Climate Change skeptics? [ot]

Figure 2, which shows the history of surface temperatures, is not a proper tool to assess whether global warming is occurring or not. To answer this question, it is necessary to make measurements of the energy stored within Earth’s climate system (the components shown in Figure 1). If the energy in these components is increasing, then Earth must be said to be warming—regardless of any short-term fluctuations in surface temperatures of Figure 2.

The answer to the aforementioned question requires quantification of the Earth energy imbalance. The imbalance can be measured in a variety of ways. For instance, temperature increases in the world’s oceans can be determined by long-term measurements sufficiently deep in ocean waters to capture energy fluxes at the surface (Abraham and others 2013, Nuccitelli and others 2013). Alternatively, Earth-orbiting satellites (calibrated against ocean observations or climate models) can measure both incoming and outgoing heat fluxes to obtain a top-of-atmosphere accounting of energy (Trenberth and others 2009, Trenberth and Fasullo 2010, Trenberth and others 2014a). A third way to infer energy imbalance is through sea-level rise measurements, which exploit the fact that thermal expansion of ocean waters causes a measurable change to the water height. Using any of these methods leads to the same conclusion: Earth is currently out of energy balance by a quantity that ranges from approximately 0.5 to 1.0 W/m2. That is, Earth is gaining energy at a rate of approximately 0.5 to 1.0 Watts per square meter of surface area.

Getting back to the reality-based community, and to the physical world ...

Chiloe means the community of "people who make a living off of taxpayer's money to 'study' silly things."

TGT--try to remember: warmer -> global warming; cooler -> warmer someplace else, -> global warming.
(You have to admire their chutzpah, if nothing else.)

I would say that it is a good idea to at least look at the global mean. It is kind of boring to hear hundreds of times that some parts of north America are cold when the global mean is at record levels for the last months.

Looking at the global mean sounds good and I don't object to it in theory, but remember these guys seem to make up data willy-nilly, including doing things like changing what temperature it was in a particular place in the past!

Can your models be back tested to explain why the "fertile crescent"was so named?
(The now deserts of Libya fed the Roman Empire.)
What source of AGW caused the medieval warm period?
Can your models explain why there was a "little ice age"
Why is Lake Superior freezing over a month or more ahead of normal?

Nov 17, 2014 - 04:41pm PT
Can your models be back tested to explain why the "fertile crescent"was so named?

(The now deserts of Libya fed the Roman Empire.)

What source of AGW caused the medieval warm period?

Can your models explain why there was a "little ice age"

Why is Lake Superior freezing over a month or more ahead of normal?

He must have a very small brain if he can't remember that climate change is allowing arctic air to bulge southwards.

blahblah writes about the "magic ocean" theory...

perhaps he can explain what he means...