Like Waxman-Markey, where 300+ pages get added at 3:09AM that nobody has time to read or fully evaluate, Real Climate gets on the “hurry up bandwagon” in regards to climate change perception. Dr. Pielke takes them to task again. I ask “What’s the rush?” – Anthony
Response By Roger A. Pielke Sr. To The Real Climate Weblog “More Bubkes”
Real Climate has posted a response titled “More bubkes” to my weblog of July 30 2009 titled Real Climate’s Misinformation. First, it is clear they are (deliberately?) misinterpreting what I wrote on the weblog. Embedded in the personal attack comments that Real Climate permits be posted, there are several that recognize that the error in the original Real Climate post was their statement
”Some aspects of climate change are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago”.
As I documented in my weblog of June 30 2009, their statement is clearly and documentably false (and is not a “wild allegation”).
They present a set of observational evidence regarding the longer term trends, and I have no disagreement with them on this. Indeed, in the past I posted a weblog that supported the retrospective skill of the GISS model in simulating upper ocean heat content increases at least until the last few years;
Comparison of Model and Observations Of Upper Ocean Heat Content.
I wrote in that weblog
“The conclusion that the GISS model is consistent with the observations for the time period in the second figure is clear from this comparison. The absence of a positive radiative imbalance in the last 4 years, however, that is anywhere neat the 0.85 Watts per meter squared value in Hansen et al. 2005, needs to be reconciled.”
More recently, I questioned further their skill for the last several years; see
Update On A Comparison Of Upper Ocean Heat Content Changes With The GISS Model Predictions.
Real Climate is correct that the time period to make conclusions on longer term trends is too short. However, they weaken the confidence in the scientific objectivity when they report that “Some aspects of climate change are progressing faster than was expected a few years ago” . Why do they feel they need to do this when this is obviously not true?
By overstating what is actually occurring within the climate system (which they clearly did in their original weblog and perpetuated in their second weblog), they provide fodder for those who conclude that the human intervention in the climate system is minimal. To emphasize my view, it is summarized in my weblogs
Summary Of Roger A. Pielke Sr’s View Of Climate Science
Roger A. Pielke Sr.’s Perspective On The Role Of Humans In Climate Change
Roger A. Pielke Sr.’s Perspective On Adaptation and Mitigation
Real Climate could be an important venue to permit the presentation and debate on the diversity of peer reviewed perspectives on climate. However, they need to permit all such viewpoints to be presented, as well as not attack (or permit their commenters to) colleagues with whom they disagree.
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No, no… I wrote: “Please, notice how the sea level was ~50% higher during the Ordovician than at present, so six centimeters in 100 years is nothing. The sea level will never arise to higher levels than during the Eocene, when the flooded of continental area was ~20%.”
It should have said:
“Please, notice how about 50% of the continents were flooded areas during the Ordovician, so six centimeters in 100 years is nothing. The sea level will never arise to higher levels than during the Eocene, when the flooded of continental area was ~20%.”
MikeE: “Why is this interglacial different than the others?”
Pass. The longer term to which I was referring is the period 1970 to the present, which is the period covered in the relevant graph in the Synthesis Report from the recent Copenhagen Congress.
Otherwise, you ask many questions, to which I do not have any answers, except:
“Why is the majority of the warming in the NH when the greenhouse gases are so well mixed(probably something to do with land mass)”
And ocean inertia.
Nasif Nahle (17:37:01) :
Ive got a sneaking suspicion when theyre referring to long term climate theyre meaning a cherry picked century out of the hundreds o millions of years this planet has supported life 😉
Im interested if youre of the opinion that continental drift is the main cause of warm house cool house climates? Or if there is evidence of other mechanisms having impact?
“…Anyone can play the short-term, cherry-pick game. The Copenhagen report deals with longer-term projections against observations, because climate is a long-run phenomenon….”
(Brendan H)
The satellite data for sea level start in 1993. The trend from 1993 to the start of 2006 was about 3.46 mm / year. The trend from 1993 to the end of 2008 is 3.24. So by adding 3 years the trend dropped slightly due to the recent slowing of the sea level growth rate. You have to live in come kind of Orwellian Alice in Wonderland to manage to twist that drop in the longer term sea level trend over the last couple of years into a “progressing worse than expected….” statement.
As for the “short term cherry pick game” isn’t that what the Copenhagen synthesis report is doing when it notes an acceleration of ice loss in the Arctic. The big jump down occurred in 2007 and 2008. In this case they are correct in that the last couple of years seemed to “progress worse than expected….”.
So if climate is a long term phenomenon, maybe 2 years in the arctic ice decline doesn’t mean that much. Or if it does, then maybe the last couple years of ocean heat and sea level growth mean something too.
Brendan H (17:50:54) :
I think the answers to some of those questions are relevant to the how and why and where we are going with current climate…. id put it too you that warming will be a lot less adverse on civilization and life on this planet as a whole than if the globe plummets back into a full blown ice age… and if the reason this glaciation has lasted as long as it has due to continental drift(big assumption!) It wont matter one iota what we do, the globe is going to get warmer, a lot warmer! Which would still be preferable to ice sheets covering europe and the northern states… which would be the “normal”.
There are far to many unknowns, and it at least appears at face value that the “climate scientists” arnt interested in looking for these answers.
and if the reason this glaciation
Errr, i meant interglacial.
Evan, yesterday.
Yes, but I’ve started trying to restrain myself.
Leif, yesterday.
Thanks. Remember when I said if I seem out of place at Climate Audit it’s because I’m just auditing the class?
==========================================
MikeE (18:08:11) :
Nasif Nahle (17:37:01) :
Ive got a sneaking suspicion when theyre referring to long term climate theyre meaning a cherry picked century out of the hundreds o millions of years this planet has supported life 😉
Im interested if youre of the opinion that continental drift is the main cause of warm house cool house climates? Or if there is evidence of other mechanisms having impact?
Yes, you’re correct. I think they (AGWers) are led a very short period of time included within a well known phenomenon in Paleoclimatology, which is the alternate succession of warmhouses and icehouses. It’s easy to know the long trends of the climate by examining the stratigraphic records. Long periods of warmhouses followed by long periods of icehouses. We have left an icehouse and are entering to a warmhouse, thus the possibility of an imminent Ice Age is very, very low. AGWers know this, so we should be careful when talking about a near-term little ice age; we could get surprised by the following warmhouse.
On the second part of your question, there are many factors that contribute to the succession of transgression-regression phases of the ocean; however, the main factor is the expansion retraction of the polar ice caps that follows the pattern of warmhouses-icehouses, respectively.
Very important successive orogenic phases occurred during the late Cretaceous and continued until the Danian stage in the Paleocene (approximately 60 million years ago); the Mesozoic warmhouse had been interrupted by a short glacial period which occurred near the transition from the Early to the Late Cretaceous Period, after which, important Paleogeographic changes started. The Thanetian Stage was when the Earth started cooling slowly. We could consider that the climate during the Eocene was similar to the current climate.
When we analyze short or abrupt climate changes that happen as if they were “riding” on the great waves of long-term climate changes, we must take into consideration factors that contribute, mixed or alone, to those short-term changes; for example, continental drift, orogenic phases, volcanism, fluctuations of the total solar radiation, the photoautotrophic cover of the planet, the intensity of the ICR, etc. Nevertheless, the long-term periods of warmhouses and icehouses are attributed, almost completely, to planetary dynamics (orbital, axis tilt, rotation, etc.) combined with Lunar and Solar Newtonian mechanics (synodic and/or sidereal periods).
Thank you Brian K. My point, exactly. Actual sea levels are NOT rising faster– as observed within the 16-year satellite data set– contrary to IPCC projections for the same period.
So what else could the folks in Copenhagen be talking about, except another projection? And logically, what else but a “new” projection could explain the claim by RC that “rising sea levels” are “progressing faster than was expected [read projected] a few years ago.”
I grow tired of those who think that observed data and the output of computer models are somehow equivalent.
Alexej Buergin (03:16:46) :
But one does say: “England have lost again” when they play for the ashes.
I don’t Alexej – I say “fantastic, the bloody poms have been flogged again…”
Or, if in polite company, “England has lost again” – a team is an ‘it’.
Brian Klappstein: “The satellite data for sea level start in 1993.”
Yes, but the Synthesis Report graph shows a period beginning in 1970, ie the earlier data was gathered by other means. Regardless, the graph on page 8 clearly shows observations of sea levels diverging upwards from projections from the early 1990s, ie sea levels are rising faster than expected.
“You have to live in come kind of Orwellian Alice in Wonderland to manage to twist that drop in the longer term sea level trend over the last couple of years into a “progressing worse than expected….” statement.”
Exactly my argument, but it’s what Pielke is trying to do.
“As for the “short term cherry pick game” isn’t that what the Copenhagen synthesis report is doing when it notes an acceleration of ice loss in the Arctic. The big jump down occurred in 2007 and 2008.”
I’m not sure what you’re referring to here. There is a discussion on page 9 of the Greenland ice sheet, and a graph showing ice reduction since 2003, with the sharp reduction in 2007. But this graph is placed within the context of the longer-term reduction since 1978.
I have read the RC thread and the original Roger Pielke Sr’s post and his point is correct and subtle. It is not about a grand stand-off but purely a question as to the reason, if anybody has one, as to why the ocean heat content has leveled off for the past four years. Is it natural variability or is it hinting at a different process rather than the heat in the pipeline scenario? With regards to the erport then: saying that things are progressing faster is some areas is a bit too bold. They just should have said, new data are always interesting and we are continually learning and refining our understanding of the climate.
SLR is NOT increasing faster than cited in the AR4. You should take a look at the paper by Cazenave et al. http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/files/Cazenave_et_al_GPC_2008.pdf
The abstract begins with the AR4 figures of 3.1 mm/yr for the period 1993 to 2003. The more recent mearsurements based on Gravitmetry (GRACE), altimetry and ARGO have shown a REDUCED sea level rise of 2.5mm/yr. Of this value, 2mm is due to the gravimetric component (mass increase) and the rest due to steric changes (salinity and thermal expansion). Compared with the 1993 – 2003 values, the former were assigned as 50% to each of gravimetric and steric while the later measurements were assigned more like 80% and 20%. What this seems to suggest is that whilst total SLR is less, the gravimetric part is slightly more, whilst the thermal part is a lot less.
I fail to understand how one can conclude from this that SLR is getting worse.
“…Yes, but the Synthesis Report graph shows a period beginning in 1970,…”
(Brendan H)
So what? We’re talking about recent observations. The gist of the argument in the Copenhagen synthesis is this:
“Recent observations show that greenhouse gas emissions and many aspects of the climate are changing near the upper boundary of the IPCC range of projections.”
and:
“Since 2007, reports comparing the IPCC projections of 1990 with observations
show that some climate indicators are changing near the upper end of the range.”
If you look at the Figure 1 graph in the synthesis report, the “smoothed” sea level is hovers about the upper “envelope” of IPCC predictions where it has been since the mid-1990s. If anything, since 2005 the smoothed sea level trend has dropped slightly relative to the prediction envelope. Where on this graph do you see any evidence that recent observations show the situation progressing worse than was previously thought?
I assume by the wording of the synthesis report that they mean by recent observations: “since 2007” (see the quotes above). The report is correct in that some key indicators are changing according to recent observations, just wrong in the direction that they are deviating.
timetochooseagain (18:48:42) wrote:
Bill Illis (18:07:01) : Datum is datum, data are data, and a fact is a fact but facts are facts. Pedant out.
Here’s an earlier exchange on this matter:
PeterW (14:35:34) :
DanD (12:30:25) : Data ARE, Walt. Data ARE.
No Walt data is; data is an English word. English includes many words originally press-ganged from Latin, which have changed their grammatical type.
As has been pointed out far more eloquently than I can:
“The majority of writers who would dutifully pluralise `data’ in writing naturally and consistently use it as a mass noun in conversation: they ask how much data an instrument produces, not how many; they talk of how data is archived, not how they are archived; they talk of less data rather than fewer; and they talk of data with units, saying they have a megabyte of data, or 10 CDs, or three nights, and never saying `I have 1000 data’ and expecting to be understood.
If challenged, they will respond that `data is a Latin plural’. Agree to this, for the sake of professional harmony, and carry on the conversation, making sure to mention that `the telescope has data many odd images tonight’ (it’s a past participle after all), suggest looking at the data raw images (…or an adjective) and that you both examine the datorum variance (surely they recall the genitive plural); suggest they give you the datis (…the dative), so that you can redo the analysis with their datis (…and the ablative). If they object ask them to explain their sentimental attachment to the nominative plural, that they would use that in all cases, in brute defiance of good Latin grammar.
Isn’t it lucky English is now genderless, making `data’ neuter, else we’d have to memorise masculine dati (dati dati datos datorum datis datis) and feminine datae, too? Isn’t it simpler just to speak and write English?”
It’s as bad as affecting “an historical” and pronouncing the ‘h’.
==========
Data is a collective singular, in ordinary usage. Even writers who pinky-lift by using “data are” will use collective phrases like “the voluminous data” or “the quantity of data.” If we’re going to use that way of speaking, and we are, we should be consistent and use “data is.”
“It always amuses me how the RC mindset often associates the sceptic with views such as young-earth, religious right-wing zealotry and so on.”
This is a clue to their own inner dynamics. By touting AGW, they signal that they are distant from pre-modern thinking. AGW = being advanced, with-it, cutting edge, etc. It’s a way of being one-up, IOW. And they signal to wobbling members of their flock that they will be perceived as backward if they don’t stick with the AGW script.
Leif Svalgaard (14:17:24) :
So why are we just not ignoring them?
—
I would reply that, in addition to the “Know thy enemy” comments above, it is critical that we study them intently because the enemy (the AGW thought police in academia and the scientific press and scientific funding and paper review pipelines, the AGW politicians who empower these thought police, and the mainstream media in ABCNNBCBS who promote their agenda use ONLY those politically-corrupt and AGW-corrupted sound bites for their policies and goals.
Already, here on the US, Pelosi used the AGW propaganda to restrict US oil and gas production from early 2007 (when she came into power in the House of Representatives) through Sept 2008 to drive up the price of energy by nearly double: the result was the recession that killed the housing, finiance and insurance, construction and fabrication industries, and the car and transporation industries.
With that economic destruction, she created the political environment that (with the collaboration of the same ABCNNBCBS and international media) led to Obama’s economic and energy policies and today’s Tax and Trade bill costing over 1.3 trillioin dollars.
ALL of that havoc worldwide was based on the (unanswered) AGW propaganda deliberately spewed daily from these organizations.
MikeE (18:08:11) :
Nasif Nahle (17:37:01) :
“Ive got a sneaking suspicion when theyre referring to long term climate theyre meaning a cherry picked century out of the hundreds o millions of years this planet has supported life 😉
I’m interested if you’re of the opinion that continental drift is the main cause of warm house cool house climates? Or if there is evidence of other mechanisms having impact?”
===
Please note that continental drift requires tens of millions of years to move continents far enough that ocean currents, solar irradiation, and atmosphere circulation patters are affected: Africa, South America, and North America were already separated by huge distances 65 million years with close to today’s locations when the comet/asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit north of Mexico in today’s Caribbean Sea.
Ice ages cycle at 10,000 to 12,000 year intervals. Much, much shorter than what continental drift can affect.
===
Nasif Nahle: You mentioned Ice Age and SLR relationship: Didn’t you mean that the most recent Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago, and that we way overdue for re-entering a life-threatening Ice Age, not a Warm Age?
Nasif Nahle (17:32:15) :
Yes, the sea level is rising and… What? It’s quite normal and cyclical. I have said until dropping tears that we are starting a completely natural warmhouse since the last icehouse which ended ~11500 years ago. During warmhouses the sea level goes off the rails; during icehouses sea level retreats. I don’t know why you fire my graphs and articles. At least blink once at this graph:
http://www.biocab.org/Geological_TS_SL_and_CO2.jpg
(trimmed)
Please, notice how the sea level was ~50% higher during the Ordovician than at present, so six centimeters in 100 years is nothing. The sea level will never arise to higher levels than during the Eocene, when the flooded of continental area was ~20%.
The remainder AGW scaring arguments are plain lies.
===
So, to address specifically sea level rise factors:
The AGW community is using (in every hourly newcast!) the recent (and always forecasted rise in global temperature -> will melt the glaciers and icecaps -> will cause massive flooding (Gore claims 20 to 60 feet, the rest try to use his exaggerated fears but admit to only 80 cm’s in a century) and kill everybody and destroy the world, etc.
Real world:
From 1910 through 1940, temp’s rose 4/10 of one degree.
From 1940 through 1970, temperatures dropped 3/10 of one degree.
From 1970 through 1998, temp’s rose 1/5 of one degree.
From 1998 through June 2009, temp’s dropped 4/10 of one degree.
Using those dates and the actual temperature changes, what did sea level do? (If there is a lag value for atmospheric heat to some ocean depth, what is the assumed depth and what is the (assumed) temperature lag value in time?
If there is an ocean temperature-affected zone, is that zone deep enough, and the temperature change large enough, to account for any or most or all of the measured CO2 changes due to outgassing from the water?
Certainly, massive temperature changes drive out gasses – we see that every day. But do these very minor actual atmospheric temperature changes create the measured changes in CO2?
For the sea, sea level changes (not caused by land movement!) can only come from a few sources:
1)The crust is shrinking and getting smaller in radius. (Not likely!)
2)The oceans are gaining water from the comets. (Well, yes, but by how much and what is this rate?)
3) The ocean is getting hotter and expanding. (Well maybe – see above question – but what is the temperature change over what dates, what depth of the ocean is getting hotter (if only parts of the ocean are getting hotter) and over what area is it getting hotter by how much?)
4) The glciers and icecaps are melting and this new fresh water is causing the ocean gain. (Well, if so, then the imbalanced freezing at the northand south poles should show a definite sine wave change in real sea change each spring and fall when both caps are partially melted, partially frozen. The levels should be changing due to Antarctic and Arctic polar chages in snow and ice cover (note that the ice floats over more surface in the Arctic, but the ice surrounding the Antarctic is also mainly on the oceans. Some falls/melts on Greenland and central Antarctic land masses – where do the AGW extremists actually get Gore’s 60 foot water level increase?) Based on what htey claim are ice and glacier changes since 1970, what is the actual sea level change from melted glacial ice that has actually been measured?
4) Regardless, we are told sea levels increases between 3 mm/yr from 1970 through 2001 (or maybe 2003 or 2004 …) – an increase now lowered to about 2 mm/yr for several years in a row. How much is this water (in volume) and where was that water before 1970?
—
We cannot rely on ANY AGW-provided values: they are consistently being proven wrong, false, and manipulated to foment the AGW economic agenda – and to provide the “green energy” job our engineer above so desperately wants funded by the democrats! (But it is we skeptics who are bribed and funded by the evil oil money!)
But what are the actual amounts of of SLR if you strip away the AGW propaganda? Why is the sea level rising – since it appears to be rising by a little bit?
Robert A Cook PE (10:31:43):
Nasif Nahle: You mentioned Ice Age and SLR relationship: Didn’t you mean that the most recent Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago, and that we way overdue for re-entering a life-threatening Ice Age, not a Warm Age?
I would like I had meant that, although I would not like a devastating Ice Age. Those cooling cycles of 10000 to 12000 years intervals are short term climate changes which occur over the long term trends I’m referring to. For example, the Roman Warming Period and the Medieval Warming Period happened over a long-term icehouse period which started about 40 million years ago and is finishing in modern times. SLR sets the standard, i.e. SL is recovering from the last Lowstand phase. Thus, the next phase after the icehouse is a long-term warmhouse and the subsequent highstand phase. The arriving warmhouse will not be exempt of alternating short-term cooling events, which will cause short-term regressions.
Nonetheless, I do not think the next warmhouse will be catastrophic as it is pictured by the IPCC, but something similar to the climate at the Ypresian and Lutetian Stages during the Eocene, when anthropoids appeared on Earth.
I do not think either that the Transgression Phase will reach the same levels that it reached during the Eocene because the Earth has been cooling through the geological timescale, that is, the current SLR is far smaller than at other epochs and the possibility of having a completely defrosted planet with more than 10% of flooded continental areas is excessively low (0.03%).
Robert A Cook PE (10:31:43) :
We have been in an ice age for millions o years.. we are still in an ice age, just an interglacial at the present. Obviously Antarctica is still over the south pole. But has there been enough movement in the northern latitudes? Or possibly has the Alaskan Siberian land bridge been eroded/subsided enough over past interglacial s that its sufficiently deepened the bearing strait allowing far greater hydrological exchange than during previous interglacial s. But to understand the mechanisms of the why on this era is necessary to understand where its going.
Robert A Cook PE (11:00:56) :
So, to address specifically sea level rise factors:
The AGW community is using (in every hourly newcast!) the recent (and always forecasted rise in global temperature -> will melt the glaciers and icecaps -> will cause massive flooding (Gore claims 20 to 60 feet, the rest try to use his exaggerated fears but admit to only 80 cm’s in a century) and kill everybody and destroy the world, etc.
Those are AGWers lies. It is probable that the continental flood gets longer up to 20 centimeters in specific areas, but it hardly will happen upper from there or that will be a global flood.
Real world:
From 1910 through 1940, temp’s rose 4/10 of one degree.
From 1940 through 1970, temperatures dropped 3/10 of one degree.
From 1970 through 1998, temp’s rose 1/5 of one degree.
From 1998 through June 2009, temp’s dropped 4/10 of one degree.
Using those dates and the actual temperature changes, what did sea level do? (If there is a lag value for atmospheric heat to some ocean depth, what is the assumed depth and what is the (assumed) temperature lag value in time?
If there is an ocean temperature-affected zone, is that zone deep enough, and the temperature change large enough, to account for any or most or all of the measured CO2 changes due to outgassing from the water?
Certainly, massive temperature changes drive out gasses – we see that every day. But do these very minor actual atmospheric temperature changes create the measured changes in CO2?
Definitely, I do not know, although I would add the outgassing from the sand of deserts.
For the sea, sea level changes (not caused by land movement!) can only come from a few sources:
1)The crust is shrinking and getting smaller in radius. (Not likely!)
Agreed…
2)The oceans are gaining water from the comets. (Well, yes, but by how much and what is this rate?)
It’s supposed the amount of water gained by the Earth from small comets is 2.5 centimeters per each 20000 years; however, this quantity is a guess, not a precise measurement. We suppose an increase of some 10 tons of carbon dioxide per decade added to the atmosphere by this means. Do not try to explain that to AGWers; they will not understand it.
3) The ocean is getting hotter and expanding. (Well maybe – see above question – but what is the temperature change over what dates, what depth of the ocean is getting hotter (if only parts of the ocean are getting hotter) and over what area is it getting hotter by how much?)
Irresolvable questions at this moment.
4) The glciers and icecaps are melting and this new fresh water is causing the ocean gain. (Well, if so, then the imbalanced freezing at the northand south poles should show a definite sine wave change in real sea change each spring and fall when both caps are partially melted, partially frozen. The levels should be changing due to Antarctic and Arctic polar chages in snow and ice cover (note that the ice floats over more surface in the Arctic, but the ice surrounding the Antarctic is also mainly on the oceans. Some falls/melts on Greenland and central Antarctic land masses – where do the AGW extremists actually get Gore’s 60 foot water level increase?) Based on what htey claim are ice and glacier changes since 1970, what is the actual sea level change from melted glacial ice that has actually been measured?
From their imagination. Their goal is to maintain terrorized people.
4) Regardless, we are told sea levels increases between 3 mm/yr from 1970 through 2001 (or maybe 2003 or 2004 …) – an increase now lowered to about 2 mm/yr for several years in a row. How much is this water (in volume) and where was that water before 1970?
We cannot rely on ANY AGW-provided values: they are consistently being proven wrong, false, and manipulated to foment the AGW economic agenda – and to provide the “green energy” job our engineer above so desperately wants funded by the democrats! (But it is we skeptics who are bribed and funded by the evil oil money!)
But what are the actual amounts of of SLR if you strip away the AGW propaganda? Why is the sea level rising – since it appears to be rising by a little bit?
Definitely, we cannot rely on propaganda. I agree with you on that actually it is a slight SLR. The explanation resides on the actual nature of the phenomenon. The Earth is leaving the lowstand phase for restarting a transgression phase. The cycle will continue to the highstand phase and will pass for all the subsequent phases.
MikeE (13:04:50) :
Robert A Cook PE (10:31:43) :
We have been in an ice age for millions o years.. we are still in an ice age, just an interglacial at the present. Obviously Antarctica is still over the south pole. But has there been enough movement in the northern latitudes? Or possibly has the Alaskan Siberian land bridge been eroded/subsided enough over past interglacial s that its sufficiently deepened the bearing strait allowing far greater hydrological exchange than during previous interglacial s. But to understand the mechanisms of the why on this era is necessary to understand where its going.
Indeed, we have been in an icehouse for about 45 million years and starting a warmhouse, which has nothing to do with human activities. Those relatively-small climate changes, like the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warming Period, are arranged along larger oscillating climate changes.
MikeE: “There are far to many unknowns, and it at least appears at face value that the “climate scientists” arnt interested in looking for these answers”
Climate scientists do look at paleoclimate issues. Whether they address your specific questions or provide answers that would satisfy you I can’t say. Probably the best approach would be to do some research on the subject and see what you can find.
Brian Klappstein (quoting Copenhagen Synthesis Report): “Recent observations show that greenhouse gas emissions and many aspects of the climate are changing near the upper boundary of the IPCC range of projections.”
This is a general, introductory comment that covers a number of factors, so the “recent observations” covers both emissions and aspects of climate change. A general comment by nature cannot relate precisely to individual factors.
“Since 2007, reports comparing the IPCC projections of 1990 with observations show that some climate indicators are changing near the upper end of the range.”
This comment clearly refers to reports that have been published since 2007. For example, the Rahmstorf report on sea levels was published in 2007.
“Where on this graph do you see any evidence that recent observations show the situation progressing worse than was previously thought?”
The text above the graph explains the context: “Since 2007, reports comparing the IPCC projections of 1990 with observations show that some climate indicators are changing near the upper end of the range indicated by the projections or, as in the case of sea level rise (Figure 1)…”
So the report is comparing 1990 projections with subsequent observations, hence the claim that sea levels are rising faster than expected.