Here's a more recent, more comprehensive study of Greenland climate over the present interglacial. As always, this is neither definitive nor the last word.

http://anr-greenland.org/download/wcc.pdf

Found it by clicking on the cite references for the Kaboshi study.

Originally Posted by barry schwarz

Hey there, flogger,

The Arctic experienced higher temperatures than present during the holocene thermal maximum - orbital dynamics angled the planet so the the Northern Hemisphere received about 8% more insolation (INcoming SOLar radiATION) than now. This was a period extending from 10k to 4k years ago. From about 8k to 5k years ago, there may have been less summertime sea ice cover than present. The Kobashi paper finds MWP decadal temps warmer than present, but this is for one location only. Most other studies find comparable, or slightly cooler temps for Greenland than today during the MWP.

Different regions behave differently to the global average. No one sane tries to deny this. No one who is reasonable and slightly well-informed expects a monotonic lock-step change in weather and climate variables all over the Earth as it warms. Some places (about a quarter of total data) have either cooled or not changed in temperature over the last few decades. Antarctic sea ice has slightly increased while Arctic sea ice has greatly decreased. Sea level has not uniformly risen around the globe, even though the global average has. Winters in some parts of Europe are projected to cool in the near term, as the Jet Stream is shifted by changes in the Arctic region from global warming.

When you move from the micro to the meso scale (from a point on the globe to a country or continent), then variability is muted and the global warming signal emerges. Every continent and the vast majority of countries has warmed over the last 100 years.

Go back a few million years and the earth was much warmer. Go back 4.5 billion years, and the surface of the Earth was 1000 degrees centigrade.

But in terms of global temperatures in the modern age the 'envelope of natural variability' is not the concern, it is the rate of warming.



At no time in the paper do they discuss rate of change, only range.



"Political worldview." Good grief, please don't be a nutcase. The greenies and the scientists and whoever else you reckon the 'alarmists' might be are not going to impose a wordview on anyone, even if they supposedly wished to. Their evil forces are far too weak. National self-interest and economic momentum will overwhelm the Watermelon Revolution. We (global 'we') will continue to burn fossil fuels at an increasing rate, and might just start to see very meagre reductions on a global scale after 30 or 40 years, and certainly when peak oil and coal are well and truly behind us (assuming for a moment, that fossil fuel resources are not actually infinite). No idea when that will happen.

I'll see YOUR alarmism, and raise you a healthy dose of rational cynicism. No need to deny science to see that emissions mitigation is not going to happen in any significant way any time soon. And check out the few countries (mostly in Europe) that have actually reduced their emissions. Are they on the brink of collapse and socialist revolution? Don't think so. Let's not get carried away with fantasies of political and economic armageddon.

What flogger does not realise is that in an interglacial, as we are in right now, there is a long term background cooling trend. That trend has recently been interrupted, as the Kaufman study shows.

Here is a reconstruction of the temperature of this interglacial, which had an optimum about 4000 to 8000 years ago. Both the Kaufman and Kobashi papers confirm this. Being from a single site, the Kobashi results have a question mark over them, but I would tend to trust any paper with Jason Box's name in it. Box, though, has also made a "health warning" abut this paper, as Agno said.

Symphony of Science tackles Climate Change. Best one yet, with Bill Nye "The Science Guy", Professor Richard Alley from Penn State U, and Isaac Asimov who should need no introduction.

Originally Posted by owedtojoy

As for your response, I find it without merit.

Wow, that's a surprise.

Snark intended Ö¿Ö

Originally Posted by owedtojoy

Nothing wrong with renewable energy, in their opinion!

There's absolutely nothing wrong with renewable energy if it works and doesn't cause more problems than it's worth.

This won't be well received by anyone who considers a creationist scientist not to be a "true scientist."

Climate sensitivity clouded with doubt

From "The Science is Settled" Department. Climate sensitivity is the biggest unknown in climate research. If climate sensitivity is low, then increasing CO2 levels are a non-problem. The IPCC claims that sensitivity is high and that therefore regulating emissions is necessary.

However, a new paper by Dr Roy Spencer and William Braswell, based on real world observations rather than incomplete models, claims that determination of sensitivity is as yet unsolved, because of the difficulty in distinguishing forcings and feedbacks:

"While the satellite-based metrics for the period 2000–2010 depart substantially in the direction of lower climate sensitivity from those similarly computed from coupled climate models, we find that, with traditional methods, it is not possible to accurately quantify this discrepancy in terms of the feedbacks which determine climate sensitivity. It is concluded that atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in satellite radiative budget observations."

The paper is technical, but its conclusion shows that anyone who says "the science is settled" is either ignorant or wilfully deceptive.
Climate sensitivity clouded with doubt | Australian Climate Madness

Originally Posted by Earthling

This won't be well received by anyone who considers a creationist scientist not to be a "true scientist."

Climate sensitivity clouded with doubt

From "The Science is Settled" Department. Climate sensitivity is the biggest unknown in climate research. If climate sensitivity is low, then increasing CO2 levels are a non-problem. The IPCC claims that sensitivity is high and that therefore regulating emissions is necessary.

However, a new paper by Dr Roy Spencer and William Braswell, based on real world observations rather than incomplete models, claims that determination of sensitivity is as yet unsolved, because of the difficulty in distinguishing forcings and feedbacks:

"While the satellite-based metrics for the period 2000–2010 depart substantially in the direction of lower climate sensitivity from those similarly computed from coupled climate models, we find that, with traditional methods, it is not possible to accurately quantify this discrepancy in terms of the feedbacks which determine climate sensitivity. It is concluded that atmospheric feedback diagnosis of the climate system remains an unsolved problem, due primarily to the inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in satellite radiative budget observations."

The paper is technical, but its conclusion shows that anyone who says "the science is settled" is either ignorant or wilfully deceptive.
Climate sensitivity clouded with doubt | Australian Climate Madness

Once again, Earthling, you should take more care with your sources. The site is run and written by one with a Masters in engineering who proudly informs the dense that he is not a scientist but is better qualified to comment than 99.9% of people.

The study is by a 'creationist' and an ally and, therefore, not credible. It has been thoroughly dissected by actual climate scientists and shown to be the shoddy pretext that it is.

And, if I recall correctly, (I will not waste the time checking) it was published in a 'Vanity" publication; a publication that invites submissions and allows the submitters to choose reviewers. Published there because no reputable publication will countenance such rubbish.

It reflects not science, but what Spencer has sunk to.

"Spencer's model is too simple, excluding important factors like ocean dynamics and treats cloud feedbacks as forcings. A subsequent study by Dessler (2011) found that Spencer's paper was not a test of climate sensitivity or feedbacks, and his assumptions do not match empirical observational data. "

Roy Spencer's paper on climate sensitivity

Originally Posted by Agnotologist

Once again, Earthling, you should take more care with your sources. The site is run and written by one with a Masters in engineering who proudly informs the dense that he is not a scientist but is better qualified to comment than 99.9% of people.

The study is by a 'creationist' and an ally and, therefore, not credible. It has been thoroughly dissected by actual climate scientists and shown to be the shoddy pretext that it is.

And, if I recall correctly, (I will not waste the time checking) it was published in a 'Vanity" publication; a publication that invites submissions and allows the submitters to choose reviewers. Published there because no reputable publication will countenance such rubbish.

It reflects not science, but what Spencer has sunk to.

"Spencer's model is too simple, excluding important factors like ocean dynamics and treats cloud feedbacks as forcings. A subsequent study by Dessler (2011) found that Spencer's paper was not a test of climate sensitivity or feedbacks, and his assumptions do not match empirical observational data. "

Roy Spencer's paper on climate sensitivity

Earthling's track record diminishes by the day ....

.... a post from an Indian quack doctor and politician
.... a post from American Thinker claiming a certain dead scientist was "revolting". She was misquoted and the whole thing was a fabrication.
.... and now this!

What next?

From what I read on the (manufactured cry for help) Denial of Science and History thread, the thread author doesn't have much of a track record on this forum worth consideration.

Roy W. Spencer received his Ph.D. in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Before becoming a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2001, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming.

Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil.


I wonder how close his detractors here at Politics.ie come to his standard of excellence.

And Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery in WWI. Alexander studied under Aristotle. Do you want a long list of those with qualification of some sort whose lives were not exactly exemplary?

What has Spencer's bio to do with his distortions of science? Singer, Lindzen, Idso and more all were scientists with backgrounds and who have gone rogue.