Ed Mahmoud wrote:The gist, from what I've seen, is that the climate reacts faster to peturbations than originally believed, on the order of 6-10 years, and most of the warming that would be caused by the CO2 emissions of the last century has already occured, and further, from this, the climates sensitivity to CO2 changes is half, or less, than the current concensus. It doens't say CO2 doesn't contribute to warming, just on a smaller scale than originally believed. But that is just my reading of one paper, from a seemingly respected source, and my BS is in petroleum engineering, the study of multi-phase fluid flow in homogenous media, not climatology. Although there appear to be similarities in the math.
That's a fair enough summary, except it leaves out the extremely preliminary nature of this effort and the very simplified model employed. As Dr. Schwartz writes in the conclusion:
Finally, as the present analysis rests on a simple single-compartment energy balance model, the question must inevitably arise whether the rather obdurate climate system might be amenable to determination of its key properties through empirical analysis based on such a simple model. In response to that question it might have to be said that it remains to be seen. In this context it is hoped that the present study might stimulate further work along these lines with more complex models.
In particular, Schwartz assumes that time series of global temperature can be modeled as a linear trend, plus a one-dimensional first-order autoregressive process.
Realclimate had
a discussion of this paper last September. They ran some simulations of what the response ought to look like if this assumption is correct and got this result:
![Image](http://www.realclimate.org/images/TimeG5.jpg)
Not very promising for Schwartz' model, to say the least. That's not a criticism of the work, which is obviously useful. Rather it's a caveat regarding drawing too strong a conclusion from it.
Hey, Miami almost closed the gap on Texas. And they beat Duke earlier this season in ACC play. Never be my favorite team, but ya gotta respect the way they played.
Next year they should be good if McClinton (and coach Haith) return - which looks likely. Anyway, I'm happy with the season. And I'm excited about the football team. Coach Shannon is really whipping them into shape again.