Re: [asa] climate change severity

So we agree that it is getting warmer and given the strong evidence
correlating CO2 and temperatures, it seems that the case is already
quite strong from the start. There is a lot of supporting evidence and
most scientists have accepted the facts presented.
I am not sure where you are getting your information about the
temperature of the atmosphere remaining flat, so perhaps you could
share with us your sources? Perhaps once we can resolve your confusion
about the heating of the atmosphere we can pursue some of your other
'objections'. Is this about satellite measurements? I have seen global
warming deniers make a big deal of their failures to understand these
measurements.

Balloon temperatures
http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/Angell-Balloon.jpg

The satellite record
http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/UAH-MSU.jpg

<quote>For that reason, satellite data has been the last stronghold
for climate change critics who have pointed to flat temperatures,
found by the Huntsville researchers, as proof global warming isn't
real. They used that criticism to cast doubt on many climate change
measurements, from surface temperatures to ocean warming to computer
climate models.

But satellites have problems that make some observers skeptical of
their usefulness.

These satellites are "a very blunt probe for observing climate
change," said Graeme Stephens at Colorado State University. "It is
like looking for the SARS virus in a microscope that is totally out of
focus. You can see a little something, but that is all you can really
say."

The satellites weren't designed to find global warming, but for daily
weather forecasting.

They drift both up and down and side to side in their orbits over the
earth. There have been 10 different satellites; all measure
temperature slightly differently.

</quote>

http://www.mindfully.org/Air/2003/Global-Warming-9-Times10jun03.htm

For instance http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_warming
provide some useful data, as have others on this group.

One may ask that if one measurement technique shows a discrepancy with
other measurements techniques as well as with models then what should
one conclude?

Think about it...

Or

<quote>For years, skeptics of global warming have used satellite and
weather balloon data to argue that climate models were wrong and that
global warming isn't really happening.

Now, according to three new studies published in the journal Science,
it turns out those conclusions based on satellite and weather balloon
data were based on faulty analyses.

The atmosphere is indeed warming, not cooling as the data previously
showed.</quote>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8917093/

See http://www.ucar.edu/communications/newsreleases/2003/wigley2.html

<quote> In order to glean temperatures from the raw satellite data,
several adjustments and corrections must be made. Until now, only one
group, based at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), had
produced a complete set of global temperatures from the raw data.

For the new study, a group based at Remote Sensing Systems in Santa
Rosa, California, applied a revised set of corrections to the
satellite data. These corrections accounted for the effects of heating
on the radiation sensor itself—the first time this source of error had
been addressed fully, according to the authors—as well as new
adjustments for the drifting orbit of each satellite and other
factors.

The group found a warming trend of 0.16°F per decade in the layer
between about 1.5 and 7.5 miles high, compared to a trend of 0.02°F in
the previously published UAH analysis. Both estimates have a margin of
error of nearly 0.2°F (plus or minus). According to the authors, the
new results are a closer match with surface warming, as well as with
four computer-model simulations of 20th-century climate produced by
NCAR and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

As a further check on the new satellite data set, the team examined
regional patterns. Using a statistical technique, the group analyzed
the 20th-centuryhttp://mail.google.com/mail/ simulations and searched
for an underlying "fingerprint" of climate change. For instance, the
rates of warming in the satellite-monitored data vary by latitude from
north to south. The authors found that the overall fingerprint of
climate change in the models resembled this and other regional
patterns found in the new satellite data set. </quote>

See also http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Satellite_Temperatures_png
for a comparison of various temperature trends, including the
corrected satellite temperatures

<quote>It is important to know that the 5.2 version of Christy et
al.'s satellite temperature record contains a significant correction
over previous versions. In summer 2005, Mears and Wentz (2005)
discovered that the UAH processing algorithms were incorrectly
adjusting for diurnal variations, especially at low latitude.
Correcting for this problem raised the trend line 0.035°C/decade, and
in so doing brought it into much better agreement with the ground
based records and with independent satellite based analysis (e.g. Fu
et al. 2004). The discovery of this error also explains why their
satellite based temperature trends had disagreed most prominently in
the tropics.</quote>

Hope this helps.

On 1/5/07, Fivefree@aol.com <Fivefree@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> In a message dated 1/5/2007 10:31:00 A.M. Mountain Standard Time,
> pvm.pandas@gmail.com writes:
> ... Especially the cherry picking of
> facts and the need for 'sound science'...
>
> I've followed 'global warming' articles since the late 80's. I've heard
> hysteria (your UCS .pdf URL is one), some facts and lots and lots of
> opinion. Yes, it is getting warmer.
>
> Most of what I hear from the pro position almost always start by saying
> 'Most scientists agree that CO2 is causing...' and then start into their own
> unique sermon. The biggest missing piece has been the heating of the
> atmosphere. This is where 'heat trapping CO2' must keep solar radiation
> around the planet. This has been flat or at most shown a mild increase
> beyond outside of data collection error. I have also been disturbed by MANY
> distinguished veteran climatologist's, through the years, being vilified by
> obvious activist left wing organizations such as the Union of Concerned
> Scientists. See
> http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220 as a
> published example of this.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Fri Jan 5 23:45:58 2007