Steve has received yet another note about the vulnerability of our software from the webhost and somehow we are being used as a spam relay of some kind. So I’m going to update the software after first making sure I’ve got a good backup or three.
So if CA disappears or looks peculiar, try not to fret. It will be back shortly. I will also be experimentally changing the look of the blog for future development reasons.
Update: I’m going to have to cut access to the database for a few seconds and stop all plug-ins. This will mean either a) it looks like we’ve gone off air and b) we’re under attack by gremlins. Neither will be true (this time anyway)
Climate Audit 
183 Comments
nice look…
Hey, that looks terrific, John A. Suggestions for prettying up the banner are welcome from anyone.
Biggest problems with this look is that having two sidebars reduces the area of the screen in the middle and thus of how wide graphs can be. Also the recent messages need to be redone to match the old style so we can see what the new messages are about.
Is the Recent Posts sidebar necessary?
Hopefully nobody is being sarcastic…I regard the current theme as a work in progress so if anyone does have constructive suggestions as to the look, size of fonts, size of sidebars etc then let me know.
Type is too small for me. Can you bump it up a bit? You’ll still have plenty of screen in the middle for messages.
I really like the new look. It’s neater. I’m glad to see the recent comments just popped back into existence.
My suggestion about the look is to make the top banner an image. Take a photo you think is nice and somehow representative of the climate (picture of the earth is probably too cliche) and stick “Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre” over the top in a nice font. It’s strictly unnecessary but would jazz things up a bit.
I can give you a nice photo of some clouds if you think that would be appropriate 🙂
If you do increase the font size, please make it an option, I much prefer this and it’s consistent now with the size of the font on most other web pages for me.
John are you sure you can’t use your browser to increase the font size? In firefox it’s control-plus (might have to hold shift down unless you’re using the + on the keypad). In IE for some reason its text size controls have no effect (probably because the main font is sized explicitly…).
Perhaps if John can make the font size non-explicit (i.e. relative) IE will be able to change it.
I’ve just realised that the comments have no numbers, so it’s going to be difficult to follow conversations. I will fix this tomorrow morning (it’s 11:38pm and I’m tired)
I’ve increased the number of recent comments back to what it should be.
John G Bell: The solutions are either a) get a stronger pair of glasses or b) a much bigger monitor or c) I’ll increase the font sizes by a notch tomorrow
Nicholas:
Since the width of the blog is flexible, then I’d like to know how to put in an image for the header that is similarly flexible – perhaps something that goes transparent (and therefore to the background colour) to the right?
All: if there’s something I’ve missed let me know here.
Steve: The adhesive plug-in does not work with this version. I’ll find a replacement tomorrow
The new look is nice. As my kids say, “cool”.
I wonder if the Recent Posts sidebar could be present only on the main page, and disappear when one looks at individual articles.
A person may increase the font size by holding down on the control key and rolling the mouse wheel back and forth. Also try holding down on the control key and tapping the + or – key.
John: What I would do is, get an image which is adequately large for any screen (say 3000 pixels wide), with the logo on the left, so you can see it even on small screens (say within the first 640 pixels).
Then, put an empty DIV up there and use that as the background image. The browser will cut it off on the right edge without changing the width of the page (I think).
There are post numbers, I see them, they’re to the right of the commenter’s name and comment date.
By the way, I clicked on a recent comment on the sidebar, which took me to this URL. But even after refreshing several times all I get is a blank page:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=867#comment-66801
Yes I noticed the comment numbers after I submitted the post.
I still can’t work out why the comment field you type in is so narrow. It’s not in the comments.php and its not affected by a “textarea” size in the stylesheet.
I’ll try tomorrow.
Hmm I see a textarea with cols=”100%”. I don’t know who inserted that attribute but I don’t think that makes any sense, cols is meant to be a character count I think?
You want “textarea#comment{width:100%}” in the style sheet I think. If that isn’t working I’m stumped too. Perhaps some JavaScript is resizing it later? (unlikely.) Perhaps its container is not full width? (can’t see one.)
How about a green eye-shade?
Font size is fine. Comment numbering could be reduced to half its current size and still be readable. I don’t have any problem with the two side panels.
Bald guy sitting at a old steel desk with a large ledger using an adding machine that looks like this. Throw in a slide rule for good measure.
Link to Road Map page brings up a blank page with only background on it”¢’¬?no text, frames, scroll bars, etc.
John A.
Anything that improves stability is welcome.
re: #18
And the guy’s looking out a window with his hand pushing back the curtain. And in the window is a series of scenes of varying climate, just like in the moving ads. One time there’s a glacier out the window, one time a hula dancer still another a pine forest.
This tiny window for typing the comments doesn’t cut it. Also, the gray type under the names and over this box is very hard to read.
All forward progress involves adjustments … overall, good change, John.
w.
I like the new look, too. Spare, but attractive, and very clean looking. People always go for image over substance, and so I figure, what with a more analytical look, that Steve M.’s work will be more credibly received, now. Good job, John. 🙂
But like Willis, I’d prefer to work in a larger typing window.
Hehe.
OK, I realize these are pretty boring, but I think they’re still better than plain text:
http://x256.org/~hb/ClimateAuditBanner.html
The second one includes some eeevil chimneys (an old one and a new one) which seem appropriate. They were part of the original picture with clouds, so I just cropped them out 🙂
Larger font would be good. The old blog had lots of white space. I enjoyed that.
A sensical color scheme would be nice. The yellow is too dim for the deep blue bars you have everywhere. The bars are gradient/two tone while the banner is not.
In the banner, how about incorporating this cartoon graphic:
🙂
Nice look. Nice banners, too, Nicholas.
JP, Nice trick with the mouse wheel. That one was new to me. Thanks.
Tree rings. Ya gotta have tree rings http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r98/chrislag/redgum.jpg
John A,
I think it is slick and already more navigable than the old one.
If you could fade the poster details into the post, or something that makes it more obvious that the post refers to the name/date/time/post # above (even though the “… says:” should make it obvious enough), that may help. Although, don’t take my word for it. Clicking on my url above will prove that I have no clue about about webpage design.
Also, I have to admit to liking the old system of poster details coming after the post; it was like a nice little surprise to find out who was behind the especially long posts.
As for banners, I suggest a modified version of something from here.
Something I have noticed: I’m using Firefox 2.0 and scrolling this page is a lot slower than scrolling the old ClimateAudit site, and slower than most other web sites I visit. It must be something about the layout or CSS. I’m even finding typing in the comment box slow (presumably because it’s updating the preview).
IE6 does not seem as bad, but the formatting looks a bit wrong in IE6 (e.g. the right hand bar overlaps with the main column a little).
I know it may not be easy to figure out what’s causing the slowness – perhaps some JavaScript? – and I can live with it, but it’s a tad annoying.
Ah, I just noticed there’s a very subtle background image, which doesn’t scroll with the page. I hardly ever see it because usually it’s covered with text and sidebars 🙂
I bet that’s the reason for the slowness. If you could detect Firefox and disable it, just using a plain gray instead, that would improve performance. Personally I’d rather have fast scrolling than a textured background. Or alternatively, leave the background but let it scroll with the page if one is using FF.
Thanks.
Purty…
BTW, I use FF2.0 and it scrolls just fine.
But I agree that going simple with backgrounds is usually best…
WOW — we now have a working search engine for this board!
Count me as an enthusiastic supporter of this update.
re #31 Nicholas
1. I can turn off the background image on the page. I don’t think it adds anything anyway.
2. I like your design for the banner but can you reproduce the top one without the words on it?
Nice fresh appearance! Looks and feels much better. The Hawthorne effect is alive and well today 🙂
1. The quick link to “Road Map” is gone. (The place where I would have posted this.)
2. We used to be able to get exact page and comment numbers in url by moving cursor over the comment date. Can’t do that any more.
Can we get these features back?
Re #37
Yes I know, I’m trying to model a solution since there are a few (why? why?) articles which do not show up.
The Road Map is one of them.
John A:
Sure, I uploaded it to the same URL. I also chopped the smoke stacks out of the second one and uploaded it without text, in case you liked those clouds better. I stuck in some text over the top, but it’s HTML/CSS, not part of the image. Here’s the URL again:
Banner
Scrolling and preview does appear to be somewhat faster without the background, but it’s still not super-fast. I wonder what’s causing it. Oh well, if you want to turn the background back on that’s fine, obviously something else is the culprit. I wonder what…
bender, the exact page and comment number are available under the big comment number on the right side of the page.
w.
I find the new look a definite improvement. Good job.
As others have mentioned, the reply box would be more comfortable to use if it was wider.
I would suggest the calender linking posts by date be moved to near the top of the side-bar. Labeling it something informative to new viewers, like “Author posts by date”. Follow that with “Recent comments”. The “Recent posts” section seems redundant and could be removed. The two side-bars could then be combined. That would leave more area for graphs. Right now there is a lot of screen area left unused where there is no side-bar.
Also, limiting the main page posts to the last seven days or posts would allow quicker page loading for those on low bandwidth connections. Steve may also save a modest sum on bandwidth usage.
Holey Moley
You totally confused me with the new layout.
Great!
now where the hell did I write that………
OK, I’ve reshuffle the sidebar widgets.
Q: The comment textarea is set to 100% and still won’t grow any wider (although perversely it will grow deeper). Can anyone suggest a solution?
I noticed that your google search includes all of the internet. Isn’t a climateaudit.org search what you really want?
If that is the case you’ll have to modify the string you send to google and maybe change the button text to “Site search”. I believe the correct string to send to google would then be similar to this.
User inputs this string. “steve mcintyre” +Hurricane
You send this string to google.
site:www.climateaudit.org “steve mcintyre” +Hurricane
This will return 1160 results on the site rather than 16200 results on the net.
I have a site search button in my Opera browser as an extra add-in. Very convenient. It will search the site of any page I am viewing.
When doing the search I mentioned above, I see my browser has this text in the address bar after getting the results.
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.climateaudit.org+%22steve%20mcintyre%22%20%20Hurricane&sourceid=opera
It may be the string you send google would have to be modified to something like that. I’m not really familiar with the correct format to send.
John A, this is cool, thank you.
A nit : the Spam Karma bar below the comment box seems to be fixed length. On a short post like the ‘Multiproxy pdfs’ at the top left of the page, the bar hides itself underneath the left hand column.
Comment textarea : Doing a view source shows the text area with the attributes :
cols=”100%” rows=”15″
The textarea is 15+1 lines high. Does this imply that cols=”100%” is being read as cols=”1″, and that what you need is to set a a columnwidth attribute ?
(P.S. – totally outside my area of competence here, so apologies if this is silly.)
Re #44, Bob K
This is not so for me – it’s doing a Climateaudit only search, which is a great improvement.
I’m on Firefox 2.0 – is this a browser specific thing ?
Also Bob’s link in #45 is extending out into the right hand column – Firefox doesn’t seem to care, but is this going to cause problems for IE ?
Should the “Favorite posts” be placed somewhat higher in the side-bar for newbies to notice?
Would one side-bar widen the textarea? Might be stunting the width because of two bars.
Re #34, McCall, you say:
You can search any site directly from google. To search just this site, for example, include the statement “site:climateaudit.org” in your search along with the search terms, and it will search just climateaudit.
w.
I get the feeling I’m becoming a pest about modifications. So don’t feel bad about ignoring me. I’m sure it’s a lot of work.
Just wondering about searching. If a more unique string preceeded the author’s name in postings, such as “Author: John A”, might distinguish it from a comment and return fewer results. “by John A” would return a lot. I believe the word “by” is ignored by google.
John A: I already suggested using CSS, and when I tested it by saving this page and editing the HTML, it worked. All I did was add:
STYLE=”width: 100%”
as an attribute to the text area.
Originally I recommended doing it via the style sheet (something like “textarea#comment{width: 100%}”) but if you can edit the HTML, the above is the simplest.
P.S. I think a simple WIDTH=100% attribute would also work, but I tend to stick with CSS these days for such things because it’s somewhat more flexible (e.g. you can use em/en coordinates).
fFreddy,
Re: 47
Yeah. Google is also working fine for me now. Maybe I had a glitch or John fixed it while I was posting. The long link you mentioned wraps fine within the comment area in my Opera browser.
Fixed the comment area. That’s one crossed off, 99 to go…
John, while you are at it, there’s a problem with the “link” button. Here’s a sample link, without the “greater than/less than” symbols.
a href=”http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=907#comment-67137″
The problem is that with that format, the rest of the text after the link doesn’t show up in the preview below. To fix this, all that is needed is a space after the “=” sign, viz:
a href= “http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=907#comment-67137”
I’m getting bored with having to go back each time and add the space just so I can read the rest of the preview. Any chance of getting that fixed?
w.
PS – the change in the comments box is superb.
Test link to Google this is a test
Update: Sorry Willis I can’t reproduce the fault. Here’s the above sentence in html format with square brackets substituted@
[p][a rel=”nofollow” xhref=”http://www.google.com”]Test link to Google[/a] this is a test[/p]
Willis, which browser are you using ?
Note to all : it would probably be helpful to John to specify this along with any glitch reports.
I like the banner. I would move the “by Steve McIntyre” down a bit, or perhaps both text items, I think it would be more pleasing, but I think it looks OK as it is. You don’t have to center them, it’s just my instinct, but everyone likes different arrangements.
It’s kind of relaxing… maybe it will calm flame wars down a bit 😉
John, is this a different typeface ? If so, I preferred the old one – my eyes are doing the shimmy a bit…
Comment category : Pathetic pleading …
You might consider validating the pages using the W3C Markup Validation Service here.
Might save some work when hunting down bugs not generated by all browsers.
I just did this page, and the only errors it showed are related to the “Realclimate on O&B” link in the side bar. The ampersand isn’t encoded properly. Probably propagated from the original post title. Also, one in John’s google test comment.
There are a couple more errors on the main page. They don’t affect my browser display, but may affect some.
In addition to Road Map, my all time favourite, More on MBH Confidence Intervals http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=647 is missing. (I’ll bet my last loonie that AD1000 residuals are obtained by using sparse NH temperature as reference (..just like AD1820 residuals..) )
It looks great in IE7.
In the Leave a Reply area, you have the following:
You can use these tags:
Oops, that is not what they look like on the site.
In Firefox 1.5.0.8, the Recent Comments column is narrower and the font is smaller than in IE7.
John, I’m using Safari on a Mac, OSX 10.4.8. The problem is the lack of a space betweeh the “a href=” and the following URL. It’s a minor flaw.
w.
I really like the new look (I’m using Firefox V1.5.0.7, Linux version), with one exception: the numbers along the right indicating post numbers seem to be 4x as tall as the post text! 2x would be plenty, and would result in a less excessive amount of blank space vertically between posts.
I’ve also just noticed that there is apparently a ledger-style faintly-darker background on alternate posts to help distinguish them. This is an excellent idea, but the current level of shading is too light–it’s essentially indistinguishable from the standard background on my browser/monitor (syncmaster 205bw).
Thanks for your work on this!
the google search box is a bit too wide, it widens the rhs pane so it covers a bit of the central pane
(using IE6 SP2 on XP)
is imaging disabled?
(testing)
yup, no images
Looks fantastic. Much more readable.
Willis, there is no requirement in the standard for a space between the “a href=” and the following URL, although it should still work if there is.
I think the bug you have found might be in OSX 10.4.8 or it’s version of Safari – it works just fine on my Mac G4 Sawtooth running OSX 10.3.9 using Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6).
For example, using this HTML code fragment:
<a href=”http://www.google.com”>Test link to Google</a>
The result is:
Test link to Google
However while writing this I found something else – it seems that when using CODE tags the software resolves the URL into a link instead of displaying the full code as written:
Test link to Google
So I had to escape the tags display them in text form as follows:
remove the space from: & lt; to get <
remove the space from: & gt; to get >
BTW, I like the new page design – looks great!
I’m not sure if I made the problem clear. The link still works, and everything looks perfect, when it is actually posted.
The problem is that it does not display properly in the preview at the bottom of the page. Without the additional space, the preview is cut off at the point of the link.
I may only come up with safari on the mac, I don’t have a way to test that.
Thanks for a great rebuild on the site. I assume that LaTex still works, so I can do
.
w.
Preview is working properly on my Mac, however you should note that Preview is a live HTML parser, so whatever you are writing will be cut off in preview after you enter < until either you enter the next > or you make a minor HTML error that confuses the parser such as including a space like this: <a href= “http://…
This is not a bug – it is a feature that enables the software to correctly display what you write as you write it, and until you enter > everything beyond < is in HTML terms part of the content of the tag you are writing so should not be displayed.
Do not be concerned that all those paragraphs of text beyond what you are working on are not visible in Preview for the moment, they will reappear like magic the moment you enter > because you have told the software where the bit you are working on ends.
If on the other hand Preview does not show the remaining text after you have entered > (assuming your HTML is correct) then yes you have indeed identified a bug and it is probably in your OS or browser because it seems to be working OK for most of us.
Carl, thanks for the info. It is after the whole text is entered. It must be some combination of my browser (Safari 2.0.4) and my OS (10.4.8) that’s doing it. No problem, I’ve at least finally figured out how to fix it.
I note that the “less than” symbol didn’t cut your post off … maybe that’s fixed … I’ll try it:
x
Nope, didn’t work. Did you enter the “less than” symbol using LaTex?
w.
You can enter a < in HTML like this:
<
Similarly, > is:
>
And & is:
&
It’s easy to remember, lt = Less Than, gt = Greater Than, amp = Ampersand
For more information search the web for “html entities”.
re: 44 — the internal CA google field works (default searches CA); and that’s why I made comment 34.
re: 49 — yes that’s true, and that was a work-around for the never-found-squat internal engine CA used to have. The rarity of that engine was when it actually found something.
Willis, I used the HTML escape codes as illustrated by Nicholas.
I can also reproduce what you seem to be saying if I enter a link as:
<a href=”http://www.some_url.com>
-which if you look carefully is missing the required ” before >
This link should be entered as:
<a href=”http://www.some_url.com”>
– which restores whatever follows the link on the page – the missing ” character means the parser thinks all following the link is still part of the url.
Thanks, guys. Always more to learn.
w.
Leave a Reply text box fills the center pane. Good job.
The bug remaining problem is something I’ve had to log on the WordPress Support Forums here. If anyone has any clue about how to fix it, please let me know. My theory is its something to do with indexes (or indices for the pedantic), but I’m open to suggestions. This affects only a few pages but Steve has noticed a few and another commenter has noted another one that’s not working.
Re #81: It’s supposed to be that wide, because I thought “Why not?”
Re #82, John A
What do the disappearing posts have in common ?
Very large – or small – number of comments ? Some aspect of date ? Images in the post/comments ?
Re #83
Nothing at all. The curious thing is that you can change the postID in the mySQL database and it will work correctly, and when you change it back again (or even blank the words and put in others) the Post preview shows nothing and the expanded page is a blank. If you move the comments temporarily to another place it doesn’t make a difference.
There’s nothing IN the post that causes the problem. There’s a linkage or indexing problem somewhere that is stopping a few pages from working.
Incidentally, I have a copy of CA on another server and there’s nothing wrong with any of the articles.
Looks good. Move Over, Warmers.
Hey it looks good around here! Nice job!
FYI Steve and JohnA, this was posted on another blog I read that is also popular (and thinks out of the box compared to mainstream):
I wonder if the PC computer geek types are creating scripts attacking blogs that allow thinking “out of the box” and sending these robots in to shut them down?
As the MBH Confidence post is off-line, I’ll write here. Here you go, a link to my one-dollar reconstruction:
http://www.geocities.com/uc_edit/MBH99/mbh99.html
Not exact replication of MBH99, put much less effort, just INVR+CVM. Skipping the PCA saves time and money. I’m quite sure that, using MBH99-style consistency checks, it is even better than the original. And the code will be available (soon) 🙂
Update: Google Search has been upgraded to -> “More Useful” and (Experimental) AdSense has been added (for reasons I’ll explain shortly).
Cannot get to Roadmap, but had to post this gem somewhere,
“The Grim Reaper of global warming is now clearly killing polar bear cubs,” said Deborah Williams, president of Alaska Conservation Solutions, an Anchorage-based group aimed at halting climate change. “This study should be interpreted as a cry from the North to reduce greenhouse gases.”
ANY FURTHER COMMENT WOULD BE SUPERFLUOUS
The google search bar doesn’t cover the central pane anymore, thanks.
Allthough the preview looked ok, image linking <img src=”img_url”> still doesn’t work.
< img src=”img_url” >
Hans, did you put a space + / between the ” and the > at the end?
This gives a good preview:
<img src=”http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/labrijnkoeppen.gif”>
testing space before > (doesn’t give a proper preview):
^^^^ and doesn’t give an image as well, what’s wrong?
Well I see you now have some advertisements from Google. At least they seem to have some relevence to the site. So how does it work? Does Steve get some money or whatever for every click on the advertisers? I’ve heard there can be some problems with that sort of plan where people cheat by having bots of some sort or other go in and click their advertisers just to get revenue.
Hans, you’ve not closed the html properly. There’s supposed to be a “/” after the space and before the >
Thus you get:
A closing “/” ? That’s not standard html syntax.
try:
Ah, I see you are using xhtml now !
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_img.asp
This one doesn’t preview though.
Re: #97
The answer is strictly speaking, Steve is not allowed to click the adverts. In practice, Google would allow self-clicking as long as it was for genuine interest and sporadic and seldom. Obviously, people clicking their own adverts is a) futile and b) fraudulent.
The reasoning is straightforward. This weblog costs money to host, which comes straight out of Steve’s savings. Unlike RealClimate, there is no shadowy foundation providing the hosting and the funding. I don’t get anything from it either, but I don’t mind that – it’s more of a pleasure to learn new stuff than anything.
Therefore, I suggested to Steve that he allow some Adsense advertising to help defray the cost of webhosting and provide him with a little compensation for the efforts he has made in his inquiries into climate science. It’s not going to be a lot, and I would encourage people to use the Google ads properly, ie if there is a link of genuine interest (and I saw a link to an interesting NY Times article on there today) then please click the link.
The more click revenue that Steve garners this way, the longer he will be able to continue his research, which is a good thing isn’t it?
Re: #99
Yes, its xhtml which means that it’s strict about properly closing tags.
this one does preview
this one doesn’t
^%$#^^@!
The CSS:
background-attachment: fixed;
Is what makes the page slow in firefox – using the web-developer CSS editor (a plugin to firefox) to remove this, makes the page fast and good.
Regards Kim.
Guys, when you want to display < and > don’t forget the semi-colon at the end! On the preview it seems to work without it, but when you submit the page they don’t display properly. Let’s do a little test:
< <
< <
> >
> >
They both look correct here… I’ll submit this comment.
And yeah, in XHTML you either need balanced tags (<em> stuff </em>) or self-closing tags (<img … />). It doesn’t seem to hurt the browser to close the tags when using regular HTML anyway, so you might as well do it all the time, I think. Although, perhaps doing so means you’re not adhering to regular HTML standard for non-XHTML, I don’t know.
Where is the sticky road map topic?
Am I the only one having difficulties posting images?
Thinking about the whole AGW debate/discussion. What I see is an incredibly polarised situation. On the one hand we have those concerned about AGW (the “alarmists” or “scaremongers”) and on the other we have the sceptics (“denialists”). Many of us confess that we don’t really know one way or the other, and look to scientists, following the scientific method, to demonstrate to us the true position.
Most commentary that I see is either pro or against the AGW hypothesis. Maybe somebody here can help me, but I have yet to see a balanced, scientific paper that sets down the main propositions of the AGW hypothesis, and then sets out the case for the concerned, and the case for the sceptics. In each case with references to the main sources. Then, after review of the respective positions it would become clear what further work might be required to resolve the position.
I realise that this could be a very complex undertaking. However, there are no doubt many very able people out there that could take on this task and do a workmanlike job of it.
I have had a go at outlining the elements of the AGW hypothesis as I understand them, and present my lay understanding of the pro and counter positions for each.
Concerned Proposition 1: The Global Mean Temperature increased by 0.6 Deg C over the 20th Century.
Sceptic Position: The sources of this information refuse to release their data, workings and adjustments. How have they accounted for the changing sample of temperature recording stations eg closure of 30 Siberian stations since the collapse of the USSR? How have they accounted for the urban heat island effect? Can we trust their information if they refuse to follow accepted scientific practice and release their data etc.
Concerned Proposition 2: The 20th Century warming is unprecedented, being the worst for at least 1000 years, and maybe much longer.
Sceptic Position: There is ample evidence that 20th Century warming has not yet reached the levels of the Medieval Warm Period early in the millenium that was followed by the Little Ice Age. The current warming is simply a natural cycle coming out of a cool period.
Concerned Proposition 3: CO2 levels in the atmosphere are increasing.
Nobody disputes that CO2 levels are increasing. However, concentrations are very low, currently at 380 ppm or one part in 2,632.
Concerned Proposition 4: There is a causal relationship between rising CO2 levels, and rising temperatures.
Sceptic Position: A correlation does not demonstrate causality. In fact, there is evidence that rising CO2 levels could result from rising temperatures, since the capacity of the oceans to hold CO2 decreases as the oceans warm with the result that the oceans act as a source of CO2.
Concerned Proposition 5: Rising CO2 levels are the dominant cause of global warming. Fluctuations in solar activity, and other causes such as increase in water vapour, are not relevant.
Sceptic Position: It is by no means demonstrated that rising CO2 levels are the main or even a significant cause of rising temperatures. It is far more likely that the sun is a major factor.
Concerned Proposition 6: Industrial activity is the main cause of rising CO2 levels.
Sceptic Position: It is not demonstrated that industrial activity is the main cause of rising CO2 levels. In fact , industrial emissions of CO2 may be a relatively small contribution to rising CO2 levels with natural sources overwhelming the anthropogenic emissions.
Concerned Proposition 7: If man continues to emit CO2 at current levels, it will lead to runaway temperature increases over the course of this century, and rising sea levels due to melting of the ice caps.
Sceptic Position: It is not demonstrated that man’s activities are the cause of rising CO2 levels. In fact, it is not demonstrated that rising CO2 levels are the cause of the observed temperature increase. If it is, it is not demonstrated that continued increases in CO2 levels will cause runaway increases in global temperatures.
Concerned Proposition 8: Reducing man-made CO2 emissions will slow down the increase in temperatures, and hopefully lead to a return to “normal” conditions.
Sceptic Position: There is very little evidence that reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions will have any impact on global warming whatsoever, since it is more likely that climate change is a result of natural fluctuations, particularly of solar activity.
Concerned Proposition 9: Reducing CO2 emissions can be done with relatively minor impact on economies.
Sceptical Position: In fact, the impacts of reducing coal fired power generation (the main CO2 emitter), could be very significant for many economies and peoples. And possibly all for nothing.
Concerned Proposition 10: AGW is the most serious threat facing mankind. Urgent attention must be given to the prolem and resources allocated.
Sceptic Position: As the above discussion shows, it is by no means certain that there is a problem. Other problems such as availability of clean water for the world’s population, addressing AIDS health concerns etc are far more important problems.
Concerned Proposition 11: There is a consensus of scientists that the Concerned expression of the AGW hypothethesis is correct.
Sceptic Position: Not conceded at all.
This is just an outline of my understanding of the key points. Each proposition is a matter for science to test and resolve. Many of the points cannot easily be resolved. For example, how can it be demonstrated that CO2 is the man cause of global warming?
Perhaps a paper has already been prepared along these lines. If so, I would be very interested in seeing it.
108, bruce: Yes, you have captured the situation fairly well. LOL.
109 nb: WE DON’T KNOW YET, but we sure don’t have any definitive science showing that there is a problem. It’s time for the “warmers” to engage the sceptics directly (like Martin Juckes is trying to do–sort of). Why all the games? (see the interaction between Steve M and Martin Juckes, e.g. ) Why don’t the dendroclimatolotists and the modeling community come here and ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTIONS? (They have not answered ONE question that I know of). How can you justify using bristlecone pines, when the “consensus” now says they are a bad proxy. How can they persist in a bastardization of the scientific method, by ad hoc picking the series that correspond to their beliefs, then adding series that show nothing, to come up with a hockey stick? How can they ignore all the statistical questions posed on this site? How can you support the hiding of data, the cherry picking and data snooping, the refusal to engage, the refusal to release computer code and data (despite clear guidance to do so), the poor statistics?? How can you support models that don’t have any uncertainties expressed and that can’t predict 2 months in advance or one month in the past? How can you justify prostituting the whole scientific method, when you claim to be a scientist? The farce of appealing to what is in the “published literature” and “concensus science” is over. Blogs will assume a much more important role in the future. It is simply unbelievable to me, a scientist.
Re 108
Bruce, you have laid out the extreme positions. Your tone is that the skeptics are only negative and oppose all findings. There are other viewpoints. And you do not mention the basic underlying science in your post.
Another point of view is:
1. Temperature as risen over the last 400 years…the instrument record.
2. CO2 has risen over the last 160 years…the industrial revolution.
3. CO2 traps certain wave lenghts in the infra red spectrum.
4. C02 is the cause of some of the increased temperature (maybe half?) of the last 160 years. If that is true, what is causing the other half?
5. CO2’s heat trapping abilty is not linear, so there will less CO2 induced warming in the future. There is a backdoor admission of the physics of CO2 by the “warmers” in their search for positive feedbacks.
6. The dire predictions of temperature change in the future are not based on physics, but on models. Models can (and do) work great on closed engineering problems, but do not do well in open complex chaotic systems such as economics,climate or football. And the forecasts are not year by year, but out 100 years.
One big problem in the debate is that it is no longer a science debate. It has become a debate about political power and money. And the egos of the people involed. I don’t think this blog is the right place to discuss the politics or the economics.
Robert.
Thanks for your comments. My main point is exactly in accord with yours. Lets find a way to get back to the science.
The issue, so far as I can see, is that propaganda has persuaded the electorate (at least here in Australia some 70% accept the AGW scenario, and the assertions that the science is settled. We need to find a way to get the real stroy into the mainstream media.
I am the first to acknowledge that I am a layman, and, as you point out, have missed subtleties (and even important points in the discussion). What I was trying to achieve was to learn whether someone more enlightened tha me has been able to put the scientific position on these matters on the record in a dispassionate, objective fashion.
My own position is essentially agnostic, since it is clear that there is much that isn’t known. We need more science to figure out what really is going on, if that is possible at all. However, my sympathies lie very much with the sceptiocs asking the hard questions, which is why I (and many others) frequent this site.
It may be that CA isn’t the right environment to advance this discussion. But can you please suggest another environment where the discussion is ongoing, and where these issues are addressed in a scientific manner.
Notwithstanding Steve McIntyre’s efforts to focus on the Hockey Stick and related issues, to me CA is a truly objective site, where scientific integrity is valued above all else.
PS it is pretty hard to write these longer posts with some of the text out of view to the right of the visible window!
Re 108,113
Bruce. Well stated.
In a perfect world it would be the function of the IPCC to act as judge and jury on these matters, which I assume was its brief. Instead it has decided to act as prosecuting counsel.
BTW I always type up my longer posts in Notepad then copy the whole thing into the posting window afterwards. (I think you need to have Word wrap switched off.) It also guards against losing all you have written due to network stuff-ups.
JR
Now wait a minute folks. I don’t think Bruce’s portrayal of the skeptic position is correct at all. I don’t have time this morning to go through all of them, but I’ll start with the first one and then go further later.
Now actually the reasoned skeptic position subsumes the “concerned” position. Except that I usually see it as .7 deg C claimed, not .6 deg C. And the warmers manage to somehow break it into two parts, one all natural variation (about first half of 20th century) and one all human activity. The reason for the questioning as presented in Bruce’s skeptic position 1 is that we need to tweak the actual value by consideing UHI, etc. and we need to quantify the natural processes to see if the AGW is actually more than the about .2 C increase which pure CO2 greenhouse effect would predict.
More later I hope.
Bruce, you are not fairly summarizing the AGW position. For example, the attribution of warming to increased CO2 is not simply from correlatino analysis, but also from physics arguments. Now I’ve looked at the physics issues in some detail and, in order to go from the fact that CO2 absorbs infrared to an estimate of 1.5-4.5 deg C, you have to invoke a variety of parameterizations and feedbacks. But whatever the merits or lack of merit of each step in the argument, it is not simply correlation. Having said that, many attribution arguments are based on regression.
Robert in #112 is not being fair to computer models of football matches. The football models far outperform the GCMs.
Agreed. (I am using IE6.)
Agreed. Because there’s a big difference between the average skeptic vs. the informed skeptic. Just as there is a big difference between the average vs informed AAGW proponent. Outlining the informed positions gets you a lot closer to understanding where the material differences lie. But I’ll wait for DD’s clarifications before commenting further.
#116, Steve
I totally agree with you on this one which is why I’ve recommended that we have a discussion on the physics i.e. quantum mechanics that determines the radiative absortion properties of atmospheric gases like water vapour and CO2. This is the only way that we will be able to show why the climate models are not based on sound science but instead are deliberately tuned to produce alarmist predictions. It looks like Martin is not going to take me up on this offer. Instead he’d rather say that ‘the basic physics is not well understood’ by visitors to this blog. Little does he know that some of his colleagues at RAL are former associates of mine. For some reason, he seems reluctant to engage them in the global warming debate. As Martin doesn’t appear want to answer my question, can I ask you Steve, why do you think that an atmospheric scientist who is head of the Atmospheric Science Group at RAL is conducting paleoclimatology (specifically proxy temperature reconstruction) studies? If he was conducting climate model predictions I could understand that but not temperature reconstructions. As a UK tax payer, am I wrong to be questioning this?
My explanation is that Martin has been engaged to assist in re-inforcing the HS because he is a) a member of a very reputable scientific establishment (RAL) within the UK b) is an Oxford University maths grad and so would be expected to have good stats credentials c) is well funded by the NERC d) has Green credentials and so is unlikely to challenge the HT too much on their statistically methods.
You may also be interested to know that Martin like yourself and I is also a keen squash player. If these results are anything to go by then it looks like he’s quite a good squash player. None of us are quite in the same league as Jonathon Power but we live in hope. If there are any other keen squash fans on this blog who might be interested in Jonathon’s battles with England’s (well actually he’s Scottish) Peter Nicol here is a link to a web page that summarises the battles that have occurred between these two titans of squash.
KevinUK
#119. Kevin, imagine Juckes being a squash player. BTW I saw Jonathan Power today. He was playing tennis at my squash club.
re: #108
Here’s the rest of my responses to Bruce’s statements concerning the skeptic and warmer positions. My responces are headed by DED:
Concerned Proposition 1: The Global Mean Temperature increased by 0.6 Deg C over the 20th Century.
Sceptic Position: The sources of this information refuse to release their data, workings and adjustments. How have they accounted for the changing sample of temperature recording stations eg closure of 30 Siberian stations since the collapse of the USSR? How have they accounted for the urban heat island effect? Can we trust their information if they refuse to follow accepted scientific practice and release their data etc.
DED: responded to in the previous message.
Concerned Proposition 2: The 20th Century warming is unprecedented, being the worst for at least 1000 years, and maybe much longer.
Sceptic Position: There is ample evidence that 20th Century warming has not yet reached the levels of the Medieval Warm Period early in the millenium that was followed by the Little Ice Age. The current warming is simply a natural cycle coming out of a cool period.
DED: Close but no cigar. There is suggestive evidence that 20th Century warming hasn’t reach the levels of the MWP, but the fact is that we don’t have enough evidence to be certain either way. The Hockey Stick was an attempt to show CP2 but it was flawed both in the science and in the associated statistics. More research is needed.
Concerned Proposition 3: CO2 levels in the atmosphere are increasing.
[Skeptic Position] Nobody disputes that CO2 levels are increasing. However, concentrations are very low, currently at 380 ppm or one part in 2,632.
DED: This is one of the positions taken by those who haven’t really studied the subject. How low the actual level of CO2 is is meaningless unless you know how potent CO2 is in comparison the the other GHGs. One confusing thing might be that this position was used in Crickton’s novel, Climate of Fear. Where he compares the % of CO2 and of CO2 increase to the length of a football field. But the context there needs to be considered. It was presented as an argument that skeptics would present to a jury if a hypothetical lawsuit blaming AGW for sea-level rise was filed. I.e. it was intended to appeal to the untutored mind according to what Crickton imagines the AGW crowd would think the skeptic crowd would think. That’s pretty convoluted to propound as the position of the informed skeptic.
Concerned Proposition 4: There is a causal relationship between rising CO2 levels, and rising temperatures.
Sceptic Position: A correlation does not demonstrate causality. In fact, there is evidence that rising CO2 levels could result from rising temperatures, since the capacity of the oceans to hold CO2 decreases as the oceans warm with the result that the oceans act as a source of CO2.
DED: Here I must admit that in the past I’ve raised something like this as a point to be discussed. But I don’t place much stock in it being a valid position. And in my case I’ve presented the proposition that perhaps the small changes in CO2 concentration with temperature rise represent an initial rise and that if everything held steady there would continue to be a gradual rise in CO2 concentration. And that since it’s admitted that the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere is from Human Fossil Fuel Usage, the rise we actually see is at least partially due to the fact that we’re coming to the true equilibrium position from the opposite direction. But I’ve come to believe lately that if there is such a hysteresis effect it’s small.
Concerned Proposition 5: Rising CO2 levels are the dominant cause of global warming. Fluctuations in solar activity, and other causes such as increase in water vapour, are not relevant.
Sceptic Position: It is by no means demonstrated that rising CO2 levels are the main or even a significant cause of rising temperatures. It is far more likely that the sun is a major factor.
DED: Not too far from reality. Though to be more precise, the skeptic position is that it’s fairly easy to calculate the pure CO2 level temperature rise and it’s 1 deg C or less as I answered to your point 1 earlier. The higher figures touted by the IPCC are because of their assumption of H2O vapor positive feedbacks while ignoring/understating cloud formation negative feedbacks. You might want to find the threads here where it’s pointed out that all the known GCMs count cloud feedbacks as positive feedbacks. this is almost certainly not correct.
Concerned Proposition 6: Industrial activity is the main cause of rising CO2 levels.
Sceptic Position: It is not demonstrated that industrial activity is the main cause of rising CO2 levels. In fact , industrial emissions of CO2 may be a relatively small contribution to rising CO2 levels with natural sources overwhelming the anthropogenic emissions.
DED: Well there are skeptics who try to claim this, but you won’t find that position in what I consider the informed skeptics here. As somebody here recently said in this or another thread, he was convinced by evidence that’s been linked here. CO2 increases in the atmosphere are mostly and perhaps totally from human emissions.
Concerned Proposition 7: If man continues to emit CO2 at current levels, it will lead to runaway temperature increases over the course of this century, and rising sea levels due to melting of the ice caps.
Sceptic Position: It is not demonstrated that man’s activities are the cause of rising CO2 levels. In fact, it is not demonstrated that rising CO2 levels are the cause of the observed temperature increase. If it is, it is not demonstrated that continued increases in CO2 levels will cause runaway increases in global temperatures.
DED: You’re partially repeating yourself here. The informed skeptic position is that we do have human CO2 level increases but that there can be no runaway increase in global temperatures. Actually you’re being unfair to the “Concerned” position here since informed warmers readily admit there will be no runaway, just, they claim, an increase too large for comfort.
Concerned Proposition 8: Reducing man-made CO2 emissions will slow down the increase in temperatures, and hopefully lead to a return to “normal” conditions.
Sceptic Position: There is very little evidence that reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions will have any impact on global warming whatsoever, since it is more likely that climate change is a result of natural fluctuations, particularly of solar activity.
DED: This is too much a rehash of previous stuff. And I’d say that most warmers now claim that it’s too late for totally controlling CO2 release and want a combination of emission release decreases and adaptation to higher temperatures while skeptics believe that human CO2 releases are naturally going to decrease before long as cheap oil and natural gas is used up. And since they also believe that the temperature rise from a given amount of CO2 additions is much smaller than the AGW people do, they don’t think its worth doing anything but adapting to slightly higher temperatures in the short run.
Concerned Proposition 9: Reducing CO2 emissions can be done with relatively minor impact on economies.
Sceptical Position: In fact, the impacts of reducing coal fired power generation (the main CO2 emitter), could be very significant for many economies and peoples. And possibly all for nothing.
DED: Ok, this one I’ll agree you have right.
Concerned Proposition 10: AGW is the most serious threat facing mankind. Urgent attention must be given to the prolem and resources allocated.
Sceptic Position: As the above discussion shows, it is by no means certain that there is a problem. Other problems such as availability of clean water for the world’s population, addressing AIDS health concerns etc are far more important problems.
DED: Ditto.
Concerned Proposition 11: There is a consensus of scientists that the Concerned expression of the AGW hypothethesis is correct.
Sceptic Position: Not conceded at all.
Ditto again, though I think skeptics agree that those who at least pay lip service to AGW among scientists outnumber those who doubt it’s importance.
Well done, DED.
Dave, Re 121.
I do of course hear you. I am in no way asserting that I know it all. My main point is that the sceptics are not winning the propaganda battle, and that we need to put clear, objective and sound science out there.
So far, in all the comments, nobody has pointed to a simple, scuccinct and scientific paper that addresses these points. Note that I was asking for help and guidance re this exposition.
In fact though, Dave, some of your rejoinders seem to me to require further research to be demonstrated. In particular, I am interested in your evidence to support your assertion that there is a causal relationship between rising CO2 levels and global warming. Where is that established?
And (related I know) how can you demonstrate that it is NOT fluctuations in solar activity (for whatever reason) that is causing the observed warming?
Maybe I am missing something. I certainly would appreciate you pointing me to the science that proves these two points.
re: #123
The relationship is simply that CO2 absorbs longwave IR. The earth’s surface emits such IR and in the absence of CO2 this IR would escape directly to space. Instead it’s absorbed in certain frequency bands and the energy thermalized in the atmosphere. The atmosphere then emits IR and part of this reaches the earth’s surface. This makes the surface warmer than it would be without the CO2. This is the basic greenhouse effect. Now many of the CO2 bands are saturated within the mixed layer of the trophosphere, which means that adding additional CO2 wouldn’t have any effect. But there are some sidebands which aren’t saturated and so as additional CO2 is added it increases the total absorption of IR emitted by the surface. This incremental absorption leads to incremental warming of the surface. The physics of the process are pretty well known and it can be calculated given a set of laboratory measurements of the absorbance of CO2 at various frequencies. This has not perfectly been done, but it’s pretty close and tables are available.
Unlike the way the process is simplified for use in GCMs, it’s not hard to come up with figures which will let you calculate the amount of warming which should occur with a given amount of additional CO2. There are some details which can be discussed, but that warming of the surface should occur to some level is certain. I’ve never seen any post or paper from any skeptic which presents a theory on why it shouldn’t happen. Just don’t confuse this minor degree of warming which the huge amounts of warming which the proponents of AGW call for.
#123
scorce: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Oh crap this graph was supposed to come up for Bruce in #125:
try one more time:
Copy and paste this address for the graph :
I haven’t seen references to this Web site by the European Geophysical Union (EGU):
http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/cp/cp.html
The ‘cp’ means climate of the past. There are both dead-tree and online articles and especially online discussions of papers.
#128 Dan Hughes,
All the previous topics about Team Euro and Juckes refer to that web site.
SteveM is on the ball, as per usual. 🙂
welikerocks; it’s very clear that I wasn’t on the ball.
re: #125
Thanks for the link! One thing which gives me an idea is the point that a series of ice ages requires a land mass stretching from pole to pole and a continent over one of the poles to accumulate ice. We have that situation today, but it’s only been recently that the link between NA and SA came into being and it’s not very wide. If we someday see ourselves going back to an ice age, I wonder if we couldn’t short-circuit the process by using, say, underground nuclear explosions to sink part of Central America and then allowing the oceans to flow through the gap? (We could install gates afterward to reverse things if we decided it wasn’t working well, or the pro-skiing block gained political control.) I’d guess part of the puzzle would be what would the depth of the connection need to be? Does it require a flow of deep, cold water to prevent ice ages, or is a more surface process ok? And who would the winners and losers be, in terms of existing populated areas?
Of course I realize the ecologists who might read this post are probably wetting their pants at the thought of such sacrilege, but frankly I’m more interested in people than either bugs or even birds. I say we should be starting to do such research! After all, one of the theories bandied about by warmers is that too much CO2 release might tip us into the next ice age. Still I wonder, given the tepid reaction to Kyoto by so many countries, just how, say, Panama might react to a request that they disband the country, move everyone elsewhere and let the GW enthusiasts get rid of the tectonic constipation it’s been causing for the past million years or so? It’s all for the children, after all.
#131
You are welcome DED!
Funny how you remember things..when you said equilibrium position and football field I remembered that graph. Nothing to do with anything but father was born in West Virginia, almost heaven as the song goes, and he is an alumni pal with Gen Chuck Yeager whom he describes as “a real rascal “. My grandfather worked in a coal mine for a time and died young and my grandmother is still alive at 104yrs old!
#130 that’s ok, it shows you care about all the information available.
Unlike other people…well, just go read what Algore has to say. 😉
115:
Here’s and interesting article summary on UHI.
#120
Stephen McIntyre you name dropper you! I suspect that he’s also an excellent tennis player as well as a squash player. Steve do you think that peraps he posted on another blog recently that he saw the famous (hockey stick debuncker) Steve McIntyre at a racket club the other day? It would be nice to think (given his bad boy of squash image) that Jonathon is a AGW skeptic. I’d be most disappointed if he isn’t. Perhaps if he is, the next time you bump into him you could persuade him to join us in a five man team (the Skeptics) so that we could maybe challenge the Warmers (which would include Jucksey and Billy the Wiki) to a team match? Are there any other keen squash players on this blog who are up for this challenge?
KevinUK
nag nag
we can’t post images anymore.
Can’t post images? Must test this, sorry for the waste of bandwidth … Test 1
w.
No image … Test 2
w.
No image … Test 3
w.
HELP!!! NO IMAGES!!!
w.
told you so …
Willis and Hans, I think this blog runs on XML which requires a slightly different IMG tag to what you are used to with HTML.
It would therefore be in the form:
<img xsrc=”http://www.imageserver.com/animage.jpg” mce_src=”http://www.imageserver.com/animage.jpg” alt=”An Image” />
– note the white space and slash before closing the tag.
So to embed the image a bit further up this page the IMG tag would be:
<img xsrc=”http://i10.tinypic.com/2mw85de.gif” mce_src=”http://i10.tinypic.com/2mw85de.gif” alt=”An Interesting Image” />
– which should work OK (it’s showing in the Preview):
As the Roadmap thread appears to have vanished, I will continue my documentation of actuals Vs progs vis a vis NWS long leads.
October just south of the NH roaring 40s in the East Pacific appears to have been relatively normal, when all was said and done. It started cool and wet, then went warm and dry and ended cool and wet.
November thus far has been a mixed bag and warmish, probably will come in warmer than normal. Score one NWS. However …. the nature of this warmth is quite interesting. It took a while to dawn on me … the pattern is not unlike Halcyon Days …. quite abnormal for November (would fit right in during the latter half of December). The test of this will be what happens in early December.
If the heavens let loose during the 1st week of December and we get bitter cold, that will be a telling observation. We’ll see.
Um .. but does not show when posted ….
Try it again dropping the ‘alt’ bit and last space (It is showing in Preview):
Sorry about the waste of bandwidth … seems someone will have to let us know exactly how to embed images!
told you so.
It’s strange. I think it’s revoked the ability of ordinary plebs to post images.
I’ll have to look at it.
#141
As it appears to be displaying an image from another web site above then lets try this
KevinUK
#147
No that didn’t work so it looks as if staright HTML tags with perhaps some exceptions like the anchor tag are being filtered out. Not a bad thing on a publicly accessible forum/blog.
Now lets try CS’s suggestion in #141
KevinUK
#148
Here is the HTML for my last comment wen the page is viewed with ‘View Source’.
#147
No that didn’t work so it looks as if staright HTML tags with perhaps some exceptions like the anchor tag are being filtered out. Not a bad thing on a publicly accessible forum/blog.
Now lets try CS’s suggestion in #141
KevinUK
I’ll now save this as if I’m right then all the HTML will be filtered out except for the anchor tag.
KevinUK
#149
QED, its filtering out all HTML tags except the anchor tag. I don’t use WordPress but perhaps ther eis someway for the administrator to allow HTML snippets to be embeded. i.e an ‘Allow enbedded HTML’ or may be just an ‘Allow images’ option. Beware though as this could allow all sorts of Tom foolery to occur.
KevinUK
re: #150
An easy way to prevent that would be to have the spam filter automatically put messages with images into the queue to be inspected before posting. Might slow things up, but you don’t want the site being overrun with pictures anyway. But you could also have a list of trusted posters (Willis, Hans, etc.) which wouldn’t have to be inspected.
#151 DD
Thats a good idea but I doubt whether WordPress is that sophisticated. What some content management packages allow you to do though is to upload images first and then be able to link to them after they have been authorised by the webmaster/appointed moderator(s). Again I don’t know if WordPress can do this but its pretty standard practise for open-source CMS systems (PHPNuke, Mambo, Dotnetnuke etc) nowadays.
KevinUK
The search function returns RSS feeds. Any chance that could be changed John?
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHARLESTON SC
751 PM EST TUE NOV 21 2006
GAZ087-088-SCZ040-042-043-220200-
/O.EXP.KCHS.SN.Y.0001.000000T0000Z-061122T0100Z/
JENKINS-SCREVEN-ALLENDALE-HAMPTON-INLAND COLLETON-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…MILLEN…SYLVANIA…ALLENDALE…
HAMPTON…WALTERBORO
751 PM EST TUE NOV 21 2006
…SNOW ADVISORY WILL EXPIRE AT 8 PM EST THIS EVENING…
MODERATE TO OCCASIONALLY HEAVY SNOWS HAVE DIMINISHED ACROSS MUCH
OF INTERIOR SOUTHEAST SOUTH CAROLINA AND SOUTHEAST GEORGIA THIS
EVENING. REPORTS INDICATE THAT SNOW AMOUNTS OF 1 TO 2 INCHES FELL
ACROSS MANY AREAS IN JENKINS…SCREVEN…ALLENDALE…HAMPTON AND
NORTHWESTERN COLLETON COUNTIES SINCE 530 PM.
THE RISK FOR ADDITIONAL MEASURABLE SNOWFALL HAS ENDED…THUS THE
SNOW ADVISORY WILL BE ALLOWED TO EXPIRE. LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS
REPORT THAT MOST OF THE SNOW HAS MELTED ON AREA ROADWAYS…
HOWEVER MOTORISTS SHOULD STILL REMAIN ALERT FOR POSSIBLE PATCHES
OF BLACK ICE TONIGHT…ESPECIALLY ON BRIDGES…OVERPASSES AND
OTHER ELEVATED STRUCTURES
I am posting this without being logged in to see whether images are now allowed.
Re #154 There were snow flurries as far south as Orlando (Disney World), Florida yesterday. Another record.
Re #156
Link on the snow at Disney World. Snowflakes along the US Gulf Coast are rare and almost always a January-February event, not November. It’s weather, not climate, but interesting nevertheless.
test
Thanks, didn’t preview though.
I guess this thread serves now as the old “Road Map”. I haven’t been able to access
ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub
for a while. Is the site down or where is the stuff located nowadays (I’ve used different IP’s so I think the problem is not that I’ve been “blocked” or something)?
BTW, Jeans S, I think I can keep my loonie ? (comment #61)
UC, yes you can although even my English dictionary did not know what “loonie” is 🙂 (but wiki came to help)
If you have the following file (it has something to do with #61 😉 ), could you put it up to your page, please.
ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/MBH98/TREE/ITRDB/NOAMER/BACKTO_1000-FIXED/pc1-fixed.dat
#162
You got it, eh? (It’s been a long time since visiting Canada, but I still remember something :))
Don’t have it, and can’t access, anyone else?
John A or Steve, do you plan to resume Road Map for off-topic comments? Maybe call it Open Forum or The OK Corral or something like that.
The Road Map is in for repairs. I may be able to bring it back sans the comments, but that should be alright, shouldn’t it?
#162 Will this do ?
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/research/ONLINE-PREPRINTS/Millennium/DATA/PROXIES/
UC, thanks, that’s the right file! It is missing from:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/mann1999/proxies/
what I’ve been using.
RE #165 Sans comments is fine with me. There just needs to be a
place to park comments which don’t fit elsewhere. Thanks
Here’s an image (re: the post I made):
http://www.acoolerclimate.com/Articles/ResearchShowsPeopleActToUndoGlobalWarmingIf.html
Testing to see if I can post …
w.
I believe it’s Steve Sadlov who wagers that this year we will see one of those unusual ice bridges between Greenland and Iceland. That has happened only twice in the last 25 years.
How is Steve S. doing? Well, here is the current ice extent map for the water between Greenland and Iceland. the wiggly line in the upper right corner is the shore of Iceland while the line on the left is Greenland. A yellow area has ice coverage of about 50% while red areas are close to 100%.
(Note: there is an “expand” arrow in the lower right corner of the webpage, to make it easier to see the details.)
The yellow has expanded nicely towards Iceland for mid-November and I say that Steve has a fighting chance to win his wager. That would be quite a call.
Now, ice growth depends on weather patterns and it could be that the weather patterns which have favored Greenland ice growth could shift and ice growth sputter. That has happened this year near western Russia.
What most interesting about Steve’s observations is that a lot of the far north Atlantic is running colder than normal. Maybe the thermohaline circulation is no longer in overdrive, at least for the moment.
(Steve, if this was not your bet, and I’ve mixed up who posted, my apology.)
maximum winter ice extent – arctic.
Apparently in the 17th Century, Inuit made it all the way to northern Scotland following the extensive ice bridges.
The detailed discussion of the Courtney presentation at Stockholm has disappeared, can you put it back please?
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=820
and where is the road map?
RE: #171 – In fact the basis of my bet is indeed that the THC engine is now perhaps in lower gear. One oddity however, is that whereas Svalbard got iced in along its north coast about a month ago, since then the ice edge moved several miles to the north. But I doubt that it’s a thermal effect (it’s plenty cold there both air a water wise) but rather due to persistent east-southeasterly winds.
I had mentioned earlier about November to date reminding me of the Halcyon Days pattern we often have here late December. I had written that if the heavens unleash their fury next week, we might indeed be experiencing our normal early Winter weather early. Caveat emptor, YMMV, etc ….. in any case:
http://wwwa.accuweather.com/news-blogs.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&blog=yeager
So, it would appear that indeed, there is a good chance that these are Halcyon Days one month early and that we’ll be hit with real Winter weather next week. Even over the past couple of days, the inversion (totally typical for Halcyon Days) and tule (radiation) fog started breaking up and the nights become dry, cold and crisp. A possible portent of things soon to come.
Testing …
w.
RE #176
Looks like the 540 thickness line will drop almost as far south as Los Angeles, which means there may be enough cold air to see some snow flurries in the hills and low mountains of Southern California. I take it that would be unusual for the first week of December.
Dawson, a town in the Canadian Yukon, has been hovering around 40 below. It is expected to drop to about -45C (-49F) tonight. That is about 20C (36F) below normal. That big mound of cold air will eventually move south.
My company subscribes to several private (you pay ’em) weather services. You won’t see these on the internet. One has forecast that the 2006-2007 weather pattern in the US will be similar to the 1976-1977 pattern. The 76-77 pattern brought persistent ans sometimes record cold to the eastern half of North America. Frankly, I don’t have a lot of confidence in these private forecasters and I’ll be surprised to see a repeat of a 70s weather pattern, but we’ll see.
Testing image:
Carl, as a follower of Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclones, do you have any sources that describe how SH typhoon intensities were estimated prior to satellite data? I’ve tried the Australian BOM but made little progress, through they were quite polite and I think tried to help as best they could.
Thanks
My apologies for getting somewhat OT with weather stuff, but anyone in North America the weather story next weekend will probably be a big cold outbreak . Looks like a chunk of the Yukon air will head south. Too early to have confidence in this, though the major computer models seem to be coming into agreement.
If the (850mb) map holds true, there would be freezing weather from central Florida to the California desert. Southern Ontario would be near zero F. Lots of Great Lakes lake-effect snow. A bit early for all of this.
David, cold outbreaks came very early in the winter of 1976-77, which I’ve mentioned from personal experience in the past from memories of my car freezing up in the first part of December in Ottawa. Modern cars would be less cranky. I’m definitely not keen on 0 F in Toronto.
Now that I think about it, I suspect that a measurable portion of the recent increase in temperatures has been due to a reduction in the number of very cold snaps, rather than a prevalence of extreme warm events (notwithstanding the Euro summer of 2003). You see this in many plots where there are fewer downspikes in recent years.
David, you will find the complete historical BoM Tropical Cyclone Database here and the Corrections/Amendments info here.
The database is packed in a ~350 KB ZIP file that contains two plain text files, one being the complete database (cyclones_newformat.txt) from the 1906/7 season to the 2004/5 season, and the other containing the format information (cyclone_notes_new.txt) so you can find whatever information you want.
The format is that every record is made up of a single line of text containing 132 characters where the position in the line and the number of characters in the field determines what part of the data you might be looking at, and can be used to extract the info – a spreadsheet that can cope with 22500 rows of data is useful for setting up an easy way of extracting the info you want into columns that you can proceed to use whatever way you like.
Of particular interest to you may be the fields containing single character numeric or alphabetic codes defining how various factors were obtained, i.e satellite, radar, ship observations, aircraft, etc., and you should be able to find a way of evaluating these to get some of the answers you are looking for.
using phpbb you can use the
set to list literal text in fixed width font without reformattting. But that would essentially mean a change from a blog to a forum (which wouldn’t be such a bad idea).
http://www.phpbb.com/
example of a forum where images, code and latex can be posted:
http://www.wetenschapsforum.nl/