Curmudgeon

This solar material is not something I have spent a lot of study on. Are you are getting your information from “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”, For another take on this statement check out http://polesapart.com/files/5_lbc_review.pdf . In particular, they cover further work by Lockwood and his colleagues.

Response by author:

1. Points made in my article are supported by references from the peer reviewed literature (see list below).

2. Not every detail in the history of the atmosphere is known, but the main trends are elucidated by multiple proxy studies (C and O isotopes, plant pores (stomata), organic compounds, fossil soils etc). The state of knowedge is akin to that with Darwinian evolution or plate tectonics - established theories for which further evidence is continuously elalborated.

3. There is a fundamental difference between the CLIMATE and the WEATHER regionally and with time. The climate in each particular region over long periods (decades or longer) is defined by a range of variabilities in terms of temperatures, evaporation, rainfall, wind patterns, frequency of storms etc. The weather is a term referring to these variabilities on shorter time scales, i.e. a day or a week. Typically variations in the weather are far greater than variations in climate.

4. For example, the recent snow storms over NE USA and western Europe result from formation of large vapor-rich air masses over the warming Atlantic Ocean, colliding with masses of cold dry Arctic air. An increase in storminess as atmospheric energy levels rise has been projected by climate science over the last 30 years.

5. The article repeats some points made elsewhere - a reflection of the repeated responses climate scientists had to make over the last 5 years or so to about 20 standard long-discarded arguments made by those who do not accept: (1) the basic laws of physics and chemistry (mainly the Stefan-Bolzmann and Kirscher laws which govern atmospheric radiative forcing by greenhouse gases); (2) the paleoclimate evidence as defined by multiple proxies, and (3) direct field observations of climate change around the globe

A recent reference in this regard is: Glikson, A.Y., 2008. Milestones in the evolution of the atmosphere with reference to climate change. AJES 55, 25-39.http://www.zeroemissionnetwork.org/files/MILESTONES_19-6-07.pdf

Andrew Glikson
2 March, 2010

A good article, lost on many. Sometimes I think that this phoenomenon should have been named "climate de-stabilisation" rather than "global warming" which sounds a bit too cosy. Then maybe more people would understand how dangerous this is. Humanity is running an uncontrolled experiment with the atmosphere. Surely, less carbon pollution can only be a good thing? Less people would die of air pollution, for a start, if we cleaned up our act. Unless you have shares in petro-chemical companies, why exactly would you oppose the adoption of clean energy sources?
For myself, I care deeply about the numerous species which have existed on earth for millions of years, currently being threatened with extinction solely because of human activities on this planet. The threatening processes are all human-related: global warming, destruction of habitats (including deforestation) and the introduction of foreign species to new environments. If you take enough threads out of the web of life, the web will eventually collapse. We kid ourselves that we are somehow "separate" from nature, and yet we can't even digest our food properly without other living creatures (the bacteria we all carry within us).

andyone "For example, the recent snow storms over NE USA and western Europe result from formation of large vapor-rich air masses over the warming Atlantic Ocean, colliding with masses of cold dry Arctic air. An increase in storminess as atmospheric energy levels rise has been projected by climate science over the last 30 years."

So was that Climate or Weather .. you seem to be vague about it?

Are you having a bet each way?

Before the big snow storms in the northern hemisphere, the UK Met had predicted a "mild winter", so what happened there, and then even a week before the storms, still didn't see it coming, didn't see the second round either. (had they not heard of the doom predictions?)

no because it was WEATHER, not CLIMATE CHANGE!

You certainly have 20/20 hindsight don't you and then quickly roll the theory in sparkles to make it all fit in and then claim of course you knew that would happen.

The big storms in the US for instance are not becoming more frequent, but less frequent, but do go on predicting them, like Al Gore, we'll hold them up to ridicule you.

The "storminess" is not increasing - mind you other climate scientists are predicting less storms, so somewhere in climate science, are all sets of solutions - you guys crack me up.

Little wonder so may people are becoming skeptical of such tricky words and contrived data that everything supposedly sits on.

May be the science (physics) is sound, but not the resulting product when you use polluted data, which now we know through CRU is the way of climate science, make a "good set" of data, regardless of what's in the real world, then use that data to show .. whatever you like. Peer review by mates, and away you go - tenure!

Except the world is not co-operating, so you have to postdict (?) predict the past, as you do and claim a win for your science.

What a career path this is, I wonder that anyone would want to be a part of it.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLIMATE AND WEATHER

The time scale and the geographic extent is what distinguishes the WEATHER from the CLIMATE.

The North Atlantic snow storms, lasting from a few days to a couple of weeks, constitute extreme weather events.

The CLIMATE constitutes a longer term regional state of the atmosphere, reflected by the mean conditions and the extent of variability. However, the climate can change in the medium or longer term, as in the following examples:

1. The "Younger dryas" (12,900 - 11,700 years ago) - a period during which melting of the Greenland ice resulted in sharp cooling of the Northern Atlantic Ocean, leading to colder climate in North America and Western Europe.

2. The shift in climate zones toward the poles during the 2nd half of the 20th century, estimated as about 400 km, in Mexico, Mediterranean and Australia, results in lower precipitation and thus drier climate.

3. The increase in ocean and atmospheric tempratures recorded for the second part of the 20th century (NASA/GISS http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10104&page=0)
results in an increase in the intensity of extreme weather events, including storms (Webster, P.J., Holland, G.J., Curry, J.A., Chang, H.R., 2005. Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment, Science, 309, 1844–1846.)

4. Those who wish to criticize climate science and scientists ought to look first at authentic datasets (NASA, Hadley, NSIDC, CSIRO, BOM, Potsdam etc.) and see whether they can interpret these data in any other way than climate change.

5. Within limits CO2 rise benefits plants, i.e. in glass houses, but above these limit, i.e. above about 350 ppm, atmospheric CO2 rise results in elevated temprature, decrease precipitation, prolonged droughts and demise of vegetation, i.e. the southeast and southwest Australian eucalypt forests, the Amazon.

Andrew Glikson
3-3-2010

P.S.

The NASA/GISS land/ocean temperature website is at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

It allows users to plot maps of land and ocean temprature variations in most parts of the world relative to the period 1950 - 1981 or any other selected parameter.