Comments on: NOAA Part 1: February unusually warm

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:54:11 +0000

bet is this decade vs. next — pretty simple.

By: Dodo

Dodo — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:05:03 +0000

You are proposing a bet over “a record”. Which record is that? Do we include the MWP, RWP and the holocene optimum, all well established and natural climate phenomena of the recent past?

Yes, I know you would dare to bet just over the records of the past 150 years. But alas, in natural history that is just a blink.

By: Nylo

Nylo — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:17:22 +0000

Everything depends on the time resolution you want to apply to the concepts of global temperature change. If you take a time resolution of 30 years, for example, you are entitled to say that we are still in a warming process: our temperatures are higher than the average of the last 30 years. On the other hand if you only pick 10 years resolution, we have been rather the same. And if you pick 5, we are definitely cooling.

The truth is that, no matter which time resolution you want to pick, the warming trend will show now less extreme than 10 years ago. Because the temperatures have kept quite stable for 10 years. It’s, let’s say, a little stop in the warming. This is important because it is opposite to the predictions of Mann et Al with their hockey stick. The hockey stick was so terrifying because the last year in the graph was 1998, a strongly positive anomaly. If we were to draw a new graph today with up-to-date temperatures and the same kind of time-averaging of the temperature graph, we would see that it doesn’t go that high for 1998 (averaging the later years softens the thing quite a lot), and the average warming trend is also reduced (same total warming but in a +10 years timespan).

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:23:13 +0000

Yeah, that’s right. I run a high-profile blog and I’m gonna welch on a bet. Nice try. You won’t take the bet because you know you’d lose.

Why would I repeat your disinformation? The fact is, the planet is warming and it will soon be hot.

One of the more anti-scientific things written on this blog in a while: “For it to be warming, you would need February to be hotter than the RECENT years.”

By: Nylo

Nylo — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:22:45 +0000

“Let’s get this straight. We have some short-term cooling from a strong La Niña. And a little more cooling from being at a solar irradiance minimum. And we still have the 16th warmest winter on record. The planet is warming — deal with it (please)”

The right way to read the data is not that the planet is warming, but that the planet is WARM. For it to be warming, you would need February to be hotter than the RECENT years. Say, last decade. Cooling doesn’t mean cool. It means cooling. It will take some time for monthly low temperature records to beat those 30 years ago, of course. Cooling is a process.

Repeat with me: regarding the last decade, the planet is WARM, but not warming. And the planet is COOLING, but not cool.

I would gladly take your 1000$ bet. But I don’t think you would pay after you lost.

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:39:49 +0000

Peter Foley stated “Even if the AGW proved to be 100% correct, …”

Peter, it already has. As the tundra thaws, it will express methane, not C02. Do you know what happens next?

By: Peter Foley

Peter Foley — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:51:32 +0000

Ronald, thank you but I was interested in this years(real time) current numbers(co2ppm) that would show a huge increase caused by the thawing of the Siberian tundra as presented by Joe Romm in the post–”this is worrisome because….” I think Joe is going to plan B, C, and D on proving we need to ban carbon now and end Western culture as we know it.
Joe I’ll admit there is probably some human caused changes in the climate, but the science proving just what the effects are and how much they are or what is the actual gas(es)/aerosol(s) are, is too immature to use to justify the end of carbon based economies.
The “solution” offered by the warmists is still looking for a crisis severe enough for the world to go to a ‘lifeboat’ type government with the tree huggers holding the Very gun on the other life boaters– Even if the AGW proved to be 100% correct, the greens still won’t get to run the world except in their Dreams. Thank god.

By: Ronald

Ronald — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:37:24 +0000

Peter,

For a carbon dioxide number go to;

http://www.carbonify.com/carbon-dioxide-levels.htm

By: Ronald

Ronald — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:34:18 +0000

PGosselin,

If someone explains to you why there can be record refreezes of artic ice and that it would be wrong to conclude that means global cooling, will you then stop and think about it? That maybe there is really global warming going on or that these scientists know something? I doubt it but give it a chance.

There will always be ice in the artic. In the winter. When people talk about ice free in the artic, they are talking about summer ice free.

If and when there is summer ice free in the artic, that winter may have the largest winter refreeze. Why? Because there is so much more area to refreeze because the ice that would usually have stayed is gone. More area to refreeze. As more of the multiyear ice has frozen there is more area for single year ice to freeze closer to the coldest parts of the artic.

The refreeze area that has refroze one year is easy to melt in the summer because it is so thin. The ice that has been there many years is much thicker and is harder and takes longer to melt.

Two things. When I said that there will always be winter ice in the artic, I really don’t have any idea about that. I could imagine at some time that the artic is warm enough to not refreeze in the winter. When that would be, I wouldn’t know. Also the year when there is the largest area of refreeze might not be when there is artic ice free, because maybe the refreeze needs cold ice near it to freeze more ice.

That’s all my speculation. If somebody can say it’s wrong go for it.

By: paulm

paulm — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:46:45 +0000

go on take the bet PGosselin!