertained. At least, for now."

Quoting Some1Has2BtheRookie:


I have a feeling that you will do well with your PhD. This also explains why you look at all of the scientific evidence concerning the climate change. I am still confused as to why you seem to easily dismiss what we do know in your quest to learn what we do not yet know. I suspect that as you gain further knowledge that you will see that the AGWT cannot be so easily dismissed. The one climate theory that persists, even with all of the attempts to disprove it. There has to be a reason for this that is beyond anyone's desires for it to persist. Would you not agree?

Thank you very much, Rookie. :)

And to be clear, I don't dismiss the data that we already know. I just want to resolve uncertainties, regardless of what we do know about the Climate (which is a considerable foundation) but we still need to figure out where the windows go, and where the kitchen will go in the house of climate science uncertainty.

Quoting Snowlover123:


In order to average out like 2010 and 1998 did on the UAH dataset, we would have to warm VERY considerably from where we are now in negative territory to average out like those warm years averaged out.



The warming in the Antarctic Penninsula is cancelled out by most of the cooling trends in eastern Antarctica to get a statistically insignificant cooling trend.





I don't argue that you haven't seen local climate changes by your area. I respect your claim of local climate change. I argue that you cannot extend this to a Global Scale, as I have shown with Antarctica, even though the planet is warming.

So you admit that my neighborhood and the planet is warming (that's good enough for me) though you are not ready to take any of the blame or go ask a knowledgeable person about your own neighborhood.

What exactly is your point in this tome you are writing on the blog? Dodging the blame? Accepting responsibility for your share of CO2 is painful. I've changed my life considerably since doing that and it has meant some reduction in travel and luxury. It feels better to have done it though.

Or are you writing to avoid learning about your own area? Still haven't asked around to see if your town is getting warmer too. Living in ignorance doesn't appear to be your style. You might be right though. It is very unsettling. Once you find out that warming is occurring in the neighborhood and you project forward all kinds of peaceful assumptions get smashed. You start to wonder if your grandchildren's health and well-being will be compromised by that trip to London to see the Olympics. Drat! ;>)

Quoting Snowlover123:


Thank you very much, Rookie. :)

And to be clear, I don't dismiss the data that we already know. I just want to resolve uncertainties, regardless of what we do know about the Climate (which is a considerable foundation) but we still need to figure out where the windows go, and where the kitchen will go in the house of climate science uncertainty.

There will be many times in your life that you will need to make decisions based solely on what you know at the time. You can usually correct later, if new information dictates that an adjustment is needed. When you are dealing with the lives of the people of the world and time is short for making a decision then you need to act on what you know now. Should your decision be based on the most benign possibilities of endangering other lives, then this is a decision you will always be able to live with. This is true even if future information shows that there was a better and less harmful approach. When you act in a way that has potential to place billions of people at risk, then your decision will always come back to haunt you should you have only slightly miscalculated. Just food for thought.

Dr. Roy Spencer updated his website this morning with the latest warming graph reporting an increase of 0.22C over the last month. The global lower tropospheric temperature went from 0.11C below the 1981-2010 mean in February to 0.11C above that mean in March.

I imagine Joe Bastardi is feeling let down yet again; he'd been forecasting all fall and winter that the March temp would be down to between -0.15 and -0.3, making 2012 "liable to be the coolest year since the late 1990s". Of course, WUWT trumpeted that prediction, as did many other denialist sites.

When will they ever learn?

Anyway, here's a version of the graph on Spencer's site, only with a standard--and very telling--linear trendline instead of that ridiculous, cherry-picked 3rd order polynomial "for entertainment purposes only" trendline he included to fool the masses:



Don't worry, Joe: the Great Hoped For Fantasy Global Cooldown of 20XX will get underway any day now. If only that gosh-darned warming would just get out of the way, that is...

Quoting Birthmark:

Bad, of course, but it could have been much, much worse. That's what I've been watching all day.

I see a good deal was posted since last night. Some of the issues we were discussing have been discussed since in depth with other posters. So I'll note them but I won't ask you to re-state your case.

Yeah, what do you think about the tornado picking up those tractor trailers and twirling them in the air of excess of 100 feet? I've never seen a twister do that before. It probably had an unbelievably strong updraft to get the tractor trailers to lift off of the ground.

Quoting Birthmark:

I believe Xandra addressed this adequately. I understand that that didn't satisfy you, but you hold a very much minority and speculative position. However, you are correct that the issue hasn't been settled adequately yet.

Yep, Xandra and you both posted Krivova et. al 2009's conclusions. The model is simply flawed, because it's callibrated to a controversial composite to get the result they desired.

Because they couldn't refute the analysis of Scafetta and Willson, they changed models and callibrated the model to the PMOD dataset beforehand to somehow "refute" ACRIM, and the two Ph.Ds.

I understand that I hold a minority position in the climate change community, (and on this blog ;)) but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're right and I'm wrong.

Because the uncertainty still remains, there still is a chance for me to be right. I seriously hope to resolve this discrepency, along with some other future scientists.

Quoting Birthmark:

I have copied this to my hard drive and will hold you to it...okay, I didn't and I won't. I do hope you'll hold yourself to it...and I don't think you'll have to wait 30 years.

A friend of mine who's a B.S. Student in Atmospheric Chemistry thinks that we will see temperatures plummet in 2017.

I think that's a bit extreme, but there will be no warming for the next 30 years, just because of the PDO/AMO alone. Other factors will determine what the climate does from there.

Quoting Birthmark:

If...the biggest word in the English language.

Yes, and the strongest. If the Fall et. al team are correct in their premise, then there is no way CO2 caused the temperature changes over the last 30 years, as evidenced by no diurnal trend in the CRN 1 and 2 stations while temperatures went up, indicating a possible solar influence, and a possible ACRIM verification.

Quoting Birthmark:

Peer-reviewed doesn't mean correct. You have used at least one such paper that is just a couple of weeks old and that goes against the science as it is understood. That doesn't mean it's wrong, of course. However, it can only be taken as speculative until such time that other scientists can read and review it.

New doesn't mean dicey. I agree with your last two sentences though.

Quoting Birthmark:

Then perform one for your claim --that is that there is an increase in solar activity over the last thirty years. You, sir, are the one who is disagreeing with the vast majority of climatologists.

It's not a vast majority... the study you linked to that supposedly shows a consensus... the Doran and Zimmerman study is flawed. This is because of the wording, as I said with the most fundamental question.

Mordinov and Willson 2003

Quoting Paper:

The
0.05%/decade minimum-to-minimum trend
appears to be significant. If so it has profound implications
for both solar physics and climatology.

Quoting Birthmark:

If you can't, then I will just assume it is another of Pielke's blog rants with no basis in reality. (Pielke, btw, is one of those "dicey" sources I was referring to {or to which I was referring, if you insist on grammatical correctness}).

It actually wasn't Dr. Pielke. It was Dr. Scafetta that created the image on a guest web post on Pielke's blog.

So what's wrong with Scafetta's analysis? There must be something wrong if you are going to dismiss it so easily.

But the fact that the Solar constant on the Benestad and Schmidt paper goes down at the same time TSI goes up, is troubling for one who would want to use it as evidence.

Quoting Birthmark:

I understand that you didn't like it, but that doesn't make it wrong. In point of fact, it was an adequate rebuttal. When Scafetta's model is run into the past it fails epically. Therefore, it can be discarded.

I'm not supporting Scafetta's harmonic oscilaltion climate model.

What I am supporting is the fact that his widget shows the temperature falling out of the confidence range of the IPCC. Skeptical Science didn't like it so they attempted to form a rebuttal for this widget, but they made a pretty poor rebuttal on the temperature falling out of the IPCC confidence range, as I have already discussed.

Quoting Birthmark:

"By requiring all three population classes to be present for grids to be used in the analysis, we get the best ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison between stations of different population densities. The downside is that there is less geographic coverage than that provided in the Jones dataset, since relatively few grids meet such a requirement."

That's not cherry picking... if he were cherry picking he would have knowingly selected a tiny portion of the data and compared it to the whole portion of the data. This comparison in this 5X5 range allows for the average temperature to roughly be the same, so trend comparisons can be made.

So what's the reason for the more urbanized stations displaying a significantly steeper temperature trend than the non-urbanized stations?

Quoting Birthmark:

If you can, please explain the portions I bolded in the above abstract. How can Antarctica be cooling in the winter if the Sun is the cause while simultaneously warming in the winter when the Sun is completely absent? I doubt it's UHI. :)

Here's the other portion you forgot to bold:

but we also find significant winter cooling over half of East Antarctica. We find the largest winter tropospheric warming of about 0.6 K/decade for 1979–2005 between 120°W and 180°W. Homogeneous winter tropospheric warming over Antarctica from the ERA-40 reanalysis is not supported by the MSU observations.

They also say this in the actual paper, not abstract:

While much of the tropospheric cooling in the
summer and fall seasons can be accounted for by the
strengthening of the SAM, it is still unclear how much of
the winter and spring warming is related to increases in
greenhouse gases and/or changes in local circulations.
Additionally, the large stratosphere warming occurring
between June and November warrants future observational
and modeling study.

So it seems like you can't make conclusions off of this, since it is uncertain. Why does this word keep constantly coming up when talking about Climate Science? :)

Quoting Birthmark:

if the Sun is the primary cause of the current reason, are the poles warming more than the tropics? The tropics have the sun beating down on them all year, and at a much higher angle, too!

Not necessarily. A lot of heat is transferred from the Tropics to across the globe through oceanic currents and advecting air masses.

The Tropics also don't have large amounts of albedo decreasing with warming across the globe, which is another reason why they aren't warming as fast.

That's why Tropical Cloud Cover is so crucial, and the recent large decrease in Tropical Low Cloud Cover has significant implications for Climate Change. These decreases are probably from the sun, as the sun directly can cause changes in Cloud Cover.

Quoting Birthmark:

If CO2 has such a small effect, then why does the Earth not freeze? What's keeping it warm? The physics that explain the temperature historically and currently on Earth tell us that the warming is primarily due to human activity (and most of that CO2). If our theories about the current warming are wrong, then our theories about the atmosphere have always been wrong and there is another reason why the Earth isn't an 8,000 miles in diameter snowball. What gives?

That's impacted by a lot of things other than CO2, since Water Vapour and Cloud Cover are both significantly stronger Greenhouse Gases than CO2. If anything, it proves the GHE skeptics wrong about there not being a Greenhouse Effect.

Quoting Snowlover123:
We just had a large MJO wave move through Octant 7, removing Oceanic Heat Content through convection and transferring it into the atmosphere. Therefore, the March 2012 Global Temp anomaly on UAH/RSS should probably be positive

Hey Neapolitan, I predicted Global Temps would go up... they did go up. If the MJO goes into Octant 8, the Global Temperatures will come crashing back down.

A lot of Heat Content from the ocean got transferred to the atmosphere through convection, and was radiated out to space.

Quoting swampdooogggg:

Oh like usual, Neapolitan will be here bright and early first thing tomorrow morning blaming the utility company again that caused the damage. Hell, I'd bet there's a chance he peak in here tonight. Although it sure is interesting whenever you post you thoughts, he goes into hiding, or announces conveniently on Doc M's blog that he'll be posting sparingly the next couple days. Gee, I really wonder why that is?

It's very simple. He can't keep up with you, and he knows it. It explains to resorting to the ad hominem attacks, doesn't it? You seem to be one person he refuses to debate out of fear of getting his butt handed to him just like the first time. So it's no wonder why he doesn't want to put his gloves on and jump into the ring. I bet it's times like this when he kicking himself in the head saying to himself over and over "Dammit, why didn't I copy and paste MichaelSTL's blogs into my Excel workbook when I had the chance before he was banned?"

What a travesty I tell you.

Talking about me in the third person, are you? Tsk, tsk. That's a might cowardly, don't you think?

I'm not sure where you arrived at the conclusion that I'm somehow afraid of debating Snowlover--or anyone else here. Perhaps you're misinterpreting my lack of patience and tolerance as fear? See, certain people and groups have been throwing the same cards face-up on the table over and over and over and over and over for years, certain that this time they hold the winning hand. But I've been seated at this table for a long time, and there isn't a single argument for or against AGWT that I haven't heard or read, researched in depth, discussed ad nauseum, consulted on, independently verified or debunked, and responded to in various online and print fora. So I've dealt with every single item Snowlover has brought up too many times to count. Thus, my reluctance to wade into yet another lengthy, shot-for-shot, item-by-item battle has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with weariness.

P.S. -- I've never "announced conveniently on Doc M's blog that I'll be posting sparingly the next couple days". Never; I always come and go without publicizing it. So either a) you've gotten me confused with someone else, or b) you've attempted a lame ad hominem of your own that fell truly flat on its face. Either way, perhaps you should try another tack next time?

Quoting Snowlover123:Hey Neapolitan, I predicted Global Temps would go up... they did go up. If the MJO goes into Octant 8, the Global Temperatures will come crashing back down.

A lot of Heat Content from the ocean got transferred to the atmosphere through convection, and was radiated out to space.

The deeper and more prolonged the La Nina, the more energy is stored in the Earth's heat sink--that is, the oceans. And this past La Nina was a doozy, so a lot of heat was stuffed into the bank, so to speak. As the earth transitions to an El Nino--even a moderate one--some of that heat will be withdrawn from the bank and released into the atmosphere, so surface temperatures will rise. And rise. And rise...

When you say "Global Temperatures will come crashing back down" should MJO move into the correct octant, just how deep a crash do you envision? -0.1? -0.2? Deeper? The coolest temp the world has seen in the past 11 years or so was that -0.3 in January of 2008--and it's only reached that low three months in total since 1993 (making it all the more puzzling that Bastardi and D'Aleo would have predicted it for this month).

The peaks get higher, and the valleys get higher, to the point that even this decade's valleys are above 1980's--and some of 1990's--peaks. I just don't envision that upward trend stopping anytime in the foreseeable future.

Quoting Snowlover123:A friend of mine who's a B.S. Student in Atmospheric Chemistry thinks that we will see temperatures plummet in 2017.

I think that's a bit extreme, but there will be no warming for the next 30 years, just because of the PDO/AMO alone. Other factors will determine what the climate does from there.

I will bet you a lot of money--and that friend of yours even more--that you're both dreadfully wrong. The '10s will be warmer than the '00s, as the '00s were warmer than the 90s, and as the 90s were warmer than the 80s, and the 80s were warmer than the 70s. And the 20s will be warmer than the 10s, while the 30s will be warmer than the 20s. And 20 years from now I imagine part of you will remember this and other discussions like it and wonder, "What was I thinking?"

I hope you'll believe me when I say this: I will derive zero pleasure from saying, "I told you so".

Global Warming May Bring More Lyme Disease, Ticks
Posted: 04/ 4/2012 8:06 am Updated: 04/ 4/2012 10:42 am

Part of a series investigating the complex links between human, animal and environmental health: The Infection Loop.

Darren Collins doesn't know life without Lyme disease. He was just 11 months old when he came home from Wisconsin's Mauthe Lake Campground pasty white, lethargic and running a fever of 105. Darren's flu-like illness eventually subsided, but a host of other troubling Lyme-related symptoms -- stomachaches, irritability and concentration problems -- have since plagued the boy, now 10.

"He's like Jekyll and Hyde," says his mom, Kristin. One moment Darren could be "happy and smiling," and the next in a "complete rage."

"He scores perfect on a spelling test one week, then gets every word wrong the next week," adds Kristin, a nurse in Waukesha, Wisc. "He wants to know why he can't be like other kids.

Quoting Snowlover123:


Hey Neapolitan, I predicted Global Temps would go up... they did go up. If the MJO goes into Octant 8, the Global Temperatures will come crashing back down.

A lot of Heat Content from the ocean got transferred to the atmosphere through convection, and was radiated out to space.

Not as much heat was radiated back into space that should have been since the GHG blanket has become thicker thus trapping more heat..........

This can regulate the GHG blanket and allow Gods good Earth to cool again and will allow us to regulate it's temperature to what we see fit .....

Board went wonky. Pay no attention.

Quoting Snowlover123:
I've never seen a twister do that before. It probably had an unbelievably strong updraft to get the tractor trailers to lift off of the ground.

I read somewhere that the doors of the trailers being open might be responsible. Sounds plausible enough to me.

Quoting Snowlover123:
Yep, Xandra and you both posted Krivova et. al 2009's conclusions. The model is simply flawed, because it's callibrated to a controversial composite to get the result they desired.

That is an assertion that I've seen only on blogs. Again I ask, if you have a link to a peer-reviewed rebuttal I'll be most grateful. Until then I have to view such an assertion as unsubstantiated. No other way to work it.

Quoting Snowlover123:
A friend of mine who's a B.S. Student in Atmospheric Chemistry thinks that we will see temperatures plummet in 2017.

That's the very year that I predicted that we'd see an ice-free Arctic. Barring asteroid impact, volcanoes, nuclear war, etc., I'm pretty sure that I'll be much, much closer to correct than your friend.

Quoting Snowlover123:
I think that's a bit extreme, but there will be no warming for the next 30 years, just because of the PDO/AMO alone. Other factors will determine what the climate does from there.

Okay. Say the PDO/AMO behave exactly as you expect. What will keep the global temperature from plummeting as your friend suggests?

Quoting Snowlover123:
If the Fall et. al team are correct in their premise, then there is no way CO2 caused the temperature changes over the last 30 years, as evidenced by no diurnal trend in the CRN 1 and 2 stations while temperatures went up, indicating a possible solar influence, and a possible ACRIM verification.

But the fact is that they are not correct. If they were correct, then the climate of Earth is impossible to explain through a vast majority of its history.

Quoting Snowlover123:
New doesn't mean dicey. I agree with your last two sentences though.

New is dicey when it contradicts the body of knowledge. Such a paper needs to be taken with a large of amount of salt until it can be verified. (Yes, medical science, I'm lookin' at you!

Quoting Snowlover123:
It's not a vast majority... the study you linked to that supposedly shows a consensus... the Doran and Zimmerman study is flawed. This is because of the wording, as I said with the most fundamental question.

The wording may (or may not) be problematic, given the fact that they were questioning scientists in their area of expertise. It's unlikely that many were confused by the questions, so I stand by my "vast majority" statement until it can be refuted in the peer-reviewed reputable journals. Speaking of which, the overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed science agrees rather well with the results of the study.

Quoting Snowlover123:
It actually wasn't Dr. Pielke. It was Dr. Scafetta that created the image on a guest web post on Pielke's blog.

So what's wrong with Scafetta's analysis? There must be something wrong if you are going to dismiss it so easily.

A better question is what's so wrong with it that Scarfetta won't submit it for peer-review? If he's really got the goods then he should publish. He hasn't to my knowledge.

Quoting Snowlover123:
But the fact that the Solar constant on the Benestad and Schmidt paper goes down at the same time TSI goes up, is troubling for one who would want to use it as evidence.

The actual label for Figure 7 is "Sensitivity of the solution for (^Tsun)(t) to different values for the parameters listed in Table 6 and for different ways of combining PMOD and Lean et al. [1995] and Lean [2000] S."

So I don't think it's saying what you think it's saying. Link to Benestad and Schmidt.

Quoting Snowlover123:
I'm not supporting Scafetta's harmonic oscilaltion climate model.

Bah! I'll bet you're a Virgo, aren't you? :^D

Quoting Snowlover123:
What I am supporting is the fact that his widget shows the temperature falling out of the confidence range of the IPCC.

Why should anyone care that a useless widget appears to show something? SkS pretty convincingly demonstrated that the widget fails very quickly when tested against historical values. So the chances are extremely high that Scafetta was just playing games with statistics to get the answer he wanted.

Quoting Snowlover123:
That's not cherry picking... if he were cherry picking he would have knowingly selected a tiny portion of the data and compared it to the whole portion of the data.

Um, that's what he did...or rather he stopped just short of it and allowed you to make the final jump. Plausible deniability.

Quoting Snowlover123:So what's the reason for the more urbanized stations displaying a significantly steeper temperature trend than the non-urbanized stations?

Because they were specially chosen to do so...providing that they really do display such a trend.

Again, it's a blog post. If he thinks he's got something then he should publish.

Quoting Snowlover123:
Here's the other portion you forgot to bold:

but we also find significant winter cooling over half of East Antarctica.

Didn't forget. It's just not that important. I can get cooling anywhere the Sun isn't shining. However, getting warming without the Sun is pretty difficult, don't you agree?

Quoting Snowlover123:Quoting Snowlover123: We find the largest winter tropospheric warming of about 0.6 K/decade for 1979–2005 between 120°W and 180°W. Homogeneous winter tropospheric warming over Antarctica from the ERA-40 reanalysis is not supported by the MSU observations.

Doesn't need to be homogenous since local effects are also important. It just needs to be a net warming...which it is.

Quoting Snowlover123:They also say this in the actual paper, not abstract:

While much of the tropospheric cooling in the
summer and fall seasons can be accounted for by the
strengthening of the SAM, it is still unclear how much of
the winter and spring warming is related to increases in
greenhouse gases and/or changes in local circulations.
Additionally, the large stratosphere warming occurring
between June and November warrants future observational
and modeling study.

So it seems like you can't make conclusions off of this, since it is uncertain. Why does this word keep constantly coming up when talking about Climate Science?

Goodness gracious me! Do you think that uncertainty is limited to climate science?! If so, then please take this opportunity to disabuse yourself of that notion. All sciences are rife with uncertainty. It's one of science's strengths, and charms, imo.

As for the uncertainty in this case: Well, the one thing we can be certain of is that the Sun cannot be responsible for the winter warming in Antarctica and the Arctic. That was rather my point.

Quoting Snowlover123:
A lot of heat is transferred from the Tropics to across the globe through oceanic currents and advecting air masses.

Of course. But in order for that to happen, the tropics first have to warm. The tropics are not warming nearly fast enough to indicate that the Sun is involved.

Quoting Snowlover123:
The Tropics also don't have large amounts of albedo decreasing with warming across the globe, which is another reason why they aren't warming as fast.

Now you're rationalizing. The albedo of the high latitudes in winter doesn't matter. Yet they are displaying some of their most dramatic warming in months when the Sun isn't visible.

Quoting Snowlover123:
That's why Tropical Cloud Cover is so crucial, and the recent large decrease in Tropical Low Cloud Cover has significant implications for Climate Change. These decreases are probably from the sun, as the sun directly can cause changes in Cloud Cover.

There have been many studies of clouds' effects on climate. They certainly play a part, but not a crucial one. And if you're shuffling towards Lindzen's iris hypothesis...well, I just hope that you're not since it's an abject failure.

Quoting Snowlover123:
That's impacted by a lot of things other than CO2, since Water Vapour and Cloud Cover are both significantly stronger Greenhouse Gases than CO2. If anything, it proves the GHE skeptics wrong about there not being a Greenhouse Effect

CO2 concentration has increased by around 40% in the last 150 years or so. It is extremely likely that CO2 is the major cause of the warming.

The situation at the poles demonstrates that the current warming is unrelated to the Sun in any major way. That can change, one way or the other, but at the current time the Sun simply can't be responsible for very much of the warming.

Not even if we really, really want it to be.

Quoting Birthmark:

I read somewhere that the doors of the trailers being open might be responsible. Sounds plausible enough to me.

That is an assertion that I've seen only on blogs. Again I ask, if you have a link to a peer-reviewed rebuttal I'll be most grateful. Until then I have to view such an assertion as unsubstantiated. No other way to work it.

That's the very year that I predicted that we'd see an ice-free Arctic. Barring asteroid impact, volcanoes, nuclear war, etc., I'm pretty sure that I'll be much, much closer to correct than your friend.

Okay. Say the PDO/AMO behave exactly as you expect. What will keep the global temperature from plummeting as your friend suggests?
But the fact is that they are not correct. If they were correct, then the climate of Earth is impossible to explain through a vast majority of its history.
New is dicey when it contradicts the body of knowledge. Such a paper needs to be taken with a large of amount of salt until it can be verified. (Yes, medical science, I'm lookin' at you!
The wording may (or may not) be problematic, given the fact that they were questioning scientists in their area of expertise. It's unlikely that many were confused by the questions, so I stand by my "vast majority" statement until it can be refuted in the peer-reviewed reputable journals. Speaking of which, the overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed science agrees rather well with the results of the study.
A better question is what's so wrong with it that Scarfetta won't submit it for peer-review? If he's really got the goods then he should publish. He hasn't to my knowledge.
The actual label for Figure 7 is "Sensitivity of the solution for (^Tsun)(t) to different values for the parameters listed in Table 6 and for different ways of combining PMOD and Lean et al. [1995] and Lean [2000] S."

So I don't think it's saying what you think it's saying. Link to Benestad and Schmidt.
Bah! I'll bet you're a Virgo, aren't you? :^D
Why should anyone care that a useless widget appears to show something? SkS pretty convincingly demonstrated that the widget fails very quickly when tested against historical values. So the chances are extremely high that Scafetta was just playing games with statistics to get the answer he wanted.
Um, that's what he did...or rather he stopped just short of it and allowed you to make the final jump. Plausible deniability.
Because they were specially chosen to do so...providing that they really do display such a trend.
Again, it's a blog post. If he thinks he's got something then he should publish.
Didn't forget. It's just not that important. I can get cooling anywhere the Sun isn't shining. However, getting warming without the Sun is pretty difficult, don't you agree?

Doesn't need to be homogenous since local effects are also important. It just needs to be a net warming...which it is.
Goodness gracious me! Do you think that uncertainty is limited to climate science?! If so, then please take this opportunity to disabuse yourself of that notion. All sciences are rife with uncertainty. It's one of science's strengths, and charms, imo.
As for the uncertainty in this case: Well, the one thing we can be certain of is that the Sun cannot be responsible for the winter warming in Antarctica and the Arctic. That was rather my point.
Of course. But in order for that to happen, the tropics first have to warm. The tropics are not warming nearly fast enough to indicate that the Sun is involved.
Now you're rationalizing. The albedo of the high latitudes in winter doesn't matter. Yet they are displaying some of their most dramatic warming in months when the Sun isn't visible.
There have been many studies of clouds' effects on climate. They certainly play a part, but not a crucial one. And if you're shuffling towards Lindzen's iris hypothesis...well, I just hope that you're not since it's an abject failure.
CO2 concentration has increased by around 40% in the last 150 years or so. It is extremely likely that CO2 is the major cause of the warming.
The situation at the poles demonstrates that the current warming is unrelated to the Sun in any major way. That can change, one way or the other, but at the current time the Sun simply can't be responsible for very much of the warming.
Not even if we really, really want it to be.

"+" 1.37823 X 10^23, +/- 1.5%.

I removed some of your brakes (breaks) and achieved a shorter stopping point. No place else, but on the HTML highway, will you achieve these same results! ;-)

How about this? Spaces removed to conserve space. ;-)

I hope that everyone has a sense of humor, 'cause I am tired today.