Ah yes, facts. I don't think they mean what you think they mean. Actually, the atmosphere doesn't hold heat as well as the oceans, which have been absorbing most of it. This means that global warming is actually much worse than initially estimated. http://www.realclimate.org/index.ph...t-ocean-heating-reveals-about-global-warming/
Well, skipper, I'm sure you think you're quite the man, eh? You have not said one thing that I don't already know, except of course when you lie. At least you can't run to that troll Dywyddyr to save you here. Again, citing the latest data from NOAA and NASA, Dr. David Whitehouse, an astrophysicist and academic advisor to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, said that the 2013 global surface-temperature records from both entities show the (quote) “pause” (not slowdown) in warming continues. Yet, that is in the fact of rising CO2 Levels in a chart from NASA can be found at http://climate.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/24_g-co2-l.jpg So even as so-called CO2 levels rise according to NASA, the same NASA scientists say that the temperature rises have actually "paused". Which means according to NASA, there is no problem. So I guess you are saying NASA is wrong?
So don't think you are clever for pointing that out to me. From my point of view you've been duped. I propose endless patience. You are quite the literalist and not given to flights of the imagination. If I have ever been unscientific or failed to give citations that's all the same to me. No, it doesn't, but if you look at the statement based on NASA data and the chart from NASA, an intelligent person could figure it out. Not that I'm accusing you of that.
Re-read the article. Whats wrong with the above? Alder and willow are VERY fast growing. And yet they are still, after 50 years, small trees. Additionally, he misleads by saying people thought.... potentially take centuries... My point is there hasnt been enough time for the coniferious trees to move into that area so one cannot conclude the colonization wont still occur in potentially centuries. You live in MN. Spend some time (as I have) wandering logged areas to watch what responds quickly and what takes more time. There are fire/blowdown areas in the BWCA where you can observe the same thing going on. Willow/alder/popular/birch always rapidly colonize cleared areas while the slower growing coniferous re-establish. Because their roots can lay dormant for many years below a canopy and below frozen ground. His article is misleading, leaving readers under the impression this is unprecedented when its not. Its normal. Then he most surely know about this too: http://www.livescience.com/39819-ancient-forest-thaws.html They are finding (not so old) forests all over the northern hemisphere; forests from this current interglacial. And it is well known previous interglacials (pre suv driving men) established forests far north of the current treeline. And as we can see, this current interglacial isnt over... yet...
They aren't fast growing in those places. They haven't reached tree height there in several thousand years, living and dying as ground cover. Now they are reaching it, in 50 or less, and the landscape is transformed. That means the climate has changed, significantly, recently. No, it hasn't been normal to have tree size willows in those places since the hypsithermal. That isn't a "cleared area", that's tundra that hasn't supported a tree since a very long time ago. So? His point is still meaningful: it looks like we are going to lose some tundra to tree cover a lot faster than anticipated, and the warming is changing the landscape rapidly. Furthermore, instead of the old pattern few thousand year wait for spruce migration, we are looking at a few decades for willow and alder growth - there is a certainty that the Arctic is rapidly warming, and a possibility that the boreal forest succession has been disrupted altogether. Sculptor, by now you have posted what, half a dozen meaningless little graphs you can't argue anything from except that things seem to be warmer now than they were a couple of hundred years ago. Statistics is confusing, sure, but there's eleven years in your picture there, and all you have to do draw the trend line from the last ten instead of the first and it's not dropping any more. Or you could draw a steep drop for the first six and a sharp continuing rise for the last five, which actually might be informative if the ninos and other known ocean patterns are considered. How hard is that to see?
Oh you mean the temperature record that started near the end of "the little ice age" and ran right up to and through a grand solar maximum. Oh OK (that record) Personally: I choose the paleoclimate record. And, ain't in the holocene. And, for the holocene ain't been recently.
I've asked several people who have raised this the same question and have yet to get a coherrent answer. Let's assume you're right and there actually is a pause. Why is it any more significant than the previous two in the temperature record? Equally to the point - why do you think it contradicts the hypothesis that increasing ppCO2 causes an trend in increasing temps to be superimposed on natural cycles?
How can any rational sighted person not see that the lines for global temperature and for carbon enrichment of the atmosphere have diverged? If you cannot call it "a pause", could we just call it "fred" and move on?
On the one hand this doesn't answer the question I asked, it avoids it - this pause is the third in the temperature record in the last 150 years (or the second, depending on how you count them I guess). Each time the pause has ended and the warming has resumed at what some might call an exaggerated rate. What makes you think this pause is going to behave any differently to the pauses already on the record? On the other hand, based on the temperature record for the last 150 years, and based on the understanding the anthropogenic global warming predicts a warming trend superimposed on top of the natural cycles, what rational sighted person doesn't expect that the temperatur record and the history of ppCO2 are going to diverge from time to time? Remember, although ppCO2 is increasing exponentially (or has done since we started measuring it) the prediction is that the forcing increases as \( ln( \frac{[CO_2]}{[CO_2_{ref}]} )\) so an exponential increase in ppCO2 gives rise to a linear increase in the amount of forcing.
Choose the Hadean period! Then you can claim that it is hundreds of degrees cooler today, and thus four degrees is no big deal. If you're going to be a denier, don't be timid - go big!
Hmmm. Actually, that might be false. It's based on times of quite warm summers in the Arctic, during the time of maximum astronomical heating (the break in the glaciation), such that permafrost could not form in some places now covered etc. But the matter of global year 'round average is sort of estimated, and we may have surpassed the hottest years of that time recently - despite being in an astronomical cooling phase and the anthropogenic warming only beginning to kick in. In any case, the rate and magnitude of the anthro warming is plain and on the table. The possible consequences - including whatever the probability is of temporary but catastrophic runaways of some significant duration (ten years, say) - will not go away based on the occurrence of warmer times in the past. They were never convergent - why would a continuation of the pattern of divergence and restoration be newly significant to you?
Yes, it is silly to cherry-pick a time period in an attempt to make your point; that was the purpose of my post. I am glad you see that.
Cherry picking the time since the little ice age ain't cherry picking though? "on record" derived from a couple hundred years is extreemly short sighted, and most likely misses most of what drives earth's climate.
We have recorded data from the past 150 years. That's a fact that is not amenable to clever cherrypicking. And based on the recorded data, we have been, on average, steadily warming as CO2 increases. The hottest year on record is, in fact, 2010.
