He's posted a chart of the monthly sea level at Majuro, Marshall Islands as measured by the SEAFRAME gauge. His chart stops at the beginning of 2010, so here is a similar chart from a more recent report. Note the scale is in metres.
The sea level data recorded since installation is summarised in Figure 14. The middle curve (green) represents the monthly mean sea level. The upper and lower curves show the highest and lowest values recorded each month. We see that largely, the monthly mean values are quite stable throughout the year, with the exception of 1997 and 1998, where the level fluctuates during the El Niño.
As for trends, this is what that report states:
As at December 2010, based on the short-term sea level trend analyses performed by the National Tidal Centre using the Majuro SEAFRAME data, a rate of +4.3 mm per year has been observed. Accounting for the inverted barometric pressure effect and vertical movements in the observing platform, the sea level trend is +3.8 mm per year. ...
...Figure 4 shows how the trend estimate has varied over time. At first the trend appeared to indicate an enormous rate of sea level decline, followed by a period of apparent rise. Due to the 1997/1998 El Niño when sea level fell 29 cm below average, the trend went negative again, and remained so for about one year. Given the sea level record is still relatively short, it is still too early to deduce a long-term trend.
Anthony or Nils writes:
This is a sea level graph (from Majuro) and is shows a general sea level stability from 1992 to 2010.
No traces of any acceleration!No traces of any acceleration! And he can tell that how exactly? When the scale is on a 30 cm grid? What was he expecting? A rise of a metre or so every decade?
(Does anyone know why WUWT deniers are so fixated on acceleration and don't seem bothered by a plain old rise in sea level, with or without acceleration?)
The WUWT article provides a single link to a report and it's an old one, dated June 2002, and says:
The Majuro records, for sure, contradicts and acceleration claim; even a general “rise”.
In conclusion, don’t “hang your hat” on the Kwajalein graph. Look around and observe!
Look around and observe
Yes, let's do that. Let's look at another recent report from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Pacific Climate Change Science website. It's got a lot of information there, including a report called: Climate Change in the Pacific: Scientific Assessment and New Research. Volume 2, Chapter 7 is about the Marshall Islands. On sea level, the report states (my bold italics):
Monthly averages of the historical tide gauge, satellite (since 1993) and gridded sea-level (since 1950) data agree well after 1993 and indicate interannual variability in sea levels of about 20 cm (estimated 5–95% range) after removal of the seasonal cycle (Figure 7.9). The sea-level rise near the Marshall Islands measured by satellite altimeters (Figure 7.5) since 1993 is about 0.3 inches (7 mm) per year, more than the global average of 0.125 ± 0.015 inches (3.2 ± 0.4 mm) per year. This rise is partly linked to a pattern related to climate variability from year to year and decade to decade (Figure 7.9).
 |
| Figure 7.9: Observed and projected relative sea-level change near the Marshall Islands. (a) The observed in situ relative sea-level records are indicated in red, with the satellite record (since 1993) in light blue. The gridded sea level at the Marshall Islands (since 1950, from Church and White (in press)) is shown in orange. The projections for the A1B (medium) emissions scenario (5–95% uncertainty range) are shown by the green shaded region from 1990–2100. The range of projections for the B1 (low), A1B (medium) and A2 (high) emissions scenarios by 2100 are also shown by the bars on the right. The dashed lines are an estimate of interannual variability in sea level (5–95% range about the long-term trends) and indicate that individual monthly averages of sea level can be above or below longer-term averages |
Anthony is so keen to deny any hint of the effects of global warming that he posts rubbish from Nils Axel-Morner instead of "looking around and observing"!
The fixation on acceleration is not difficult to understand. As we know, given short time periods and noise, even a "plain old rise" is difficult to distinguish. Acceleration even more so. Pretend skeptics look for "watt" they don't want to find in places they are unlikely to find it. It's the kind of comfort a child gets from thumb-sucking.
ReplyDeleteHard to parody Morner. If the data shows a rising sea level, the solution is clear to all right-thinking scientists. You simply rotate the graph on the page until the actual flat trend we all know is the truth is displayed.
Deletehttp://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we18.htm (Fig. 5).
That's priceless, Phil. I'd say you couldn't make it up, but Inferno did - or is that where he got his inspiration?
DeleteIs that serious? Did someone really simply tilt their graph so that the trend appeared flat and then argue that it was flat? Surely, they were parodying what others might do?
DeleteErrr...no, this is 'serious'. Seriously Mörner. He even did it on a poster at EGU:
Deletehttp://www.skepticalscience.com/monckton-myth-16-bizarro-world-sea-level.html#47750
Marco
See Tamino's post. You'll enjoy it.
ReplyDeletehttp://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/observe-closely/
Great to see more articles from Tamino.
DeleteAbout as serious as Morner gets, the justification being that 'This tilt does not originate from the satellite altimetry readings, however, but represents an inferred factor from tide-gauge interpretations. In order to get back to true satellite data, we have to tilt the whole record back to its original data of Fig 4. When this is done, there is no sea level rise to be seen—' which I frankly don't understand.
ReplyDeleteAnd this was in evidence to the UK House of Lords !
Tim Ball is not the only one who is economical with the truth when it comes to his qualifications ...
Dear Dr. Osipov:
It has come to my attention that Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner gave presentations at the seminar on climate change organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences at the request of President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. Dr. Mörner attacked the science of climate change, while claiming that he is mission on Sea Level Change of INQUA (International nion for Quaternary Research).
I am writing to inform you that Dr. Mörner has misrepresented his position with INQUA. Dr. Mörner was President of the Commission on Sea Level Change until July 2003, but the commission was terminated at that time during a reorganization of the commission structure of INQUA. Dr. Mörner currently has no formal position in INQUA, and I am distressed that he continues to represent himself in his former capacity. Further, INQUA, which is an umbrella organization for hundreds of researchers knowledgeable about past climate, does not subscribe to Mörner’s position on climate change. Nearly all of these researchers agree that humans are modifying Earth’s climate, a position diametrically opposed to Dr. Mörner’s point of view.
Letter from the President of INQUA to Yuri Osipov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2004.
http://apps.edf.org/documents/3868_morner_exposed.pdf
What a silly question! Skeptics harp on acceleration because alarmists do. A "plain old rise in sea level" should be of no concern to anyone--the Dutch just raise their dykes a few inches per century. And a "plain old rise in sea level" which goes back at least to 1930 can hardly be blamed on global T, let alone CO2. For competent commentary see Singer: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/07/sea_level_rise_surprise.html
ReplyDelete--AGF
Singer? Competent? In one sentence while referring to sea level rise? You just shot yourself in the foot there! That man has never ever in his life done any scientific work on sea level rise.
DeleteOh, and the Dutch "just [raising] their dykes a few inches per century" won't help a damn thing against sea level rise. The dykes protect against rivers, not against the sea. To protect against the sea level rise the Dutch expect to spend an estimate 600 million euros a year for the next 100 year. That's 40 euros pp each and every year.
Marco
Your response is that of a typical fanatic--name calling devoid of reason. In order to not look like a complete idiot you would have to show precisely where Singer's arguments fail. And the Dutch should have no trouble paying 15 euros per mm per person per year to keep their dykes (and dams) up with SLR at current SLR rates. That's one euro per week for the rare luxury of living way below sea level. --AGF
Delete"Name-calling". Interesting, pointing that someone has zero expertise in a field is now called "name-calling". That the scientific literature itself already shows where Singer's arguments fail is just a side-show, irrelevant to the "opinion scientists" like AGF. Spending time on rebutting all of Singer's arguments is a waste of time, too. Singer still appears to disbelieve the earth is warming, regardless that even his preferred satellite record shows it is.
DeleteRegarding the Dutch "having no trouble" - well, money-wise perhaps, but they already get all upset when the government decides to spend a hundred million euros less on some kind of service it used to provide. That 600 million needs to come from somewhere...
Marco
Marco, you don't have the foggiest notion what you're talking about. Not only does Singer have considerable expertise in science generally, but he has a high degree of intelligence, distinguishing him from all alarmists. He understands probability and statistics. He doesn't take absurd alarmist predictions at face value. The ridiculous notion that sea level rise presents a serious problem generally, and the more ridiculous notion that we could do something about it if it did, is correctly dismissed by Singer, Morner, and every other intelligent bystander, whatever their degree of expertise.
DeleteSo yes, "name-calling," ignoring the arguments themselves, ignoring the science, by a barbaric argument of authority equivalent to denigration or "name-calling." As always, when addressing believers I have to educate them on the most elementary levels. --AGF
Singer is a notorious sociopath. That you, AGFJR, do not shudder at citing him tells me -- and I'm being charitable -- that you're dumb. Very dumb. And yes, that's ad hominem.
DeleteAGF Jr, if only...I know so much about science that Singer's tactic is well known to me: cast doubt, whichever way possible. He did it on the ozone layer (and got a smack on the head by the Nobel committee), he did it with acid rain, he did it with second-hand smoking, and now he's doing it with AGW.
DeleteBut well, someone who considers dousing expert and crank archeologist Nils-Axel Mörner's opinion trustworthy...you're lost. You consider an opinion correct just because it fits yours, not because it best fits the facts.
Marco
Martin, that's not an ad hominem, it is a conclusion based on observations. An ad hominem would be to dismiss AGFJR's opinion because he has a stupid name or a big nose, or because he dislikes gridiron or similar silly stuff.
DeleteMarco
I beg for a scientific reply, or even an intelligent remark. Sociopath? What imbecility! Like "Marco," Martin doesn't know how to read. Or he refuses to read. So far I'm wasting my time with complete idiots. Is there anyone else out there, or is this a fair sampling of the intellect of the believers lurking around this blog?
DeleteLook, pinheads, for starters Singer shows how IPCC 2100 max SLR projections dropped 84% between 1994 and 2007, while Hansen's remain ten times as high at 600mm, and Rahmstorf remains at pre 1995 IPCC levels. In other words Singer shows how the IPCC makes Hansen and Rahmstorf out to be alarmist. The IPCC is gradually coming to terms with reality, while the hysterical rabble rousers fight the facts at every turn.
And you people don't even understand that a detection of acceleration is required for the alarmists to maintain their nonsense, since without such acceleration all we have is "plain old rise in sea level," unrelated to surface T or CO2 trends. --AGF
Fake skeptics love their memes. I'm very aware that seas are going to get a lot higher than today in the foreseeable future. And I'm very aware that the rise will accelerate. And I'm very aware that it won't be a nice steady acceleration. It'll happen in spurts. A bit like Bob Tisdale's leaping ENSOs. (My foreseeable future ranges out at least 500 years by the way, as opposed to fake skeptics who think that if something projected to happen by 2100 hasn't happened already then it never will.)
DeleteMeasurements suggest that sea levels are already accelerating and that's before the big ice melt, which is still to come. Give it some time. It's now at around 3.2mm/year - faster than it was for most of last century.
I don't think I'll be around for any of the real big boosts, they probably won't start in earnest till later this century or some time in the next as Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheet melts speed up. But that doesn't mean we won't notice it more and more. It doesn't take much of a rise combined with a king tide or a storm surge for people living in low lying coastal areas to take notice (or lose their homes).
Here's a good article about sea level by people who study the stuff. (Mature skeptical audience only. Not recommended for fake skeptics under the age of delusion.)
There is more on sea level changes on a NASA website here. You'll note that "Over the past few thousand years, the rate of sea level rise remained fairly low, probably not exceeding a few tenths of a millimeter per year." Well let's be generous and say 6/10 of a millimetre a year. If so, seas are now rising five times faster than recent millennia. And a fair bit of that is just due to thermal expansion.
AFGJR, you write: "I beg for a scientific reply".
DeleteI've given you a couple of places to start. You might consider reading scientific papers on the topic as well. RealClimate has a couple of papers you can run with. The NASA website I linked to has a few more papers listed. If you don't subscribe to any journals there are more and more these days with open access. Google has a good facility called Google Scholar. You'll often find the pdf files of papers published in paywalled journals.
AmericanThinker isn't a science site it's a political site and seems to specialise in anti-science not science. Before taking anything there as factual, I suggest you check the science. As Marco suggested, information is more reliable if it comes from people who've spent their working lives studying such things than if it comes from someone who has a reputation for disinformation, like Singer.
I don't have time to trawl through every denier website and expose every bit of disinformation that's around. There's too much of it. (I focus mainly on WUWT and even with that I don't have time to expose all Anthony's idiocy. He does recycle a lot which makes it a bit easier.)
Anyway, after you've done your own research if you want to write an article that's factual - or a rebuttal to the Singer article, I'd be happy to consider posting it here (subject to vetting for accuracy).
"Fake skeptics"? Who are they? I'm a true skeptic. Sou: "It's now at around 3.2mm/year - faster than it was for most of last century." By what data? Sat data? But they only began in 1993, so are you comparing sat data with tide gauges? That's apples and oranges, you know. Keep to one method or the other. By gauges there has been no significant acceleration in 80 years, nothing higher than a tenth of a mm per year per year, anyway. And in 1930 the acceleration was much greater, obviously unrelated to CO2, rather casting doubt on any CO2 significance for any subsequent miniscule acceleration. And did you notice that their graphs end nearly half a century ago? Why do you suppose they did that? Don't you think it might have something to do with subsequent diversion in slopes? After a dozen years of zero T rise SLR keeps right on increasing. So what are their graphs worth?
DeleteSou: " And a fair bit of that is just due to thermal expansion."
How much? Most? All? When is the ice going to start melting (faster than it snows)? It hasn't yet. (Or do you know something about eustatic SLR that nobody else does?) Yet somehow you know that it will, sometime between your demise and 500 years from now. That's quite the prognosis!
I wonder if you ever heard of the Little Ice Age. Current SLR may be due entirely to our recovery from it.
We can count ourselves lucky if warming continues, and SLR continues because of it. Cooling is a bitch. --AGF
AGF JR I'm delighted to have been able to help you out. And delighted to see the evidence that you went and read the information I went to the bother of finding for you. And I'm delighted to see the evidence that you read the source papers to those articles. And delighted to see that you even did some research of your own and came back with all that extra information, thoroughly referenced. I'll take the time to read all the scientific papers you've given us references to.
DeleteOr I would have been, had you done so instead of repeating tired denier memes.
BTW My apologies that the ice that's projected to melt in the coming decades and centuries hasn't all done so yet. It must cause you great distress.
And you wonder why people call fake sceptics fake. Duh!
Sou at 252: "Anyway, after you've done your own research if you want to write an article that's factual - or a rebuttal to the Singer article, I'd be happy to consider posting it here (subject to vetting for accuracy)."
DeleteCould it get any dumber? Much of what Singer presents is straight from IPCC, a history of their declining alarmism. Why would I care to refute that? How could I? If anyone should write an article rebutting Singer it should be you or Martin, if you think you can. As noted above I already looked at your RS article, and who is the co-author? None other than your Martin, who took remarkably few words to disqualify himself here. Maybe he should explain why he left out the last 45 years in his graphs. --AGF
OK, I'll wait for a few hours for any other posters. No signs of intelligent life so far. --AGF
DeleteMuch of what Singer presents is straight from IPCC.
DeleteOh, you mean when he says the sea level is going to drop despite all the melting ice sheets?
Pull the other one.
Have you ever written an article for WUWT? I reckon you'd write something that would go over a treat. It would be at least on par with the articles from David "funny sunny" Archibald, Darko Butina and his kinetic energy, Perennially puzzled Bob with his frolicking ENSO's, Ronald "it's insects" Voisin, Wondering Willis' with his remote airfields causing global warming and Ed "Ice Age" Hoskins and all the other nonsense.
Maybe he should explain why he left out the last 45 years in his graphs
DeleteHis colleague already did.
Fake skeptics work hard to earn their adjective.
Sou (446): "His colleague already did." Really? Let's have a quote. --AGF
DeleteAGFJR, I love those stories Singer tells, but only because I know they are fairy tales.
DeleteTake his graph "Figure 19". He's done that before, and people have pointed out that the FAR does not claim a max 367 cm rise in sea levels as its max in 2100. The FAR mentions one paper that has this prediction, but the report itself puts the max below 1 meter. To quote the FAR "This present assessment does not foresee a sea level rise of ≥ 1 metre during the next century". A similar misrepresentation is made for the SAR, which puts the max at 95 cm, not the 124 cm Singer claims. Again Singer took the range of one paper cited in the SAR as the IPCC prediction.
The dishonest part continues with the TAR and AR4, where in the TAR he does not use the actual range indicated in the IPCC report itself (max is actually 88 cm), and for AR4 he does cite the *IPCC* predicted range, but does not mention that for the first time this estimate *explicitely excludes* potential acceleration of ice sheet melt (unlike the previous reports). Moreover, the estimate is for the period 2090-2099, which shaves off a few years compared to the previous reports, but that's just a few cm.
Now, ask yourself why Singer uses one extreme paper mentioned in the FAR, but clearly not taken as credible, and in the end takes a deliberate lowball estimate that *is* the IPCC's position.
Not that I have much faith you will ever consider yourself to be duped by the deliberate misinformation by Fred Singer. You like the conclusion too much, that much is clear.
Finally, his claims about Hansen's 2006 predictions are not quite right either. Hansen has mentioned numerous times that a 2 degree warmer world also had 6 meter higher sea levels, but he has also indicated that it depends on ice sheet melt kinetics when that level will be reached. In a 2007 paper he calculates 5 meters if(!) there is a consistent doubling in ice sheet melt each decade. Of course Singer does not mention that caveat.
Singer, the man is despiccable, but it appears you deserve him.
Marco
Sou (446): "His colleague already did." Really? Let's have a quote. --AGF
DeleteHow about three quotes.
Figure 1. Acceleration of sea-level rise (i.e., twice the quadratic coefficient) from different starting years up to 2001 in the global tide gauge data set of Church and White (2006; red line with uncertainty band). Note that after ~1960 the calculation gets excessively ‘noisy’ because the time interval gets too short to robustly compute acceleration.
we show the acceleration of sea level rise ‘only’ for starting years from 1870 (the start of the data set) to 1970 (after which the computation is too noisy to be meaningful by anyone’s standard)
Houston and Dean further argue that the data already become too noisy around 1940 because “decadal fluctuations begin to dominate records shorter than about 60 years, and accelerations become increasingly meaningless for starting years in Figure 1 greater than about 1940″. We disagree: while this may be true for individual records it is not true for the global sea level reconstruction shown. The 2-sigma range and the fact that the curve is smooth until then shows it is meaningful up to about 1960; we continued the graph up to 1970 in order to show (rather than just claim in the text) how the uncertainty explodes after 1960. In any case, by showing the plot until 1970, we allow readers to see the full potentially meaningful range and judge for themselves whether they see any significant difference between the data and our model.
I assume you gave the referenced papers the same attention you gave to the realclimate article :(
Ah... someone actually read the blog post. How quaint...
DeleteOK, I'll wait for a few hours for any other posters.
ReplyDeleteAww. AGF JR is making me homesick for HotCopper. The deniers and fake skeptics over there do exactly the same thing. They'd demand everyone scuttle off to do research for them instead of getting off their butt and doing any of their own.
If anyone did respond to their constant whines for information (which whine usually took the form of a thread hijack), they'd refuse to read it. If any of the fake skeptics did speed read it, they'd scoff at it like true blue illiterati and say how you can't trust scyientiests because they fake the data and they are only in it for the money and go on about gravy trains and how algore (sic) is fat.
Then they'd sit down and whine some more and tell us to get ready for the impending ice age, that's due any day now.
And that's when they were being "nice".
No signs of intelligent life so far. --AGF
ReplyDeleteGotta say, though. The insults at HotCopper were an order of magnitude better than that. We sciency types were cultists, employed by the guvmint, paid shills of the NWO, leftist greeny treehugging socialist, commie, nazi warmistas.
Again, that was when the fake sceptics at HotCopper were on their best behaviour and being nice.
In spite of the moronics there is a wee bit of science in the papers mentioned. A few remarks:
ReplyDelete1) The lack of recent data in the graphs is of greater than rhetorical relevance. How is expected acceleration predicted? On global T? SST? With the current freeze in T is deep sea heating supposed to be a factor? Is the recent deceleration in the sat record related to the freeze in T rise?
2) On what time scale should there be T/SLR correlation? More to the point, at what scale would cause and effect be expected to reverse? Long term correlation has T forced by SLR by way of albedo/ice sheet area, which area goes up or down according to insolation. This insolation varies through orbital factors up to 100W/m^2 in June at 65 degrees north latitude. So over the millennia, SLR and T (and CO2) respond to orbital forcing. T does not force SLR.
3. In the short term and in the current regime any T/SLR correlation remains speculative due to the unknown ice mass balance--we still don't know whether warming increases snow more than it increases melting in the current regime. That's why most authorities attribute current SLR to expansion in spite of the fact that far more energy is required to expand water than to melt ice.
4. Should not Antarctic T correlate with SLR better than global T? How old and good is the record, and how well does it correlate?
5. The fact remains that we are still coming out of a Little Ice Age, and as we speak a few glaciers in both hemispheres are revealing forests from the MWP. Such short term temperate glacier melting certainly appears to be caused by warming, and adds slightly to SLR. At the same time it serves to move the argument from the political world to the realm of science where it belongs--back to the no hype zone.
We are not doomed by SLR or CO2, and none who think we are will be capable of rational discussion. --AGF
1. Recent deceleration?
DeleteLet's look at the picture:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
No deceleration at all
2. I guess warmer water has exactly the same density, at least according to AGF. Try to do a calculation using some basic numbers of water density as a function of temperature. Assume a 1 degree increase in temperature. Calculate how much the sea levels will rise. Then come back and tell us how T has an effect on SLR
3. I'd love to see the calculation for that claim. How much ice will have to melt to increase the sea levels by 1 mm and the associated energy, and how much the temperature of the oceans needs to increase to get sea levels to rise by 1 mm by expansion and the energy required for that. Go ahead, show us all wrong.
4. Why should that correlate better? Antarctica is a big place, and essentially all the melting is at the WAIS. But WAIS is not the only place that is melting. Greenland is, too. Snow cover has decreased, too (which notably creates a problem for another claim you made)
5. Why are we "oming out of a Little Ice Age", AGF? What magical wand has been waved that decided "OK, we've had that LIA thingie, not let's get away from that again"? Where did that magical energy come from?
Marco
A lot of deniers subscribe to the "climate is a bouncing ball" theory - no force required. They don't allow for the fact that even a bouncing ball only bounces because of forces.
Delete1. 2007-2013? Definite deceleration over the previous 10 years.
Delete2. Here I'm talking eustatic of course, not steric.
3. Steric over eustatic? Takes 2 orders of magnitude more energy. Sorry you don't know any physics.
4. Ice melts by local T, not global. Greenland is pretty small compared to Antarctica.
5. Good question. If you know the answer why don't you tell us? (Or don't you believe in the LIA?)
Steric SLR is insignificant compared to eustatic. --AGF
Nice to see you know the terms. Now use the correctly.
Delete1. Nope, not definite at all. Then again, we know how pseudoskeptics love to look at short time frames (but not too short, the acceleration is enormous from 2009 onwards...)
Delete2+3. Where do the eustatic changes come from? Again magic?
4. Why yes, but Greenland is about as big as the WAIS, the one that is contributing most to sea level rise of all melting ice sheets.
5. There's this concept called "forcing", which apparently is alien to you. I recommend you follow the most basic climate course you can follow to get up to speed with physics even Fred Singer has no problem accepting.
Marco
1. Your people at RC acknowledge the deceleration:
Deletehttp://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/is-sea-level-rise-accelerating/
"The satellite altimeter record shows a slight deceleration since 1993.
"But this time interval is far too short to draw any conclusions."
You really ought to read more, and learn how to read graphs.
2-3. More moronics. From polar ice melt, of course. And we're talking about transition from ice ages to interstadials.
4. Irrelevant, since we're talking about Antarctic snow exceeding ALL melting. You don't grasp the simplest concepts.
5. Well you @#$% pinhead, why don't you tell us what sort of forcing forced the MWP and LIA?
Nothing but morons here, including the rats. --AGF
LOL! AGF Jr refers to an article from 2011, which includes the enormously strong La Nina that is described at U Colorado as "so strong, the oceans fell". We have another 2 years of data, and all of that apparent deceleration is gone.
Delete2+3: interstadials? Why do you want to talk about those? You sure you do not mean interglacials. And I asked you for the calculation, but none was forthcoming. Just a claim it is so.
4. We did not talk about Antarctic snow exceeding all melting at all. At no point. Trying to move the goalposts doesn't work here, dude
5. Another attempt to move the goalpost. We know the forcings since the LIA, we have reasonable ideas about the forcings causing the LIA, but longer back our information about the forcings (and global temperature) is not enough to be sure. However, *you* made the claim we are just coming out of the LIA, so *you* will have to substantiate that claim (and preferably with references to the scientific literature). Otherwise you are just doing the Akasofu handwaving routine.
It's telling you call *us* morons and rats, when you ask us to substantiate your claims, make false claims about what we were discussing, and use terminology that suggests you know so little you become overconfident. Classic Dunning-Kruger.
Marco
1. Sorry, you're still wrong, and a high school algebra student could tell you so: even the current sat SLR peak has not reached the 1993-2006 trend. The deceleration stands.
Delete2. "Interstadial" is another word for interglacial. I have to teach you everything. And why should I do your math for you? Everyone knows it takes a whole lot more energy for steric rise of eustatic--everyone but you, that is. I gave you order of magnitude. If you want precise figures you will have to specify latitude, longitude, and depth range, as expansion varies considerably by T and pressure.
4. You at 8/8 149: "4. We did not talk about Antarctic snow exceeding all melting at all. At no point. Trying to move the goalposts doesn't work here, dude"
Me at Aug 7, 557 (#3): "-we still don't know whether warming increases snow more than it increases melting in the current regime"
What snow did you think I was talking about?
5. Then identify these forcings. I have yet to hear of any other than sunspot cycles. And in case you don't know solar forcing is anathema to your crowd. It's even anathema to a good share of my crowd. But I have to teach you everything, including the meaning and applicability of the word "moron." And for your info, rattus norvegicus is a species of rat. But I have to teach you everything.
In spite of the fact that you don't know anything, which has been shown here many times over, you continue to spout of nonsense. What sort of adjective would you suggest? --AGF
Antarctic snow does not exceed melting on Antarctica overall. The melt is greater by quite a margin.
DeleteAn interstadial is not the same as an interglacial.
Solar forcing is only anathema in the mind of deniers. It is measured and documented and researched. Deniers would never have heard of it if not for climate scientists.
For a discussion of the likely forcings of the LIA, read this paper: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/MannetalScience09.pdf
From the latest BAMS report highlights from the NOAA: Following sharp decreases in global sea level in the first half of 2011 that were linked to the effects of La Niña, sea levels rebounded to reach record highs in 2012. Globally, sea level has been increasing at an average rate of 3.2 ± 0.4 mm per year over the past two decades.
AJF JR exhibits strong symptoms of the DuKE syndrome.
Sou (324): "Antarctic snow does not exceed melting on Antarctica overall. The melt is greater by quite a margin."
DeleteIs that a fact? Quantify the margin please, and its sign, and tell us how much it contributes to SLR.
Sou: "An interstadial is not the same as an interglacial."
Conceded.
Sou: "Solar forcing is only anathema in the mind of deniers. It is measured and documented and researched. Deniers would never have heard of it if not for climate scientists."
B.S. In general "deniers" place far more value on sunspots and such than on CO2, and T forcing was attributed to sunspot counts long before solar irradiance was measured or reconstructed by proxy.
Sou: "Globally, sea level has been increasing at an average rate of 3.2 ± 0.4 mm per year over the past two decades."
Yup, we know that, but there has been deceleration since 2006. Don't DENY it.
Your reference to Mann is ironic seeing as he denies the global nature of the LIA altogether. His discredited hockey stick graph hardly shows a blip. So when he attributes regional variation to solar forcing (over a range of 2W) it is in a context which denies any LIA to speak of in the southern hemisphere.
Just about every new proxy that comes out puts the lie to Mann's schtick quantitatively, and the MWP forests uncovered by Exit and Jorge Montt glaciers do the same qualitatively. The hockey stick was junk science, as even the IPCC now concedes. And that's ignoring all the fraud. The LIA was pronounced in Patagonia as it was in Alaska. It WAS global, and the more global it was the more difficult it becomes to explain it by TSI. --AGF
LOL part 2:
ReplyDelete1. Ah, so you pick 1993-2006. Cherry picking much? Why not use 1993-2001? Or 1993-2011? I know why: the "deceleration" is not even close to statistically significant in any period, so you need to select a period with endpoint in, or close to an El Nino, since the current end point is still very close to a La Nina
2. Seriously, an interstadial is the same as an interglacial? Gee, I didn't know that. Oddly, paleoclimatologists apparently don't know this either. They use interstadial for events that they consider *non-equivalent* to interglacials, such as D-O events. But what the heck, let's all bow to AGF, who has seen that definition somewhere on the internet. To hell with the scientific literature describing the terminology!
For the calculation: you pseudoskeptics are really funny to play with. You keep on saying "everyone knows this" - but don't want to substantiate it. Yes, everyone knows this, just like everyone knows the forcings that brought us out of the LIA (point 5): increasing solar and especially since the mid 1950s the increase in GHGs. Sou has already pointed you to one of the substantiations of that claim. Oh, everyone knows this, but you (and loads of other pseudoskeptics who "know" stuff because science shows it...and then deny scientific knowledge because it shows something they don't want to see).
4. You talked about snow, not Antarctic snow. Of course, also here studies show that the melt is apparently winning over the snow in Antarctica:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183
Of course, I did just realize you masterly ran away from my evidence that Singer duped you in his American "Thinker" piece about what the IPCC said. Any comment on that enormous misrepresentation of your desired source on sea level rise?
Marco
Marco (8/8, 415): "1. Ah, so you pick 1993-2006. Cherry picking much? Why not use 1993-2001? Or 1993-2011?"
DeleteThe relentless imbecility. All I did was mention recent deceleration in the context of the T plateau (granting, you see, the possibility of short term correlation), and you denied any such acceleration till now, changing your tune to an accusation of "cherry picking." Showing that your pathetic lack of intelligence is perfectly matched by your lack of honesty. Statistically insignificant? Quite possibly, which is to deny short term correlation between T and SLR. Your buddy Verneer wouldn't like that, but you're not smart enough to know the difference.
Marco: "2. Seriously, an interstadial is the same as an interglacial?"
For once you're right. First time here.
Marco: "For the calculation: you pseudoskeptics are really funny to play with. You keep on saying "everyone knows this" - but don't want to substantiate it."
Once again, pick a depth range. You wouldn't believe how variable the expansion coefficient of seawater is by depth and T: from .254 to 3.41 (x10^-4) at sea level (coldest to warmest). .552 to 2.6 (x10^-4) at 100 bars (roughly 1000m). Do you know how to work with expansion coefficients? Do you really want me to figure it out for you? Do you really think it takes more energy to melt a cc of water than to expand a column of water by a cm? First year physics. Lots of high school students can do it. 80 cal to freeze a cc of H2O. At an expansion coefficient of 10^4 (100 bars at 2C) it takes 10^4 cal to linearly expand a water a water column of any height by 1cm. It takes half that much at 12C and 100 bars: 500 (versus 80 for melting).
Marco: "4. You talked about snow, not Antarctic snow. Of course, also here studies show that the melt is apparently winning over the snow in Antarctica..."
Of course the snow I talked about was Antarctic, as that's where snow is accumulating. Is it winning? Hard to say; the studies flip flop from year to year. Uncertainties are too great; the melting is too slow. SLR is too slow.
But from these trends that are too miniscule to measure with confidence (every study gets a different answer; most estimates are dwarfed by the uncertainty) you people extrapolate imminent doom. That's where the idiocy begins and skepticism is born. Like I said, as long as it warms we're safe. If it ever starts cooling again we've got trouble. Global warming doesn't register on a sensible man's list of concerns. Singer beats Mann all to pieces. And Mann is better than Hansen. --AGF
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
DeleteClassic denier response from AGF JR- I don't believe the scientists so I won't read what they write!
DeleteNext we'll be getting talk about broken hockey sticks - oops! we already did. AGFJR is coming across as one of the real extreme nutters now! An 8% Dismissive.
I don't think he'd ever read science, but in case there are lurkers out there who are curious about the Antarctic and don't know how to use Google, here's a starter.
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/06/the-stupid-it-burns-so-much-its-melting.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183.abstract
"Lots of high school students can do it. 80 cal to freeze a cc of H2O. At an expansion coefficient of 10^4 (100 bars at 2C) it takes 10^4 cal to linearly expand a water a water column of any height by 1cm. It takes half that much at 12C and 100 bars: 500 (versus 80 for melting)."
DeleteYou fail your high school physics.
Specific heat of water (in calories if you must) : 1 cal/gram/degree
Latent heat of melting : 80 cal/gram
coefficient of expansion ~ 3*10^-4 (average)
Now apply that to a column of water say 1000 m deep and 1 cm^2 cross section
How much energy to raise by 1 deg ?
How much to melt same volume of ice?
What is change in height of column?
(10^5 cal, 80*10^5 cal, about 30 cm)
James, with all due respect, the calculation you made misses the point I discussed with AGF. Note first, however, I was "yanking his chain", so to say. I know he is right on the energy requirements (see below for an explanation). I just wanted to see whether he could substantiate his claims, but it is clear he doesn't want to do that (it takes a lot of requests to show the evidence). It's just so much easier to just proclaim. There may be truths in those proclamations, but I noted plenty of half-truths in what AGF said; the fact that he trusts Fred Singer so much is also a red flag.
DeleteRegarding the calculation: when you need 10^5 cal to expand a column of water by 30 cm, the relevant question is how much it takes to melt a similar total volume of ice, but rather how much ice would need to be melted to obtain a similar increase in height. In this case you'd have to melt 30 cc of ice to get the same change in height of the original column of water (assuming the ice is not on the water itself).
Marco
AGF, You called it a clear deceleration. Eyeballing stuff is not wise.
Deleteregarding your "snow more than melt, melt more than snow" and your claims that the estimates change every year: that's only if you claim a paper about a part of Antarctica (generally East Antarctica) is actually the whole of Antarctica, and can thus be compared to papers about the whole of Antarctica. I know of no recent papers that do not claim a mass loss of the continent as a whole (uncertainty bounds do include the possibility of an increase, but that's it).
Also, the "doom" does not come from any of the recent measurements. It comes from how the earth behaved in the past. As Jim Hansen points out regularly: last time the earth was 2 degrees warmer, sea levels were 5 meters higher. It will take some time to get there, but we cannot know how fast that will be. It may take a thousand years or more, or a few hundred years, which would mean SLR in the forseeable future is significant enough to make planners worry a lot. At one time you can no longer just "strengthen" coastal defences. You have to build completely new coastal defences. At least when you want to maintain the same level of defence (note, and something not taken into account in many of the economic calculations of costs, that this also often includes giving up land that could have been used for other economical activities. This has already been done around several rivers in the Netherlands, where dykes have been moved further away from the river, meaning more room for water to flow, but less land to cultivate for diverse activities).
Finally, you still have not expressed your view on the misrepresentation by Singer of what the IPCC predicted on sea level rise that I documented. Is it too uncomfortable to consider? Do note that afterwards I may show you a paper on which Singer is a co-author, and which applied inappropriate statistics (or rather: a statistical method designed to give a statistically significant difference, but which required a rather quetionable omission).
Marco
"Regarding the calculation: when you need 10^5 cal to expand a column of water by 30 cm, the relevant question is how much it takes to melt a similar total volume of ice, but rather how much ice would need to be melted to obtain a similar increase in height. In this case you'd have to melt 30 cc of ice to get the same change in height of the original column of water (assuming the ice is not on the water itself)."
DeleteAh yes, I wondered if he was thinking of it that way round, and I was waiting to see if he confirmed it. However if he was then he,and you, have made a different type of error - a more subtle one, essentially taking a teleological view of the problem. Basically what you have done is to assume that nature can choose between warming water and melting ice in order to attain a given result and that these two paths are equally likely. However they are not, and nature does not choose with the intention of reaching a particular goal (OT, this is a logical flaw the creationists frequently make)
The problem is in fact determined not by the energy balance, but by the resource availability. The necessary resources are water, ice at 0C, and energy. Now there is plenty of water available, literally oceans of it, but there is not all that much ice at 0C. So it is actually the lack of easily melted ice that means that the dominant component of the sea level rise is the thermal expansion.
Deniers believe the guff they read on disinformation websites but they don't make the effort, and in some cases, outright refuse (like AGF JR does) to read the science.
ReplyDeleteDr Mann is one of the scientists who has shed much light on the Little Ice Age and the Medieveal Warm Anomaly - their extent and what may have caused them.
Disinformation experts don't want the deniers to find out the facts so they make up stuff about people to discourage not deniers (because deniers reject science outright and don't need any prodding) but ordinary people who are interested in climate.
People like Anthony Watts know that even ordinary people are susceptible to letting their emotions control their brain from time to time, so that reason stays submerged. That's why Anthony Watts does things like make cartoons of Michael Mann rather than write about his science. He reckons if he makes fun of him, there will be people who will think he's an idiot. And Anthony Watts knows that his readers are like him and have trouble understanding scientific papers and most don't bother reading them at all. His readers are deniers through and through (or 98% of them are, according to his own poll).
That's why most commenters and hopefully most readers here can easily see who the real denier, dismissive and fake skeptic is in this comment thread - and from where he probably gets his pseudo-science. You can pick them a mile off.
Anonymous August 8, 2013 at 6:21 PM
ReplyDeleteMarco: "AGF, You called it a clear deceleration. Eyeballing stuff is not wise."
Graphs exist for eyeballs. So you can tell at a glance what the data are. You don't need calculus to drive a car and you don't need a statistician to put a puzzle together. At a glance the recent deceleration is readily seen, and it significance remains to be seen.
Marco: "As Jim Hansen points out regularly: last time the earth was 2 degrees warmer, sea levels were 5 meters higher."
Assuming the MWP wasn't 2 degrees warmer, that is. Back when forests grew that are now covered with ice, at the glaciers I noted.
Marco: "It will take some time to get there, but we cannot know how fast that will be. It may take a thousand years or more, or a few hundred years, which would mean SLR in the forseeable future is significant enough to make planners worry a lot."
New York's infrastructure has been below sea level for a century, and nothing is easier to plan for than slow SLR-- 2-3mm/year for 80 years now. Its the hundred year storms and tsunamis that do the damage, with the help of short memories and inept planners. We will be fortunate if SLR continues; that is vastly preferable to cooling. And the threat of SLR is utterly negligible compared to other problems facing the world, and compared to legitimate environmental concerns. Our continued prohibition through the drug war has destroyed much of Latin America, corrupted governments, killed tens of thousands, and we continue blindly on, worrying about climate change, spending billions to curtail CO2 which shows no short term correlation with T in the ice cores.
The trend, e.g., in Cancun, is to build further out to sea (e.g., on barrier islands), in places that were formerly deemed uninhabitable, but now are developed through construction of big, high buildings, better able to withstand storm surges. Many of the smaller condos on the hotel strip have remained deserted since the last hurricane. Still property values on atolls and in hurricane zones continue to go up, a whole lot faster than SLR. What I mean is it could be the Caliphate making future storm control policy for the Netherlands, whether fire or ice comes our way.
As for Singer's supposed bloopers, you'll need to document them precisely before I'll address them. At this point I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm certainly not worried about your exposing him worse than Hansen, Mann, Gleick, etc., have been exposed. --AGF
PS, my second expansion calculation should be 5000 rather than 500cal.
Well, I have little intent to go through that Gish gallop, especially the suggestion that the MWP may have been 2 degrees warmer than today, so I'll try to make the comment about Singer's misinformation a bit clearer:
DeleteFAR: Singer uses one single paper with a 3+ meter sea level rise and elevates it to the IPCC prediction. In reality, the chapter on sea level rise puts it at 31-110 cm (Figure 9.6) for BAU
SAR: Again Singer uses one number of one paper, whereas the IPCC estimate is 20 to 86 cm. It's not 100% clear this is a BAU scenario, too, so comparability is already a problem there.
TAR: Well, what's this then, here Singer *does* use the IPCC estimate (Table 11.14)
AR4: and also here the actual IPCC range is used
This estimate has an exxplicit exclusion of potential ice sheet melt acceleration considered in the other reports.
It's not accidental that Singer went from elevating a single estimate to the IPCC estimate to the actual range (without mentioning the caveats compared to earlier estimates). In the meantime, sea level rise is at the upper end of the latest IPCC estimate.
Marco
Me (Aug 7, 557, #3): "That's why most authorities attribute current SLR to expansion in spite of the fact that far more energy is required to expand water than to melt ice."
ReplyDeleteMarco (623): "3. I'd love to see the calculation for that claim. How much ice will have to melt to increase the sea levels by 1 mm and the associated energy, and how much the temperature of the oceans needs to increase to get sea levels to rise by 1 mm by expansion and the energy required for that. Go ahead, show us all wrong."
Me (739): "3. Steric over eustatic? Takes 2 orders of magnitude more energy. Sorry you don't know any physics."
Marco (347): "2+3. Where do the eustatic changes come from? Again magic?"
Marco (8/8, 149): "And I asked you for the calculation, but none was forthcoming. Just a claim it is so."
Me (241): "And why should I do your math for you? Everyone knows it takes a whole lot more energy for steric rise of [over] eustatic--everyone but you, that is. I gave you order of magnitude. If you want precise figures you will have to specify latitude, longitude, and depth range, as expansion varies considerably by T and pressure."
Marco (415): "For the calculation: you pseudoskeptics are really funny to play with. You keep on saying "everyone knows this" - but don't want to substantiate it."
Me (713AM): "Once again, pick a depth range. You wouldn't believe how variable the expansion coefficient of seawater is by depth and T..."
Marco (542PM): "Note first, however, I was "yanking his chain", so to say. I know he is right on the energy requirements (see below for an explanation). I just wanted to see whether he could substantiate his claims, but it is clear he doesn't want to do that (it takes a lot of requests to show the evidence). It's just so much easier to just proclaim."
After your repeated denial of my claim that steric SLR requires much more energy than eustatic, and that everyone knows this, and after challenging me for the calculation, you now claim you knew it all along.
So if Singer did in fact stretch the facts (inexcusably), you are hardly in a position to fault him. You are a liar too. You were wrong about recent SLR deceration. But like a typical climate scientist you are incapable of admitting errors, therefore you harp on Singer's. All the while Singer is at least on the side of policy sanity, while the fanatics advance remedies that starve the poor far more than GW ever could. --AGF
AGF (and Marco as well)
DeleteWhen you make a model, which is what your calculations are, you have to be sure that it represents what you think, and that the question you are asking is what you think it is. By only considering energy you have implicitly modelled a system which has:
equal quantities of ice and water
the ice is all at 0C
available energy is equally distributed
You have then set out to answer the question - in this system what is the most energy efficient way to produce a given increase in the volume of water?
This is the wrong model and the wrong question. You should both be considering a system where the amount of water greatly exceeds the amount of ice, where most of the ice is at temperatures significantly below zero, and where the available energy is unevenly distributed. Then you should ask the question - if this system warms slightly what is the most likely (not the most energy efficient) cause of an observed but slight rise in the volume of water a) expansion of water b) melting ice or c) other.
So stop messing amount with words like steric and eustatic, and just think about what is available in the real world, and do remember c) other.......
James August 9, 2013 at 7:20 AM
DeleteI simply made an offhand comment about why so little SLR is attributed to ice melt: "That's why most authorities attribute current SLR to expansion in spite of the fact that far more energy is required to expand water than to melt ice" (Aug7, 557 #3). On reflection I recognize that was poorly stated; I should not have said "in spite of," but "concordant with," since it is easier to account for a decade's worth of "missing energy" by way of steric SLR than eustatic, given the very slow rate of SLR.
The fact remains that dire predictions of future SLR cannot be extrapolated from current trends, what with sat measurements differing from tide gauge measurements, and each tide gauge assimilation differing from another. So the latest ice mass study gives a current eustatic contribution of 0.6mm/year. Big deal. Predictions of doom have nothing to do with this. They have only to do with assumptions of future warming tied to assumptions of climate sensitivity tied to assumptions of SLR/T correlation. While Rahmstorf and Vermeer see correlation between SLR and T, their tenuous detection of acceleration depends first on a distribution between steric and eustatic components. On top of this, if the recent missing heat is to be accounted for by sea expansion it stands to reason that this expansion constitutes a departure from former behavior, that is, it constitutes steric acceleration, so that subtracting this from total SLR we would have eustatic deceleration. Do R&V take this into account? If not, Singer is clearly right, even if for the wrong reasons. And I repeat, over the long term it is not T that controls SLR but orbital forcing. T, SLR, and CO2 are the artifacts of variable albedo, defined by ice sheet area, which area is governed by variable insolation.
As for the BS, Morner does not dissemble when he rotates his graphs--he rotates coordinates, box and all, so that it is obvious he is rotating, to get what he believes is an honest accounting of SLR. Old school he may be, but that is absolutely nothing compared to what upside down Mann does with Tiljander, which he and all his peers refuse to confess, making Morner look like a genius and making Singer look like a saint. So I wonder if anyone around here is willing to denounce Mann the way they denounce Singer. Vermeer calls Singer a "notorious sociopath," and says, "That you, AGFJR, do not shudder at citing him tells me -- and I'm being charitable -- that you're dumb. Very dumb. And yes, that's ad hominem."
I'll admit I'm surprised that Singer would stoop to CRU tactics, but I don't think Vermeer is very bright either, especially if he thinks he can predict doom from current SLR trends. --AGF
> but I don't think Vermeer is very bright either
DeleteThanks for the kind words AGF... being functionally literate helps me muddle through
And I repeat, over the long term it is not T that controls SLR but orbital forcing
DeleteThat's cute. You're saying orbital forcing doesn't affect temperature?
It doesn't take much of a shift in orbital forcing to shift earth's climate. A change in greenhouse gases can have a huge effect on sea level (because of the impact on temperature).
Sou August 10, 2013 at 2:14 AM
DeleteMe: "T, SLR, and CO2 are the artifacts of variable albedo, defined by ice sheet area, which area is governed by variable insolation."
Sou: "That's cute. You're saying orbital forcing doesn't affect temperature?"
And Sou makes Vermeer look smart. Sou, have you ever seen an ice core graph? Did you ever wonder why T lags insolation by thousands of years? (Not if you never saw a graph, I guess.) That's because it takes a long time for the ice to melt, and global T is a function of ice area. See, ice reflects sunlight; the more ice the higher the albedo. You're still stuck back in Gore/Hansen science. --AGF
If I was as smart as Professor Vermeer I wouldn't be writing this.
DeleteLet's see how dumb I am. First, you may have missed it but I was commenting on your comment: "And I repeat, over the long term it is not T that controls SLR but orbital forcing"
Which is cute!
Now we've seen the mistake, let's spot the fallacy.
Your argument: "Orbital forcing caused temperature change in the past and caused the ice to melt. Therefore a steep rise in greenhouse gases cannot cause the temperature to rise and the ice to melt now or in the past."
It's a bit like saying that last week your car wouldn't start because the petrol tank was empty, therefore this week when it won't start, it can't be because the battery is flat.
Although I'm still not sure if you think that orbital forcing can cause a rise in global surface temperature :(
As for lags - I doubt you'll like this study. It was done by people who analyse ice cores, not people who campaign for second hand smoke. But what would they know.
Sou: "If was as smart as Professor Vermeer I wouldn't be writing this."
DeleteIf you were as smart as a monkey you wouldn't be writing this or anything else. You should let Vermeer, who has some grasp of the subject, do the talking. Let me say this one more type, on the slim chance that someone of your obviously limited intellect will get it:
On millennial scales T does not force SLR. And since you brought it up, CO2 does not force T either, on a millennial scale, but that's a separate argument. Yes, T, CO2, and SLR are correlated on a millennial scale. Does that mean any of the three force the other two? Absolutely not. Why? Because the three are clearly forced by a fourth agent, insolation. This does not rule out the possibility of feedback effects but there is no need for any feedback to qualitatively explain the delayed correlation between orbital forcing and T, CO2, and SLR.
So I repeat, T, CO2 and sea level are closely correlated, but lag insolation by thousands of years. Why the lag? Because it takes thousands of years for the ice to melt or freeze, and the three are direct functions of ice sheet extension. The correlation provides no evidence in itself of forcing between the three, since the three are clearly forced by insolation by way of albedo/ice sheet area. SL is a function of albedo, not T, which is itself a function of albedo. It is no more correct to say T forces SL than to say SL forces T. If we want to talk about feedback, we should include the negative SLR feedback on T: as SL rises, land area decreases, hence global T decreases. Inverse correlation, as far as feedback goes, but small of course, like any instantaneous correlation between orbital forcing ant T.
Is any of this sinking in? (Fat chance.) --AGF
No-one is suggesting temperature is a forcing - you are being quite silly.
DeleteTo get back on track, we are talking about greenhouse gases causing the earth to warm, which is melting ice, which will continue to cause the sea level to rise, particularly later this century and the next and the next etc. Your orbital forcing is a distraction. That's not what's causing the current temperature hike or the current sea level rise.
Before going any further, just tell us. Do you agree with the findings of the scientists, which I just pointed you to in my last post? In your opinion, is CO2 causing earth to heat up now or not? And if it is heating up because of the extra greenhouse gases, will more ice melt?
Sou (523): "Do you agree with the findings of the scientists, which I just pointed you to in my last post?"
DeleteThat CO2 doesn't lag T as much as previously thought? A few hundred years rather than a thousand? Well at least I'm glad to see the lag is acknowledged. Do I agree with this precisely articulated assessed shrinkage? Well let me point out this graph: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg
and refer you to 130ky, where you will see that CO2 lags T by several thousand years. T plummets while CO2 stays high. That is, 130kya T did not respond to CO2, and you're asking me if things have changed now.
Is CO2 a GHG? Yes. Is it a primary forcing agent? Yes. After feedback effects is its forcing non-zero? Yes. Is it positive or negative? Don't know. Is it significantly positive or negative? I doubt it. Look at Vostok 130ky. Is CO2 making ice melt? Better than 50/50 chance, I'd say. Do I give a damn? No. Could we do anything about it if CO2 were melting ice? Not much, prevention wise. Do IPCC prognoses present rationale for imposing CO2 restrictions? No. Should I go on? --AGF
Thanks.
DeleteShould I go on?
No.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI do believe Mörner has been caught with his sea level down. But then anyone who has been paying attention already knew he was a fraud.
Delete> anyone who has been paying attention
DeleteIt doesn't take much... his maledivian photoshop fraud is hilarious
Martin, didn't Mörner use that picture in a scientific publication? If so, and people can show it fraudulent, that paper should be retracted, shouldn't it?
DeleteOr is the photoshop picture just used in presentations?
Marco
The story is here, starting from comment #55. No, apparently the photo never appeared in a scientific paper (or at least Tom Curtis couldn't find it).
DeleteHere are two emails I wrote about Morner nearly two years ago. First email (Sep 27, 2011):
DeleteI've long been interested in the relation between LOD and climate. You may have caught the paper last January by JPL civil servants Dickey et al, plus a Frenchman, where they claim the earth's core controls short term climate (LOD and T) by way of magnetic fluctuations. This is pretty hard to take seriously, and it seems to fly in the face of IPCC and everything else, but I'm afraid it's no worse than Morner's speculation. I got to the third paragraph of the first paper where he makes the claim I reported at WUWT: climate induced variation in LOD affects earth/moon distance. This may seem like a minor error, and it could indeed be overlooked were it not followed by other similar gaffes (thanks again) which demonstrate a fundamentally poor background in physics. Both the atmosphere and the hydrosphere rotate prograde--not like Venus, but just a litte, and for the same reasons--the reasons in fact which make the jet streams prograde overall. Morner imagines a current or wave which crosses the ocean in a few months and only transfers its momentum to the lithosphere upon arriving! What nonsense! How could I address him about such egregious mistakes without putting him impossibly on the defensive?
LOD varies in two principal ways: reversibly and irreversibly. Reversibly through changes in rotational inertia, and irreversibly through tidal friction where the angular momentum is transferred to the moon, never to be recovered. Morner does not distinguish between the two because he doesn't understand the mechanisms. He makes similar errors with Newtonian physics in coupling the earth and ocean currents: action and reaction are not delayed by currents piling up over months--except for a tiny wave the water behaves like electrons in a wire, starting and finishing nearly simultaneously.
So I'll read more, but not with much hope of enlightenment. But I agree that climate is the prime driver of LOD on decadal and secular scales rather than core/mantle coupling. LOD rises sharply at the end of the LIA, and the decline and rise over the past two millennia are better explained by ice mass balance than this deus ex machina of the core and mantle. And the current decline in LOD? My guess is rebound from the LIA--I don't trust the J2 data.
At any rate, I thank you much for the papers, but this subject is begging for more rigorous treatment.
Regards, AGF
Second email (Sep 28, 2011):
DeleteMorner, 93 (Bulletin de l'Institut Francais d'Études Andines, 1993:22(1):4):
"During the ice ages with sea level some 100-120 m lower, the rotation of the earth must have been some 1500-2000 ms faster (compensated by a corresponding decrease in the Earth-Moon distance)."
The only explicit function here is sea level rise, which is in fact the only function which could give rise to the change in LOD specified, as no time period is specified. Morner appears to assume a correspondence of about .17ms/cm of sea level rise, a little higher than Munk's estimate of .1ms/cm (2002). Based on Morrison's eclipse data tidal deceleration is estimated at 1.7ms/century, so that we would have to go back 100,000 years to get the figures Morner gives. So he is clearly talking about reversible LOD variation and he erroneously supposes it entails a loss of angular momentum.
And this is minor nonsense compared to that of the first paragraph, where he talks about ocean currents induced by the ocean lagging behind the lithosphere. The biggest current, the circumpolar, is prograde: it travels from west to east. The hydrosphere does not lag behind the lithosphere, it leads it. The notion that the miniscule changes in LOD drive anything in nature on the short term is absurd. But Morner's every sentence reveals an abyssmal lack of understanding of science in general. He makes for a terrible representative of sophisticated climatological skepticism--he's the opposite of a Nigel Calder.
Sorry to have to be so honest, but that's how I see it.
End letters.
I didn't know Morner photo shopped the tree--lying is worse than stupid, and skeptics have plenty of ammo on hand without resorting to BS. So it makes it all the more strange that the likes of Singer would feel the need to resort to BS. Makes you wonder.
--AGF
Correction required: secular deceleration is in fact 1.7ms/century, but this is composed of tidal braking of 2.3ms (irreversible) less 0.6ms due to GIA (reversible).
Delete--AGF
The 'this is a (remarkably restored) tree uprooted by warmist scientist vandals and anyway it's not photoshopped it's a "double-exposure" ' story deserves to be hailed as a classic in the annals of that exalted realm; The Land Beyond Parody.
DeleteYep, Mörner is not even good at lying about his incompetent lies. QED.
Delete> skeptics have plenty of ammo on hand without resorting to BS
DeleteGiven the observed fact that BS is what they commonly resort to, perhaps you might want to revisit that assumption. Heck, even Lindzen has been caught lying, and if anybody meets the definition of a scientifically competent pseudo-sceptic, it is him.
But the warming alarm is BS lock, stock and barrel. It's quite analogous to the peregrine falcon stoop of a supposed 242mph or whatever. About 99% of published opinion supports this fantastic speed whether from falconers, ornithologists or aerodynamic engineers. But in the real world the predator/prey balance remains intact, where cheetahs can only catch the slowest gazelles, and falcons can only catch the most unlucky grouse. These grouse are to the superbird myth what Exit and Jorge Montt glaciers are to Mann's hockey stick. And there is the pure BS, from which I challenge you (MV) to disassociate yourself. --AGF
DeleteExcept that Falco pereginus doesn't feed on grouse they are known for taking birds on the wing. It's called evolution and in this case what is going on is often referred to as an evolutionary arms race.
DeleteTell that to these hawkers:
Deletehttp://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/0111/wyoming_falconry.html
--AGF
Yawn. Just another contrarian windbag trying to sound clever.
DeleteI just read your tripe about SLR projections above. The *linar* projections are driven by thermosteric SLR. The non-linear projections depend on non-linear response by the WAIS and the GIS and are informed by paleoclimate behaviour.
AGF, they are trained to do that. Notice that the falconer flushed the grouse and that the falcon then attacked them. In the wild grouse are not something they normally attack. I've watched a lot of peregrines hunting and seen them take plenty of pigeons and doves, but never a grouse or other gallinule.
DeleteRattus, e.g., here:
Deletehttp://www.gwct.org.uk/documents/1999redpathsmjanecolab.pdf
we have examples of wild peres taking adult grouse and chick
and here:
http://www.gwct.org.uk/documents/1999redpathsmjanecolab.pdf
page 140 tells how red grouse make up to 80% of pere diet in the Scottish moors. Grousers hate them and persecute them (now illegally). Wherever grouse are in decline peres are suspected, especially if the peres are at a population up tic. --AGF
Can it be? A straw-falcon?
DeleteMakes a change from squirrels, I suppose.
BBD August 13, 2013 at 2:25 AM
Delete"The *linar* projections are driven by thermosteric SLR."
But haven't you heard about the "missing energy"? The explanation for why T has gone level for a dozen years? For some unknown reason the earth is supposed to have changed its response to CO2 forcing from warming the surface to warming the ocean. This recent ocean warming must entail a change in rate of thermal expansion--an acceleration, that is, a non-linear response to CO2. So how can you talk about linear projections from a trend that's only as old as our missing heat?
Moreover, how can we have correlation between T and SLR when the explanation for the missing heat assumes the inverse? As CO2 goes up we get rising T or heating seas (with steric SLR). One or the other, not both. --AGF
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DeleteA hen harrier is not a peregrine. In fact it is not even a falcon. You might also consult point 2 of that abstract: peregrines were found at highest densities where there were a lot of pigeons.
DeleteBut haven't you heard about the "missing energy"? The explanation for why T has gone level for a dozen years? For some unknown reason the earth is supposed to have changed its response to CO2 forcing from warming the surface to warming the ocean.
DeleteIt appears that an increase in wind-driven ocean circulation since the turn of the millennium accelerated the major subtropical gyres and increased rate of vertical transport of warm surface waters to depth (Ekman pumping at the centres of gyres and eddies).
This recent ocean warming must entail a change in rate of thermal expansion--an acceleration, that is, a non-linear response to CO2. So how can you talk about linear projections from a trend that's only as old as our missing heat?
Thermosteric component of SLR 0 - 700m and 0 - 2000m
You were the one pointing to conservative linear extrapolations.
As CO2 goes up we get rising T or heating seas (with steric SLR). One or the other, not both.
DeleteYou haven't thought this through.
Rattus Norvegicus August 13, 2013 at 6:44 AM
DeleteFrom my first link, in the abstract:
"The proportion of adult grouse taken by peregrines appeared to be inversely density dependent, such that an increasing proportion of grouse was taken at grouse densities below 20/km^2."
--showing peregrine predation of grouse, which you denied occurred in the wild. Cut the BS please--when you're wrong, you're wrong.
=================================================
BBD: "It appears that an increase in wind-driven ocean circulation since the turn of the millennium accelerated the major subtropical gyres and increased rate of vertical transport of warm surface waters to depth (Ekman pumping at the centres of gyres and eddies)."
A novel theory: a quantum shift in climate response. Does this mean we don't have to worry about surface warming any more?
Me: "This recent ocean warming must entail a change in rate of thermal expansion--an acceleration, that is, a non-linear response to CO2. So how can you talk about linear projections from a trend that's only as old as our missing heat?"
BBD: "Thermosteric component of SLR 0 - 700m and 0 - 2000m
"You were the one pointing to conservative linear extrapolations."
You lost me there.
Me: "As CO2 goes up we get rising T or heating seas (with steric SLR). One or the other, not both."
BBD: "You haven't thought this through."
Quite possibly, but have you? Show me what I'm missing.
--AGF
--AGF
A novel theory: a quantum shift in climate response. Does this mean we don't have to worry about surface warming any more?
DeleteFirst, this is not a "quantum shift in climate response" and second, no.
Quite possibly, but have you? Show me what I'm missing.
Yes, and I just did. Look at the comparison between thermosteric SLR 0 - 700m and 0 - 2000m. Note the increase at depth.
Your response is odd. I don't get the sense you understand this very well.
You're absolutely right. I have no idea what you're talking about. I tend not to blame my comprehension skill but your communication skills:
DeleteYou: "Yes, and I just did. Look at the comparison between thermosteric SLR 0 - 700m and 0 - 2000m. Note the increase at depth."
So what are you trying to say? Heat is moving down?
Yes, obviously.
DeleteIt appears that an increase in wind-driven ocean circulation since the turn of the millennium accelerated the major subtropical gyres and increased rate of vertical transport of warm surface waters to depth (Ekman pumping at the centres of gyres and eddies).
Well like I noted way back, steric SLR soaks up two orders of magnitude more energy than eustatic, so as long as this supposed process keeps up we don't have to worry about acceleration. At the same time this gross inequality between SLR components renders R&V's T/SLR correlation rather too neat. --AGF
DeleteAnd again you ignore ice sheet dynamics and the fact that warm water destabilises the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). SLR from Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) melt will amplify the process.
DeleteYou have not read around this topic.
I think I said they don't normally take them. Your claim that Redpath paper shows they have grouse as 80% of their prey base is patently false. 40% as a max by biomass is more like it. If you use pellet count as a guide it looks more like 25% max at a couple of sites. At the third site it was quite a bit less, more like 10%. You might look at table 3 for harriers, table 6 provides similar, although not directly comparable data for peregrines. The fact that there is no numerical response of either predator population to populations of grouse should tell you something about what is happening...
DeleteAnd you are arguing about how much of their prey base is grouse at 3 sites which are managed for grouse, which means that they are more or less abundant. All of the references I found on the net for peregrine prey preferences reinforced what I had learned about those preferences 35 years ago. Quit quibbling, I never made a categorical statement, admitting that they do not normally take them. I stand by that statement.
It's a pathology, Rattus.
DeleteRattus Norvegicus August 13, 2013 at 1:20 AM:
Delete"Except that Falco pereginus doesn't feed on grouse they are known for taking birds on the wing. It's called evolution and in this case what is going on is often referred to as an evolutionary arms race."
Rattus Norvegicus August 13, 2013 at 3:11 AM:
"AGF, they are trained to do that. Notice that the falconer flushed the grouse and that the falcon then attacked them. In the wild grouse are not something they normally attack. I've watched a lot of peregrines hunting and seen them take plenty of pigeons and doves, but never a grouse or other gallinule."
Rattus Norvegicus August 13, 2013 at 10:16 AM"
"I think I said they don't normally take them. Your claim that Redpath paper shows they have grouse as 80% of their prey base is patently false. 40% as a max by biomass is more like it."
=======================================================
I see I repeated the same link at 8/13 547, leaving the page 140 reference from Ratcliffe's book dangling. Here it is:
http://books.google.com/books?id=X6rG_1uDwQQC&pg=PA359&lpg=PA359&dq=scotland+peregrines+grouse+decline&source=bl&ots=rJhHw0h-lM&sig=iODuvSAglWqbbIaf537BC-dEMg0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BDkJUtagAcK2yAHaioGADQ&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=scotland%20peregrines%20grouse%20decline&f=false
Page 140: "...during winter...grouse may form up to 80% of the diet."
--which claim you called “patently false.” As usual you don't know what you're talking about, like everyone else around here. Peres certainly do chase grouse, especially on flat ground. On mountain slopes the grouse can usually outfly them (downhill, of course), and near cities pigeons make for much easier prey, so that's what they go after. The point being, grouse are fast enough to usually escape the “superbird.”
And more to the point, this cocky ignorance is what qualifies you (and BBD) as a “believer.” --AGF
AGF, that link doesn't say what you think it does. I actually read (although not in detail) the Redpath paper. You link leads to a page in a book which appears to discuss diseases in peregrines. I looked at "page 140" in another google books link which came up when I searched for the title of the paper. No love there either. Come on, give me the cite.
DeleteAh, I found it now. Looks like that work was done (long?) before the Redpath study which, well, actually went out and got some data. Also the quote says "Red Grouse and ptarmigans" not Red Grouse alone. Cornell cites ptarmigans as a prey item.
Look, generalist predators will make use of whatever they find. Here in my state wolves are often accused of taking huge numbers of cattle, but FWP is only able to document about 50/year. Ranchers claim 1400/year. In Yellowstone wolves do not normally prey on bison, but one pack, Mollie's Pack, does take them. Do wolves normally take cattle? If you go by documented numbers, no. However, they do take them from time to time.
The fact that there is no numerical response of peregrine populations to changes in grouse populations should tell you something. Thing about it.
One last thing. Your claiming that because a special case holds true, the it must be true in the general case. This is like saying that because Mollie's Pack is known for taking bison that wolves normally take bison (there are a few packs in Canada that are known to do this). Wolves normally take deer and elk, although they have been documented as taking a wide variety of prey.
DeleteRattus: "Also the quote says "Red Grouse and ptarmigans" not Red Grouse alone."
DeleteThe quote: "By August/September when the family moves around and some young begin to disperse, the proportion of grouse drops to 30%; but during winter, when migrations is over and so many species have left the uplands, grouse may form up to 80% of the diet" (Ratcliffe, p.140, no editing).
It doesn't say grouse and ptarmigan--why do you keep on lying? Are that certain that none of your buddies will check on you?
Did I claim that this is the general case? No, I already said for one thing that the peres go for the easiest prey: pigeons in and near the cities. Grouse may well be the last thing on their menu for a number of reasons: 1) grouse numbers are in decline over much of their range, probably due in some areas to pere recovery; 2) grouse are among the most difficult prey worth chasing; 3) the falcons are creatures of learning and habit: their parents or trainers must teach them how to hunt, and not all learn to catch grouse, especially near cities, or where grouse are scarce.
Falconers have a hard time preventing peres from giving up on grouse; sometimes they cross peres with gyres to get a faster bird--something that can more easily get grouse. All this over the question, how fast is the superbird? 242mph or about as fast as a grouse? --AGF
What a tedious troll.
ReplyDeleteA couple of articles relevant to the comments. AGF JR might find them especially illuminating:
ReplyDeleteThe inevitability of sea level rise from Anders Levermann of the Potsdam Institute at The Conversation about this new paper in PNAS.
Timing a Rise in Sea Level by Justin Gillis of the NY Times about this new paper in Nature GeoScience.
Thanks for the links, Sou. O'Leary et al. is particularly interesting given the denialist dismissal of a non-linear response driven by ice-sheet dynamics, specifically a collapse of the WAIS.
DeleteI've long ago lost count of the times that I've pointed out that the WAIS is a marine ice sheet on a retrograde grounding slope, which makes it inherently unstable, that paleoclimate evidence shows that it has collapsed *many* times before, and that global average temperature during the Eemian was only 1 - 2C above the Holocene but MSL was *at least* 5m higher.
Much of the problem with deniers is that they know nothing about paleoclimate behaviour. They deny without context because it's easier that way. Actually understanding what happens - what *has happened* - during only slightly warmer climates makes denial impossible. So they don't understand it. They block it out.
BBD for some of them I think they just "believe" that future generations will be able to take care of themselves. Or if not that, that by the time the seas rise in a big way, they'll be dead and gone and won't have to worry about the future. All care no responsibility. They don't have any conception of time and space or of planning horizons and infrastructure linking people around the world today.
DeleteI've read people who say things that suggest they think that moving all the coastal cities will be a breeze. That cities are just tar and cement and that any land that isn't currently used for housing, manufacturing, transport and other uses (eg parkland, farmland, forestry, hydrology and other uses) will just make way for the billions of people to shuffle into. Or maybe that people will just build upwards on top of existing towns and cities further inland.
Fortunately infrastructure planners are not so short sighted. Planning for ports, for example will be quite a challenge in many parts but the planners are at least thinking about it. Smaller ports and jetties - well there is much more talk of "floating" jetties these days.
Places like New York - what they'll do with all the underground power and transport infrastructure is anyone's guess right now. I wouldn't want to have that job. Siting of things like desal plants and nuclear power stations that need to be close to water but not under it - I wouldn't want to be making those decisions either.
If the deniers and disinformers just kept out of everyone's way and muttered and grumbled among themselves it wouldn't be a problem. But they infiltrate the decision-makers and that's where the potential for real problems lies.
Generally speaking, the stupidity of these remarks knows no bounds. Of course people will be able to adapt to SLR--it is the slowest and most predictable of coastal processes. Dust accumulates faster. Coral grows 10 times as fast. Coastal land rises and falls a hundred times as fast due to fluid depletion (and intentional repletion). Storm surges and tsunamis raise the seas ten thousand times as much as annual SLR, up to a hundred times as much as a century's worth. SLR is something only fools worry about, at least when it prevents them from concern over 100 year storms or 100 year tsunamis.
DeleteAny populated atolls will have no trouble mounting a stand against SLR. They could very well have trouble withstanding a typhoon. This will remain true whether SLR reverses or accelerates. Even in the most unlikely worst-case scenarios, it will take centuries to flood out our cities, and the economic threat presented will be next to negligible: the population of Florida will continue to skyrocket in spite of all your nonsensical predictions. NOBODY believes you, even though they'll tell you they do. Even on the "sinking" Pacific islands they continue to build runways for tourists, and the value of beach property continues to climb. NOBODY is paying any attention to you because deep inside they all know you are idiots. Christie says he believes in GW, but he's going to rebuild along the coast, just like before. Maybe a little stronger this time, but he obviously doesn't believe in it very much. People have short memories; they'll keep building in the same stupid places.
And like I keep saying, warming is a whole lot better than cooling. Few warming scenarios could compete with another LIA for economic disadvantage or human misery. And superstorms have been flooding the Atlantic since mammoths roamed, and then some. --AGF
Generally speaking, the stupidity of these remarks knows no bounds.
Delete@BBD +1
Delete@AGF JR +1 to your first sentence, assuming your "these remarks" refers to your subsequent comments.