scholar.google.com and the IPCC consequences report are no help. Any theory/data out there on this point?

I found some written internet debates of AGW here:

http://www.debate.org/debates/science/

These are rule-based debates. It looks like a promising format to me.

I find it hard to accept the premise that AGW is not debatable. Does Gavin and other climate scientist believe that AGW is not debatable? Perhaps they just reject the format of the Stossel show, or reject debating Spence. Seems to be that a debate even with Spence in the proper format might be acceptable.

The Transient Contrarian Response, as expected, is high when there is any mention of climate sensitivity being not as high as it might be. (I think it has some sort of inverse-square relationship.)
One of the takes on planet Wattsupia for instance, is titled New paper shows transient climate response less than 2°C. Given IPCC AR5 use a central TCR figure of 1.9°C, this title hardily heralds stunning revelations, or indeed justification for the conclusion reached. “The take-home message from this study … is that the … IPCC AR5 … ECS and … TCR … are out of line with instrumental-period observational evidence.
Of course, we cannot expect those on Wattsupia to be bothered by such misrepresentation of a single scientific paper when they delight in mashing the totality of science.

The paper’s lead author describes his findings thus – “Recent observations suggest the expected rate of warming in response to rising greenhouse gas levels, or ‘Transient Climate Response,’ is likely to lie within the range of current climate models, but not at the high end of this range. However, with current emissions trends, this would lead to very high temperatures to the end of the 21st century.
“The eventual long-term warming after stabilization remains rather uncertain, but for most policy decisions, the transient response over the next 50-100 years is what matters.”
Three further authors from the paper also give their comment here, ‘here’ being somewhere that is mindful of presenting a reliable and honest account of the paper, unlike on Wattsupia and those other the planets in the deniosphere.

Both the Earth and the Sun emit pretty much as black bodies. For black bodies of the same size, the hotter one emits more at all wavelengths than the cooler one. For black bodies of the same temperature but different sizes, the larger one (more surface area) emits more radiation at all wavelengths. The Sun is both larger and hotter than the Earth so for both reasons it emits more IR radiation than the Earth.

If I may be permitted an OT digression, this understates the breadth and depth of his intellect. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatol_Rapoport

But I remember him as a really lovely person. I was a friend his son, a composer, and had the pleasure of visiting the Wychwood Park house a couple of time. Music and chess were family passions.

The advice Hank quotes seems at once characteristic in its simplicity, generosity of spirit, and likely effectiveness–and perhaps not so easy for many of us to implement, though well worth the effort of trying.

“Quaternary history of sea ice in the western Arctic Ocean based on foraminifera”

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.12.018

(quasisci ?!)

which is a fascinating (if you like stratigraphy) looking at the transition to 100Kyr glaciation cycle from the point of view of forams.

A climate takeaway is

“The latest of these events signified a complete turnover of foraminiferal fauna as well as lithological proxies at the Early-Middle Pleistocene boundary, ca 0.8 Ma, indicating the establishment of mostly perennial sea ice. This change happened at the background of a major climatic shift involving the growth of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets paced at 100-ka cycles …”

“The subsequent evolution of foraminiferal assemblages (AZ1) indicates further increase in sea-ice coverage …Overall, AZ1 indicates that perennial sea ice was a norm during the “Glacial” Pleistocene with some degree of ice retreat occurring during major interglacial intervals. This paleoclimatic setting highlights the anomalous pattern of the current shrinkage of Arctic sea-ice cover, especially pronounced in the western Arctic (e.g., Stroeve et al., 2011) … The Early Pleistocene environments, such as explored by this study, potentially provide a better paleoclimatic analog for evaluating the modern Arctic change.”

Very nice.

sidd

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1836.html

come up with :

“The most likely value of equilibrium climate sensitivity based on the energy budget of the most recent decade is 2.0 °C, with a 5–95% confidence interval of 1.2–3.9 °C (dark red, Fig. 1a), compared with the 1970–2009 estimate of 1.9 °C (0.9–5.0 °C; grey, Fig. 1a) …”

and

“The best estimate of TCR based on observations of the most recent decade is 1.3 °C (0.9–2.0 °C; dark red, Fig. 1b). This is lower than estimates derived from data
of the 1990s (1.6 °C (0.9–3.1 °C); yellow, Fig. 1b) or for the 1970–2009 period as a whole (1.4 °C (0.7–2.5 °C); …”

TCR is the transient climate response.

From the figure, the new estimates are not so far away from the old. But I suspect that using only and estimate based on a single decade might be … hasty …

sidd

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12129.html

and the Vonk et al. study showing high lability of dissolved inorganic carbon leached from yedoma in the Kolyma peninsula in Siberia:

http://www.thepolarisproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Vonk_2013.pdf

I see now another study from the Amazon, showing that a almost all the lignin and lignin phenols sequestered and transported by the Amazon river is degraded in two to three weeks.

DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1817

“We estimate that approximately 80 Tg C of lignin is fixed in the Amazonian terrestrial biosphere annually … we estimate that roughly 40% of this lignin is degraded into smaller components in soils, 55% is degraded into smaller components within the river continuum, and the remaining 5% of intact macromolecules are either stored within the river continuum or delivered to the ocean (Fig. 3). We propose that the breakdown of terrestrially derived macromolecules (including lignin, celluloses and hemicelluloses) fuels the small rapidly cycling organic matter pool described as the primary driver for evasive CO2 gas fluxes in the Amazon. The collective results from this study present strong evidence of the biodegradability of terrestrially derived macromolecules in the aquatic setting …”

sidd