At The Daily Blog on May 15, 2013, at 8:13 pm, while discussing The irrelevance of the rabid right, by Gareth Renowden, I asked a question.
What is the evidence for warming?
Rob Painting replied:
- Accelerated warming of the ocean. The ocean soaking up about 93% of global warming. See Levitus (2012), Nuccitelli (2012) and Balmaseda (2013).
- Accelerated ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica. Shepherd (2012).
- Accelerated ice loss from mountain glaciers worldwide. See the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS).
- Ongoing heat uptake by the land surface (up to 2004 at least). See Huang 2006.
- Ongoing sea level rise (it’s not currently accelerating due mainly to the deposition of heat into the deeper, colder ocean layers – thermal expansion reduces with lower temperature). See the AVISO website.
- The poleward migration of tens of thousands of animal and plant species, and up mountainsides too, to escape the warming.
- Continued intensification of the global water cycle. Westra (2013), Durack (2012).
- The increased blocking of longwave radiation by CO2 – as observed by satellites. Harries (2001), Philipona (2004).
That’s an impressive list of evidence, so I want to thank Mr Painting for his trouble. I’m sure he would prefer to be rebutted if there are any faults in his evidence, rather than continue in his ignorance, so if you can contribute to an understanding of these pieces of evidence, I encourage you to comment below.
Let’s put together a convincing critique. Bear in mind that even if we don’t like it it’s not necessarily wrong, so we need to provide solid evidence. After warming, we should examine attribution.
Hmm, sounds as though I want my own AR5. Ok, why not?
First impressions
My first thoughts include these:
- Doubtful, but I’m unfamiliar with the three papers.
- Magnitude?
- Magnitude?
- Magnitude, period?
- Magnitude? If it’s about 1.5 mm/yr then it has little anthro component.
- Magnitude, period? I doubt it was established that migration was motivated by excessive heat.
- What does this mean?
- How was “blocking” concluded rather than less energy being emitted?
- Why does he silently deprecate the use of the best temperature-sensing device we have, the thermometer, in favour of remote proxies?
So it was all quite learned discourse, but at the end he stoops to a gratuitous insult like any head-banger:
The question is, why do people like Richard Treadgold pretend as if this stuff has never been explained to them before? Anterograde amnesia perhaps?
Nasty, but all he’s doing is trying to avoid a too-close examination of his excuses for confiscating my self-drive motor car and overseas air travel.
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