If you'd followed the Nova link you'd have found it talks about the IPCC report table 12.4

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/display/ShowImage?imageUrl=/storage/ar5T12.4.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1380746813865

I assume Bishop Hill is an ok reference or are you saying the Bish faked this copy of the table? I'd use the final IPCC copy but it's burried at the back of the report. Feel free to find your own copy.

I wouldn't dismiss SkS out of hand like you do WUWT and Jo Nova but all you've proven is the only decent explanations out there are blogs, one side or the other. The real answer is being debated by people like Nic Lewis and Ed Hawkins based on the latest data and calculations the go way over the head of me, you and most of the who edit SkS and WUWT. I'm happy to leave them to it while I wait to see if temperatures start to rise (fast or slow or not at all).

> the feedbacks you're referring to are, in common parlance,
frequently referred to as tipping points.

No they are called feedbacks. Tipping points are called tipping points and are distinct. Maybe you should learn something about feedback before lecturing on the subject. Martin A could reassure you if he felt so inclined. For example in the Sense and Sensibility part 2 discussion, geronimo asked about the water vapour feedback and Martin answered:

What stabilises the climate once we get into that cycle?

Loop gain < 1.0, so that +ve feedback amplifies but by a finite factor.

This doesn't mean that tipping points don't exist. [guesswork follows] Some plots of past temperature history I have seen have a distinctly bi-stable appearance. I don't know whether the transitions have been explained. A +ve feedback with loop gain > 1 would make sense although then one has to explain the limits. The T^4 factor in radiation to space will eventually restrain rises in temps and impose an upper limit.

TinyCO2, no Watts, Nova and BH are unlikely to fake an image of a table from the IPCC. They are all more likely to misreport in other ways. The table item on clathrates says it is unlikely that there will be a catastrophic release, but it says nothing about the possibility of there being a gradual, even significant, release of methane. Such a release would be a positive feedback, as I suggested. Does the IPCC really say there will be no such release or do Nova/BH just choose not to report that part?

johanna

It is our own time to "waste" of course and choice does come into it I guess. Andrew could certainly shut down the thread if true trolling activity was felt to be going on. I refuse to be "sharp" or churlish with Chandra.

With respect to all who choose to spend efforts on blogs like this ( me, Chandra and you included) the real power and decision-making goes on elsewhere in any case. We are just like an upmarket version of a bunch of blokes down't pub putting't world to rights....

.
Chandra

May I please urge you to read and inwardly digest Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave"?

Nothing to do with climate science.....it was written about two thousand years ago or so. It won't take you long.

Please let me know what you think of it.

Marvelous stuff.

Andy

Simon

> A tipping point is a positive feedback loop.

No, a tipping point is a condition in which a system changes between regimes of some sort. That might involve feedback (eg a flip-flop) or it might involve balance (eg a see-saw). Maybe there are also other ways in which a tipping point can be reached.

> A positive feedback loop is a prerequisite of catastrophic, runaway global warming.

Not just any +ve feedback loop is needed for "runaway" warming. It needs to be unstable (the runaway part) too. Positive feedback on its own need not be runaway for it to lead to an undesirable outcome. A +ve feedback that led to 5C warming would likely be catastrophic without being runaway.

> Not all feedbacks are well understood.
Not all feedback signs are known.

There are lots of things about the natural world that are unknown or poorly understood, but that doesn't mean we know nothing about climate feedbacks.

> No tipping points have been observed.

How do you know that when your understanding of tipping points and feedback is so uncertain? I cannot say I know whether tipping points have been observed. Graphs of past temperatures have a bistable appearance, which may or may not illustrate what really happened. If there was such apparent oscillation between stable states, feedbacks and tipping points would be a likely cause.

I marvel at your ability to 'know' that the standard view of climate science is wrong despite lacking an understanding of something as basic as feedback? How can you have a view on the correctness climate sensitivity estimates without such an understanding? I also wonder why a population that says that its position is 'all about the science' would fail to correct your errors before I do.

Johanna, your input is rather troll-like. You seem to have nothing worth saying. My guess is that you don't understand the science you are so critical of any more than Simon.

Andy Jones, I read it. Digesting might take longer... :-)

Yes.

It might take a few months in fact......

I had reason to make the request.

Thank you.

Tipping points in this context (centered on man's ego) is the latest incarnation of Armageddon.

The chaotic system has quite successfully carried on with all its rhythms.

Such a multilayered system is by definition resistant to runaway conditions. The evidence? Just look around and see the majesty of God (God as the system).

And being slightly technical, with a chaotic system that has had some time to exist, predicting tipping points is impossible. Otherwise power and wealth would have gravitated to certain individuals and stayed there.

Predicting the future with certainty means controlling the present. That is a frightening thought but the system does not allow that.

Oh look another one who thinks his God is relevant. I'm beginning to think the 'all about the science' thing is a smokescreen and that there is something more to the God connection here...

Robin, so you are back-pedalling on your support for one semi-dictatorial country, Russia, and engaging instead the support of a another dictatorial country, China. I'm getting to see a pattern here.

Germany's has no oil or gas and has more expensive domestic electricity than the UK. Its industrial electricity is cheap but I doubt you would approve of the means by which that has been achieved. Its economy is more powerful and more successful than that of the UK. Its people don't yearn to be able to push weaker countries around. And yet you say, "a strong economy requires reliable, affordable energy", for which the UK would appear to be in much the same, if not a better position than Germany. Yet you prefer Russia and China as role models. Very interesting.

Oops, wrong thread.

Chandra

Having just re-read all comments it occurred to me that my last comment might have been considered a snide remark.

I promise you it wasn't.

In saying both that fully digesting The Allegory of the Cave and also stating it might take "a few months" I simply meant that the concepts of Plato's work can actually take that long to fully bed into one's paradigm.

The Allegory is about the nature of "certainty" or "knowing" (whatever such knowing certainty might be....Can be absolutely anything at all).

I did not mean it to sound as if it would take you away from commenting here "for a few months". Apologies.

You keep commenting as much as you like.

Do be gentle with us all though!

Cheers girl.

Andy

Wot?

A geezer?

Oops.

Sorry Chandra old boy.

Ta Martin.