by Judith Curry
Lindzen’s seminar last week that was presented at the House of Commons may be the most effective seminar he has given on Global Warming.
The pdf of Lindzen’s presentation is found [here]. Some laudatory comments on Lindzen’s talk from unexpected quarters such as Simon Carr of the Independent.
Lets take a closer look at his presentation.
Slide 2:
Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.
JC comment: well I’m sure that got their attention.
From slide 3:
Here are two statements that are completely agreed on by the IPCC. It is crucial to be aware of their implications.
1. A doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1C to greenhouse warming. All models project more warming, because, within models, there are positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds, and these feedbacks are considered by the IPCC to be uncertain.
2. If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C. The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments.
Given the above, the notion that alarming warming is ‘settled science’ should be offensive to any sentient individual, though to be sure, the above is hardly emphasized by the IPCC.
JC comment: #1 is the conventional thinking, although see previous posts on no feedback sensitivity [here and here]. #2 is an oversimplification of how climate sensitivity is determined in the conventional way; for nonconventional thoughts expressed previously at Climate Etc., see [ here and here].
Slide 4:
- Carbon Dioxide has been increasing
- There is a greenhouse effect
- There has been a doubling of equivalent CO2 over the past 150 years
- There has very probably been about 0.8 C warming in the past 150 years
- Increasing CO2 alone should cause some warming (about 1C for each doubling)
JC comment: “There has been a doubling of equivalent CO2 over the past 150 years” Not exactly sure what that means, perhaps equivalent means also CH4, etc? This does not seem correct. Also, about 1C for each doubling? Apart from what the no feedback sensitivity actually means, this sensitivity is not linear for multiple doublings of CO2
Unfortunately, denial of the facts on the left, has made the public presentation of the science by those promoting alarm much easier. They merely have to defend the trivially true points on the left; declare that it is only a matter of well- known physics; and relegate the real basis for alarm to a peripheral footnote – even as they slyly acknowledge that this basis is subject to great uncertainty.
JC comment: this is a profound statement
Slide 6:
Quite apart from the science itself, there are numerous reasons why an intelligent observer should be suspicious of the presentation of alarm.
- The claim of ‘incontrovertibility.’ Science is never incontrovertible.
- Arguing from ‘authority’ in lieu of scientific reasoning and data or even elementary logic.
- Use of term ‘global warming’ without either definition or quantification.
- Identification of complex phenomena with multiple causes with global warming and even as ‘proof’ of global warming.
- Conflation of existence of climate change with anthropogenic climate change.
JC comment: very good points, althought #4 is not clearly stated
Slide 7:
Some Salient Points:
1. Virtually by definition, nothing in science is ‘incontrovertible’ – especially in a primitive and complex field as climate. ‘Incontrovertibility’ belongs to religion where it is referred to as dogma.
2. As noted, the value of ‘authority’ in a primitive and politicized field like climate is of dubious value – it is essential to deal with the science itself. This may present less challenge to the layman than is commonly supposed.
JC comment: generally good points, but I object to the last sentence in #2. Scientists don’t even know how to deal with the complex climate science adequately.
Slide 10:
3. ‘Global Warming’ refers to an obscure statistical quantity, globally averaged temperature anomaly, the small residue of far larger and mostly uncorrelated local anomalies. This quantity is highly uncertain, but may be on the order of 0.7C over the past 150 years. This quantity is always varying at this level and there have been periods of both warming and cooling on virtually all time scales. On the time scale of from 1 year to 100 years, there is no need for any externally specified forcing. The climate system is never in equilibrium because, among other things, the ocean transports heat between the surface and the depths. To be sure, however, there are other sources of internal variability as well.
Because the quantity we are speaking of is so small, and the error bars are so large, the quantity is easy to abuse in a variety of ways.
JC comments: good points.
Slide 16:
Compares global temperature time series for the periods 1895-1946 with 1957-2008. The trend and variability for the two periods are very similar (which is a strong argument against the unprecedented rate of change), but there is no clear indication that the second period is overall warmer than the first.
Slide 17:
Some take away points of the global mean temperature anomaly record:
- Changes are small (order of several tenths of a degree)
- Changes are not causal but rather the residue of regional changes.
- Changes of the order of several tenths of a degree are always present at virtually all time scales.
- Obsessing on the details of this record is more akin to a spectator sport (or tea leaf reading) than a serious contributor to scientific efforts – at least so far.
JC comment: I don’t understand the second bullet? I disagree with the last bullet; the details of the record in terms interannual and decadal variability are of importance to people. The details obviously aren’t useful in supporting or refuting AGW, but proponents then base their arguments on 50 years of data?
Slide 18:
4. The claims that the earth has been warming, that there is a greenhouse effect, and that man’s activities have contributed to warming, are trivially true and essentially meaningless in terms of alarm.
Nonetheless, they are frequently trotted out as evidence for alarm.
JC comment: this is the key point, and it isn’t made often enough
Slide 19:
Two separate but frequently conflated issues are essential for alarm:
1) The magnitude of warming, and
2) The relation of warming of any magnitude to the projected catastrophe.
Slide 20:
When it comes to unusual climate (which always occurs some place), most claims of evidence for global warming are guilty of the ‘prosecutor’s fallacy.’ For example this confuses the near certainty of the fact that if A shoots B, there will be evidence of gunpowder on A’s hand with the assertion that if C has evidence of gunpowder on his hands then C shot B.
However, with global warming the line of argument is even sillier. It generally amounts to something like if A kicked up some dirt, leaving an indentation in the ground into which a rock fell and B tripped on this rock and bumped into C who was carrying a carton of eggs which fell and broke, then if some broken eggs were found it showed that A had kicked up some dirt. These days we go even further, and decide that the best way to prevent broken eggs is to ban dirt kicking.
JC comment: I this is a very effective argument
Slide 28:
Where do we go from here?
Given that this has become a quasi-religious issue, it is hard to tell. However, my personal hope is that we will return to normative science, and try to understand how the climate actually behaves. Our present approach of dealing with climate as completely specified by a single number, globally averaged surface temperature anomaly, that is forced by another single number, atmospheric CO2 levels, for example, clearly limits real understanding; so does the replacement of theory by model simulation.
JC comment: I agree with the above statement
In point of fact, there has been progress along these lines and none of it demonstrates a prominent role for CO2. It has been possible to account for the cycle of ice ages simply with orbital variations (as was thought to be the case before global warming mania); tests of sensitivity independent of the assumption that warming is due to CO2 (a circular assumption) show sensitivities lower than models show; the resolution of the early faint sun paradox which could not be resolved by greenhouse gases, is readily resolved by clouds acting as negative feedbacks.
JC comment: above statement reflects more certainty than we actually have, IMO
Slides 29-56:
Lindzen’s view of the science of climate, mostly from the perspective of a simple energy balance and feedback model.
Slides 57-58:
You now have some idea of why I think that there won’t be much warming due to CO2, and without significant global warming, it is impossible to tie catastrophes to such warming. Even with significant warming it would have been extremely difficult to make this connection.
Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.
In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.
JC summary: Lindzen’s talk is in two parts. The first part is very effective in pointing out the vacuousness of the defenses of AGW such as the 2010 Science letter signed by 250 members of the NAS and the 2010 letter from Cicerone and Rees.
The second half of the talk is Lindzen’s perspective on the science, which IMO has some good points but is overly simplistic. To Lindzen’s credit, he doesn’t oversell his own perspective (although he seems extremely confident i his own perspective), but states this is “some idea of why I think“. The significance of this is as a “second opinion” and a reasonably well argued perspective, as pointed out in the latest WSJ op-ed (as opposed to appeal to consensus). Lindzen’s perspective is not implausible, as the IPCC perspective is not implausible (in the sense that neither is falsifiable at this point). IMO both the IPCC and Lindzen are overconfident in the assessment of their perspectives; classic “competing certainties”, which means the uncertainty monster is lurking.
The reasons that I think Lindzen’s presentation is so persuasive to public audience are:
1. Lindzen’s persona and appearance, that reeks of scientific gravitas
2. His argument in the first half of the talk is very effective, taking down the public statements by the NAS folk.
3. His scientific argument in the second half of the talk is appealing in that it relies on data and theory (rather than models).
4. Keeping policy and politics out of his scientific argument
Your thoughts?
JC note: I am currently in Boston, visiting MIT, returning to Atlanta Wed nite. Hence my attention to the blog will be somewhat limited during this period. I will try to moderate the comments on this thread for relevance.
Josh was there
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/storage/lindzen_london_scr.jpg
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/storage/thumbnails/902844-16781620-thumbnail.jpg
second link:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/display/ShowImage?imageUrl=/storage/lindzen_in_london_scr.jpg
J.C: The second half of the talk is Lindzen’s perspective on the science, which IMO has some good points but is overly simplistic.
but Lindzen’s Seminar was at the House of Commons
Yeah, it’s amazing there were any good points at all :)
The most obvious questionable trick that Lindzen made in this presentation is concentrating in several places on the period of 150 years. As nobody thinks that the first half of that period is strongly affected by anthropogenic influence he effectively doubles the denominator and halves the average human contribution. I think this is done by purpose and is dishonest.
Fair point Pekka.
Pukka
According to current wisdom co2 has had an effect since 1750. So looking back 150 years is reasonable especially as that is within the era of global temperature records as noted by giss and and Hadley
Tonyb
Tony –
isn’t Pekka’s point that Lindzen is giving the impression that the Co2 effect is evenly spread out over 150 years? It is something that many of us like to insist is false, with graphs like this –
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/tbrown_figure3.png
I think Lindzen’s emphasis is a bit deceptive but very much part of the territory…
Anteros
And when would you suggest for the starting point?
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CO2-dBz.htm
vukcevic –
A good question to which a sensible answer is that there are caveats to be made for any starting point. Post WW2 has some basis in reason, as it marked quite a significant change in emissions. 2nd half of the 20th century for similar reasons – arbitrary but not cherry-picking (from any point of view)
Nothing is perfect, but I agree with your point that spreading a 0.7C temperature rise over 150 years is at least disingenuous.
Not really. The effect is lagged. The effect is log. And you really have to look at the sum of all forcing.
The simple thing is that you can deduce very little by looking at the temperature series. The science tells you why you cannot deduce the effect by looking at relatively short time series.
We did not figure out that GHGs warm the planet by looking at the temperature series. It’s rather elementary physics
Anteros
My point was and is: there is little correlation between the CO2 and the historical temperature data, that is not to say that the CO2 effect doesn’t exist, but its magnitude is seriously overestimated and it can be for all practical purposes ignored.
As far as temperature correlations are concerned
the best proxy available is the geomagnetic change
based on 400 years records from the great maritime nations around North Atlantic.
All those who look trough a narrow keyhole of science at the evolution of the historical temperatures data are unlike to see and understand complexity of the three main players:
the sun, the earth and the ocean
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP-SSN.htm
Study and understand the complexity of North Atlantic where you will find the true answer. See also:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-100-150-100.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NVa.htm
1) If you Google ‘CO2 concentration 150 years graph’, you will find it is a fairly common starting point. It permits apples:apples. (It happens to be a bit past the Dalton Minimum, which means it is a good starting point for a positive trend.)
2) Given this, I suggest you owe Dr. Lindzen an apology for your last word.
3) Further, Dr. Lindzen is to be congratulated for actually giving a starting point (date and CO2 concentration) for Arrhenius’s equation (logarithmic), which depends upon starting and ending concentration. E.g., less bang from the second dose. I have the impression that this is often left out of AGW claims.
The IPCC state that 1750 is year zero with respect to ACO2 and is the last year when the climate system was at ‘equilibrium’.
Even more convenient.
I wonder what caused all the Great Storms of 1570 and later, if the climate system supposed to be at ‘equilibrium’ then?
One has to wander where all that CO2 came from in the early 1700s.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-100-150-100.gif
Every (even short) period of the cold CETs was followed by a rapid temperature rise. Or maybe Europeans excessively burning fire wood in the cold winters caused subsequent warming. That is a win-win proposition, not only they kept themselves from freezing but insured that all that CO2 kept them warm for next few decades.
I say 3 cheers for CO2.
I would hazard a guess that the introduction of the European Earthworm to the Forests/Prairies caused all sorts of changes in North America. The density of the grassland shot up and scrubb-land became grassland. The Albedo changes would have been quite impressive, and you would get a nice pulse of CO2/CH4 and N2O.
http://www.mendeley.com/research/earthworminduced-n-mineralization-fertilized-grassland-increases-both-n2o-emission-cropn-uptake/
DocMartyn wrote:
qute
[] introduction of the European Earthworm to the Forests/Prairies caused all sorts of changes in North America. []The Albedo changes would have been quite impressive, and you would get a nice pulse of CO2/CH4 and N2O.[]
unquote
And a large dissolved silica pulse into the surrounding seas. More dissolved silica, more diatoms, fewer calcareous phytoplankton species, less CO2 pull down, less light isotope pulldown (diatoms are less isotope discriminatory), a light isotope signal left in the air and CO2 levels rising. Fewer phytos, less DMS, less low level cloud cover, more insolation, warmng. Which all sounds familiar.
Or something else no-one’s thought of.
JF
I took Lindzen’s comparison as straightforward and clear and definitely not dishonest. You have to actually listen to what he said about the graphs to understand what he was getting at.
I disagree.
Nobody thinks the first two thirds of that 150 year period is strongly affected by anthro CO2, yet substantial warming occurred over that period. The period 1890-1945 demonstrated the same rate of warming as the subsequent 1945-2000 period during which anthro effects are supposed to be dominant. If anything, reference to the longer period discounts the magnitude of natural warming and exaggerates the anthro influence.
Shame on Lindzen for giving away the farm :)
What do you suggest might have caused the 1890-1945 warming which didn’t then cause the 1945-2000 warming? Perhaps evidence for the 1945-2000 anthro effects being dominant is simply wrong. (Sensitivity overexaggerated and all that).
The cause of temp rise earlier in the 20th century is estimated to be the sum of solar and CO2 (failry accurate indices), as well as a reduction in volcanic activity (much less solid data). The difference with the current regime is that solar and volcanic hasn’t trended in the direction you’d expect to account for the warming.
Climate sensitivity doesn’t have a place in this comparison, as climate responds to any external forcing, not just CO2. There are slight differences in ‘efficacy’, but that doesn’t impact for the purposes of comparing these two periods.
I also disagree that this would be a ‘trick’ or ‘dishonest’. He doesn’t claim the CO2-effect would be evenly distributed during that period. 150 years is a reasonable starting point since that is the only period where we have even remotely adequate measurements of GMTA. CO2-concentrations also have risen during that period (exponentially), still there is little or virtually no acceleration in the trend of GMTA during that period..
I would like to see Pekka’s response on what the others have responded.
The entire focus on the past “150 years” as important is part of warmist dogma. The point is nonsense PP.
Pekka, your data is off. Atmospheric CO2 started rising quickly after WWII ended. Global temps have not risen that much from 1945 when CO2 really kicked into high gear. Lindzen could have chosen other time scales:
* He could have shown that global temps rose quickly in the 1930s when CO2 was not rising quickly.
* He could have shown global temps declining from 1945 to 1975 when atmospheric CO2 was rising quickly.
Pekka, I think you are being unnecessarily critical and do a disservice to civil discourse by calling him dishonest. The data simply is not on the side of the warmers.
Pekka,
I am not so sure. You say “nobody” thinks this, but the graphical appeal of the hockey stick certainly includes the early 20th century warming. There seem to be a couple of common arguments. One is the IPCC SPM statement, which Fred reminds us of the limitations “most” >50% and the time period of 1950s-2000s. The other is an argument made either implicitly or explicitly by An Inconvenient Truth among others, which is all too happy to plot the CO2 rise along with the temperature rise for at least the entire 20th century.
The carbon emissions from fossil fuels up to 1935 were about 11.6% ot the emissions up to 2010 according to the CDIAC data. The resulting increase of CO2 concentration from what it would have been without the emissions is only slightly larger share of the increase op to now. Thus some 85% of the human influence through carbon has materialized during the second half a the period 1860-2010. Even over this period the influence has been uneven.
I reacted to this, because a couple of slides appeared really misleading. The warming over this 150 year period was indeed discussed on those slides as if it had been uniform and dividing the temperature change over this period by the length of the period would provide a meaningful number. The worst case is on slide 10 where warming of 0.7C is coupled with 150 years. That’s the main reason for my reaction. It can also be noticed that reducing the period from 150 years to 100 years would reduce the denominator by a third but actually increase the temperature change.
How convenient it would have been to use a period of 1000 years for the calculation, if good temperature data were available. The justification for the 150 years is no more justified for discussion of the strength of the human influence.
150 years appears also on page 4 where the claim of doubling of equivalent CO2 seems to be exaggerating the denominator even excluding all aerosol effects. With all GHG’s but excluding even direct aerosol effects the error is not large, but including estimated aerosol effects the error is again close to a factor of two (the estimates for aerosols have large error ranges).
It’s always debatable, how far one can use cherry picking and other tricks to enhance own arguments before being called dishonest becomes fair. My view is that Lindzen exceeded that limit clearly.
Pekka, your point is taken. A couple caveats, one I noted above about the “happy coincidence” of early 20th century warming and CO2 increase, in graphics. The other – effects of land use change? Still, I agree that 0.7/150 is not helpful and if used in the context of “the warming is small, why should we care”, is misleading.
Pekka, nevermind what I said about land use. It does seem though, that radiative forcing from CO2 in say 1935 was a slightly higher % of 2010 than concentration or emissions, due to the logarithmic effect on temperature.
Interestingly, looking at the GISS diagrams for forcings, what really stands out about the early 20th century warming is the apparent contribution of the lack of stratospheric aerosols.
I would still disagree on page 10. He is simply making an assertion of ‘Global Warming’ as a quantity and a correctly reports the observed change in this quantity over 150 years. The slide has nothing to do with the causes or anthropogenic effects. Of course he could say also how much GW we’ve seen over the last 100, 50, or 30 years but I don’t see the trend being a serious point in this slide.
However I might agree on your critique on page 4 where he claims the GHG-effect has increased equivalent of 2xCO2 during 150 years. How many watts per m^2 is the real number? Does he use this number just to keep it simple enough for the audience or does this really affect his conclusions? You say 2xCO2ekv is exaggerated, then you must know the real number?
Juho,
On page 4 Lindzen notes that the numbers are not contested. That must mean that he considers the forcings listed in AR4 WG1 Figure SPM.2 on page 4 (or Figure TS.5 or 2.20, Figure 2.20(B) gives additional information on the sum) to be best estimates. Adding all positive GHG contributions gets close to the forcing of doubling CO2 but not quite to that, but subtracting then both direct and indirect aerosols ends up with half of that.
An example of dishonesty in my eyes, is the claim by many alarmists that the temperature rise has not stopped for the last 12-15 years or so. They use the mathematical trick of using the average temperature for each decade 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s and display them as a bar chart thus showing that the 2000’s were the warmest. They then proclaim this as proof that the warming hasn’t stopped. I can’t help but believe that someone who tries such an approach, take anyone that will fall for such nonsense as fools. I believe it shows just how little they think of the general public. A very sneering attitude.
Lindzen’s graphs attempt to do what many in the debate would like to be able to do but cannot. That is, compare what temps would be if we weren’t emitting CO2 to what they are since we now are. The only way one can even attempt to do that is by using a time period in the past where little CO2 increase was present and compare it to more recent times. Everyone knows this is not perfect, but it the best that can be done, while using actual thermometers to do the measuring instead of proxies. He uses the same X and Y axis scales in both graphs ( avoiding a trick many use), and uses data readily available to anyone (avoiding another common trick). I don’t see this as dishonest just because someone didn’t chose the same time periods I would have. All analysis is biased to some extent or the other. You just have to take the time to understand what someone is trying to say, and then decide if you think they are trying to “pull a fast one” as we say here. I don’t see any dishonesty. Lindzen is very intelligent and knows he is a prime target. I don’t believe he would attempt anything he thought to be dishonest, as he knows that many also intelligent people are looking very closely at everything he does, especially something he states in front of Parliament. They would be all over him.
I have not heard Lindzen say anything dishonest. He doesn’t have to. He would be stupid to do so.
So your point being that the dishonesty is where dismisses the (hugely uncertain?) aerosol effects concluding the net radiative forcing has increased as much as ~3.7Wm-2?
As what I understood from his presentation is, that these aerosol effects play as a ‘fudge factor’ in the GCM:s and that he is just trying to make a point how these affect the feedback analysis’?
Juho,
There’s a 20% difference without aerosols and there’s is certainly some aerosol effect in the same direction. Thus giving the impression that the data is not disputed is worse than misleading.
Pekka Pirila: The carbon emissions from fossil fuels up to 1935 were about 11.6% ot the emissions up to 2010 according to the CDIAC data. The resulting increase of CO2 concentration from what it would have been without the emissions is only slightly larger share of the increase op to now. Thus some 85% of the human influence through carbon has materialized during the second half a the period 1860-2010. Even over this period the influence has been uneven.
I think that it is a nearly hopeless exercise, on present evidence, to choose the “correct” starting date for evaluating the rate of change of the global mean temperature. Each time a model forecast (scenario or whatever) is published, the temperature changes that matter are those that occur subsequently. Starting a temperature graph at the end of the little ice age shows that recent change (post 1975) is not unusual compared to the whole change since LIA. Proponents of AGW and opponents of AGW choose different starting points in order to make points that they believe. Lindzen’s choice is as defensible as any one else’s choice, and certainly as defensible as anyone’s choice to focus on the post 1975 record.
OK I think I got your point about the word ‘uncontested’. He propably should have included more uncertainty in his presentation overall.
(Despite the lack of uncertainty, I still find the reason for his acceptance using the degratory word ‘denier’, quite funny)
150 years seems a natural period to use as the most widely used global temperature data sets only go back to 150 years or so ago. The widely used HadCRUT global temperature series goes back to 1850, GISS and NOAA start a few decades later.
Also, as the first decade or so of the twentieth century appears to have been unusually cold, and bias uncertainties in that period were particularly large (Brohan et al, 2006), using a 150 year period seems more appropriate than, as is often done, only starting from 1900.
What is natural, what is perhaps not quite natural but ok and what is dishonest is often not well defined.
I maintain my view on this case. Fred had a strong view on picture of the WSJ op-ed, but I didn’t see that as he did. Most of the people writing on this site condemn the Hockey Stick pictures, but there are certainly also people who disagree on that.
We can tell our impressions and opinions and argue on them, but for all these three cases it’s possible to present arguments for both sides. That’s possible as long as the data shown is not explicitly erroneous and the issue is about emphasizing the right points and giving the right impression.
I thought Lindzen used 150 years because that’s what the alarmists use. After all, their thesis of Man being a primary influence falls apart if CO2 or temperature rise starts before the Industrial Revolution. He’s not being disingenuous at all, he’s poking holes directly at the argument most often used by the alarmists.
Lindzen represents the sound of reason.
Hi Judy
Were you just looking at the slides?
Ie you don’t quite get all of what he said..
Ie the co2 equivalence DID include methane, etc.
Why not watch the video of it and perhaps reconsider some of this blog post..
2 parts are available at Climate Realists website
Barry – I couldn’t find the video. Do you have a link?
The House of Commons is an important place, where policy is being
made….they need understandable arguments….
Let’s throw the “Likes of the Gleicks” out and get all the Lindzens in….
rejoyce everybody….finally scientific progress!….
JS
You say that, but according to Dellingpole there were only 2 MPs present at Lindzen’s talk. I was disgusted to hear this, but I suppose not really all that surprised.
Robinson: If so, it would be regrettable…..I guess, MPs do not
like a marathon hammer show with 58 slides…..this scares people away….
Better: Short and concise with 15 slides….an more Q&A…..my
opinion….I don’t know why Dick decided otherwise….but slowly but surely…..
JS
If it is like Congress then key staffers cover events like this. They have the technical knowledge.
David – for good or ill MPs have very little money for staffing, especially since a recent expenses scandal. So at a guess the 2 MPs were the two brave souls who have dared to ‘come out’ as openly sceptical of AGW. Sigh.
If Lindzen could produce a short (30 mins or less) version of his talk, with 10 really good and snappy slides that would each be understandable standalone (rather than just a lot of words that he reads out), the impact would be much greater. A picture paints a thousand words.
He has a good ‘narrative’ to tell, but his ponderous way of doing so weakens rather than enhances it.
Dr Curry –
Is there much in the whole climate debate that isn’t relevant to this talk, and therefore this thread?
In slide 19 Lindzen talks about the two necessary ingredients for climate panic – 1) The magnitude of warming and 2) The relation of warming of any magnitude to the projected catastrophe.
I think this misses a third ingredient – the rapidity of warming. Whenever I argue for the extraordinary adaptiveness of both life ingeneral and the human species in particular, I’m invariably told by some doom-endian that it is the speed of the change that’s the problem”, which as far as I know is based on negative imagination and nothing else.
Otherwise, I’m grateful for your comments, especially noting the similarity of confidence between Lindzen’s world view and that of the IPCC (to say nothing of the ultra-alarmists).
On page 11 of the pdf of the talk is a graph of HadCRUT3 global temperature with the year 2002 depicted with a vertical line.
The first thing to note is the temperature spike that occurred in 1998 because of el nino conditions. Note that the global temperature dropped in 1999 to an equivalent level of 1997.
The Mann “hockey stick” posted in the 2001 IPCC TAR ends in 1998 giving the blade of the hockey stick about 50% more additional length and giving the viewers of the Summary for Policy Makers of this report the false perception that the global temperature was increasing far more rapidly than it actually was.
Far more interesting is if you start at 2002 and project back with the best fit straight line which shows the actual warming trend from 1979 to 2002.
If you do the same thing starting at 2002 and drawing the best fit straight line to the end of the data (July 2011 in this case) you will get the cooling trend that started in 2002 and is still continuing today.
If catastrophic warming as predicted by the climate models is actually going to happen this cooling trend will first have to come to an end and none of those promoting AGW are willing or able to make this prediction and until they do so and base it on hard physical evidence instead of fabricated parameters input into climate models; we need to be more concerned about the current global cooling than any global warming!
This is the GISS temperature anomaly and the rate from 1880 to present; rates taken over 16 years. The blue hatches are 16 years of rate averages.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/GISSalltempsandrates.jpg
This is GISS and [CO2] 1881 to 2009 (1).
GISS vs natural log ([CO2]), from which one can get the ‘climate sensitivity’ from the slope (2).
Finally, if one removes the ‘climate sensitivity’, one only has to explain the big pyrimid from 1907 to 1979 (3).
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/DocMartyn/LNCO2vstemp.jpg
You can get rid of the very recent post-1975 warming using CO2 increase, but you sill cant do anything about the 70 odd years from 1907.
You could probably get a better fit plotting GISS versus the chicken population or the production of green paint.
Any chance to talk with Dr. Lindzen?????
He has an email address listed at mit.edu.
I have emailed him a few times, sometimes with questions, and sometimes to agree with him and what he has said at particular times.
Steve Garcia
I meant Dr. Curry. Not me, not qualified. :-)
I interpret Changes are not causal but rather the residue of regional changes as a way of saying that there is no such a physical thing as a “global temperature” that gets changed by CO2 or other mechanisms: rather, the “global temperature anomaly” is the result of computations involving the temperature changes at a regional level.
So if the world were made of two regions of same area, one with a +5C temp change and the other with a -2C temp change, the “global temperature anomaly” would be +3C even if an increase of +3C has in effect happened nowhere, hence it could not have been “caused” by anything.
Probably correct. Global temp anomaly is a statistic with a huge variance, not a measurement. BEST says something like 30% of stations show cooling. So it is not as though temp is simply being caused to go up.
I also like his point about not focusing on the details, because I see the details as contradictory. Some data sources show warming post 2000 but some show none. Most show warming 1978-1997 but UAH shows none. According to these details we do not know when it has warmed and when not. Of course the question then becomes what exactly is science supposed to explain, if the data is contradictory?
“BEST says something like 30% of stations show cooling”
Luck that all the temperature proxies used in temperature reconstruction depend on the average temperature in 100,000 mile squared grid, rather than the actual temperature in a particular local.
David W.
It has been a long time.
Has a variance for the global temperature anomaly been calculated?
If yes, can you point me to a description of how it was done?
“BEST says something like 30% of stations show cooling.”
many people have misunderstood that chart. you are not the first.
Good points, but I think regional temperature trends are much more complex. The Anarctic, itself land covered by snow and ice and surrounded by mostly ocean, has warmed very little. The Arctic, on the other hand is ice and snow, surrounded mainly by land. The anarctic is far from centers of industry and soot emissions, and soot emissions fall out of the atmosphere fairly quickly, probably not crossing over the equator to any great extenct. The arctic is close to 90% of the world’s industry and receives a lot of the carbon soot fallout. I think the difference in albedo, from soot fallout, plus the positive feedback of albedo change when Ice and snow becomes water, may explain in large part the differences in Arctic and Anarctic temperature trends and by extension the differences in northern hemeisphere and southern hemisphere temperature trend. If I am wrong about this, Dr. Curry and others, give me some scientific studies and data that refute this or bring it into question. I have seldom seen this hypothesis considered, and it has a very strong bearing on the competing roles on CO2 and carbon soot emissions.
A+ question. I hope someone in the know can point to some literature on it.
Simple question, but do the satellites orbiting both poles report very different albedos between the two? If so that could be strong evidence for Doug’s theory. If not, less so.
I am feeling increasingly sorry for the warmists. I always cheer for the underdog.
“A doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1C to greenhouse warming.”
What’s the evidence for this? I don’t buy it. What does “by itself” mean? By radiation only? If yes, it doesn’t say much about the overall heat transfer and only overall heat transfer can contribute to any temperature change.
Are you saying you doubt that the earth is warming? You question the validity of 6,000 temperature measuring stations?
There has been numerous discussions about UHI, as well as the veracity of adjustments, Ross, yes many of those measurements are suspect.
Cut the Orwellian speak. Do you doubt that Earth is cooling on multi-millennial time scale (~10 ka)?
This is one of the items that skeptics and warmists agree on. It is in the physics of it. I don’t focus on this, but believe that it has to do with the Stefan-Boltzmann law. If I am wrong on that, I am sure someone here will correct me.
Steve Garcia
Well, I disagree. Stefan-Boltzmann law is about radiation (flux of energy radiating from a body) and its dependence on T. The heat transfer between Earth’s surface and atmosphere/space is multimodal – it involves radiation, convection and evaporation.
Okay. I said I might not be correct and asked for someone to set me straight if I had that attribution wrong. Thanks.
Edim,
“A doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1C to greenhouse warming.”
“By itself” means prior to any theoretical feedbacks. And 1C of warming is not considered problematic. The warmers hypothesize significant and disastrous positive feedbacks from water vapor, etc. – perhaps 3x or more leading to warming of 3-5C. Others, like Dr. Spencer, claim net negative feedbacks which dampen the warming – perhaps 0.5x leading to warming around 0.5C.
Ron,
I am not convinced of this ~1 °C per doubling of CO2. It seems to me that the multimodal heat transfer at the Earth’s surface is not modelled properly. Earth’s surface is free to cool by convection/evaporation, and together they cool the surface more than the surface radiation.
My thoughts? Like a breath of fresh air and makes the likes of Peter Gleick seem like very sad little nutters wandering the streets with a sandwich board advertising the end of the world. And sadly that is just what they are; tiny, sad little human tragedies.
I don’t want to draw attention away from Dr. Lindzen’s talk here, but to add to it by encouraging people to listen to another terrific presentation. Matt Ridley’s talk at http://tiny.cc/wml8j is short and sweet, and packed with info. He is one helluva speaker.
Richard Lindzen is one of my heroes, so I don’t want to detract in any way from his excellent presentation. He is a Rock of Gibraltar as the voice of climate sanity, which he has always been. I’ve written to him on occasion, and he has always been a gentleman and a quiet voice in a discipline gone mad.
Steve Garcia
I was slightly less impressed by this than by Dr. David Evans piece ‘the sceptics case’ (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/26/the-skeptics-case/).
Both covered much the same ground, but Lindzen’s was too long for politicians and other morons.
If Lindzen and Evans could get together they could probably devise an exposition which every politico and opinion-former in the world should view.
Judy, Slide 6 # 4 may mean the huge mass of peripheral studies which have used the hook of ‘global warming’ for the Gods of Grants, Ice Bear being the Polester Bear.
=============
Oral arguments regarding the US EPA’s Endangerment Finding begin today in Federal Court. The EPA’s science basis is the IPCC. The date for the science basis is: 2007. There has been no science updates. Frozen in time sort of speak.
One of several points for litigation is that EPA did not do its own research to determine its science basis it relies wholly on IPCC. One of Lindzen’s points was that science is evolving and that what is currently known, and in particular the uncertainties, is much more than five years ago; i.e., the more we know, the less certain we should be.
The issue as I see it, that the science is not known sufficiently to enact public policy. Extravagant claims of catastrophe are not matched with anything like that the science is converging on a single likely scenario, rather, with more data, there is greater divergence now than ever before. Witness the current temperature hiatus, no matter what its explanation. The ocean heat content 0 to 700 meters declining. These are but two instances of increasing uncertainty not more certainty.
My own experiences, when I have had data divergence over time rather than convergence, I have had to step back and realize something profound and impactful is missing. Submit to the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
Next hypothesis.
EPA should have looked before it leaped.
:)
Two or three years ago, when I went to EPA’s website for climate change I immediately noted that the only reference they list is the IPCC. I sent in a question asking why this was the case, since in every discipline I’ve gotten a degree in (3), I was taught that one should avoid relying on a single reference.
Still waiting for a response.
I completely disagree that Lindzen’s speech will have any impact outside brief blogospheric discussion. Most of the scientific community, even at MIT, no longer thinks Lindzen has any credibility left on climate science issues; moreover, he’s been making the same low-sensitivity arguments (in various forms) for over a decade, and progress in the scientific literature and at academic conferences has been moving at rapid paces with virtually no influence from Lindzen. His unmoving faith in low climate sensitivity is at odds with virtually every assessment on the issue that also use more robust inferences from observations, as well as paleoclimatic constraints (see Knutti and Hegerl for a start).
But it’s easy to see why his speech will have little influence. On many occasions, he steps well outside his expertise, and makes claims which experts in those areas already know full well or are completely wrong. For instance, he delves into planetary climate by talking about the faint young sun. There have been decades of work on this problem, and many subsequent criticisms of his lone paper on why high clouds can explain the faint young sun problem (e.g., (e.g., by Goldblatt and Zahnle). When one includes internally consistent physics, no one has successively explained the faint sun without invoking substantial help from greenhouse gases, and the high cloud feedback rests on rather crazy assumptions about the amount of high cloud cover (essentially 100%) and requires much thicker and colder clouds that are not considered plausible. It’s also based on unwarranted extrapolation from his “iris hypothesis” inferred from modern day observations, which itself has been challenged by a number of papers for being overinflated.
Lindzen also jumps into the Arctic community by letting us know that CO2 can’t imply weak summer temperature amplification. Of course, if he bothered to read the literature (e.g., Mark Serreze has some papers on the seasonality of the ice-albedo feedback), he’d know that this is in fact what models and observations predict, because the Arctic is generally pegged to the freezing point in areas of high melt.
His line that “…is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments” is just too stupid to even acknowledge. Apparently Lindzen doesn’t think we should include such non-CO2 factors? If you include them, then they are artificial adjustments; if you don’t include them, then you’re a warmist that ignored everything non-CO2. How convenient.
Chris Colose –
“His unmoving faith in low climate sensitivity is at odds with virtually every assessment on the issue that also use more robust inferences from observations”
Except the observations of global temperature. Give it up, Chris. Your models are dead, and nailing them to the f***ing perch won;t make things right anymore.
I’ve sent Chris a dozier on ‘Tokyo Rose’, so he can increase his skills.
Marcus –
Dragging Tokyo Rose in is priceless…
“Hey, G.I.! Warmists are right! The Japanese Emperor has new clothes! Learn how to fly kamakazi, because the Earth’s oceans gonna boil over if you don’t. It up to you to save the planet! Destroying U.S.S. Carbon Dioxide is only true way to salvation! Only Gleik and Jones and Gore tell truth! You big handsome G.I.!” /snarc
Steve Garcia
Chris, you’re young and smart and you obviously have a passion for the field in which you’ve chosen to make your career. So I’d be surprised if your mentors haven’t explained a few things to you about the value of civility in getting your career established. If they did perhaps you should re-examine what they said. You don’t have to brown up to somebody just because of their senior professional status, but if you want to challenge them perhaps the instant gratification of stabbing at them in the blogosphere isn’t the best way to do it. Making enemies in academia is easy enough without sliding into incivility.
You do understand that Tokyo Rose spoke English without an accent, don’t you? She was a native English speaker.
Abusive ad hominem (also called personal abuse or personal attacks) usually involves insulting or belittling one’s opponent in order to attack his claim or invalidate his argument, but can also involve pointing out true character flaws or actions that are irrelevant to the opponent’s argument. This tactic is logically fallacious because insults and negative facts about the opponent’s personal character have nothing to do with the logical merits of the opponent’s arguments or assertions.
//”…but can also involve pointing out true character flaws or actions that are irrelevant to the opponent’s argument. This tactic is logically fallacious…”//
No it’s not, it’s just a statement which may or may not be true. Even though (logically) it may be irrelevant, in practice, it may serve as a template for assessing credibility. It’s appropriate to acknowledge that you don’t want Joe down the street who was a high school drop out to do heart surgery on you, even though that is not a logical argument for why he has/has not the theoretical capacity to do so. Similarly, I’m not saying “Lindzen is wrong because he’s boring and no one likes him” but rather pointing out that he has lost credibility in the community.
Why this is the case is a separate matter, one that I touched upon the surface in my post, but also has been well-documented elsewhere in the literature and is freely available for people to look at.
However, my suspicion is that very few people are interested in an honest investigation of his feedback hypotheses and the subsequent interrogations into their robustness, but rather want to throw potshots at AGW (or me personally).
However, my suspicion is that very few people are interested in an honest investigation of his feedback hypotheses and the subsequent interrogations into their robustness, but rather want to throw potshots at AGW
Take your mouth over to the following discussion, I’ll take to you there.
‘http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/stephen-wilde-the-myth-of-backradiation/#comments
You big mouths are actually scared of the knowledge sceptics have about feedback hypotheses. I’ve see plenty of semantics from you Chrissy, not much substance.
“he has lost credibility in the community.”
It is the ‘community’ which is losing all credibility. Month by month, year by year, as the data comes in.
Basically, Chris Colose has hijacked this post and made it about HIM. Typical troll behavior, so that the points made by Dr Curry don’t get discussed.
Too many come and see the school-yard name-calling and decide not to participate in the discussion which isn’t rational, just he said she said.
And then mission accomplished: Don’t let there BE a discussion on the facts.
Steve Garcia
Marcus [7:45 pm] “Marquess of Queensberry Rules have been thrown out.
You can thank Gleick and his supporters for the rest of us taking the gloves off.”
Oy VEY. Your guy defrauds, and your side says the rules of engagement have been broken, so you get to break out the Brown Shirts?
Just how does THAT figure? Are you committable?
Geez Louise.
Steve Garcia
But since – due to its rampant dishonesty and political bias – “the community” has rightly lost virtually all credibility – this is if anything a recommendation.
To Chris Colose:
Lindzen has his own approach of some existing, somewhat halved or lowered
climate sensitivity…..let him have his views, we do not have to agree….
….Important is that the Likes of the Gleicks are kept out of repeating
their global CAGW Warmist nonsense….this were much worse than your
worry about his type of approach….important is that Skeptics of all
colors get into the House of Commons….and by and by, the Warmist
Gleicks will disappear from climate science…
JS
Chrissy,
I very confidently predict that you will never attain 8% of the knowledge and relevance of Dr. Lindzen. You don’t speak for the scientific community, you little twit. You are a consensus scientist wannabe. Now get out of here before somebody roughs you up and takes your little plastic sheriff’s badge.
The problem Don, the other 92% of his knowledge imparted to unwitting Students at St Albany’s is rhetoric.
It’s interesting to see the fall back to ad hominems when I point out several of the flaws in Lindzen’s arguments.
Really, what is the point in opening up discussion to people incapable of reason?
Your pointing out was ad hominem. You got back what you deserved. You are not here to discuss, but to scold. Take it elsewhere, junior. We already have our fair share of trolls. By the way, where’s josh? He looks an awful lot like gleicko, from the wire rimmed goggles down to the Birkenstock sandals. I wonder if there is a connection.
Read your post, disappointed by the reaction too. Looking forward to a more specific rebuttal on the points you make.
To be fair, I’m guessing many didn’t read past, “Most of the scientific community, even at MIT, no longer thinks Lindzen has any credibility left on climate science issues”. That may be your opinion, but it sets the tone too. Re-reading, the first half of each paragraph was fairly derogatory, the second half worth pursuing. I’m not suggesting that justifies the reaction, just pointing it out in case you weren’t aware how your own tone sounds to someone outside the debate.
robin,
They are a very angry lot. They are losing, and desperate. And we don’t have to be nice to them. Go over to RealClimate and the other colose friendly blogs and see how they treat deniers.
Nor have you been very courteous to Dr. Curry of late. Presumably she’s lost all ‘credibility in the community’ (ie: not one of us, team Team) as well.
Eventually the number of scientists excluded from the ‘community’ will be larger than the ‘community’, and then what’s left of the ‘community’ can go and commune with only itself. Just like they already do at RC.
Marquess of Queensberry Rules have been thrown out.
You can thank Gleick and his supporters for the rest of us taking the gloves off.
robin,
Why does Lindzen get a free pass, time after time, as the years pass by and he continues to talk nonsense? I pointed out, even if superficially, a couple of of Lindzen’s scientific issues (and even some references people could pursue further). This is true even if you don’t like my tone (which I think is well deserved). I’m not particularly interested in making everyone happy. If people don’t want to have just a bit of investigative integrity, I don’t see why I need to supply all the scientific answers here, but if people have legitimate questions on what I said I’d be glad to pursue them.
Regardless of whether you like my approach or not, the ultimate end result is that this will be of virtually no significance in the scientific community, and of only temporary interest in blogs and amongst people who don’t know better. Much like most blog discussions.
Like a Warmer is going to do anything but but push Warmerism. Blah, blah, blah.
Andrew
cui bono,
Generally, I am very nice to people, and I don’t get hostility in me based on disagreement; it comes when I think that individual has lost the personal integrity to do objective science, familiarize themselves with what they talk about, and acknowledge criticisms of their work should they be valid. Same if they are just going to talk about the science. My problem with Lindzen is not that he proposed a negative feedback ‘iris’ hypothesis; in fact this was a legitimate submission to the literature that promoted a lot of discussion in the academic community. It encouraged many subsequent theoretical analysis and observational analysis with better datasets than Lindzen had available, along with people who specialized in those observational products.
The problem began with Lindzen’s responses to those criticisms, which indicated that he had an unmoving stance on his position, even when others had shown that his proposed effect was greatly exaggerated, or even of the wrong sign. Even worse, were many of his indefensible statements in op-eds, talks, etc.
With regard to Judith Curry, I originally liked what she wanted to do on this blog, such as discussing and expanding upon the uncertainties in climate science. Now, it has become a forum for glorifying any half-baked idea that is apparently “interesting.” Moreover, I think Judith Curry has significantly expanded the scope of what is ‘uncertain’ without actually familiarizing herself with the current science on those topics (such as solar-climate effects), even to the point of making things up. She’s free to run her blog how she wants, and people are free to like/not like it. I think that it is counterproductive to her original goal; you cannot improve understanding if you keep having to go back to basic textbook stuff and explaining why every nonsensical argument someone put on their blog is nonsensical.
Thank you, Chris, for a courteous reply.
One of the reasons I like Dr. Curry’s blog is that it tries to question matters which you regard as “basic textbook stuff”. For example, the feedback multiplication. This is in the textbooks to be 3, but there seems no justification for this other than it really was the number Hansen and co first thought up back in the 1980s.
Lindzen and others have a radically different figure, and those of us at the sidelines can’t help but notice that the models, which echo the threefold feedback, are not doing very well recently. Yet question this magic number, for whatever reason, and merry hell breaks loose.
As for “current thinking” – whether Dr. Curry is on top of every twist and turn that tries to explain the increasingly glaring discrepencies betwixt models and nature I couldn’t say, but ‘current thinking’ is just that – ‘current’. It will change, and if you follow it slavishly, it will lead you a merry dance.
Read some more about the history of science, especially the blind alleys and cul-de-sacs, the lumiferious ether and coal-fired suns, and you’ll get the idea. Science: always work in progress, and sometimes back to the drawing board. Or in Gleicks case, go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go…
cui bono,
Your statements are really the reason why it’s tough to take these conversations seriously. There have been countless papers and entire reports dedicated to the sensitivity issue, yet you claim that it’s all something Hansen made up with a simple model 20-30 years ago. Either you’re trying to trick me, or you’re just unaware of the multitude of papers on the subject. In the first case, it’s pointless, and in the second case, you need to show that you want to learn more. I am rather familiar with the science of climate sensitivity and the current methodologies used to assess it, and Lindzen’s has time and time again failed the test of being robust.
The point about models is equally bad, since very few people who question the models on these blogs have even read about models or know what they are comparing. They haven’t consulted the people who build the models and have written extensively on them, or have improved on them over time. Usually, they are just very broad statements that give no indication as to what variable or timeframe or statistic (and in what model) they are even talking about. It’s tough to respond to such vague statements when entire reports have been written on modeling, where they are useful, which results are robust, what needs improvement, etc.
Don,
Not much refraction in them thar Gleick goggles.
My, my, pretentious and projectile.
Chris Colose ……”.Really, what is the point in opening up discussion to people incapable of reason?”
Funny Chris that is exactly what I think of you. I have never seen you give an inch in your dogmatic theology and consider that you may be wrong on any of the issues.
What do you think of the Evans paper referenced in other comments. I think it is a very concise and coherent piece. Of course I am sure you do not
Chris,
OK, then, back to the snark.
I know enough to know there are many scientists who do not agree with a *3 multiplication. Some present good reasosn for believing it is < 1. If you don't know this, you are seriously living in a though-tight compartment.
I don't want to consult with the numerous people who constructed the models (clever though they undoubtedly are). I am an 'end-user' of the models, and all I have to do is sit back and see whether they are getting things right. Looking at their projections vs. reality, they just aren't.
You're asking me to disassemble a plasma TV and marvel at the thought and precision that went into constructing it. I, as a customer, and who incidentally paid for it, want to know why it isn't bloody working!
Sadly it is now 2:15am here, so I'll retire to dream of models. Of a different kind….
Chris, I don’t have the expertise to debate you on the science, nor would I indulge in personal attacks, especially when I have no basis to do so. So I would hope that this thread reverts to a more moderate and considered approach than is apparent in what I’ve read so far.
Chris, I’m sure that you realize that Tamsin has ablog just starting, that she hopes to take us neophytes to a better understanding about how models are constructed and what we may be able to learn from them. So if you need a quick reference to help people get up to speed on the modelling thang, just send them to –
http://allmodelsarewrong.com/
Thanks, Chris, for the context.
Indeed Lindzen has been making the same argument about low sensitivity for a number of years. I remember being able to spot the flaws in his analysis of recent temperatures versus forcing changes some years ago (one can fit the analysis on the back of a fag packet).
Now matter how much you care to bad mouth Lindzen. He is indisputably correct in the predominate fact.
‘All models are wrong’
Chris I agree completely with your comments here – both on the scientific flaws in Lindzen’s talk (which I have yet to see much discussion on here – not a surprise), and on your disappointment in the route Judy’s blog has taken. I check in every so often out of curiosity as an EAS/Ga Tech grad, but am unimpressed. It’s good to see you commenting – there are people out there that appreciate your thoughts. Keep it up.
Chris,
It is interesting that in your sophomoric pretense you are outraged when your rude, unprofessional and childish behavior is returned to you.
Chris Colose: entire reports have been written on modeling, where they are useful, which results are robust, what needs improvement, etc.
Which are the three most recent best such reports?
‘His line … is just too stupid to even acknowledge’.
And yet you do.
Chris, which paleoclimate constraints?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/global-temperatures-volcanic-eruptions-and-trees-that-didnt-bark/
Based on the paleoclimate constraints of the northern hemisphere after considering the volcanic impact not only on the little ice age but through the 20th century, a considerable amount of warming would appear to be expected unless, ice age is the norm.
The majority of the post 1950 warming is in the northern high latitudes which have considerable volcanic impact from northern high latitude volcanoes. If fact, if one wanted to, they could make an excellent case that the “unknown” aerosol factor is VEI 4 and 5 eruptions primarily in the northern high latitudes with the equatorial impact mainly due to large eruptions. Might have something to do with albedo sensitivity differences and land use changes.
So the IPCC CO2 attribution of likely, as in 50% or greater, is looking shakier all the time.
Of course if you want to switch to the southern hemisphere just for grins, you could compare this paleo recon, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/neukom2010/neukom2010.html to the Southern high latitude temperatures and find that paleo data is nearly as noisy as Antarctic temperature data.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/GISSAntarcticversusSouthAmericanTemperatureReconstruction.png
Kinda funny how in the southern hemisphere the dip circa 1860 is bigger than the 1816 dip. 1902 has a pretty good dip too. Of course, it is only tree rings.
”When one includes internally consistent physics, no one has successively explained the faint sun without invoking substantial help from greenhouse gases, and the high cloud feedback rests on rather crazy assumptions about the amount of high cloud cover (essentially 100%) and requires much thicker and colder clouds that are not considered plausible.”
I’ll give you a hand Chris.
An active sun alters the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere especially at the poles so that the polar air masses shrink horizontally whilst the polar vortex intensifies vertically and the jets become more zonal. That results in less global cloudiness and more solar energy into the oceans. El Nino becomes stronger relative to La Nina and the troposphere warms.
A less active sun does the opposite. Fits the observations perfectly.
Reading K&H08 tells me that paleoclimate evidence is not independent from modern evidence because it uses the same models to separate CO2 feedback from others (mainly dust and albedo). The other problem is that the base climate state is different and our weather pattern changes will be different. It means we could have higher or lower sensitivity than that calculated from the paleo data, but probably not the same.
Chris Close writes more unsupportable conclusions.
He writes: Most of the scientific community, even at MIT, no longer thinks Lindzen has any credibility left on climate science issues
Chris- What is the basis for your claim? Seems like an unsupportable hope on your part.
Chris writes- “His unmoving faith in low climate sensitivity is at odds with virtually every assessment on the issue that also use more robust inferences from observations, as well as paleoclimate constraints (see Knutti and Hegerl for a start).
Chris- your statement is untruthful. Observations do not support your opinion of high sensitivity and you know when you are being honest that the paleoclimate record is only marginally reliable. Referencing someone’s paper is meaningless when it makes claims on the paleoclimate record that are overstating the reliability of that record.
Chris,
Thank you for demonstrating the definition of Sophomoric.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sophomoric
Hmmmm…….wannabe grad student vs. professor? Rude arrogant young blowhard vs. experience and wisdom? A tough call. Not.
Dr. Colossal, your last paragraph @ 6:05 PM is simply a mischaracterization of what Richard said, and then you descend from error into abuse.
==========
Chris, with respect to the ‘faint sun’. problem, you do know that the switch from a reducing to an oxidizing atmosphere began with the evolution of water splitting rhodobacter, about two billion years ago.
Do you know what the albedo of the planet was when the oceans were full of transition metal salts and the land was covered in metal sulphides.
You think CO2 was the major cause of the Earth having liquid water, dispute the Earth having a completely different biotica, surface absorbance characteristics, ocean optical properties and very different types of clouds..
You then wonder why the mainstream CAGW promoters are held in such contempt.
His unmoving faith in low climate sensitivity is at odds with virtually every assessment on the issue that also use more robust inferences from observations …
“Still it moves” and the temperatures refuse to follow the exaggerated sensitivity that others know “better”…
I completely disagree that Lindzen’s speech will have any impact outside brief blogospheric discussion. Most of the scientific community, even at MIT, no longer thinks Lindzen has any credibility left on climate science issues;
Open with the ad hom. Typical of you lot. The rest is likely ad pop jibberish, but I won’t know.
Chris, take a stroll over to the ‘Gleick’s Testimony’ thread to see how Andy Lacis handles a discussion with those who have an opposing view. Let him be a mentor to you. Here’s the start of his post….
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/26/gleicks-testimony-on-threats-to-the-integrity-of-science/#comment-177569
Read all the replies made and the way he handles them. Take some notes too.
John Carpenter –
To my dismay, I’ve been following this for most of the day.
Chris is stuck in his mindset and has no capacity to hear anything that didn’t come from Hansen, Gore, Mann or CRU or any of their followers. By his definition, anyone that disagrees is wrong – end of discussion. Any fact that does not fit his understanding is misguided and erroneously derived. Anybody here who engages with him is talking to a brick wall. He is incapable of give and take and attempting to come to a mutual understanding. Those who disagree with him are, to him, only dumb clucks who never learned how to think properly and who must be educated by he who knows all.
Steve Garcia
Steve, Chris take a lesson from Dylans ‘My Back Pages’
‘I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now’
He’ll understand that line in another 10 to 15 years if he is able to examine himself in a critical way, otherwise we just have another arrogant SOB looking to climb the ranks.
John carpenter,
Chris has that immunity to facts that only youthful arrogance can permit.
By the way, here is a nice tweet exchange between gleick and friends that puts context on his forgery:
“Copner (Comment #92133)
February 28th, 2012 at 11:06 am
In case anybody missed it, a couple of threads back, I posted this retrospectively hilarious tweet sequence.
Gleick was even warned (although not specifically as regards document forgery), that it wasn’t wise to use the phrase “anti-climate”
Got to laugh.
——————————————————————
Nate Lloyd @macbuckets
@PeterGleick @stephenfry When you use terms like “anti-climate” you give the game away. #ScienceIsPolitics
3:41 PM – 30 Jan 12 via TweetCaster for Android · Details
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Peter Gleick Peter Gleick @PeterGleick
@macbuckets @stephenfry Yes, “anti-science” might be better. Or worse. But #WSJ isn’t anti ALL science. Just climate science, apparently.
9:21 PM – 30 Jan 12 via web · Details
this is from Lucia’s blackboard, by the way.
Chris, You are getting a little bit cranky. You should not take Lindzen out of context. I’ve heard him several times and his ideas are much more qualified than you state.
On the faint sun paradox, Lindzen points out that CO2 is an impossible hypothesis, saying that it requires 3 bars of CO2. His paper merely asked a question, viz., could you explain it with high thin cloud just in the tropics. To my knowledge there is never a claim that this was the sole or even the main mechanism.
On the aerosols, he has some references to the literature quoting modelers. You must admit that a forcing that has an error bar equal to 200% of the median value and a possible value of close to 0 is pretty arbitrary. Those are IPCC numbers incidently. So, how do you think the modelers set these numbers?
On the arctic, you know of course that most parts are not ice covered during the summer, so that the alleged rapid ice melting cannot be a big factor at least in July and August. In any case, Lindzen says “CO2 is not obviously a factor during the summer.”
On the sensitivity, you must look at the IPCC AR4 summary forcing chart to see that total anthropogenic forcings neglecting aerosols are above 3 W/m2 I believe. He is trying to estimate the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2, i.e., 3.7 W/m2.
David – Yo are confusing Chris with someone who listens.
Steve Garcia
When one includes internally consistent physics, no one has successively explained the faint sun without invoking substantial help from greenhouse gases,
The faint sun paradox is as solar irriadiance has increased,the earth t has cooled GHG are a constraint not an explanation.
Chris,
Seriously?? You are going to lecture Dr. Curry on what “most of the scientific community” thinks? I truly wish you get a scientific education someday because you don’t have one yet. Every scientist knows expert opinion is worthless. Data is what matters and Lindzen has the data on his side.
Look at the data sometime, Chris. You will get an education.
“His unmoving faith in low climate sensitivity is at odds with virtually every assessment on the issue that also use more robust inferences from observations, as well as paleoclimatic constraints (see Knutti and Hegerl for a start). ”
Then what IS the climate sensitivity, and how was it found to be that? Mind you, a small summary will be OK. I live under the impression that climate sensitivity is very hard to determine from paleohistoric sources. I’m willing to hear what is wrong with Lindzens theories but I would like to hear more than “read so and so” as an argument. If it is so very clear you should be able to summarize it for me.
Mind you, while we are at it: Why is climate sensitivity a constant? That baffles me, as a layman. If I start to think about it climate sensitivity in an ice age could be completely different than in between ice ages, due to the fact that currently changes in ice cover result in far less albedo changes than during an ice age.
peeke,
In not so brief summary (unfortunately this does not do any justice, which is why I asked people to read a few papers):
1) Equilibrium climate sensitivity is very likely between 2-4.5 deg Celsius per 2xCO2, which unfortunately is not a narrow estimate, but values much smaller or much larger than that broad constraint have consistently failed a number of tests
2) There are a number of ways that have been developed to look at the sensitivity issue. People have looked at the 20th century observed record, the response to volcanic eruptions, the solar cycle, the response of the net radiation budget to SST changes, etc. People have also looked at paleoclimate records from a number of different time periods, including the last millennium, the Last glacial Maximum, the Eocene, etc. Some of these things are useful at cutting off the low end estimate of sensitivity but not the high end. The response to volcanic eruptions for example rule out very low sensitivity values but, on their own, cannot rule out very large values. Others give rather broad constraints and you need to combine different lines of evidence to come up with a plausible range that can simultaneously satisfy a number of events within the degree of uncertainty in observation/proxy data, etc. Unfortunately, no single method can give a unique value of sensitivity for a number of different reasons (see below)
3) Observational evidence alone cannot constrain climate sensitivity. This is because we do not know the total radiative forcing over the industrial era, and the rate of ocean heat uptake is questionable. This gives a distribution of sensitivity values that are all consistent with the observed climate. There have been a number of methods, for example, multi-model ensembles that sample the parameter and structural uncertainty across models and use observations or paleoclimate as a constraint to accept or reject sensitivity values which are possible. This is where further research needs to be developed, as it combines a lot of information at the model-obs-paleo interface and samples a large range of uncertainty and possible asymmetry between LGM sensitivity and 2xCO2 sensitivity for example.
4) Lindzen has proposed a variety of negative feedback ideas- in the early 90s, he thought water vapor feedback could be negative, which he no longer defends. In 2001, he published his IRIS hypothesis. It was plausible, and was well accepted by the academic community and investigated by cloud physicists, etc. I consider Lindzen more a theoretician than an observational specialist, so the people more familiar with the obs. products looked into it more, and different observational datasets were produced since that time to examine (e.g., CERES). A number of factors of the IRIS hypothesis, including incorrect radiative properties have been pointed out, and others have examined Lindzen’s observations of varied high cloud amount with SST in more detail and concluded that it responds more to changes in subtropical clouds than to changes in tropical convection, which reflects a meteorological forcing than an SST forcing (so that even if SST were fixed, Lindzen would still observe an anti-correlation upon which his theory his built).
5) More recently, Lindzen and Spencer (among others) have looked at variations in the TOA energy balance and its relationship to SST changes, which in theory reflects the efficiency of the Planck restoring feedback. See my theoretical treatment of the water vapor feedback and runaway greenhouse for a jist of the principle
http://skepticalscience.com/radiation.html
However, deviations between trends in global mean SST and TOA radiation on decadal timescales are very large, and a number of people have shown that this reflects ENSO variability, as opposed to a forced trend over the timescale of a decade or shorter. This also requires using a short and discontinuous satellite data, and the analysis needs to be of global scale. Simple models with no realistic ocean, no El Niño, and no hydrological cycle (as in Spencer and Braswell) make this approach even more unsuitable.
6) I agree paleoclimate data are subject to limitations but several intervals in the past (like the LGM) have large signal to noise ratio because of the magnitude of change and forcing, and even within the error bars, a very low sensitivity cannot be considered an artifact of proxy interpretation. There are three fundamental ways climate sensitivity is derived from paleo-data: pure observations, observations with multi-model ensembles, or physics perturbed ensemble method using a single climate model. Only the first one must inherently assume the same sensitivity between one climate state to the other. I also agree that it is unlikely climate sensitivity is a constant, although for the LGM, the surface albedo feedback doesn’t necessarily need to be different because the ice sheets are treated as a forcing. Kohler et al 2010 is a good reference on this.
and the rate of ocean heat uptake is questionable.
Is it questionable because the Argo floats are show only a very small amount of ‘heat uptake’ or is it questionable because the argo floats seem to disagree markedly with ‘previous assumptions’ about ‘ocean heat uptake’.
I’m always interested why a scientist would ‘question the data’ when it doesn’t fit a theory.
Even the renowned Dr Hansen has concluded the ‘missing ocean heat’ doesn’t exist and decided that the impact of aerosol’s is much greater then previously thought.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110415_EnergyImbalancePaper.pdf
There are very good reasons to question the data (either ocean heat content measurements from older buoys, initial ARGO measurements, or satellite-derived products) and a number of people are working on that issue in great detail. It’s also appropriate to examine the models, and many of the AR4-generation ones tended to mix heat into the deep ocean too efficiently (I don’t know if this has changed for the CMIP5 generation models for the AR5). This has no effect on equilibrium climate sensitivity, but instead determines the expected observed warming at any point in time during the perturbed (and changing) state.
But the ‘missing heat’ is, in fact, a difference between two observational datasets and has nothing to do with theoretical considerations (i.e., the apparent inconsistency between satellite and in situ ocean measurements). The difference is not considered statistically significant however (see Loeb et al., 2012, Nat. Geo). Other forcings will impact this too.
Chris Colose: 1) Equilibrium climate sensitivity is very likely between 2-4.5 deg Celsius per 2xCO2, which unfortunately is not a narrow estimate, but values much smaller or much larger than that broad constraint have consistently failed a number of tests
Do you mean “steady state climate sensitivity” instead of “equilibrium sensitivity”? This terminological mistake occurs a lot in these discussions, and though I think it’s usually benign, it isn’t always clear whether the writer really means “equilibrium” or “steady state”. As long as the sun is providing energy and there is a net flow of radiation in (short wave) and out (long wave), then the appropriate concept is “steady state” (though even that is only approximate.)
Full thermodynamical equilibrium is not the only type of equilibrium. Various partial equilibriums represent also perfectly legitimate uses of the word, when the meaning is stated or clear from context as it is here.
It is certainly true that people err often by picking facts related to thermodynamic equilibrium and apply them to the stationary Earth system, but that’s not a problem for the definition of equilibrium climate sensitivity.
@Chris colose
“I agree paleoclimate data are subject to limitations but several intervals in the past (like the LGM) have large signal to noise ratio because of the magnitude of change and forcing, and even within the error bars, a very low sensitivity cannot be considered an artifact of proxy interpretation.”
Why not? I mean, really it can’t, or do you consider it unlikely?
I remember Lindzen trying to prove a low sensitivity and make an error. The result some people mentioned when correcting that error was 1K/doubling. That is suspiciously close to no feedback at all.
harrywr2 said: “I’m always interested why a scientist would ‘question the data’ when it doesn’t fit a theory.”
At the end of a seminar, I once heard a theorist snark: “Once again, the data is rejected by the theory.”
What he meant is that theorists have no end of questions to put to experimenters and empiricists, and the theorists can usually think of some objection to the experimental protocol or the methods of measurement and/or analysis of naturally occurring data. That can turn into regressive, defensive science if it happens too much. On the other hand, if you are a data worker, you have to live with it to a great extent. But a progressive scientific program isn’t one that has to be throwing up objections to hypothesis failures more often than it is celebrating victories for novel predictions.
This is just an instance of the Duhem-Quine problem, but a really important one.
Chris Colose, you wrote:
“The point about models is equally bad, since very few people who question the models on these blogs have even read about models or know what they are comparing.” Would you accept the following criticism, made in the last few years, of the lack of good evidence as to global circulation models having reasonable predictive capabilities and embodying realistic climate sensitivities?
“Much of the work has focused on evaluating the models’ ability to simulate the annual mean state, the seasonal cycle, and the inter-annual variability of the climate system, since good data is available for evaluating these aspects of the climate system. However good simulations of these aspects do not guarantee a good prediction. For example, Stainforth et al. (2005) have shown that many different combinations of uncertain model sub-grid scale parameters can lead to good simulations of global mean surface temperature, but do not lead to a robust result for the model’s climate sensitivity.
A different test of a climate model’s capabilities that comes closer to actually testing its predictive capability on the century time scale is to compare its simulation of changes in the 20th century with observed changes. A particularly common test has been to compare observed changes in global mean surface temperature with model simulations using estimates of the changes in the 20th century forcings. The comparison often looks good, and this has led to statements such as: ”…the global temperature trend over the past century …. can be modelled with high skill when both human and natural factors that influence climate are included” (Randall et al., 2007). However the great uncertainties that affect the simulated trend (e.g., climate sensitivity, rate of heat uptake by the deep-ocean, and aerosol forcing strength) make this a highly dubious statement. For example, a model with a relatively high climate sensitivity can simulate the 20th century climate changes reasonably well if it also has a strong aerosol cooling and/or too much ocean heat uptake. Depending on the forcing scenario in the future, such models would generally give very different projections from one that had all those factors correct.”
As you are no doubt aware, the “Randall et al., 2007” study that the above-quoted statement referred to as “highly dubious” constitutes the complete Chapter 8 “Climate Models and Their Evaluation” of IPCC AR4 WG1.
Chris,
Regarding your point about Richard Lindzen losing credibility among climate scientists – how would you respond to the issue of climate scientists losing credibility with the public?
The claims of effects from climate change are driving that loss of credibility, along with cries of persecution (funded by the evil fossil fuel industry) by some climate scientists. Whatever else you think of Dr Lindzen, he is on target with regard to this part of the debate. I could be Joe down the street and still see the failed science in studies like the recent one on Andean birds, where the conclusion of the researchers was that many of these populations may be at risk due to climate. The basis for this conclusion? Declining populations? Nope. Try that the range of their habitat had not shifted to the degree predicted by models. The researchers were surprised by this, even though they could document changes in temperature and other factors. So, because the birds were obviously too stupid to notice the threat of global warming, they were doomed because they weren’t moving fast enough.
Guess I’m lucky I stopped at a Masters and didn’t stick with becoming a “climate scientist”. Because in this instance I would have questioned a) the model and b) my hypothesis and assumptions, before I hit upon the conclusion that the birds are not adapting fast enough and are therefore at risk. This is exactly the sort of “science” that global warming / climate change has spawned. It has people like Dr Andy Lacis, who is far smarter than I am, making statements about how we “know” that as more CO2 and water vapor get taken up by the atmosphere, the system has increasing energy and therefore leads to more extreme climate events. Feel like directing me to the reseach which as identified the mechanisms by which this occurs? Or how about studies on the frequency and intensity of storms? I haven’t found any for the former and most of what I’ve found on the latter pretty much say the opposite.
Chris,
This is more emotive than scientific, and you say a number of things that are simply not true.
1)
You claim falsely that there have been “many subsequent criticisms of [Lindzen’s] lone paper [on the Faint Young Sun Paradox (FYSP)]”, and you cite Goldblatt and Zahnle 2011 (GZ11) as if it is one example out of many. In fact, GZ11 is the only paper that has disputed Rondanelli and Lindzen 2010 (RL10), and their criticisms have been answered. And surprisingly, you make no mention of the fact that Rosing et al. 2010 (No climate paradox under the faint early Sun, Nature, 464, 744–747, 2010. 3579) have also argued along similar lines as Rondanelli and Lindzen.
Here are all the articles that cite RL10 on the FYSP.
– Abe, Y. A. Abe-Ouchi, N.H. Sleep, and K.J. Zahnle, 2011: Habitable Zone Limits for Dry Planets, Astrobiology. 11(5): 443-460. doi:10.1089/ast.2010.0545.
– Goldblatt, C. and K.J. Zahnle, 2011: Clouds and the Faint Young Sun Paradox, Clim. Past, 7, 203–25 220, doi:10.5194/cp-7-203-2011, 2011. 3578
– Rondanelli, R. and R.S. Lindzen: 2011, Comment on “Clouds and the Faint Young Sun Paradox” by Goldblatt and Zahnle (2011), Clim. Past Discuss., 7, 3577–3582.
– Hasenkopf CA, Freedman MA, Beaver MR, Toon OB, Tolbert MA, 2011: Potential Climatic Impact of Organic Haze on Early Earth, Astrobiology, 11(2):135-49.
– Hessler, A. M., 2011: Earth’s Earliest Climate. Nature Education Knowledge 2(12):6
– Fairén, A, J. Haqq-Misra and C.P. McKay, 2012: Reduced albedo on early Mars does not solve the climate paradox under a faint young Sun, Astronomy & Astrophysics, doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201118527.
Then there is the interactive discussion at Clim. Past. Discuss
http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/7/3577/2011/cpd-7-3577-2011-discussion.html
RC C1795: ‘Review of: Comment by Rondanelli & Lindzen on “Clouds and the Faint Young Sun Paradox” by Goldblatt & Zahnle (2011).’, Itay Halevy, 10 Nov 2011
RC C1837: ‘Review of Rondanelli and Lindzen comment’, Jim Kasting, 11 Nov 2011
SC C2120: ‘Reply to Comment on “Clouds and the Faint Young Sun Paradox” by Goldblatt and Zahnle (2011)’, Colin Goldblatt, 22 Dec 2011
EC C2123: ‘Editor’s comment’, André Paul, 23 Dec 2011
AC C2435: ‘Interactive comment on “Comment on “Clouds and the faint young sun paradox” by Goldblatt and Zahnle” by R. Rondanelli and R. S. Lindzen’, Roberto Rondanelli, 18 Jan 2012.
I have read all these papers and the only authors who criticise RL10 are Goldblatt and Zahnle.
2) You claim, echoing GZ, “the high cloud feedback rests on rather crazy assumptions about the amount of high cloud cover (essentially 100%)”. However, Rondanelli and Lindzen, in their response, points out that GZ have simply misunderstood the claim.
3) You claim that “Most of the scientific community, even at MIT, no longer thinks Lindzen has any credibility left on climate science issues”. I wonder if you would share how you know this? Are claiming to have personally spoken to ‘most’ in the scientific community? Or are you repeating rumour? Or are you just making it up, as with point (1) above? It is easy to look at Lindzen’s most recent publications (published since 2010 say) and confirm that most of his results have been accepted by the community, including a number of papers on understanding aspects of atmospheric aerosols, problems simulating the atmospheric tides in GCMs.
4) Your comments on the Arctic make it sound as though this is all settled science when in fact there is a controversy in the literature right now, and Lindzen is not the only participant.
5) You claim, “His line that ‘…is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments’ is just too stupid to even acknowledge.”
This is where you really ought to be careful. There is Kiehl 2007, Knutti 2008, Schwartz et al. 2010, Huybers 2010 and all of this has been cited and acknowledged in the AR5 ZOD, at least. Lindzen’s point essentially stands. There is also a paper by some of Lindzen’s MIT colleagues on the same matter. It may be less that Lindzen is “stupid” and more that you need to do a bit more reading.
Further to Alex Harvey’s point 5) [contra Colose] on model tuning, it would be well worth the reader’s time to return to an older thread on this blog, “CO2 no-feedback sensitivity: Part II” and review Richard S. Courtney’s absolute evisceration of Fred Moolten on this same issue. The relevant portion begins about 1/2 or a bit more down the thread with Courtney’s comment @ 12/15/2010 – 5:44 p.m.
Thanks Alex for sound science instead of Chris’ rhetoric. Evidence wins.
Chris
Lindzen threw down the gauntlet in Slide 16
Dare you take up his challenge?
If you do have the courage to take up his challenge, perhaps you can enlighten us as to the difference between those temperatures.
Then we welcome you erudite pontification on how the massive increase in CO2 during the second half of the century contributed to the difference between the two records, but not to the major increase seen in both records.
Shall we await with bated breath?
Or return to real science?
While you are contemplating the massive warming that will be caused by the poor using coal to warm themselves and cook their food, perhaps you could consider the probability that there will even be an increase in light crude oil production in the forseeable future. See
“The World Oil Supply: Looming Crisis or New Abundance?” The video of the University Of Wisconsin February 17, 2012 is now online. Ex-Shell CEO & Peak Oil Researcher Face Off over America’s Energy Future. Posted at “Citizens for Affordable Energy”
“Gasoline will hit $5 per gallon this year predicts John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Company,”
Perhaps you could explain the underlying economics as to why an abundance of oil will cause the price of gasoline to hit record levels.
Futhermore, Jeff Brown (aka westexas) and Sam Foucher document how the global Available Net (oil) Exports after China and India have already down 13% since 2005. Extrapolating current trends suggests NO available Net oil Exports in 19 years.
How do you support catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) by cutting US oil consumption in about half within 20 years at current trends?
Chris,
Lindzen said:
as opposed to: “shown to be consistent with observed warming by including known and quantified additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability”
The fact that you put such a radically different spin on it says a lot more about your bias than anything else.
Tip: If someone, particularly someone highly educated and experienced, appears to say something incredibly stupid, first check that you’ve heard them correctly before sprouting off. Failure to do so could result in acute embarrassment on your part.
As to Dr. Lindzen’s examples (slide 20), I think these are examples of the fallacy of “Affirming the Consequent”, a rhetorical device. Dr. Lindzen may be trying to point out that rhetorical fallacies have no place in scientific debate. (IMO, they are common in politics.)
If A then B, B, therefore A .
(Post in haste; edit at leisure.)
The fallacy takes the form If A then B, B, therefore A.
It is my understanding that If AND ONLY If A then B, B, therefore A is acceptable.
Pooh, Dixie, you say:
That’s correct. The “AND ONLY” part is effectively the same as adding, “If B, A.”
AGU President’s message 27 February 2012
We must remain committed to scientific integrity
In doing so he compromised AGU’s credibility as a scientific society, weakened the public’s trust in scientists, and produced fresh fuel for the unproductive and seemingly endless ideological firestorm surrounding the reality of the Earth’s changing climate.”
Birds of a feather ………
Hands up, how many of you believe that the PLANET is warmer by 0,8C now than 150y ago?!
1] if the troposphere warms up by 0,8C – would expand INSTANTLY by 100m. Cannot expand down into the soil – but expands upwards by 100m, into the stratosphere. That extra volume of oxygen + nitrogen can intercept appropriate EXTRA amount of coldness in 3,5 seconds to equalize – it takes few minutes that EXTRA coldness to fall down to the ground and equalize – then instantly O+N shrink to previous volume. Because if it stayed expanded for a whole day (24h) would have intercepted / redirected down enough extra coldness, to freeze ALL tropical rivers and lakes. I live in the tropics, trust me, I’m the most honest person on the planet; the rivers and lakes are not frozen = therefore: extra heat in the troposphere is not cumulative B] for the last 162y, not enough extra heat has accumulated to boil one chicken egg!!! Q: does it take 150y for oxygen + nitrogen to expand after warmed extra – or expansion is INSTANT?!?!?!
2] the amount of data available from 1850 is less than 0,00000000000001% ESSENTIAL, to know the correct temperature. Comparing one unknown with another unknown is the ”mother of all lies”
TRUTH: ”big city island heat” now exist, between 0,5C – 3C, depends on the size of individual big city has grown. That has made the air in those cities to expand > increased the troposphere upwards by 4-5m. That extra volume wastes the extra heat / intercepts extra coldness and is redirecting it down to the surface. Because the surface outside those ”big cities” is much larger. (including the surface of the oceans) – the extra coldness redirected made to be COLDER by 0,00000001C, outside the big cities. Overall temperature in the troposphere is exactly the same today as it was 1850. Unless the laws of physics are abolished by the governments and UN, Global warming is 101% lie!!! My formula is correct: EX>AE>ECI (Extra Heat > Atmosphere Expands > Extra Coldness Intercepts)
Lowering the GLOBAL warming from few degrees to 0,8C is same as massaging the truth with the middle finger, instead off with the whole left hand. It’s the ”kicking and screaming on the way to the confession box”’ Not only Lindzen, but every Climate Activist will be asked the question: -”why were you avoiding / ignoring Stefan’s formulas”? Most prominent will be asked in a court of law / under oath. It’s prudent to prepare answers for that question now. Because the other 101 questions will follow.
Duh. Additional volume is not additional mass. UR babbling and confuzed.
Brian H | February 27, 2012 at 8:10 pm | Reply
Duh. Additional volume is not additional mass. UR babbling and confuzed.
Brian, no need for confusion. When you get warmer – instantly spread and stick your arm in a bucket of ice – you are same volume / SAME MASS – but the extra heat released by your arm and swapped for extra coldness will equalize the temperature in your body. You would be imitating what the troposphere does. Stick to the laws of physics – you can’t go wrong. Where the troposphere expands upwards, when gets warmer for any reason; is much colder than ice in your bucket. Cheers
“coldness”? physics? Man, yuze confuze. There is no such thing as “coldness”. Only heat, in varying degrees from 0 therms on up. It spreads by various means. Eventually it will be spread evenly everywhere, at which point nothing more will happen. Ever.
;p
Brian H….. You are proving my point again; that you Swindlers have NOTHING solid – only looking for salvation in confusion. Engineers that produce refrigerators and stoves; they don’t need to say: ”your freezer is 230k warm; or ”your oven should be turned to 310k (Kelvin) to make a roast. Only Desperadoes in shonky climatology cannot read / understand the gauge in their fridges and ovens.
I had already to defend myself from a similar bull-artist like you, by pointing to him that is no darkness, only lack of photons; but normal people call it ”dark” at night… Brian, when you come up with drivel; it’s a real proof; that you are scared from the truth – you are suffering from ”truth phobia” 2] when you pick on my misspelling; it’s your own admission that: all my proofs are correct. Thanks for your approval, Brian
@stefanthedenier trust me, I’m the most honest person on the planet;
Then you should have called yourself Diogenes instead of “the denier.” Logic requires both the honest and the dishonest to deny that they are dishonest. Can you imagine either an honest or dishonest person saying “I am a liar?” That’s the celebrated Liar Paradox!
Vaughan Pratt | March 1, 2012 at 2:35 am | ”no honest or dishonest person say that he is a liar”
Wrong, Vaughan, WRONG!!! When a person states that he knows exactly ”the GLOBAL temperature” —that is admission that he is a liar. Because nobody has ever monitored the GLOBAL temp; on one small hill are 600 different variations in temp and change every 10minutes. Planet’s temp is not same everywhere as in human body. When one states that the planet is warmer year by ”0,02C, that is shouting loud and clear that the psycho is a shameless con artist / dishonest / liar. Their / yours ”admissions IN WRITING that they / you are a liar” are numerous. I’m writing a book about swindlers like you.
P.s everything I prove, can be replicated / proven, right now. Small example: The hottest point is always closest to the ground – when gets warmer, for any reason – VERTICAL WINDS INCREASE!!! You talk about thermodynamics / convection – but don’t include Stefan’s / my formulas; because they prove beyond any reasonable doubt; that you people are lying INTENTIONALLY. I can prove most of the Swindler’s lies are lies; the only wrong proven about my proofs is that I misspell and have limited English vocabulary. Picking on my misspelling, is Swindler’s admission that all the rest I have is correct
because they prove beyond any reasonable doubt; that you people are lying INTENTIONALLY
Stefan, don’t get angry, get rich. If your method of establishing a person’s intent really does work as you claim, you’d better patent it. The justice system would be your first serious customer. Establishing intent in a court of law has long been an outstanding open problem, usually left to a jury to argue over.
You’ll go far in this world with an invention like that. Got any others up your sleeve?
@ Vaughan Pratt | March 5, 2012 at 12:07 pm | Stefan, don’t get angry, get rich.
Vaughn, see, you can tell truth; your tongue didn’t brake of. I seldom argue against truth, no matter how bad that truth is. But you are my friend, I will make an exception. Beware from people that have being fleeced, when they find out the truth – they will make you to look funny without testicles. Just be careful and… don’t book accommodation on Mt. Ararat; but in central American jungle; where they can’t find you. Cheers
Wouldn’t existing satellite measurements provide either additional support for or refute your idea?
Rob Starkey | March 1, 2012 at 7:24 pm |
Rob, satellites takes “occasionally” ”TWO DIMENSIONAL” infrared photos. Satellite will not tell the difference between: ”if is 1,2m layer of 20C temp and below of 500m layer of 16C – OR if is 500m layer of 20C and 10mm of 16C. Using satellites for monitoring global warmth is the mother of all lies. For a start, regarding climate, NASA is only above IPCC, in the phony GLOBAL warming sewer.
I presume that is no need to explain to you that: 500m layer of air can contain more heat than 15cm. But for NASA that is a taboo… . Because: if is everything good ahead – NASA’s budget goes down by half —- if big catastrophes are ahead – NASA’s budget quadruples instead… they are not stupid…
Anteros | February 27, 2012 at 6:38 pm |
vukcevic –
” Post WW2 has some basis in reason, as it marked quite a significant change in emissions. 2nd half of the 20th century for similar reasons – arbitrary but not cherry-picking (from any point of view)”
Hmmm … It seems to me that the emissions from the international military-industrial complex must have been significant during WWII.
I have no insight as regards the amount of GHGs produced by high explosive material and related colateral damage but it must be significant compared to the post-WWII era.
I was thinking the very same thing while I was typing “Post WW2” but not having any info either, I let it pass :).
However, I suppose in the back of my mind was the graph of tonyb’s that gives the impression that WW2 had less of an emissions impact than we guessed – http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/tbrown_figure3.png
I think one reason sceptics lean to 1940ish and warmists choose 1950 is because of the peak of temperature around 1940. Not very edifying in either case but that’s life..
Bombed out factories stop producing CO2 when the fires go out. Countries at war don’t trade. Military production robs domestic industry of man power and scarce raw materials. Total economic output drops even as war production increases.
JJ – “Countries at war don’t trade.”
What a silly, silly comment. You cannot possibly be serious. During war factories are more active than ever. You have NO concept or knowledge of history, to make an ill-informed statement like that. That is like saying, “Black is actually white.” Wars are won by logistics. Supplies – bullets, cannons, planes, tanks, rifles, uniforms, helmets, bombs – whoever doesn’t manufacture or buy those LOSES. Ever heard of Lend-Lease? Unlimited submarine warfare? The Lusitania? England – and Russia, too – would have lost WWII without American supply ships. As in manufacturing. As in factories. Ever heard of Strategic bombing? It was the effort to STOP the German factories. KZ Dachau had about 200 satellite camps – all factories, and all situated to avoid bombing. Factories, factories, factories. Whichever side keeps theirs going, they usually win.
Steve Garcia
Steve Garcia,
I have heard of lend lease. I have also heard of rationing. I understand that GM and BMW were making lots of trucks and tanks during the war years. I also understand that they weren’t making many cars during that same period. I also understand that rationing ended and car production dramatically increased after the war.
I understand that WWII was in large part an industrial competition. I also understand that this means that materials production, transport, and manufacturing were therefore high value targets. I have heard of strategic bombing. I also wonder why you think it was not effective at the assigned task. I also wonder how much CO2 Dresden produced, once the embers cooled.
Two posters wonder aloud about the consensus regarding CO2 levels ca WWII. I offered a potential explanation for that more or less accepted fact. Without so much as a single fact or figure in support, you launch into a nasty diatribe replete with name calling.
What a vile, petty little man.
Not a vile and petty man. You made a completely incorrect statement,
which showed complete ignorance of the facts you now say you knew.
Your ignorant statement deserved no respect. If you knew those facts you should never have stated what you did. If you don’t want people pointing out your errors, please refrain from making them.
Vile and petty? Here is your reply to Pierre:
You have a pathetic double standard. You can dish it out, but you can’t take it.
Steve Garcia
JJ, I think you ought to read Steve Garcia’s comment again. You claim it was filled (replete) with name calling, and yet, it doesn’t even have a single instance of such. The closest he comes to calling you names is when he says:
You could argue he mocked you, but there is no name calling. Heck, most of that is discussing your comment, not you. The only thing he said about you was you “have NO concept or knowledge of history,” and that isn’t name calling. Heck, it isn’t even really insulting you given how wrong your comment was. Speaking of, you seem to now acknowledge that trading does happen in countries at war, meaning you acknowledge your comment was wrong.
Anyway, I highly recommend you reread his comment rather than seemingly agree with his point while calling him a “vile, petty little man” when he hasn’t called you anything.
Brandon –
I did not see your reply when I responded to JJ. Thanks. I specifically did NOT call him names. In my response, I used the word “ignorant” in the dictionary meaning of the term, as in not having knowledge about a thing.
I did not see a retraction of his “not knowledgeable” statement. though he now claims he does know those things. I am actually glad he acknowledged the real history and that he is not as lacking as I’d thought. But like you said, he didn’t admit his error.
I do love these kinds of blogs, where I can find reasonable people who things can be discussed with. I recall one on here where hundreds of comments by “disagreers” were made and all were very respectful.
In fact, JJ, I had no intention of insulting you, even if you were some dumb cluck. But I could not let your statement pass without comment. It was just flat out wrong. So, my sincere apologies.
But when you make a really incorrect statement, don’t be surprised if someone calls you out on it. And you be cool, too.
Peace to both of you.
Steve Garcia
What a silly, silly comment. You cannot possibly be serious.
What a silly silly silly comment. You are obviously not serious.
Here is a known fact from the geologic record. The last time CO2 was as high as it is now was 20 million years ago and sea level was 200 feet higher than today. We have no idea how fast the ice is going to melt, but we do know that sea level has had instances of very rapid rise in the last 15,000 years. We do know that the rate of seal level rise is now accelerating. Is pointing out these facts alarmist?
Something doesn’t add up, rossi. Is the extra 200 feet of sea level hiding in the deep ocean bottoms, along with the missing heat?
Don, It’s worse than we thought.
We can’t account for the missing 200 feet of sea water, and it’s a travesty that we can’t.
Maybe it’s in the deep ocean, hiding with the missing heat?
If you’re prepared to look closely, I think you’ll find both the 200 feet of sea level and all the missing heat in Kevin Trenberth’s underpants.
No good Anteros. ‘Felicity’ had are really good look and couldn’t find any heat down there either.
I think it has actually gone to the nether.
Gary M: Best line I’ve read all day!
Well, stating an untruth is alarmist. Have a look at the record – the slope of sea level rise has been constant for a very, very long time, but has actually *decreased* in recent years, not increased. See
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
You may be looking at a less authentic source, or maybe none at all.
Probably GISS-adjusted sea-level, now welling over the Himalayas.
Yes, doubling CO2 is taking us back to Cretaceous levels (pre 65 million years ago). There were no ice caps in the Cretaceous, it was all in increased sea level. Furthermore, a second doubling (barely possible by using all fossil fuels) gets us to Jurassic, and a third doubling (not possible thankfully without the help of volcanoes) gets us to Triassic. These were increasingly warm periods in paleoclimate. I find this very interesting as a lesson on where we stand in the long view.
Your POV doesn’t take into account, nor even raise awareness of, other potential climate factors that could have led to warmer conditions 65M years ago. It is not at all a given that CO2 was the culprit!
You may want to start with plate tectonics: Two events in the past 35M years have very likely contributed to substantial planetary cooling, namely the establishment of the Drake Passage (30-35M yrs ago) and more recently the closing off of Isthmus of Panama (5M yrs ago). Both events have impacted ocean circulation patterns and each is suspected of contributing to the formation of the North and South polar ice caps, respectively.
Until you account for these two events (and possibly others), it is pretty difficult to assign blame to Cretaceous CO2 levels for the lack of polar ice caps back then.
You may also also be aware of Jan Veizer’s benthic foramina studies, which indicate tropical sea surface temperatures over the Phanerozoic era (past 500M yrs or so) have been remarkably stable and do not appear to be correlated to the geological record of prevailing CO2 concentrations at the time (eg. GEOCARB III).
Paul, the global temperature cannot be affected by just ocean circulations, and the Cretaceous was warm enough to prevent ice caps which had not existed since the Permian 250 million years ago, which coincidentally was the last time CO2 had low values like now, and just prior to the probably volcanically-induced climate change leading to the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the high Triassic CO2 levels. The sun was even a little cooler in these previous periods, so higher CO2 alone won’t explain all the differences and may underestimate them if the sun isn’t accounted for.
If a change to the ocean circulation patterns leads to the establishment of a permanent last ice sheet (as happened with the one that formed over Antarctica), this impacts the overall planetary bond albedo, and that will have an impact on the global temperature. Indeed, one can see significant global cooling visible in the geological record just around the time of Antarctica’s initial glaciation.
It isn’t just about ocean circulation: Ice caps tend to form in the presence of large land masses at the poles. When the continents are not near the poles, we have seen little in the way of glaciation take place.
However, we did see a deep glaciation occur some 300M yrs ago (the “Gondwanan Ice Age”), when CO2 levels were some 15 times current levels. :-)
that should read: “permanent _large_ ice sheet” in the first para of my reply above. Sorry!
Actually, it was the Ordovician Glaciation I was thinking of (420M yrs ago) where CO2 levels were approximately 15 times today’s… mea culpa!
Coincided with a large super continent at the South pole…
@ Jim D | February 27, 2012 at 11:25 pm |: Paul, the global temperature cannot be affected by just ocean circulations,
Jim D, GLOBAL temperature doesn’t get effected by ocean circulation, global temp is always the same. Ocean circulation effects / CONTROLS the climate. When circulation increases / decreases = improves / deteriorates the climate on many places. Nothing to do with the PHONY global warming. I’m glad that I can be of some help for you; unfortunately, as a ”closed parashoot brains”’ medical help is more appropriate for you
The sun only needs to be a few percent fainter, as it was in previous glaciations, to permit ice at the poles even with ten times as much CO2. The Ordovician was also possibly after a period of declining CO2 implying cooling, but temperature and CO2 estimates back then are a bit fuzzy.
@ Jim D | February 28, 2012 at 1:03 am
Jim D, the sun doesn’t get fainter – look at the size of it. They tell you that the sun gets fainter; but that is misleading. Yesterday was created some big sun-flares; sunlight comes here in 8 minutes, no delays – you will see that is not going to be warmer. Only damages to some electronics; but because the temp is controlled by O+N expanding / shrinking INSTANTLY in change of temp – expanding when warmed / shrinking when cooled extra = overall is same temp always. Stop worrying!!! Tell this to people that brainwashed you – make them to worry.
They are lying, because they have many megaphones like you / they know that megaphone need only battery, but no brains necessary . Be happy, let the big Swindlers worry
Does this mean that I may be able to take the kids to see real dinosaurs in a park?
Paul, you are 90% correct; Jim D is 101% WRONG!!!
For a start, for Jim D to state that: ”the sun was little bit cooler 500m years ago”… the man doesn’t know what the word ”shame” means, it’s a symbol of power madness… Yes Paul, H2O controls the climatic changes 100%, on many different ways. Big changes happened in closing the gap between south / north Americas, opening Bering straights, opening Gibraltar straights. Is not just the opening / closing by itself. But that changes the directions of currents, which effects changes places far, far away. The shonky science in the past never used facts and common sense – they were pining the climatic changes on solar activity, which is 101% wrong… then they become CO2 + methane molesters / jihadists.
All you need is to compare Brazil V Sahara’s climate. For the jihadists those two places have SAME climate… because of same amount of CO2, same solar / galactic influences. Most of the ”climatologist” are a big city swindlers… Paul, if you drive from east to west coast of USA, or Australia; in one week you will encounter 50 different climates. Is it that 50 GLOBAL warming happened in that week, or was it more or less HO2 present in particular area?! People that cannot understand that: climate becomes more extreme without water / milder temperature CLIMATE, with lots of water present; are ”premeditated mas murderers” They are blaming ”water vapor” for the phony GLOBAL warming. If the truth is known, by building extra dams to prevent floods and droughts; not only loss of lives would be prevented; but extra water on the land = less dry heat created, more moisture in the air is for regular rain + day / night temp closer + more raw material for renewal of ice on polar caps and glaciers and lots of other benefits.
Their massive drivel silences the truth, but the truth always wins on the end. It’s all on my website and in my book. Sophisticated swindlers cannot change the laws of physics. There is NO such a thing as GLOBAL warming, or GLOBAL ICE AGE. When part of the planet gets warmer than normal – other part MUST get INSTANTLY colder than normal. Oxygen + nitrogen regulate the temperature overall to be the same every day of every month, year and millenia. Proven already ”beyond any reasonable doubt”
Sounds like strong evidence against a CO2-temperature link. CO2 up but no sea, see.
How many years of declining sea level are required to falsify the claim that sea level rise is accelerating? Most of the true believers have stopped making the sea level claim because it just calls attention to the recent measurements that sea level has been falling, not rising at an accelerating rate.
Cagw_skeptic99 –
You should know by now that nothing in all this is *ever* falsifiable. Nor designed to be. If sea level doesn’t rise, this will be explained by tweaking the Models, blessings and peace be upon them.
Well, I have been informed, all the water that’s missing is apparently flooding Australia. Apparently, as Australia is at the bottom of the Earth the rainwater doesn’t flow back to the sea, but sits around doing nothing, like evaporating or anything.
Is pointing out these facts alarmist? Yes, Ross. as you’ve dont it, yes it is. Read Lindzen’s remarks. Pointing out sea level rise is trivially true but making the leap from that to 200 feet is alarmist.
Ross you are wrong about the sea level rising rate is accelerating. In the Houston paper it is decelerating and others concur with that
Ross,
Why do you think the two are connected?
Something doesn’t add up, rossi. Is the extra 200 feet of sea level hiding in the deep ocean bottoms, along with the missing heat?
Obviously not, as your tone indicates.
But has it occurred to you that it could hide on top of Ellesmere Island, Greenland, and Antarctica? Do you have a physics-based reason why this could not happen?
This material is largely recycled from previous talks, so we don’t have anything new to address in it. Lindzen stays clear of the last 30 years for good reason. Had he calculated how much warming his 1 C sensitivity would have given, it would have been less than half of what was observed. He then would have had to say where he thought the rest came from, which he has no idea of, at least that he has spoken about. For 1900-2000, his expected warming would have been near 0.35 C, only half of what actually occurred, even with the negative effect of aerosols that he doesn’t believe in (somewhat in a minority there). When he says that evidence suggests lower sensitivity, he is referring to his own study of tropical west Pacific clouds during ENSO cycles with cloud-forcing changes that he infers apply globally to the CO2 effect somehow. He found this inference hard to publish: tropical Pacific clouds – fair to present but disputed by other later studies, global application to CO2 – a step too far.
His last sentence is ironic, in that it expresses certainty in his own low-warming prediction, despite his earlier caution about listening to people who say things are incontrovertible, presumably meaning besides himself. Apart from that, global warming is incontrovertible in the temperature record and that is the only sense where I have seen the term applied in an official statement by any scientists.
Jim, See my response to Colose upthread. Basically, Lindzen is looking at all forcings excluding the very uncertain aerosols. In AR4, the summary forcing diagram shows those forcings to be north of 3W/m2, pretty close to the alleged value for a doubling of CO2, the magic sensitivity forcings. I would urge you to see in the same diagram for the error bar on the aerosol forcings. Lindzen also has some references to modeling papers where the aerosol “adjustment” is explained along Lindzen’s lines.
The aerosols are uncertain but centered on -1.5 W/m2. How does he justify ignoring a first-order term like this? Just acknowledging a central value throws his sensitivity out of the window. He might even have heard of global dimming which occurred during the greatest part of the aerosol growth from 1950-1980. It just seems irrational to say no effect without reasoning it out.
The global dimming / brightening produces a number of problems for both the models in the AR4 such as Romanou 2007. eg Ohmura 2009.
Global solar irradiance showed a significant fluctuation
during the last 90 years. It increased from 1920 to
1940–1950s, thereafter it decreased toward late 1980s. In
early 1990s 75% of the glob indicated the increasing trend
of solar irradiance, while the remaining area continued to
lose solar radiation. The regions with continued dimming
are located in areas with high aerosol content. The magnitudes
of the variation are estimated at +12,_8 and +8Wm_2,
for the first brightening, for the dimming and the recent
brightening periods, respectively.
Observations from surface actinometric stations in the south pacific have a number of confounding attributes. eg Wild
evidence for a decrease of SD from the 1950s to 1990 and a recovery thereafter was also found on the Southern Hemisphere at the majority of 207 sites in New Zealand and on South Pacific IslandsLiley, 2009].
Liley [2009] pointed out that the dimming and brightening observed in New Zealand is unlikely related to the directaerosol effect, since aerosol optical depth measurementsshowed too little aerosol to explain the changes. On the basis of sunshine duration measurements he argued that increasing and decreasing cloudiness could have caused
dimming and brightening at the New Zealand sites.
Hatzianastassiou 2011 show that observations in the 21st century also constrain the so called understanding eg
An overall global dimming (based on coastal, land and ocean pixels) is found to have taken place on the Earth under all-sky conditions, from 2001 to 2006, arising from a stronger solar dimming in the SH (delta SSR = -3.84 W m-2 or -0.64 W m-2/yr) and a slight dimming in NH (delta SSR = -0.65 W m-2 or -0.11 W m-2/yr), thus exhibiting a strong inter-hemispherical difference. Dimming is observed over land and ocean in the SH, and over oceans in the NH, whereas a slight brightening occurred over NH land, with the SSR tendencies being larger in the SH than in the NH land and ocean areas.
The Southern Hemisphere has undergone significant dimming due to a larger increase in cloud cover than in NH, which has dominated the slight dimming from increased aerosols. The indicated SSR dimming of the Southern Hemisphere at the beginning of this century demonstrates that much remains to be learned about the responsible
physical processes and climatic role of cloud and aerosol feedbacks.
The largest aerosol effect is that on cloud albedo, especially over oceans, so perhaps it makes sense that it is seen in the SH. Anyway, why doesn’t Lindzen talk about any of this?
The aerosols over ocean in the SH are mostly natural ie biological,over land where we have good optical resolution eg lidar the counts are mostly negligible ie insignificant for antropogenic contribution.eg Lilley 2009
Jim D; You are not just WRONG, but back to front on everything also.
1] ”Aerosols” are used exclusively for confusing Smarties like you. Aerosols have no influence on temperature. Aerosols, helium, ozone, are into the stratosphere – they don’t circulate up and down to exchange more / less heat; that is the job for oxygen + nitrogen. Aerosols cannot warm the stratosphere / stratospheric temperature is always the same. Because the diameter of the earth’s orbit is 30 light minutes big. The velocity the earth travels trough that coldness is incomprehensible for the shonky science only. Whatever you have learned from the book for brainwashing, is preventing you to see anything regarding climate in proper prospective.
If you clear the mud from your head; you will be able to see clearly the ”drivel with confidence” by people like you, Brandon Shollenberger and others are saying, that wouldn’t make sense to an earthworm. Nothing personal, just friendly advise; try to think for yourself, instead off using the crap dished by the propaganda establishment, or the book for brainwashing (created by amateur climatologist / geologist, in the past 100y) Jim, CO2 absorbs more heat than O+N, but CO2 absorbs much more coldness than O+N at night. THOSE 2 FACTORS CANCEL EACH OTHER!!!! Only Flat Earther believes that is 24h sunlight on the whole planet, think about it… Some day you will have to justify the lies lies that you are spreading, even though others invented them.
stephanthedenier,
+1
Aerosols, helium, ozone, are into the stratosphere – they don’t circulate up and down to exchange more / less heat; that is the job for oxygen + nitrogen.
Hard to imagine anyone more clueless about atmospheric pollution.
Los Angeles had its brown cloud in the 1960s and into the 70s. Now India and China have their brown clouds. These are nowhere near the stratosphere. Check your facts first.
@ Vaughan Pratt | March 1, 2012 at 2:45 am |
Aerosols, helium, ozone, are into the stratosphere – they don’t circulate up and down to exchange more / less heat; that is the job for oxygen + nitrogen.
Hard to imagine anyone more clueless about atmospheric pollution.
Los Angeles had its brown cloud in the 1960s and into the 70s. Now India and China have their brown clouds. These are nowhere near the stratosphere. Check your facts first.
Vaughn, the brown cloud is from SOOTH, CO (carbon-monoxide) SO2; NOT from aerosol, helium, ozone. Not efficient burning of fossil fuel, because of depleted oxygen in those mentioned areas by you. Proves that badmouthing of creation of new methane, is one of the biggest crime. Only creation of NEW methane reverses the damages / IMPROVES THE OXYGEN LEVEL IN THE ATMOSPHERE. All proven already. You Vaughan are a big part of that crime, jihadists against CO2, CH4. I hope you will get appropriate penalties, for what you deserve, not more or less
Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act – Prof Richard S. Lindzen Seminar (Global Warming: How to approach the science) held at the House of Commons Committee Rooms Westminster, London on the 22nd February 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wy50yaBIDPE
THE CLIMATE CHANGE ACT RECONSIDERED – PART 2 of 2 (credits re-edited)A Public meeting held in the UK House of Commons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpvJbBgYF4E
Part 2 of the House of Commons session that Lindzen participated had the relevant energy policy discussions.
Paul, Just to note that the 2nd video “Climate Change Act Reconsidered-2.mov” was from the previous meeting at Westminster on 30th November 2011 and not the Prof Lindzen meeting.
For the CO2 advocates out there – the evidence? I was at both, and so have first hand observation.
Hi Simon (http://twitter.com/#!/SConwaySmith/), I think that it is also worth mentioning that it was Professor Ian Plimer who gave the science presentation at that Nov. meeting. I’m disappointed that I missed that one and made sure of going to the Feb. one (were you there too?).
On that twitter page you suggested to Climate Resistance (I hate it when people hide behind those false names) “ .. May be worth sending the report to the Sky Dragon authors (John O’Sullivan, Tim Ball) & others etc. for a full review .. ”. If that report was a pseudo-scientific one (like the IPCC’s SPMs) then in my opinion that would be an appropriate place for it. Having had close dealings with John and his “Slayers” regarding their publishing company Principia Scientific International (PSI) since Dec. 2010, that is not the place where sound scientific arguments originate from. Extensive comments about that subject can be found on Professor Curry’s “Letter to the sky dragons” thread (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/) which has now notched up 1,177 comments, but none from you – perhaps you missed that thread but its worth a visit.
In your comment of 15th May 2011 @ 4:41 AM EDT on the Climate Realists blog (http://climaterealists.com/index.php/contact.php?id=7457&page=2) you said “ .. As they say, “follow the money” .. ”. Climate Realists has close associations with the “Slayers” and PSI through co-founder Hans Schreuder (PSI’s Chief Finance Officer (http://climaterealists.com/bios.php) and “follow the money” might give a hint as to what the “Slayers” are about (http://www.gofundme.com/1v39s and http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/08/help-asked-for-dr-tim-ball-in-legal-battle-with-dr-mann/).
There’s much more on that subject on “Letter to the sky dragons” (e.g. see http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-134549 – it’s long but worth spending time on)
BTW, what is the origin of the false name ilma630 ?
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Ross Cann,
Your comment: “that the rate of seal level rise is now accelerating”, is very interesting. This is so especially since the sea level in fact was dropping the last few years, and now is only slightly rising the most recent period. The average rate over the last 5 or so years is near zero. How do you get an acceleration out of that?
Leonard; Because of the movement of the tectonic plates – they buckle = same place appears that water is raising – other places as some atolls / islands are sinking. We should be grateful for it. Why?
If that wasn’t happening in the past… high erosion from the hills by water and winds – not one speck of dust by now would have being dry!!! .My conservative calculation says: ”there is enough water on the planet, to cover ALL the soil by 1,9km of water. Not because of CO2 or any phony GLOBAL warming; but because of the amount of water. In my book I have 3,5 pages on that subject. The only reason we have dry lands is because other places are sinking – that gives ideas to people of ”sea raising / falling”
Another phenomena: 80% of all the water in every sea and ocean combined is below 4C. Water below 4C, when is warming up – it shrinks; when gets colder, expands. Experiment: put a bottle of seawater at 4C in your freezer – by the time cools by few degrees; the bottle will explode. Then fill a bottle with seawater at zero degrees and warm it by 3-4 degrees – the water will shrink by 5-6% – if that was a 1km deep ocean – should shrink a lot, WHEN THE WATER IS GETTING WARMER!!! They are not just wrong, but are back to front on most of the subjects. When part of a tectonic plate is sinking – gives an illusion that the seawater is raising. Illusion is not a science – but is used by lots of shonky scientists as factual
The problem as I see it is that, to coin a cliche, the devil is in the details. If you give a short presentation in general terms to a non-scientific audience, you can prove just about anything you want, with no-one to say you’re wrong. The reason that Lindzen’s perspective is not widely accepted within climate science resides in details that are not in the talk, and which an audience unfamiliar with climate data would be unable to judge in any case.
Although I wouldn’t be vehement about it, I tend to agree with Chris Colose and Jim D on many of the specifics. I find it particularly unfortunate that Lindzen seems to cling to the argument that aerosol cooling is just a fudge factor invented to make the mainstream arguments fit the observations, an argument that sometimes seems to have achieved mythical status in some blogosphere commentary. We don’t know everything about aerosols during the twentieth century, but we do know a lot, including evidence for their potent “global dimming” effects from about 1950 through the late 1970s. The legitimate grounds for discussion and disagreement would remain within the boundaries of the magnitude of aerosol effects, but not with the claim those effects were negligible or non-existent.
This has actually been discussed fairly extensively in many past and recent threads, and interested readers might want to go back to look at those discussions and visit the relevant references to studies by Martin Wild, Gregory and Forster, and analyses by Isaac Held, among others. The relationship of aerosol forcing to model projections has also been discussed, and in addition to the above items, AR4 WG1 Chapter 9 is worth revisiting, even though the language is sometimes dense and ambiguous. There are uncertainties to be sure, but not at the level implied by Lindzen.
Fred –
Are you saying that Lindzen shouldn’t give talks at the House of Commons?
Is it much different from Al Gore touring the world giving talks to 10’s if not 100’s of thousands of people – with ‘information’ that Rich Muller at least describes as all either misleading, exaggerated or wrong?
Lindzen is giving his opinion – it’s a talk, not a scientific paper, and if as Chris Colose so obnoxiously puts it, his ideas are “too stupid to acknowledge” then how is this talk going to affect anything?
Anteros – I’m not saying Lindzen shouldn’t talk to the House of Commons.
On the other hand, by posting his talk here, Dr. Curry appears to be making its scientific content the focus for discussion, and her comments seem to support that inference. This troubles me because the scientific content of the talk was too general (as I mentioned above) to be dissected as a scientific talk as opposed to a politically oriented one, and so what we’re left with are simply the topics in the talk, for us to discuss on some other basis than what Lindzen said to the House of Commons.
That’s fine, except for a few problems. First, the number of topics was far too great to address adequately in a blog thread. Second, and more important in my opinion, there exist numerous informative scientific publications addressing each of these topics, any of which would be a good starting point for fruitful discussion. It therefore concerns me that this blog recently appears often to be using news articles and public talks as a basis for climate science discussion rather than scientific communications replete with specific data. The latter do come up at times, but disappointingly seldom recently, in my perception.
The use of news articles and talks generally provokes a great deal of arguing, but i believe more actual understanding would emerge if we started with published articles or other legitimate sources of data such as material presented at meetings, and occasionally, Internet content from individuals not involved in partisan controversy. Dozens of potential starting points are published every week, so there’s no dearth of material for serious discussion, if serious discussion is a goal here in preference to argumentation.
Fred –
I take your point and don’t really disagree with you.
However, what you’d like to see on this blog is, I think, very different from
that desired by the majority. There are plenty of places where the recent literature of climate science can be discussed – I don’t think that is what Dr Curry’s blog is about, for the most part.
It’s more to do with multiple different approaches and perspectives – perhaps many of which you find a bit trivial or superficial. It has its merits, though, for people looking to explore things other than consensus climate science.
I think you’re right about Lindzen’s talk – it was perhaps too broad and discursive to be a useful blog subject – though I’m glad to have the links. Perhaps it would have been better for Dr Curry to excerpt 3 or 4 of the most interesting/convincing/contentious points and examined them in some detail. Or even just one!
I think maybe I’m nearer the other end of the spectrum to yourself – I tend to get most interested here when the subject moves towards the history and philosophy of science and perhaps the psychology of our beliefs about the future. Less specifically of the ‘Climate’, and more of the ‘Etc’, even though I do have an interest in quite a few of the pure science topics.
Anteros – Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree that it’s reasonable to have a mix of technical and non-technical subjects here, even if I personally would like to see the proportion shifted a bit more to the technical, which are currently in the minority. My only real complaint involves the use of non-scientific sources to launch a discussion of scientific topics at the technical level. If we’re going to discuss how aerosol forcing is handled, for example (a technical topic), I would prefer to start with recent data on this issue rather than a casual (and I believe inaccurate) remark by Lindzen suggesting that aerosols have been used simply to make predictions match observations. The same applies to newspaper articles as the basis for claims that models haven’t predicted recent temperature trends – a topic more complicated than implied by the news article.
If the topic is philosophical or social, then sources relevant to that topic, including the popular media, would be perfectly reasonable.
Anteros, you say:
I disagree. Lindzen’s talk was definitely broad, and it would be unreasonable to expect anyone to respond to everything he said in a single comment. However, it would be easy to respond to an individual point, or even several points, Curry highlighted. That it would be practically impossible to discuss everything Lindzen covered at the same time in no way makes it impossible to have valuable discussions of things he said.
Anteros –
Coining a strategy from the warmistas (playing the authority card), Lindzen doesn’t just have AN opinion. As the Department head at MIT, his opinion is magnitudes more than even an informed opinion, much less merely “his opinion.”
If the warmistas pretend like the Climate Head at MIT doesn’t have an opinion worth listening to, it say a lot more about the warmistas and their closed minds than it does about Lindzen. Yet they’ve tried to marginalize him since day one, pretending among themselves that they don’t see him or hear him. I imagine they all have their eyes closed and fingers in their ears and are going “Lalalalalalala” to keep from hearing him.
Steve Garcia
Fred, Lindzen has a reference for the aerosol adjustment factor remark. It was made by a modeler in a refereed paper. Lindzen is good at this kind of thing, paying careful attention to detail. You should consider it as a technique for finding out the truth behind the science.
Fred,
I got the distinct impression that Dr Curry pretty much skipped over the detailed science part of his presentation. The point under discussion I get has to do with how the debate is being framed, in particular the “doom” aspects that get promoted.
Fred,
I share your wish for a higher proportion of technical discussion on this blog. But I’m afraid that I have a more cynical view than you of the (ab)use of aerosol forcing by climate scientists who wish to claim the climate sensitivity is relatively high.
For instance, Hansen concluded last year that AOGCMs were mixing heat into the ocean too fast, and that must mean that their aerosol forcings were too low, since otherwise they would have produced too high a twentieth century warming. He ignored the possibility that the models’ climate sensitivity might be too high, because he is certain that about 3C is the correct value. What happens next? Surprise, surprise, the GISS model aerosol forcings are changed to make them much more negative – now rising to -2.4 W/m^2in 2010!
And a peer reviewed study a year or two ago found a significant negative correlation between GCMs’ climate sensitivity and their aerosol forcings. The clearly implied that modellers were altering their aerosol forcings so aas to bring their model projections into line with other models (and hence the IPCC 2-4.5C sensitivity range).
Aerosol forcing has in fact been tightly constrained by studies that estimated it simultaneously with climate sensitivity, using temperature measurements for several latitude bands. For instance, based on multiple temperature measurements, Forest et al. (2006) estimated total (direct + indirect) anthropogenic aerosol forcing in the 1980s (when it was probably at its highest) as -0.5 W/m^2, with a 5-95% range of -0.75 to -0.13 W/m^2 (relative to pre 1860 levels). That is way lower than the total forcing, of the order of -1.5 W/m^2 or higher, usually claimed by those who believe that climate sensitivity is high (3C or above). Even the IPCC’s own best estimate of total aerosol forcing is only -1.0 W/m^2 (change from 1750 to 2005, Fig. 2.20 AR4 WG1 report).
“And a peer reviewed study a year or two ago found a significant negative correlation between GCMs’ climate sensitivity and their aerosol forcings. The clearly implied that modellers were altering their aerosol forcings so aas to bring their model projections into line with other models (and hence the IPCC 2-4.5C sensitivity range).”
Nic – I don’t think you understand how models are constructed. The study I assume you probably refer to was Kiehl 2007 (not one or two years ago), and there is no reason to believe that it has anything to do with modeler’s altering their forcings to match observations. For more on this, please see my earlier comment on the claims about aerosols as “fudge factors”. However, for a more expert source, you should consult people who actually construct models for a living. One of them, Andy Lacis, has been commenting in this blog, and you can also contact Gavin Schmidt or read the RC description of model construction.
On the other hand, if you have direct knowledge of aerosol forcing beting prescribed in a model (as opposed to derived), and as a means of making the projections “come out right”, you should post the evidence in detail. I think you will find that to be a myth. There are still problems with getting aerosols right, but repeating myths about their use to match projections with observations won’t help solve them.
I don’t think this has anything to do with how “cynical” one is, but simply about how knowledgeable one is in knowing how models are made.
Fred, You are right about the Kiehl study: I should have said a few years ago, not a year or two ago. A minor point.
I realise that in many cases aerosol forcings are derived internally in GCMs; I didn’t imply otherwise. But the derived forcings can be changed by altering the relevant adjustable parameters, to make the model results more in line with what the modeller thinks they should be. I have not seen anything to convince me that it is a myth that this is done. To quote from Bender (2008) “A note on the effect of GCM tuning on climate sensitivity”:
“At present, climate models are tuned to achieve agreement
with observations. This means that parameter values that
are weakly restricted by observations are adjusted to generate
good agreement with observations for those parameters that are
better restricted…”
That statement fits the aerosol forcing case perfectly.Naturally, modellers would rationalise and defend adjustments that they make.
Nic – Two comments. First, as you point out, parameters are often tuned to observations within the limits of the underlying physics, but this is to ensure that they correctly simulate climate in its control state, without any imposed forcing from CO2 or other variable. The climate must correctly simulate seasonality, latitudinal differences, air and ocean circulation, and other attributes. Having done that, the modeler then “forces” the climate with the factor interest, e.g CO2., and asks how well it simulates the trend in comparison with observations. If it does well, that’s good. If it doesn’t, that’s too bad, but the model is not then tuned to match the trend, either by changing aerosol forcing or other inputs.. The notion that models are tuned to make their simulations “come out right” is one of those enduring myths that keeps surfacing like the Loch Ness Monster, no matter how many times it’s shot down.
The above refers to simulations used as projections. Models can also be used to better define the values of parameters of interest, by “inverse modeling”, in which various values of the parameters are tested to determine which best permits the model to match observations. Note, though, that a model simulation performed for this purpose is not then cited as an example of how well models make projections. The model simulations referred to, for example, in the projections cited in AR4 WG1 Chapter 9 are examples of forward rather than inverse modeling.
Second, and probably more important, the people to ask if you want further confirmation of this don’t include me, with my outsider’s knowledge, but rather the ones who construct climate models for a living. In particular, you should contact Gavin Schmidt, because Gavin is now accustomed to hearing this claim, and to explaining how aerosols are actually incorporated into the models, along with links to actual model details. I’m sure there are others who could do the same, but I’m most familiar with Gavin’s explanation on this topic.
Fred and Nik, As someone who is very familiar with turbulence models, the process is not that objective. Terms are added all the time to better correlate with specific cases. Tuning to match the current climate almost guarantees worsening the correlation in some other situations. The problem is that with the aerosol forcing 1.5+-1.1 W/m2, there is no rational way to set it except based on matching observations. This is what Lindzen is refering to.
I would argue that any other method is even worse.
David – It’s important to distinguish the parameter tuning needed to establish a good simulation of control climates – something done routinely – from tuning designed to make a simulated trend better match the observed trend. The latter isn’t done.* In particular, aerosol forcing isn’t adjusted to make the simulations better match observations. Again, I think Gavin Schmidt would respond to direct inquiries on this matter – they needn’t be on RC or part of some ongoing debate. I also know there’s some archived RC material on this, but I don’t remember exactly where to find it.
*More precisely, in previous discussions, including one with Dr. Curry on a different blog, he stated that he is unaware of any models where that has been done, and that includes the GISS models he has worked on.
It is good when discussions evolve to a technical level like this-
I agree with Fred that it is important to distinguish between forward and inverse approaches to aerosol understanding, and the implications of each to, say, attribution. For example, the claim by the Curry and Webster uncertainty paper that inverse aerosol estimates represented a circular argument to the attribution problem was just wrong.
However, there is in fact a large degree of inverse correlation between model estimates of climate sensitivity and aerosol forcing, at least up to CMIP3 generation models; there are some multiple interpretations in the literature, but because of possible conditioning of model ensembles to historical climate change, it is not appropriate to view the agreement in simulated and observed time-evolution of global surface temperature as a formal attribution. This, however, was not the basis for attribution in AR4, and this point will be emphasized even more in AR5. Formal attribution doesn’t concern the amplitude of simulated change, but the patterns between various forcings in time and space. Amplitudes are determined by regressions and model tuning has no significant impact on the detectability of a variety of forcings.
The distinction between cases used for parameter setting and actual “real” simulations is artificial and perhaps exists only in the minds of the modelers themselves. From an operational point of view, over time more data accumulates and the number of “tuning” cases increases. The problem then becomes more and more challenging because in the case of turbulence modeling the models are in fact much poorer than the “users” of those models realize, or more accurately poorer than they are willing to admit. I see no evidence that its any difference in climate science. There are only 2 possibilities:
1. You add more terms and thus more tunable parameters to be able to fit more data.
2. You accept a high level of error for cases other than those you used for tuning.
I can’t show you here the data on turbulence models. There are literally hundreds, not counting many forms of each one. The better modelers set their constants based on cases where analytical solutions are available, for example an infinite flat plate in incompressible flow with no pressure gradients, a very special case. Relatively small differences in parameters can make differences of 20% in total forces, a very large difference, for even simple cases that are different than the “tuning” cases. The problem for climate science is that there are no simple cases for which analytical solutions are available. There is no alternative but to admit that your subgrid model parameters MUST depend on numerical artifacts and parameters, not a good situation. This is yet another form of circular reasoning.
Climate models must use turbulence models, perhaps called subgrid models by the modelers, but the range of scales is much larger than for example for an aerodynamic problem. The prospect that they are even remotely accurate is nil. But yet Gavin Schmidt said to me that he had “never heard of Reynolds’ averaging as a significant source of error.” That’s totally understandable, its not his field, so one would expect him to rely on people outside of climate science. Who are they?
My question to you Fred and you Chris, is what other technique would be appropriate for setting the aerosol forcings as a function of time? Should it be based on prejudice or a desire to make the sensitivity turn out a particular way?
In any case, if the modelers are actually aware of the facts and data, they would realize that the subgrid models (and aerosol models can be considered one of these) can have a huge impact and are in fact pretty badly wrong if you stray far from the cases used to set them. The kind of tuning Lindzen talks about is far more “scientific” than the alternatives in my view. Basically, more and more data enables you to hopefully expand the range of applicability of the subgrid models. However, there is no guarantee of this. In other regimes, the assumption that the terms should be combined linearly has little justification and is based more on hope than science. How do you know the functional form of the terms is correct? The answer to this is usually that in a particular case, data seems to be reasonably accurately matched using this functional form. There are sometimes simple analytic theories that can be used, usually of very limited applicability.
Anyway, I get tired of people who have no knowledge of subgrid models talking about them and how they are used and tuned. Climate scientists so far as I have been able to determine are merely users of these models and don’t understand their underlying “theory” such as it is.
By the way, how is tuning an aerosol model any different than tuning the forcing scenario? They seem equivalent to me.
‘Extensive experience over several decades shows that computational atmospheric and oceanic simulation (AOS) models can be devised to plausibly mimic the space–time patterns and system functioning in nature. Such simulations provide fuller depictions than those provided by deductive mathematical analysis and measurement (because of limitations in technique and instrumental-sampling capability, respectively), albeit with less certainty about their truth.
AOS models are widely used for weather, general circulation, and climate, as well as for many more isolated or idealized phenomena: flow instabilities, vortices, internal gravity waves, clouds, turbulence, and biogeochemical and other material processes. However, their solutions are rarely demonstrated to be quantitatively accurate compared with nature. Because AOS models are intended to yield multifaceted depictions of natural regimes, their partial inaccuracies occur even after deliberate tuning of discretionary parameters to force model accuracy in a few particular measures (e.g., radiative balance for the top of the atmosphere; horizontal mass flux in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current).’
‘Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena, dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature. This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing processes that introduce structural instability into the model. Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant irreducible imprecision.’ http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full
These are hollow men we are ‘debating’ – TS Eliot
….
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
It seems an impossible task to bring these people into a reasoned discourse – it is all shadow. It is a descent into madness – and of course they can’t see it. So why debate? We need to talk past these people and address the market place of ideas directly.
We should be confident because we are right and they are just hollow men with an empty narrative.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
One other thing Chris and Fred, Subgrid models of turbulence use the doctrine that turbulent fluid has an effective viscosity higher than the laminar fluid, in some cases substantially higher. Thus, the models add dissipation, the ever present devil destroying accuracy of simulations. In fact, or course, the subgrid models are too dissipative, resulting in excessive damping of the dynamics. Rather like the leapfrog filter used in climate models that adds deadly dissipation to correct a well known issue with the leapfrog method, well known since I was a graduate school (and that was a long time ago). There is ample evidence that the models use the very best methods of the 1960’s. Pekka agrees about this incidently. Controling dissipation is critical to accuracy in any numerical simulation. Chris, I suggest you look up Runge-Kutta and Backward Differentiation schemes so you can straighten out the modelers. The problem here is that excessive dissipation produces exactly the outcome that Schmidt claims is the validation of the “doctrine of the attractor”, viz., that the models are totally wrong when integrated for a week, but if integrated for 100 years give a climate that “looks reasonable” and always seem to get the same statistics. This is circular reasoning if I have ever seen it.
Some of David Young’s recent comments are interesting, and I’m always glad to learn from his expertise in fluid dynamics. On the other hand, the topic has strayed a bit from the original. To get back to that, it’s simply worth noting that models aren’t tuned, by aerosol forcing adjustments or anything else, to make their projected trends match observed trends. The notion that Lindzen seems to have promoted that aerosol adjustments are used as “fudge factors” is incorrect.
It will be worth getting further input from Andy Lacis or Gavin Schmidt, if they stop by, because they can not only describe the details of how aerosol forcing is in fact handled by models, but can also link to descriptions of model architecture to reinforce the point. In the meantime, if I can find an earlier discussion of this topic by Gavin, I’ll link to it.
Fred, The question is how is “tuning the aerosol forcings” any different that “tuning the aerosol subgrid model”? I claim they are probably mathematically equivalent. Regardless of the modeler’s rationalizations, mathematics is correct. If you allow me to tune the aerosol model, I can generate any forcing you want. If that weren’t the case, the subgrid model would be wrong. Bear in mind that the error bar is 200% of the median value. If you allow me to tune the constants in a turbulence model, I can get virtually any answer you want. You know Fred, you are using words that describe what the process the modelers go through, not the mathematical effects of what they are doing.
David – I guess I don’t really understand your point. The point I was making is that once the models are run and generate a trend, the modeler doesn’t go back and tweak parameters so that if it’s run again, it will match the trend better. In other words, it isn’t tuned to make it “come out right”. I thought I had made that clear, but maybe I didn’t.
When it comes to constructing the model, a number of tunable parameters are adjusted so that the model can simulate the control climate – seasons, latitudinal differences, as well as some of the fluid dynamics you’re familiar with (although Gavin points out the tunable number is small). These adjustments must remain within the boundaries of what is physically and observationally plausible. However, this doesn’t guarantee that the model will simulate a CO2 forcing well, nor does it tell the modeler what the climate sensitivity of the model will be, and in fact, there is no way for the modeler to make the sensitivity come out to be some desired value.
The result is that the modeler can’t dictate how skillful the model will be in predicting trends, and if it isn’t skillful, the modeler can’t do further tuning to fix that. Lindzen’s suggestion that models adjust aerosol forcing to make the modeled trends match the observed trends is false.
I do, however, suggest, that further discussion would benefit from input coming from people who construct models for a living.
Fred,
There’s a lot of discussion by Gavin in the comments in this thread, particularly in his comments to Judith Curry
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/08/03/the-curry-agonistes/
Also, maybe I’m belaboring the point, but remember that Kiehl showed that for good trend simulation, the ratio of model climate sensitivity to aerosol forcing should remain within certain limits. However, as I mentioned, the modeler has no idea what climate sensitivity will emerge from his/her model. Even if the modeler wanted to fit aerosol forcing to sensitivity, he or she wouldn’t know how to do it.
But again, I’m hoping for some input from Gavin, Andy, or others.
Fred, You are missing the point. The distinction between tuning runs and “real” runs is totally artificial. If modelers are doing their job, for which I as a taxpayer am paying them a lot of money, they are constantly including more cases in their tuning runs. If they aren’t, they are using unscientific prejudice to set parameters. Trust me on this, subgrid models are a pseudo-scientific area where rigor is left behind and dogma prevails. The results are only to be believed within the range of the tuning runs.
The problem with models and parameters is more then a tuning issue. Even if tuned to several observed variables as James McWilliams notes above – the Navier-Stokes continue to diverge into the future for which observations of course do not exist.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=sensitivedependence.gif
This is because – with the best will in the world – the input parameters are not constrained sufficiently to constain exponential divergence in plausible solutions. We don’t know enough to the precision required to constrain the equations. This is the deterministic chaotic nature of the equations – an understanding of which is needed to understand climate models.
The extent of divergence – or irreducible imprecision in the terms of McWilliams – can only be estimated from a systematically designed family of models. That is the models are run repeatedly with various combinations of feasible initial and boundary conditions – and the possible combinations of feasible formulations is a very large number thus systematic evaluation of irreducible imprecision is lacking in practice.
Consequently the plausibility of the solution is determined on the basis of – wait for it – ‘a posteriori solution behavior’. That’s right folks – they pull it out of their arses.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
It’s getting late and my wine glass needs refilling with my Januik Cabernet, 23rd best wine in the world in 2011 according to Wine Spectator. Let me just say that a good reference here is Wilcox’s book on turbulence modeling. All the problems are laid out. The problem here is that practitioners of “colorful fluid dynamics” or “continuous fraud and deceit” or “climate modeling” are usually totally ignorant of these considerations.
Chris – Thanks for the link. It was exactly what I was searching for. You can start at about comment 334 to read the exchange between Gavin and Judith Curry. Anyone reading that and not convinced that there is absolutely no tuning to make model trends match observations must I believe have a mind set in cement. The tuning is a myth, and I would hope that exchange will settle it in the eyes of open-minded readers, because the myth is one that is often repeated in the blogosphere, and gets in the way of legitimate discussions of model design and the role of aerosols..
Chief, Your quotes from the literature are very illuminating. I think you and I agree about most of the important points. Now if we could just get the “pissants” to see the light.
Best,
However, there is in fact a large degree of inverse correlation between model estimates of climate sensitivity and aerosol forcing, at least up to CMIP3 generation models; there are some multiple interpretations in the literature, but because of possible conditioning of model ensembles to historical climate change, it is not appropriate to view the agreement in simulated and observed time-evolution of global surface temperature as a formal attribution.
The CMIP3 models were incorrect Ohmura 2009 ie early surface brightening .
The models have a wide spread under both clear and all sky conditions.The reduction (non interactive) fail to capture obderved decadeal obsevations due to reduced DOF.or as seen in independent surface observations.
Wild and Schmuki 2011 are critical of the models and thier application.eg
The inability of climate models to simulate the full extent of decadal-scale variability is not just seen in SSR as documented in the present study, but also in other simulated climate elements such as the tropical top of atmosphere radiation budget (Wielicki et al. 2002), tropical precipitation (Allan and Soden 2007), the hydrological cycle in general (Wild and Liepert 2010), soil moisture (Li et al. 2007) and surface temperature/diurnal temperature range (Wild 2009b). Of course these elements may not be entirely independent, and misrepresentation of decadal variations in one of these, such as the SSR discussed here, may strongly impact the simulation of others. Further work is necessary to disentangle to what extent these underestimated decadal variations are due to an underestimation of
forced or unforced climate variability.
The inability of current GCMs to reproduce observed
decadal scale variations does not imply that climate change
scenarios (which typically target at more extended timescales)
are biased. On these longer, multi-decadal to centennial
timescales comparison with observations show
good agreement where feasible, despite suppressed decadal
variations (e.g. IPCC 2007; Wild 2009b). However, the
shortcomings discussed here may have implications for
shorter-term climate projections up to a few decades ahead
where these strong decadal variations may dominate.
Indeed Gavins and Chris arguments are incorrect,the difficulties with the surface radiation budget,has seen the concerns from a number to suggest changes the recommendations include (from GEB) include
• The prominent picture of the Global Energy Balance in the IPCC report needs substantial revision. Particularly the surface flux estimates need to be revisited, and uncertainty ranges should be added to all components.
• A continued and expanded operation and maintenance of a well calibrated network of long term surface radiation stations is required to provide direct observations and anchor sites for satellite-derived products and climate model validation, as well as for the detection of important changes in the radiation fields either not detectable by satellites or anticipated by models. The basic measurements include the four primary components (up and down, longwave and shortwave irradiance) with high temporal resolution (minute values) and known accuracy (BSRN accuracy standards).
• These high accuracy observation sites should be expanded to under-represented regions of the globe (such as many low latitude areas) and particularly oceans where alternate or modified observational strategies might be necessary
Fred, I looked at that thread between Gavin and Judith. I must say that this definition of tuning is quite narrow. It is clear that tuning was not done to match the surface temperature record, nor to get a particular sensitivity, but in comment 338, Gavin does say that they do try to match the -1 W/m2 aerosol indirect (cloud) effect based on Hansen’s median estimate of this effect. This matching might be regarded as a tuning of some sort.
maksimovich
The AR4 models typically underestimated the degree of decadal surface solar radiation variations, probably largely due to uncertainties in global emission inventories and indirect effects on clouds
‘A full description of the ModelE version of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) and results are presented for present-day climate simulations (ca. 1979). This version is a complete rewrite of previous models incorporating numerous improvements in basic physics, the stratospheric circulation, and forcing fields. Notable changes include the following: the model top is now above the stratopause, the number of vertical layers has increased, a new cloud microphysical scheme is used, vegetation biophysics now incorporates a sensitivity to humidity, atmospheric turbulence is calculated over the whole column, and new land snow and lake schemes are introduced. The performance of the model using three configurations with different horizontal and vertical resolutions is compared to quality-controlled in situ data, remotely sensed and reanalysis products. Overall, significant improvements over previous models are seen, particularly in upper-atmosphere temperatures and winds, cloud heights, precipitation, and sea level pressure. Data–model comparisons continue, however, to highlight persistent problems in the marine stratocumulus regions.’ Schmidt et al 2006
The models need to sucessfully mimic nature – this is especially the case fundamental physics are uncertain or measurement limitations exist – clouds and sulphates for instance. The fundamental principle of modelling is to make successful comparisons with empirical data – and that occurs by way of adjusment of parametised inputs. It is typical warminista nonsense to suggest otherwise.
While affirming that models are a perfectly reasonable means of exploring the physics of the system – that by no means implies they can mimic such a complex system as Earth’s climate from first principles. Or that they have any worth at all in prediction for the reasons given above.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Chris Colose,
I note also in Schmidt et al 2006 a reference to persistent problems in the marine stratocumulous regions. Most amusing.
Robert I Ellision
Cheif Hydrologist
Chris Colose.
Indeed Hatzianastassiou 2011 found in the 21st century the SH SSR = -3.84 W m-2 or -0.64 W m-2/yr the NH -0.11 W m-2/yr.
As the clouds are the pre dominent problem in the SH ,confidence is low in Hansons assumptions.
@ Chief Hydrologist | February 28, 2012 at 9:56 pm |
Chief, does it say in those models: which horse is going to win the Melbourne cup in 2100?. Would be much easier to predict the cup winner than the exact climate in 82y from now. Because many more factors influence the CONSTANTLY changing climate.
Fred, I note that the Lord Gavin has not come to your rescue on this thread despite your desparate pleas. Gavin’s a smart guy, but he has sold his soul to the idea of “communication of science”, a jealous god who generally rips to shreds his votives. I would suggest that there are a lot of other scientists who understand models at least as well as he does. Not that I claim to be superior to him, but you know science is about testing your mettle against other scientists. By the way, we need you to weigh in on the Judith’s latest post on models. Fred, where are you?
Actually Fred, Petr Chylek has done some good work on aerosols and shown them to have far less cooling impact than the IPCC would like to admit. The data is on Lindzen’s side.
Chylek has done great work in the Arctic as well – http://www.lanl.gov/source/orgs/ees/ees14/pdfs/09Chlylek.pdf
This one suggests that mixed black carbon and sulphate increases the warming.
Warming influenced by the ratio of black carbon to sulphate and the black-carbon source
M. V. Ramana1, V. Ramanathan1*, Y. Feng1, S-C. Yoon2, S-W. Kim2, G. R. Carmichael3and J. J. Schauer4
Fred,
Please see my response to Chris Colose:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-178867
Also, I would like to ask for your opinion about the aerosol question. Lindzen is quoted above by Judith as saying,
“If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C. The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments.”
Judith says that this “is an oversimplification of how climate sensitivity is determined in the conventional way”. But is it? How can climate sensitivity be estimated without estimates of aerosol and solar forcing entering at some point?
The AR5 ZOD Chapter 10 says,
“The analysis of individual forcings is important, because only if forcings are estimated individually, can fortuitous cancellation of errors be avoided. Such a cancellation of errors between climate sensitivity and the magnitude of the sulphate forcing in models may have led to an underestimated spread of climate model simulations of the 20th century (Kiehl, 2007; Knutti, 2008)”.
Later,
“Knutti (2008) and others argue that the agreement between observed 20th century global mean temperature and temperature changes simulated in response to anthropogenic and natural forcings, should not in itself be taken as an attribution of global mean temperature change to human influence. Kiehl et al. (2007), Knutti (2008) and Huybers (2010) identify correlations between forcings and feedbacks across ensembles of earlier generation climate models which they argue are suggestive that parameter values in the models have been chosen in order to reproduce 20th century climate change. For example Kiehl et al. (2007) finds that models with a larger sulphate aerosol forcing tend to have a higher climate sensitivity, such that the spread of their simulated 20th century temperature changes is reduced. Stainforth et al. (2005) find that the spread of climate sensitivity in the CMIP3 models is smaller than the spread derived by perturbing parameters across plausible ranges in a single model, even after applying simple constraints based on the models’ mean climate. Schwartz et al. (2007) demonstrate that the range of simulated warming in the CMIP3 models is smaller than would be implied by the uncertainty in radiative forcing.”
“Since in standard detection and attribution analyses the amplitude of the responses to various forcings is estimated by regression, the possible tuning of models to reproduce 20th century global mean temperature changes will have almost no effect on the detectability of the various forcings. Similarly this will have almost no effect on estimates of future warming constrained using a regression of observed climate change onto simulated historical changes. The spatial and temporal patterns of temperature changes simulated in response to the various forcings would be hard to tune in a model development setting, and it is these which form the basis of most detection and attribution analyses. Nonetheless, these results do suggest some caution in interpreting simulated and observed forced responses of consistent magnitude as positive evidence of model fidelity, since there is some evidence that this might arise partly from conditioning the model ensemble using historical observations of climate change (Huybers, 2010; Knutti, 2008).”
While it is obvious that analysis of individual forcings is important, I fail to see how it defends against the bias of the researchers to find an answer within the canonical IPCC range (2 – 4.5 K). (Cue for someone here to tell me that IPCC scientists don’t have a bias. :)) Because, there is still a huge range of values in the literature to choose from.
The Knutti (2008) paper argues that Kiehl (2007) has probably shown that the aerosol forcing is weaker than previously expected, although Knutti fails to draw the obvious conclusion, i.e. that this would imply lower climate sensitivity; the IPCC ZOD in turn fails to mention Knutti’s opinion at all. Huybers (2010) goes even further in suggesting that there is evidence that compensation between various feedbacks in the models may be the result of tuning during model development to find sensitivity within the expected range. Or to quote Peter Huybers,
“More plausible is that model development and evaluation leads to an implicit tuning of the parameters, as suggested by Cess et al. (1996). As another example, of the 414 stable model versions Stainforth et al. (2005) analyzed, six versions yielded a negative climate sensitivity. Those six versions were apparently subjected to greater scrutiny and were excluded because of nonphysical interactions between the model’s mixed layer ocean and tropical clouds. Scrutinizing models that fall outside of an expected range of behavior, while reasonable
from a model development perspective, makes them less likely to be included in an ensemble of results and, therefore, is apt to limit the spread of a model ensemble. In this sense, the covariance between the CMIP3 model feedbacks may be symptomatic of the uneven
treatment of outlying model results.”
In a very recent paper (Schwartz, 2012) it says,
“Examination of the relation between the values of Str [transient sensitivity] and Seq [equilibrium sensitivity] determined by this analysis and the twentieth century climate forcing used to infer the sensitivity from the observed increase in GMST [global mean surface temperature] … shows distinct anticorrelation; that is, a low forcing yields a high sensitivity, and vice versa. … The anticorrelation between inferred equilibrium sensitivity and forcing found here indicates that the only way that Earth’s equilibrium climate sensitivity could be as great as the central value of the IPCC estimate, ΔT2× = 3 K, would be for the total forcing (recall that the forcing corresponds to the period 1900 – 1990) to be about 0.8 W m-2. Such a low forcing, which is at the low end of the IPCC “very likely” range, would require a rather large negative aerosol forcing to offset the forcing, by the well mixed greenhouse gases…”.
Schwartz goes on to look at why related studies found much higher climate sensitivities. These studies were Gregory and Forster (2008) and Padilla et al. (2011). He writes,
“The sensitivities determined in those studies are somewhat to substantially greater than the values determined for the forcing data sets examined here …. Correspondingly, the total forcings over the
twentieth century employed in these analyses were lower to considerably lower…”.
In the case of Gregory and Forster, who find a climate sensitivity of 3.5 K, he points out that they used a forcing data set that was even lower than the low end of ‘very likely’ range in the IPCC AR4.
So, I fail to see how Lindzen’s point is not perfectly valid and supported by the literature.
Good post, with a good coverage of the literature.
Alex – You raise a number of points that might be addressed individually, but here I’ll only address the “tuning” issue, because it seems to be a source of many misconceptions. I’ll also repost the link to the collide-a-scape page where Gavin Schmidt and Judith Curry discuss it. The most relevant comments are from about 334 to 378. The bottom line is that there is no tuning of models to make their trend simulations match observational data.
There have been suggestions that perhaps there was not explicit tuning, but rather a subtle, implicit form of tuning based on parameter choices made during model construction. For example, could the GISS modelers, faced with more than one realistic choice regarding aerosols, have picked the one they judged most likely to make their trend simulations best match observations? Unless, Gavin is not telling the truth, the answer is no. There is no explicit tuning and no implicit tuning.
This doesn’t mean of course that modelers don’t make choices that affect model performance. What that discussion I linked to says is that those choices are based on a judgment of what choice best fits the available data, and not on what choice the modeler guesses might make the model trends “come out right”. Gavin gives specific examples of the sources used for aerosols in the GISS models. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, any attempt to guess would probably be unproductive, because making a particular parameter choice rarely gives modelers a clue as to how the model will behave in general. Modelers can’t make tweaks to have climate sensitivity come out the way they want, and since good model skill at trends requires a good balance between sensitivity and forcings, they therefore can’t tune the model to achieve that balance.
The Lindzen suggestion that aerosol adjustments are fudge factors is either false or the modelers are lying. I don’t think either party is lying, but it appears that Lindzen isn’t telling the truth.
Fred,
I really don’t believe that there are any models as complex and of a nature similar to the big climate models without implicit tuning. Anyone who is claiming otherwise without strong qualifications is telling untruths. Certainly very many model builders have not understood that but exactly those are most likely to draw erroneous conclusions concerning the effects of implicit tuning.
Pekka – Gavin Schmidt says there is no implicit tuning. If you disagree, you should write to him to explain why he is wrong, and if he responds, share the response with us.
It appears from the link I cited that there is no implicit tuning designed to improve the model simulations of trends. Until contrary evidence is presented, I have to assume that the experts who design models for a living know what they are talking about, and that claims for tuning are therefore wrong. Parameter choices done to get the best fit to existing climates are not tunings of this type.
Finally, in the dialog cited, there is a reference to a Hansen et al 2007 paper on forcings that includes a small section on inverse modeling of some aerosol choices. It appears that different levels of aerosol forcing in that model had only very minor effects on trend performance.
Fred,
My view is based on very generic thinking of the processes used in creating large models. Every single choice that the modelers do having any idea of its influence on the outcome involves implicit tuning. It is well known in many fields that the ultimate influence of these innumerable choices is large and that it’s essentially impossible to tell what all effects it has. What I know about the climate models tells clearly that they must be influenced by these issues more than models in many other fields where the issue is severe enough.
The simple well known fact that there are many different models with significantly differing amounts of forcing by aerosols which agree better in final outcome tells that estimating the effect of aerosols is one of those things that cannot be based on success of final results until there are non-disputable explicit and independent reasons to tell that all models with the “wrong” aerosol effect are irrelevant anyway.
There may be a point beyond which no subjective input is out into the models. For the stages of work beyond this point it may be possible to say that there’s no implicit tuning. Up to that it’s always present, but putting enough effort in studying the arguments and consequences of the subjective choices it may be possible to get some rough hold on the size of the resulting uncertainty. Claiming that the problem does not exist is equivalent to admitting that all is open and unknown.
Fred, “Cloud feedbacks were identified as a major source of uncertainty in climate model simulations of climate change more than 20 years ago and still remain so. In attempting to simulate the climate of the past century, climate modelers have been forced to adjust direct aerosol forcing in their models to compensate for climate sensitivity due to cloud feedbacks.”
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ackerman/Barcelona.html
You should straighten this guy out, he is teaching non-sense :)
Fred,
I add one piece of more specific evidence (although I don’t remember the exact reference). Some time ago a paper was discussed here, where Hadley Center modelers discussed, how they are trying to gradually “de-tune” their models, i.e. get rid of many types of tuning that has gone in to improve performance and replace that by more equations based on fundamentals. The told, how that will worsen the agreement with some existing data or over short term, but they must do that, because the tuning may have a worse effect on the reliability of long term projections. This is work in progress and takes long to be completed. Even then much tuning will certainly remain.
Dallas – the misconception that aerosol forcing is adjusted to make the model simulations perform better is widespread, which is why it has achieved the status of myth in many quarters. The sources I linked to and the discussions show that the it’s a false claim. Either that or the experts who do this for a living are making false statements. Given that they provide direct evidence for the means they actually use to address aerosols, which doesn’t involve choices based on how they will affect modeled trends, I expect they are telling the truth.
Some of the confusion arises because modelers do make choices. It’s just that they don’t make them with an eye to how they will affect the ability of the model to simulate temperature trends.
While there many web myths in circulation, I think it’s unfortunate that someone like Lindzen would help perpetuate this one. I believe this reflects careless thinking on his part rather than deliberate deception, but it’s unhelpful in any case.
I also believe that since none of us here is nearly as knowledgeable about this as the modelers I’ve mentioned, it would be useful to have further input from them on the topic. The dialog I linked to, however, is a reasonable substitute in the meantime.
Fred I think is hung up on a semantic difference that is required for “communicating” in a way that makes things seem not circular. The desired semantic effect outways what every modeler knows. Not tuning parameters would be scientific malpractice. Fred, the errors are large because the problem is tremendousky complex. Without tuning, we would off by orders of magnitude. I’ve explained it as clearly as I can. As you Fred are fond of saying, base statements on the literature, NOT blog posts. Wilcox’s book on turbulence is an excellent place to start.
David – I did look up the literature to confirm Gavin’s statement. But again, since he knows more about this than you, I, or others who don’t construct climate models, his statements are a good starting point, with the literature as further reinforcement..
There’s nothing semantic about it, David. Either the models are tuned by adjusting aerosols and other variables to improve their trend simulations, or they aren’t. It appears that they aren’t. They are tuned to get the basic starting climate right, but once that’s done, the model either does or doesn’t perform well on simulating trends, and if it doesn’t, it’s not tuned to make it do better.
Fred, I am not sure there is a misconception. While the models are not tuned on the fly, they are initially tuned to better match observation. The 1910 to 1940 period required strong aerosol and solar “tuning” which we have discussed in the past. Gavin stated that the 1910-1940 period was mainly solar and reduced volcanic aerosols. That is the assumption they made while setting up the model. I even noticed that positive aerosols, black carbon, was used at the end of that period.
As Pekka said, some assumptions have to be made since there are unknowns, which is effectively “tuning”, adjusting, tweaking or any other similar term. It is just part of the process.
I am not particularly sure why this is an issue. Skeptics just generally consider that the aerosol adjustments or estimates if you will, are over stated relative to the cloud feedback and CO2 forcing.
While the models are not tuned on the fly, they are initially tuned to better match observation.
No, they are not, if by observation, you mean the expected temperature trend. They are not tuned in order to get that right, which is one of the main points Gavin Schmidt makes, along with references to back it up.
Fred,
I’m not proposing that the models would be tuned adjusting aerosols, but I describe something which might well have happened. This is certainly highly simplified, but the basic idea is fully realistic.
1. Based on earlier analyses and their ideas of the most likely properties of the climate system they conclude that a rather large influence of aerosols is likely and that the climate sensitivity is also relatively relatively large.
2. When that has been concluded the input assumptions concerning aerosols a chosen and other subjective choices are done consistently.
3. The resulting model behaves essentially in agreement with expectations and additional tuning of the model makes this agreement even better.
4. When this model is used in further testing it gives results which are largely confirmatory.
The point is that there was already a lot of knowledge available at the time of the first step and that the modelers did certain choices at that step. They could have done such other choices that have never been studied and it’s quite possible that the later steps would have been as successful, but the resulting model still quite different and the role of aerosols as well different. A fundamental problem is that it’s impossible to prove generally that no other set of original choices would not lead to successful further steps.
‘Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena, dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature. This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing processes that introduce structural instability into the model. Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant irreducible imprecision.’ http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full
This exchange of comments is growing rather long, and I’m not sure much more will come out of it without further input from professional climate model designers. They (or at least Gavin) state that when models are designed, the choices regarding aerosols and other relevant parameters are made on the basis of physics and the observed properties and concentrations of the aerosols, and are not based on assumptions about how the choices will affect the ability of the models to simulate temperature trends. In other words, the modeler does NOT say, “well if I input this level of forcing, the aerosol effect won’t be sufficient to make the model perform well, and so I’ll choose one of the other available options because I know we need substantial aerosol forcing to get the simulations right.”.
Unless the modelers are falsifying what they actually do, none of the tuning in models to get starting climates right is done with the object of making the simulation of trends from CO2 forcing come out right. It’s simply done as the best fit to the physics and observed climate properties (not trends).
This appears to invalidate claims by Lindzen and others that aerosol adjustments are used as fudge factors to improve model performance, but not being a climate modeler, I can’t add much to how the modelers describe what they do.
I’ll look forward to anything the modelers have to say here, but also repeat the recommendation to review the collide-a-scape dialog where this is discussed.
Fred, I think there is a subtle point being missed here. While Gavin may not call it tuning, is was assumed that 1910 to 1940 was natural and due to the change in volcanic aerosols, man made aerosols and increasing solar, which at that time was based on the older Lean, Holt and Wang solar reconstructions. The initial estimates of those factors are what we consider tuning. Times have changed and the data quality has changed, so the initial estimates have changed. So should modelers “adjust” to improve the model output or just assume that they hit it right the first time?
I think GISS has a new paper on solar cycle impact in the northern hemisphere http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/29/giss-finally-concedes-a-significant-role-for-the-sun-in-climate/
One of the points is that natural internal oscillation amplify solar forcing changes. If that is true, it is not included in the the models to my knowledge, should the models be adjusted to consider the natural internal oscillations which may amplify solar variability impact on surface temperature?
Dallas – the 1910 -1940 warming involved declining volcanism, some solar increases, and a significant contribution from CO2 and other anthropogenic ghgs. I don’t think this is relevant to alleged tuning of current GCMs to make their trend simulations accurate, which appears to be a misconception. It’s probable that some inverse modeling may have been done for that interval to get a better handle on the forcings, but that’s a different subject.
There are two possibilities concerning the aerosols.
The first is that their role is well understood based on empirical data and physics. Thus their influence is known without the help of the models. Then they can be included in the model based on this information.
The other possibility is that aerosols are not understood that well and modelers are forced to make assumptions on their properites. They know already, how their choices will affect the resulting climate sensitivity when the model is developed to agree with temperature history of latest decades. Thus they make assumptions that they know to determine largely the climate sensitivity in their model.
Based on what is generally stated about the level of understanding, which of these choices is closer to the truth?
Are there really any more possibilities? If there are, I’m unable to figure out, what they could be.
Parameter choices done to get the best fit to existing climates are not tunings of this type.
That’s fair enough. The Standard Model of the particle zoo had I think 19 particles a couple of decades ago, and grew to 23 a decade later, no idea what it is now. Data increases parameters and theory decreases them again so it could have gone either up or down a parameter or three in last decade.
What would be a reasonable number of parameters for a model of long term global land-sea climate, defined as everything slower than the solar cycles, both TSI and magnetic or Hale? (I’m assuming all parameters on which the model depends are counted; e.g. if changing the acceleration due to gravity, radius of the Earth, etc changes the model’s behavior then those should be counted.)
And should “reasonable” be a function of unexplained variance (uv = 1 – r2)? An excellent question for our resident statistician. Matt, is there some general rule in statistics for a reasonable number of parameters as a function of anything including unexplained variance (uv = 1 – r2), or uv as a function of number of parameters?
If one could get the uv for such a model down to 1% with 6 parameters all told, .1% with 9 parameters, and .01% with 12 parameters (so 3 parameters for each decimal place of accuracy of fit), I’d call that a perfectly reasonable number to count as fitting. If the current models have 20 parameters or more however then unless it’s giving 6 decimal places of precision I’d be more inclined to call it tuning.
Where does Gavin Schmidt draw the line between reasonable fitting and unreasonable tuning?
Pekka – Modelers make choices, but unless they are not telling the truth, they don’t make those choices based on how they want climate sensitivity or temperature trends to come out, but on how their choices best fit the physics and existing observations.
Specifically regarding sensitivity, I don’t understand your point. How will a choice about aerosols affect the climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling that emerges from a model? Aerosols are not a significant feedback on CO2-mediated warming as far as I know, at least when Charney feedbacks are considered. For Earth System Sensitivity over multiple millennia, aerosols may play a feedback role, but that isn’t part of the standard sensitivity estimates.
Fred, You are repeating yourself. Tuning is essential, even of “forcings”, even in simple aerodynamic simulations. Pekka is right that implicit tuning is both necessary and standard practice. The only reason to say otherwise is for “communication of certainty”. You use as large a tuning suite as possible and hope for the best.
Fred,
I didn’t repeat one point from my earlier comment here.
Again I describe, how things easily proceed. I don’t make specific claims about the extent they have influenced climate models. The mechanisms are, however, very common and any claim about their small role should be based on specifically on knowledge about these stages of work.
I’m also led to simplify the argument the more I’m forced to explain, what I mean.
The point is that the modelers must tune the model in the next steps to get it working reasonably well and that they have many opportunities for that.
Thus choosing little aerosol influence the natural level of temperature is higher around 1960 and less climate sensitivity is needed. Thus the additional tuning creates a model of lesser sensitivity. The opposite is true, if the aerosols are assumed to have a strong influence. The tuning that I discuss above is not considered tuning, because it is done at an early stage of development as it’s known already at that point that the model will fail otherwise.
The statements about the absence of tuning refer to latest stages of working with the models. Many choices are done earlier at stages where the need of these choices is noticed. At the very early stage the modelers have more freedom of choice as there are still many more opportunities to compensate for many of their consequences. Sometimes these early choices are done without much knowledge about their influence, but here we have choices whose consequences were already largely known. In such cases the choices are often made in a way that ultimately confirms what the modelers believe to be true even if that belief is not on strong basis.
What we know about the differences between different climate modes with respect to the role of aerosols appears to confirm that this is not only a theoretical worry, but a real problem in assessing the reliability of climate models.
David – You seem to setting up a straw man. Everyone agrees tuning is necessary and is performed. The point is that models aren’t tuned to make their simulations of trends come out right, contrary to what Lindzen alleges. I do hope one or more modelers stops by to confirm this, because it will dispel a myth about aerosols as “fudge factors”. Unless the modelers are deliberately falsifying what they do, aerosols aren’t adjusted – they aren’t fudge factors.
Pekka – My earlier point remains. I don’t see how making choices about aerosols affects the climate sensitivity to CO2 that emerges from models. In fact, if you read what Hansen and others say about this, they point out that their model has a particular sensitivity (e.g., 2.7 C), and that changing aerosols affects projected temperature. It doesn’t affect the climate sensitivity to CO2., which doesn’t depend on aerosols.
I have to say that I believe the modelers have the last word on this, and although I can’t continue here to restate what they say, they are worth listening to.
Fred
What they say is correct for their present models. What I claim is that making a different choice at an early stage in the process leads trough normal tuning practices lead to a different model.
None of the statements of the modelers that you have told addresses this fundamental issue of model development. They all appear to apply only to situations where all those choices have already been made.
I wrote an independent comment before coming to this subthread. There I mentioned specifically that one of my main worries is related to the apparent ignorance of this issue.
In spite of these worries I’m not as skeptical of the model results as some others including Judith, if I have interpreted her writings correctly. Most certainly I would like to have more information on these issues and I really hope that the modelers don’t avoid discussing them limiting their comments to those applying only to the present models rather than discussing also, how different the models might be, if the development history had been different. (Different with respect to early assumptions and subsequent implicit tuning.)
I have to depart for a while. If anyone wants to go back to read the dialog between Gavin and Judith Curry, I think they will find that Gavin describes parameter choices in models as unrelated to how they will affect the ability of the models to simulate observed temperature responses to CO2 (or other forcings). Instead, the choices are based on the relevant physics and the properties of the particular item (e.g. aerosols). According to him, models are neither “retuned” after a run to make them perform better, nor are they “pretuned” before being tested with the goal of making them perform well.
If anyone has contrary evidence to indicate that he and others are not telling the truth, or that tuning for the purposes I mention has somehow “crept in unnoticed” at some stage, it hasn’t yet been presented here. I conclude that the Lindzen claim that aerosols are adjusted to make the model simulations come out right is false, but if some expert modelers can contribute further to this discussion, I’ll look forward to it.
Fred, Pekka’s description is correct. Tuning should be done as problems arise or new data is available. Not tuning based on your ideas about outcomes is foolish. The assertion you make is not credible, and if true would make me consider hiring a new batch of modelers.
Hi David – I think you may still be feeling the effects of last night’s Cabernet. Seriously, please read what i’ve written (and what Gavin has written). It shows that aerosols are not adjusted as fudge factors, unless you think he is deliberately telling an untruth. I don’t see much ambiguity in that claim, but readers should judge for themselves rather than merely going by the comments in this thread.
Fred,
Equations based on physics are the starting point for the models. The equations include conservation laws and other fundamental equations like those describing the radiative interactions, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. It’s, however, not possible to solve anything realistic without additional input like various parameterizations of processes of smaller spatial scale or otherwise not covered by the fundamental equations. Furthermore the discretization and related issues of numerical methods influence also the outcome
Due to all these extra factors the modelers must do very many choices and they do them in a way that is expected to lead to best model based on their professional judgment. What the choices will be depends then on the situation where they are made. If earlier choices have led too far in one direction the later ones are made to compensate for that. Therefore changing the assumptions on aerosols at an early stage will influence later choices on other points. The choices affect each other in any normal model development process, but how much and how they affect varies widely and depends on the goals and nature of the model development project.
Returning after a few hours away, and rereading my comments, I should apologize for the short-tempered tone of some of them. I think I was motivated by the sense that I was defending climate modelers against attacks on their veracity rather than simply describing my own views. None of us here knows as much about how climate models are designed as do the people who design them professionally, nor does Richard Lindzen. I take the modelers at their word when they state that the parameter choices (tuning) they make are designed for purposes that don’t include helping climate projections match observations. Also, in general, I take people at their word about their intentions in the absence of good evidence to think otherwise. Gavin was pretty unequivocal about the basis for parameter choices, and readers should visit his comments rather than make judgments based on mine.
I think Pekka, as always, has tried to consider all possible explanations for what goes on, and that’s appreciated. David Young is appreciated for his comments on fluid dynamics among other things, but here I thought he was being too resistant to the possibility that the modelers were acting appropriately, even though David is undoubtedly correct in some of his other concerns about model design.
Finally, even if Pekka is right about possible subtle biases creeping into the data on which the modelers subsequently base their choices, there is no question in my mind that Lindzen’s claim to the effect that aerosol forcing is adjusted as a “fudge factor” is false, and he should know better than to keep repeating it.
Fred, Pekka and I have done complex modeling. Climate models are largely complex fluid dynamics models. You are getting lost in semantics. Whether Gavin’s very narrow assertion is true is independent of the truth of the assertion that aerosol models and forcings are ” an essentially arbitrary adjustment factor.”. When models are built, and as they evolve, tuning is done. The aerosol forcing is 0.4 – 2.7 W/m2. How would a modeler make a choice based “solely on physics?”. Someone claiming that is not very trurhful or not very bright.
This whole attempt to discredit Lindzen seems to be too emotional to be purely scientific. It is quite possible that both he and Schmidt are roughly right. Schmidt is however leaving out infornation people who do modeling know to be important.
David – I think you’re way way out of your depth if you think you can compare your knowledge of model construction to that of Gavin Schmidt. It truly makes you look foolish, and that won’t happen if you stay within your limits. I’m more patient than Gavin, but I can see why the people at RC might become exasperated enough to want to see no more of you despite the fact that you could say something useful.
Pekka has raised some interesting points. I”m not completely convinced by them, but his perspective is always worth considering. On the other hand, Lindzen’s notion of aerosol adjustments as fudge factors is unequivocally false, unless you think the modelers are lying. There’s no evidence they are, and good evidence they aren’t.
If I were you, I would stop digging.
Fred, You are right back to the ignorant authority citing grumpy Fred. You are ignorant of fluid dynamics and subgrid models. But I’m sure Schmidt knows more about turbukence. Get a life Fred. If Gavin has read Wilcox, I’ll stand corrected. If not then you are very impolite in assuming others knowledge is as limited as your own.
Pekka – You state, “It’s, however, not possible to solve anything realistic without additional input like various parameterizations of processes of smaller spatial scale or otherwise not covered by the fundamental equations.”
You also say, “If earlier choices have led too far in one direction the later ones are made to compensate for that. Therefore changing the assumptions on aerosols at an early stage will influence later choices on other points.”
I don’t think anyone disagrees with the first point, but I’m not sure whether you had something specific in mind with the second. Do you have an example of that happening in the way aerosol data have been handled?
It seems to me that some of the preceding discussion has been occurring at cross purposes. It’s argued that parameter choices must be made and will affect model performance. It’s also argued (e.g., by Gavin) that those choices are made independent of how they will affect the ability of model simulations to match observed trends.
These two arguments are not in conflict, but the second falsifies Lindzen’s claim that aerosol forcing is adjusted as a “fudge factor” to make the simulations come out right. Even if some “assumptions… at an early stage” might have been made differently, Lindzen is still wrong in claiming aerosol forcing is adjusted for the purpose he claims, as long as neither assumptions, parameter choices, or anything else affecting model simulations are made with the goal of influencing those simulations in a desired direction. Because Lindzen has a reputation as a respected scientist, for him to make false claims strikes me as more irresponsible than the same claims coming from people with no name recognition.
I’d still like to hear more from Gavin, Andy, or others, because they know much more about their intentions and much more about climate design than you, David Young, I, Lindzen, or other relevant individuals, but the dialog in the collide-a-scape link cited above gives us a good idea of what they are likely to say. Here is the collide-a-scape link again, with the relevant discussion at about 334 to 378.
Guys, If is any help Gavin said that the models were not adjust to fit observation “before 2000” and are not adjusted to match trends, but average conditions. They do get adjusted though.
“Some of the most interesting conclusions of the study include those relating to the Arctic. For example, we estimate that black carbon contributed 0.9 +/- 0.5ºC to 1890-2007 Arctic warming (which has been 1.9ºC total), making BC potentially a very large fraction of the overall warming there. We also estimated that aerosols in total contributed 1.1 +/- 0.8ºC to the 1976-2007 Arctic warming. This latter aerosol contribution to Arctic warming results from both increasing BC and decreasing sulfate, and as both were happening at once their contributions cannot be easily separated (unlike several earlier time periods we analyzed, when one increased while the other remained fairly constant). Though the uncertainty ranges are quite large, it can be useful to remember that the 95% confidence level conventionally used by scientists is not the only criteria that may be of interest. As the total observed Arctic warming during 1976-2007 was 1.5 +/- 0.3ºC, our results can be portrayed in many ways: there is about a 95% chance that aerosols contributed at least 15% to net Arctic warming over the past 3 decades, there is a 50% chance that they contributed about 70% or more, etc.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/04/yet-more-aerosols-comment-on-shindell-and-faluvegi/#more-672
Hmmm? 1.1C +/-0.8C of warming in the Arctic from 1976-2007 possibly due to positive aerosol forcing, that might tend to de-emphasize CO2 radiant forcing a touch. I seem to recall with the exception of the Arctic, sensitivity to CO2 is rather small other than the mid latitude agricultural belt.
As Fred said, Lindzen “was” a respected scientist at one time. I wonder if he really has lost his mojo and gone Emeritus?
“Gavin said that the models were not adjust to fit observation “before 2000″ and are not adjusted to match trends, but average conditions. They do get adjusted though.”
Dallas – I think you succinctly stated the critical point. I bolded it to make clear the distinction between the different things adjustments are designed to match. “Average conditions” refers to the average climate behavior in the absence of a forced trend – i.e., the control climate. An example would be parameter choices made to ensure the seasons come out right, that the Sahara desert is dry, that the monsoons come on schedule, etc.
The post-1976 role of aerosols is somewhat unclear, but there is good evidence that declining cooling aerosols (e.g., sulfates) played, a role, with perhaps black carbon also contributing (but probably not too much if overall aerosols were decreasing). In any case, this is one of the reasons why it’s difficult to make attributions for the post-1976 interval. Post-1950 is clearer in supporting the dominant role of anthropogenic ghgs.
Fred, Of course you won’t respond to me directly, but your last emotional response is full of misrepresentations and ignorance. First, I left RC, they didn’t leave me. Just ask Vaughan, Pekka, or MattStatt why they post here and not at RC. It’s because RC is a hypocritical place, censoring people they disagree with while posting very vile stuff from the peanut gallery. Also, RC is trying to control the message, that’s their explicit purpose. What’s the point of posting there? Why aren’t you posting there Fred?
Your assertions about my knowledge are odd. You are in fact far more ignorant of models of fluid dynamics (and climate is a very complex one of these) than Pekka or I. Whether Schmidt knows more than Pekka and I, I’m not completely sure. He is somewhat knowledgable about the fundamentals, more so than most climate scientists. However, he has made some comments that are clearly wrong, even though perhaps they were not well considered. One that I recall was the claim that he had never heard anyone say that there were significant errors associated with Reynolds’ averaging. I understand why you haven’t gone to some of the references I have suggested and that’s OK Fred, even you have a contribution to make, but you should really stop the Gleick like temper tantrums and impugning of people’s knowledge.
On the substance, it is quite possible for Schmidt’s statement to be technically true and for Lindzen’s statement to be operationally true. The easiest way to resolve this is for someone to tell me how you would set the aerosol subgrid model constants and forcings based on physics when the range of uncertainty is huge. Bear in mind that aersol forcings vary a lot over time. The only scientific way to set them is to try to match some data that you have more confidence in, whether that is current climate, hindcasting, or whether they give a “realistic” sensitivity, etc. For the novices in the field, that’s called “tuning”. Virtually any other data is more accurate than aerosol forcing numbers, which are essentially unknown.
Further up in the thread there were numerous citations from the literature about some of the problems with the models by Chief and others. You of course ignored them, preferring to try to claim that Lindzen knows nothing about modeling, another claim based on ignorance.
Let me repeat the basic point about models in a concise form (in contrast to your typically long winded convoluted posts). All complex models require many choices in their construction. The better modelers make different choices and add terms when there are problems or new data comes to light. In virtually all cases of complex subgrid models, there are parameters that are essentially arbitrary and are “tuned” to match data. There is nothing at all wrong with this. It is the best we can do. In some cases, different parameters are used for different modeling situations. The fact that you make such a fuss to deny it is a bad sign Fred.
“Whether Schmidt knows more than Pekka and I [about climate models], I’m not completely sure.”
David – If you’re not sure, I guess you’re the only one.
Ok, so let me get this straight. You have no response to the substance but are into grumpy insulting Fred mode. Your Gleick is showing!! You of course must fraudulently insert words into my sentence that were not there. Fred, did you send that Heartland strategy memo to Gleick? Fred, you are getting desperate and you are really being a jerk.
@Fred Pekka – Modelers make choices, but unless they are not telling the truth, they don’t make those choices based on how they want climate sensitivity or temperature trends to come out, but on how their choices best fit the physics and existing observations.
Fortunately for physics, Fred, there exist physicists that don’t think like you. (There are also physicists that do, but they play a rather different role and are unlikely Nobel material.)
A great example is Planck’s law for black body radiation. In 1900 Planck was confronted with two conflicting laws, each based on physics, namely the Rayleigh-Jeans law that worked great at low frequencies of radiation, and the Wien law that worked great at high frequencies.
Each law tended to infinity in the domain where the other law tended to zero. For laws of physics, that’s seriously messed up. If that’s not obvious to you then you shouldn’t be theorizing about radiation physics. There is no possible way of using least squares fitting to reconcile two laws that are inconsistent to that degree!
Planck had to invent something outside the known physics in order to reconcile these two absurdly inconsistent laws. Eventually he came up with a really cute little formula that brought the two laws together, but that had no physical explanation.
He then developed a version of statistical mechanics that explained his formula. In due course this explanation became the accepted physics underlying what was going on.
The key point here is that the formula came before the physics, the formula being Planck’s law. Planck did not simply fit to known physics, he invented physics.
Substitute geophysics for physics and we have the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, AMO. Unless the geophysical reasons underlying phenomena like the AMO are clear, modelers are winging it when they try to incorporate the AMO into their model. The idea that it is based on known geophysics is ludicrous. Only until we understand the AMO’s mechanism can we say it is based on known geophysics. Until then there are all sorts of possible geophysical explanations, and any model that commits to one of them is simply flying on a wing and a prayer.
This is no small point given that the amplitude of the AMO oscillations is on the order of a tenth of a degree. In the grand scheme of long-term climate change, that amplitude can drown out a host of other thermal phenomena that we’d love to be able to see.
Fred, Gavin’s tuning to average instead of to trend has more to do with the type of model than a hard and fast rule. You may have missed it, but the IPCC discusses tuning in AR4 and it depends on the model complexity.
I included the bit on Arctic aerosol forcing, because that impacts the average which Gavin would tune his model to. The models would also be tuned to the lack of radiant forcing in the Antarctic and the tropics.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/polesandtropicsRSS.png Or at least should be, since they are or the verge of being falsified.
Since positive aerosol forcing is partially responsible for near 2C of warming in the Arctic, it is a tuning issue, because it is an issue.
Did Gavin happen to mention that Antarctic polar amplification is non existent and the warming in the Antarctic shown in GISStemp is likely an artifact of smearing? I doubt he would bring that up, but it appears to be one of the next shoes to fall which might require some more “tuning”.
@David Young: All complex models require many choices in their construction. The better modelers make different choices and add terms when there are problems or new data comes to light.
But David, that was how the Ptolemaic theory evolved. Astronomers kept adding terms as new data (planets, longer observations) came to light.
The best modelers look for opportunities to simplify the model at hand, as the Copernican theory demonstrated for the Ptolemaic theory. Planck’s law demonstrated something similar for black body radiation, displacing what was at risk of evolving (as radiation physics matured) into a blend of Wien’s law at high frequencies, the Rayleigh-Jeans law at low, and an ad hoc piece in the middle that could have smoothly connected them to make a “Ptolemaic Planck’s law” had not Planck found his uniform law just as applied radiation physics was starting to feel the need.
Complexity can easily be an illusion. Sine waves, commonly encountered in nature, are specified by their period, phase, and amplitude, three parameters. And sums of waves also arise naturally. If you add three sine waves together the result can easily look inscrutably complex over any period shorter than the least common multiple of their three periods. That multiple will be finite when the periods are rational, but can be extremely large compared to the individual periods. For example lcm(13/15, 11/10, 7/6) = 1001 which is 858 times the longest period, 7/6, whence one must wait through many hundreds of cycles of the components to even start to detect any periodicity. Yet this seemingly non-periodic sum is modeled with only 9 parameters, and small rationals at that! Science might go for years modeling such a curve with 20 or 30 parameters while not getting as good predictive power as with the simpler and more accurate 9-parameter model.
Furthermore once you’ve found the minimum number of parameters, there is a much greater chance that each term of the sum will correspond to a natural phenomenon, possibly unrecognized before, than if you artificially force every term of a 20-parameter model to the Procrustean bed of some known phenomenon.
New science is much more likely to be discovered by modelers who try to simplify their model without adhering to old science, whether physics, chemistry, geophysics, or whatever.
Vaughan Pratt: Matt, is there some general rule in statistics for a reasonable number of parameters as a function of anything including unexplained variance (uv = 1 – r2), or uv as a function of number of parameters?
There is a plethora of general rules, and they include the number of observations as well as the r^2, and the correlations of the parameter estimates (stability of the estimates.)
However, data sets can be constructed to defeat any general rule, and in practice good models are selected after a thorough hashing out of all the issues, like here, and after determining which models are confirmed by other data and have correct predictions.
Fred Moolten, quoting Dallas: “Gavin said that the models were not adjust to fit observation “before 2000″ and are not adjusted to match trends, but average conditions. They do get adjusted though.”
I think that it is impossible to tell from the published record how much tuning has occurred. It is seldom the case that authors publish exactly what they have done, partly due to page constraints, occasionally a self-delusion that a choice early on does not matter, at times a self-delusion that only parameter values that get the correct result are physically real — the list of large and small flaws is long. Fred has a confidence that no important tuning to get desired results has been done, at least not in the work of Gavin Schmidt and colleagues. Most of the rest of us who have more experience in modeling and publishing than Fred has are much more skeptical than he is.
On a previous thread I defended my use of “ad hoc” with reference to a post-prediction (post incorrect prediction) of a re-examination of the effects of aerosols in one model. I share Lindzen’s suspicion that there is more ad hoc fitting than what has been explicitly disclosed. This is one of those things on which I would like to be wrong.
The truest test of the models is in the accuracy of their predictions. So far, none has been shown to be very accurate at making predictions. It is possible that they could be accurate over some long run while being inaccurate over the short run, but that has not been demonstrated either, and until it is demonstrated there is no reason to believe it
Vaughan, I can’t get this below your comment, so its lower down. Your post on complexity is correct. This is what we really need in nonlinear systems is a simplifying theory that can explain things. I am a big fan of simpler models within their range of validation. One advantage of these is that they tend to be inexpensive to run and so they can be subjected to much more rigorous validation. Anyway, thanks for posting this insight.
Fred, This thread has become unreadable because of the constant recapitulation of a single talking point taken from a literalminded legalistic interpretation of something Lindzen may have said. What I’ve heard him say in the past is merely that each model uses a different value for the aerosols, and that given the lack of understanding, it can be viewed as an essentially arbitrary adjustment factor, that can cancel most of the greenhouse forcing. That is far different than your prosecutor’s focus on one interpretation. This is just so much focus on “atoms of scripture cast as dust before mens eyes” and not on the “main design.” The fact of the matter is that there should be a lot more to the aerosol model than just the gross forcing. There is also the spacial distribution of the forcing, a critical input and the subgrid model which I assume must be pretty complex. But then again, given the level of ignorance perhaps its just a specified forcing. Let me say that the “real physics” must be very complex and involve such things as clouds, convection, etc.
As I summarized on the following modeling thread, those of us who have done complex modeling of similar systems to the climate system know that there are many serious problems having to do with tuning subgrid models and the other thousands of choices modelers make. The only way to rise above this nitpicking and uninformative vague statements approach is for modelers to examine rigorously the sensitivity of results to these choices. That’s my whole purpose for being interested in this is to try to show people that this needs attention.
The broader picture is a lot more important and actually involves trying to understand subgrid models.
David – If you hadn’t specifically addressed me, I wouldn’t add to this overlong thread. I’ve made clear the evidence I find convincing that Lindzen has been making false statements to the effect aerosols are adjusted to make models come out right. You may not be convinced. Readers can judge for themselves. I don’t know of further evidence to add, and I agree with you that there are other aspects to aerosol modeling that probably deserve more attention. I’ll leave it at that.
If climate science really understands the various factors and relative weights of those factors and if their models were accurately representing the actual climate system, why would the models of the system be inaccurate for near term predictions?
A simple question that none of those trusting climate models can provide an adequate answer to. The accurate answer is the system is not sufficiently understood.
+Lots
If your model can’t forecast a short time ahead, like next year, how can it possibly be expected to be right in 50 or 100 years?
@Latimer If your model can’t forecast a short time ahead, like next year, how can it possibly be expected to be right in 50 or 100 years?
Wow. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here, Latimer. This seems to be the basic sceptic argument.
Without claiming its conclusion is right or wrong, one can at least see that the reasoning leading to that conclusion is illogical as follows.
Consider the religion whose deity is M*D (Maxwell’s Demon to you gentiles). In Chapter 7 of the Book of Reynolds we read “Each year M*D tosses a coin. Heads is hotter, tails is colder. M*D Himself cannot foretell the outcome of that toss. Climate hath no other driver but M*D.”
Long term, climate as governed by M*D is going to follow a random walk. While it will drift, it won’t drift rapidly, according to the nature of random walks. This makes it possible to bracket where temperature will be a century from now within reasonable error bounds.
Yet anyone selling a model that can forecast next year’s temperature is committing heresy by claiming greater clairvoyance even than M*D!
You may well not believe in M*D, Latimer. But do you still believe in your reasoning? (You did use the word “possibly”…)
Latimer, weather/climate prediction is certainly rife with wide error bands but it has always been my understanding that the shorter the time span the more unpredictable is weather/climate.
On the other hand, the longer the time span, the lesser the degree of unpredictability. The longer the time span the narrower becomes the error band – does it not?
The random walk argument is a powerful one because it can also be used in a pinch to cover for all the chaotic parts of the model. Consider that chaotic motions can go in any direction, but in the end if they do follow what looks like random trajectories, then those can be modeled as a random walk that reverts to a mean value (aka the Orrnstein-Uhlenbeck RW process). The process will appear to randomly walk, but without a non-physical change in the free energy, that cumulative energy will remain what it was when it started.
The only events that can cause a reversion away from the mean are external forcings such as GHG increases, albedo changes, and a few minor behaviors that act like triggers.
I follow this line of thinking because when all is said and done, the diagnosis will show the net energy change and any hidden sinks will be revealed. It might take decades, but I can follow along in my spare time.
But L*D is one up on M*D – because he can predict the toss.
Climate is not a random walk.
‘Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. But recent and rapidly advancing evidence demonstrates that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted dramatically and in time spans as short as a decade. And abrupt climate change may be more likely in the future.’
Oh and Webby – let me give you a clue – otherwise you might remain clueless . The mean is halfway between a glacial and an interglacial. It last happened on a Tuesday.
Rob Starkey: If climate science really understands the various factors and relative weights of those factors and if their models were accurately representing the actual climate system, why would the models of the system be inaccurate for near term predictions?
It is possible that the model of the trend is correct (influence of CO2 change on temperature change), but that the model of rest of the climate is unknown, and that the rest is cyclic, and entered a “low” epoch of the cycle just after the predictions were made. If so, the temperature will shoot up again at a rate higher than the forecast rate, starting perhaps 2025, and by 2050 the temperature will be close to the model prediction.
Now back to your exact wording. “If climate science really understands the various factors … ,” then this won’t happen: short-term forecasts should be more accurate than long-term forecasts in that case. The lack of close agreement of temperature to forecast shows that “really [understanding] the various factors ” does not characterize current knowledge.
Fred,
I appreciate your respectful tone and patience in replying to so many responses that make similar points.
You seem to have a lot of unjustified faith in the opinion of just one person – Gavin Schmidt. Aren’t the opinions of people I cited – like Jeffrey Kiehl, Peter Huybers, Reno Knutti, Stephen Schwartz, and not to mention the AR5 Chapter 10 authors – more likely to be neutral than a scientist like Gavin Schmidt who runs an advocacy blog like RealClimate? I am not suggesting that Gavin is dishonest, but he is hardly neutral.
The GISS model is just one GCM out of more than 30 and would be the work of hundreds if not thousands of scientists and engineers. Moreover, Gavin himself has only been around 15 or 20 years – compared with Lindzen who has been around since the 1960s. Lindzen was contributing to GCM development in the 1970s. Why claim that Gavin should know more?
As Huybers points out, as does Kiehl, and I saw Held point this out too, that many of the choices made in the model development are simply undocumented. No one can claim to know whether or not there was tuning. Yet analyses such as Kiehl 2007, Knutti 2008, Huybers 2010 – even Dessler 2010 I noted – more or less prove that there has been tuning in the model development process.
Have you actually read the papers that I cite? They are now widely cited and discussed – especially the original paper by Kiehl.
Finally, Lindzen’s point is not explicitly about model tuning, so I think the points I made that you didn’t respond to may be more important.
Alex – I’ve read some of the papers, and I’ve quoted Kiehl. Gavin Schmidt has made the points I emphasized in many places, including the collide-a-scape site, but other modelers have made the same points (e.g., Jim Hansen and I think Andy Lacis). These people aren’t necessarily more expert than others in all aspects of climate, but they know much more than Lindzen and the others you mention about how climate models are constructed.
I don’t want to belabor the point, but there is no disagreement about the need for modelers to make choices. What Lindzen wrongly stated is that the adjustments (of aerosols) were made for the purpose of improving the match between simulation and observations – i.e., that they were fudge factors. I don’t believe any modeler has suggested anything but the opposite of that, and in the absence of evidence the modelers are deliberately untruthful, I think we can conclude that Lindzen has no basis for that allegation, and shouldn’t make it.
Fred, how are the aerosol parameters and forcings set then? If its not to match observations, what else is there? The physics is essentially unknown according to the IPCC.
David – Please read the collide-a-scape exchanges, where Gavin goes into some detail about how aerosols are handled.
“the physics are unknown”?
What are you talking about, David? This seems to be a caricature of some of the sillier contrarian arguments that hold that if we don’t know everything, we know nothing.
Fred, You of course take single phrases out of context. Another Gleick tactic. The physics is very uncertain and is ESSENTIALLY unknown. Let’s see 0.4 – 2.7 W/m2. The upper range is higher than all GHG forcings and the lower bound is smaller than solar variations.
David Young, it is much worse than you say:
He didn’t take a phrase out of context. He fabricated a quote and attributed it to you.
Fred, It took me 30 seconds to find the single sentence in Schmidt’s very long dissertations that gives the method for setting aerosol forcings. They simply took the mean of the literature estimates, i.e., about 1.0 W/m2. That may explain why their sensitivity is 2.6K well below the IPCC mean. You know Fred, you could have just said that if you really understood it. Just taking the “median” of the literature estimates is a punt when the range is so large and the understanding so low. But its certainly a legitimate way to do it. I do think that using it to match data would be a better method from a scientific point of view. That’s what is done in most cases by modelers. If something has an error bar of 160% of the median value, you treat it as somewhat adjustable within that range.
David – I think you should have read further. The models didn’t take that value as the median for aerosol forcing, but for the aerosol indirect effect. If you follow the references, it turns out that the value is based on evidence, not assumptions, including inverse modeling, and that if somewhat different values are tested, the effect on temperature change is small.
The justification for the choice is reasonable, but the point is somewhat irrelevant. Lindzen’s claim that aerosol forcing is adjusted to match trends is a false statement based on everything cited in the way of evidence, unless the modelers are being deliberately untruthful about how they designed their models.
“they simply took the mean of the literature estimates, i.e., about 1.0 W/m2. That may explain why their sensitivity is 2.6K well below the IPCC mean.”</I.
David – Unless I misinterpreted your statement, you also don't seem to understand that the climate sensitivity they cite is not based on how the aerosols behave. Your statement linking the two suggests that you are not familiar enough with the concept of climate sensitivity, how it's derived, and the process by which it emerges from models.
sorry the italics weren’t closed
Closed?
What Fred!! “it turns out that the value is based on evidence, not assumptions, including inverse modeling, and that if somewhat different values are tested, the effect on temperature change is small.” Are you telling me that they saw that the effect was small on temperature, what are they doing using tests against real data and looking at sensitivities of model outputs?? I thought it was set from first principles physics!!
Fred, its late and past your bed time. Suffice it to say that however the values and the subgrid models are set, they are essentially arbitrary adjustment parameters, just as Lindzen said. Each model uses a different value for the unknown.
Fred, If you had read the references earlier in the thread, there was one that examined the relationship between the aerosol forcing assumptions and the sensitivity I think. It’s late and I don’t have time to track it down. Perhaps someone else will. To assert that they are independent assumes that modelers don’t do “implicit” tuning to get a reasonable sensitivity. Something that I think is pretty likely.
Fred, Just to be clear. I enjoy arguing with you and like you. I can just imagine being on the patio with you smoking a cigar and enjoying a fine bottle of wine and arguing about these issues. I do get a little upset when you assume that I am ignorant of a field where I have quite a bit of expertise. And your idolization of Schmidt is somewhat odd. He is a good scientist who is perhaps too involved in “communicating” to control the message. Cheers.
David – the Kiehl reference is one I cited earlier and I explained why it doesn’t tell us anything about model adjustments to match trends. You can find my comment elsewhere in the thread.
Your other points have already been addressed as well, including the use of inverse modeling to arrive at the best estimate for a parameter. You should read those comments too. No-one has ever claimed that one can derive aerosol effects from first principles without utilizing observational data. However, our knowledge of both the physics and the observed properties of aerosols are used for model inputs, but these aren’t adjusted with the goal of arriving at a particular trend line.
It’s midnight here, so I’ll stop for now. Despite the heated discussion, I think I got something useful out of it. In particular, I think Pekka made a good point about the possibility that subtle biases can creep into mainstream assumptions, and when these are then used by modelers, the model itself can be biased. I don’t know whether that pertains to aerosols, but it’s a valid general point.
On the original and more specific question of whether, as Lindzen asserts, aerosol forcing is adjusted to make model trends match observations better, I think the evidence in unequivocal. Lindzen is wrong. Parameter choices in model development are made for a number of legitimate reasons, but not for the reason Lindzen claimed, and I think it’s unfortunate that he has continued to make that claim.
David – I wrote my last comment without having seen the gracious one you wrote ahead of mine. I too enjoy our discussions, and I have great respect for your knowledge. I will probably disagree with you often on matters where I think your knowledge is only part of the recipe for a good understanding, but it will still be worthwhile.
I’m a little bit less assertive than Fred about aerosol tuning, since some evidence exists to suggests that model aerosol parameters might have been conditioned based on the modelers understanding of historical climate change. One cannot assume that modelers are completely ignorant concerning existing literature on sensitivity or observations, so choices can inherently be made, even if unconsciously, on a basis such as that. His point that people have not played with aerosols as fudge factors to get observations right, etc, however, is correct. It’s also wrong to say none of the physics is known, though large uncertainties remain, particularly with cloud indirect effects.
It should be kept in mind that since the AR4, there have been a number of advances in monitoring and quantifying aerosol effects. There have been several measurement studies for aerosol effects, though these usually are not completely independent of modeling. It should also be kept in mind that the big issue is not necessarily how radiation interacts with aerosols, but understanding and monitoring the aerosol distribution and the environment in which they are in on a global scale. In fact, the time evolution of aerosol forcing is an even more uncertain quantity than the current aerosol forcing. When aerosol properties are known, there is skill in modeled vs. observed shortwave fluxes. In the AR5, new direct effect RF results are based largely on simulations in AeroCom (an inter-comparison of many global aerosol models that includes large evaluation against measurements, such as AERONET, MODIS, and MISR data).
Regardless of any of this, it does not excuse Lindzen’s incorrect statements about aerosol treatment by modelers, nor does he get any credit for picking the very high end of the ~1-3 W/m2 uncertainty range in total RF (2010 relative to 1750). Note that the AR5 will also define a so-called ‘Adjusted Forcing’ (AF) that has a different definition than RF (allowing atmospheric and land temperature to adjust while ocean conditions are fixed), which has usefulness in aerosol discussions due to various semi-direct rapid responses, though this quantity is also largely uncertain. Regardless of how one feels about the ability of models to get aerosols down, no one would have gotten the impression from Lindzen’s talk that he carefully picked the extreme tail end of plausible forcing values to get the lowest sensitivity he could get, and then couldn’t even get into the transient vs. equilibrium issue.
This is inexcusable. As Andy Lacis mentioned, Lindzen is selling a good story, he is not selling objective science, or giving an honest representation of how the scientific community thinks about this topic.
@Fred What Lindzen wrongly stated is that the adjustments (of aerosols) were made for the purpose of improving the match between simulation and observations – i.e., that they were fudge factors. I don’t believe any modeler has suggested anything but the opposite of that, and in the absence of evidence the modelers are deliberately untruthful, I think we can conclude that Lindzen has no basis for that allegation, and shouldn’t make it.
Fred, your third sentence beginning “I think we can conclude” appears to be based on your second sentence, “II don’t believe any modeler has suggested anything but the opposite of [adjustments serve to improve the match between simulation and observations].”
I’d be fine with this with a really tiny edit: “we” –> “I”.
You have some gall attributing illogical reasoning to the rest of us. If you seriously believe the modelers have a clue about what aerosols have been doing since 1960, I would say it was time for Judith to open up a thread on that topic. (Or reopen it if we’ve already had at least one, I haven’t been keeping track.)
Can the modelers say what the effective altitude of “the aerosols” was between 1960 and 1980? Was it 2 km, 8 km, or 15 km? The first would heat the surface, the last would cool it. Is that what the models say? If not then I’d love to understand why not.
Vaughan – You objected to implications of illogicality, although they weren’t aimed at you, but I see some evidence of illogicality in your comment, in the form of non-sequiturs. The point I wanted to make in representing what the modeler’s state is that they don’t adjust aerosol inputs in order to make projected trends come out right. This is not the same as saying that aerosols are understood perfectly (nor that they are understood not at all). That’s where the non-sequiturs come in.
If the modelers don’t adjust aerosol inputs to improve performance, but merely handle aerosols on the basis of what is known about them, plus their observed concentrations and distribution, then Lindzen’s claim that aerosols are fudge factors is false, and I believe irresponsible.
I think others believe it to be wrong and irresponsible as well, so I probably should say we believe it to be wrong and irresponsible.
Fred
I believe you are absolutely incorrect in your assumption that modelers do not “tune” their models in regards to various aerosol forcings. That is exactly what they do in order to get the models to meet what they know about historically observed conditions.
Rob – Please see my recent comment #179684. Basically, you are suggesting that Gavin Schmidt is either a liar in stating that there’s no such tuning, or else that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Well, that’s fine, but don’t you think you owe it to him to say that to his face.
One way to resolve this is to contact Gavin and repeat to him what you’ve just stated, explaining why his statement is false. Then, if he responds, I hope you’ll share that with us here so that we can judge who knows more about the subject, who is telling the truth, and who is making false statements either through ignorance or design. I’m willing to assume ignorance rather than dishonesty in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
Alternatively, if you’re not willing to do that, perhaps the best thing is to avoid making definitive statements about the subject.
Fred: If you follow the references, it turns out that the value is based on evidence, not assumptions, including inverse modeling, and that if somewhat different values are tested, the effect on temperature change is small.
Could you explain what you understand by “inverse modeling”, and why that does not undercut your whole argument about the lack of tuning of free parameters? It could be something simple like the “inverse modeling” that is included in calibrating measurement instruments, or it could be just the kind of fudging that you claim is not there.
It appears that a good night’s sleep has seen the cranky Fred replaced with the careful and long winded Fred. I’m not sure which one I prefer.
So in the spirit of long winded posts, I think it will be good to put this Lindzen vs. Schmidt issue in perspective.
This business of modeling complex systems (in fluid dynamics, we do chemistry, multi-phase fluids, thermodynamics and forcings too) is still in its infancy. The issue that I think is underappreciated by climate scientists is how sensitive their results may be to modeling “choices.” Trust me on this, there are thousands of choices. Climate science is probably no worse than others in this area, but it does seem to be rare to systematically look at the sensitivity of results to these thousands of choices. Some of the simpler ones are easy to do, but it gets harder as the models get more complex. Believe it or not, there is a rigorous theory for calculating these sensitivities for systems of partial differential equations in a fast and systematic way. It is becoming more widely used in simple applications like aerodynamics or structural analysis, but even here the field is still dominated by codes that are too numerically sloppy for it to be applied in a meaningful way.
Once you start to apply this rigorous theory, and there is a big investment in code rewriting required to get to that point, you see all kinds of interesting and informative information. For example, you can actually use sophisticated optimization to determine parameters based on data. This is done for example all the time in geology, where seismic data is used to infer underground properties.
There is no evidence that I’ve seen that climate scientists are aware of this theory. That’s understandable since they have so many pressures to just make more runs and add more “physics” to their models.
In any case, I do think Fred would benefit by looking into Reynolds’ averaging if he has the mathematical training to understand it to get a better feeling for how subgrid models are constructed and tuned and how more terms are added over the years and the immense problems of validation and verification are handled (often not very well). It is fine to just repeat the words of others, but real understanding can enable you to go much further.
I still think that the focus on discrediting Lindzen is strange. Like any scientist, he is clearly wrong about some things. What is strange about it is that he I think he has a perspective that could be very valuable to the field.
Whether aerosol models and forcings are “tuned” to match trends is a rather narrow issue without much relevance to the larger issue of model tuning and looking at sensitivity to these choices. By the way, Fred seems to have given us no insight into the aerosol interaction subgrid model itself, which surely must be complex and have lots of parameters. Tuning this model can have the same effect as tuning the aerosol forcings. So Schmidt’s comment may be technically true, but of no real significance. At least that is my suspicion, but I could be wrong on this.
The problem here is that the understanding of complex models is very difficult to acquire. I am constantly learning new things myself. The issue of the models is not well suited to the “communication of science” mode of operation. The communicator inevitably is rather ignorant of a lot of details in other parts of the models. However, the idea of sensitivity of results to inputs or choices is more easy to understand. Then you can present a range of results that conveys uncertainty more effectively. It’s a constant problem, modeling is constantly used in industry and government. Those doing the modeling have a vested interest in certain outcomes and there is an incentive to present the results as more certain than they are. This is also true in medicine even though there are more controls in place there and a wider recognition of the conflicts of interests.
The bottom line here is that regardless of whether Schmidt’s or Lindzen’s statements are narrowly true or not or maybe half true is a very minor issue except to those like Fred involved in the climate war as combatants. My suspicion is that both Schmidt and Lindzen have a contribution to make. The larger point is that in fact there are serious problems with the way complex models are built, run, and their results conveyed. This explains the narrow focus on this largely irrelevant issue in this thread, its something we can argue about superficially rather than getting to the real issue, which requires a more serious and rigorous learning experience.
The whole debate about what constitutes tuning and what the intention of the modellers is, is just another semantic debate that has nothing to do with substance. If Joshua were here this thread would be three times as long, though Fred Moolten is doing his best to pinch hit.
That the adjustments are made is not apparently in dispute. Even how they are adjusted similarly does not seem to be the issue.
WHY they are adjusted seems to be the ball game here.
In my opinion, who cares? Modellers can’t model the climate to a degree sufficient to justify large scale policy changes yet anyway. If someone came up with a model where you could input data from any given period, and it produced a reasonable track of what actually happened thereafter, over numerous time periods, that would be of interest.
In other words, when they have a model in which they can input the initial conditions (as best we know them) of 1000, and a model run tracks reasonably well how the climate changed over the next 100-200 years, that would be of interest. But only if it also worked when you input initial date for 1500, 1750, 1000 BC, 1500 BC, etc.
But from everything I see, they haven’t even been able to model out 10-20 years from the present with any real accuracy, a period for which we have a much greater quantity and quality of data.
If the tuning regardless of motivation created models that were useful, and verifiable (kinda the same thing), then how they got there seems rather irrelevant.
I followed Gavin’s discussion of the issue on Collide-a-Scape, and I don’t remember a single skeptic or lukewarmer, at any level of sophistication, changing position based on the semantics. I don’t see the CAGW believers here doing any better job of it.
Gary – Please see the above discussions, where your points have already been addressed.
Fred,
Thanks for the condescending reading advice, but I had read the thread previously. Which is why I wrote the comment I wrote. I followed the discussion by Gavin as Collide-a-Scape as I said, and I see nothing added by you to what he wrote there. In fact, he explained his position re models much more coherently in my opinion.
You suffer from the same myopia Gavin did. After days of participating in open discussion on numerous issues on Kloor’s blog, Schmidt was amazed that others, Dr. Curry in particular, still disagreed with him.
Not because they didn’t understand what he said, not because they were pawns of big oil, but because they came to different conclusions after reviewing the same facts he did. It seemed a novel concept to him.
What he failed to understand, and you do as well, is that there is a great deal of subjectivity in coming to ultimate conclusions. He came from the perspective that those who disagreed with him either did not know what the facts were, were not sufficiently qualified to properly analyze the facts, or were simply too biased to realize their errors.
He was, quite simply, befuddled by Dr. Curry’s responses in particular, which met none of those stereotypes. You are in the same position. You’re just a lot more verbose about it.
GaryM, you say:
This is a common thing for Gavin. He did the basically the same thing the on the very same blog, back when Mann2008 was criticized over the Tiljander issue. He repeatedly expressed confusion and amazement at the people who disagreed with him, though as was noted at the time, he didn’t actually address what they were saying.
On an interesting note, he’s since admitted what they were saying was right (in a couple comments at RealClimate). He’s never retracted anything he said on the issue previously, and he’s never gone back to Kloor’s blog to say, “Hey guys, you were right.” In fact, he’s pretty much never discussed the topic again.
Gary,
Sorry, the relativistic viewpoint gets no points. A lot of interpretations of data come down to being subjective, but what is or is not done in the GISS model is not one of them. That our understanding of internal variability in the beginning of the 20th century does not reflect on attribution efforts for climate change in the later half of the century is just a fact. Judith Curry did not understand the science or her own logical fallacies in both of those points. Some things are good to debate, others just require familiarity with what is done in a particular field. As it happens, Gavin works with the GISS model extensively and also works on implementing and understanding various solar reconstructions, for example. Other people don’t get a free license to make stuff up, even if some of the science is uncertain.
What he failed to understand, and you do as well, is that there is a great deal of subjectivity in coming to ultimate conclusions
One’s scientist’s subjectivity is another’s illogic. Maybe one day logic will have room for subjectivity, but as any Star Trek fan will tell you, that day is still well in the future on Vulcan. As well as in the faculty lounges of the physics departments of MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Caltech, Princeton, Chicago, etc.
No conclusion that admits subjectivity deserves the epithet “ultimate.”
OK penultimate.
My TV tells me that means “almost”.
Chris Colose,
“Maybe one day logic will have room for subjectivity….”
CAGW has nothing to do with logic. AGW yes, CAGW, the obsession with taking control over the energy economy no. The reason Gavin and his acolytes here cannot understand why others can reach different conclusions from theirs, is that they refuse to acknowledge the political nature of so much of what they claim as science.
Why does Gavin defend to the death the dishonesty of the hockey stick, and proclaim its continued viability while simultaneously claiming it is irrelevant? Why does he admit that there is “tuning” of climate models as they diverge from actual data, but deny that the tuning is done to make the models better match the data?
In both cases, and in many other arguments in the climate debate, the reason has nothing to do with science. In this raucous political debate, the fear of conceding any dispute to the other side is sacrilegious. Particularly where every statistical jot and tittle in any opposing research is declaimed as evidence of the falsity of CAGW skepticism in its entirety.
“No conclusion that admits subjectivity deserves the epithet ‘ultimate.’”
Precisely, but CAGW is an “ultimate” conclusion. But for the need to win the political debate, CAGW advocates would not be fighting like Custer at Little Big Horn on virtually every hill in the climate debate, including the issue of how to characterize the tuning of climate models. All the battles of models and their tuning or validation, paleo climate reconstructions, whether there has been “statistically significant” warming in the last 15 years, etc., become boring and mundane, if you remove from the equation the threat of massive economic dislocation required to decarbonize the economy.
Almost all of the debates in “climate science” devolve into proxies of that “ultimate” decision, that CAGW advocates have all already made. To badly paraphrase the bard:
To decarbonize or not to decarbonize, that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous skepticism, or to take arms against a sea of skeptical arguments, and by opposing them, end the economy.
This debate has so much drama because of the massive political stakes. Constantly dressing up political arguments (such as how to describe the reason models are tuned) as “science” and “logic” does not change this.
GaryM: In my opinion, who cares? Modellers can’t model the climate to a degree sufficient to justify large scale policy changes yet anyway.
To me, the second sentence is key.
However, Lindzen did claim that model parameters have been tuned to provide a better match to the recent past, instead of from independent evidence, and if that is so (and especially if they used many possible parameter values and reported only 1 or a few — a common practice) then there is even less reason to think that the forecasts might be reliable.
If the tuning regardless of motivation created models that were useful, and verifiable (kinda the same thing), then how they got there seems rather irrelevant.
I agree again for the long run. Modelers claim now to have models that are good for the long run, but if they based parts of the model (or parameter estimates) on recent data, they have most likely “overfit” the models to random variation (variation unrelated to the main trends and relationships), and there is less reason to think they’ll be good models for the future.
Fred,
But I quoted the IPCC AR5 ZOD chapter 10 on tuning. The IPCC authors agree it is possible, at any rate, that models have been tuned in undocumented ways to reproduce the 20th century temperature record. There would need to be reasonable evidence before the IPCC would concede this much. Yet you say it is not possible because Gavin Schmidt, Jim Hansen, and Andy Lacis say it is impossible – all three being outspoken advocates on climate change action, and perhaps more importantly, are the most likely to be embarrassed by the discovery of tuning in models. I don’t think this is convincing.
Certainly, others have interpreted Kiehl’s widely cited paper as evidence of GCM tuning, e.g. Eduardo Zorita.
http://climateaudit.org/2007/12/01/tuning-gcms/
In any case, if you say there wasn’t tuning then how do you explain the observations that Kiehl, Reno Knutti, Peter Huybers, Andrew Dessler and others have observed?
Kiehl – “there is a clear inverse correlation between the forcing and the climate sensitivity”.
Huybers – the cloud feedbacks tend to compensate for the sum of all other feedbacks to keep climate sensitivity within the canonical IPCC range.
Dessler – models with positive LW feedback tend to have a negative SW feedback; models with negative LW feedback tend to have a positive SW feedback.
Peter Huybers looks at this question carefully and concludes that tuning is the most likely explanation. So what does he overlook if you insist that he is wrong?
– Huybers, P., 2010: Compensation between Model Feedbacks and Curtailment of Climate Sensitivity. Journal of Climate, 23, 3009-3018.
Donning an asbestos suit, let me re-ask the naive question :
Isn’t fiddling with models to get them to match observations a perfectly valid activity ?
Isn’t that just what Planck did as per Vaughn’s comment – eventually coming up with a “really cute little formula that brought … laws together, but that had no physical explanation”. Which then presumably told people where to start digging to look for a physical explanation.
(btw I take fully the point that present-day models are nowhere near being “cute”. And are thus, inter alia, absolutely no basis whatever for imposing any new and massive economic and political burdens on the world).
Alex – the original question may have gotten lost in some of the discussion. It was whether, as Lindzen claims, aerosol forcing is adjusted to make model projections match observed trends. The answer is no, based on the best sources available – the description by the modelers of how they actually go about determining the aerosol input. I would recommend going back to the Schmidt/Curry collide-a-scape dialog for that discussion and references.
“Tuning” (parameter choices) is a necessity in models, but it is done for reasons other than to match trends with observations. Is there evidence to the contrary? Inferences drawn by others who are not modelers don’t constitute evidence, because the various correlations have many possible explanations.
To illustrate, I’ll use the most often cited example – the Kiehl 2007 reference . In your earlier comment, you quoted a ZOD statement: “Kiehl et al. (2007) finds that models with a larger sulphate aerosol forcing tend to have a higher climate sensitivity, such that the spread of their simulated 20th century temperature changes is reduced.” One reason it’s called a zero order draft is that it’s written before the errors are corrected, and the above is a big one, because Kiehl reported exactly the opposite – an inverse correlation between forcing and climate sensitivity in a subset of models chosen because of good matches to observations. It was the models with the lowest climate sensitivity that had the highest total forcing, and the aerosol forcing was positively correlated with total forcing (see Kiehl figure 2). Apparently some of the other authors you cited got that wrong (e.g., Knutti).
Now this creates a problem for anyone proposing that multiple modelers decided to “adjust” aerosols in hopes of making their projections perform better for a number of reasons.
1. It’s not intuitively obvious why an inverse relationship should exist between high aerosol forcing and climate sensitivity in models that perform well, and therefore not obvious why modelers (who were unaware of Kiehl 2007) would adjust aerosols upward if their models emerged with a low climate sensitivity. Kiehl gives no explanation, and Knutti had the wrong explanation – he thought the high aerosol forcing reduced the total net forcing (positive minus negative) but Figure 2 shows the opposite. It’s not at all clear that the inverse relationship involves direct causality – for example, the relationship might in part reflect other factors including differences in ocean heat uptake. In any case, there was no reason for modelers to anticipate it and plan their aerosol forcing in advance.
2. Inverse modeling shows that reducing the cooling aerosol input causes the projected temperature trend to be magnified. Many of the claims based on Lindzen use this relationship to argue that aerosol forcing is adjusted upward to permit the observed trend to be as low as it was while preserving the modeler’s claim for high climate sensitivity. The Kiehl study shows the opposite – high sensitivity correlated with low aerosol forcing.
3. It’s almost universally understood that model climate sensitivity is a model output, not an input, and that modelers can’t dictate how it will come out. It is therefore unlikely that a modeler would know in advance what aerosol forcing to input based on the climate sensitivity that would later emerge.
4 . As both Kiehl and Gavin note, models typically don’t enter aerosol forcing as a value, but let it emerge from the data on aerosols that they enter. See Gavin’s description as to how this is done independent of any goal involving final magnitude or trend matching. Since he and others are the ones doing it, their description should be the accurate one unless they are deliberately untruthful.
5. The Kiehl study (and others) selected a subset of models that performed well in matching observed trends. If, for any reason, there is indeed an inverse relationship between a model’s climate sensitivity and aerosol forcing in that subset, it follows mathematically that a high sensitivity would be matched by a low aerosol forcing, but this is a property of the selection process. If all models, including those that performed poorly, were tested, there is no reason why the same inverse relationship should necessarily hold. In that sense, selection for good performance dictated the observed relationship, and attributing it to intent on the part of the modelers is unnecessary. They were simply the ones who happened to get it right, and the ones who got it wrong were not evaluated by Kiehl.
6. Most important is the question of truthfulness. Either modelers (Gavin, Hansen, etc.) are telling the truth when they say they don’t do any tuning before or after a model is run for the purpose of making its projection perform well, or they are telling untruths. The notion that a large number independently, or through conspiracy, do something different from what they claim is a serious charge. The fact that others who don’t design models have implied this type of untruthfulness shouldn’t be given credence in the absence of evidence for their claim. No observations that have been reported require that to be the case. Lindzen and others should refrain from suggesting this type of “fudging”. As best we know, it isn’t done.
Oops. In reviewing Kiehl, I found that my points 1 and 2, and my criticism of Knutti and the ZOD were wrong, because there was in fact a loose positive correlation between aerosol cooling and climate sensitivity. Therefore, a physical rationale does exist for Kiehl’s findings. However, the claim of deliberate adjustment can’t be justified, for reasons I give in points 3 through 6.
Fred et al – – it would help to clarify in the above, what is meant by a “large” aerosol forcing. Does that mean more negative, or less negative?
Also, OT, but you have probably seen Isaac Held’s latest. I would be interested in your opinion of my comment.
Bill – Your comment is very pertinent. Part of the problem I had was what appeared to me to be a misleading statement in Kiehl – “Figure 2 shows the correlation between total anthropogenic forcing and forcing due to tropospheric aerosols. There is a strong positive correlation between these two quantities”. Actually Figure 2 shows a negative correlation – higher forcing (negative forcing) from aerosols is negatively correlated with total forcing. Presumably, Kiehl intended to mean that an aerosol forcing that was less negative was positively correlated with total forcing, but it was confusing when that was expressed as a strength of aerosol forcing. If I had been less careless in reading the numbers on the x axis, I wouldn’t have misunderstood that. Kiehl also points out that “Some of the models used in these simulations employed only the direct effect, while others used both direct and indirect effects of aerosols, which makes a more detailed comparison of simulated aerosol forcing difficult.” I think it actually makes it impossible, because the magnitude of the indirect effect is significant.
I haven’t had a chance to look at Held yet.
Bill – A constant or near constant relative humidity in a warmer atmosphere means a higher specific humidity – i.e., more total water vapor. This would serve as a warming influence and constitute a positive feedback.
Fred,
Well when you get time check out Held,it’s interesting, he has a pointed reply to my comment, and I’m fine with that, but I still think what I’m describing will happen and will have to be dealt with carefully.
This thread is getting unbearable, but your notes about the direct and indirect aerosol effects (of similar magnitude and sign in the GISS forcing time series) reminded me that I was going to say: While I am making no claim about tuning or lack of tuning, it does seem to me that comments along the lines of Pekka’s above are much more pertinent to the indirect effect, where it seems to me the estimates would be much harder to correlate with observational data (but not impossible).
Bill – Pekka made good points, but they can’t be used to excuse Lindzen’s claim that aerosols are adjusted for the purpose of making model projections come out right. The aerosol indirect effect is relevant, because it involves considerable uncertainty, as well as an extensive literature trying to narrow the plausible range. Has the magnitude of this effect been deliberately chosen in models with an eye toward making the models perform better? That would require choosing from the higher rather than the lower end of the estimated range in an effort to reconcile only modest observed warming with typical climate sensitivity estimates. This is the kind of claim Lindzen and others make – the aerosol forcing is chosen too high in order to make the models look good.
As an example of what is done, however, here is a quote from Gavin Schmidt on the issue of “tuning”: ”However, Judy’s statement about model tuning is flat out wrong. Models are not tuned to the trends in surface temperature. The model parameter tuning done at GISS is described in Schmidt et al (2006) and includes no such thing. The model forcings used in the 20th Century transients were also not tuned to get the right temperature response. Aerosol amounts were derived from aerosol simulations using the best available emissions data. Direct effects were calculated simply as a function of the implied changes in concentrations, and the indirect effects were parameterised based on the median estimates in the aerosol literature (-1 W/m2 at 2000) (Hansen et al, 2005; 2007).”.
If you look up the literature on the indirect effect (e.g., via Google Scholar), the range is extensive – from perhaps about -0.2 W/m^2 to more than -4 W/m^2. Much of the variation is toward the high end – i.e., above the median value. The choice of -1 W/m^2 is therefore conservatively low, such that even lower values within the range would have relatively minor effects on trend simulations, whereas higher values would make the models significantly underestimate observed warming trends. That choice is not one that would be made if the purpose were to prevent simulations from coming out too high. The more recent literature has begun to converge toward the -1 W/m^2 value, excluding the much stronger negative forcing, further justifying this choice based on evidence rather than “fudging”.
Of course, this requires us to believe first that Gavin is telling the truth, and second that he is correct when he asserts (elsewhere in the discussion) that he is unaware of any group that engages in tuning to match observed trends. At some point, someone might present evidence that these statements are false, but until that is done, no claim for fudging can be justified. It looks like many groups are simply trying to arrive at the best values they can, and the models are using those data simply in order to be as accurate as possible in the light of some uncertainty.
Fred
“The model forcings used in the 20th Century transients were also not tuned to get the right temperature response. Aerosol amounts were derived from aerosol simulations using the best available emissions data.”
The modelers would still be “allowed” to tailor the relative levels of each aerosol within the margin of error of the specific item without that statement being untruthful. There is a large margin of error in the estimated aerosol levels. In addition, the relative impact of each aerosol on the others and on the system as a whole can (and I expect were) adjusted so that the models would meet the observer criteria that were available.
Because of line breaks in my above comment, it may not be clear that the lowest (weakest) end of the indirect aerosol forcing range is still negative, at minus 0.2 W/m^2. This would be consistent with the physical principles involved.
Rob – It now appears that you’re simply calling Gavin a liar when he says flatly that this kind of “tailoring” isn’t done – choices are not made with any intention to get the trends right. I urge you to contact him and explain your position and if he responds, share it with us.
Preferably, though, I think you should acknowledge that your claim is wrong, and that you had been misinformed on this topic. That would be honorable.
Fred,
So which do you think happens more – adjusting the model to match observations or adusting observations to match models?
Or perhaps you believe computer programs are born perfect and don’t need adjustments?
LOL – you’re funny.
After reviewing many of the comments in the several exchanges above, I thought I’d summarize my own perspective on what I believe we can say with confidence and what’s less certain. We can conclude confidently that Lindzen and others are wrong in claiming aerosols are adjusted to make model projections match observations.
A number of individuals (Pekka Pirila, Chris Colose, Alex Harvey) have suggested that despite the lack of intentional tuning for that purpose, some bias can creep into the literature so that the data that modelers use will act to make models look better than they are. I think the possibility is legitimate, but we also have to ask whether the evidence supports it. I don’t know all the evidence, but Gavin Schmidt, in discussing the GISS models, describes processes that seem fairly independent of that bias. In the case of forcings for which considerable uncertainty persists, such as indirect aerosol effects, the chosen values were conservative and would have introduced little or no favorable bias for the models. This example may not be representative, but it would be useful for anyone knowing of contrary examples to cite them. My impression at this point is that the problem may exist, but probably exerts only minor effects. We need more data on this.
A point has been raised that several studies show fairly good matches to observed trends despite significant variation in the way they arrived at those matches. For example, models with higher sensitivity exhibited stronger negative aerosol forcing, models with weaker cloud feedbacks exhibited stronger feedbacks of other types, and so on. Is this evidence for implicit, perhaps unconscious, tuning to get the right trends?
In the absence of direct evidence for tuning, I think the answer is probably no, because I think there is a good alternative explanation that requires no manipulation on the part of individual modelers – selection bias in the choice of models to look at. If a model is going to simulate trends well, it can do it in different ways. Some will do it with higher forcings, others with higher feedbacks, and so on, so that they differ from each other. What they have in common is that they are selected for getting the right answer, and that excludes models that don’t have the forcings or the feedbacks operate to give good results. If no models were excluded, would we still see strong forcings matched with weak feedbacks, or weak forcings with strong feedbacks? Presumably less so, because the models that perform poorly would probably fail to achieve that balance. This is tentative, because I can’t tell from the literature how much selection was actually imposed. Even so, it’s consistent with the reported results, and doesn’t require us to conclude that modelers have either unconsciously or dishonestly made choices to make their models perform better, while stating that they aren’t doing that. This too is something worth exploring further before drawing firm conclusions.
Fred Moolten: This would serve as a warming influence and constitute a positive feedback.
That is assumed but not known. The increased water vapor could produce an increase in the rate at which heat is transferred from the surface and lower troposphere to the upper troposphere, an increase in cloudiness (negative feedback) and increase in rainfall.
It is known from CERES data that cloud cover is greater in the warmer months and lesser in the cooler months, so the possibility of the negative feedback that I described is concordant with extant data. Cloud formation and radiative/convective transfer of heat from lower to upper troposphere is discussed at Isaac Held’s blog, and there is much uncertainty about what would happen next if temperature or CO2 concentration increased.
@Fred Moolten,
First of all, I really respect your tone in your communication on this issue and have understood, that although your own background is way off this topic (MD?), you done quite a lot of reading. Despite all this, I have a strong gut feeling that this model tuning and probably entire modelling discussion as a whole is an mostly out of your area of competence, despite all the literature you’ve gone though. In order to see what’s going on behind the curtains, which is highly relevant in interpreting and weighing the value of model outputs, you need to have relevant maths, physics/engineering background and preferably some real-life numerical modelling experience. Of which, Fred Moolten, to my knowledge you really have none.
Fact is that current knowledge does not allow us to construct a computer model from first principles and parameters initialized from precise satellite measurements, but we really need a great deal of parametrization. These parameters are always subjective selections. Vast majority of these parameter vectors/matrices, equations, their numerical solving methods are not based on first principles and/or direct measurements or values directly derived from such. The fact that we have the radiative part roughly correct does not mean much more that we have a good start. Of course I needs to be pointer out that even a small inprecision in radiative model alone could lead to a wildly different outcome over longer time. I think this is clear for most, and already discussed to death in countless threads on this site alone.
My main point here is that the process by which models are initialized (both the initial state and state invariant parameters) is just something you cannot possibly know by just reading journal articles. A claim made by one modeller (out of hundreds) of a single modelling group (out of dozens) does not change this fact, especially as this person is widely known as very active, but not exactly unbiased person on related climate change discussions. I might be mistaken here, and will stand corrected if necessary, but this one statement by this Schmidt seems to be your core argument vs “classic” sceptic claim of curve fitting.
I’m not implying any cover up or conspiracy by stating that how models are initialized and parametrized is something not found from literature but rather stating the obvious. It is unevitably a unprecise and subjective process by nature, and one method of tackling the issue is to make several runs; unfortunately the massive scale (i.e. number of grid cells, calculation steps and number of parameters) is so huge that subjective decisions about parameters needs to be made.
Personally, for what it is worth, my interpretation about the current state of predictive skill of GCMs remains very low, and this “tuning process” is indeed one of the primary reasons for my sceptisism. Of course there are numerous other, perfectly valid reasons for suspicion, but they which have been discussed by many also in this thread and need not to be repeated here.
Anander – Thanks for your comment. You are correct that I have only an outsider’s knowledge of how models are designed, although I understand the basic principles. pretty well. However, it’s important not to set up a straw man argument suggesting that I or anyone believes models are designed simply from first principles without parameterizations, and without testing against observational data to ensure that the parameters are as accurate as possible. Much of this is done to get the basic climatology right – seasons, latitudinal variation, winds, ocean currents, etc. In other words, tuning is an accepted reality in model design and initialization – that is not an issue.
The issue is whether they are tuned for the purpose of making the projected trends match observed trends. In particular, Lindzen has claimed that aerosol forcing is adjusted to make the projections come out right. You seem to be suggesting that Gavin Schmidt, in stating this isn’t true, in describing how it is actually done, and in indicating that he is unaware of any model group that does what Lindzen claims, is either being untruthful or ignorant of how the modeling community acts in general.
That’s possible, but I think it’s more likely that he is correct and that Lindzen’s claim that aerosols are adjusted to make the modeled trends match observed ones is false. He clearly knows much more about this than you or I, and his statements on this issue are unambiguous and have been made on more than one occasion when the issue has arisen. The only further way I think we could get more information is to contact him for additional input, or find other modelers who will confirm or contradict what he has to say.
This brings up another point, that I’ll make here rather than on the new thread on models that started yesterday. In my view, this further discussion of models and their virtues and limitations is severely limited if the only people discussing it are non-modelers. For that discussion to be more than an exchange of unverifiable opinions, some well-informed, some less so, the dialog should include one or more people who construct models for a living. I suppose it’s fantasy, but I would have loved to see participation by Jim Hansen (after he was asked not to discuss “death trains” or the pipeline from Canada but only model construction). Barring that, there are some other good people who have occasionally participated here who would be valuable, including Gavin Schmidt. Discussions with Gavin can get heated and contentious on various issues, but when it comes to constructing models, I have no doubt he will truthfully tell what he knows, and it would be informative.
Without someone like him, the discussion won’t be nearly as useful.
Fred Moolten, thank you for your reply. No strawman intended really.
Although my view generally is more complex on this tuning issue that e.g. Lindzen proposes, I see some truth in his interpretation, and on the other hand, it is totally understandable for a modeler and especially one as outspoken and active as Dr. Schmidt to respond to this claim in a way he have done. Neverthless I see the real truth here is somewhere in between — in order to realistically be able to model the climate system and for example just to keep the intermediate values within reasonable ranges etc, some (most probably very heavy) tuning is inevitably required. I’m quite sure this is something most people who have insight about the inner workings of the models very much agree on, but unfortunately this discussion has been so polarized that they wouldn’t ever say so in public — nobody wants to give any talking points to sceptics-
Generally speaking and stepping bit away from the pure modelling anyway, isn’t it so, that the varying aerosol forcing anyway the most important official explanation of the 20th century temperature variations (post-WW2 especially), and if the current interpretation is shown to be false, there will be quite a lot to explain and most important hypotheses of the 20th century climate variations would pretty much be sent back to the drawing board. This is my general understanding about the significance of this issue, but again I will stand corrected if this entirely false.
And as you said, continuing the discussion about details without participation from modellers actually doing the work becomes rather fruitless quite soon. There isn’t too much point in going to details really.
By the way, effectively disputing the widespread sceptic legend, there are climate model codes available in public domain (CESM for example). At least I have found studying the real code behind these discussions rather insightful – as (we) say, the truth is always in the code, specifications (not that there much to be found, at least in traditional computer engineering sense about academic software) are just paper. Most of course don’t have the data, computing resources, (personal) time and even skill to actually run these programs, but just reading the code will give you quite a lot of information that won’t certainly come up from the literature, for instance about data structures and degrees of freedom involved.
Your call, Fred, is to an authority bound to an ideological site. But you might be right.
==============
@kim, fred
Could Gavin Schmidt survive the heat of a site where he doesn’t hold the keys of moderation in his hand? He hasn’t shown much desire to venture out of such a comfort zone in the past.
Difficult question? Zaparoonee and you’re gone.
“isn’t it so, that the varying aerosol forcing anyway the most important official explanation of the 20th century temperature variations (post-WW2 especially), “
“Official” or not, I agree, Anander, that aerosol cooling is accepted as a major factor in the “global dimming” from about 1950 to the late 1970s, and in the “global brightening” due to reduced aerosol negative forcing subsequently, at least up to about 2000, when some possible further aerosol increases have been suspected. That this is a valid phenomenon is not in doubt, with evidence from multiple regions and multiple time points – mainly in the Northern Hemisphere but also to a lesser extent in the SH. The dimming was associated with reduced surface solar radiation resulting from a reduced transmission of a given solar irradiance to the surface, and was seen in both all-sky and clear-sky conditions, excluding cloud changes as the only operative factor. The subsequent brightening partly but not completely reversed some of the cooling effects that preceded it.
Without the aerosol dimming, as you suggest, the warming post-1950 would have been expected to be greater based simply on GHGs and other warming factors, and so the aerosol effect
Also, as you suggest, there is uncertainty about the magnitude of the negative forcing. This required efforts to arrive at the best input possible in models. It did not mean that modelers made choices designed to make the model projections fit the observed warming. The choices that Gavin Schmidt described for the GISS models were based on the aerosol data he had available, and were conservative rather than at the high end of plasuible aerosol negative forcing values. If that is considered “tuning”, it was not tuning designed to ensure a favorable outcome in the projections, unless Gavin was not telling us the truth.
I wrote a couple of sentences with tortured syntax above. The dimming was the aerosol cooling effect. The subsequent brightening partially reversed the cooling and was in part due to reduced aerosols. The net anthropogenic aerosol effect for the entire post-1950 interval, based on the observational data, was cooling, although the post-1976 effect may have involved a warming.
Fred,
When we are discussing the logic in the role of aerosols, we must ask what was the basis for the estimate of the strength of the aerosol dimming. Was it really knowledge about the physical mechanism and amount of aerosols or was it determined from earlier analysis of temperature time series?
If the basis was the analysis of temperature time series then there is a circular argument: Aerosol dimming is determined from temperature time series and it’s used to reproduce the time series. When that is done it’s also to be expected that the model will be implicitly tuned to reproduce the climate sensitivity that was used in the earlier analysis of the aerosol dimming.
I don’t know what really happened. Thus the above tells what could have happened, not whether it really did. Showing that this is not the right explanation would require at least that it’s shown, how other information could at the time tell the strength of the dimming accurately and reliably enough.
“When we are discussing the logic in the role of aerosols, we must ask what was the basis for the estimate of the strength of the aerosol dimming. Was it really knowledge about the physical mechanism and amount of aerosols or was it determined from earlier analysis of temperature time series?”
Pekka – It appears primarily to be based on physical mechanisms and aerosol amounts as incorporated into the GISS Model E
Fred,
That conclusion may be right, but it would be necessary to know more about the details of the model to really conclude. The paper tells a fair amount about physics that’s taken into account, but only a real specialist could tell what that really means.
The main reason for being a bit skeptical is in the fact that other main stream sources including several other modelers and the IPCC Reports emphasize that the strength of the aerosol forcing is not known at all accurately. The overview of radiative forcings for year 2005 in AR4 tells that the uncertainty range for the direct effect is -0.9 .. -0.1 and for the cloud albedo effect -1.8 .. -0.3. If there would really be a well justified physical understanding, how could the uncertainty ranges be so wide.
Fred,
People from the consensus side of the argument interpret Lindzen’s statement as an accusation of fraud, or something close to it. I do not read it that way.
Lindzen is actually quoted as saying,
“The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments.”
You have paraphrased this as,
“…aerosol forcing is adjusted to make model projections match observed trends.”
If you look carefully, that’s not an accurate paraphrase.
I would compare Lindzen’s state with one of Kiehl’s statements,
“models with low climate sensitivity require a relatively higher total anthropogenic forcing than models with higher climate sensitivity.”
So what does Kiehl mean by “require”? I think it is either a physical requirement or an arbitrary requirement. No one is suggesting that there is a physical reason why forcing and sensitivity should compensate; so without such a reason you are left with only a few other possibilities – sheer chance, which would be extraordinary; and an unconscious tuning in response to expectations of the model developers – which is less extraordinary.
I also note you find the tuning argument implausible because climate sensitivity is an emergent property of the models. Sometimes the forcing is too. So, I would direct you to a paragraph from Huybers:
“Covariance could also arise through conditioning the models. A dice game illustrates how this might work. Assume two 6-sided dice that are fair so that no correlation is expected between the values obtained from successive throws. But if throws are only accepted when the
dice sum to 7, for example, then a perfect anticorrelation will exist between acceptable pairs (i.e., 1–6, 2–5, etc.). Now introduce a 12-sided die and require the three dice to sum to 14. An expected cross-correlation of 20.7 then exists between realizations of the 12-sided die and each of the 6-sided die, whereas the values of the two 6-sided dice have no expected correlation between them. The summation rule forces the 6-sided dice to compensate for the
greater range of the 12-sided die. This illustrates how placing constraints on the output of a system can introduce covariance between the individual components. Note that this covariance can be introduced, albeit not diagnosed, without ever actually observing the individual values.”
In the case of climate models, models may have only been accepted only when they reproduced aspects of the historical climate – in particular the surface temperature record. (Or, indeed, if their sensitivity lay outside the Charney range of 1.5 – 4.5 K.)
(By the way, I put my own view more fully at Michel Crucifix’s blog –
http://mcrucifix.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/ahem-few-clarifications.html.)
Alex – Lindzen stated that aerosol forcing is “unknown” and that the models made an “arbitrary adjustment” to make them match observations. This is almost certainly false for reasons stated several times earlier. I also explained why it isn’t necessary to invoke “adjustments” to explain the Kiehl findings, which can be explained on probabilistic grounds involving selection.. Since these comments are already in the thread, I won’t repeat them here, but I believe it will be possible to find additional support for them in a more thorough scrutiny of the models, and I’ll post further evidence as it emerges.
Fred, there are those of us who predicted that aerosols would be used as a bodge. Welikerocks saw it years ago, and I suspect Steve Fitzpatrick expected it, also.
It’s all about the albedo. Learn what is there, don’t just imagine what is convenient.
======================
Couple of points about the talk:
— the second half is aimed at MPs, not scientists. Hence the lack of references and “rigour”. Consider the audience.
— “Changes are not causal but rather the residue of regional changes.” This is the POV that climate is inherently regional, not global. Global numbers and effects are the sum and interaction of regional processes, in the main. That is, there are not “global changes” driving regional, but the reverse.
Completely agree with both of your points
Energy entering and manifesting itself in the system is a regional event as radiation doesn’t possess heat. So the changes are regional like ENSO which in turn triggers a cascade of events.
CO2 ppm is not the same at each test location — also takes time to migrate around the system.
Re Co2 levels, John, you might find the links here interesting. Callendar 1938 is the one who determined CO2 levels in the 19th century. Slocum 1955 showed how Callendar cherry-picked the data, arbitrarily leaving out over 1,000 measurements. Callendar’s 290 ppm is the accepted 19th century level. Slocum showed that it should have been 335 ppm, using the very same data. Slocum, playing nice, did everything but call Callendar a data fudger and a scientific fraud. But he left nothing to the imagination.
Callendar was trying to be a warmist alarmist, long before Hansen. And he was caught out by Slocum, but no one today knows the history, so they use the cherry-picked value..
Both papers can be found using Google Scholar.
Steve Garcia
CC says about about Lindzen- “Im not saying “Lindzen is wrong because he’s boring and no one likes him” but rather pointing out that he has lost credibility in the community. That’s the same old consensus argument which is political, not scientific. CC, I bet you and others can come up with dozens of examples in many scientific fields where a scientist had lost creditbility, but turned out to be correct. Also, your assertion that Lindzen has lost credibility is itself suspect. Perhaps that is the case among your cohort of climate science buddies, but there are a lot of scientists out there, and I doubt that you have polled them. Also, what you consider boring, others may consider gravitas, very different and from the rants or dismissive arrogance which characterizes much of the debate.
The reason CC and other warmists say Lindzen has “lost credibility” is because (unlike CC’s “climate scientist”) he follows the Scientific Method. Unlike “climate scientists” he doesn’t hide his data and algorithms, cherry-pick tree ring series, turn varve data upside down, or engage in ‘pal review’.
To have “credibility” in CC’s eyes, you have do all the things Lindzen won’t do.
I’m not “in the community” but he loses credibility with me because I am capable of doing the simple calculations of forcings and temperature rise, and spot the flaw in the argument which is to ignore the other forcings. He has been making this argument almost unchanged for years because, I guess, he knows he can get away with it with certain audiences.
Focussing on Chris’s complaint that he has lost credibility in the community is merely to avoid the discussion of the *reasons* why he has lost the credibility. Reasons being that his theory has not had any good support, his recent papers had some obvious flaws that were quickly spotted and he has a tendency for putting forward the same points to many meetings of non-experts without accounting for the fair criticisms his points have received.
Steve Milesworthy:
It would be interesting to learn what you imagine Lindzen’s “obvious flaws” are.
Steve : are you seriously saying Lindzen routinely ignores non-CO2 forcings ?? That claim sounds like drivel to me. Is your “obvious flaws” claim any better grounded, I wonder ?
Punksta, I did not say he “routinely ignores non-CO2 forcings”. I said he routinely gives presentations to non-experts in which he highlights a low sensitivity which is obtained if one ignores non-greenhouse gas – ie. aerosol and solar – forcings:
“If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C”
You should make sure you understand a point before you conclude it is “drivel”. I guess it means he has pulled the wool over your eyes.
An “obvious flaw” in his latest paper (Lindzen & Choi) was that you got the opposite result to his if you changed the range of his arbitrarily chosen sampling regions by as little as one month.
Steve, I retract my comment about your contribution being mere drivel. It’s positively disingenuous. How much wool is being pulled over people’s by such an open statement ? Your claim of Lindzen’s dishonesty is itself just dishonest.
An “obvious flaw” in his latest paper (Lindzen & Choi) was that you got the opposite result to his if you changed the range of his arbitrarily chosen sampling regions by as little as one month.
Can you elaborate on this obvious waffle ?
Punksta,
I didn’t use the word “dishonest”. Stop putting words into my mouth.
“If one assumes…” directs an inexperienced audience to assume exactly that. For the statement not to be misleading it should be followed by a clear explanation that nobody seriously assumes that the statement is definitely correct, and that even if the aerosol inputs are “arbitrary” they are sizeable.
“Can you elaborate on this obvious waffle ?”
How is such a clear statement “obvious waffle”?
Steve
Oh do stop feigning innocence now, it’s pathetic.
And don’t be ridiculous – “If one assumes” is not an invitation to assume.
And since you accept the effect of aerosols, clouds etc is “arbitrary” – indeterminate as of now? – how can we also know they are “sizeable” ?
And as regards the waffle, what claim do you refer to ?
Punksta, you are looking all ways to pretend that Lindzen is “innocent” and assuming I am “feigning innocence”. But I have engaged with people who *have* been misled by Lindzen’s line so it is legitimate to point this out.
Rather than vent your frustration at the valid points I am putting to you, why not use your energy to investigate Lindzen’s claims.
And don’t be ridiculous – “If one assumes” is not an invitation to assume.
Steve M : [non-responsive]
And since you accept the effect of aerosols, clouds etc is “arbitrary” – indeterminate as of now? – how can we also know they are “sizeable” ?
Steve M : [non-responsive]
And as regards the ‘waffle’, what claim [of Lindzen’s] do you refer to ?
Steve M : [non-responsive]
Sometimes it is difficult to summon a desire to respond to someone who can’t follow a thread. I’m having to guess on how to italicise here – apologies if it doesn’t work:
[I]”And don’t be ridiculous – “If one assumes” is not an invitation to assume.”[/I]
Yes it is.
[I]”And since you accept the effect of aerosols, clouds etc is “arbitrary” –
indeterminate as of now? – how can we also know they are “sizeable” ?”[/I]
You misread for about the fifth time. I did not *accept* that the effect of aerosols is “arbitrary”.
[I]”And as regards the ‘waffle’, what claim [of Lindzen’s] do you refer to ?
Steve M : [non-responsive]”[/I]
This is very confusing, because it is you who is accusing me of “waffle”. I have not accused Lindzen of waffle.
Sometimes it is difficult to summon a desire to respond to someone who can’t follow a thread.
Well spotted – this is indeed the big problem with your posts.
And don’t be ridiculous – “If one assumes” is not an invitation to assume.”
SM: Yes it is.
Obviously not. If one assumes != Assume.
And since you accept the effect of aerosols, clouds etc is “arbitrary” –
indeterminate as of now? – how can we also know they are “sizeable” ?”
SB: You misread for about the fifth time. I did not *accept* that the effect of aerosols is “arbitrary”.
I did not misread – “arbitrary” is the word you actually used.
But, if you actually believe the effects of aerosols and clouds are settled science, do let us know these important finds.
“Waffle”. You made a vague claim about some claim of Lindzen’s being obviously false. Which one/s ?
Hint:
Use html tags for italics etc
OK. What you consider to be waffle was my reference to something that is clearly described in this section:
“The LC09 results are not robust.”
of:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/
I didn’t mean that your claim itself was waffle. I meant you were waffling as to what the claim is.
Give us a one paragraph summary so we can see if it’s worth following the RC link.
[QUOTE]The result one obtains in estimating the feedback by [Lindzen’s] method turns out to be heavily dependent on the endpoints chosen. In [Trenberth et al] we show that the apparent relationship is reduced to zero if one chooses to displace the endpoints selected in LC09 by a month or less. [/QUOTE]
The RC article includes a plot that compares Lindzen et al choices with Trenberth et al choices. The Trenberth choices look equally as reasonable or slightly more reasonable than the Lindzen choices and come up with a different result.
So the result is not “robust”.
There are a number of other problems listed though the others are more waffly ;)
Lindzen has apparently accepted that there were “obvious flaws” in a follow up paper in the “Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences”. The abstract does not appear to claim it is rebutting the criticisms.
(Googling around Lindzen seems to be moaning that JGR rejected the paper and PNAS refused to use the reviewers he wanted (Will Happer and former colleague Dr. Chou) on this latter paper. Also
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/10/lindzen-and-choi-part-ii/
)
I did not misread – “arbitrary” is the word you actually used.
But, if you actually believe the effects of aerosols and clouds are settled science, do let us know these important finds.
Missed this post earlier.
I said: “that even if the aerosol inputs are “arbitrary” they are sizeable.”
Note the “if”. You know, the “if” that would make it obviously conditional. I think you’ve sort of made my point about Lindzen’s “If one assumes…”
As it happens, arbitrary and sizeable is not that inconsistent when it is understood that they may cause both sizeable negative and positive forcing, and that the forcings are uncertain such that (in total) they could add up to a low number.
I’d like to repeat this from 25 minutes ago because It’s a real question. Has the following been well considered in the literature with comparisons of Arctic and Anarctic carbon soot emissions and albedo effect on temperature trend or not? I hopeful that carbon soot emissions are an AGW forcing we might all agree on, thereby actually doing something positive despite the uncertainties about CO2 atribution and climate sensitivity-
Doug Allen | February 27, 2012 at 8:35 pm | Reply
Good points, but I think regional temperature trends are much more complex. The Anarctic, itself land covered by snow and ice and surrounded by mostly ocean, has warmed very little. The Arctic, on the other hand is ice and snow, surrounded mainly by land. The anarctic is far from centers of industry and soot emissions, and soot emissions fall out of the atmosphere fairly quickly, probably not crossing over the equator to any great extenct. The arctic is close to 90% of the world’s industry and receives a lot of the carbon soot fallout. I think the difference in albedo, from soot fallout, plus the positive feedback of albedo change when Ice and snow becomes water, may explain in large part the differences in Arctic and Anarctic temperature trends and by extension the differences in northern hemeisphere and southern hemisphere temperature trend. If I am wrong about this, Dr. Curry and others, give me some scientific studies and data that refute this or bring it into question. I have seldom seen this hypothesis considered, and it has a very strong bearing on the competing roles on CO2 and carbon soot emissions.
Doug, I would say that albedo plays a pretty major role and soot does impact albedo.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/polesandtropicsRSS.png
Fred writes; “If you give a short presentation in general terms to a non-scientific audience, you can prove just about anything you want, with no-one to say you’re wrong. The reason that Lindzen’s perspective is not widely accepted within climate science resides in details that are not in the talk, and which an audience unfamiliar with climate data would be unable to judge in any case.”
I’m not understanding what your point is, Fred. Are you saying LIndzen shouldn’t be able to give talks to present his point of view. If not, what are you saying? Should Al Gore be allowed to speak? Ultimately this is about social policy, and like it or not we’re living in a democracy. You seem to be pining for some sort of egghead-ocracy whereby no one short of a PH.D. in physics is allowed to vote.
So what would you suggest? How would you go about educating the great unwashed to your satisfaction?
As to no one being able to stand up and explain why Lindzen’s wrong, I can only say it’s rather a shame that no one on your side of things is willing to debate. It’s my understanding that professor LIndzen has no qualms at all about facing those who disagree with him.
My response appeared below. Sorry it wasn’t nested under your comment, which had been my intention.
Fred, please don’t lose your patience. I enjoy your input and am capable of scrolling quickly over GaryM et al. and other intemperant people.
Pokerguy,
I am beginning to get a grasp on Fred’s bizarre world view.
For Fred, CAGW is a scientific fact (including the high probability of C). Therefore, anyone who says or writes anything inimical to CAGW is dishonest, because the only way you can disagree with CAGW is to outright lie, or lie by omission. Thus the WSJ graph Dr. Curry cited in an earlier thread that accurately depicts the IPCC’s warming predictions is dishonest because it doesn’t explain that the newer models are supposedly better than the older models. And Lindzen’s presentation to the House of Commons is dishonest because there are other CAGW talking points that, if Lindzen had discussed, would have proved how stupid Lindzen’s point is.
In other words, if you disagree with Fred on CAGW, you are either stupid or dishonest, and likely both.
Of course progressives think like that on virtually every issue, but for Fred it is an article of faith and a point of personal obsession.
Gary – Thanks for following my comments so diligently from thread to thread. I’m thinking of adding you to my list of favorite groupies.
Fred,
Thank you for using this opportunity to imitate Joshua. Keep reaching for the stars.
Gary – It’s the groupies who reach for the stars.
Fred,
Best comment of the thread – your “groupies reaching …”
Fred’s wit should never be under-rated.
While I tend to think Fred (and some others) have well thought out views, he (and others) tend to be resistant to the possibility that their views may need to be modified.
Scientists don’t even know how to deal with the complex climate science adequately.
We ‘laymen’ know that inside every complicated idea is a simple idea trying to escape. Once you ‘scientists’ have finally freed the ‘simple idea’ we will understand.
Think the convoluted orbits of the planets and stars before someone figured out the earth was not the center of the universe.
pokerguy – Your questions, posted at 9:15 PM, were answered by me at 8:58 PM. Perhaps it took you more time than that to compose your comment, so I’m not accusing you of disregarding what I had written, but in any case, you can go back to my earlier response to Anteros for the relevant points.
Judith,
What is really being reflected in this debate is the age old debate between theorists and experimentalists except the theorists are today avoiding real world scrutiny and testing by substituting computer models.
If they had powerful computers in 1904 the plum pudding model of the atom of J. J. Thomson might still be being defended with wonderful results from tortured computer models. Geiger, Marsden and Rutherford would have been dismissed as sceptics and the Royal Society would be saying there is a “concensus” and the science is “settled” and dismiss Rutherford as a mere upstart scientist from the colonies. Even then Rutherford had to get Geiger and Marsden to do the experiment and then “interpret” it to minimise the fall out from demolishing the “settled science”.
I find the comments on this page interesting. So far, I have seen four people say Lindzen is wrong (not counting stefanthedenier). Oddly enough, none of them have discussed anything our host highlighted. Consider Pekka Pirilä:
Lindzen referred to the warming observed in a period of 150 years. Pirilä claims this is dishonest as most of that warming was (he says) observed in the last 75 years. This is an extremely weak basis for an accusation of dishonesty, and it’s the entirety of Pirilä’s response. We then have Chris Colose who begins with:
Colose begins by “poisoning the well.” Before discussing anything Lindzen says, he denigrates Lindzen. He then goes on to say things like:
This seems almost meaningful, except nothing Colose refers to is anything Curry highlighted. Instead, he refers to relatively obscure arguments which no average reader is likely to know about, research about or even care about. Instead of discussing the core arguments of the topic, Colose relies on dishonest rhetorical tricks and discussions of peripheral arguments. We then have Jim D, who says:
There is an implicit accusation of dishonesty here, but it is nowhere near as prominent as in the previous two posters. Unfortunately, Jim D’s comment seems to make no sense. Curry highlighted Lindzen saying we’ve seen almost one degree of warming, we’ve had almost a doubling of effective CO2 concentrations, and the planet’s sensitivity to such a doubling is about one degree. This is all perfectly consistent, yet Jim D comes up with radically different numbers, and he does so without providing any calculation or source. We then have Fred Moolten who offers the only reasonable disagreement on the page:
He doesn’t actually say why any of Lindzen’s points are wrong, but he explains the way in which they are (supposedly) wrong. This isn’t much, but it is something, and he offers it without any derogatory remarks. That makes it the best response offered on this page.
Ultimately, Lindzen’s presentation makes a number of very simple points which Judith Curry highlighted. Despite a number of people disputing them, nobody responded to them. I find that fascinating. To any uninformed viewer, there would be absolutely nothing on this page to indicate Lindzen’s position was wrong.
Denigrating the opposition is what Chris Colose and most AGW supporters do. It is their trademark. If someone starts out with an attack on the person and not the science, I know without even reading any of their points that they are an AGW supporter
I don’t think your description is accurate. I’ve seen the same the same sort of behavior from people on both sides. In fact, I’ve probably been guilty of it myself.I understand why people do it, and I don’t think it is inherently wrong.
The problem comes when people attack a person without actually addressing any substantive points. I don’t care if Chris Colose or others make fun of Lindzen (or anyone else). I care that they do so while not contributing to the discussion at hand.
Quite frankly, I find it mind-boggling such simple points aren’t getting any substantive responses by people who disagree with them. If you can’t actually discuss simple points, why should anyone listen to you?
Brandon, though I have not yet offered anything substantive to this discussion, I often get the feeling that people don’t read Judith’s comments or certainly don’t take them up as point of debate, except in cases of extreme agreement or diagreement.
Fred Molton
I wrote: “The modelers would still be “allowed” to tailor the relative levels of each aerosol within the margin of error of the specific item without that statement being untruthful. There is a large margin of error in the estimated aerosol levels. In addition, the relative impact of each aerosol on the others and on the system as a whole can (and I expect were) adjusted so that the models would meet the observed criteria that were available.”
Now I acknowledge that I do not know much about programming a GCM, but I wrote what I did because it seemed like a very reasonable way for the modelers to develop their GCM‘s. The criteria the GCM’s are trying to accurately forecast are not these forcings so adjusting them in the past seemed a reasonable way to potentially increase accuracy in the hindcast.
You wrote I was wrong and wanted me to admit such.
Please look at what the IPCC said about model development: Looks like the IPCC is writing the same thing that I wrote Fred. The modelers allowed the aerosol forcings to vary with the range of uncertainty.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter8.pdf
“Models have been extensively used to simulate observed
climate change during the 20th century. Since forcing changes
are not perfectly known over that period (see Chapter 2), such
tests do not fully constrain future response to forcing changes.
Knutti et al. (2002) showed that in a perturbed physics ensemble
of Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs),
simulations from models with a range of climate sensitivities
are consistent with the observed surface air temperature and
ocean heat content records, if aerosol forcing is allowed to
vary within its range of uncertainty.”
Fred- could it be more plain that you made a mistake?
Rob, what you quote is irrelevant to the point I made, which is that the modelers don’t tune aerosols to match observed trends. You should contact Gavin Schmidt as I suggested.
What you quote is what I have mentioned in several places above. Inverse modeling is often used to estimate the value of a parameter. It can be used to test different aerosol forcings to see which allows a model to best match observations, but as I mentioned, inverse modeling results are not used to make projections, which require forward modeling. The latter is done, as Gavin mentions, without trying out different forcings to see which one performs best, but based on the criteria he describes in the part from him I quoted rather than the results from an inverse model exercise. I described some inverse modeling results in an earlier comment, including the observation that utilizing a somewhat smaller aerosol forcing changed temperature projections to only a minor extent (this is from one of the Hansen et al references).
You have acknowledged your lack of understanding of this issue. If you contain Gavin as I suggest, I’m confident he will confirm the points I attribute to him, and he can also explain why what modelers do for trend simulations is not the same as inverse modeling for parameter estimation, since he has experience with each.
OMG- Fred Molton
You are completely incapable of admitting you are wrong.
Fred- why do you the modelers allowed the aerosol forcings to vary within the range of uncertainty if it wasn’t to help the model perform better in meeting observed conditions?
Do you think they did it for fun?
Rob – I’m not sure what combination of stubbornness and ideological fervor prevents you from reading what other people write and trying to learn from it. I just finished describing the different uses of inverse modeling (where different parameter values are tested) and forward modeling, which is used to make projections without knowing in advance which values will perform best but must derive them from data and physical principles. The latter doesn’t involve trying out different values to see which works, and there is no tuning. You then ignored what I wrote and repeated your previous misconception.
Whether you want to understand or not is not a problem for me, Rob, because I can live with your remaining misinformed. It should be a problem for you, if you care to improve your understanding.
Incidentally, here is a nice paper on the use of inverse modeling for Cloud-Aerosol Interactions. It illustrates the principle, and I hope you’ll understand why it can’t be used for future projections when there is not yet an observational trend the different values can be compared with.
If Lindzen thinks the other GHGs apart from water vapor have more than doubled the effect of CO2, and that aerosols have not had any effect, he is running counter to the IPCC estimate that the other GHGs have had 50% of CO2’s effect and aerosols have about canceled this. Also, if the other GHGs are more than doubling the effect of CO2, the future warming is worse than we thought, but he has no support for this statement (and Judith questions it because she hasn’t seen these numbers before either). So I think he is just being alarmist here.
Jim D, I want to thank you for actually making a substantive response this time. You did not address much of what I said, but you did at least give a real point to discuss. First, you say:
According to the IPCC AR4, the forcing from CO2 (as of 2005) was 1.66. The total forcing from greenhouse gases was 2.63, meaning non-CO2 GHGs had ~58% of the impact of CO2. If you include solar irradiance, that goes up to 2.75 and ~66%. It then goes up to 2.82 if you include the stratospheric water vapor directly caused by methane, giving ~70%. Finally, if you include tropospheric ozone changes, you get a total forcing of 3.1, or a non-CO2 forcing of ~87%. If you use that proportion and update the CO2 forcing for 2012 levels, you get ~3.35 as your total forcing. That’s 90% of the generally accepted 3.7 so Lindzen’s comment is reasonably accurate.
The aerosol forcings from the IPCC AR4 are only -.5. This is nowhere near the positive non-CO2 forcings which have a total of 1.44. Moreover, the error margins on aerosol forcings are 80%, meaning the IPCC says they could be as small as -.1.
For the shortened version, there are positive forcings other than greenhouse gases. When you include those, the best IPCC estimate for aerosol forcing is less than half that of positive non-CO2 forcings. Moreover, that estimate has such wide error margins that it almost includes 0. These facts largely invalidate your response.
In actuality, the total forcings seen so far could be reasonably close to the forcing expected from a doubling of CO2. Lindzen’s comment was not precise, and it does rely upon some assumptions, but it is not unreasonable.
Yikes. I just realized the table I referred to has two lines for aerosol forcing. This increases the central value to -1.2 W/m^2 (not -1.5 as Jim D claims upthread). This is somewhat bad for Lindzen’s position, but it is compensated by the fact the uncertainty increases a great deal.
The total uncertainty of aerosol forcings not only includes 0, but it even ranges as high as +.3 W/m^2. That’s right. The aerosol forcings which are said to cancel out the non-CO2 forcings may actually contribute to them instead.
I apologize for missing that line in the table, and I apologize for the mistakes which crept into my comment because of it. However, the effect of including the line I missed only serves to strengthen Lindzen’s position.
Brandon, AR4 has versions of that forcing diagram that sum the bars up, and you see that the total is very similar to CO2 alone. This implies other GHGs tend to cancel aerosols. For Lindzen to make his case, he has to say what he thinks aerosols are doing. It is not just a model argument. There is a lot of physics that explains why aerosols make not only clear sky but also clouds have higher albedo. People study this, measure it with satellites, write papers on it. It should be considered and not just dismissed as a model invention if that is what Lindzen is doing. Maybe nobody at MIT is in that area of science, or he doesn’t talk to them, but he seems a bit isolated on this matter,
Eek. I need to learn to read charts better. I thought the range given in error estimates in that chart gave the total forcing, not the error margin. Silly mistake, I know. In my defense, I am the only person who has actually referred to the real numbers, so it’s not like I’m doing worse than anyone else.
Anyway, with that change, Lindzen’s position is not as simple to support. Even if you take the least damning estimations (for Lindzen) from the AR4, the total forcing from aerosols is -.4 W/m^2. This means it isn’t consistent with 0, and it cannot simply be ignored. However, I believe Lindzen explained in his speech why he disagrees with those estimations. If so, he didn’t just ignore them. Beyond that, at the far end of the error margins given by the AR4, we’re still seeing 80% of the forcing expected from a doubling of CO2. This means his comment is still relatively reasonable even if we accept the AR4 estimates (though it would have more certainty than it should).
With all my mistakes corrected (I hope!), the central thrust of my response doesn’t change. Lindzen’s comment may not be a great answer, but it’s also not anywhere near as unreasonable as portrayed by Jim D.
Speaking of Jim D, may I ask why you’d refer to a visual diagram when I provided a direct link to the actual numbers? Why would you rely on estimates derived from reading a picture when you can see the actual values? Would you also explain how you can say this:
You say the aerosols are about as strong as CO2 and they tend to cancel out the “other GHGs.” For that to be true, the forcing from “other GHGs” would have to be approximately as strong as the forcing from CO2, something you directly disputed when you said:
You’ve changed your position from saying “other GHGs” have 50% the forcing of CO2 to 100% without any explanation. Is there one?
Jim D, What about the reference to the literature where modelers discuss how they make use of this adjustment factor. It’s in Lindzen’s FermiLab talk if you are interested. So, according to JimD, just how to modelers choose their aerosol forcing, given the range in AR4 between 0.4 and 2.7 W/m2. Surely, it makes a HUGE difference. Taking the upper value, there should be no warming at all!
David Young:
This is nonsense. Sure, aerosols cancel out all of the anthropogenic influences, but everyone knows the observed warming is due to natural fluctuations!
Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
Brandon, you can see the IPCC bar charts by just doing an image search of IPCC Forcing. These usually also have numbers too. CO2 is near 1.6, the total is near 1.6, and the GHGs and aerosols are near 1 and -1. (OK, more than 50% of CO2). This is consistent with what I said. Lindzen doesn’t explain his aerosol view except as a way to get at modelers, not mentioning the people doing the aerosol observations.
Jim D –
Whether Lindzen is right or wrong about the aerosols, don’t you think someone should be challenging the models, to make them back up what they show? Shouldn’t the two sides then go at each other with the best conclusions winning? Or some third conclusions come out of it?
And if you do think that, don’t you think it would be in the spirit of open inquiry that the modelers let the challenger at least see what it IS that they are doing, so the other side can have an informed basis for getting to the root of the situation?
Are the modelers more interested in keeping the status of their models, or in getting at the truth of the matter? (I don’t mean truth here as final truth, but as a next step with a solid basis.)
Steve Garcia
David, yes, I am familiar with Kiehl’s words on this as a way to get the sensitivity down to values more consistent with observations. Without this, the water vapor feedback is too strong to explain the relatively weak warming of the later 20th century that you would get without aerosols. They had no way to change the water vapor feedback, because that is basic water saturation physics, but aerosols were uncertain and generally reflective. This is the part of the model where there is least certainty, because of the detailed chemistry involved, and there are only general observations to support model parameterizations. This science is in a better state than it was only a decade ago, and improving with more research and observations.
Jim D, you have an annoying habit of not responding to what I say. For example, you say:
There is no doubt I can see those charts. In fact, I had them open in one tab when I typed my response. However, what I asked you was:
I didn’t ask why you were using a chart. I asked why you were using a chart when I gave you a link to the actual numbers. I asked why you would pick a chart over the numbers the chart is made from, and you respond by not answering anything I said. Instead, you just say the chart is readily available and continue to use it to estimate the actual values I gave a link to.
You do it again when you say:
Here you admit your earlier comment was wrong, but you don’t actually respond to my comment about it. Neither of these cases cause any real problems, but it is annoying to have you respond to me while mostly ignoring what I say. Anyway, apparently the main point you want to make is:
I haven’t looked at the entire presentation from Lindzen, so I don’t know whether or not he did explain his view on the aerosol issue. If not, he certainly should have. On the other hand, you didn’t even raise this point in your initial comment, and you basically didn’t respond to anything I said about that comment.
Perhaps Lindzen does need to do better, but apparently, so do his critics.
Although Lindzen is entitled to his interpretation of evidence, I don’t believe he’s entitled to misrepresent aerosol forcing as a fudge factor used to make model predictions conform to observations, and it’s unfortunate that myth has become a staple in some blogosphere discussions. The question is not whether different models use different aerosol forcings – they do – but whether aerosol forcings are adjusted to “tune” the models to the observed temperature trends – they aren’t.
Some of the problem is a misrepresentation of the Kiehl GRL paper. From among multiple models, Kiehl selected a subset that agreed fairly well with temperature observations, but with different climate sensitivities (climate sensitivity is an emergent property of models and not an input). He found an inverse relationship between sensitivity and aerosol forcing. This is unsurprising given that the subset was selected for good predictive skill. However, the inference that each model had been tuned is false, based on the descriptions of how the models were constructed and parameterized. If all models, rather than just those with the selected attributes (good match to observations but differing climate sensitivities) had been evaluated, there is no reason to expect the same result.
There are remaining uncertainties about aerosols, but non-negligible aerosol negative forcing is not one of them, and it seems to me that Linden’s perpetuation of the “fudge factor” myth is an impediment to attempts to focus discussion on how best to resolve the uncertainties.
Fred –
You say that climate sensitivity is an emergent property of models and not an input. That surprises me. Isn’t it the case that Jim Hansen’s predictions of 1988 were ‘based’ on a model with a climate sensitivity of 4.2C/2xCo2?
Similarly, didn’t the IPCC FAR specify that its prediction of 0.3deg per decade of warming was based on a model with a sensitivity of 2.5C/2xCo2 – and that the “limits of uncertainty” were two other models that used sensitivities of 1.5 and 4.5C/2xCo2?
Anteros – Climate sensitivity is an output that arises from model inputs including basic physics and known properties of CO2, water, hydrostatics, etc., plus parameterizations designed to match the properties of starting climates before a simulation of trends is attempted. The modelers don’t actually know what their model’s climate sensitivity will be when they input the relevant variables,. Furthermore, the models are so complex that they can’t really tweak parameters with the expectation of changing it in a predictable way. That’s one of the reasons the sensitivity range is as broad as it is. There are many good sources describing this, and RC is one place to look (search for models), because Gavin Schmidt is an expert in this area. TI don’t think the above is a matter of controversy within the science itself on the part of individuals who are intimately familiar with model construction.
When you quote model sensitivities, as you have done, you are referring to the outputs. In other words, Hansen’s early model emerged with a sensitivity of 4.2 C/CO2 doubling, but that figure wasn’t something he knew in advance.
The point I would like to emphasize that I mentioned above is that aerosols were deemed necessary in models because without them, the water vapor feedback was too strong to account for the recent temperature trend. If they could have tuned the water vapor feedback they may have tried, but the fact they didn’t is because it is defined by somewhat fundamental physics, like Clausius-Clapeyron, which you can’t change. Aerosols were considered to be generally reflective, especially sulphates (as seen from the measurable effects of Pinatubo for example), so, no surprise, aerosols had the right properties to avoid the overwarming. However, they are complicated as emissions aren’t known accurately and chemistry has a way of converting aerosols, while their effects on clouds also leads to higher albedos but it is somewhat dependent on details of cloud microphysics, so many factors confound the issue. Hence, since it can’t be derived from first principals the way radiation and thermodynamics can, a certain amount of ground-truth in observations is needed to constrain the chemistry. This could be called tuning, but really it is constraining a complex system. The aerosol forcing uncertainty bars shown by IPCC reflect this.
Fred Moolten: From among multiple models, Kiehl selected a subset that agreed fairly well with temperature observations, but with different climate sensitivities (climate sensitivity is an emergent property of models and not an input). He found an inverse relationship between sensitivity and aerosol forcing.
thanks for the clarification.
1) Statement 2 of Slide # 3 can be shown to be completely false with a simple “back of the envelope” calculation.
2) The “work” used to compile this presentation was not peer-reviewed, would not pass a peer review, and is based on several false premises. No wonder Lindzen is usually dismissed in the AGW proponent crowd.
3) When, just below Statement 2 of Slide 3, Lindzen states “Given the above, the notion that alarming warming is ‘settled science’ should be offensive to any sentient individual, though to be sure, the above is hardly emphasized by the IPCC,” he is clearly attempting to bully an audience with little scientific knowledge. This is a typical AGW denialist strategy…a very unprofessional strategy at that.
Pierre, you make the fifth commenter to fit my description. Similarly to Jim D, you say:
Unfortunately, you do not explain this. This is particularly problematic as Lindzen clearly justifies that statement when he says:
You could argue his justification is wrong (perhaps by saying that supposed doubling didn’t happen). You could also argue a different reason for him being wrong (such as by saying more warming is “in the pipeline”). Instead, you simply dismiss that statement out-of-hand even though you don’t respond to any of the justification for his statement.
That you do this and then denigrate him means you clearly demonstrate what I discussed.
For Pierre’s sake ;-) , if you can’t do this very simple calculation, you have no business commenting on GW, pro or con. Sorry! I’m accustomed to “debating” with deniers, rather than someone who is apparently open-minded.
Regarding Lindzen’s comment (that you provided) that “there has been a doubling of equivalent CO2 over the past 150 years,” this is simply not true. The baseline pre-industrial CO2 concentration is very widely accepted to be 280 ppm and we are now slightly above 390 ppm. A doubling of CO2 would be 560 ppm, so we are *only* about 40% about above the pre-industrial CO2 concentrations. So Lindzen is wrong on the comment you provided. The CO2 concentration a century ago is not far from the pre-industrial value. The temperature increase from a century ago is also just about 0.8˚C, and we know that there is still more temperature increase to come from the CO2 NOW in the atmosphere, even with only a 40% increase in CO2. Yes, this is more of a qualitative argument, but it is valid. Based on this empirical evidence, Lindzen must be wrong. A more recently (Schmittner et al, 2011) calculated climate sensitivity, is 2.3˚C for a doubling of CO2, not too far from the IPCC’s best estimate of 3˚C, and within the IPCC’s likely range of (2-4.5ºC). The Schmitter paper cautions “Our uncertainty analysis is not complete and does not explicitly consider uncertainties in radiative forcing due to ice sheet extent or different vegetation distributions. Our limited model ensemble does not scan the full parameter range, neglecting, for example, possible variations in shortwave radiation due to clouds.” It does become a problem in interpreting results from different research because of what the researchers have included as the cause of climate sensitivity.
Pierre, it’s disturbing you say people “have no business commenting on GW” if they can’t do a calculation which is nonsensical. Specifically, you say:
This comment shows a severe lack of understanding of what Lindzen said. This is extremely confusing as you even quoted what he actually said:
Lindzen did not merely discuss the change in CO2 concentrations. His comment covers all increases in greenhouse gases. If you’d like to argue he is wrong about that total increase, you can, but the simple fact is you’ve grossly misrepresented what he said. A mistake like that is understandable, but that you so grossly misrepresented such a simple point while making a claim as to who ought to be discussing matters is extremely disturbing.
Whether or not Lindzen’s comment was correct, it is clear you did not understand it before dismissing it. That is a bad sign.
Lindzen said what I quoted; it’s REAL simple. He also said what you quoted…real simple as well. If you don’t understand climate change issues, you should not comment. I apologized for the comment about you not being allowed to post. I retract that apology. I’m thrilled you’re posting at the judithcurry.com for idiots only site. Curry did not participate in the analysis of the BEST data and was apparently unable to contribute in any meaningful way. She’s not a significant player in the field of climate change. But she is qualified to start a Web site/blog to mislead the hopelessly naive wrt climate change.
Brandon – You might be interested in my comment at Brandon 11:58pm.
In it I point to two papers, one which casts aspersions on the one which set the 19th century CO2 level at 290 ppm, when with the same data it should have been 335 ppm.
Steve Garcia
For Pierre’s sake , if you can’t do this very simple calculation, you have no business commenting on GW, pro or con.
Ignorance? Check!
Arrogance? Check!
Carry on.
Pierre, you say:
D’oh. I really am terrible with blockquotes. Oh well, my comment should still be easy enough to read.
feet2thefire, I’m not actually familiar with either of the papers you mentioned, but I also don’t think they’re particularly relevant. That issue has been examined by many papers since then, and I think time is better spent looking at them. Early results could have been gotten incorrectly, yet still have been accurate due to luck. If the early paper you mention was wrong, I can ignore it’s conclusions, but I can’t simply ignore conclusions of other papers because they happen to be similar.
Mind you, it’d still be an interesting thing to learn about, and because of that, it’s worth reading them. I just don’t think flaws in papers from 60+ years ago are going to alter my understanding of things very much.
Brandon Shollenberger –
I’ve seen the data myself. And the data can’t change. It was taken back then and that’s it. They can’t have new data. There WAS no more taken. It’s not like there were lots of CO2 detectors back in 1880 and that Callendar missed them.
I invite you to look up the papers on Google Scholar and then read them. They aren’t that long, nor are they incomprehensible. You will see that Callendar lest out all the data that didn’t fit the conclusion he came to. There were a LOT of them that he left out. Slocum’s work looks at the same data, and Slocum concludes that Callendar had no justification for excluding the data he left out. In any discipline that is called cherry picking, when it is a biased data set that remains.
Also at http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/, in Figure 2, Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski graphically shows the cherry picking of Callendar.
Steve Garcia
Brandon –
For blockquotes just put
after. What is between them will be blockquoted. The after version simply has the “/” before the “b”. Just make sure of your spelling of “blockquote”.
Steve Garcia
Brandon – Hahaha – I screwed THAT up!…LOL
Crap! I inadvertently USED
feet2thefire, you’re wrong when you say:
Ice cores provide records of atmospheric gases. Many have been drilled since the mid 1900s. This gives the new data you say can’t exist.
Also, I haven’t read those papers so I don’t know what periods their measurements cover, but it’s worth remembering CO2 levels were rising well before 1880. It’s possible the “correct” value given the data set used in them was higher than 290 because the atmospheric levels had risen above 290 by that time.
Brandon – Point taken about the ice cores. Jaworowki takes those to task, too, and he has dealt with many, MANY of those. He argues that the assumptions that the gases in any layer are pristine are simply wrong, and he says why. But, yes, that data can be added. But don’t forget that Antarctica and Greenland are not very good representations of the rest of the world, especially Antarctica.
Co2 levels rising prior to 1880 is true, but probably in lock step with the massive aerosols, so any CO2>temp correlations have that BIG complicating factor mixed in, and driving temps down, if I am not mistaken.
Most of Callendar’s data was in Germany, which is significant. In the early 20th century they had 10,000 data points (several times what other data Callendar had for the 19th century) – and the average of them was 438! In the 19th century Germany’s still substantial data showed a level of 400. I have NO info on what environmental effect those levels produced.
Also, I’d be interested if more recent papers have at all used Callendar’s data, and if so if they used his cherry-picked set or all of it. It can’t be ignored. Can you point me to any papers, to save me time searching for them?
Steve Garcia
feet2thefire:
I’ve seen similar arguments before, but they are things the people drilling the cores take into consideration. I can’t say with certainty those arguments are wrong, but I don’t have any confidence in them as is. As for how representative cores may be, CO2 is a well mixed gas in the atmosphere. As long as there aren’t any sinks/sources influencing the area a sample is taken in, it should be fine. I believe that is the case for the ice cores used.
I wasn’t looking at any relationship between temperature and CO2 there. I was just pointing out CO2 levels in the 1880s would not be expected to be as low as in preindustrial times. I have no idea if you’re right about aerosols in that period, but it doesn’t impact my point.
I don’t know what factors would be involved in samples taken from Germany, but I’m positive it wouldn’t be representative of the globe as a whole. There is far too much vegetation and urbanization there (with no ocean winds to remove the impact) to get pristine samples.
I know the work underlying the major CO2 records don’t use that data. I’m not sure what other papers might do, but I don’t think it matters for the point we’re discussing. You can find the major CO2 measurements used here. I believe the most important of those for historical CO2 records is the Etheridge data set, primarily relying on the 1988 paper.
[blockquote]Lindzen said what I quoted; it’s REAL simple. He also said what you quoted…real simple as well. If you don’t understand climate change issues, you should not comment. I apologized for the comment about you not being allowed to post. I retract that apology.[/blockquote]
How arrogant. Just admit that you misinterpreted Lindzen and that you claimed he (or commenters here) do not understand GW because of your gross misinterpretation of what he said.
Also, you do not decide whom free speech applies to.
[blockquote]I’m thrilled you’re posting at the judithcurry.com for idiots only site. Curry did not participate in the analysis of the BEST data and was apparently unable to contribute in any meaningful way. She’s not a significant player in the field of climate change. But she is qualified to start a Web site/blog to mislead the hopelessly naive wrt climate change.[/blockquote]
This part of your comment just reinforces the fact that too many of the pro-AGW-scientists are arrogant intellectual thugs who will never admit they were wrong on something (because you are afraid that you will lose your ‘authority’ or what’s left of it).
You are not helping your cause with that attitude.
Pierre is right that has not been a doubling of CO2 equivalent since 1750. Only about 76% of a doubling approximately. The way it is worded though, Lindzen may have included water vapor which would put the equivalent forcing of all greenhouse gases at a doubling. Kind of sneaky, but possible.
Shaminism’s 1st Law, broadly translated by Kim somewhere, (guilt and maidens.)
Hey, man(n), catastrophe’s imminent, fire,famine flood, flux, not to mention pestilence, and you’re to blame!
But we can save you.
Beth, I over looked this bit of wisdom.
It is fantastic.
+10 to kim for writing it, and =10 for you catching it.
Lindzen makes the point that recent human activity has actually changed the average temperature of the planet by close to 1 degree C.
Every time I read that fact it really takes me aback that we can actually change the climate of a planet this size just by tossing molecules into the air. Wonders never cease to amaze.
Actually, he doesn’t. He says there has been close to one degree of warming, but he doesn’t say it was caused by human activity. This is made clear by comments like (emphasis mine):
Just saying.
Sorry, Lindzen said this in the first paragraph:
Then his last line in the presentation is:
indicating a lower level in which he doesn’t want to go under, thus protecting his intellectual honesty. So he must have some value he believes in with some error bars attached to that number.
I haven’t made temperature projections myself because I am still pulling together the pieces of the puzzle, but quite obviously people that have thought about this a long time, like Lindzen, think that humans are capable of changing the climate.
Fred writes: “The use of news articles and talks generally provokes a great deal of arguing, but i believe more actual understanding would emerge if we started with published articles or other legitimate sources of data such as material presented at meetings, and occasionally, Internet content from individuals not involved in partisan controversy. Dozens of potential starting points are published every week, so there’s no dearth of material for serious discussion, if serious discussion is a goal here in preference to argumentation.”
Fred, I’m trying hard, honest, but what does this even mean in a real world sense? You argue that debates aren’t worthwhile because the non-scientists in the audience aren’t equipped to judge who has the more persuasive arguments. And talks like the one Lindzen gave are no good because there’s no one there who can point out the speaker’s errors. We could fix that problem it seems to me with debates, but then you’ve already ruled those out.
So now you’re suggesting some sort of meetings in which “serious discussion” could take place. Presumably this serious discussion would be between the scientists. But that brings us back to the same problem, that warmists will not even get into the same room with skeptics. (You still won’t tell me why this is so by the way) So who would be at these meetings of yours besides wall to wall warmists. And would these meetings be open to the public? I’m guessing no, because as you’ve stated several times, the public is unable to comprehend what’s being talked about…
I meant serious discussion on this blog. My recommendation was to start with some actual data source rather than a news article or a talk to a political entity. It could be a journal article, a meeting report, a Web article outside the partisan wrangling (e.g., from Isaac Held’s blog), and then what follows would be what we ordinarily do here, except it would start on a sounder basis.
Fred,
“a Web article outside the partisan wrangling (e.g., from Isaac Held’s blog),”
I suspect that you will find considerable disagreement on what constitutes “outside the partisan wrangling”; some would argue that a fair amount of what is published in the field is nothing more than a continuation of partisan wrangling. I do agree that Lindzen’s talk covers too many subjects in too little detail to be discussed in a technical blog thread. Still, I agree with Judith that Lindzen makes a couple of fair points, specifically, that the real disagreement is over feed backs and net climate sensitivity, not about the basic physics. The repeated “98% of scientists agree” argument grows tiresome, even while I am one of the 98%.
You noted above that there is some knowledge of aerosols. Well, perhaps, but limited. It is also true that different climate models do use substantially different levels of assumed aerosol effects, and that those assumed aerosol effects are inversely related to each model’s diagnosed sensitivity. So I think Lindzen is correct that climate models use aerosols as a fudge to more or less fit historical data.
But Lindzen’s most important point related to models is that he sees models as having taken on an inappropriate role in climate science, with the focus being on ‘validation’ rather than ‘testing against data’. I would be a bit more specific than Lindzen: any real validation of a model involves making accurate predictions about the future, and for a significant period of time. By this measure, they appear to not be doing so well, and indeed, to be significantly over-predicting the temperature trajectory.
“By this measure, they appear to not be doing so well, and indeed, to be significantly over-predicting the temperature trajectory.”
What a quaint way of saying that the anthropogenic forcing of climate is over-predicting the temperature trajectory.
Or did they just included to much Sun or not enough clouds?
Honestly not trying to play up to our host, but, something like this?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120227111052.htm
That takes away one of the big skeptic canards about recent snowy winters being a sign of no climate change. Judith should do a post on this.
Jim D | February 28, 2012 at 1:54 am |
That takes away one of the big skeptic canards about recent snowy winters being a sign of no climate change. Judith should do a post on this.’
Excepting, Antarctic sea ice has been increasing whilst Australia has had it’s coldest summer for decades.
I dunno Fred, I like picking out the technicalities from the bigger picture stuff and then getting into the details downthread.
Jim D, only in Orwellian language, spoken by warmists. Snowy winters are sign of climate change (cooling).
Edim,
On the surface, I don’t think the hypothesis that melting Artic icepack due to warming could be causing an increase in NH snow fall is that far fetched. I recall seeing comments discussing how this is one of the mechanisms by with climate readjusts. More water vapor in the NH leading to increased snow fall, ultimately leading to increasing ice pack and cooling temperatures.
timg56, I agree – it’s not that far fretched. There’s something to it. Earth is very old and there has been many global warmings and coolings. Every warming so far was followed by cooling and vice versa. No exception.
Pokerguy, yet mosh and McIntyre gladly walk into the den of denialists for the Heartland Institute conflags. And Scott Denning also if memory serves me right. So there are some who do not fear open debate/discussion.
Nor does Lindzen. In 2007 he and Michael Crichton (yes, that Michael Crichton) were on the skeptical side of a debate at MIT. View it at http://tiny.cc/3ncsn – Part 1 of 10 (about 90+ minutes altogether).
The audience was polled before and after, so as to score the debate. The skeptics picked up 35%, if I recall. The skeptics kept talking about the specifics of the science, while the pro-AGW side kept referencing authority. The latter was not a winning strategy.
Warmists might want to watch it – to see what not to do in a real live, fair debate, when the other side gets equal time.
Steve Garcia
I hope Lindzen got a guffaw or two when he showed NASA/GISS data manipulation that yielded an additional 0.14 Kelvin/century”
QUOTE
We may not be able to predict the future, but in climate ‘science,’ we also
can’t predict the past.
UNQUOTE
gc – he got a big roar of laughter for what you quoted!
The laughter continues.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/03/misrepresentation-from-lindzen/
You might like to look at another reason for laughing at this graph
And you might also care to look at http://www.repealtheact.org.uk/blog/apology-from-prof-lindzen-for-howard-haydens-nasa-giss-data-interpretation-error
“Apology From Prof. Lindzen for Howard Hayden’s NASA-GISS Data Interpretation Error”
Here’s the video of the speech in two parts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy50yaBIDPE
Sorry, I see now that Paul in Sweden beat me by a few hours :)
Unhelpful comments Pierre. Show us the back of the envelope please. List a few of the false premises and tell us why you think they are false.
As Fred noted, I am sure the issue of models is complicated, but two observations are worth noting. The mean models of the IPCC are diverging from observations, not converging.
However, the most effective slide in my opinion was the one showing the actual values used to calculate the average global anomaly. The average anomaly plotted on a scale not designed to magnify differences demonstrates what it actually is: noise around the baseline that in any other field of research would be ignored in the face of variability in the data that is many times greater than the quantity of the anomaly values.
Observations:
Lindzen bludgeons his audience with 58 slides, more than the non-expert audience can be reasonably be expected to take in, which could be considered to be an attempt to project an image of authority, while telling the audience not to listen to appeals to authority.
At #2, he acknowledges that 2x CO2, in isolation, will cause around a 1 K temp increase. At #17, he claims that there is no causal link between temperature anomalies and and anthropogenic forcings. At #18, he goes back to saying that it is trivially true that man’s activities are contributing to warming. (Brian H’s explanation is silly. For instance, Hadley circulation is a global pattern that influences regional changes; and Hadley cells expand in warmer climates and shrink in cooler.)
At #3, he makes the mistake of assuming that oceans warm, ice melts, and plant albedo changes, all instantaneously in coming to the estimate of less than 1 K per doubling.
At #4, “..subject to great uncertainty.”
Well, great uncertainty within confidence intervals. Nevermind that Lindzen’s estimates are outside of those intervals. For instance, for Lindzen’s low climate sensitivity to be correct, negative feedbacks would have to be nearly as large as positive feedbacks. The large climate swings in the majority of paleoclimate studies indicate this is not the case.
At #6, “Science is never incontrovertible.”
True, but it would help if there was some reference to what was claimed to be incontrovertible, and who claimed it. In the meantime, I’ll assume that Planck, Tyndall, et al, and the host of paleoclimate studies haven’t been proven completely wrong yet.
…
#20, an effective argument?
It trots out an analogy which doesn’t even apply and finds flaw with it. That’s only effective if you are predisposed to believe the conclusion.
#28 “Our present approach of dealing with climate as completely specified by a single number, globally averaged surface temperature anomaly, that is forced by another single number, atmospheric CO2 levels, for example, clearly limits real understanding; ”
Uh, the conditions of the premise would limit understanding if they were true, but they are not. This is a statement that others are making claims which they are not making. I mean, how hard is it to open up an IPCC report and look at the table of positive and negative forcings/feedbacks? Globally averaged surface air temperature anomaly gets a lot of attention, but everyone with knowledge of heat capacity knows there is more going on. If anything, the typical climate scientist makes the mistake of assuming the audience knows more than they actually do; they tend to assume knowledge is common that isn’t.
“so does the replacement of theory by model simulation.”
Except, the models are based on theory, and in fact are the only way of testing if the attribution of effects is correct (approximately) in theory. Any model set of parameters (strength of effect atttributions) which does not hindcast well can be rejected. To my knowledge, most of ones with a low climate sensitivity have been.
Ugh, Lindzen has been successful in wearing me out.
Slide 20 simplified: classic fallacy at work.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-177709
Yeah, yeah, modus ponens, modus tollens, and all that.
As I said, the argument does not apply in the current context.
Assertion: “the argument does not apply in the current context.” I don’t know what you think the “argument” or “current context” is, so I will not comment further here.
“For instance, for Lindzen’s low climate sensitivity to be correct, negative feedbacks would have to be nearly as large as positive feedbacks. The large climate swings in the majority of paleoclimate studies indicate this is not the case.”
That is only true is we know we know all parameters. How sure are we about that? I mean, God knows what we’ve been missing. And another thing: Is climate sensitivity in an ice age the same as in between ice ages?
The climate swings in the past 400,000 years show a relationship between temperature and CO2 levels where CO2 lags. The theory is that Milankovitch factors are not strong enough to account for the swings. They initiate the swings, but it is the positive feedback from CO2 that carries them through. However, it seems that we have been comparing the Milankovitch factors to the wrong thing. We should not be comparing them to temperature, but rather the rate of change of temperature:
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/Publications/MilanDefense_GRL.pdf
That is not to say that CO2 has no effect, but it isn’t necessary to explain those swings and probably plays a weak role compared to the original Milankovitch orbital factors that initiated the swing: eccentricity, obliquity, and climatic precession.
John, I thought Roe’s paper argued that the Milankovitch forcings should be compared with the rate of change in ice thickness, which in itself is a proxy for the specific temperature.
Yes, rather than focusing on the absolute global ice volume, consider the time rate of change of global ice volume.
“Basic physical arguments are used to show that, rather than focusing on the absolute global ice volume, it is much more informative to consider the time rate of change of global ice volume. This simple, and dynamically-logical change in perspective is used to show that the available records support a direct, zero-lag, antiphased relationship
between the rate of change of global ice volume and summertime insolation in the northern high latitudes. Furthermore, variations in atmospheric CO2 appear to lag the rate of change of global ice volume. This implies only a secondary role for CO2 — a weaker radiative forcing on the ice sheets than summertime insolation — in driving changes in global ice volume.”
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/Publications/MilanDefense_GRL.pdf
AJ,
Here is Linzden speaking on this:
@ John Kosowski | March 1, 2012 at 6:35 pm |
John, the amount of ice on the polar caps depends; on the amount of raw material in the atmosphere for renewal / replenishment every season. Plus on Arctic ocean depends on the speed of the currents; because that ice is seating on the top of salty water. Doesn’t depend on any PHONY GLOBAL warming. If you intend to distribute Warmist lies – you shouldn’t use the name of Milutin Milankovich!!!
Average temp on the polar caps is double than in your deep freezer. Put in one freezer 15 bottles of water – in the other 3 bottles of water. Same coldness in both freezers, but tomorrow you will have different amounts of ice in each freezer. 2] They were lying about the glaciers on Himalayas will disappear in 35y…. Truth: as long as in S/E Asia, India they have lots of rice paddies – the glaciers will last forever —– if they replace the rice paddies with eucalyptus forest, to produce dry heat + bushfires – most of the glaciers will disappear in 10 years. John, ice can evaporate without turning into liquid water first. 3] As Sahara builds strengths – permanent ice on the European Alps will keep disappearing. Not because of any phony GLOBAL warming – but Because THE WARMIST con artist ARE PRESENTING WATER VAPOR AS A BAD GAS FOR THE CLIMATE. All details, on my website. Milankovich was for the truth – contemporary Swindlers are for mountain of lies; don’t putt them in same sentance
Stefan,
Which warmist lies am I distributing? I thought I was supporting a case for CO2 not being that important.
@ John Kosowski | March 2, 2012 at 5:59 am
John, ice on the polar caps has nothing to do with the GLOBAL temperature. Siberian permafrost is COLDER than Greenland. Permafrost no ice / Greenland 1km thick ice. 2] Milankovich points clearly that with the tilting of the planet – polar caps change location. If the polar cap is on water > different amount of ice, or no ice. If on land, set-up is different = lots of ice. NOT because of any phony GLOBAL warming! He proved that are real reasons for getting warmer SOME PLACES, or colder some places. John, warmings are NEVER global!!! Milankovich theory points that indication of warming on some area, wasn’t GLOBAL, but was warmer there – because got COLDER some other place / places.
John, horizontal winds are cooling your french-frays / VERTICAL winds are cooling the planet and regulating the overall temp to be ALWAYS the same. Those vertical winds can increase by 1000% in a split second, if necessary and cool 10 times more. You know that stronger horizontal wind cools your pizza much faster. Well, vertical winds are created same as horizontal winds – when one area gets much warmer than other – those winds increase. Same with the vertical winds – when on the ground gets warmer than normal – they increase in size and speed. It’s the oxygen + nitrogen shrinking / expanding – NOTHING TO DO WITH CO2!!! As long as you are talking about warmer / colder PLANET; you are dignifying the misleading propaganda / rubbishing Milankovich.
P.s. I have pointed to Vukcevic that his GLOBAL warmings were NOT global – he hates me for that; but I can see now in his comment he states: ”it was warmer in Europe” – that is cool / correct. Before that, Europe was the GLOBE for him. That’s why his GLOBAL temperature charts were as if the planet is getting electrocuted – but he is presenting himself as Skeptic…?!. The truth: because those vertical winds increase as soon as it gets warmer than normal – overall global temperature doesn’t get warmer than normal for more than few minutes; as I have given example in my book: if 100 atom bombs of 50 megatons explode simultaneously; the troposphere expands for 3 minutes with tremendous speed – after 3 minutes shrinks just as fast. The speed of oxygen+ nitrogen expanding / shrinking demolishes concrete buildings, not the 30kg of plutonium, which can fit in a 2L bottle. .Air wouldn’t have being shrinking after 3 minutes, if it wasn’t cooled. Million degrees warming cooled in 3 minutes; Swindlers talk of warmer planet by 1C…??? Because they are carbon /CH4 molesters.
The ”nuclear mushroom” is visible, because expanding O+N take some dust up; but when it gets warmer by 2C, same thing happens – only no need troposphere to get that high up into the stratosphere. Another shocking truth for both camps: O+N don’t wait to warm up by 2C, then to start expanding. When localized warming happens by 0,0001C, O+N start expanding, instantly! Therefore, anything different is, deviating from the truth and dignifying the evil cult. My formulas are correct. The laws of physics were same 15000y ago as today, rely on those laws, not on shonky science. They use the word ”sensitivity” BUT NEVER TAKE IN THE ACCOUNT, the sensitivity of O+N expanding / shrinking in change of temperature; because would have proven my formulas correct – all the rest is harmful drivel. John, stop being part of that drivel. The truth will win, sooner than you think. Cheers, have a nice day!!!
John, I think the words: “that the available records support a direct, zero-lag, antiphased relationship”, is important for constraining the slow response. However, given the time resolution in the records, maybe not that important. The *apparent* e-folding time could be approaching zero or if the lag was 100 years, then the *apparent* e-folding time could be, well, 100 years.
”If anything, the typical climate scientist makes the mistake of assuming the audience knows more than they actually do; they tend to assume knowledge is common that isn’t.”
If anything, the typical climate scientist makes the mistake of assuming THEY know more than they actually do; they tend to assume knowledge is common that isn’t.
Next time, try giving an example to back up your point.
Here is an example: harrywr2 seems to think that celestial mechanics has been made simple enough for the layman to understand. I’d bet he hasn’t even heard of the three body problem. We could try to give him a test and see if he can calculate the next location of Mercury’s perihelion; if it is so simple a layman could do it. Hint: It will not be in the same place the next time as it was the last. That’s about the extent of my knowledge on celestial mechanics. I would not pass the test myself, but at least I am aware that it is not a simple problem.
Take calculating the base, 1 K delta T per doubling of CO2. How was that calculated? It involves integration across spectral absorption bands, and across the changes in atmospheric composition with altitude (because the changes in composition and density with altitude change the absorption bands), and a number of other things. That is the kind of knowledge that climate scientists take for granted. Knowing how it is calculated is one level, being able to actually perform the calculation is a matter left to software; that is, it involves so many steps that doing it by hand would be too time consuming and error prone. Is your average person even aware that MODTRAN exists?
When I say calculate, I mean in the most literal sense, by using calculus. I would hazard a guess that the average person doesn’t know calculus, but you can not do anything interesting in physics without it. Hence, I’m pretty sure that a lot of climate scientists take the ability to do calculus for granted.
Let’s try a more concrete example, good old “hide the decline”. Jones, Mann, everyone in the field knew there was a decline in correlation between temperatures and tree-ring proxies in recent decades. So, to them, producing a graph by overlaying observed temperatures was not an act of deception (particularly since Mann explained what he had done in the paper). It was not common knowledge amongst the general population, and we see the results.
Chris G, you inadvertently offered an amusing example:
The “hide the decline” comment was not discussing a case of “overlaying observed temperatures.” What Phil Jones actually did was truncate a record and append a new record to the end of it. That isn’t overlaying anything. It’s straight-up replacing data.
What Mann did was different (and done in an entirely different publication), and he did not explain it. It’s true he overlaid temperature, but he did more than just that. In addition to graphing observed temperatures, he also used them to smooth his reconstructed temperatures. Put simply, he appended the observed record to the end of his reconstructed record, smoothed the combined record, then truncated the resulting record at the point the original reconstructed record ended. In other words, he used the observed record to modify the reconstructed record without any explanation or justification.
You may not be a climate scientist, but you do seem to have made the mistake of assuming you know more than you actually do.
Brandon –
The Divergence Problem (DP) behind and underlying “hide the decline” has existed since 1940. Schweingruber and Briffa did a paper about it in about 1990, and they were terribly worried about it then. No one has been able to explain it, from before that time till now. The tree-rings simply are not correlated to temps anymore. But they weren’t prior to 1880, either. So they have TWO DPs. Only from 1880-1940 do they correlate.
As long as the DP exists, can anyone say what the temps of the past were? If tree-rings don’t work, one needs to ask if that might affect other proxies, too, those which were keyed to tree-ring records. The DP now is so out of whack, of course they didn’t want to show it. If the tree-rings don’t correlate to NOW, when the globe is covered with thermometers, of what use are tree-rings? Complicating it is the fact that biologists use tree-rings as proxies for precipitation. It doesn’t take Einstein to figure that if two factors affect tree-rings, how do they figure out which forcing caused which tree-ring to have increased growth or decreased growth?
They have a major problem, and they are no closer to understanding it now than 22 years ago. The question really is this: Can they trust tree-rings as a proxy for temps?
Right now, they can’t – which is why they are pulling stunts like “hide the decline” from the public and policymakers.
Steve Garcia
Chris G
Your quote:
“So, to them, producing a graph by overlaying observed temperatures was not an act of deception (particularly since Mann explained what he had done in the paper).”
That is NOT what occurred. The increasing (and alarming) lack of correlation was simply HIDDEN, then graphed instrumental temperatures were SUBSTITUTED from the point of divergence
This was done to prevent alert laymen (and even savvy scientists) from asking: “If the tree ring interpretations are now so wrong, why are they not considered to be wrong for the earlier periods without instrumental measurements ?”
That precise question has not been answered to date, and as your mendacious post shows, it is continually avoided at every possible turn. This “hide the decline” trickie even annoyed Richard Muller to the point where he demonstrated it very clearly in one of his lectures while commenting that he much resented being fooled that way because until then he had trusted them (sorry, I don’t have the UTube link anymore)
Ho hum
IANL888 –
“This was done to prevent alert laymen (and even savvy scientists) from asking: “If the tree ring interpretations are now so wrong, why are they not considered to be wrong for the earlier periods without instrumental measurements ?”
Steve McIntyre found that hidden portion, and it was months and months before he discovered it. His basic reaction was basically, “WTF?”
Funny thing: When the rest of the world found out about THEM taking about it, the world’s reaction was basically, “WTF?”
There is this BIG hole, right in the middle of the central scientists’ work on global warming, and the big hole is the Divergence Problem. They were between a rock and a hard place. Keith Briffa, the one of them that knew the most about it, HE wanted to keep it in. Michael Mann browbeat him into submission. And in the end Briffa buckled. Mann got his way. They used Mike’s “trick.” It is all in the emails.
And no, folks, in this case “trick” did not mean just some innocuous method or shortcut. Mike’s trick was to hide the part of the curve that was a very inconvenient truth for the message they were committed to sending to the policymakers.
Steve Garcia
HIDE THE DECLINE
Video presentation by Prof Richard Muller
Director of the Berkeley Earth Project
http://bit.ly/eGzSuJ
What about the Climategate?
The scientists have now been exonerated, acquitted, not guilty.
They did get a wrist slap.
They deceived the public, and they deceived other scientists, but they did nothing that was immoral, illegal, or anything like that.
What did they do to deceive the public?
This is in the report. This is in the review, not the charts.
But these are the data as they published it on the cover of the World Meteorological Organization magazine:
Plot 1. http://bit.ly/fmHLX3
These are the data that many of my fellow scientists at Berkeley used.
They say, hello, you know the public may not understand graphs, but I do.
Look at this. Here is the temperature for the last thousand years going all over the place. It is not actually temperature but they actually measured tree rings, corals, that is a proxy for temperature; goes all over the place.
Look what happened recently: Zoom! That is clear and incontrovertible. The public may not understand this so I have to now lend my prestige to this. I am a professor of Physics and I will now go and tell people global warming is clear and incontrovertible because I have seen the actual data [Plot 1] and it is. Unfortunately, a lot of my colleagues have behaved in this way.
In their paper, if you dig into it, they said they did something with the data from 1961 onwards. They removed it and replaced it with temperature data. So some of the people who read these papers asked to see the data; they refused to send it to them, the original raw data. They used the Freedom Of Information Act. The freedom of information act officer, on the advice of the scientist, would not release the data.
Then the data came out. They weren’t hacked like a lot of people say. Most people who know this business believe they were leaked by one of the member of the team who was really upset with them.
So I now can show you what the data that they refuse to release, the original data before they did anything. What they did was, and there is a quote. A quote came out on the emails, these leaked emails that said, let’s use Mike’s trick “Hide The Decline.” That is the word. Let us use Mike’s trick “Hide The Decline.” Mike is Michael Mann, he said, “trick” just means mathematical trick. That is all. Now, my response is, I am not worried about the word trick. I am worried about the decline. What do you mean hide the decline?
Let me show you this. Now we have the data. Now it has been released. This is what it is.
Plot 2. http://bit.ly/hmBIcs
That is the raw data, as any Berkeley scientist would have published it. It would have said, okay, we have had the medieval warming, ice age, and now we have global warming. And there is some disagreement, but this disagreement is all over the place and that just shows the technique is not completely reliable.
What they did is, they took the data from 1961 onwards, this peak, and erased it. What is the justification for erasing it? The fact that it went down. And we know the temperature is going up. Therefore, it was unreliable. Is this unreliable [pre instrument data]? No. How do we know? We don’t know, but [hand waving]. This [post 1961 unreliability] is probably some human effect. The justification would not have survived pear-review in any journal that I am willing to publish it. But they had it well hidden and they erased that and they replaced it with temperature going up.
Let me show you how cleverly this was done. Get back to this plot [Plot 1]. There it is. They added the same temperature data to three different plots giving the illusion that there are three different sets going up. And they smoothed it, because temperature changes smoothly. If they had not smoothed it, you might have noticed, wait a minute, what is the change going right there? Why is it abruptly different? You don’t notice that because it is smooth. Smoothing is legitimate in their mind, because temperature change is not discontinuous.
So that is what they did, and what is the result in my mind? Quite frankly, as a scientist, I now have a list of people whose paper I wouldn’t read any more. You are not allowed to do this in science. This is not up to our standards.
I get infuriated with colleagues of mine who say, “well you know it is a human field, you make mistakes.” When I showed them this, they say, “no, that is not acceptable.”
Now, here is part of the problem. The temperature I showed you before, this one
Plot 3: http://bit.ly/ewYmxR
Of the three groups I picked the one I trusted the most. Which group was this? Ya, the group that hide the decline.
Jim Hansen predicts things ahead of time. We have a group here that feels it is legitimate to hide things. This is why I am leading a study to redo all this in a wholly transparent way.
Girma –
Helluva comment on hide the decline. If you are going to go into all that data, be aware that pre-1880 there was a divergence problem, too.
Also be aware that every few years the folks in the middle (Mann, Jones, etc.) go around and change PAST data downward – AGAIN. They don’t leave past data alone. How can past data change? How can it need adjustment after the first adjustment to homogenize it?
Also do look at papers that identify a larger than currently accepted urban heat island effect. The Chinese study (Wang??) in about 1990 that had Phil Jones as a co-author was found to make assumptions about no TOB changes that simply were made up. In that study UHI comes out something like 0.013C. That study is the basis for many subsequent studies that accepted that there was no UHI to speak of. Then look at the paper on the abysmal siting of Met Stations, the one with Anthony Watts as a co-author. Many a rudimentary study (and some papers I’ve seen) of various locales show UHI exceeding 1.0C and some specific locales much more.
I personally think it is bogus to globally apply one UHI adjustment value. To me, that is totally unscientific. Each station has its own level of UHI, and no universal adjustment can be valid. To me it is lazy science.
Also, for background, look into the divergence problem. Briffa is well ware of it. Dendroclimatologists (as opposed to dendrochronologists) almost universally do not even know about the biological processes involved with tree-ring growth. That is a scandal, IMHO. With the pre-1880 DP and the post-1940 DP, there isn’t much basis left for tree-rings to be used as proxies for temps. Without correlation, there can be no proxy value in a variable.
Look into tree-rings being used as proxies for precipitation (as biologists do) – and I challenge you or anyone to distinguish which part of any tree-ring growth comes from precipitation vs temperature. No one can do that. And without being able to do that, what tie-in can there possibly be, between temps and tree-rings?
You are entering a world where you will not be able to trust the data as presented. What is needed is a study that FIRST openly presents the raw data, showing what it is like before adjustments – including gaps in the data, timewise and geographically. Then all adjustments need to be presented and vetted properly. Only then can the properly adjusted data be compiled and presented. This has never been done in this era of global warming claims.
Those are my suggestions.
I do not believe that it is posible to determine if warming is happening or not, not with the corrupted datasets now existing. It might be happening and it might not be. I have no idea. It seems possible, but with crap for data, and people caught with their hands in the cookie jar heading it all and adjusting data before NASA and NOAA get it, why would I accept it as a valid claim, like I used to? **
Steve Garcia
** Michael mann’s obviously screwed up Hickey Stick, with its missing LIA and MWP changed my mind. Something was crooked in (England, across the North Sea from) Denmark.
The above link is broken
Plot 1 => http://bit.ly/wQpl9k
Chris G | February 28, 2012 at 1:02 am | Reply
Next time, try giving an example to back up your point.’
I’m sorry Chris, Here is an example;
The “hide the decline” comment was not discussing a case of “overlaying observed temperatures.” What Phil Jones actually did was truncate a record and append a new record to the end of it. That isn’t overlaying anything. It’s straight-up replacing data.
What Mann did was different (and done in an entirely different publication), and he did not explain it. It’s true he overlaid temperature, but he did more than just that. In addition to graphing observed temperatures, he also used them to smooth his reconstructed temperatures. Put simply, he appended the observed record to the end of his reconstructed record, smoothed the combined record, then truncated the resulting record at the point the original reconstructed record ended. In other words, he used the observed record to modify the reconstructed record without any explanation or justification.
You may not be a climate scientist, but you do seem to have made the mistake of assuming you know more than you actually do.
Haaaaaaaaa………………
feet2thefire:
I’ve followed the topic for quite some time, so I know what you mean. However, I do need to add two things. First, it’s important to remember the “divergence problem” only affects some measurements. You should especially pay attention to the distinction between tree ring width and density. Second, remember the surface temperature record prior to 1880 is extremely unreliable. Failing to correlate to that would mean little. The main reason that divergence in the past matters isn’t that it fails to correlate to the temperature record, but rather that it looked weird compared to Mann’s hockey stick (everyone roll eyes).
There’s an addition to what you discussed. While the tree rings used by Mann weren’t affected by the divergence problem, it’s extremely likely the “temperature signal” they show is actually the result of physical damage to the tree. When the tree recovers from the damage, there’s a spurt in tree ring growth in that spot.
The problem isn’t that tree rings can’t track temperatures. The problem is the tree rings that supposedly do are always ones of questionable validity (presumably emphasized due to subconscious bias). If you don’t rely on those, you can get a general idea of temperature. It just happens to be a fairly imprecise one which doesn’t show much of value.
What people should do is accept tree rings don’t give much useful information on global temperatures of the past ~1,000 years. Instead, scientists just keep finding new ways of emphasizing small amounts of data to give a signal that’s “right.”
Brandon –
All good points. Nothing I can disagree with.
Yes, I am aware of the difference between tree-ring width and density. Very few of the records used by BEST were density, BTW.
Agreed that pre-1880, instruments were pretty incomplete.
(BTW, just to make sure I say this: I totally respect the effort Michael Mann put into tacking such a huge study. He has reason to be proud. But he got some things wrong, and he needs to own up to those, without rancor. There is no Get Mike Mann club out there. But there is an increasingly large Disrespect Mike Mann Club. I think he is a big problem in the middle of all this, and that he is dishonest. The same thing that has happened to Peter Gleick should have happened to Mike Mann. He should have gone down in flames. And as much as I admire his effort, I condemn his fudging of data. His reviewers back in 1998 must have been over their heads or distracted or just didn’t want to take the time to vet his paper properly.)
If the DP only affects some measurements, why does Briffa – and Schweingruber and others – still have a problem with it? Last I heard they still throw their hands up in despair.
I am also aware that they try to find tree stands that have a good and clear signal. I assume that means good clear rings, not all muddled and “hazy.” It is not unlike looking under the street lamp for the keys one dropped 100 feet away – one looks there because that is where the light is. I’ve read that is why they go to the edge of the Arctic, because, for example, the ones at the Equator don’t have winter. That makes sense, but it also makes sense that they need to understand the limits to what they can read into Yamal tree-rings and the climate there vs the rest of the world. I simply think it is a non-representative population of trees.
Similarly, I think Antarcitc and Geenland ice cores are the only place with a “lamp post” so that is where they look – regardless of the represenative nature of the evidence being found. For one thing, Antarcitca and the Arctic Ice see-saw in their growth of ice. So, the Antarctic has this ‘wow’ in its data, to begin with.
In essence, you are right about the imprecision of tree-rings – and I would be a tough sell for ice cores being any better. The precision claimed is a figment of someone’s imagination.
Also, are you aware that some tree-ring folks don’t trust the tree-rings before about 1500? I can’t recall the reason, but it struck me as significant.
Nuff fer now…
Steve Garcia
feet2thefire:
I have no idea what you mean here. BEST doesn’t use any tree ring records. All it uses is actual, measured temperatures.
That’s simple. There are only a handful of tree ring series which show the “right” answer. People want to these series to be useful. They don’t like the idea of giving up on one of them.
That’s especially true since if they give up on each of these series with major validity issues, they’ll wind up with none that give the “right” answer. Who do you think wants to publish a study which says, “Tree ring data gives us no useful information on this issue”?
Brandon:
“I have no idea what you mean here. BEST doesn’t use any tree ring records. All it uses is actual, measured temperatures.”
About the tree-ring density vs width data sets, someone had a link to BEST’s data set listing, and about 3 were density and the rest were width. It was on BEST’s web site. It’s been a while since I went there, but that is what I saw. I was in a great discussion about tree-rings then, and wanted to see which were used how much. And they were there, listed as dendro such and such, all in one section.
Ah! Here it is! http://tiny.cc/ia634
Does that answer the question?
Steve Garcia
Brandon –
I should have included this in the last comment…
Well, that is what I mean by having a problem with it.
I simply cannot understand why the dendroclimatologists aren’t all over this, trying to understand the underlying biology. Since they’ve not found it, your assessment here is as likely to apply to them as it does to Briffa and Schweingruber and the other climatologists.
BTW there was a good exchange in the CG 2 emails between a one dendroclimatologist and two others. He was critical because they didn’t understand the biology and were too lazy to look into it. He evidnetly would do this at conferences and really piss everyone off. The rebuttals in the emails were all addressing dendroCHRONOLOGY, the dating of tree-rings, saying WTF are you challenging that for? They never did address his criticism, about tying rings to climate, just throwing up a straw man and lambasting him for something that he wasn’t even challenging. It was pretty pathetic. The main rebuttal guy was the guy who I saw elsewhere referred to as the “Father of dendroclimatology.” He didn’t seem to know the difference between his own discipline and dendrochronology. If you are curious, I can find that for you.
Steve Garcia
feet2thefire, I don’t know where you got that link from, but it’s not a link to the “BEST’s data set listing.” It’s not even on BEST’s website. It’s on Nature’s.
Wait a second… I recognize that list. That’s the list of proxies used in Mann’s original 1998 paper, the one which created the hockey stick!
I don’t know who gave you that link, but they really mislead you.
Brandon –
Wow, you’re right! I have NO idea who sent me there, but it was at the time of the BEST media blitz, and the page has this label on it:
data-best
And I accepted it as BEST’s data list.
My bad, but I think you can see what fooled me! All this time I’ve been thinking that was BEST’s data. Scratch that index entry in my brain!
Mea culpa mea culpa mea culpa…LOL
Steve Garcia
It’s not a problem feet2thefire. It was just very, very confusing to hear you talk about tree ring data with BEST. I think the weirdest part was the Mann’s original hockey stick was being discussed elsewhere in the topic, and suddenly you provided a list of data sets from it. My mind was really confused.
But no worries. Everyone makes big mistakes at times. Some people are just fortunate enough to do it in less public arenas.
Brandon –
Hahaha – I think there was big audience at that time of night. But thanks for pointing out to me that that was not BEST. I appreciate it.
SG
Slide 16:
Compares global temperature time series for the periods 1895-1946 with 1957-2008. The trend and variability for the two periods are very similar (which is a strong argument against the unprecedented rate of change), but there is no clear indication that the second period is overall warmer than the first.
Instead of the above periods, I prefer 1910-1940 vs 1970-2000 => http://bit.ly/eUXTX2
Girma –
I am a skeptic, and I, too, noticed that Lindzen didn’t inform of the difference in the two overall temperatures. That may sound like dissembling to you. To me it is not.
There has been work done showing that there is a more or less straight line increase, starting about 1800 with the end of the LIA. And superimposed on that straight line is a curve that is quiet similar to a sine curve, that has a frequency of about 60 years, each with 30 year ascending and a 30 year declining periods. It is quite a simple thing, and it is quite eye-opening.
I am sorry if I can’t provide links or papers ion this. I failed to file them away and wouldn’t even know what search terms to use. Perhaps some other skeptic here can point to that work. It is not just one scientist, either.
Pro-warming folks don’t give any credence to the “coming out of the LIA” meme, and I didn’t give ti much stock, either, for a long time. YES, we are certainly coming out of an extended cold period, and what ELSE is the temperature going to do but go up? But I thought it was too simplistic. In recent months, though, I have come to change my mind. And what changed my mind was those studies with the smooth curves that, by damned, really look like each other, over and over, since about 1800.
And those two curves Lindzen displayed are two of those 60-year periods. What does an inclined since curve look like? Pretty dang close to what he showed.
Is it correct? If someone doesn’t take it into consideration, I think one is not wiling to look at all the evidence. And most of the skeptical side is mainly making just that argument: What about all this OTHER evidence, folks? Such evidence is out there. And when they have to acknowledge it, things are going to get ugly, I fear.
Peter Gleick’s self-immolation may be the first of the pro-warming scientists to go postal. But he may not be the last.
Steve Garcia
Steve
Is the following graph that you are talking about?
http://bit.ly/cO94in
That is one I’ve seen, yes. Thanks for finding that!
But I am pretty sure one that I’ve seen has THREE full curves. And all of them are 60-year full cycles.
Are they exact? No. No two or three compared cycles will be. But the + phase and – phases are pretty suggestive, IMHO.
But what do I know?…LOL
(FYI: I try to never use the words “proof”, “prove” or “proves”. I don’t even use them for Relativity or Newton’s work. I can only say “suggestive”. Some new evidence may come along tomorrow, throwing conclusions right out the door.)
Steve Garcia
Girma,
As a scientist, what do you think is driving the increasing energy in the system as shown in your graph?
http://bit.ly/cO94in
You do believe in the conservation of matter and energy, don’t you? Where is the additional energy coming from, what is the mechanism?
Can we see your model hindcast to, say, 1750? With actual temperature on the same graph please.
Chris G
As a scientist [I am an engineer], what do you think is driving the increasing energy in the system as shown in your graph?
It could be the same reason for the warming during the Holocene maximum. It could be the same reason as for the warming during the Medieval Climatic Optimum.
Or it could be due to human emission of CO2. However, that warming is only 0.06 deg C per decade, not about 0.2 deg C per decade as claimed by the IPCC. There is a difference by a factor of 3. Not coincidently, 3 is IPCC’s climate sensitivity.
Can we see your model hindcast to, say, 1750?
There was a climate shift from cooling to warming at the end of the little ice age (1800s) . Since then the globe has been on a long thaw => http://bit.ly/wzkYvi
My model applies between the end of the little ice age and the next climate turning point (to cooling).
“…what do you think is driving the increasing energy in the system as shown in your graph?”
My take is: the most of the increase is driven by the increase in solar cycle frequency (decrease in solar cycle length). This explanation will be put to the test in the next decade. There was a very significant increase in solar cycle length from sc22/23 to sc24, which predicts a significant temperature decrease.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1954v1.pdf
Some laudatory comments on Lindzen’s talk from unexpected quarters such as Simon Carr of the Independent.
Simon Carr is the Independent’s parliamentary correspondent. He’s a entertaining writer but, as is clear from his piece on the subject, not particularly knowledgable about science. He has clearly taken Lindzen’s arguments purely at face value – to an extent I guess you can’t blame him, he’s just a layman and Lindzen a noted physicist, but it would be nice if he had applied the same level of skepticism/cynicism as he does to the politicians he usually writes about and done a little digging to see if Lindzen’s claims actually check out.
@andrew
You clearly feel that some of Lindzen’s claims don’t check out.
Care to expand? Where does he go wrong?
Latimer, what are you thinking? True believers don’t need facts or don’t need to explain their words or action. That’s not their modus operandi.
Latimer,
Chris Colose, Fed M, Jim D and Chris G have all provided examples above.
@andrew
I’m not interested in their opinion of what is wrong with Lindzen’s slides. *You* raised the point, so I’m interested in *your* opinion.
And to be perfectly honest, if Colose told me the time, I’d still want to check the speaking clock rather than trust him. An appeal to his ‘authority’ gets you minus brownie points.
Seem to have sparked something.
Jones was talking about Mann 1998; so, let’s not diverge yet.
Well, I am looking at Mann, et al, 1998, figure 5, and there are two distinct lines on the graph, “ACTUAL DATA” and “RECONSTRUCTED”. Granted, they are a little hard to make out, would have been better in color, but there they are, two distinct lines. Plus 2-sigma ranges and a 50-year low pass filter.
Brandon,
I’d be curious if you have evidence of “..he also used them to smooth his reconstructed temperatures.”
Girma,
I thought we covered that ground already where someone quotes Muller when he argues that the hockey stick is wrong, but ignores him when he publishes yet another hockey stick. You know, to go along with the proxy studies using pollen, coral, isotopes, ….
So, anyway, given that the divergence problem was known prior to 1998, the graph in question is labeled as it is, and calculations are described in the Methods section, and supplementary information, what is it that Michael Mann hid?
P.S. Heck no, I am not a scientist. I used to be pretty good at stats, I can handle basic physics, and I’m still pretty good at logic.
What is the Muller -hockey stick? Do you have a reference? My guts tell me that you are referring to BEST which is no hockey stick. A hockey stick consists a blade and a handle. The problem is those two cannot be combined unless you want to mislead since those two do not represent the same accuracy nor quantity.
BEST looks like it has a blade on the right side to me.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:60/plot/esrl-co2/normalise/plot/pmod/scale:0.2/offset:-273.6/plot/gistemp/from:1978/trend/plot/pmod/scale:0.2/offset:-273.6/trend/plot/gistemp/mean:396/plot/best/mean:60/plot/best/mean:396
That is still not a hockey stick. If you just had read what I just have said. Secondly, why do you compare land-only data (BEST) to GISS LOTI?
juakola and Chris G –
juakola, you don’t see a hockey stick there?
It is every bit as much of one as GisTemp or HadCrut3. Do you need tape on the blade and Wayne Gretsky’s autograph on it? BEST’s blade slope is steeper than most of the other curves, and the handle is just about the same slope as the others. Not seeing it, huh? Wow. You DO know that the blade on a hockey stick is not perpendicular to the handle, right?
It sounds like you are denying the existence of the hockey stick altogether. Does that make you a denier, since you won’t accept the facts in front of you?
And all Chris has to work with on BEST is the land, only, so what do are you asking him to do – beat Muller over the head until he makes one for you?
Steve Garcia
Well, because it is the BEST data that is readily available. Do you think BEST land-ocean will be of a different shape, other than the hockey stick I just showed you?
A hockey stick just refers to a shape with “handle” with one slope, and a “blade” with something steeper. I don’t know where you get your other requirements.
*sigh* here it goes again (the name calling etc..)
Firstly, the BEST curve is steeper because it is land only. Chris G was comparing apples to oranges when he could have picked another land-only dataset from WFT.
Secondly, what facts are you talking about? The fact that surface temperatures have increased during the last 150 years? No, I hardly deny that (nor does the majority of skeptics).
What I meant, is that this curve (BEST, crutem, GISS, whatever you want to use) alone doesnt make a hockey stick. To make it look like a hockey stick you need a historical context with a relatively flat handle to make this latest 150years to seem somewhat arupt. But again – comparing proxies to modern measurements in the same graph is total BS since they do NOT represent the same accuracy nor quantity. It is an apples to oranges comparison. GOT IT?
Who died and told you you made the rules up for hockey sticks?
Why does the handle have to be “relatively flat”? Is that in the NHL rulebook or your own?
It was skeptics who named it the Hockey Stick, and you get to tell us what is one and isn’t? Oy vey, aren’t we full of ourselves?
And what is this 150-year rule? The Mann blade is since 1990. I can’t imagine what goes on in your head, to tell us that when we see a hockey stick shape, we aren’t correct because it doesn’t fit your rules. Hubris, thy name is warmist.
Only 50 years before your 150 years, the world was coming out of the LIA, when nothing was flat – no matter what Mann tells you. Flat is in your imagination. Of course, your flatness calls the MWP flat, too. BEST only went back to 1800, but look at what BEST does right after 1800 – the end of the LIA. Oh, of course, you’ve already spoken from on high that BEST is land only, so that doesn’t mean squat – according to you, the Lord High Climate Science God. Tell that to everyone on your side who all jumped around and whooped and hollered when BEST ‘confirmed’ global warming.
Having your cake and eating it, too – doesn’t that kind of stick in your craw? It does mine, when it is your Royal Highness’ cake. So, you get to claim BEST works for you when you want it to, but when it doesn’t agree with the point you’re making this hour, you switch sides. Ni-i–i-ce…
I wish I was an all-knowing god like you. NOT.
Steve Garcia
juakola, for what it’s worth, when I read that comment, I took it as feet2thefire being sarcastic. I thought he was being over-the-top in order to mock what he was saying, and in reality, he agrees with your position.
Of course, my interpretation could be wrong.
Actually, Brandon, I was not agreeing with juakola. He said there was no hockey stick, and there is. And he replied and told me what the parameters he accepted for hockey sticks, and I disagreed with him again. He threw out parameters that I’ve never heard of, that he seemed to make up himself.
There are hockey stick shapes there, and his rules don’t change that.
I was being sarcastic, yes, but his second response was basically unacceptable, and invited more of the same.
If I offended, I was also offended, him telling me a hockey stick is not there when it clearly is. Oh, well. I made an enemy probably. Not the first time. I come here hopefully for intelligent exchanges and to learn. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes it goes awry.
Steve Garcia
Brandon,
Ok, if that is the case, then my apologies. English is not my native language (as you likely have noticed) so sarcasm might go sometimes over my head.
juakola, don’t worry about it. feet2thefire didn’t do anything to clearly indicate it was sarcasm, so I’m not even sure it was, and English is my native language. It’s perfectly understandable that you, or anyone else, would take his comment seriously.
Who died and told you you made the rules up for hockey sticks?
Now you are going way over your head. I didnt call you warmist. I didnt say anything about 150 year rule. Your fighting strawmen. All i stated is that you need a historical context to whatever rise you see in the temperature series – is it just noise or is it something unprecedented?
Again, watch your tone. And please check what I stated I never said “BEST doesnt mean squat”. I only critisized on Chris G:s selection of the datasets and the apples to oranges comparison.
Having your cake and eating it, too – doesn’t that kind of stick in your craw? It does mine, when it is your Royal Highness’ cake. So, you get to claim BEST works for you when you want it to, but when it doesn’t agree with the point you’re making this hour, you switch sides. Ni-i–i-ce…
juakola –
You now claim that you didn’t set up a 150-year rule
Actually, at 7:27 am you had written:
I was addressing your claim about 150 years, and now you say you didn’t write it. But you did. And I don’t think that English not being your first language can be an excuse. You claimed that the last 150 years was “somewhat abrupt.” But the Hockey Stick is based on after 1990 being the blade and 1990 being the “abrupt” moment of change. 150 years ago nothing abrupt happened to the temps.
This last time I was insulting was because those two parameters – a relatively flat handle and the 150 years you came up with out of thin air – have no basis anywhere in fact. You have your facts wrong.
If you meant 15 years, then I apologize for being so snarky. Your claims just sounded like you making stuff up and telling us we didn’t follow your rules.
Apologies for being an ass.
Steve Garcia
Doh I messed up the quotes again…
feet2thefire, it would seem I misinterpreted you. What you said seemed so ludicrous to me, sarcasm was the only answer that made sense. Instead, it seems your comments on this matter just make no sense to me. As juakola said:
You claim “he seemed to make [this] up himself,” but in reality, it is the common definition used for “hockey stick” for more than a decade. The reason the hockey stick garnered as much attention as it did it is claimed modern temperatures were unprecedented for a thousand years. This claim, as well as the basic definition of a real-life hockey stick, requires both a shaft and blade.
I have no idea where you are getting your ideas, or your attitude from, but it’s silly. You’re ranting against juakola for stating a simple and obvious truth. It’s been accepted in global warming discussions for over a decade, and it’s been accepted in hockey discussions for far, far longer.
Brandon –
Looking at BEST, there was a “relatively flat” handle, followed by a somewhat abrupt incline at one point. The “relatively flat” BEST handle was not horizontal, and he reiterated his claim of flatness, so I could only think that juokala was insisting on a horizontal flat handle. That requirement sounded ludicrous and made up by him, and I said so.
The 150 year thing – I have NO idea what he was talking about there, but he twice stated it. Again it appeared he was making stuff up. With two made up parameters for the Hockey Stick, I thought that was too much. His statements struck me as arrogant.
I just got done apologizing to him for being such an ass. And I meant it. I thought I’d gone overboard a bit, too.
Steve Garcia
Having read feet2thefire’s comment I think he totally misinterpreted my position and claims. He calls me a “warmist” and talks about “your side” (I am a skeptic and highly skeptical of Mannian statistics). Or that is some kind of sarcasm I do not understand….
Geez… that guy seems to get very easily offended. Just because of semantics I get flamed and ranted. For me the concept of hockey stick consists a) a proxy reconstruction b) thermometer reconstruction which are glued together. And what I was critisizing is the combination of the two (a) and (b). If you think HS is just a shape then so be it. No need to take that so personally it is only semantics…..
OK, juakola, it does come down initially to you misundertanding some things. From the way you phrased them it sounded like you were a warmist.
Sorry about that.
But the HS is NOT tied directly to the piecing of the instrument data onto the proxy data. THAT is the “hide the decline” issue, and is different.
The HS issue has to do with the processing of the data. Steve McIntyre goes into that at http://tiny.cc/5fbjw – and most of it is over my head.
So, you put two things together that don’t directly connect, although both were by the same CRU/Mann insider group, called the Hockey Team by skeptics.
I could not help but misread what you wrote, because you were connecting those two different things in a way that didn’t make sense.
Then at the end, you even said you didn’t say the 150-year thing, but you did. So I didn’t have a clue what you thought you were saying until right here. Again my apologies. I am usually not that snarky. Maybe dealing with some of the warmists here for too long into the night I got testy. No maybe about it. I did. Sorry.
Truce?
SteveG
That 150 years what I was talking about referred to the reconstructed GMTA from thermometers which is usually being spliced on top of the proxy data to show the ‘inconvenient truth’. I definitely agree that it indeed is the few last decades (+smoothing) which matter the most when creating this visual ‘narrative’. At first I thought you are being snarky but now I am quite certain that you quite didn’t understand what I was trying to say right (and this might be also due to my bad english apologies for that).
Truce? While I dont think I have been really fighting anyone, I accept.
Chris G:
I’m always happy to provide evidence for what I say. If you’d like to learn more about just what that trick was, the best spot to start is this blog post. It discusses everything you might need to know. In the meantime, I need to correct you on a couple points. First:
The graph labels one line “RECONSTRUCTED,” yet that line uses “ACTUAL DATA” as padding in order smooth the end of it. This fact, despite what you claim, was not “described in the Methods section, and supplementary information.” In fact, it wasn’t discussed in either (if you want to claim otherwise, please provide evidence to support your claim). Given that, what Michael Mann hid is exactly what I described to you before.
But even more importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, the divergence problem wasn’t related to Mann’s graph! You’re conflating Mann’s paper with a totally different paper! Phil Jones was referring to what he did to a temperature reconstruction made by Keith Briffa when he commented about hiding the decline. He said he used the trick Mann used in his paper on Keith Briffa’s data (he actually did even more than Mann did, but that’s another issue all together).
So when you say, “Jones was talking about Mann 1998; so, let’s not diverge yet,” you’re completely missing the point of his e-mail.
That’s good to hear, though it shouldn’t take much skill at logic, stats or physics to understand this material.
“The graph labels one line “RECONSTRUCTED,” yet that line uses “ACTUAL DATA” as padding in order smooth the end of it. ”
Nope, I’m still looking at two distinct lines, clearly labeled. Actual runs from 1905 to 1995, and reconstructed runs from 1400 to ~1980.
“But even more importantly, and I cannot stress this enough, the divergence problem wasn’t related to Mann’s graph!”
Really? If he had continued his reconstructed line there would have been no divergence? That would be an odd thing since it shows up in most other tree-ring proxies. The divergence problem is the decline in correlation between proxy and the temperature data. I guessed he had truncated the reconstructed data in order not to show the decline. If he had padded it, why does it stop before the actual data?
In any case, most of the public associates an attempt to hide the decline with Mann, but if you are saying the would have been no decline, well, ok. I think you are wrong, but no point in arguing the matter.
BTW, your “evidence” blog by McIntyre. I’d be skeptical of what I read there. It appears he has done things like run 10,000 “random” simulations, picked the top 100 that looked like hockey sticks, and then claimed to have re-created Mann’s hockey stick with “random” data. Funny thing that, you “randomly” pick data that looks like a hockey stick, run it through Mann’s algorithm, and it comes out looking a little like a hockey stick.
http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/
Chris:
Chris you are delusional about that.
If you have the courage to read something not spoon-fed to you, go to this link. http://tiny.cc/510rf it might be the one you refused to get cooties from. The title is “What other data series could be plugged in?”
I warn you, it is actually Steve McIntyre telling the world what he did. I can’t follow it all, but you might be able to. Basically, no matter what data – even stock ticker data – produced a hockey stick shape – and most of them were indistinguishable from each other.
To help you out, here is part of what he said:
The image of the six graphs are at http://tiny.cc/510rf
He goes into more detail – WAY over my head.
Before convicting Steve M of cheating, don’t you think you should be a good and honorable journalist and go see what the accused has to say for himself?
Steve Garcia
Brandon and Chris G –
Brandon, I’d also mention to Chris G the amount and slope of the cut-off tree-ring curve. I mean, it wasn’t just a little bit of divergence they hid. It was steep down vs steep up. It is a real ‘shame on you, Mike, you cheating piece of crap’ thing. No wonder Briffa didn’t want to do it.
Steve Garcia
Chris G, if you’re going to respond to me, I ask you read what I post. You say:
This makes no sense. I have never said anything which suggested there would not be two lines. Using data from one line to modify data in another line does not preclude two lines from being shown. You’re disagreeing with my by pointing out a completely irrelevant fact.
This makes no sense. Mann’s reconstructed record was not a “tree-ring proxy.” Do you actually know what his paper says?
Regardless, Mann’s reconstructed temperatures did diverge from observed temperatures toward the end. That’s the entire reason behind his “trick.” It just didn’t have Keith Briffa’s tree ring series, the one where the “divergence problem” got its name. You cannot take me saying something doesn’t have “the divergence problem” as meaning it doesn’t diverge from another series.
You guessed wrong. Mann did not truncate the reconstructed data. I have no idea what your guess was based on, but I find it peculiar you had to guess even though you claim the “calculations are described in the Methods section, and supplementary information.” If what Mann did was described in his work, why are you having to guess at what he did?
Because, as I told you originally:
You’re saying a lot of things you wouldn’t say if you took the time to read what is being discussed. I don’t understand that.
As for who you trust, I’ll tell you what. Once you can accurately describe anything Mann did, I’ll discuss whatever you want from DeepClimate. Until then, how about we focus on resolving the issues at hand?
Chris G,
The graph you link to looks more like a race day profile from the Tour de France than a hockey stick.
Judith Curry
You asked for our thoughts: I enjoyed both Richard Lindzen’s presentation as well as your comments.
I would agree with you that the presentation is persuasive and that the strength of part 2 was ” that it relies on data and theory (rather than models)”. You also felt that part 2 was ”overly simplistic”. (Well, after all, it was a presentation for the House of Commons – rather than a group of scientists or engineers – so it had to be kept simple.)
He points out that ” Models cannot be tested by comparing models with models. Attribution cannot be based on the ability or lack thereof of faulty models to simulate a small portion of the record. Models are simply not basic physics. This is a very compelling argument against the validity of any model-derived projections into the distant future.
Your four reasons why ”Lindzen’s presentation is so persuasive to public audience” are spot on IMO. I do not think that Fred, Pekka or anyone else could disagree with these reasons, even if they might not agree with Lindzen’s conclusions.
I would add a fifth reason: in this presentation Lindzen does not come across as someone who is using his position of authority to “speak down” to a less qualified audience.
While he specifically rejects the concept of “incontrovertibility” in science, he does not emphasize “uncertainty” at all: either of his view or of the opposing CAGW view – but, again, I believe this may have more to do with his audience than anything else (I’m told that politicians hate uncertainty – especially if it is coming from “experts”).
Thanks for another interesting post.
Max
“Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.”
I find Lindzen’s semantics a bit funny. I’ve seen an interview where the interviewer asked him if he finds the term ‘denier’ degratory or inappropiate. His answer was the that term ‘denier’ works just fine for him and is quite accurate and fine, because you cannot be skeptical about something that is totally implausible.
In some way, I admire his confidence (and sense of humour). In the other hand, I find him at least a tiny bit too overconfident.
Slide 43
Thus, the troposphere, which is a dynamically mixed layer, must warm as a whole (including the surface) while preserving its lapse rate.
Alas. poor Richard appears to have succumbed to the conventional wisdom which confuses isoadiabaticity and equilibrium.
video link – 2 parts
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=9188
The inro music (and Monckton) are really annoying.
Chris G
…what is it that Michael Mann hid?
He found the proxies underestimate the recent warming. He hid this and replaced it with the instrumental data that shows the recent warming.
If the proxies underestimate the recent warming, is it not possible they could underestimate the previous medieval warming? Don’t you think any scientists when he sees a contradiction between the proxies and the instrumental data in the recent period should throw away the whole proxy data?
I already posted a comment which answers this. Yeah, we know, the divergence problem; no, the actual and reconstructed lines are distinct their entire lengths.
So, what is the mechanism driving the warming in your graph?
And, how is that hindcast graph coming?
Chris
And, how is that hindcast graph coming?
I have responded to that: http://bit.ly/wgb2rH
Chris G, your claim is here false, and you haven’t offered the slightest shred of evidence to support it.
Girma and Chris G –
Girma, you aren’t correct on that. It wasn’t just an underestimate – the actual SIGN of the curve was wrong, and in a big way.
Of course he should. Any correlation goes out the window. How they could deny this non-correlation is beyond belief. And then hiding it – what other term is there than scientific fraud? They KNEW it was not correlating, and they hid it.
That was exactly why Climategate 1 was such a sensation and took the legs right out from under them. They lost their monoply on the use of the public podium. Why? Even most journalists could see the cheating. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand “use Mike’s trick” to “hide the decline”.
NOTHING helped the skeptical cause more than Mike Mann himself. He convicted himself, and Jones and Briffa, and I think Osborne was there in that, too.
Steve Garcia
(My apologies for reposting an entire comment from an earlier thread here on a different topic, but the italic snafu has made it a lot harder to read.)
Any “serious climate scientist” would be a fool to challenge the claims in the first few slides of Lindzen’s talk on quantitative grounds, however tempted they might be by his seemingly outrageous claims. “What?” they would cry, “The IPCC agreed to nothing remotely like those numbers.”
Even if we suppose Lindzen has a clearer understanding of climate science than his colleagues, there is a more important reason not to challenge him on what he claims is the consensus of climate science. Lindzen’s slides are a minefield of gotchas (“by itself”, “equivalent CO2″, “increasing CO2 alone“), and you would look very stupid challenging him during the talk (if protocol permitted it) without having first surveyed the slides in advance to locate every gotcha that he’d get you on.
But that wouldn’t do you any good anyway because you’d then find yourself mired in interminable arguments, to which climate science is more susceptible than other sciences. Lindzen could exploit that weakness of the field to the hilt if the need arose. You would also need to match his pitch-perfect written-on-stone-tablets delivery.
The only reliable way to judge these slides therefore is to remove Lindzen from the picture, accept every statement protected with gotchas without attempting to disarm them, and focus on the logic of his arguments, which gotchas can’t protect. (I’m not a climate scientist, my career before I retired was in logic.)
1. When Slide 4 is taken to the logical conclusion Lindzen seemingly wants the honourable members to draw, namely that if greenhouse gases continue on their current rise we can expect a further rise of only 0.8 C over the next 150 years, he’s simply using the same linear-trend argument that Girma and Arfur Bryant love trotting out, obfuscated to make it less obvious.
The warming trend is in fact far from linear. Greenhouse gases are being added at an exponentially increasing rate, with emitted CO2 doubling every 30 years or faster (I estimate 28.6, YMMV). The warming trend is curving upwards.
[Pekka made the same point above, without however making the connection with the tired old Girma-Bryant argument, which Lindzen is effectively merely repeating in obfuscated form.]
2. Following a lot of political slides (appropriate in a House of Commons committee room), the next quantifiable statement is on Slide 11, “no warming since 1997.” Sound familiar? To imply as he does that this is not in dispute, based on one temperature plot, is to have been out of touch with the climate debate! The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature data for example shows the land temperature since 1997 to have been rising in the same way it has been for decades!
3. In slides 13-14, Figure 2 averages the deviations of Figure 1, while Figure 3 is Figure 2 “stretched to fill the graph.” Nothing wrong with that, I sometimes do it myself to make the deviations clearer. But then he says “Note that the range is now from about -0.6C to +0.3C.”
“Now?” But that’s what the range was in Figure 2! Scaling hasn’t made the deviations any larger, contrary to what Lindzen seems to want you to believe.
And neither it should, because it’s a theorem of statistics, applicable to many distributions but particularly normal distributions, that the average of n random variables each of standard deviation d has standard deviation d/sqrt(n). It’s hard to tell what point Lindzen wants to make here, if not to persuade his audience to ignore the factor of sqrt(n).
4. Slide 16 repeats another argument Girma and Arfur Bryant are fond of: that there is no essential difference in shape between the period 1895-1946 and 1957-2008. But that’s a completely bogus argument because it depends on detrending the second period (the graph on the left) by the man-made contribution of 0.4 C, after which you would expect the two shapes to be same given the shape of the 62-year-period AMO. (Note that he’s picked the two time periods to be separated by exactly 62 years! You’d think he’d have tried to be a little less blatant about it, but then who in a campaign to repeal a climate change act would notice such a thing?). In the case of the graphs on Slide 16 the temperature scale on the left has been decreased by 0.4 C. Yet the caption reads “Global average temperature and time scales are identical” (my italics).
These are the methods used by magicians and certain reverse mortgage salesmen. One does not expect them from an MIT professor of climate science.
As masters of deception, magicians fall into two categories, those who admit it’s all mirrors and sleight-of-hand, and those who insist the magic is real so as not to undermine the illusion. Reverse mortgage salesmen also fall into two categories, those who practice deception and those who don’t. Lindzen practices deception without admitting it, qualifying him for either profession.
In business it’s not what you know but who you know. In the climate blogosphere it’s who you ask. It would be very interesting to ask McIntyre whether Lindzen’s statistics were sounder than Mann’s, and as a baseline calibration also the Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act to which Lindzen addressed his views.
Vaughan Pratt
The warming trend is in fact far from linear.
It is linear => http://bit.ly/wzkYvi (a LINEAR warming trend of 0.06 deg C per decade with an oscillation of 0.5 deg C every 30 years)
To top it off, the globe is now cooling => http://bit.ly/nz6PFx
Vaughan Pratt: The warming trend is in fact far from linear. Greenhouse gases are being added at an exponentially increasing rate, with emitted CO2 doubling every 30 years or faster (I estimate 28.6, YMMV). The warming trend is curving upwards.
There isn’t any evidence that the warming trend is curving upwards. The increase since the LIA has be approximately a linear plus sinusoidal trend, and the three periods of near linear increase have indistinguishable slopes. The epoch of highest CO2 concentration has a near 0 slope over 10 – 15 years; maybe the start of this non-increasing epoc has been cherry-picked, but certainly there is no evidence of “the warming trend curving upwards.”
Or perhaps, as Fred Moolten might aver, I have merely missed it. Is there some evidence that the rate of warming has increased? Such analysis of rates of change of temperature as I have seen show rate of temperature change to be nearly independent of CO2 concentration.
There isn’t any evidence that the warming trend is curving upwards.
Matt, let me offer my evidence that it is curving upwards, and you as a more competent statistician than me can tell me what you think of my evidence.
Girma’s evidence that the warming trend is linear is to fit a trend line. The trend line is linear, therefore the trend is linear.
My only objection to this argument is that every curve is linear when judged for linearity in this way. This doesn’t sound like a very useful test for me.
One trend line will always give a straight line. However if you split the data into two halves and fit two separate trend lines, one to each half, now there are three possibilities instead of one. The slope of the earlier one is either less than, greater than, or equal to the later one. Now we have the information we need to judge curvature, which is respectively curving up, curving down, or linear as Girma claims. This is essentially Girma’s argument modified to yield curvature information.
When we do this fit of two trend lines instead of one in order to see whether there is curvature, using 1931 as the midpoint between 1850 and 2012, we get this graph.
I wouldn’t call this “no evidence,” it looks to me like it’s curving upwards when judged by this method. And I certainly don’t understand why anyone would prefer Girma’s one-trend-line way of judging whether the curvature is up or down than this two-trend-line way, unless they have prejudged it as linear and simply want to prove it is linear by using a linear trend line.
Vaughn Pratt
I did not arbitrarily select the linear trend.
The linear trend is the property of the global mean temperature (GMT).
http://bit.ly/ApMD3d
Why?
Because:
A straight line passes through almost all the GMT valleys.
A straight line passes through almost all the GMT peaks.
These two lines are almost parallel.
These two lines happen to have the same slope as the trend for the data from 1880 to 2000.
96% of the GMT data of the last 162 years lie between these two parallel lines.
That is why the property of the global mean temperature is a long term warming trend of 0.05 deg C per decade with an oscillation of 0.5 deg C every 30 years. This is the single property of the GMT data.
Your two trend lines include the changes in trends due to the multi decadal oscillation that must be excluded from trend calculations.
Vaughan Pratt: When we do this fit of two trend lines instead of one in order to see whether there is curvature, using 1931 as the midpoint between 1850 and 2012, we get this graph.
That’s cute. You’re joking, right?
You should show that to Tamino — he likes all kinds of stuff.
That’s cute. You’re joking, right?
Sometimes I am, Matt, but not in this case.
Just to be clear, this is not how I determined the shape of the contribution of greenhouse gases in my AGU presentation in December, which first detrended by removing the AMO contribution, exactly as specified by Girma, “Your two trend lines include the changes in trends due to the multi decadal oscillation that must be excluded from trend calculations.” Had Girma done this with his method of proving linearity I would have done the same.
However Girma merely fitted a linear trend line, and I was making the point that a tiny increase in sophistication (break one trend line into two) yielded more curvature information than Girma was providing. What is your objection to that?
@Girma Your two trend lines include the changes in trends due to the multi decadal oscillation that must be excluded from trend calculations.
This is a very good point, Girma. The only problem I see with it is that in your own demonstration of linearity you didn’t exclude the multidecadal oscillations yourself.
When they are not excluded your one-trend-line method gives exactly zero information about curvature, whereas mine proves curvature upwards.
Your point seems to be that nothing can be inferred from my argument because I didn’t exclude the oscillations. It follows that nothing can be inferred from your argument either since you didn’t exclude them either.
This then raises the very interesting question, what would happen to our respective arguments if we both exclude the multidecadal oscillations?
Since the monthly data for HADCRUT3VGL drowns out the relevant information, I’ll use the annual data from column 14 for the sake of a clearer picture. Hadley Climatic Research Unit computes this as the average of the monthly data in columns 2-13. (Column 1 is the year.)
When the multidecadal oscillation as estimated by least-squares fitting is subtracted from HADCRUT3VGL, this graph shows what is left.
Your ingenious tricks with lines everywhere will of course prove that this graph is following a linear trend, congratulations on that excellent illusion.
But suppose we ask whether the graph is curving upwards or downwards when we don’t include those ingenious lines, but simply look at the graph with the naked eye.
Since I can’t imagine for a second that Girma would say this graph curves upwards or downwards, I’ll have to ask others here. Do you see this graph as linear, or curving downwards, or curving upwards?
One could imagine optometrists and psychologists using this as a test of human visual acuity.
Krakatau
Vaughan Pratt: a tiny increase in sophistication (break one trend line into two) yielded more curvature information than Girma was providing. What is your objection to that?
There is more that one way to be more sophisticated than Girma. One way is by adding a sinusoid to the linear trend, as others have done; a second way is by considering the linear regression of the quantiles, as I have recommended but not carried out; a third is by considering autocorrelated residuals (as tamino has done on his web page, confirming a single straight line without sinusoid.) By dividing the time series at its middle and fitting two lines (segmented linear regression), you have the “accelerated warming” occurring right before the post- WWII cooling, which is peculiar and what almost no one intends by “accelerated warming”.
What Girma has done is fit a straight line to the data and then a segmented regression to the residuals. Intellectually, I’d rank that as approximately as “sophisticated” as your approach, not less “sophisticated”.
Other people have used more sophisticated algorithms to fit segmented regression lines to the temperature data.
In fact, the data have been around for a long time, though of course the last year’s data have only been available for a year. All the curve-fitting is now post-hoc, so the only possible resolutions of which methods are “best” will occur in the next decades as we learn which models produced the worst predictions.
Intellectually, I’d rank that as approximately as “sophisticated” as your approach, not less “sophisticated”.
Thanks, Matt, I wasn’t sure what you had in mind there. Yes, measured by sophistication Girma’s and my methods of measuring curvature are essentially equally sophisticated. Measured by the ratio of number of bits of curvature information obtained however, mine is infinitely better (1/0 = infinity). I only mentioned it in case someone thought lower sophistication was better for some reason. This approach of fitting trend lines, whether one or two, is about as unsophisticated as you can get.
Furthermore as Girma points out it can’t tell whether the curvature is of human or natural origin, only the sign of the curvature (sign of the second derivative). Girma was claiming there is no curvature but his claim is based on no information!
My AGU presentation used a much more sophisticated approach yielding the curvature predicted by the Arrhenius law to within an unexplained variance that since the presentation I’ve been able to reduce to less than 0.1% assuming 2.83 actual degrees 15 years after actual doubling (as distinct from both equilibrium sensitivity and transient response, which both have problems).
All the curve-fitting is now post-hoc, so the only possible resolutions of which methods are “best” will occur in the next decades as we learn which models produced the worst predictions.
Surely this depends on how you evaluate the models. If evaluated by predictive power then sure. But there are other metrics:
1. r2. How much of the variance does the model fail to explain? Which models of long-term global land-sea surface temperature to date have been able to get their r2 above 0.999 using only 9 parameters? That’s my competition.
2. Future skill from past performance. How well does the method predict the last n years of data when applied to data that is missing the last n years?
Vaughan Pratt
You have critiqued Richard Lindzen’s presentation to the House of Commons.
Let’s go through your points one by one:
1. To Lindzen’s Slide 4 you write:
The slide 16 is again a real joke – a very strong case of cherry picking. That can be seen by extending the later period to 2011 and the earlier period to 1949 or perhaps 1951.
Suddenly the picture is very different. Suddenly it shows how the recent leveling off of the rise remains evidence for the significance of the recent increase while the peak of the earlier period turns out to be short-lived.
How many examples of misleading cherry picking does that presentation actually have? How dishonest it actually is?
I guess what Pekka means is this:
http://tinyurl.com/6q4yxuv
vs
http://tinyurl.com/7yyhfk5
Yes, when extending the periods they no longer look as much alike. No extrapolation done, just an illustration of the similarity of those two warming periods. The latter is claimed to have a strong AGW fingerprint by the AGW proponents.
Of course, if we want to find different kind of warming periods we can even try this:
http://tinyurl.com/8499ayp
or when similar
http://tinyurl.com/6q4yxuv (same as 1st link)
But of course the selection depends on what we want to illustrate.
My point being, why isnt he allowed to find similar periods of temperature anomalies from the dataset, if he wants to illustrate the similarity between the early 1900s and the late 1900s? Your argument is similar to that it wouldnt be allowed to say “it hasnt warmed/cooled from xxxx” by plotting a trend from xxxx?
Or do you disagree that the early 1900 warming period was different (lets not mix the causes here) than the late 1900s? Making this a “strong case for cherry picking” and “dishonesty” sounds a bit outrageous claim to me.
*) similar
Juho,
I don’t disagree on the rather strong similarity. What I did protest on is using careful selection of periods to make the similarity look stronger than it really is.
That’s called cherry picking. Using cherry picking and other similar methods in a presentation systematically to distort the impression that one gets from the data is a method used for misleading the audience. It appears clear that Lindzen is not trying to present a balanced view of the evidence. Some people may say that he is right in doing that because there are other people who distort the evidence in the opposite direction. Even it that’s accepted the conclusion is that Lindzen presents biased information and what he tells should not be taken as true.
Pekka
You write to juakola regarding Lindzen’s slide 16:
What specific time periods would you have selected to avoid this problem?
Max
Per your request, max, I’ll ignore this confused formatting and reply to your corrected version below.
Max,
In this case the essential issue is the ending year. Lindzen’s choice was so early that the rapid fall after the peak appeared random fluctuation. A few more years makes a huge difference to the impression the curves produce.
This is related to a point I have made previously:
The most recent period of little change in temperature provides evidence in both directions:
1) It tells that the rapidly rising trend of the previous years has not continued over this period.
2) It tells that the rapid rise of the previous years did not end in a short-lived peak but, indeed, to a higher rather persistent temperature level.
The second point is essentially equivalent to the observation that the latest decade is significantly warmer than the earlier ones. This is arguably more essential than the first point. (But it’s true that some people expected an even warmer decade that did not materialize.)
corrected formatting – please delete earlier post
Vaughan Pratt
You have critiqued Richard Lindzen’s presentation to the House of Commons.
Let’s go through your points one by one:
1. To Lindzen’s Slide 4 you write:
It is true (as you write) that atmospheric CO2 levels have been increasing at a fairly constant exponential rate of between 0.4 and 0.5% per year.
But since the CO2 temperature relationship is logarithmic, this means we should be seeing temperature increase at a linear rate, NOT exponentially.
2. To Lindzen’s Slide 11 you write:
Vaughan, you are comparing “apples” (BEST land ONLY temperature) with “oranges” (HadCRUT3 land and sea average temperature). Lindzen is absolutely correct in saying that the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” has not risen since 1997.
3. To Lindzen’s Slides 13 and 14 you bring up a nit-pick regarding scales. Lindzen has simply pointed out that ”relative to the variability in the data, the changes in the globally averaged temperature anomaly look negligible”, a point that is apparent from looking at the graphs he shows. His point that stretching the scale makes (what he calls) the “negligible” warming trend look larger than it would otherwise look is absolutely true.
4. You comment on Lindzen’s Slide 16 is a bit confused. He has the HadCRUT3 temperature record covering two separate time periods (1895-1946 and 1957-2008) without identifying which is which. Upon closer scrutiny one can see that the first chart covers the latter period, but the two appear close to identical. His point: the “natural” warming over the earlier period is practically identical to the supposedly “man-made” warming in the later period – a point which he makes very effectively (and which can be confirmed by plotting the two periods on woodfortrees).
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1895/to:1946/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1895/to:1946/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1957/to:2008/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1957/to:2008/trend
You accuse Lindzen of a “completely bogus argument” by bringing up mumbo-jumbo about “detrending the second period by the man-made contribution of 0.4°C”, but there is no such “detrending” in the curves he shows (and I have plotted on woodfortrees). So it is YOUR argument that is “bogus”.
After running out of specific arguments, you opine:
IPCC is clearly in your second category, with its “sleight-of-hand” chart, FAQ3.1, Figure 1, which purports to show how warming is accelerating by comparing temperature trends over ever-smaller time periods.
Vaughan, if you can’t do a better critique than that, you’d be better off doing no critique at all.
Just my opinion.
Max
Max, I’ll respond to your four responses to my points 1-4 in separate comments. This one is for your response to my first point.
It is true (as you write) that atmospheric CO2 levels have been increasing at a fairly constant exponential rate of between 0.4 and 0.5% per year.
This is a strawman argument. I did not write the words you put in my mouth just now, neither on this occasion nor any other.
Natural CO2 is around 285 ppmv (my best estimate based on data from several sources is 287 ppmv). The excess above that is due to humans, and it is the excess that is increasing exponentially, at 2.5% per year, not your 0.5% per year of the total including nature. This is easily confirmed by looking at the data, which so far you’ve flatly refused to do!
I have explained this to you multiple times, and each time you put your fingers in your ears, cry LALALALALA, and stick to your extraordinary theory that by an amazing coincidence nature decided to increase her contribution exponentially at exactly the same time as humans did, after millions of years of not doing so.
Max, there is no evidence whatsoever that the various natural sources of CO2 are growing exponentially. It is human population and their technology that has been growing exponentially. If you seriously believe nature decided to crank up CO2 production at the same time as humans, then you are seriously confused about where CO2 comes from.
But since the CO2 temperature relationship is logarithmic, this means we should be seeing temperature increase at a linear rate, NOT exponentially.
Wow, my respect for your math abilities just jumped up two notches. You got that one exactly right! If it’s any consolation, the IPCC is as confused on this point as you are. Their definition of “transient climate response” is the same as yours but with 1% in place of your 0.5%. Either one of these percentages shows that temperature will increase linearly. Examination of the HADCRUT3VGL data shows it curves upwards, proving that both you and the IPCC are equally wrong. The “equally” notwithstanding, the latter contains more bits when estimated information-theoretically.
Vaughan, you are comparing “apples” (BEST land ONLY temperature) with “oranges” (HadCRUT3 land and sea average temperature). Lindzen is absolutely correct in saying that the “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” has not risen since 1997.
Arrgh, a gotcha got me. ;)
You are absolutely correct there, Max, give yourself a debating point. I thought I had mapped out every gotcha in Lindzen’s talk but I missed that one. Damn.
But this now raises the very interesting question of why we land dwellers should give a capybara’s buttocks about what happens at sea. If the sea keeps the atmosphere cool (as owners of beach cottages will attest) while those of us inland are tormented by increasing heat as shown by the BEST land temperature (which is climbing much faster than the sea temperature), then shouldn’t land temperature count for something when assessing the impact on us land dwellers of global warming?
Vaughan old buddy – you know I am there for you. Don’t worry about the heat none – no matter which version of GISTEMP you look at it’s the cold that ‘s gonna get you in North America.
http://i44.tinypic.com/29dwsj7.gif
The Arctic is pretty much the same – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=chylek09.gif
There is some wacky idea it is sea ice related – for what it’s worth – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=arcticice.gif
Although I still like Mike Lockwood’s solar UV idea – http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/2/024001
If you start to feel like a climate refugee – I have a nice place on a Queensland beach you can rent.
Your friend
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist n
dd
Who was that masked man?
Lindzen has simply pointed out that ”relative to the variability in the data, the changes in the globally averaged temperature anomaly look negligible”, a point that is apparent from looking at the graphs he shows.
Excellent, Max, we’re in agreement on Figures 1 and 2, and Lindzen’s comments on them. What you’re saying is exactly what I said.
But how does any of that support Lindzen’s argument that CO2 is nothing to worry about?
And what’s the point of Figure 3? It doesn’t seem to add anything nonobvious to either Figure 2 or to Lindzen’s main arguments.
In short, slides 13-14 seem not to bear out Lindzen’s arguments that CO2 is harmless.
4. … His point: the “natural” warming over the earlier period is practically identical to the supposedly “man-made” warming in the later period
That would be fine if it were true, Max, but it isn’t. The two graphs are not identical because Lindzen has subtracted 0.4 C from the left in order to hide the 0.4 C increase attributable to AGW.
Had Lindzen labeled the graphs to indicate that one had been lowered by this much, or said anything to that effect, it would be fine, but he didn’t. He simply slid one graph down without saying he’d done so, so as to create the impression that nothing had changed during the intervening 62 years. That was deception pure and simple: what had changed was that the temperature had increased 0.4 C. He said nothing to disabuse his audience of the impression he created with that misleading juxtaposition that implied nothing had changed.
4. You accuse Lindzen of a “completely bogus argument” by bringing up mumbo-jumbo about “detrending the second period by the man-made contribution of 0.4°C”, but there is no such “detrending” in the curves he shows (and I have plotted on woodfortrees). So it is YOUR argument that is “bogus”.
Lindzen’s claim that the temperature scales are identical is as bogus as the numerical identity 0 = 0.4. What you plotted on woodfortrees does correctly show the 0.4 C temperature increase. Your claim that Lindzen showed this difference is obviously false. If he had showed it I’ve had no complaint.
If you think objecting to the identity 0 = 0.4 is “mumbo-jumbo” then you enjoy a different system of mathematics from the one I was taught.
Vaughan Pratt
Thanks for taking the time to respond in detail. I’ll return the favor.
Point 1: Atmospheric CO2 is rising at a rate of somewhere between 0.4% and 0.5% per year, compounded. This is an observed fact which is (to put it into IPCC wording) “incontrovertible”.
One can also say, as you point out, that the increment since year 1750 (?) – when there was no accurate measurement BTW – has increased by a higher compounded annual rate.
But in actual fact, the difference between the two is zilch, nada.
[And your comment of me sticking my fingers in my ears, etc. is both silly and insolent.]
Further down the line you added:
What a bunch of baloney, Vaughan! Atmospheric CO2 levels have risen at between 0.4% and 0.5% per year compounded since measurements started as well as most recently. This rate was slower prior to WWII, based on ice core estimates This is NOT false. It does NOT “entail any result for 200 years ago” (that’s your own personal meaningless extrapolation). It is YOU that are repeating nonsense if you state that the obvious fact is “false”.
But, if you prefer your wording and scope of calculation, so be it (i.e. since 1958 the atmospheric CO2 increment, which is generally assumed to have been caused by human emissions, has grown from a measured 315 ppmv minus an estimated 280 ppmv = 35 ppmv to a measured 390 ppmv minus the same estimated 280 ppmv = 110 ppmv = a CAGR of that increment of the total CO2 of 2.2% per year). Yikes!
Point 2: BEST (land only) versus HadCRUT3 (land and sea) – you agree that Lindzen is talking about global (not land only) temperatures and that you were comparing “apples” with “oranges”.
Point 3: There is no disagreement here, apparently. Lindzen simply made the rater obvious points a) that the variability (±2 °C) was much greater than the warming trend (measured in tenths of a °C) and b) that the trend looks more impressive when the scale is expanded.
I have no problem with Lindzen’s (obviously true) statements, but you seemed to think he was trying to deceive the listener, without having anything specific to criticize. Sounded to me like a nitpick, Vaughan.
You added:
Duh! It doesn’t. Nor does it have anything to do with the price of eggs in China.
Point 4: Lindzen shows two statistically indistinguishable warming periods covering two 50-year time periods: one before there was any significant increase in CO2 and one when there was a large increase.
You object to Linden’s comparison of the two warming periods with:
This is wrong, Vaughan, as I pointed out by plotting the HadCRUT data on Woodfortrees for the two periods. Both curves contained natural plus man-made warming.
So you have been basically wrong in all your points of contention, both in your critique of Lindzen’s presentation and in my wording.
I know you are a climate scientist and should know better than to get yourself tangled up in lose-lose discussions involving basic logic with someone who is not specialized in your field, but it looks like you fell into the trap.
Max
Max,
This is really annoying. You make statements that you present as based on factual knowledge. Those claims are shown to be wrong. Then you repeat them as if they would still remain factual statements.
This time it’s your claim of 0.4-0.5% growth rate. I told that it has already exceeded 0.5% and is certainly going to keep on increasing unless the trends do change dramatically.
If you had some doubt about my claim you could have checked the facts. I did one further check plotting the rate as 10 year moving average of the rate. The result has been growing over the total period of Mauna Loa data. Over the first 10 years it was less than 0.3%/year, over the latest 10 years it has average over 0.5%/year. The increase has been essentially linear with rather strong variability around the trend.
You have argued on this point so many times that it’s almost unbelievable that you have done it being so explicitly and totally wrong.
Pekka Pirilä
My, my, Pekka! No need to get “annoyed”. It doesn’t sound very “scientific”, you know. – best to stick with a rational, factual discussion.
I have taken a closer look at the Mauna Loa record.
I will concede to you that you are correct in stating that the average annual increase has exceeded 0.5% per year (I was only looking at the long-term average, which did not do so).
The most recent 5-year average annual rates of increase are between 0.50% and 0.56% per year.
This started out slower, increasing from around 0.4% in the 1980s to a peak of 0.56% by 1998. The linear rate of acceleration of the annual rate of increase was around 0.008% per year up until 1998 and has remained essentially flat since then. The most recent 5-year average annual rate of increase is 0.55%
You state the rate of increase “is certainly going to keep on increasing unless the trends do change dramatically” This has already happened, Pekka. IThe trend has flattened out, and there are good reasons to believe that it will not start accelerating again, as you surmise. The average annual rate of increase may even start slowing down again to the 0.4% to 0.5% per year range – who knows?
In view of the dramatic slowdown in population growth projected by the UN for this century compared to the last, this appears to me to be a logical upper limit of the exponential rate of annual increase for use for future projections, probably a bit on the high side in view of high energy costs and resulting pressures on increasing efficiencies in motor fuel consumption and power generation as well as domestic and commercial heating.
As a matter of fact, IPCC uses the following CAGR projections for various computer-based “scenarios and storylines”, all based on no “climate initiatives”:
0.46% B1
0.49% A1T
0.52% B2
0.63% A1B
0.74% A2
0.82% A1F1
The last three cases are probably greatly exaggerated – but, hey, I’m not going to get “annoyed” by them – are you?
Max
Matt & Vaughan
Here is Latif supporting my argument.
Linear + cyclic interpretation of global mean temperature => http://bit.ly/wCsZym
http://eprints.ifm-geomar.de/8744/
It is linear
Not if you remove all those spurious lines you added in an attempt to make it look linear. The curvature upwards then becomes obvious.
To top it off, the globe is now cooling
I think by now Girma that everyone has figured out (thanks to you’re constantly pointing it out) that if you pick 2002 as the start year the linear trend is negative (namely a slight -0.09 degrees per decade). That’s what’s known as cherry picking.
What you’re doing is the same as proving that the Mona Lisa is scowling by focusing on a small corner of her mouth.
If you back off to the bigger picture starting from any time between 1970 and 1990 (so as to be sure there’s no cherry picking going on), and look at land (since very few of us live on the ocean), you will see no sign whatsoever of any sustained decline since 2002. It certainly wobbles since 2002, but the wobbling is the same kind that’s been happening for decades. Thanks to the continual wobbling, you can find places all along the period from 1970 to now where the temperature trends downwards, so you could prove using them all that it has been trending down for many decades now.
Grima, Vaughan would like you to appreciate the -0.09 cooling since 2002 was predicted by the IPCC in 1998.
If you back off to the bigger picture starting from any time between 1970 and 1990 you would realise that this is not cherrypicking because the MWP & LIA gave us the right starting point.
Of course, we don’t have to include the 80% of surface of the Oceans, that wouldn’t make sense. Vaughan is a climate scientist you know, so he is totally objective.
Markus,
The current consensus of scientists do NOT even need an orb. Any parameters differences do NOT effect averaging. Even though try putting those “averaging” number back onto the planet changes every area that the temperature data was taken from.
But that is what computer models are for…NOT an orb!
Question?
Are we measuring atmospheric pressure with any accuracy?
If you travel up or down a long hill your ears “pop” does that not imply pressure differences? And yet the whole area is measured as one pressure.
Motion and velocity were NEVER in consideration with scientists as they are “unobserved” parameters.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations.pdf
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations-2.pdf
Let’s be clear about this fudge. The dry adiabatic rate is approx ~10klm
It is claimed the radiative vertical transport of heat is 5Cdeg to 6Cdeg per klm. The value of the calculated mean flux altitude is 5klm at mid latitudes and 6klm global mean.
How effing convienient there is no need to consider the force of pressure or gas laws when determining the point of mean atmospheric radiative flux at 5lkm ties in beautifully with S-B equation.
Mind you not 5.1 klm not 4.9 klm it is exactly 5klm. NASA’s measurement of saturated diabetic lapse rate has been pulled out of thin air.
Arrhenius got IR warming [a mistake by Tyndall] wrong and mistakenly assumed the S-B equation predicts that a solid surface in contact with the atmosphere emits radiation according to S-B for its temperature in parallel with convection. In reality, the sum of the two has to equal the incoming SW energy.
The only way they could match Earth up with S-B was to tinker at the edges of gas laws, and forget about pressure. Well done Hansen.
Let’s be clear about this fudge. The dry adiabatic rate is approx ~10klm
It is claimed the radiative vertical transport of heat is 5Cdeg to 6Cdeg per klm. The value of the calculated mean flux altitude is 5klm at mid latitudes and 6klm global mean.
How effing convenient there is no need to consider the force of pressure or gas laws when determining the point of mean atmospheric radiative flux at 5lkm ties in beautifully with S-B equation.
Mind you, not 5.1 klm not 4.9 klm it is exactly 5klm. NASA’s measurement of saturated diabetic lapse rate has been pulled out of thin air.
Arrhenius got IR warming [a mistake by Tyndall] wrong and mistakenly assumed the S-B equation predicts that a solid surface in contact with the atmosphere emits radiation according to S-B for its temperature in parallel with convection. In reality, the sum of the two has to equal the incoming SW energy.
The only way they could match Earth up with S-B was to tinker at the edges of gas laws, and forget about pressure. Well Done Hansen.
Vaughan is a climate scientist you know
If everything else you say is this accurate, MF, we can stop paying attention to you. :)
A perspective on decadal climate variability and predictability
by Mojib Latif, Noel S Keenlyside
Abstract
The global surface air temperature record of the last 150 years is characterized by a long-term warming trend, with strong multidecadal variability superimposed.
[ http://bit.ly/wzkYvi ]
Similar multidecadal variability is also seen in other (societal important) parameters such as Sahel rainfall or Atlantic hurricane activity. The existence of the multidecadal variability makes climate change detection a challenge, since global warming evolves on a similar timescale. The ongoing discussion about a potential anthropogenic signal in the Atlantic hurricane activity is an example. A lot of work was devoted during the last years to understand the dynamics of the multidecadal variability, and external and internal mechanisms were proposed. This review paper focuses on two aspects. First, it describes the mechanisms for internal variability using a stochastic framework. Specific attention is given to variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which is likely the origin of a considerable part of decadal variability and predictability in the Atlantic Sector. Second, the paper discusses decadal predictability and the factors limiting its realization. These include a poor understanding of the mechanisms involved and large biases in state-of-the-art climate models. Enhanced model resolution, improved subgrid scale parameterisations, and the inclusion of additional climate subsystems, such as a resolved stratosphere, may help overcome these limitations.
http://bit.ly/xANYW0
Girma,
Scientists are so focused on temperature data alone, that they fail to understand what it is that creates these temperatures and circulation.
Circulation is generated by motion…tis was NEVER in consideration.
So we have all these laws of science created that cannot be broken even though other parameters say that these are incorrect due to not considering other parameters. Pressure is another red herring of science.
Vaughan Pratt
…if you pick 2002 as the start year the linear trend is negative (namely a slight -0.09 degrees per decade).
Did not the IPCC claimed:
Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected. http://bit.ly/caEC9b
By the way, wisely, the world has not headed the useless recommendation of the IPCC to keep greenhouse gases at 2000 level and callously increase cost of living.
Vaughan Pratt …if you pick 2002 as the start year the linear trend is negative (namely a slight -0.09 degrees per decade). Did not the IPCC claimed: Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected. http://bit.ly/caEC9b By the way, wisely, the world has not headed the useless recommendation of the IPCC to keep greenhouse gases at 2000 level and callously increase cost of living.
Don’t tell me, tell them. I’m not involved with the IPCC.
Hi boys
You can see the big picture here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NVa.htm
the global temperature correlates well with the CET
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CETGNH.htm
anyone can reproduce, no fiddle no cherry picking.
vukcevic
How about including a short description of your graphs as well as definition of the acronyms?
Girma
Only ‘strange’ one in
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NVa.htm
is the NAP data set which links some aspects of solar activity to the north atlantic currents circulation and it is closely linked to both the NAO and the AMO.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GNAP.htm
There is no good understanding of the climate change without understanding natural events in the north atlantic.
Soon the metaAGU science will be trying to find out what really causes climate change, only then I will explain a bit more about the north atlantic precursor. At the moment once in the academia respected CO2 hypothesis is starting to stagger along, a bit like an inebriated gambler who lost huge sums of taxpayers’ money on an old worn out nag (horse).
Vaughn –
Picking 1970 as a starting point was for a long time a common warmist cherry-pick, because that was essentially at the bottom of the 1940-1975 cooling off period. So you can’t blithely offer that up as if it has no baggage of its own. Of course it got warmer, after the bottom of the cooling period. They used to throw “since 1970” all kinds of warming happened. Duh.
Same thing about 1800, when they use that (BEST did, and they were wrong to do that), because that was the end of the LIA when the world was going to warm up. And it is a good thing it did!
We are “only” 210 or so years after the end of the LIA. To put that into paleoclimate perspective, the Younger-Dryas stadial began about 12,900 years ago. Its onset was VERY abrupt. It began over a period of about 0-200 years. No one knows yet how short a time it took. Greenland’s temperatures dropped by about 12 FULL degrees C. The Earth entered a new ice age, which it was not to come out of for 1200 years. What we all think of as a stable temperature for X many thousands or millions of years simply didn’t happen. Since the end of the Younger-Dryas the Earth has been in the Holocene. Much of that time was in the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO), from 9,000 BP to 5,000 BP. See http://tiny.cc/p8z6g for a graph of the Holocene period temps. Clearly the temps during the HCO were warmer than at present. So any claims about this being the warmist time in the last 600,000 or whatever are all at the very least, on thin ice as far as claims go.
But look also at that black curve on the left, how it comes from some abyss of cold. THAT was the Younger-Dryas. I won’t even go into how humans did not do either the HCO or the Y-D.
We can’t look at the insanely brief period of thermometers and think we are having record highs, or even record lows. They are just the high and low moments among a lot of high and low moments. And by moments I mean since 1990 or since 1970 or since 1800 – they are all just moments. We know so little and we are telling ourselves we need to cure something that we don’t even know is messed up for sure, or that humans did it. SOME people think so, but if the HCO was so much warmer, then us claiming that humans caused this one – because we are innately selfish or wasteful or have industry – what are we to blame the HCO on? The lack of mammoths?
It doesn’t matter what we use as a starting point, because we aren’t in an all-time high period like is claimed. So, if all other wamer periods were non-human-caused, then why must this one be blamed on us, especially when it is not even the warmist ever? What the slopes are from time A to time B are all silliness, people making mountains out opf molehills. You want warm? The world certainly survived the HCO – in the time of man, no less! The plants are still around, the animals that didn’t go extinct at the BEGINNING of the Y-D – mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, and more, which died in what may have been the first decade of the Y-D – survived the super warm HCO, and are still here.
Climatology needs to slow down and stop thinking it is so all-fired important a field. It is only just now starting out, and any conclusions are premature. And we don’t have to fall for every Boy Who Cried Wolf or Chicken Little.
Steve Garcia
So any claims about this being the warmist time in the last 600,000 or whatever are all at the very least, on thin ice as far as claims go.
I was talking about the last half-century, Steve, which I attended. By all means harangue the world about whatever might have happened half a million years ago, but please leave me out of it, my alibi is that I was elsewhere at the time. ;)
(If you’re laboring under the same delusion as Markus Fitzhenry that I’m some kind of climate scientist then maybe some identity thief has switched my identity for that of a climate scientist. If so I’d like my identity back please.)
some identity thief has switched my identity for that of a climate scientist A most painful insult…?
most painful insult?
Not at all. It is no insult to point B to say you’d rather be back home at point A.
Vaughan Pratt
Should expected future GH warming increase at a linear or exponential rate?
Past increase of atmospheric CO2 level has been exponential, at a constant CAGR of between 0.4% and 0.5% per year.
There is no reason to believe that future increase will be at any greater exponential rate than past increase, especially since population growth has already begun to slow down and is expected to continue to do so (from the past 1.7% to around 0.3% CAGR).
So we assume that atmospheric CO2 will increase exponentially.
But the CO2/temperature relationship is logarithmic (each doubling of CO2 has the same temperature impact as the next doubling).
So, as a result, it is logical to assume that warming from added CO2 should increase linearly (not exponentially)
Just simple math, Vaughan.
Max
Past increase of atmospheric CO2 level has been exponential, at a constant CAGR of between 0.4% and 0.5% per year.
If that were true, Max, it would have been 145 ppmv 200 years ago. It’s never been that low in the last billion years or more. Check your math.
So, as a result, it is logical to assume that warming from added CO2 should increase linearly (not exponentially)
Max, you evidently meet a wider range of people than me if you know someone that thinks warming from added CO2 is increasing exponentially. Do them a favor and suggest they check their math.
vaughan,
You’ve misunderstood an important point.
Max, quite rightly, says, it’s “simple math”.
The rest of us might prefer simply math.
Vaughan Pratt, did you just tell manacker he was wrong about the rate of increased in CO2 levels because if you take his rate back in time far enough, it gives too low a value? That’s how I’m reading your comment, but…
That’s stupid. Almost any rate of change given is an estimation. If you extrapolate out far enough, they’ll usually give you a wrong answer. It’s a meaningless point, and it certainly doesn’t invalidate anything. The most it can do is allow you to tell manacker he’s wrong to say “the past” is the past because he’s only looking at one part of the past, not “the last 200 years.” Not only is it a stupid point based purely on semantics, it begs the question of why limit ourselves to only the last 200 years? Maybe the next time manacker talks about the “[p]ast increase of atmospheric CO2 level,” you should tell him he’s wrong because of what things were like millions of years ago!
I hope I’m just misreading you. If not, you’re contradicting manacker based entirely upon a stupid and meaningless point rather than simply saying something like, “When you say ‘the past,’ you’re only talking about the last XX years, right?”
Max,
There’s clearly nothing fundamental in the exponential growth of the concentration. Thus estimating, how it will change must be based on some model, not just simplistic extrapolation. The rate is furthermore already significantly more than 0.5% when estimated trying to remove the effects of short term variability.
I made some calculations based on two models for future emissions, which are plausible at for some 50 years to the future, the lower one even longer. For the persistence I used Maier-Reimer and Hasselmann model for concentrations not much higher than the present. Others might wish to use differing models, but my calculations are certainly much more justified that your guess.
The results tell that the rate of relative increase is likely to grow to a maximum in the range 0.7-1.1 %/year before starting to decline again. The uppermost values of that range are perhaps less likely as that would require using extensively low quality coal or oil shales, but in any case my judgment is that the rate of 0.5 %/year is likely to be exceeded significantly (unless policies of reducing CO2 emissions turn out to be much more effective than I expect them to be). I don’t go now into the details of the models as I’m not using their results as more than for getting a plausible range. (They are the same models I have discussed also earlier when commenting on the concentration growth.)
Vaughan Pratt, did you just tell manacker he was wrong about the rate of increased in CO2 levels because if you take his rate back in time far enough, it gives too low a value?
Brandon, I believe you’re only considering half of my response to Max about .5% vs. 2.5%. You ignored my point about the 0.5% being a non-physical theory.
Since discussions of CO2 seem to lead to language of the form “it is a stupid and meaningless point,” let me make my point in terms of the Ptolemaic vs. Copernican theory, which I’ll call the non-physical and physical theories respectively, and which hopefully won’t require either of us to estimate the stupidity quotient of the other.
The following numbers are made up for the sake of argument.
The physical theory gives an accurate result 40 million years back but not 4 billion years. The non-physical theory gives an accurate result 4 thousand years back but not 400 thousand.
There are two reasons to prefer the Copernican theory.
1. It is physical.
2. It is accurate over a longer time period.
Any complaints there?
Now let’s drop back into a subject where unlike planetary motions it’s very obvious to both sides that the opposition is stupid, namely CO2. (If it was CO2 and temperature we could escalate from “stupid” to “moron.” ;) )
There are two reasons to prefer the 2.5% theory over the 0.5% theory.
1. It is physical. (CO2 emissions from fossil fuel are growing exponentially, the contributors to the 30x larger natural carbon cycle have been holding relatively steady, at least over the past few millennia.)
2. It is accurate over a considerably longer time period, namely at least 2000 years (where the Vostok ice cores show 284.7 ppmv at 342 BC, Petit et al, Nature v.399 (6735), pp 429-436, 1999), though not 20,000 years (where CO2 is down to 190 ppmv, ibid.).
If you want to argue that Max’s 0.5% theory is just as physical as the 2.5% theory, Brandon, I’m all ears. (The 2.5% theory is due to David Hofmann late of NCAR Boulder, not me, I’m not a climate scientist, just a logician.)
The length of time over which the 0.5% theory is just as accurate as the 2.5% theory can be inferred from the following five annual rates of growth of total CO2 as estimated by fitting a smooth curve through the Keeling curve.
1958: 0.23%
1995: 0.49%
1996: 0.5%
1997: 0.51%
2011: 0.65%
This blog has a bad habit of shooting its AGW messengers, but I’ll take my chances anyway and deliver the bad news that Max’s non-physical theory is nowhere near as competitive as Ptolemy’s non-physical theory. Fire at will.
Vaughan Pratt:
For me to have ignored a point of yours, you’d have had to have made that point. You didn’t. The comment I responded to had five sentences from you. The first three were what I referred to, and the other two said nothing of any relevance.
Your entire response to me is predicated upon this simple and obvious fabrication. I don’t know what made you say it, but it means your entire response to me is irrelevant. You can say manacker is wrong for as many other reasons as you want, but that won’t change the apparent stupidity of the one reason I commented on.
@Brandon For me to have ignored a point of yours, you’d have had to have made that point. You didn’t.
Brandon, I made that point when I wrote “Max, there is no evidence whatsoever that the various natural sources of CO2 are growing exponentially. It is human population and their technology that has been growing exponentially. If you seriously believe nature decided to crank up CO2 production at the same time as humans, then you are seriously confused about where CO2 comes from.”
What would you call this point if not an objection to a non-physical argument?
When following discussions, Google might be your friend but grep is not.
Vaughan Pratt
I would call it a point made in a different fork and thus not a point made in the response you claimed I ignored a part of. You’ve just claimed I ignored a part of a response because I didn’t consider something you said in a totally different response.
I would call it a point made in a different fork and thus not a point made in the response you claimed I ignored a part of.
Brandon, no one (modulo my remark at the bottom) is being “stupid” here as you claim. You’re running into WordPress’s inability to keep two consecutive comments together, which can be moved far apart as comments between them pile up. This can easily result in the appearance of a “different fork” when none exists, as happened here.
In this case Max responded to my critique of Lindzen’s logic here on 2/28 at 3:58 pm, where among other things he raised his perennial “CO2’s CAGR = 0.5%” claim. He broke off for less than 70 minutes (to attend to something?) and then continued the same claim in a second half, eventually posting it here at 5:08 pm that same day.
During the next several days a great many comments piled up in between, including Pekka’s comment here on March 3, 4 days later. Pekka expressed the same frustration I’ve been feeling with Max’s illogical insistence on a steady 0.5% CAGR from here to 2100 when one can easily see from the Keeling curve that the CAGR of CO2 has itself been rising since its inception. Pekka concluded with “You have argued on this point so many times that it’s almost unbelievable that you have done it being so explicitly and totally wrong.” My feeling precisely, Max flatly ignores the evidence and sticks to his nonsense.
This pile-up in between Max’s two consecutive posts has naturally created the impression of a “different fork.” However it’s easy to tell when two WordPress comments that are separated by dozens of other comments actually belong together: just check their dates and times. Had you done this here you’d have noticed the mere 70-minute gap.
Regarding my abbreviated rebuttal to Max of his perennial CAGR claim, I’m more than happy to spell it out in full when challenged by anyone who hasn’t yet seen the full argument. Which, now that I think of it, might be worth putting somewhere it can be linked to even more easily than giving the abbreviated argument, which as you correctly point out is not 100% rigorous by itself.
Regarding your repeated claims that I’m stupid, rather than repeat the famous line from A Fish Called Wanda whose churlish repetition won Kevin Kline his only Oscar, let me offer a sample dialogue between A and B.
A: I claim P.
B: P is false because of Q.
A: Not so because of R.
B: Oh, but you’ve neglected S.
A: The problem with S is T.
And a slight variant:
A: I claim P.
B: P is stupid because of Q.
A: Not so because of R.
B: Oh, but you’ve stupidly neglected S.
A: The problem with S is T.
At some mental age (5? 6? I don’t know) the listener to such a dialogue switches from thinking A must be stupid to thinking blogger would be a better career choice for B than diplomat.
Would you agree?
@vaughan
‘That’s what’s known as cherry picking’
But can not this rather irrelevant charge be placed at any line whatsoever when one or more of the end-points are arbitrarily chosen?
Why is a trend from 2002 any more ‘cherry picked’ than one from 1793 or 400BC or three weeks ago last Michaelmas Whitsun? Is there some ‘ideal’ length of time over which a trend should be picked? If so what is it, and what is the justification for choosing it.
AFAICT the statement
‘if you pick 2002 as the start year the linear trend is negative (namely a slight -0.09 degrees per decade).’ is true. You need to deal with that bit of the observations just as much as the 10 years before that and before that and before that to show that your theories and models have a real grasp of climate change. Better still, you need to go back to a model run from 15 years ago that actually predicted the cooling trend.
Dismissing a set of observations as ‘cherry picking’ is pretty meaningless IMO.
Latimer Alder, the expression “cherry pick” has a distinct requirement of something being hidden. In other words, a decision is only cherry picking if it changes the results. It doesn’t matter what years you start and end at as long as your conclusions don’t depend on your decision.
In other words, you can start a graph at 1793 or 400BC. It doesn’t matter. Just don’t make conclusions based on when you started it.
@brandon
‘It doesn’t matter what years you start and end at as long as your conclusions don’t depend on your decision.’
???
Very puzzled by this. How could you draw conclusions that aren’t influenced in some way by the data that you choose to include?
A worked example would help my understanding.
Hypothetical example from me. I choose 988BC and have some evidence that the temperature anomaly then was -0.4C Now it is +0.6c. Over 3000 years the rate of increase is 0.003C per decade. Ergo AGW is trivial.
Somebody else picks 1980 as a starting point and comes up with a much greater trend and concludes that CAGW is just around the corner.
Then Girma et all show that since 2002 it is actually cooling.
Which is ‘right’? In each case the conclusions depend on the starting point
Latimer Alder, you say:
The only example you provided which was clearly cherry picking was Girma’s. I believe the first example shows what is causing your confusion. It doesn’t hide any data. Instead, it’s wrong because of the logic it uses. It assumes there was a single linear trend since 988BC, and that’s wrong. It’s bad logic; it’s not hiding data.
If you want to try to figure out if something is cherry picking, here’s a simple process. First, you must be looking at a subset of what’s being analyzed, not the entirety (if everything is there, nothing is being hidden). Second, if you pick a different subset, you must get a notably different answer. That’s all there is to it.
By the way, my initial comment was unclear, and I imagine that’s what caused your confusion Latimer Alder. I apologize for that, and I hope my followup comment was more clear. In case it isn’t, let me try being more clear:
Cherry-picking is when results are gotten by hiding adverse information/data.
Is there some ‘ideal’ length of time over which a trend should be picked? If so what is it, and what is the justification for choosing it.
This is an excellent question, Latimer. I would say that if you are using a 1 foot ruler to measure things, there is an ideal range of lengths for those things, namely between say 1/16 of an inch and 10 feet. Within that range there is no length that is ideal for measurement by a ruler, the ruler is suitable for all lengths in that range.
By the same token if you are trying to measure the slope of a slightly bumpy incline, there is an ideal range of intervals along that slope to measure it at. It should be longer than a couple of bumps, or the measured slope will be meaningless, but at most the length of the entire incline or errors will enter.
Does that seem reasonable?
Recall that my statement was “If you back off to the bigger picture starting from any time between 1970 and 1990 (so as to be sure there’s no cherry picking going on).” Some people seem to be reading it as “If you back off to the bigger picture starting from 1970.”
My point there was that no matter what starting point you pick, as long as the starting point in a reasonable range, in this case 1970 to 1990, you see the same bumpy slope going up from that point, with no apparent indication of any slowdown in the most recent decade. Starting earlier than 1970 is not reasonable because it’s beyond the length of the incline in question. Later than 1990 is too short because there are not enough bumps to get an idea of the slope.
One you have the slope, you can ask how well the curve in question follows the general pattern of the slope. This seems like a somewhat subjective judgment. For example I would say that the BEST curve follows a general pattern along the whole length of any interval starting between 1970 and 1990 and ending in 2012. But being a subjective judgment, others may well disagree.
Nope. still don’t understand.
Example 2 (from 1980) also assumes that there is a single linear trend. But you say that this is wrong to assume for 988BC –> 2011
So why is example 2 (linear trend from 1980) any ‘better’ than assuming two such trends..one up to abut 1998 (warming a bit) , and the other from 1999 onwards (cooling a bit)?
And how would I know – just from first principles – which would be the ‘right’ data subset to look at. For any as yet to be seen set of data.
@vaughan
Since 1999 , say, we have had over 10 ‘bumps’. Why is that not enough to draw the conclusion that there has been no perceptible change over that period?
You seem to have arbitrarily decided that the ‘correct’ range is somewhere between 20 and 40 years. But your justification for this is no better than Girma’s. You accuse her of picking the endpoints to show what she wants…but you do the same.
And I’m always reminded that some climatologits first claimed that you’d need 10 years of no warming to show a trend, then when that occurred it was 15 , now 17. The ‘ideal’ number seems to disappear like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…the nearer you approach, the further away it gets. If there was no warming for 20 years, somebody would claim that a minumum of 25 years was needed. And so it would go. So far you’ve not given me any reason to believe that there is any justification for it at ll.
And though I sort of cotton on to your point about a ruler (You don’t use a micrometer to measure the distance to Venus, nor a telescope to look at individual atoms), I don’t quite see its relevance to this case.
@brandon
‘Cherry-picking is when results are gotten by hiding adverse information/data’
OK. So am I to understand that the famous hokey stick ‘hide the decline’ was just cherry picking, not attempted fraud then?
@Latimer Example 2 (from 1980) also assumes that there is a single linear trend. But you say that this is wrong to assume for 988BC –> 2011
Step away from that portrait of Mona Lisa, Latimer.
Notice how her smile becomes more obvious?
You keep focusing on one tiny detail of the big picture. The big picture is that there was an industrial revolution starting around the beginning of the 19th century, which is part of the argument that the rise in CO2 to 394 ppmv only goes back a couple of hundred years, prior to which CO2 was in the neighborhood of 280-290 ppmv for the past several thousand years, as can be seen from the ice cores.
Your reference to 988BC therefore indicates one of two things:
1. You lack the big picture.
2. You enjoy scoring debating points by focusing on minutiae even though you know they’re irrelevant to the big picture.
This is typical of you, Latimer. All along you’ve been wasting peoples’ time by playing your pointless little games. After a while it gets old. I’ve noted the URL of this comment. In future I’ll respond to your more tendentious responses with a link back to this comment.
Latimer Alder, I think you must have misread what I said:
I never said your second example was “right.” It was wrong for the exact same reason as your first example. I simply didn’t see a point in saying an example that was exactly the same was exactly the same. Applying a linear trend to data that doesn’t have a (single) linear trend is using faulty logic. Sometimes it’s worth doing as a matter of convenience because its simple and may give a reasonable approximation, but it can never give you a “right” answer.
Generally speaking, if you don’t know what data ought to be used, you should use of all of it. You’ll want to exclude data known to be corrupted (like when a temperature reading says the surface is 448 degrees), and you’ll need to keep in mind the differences in data sets, but otherwise, you won’t go wrong by using all the data available.
This question doesn’t make sense. Something can be both “attempted fraud” and “cherry picking.” Labeling something one does not preclude it being the other as well.
In fact, fraud commonly involves intentionally cherry picking things.
@vaughan
I rather resent the remark that these are ‘pointless little games’. Especially since I am still asking the same question that you described as ‘excellent’ a few hours ago.
Many people instinctively and unthinkingly seem to use the phrase ‘cherry picking’ to deride any results or illustrations they find inconvenient. I’m trying to find out whether there is any actual theoretical substance to such claims. And so far I’m inclined to the conclusion that there isn’t. That ‘cherry picking’ is just a substitute for ‘I don’t want to know’.
Because while you deride my 3000 year example and dislike Girma’s 10 years, you are happy with 20-40 years as a good interval. But why? What makes this a better interval than 60 years? Or 17? Or any other arbitrary number you care to mention?
Let me ask the question another way. If I were given a time series of data (immaterial what the data represents) which had 1000 data points, what interval would you recommend to analyse as being the ideal for showing trends? And how do you decide on that interval? Would your number change if there were 10,000 points? Or 100? Is there a general formula?
BTW .. not a good idea to argue about CO2 levels when anaysing temperatures and intervals to show trends. Starts to smack of you having predetermined that because there is CO2 around there must still be warming so the answer must be long enough to show it. Which would almost exactly confirm my point about cherry picking ..that it is the shout of those who find the results inconvenient.
I rather resent the remark that these are ‘pointless little games’. Especially since I am still asking the same question that you described as ‘excellent’ a few hours ago.
Nice exercise for a philosophy class: what is wrong with this reasoning? ;)
Vaughan Pratt
…tired old Girma-Bryant argument …
Please tell me how to make the data [ http://bit.ly/wzkYvi ] NEW?
I thought the observed temperature in the past does not change.
Girma –
“Vaughan Pratt …tired old Girma-Bryant argument … Please tell me how to make the data [ http://bit.ly/wzkYvi ] NEW? I thought the observed temperature in the past does not change.”
I’ve seen at least two posts at WUWT or CA pointing out that the Hockey Team has adjusted the temps again – and every time the recent past is adjusted UP, while the longer ago (read: more or less pre-1950) past is adjusted DOWN, conveniently increasing the slope of their straight-line regression. It might have been as many as four times, but I am not sure.
Steve Garcia
But is it possible to have a model without thereby having an implicit theory ?
But is it possible to have a model without thereby having an implicit theory ?
Excellent point. If you take what’s true of that model as your theory, then no because that’s the theory entailed by the model.
This remains true even when contemplating multiple models. In that case the implicit theory is that which is true of all those models (equivalently the intersection over all those models of the theory of each).
AGW => “I can do well on exams if you could give me the answers.”
Dear Judith,
With respect to you, and all your readers, I was there. In an attempt to address one of the many misrepresentations or omissions of relevant facts, i was prevented from actually asking a question. However, Professor Lindzen graciously invited me to email my questions. He got more than he expected and he did not like it. However, despite being warned by him not to publish my email, I have done so – and would hereby invite him to sue me. However, he will not sue me – nor will he answer my questions – I suspect; because to do either would expose to the world the extent to which his scientific objectivity has been clouded by ideological prejudice.
If you and your readers cannot be bothered to work your way through the 1800-word email (linked to above), tomorrow I will publish a list of 17 simple statements, to which I have also invited Professor Lindzen to respond to as well but – in all probability – he will not do this either; for the same reason as above.
If Lindzen wants to sue somebody, he should sue Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway for publishing Merchants of Doubt.
In the interests of the integrity of science, I hope you will not delete this comment.
Kind regards,
Martin Lack
Martin Lack, in your email you wrote this: Are you not worried at all by the fact that, due to the massive inertia in the climate system, more warming is already “in the pipeline”?
Surely you understand that warming already “in the pipeline” is an assertion, or hypothesis, not a “fact”? And even if it’s true, the amount of warming isn’t reliably known? And that the duration of the hypothesized warming is also not known but may be 2,000 to 4000 years if it occurs at all?
Could you quote Dr Lindzen’s “warning” not to publish?
Why, are you going to sue me for not saying “extremely high probability” instead? With ice caps and glaciers melting, permafrost thawing, sea ice disappearing – you have to be a complete fool to deny that more warming is “in the pipeline”. This will happen even if we all stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow.
Of course, Martin believes that James Hansen’s climate sensitivity claim of 6 C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 is “settled” when really it is more of a fringe view.
Martin Lack: Why, are you going to sue me for not saying “extremely high probability” instead?
Is that the way you always respond when someone points out that what you wrote is technically incorrect? “Extremely high probability” is also not a “fact”, though it may be your best judgment.
So far, all you have established is that Prof Lindzen has declined to reply to a poorly worded email.
I am sorry, MattStat but I was getting very irritated by John Kosowski. He has been plaguing my blog for almost a month now – going off topic and accusing me of lying all the time Therefore, his repetitive attempts to try and get me to incriminate myself here were just driving me mad. However, that was no excuse to take it out on you.
This chap seems awfully keen that somebody – anybody – should sue him. Can anyone oblige? First that funny little Craven guy, then Glieck, and now this cove, hurling themselves up Heartbreak Hill, against a hail of withering fire from solid, well-defended denialist positions, yelling Banzai for the naked Emperor!
My,these people are getting desperate…
Glancing over your letter it occurs to me that we should talk fundamentals. Remember the scientific method, (Popper) scientific theories can never be proven but they can be falsified. If you fail to falsify it, the theory may be right. So proving a hypothesis or theory is all about attempting to falsify it. So the hypothesis/theory about greenhouse effect with positive feedback, accumulates in the prediction of the tropical hotspot around 200 HPa and it’s not there. Therefore that assumption is all but falsified and if you think that it is Lindzen idea, just look what the ‘team’ has to say about it:
http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=1889
Quoting: “You’ll be unsurprised to hear that I think this paints too rosy a picture of our understanding the vertical structure of temperature changes. Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest.”
So if you got the data right and the prediction turns out to be false, you just lost your theory. Sure it takes a while to part ( explained by Thomas Kuhn – The structure of scientific revolutions) but that doesn’t change a thing.
So then you can ponder about Snowball earth, the PETM, the Pleistocene, Venus, all you want, but you can’t repair a failed theory with mere hypotheses based on that same idea.
Things are just a lot more different than we think. Don’t blame Lindzen for that.
Martin- why misrepresent what happened..
You initially asked a very long question… publically..
which was discussed/answered.
And then later on you attempted to ask another long question, the chair cut you off, because others wanted to ask questions, and their was another meeting in the room straight afterwards. Ljmited time for questions.
You asked more questions than I did.
And the guy next to me did not really understand what your 1st question was..
Hi Barry, There are a number of errors in your recollection of events:
1. Frustrated by Lindzen’s misleading discussion of palaeoclimatology, I attempted to make the point that CO2/temp time proves nothing. We now have a problem because we have changed CO2 – temp must now change to restore radiative energy imbalance.
2. As I have indeed conceded to Lord Monckton on Simon Carr’s blog, it was understandable that the Chair would cut me off (especially as I was off-message).
3. Neither you nor anyone else knows what my second question would have been as I was not allowed to ask it (but for the record it was less than 15 words).
Do you think the guy next to you would understand now?
Martin,
Your inertia question sort of reduced you to a crank.
Think of Lindzen’s warning as more of a helpful suggestion.
It still looks like what you choose to believe, not what is scientifically verified.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-do-you-choose-to-believe.html
Was there a global Medieval Warm Period? Was there a global Little Ice Age? Is there significant land use impact? Is CO2 the primary suspect?
Other the warming that can be directly attribute to CO2 is less than “projected”, it has been warming for at least 200 years and no one should have any confidence in any one cause, there is not much left but “belief” in your pet theory.
Mine is still agriculture and albedo BTW :)
Martin,
What are Lindzen’s misrepresentations? I read your letter, and it is a simple battle of ideology, which, of course, you are entitled to. But where is Lindzen not telling the truth? Let’s list them out one by one so that we can really find the truth here.
As I am sure you actually realise, John, the misrepresentations of relevant facts are itemised in my questions. As I have said, for those with ADHD, I will publish a list of 17 statements that Lindzen would appear to want to dispute. However, if he does, he is not only at odds with just about every climate scientist on the planet (apart from Pat Michaels and Roy Spencer – oh and the good Dr Curry herself – it would seem), he is picking a fight with history and science. Unfortunately, it is not just Lindzen that will lose, we will all lose. That is why this corporately-sponsored campaign to deny the reality of ACD must be stopped now.
No need for name calling Martin. You state there are numerous misrepresentations. List them right here and now. Issues that Lindzen disputes has nothing to do with misrepresentations. You stated “many misrepresentations.” If there are many, certainly you ought to be able to list a few of them.
In my humble opinion, the most blatantly hypocritical aspect to the presentation Lindzen gave was in the use of graphs. He claimed that “warmists” stretch the axes of graphs to make thing look more “alarming” than they actually are. However, he then used exactly the same technique to make the Keeling ‘curve’ appear not to correlate with temperature records over the short-term.
As I said, this was just one of my many questions. Shall I now expect a Court Summons in the post? Somehow, I don’t think so…
Martin,
With which graph do you take issue? Which page of the pdf?
Thanks.
This conversation is over, John… I stand by every word in my email (i.e. as posted on my blog today). I was very careful not to accuse Prof. Lindzen of lying. You can tell the truth (or at least believe you are telling the truth) and still, irrespective of your intent, mislead people and/or leave out relevant information that does not support your argument. The questions I posed to Professor Lindzen all arise from what he said (or did not say); and most people would have gone away from his talk more certain than ever that there is no cause for alarm. Indeed the did; and they continue to do so. It was all very clever, but that does not make it right.
The seventeen statement that will appear on my blog tomorrow, each one derived from a question posed today, all reflect the genuine scientific consensus position; and therefore demonstrate how completely at odds with that consensus Lindzen is.
Given that modern-day “sceptics” are not like Galileo, Occam’s Razor dictates that Lindzen is almost certainly wrong and, if he is, our collective failure to take mitigating action to minimise ACD will almost certainly prove to be very unpleasant.
Martin Lack | February 28, 2012 at 10:22 am |
In my humble opinion,…..
Martin, there’s nothing humble about your opinion
No Martin, the conversation is not over. It is just getting started. You accuse Lindzen of “many misrepresentations.” Those are your words above. Certainly if you are accusing him of misrepresenting facts, you ought to be able to list them. Since you aren’t I am going to assume that you can’t. And it is pretty strange that when questioned on it, you refuse to elaborate.
Who the hell do you think you are, John? Have you now morphed into Lindzen’s lawyer? I think it would be evident to the entire world that Lindzen can defend himself. For your information, however, to put your sound-byte back into context, I said “one of the many misrepresentations or omissions of relevant facts“.
I’m sorry, mate, but, as has been repeatedly shown to be the case on my own blog, you’ve picked a fight with the wrong guy.
“As I am sure you actually realise, John, the misrepresentations of relevant facts are itemised in my questions.”
Who am I? I am the guy that holds you accountable when you don’t tell the truth. What are Lindzen’s “misrepresentations.”
Unlike your blog where you can delete my posts, and even your posts when I prove you wrong, you can’t delete my posts here.
To be honest, I don’t even know whether Lindzen was misrepresenting facts. I just know that you accused him of such, so I wanted to find out the truth. So Martin, put up or shut up. What are Lindzen’s misrepresentations?
This is not a game, John. My email explains where I feel Lindzen is misleading people. Whether or not he intends it is immaterial (and I have very pointedly not accused him of doing it deliberately), it remains highly likely that that is the effect he is having on an awful lot of people.
As I said, for those who cannot be bothered to read my long email, my post on my blog tomorrow will detail 17 different ways in which Lindzen is at odds with the consensus view of ACD.
Martin,
There is a big difference between Lindzen being at odds with a “consensus” view and misrepresenting material facts. Accusing someone of misrepresentation is no game indeed. Perhaps you should retract your accusation, and just proceed on the grounds that you think Lindzen is wrong.
John, this is absolutely the last response I am going to make to you today on this site so, read it very carefully. I have said 2 or 3 times (may be more) that I am not accusing Lindzen of willfully misleading people. Therefore, if it will stop you from wetting your trousers, I will gladly apologise for the one statement that you have quoted, which, on its own, might have been capable of being construed to indicate otherwise.
Martin,
You come across as a typical AGW extremist- iow a pedantic twit.
Martin,
How about those of us afflicted with MLAD?
(Martin Lack Attention Deficit ) – as in paying attention to you is difficult.
There is a Lack of substance to Martin’s yammering.
Brilliant :)
Mr Lack did seem somewhat blinded by his own genius. Still I suppose the dimmest bulb will dazzle if you are close enough.
Thank you, Mr. Eddy. And you are correct. It does seem that the great (in his mind), Lord Martin Lack, is suffering from a scorching self-illumination.
John Kosowski and Martin Lack
There are no “misrepresentations” in Lindzen’s presentation. It is all pretty straightforward.
Vaughan Pratt has attempted to find such “misrepresentation” in his critique above [February 28, 2012 at 5:29 am].
This critique is very weak and ill-founded. I have rebutted it item-by-item [February 28, 2012 at 3:58 pm], refuting all his claims of “misrepresentation”.
Dr. Curry has stated above that Lindzen’s slides were compelling and that this “may be the most effective seminar he has given on Global Warming”
Dr Curry’s right on this one; Dr. Pratt is wrong.
Max.
Agreed. So far I have not seen anyone cite a “misrepresentation” contained in Linzden’s presentation. That is why I asked Lack for specifics which, of course, he could not provide.
Sorry for the delay, John. I ran into an unexpected obstacle.
If you accept my earlier apology, and you accept that I have not accused Lindzen of saying anything he knows to be untrue, the fact remains that a great deal of what he said would have – indeed clearly has – been very readily misunderstood by a generally non-scientific audience.
Now then, to the unexpected obstacle, you asked me for an example of something that was potentially – not necessarily deliberately – misleading. In response, I cited the Keeling curve versus Temperature data; and you asked me which slide that was in the PDF. OK, well, I went to the PDF, and the offending slide is “missing”. I checked the May 2010 version of the talk; and it’s not in there either. So I watched the video embedded in this blog earlier; and there it is – at about 28 minutes and 30 seconds.
Both the video and a screenshot of the “missing” slide are now appended to the relevant post on my blog. Therefore, even if Lindzen is not deliberately misleading anyone, he is clearly guilty of hypocrisy – which is what I very politely suggested in my original email to him last Thursday.
How does that grab you?
Martin,
So you are saying that you don’t like the graph that he chose because the units of CO2 concentration can be stretched to make the graph line up however the presenter chooses?
And that makes Lindzen a hypocrite because he criticized doing that to make .2 C look significant?
Do you have a more appropriate graph of CO2 and temperature that we should be viewing?
Do you know why the graph was dropped?
This critique is very weak and ill-founded. I have rebutted it item-by-item [February 28, 2012 at 3:58 pm], refuting all his claims of “misrepresentation”.
Max, I conceded that your rebuttal of my second item was correct in view of Lindzen’s specific wording of “global,” which I’d overlooked. However I pointed out the errors in each of your other three rebuttals, which you have yet to show are not errors.
This has been a pattern with you. You say things that anyone can see are false, for example your claim that CO2 increases at .5%/year, which would entail the impossible result that 200 years ago CO2 would have been at 145 ppm. Your response is to ignore the objections and continue to repeat evident nonsense.
“You come across as… a pedantic twit”
Nope, not pedantic, hunter: I was just trying to be careful what I said.
How about just trying to be concise??
Drop all the lengthy stuff about how clever you are and how you are going to smite the deniers and all that BSand just focus on clearly stating what you think Lindzen did wrong.
Example
1. Lindzen stated x on slide y. This is wrong because of
fact1 (with reference)
fact2 (with reference)
fact3 (with reference)
I have criticised Lindzen before for over-ponderous delivery but at least he eventually gets to the point.
Because if you can’t manage this simple stuff, I fear I will be obliged to agree with Hunter.
See if you can do this
What is the matter with you people. I have not actually accused Lindzen of doing anything “wrong”. I just wnat him to explain to me why he says what he says (and omits to say so much). I realise know that my email was too long (but it is not my fault his talk was so readily-capable of being misunderstood by non-scientists). That is why I have now reduced my questions to 17 simple statements. Lindzen would do the world a great service if he wold just tell us all which, if any he agrees with:
The IPCC is too optimistic.
2. Holocene climatic stability is now endangered.
3. The ‘marketplace of ideas’ is a fallacy.
4. The notion of a scientific conspiracy is an illusion.
5. Some of your (Lindzen’s) graphs were potentially misleading.
6. Given (2), post-Industrial temperature rise is significant.
7. Given the inertia in the system, more warming is ‘in the pipeline’.
8. Sceptics are always ‘going down the up escalator’.
9. Therefore ‘global warming’ did not stop in 1998 (or at any other time).
10. Neither the Sun nor volcanoes are now the dominant climate forcing.
11. As CO2 is the only thing to have changed significantly, this is a ‘fair test’.
12. ACD is inevitable because the Earth’s energy balance must be restored.
13. Soon we will have to re-name the Glacier National Park in Montana.
14. It would be sensible to move to a low/zero carbon economy ASAP.
15. Environmental concern is based on palaeoclimatology not models.
16. Climate “sceptics” are not like Galileo.
17. Environmentalism is not the enemy of humanity.
However, if, as I suspect, he agrees with none of the above, then he must stop invoking conspiracy theory and give us some evidence.
Martin Lack, I have a bit of advice for you. One of the worst ways you can try to get someone to listen to you is to start off by saying, “What’s the matter with you?” All it adds is mockery. As for your actual material, I find it peculiar you say you were “just trying to be careful” with what you said. Much of what you say seems to indicate the exact opposite. For example, you claim:
Yet just above you say:
Misleading people and hypocrisy are both “wrong.” The only way to have these two comments not contradict is to claim being a hypocrite doesn’t count as doing something. Even if one accepts that claim is true (it isn’t), your wording does nothing to indicate it. The same problem is found in some of the 17 points you listed:
Your 8 is asking Lindzen whether or not he agrees with a gross and derogatory generalization, but that isn’t what I want to focus on. Your point 9 actually says that since skeptics are always blah, blah, blah, global warming did not stop in 1998. That makes no sense at all. What temperatures do is not connected to what skeptics may or may not do. You also say:
This point has a false premise as CO2 is not “the only thing to have changed significantly.” Unless you were just trying to catch Lindzen in some stupid, deceptive rhetorical trick, this line is horrible.
I’m sure skeptics are like Galileo in many ways, just like everyone shares many similarities with others. You’re asking him to agree or disagree with a comment which is too vague to be meaningful. And that ignores the fact you don’t know the truth about Galileo, but instead rely on some pretty picture myth of him.
For the shortened version, you really need to work on clear and simple communication.
No-one is perfect – hypocrites included.
40% change in CO2 is significant; nothing else has changed. I think my statement was entirely legitimate.
Why won’t you deal with the implications of Lindzen being mistaken; after all – he is in an extreme minority.
Martin Lack, you say:
Brandon, I’m sorry but, I can’t see where you contradicted me: What else apart from atmospheric CO2 concentrations has changed significantly (i.e. steadily) – increasing by 40% – since the Industrial Revolution?
For “scepticism” to be worthy of any merit, you must have an alternative hypothesis capable of explaining all the change that has occurred since then; and is now accelerating ahead of IPCC predictions.
When in a hole, we should stop digging – All the evidence indicates that CO2 is the dominant cause of ongoing warming (which has not stopped – see the “still going down the up escalator” animated graph on the SkepticalScience website – I’m fed up posting links to it so you will just have to find it) . Therefore, now that we know that burning fossil fuels is causing the problem, we should stop doing it ASAP.
Your “wait and see” attitude is just simply irrational.
Even more ‘Wow’
Since when, and by whose authority, were you appointed as the Grand Inquisitor of AGW? Sent to cleanse us heretics from any non-conforming thoughts, and perhaps to purge our Souls as well.
Suggest that you condense your 17 points down to 5 or fewer, and then it might be possible to have a rational debate.
Otherwise you are beginning to sound like some religious doomsday prophet with fixed ideas (Because It Is Written by the IPCC!) and a vision of an imminent Climate Armageddon rather than anybody with sensible points to make.
And your serial concentration on yourself as the topic of conversation is not a good sign for your persuasive skills.
Martin Lack, when you stop making things up about me, we can maybe have a discussion. Until then, this is my last response to you:
First, “significantly” and “steadily” are not interchangeable. Your parenthetical here is nonsensical. Second, it’s extremely easy to find sources discussing such, but if you need help, try this link I provided elsewhere on this page. You’ll quickly see many different things have changed, not just CO2, and it’s only by considering the combined effects of all these things we can hope to reach any sensible conclusion.
The part I made bold is dumbfounding. I don’t know what makes you think it’s true, but to me, the most likely source seems to be someone’s delusions.
This is either a horribly phrased comment, or a completely idiotic one. I’ll leave it to you, and other readers, to figure out which.
You have no way of possibly knowing that is my attitude toward global warming, yet you not only attribute it to me, you deride me over it. I have no idea why you did such, but it makes talking to you completely unappealing. At the point you flagrantly make things up about me, I have no reason to trust anything you say about anything else. If you can’t get the obvious right, how could I expect you to get anything else right?
Martin,
If you are wrong about the coming “mass extinction event” and are successful in banning the use of fossil fuels, you will be the enemy of humanity just like Rachel Carson was an enemy of humanity for her “work” on getting DDT banned.
One very successful part of Linzden’s talk was his characterization of alarmists like you. You appeal to “consensus,” but you don’t know what the “consensus” is. Or perhaps you know, but are misleading people. Hansen’s 6C is not consensus. He is a contrarian.
His 6C climate sensitivity is purely circular. In his 1988 paper, which I have already cited to you, he puts a sensitivity into his model that would explain the previous warming. He comes right out and admits it. And, there is nothing wrong with doing that. But, then he runs the model, is not accurate over 20 years, and changes the model to make it accurate. And, the big “proof” for CO2 being the driver is “nothing else can explain the warming.”
Then, of course, reality still isn’t matching the models, so we have to come up with other explanations besides, of course, the sensitivity being too high. Aerosols, that is it.
And, Martin, how do Hansen’s grandchildren feel about him jetting all over the globe on $26,000 vacations collecting $500,000 “prizes?”
Perhaps. The notion of a scientific corruption, however, is anything but an illusion. Scientists, like anyone else, serve the interests of their paymasters – climate science being science in the pay of politics, and therefore in the service of politics. Exactly like tobacco company scientists worked in the interests of their employer.
Martin,
Disagreeing with you is not misrepresentation.
Who should we listen to, an internet expert or a professor?
Experts perform worse over the long term than the man in the street. The reason is simple. The experts assumes he knows the answer, even when he doesn’t, simply because he is an expert. The man in the street has the good sense to recognize that what we don’t know is inherently unpredictable.
Experts are misled because they assume they know all there is to know on a subject, and anything they don’t know must have a relatively minor effect. History tells us the opposite. Today’s scientists will be considered no different that superstitious, dark age alchemists 1000 years from now.
Today’s scientists will be considered no different that superstitious, dark age alchemists 1000 years from now.
You appear to be laboring under the delusion that prior to the last few centuries all scientists were alchemists.
As undergraduates we were obliged to take a course in the history of science. We didn’t see the point at the time. In retrospect it’s clear they should have shocked us into reality by holding up fred berple as a example of what we would turn into without that course.
ferd berple
The “man in the street” is more likely to get a prediction right than the “expert” for exactly the reason you have stated.
Nassim Talbeb covers precisely this point in his The Black Swan
[Vaughan Pratt has very likely not read this book yet.]
Max
I think that C02 as any other minor gas N02, O2 etc, has absolutely NO effect on global temperatures in the atmosphere. All excessive heat potentially produced by an theoretical “excess” in the greenhouse is lost to space through equatorial regions if I recall re Spencer et al. C02 has been literally miles higher during glaciation periods.
Rogelio,
That would be wrong. CO2 does have an effect. It is is small, all things being equal.
Taking just one assertion from Professor Lindzen’s presentation (Page 11 of the PDF): “As Phil Jones acknowledged, there has been no statistically significant warming in 15 years.”
To which 15 years does he refer? Could it be the 15 years from 1995 to 2010? If so, Peter Sinclair explains (to those who would listen) why reference to the ‘no statistally significant warming’ statement is disingenuous.
I’m sorry, I should have said ‘the 15 years from 1995 to 2009’ (in which global warming was statistically significant at the 90% confidence level). Warming in the 16 years from 1995 to 2010 was statistically significant at the 95% level. Silly me.
B – Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Jones: Yes, but only just.
You seem a little confused about what Jones did say in that interview.
No, P. Solar, I am not confused. I suggest you read what I wrote, and then follow the link I offer you before trying to continue the ‘discussion’.
Pendantry,
This is the Phil Jones interview:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm#
Yes, John, I know it is. It’s linked from the Crock of the Week page I linked. If you can’t read what I write, I see no point in continuing the ‘discussion’.
Pendantry,
You asked a question, I answered it accurately. If you don’t want an accurate answer, don’t ask.
You are clearly unable to recognise a rhetorical question.
I think that the statement of Phil Jones was indeed silly. In making that he was referring to a simplistic statistical trend analysis based on a model of stochasticity that is definitely wrong.
There are two ways of approaching the trend logically correctly. One is to just check, whether the temperature has risen. If it has that’s true without question of statistical significance (the influence of empirical errors should, however be considered). The other is to define a full model that has one parameter based on trend and that describes also the stochastic properties and other possible non-stochastic parameters and functional forms. Such a model can be used to test the statistical significance of observed warming assuming validity of the model. The intermediate approach of simplistic trend analysis is not justifiable.
By my comment I don’t want to say anything specific about the warming. The only thing that I want to point out is that statistical significance is misused all the time and that that particular comment of Phil Jones was a very bad example of the incorrect use of statistical significance.
While his comment was stupid, many references to that contain outright misinterpretations and are much worse. Lindzen’s quote is not particularly wise either.
I think it’s unfair to claim that Phil Jones comment was ‘silly’. He was giving a truthful answer to a question deliberately slanted such that the answer would be misleading – if you follow the link I provided you will see this explained very clearly.
My point is that discussing statistical significance in such a way is so far from really meaningful that scientists should say that clearly. Jones gave wrong evidence about the use of statistical methods when he discussed the significance of the length of the period.
I don’t consider it a valid justification that many people have learned, how Excel calculates error ranges. A scientist who has used extensively statistical methods should not join in presenting conclusions based on such false practices.
Pekka Pirilä
You think the Phil Jones statements during his interview by Roger Harrabin two years ago were “silly” or even “stupid”..
I disagree. IMO they were about the only statements made by Jones that were truthful, caught, as it were, in a weak moment when he had just been exposed by Climategate.
In particular there was his concession that the early 20th century warming period (before there was much human CO2) and the late 20th century warming period (IPCC’s “poster period” for AGW, when there was several times as much human CO2) were “statistically indistinguishable”.
I do not call that a “silly” or “stupid” statement – do you?
Max
Max,
You must have seen my most recent comment on those periods.
(On the other hand I don’t understand why you protest my above comment on Jones’ statement. I would have expected that you applaud it. Perhaps you didn’t understand it.)
Ah, but is Jones sillier than Max?
Let not your right brain know how silly it looks to your left brain.
David Wojick remarked yesterday BEST says something like 30% of stations show cooling. So it is not as though temp is simply being caused to go up.
Since it appears that the distribution of these stations are disproportionately not rural (at least in the USA which is about 95% rural by land are in the lower 48), I wonder whether these 30% are rural? Or, whether a large part of them are?
The problem with rural/urban dichotomy is that it’s too simplistic. UHI is a misnomer, implying that only urban stations show local warming effect. Many rural stations have experienced local warming, some probably more than some urban ones. The correct name for this effect should be local anthropogenic warming (LGW).
Only the best stations (no changes, as far as possible from human influence…) should be used to make a new global temperature index, without any adjusting. Long term is not really necessary – even the last 30 years would be something. Longer is of course better. It could be started with only ~20 absolutely best stations or so and consequently extended. Temperature measurements from non-meteorogical sources would be intersting too.
Hey, Philip, would that be the same David Wojick that has been engaged by the Heartland Institute to… “prevent science teachers teaching science”?
Martin Lack, your comment is absurd beyond words.
No. Nobody has been engaged to undertake that task, so your question is dumb.
What BEST failed to consider is “rate of change”. A rural site that had 1 person one year and 1000 people the next is still rural. However, the change in land use will be much larger than a city that had 1,000,000 people one year and 1,100,000 the next.
Global land use by humans over the past 150 years has gone from 4% of the land surface to 40%. That is the real effect of fossil fuels. They provide the energy that has made this possible.
Land use impact is definitely underestimated. Since CO2 amplifies land use, it is easy for the gas fanatics to point their fingers at their favorite “cause”, but the reality is that much of the climate change is albedo change from the little ice age recovery and increased agriculture. Neither of those are villains though. “Causes” need villains.
I should add that a fair amount of the warming is spurious. The poor instrumental coverage in the Antarctic seems to be smearing temperatures in the surface station based global temperature average.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/polesandtropics.png
RSS seems to agree with the reduced SSTs much better than GISS.
Granted all you say about rural growth in population, if a lower 48 temperature stations were located in NY City, nobody would accept the measurement as indicative of US 48 states. The bias would be too evident.
Bias in station location is pretty evident in that rural stations are underrepresented in temperature anomaly calculation. That there are other problems which need addressing in no way reduces the importance of this one.
But also, if you are trying to tease out the greenhouse gas signal in the noise created by population and city create temperature, a differencing might between selected rural and other stations might expose the diffuse gas contribution by allowing the city (at essentially points) to eliminated. By a similar process, other land use effects might be isolated. Bur first, you need some pristine rural stations of sufficient density in the country (maybe in National Parks and other sparsely populated areas).
It seems to me that the temperature measurement program is being processed by people trying to rational altering the data as a substitute for good well thought-out measurements. I would be more impressed by 100 well placed and carefully considered stations than the 6000+ requiring magic processing we now use.
More sicentists heading the exit from the AGW alarmism stage:
“http://thegwpf.org/the-climate-record/5086-michael-kelly-models-over-egged-to-produce-alarm.html”
The guy has “form”. He was one of the WSJ sixteen for goodness sake.
This means nothing. Conspiracy theory is history for the losers.
Bad luck, you lost.
http://www.desmogblog.com/michael-kelly
I lost? What a hoot. And you are are referring to desmog blog which endorses theiving and fraud? Why would you want to be associated with that?
As to Prof. Kelly, I see no reason to not find his opinion, like that of Dr. Curry or Drl Lindzen, credible.
As to you, associating with demsog blog hurts your credibility quite a bit.
Martin,
If the purpose of desmogblog was to “debunk” Dr Kelly’s qualifications on the topic, they’ve once again succeeded in showing their lack of competence. (Note: I am not exactly sure what their purpose of posting his bio was & if I have made a wrong assumption, my apolgies.) Based on what they have posted, Dr Kelly looks every bit as qualified as those who signed the response to the original WSJ letter.
What is with this win / lose, try and sue me attitude? It is not only hard to understand, but a bit off putting.
Well now, hunter, that too is very hypocritical.
At least I have not allied myself with a business elite who have a track record of denying environmental problems – and thereby not acting in the public interest – that stretches back decades.
All desmogblog did was publish what Peter Gleick gave them – a bit like James Delingpole and Anthony Watts did with all the data-mined and cherry-picked emails that fell into their laps (although some appeared to get lost on its way to them for exactly two years).
And, for the record, all Peter Gleick did was what any self-respecting investigative journalist would have done in those circumstances. Isn’t it amazing what lapses of professional ethics can result from fighting an anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, obscurantist, business-led campaign to deny the reality of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD).
Martin, No, it is not hypocritical to point out that desmog blog is backing a crook.
HI is not a business elite. Nor do they do deny enviro problems. They question, legally and properly, extreme views on certain issues by true believers like you.
You are apparently our newest troll. We have had better.
Martin,
The ethics you describe are usually referred to as situational ethics. As in, if the situation is that business or industry is working towards an objective you don’t agree with, then actions taken by them are unethical.
However if the situation involves environmental organizations working towards objectives you agree with, than any means they utilize are justified.
I believe this is the Michael Kelly who as member of the Oxburgh Committee, wrote:
“(i) I take real exception to having simulation runs described as experiments (without at least
the qualification of ‘computer’ experiments). It does a disservice to centuries of real
experimentation and allows simulations output to be considered as real data. This last is a
very serious matter, as it can lead to the idea that real ‘real data’ might be wrong simply
because it disagrees with the models! That is turning centuries of science on its head.”
He concludes with
“My overall sympathy is with Ernest Rutherford: “If your experiment needs statistics, you
ought to have done a better experiment.””
So his latest utterance should come as no surprise.
I find your comments fascinating for this reason. Although labels are not always helpful, I have always self-identified myself as a “sceptic”. Yet I find myself pretty much agreeing with all your comments to Lindzen’s presentation.
So does that mean you, Judith Curry, are also a sceptic? Or does in mean that my views align with what– the views of a borderline mainstream/ borderline renegade climate scientist?
In my mind, an interesting question.
Just when you think you are safe from the ‘climate science’ contamination, we find that neuroscience is in danger of falling into the same trap.
Henry Markram wants US$1.3 billion, over a decade, to develop a computer simulation of a human brain.
Not as if US$1.3 billion, over a decade, would be useful for studying neuro-degenerative diseases or gerontology or anything.
http://www.nature.com/news/computer-modelling-brain-in-a-box-1.10066
Vaughan Pratt
I think by now Girma that everyone has figured out (thanks to you’re constantly pointing it out) that if you pick 2002 as the start year the linear trend is negative (namely a slight -0.09 degrees per decade). That’s what’s known as cherry picking.
Why do you AGW advocates love to take year 1970 as the starting year of trend calculation?
If you had taken 1910 as the starting of your trend calculation, here is what you would predict for the 2000s => http://bit.ly/AzPRzZ
Clearly, taking 1910 as the starting year of trend calculation is wrong. So is 1970!
The correct method is to use a band that includes almost ALL (96% = 156/162*100%) of the data as shown => http://bit.ly/wzkYvi
You need the band to envelope the multidecadal oscillation of about 0.5 deg C, which is the width of the band.
As 96% of the data since 1850 is within this band, it is reasonable to assume the data for the next decade will also be enclosed within the extension of that band.
Girma
You and Vaughan Pratt are discussing “cherry-picking”.
For a beautiful example see (IPCC AR4 WG1 Ch.3 FAQ 3.1, Figure 1:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3221/2534926749_f2be35e86f_o.jpg
Max
Max, which end of the trend lines in your “beautiful example” is being cherry-picked?
Since picking “now” is hardly cherry picking, you must mean the left end.
But that’s simply showing snapshots of a single left end as it moves from left to right, making the point that the slope of the trend line fitted to the last n years increases monotonically with decreasing n. How is that cherry-picking?
Indirectly however you may have made a fair criticism of the IPCC report, that in some, perhaps many, places it seems to be written for scientists rather than the nonscientists it was intended to serve. In this case replacing this very confusing graph with a single moving line (or a graph of slope against n for the printed page) would have conveyed the point far more clearly.
This sort of thing may be a fundamental flaw in the whole conception of the IPCC report as a direct channel from the experts to the public.
For best effect in any area of science, the task of explaining the science is customarily delegated to those experts in exposition who also have at least some grasp of the science in question, ideally an excellent or even deep one, though clarity of exposition should take precedence over depth of understanding.
For the IPCC report that prioritization may have been reversed. Alert Edward Tufte! On page 21 of these reviews of “Best Practice Approaches for Characterizing, Communicating, and Incorporating Scientific Uncertainty in Climate Decision Making”. we read “Chapter 9, Page 145, Line 3010: The idea of plotting the cdf and the pdf on the same scale is not helpful. Overall, in this entire section, there is a lack of acknowledgement of any of Tufte’s recommendations, or Cleveland’s perception experiments, or Dan Carr’s work on government statistics displays. The graphical recommendations are not anywhere near what modern statistical graphics methodology would suggest.”
Too many scientists spoil the plot.
Why do you AGW advocates love to take year 1970 as the starting year of trend calculation?
Girma, you may have minsunderstood me when I wrote “If you back off to the bigger picture starting from any time between 1970 and 1990 (so as to be sure there’s no cherry picking going on)” I didn’t mean that the interval in question was 1970 to 1990, but that , with an ending year of now, the starting year is immaterial just so long as it’s not too early or too late. It should be obvious that, beyond a certain point, the earlier you make the starting year the less the slope, and there is no limit to how small the slope can be made in that way.
It should also be obvious that if the slope has bumps then you will get misleading readings when the starting point is less than a couple of bumps from the end.
No matter what starting point you pick, as long as it is within the range of 1970 to 1990, chosen to avoid the above extremes that give wrong answers, you will get a single consistent answer by recognizing the regular pattern of bumps in the temperature curve .
pedantry
I get the feeling that you’re waffling.
The past 14 years (1998-2011) have shown no (statistically significant) global warming trend.
The past 10 years (2002-2011) have shown a slight global cooling trend (which may or may not be statistically significant).
This is based on the HadCRUT3 land and sea surface temperature anomaly.
In his Harriban interview two years ago Phil Jones was asked:
To which he answered:
I think we can all agree that “it has stopped warming for now”, i.e. that the rapid rate of global warming seen in the 1980s and 1990s has ceased for now).
And that is the main point here.
What will happen over the next few decades is anyone’s guess. I think we have seen evidence that IPCC’s guess (or “projection”) is as good (or bad) as anyone else’s, and that, therefore IPCC’s projection for the next several decades can be taken with a large grain of salt.
Max
Max
What will happen over the next few decades is anyone’s guess.
I argue that the global warming rate for the next decade cannot exceed about 0.06 deg C per decade.
As 96% of the data since 1850 is within a band (http://bit.ly/wzkYvi), it is reasonable to assume the data for the next decade will also be enclosed within the extension of this band. The trend for the band is 0.06 deg C per decade.
That must be weakest argument I have read for some time.
Pekka
If you believe my argument is weak why not we have a bet on it?
I say the trend for the period 2005 to 2015 will be less than 0.06 deg C per decade.
Girma and Pekka
I am not basically a “betting man” – and my grandfather gave me the good advice to NEVER bet on the weather.
But if I were asked whether the projection of IPCC (+0.2 degC per decade) or that of Girma (no more than +0.06 deg C per decade) is more likely for the next 10 years, I’d have to go with Girma.
Why is this?
It is basically because I do not believe IPCC has got the whole notion of 2xCO2 “climate sensitivity” (based on all the model-derived positive feedbacks) right, as was evidenced by the abject failure of its forecasts for the most recent decade. I believe this estimate is exaggerated by around 3:1.
Girma at least has historical trends to show in support of the 0.06 degC estimate, while IPCC has nothing to show except an erroneous projection of +0.2 degC for the most recent decade, which showed no warming at all in actual fact..
Max
Girma
I just noticed that you predicted 0.06 degC maximum warming for the 10-year period to 2015 (not for the NEXT 10 years starting today).
Well, that appears to me to be a slam dunk.
It cooled by -0.06°C over the 6-year period 2005-2011 (a decadal rate of -0.1°C over 6 years).
In order for it to warm by +0.06°C over the 10-year period 2005-2015, it would need to warm by:
(0.06 * 10 + 0.06 * 6) / 4 = 0.24°C over the next 4 years; equals a decadal rate of 2.5 * 0.24°C or 0.6°C
Don’t think you’ll find anyone who would take that bet, Girma.
Am I right?
Max
Girma
Basically my argument is very close to the critique that Vaughan Pratt presented on your linearity claim.
It’s absolute nonsense to give predictive power to the band that you have drawn. As Vaughan that’s not any more justified than lines drawn around any time series that has some continuity. Anyone with the most limited understanding of time series knows that the evidence that you present for justification is of zero value.
I argue that the global warming rate for the next decade cannot exceed about 0.06 deg C per decade.
Oh, come on, Girma, that’s crazy talk. :) Of course the HADCRUT3VGL temperature will rise more than 0.06 C between 2011 and 2021. What are you talking about? You’re letting your obsession with WoodForTrees blind you to reality.
@vaughan
Forgive me again, but you say
‘Oh, come on, Girma, that’s crazy talk. :) Of course the HADCRUT3VGL temperature will rise more than 0.06 C between 2011 and 2021.’
Ain’t no ‘of course’ about it as far as I can see. Why should I believe your ‘of course’ and more than Girma? You might have made the same prediction in 2001-2011 and been wrong. Why is it different this time?
And if your faith is derived from models, I think you’ll have to rely on one that has a good track record on previous predictions matching the observational data when it comes. Which particular one would you nominate?
Vaughan
Sorry, sorry, sorry
Just noticed.
It’s from CRU at UEA. Home of Climategate.
You are right. It is, of course, ‘of course’. Phil Jones has already decided that it will be so. And everything else you say follows like night following day.
Apologies.
Vaughan Pratt
You write to Girma:
Vaughan, t show you how silly this statement is, I’m going to ask you to mentally transport yourself back to December 2001 and repeat exactly the same statement (minus 10 years):
Ouch!.
It actually cooled by almost 0.1 C.over that period.
Will it do so again?
I do not know. You do not know. Pekka does not know. Girma does not know. IPCC does not know. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Max
I’m in no hurry. Let’s see how this all pans out once we have the HADCRUT3VGL reading for December 2021. See y’all in a decade’s time.
Trend analysis of global mean temperature data
http://bit.ly/ycjglv
Notice how many claims regarding the AGW consensus are based on numbers barely in the range of significance- if signicant at all- and require massaging or interpretation in order to rise to the level of their precious crisis.
It reminds me of one of the tenets of recognizing bad science: that the allegedly dramatic results are barely discernible from the noise.
No kidding. And yet you say:
Hmmm. Do you not believe basic factual accuracy is important to an “effective seminar”? Or is it just that the other Lindzen seminars had even more ridiculous mistakes, and we’re grading on a curve?
Inquiring minds want to know.
I was going to complain about this too until it occurred to me that the very high global warming potential of methane (72 times that of CO2 over 20 years) meant that methane would not have to increase a lot over 150 years to double the CO2 equivalent over that period. This was one of several gotchas I noticed that made it possible for Lindzen to make what sounded at first like outrageous claims. They might actually be outrageous, but the gotchas will slow you down even if they don’t stop you, and the audience is unlikely to follow any objection that depends on heavily technical points. Moreover Lindzen should have little difficulty bluffing his way through such objections.
Folks who fear climate change keep discussing what they believe to be POTENTIAL changes but then want society to implement changes in behavior that can be proven to harm the US economically.
That is why it is very difficult to reason with Lindzen in terms of words. The English language is so flexible and an obsessive like Lindzen can craft his linguistic arguments over the years to leave all sorts of wiggle room. Vaughan, probably more than anyone on this blog, understands this technique, no doubt honed from his years of dealing with formal language in the computer science field.
In some sense, that is why I am such a fan of scientific modeling. All that ambiguity of the English language is disposed of and all that you are left with is the basic mathematical and logical constructs. You sink or swim based on what executes. The only refuge left is the complexity of the model, and that is why I try to simplify as much as I can.
BTW, I have no idea what Ringo is taking about in his response.
@vaughan
Why is it a ‘gotcha’? Lindzen said ‘equivalent CO2’.
Are you complaining that he’s wrong? Or that his remark is inconvenient to your ideas?
In Canada, industrial operators are required by law to report GHG emissions as CO2e, emissions of a list of specific gases multiplied by prescribed weighting factors, to describe the emissions as equivalent to an amount of CO2. From my perspective, my background, Dr. Lindzen is using a very familiar term; a term well defined in national and international law and in use everywhere. Therefore, it is very hard for me to understand his use of that term as a ‘gotcha’, or in some way sneaky. I thought everyone engaged in this issue understood that term.
Conversely, earlier on this thread there was lengthy debate about aerosols, and the appropriate weight to be given to aerosols in calculating where we are relative to a doubling of CO2e. I am sure industrial operators would be delighted to include emissions of aerosol precursors – SOx, NOx – in their reported CO2e emissions. No such luck. Not on the list. The discussion was valuable – although still incomplete if the objective was a net human disturbance, because there would still be terms to be included in the equation for land use change and others.
O.K. I have waffled on too long. But to summarize: perhaps three partitions:
– CO2e as defined in law and regulation
– everything people put in the air (including aerosol precursors)
– everything people do that affects climate
But please don’t attack Dr. Lindzen for using a well-established term, or for not including everything and the kitchen sink.
Why is it a ‘gotcha’? Lindzen said ‘equivalent CO2′. Are you complaining that he’s wrong? Or that his remark is inconvenient to your ideas?
Neither, I’m just pointing out that what he’s attributing to the IPCC looks wildly wrong until you wade through the whole report to find the sentence buried deep in there that supports his statement.
Have you done this yet? Judging by the reactions to Lindzen’s talk it seems like a lot of people haven’t.
@Friesen But please don’t attack Dr. Lindzen for using a well-established term,
I wasn’t, I was attacking him for claiming it was in the IPCC report. A casual reading of the report gives a very different impression.
Just for fun, I looked again at Slide 4, and I do not see the term “IPCC” on that slide.
To be a bit less cryptic: on Slide 4, Dr. Lindzen uses the phrase “Nothing on the left is controversial among serious climate scientists.”; he does not mention the IPCC. Nor does he say, on Slide 3 in which he does discuss the IPCC, that he will expand on that discussion on the next slide. Slide 4 does not rest on the AR4.
Having said that, several people in this thread have suggested AR4 data for the gasses normally included in CO2e add up to a total forcing multiplier of about 1.75 or 1.8. I am not sure what time period that covers, but it certainly does not go beyond 2007. Dr. Lindzen consistently throughout his talk uses a start date of 1850, and he was speaking in 2012. Perhaps he did round up from 1.8 or 1.9 to 2.0, by using the phrase “a doubling”.
It still appears unfair to label that a gotcha and using words like bluffing and outrageous.
@vaughan
‘Have you done this yet? Judging by the reactions to Lindzen’s talk it seems like a lot of people haven’t’
No I haven’t. I wasn’t there, and I on a cursory glance at the presentation. I didn’t see any ‘gotchas’.
But if you do, it is wise to spell out exactly what you think they are. Just saying ‘I spotted several gotchas’ without any explanation or description is just evidencless smearing.
“Folks who fear climate change keep discussing what they believe to be POTENTIAL changes but then want society to implement changes in behavior that can be proven to harm the US economically.”
Yet you haven’t PROVEN that cutting emissions would harm the economy.
Most economists disagree with you. They say the benefits of cutting CO2 emissions far outweigh the costs: http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/12/minor-myths-do-some-economists-think.html.
Nor have you met your burden of proof, to support your argument that radically warming the Earth’s climate, as you propose we do, is safe. I know we’re all busy, but you might want to get to work on your burden to show that radically transforming the climate via massive CO2 releases is safe.
I’m not convinced two competing, opposite certainties make one big uncertainty. Media has learned it seems a hard-earned lesson about false equivalences, that one of the sides could be just demonstrably and plainly wrong. On climate, they then just happened to confuse the sides.
It wasn’t just media that was confused. And the mass confusions did not arise spontaneously, or organically. How it happened will be more useful to society than why.
============
Edim’s response didn’t answer my question — in trying to make data collection meaningful one should be concerned that the collection should not bias the results. Having about 1/3 of temperature site take in from 95% of the area, while 2/3 are in 5% of the area looks like bias to me — not so?
That meeting was set up by the only UK MP who has been prepared to openly and repeatedly express his scepticism about the CACC hypothesis, Sammy Wilson, one-time Northern Ireland Environment Minister. Wilson refused to allow the broadcasting of the UK Labour Government’s CACC propaganda adverts in 2009 (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/8520514/Sammy_Wilson_N_I_Environment_Minister_bans_global_warming_propaganda/) and was moved elsewhere.
The meeting (the second of a series, the first being at the same venue on 30th November featuring Professor Ian Plimer) was organised by the “Repeal the Act” campaign group (http://repealtheact.org.uk/about) fighting to get the UK government to repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act.
Professor Lindzen gave an excellent presentation in his usual competent manner and the packed hall gave him a warm welcome and a great ovation after his presentation.
An excellent little booklet “The Propaganda Bureau” by Andrew Montford (who wrote that excellent book “The Hockey Stick Illusion”) was made available at the meeting. It describes the bias in support of the CACC hypothesis that the BBC persistently demonstrates in pushing its environmentalist agenda.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Dear Pete Ridley,
Sammy Wilson may have been an excellent Economics graduate, teacher, and Belfast City Councillor but, when he decided that he knew best regarding climate science, he was always going to end up losing his job as Northern Ireland’s Environment Minister:
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/sammy-wilson-mp-an-ex-environment-minister/
Martin Lack
I’ve gone through your “open letter” of critique of Professor Lindzen’s seminar before the House of Commons. Let’s look at it in detail
You start off with criticizing Lindzen for his::
Tossing in, for good measure, Lindzen’s alleged:
Huh?
Forget the polemic and ad homs, Martin, let’s look at the specific points made by Lindzen instead.
After another several paragraphs of totally irrelevant blab, you finally come to a pertinent point:
The rise in globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature reported by HadCRUT3 and cited by IPCC was around 0.7°C . Lindzen cites ”0.8 C warming in the past 150 years” The BEST figure you cite is a “land only” figure and is totally irrelevant.
Your claim of 7,000 years of climate stability is also irrelevant (even if it were factual, which it is not).
The “hidden in the pipeline” postulation is based on circular logic and is anything but proven, plus it is totally irrelevant here.
You then switch to a nit-pick with:
Lindzen does NOT “criticize” changing the scales of graphs, he simply points out that ”Relative to the variability in the data, the changes in the globally averaged temperature anomaly look negligible”, and then shows that stretching the scale of the curve to fit the graph shows a steeper trend than by leaving the scale the same as the curves, which show the much greater variability.
You then go on another ramble, ending with a completely irrelevant question to Professor Lindzen:
Huh? [As a matter of fact, it did according to the global temperature record (HadCRUT3), but that is beside the point.]
You get into another side track regarding “snowball Earth”, “cosmic rays” and other totally irrelevant topics, and then ask Lindzen:
You apparently did not pay attention to Professor Lindzen’s presentation, as he covers this question very well in his discussion of climate sensitivity (slides 24, 43-48) based on observations rather than the model simulations cited by IPCC (49-50) with a comparison of the two, observed versus modeled (51-53). These slides show the great uncertainty between the model estimates (basis for the ”concern over the enhanced greenhouse effect”) and the physical observations.
After more polemic and rambling from Galileo to Oreskes, you ask Lindzen:
What kind of a stupid loaded question is that?
Martin, your critique of Lindzen’s presentation is about the weakest and most childishly emotional rebuttal I have seen (even sillier than that of Vaughan Pratt, which was posted here – he at least stuck to the facts, even though his points were all incorrect).
Max
I am happy for my work to be judged by my peers but, I am sorry, they don’t include you.
Martin Lack
Whether or not you are “happy” for your “work” to be judged by others does not really impress me all that much. Your critique of Lindzen;s presentation was rambling and weak, as I pointed out.
Max
You are of course entitled to your opinion, I will grant you that much but, just as only 49% of the population can actually be better-than-average at driving a car; only 49% of the population can be better-than-average at assessing a large amount of complex information and reaching a reliable conclusion. That’s why you should leave it to the experts.
Martin,
I happen to know which Max is rated to be a peer of yours – he’s 7 and very knowledgeable about dinosaurs, heavy construction equipment and Stars Wars. Give me about an hour and I can probably have him up to your speed with regard to climate.
Martin Was your name Joshua perhaps in a previous life?
Martin Lack
Your “argument from authority” to “leave it to the experts” rings a bit hollow.
Isn’t Professor Lindzen (whose presentation you tried to rebut in your ramble) an “expert”?
Max
Max, Lindzen is an expert at being at odds with the views of all but a handful of genuine climate scientists, for reasons that are, as yet, unclear. Also, as far as I am concerned, it is very hard to avoid reaching the conclusion that he is an expert at misdirection – a technique magicians use to stop people from noticing what is happening. This is all the more tempting when perhaps the most obviously hypocritical – even if not deliberately misleading – slide in his presentation goes “missing” in the process of digitisation into PDF format. Does this not strike you as odd too?
One thing neither Lindzen, Curry, Michaels nor Spencer is, however, is Galileo. They are not holding out against some anti-intellectual obscurantist Establishment… Whether they realise it or not (I genuinely don’t know – but am trying to find out), they are in fact fighting for just such an Establishment; one that is seeking to perpetuate “business as usual” for as long as possible. Unfortunately, this is insanely short-sighted and, as Peter Jacques (Uni of Florida) has said, very clearly now “not in the public interest”.
This is why John Abraham did what he did to Lord Monckton, it is why Peter Gleick did what he did to the Heartland Institute, and it is why I have asked Richard Lindzen to answer my questions.
Martin Lack:
If you actually knew about Galileo, rather than the myth of Galileo, you’d realize you couldn’t have praised those four any more than you just did.
@martin lack
I tried to read your letter to Prof Lindzen.
It is self-aggrandising, verbose and rambling. Maybe there really are some questions buried in there that you want him to answer, but they are so difficult to find that they escaped my notice..
AFAICT the most serious charge you make is that one of his projected slides was not shown in the subsequent pdf of his presentation.
Taken together with your vastly overplayed remarks about his history (or not) with tobacco, it is difficult not to conclude that you are suffering from some form of Lindzenophobia, where all rational discussion on the topic is beyond you.
Be careful mon brave…Gleick seemed to have the same thing about Heartland, and his daft actions did him, and his cause, permanent damage.
I asked Martin on his blog to state how Lindzen “fought for so long on behalf of the tobacco industry?” And what tobacco legislation Lindzen fought to prevent. Also, Martin, in what “previous advocacy work on behalf of the tobacco industry” did Lindzen engage?
However, Martin is moderating and censoring my questions, so they don’t appear.
Maybe Martin can answer them here.
I am not censoring your comments, John, and there is only one being held in the moderation queue (i.e. this one). My words may have been a little emotive but I think their intent was clear – to establish a pattern of behaviour that demonstrates a tendency to deny any and/or all environmental problems where special interests are likely to suffer if sensible legislation is introduced:
— In a 2001 profile in Newsweek, journalist Fred Guterl wrote that Lindzen “clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He’ll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking.” (Guterl, F. (2001), ‘The Truth About Global Warming: The Forecasts Of Doom Are Mostly Guesswork, Richard Lindzen Argues–And He Has Bush’s Ear’, Newsweek, July 23, 2001).
— In 2009, James Hansen recalled meeting Lindzen whilst testifying before the Vice President’s Climate Task Force: “I considered asking Lindzen if he still believed there was no connection between smoking and lung cancer. He had been a witness for tobacco companies decades earlier, questioning the reliability of statistical connections between smoking and health problems.” (Hansen, J. (2009), Storms of my Grandchildren, p.15).
Please don’t bother picking me up on what I said, I have now explained myself.
What about all the comments that you deleted about your case praising Rachel Carson and her work on DDT? Were those not censored? You even deleted your own comments because they were so ridiculously erroneous.
As far as your comments regarding your allegations of Lindzen’s support of the tobacco industry, I would seriously consider retracting them. If that is all the evidence you have, you are opening yourself up to a libel suit with very little defense. That is just friendly advice on the side. Or present real evidence that he fought against some sort of tobacco legislation. Otherwise it is just a meaningless distraction that has nothing to do with AGW, and could cause you some big problems.
John, you are going off-message again. You may want to talk about DDT all the time but, as I explained to you (after deleting all the off-topic discussion on my blog), I referred to DDT as a metaphor – or short-hand if you like – for the travesty of the agri-chemical industry putting its own profit motive ahead of the interests of the environment by marketing indiscriminate, highly toxic, and/or carcinogenic substances that are generally only effective in the short term.
This was – and is – not censorship on my part; and it is you – not me – that is trying to re-write history. Therefore, as I have said before, for you to accuse me wrongdoing is ridiculous – it is you that has lost your moral compass.
Wow
That is the best evidence you can find for a charge of
‘fought for so long on behalf of the tobacco industry’?
One reported (not quoted) remark in an interview. And a throwaway remark in a book by a known opponent of his referring to something that may or may not happened decades ago.
Is that all? Nothing more substantial?
Don’t try to get a job with the Crown Prosecution Service.
Actually Martin, you cited Rachel Carson, Silent Sprint and DDT as if she were some kind of hero. But as with most of what you write on your blog, you didn’t know what you were talking about. When I straightened you out, you even changed your original post. That was disingenuous and cowardly. You introduced a topic trying to argue the exact opposite of the truth, and I cited all the irrefutable facts. Then you just delete it all, post citations that actually prove my case (DDT hearings), and proclaim that I am revising history. That is really weak.
Now you are slandering LIindzen based on ridiculous evidence about tobacco. Martin, your words have meaning and you really ought to be choosing them more carefully.
Martin,
I see that you have taken my advice and apologized for the tobacco/fossil fuel smears. Well done!
However, the rest of your letter slips back into your non-productive, attacking style of merely re-hashing old cliches. I was serious when I suggested you let me have a chance at editing your letter in such a manner as to actually get some kind of productive response. I think getting your questions, if you really have any, answered only makes for a productive debate and enhances the quest for the truth. Lindzen is a big boy; ask the tough questions.
This is what I would have done, if I were you. I would have questioned him on the specifics rather than appealing to “authority” like Nordhaus. It just isn’t going to be taken seriously. The area of climate sensitivity is not settled, so just saying that there are scientists that disagree with him is futile. You have to get into specifics. And, like I said, drop the “attack” and open up a dialog of a serious engagement of the specific issues.
For example, ask this:
1. In your presentation, you cite that there has been a doubling equivalent of CO2 in the last 150 years.. Could you list the exact mechanisms for this, as the best case analysis seems to indicate only an increase of 78%.
2. Then ask about your slide. But don’t ask about his slides in general, ask about the specific slide. Don’t call him a hypocrite, just make your point about the axis. Ask why it was removed from the pdf presentation. (Now, I don’t think this rises to the level that you do that it is a “career ending” event, but it is worth asking, so why not?). He might even just agree that it is not the best graph.
3. Ask about the arctic. Lindzen makes much of the fact that the arctic is very variable. Ask him when was the last time that we had this small amount of sea ice. He has much to say on this topic, but he contends that what we are seeing is hardly “unprecedented.” Why not find out exactly how unprecedented. Is it 80 years, 800 years or 8000 years? I think that would put our current state into some kind of perspective. I don’t know if he mentioned it in his presentation, but I find very interesting his contention that summer arctic temperatures haven’t changed year to year, whereas the winter temperatures are highly variable.
4. Climate sensitivity. Acknowledge the infancy of this area of the science and ask him what he thinks the forcing effect of current aerosols is. He can state it in a estimated range to account for the uncertainty.
Ask any other specific questions of things you think he might have glossed over that would tend to help your case. You are building a wall of bricks. Don’t think that you can build the whole wall in one clever statement/question. You have to go brick by brick. Look at the rest of the 1000 posts on the JC site where the participants are discussing to see if there are any other stones left unturned. This technique has the addtional advantage of being less threatening. What is the harm of any individual brick?
Just some friendly suggestions to help improve the quality of the debate. I still agree with Lindzen that there is no cause for alarm, but why not move the science forward as much as possible?
John, As I believe I made clear to you – I am now moderating all comments because of increased traffic. It is nothing personal – I only get personal when you behave like a troll
My third email to Professor Lindzen contains no cliches; only a list of ways in which he is at odds with the genuine consensus view of the scientific community (warning disputation of this fact will automatically invoke conspiracy theory); and in severe danger of being exposed as a hypocrite, etc.. The consequences of him being wrong about climate sensitivity are so enormous, the least he could do would be to explain himself clearly. This he has quite clearly not done. All he has done has told a room full of people what they wanted to hear.
Yet again you mis-categorize me as attacking Lindzen, which I am not doing. My email is incredibly-carefully worded so that I cannot be accused of doing that. I am attacking the dangerously-erroneous nature of his message.
Now that I have copied the email to so many journalists (etc), I hope someone will have the moral backbone to give Lindzen a call and ask him what is his explanation for what appears to have been a deeply disingenuous presentation (the latest in along line of such talks over nearly two years).
Hey Martin,
Take my suggestions for whatever you deem them to be worth. Lindzen is not going to answer your latest email, however, because of all the reasons I cite. If you ask the kinds of questions I suggest, he would be much more likely to engage you, but I imagine that you have burned that bridge.
There are still two posts hanging in moderation, unless you deleted them. And, of course, you changed your rules so as to no longer just require name and email for authentication, so it seems that I have no account that isn’t blacklisted with which to post on your forum. If you want me to remain blacklisted, no problem, just let me know.
As far as getting personal, you were calling me names and posting the website of my employer pretty much right out of the box. I posted to your site under additional screen names wherein I clearly identified myself to you. The last time was just to offer some friendly advice, privately if you wanted it to be, or publicly – your choice, because you have no other contact information.
The thing is, Martin, you are just not very effective, but you could be. And, like I said, if you advanced the truth, I would be all for it despite our opposite viewpoints. Instead, if you continue on your path, you will only attract die hard ideologues that are mirror images of yourself. If that is your purpose, more power to you.
My last question, that you did not answer, was along the lines of the practical effect of a fossil fuel ban among developed nations. We know that the developing nations will accelerate their CO2 output no matter what we do. It will quickly get to the point where the effect of the CO2 output of developed nations will have no marginal effect on temperature under the IPPC models. So Martin, what effect would a fossil fuel ban have exactly? Would it just make us feel good? Surely you know that the developing nations would look at our example, smile, and continue their CO2 production for all it is worth, don’t you? That is Muller’s point that I was hoping you would see, not his views on climategate, although you could learn from that as well.
PS. I asked Lindzen two of the four questions that I suggested you ask. I got my answers in less than an hour. How are your answers coming along?
@martin lack
You state that your 3rd e-mail to Prof Lindzen is improved over your first two disastrous attempts because:
‘you mis-categorize me as attacking Lindzen, which I am not doing. My email is incredibly-carefully worded so that I cannot be accused of doing that’
In the light of this it is difficult to know how to read this extract:
‘it seems to me that it would not be unreasonable for any objective observer to conclude that you have been indulging in the hypocritical obfuscation of many relevant facts; and the misdirection of your multiple audiences’
Accusing somebody of ‘hyprocritical obfuscation and of [multiple misdirection] is not an attack in your world?
Please explain.
If I were Prof Lindzen and I received such an intemperate and unpleasant unsolicited note, I would junk it just like the rest. I’m sure that he has had the good sense to have done so already.
Don’t waste too much time on this guy, Max – think what he’d be like as an adult!
The guy has a Masters in assuming global warming is correct and examining the aberrant psychology of sceptics. He is unemployed and on a mission to save the world. He is a pissant progressive with a limits to growth agenda. He hasn’t a clue but will arrogantly spout drivel as if it is holy writ and insist that everyone answer his inane questions.
This then is the profile of the enemy – what a joke that is. You just have to let him keep talking for everyone to understand what a witless clown he is.
CH surely you mean “puissant progressive”?
Martin Lack believes that we have no business in actually researching the science. He appeals to authority and tries to argue that we don’t have the right to question it.
Of course, he only appeals to the authority that supports his anti-consumerism, anti-growth, anti-modernism, anti-people views.
Although my auto complete wants to replace pissant with puissant – no I think pissant is right
“no I think pissant is right”
So do I. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t taking the puiss.
he at least stuck to the facts, even though his points were all incorrect).
Max continues to claim that he’s the one with the correct facts when they’re demonstrably false.
timg56 says (sorry can’t find you):
“Two or three years ago, when I went to EPA’s website for climate change I immediately noted that the only reference they list is the IPCC. I sent in a question asking why this was the case, since in every discipline I’ve gotten a degree in (3), I was taught that one should avoid relying on a single reference.”
The IPCC reviews hundreds and hundreds of pieces of independent research, the best scientists in their fields weigh it all up and produce a set of reports, these are reviewed by other scientists and then, finally, they are handed to UN-member government reps to water-down all the findings so as not to alarm anyone.
Net result, although hopelessly underestimating the scale and urgency of the problem we face, people like the EPA don’t have to reference loads of different documents because the IPCC have done all the hard work for them.
Next question please.
Many in the process were hopelessly inexperienced and were barely out of college. Does not give one much confidence in the process
Martin,
Not to disparage the majority of researchers and scientists who have worked on IPCC reports, but your statement “the best scientists in their fields” has been shown to be accurate for maybe 60 – 70 % of the people involved. For the remaining percentage it isn’t even close.
As for the EPA not having to conduct their own research, they in fact are required to by US statue.
Finally, your comment that the IPCC “water down” the findings and “hopelessly underestimating the scale and urgency of the problem we face” is pretty much an example of what Lindzen is talking about. You’re convinced that the world is faced with a looming disaster, but have no real evidence to prove it. At best you have theories. My suggestion is that you should not take counsel of your fears for the future.
I think you should take great care crossing the road, timg56, because you are clearly confusing black and white: There is no evidence of a scientific conspiracy (because there isn’t one). However, ACD is one of the most well-understood phenomena in modern-day science; and for you to say otherwise is tantamount to insisting that the Earth is flat.
And, since I am invoking tired old analogies, have this one too: Just as Hitler found that endlessly repeating a lie did not make it become the truth, you need to wake up to the fact that no matter how many times you repeat a falsehood, it does not change reality.
Martin,
Where did I mention anything about conspiracy? I just pointed out that your statement “the best scientists in the world” was not factually correct as applied to all of the authors involved with the IPCC reports.
I am also at a loss to see what lie I am repeating, unless you think that the pointing out not all of the material referenced was peer reviewed or all of the authors considered as the best in their field – ie some being graduate students – is a falsehood.
Assuming ACD stands for Anthropogenic Climate Disaster, your statement that it is one of the “most well-understood phenomena in modern-day science” is surprising, to say the least. I’d say that it is easier to prove my statement about the IPCC authors not all being the best, than it is for you to prove this.
I am not telling you that you can’t have Chicken Little as your role model. If you want to believe that we are headed towards disaster, I’m ok with it. If you want me to believe that, you need to provide some evidence.
@Martin Lack
(I may live to regret asking this question)
‘hopelessly underestimating the scale and urgency of the problem we face’
Explain, please. ‘Hopelessly’ suggests a very big underestimate…an order of magnitude. Why do you think this?
Latimer,
With regard to climate sensitivity, most climate scientists think Lindzen is out by a factor of between 200 and 400% (i.e. he says 1 Celsius, they say 2 to 4 Celsius (Hansen says its may get to as much as 6 Celsius – because like many other things it is non-linear).
Even if Lindzen is only 100% wrong – we are in serious trouble because we have been arguing about this now for almost 25 years.
Does that sound “hopeless” enough to you? It is certainly a travesty of justice (as far as future generations will be concerned).
H’mmm
Just saying that others believe Lindzen is wrong is not much of an argument beyond an appeal to authority. He presented some arguments that looked pretty good to me. You need to say what is wrong with them, not just witter on about what others think
I also fail to understand your urgency. None of the ghastly things that (I envisage) you imagine will happen will be overnight sensations. They will be very slow and very gradual, and – if there were ever to be any real evidence of them happening -, we would have plenty of time to react. Sticking a few bricks on top of a sea wall every twenty years is not beyond us even in the most apocalyptic scenarios.
I also note that if we had just taken the ‘urgent’ evidence from the unusually hot year of 1998, we might have been jumped into doing an awful lot of dumb things (like concentrating on desalination plants in Oz rather than flood control), that would not only have been a waste of time and money, but actually counter productive.
You need to do a lot more to make a convincing case than this, mon brave.
You know best, clearly!
@martin lack
‘You know best, clearly!’
If that remark was directed to me, then I have to conclude – by your lack of anything better to say – that you are, for once, right.
No, I just can’t be bothered to argue with you. If I was to continue to do so, I would just go round and round in circles like I have done with John Kosowski (or whatever his real name is).
Martin knows full well that my name is John Kosowski because when I started posting on his blog he researched my background on facebook (not that I mind), and even posted a link to my employer’s website. Again, not that I mind, but it is certainly violating the policy of his own blog on posting personal information.
@martin lack (if that is your real name).
I’ll just remember that you arrived here with a great rush of wind, but left with a whimper.
Ciao
@Martin Lack
‘Sorry can’t find you’
Ctrl + f is a very useful search tool. Just saying
What does that mean? I have not wasted as much of my time as you learning how to navigate around chatrooms. “Just saying”
@martin lack
Hold down the CTRL key. and simultaneously hit the ‘f’ key. This will summon up a ‘find’ box, in which you can type whatever characters you wish to find (eg ‘timg56’).
This is a standard feature of most browsers (not of any particular chatroom) since at least a decade. Works in Explorer, Firefox, Word etc etc. And a very minimal bit of research suggests that its history may go back to OS/2 and IBM’s CUA (1988). Maybe even further back to EMACS.
I am surprised that somebody of your oft-asserted intellect and qualifications has not found it before. But now you know. I’m sure it will save you oodles of time in identifying those you wish to browbeat.
Go read Donna LaFramboise’s book ‘The Delinquent Teenager’
Once you have, see if you still have such a rose-tinted view of the IPCC.
You are advised to ignore Peter Gleick (who??)’s review on Amazon since it is clear that he hadn’t read the book at all.
You are all lost down a conspiracy theory rabbit-hole. The IPCC consistently under-estimates risk* for all the reasons given in the early part of my email to Lindzen:- There is no waffle in my email, I was either giving Lindzen an idea of who I was, why i was aksing, or deliberately limiting his potential answers?
*See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=conservative-climate
Martin,
You would be well suited to modify your style just a bit. It would save you from having to spend time answering objections. Lose the “conspiracy theory rabbit hole, fossil fuel lobby, tobacco industry” business. It just makes people stop reading and is not relevant to your purported argument. Then, perhaps explain succinctly how the IPCC consistently underestimates risks. Few here think it does, so you need to have some examples and concrete proof ready.
Instead, people like me call you on your factual misstatements, then we spend 10 posts hashing them out only leading to your concluding that we are “twisting your words.” But you see, Martin, your words are in writing memorialized on your own blog even. No one can unfairly twist them.
Just some friendly suggestions.
I am not lost down any conspiracy rabbit-hole.
But as Donna convincingly shows, the IPCC does not do what it says on the tin. It claims to have one set of processes, but in fact uses another. It sells ‘scientfic integrity’ but delivers something else.
Our hostess here has written extensively on here about how and why she became disilluisoned, as have others.
For example, Pachauri consistently claimed over a period of years that only peer-reviewed literature was included in the reports. But in practice there was as much as one third that was not. Himalayagate is a fine example. He claimed that his stuff was 24 carat gold, but in fact it was 9 carat at best. He is (and I am being charitable) mendacious in his public remarks.
As to your tedious and verbose letter to Lindzen, I – and many others – do not have the intestinal fortitude to read it all again so we can once more understand what a clever guy you are. You have done your best to persuade us of that so far today.
Just tell us here (succinctly please), why – in your opinion – the IPCC consistently underestimates risk.
As to your remark about ‘deliberately limiting his potential answers’, they don’t sound like questions set in the spirit of honest enquiry. More that of an Inquisitor (opps we’ve had ths before earlier today)
But I’m sure that a naif like Prof Lindzen who has only been active in this field for 48 years (PhD in 1964) would fall for such obvious and superficial setups.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for answers. Or applause.
Latimer
Donna’s showings are of any value only to those, who want to believe her. I started to read the book without knowing essentially anything about her and was totally turned off by the half-truths and other problems that are the first thing to confront in reading the book.
Robert
You raise an interesting question:
Has the change in all greenhouse gas concentrations from pre-industrial times to today resulted in roughly the same radiative forcing as a doubling of CO2 (as Lindzen indicated)?
Using AR4 estimates, we can make a check on this.
A doubling of CO2 would have a RF of 3.7 W/m^2 according to IPCC.
CO2 added 1.66 W/m^2 over that period (from 280 to 379 ppmv) and to today (390 ppmv) this would be 1.82 W/m^2.
Methane added 0,48 W/m^2 to year 2005; adding another guesstimated 5% to today, puts this at 0.50 W/m^2.
All other GHGs (N2O, halocarbons, ozone) added 0.87 W/m^2 by 2005; adding another guesstimated 5% to today puts this at 0.91 W/m^2.
So adding the RF of all the GHGs to today would give 1.82+0.50+0.91 = 3.23 W/m^2, which is only 87% of the impact of doubling CO2 = 3.7 W/m^2, so Lindzen exaggerated slightly, but his estimate is in the ballpark.
Max
Max I found another estimate that was a little lower, 2.8Wm-2 for combined GHGs, about 76%. I wonder if Lindzen is including the water vapor increase since he said equivalent CO2 instead of CO2e?
capt. dallas
Thanks for response.
Yeah. I’m sure one can find lots of estimates.
Mine was simply a rough estimate based on IPCC AR4 data for 2005, adjusted to 2011.
In 2005 IPCC lists the RF at 1.66 (CO2) + 0.48 (CH4) + 0.16 (N2O) + 0.34 (Halocarbons) + 0.35 (O3) = 2.99 W/m^2
I just adjusted CO2 from 379 ppmv in 2005 to 390 ppmv today (+0.16 W/m^2) and increased the others by a guess of +5%, arriving at a total of 3.23 W/m^2.
This is 87% of the 2xCO2 estimate of IPCC of 3.7 W/m^2.
The point is that, while it sounds screwy at first (as Judith also said) to think that the impact of all GHGs since industrialization would be roughly equal to that of doubling CO2 alone it turns out surprisingly that this is not that far off, as Lindzen said..
Max
PS I don’t think Lindzen was including water vapor, as well, since this would be very difficult to estimate (and the estimate comes out close enough without water vapor).
If increase in greenhouse gases by 87% results in the observed warming of only 0.5 deg C, how can a 100% increase results in a warming of about 3 deg C?
Girma
You ask:
Answer: They can’t..
Web misses the whole point of the discussion, namely that Lindzen stated that the TOTAL GHG impact since pre-industrial times was roughly equal to the impact of 2xCO2 alone.
As I calculated using the IPCC estimates in AR4 and adjusting for the 2005-2011 increase, Lindzen was close, but the TOTAL GHGs since pre-industrial times (3.23 W/m^2) only account for 87% of the increase for 2xCO2 ialone as estimated by IPCC (3.7 W/m^2).
But, of course, the big difference is that the 3 degC figure of Girma includes model-estimated positive feedbacks which triple the estimated warming of 2xCO2 alone.
And that, folks is the BIG question mark, as our host has pointed out repeatedly.
(But that is another discussion entirely.)
Max
Increase of greenhouse gases by 87%?
Co2 only has increased by 40%. Notice how Manacker has to stand up for a fellow skeptic no matter how ridiculous his claim is.
There is nothing too ridiculous for people to state in complete seriousness. WebHubTelescope provides an example:
Look at the first two sentences here. The direct implication is CO2 is the only relevant greenhouse gas. That’s obviously untrue, but it’s also not specifically stated.
The real problem is WebHubTelescope dismisses manacker’s claim out-of-hand (and rhetorically based on that untrue implication) despite the fact manacker provided the exact way in which he calculated it. Incidentally, I actually did an almost identical calculation elsewhere on this page (I did it first manacker!) for the same basic reason as manacker. It was an obvious test to try, and it was perfectly valid.
Despite this, WebHubTelescope simply hand-waves it away while making snide remarks (actually only one of them). Hoorah for meaningful discussions people refuse to have.
An increase of 87% percent in greenhouse gases will raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration from 280 PPM to 523 PPM. We are sitting at around 390 PPM, which puts it at around a 40% increase, not 87%.
You guys can’t redefine the meaning of percentages just because you feel like it.
WebHubTelescope routinely discusses how he has done some analysis or other, and this makes his comments better than those he criticizes. He also routinely says stupid things like:
While manacker and I “can’t redefine the meaning of percentages,” apparently WebHubTelescope can redefine the meaning of “greenhouse gases.”
What you do is that you say CO2 has increased by 40%, CH4 by X%, and other greenhouse gases by the appropriate amount. You look these numbers up by going to the historical instrument records.
This one only goes back to 1978, but you get the picture.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2009.fig2_med.png
You have to be systematic about the bookkeeping because H2O is also a greenhouse gas, yet the amount that atmospheric H2O has risen is negligible as a percentage in comparison to CO2.
Web
I’m beginning to think you have a basic reading disorder.
You wrote:
I did NOT write “increase of greenhouse gases by 87%”.
What I wrote, based on IPCC RF estimates for the various GHGs adjusted from 2005 to 2011. that the temperature increase from the increased concentrations of TOTAL GHGs was around 87% of the temperature increase to be expected from 2xCO2, rather than equal, as Lindzen had stated (so he was slightly off).
This was in response to a query by Robert regarding the.validity of Lindzen’s statement and a remark from our host that it sounded incorrect (although she had not checked it out).
Turns out it’s not exactly correct, but not that far off, either.
Get it?
Can you understand it now?
Not really too tough if you simply pay attention to what’s written.
Max
manacker, I think you misspoke:
The parts I made bold don’t make sense as written. You meant the increase in forcings, not the increase in temperature, right?
Brandon Shollenberger
The estimates were for RF, as you write.
But change in forcing is proportional to change in temperature, isn’t it?
Max
manacker:
As a general rule, of course. The problem is there are confounding factors. An increase in forcing doesn’t immediately lead to a directly proportional increase in temperature. There is a question of response time as well as natural variability. There is also the simple matter that you were talking about positive forcings while negative forcings could exist at the same time. It makes some sense to say we’ve seen an ~87% increase in positive forcings while keeping them separate from negative forcings. However, once you try to translate it to an observed change in temperature, you have to combine the two.
Anyway, I think your intended meaning was clear, but I wanted to make sure. We’ve already had WebHubTelescope grossly distort clear comments, so I can just imagine what would happen if he got the chance to respond to you when you used the wrong phrase.
I was originally responding to Girma, who is beyond hopeless
I think it is you guys that have problems with reading comprehension.
manacker and others, based on this logic you would have to agree with the IPCC statement that nearly all (not just most) of the current warming is very likely caused by anthropogenic GHGs. I guess this is progress, but you are still forgetting aerosols.
Jim D
Like Web, you, too, are missing the point of this whole discussion.
In his presentation (topic of this thread) Lindzen stated that the impact of all GHGs to date has been roughly equivalent to the impact of 2xCO2 alone. [Note that Lindzen did NOT discuss natural forcing factors at all in this statement]
Judith thought this sounded wrong, but did not check it out.
Robert raised the question of whether Lindzen had been right or not.
So I checked it out, using IPCC AR4 radiative forcing estimates for all the GHGs to 2005 (2.99 W/m^2), adjusted to year 2011 (3.23 W/m^2), compared to the IPCC estimate for 2xCO2 alone (3.7 W/m^2).
So Lindzen was approximately correct (87%).
All the side discussions of aerosol effect, impact of estimated feedbacks, etc., are all beside the point for the discussion here.
[Of course, I do NOT agree that all the past warming has been a result of added GHGs, Jim D – that would be a silly assumption, which not even IPCC makes.]
Max
@ Jim D | February 29, 2012 at 1:06 am |
Jim, the current GLOBAL warming is in your head, not in the troposphere. Loaded comments are for self misleading. Overall, the temp is ALWAYS the same. Extra heat in is NOT cumulative. That’s what the laws of physics say… Are you suggesting that: the laws of physics are wrong, but you are correct? Learn about the ”self regulation of heat in the troposphere” first; stop making fool of yourself. Cool your head with some truth, it’s good for you.
Web
I see that Brandon Shollenberger has tried to explain the question regarding the validity of Lindzen’s claim (that the net impact since pre-industrial times of the increases of ALL GHG concentrations is roughly equal to that of a doubling of CO2 alone).
He apparently has also made a rough calculation (as I did) coming to essentially the same conclusion.
The conclusion stands: Lindzen was not precisely right, but close enough.
If you can provide data to show otherwise, please do so.
Otherwise, stop your snarky remarks – they make you look silly..
Max
And I will add, repeating an earlier comment, that the term CO2 equivalent – written CO2e, and paraphrased by Dr. Lindzen as “equivalent CO2” – is a well established term. Everyone uses it, all the time. In Canada, it has a precise definition, in law and regulation, to include six particular gasses multiplied by weighting factors defined by the Government of Canada.
I am a bit nonplussed that individuals deeply invested in the global warming topic, such as WebHubTelescope, appear not to recognize the term CO2e, and appear to be ascribing something nefarious to use of that term by Dr. Lindzen.
Thanks to those who have closed in on a value of about 1.8 or 1.9 for CO2e over industrial times, and deemed that “close enough” to a doubling.
Bruce,
Definitions aside, one of the big points is what the audience of Lindzen will get out of the talk and whether he is acting as a salesman or giving an objective interpretation of the current science.
The radiative forcing for a CO2 doubling is about 3.7 W/m2. Now if you take all the GHG’s (including CO2, CH4, ozone, etc) you can get something close to that if you go all the way to the high end of the forcing estimates. Of course, that doesn’t include aerosols (in the AR5 first draft, the best estimate of total anthropogenic RF for 2010 relative to 1750 is about 2 W/m2, or roughly half a CO2 doubling). Even more, the climate system is some 0.5-1 W/m2 out of equilibrium which must be accounted for in the estimates he gives. No one without previous background in climate science would effectively pick up on these points.
Even more, he gives no indication that some of his own ideas (like IRIS, or the cloud resolution to the Faint Young Sun) are highly controversial and largely unsupported in the broader community. It’s fine if he still wants to hold onto them, but giving no indication of other people’s research or discussing potential flaws in his own does an injustice to the audience and their perspective.
Chris and Bruce, Lindzen gave much the same seminar at FremiLab a couple of years ago. The video is very interesting because this was a technical audience. What is remarkable is how many questions and interruptions he took calmly and seeming to answer every objection. In this setting, its obvious that Lindzen is not just trying to make a point. That is true, but there is I think real value in his ideas no matter how much they contradict those who see such certainty that they believe its a moral imperative to sell mitigation. As the moderator at FermiLab said after the long question session: “I think we’ve made Dick work harder for his supper than any speaker in the history of the colloquim/” And in my opinion it was useful from a scientifiic point of view. There was one outraged questioner who was upset but Lindzen handled his question and attack on Lindzen calmy and professionally.
I urge you to watch as it shows how the debate on climate change should be done in my opinion. The fact that it almost never is done this way is to the discredit of the scientists like Trenberth, Mann, and Schmidt who treat those who disagree as bad scientists, liars, or in the pay of some imaginary “fossil fuel industry conspiracy.” Worse yet, its their position that they will not debate skeptics except in controlled environments such as their blogs where they control the censors power. Judith doesn’t do it that way and that’s why I post here. When viewed in this light, I don’t see how you can’t appreciate Lindzen’s work, no matter how much you disagree with it.
You know, public policy debate is messy and often nasty. But I think it serves us ill to call people liars or dishonest unless there is strong evidence for these claims. I similarly don’t see the leading advocate scientists that way, even though sometimes its hard to refrain from name calling. I understand what they are doing and question what they say. That’s the right way to do it.
@chris colose
You say
‘the climate system is some 0.5-1 W/m2 out of equilibrium which must be accounted for in the estimates he gives’
And yet I see that the incoming solar radiation varies between 1321 and 1413 W/m2 during the year – a consequence of the Earth’s orbit being elliptical
Given this approx 7% difference every 6 months, is it really possible to construct a radiation budget so accurate that you can reliably say that there is 0.5-1 Wm-2 (0.03% – 0.07%) missing? If so, how? I’d love to see some sort of stacked bar chart – with error bars illustrating this point
One more comment from a long time, avid lurker.
For some time now I have been curious when and if all of this – all of the dueling regression lines from WoodForTrees, all the debates on Dr. Hansen’s 1988 scenarios and model divergence therefrom, tracking of arctic ice, Girma’s wavey line and so on and so forth – all of this would be framed around an ‘almost doubling’ of CO2e forcing rather than a 40% increase in CO2 concentration.
If the change happened, who (which side) would trigger it? In what context? Why? Obviously, as Chris Colose has made plain, many people have been aware of the opportunity/risk/threat of such a reframing. It has poked its nose out several times in comments around Hansen A, B and C. It is only in this thread that passions have been aroused and vigorous debate occurred – and the unfortunate tossing around of nasty words about the specific presenter Dr. Lindzen and other denizens of this blog – so I was intrigued and commented.
Back to lurking.
We think that warming is at most 0.1 degrees C/decade after natural variation is removed. This for instance – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=ensosubtractedfromtemperaturetrend.
“Based upon the background knowledge that we have, the threat does not seem to be an existential one on the time scale of the 21st century, even in its most alarming incarnation.” JC
Well I certainly agree.
Chief the link to your photobucket graph doesn’t work
This one – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=ensosubtractedfromtemperaturetrend.gif
Thanks
Vaughn Pratt
I did not arbitrarily select the linear trend.
The linear trend is the property of the global mean temperature (GMT).
http://bit.ly/ApMD3d
Why?
Because:
A straight line passes through almost all the GMT valleys.
A straight line passes through almost all the GMT peaks.
These two lines are almost parallel.
These two lines happen to have the same slope as the trend for the data from 1880 to 2000.
96% of the GMT data of the last 162 years lie between these two parallel lines.
That is why the property of the global mean temperature is a long term warming trend of 0.05 deg C per decade with an oscillation of 0.5 deg C every 30 years. This is the single property of the GMT data.
Your two trend lines include the changes in trends due to the multi decadal oscillation that must be excluded from trend calculations.
The following statements from Lindzen could be interpreted to mean that he agrees with the IPCC statement that anthropogenic GHGs account for the majority of the warming even in the last 150 years (but without aerosol effects).
He said (slide 4)
“- There has been a doubling of equivalent CO2 over the past 150 years
– There has very probably been about 0.8 C warming in the past 150 years
– Increasing CO2 alone should cause some warming (about 1C for each doubling)”
.
At a superficial level, yes. At a substantive level no.
Jim D
You wrote:
To clarify this, he states the bases, to which, he says, IPCC agrees completely:
Jim D
You wrote:
To clarify this, he states the bases, to which, he says, IPCC agrees completely:
In his example, he goes back even further (150 years).
It looks like Lindzen is basically agreeing that the estimated and partially observed increase in temperature over the past 150 years (0.8°C) corresponds with the estimated and partially observed increases in GH gases over this period, using the radiative forcing estimates for each cited by IPCC, AND that this increase in radiative forcing was roughly equivalent to that which one would expect from a doubling of CO2.
In other words, the estimated and partially observed long-term 2xCO2 temperature response was 0.8°C.
Since the total RF of all GHG over this period as estimated by IPCC was actually only 87% of the estimated 2xCO2 RF, one could say that the long-term 2xCO2 temperature response should actually be 0.8/0.87 = 0.92°C or about 1°C for each doubling (as Lindzen has stated).
Makes sense to me.
Is that what you had in mind?
Max
David Young stated in on message that I agree on certain issues with his views. There was certainly some truth in that but I don’t think that I agree with all that he discussed in that message.
This thread is not really the right point for the more accurate description of my views, but I put it here anyway.
There are certainly several important and basic issues related to climate models that I worry about. Those are issues that I know as difficult to resolve and with the potential of changing essentially many conclusions. Some of my worries are related to modeling of the dissipative processes and the influence of the modeling methods on the dissipation. It’s quite possible and even likely that models have more dissipation than nature in some places but less in others. I don’t agree that the deviation is necessarily always towards too much dissipation.
Another very severe worry concerns non-explicit tuning of the models. By that I mean that the modelers make during the model development innumerable choices and many of these choices have actually the nature of tuning, i.e. making the models to behave better in agreement with expectations. When this goes on over all stages of model development, it’s impossible to ever tell, how much tuning has been put into models. It’s also true that a wrong choice (i.e. one contrary to the real world facts) can often be canceled by this unconscious tuning during the further development. A model that has a serious error at one point may thus be tuned to work well over the set of available data but fail seriously when used to extrapolate. I must agree with Judith that what has been done with aerosols has similarities with the issues that I worry about. Proving that these worries are without basis requires better arguments than what I have seen.
A third point is related to the fingerprints. A fair test concerning whether certain observations form a valid fingerprint that adds to evidence requires so much care and work and is so prone to sloppy confirmatory conclusions that I have my doubts on the validity of claims on fingerprints. It may be that the scientists have really been careful enough, but I doubt. I doubt because the right methods are so cumbersome and the whole issue is so difficult that I doubt, whether the scientists really know these issues well enough and are ready to do all the work needed.
Basically what should be done is to do as much work with the alternative explanations as with the one that they wish to confirm. One should start from rudimentary alternative models and try to develop them with equal care to agree with the data. That means that a lot of work should be directed to multiple models that the scientists think to be wrong, all that should be done in good faith trying to reach the best results as vigorously as in developing the right models, and all that should be done for a wide variety of alternative models.
Why do I think that so much care is needed: The reason is that I believe that the alternative models would with high likelihood agree also on the additional fingerprints when they have been developed to agree with earlier data. The positive results on the value of fingerprints may well be due to a wrong set of alternatives.
I’m certainly not an expert on the work done with climate models in practice, and the climate modelers might have done much more and much better analysis than I consider likely. To change my views on what’s likely requires, however, good arguments that go to the level of discussing in a comprehensive way the points i worry most about.
My present view is that it’s plausible that the climate models give more or less correct results over a range of central issues, but that this is by no means proven and that many of the arguments given as support are significantly weaker than what has been implied by the proponents of the model analyses. To me the models are still the best method for making projections, but without nearly as strong evidence on their validity as I would like to see.
I have more first hand knowledge on some other models including “Integrated Assessment Models”. What I know about them tells again that the models are useful tools that help their users in figuring out important aspects about the reality, but very far from such straightforward validity that is often implied, when they are used as support for some conclusions.
When the issues are complex, models are not only wrong – they are all seriously wrong, but even so they are very useful, when used to answer those specific questions for which they can give most new understanding.
Pekka, you give a good summary that I broudly agree with. My additional concern is specifically that parameter tuning depends on numerics and that’s a problem because the numerical errors are probably large. I also know that laymen (including Fred) don’t understand the sausage making process and how bad the accuracy can be.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-1-3.html
The basics of model “tuning”
Capt. Dallas,
I’m amazed. I would never of thought of looking AR4.
Capt. Kangaroo
Captain K,
I am amazed there was any debate on “tuning”.
Oh, Congrats on the promotion :)
Hi Martin
Were you the guy, sitting in the middle, and asked LIndzen a question, where you refered to CO2 as natures thermostat?
Martin – I too was there aswell
Why do you say this on your blog, why misrepresent the event.
“I was not allowed to ask questions but Prof. Lindzen kindly invited me to email them to him instead. ”
when you asked what was probably the longest question, which was discussed very publically..
You second question, later on, was cut short, due to limited time and others wanting to ask questions..
Basically Martin Lack, you are caught in a ‘lie’ of your own making –
You deliberatley misrepresentted the event, publically on your blog, making out you were not allowed to ask questions publically.
On your blog you say:
“I was not allowed to ask questions but Prof. Lindzen kindly invited me to email them to him instead.”
When in fact you asked the longest public question, and recieved the longest answer publically..
by your actions, your integrity is shown.
So, I ask why should I give you the time of day, if you are willing to lie about something as trivial (and as important) as this, I imagine with the intent to show sceptics weren’t willing to publically debate.
actually Mark was specific on this, I’m still not sure what the question was, and the reply was very long trying to work out whatthe questions was.. soemthing about CO2 as natural thermostat, Milankovich cyclkes and AGW CO2 messingup the narural thermostat.
You very much WERE allowed to ask your question, however incomprehensible it was.
I think your pedantism on this subject, Barry, is just a means of avoiding talking about the science.
They say he used to work for the Foreign Office where he was known as Lack of Intelligence.
Hi Martin, @Martin Lack
I was at the House of Commons too (actually sitting next to Barry Woods).
I just wanted to give a couple of comments. I’m not going to argue a science position here, but I will say it was for me an interesting and valuable way to spend a couple of hours.
You say in your original post “i was prevented from actually asking a question.”
Sorry – that’s just not true. The way you posed your question was too broad and very confusing. I have sympathy with where I think you were going, but you were not clear enough at the time. From memory you spent probably close to a minute trying to frame your question, before Christopher Monckton identified it as not being clear enough for Richard Lindzen to be able to answer, so he closed you down and moved on. You did have your chance and were not prevented in any way.
There were other people waiting to ask questions (some of which, IMO, were less than credible), but they had a right to ask too. I am no fan of Christopher Monckton by a long way, but if you take away the pomposity, he chaired it effectively.
He did not let you ask a second question because there were other people waiting and I imagine he thought it may end up in the place your first question ended. Had I been chairing I probably would have done the same thing.
As you remember we were quickly ushered out at the end of the 2 hours. No time was wasted in the room and there were others who had more questions to ask.
I understand that you may have felt that you were not allowed to speak on an area that you are clearly very motivated about. But it does not help the surrounding discussion when you say things, like on your blog “I was not allowed to ask questions”, which are not credible. Your blog says you had three questions prepared, but as a listener in the conversation the one you did ask (or probably in your view attempted to ask) did not come across as prepared at all.
Thanks,
Mark
Mark
Judging on Lack’s Open Letter to Lindzen which just rambles on and on about a lot of stuff about how clever he (Lack) is and never gets to the point (if there is one), I’m not surprised he got closed down.
@Martin Lack:
When you get on the pot you have to p**s in it. You have to walk the walk not just talk the talk . Be quick and to the point. If you are really asking somebody questions it should be to find out what the questionee thinks, not to show off about how clever you think you are.
Such a latter strategy is doubly counter-productive. First you reinforce other people’s views that you are a tedious windbag, and second you prevent others asking better questions that might reveal the ‘hidden truths’ you are so convinced are there.
Ask one quick hard question in 10 seconds. Don’t make a 15 point rambling lecture/statement. Nobody cares about your views..it is Lindzen’s they have come to hear.
OK Mark, Having worked out how to use CTRL+F (what a dork – I know), I have now found this comment (which Barry seems to keep referring to).
I know it will probably come as a big surprise to you and almost everybody else on here – and certainly John Kosowski (if that is his real name) – but I am genuinely only after the truth.
You will also have to take it on trust that, as far as I am concerned, I blew my opportunity to ask a question because instead I made a statement. Lindzen may well have responded as if I had asked a question but, as far as I am concerned I did not.
However, this pedantism is getting us all nowhere so, instead, I will do as Barry suggested and post my 3 pre-prepared questions here (although they are only one or two clicks away on my blog). Personally, I don’t know why I am bothering because it is not your answers I wanted, it is Professor Lindzen’s. Nevertheless, for the record, here they are:
1. Concern over anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is based on the study of palaeoclimatology, not on computer modelling. However, models have helped to predict the atmospheric response to greenhouse gas emissions; and any uncertainties in model predictions have been due to uncertainties in emissions projections… Given all of this, why is it that you maintain that we have no reason to be concerned?
2. What is your answer to Utah-based Professor of Geological Sciences, Barry Bickmore, who recently suggested that today’s so-called climate “sceptics” are not like Galileo because, rather than fighting against one, they are fighting for an obscurantist and anti-intellectual Establishment, in an attempt to perpetuate the burning of fossil fuels for as long as possible?
3. Given the findings documented in Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s book, Merchants of Doubt, can you please tell me why, having fought for so long [let’s just say on the side of?] the tobacco industry to prevent legislation to minimise the harmful effects of smoking [i.e. this was the effect of Lindzen’s albeit limited involvement], you have apparently focused instead on helping the fossil fuel lobby deny that anthropogenic climate disruption is happening? [again effect rather than cause]
I’ll give mine to #1
‘any uncertainties in model predictions have been due to uncertainties in emissions projections…’
Bollocks.
Emissions are pretty easy to predict. They carry on going up at a pretty regular rate
But temperatures don’t. They go up sometimes, they stay the same sometimes and they go down sometimes. There is only a weak correlation between emissions and temperature.
If your argument were correct all we would have to do would be to improve our emissions forecasting ability and the problem of lousy temperature predictions would be solved. So simple even I can think of it before my post-prandial coffee. If not, why not?
I knew I should not have deleted part of the question. My point is that if you go back now to a model run 20 years ago and choose the emissions scenario that most-closely matches what actually happened, the model is shown to be accurate. This is not due to some mythical fudging; this is called model validation.
Martin knows full well that neither of Hansen’s scenarios A, B, or C match what actually happened. C is not even relevant because it assumed an emissions reduction. Skeptical Science confirms this: “As you can see, Hansen’s projections showed slightly more warming than reality, but clearly they were neither off by a factor of 4, nor were they “an astounding failure” by any reasonably honest assessment.” One needs not be off by a factor of 4 to be “wrong.” Nor does it need to be an “astounding failure” to be a “failure.”
Where is the real Joshua, and what have you done with him?
==================
Martin,
I just wanted to say I absolutely don’t doubt your aim or your sincerity. I just thought it was important enough to state that Christopher Monckton was IMO not shutting down debate at the meeting. Good for posting your 3 Q’s
regards,
Mark
No Martin Lack, it doesn’t. A hint. Go to Hansen’s scenarios A, B and C and tell us what happened to the predictios vs. reality.
@martin lack
‘if you go back now to a model run 20 years ago and choose the emissions scenario that most-closely matches what actually happened, the model is shown to be accurate’
OK. Let’s assume for the moment that you are right.
Which model shows this? When was the work done? Where were the results published? What does the successful model predict will happen to the GAT over the next ten or twenty years?
These should all be very easily to hand if your contention is true, since it would be a very positive point in favour of that particular model. Show me!
I’ll help Martin out.
The ‘observed warming’ was reasonably consistent with Hansen’s ‘aggressive action’ on emissions scenario. The ‘aggressive’ action on emissions never happened.
Hansen constantly updates his ‘theories’ and projections…as any scientist should given ‘new data’. His latest position(2011) is that the ‘heat hiding’ in the deep ocean is less then previously thought and the effect of aerosol’s is greater then previously thought.
and choose the emissions scenario that most-closely matches what actually happened, the model is shown to be accurate. This is not due to some mythical fudging; this is called model validation.
That is not model validation. Not even close. That is called after the fact picking the one that accidently happened to get close.
Mark;
In my experience, those who pose questions in that maundering manner are trying to set up an inescapable “Gotcha!” and in effect are speechifying, not asking at all.
The listeners they imagine they are so impressing are actually thinking, “Gah! What a self-important twat! Sit down, twat!”
On his blog, Martin states he was NOT allowed to ask questions……
Typical behaviour from Martin, as one can see. You got to grant it, he’s consistent in being windy and obfuscating.
Hey Martin,
Bottom line is that you blew it. You had a chance to ask Lindzen a probative, thoughtful, relevant question, but instead you went on a rant that discredited you in front of that entire audience. The only thing worse than your open letter is your list of 17 items that you want Lindzen to address, or “sue” you.
You could have started a very high level intellectual discourse with Lindzen, but instead you just made sure that you never will.
Next time you have an opportunity like this, let me see your question, and I will re-write it for you in a way that will engage your issue and elicit respect instead of ridicule. Even though I disagree with you, with the science being unsettled, I could definitely write your question in a way that would spur Lindzen’s interest instead of his pity.
But you just alienated yourself from anyone that would engage you, and you probably even lost a few of your own followers.
By the way, thanks for banning me on your site, that was really big of you.
… thanks for banning me on your site, that was really big of you
Don’t be so hard on Martin. He is just applying the consensus method of achieving consensus. It’s all settled now you see.
Well, as an outsider, I have grasped one thing, namely that the money provided for AGW research should be directed primarily at finding out if the “feedback” is mainly positive or negative. That will settle a lot of questions. At this point the serious researchers (including Dr Curry, Dr Spencer and Prof. Lindzen) are all comfortable with a 1 – 1.1C increase in temperature for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere (before feedbacks are considered). So set all the side issues aside, reduce the bickering and get on with focusing on determining the true impact of feedbacks in the climate system. That to me is the key issue for research and base it on measurable facts. I can certainly grasp the argument that if the feedbacks are positive, then at some stage the earth’s climate system would have run out of control and the earth would have become hot with the oceans converted to a large steam cloud.
John
The fact that life on earth existed for hundreds of millions years indicates that the earth must have a stable climate with negative feedbacks. Otherwise, one of the big meteorites hit of the earth would have finished life on earth.
It is the Gaia philosophy that has permeated into science to accept that like a human being the earth also has its 36.8 deg C.
Pekka
The global surface air temperature record of the last 150 years is characterized by a long-term warming trend, with strong multidecadal variability superimposed.
Mojib Latif, Noel S Keenlyside
http://bit.ly/xANYW0
When you draw the above statement, you get my graph (http://bit.ly/wzkYvi
) that shows a long-term warming of 0.05 deg C per decade with an oscillation of 0.5 deg C every 30 years.
This interpretation is supported by the data with the recent cooling, which is expected to continue until the 2030s => http://bit.ly/nz6PFx
Pekka
The global surface air temperature record of the last 150 years is characterized by a long-term warming trend, with strong multidecadal variability superimposed.
Mojib Latif, Noel S Keenlyside
http://bit.ly/xANYW0
When you draw the above statement, you get my graph (http://bit.ly/wzkYvi
) that shows a long-term warming of 0.05 deg C per decade with an oscillation of 0.5 deg C every 30 years.
This interpretation is supported by the data with the recent cooling, which is expected to continue until the 2030s => http://bit.ly/nz6PFx
Chief H @ 28/12 9.56am.
Create your own virtual climate universe:
A priori – you pays yer money and makes yer choice.
A posteriori- this is fun, see, it works!
( Fergit T S Eliot.)
I’m sorry but, I really do have better things to do than sit on this blog all day trying to fend-off what are mostly unnecessarily-hostile comments and/or questions from people who are only interested in advocating unquestioning loyalty to someone who is regarded by the scientific community as, well, let’s just say “extremely optimistic”.
Therefore, if I should fail to come back, it is not because I think you have better arguments (of course you will always have responses ready); it is because, by the nature of your responses, the majority of you are deeply ideologically prejudiced against accepting the reality of all the environmental problems we face. But that does not mean they do not exist.
Despite spending weeks trying to explain myself to John Kosowski, I am absolutely disgusted by his hypocrisy and willingness to wilfully misrepresent my position to the world (I note that this violates Judith’s stated Moderation policy): I am not anti-human, I am pro-environment (and humans are part of that environment – something that we all forget at our peril). And, if I am anti-growth, it is only because I recognise the reality that perpetual growth is impossible to sustain indefinitely on a finite planet.
Unless or until people (note I did not say “you people”) are willing to face up to these kinds of realities, there would seem little point in engaging in further “debate”. I came here hoping to encourage Professor Lindzen to answer my questions but, in general, all I have got is abuse and ridicule. But I am not complaining; no one likes to have their perception of reality challenged – it is called cognitive dissonance.
However, almost without exception – the people on this blog appear to me to be picking a fight with history and science; and I therefore genuinely regret to have to say that you will lose because we will all lose. Unfortunately, as Greg Craven once said, “we are all in the test-tube and the experiment is already running”! So, good luck to you all explaining the results to your children and grandchildren.
As for me, my conscience will be clear, I am doing all I can to make people see sense…
As for me, my conscience will be clear, I am doing all I can to make people see sense…
Your self-canonization is complete. RIP.
I note Martin still has not corrected his article. Where he said he was not allowed to ask questions at the event.
I also note, in his comments that he thought Peter Gleicj had sacrificed his career for the cause, the ‘greater’ truth..
Another Peter type I think..
That’s Saint Peter to you, sonny boy!
Come on Martin, you can level with us. You are really Joshua reincarnated in just a different costume. This universe could not possibly have more than one with this kind of self-aggrandizement complex/
It already has two. Little Joshie and Gleick the Imposter. A third might be stretching it……
Not Josh’s style at all.
Josh likes to argue. Martin is a crusader. No doubt he is a staunch defender of the faith. At question is whether he is tilting at windmills or dragons.
“This universe could not possibly have more than one with this kind of self-aggrandizement complex”
dennis, LA, you are both mistaken, I suggest. Without the twin neuroses – post-Christian angst, and messianic delusion – CAGW would not exist.
The first leads to a craving for “indulgence”, which the messiah-types obligingly supply, along with a package of scientistic twaddle to make it look less nakedly druidical.
The messiah-types stand in numerical relation to the post-Christian handwringers approximately as a bull to a herd of cows, but that still leaves us with a lot of bull…
Think about it – the messiahs are everywhere in warmism – they differ only in the extent of their self-awareness/delusion. This guy is at the extreme end in that regard, in that he really thinks he writes clear (and impressive) prose, while all but he see only flatulent drivel, but he has plenty of close company.
Martin,
The opposite of “extremely optimistic” is “extremely pessimistic”. I can see where I might qualify for the first category – though I’d question the extremely part. Where would you place yourself? The impression I get is “extremely pessimistic”.
Whether you realize it or not, your criticism of some of use seems to be based entirely on the fact that we don’t agree with your point of view – i.e. are optimistic when we should be pessimistic.
Prejudices and biases work in both directions. I’m sure, hard as I try, that they affect my opinions and views. I am just as sure that the same holds true for you. You might try thinking about that.
With regard to your believe that continued growth cannot be sustained, history so far has proven you wrong. Our planet’s population has more than doubled in the past century and on average, people live better than they did 100 years ago. Is that a guarentee this will continue into the future? Most certainly not. Are there significant challenges facing human kind? Again, most certainly. Is the human race up to meeting those challenges? I believe we are.
You talk about our children and grandchildren. I have the first and hopefully will have the latter. Many of the “limits to growth that have been proposed (and in some cases already adopted), are not conducive to my children and grandchildren having a better life. More importantly – if you want to take a global viewpoint – they are directly contrary to much of the world’s population ever having an opportunity to provide their children with a better life.
Martin,
You’re welcome I’m sure. I am sorry you didn’t quite have the experience you were looking for. You see we have decided quite some time ago that warming is at most 0.1 degree C/decade and that the causes are uncertain. You ask what changes? Everything changes – sun, snow, ice, cloud, thermohaline circulation, biology, sea surface temperature, polar vortices, etc.
I am a simple cowboy on a blue horse – but we have made a policy decision based on the scientific fact that climate change will be really rather minimal over, say, the next 88 years. Climate does not then present an ‘existential threat’ in the 21st century. By this I presume a life and death situation. Actual being and nothingness rather than John Paul’s problem of being in itself or for itself. Most hungry people don’t really care whether they are a being whose essence is known and fixed for all time or a being constantly in the process of becoming. As a philosopher – I am sure you can appreciate the difference.
So it is full steam ahead. Maximum economic growth, free markets, democracy, individual freedom, the rule of law and other essentials of our great heritage of scientific enlightenment. Please be assured that your concerns have been noted – and may be addressed in due course. I will leave you with a couple of papers from the Breakthrough Institute on the methods we propose to succeed on conservation and, pragmatically, on greenhouse gas emissions – as opposed to the failure of the pissant left over 30 years.
Yours sincerely
Captain Kangaroo
PS – I have noted previously that the World Health Organisation approved DDT for indoor surface spraying in 2007. This seems a positive development after so much misinformation and fear.
http://breakthroughjournal.org/content/authors/peter-kareiva-robert-lalasz-an-1/conservation-in-the-anthropoce.shtml
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2011/07/climate_pragmatism_innovation.shtml
experience
Tara then.
Seems to me that your very noisy position folds mightily when subjected to even the most tepid questioning.
I don’t think I’ll be alone in feeling that you were ‘noisy but unpersuasive’
Hint …work on arguing the actual substance of your position, leave out the bits about how clever you are (that always remains to be proved), and mightily tone down the insults. Come back when (if) you do so.
@martin lack
Less than 24 hours ago on this blog you confidently wrote:
‘I’m sorry, mate, but, as has been repeatedly shown to be the case on my own blog, you’ve picked a fight with the wrong guy’
But now you have flounced off in high dudgeon. Bemused, no doubt, why we haven’t just all rolled over and agreed with your every word.
Since your recent spectacular appearance and very rapid retreat on this blog seems to be your first (and very chastening) encounter with real life sceptics and lukewarmers, I wonder how much faith we should put in your MA thesis
‘“A Discourse Analysis of Climate Change Scepticism in the UK.”
Doesn’t seem like experimentation and fieldwork are your strong suits.
Hey Martin,
If I misrepresented your position, take me to task. It is all here in writing for anyone to see. If I am in error, I will retract it. I don’t know everything. This is a quest for truth.
Martin, I will explain why I think your agenda is anti-human, anti-growth, ant-modernism. Maybe you don’t even realize that it is.
As you know, on your blog you made reference to DDT and Rachel Carson in a comment:
“Why is it that you cannot – or will not – accept the very obvious conflict of interest that big business has, first exposed by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, when it comes to their acknowledging that the use of DDT, CFCs, coal, and cigarettes causes harm to the environment and/or people? ”
https://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/peddlers-of-doubt/
Of course, everyone can see that you now changed your comment to remove DDT, replacing it with “organic pesticides and herbicides.”
I took you to task telling you that DDT didn’t harm people, but in reality, it saved 500 million lives according to the National Academy of Sciences.
DDT was used heavily in the US and completely eradicated malaria.
http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/elimination_us.html
Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring which is about DDT. The word DDT is mentioned 188 times in the book. I checked each one.
Largely due to the public outcry caused by her book, DDT’s use was banned in many parts of the world, and heavily discouraged in others.
Her book was cited accordingly in the EPA hearings that banned it:
http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/ddt/DDT-Ruckelshaus.pdf
Malaria made a huge comeback afterwards. Malaria has caused the deaths of 30 million people directly due to the discontinued use of DDT. In 2006 the WHO re-sanctioned the use of DDT to fight Malaria saying that it poses NO risk to humans in interior household spray applications.
In 2000, the South African Department of Health reintroduced DDT, and in just one year, malaria cases fell by 80% in the KwaZulu-Natal province alone which was worst hit by malaria. In 2006, cases are now 97% below the previous high.
Even now we have the Sierra Club officially stating that it “does not oppose the indoor use of DDT to control malaria..” The Sierra Club is now paying for the purchase of DDT.
Despite all of that, environmental groups are still trying to stop the use of DDT and trying to prevent it from being used in places like Uganda.
Yes, there are many websites that try to debunk what I am saying, but none do. They say things like the National Academy of Sciences opposed DDT at the same time they admitted that it saved 500 million people. Perhaps. But it still saved 500 million people. None of my facts are wrong. Perhaps others played just as important a role as Rachel Carson in stopping the worldwide use of DDT. Perhaps. But that doesn’t contradict anything I have said.
As far as health effects, DDT was sprayed 4,650,000 times in the homes of people in the US. Where are the adverse effects? There are some theories, but not one citable case of a DDT death. At least I can’t find one, and I have tried.Instead I find things like “Although DDT is thought to cause health problems there has been no known case in which the pesticide directly caused a fatality.”
Meanwhile, people are dying and the people of Uganda want DDT. But western “environmentalists” think they know better, and are opposing it.
Now, if there are better chemicals to use, let the market work that out.
So anyway, Martin couldn’t refute a single fact I stated other than to just dismiss me for “rewriting” history. DDT is a clear case where environmentalism caused the unnecessary deaths of millions of people. Do the environmentalists care about the millions of people? Or do they just care about their agendas. That is the question that I want Martin to answer. Instead, he deleted the entire discussion and changed his original statement to exclude the word “DDT.”
3,000 people per day die of malaria, and they preach bed nets. That is why I think they are anti-people.
Martin thinks that there is no good use for pesticides, and that the only people that benefit from them is the evil multinational corporations.
I disagree.
In UK at least we have daft people wanting to stop GM (Frakenstein Foods) crops because of some mythical harm that may or may not have occurred to one potato that may or may not even have existed. They are all scared of something that they cannot describe but ‘know is there. The dreadful bogeyman just around the corner…….
The unlamented Martin Lack describes himself as a one-time evangelist Christian. Which is hardly surprising. He – and many other environmentalists – seem to me to be generally attuned to expecting imminent disaster be it GM or DDT or CAGW
The apocalyptic tradition is strong in many religions. and all seem to have the basic idea of some form of original sin from which redemption can come only through repentance and reform. The very name of islam (submission) tells us what s required. And the book of revelations tells christians the dreadful consequences of failure to repent. It is absolutely no coincidence that John Houghton – one of the founding fathers of the CAGW religion – is to this day a fervent evangelical, brought up in the Welsh fire and brimstone tradition.
It is not hard to understamd where these guys are coming from. Butsince their feeling is religious, not scientific, it is difficult to know how to deal with them. Perhaps they will always be with us. Thankfully the latest outbreak of religious mania in the guise of the CAGW apocalypse is dying away. But it’ll be back in a different form someday
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that AGW couldn’t be a problem. I do not want a sixth mass extinction event any more than James Hansen does. But let’s get the science right before we ban fossil fuel use the way Martin and Al Gore demand.
By the way, that is exactly what James Hansen is predicting: “when there have been warmings of several degrees Celsius, which is what we will get if we will follow business as usual, the earth lost more than half of its species.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zi12lZIdGjQ
1:23 in the video.
Personally, I think Hansen is making a misstatement as we have had many instances of warming of a several degrees C without a mass extinction. And, losing half of the species would clearly qualify as a mass extinction event.
James Hansen is predicting: “when there have been warmings of several degrees Celsius, which is what we will get if we will follow business as usual
As a business man…I can categorically state there is no such thing as ‘business as usual’.
Business as usual is adapting to changing market conditions when and if they occur.
Since absolutely no one in the year 2000 even got the sign correct on the direction in the price of coal over the next decade(everyone said down…it went up…by a lot) it is ‘impossible’ to predict ‘business as usual’. Anyone in 2005 that predicted that natural gas would be selling at less then $4/MMBtu in 2012 would have been carted off to the looney bin.
harry;
“Anyone in 2005 that predicted that natural gas would be selling at less
thenthan$4$3/MMBtu in 2012 would have been carted off to the looney bin.”There. Fixed it for you!
:)
Just to update this entry. Martin Lack has asked me to publicly retract the above post and apologise here for
‘for mocking my honesty regarding my faith (and doubt) in God’
I have carefully reread my post and see nowhere that I have been guilty of such sentiments. Accordingly I do not intend to either withdraw or apologise for it.
As a reminder to anyone who may feel that Martin Lack owes them a public apology while the mood for apology is upon him, his website is at
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/
The discussion is at the thread entitled ‘An open letter to Richard Lindzen’. It would be wise to keep copies of your submissions (or post them here) since ML purports to be very keen on deleting aberrant posts.
Cheers LA
Further update
Since I have not apologised to Lack, he has banned me from his blog.
While struggling to contain my tears, I just have time to reflect on what a strange crusader he is. Somehow he believes that the more obnoxious and arrogant he becomes, the more the ‘deniers’ will see the error of their ways.
Very very odd
Now I mean this in the nicest possible way towards Martin.. Martin is somewhat of an enigma. He goes around making threats, smearing people, and calling names. For example, Fred Singer needs to be put on trial for crimes against humanity. But if anything close to that comes his way, he is overly sensitive and demands apologies, bans people from his blog, etc.
But he has no idea that he is like that. Just like he has no idea that his views are faith based. He sees mankind, consumerism, growth, technological progress and industrial development all as bad things regardless of whether they actually are bad. Martin wants them to be bad, so that he can save us from them or that he can feel virtuous about himself. But when it comes to real harms that humans face like malaria, lack of electricity, lack of clean drinking water, lack of food, Martin is nowhere to be found. He just causally dismisses all that stuff as being a product of past imperialism or some such other human created phenomenon. And he has no concept of the ramifications of ending fossil fuel use namely the amplification of all those miserable conditions.
That makes AGW the perfect issue for him. See, humans are destroying the planet – Martin knew it all along. Proof isn’t necessary as now any negative event is now proof of AGW. In 5 or 10 years when the AGW goes fades away to the dust bin of alarmist history, Martin will be opposing fossil fuels on some other grounds.
And just for a moment there I thought that a more rational Martin Lack might be peeping out from under the persona.
But no. Bish, bash, ban and he’s back to his old tricks. He really is a very very odd individual. Sadly his personality is so alienating that I doubt he’ll ever persuade anybody of anything. Let alone sceptics that he’s here to help us.
Thanks for clarifying your position on all of that, John. Well now, you really have nailed your colours to the mast: My suspicions were warranted all along; you were never interested in learning anything new – you merely wished to find another platform to reinforce your existing prejudice. As you often like to say yourself, its all here as a permanent record (to your folly).
Thanks also for correctly explaining why it was I modified what I wrote and deleted an entire discussion thread – to avoid your pedantic obfuscation of the wider issue (by merely focusing on DDT). If you don’t like my moderation style, feel free to never come back.
That’s it. I’m out of here. To the rest of you, as John himself would say, “I owe you nothing!”
Let’s be honest, Martin. It was you that introduced DDT and Rachel Carson on your blog, not me. That is something that seems to be a pattern with you, you mix into your statements a bunch of other nonsense. When it is wrong, I take you to task on it, like I did with your allegations that Lindzen fought for the tobacco industry against legislation. Maybe you would do well to not introduce those kinds of distractions.
Again, if I speak in error, PLEASE correct me. Maybe no one is really dying of Malaria, I wish I were wrong on that one.
I am suggesting rather than running and hiding and banning me and insulting me that you just take me on factually. Then we can both learn. But you aren’t interested.
I welcome anyone to go to your blog and count the number of times that you called me and others names. I am a “joke,” a “fool” or whatever.
@martin lack
Have you really gone this time? Or do you suffer from Sinatra Syndrome?
we must thank Martin for correcting his claim that he was not allowed to ask questions.. he has also been intellectually honest enough to allow all comments on his blog. (unlike RC)
What does concern me is the cavalier attitude with the pedantic facts in the first place. A bit like Pete Gleick rthen, whom of Martin said ‘sacrificed his career for the cause’
Yes, and Martin also apologized for saying that LInzden made “misstatements of relevant facts.” The thing is that Martin could have just done those things immediately upon realizing his error, and no one would have thought the worse of him for it. Everyone makes mistakes, no big deal. If you learn something, correct your position, and move on.
Instead he becomes hostile and goes to battle over them as if his entire position depends upon defending his mistakes.
He should also retract the tobacco allegation or post up some proof to justify it. I have no idea what Lindzen’s involvement was with the tobacco industry is, but it is just not nice to smear someone like that without evidence.
When he made the misstatement claim, I wasn’t trying to “catch” him, I just wanted to know what the misstatements were. Maybe Lindzen was making misstatements, if so, air them out for everyone to see. Otherwise, don’t say stuff like that.
Oh, and by the way, he did ban me from his site, and I suspect tried to have me banned from this one as well.
“Yes, and Martin also apologized for saying that LInzden ”
John, by now we’ve all got a pretty good idea of who and what this guy is. You’re starting to break a butterfly on a wheel.
I have considerably greater respect for the original butterfly (Sir Michael Philip Jagger KBE) than I do for Martin Lack.
@barry
‘he has also been intellectually honest enough to allow all comments on his blog’
Sadly not. He has chosen a very strange moderation policy on his blog. Blackmail.
He took umbrage to one of my remarks posted here and threatened me that if I did not publicly withdraw it and apologiese he would blacklist me from his blog.
I do not think that blackmail as in the spirit of open discourse, and seeing nothing of any great significance in my remarks I refused to do so
So I am banned there, John Kosowski was also banned for not toeing the party line. A third contributor is under severe threat that if he doesn’t agree with Lack he too will be disciplined.
In only his second ever posting here, he invited somebody to sue him. He’s a good one for the threats and the intimidation is Martin.
And for a guy whose supposed mission in life is to help us poor deniers see the error of our ways, his parting comment
‘Nope. Sorry, Latimer. This is my blog. My rules. Goodbye’
seems to contain all the reasons why he is doomed to failure. Persuasive he is not.
LA & B,
Martin is nothing but a bully on his blog. For a few weeks I did nothing but engage him in polite discussion on the science of AGW, and he just threw one tantrum after another resorting to ad hominems on at least 10 occasions.
He even wrote an article directly to me calling me a fool with my hands over my ears singing “la la la la la.”
He writes an article on “Climate science in a nut fragment,” and then when I lay out some uncontested parts of the science, namely that the initial sensitivity of CO2 is 1.1 C per atmospheric doubling, something that Martin didn’t know up until then, he exclaims “this blog is about the politics of the environment not the science: Although I understand it, I am not here to debate the science…”
One can tell that Martin didn’t understand some of the basic science in how he reacts to it calling it “numbers games, etc.” He tells me that models of 20 years ago have been proven right, then when I answer that, he says things like “Therefore, it is almost laughable that you should ask me to discuss something Hansen wrote in 1988.” It is Martin that brought it up, but when someone wants to discuss it, he flips out.
When I try to explain Hansen’s own model to him he gets angry saying “Given all of the above, I do not see any point discussing water vapour, etc.” But Hansen’s model uses water as a positive feedback! I only referred to water vapor in that regard. I was only trying to state his own position for him, since he didn’t understand it.
By the way, Martin, I can post on your blog any time I want. Sammy is my first pet, and Osceola is the street on which I grew up. Give the name a little clicky, as I left a link for you.
STOP THE PRESSES!
According to Martin Lack: “Lindzen has now shredded the last vestiges of any credibility or respect he might have once had amongst climate scientists – his career is over.”
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/be-strong-and-courageous/
So that is it. Lindzen’s career is over. This whole thread is for nothing.
@john kosowski
Life’s to short to worry about Martin Lack in his current manifestation.
Now he has successfully banned all bar two posters on his blog, he’s going to have a very lonely time in the blogosphere. As I understand it he has already been banned from Anthony’s (which takes some doing). So he doesn’t have access to the biggest soapbox any more.
And it seems unlikely that he’ll come back here, unless he modifies his way too aggressive and pugnacious style. He’d also need to learn that just shouting something doesn’t work – you need to be able to present actual evidence, not just empty slogans.
For a man whose stated purpose is to ‘help the deniers see the error of their ways’, he seems to have done a very sound job of cutting off all access to those he wishes to persuade. If he deliberately and voluntarily prevents all interaction with them, then I wonder what his Plan B for the conversion process will be?
Maybe, just maybe, there might be a glimmer of a good brain hiding under all the shouting and demanding and blustering and blackmail and all that counter-productive nonsense. I thought I saw hints of it prior to my ceremonial execution on his blog for an offence so minor that only Lack himself could see it. And maybe he has interesting things to say.
But with just an (already persuaded) blog readership of precisely 2, and no access to any other widely read forum, he will achieve very very very little. Unless he calms down a lot on the aggression and starts actually debating, not just declaiming. And drops the threatening behaviour completely
“JC comment: generally good points, but I object to the last sentence in #2. Scientists don’t even know how to deal with the complex climate science adequately.”
The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. Who has done the better job of predicting the future the scientists or the laymen?
Lets start with prognostications made by your fearless scientist/leader James Hansen in 1988 testifying before congress. This wraps it up rather nicely:
http://mises.org/daily/5892/The-Skeptics-Case
The score is Scientists:0, Laymen:1
Better luck on your next 25 year prediction, doctors.
Perhaps Dr. Curry could offer a scientific explanation for something that puzzles me.
The highest observed mean annual temperature in the world was 1960-1966 in Dallol, Ethiopia. This is a salt desert near the equator with one to three inches of rainfall annually. Very very dry.
Two questions actually.
If water vapor is a positive feedback why does the highest mean annual temperature occur in a desert?
If CO2 increases mean annual temperature why was the record for highest mean annual temperature set 50 years ago?
I understand if the answers are too complex for an ignorant lay person such as I but I’m hoping your vast demogogic skills practiced and honed over a lifetime in academia can rise to the challenge.
oops
I meant to say pedagogic not demagogic.
No, really! I know what you’re thinking and it was not a Freudian slip!
David, you write “Two questions actually.”
I am not sure I can answer your questions directly, but let me try to tell you my impression. First, as has been said over and over again, the climate has been changing ever since the world started, and will probably go on changing into the indefinite future. There are some clues why this happens, but no-one understands these changes in detail. We just know they happen.
Since we got good records, starting in around 1850, there has been a natural noise variation of around +/- 0.25 C, and a steady “signal” of around +0.06 C per decade. We know this has not been happening for millenia; it is some sort of recovery from the Little Ice Age. And we can be reasonably certain it will not continue in this fashion into the indefinite future.
The proponents of CAGW have used non-validated models, and some highly dubius physics, to claim that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will give another positive “signal”, variously estimated as a no-feedback climate sensitivity of around 1 C per doubling of CO2, and a feedback amplification which mulitplies this number several times. None of these numbers has ever been measured, nor can they be measured, and so far as I am concerned, they are hypothetical and meaningless.
When we look at the actual global temperature/time graph, there is no CO2 “signal” which is discernable above the natural noise. So we know that the total climate sensitivity of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero. So any observations you have made are caused by natural varfiations which no-one undertstands. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere has no discernable effect.
They were both rhetorical questions, Jim.
It takes a mountain of PhD-level obfuscation to conceal what every layperson with naturalist tendencies easily observes – it’s cooler when it rains. That explains why the highest mean temperatures are equatorial deserts instead of equatorial jungles. I actually don’t believe CO2 increases the mean annual temperature of the planet detectably when the ocean presents a mostly liquid surface and all feedbacks are accounted for. The CO2 signal is hopelessly buried in the noise. Thus the record being set 50 years ago is a combination of hair splitting and happenstance.
Presumably Dr. Curry knows better than to answer pointed rhetorical questions.
Another question, just as pointed and rhetorical, but not so obvious about it is:
Why is the average temperature of the global ocean 4C instead of 3C or 5C?
The average temperature of the ocean is a real knee slapper.
Most scientists (I would even say most physicists) will immediately say the ocean temperature below the thermocline is 3C because that’s the maximum density point of water. Technically that’s correct but the ocean is salt water not fresh water. The salt (about 3% for seawater IIRC) alters the temperature/density graph of seawater thusly:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6978/images/428031a-f1.2.jpg
Seawater reaches its maximum density at -2C which happens to also be its freezing point. When it turns to a solid the salt is excluded and the ice still floats thus (damn lucky for us) the ocean still freezes from the top down like a freshwater lake.
So when we understand the deep ocean (90% of it’s mass by the way) below the thermocline is 3C and only the mixed layer is (currently) 16C which is the average surface temperature of the earth enquiring minds must ask themselves how the heck the deep ocean got so cold.
If you ask a climate boffin what the average surface temperature of the earth was in the 100,000 years prior to the Holocene Interglacial the stock answer is 3C cooler. This is given so you can become suitably alarmed at how drastically the climate can change with a mere 3C change in average temperature and they then start babbling about how there’s a 90% probability that unfettered fossil fuel combustion will raise the earth’s average temperature another 3C (possibly more) by the year 2100. Then they say the ocean will rise and drown billions of people and little kids start having nightmares about global warming.
Well sir, what I want to know is how the deep ocean got to be 3C when the average surface temperature during a glacial epic is 13C and the average during an interglacial is 16C? It isn’t being cooled from below because the lapse rate as we dig down into the earth’s crust is about 1C per 100 meters until it gets hot enough to melt iron at the core.
So if the ocean depths aren’t cooled from above and aren’t cooled from below and it’s not because the maximum density point of seawater is 3C WTF cooled it to that temperature?
The ONLY answer with any semblance of grounding in reality is that the average temperature of the surface during a glacial is not 13C. It’s close to 3C.
Alternative explanations welcome but none that make sense are expected.
■Changes are not causal but rather the residue of regional changes.
JC comment: I don’t understand the second bullet [above]?
He’s saying that global average temperature anomaly doesn’t cause regional changes but rather that global average temperature anomaly is merely the sum of unrelated regional changes.
Thanks for asking.
That’s an interesting reaction from Martin Lack, who complains in his comment of February 28, 2012 at 9:31 am that “ .. I was there. In an attempt to address one of the many misrepresentations or omissions of relevant facts, i was prevented from actually asking a question .. ”.
Contrary to what Martin says, Barry Woods nor Mark Brandon were not just being pedantic, they were correcting a blatant misrepresentation of the fact, a common trait among CACC supporters. I too was at the meeting and after an excellent presentation by Professor Lindzen only a few minutes were available for questions before the next scheduled meeting (the 21 Committee) was due to start at 16:00. Many of us were eager to put our own but there wasn’t time, therefore Martin should think himself lucky that he was able to ask one question. Because of time constraints meeting chairman Lord Monckton correctly did not allow Martin to hog the Q&A period but gave an opportunity to as many others as possible.
After the meeting I E-mailed organiser Fay Kelly-Tuncay with “ .. I’d like to get names for, including the questioner who Lord Monckton had to persuade to stop .. ”. She advised that it was Martin and having seen his Linked-In profile (http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/martin-lack/5/170/801) and read some of his articles on his blog (http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/about/) I think that I understood his staunch support for the CACC hypothesis. If I was an unemployed environmental consultant specialist in Environmental Politics I’d be very worried about the increasing global scepticism about CACC, just as many other similarly qualified individuals must be, especially those employed in “non-jobs” by local and national governments.
After reading Martin’s comment to one Keith Battye that “ .. your entire problem is that you think the science is not settled when it was – effectively – settled by Hansen in 1988 .. ” my suspicion is that Martin’s sole reason for attending the meeting was not to learn anything from Professor Lindzen but to promote the CACC propaganda.
Perhaps if Martin is “ .. genuinely only after the truth .. ” then it’s time that he removed his environmentalist blinkers and took a look at the real world, starting with http://www.wunderground.com/blog/sebastianjer/comment.html?entrynum=124&page=1 then at my comment today at Tony Newbery’s “A matter of timing” thread (http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=541). After that he could do a lot worse that read Christopher Booker’s “The BBC and Climate Change: a Triple Berayal” (http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/booker-bbc.pdf)
As for his suggestion that James Hansen’s simple climate “ .. model is shown to be accurate .. this is called model validation .. ”, once again he is completely wrong. No climate model has been subjected to professional and independent Verification, Validation and Test (VV&T) procedures. All attempts at validation are made by the model developers or users themselves, not by independent VV&T specialists.
Of course I could have totally misinterpreted the data that I have found so if anyone considers that I have made misleading statements then please let me know so that I can consider whether or not an apology is warranted.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
PS:
It seems that Martin Lack has run off with his tail between his legs after having been caught out lieing about his treatment at the Climate Change Act Reconsidered meeting so I’ll see if he is prepared to post this on his blog.
Pete R
In his brief sojourn here, I’m sure that Lack persuaded many, like me, that he has only an arms length and casual relationship with the truth.
If his interventions were designed to impress potential employers of his suitability to work on ‘climate change prevention’ (his chosen field), then I fear he will spend a very long time on the dole.
Pete,
Based on this
“an unemployed environmental consultant specialist in Environmental Politics ”
I can now see why Martin has such a bleak image of the future.
His at least.
“In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.”
Wearing my engineering hat here I’m going to talk about something called a “margin of safety”. When there are unknown or unpredictable things that can effect our designs we try to anticipate the worst of these and build in a safety margin for them.
I’ve gone through the numbers for Milankovich cycles and Lindzen is correct in saying several thousand years. The optimal orbital and axial tilt configuration for glaciation is about four thousand years in the future. There are two factors at work, axial precession and orbital precession. The ellipsoid orbit of the earth varies in how elliptical it is. At the extreme of ellipsoid the earth makes a closer approach to sun at perihelion than when it is more circular. Axial precession works to make difference in insolation greater or lesser between winter and summer.
Note that these changes do not change the total amount of energy the earth receives from the sun but rather just modifies (only slightly) the temporal and spatial distribution of the annual input.
Optimal conditions for glaciation occur when the closest approach to the sun occurs in the winter and when axial tilt is the least which causes the least difference in summer/winter insolation. These conditions must occur in the northern hemisphere not the southern. Warmer winters and cooler summers in the NH are the key. This causes the greatest accumulation of snow in the winter and least melt in the summer. The increased albedo from the greater extent and longevity of snow cover makes it a (pun intended) snowball effect (positive feedback).
This is all perfectly predictable. What Lindzen fails to acknowledge is the unpredictability of the perfect storm. Say Svensmark is right and solar minimums raise albedo through changes in cloud cover and thus cool the planet. Now say big volcanic eruptions happen and certain of these that manage to blast particulates into the stratosphere also work to cool the planet temporarily.
Now say that over the course of the next 4000 years we have some statistical chance of a grand solar minimum in any given century and we also have some statistical probability of more than the average number of volcano eruptions occuring in that same century.
Now add in the chance of volcanos and solar minimums lining up with the cool side of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation.
BOO-YAH! The perfect storm.
The chance of that perfect storm happening is unchanging with regard to Milankovitch alignment but as the Milankovitch cycle moves towards the peak it takes a lesser and lesser perfect storm to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back insofar as ending the Holocene Interglacial.
So back to my margin of safety. I consider any modest warming we get from anthropogenic CO2 as adding to our margin of safety against that perfect storm. The warmer the average temperature the greater the perfect storm must be.
Of course I’m just an engineer so what would I know about things like this where numbers and probabilities and mechanics and sundry physical processes are occuring and they all interact to produce various physical phenomenon. I anxiously await a scientist to point out where I have undoubtedly gone wrong here with my silly concerns about margins of safety.
A Perspective on Decadal Climate Variability and Predictability
Latif, Mojib and Keenlyside, Noel (2011)
Linear + cyclic interpretation of global mean temperature => http://bit.ly/wCsZym
Not IPCC’s “accelerated warming” => http://bit.ly/b9eKXz
http://eprints.ifm-geomar.de/8744/
Grateful that real science is being done.
However you want to pick it apart, it seems to me that Lindzen’s presentation only underscores this key point: human activity is an infinitesimal factor in CO2 activity, and CO2 is an infinitesimal factor in climate change.
I especially like the “so what” he says about (infinitesimal) changes in global temperatures. It’s about time someone pointed out the reckless exaggerations of the AGW crowd.
Lindzen reminds me of this character from the show rugrats called “Lipschitz” in appearance and demeanor.
@ Beth Cooper | February 29, 2012 at 7:49 am |
‘I dream of a War of right and of might, of unlooked-for logic. It is as simple as a musical phrase.’ Rimbaud
‘I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.’ TS Eliot
Hmmm…with Rimbaud there is the visionary, the passionate and the imflammatory. With Eliot there are coffee spoons – I say as I spoon coffee into the French press and listen to to the Art of War on audio book.
I am nostalgic for the simple times and simple life of a cowboy on a blue horse.
See you on the barricades dear girl.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
” ‘I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.’ What does that mean, Mr. Marlowe?”
“Not a bloody thing. It just sounds good.”
He smiled. “That is from the ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.’ Here’s another one. ‘In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michael Angelo.’ Does that suggest anything to you, sir?”
“Yeah- it suggests to me that the guy didn’t know very much about women.”
“My sentiments exactly, sir. Nonetheless I admire T. S. Eliot very much.”
“Did you say ‘nonetheless’ ?”
(from Raymond Chandler, “The Long Goodbye”_
This thread has been quite active.
There have been the usual ad hom attacks on Lindzen as an individual and some blanket statements that his presentation does not represent the opinion of “mainstream science” (yawn!), but so for no one has effectively refuted ANY of his specific points:
1. No one disputes that:
– there is a GHE
– CO2 is a GHG
– CO2 has increased
– humans emit CO2
– 2xCO2 should cause ~1°C warming
2. “Incontrovertibility” does not exist in science
3. “Arguments from authority” are of “dubious value”
4. There has been no global warming after 1997
5. “Relative to the variability [±2°C] the changes in global average temperature anomaly [a few tenths of a degree C] look negligible.”
6. Past pre-industrial warming period of 50+ years [from mostly natural causes] is virtually indistinguishable from latest 50+ year warming period [ostensibly mostly from human causes]
7. Climate changes are not global per se, but “the residue of regional changes”
8. Models are not physics and are only good if they are “objective and not arbitrarily adjusted”
9. The “hot spot AGW fingerprint” per models is missing in actual observations
10. Current Arctic warming is not unprecedented (1920s to 1940s)
11. Model-derived net positive feedbacks are not confirmed by satellite observations, which show net negative to neutral feedbacks
12. As a result, 2xCO2 climate sensitivity is overstated by models
13. The postulated high climate sensitivity implies a basically unstable climate system, it is illogical to assume this has been the case over the long life of our planet
14. Climate catastrophes cannot be directly linked to global warming
15. “Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.”
16. “Unprecedented” climate catastrophes are not “on the horizon”, although “in several thousand years we may return to an ice age”.
These seem to be the salient points from Lindzen’s presentation, and – so far – I have seen no effective rebuttals.
Max
Max
As regards your point ten, i am currently researching part two of my ‘historic variations in arctic ice’ series. There have been numerous periods of ice retreat, the one prior to the 1920 to 1940 episode was 1818 to 1860.
I shall be documenting the rise and fall of sea ice going back some 6000 years and the civilisations that flourished in benign times
TonybTony
Hi Tony
Looking forward to your new study.
Cheers.
Max
Max
When people lose an argument, they go for the body instead of the ball. No surprise there.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
peteridley says: 29 February 2012 at 17:58
Hi Martin, since you appear to have scuttled away from Professor Curry’s thread on Lindzen’s presentation you may not see my latest comment so here it is.
That’s an interesting reaction from Martin Lack, who complains in his comment of February 28, 2012 at 9:31 am that “ .. I was there. In an attempt to address one of the many misrepresentations or omissions of relevant facts, i was prevented from actually asking a question .. ”.
Contrary to what Martin says, Barry Woods nor Mark Brandon were not just being pedantic, they were correcting a blatant misrepresentation of the fact, a common trait among CACC supporters. I too was at the meeting and after an excellent presentation by Professor Lindzen only a few minutes were available for questions before the next scheduled meeting (the 21 Committee) was due to start at 16:00. Many of us were eager to put our own but there wasn’t time, therefore Martin should think himself lucky that he was able to ask one question. Because of time constraints meeting chairman Lord Monckton correctly did not allow Martin to hog the Q&A period but gave an opportunity to as many others as possible.
After the meeting I E-mailed organiser Fay Kelly-Tuncay with “ .. I’d like to get names for, including the questioner who Lord Monckton had to persuade to stop .. ”. She advised that it was Martin and having seen his Linked-In profile (http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/martin-lack/5/170/801) and read some of his articles on his blog (http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/about/) I think that I understood his staunch support for the CACC hypothesis. If I was an unemployed environmental consultant specialist in Environmental Politics I’d be very worried about the increasing global scepticism about CACC, just as many other similarly qualified individuals must be, especially those employed in “non-jobs” by local and national governments.
After reading Martin’s comment to one Keith Battye that “ .. your entire problem is that you think the science is not settled when it was – effectively – settled by Hansen in 1988 .. ” my suspicion is that Martin’s sole reason for attending the meeting was not to learn anything from Professor Lindzen but to promote the CACC propaganda.
Perhaps if Martin is “ .. genuinely only after the truth .. ” then it’s time that he removed his environmentalist blinkers and took a look at the real world, starting with http://www.wunderground.com/blog/sebastianjer/comment.html?entrynum=124&page=1 then at my comment today at Tony Newbery’s “A matter of timing” thread (http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=541). After that he could do a lot worse that read Christopher Booker’s “The BBC and Climate Change: a Triple Berayal” (http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/booker-bbc.pdf)
As for his suggestion that James Hansen’s simple climate “ .. model is shown to be accurate .. this is called model validation .. ”, once again he is completely wrong. No climate model has been subjected to professional and independent Verification, Validation and Test (VV&T) procedures. All attempts at validation are made by the model developers or users themselves, not by independent VV&T specialists.
Of course I could have totally misinterpreted the data that I have found so if anyone considers that I have made misleading statements then please let me know so that I can consider whether or not an apology is warranted.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
PS:
It seems that Martin Lack has run off with his tail between his legs after having been caught out lieing about his treatment at the Climate Change Act Reconsidered meeting so I’ll see if he is prepared to post this on his blog.
Pete R
PPS:
Hi Fred (Moolten) am I correct in thinking that you are the Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Senior Climate Fellow at the organization PennFuture.org? (http://www.camelclimatechange.org/profile/fmoolten/privacy/contact/). Were you also the author of this 2008 Washington Post comment “ .. Obama, like McCain, advocates reduction in CO2 emissions via clean coal technology .. no plan to bankrupt the coal industry, but only to make the construction of new coal-fired plans prohibitively expensive if they don’t utilize technology to reduce carbon emissions. .. Almost every scientist familiar with climate change would endorse that view as a minimum requirement.. ” (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/mccain-in-pennsylvania-im-a-co.html).
If so then there has been a significant shift in sentiment since those heady days just after the IPCC’s misleading AR4. Climategate opened the eyes of a lot of people to the political distortion of science in order to pursue aenda far removed from from takin gover Nature’s job of controlling the different global climates.
It is now being widely realised that there is no sound evidence that CO2 has any significant impact upon climates or even the mean global temperature (whatever significance that statistically derived figure is supposed to represent). Spending money to remove that essential life-supporting substance CO2 from coal-fired power station emissions is a total waste of money (although reducing the emissions of genuine pollutants to acceptable levels is justified.
BTW, I find it very hard to understand how any intelligent individual with a science background can believe that models based upon such a poorly understood scientific foundation can possible be trusted to provide meaningful results.
I do agree with one of your comments, “ .. readers should judge for themselves rather than merely going by the comments in this thread .. ” but would add “ .. or going by the comments of self-proclaimed experts .. ”. As Professor Lindzen indicated in his presentation, climate science is a very young science full of uncertainty.
Hi Max (Annacker) I agree that no-one has been able to refute what Professor Lindzen said in his presentation. All that we have had is hot air from people like Martin Lack.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Hi moderator, I apologise for repeating myself in my previous comment (still in moderation). I only intended to post the PSS for Fred.
Here it is agan
Hi Fred (Moolten) am I correct in thinking that you are the Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Senior Climate Fellow at the organization PennFuture.org? (http://www.camelclimatechange.org/profile/fmoolten/privacy/contact/). Were you also the author of this 2008 Washington Post comment “ .. Obama, like McCain, advocates reduction in CO2 emissions via clean coal technology .. no plan to bankrupt the coal industry, but only to make the construction of new coal-fired plans prohibitively expensive if they don’t utilize technology to reduce carbon emissions. .. Almost every scientist familiar with climate change would endorse that view as a minimum requirement.. ” (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/mccain-in-pennsylvania-im-a-co.html).
If so then there has been a significant shift in sentiment since those heady days just after the IPCC’s misleading AR4. Climategate opened the eyes of a lot of people to the political distortion of science in order to pursue aenda far removed from from takin gover Nature’s job of controlling the different global climates.
It is now being widely realised that there is no sound evidence that CO2 has any significant impact upon climates or even the mean global temperature (whatever significance that statistically derived figure is supposed to represent). Spending money to remove that essential life-supporting substance CO2 from coal-fired power station emissions is a total waste of money (although reducing the emissions of genuine pollutants to acceptable levels is justified.
BTW, I find it very hard to understand how any intelligent individual with a science background can believe that models based upon such a poorly understood scientific foundation can possible be trusted to provide meaningful results.
I do agree with one of your comments, “ .. readers should judge for themselves rather than merely going by the comments in this thread .. ” but would add “ .. or going by the comments of self-proclaimed experts .. ”. As Professor Lindzen indicated in his presentation, climate science is a very young science full of uncertainty.
Hi Max (Annacker) I agree that no-one has been able to refute what Professor Lindzen said in his presentation. All that we have had is hot air from people like Martin Lack.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete,
Fred also wears a tinfoil hat and is waiting the space ships to arrive. I’m not one to pass judgement but the phase loony tunes comes to mind.
Capt. Kangaroo
Hi Pete – I didn’t write any WaPo article, although I can’t say I’ve never commented on a WaPo article.
I have nothing I want to say about the rest of your comment, because I expect knowledgeable readers can draw their own conclusions.
Fred Moolten: Hi Pete – I didn’t write any WaPo article, although I can’t say I’ve never commented on a WaPo article.
The reference was to the author of this 2008 Washington Post comment, and if you follow the link you will find that there was indeed a comment posted by someone signing as “Fred Moolten”. So should we knowledgeable readers draw the conclusion that you are that same Fred Moolten?
As far as I know, there’s only one of me. It must have been me, unless it was Peter Gleick impersonating me.
Fred Moolten: As far as I know, there’s only one of me. It must have been me, unless it was Peter Gleick impersonating me.
You have written some good humorous comments lately.
Hi Professor Fred Moolten, I have to agree with Matthew (Marler) when he says “ .. You have written some good humorous comments lately .. ” but it is not only lately. I love your July 2008 comment “ .. Multiple factors go into creating the kind of devastating flood Iowa has experienced. Although impossible to prove, global warming trends may be one of them, because even though individual floods can”t be traced to this, a worldwide pattern of both increasing droughts and floods is an inevitable consequence. Warming causes more water to evaporate into the atmosphere, but what goes up must eventually come down, as rain or snow… As warming continues, we can unfortunately expect this kind of devastation to be more frequent, and so it will be necessary to prepare for it in order to minimize damage to homes, businesses, and agriculture. I recognize that references to global warming tend to evoke political squabbling, but in this case, the issue is not a proved relationship, but a concern about future disasters of the same kind, and it would be a disservice to those who have already suffered personal tragedies not to try to prevent their repetition – by strengthening dams and levees, and reducing carbon emissions .. ” (http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-201_162-4185484.html).
As you say “impossible to prove” but you still stick to your faith in the CACC hypothesis, just as others stick to their faith in a benevolent super-power.
Back in 2007 on CACC-supporting CMIP researcher James Annan’s blog you confessed to “ .. not being a climatologist or geophysicist .. ” (http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2007/08/schwartz-sensitivity-estimate.html). Perhaps you think that 4 1/2 years of blogging about CACC has turned you into an expert but I think that it has simply given you “ .. some haunting blues .. ” (http://bluesandfolk.com/Moonlitartists.htm).
Maybe you should consider concentrating on improving your song-writing rather than trying to understand a complex subject like the CACC hypothesis.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
“Maybe you should consider concentrating on improving your song-writing rather than trying to understand a complex subject like the CACC hypothesis.”
What’s wrong with my songwriting, Pete?
Pete,
There is no need at all to be apologizing about anything.
Regarding your points about how –
“It is now being widely realised that there is no sound evidence that CO2 has any significant impact upon climates or even the mean global temperature . . . “
and that you –
“ . . . find it very hard to understand how any intelligent individual with a science background can believe that models based upon such a poorly understood scientific foundation can possible be trusted to provide meaningful results.”
I think that these points would be quite self-evident to anyone who has no real clue about the terrestrial climate system, or about how models that might be constructed to study this climate system.
Also, Prof. Lindzen’s presentation makes a lot more sense when you understand that he is not really trying to explain how the terrestrial climate system works. His real objective is to advocate for all the “devils” who like to promote more confusion and misunderstanding about the global warming problem.
There’s a dibbuk in climate science, and it ain’t Dick Lindzen.
============================
Chief H @ 3.54
I didn’t really mean ‘Fergit T S Eliot’. How can you ignore some one who writes this line?
‘Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?’
Cap’n Kangaroo, I note in your latest reply on JC Interview that you have become much more circumspect with your insults. Judith Curry will be pleased. LOL. Cap’n, there is no one like you. Will you also be at the barricades? I would enjoy meeting you.
This is the way the world ends – not with a bang but a whimper? Not if we can help it Beth my dear.
Captain Kangaroo
This is the way the world ends- not with a bang but an exasperated sigh..
tonyb
p s Cap’n, that guy with a Masters in Environmental stuff, isn’t he also someone who has a Doctorate in Data Doctoring?
It was a Masters in Environmental Psychology – but I don’t think data had much to do with it.
One important thing to consider is that Lindzen does not have to be right in everything he says for his main argument to stand: that is, the lack of observational evidence for a high sensitivity during the instrumental era. He might well be wrong on his ERBE measurements inferences, his faint young son explanation or his Iris hypothesis but still, what he has indeed been saying for many years now remains unanswered in any satisfactory way. In this respect, I think I find his famous presentation in Sweden in 2006 the most compelling one: http://www.timbro.se/pdf/060505_r_lindzen.pdf I remeber that, at the time, he was also vilified (Colose style) for allegedly ignoring the ocean thermal lag. Any cursory look at the IPCC models shows that the thermal lag is minimal for a transient sensitivity as low the one measured so far (~0.7C). Now I notice that the main argument against the lack of recent warming compatible with a high sensitivity is anthopogenic aerosols (perhaps because the ocean does not show signs of accumulating much heat nowadays). One way to look at this argument is to see what has been happening in the Southern Hemisphere since the Industrial Revolution. During this period the well-mixed GHGs have exerted a forcing on the SH identical to the global one: almost 3 W/m2. However, the anthropogenic aerosol forcing has been negligible over the mostly uninhabited expanses of ocean and ice that comprise most of the area. This sum of forcings have actually produced a warming somewhat smaller than the global one: ~0.6C and much smaller in the last 30 years: ~0.3C. Granted, one does not expect as much warming in the SH due to the vast oceanic area but still 0.6C of warming for a net forcing of close to 3W/m2 leaves one wondering how Nature is going to multiply this warming by a factor of 3 or 4 if the sensitivity is ~3C => ~2.4C for ~3 W/m2.
Mikel,
I’m sorry, but his “main argument” has been refuted numerous times in the literature, and I cannot understand why so many people hold it in such esteem when there are dozens upon dozens of paper that all reach different conclusions. Some of his ideas have been interesting, and others contained elementary methodological flaws. Ultimately, science advances by sifting through the stuff that doesn’t really work, and converging toward the growing body of evidence that reaches conclusions based on multiple (and preferentially independent) lines of evidence. This is described in the Knutti and Hegerl 2008 review paper, as well as many since then, yet people feel passionate that Lindzen is right. It’s fine if they want to take the diagnosis of one doctor that tells them they are not sick when 50 others tell them they are. I can also understand the confirmation bias, as well as the loss of perspective on how large the “community” is when very few of them go into the public scene as Lindzen does.
There are very simple things people need to consider when making arguments that are meant to be convincing. Arbitrarily setting aerosol forcing to zero is not convincing to most scientists. You might like it, but it’s probably not going to gain widespread support. Saying that the total forcing is close to a doubling of CO2 when the GHG-only forcing itself is about 75% of 2xCO2 (and the total forcing is almost certainly less than this) is not going to attract support from people who know what they are talking about. Publishing ERBE results that are highly sensitive to minor, subjective choices are not going to be considered as robust as the multiple lines of converging evidence describes elsewhere. Again, you might not agree, and perhaps the scientific community will be shown to have judged wrong in 50 years. They will be judged harshly then, but I doubt very much they are much off the mark on this issue.
Even more, people already know about Southern Hemispheric trends, and for example, the relative minimum in observed and projected warming in the Southern Ocean. People have also looked at lower latitudes in glacial times where there is less sensitivity to ice sheet changes. It’s always astonishing to me when people think this stuff through for ten seconds without really investigating it.
Even more, people already know about Southern Hemispheric trends, and for example, the relative minimum in observed and projected warming in the Southern Ocean. People have also looked at lower latitudes in glacial times where there is less sensitivity to ice sheet changes.
Actually the inverse is suspected,for this reason the additional chapter was included in the UNEP ozone assessment 2011.
Since we can attribute much of the poleward shift in the surface wind stress to ozone forcing (Gillett and Thompson, 2003; Cai and Cowan, 2007; Son et al., 2009b; Fogt et al., 2009), we can infer that ozone forcing in the1970–2000 period contributes to the observed subsurface warming in the Southern Ocean. That is, the stratospheric ozone-induced change in the Southern Ocean opposes the
effects of global warming of the Earth’s surface; greenhouse gas forcing warms the ocean surface and increases high latitude precipitation, which stratifies the ocean surface and thereby reduces oceanic mixing of heat (and, by extension, the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide). In the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory coupled models CM2.0 and CM2.1, Russell et al. (2006) find that the enhanced Ekman transport signal associated with positive Southern Annular Mode-related wind trends counteracts this and contributes to an increased heat uptake. The implications of the circulation changes for the Southern Ocean carbon cycle are discussed in Section 4.4.2.4. Under ozone recovery (Section 4.5), the ozone-forced Southern AnnulaR Mode trend in December, January, and February is expected to weaken or change sign (see Section 4.5); this effect would tend to reduce ocean heat uptake, but the net effect will depend on the combined effects of CO2 increases and
ozone recovery on the Southern Annular Mode.
Recent oceanographic literature provides some caveats about the straightforward connection between wind stress and Southern Ocean circulation. The complication relates to the effects of oceanic mesoscale (10 to 50 km scale) eddies, which are responsible for much of the transport of heat and constituents in the Southern Ocean. The CMIP3 generation ocean models cannot explicitly resolve mesoscale eddies and instead parameterize their effects with dynamically motivated mixing schemes (Gent and McWilliams, 1990).
To summarize, the dynamical coupling between the stratosphere and troposphere in conjunction with forcing by the ozone hole suggests that the wind-driven Southern Ocean circulation should intensify as a result of polar stratospheric ozone depletion. This effect may contribute to observed subsurface warming in the Southern Hemisphere and has the potential to attenuate some of the surface global warming associated with greenhouse gas increases. Some predictions of the changes to the Antarctic Circumpolar
Current and the Southern Hemisphere overturning could be dependent on ocean model resolution; thus, high resolution ocean models will likely be required to assess with confidence how the Antarctic ozone hole and ozone recovery are likely to affect the Southern Ocean.
The southern ocean is a significant constraint where both decadal and centennial variations are larger then any underlying trend ,such as winds,this is clearly seen in the 14c isotopes ie independent observations.
Box 1980 suggests
Predictive modeling [sic], i.e., the rigorous application (extrapolation) of quantitative models to environmental data (at sites or other than those used to construct the model) in order to predict actually occurring patterns, can be particularly useful in plant geography and plant environment relations, since it provides a ready means of testing the validity of the model and the understanding behind it.
A good example is Rogers 2011
http://www.clim-past.net/7/1123/2011/
In this study, model simulations are used to show that Southern Ocean winds are likely a main driver of the observed variability in the
interhemispheric gradient over AD950–1830, and further,
that this variability may be larger than the Southern Ocean
wind trends that have been reported for recent decades (notably
1980–2004). This interpretation also implies that there may have been a significant weakening of the winds over the Southern Ocean within a few decades of AD1375, associated with the transition between the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. The driving forces that could have produced such a shift in the winds at the Medieval Climate Anomaly to Little Ice Age transition remain unknown. Our process-focused suite of perturbation experiments with models raises the possibility that the current generation of coupled
climate and earth system models may underestimate the
natural background multi-decadal- to centennial-timescale
variations in the winds over the Southern Ocean.
maksimovich-
Thanks for digging up all that research, but it has little to do with my claim that the transient response for projected future warming is for relatively modest surface temperature change in the southern ocean (though with regional variations); I’ll be happy to provide a bunch of references tomorrow, but this has been a pretty robust response in CMIP3 (and CMIP5) due to the deep penetration depth of heat in that area of the world. There is a lot of interesting things to talk about with wind changes and ozone-induced dynamics (which I need to read more on), but my original statement stands.
The TCS is unimportant,the dynamics are the important variable where they can both either enhance or reduce the effect ie darwinian selection eg Eady 1951
Chris,
You wrote about Lindzen:
“Saying that the total forcing is close to a doubling of CO2 when the GHG-only forcing itself is about 75% of 2xCO2 (and the total forcing is almost certainly less than this) is not going to attract support from people who know what they are talking about.”
The GISS webpage http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/RadF.txt show the effective global GHG forcings employed in their current global climate simulations rose by 3.20 W/m^2 from 1880 to 2010. (This includes ozone, is a GHG – and included as such in the IPCC AR4 WG1 glossary – although not long lived.)
GHG forcing in 1880 was probably at least 0.1 W/m^2 higher than in 1850 (see AR4 WG1 Fig 2.23), and perhaps 0.2 W/m^2 higher than in 1750, the usual pre-industrial base date. That would make a total GHG forcing change from 1750 to 2010 of 3.4 W/m^2, 92% of the 3.7 W/m^2 figure normally taken for a doubling of CO2. That is much closer to 100% than your figure of 75%.
Perhaps Lindzen knows more about what he is talking about than you do?
Nic,
You are right when you include ozone (which I didn’t, and I took the value of the LLGHG forcing from the first draft of the AR5 in 2010 relative to 1750, somewhat different than Hansen’s). With total GHG’s it’s about 3.2-3.3 W/m2, though the uncertainties span from the high 2’s to about 3.7 W/m2, so close to a CO2 doubling. There’s interesting temporal structure to this forcing though.
However, the total anthropogenic forcing does not even overlap with a doubling of CO2, and is probably near ~2 W/m2, roughly one half of 2xCO2 forcing (what’s more, the climate has a current imbalance of some 0.5 W/m2, so there is still substantial heating in the pipeline for a stabilized forcing). Lindzen neglected to mention any of this and chose the most extreme, high-end forcing case to make his low-sensitivity point.
It’s also worth mentioning that there is no guaranteed correlation between a low (high) TCR and a low (high) equilibrium response. See a plot of the ratio of the TCR/Equili in AR4 models.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/files/2010/08/ratio1.png
Chris,
Thanks for clarifying. I now understand your point. But I’m afraid that you are misrepresenting Lindzen. You haven’t checked the facts.
Lindzen’s “doubling of equivalent CO2” refers only to forcings from GHGs, not – as you are assuming – to the net total of all forcings. Listen to his speech, about 12 minutes in. He makes it quite clear that equivalent CO2 means the concentration of CO2 that would produce the total forcings from all GHGs, not overall total forcings.
Further, it is unclear that non-GHG forcings total to a negative value, as you claim. GISS total non-GHG forcings, excluding tropospheric aerosols were +0.878 W/m^2 in 2010 c/f 1880 (black carbon being the biggest contributor). Total tropospheric aerosol forcings (direct + indirect) could well be under -0.878 W/m^2. Forest, Stone & Sokolov (2006) “Estimated PDFs of climate system properties including natural and anthropogenic forcings” estimated anthropogenic total aerosol forcings at -0.5 W/m^2 in the 1980s. And sulphate aerosol producing emissions declined after 1980.
You go on to say
“It’s also worth mentioning that there is no guaranteed correlation between a low (high) TCR and a low (high) equilibrium response. See a plot of the ratio of the TCR/Equili in AR4 models.”
I agree that is the case for AOGCM simulations. But surely all that proves is that different AOGCMs mix heat into the ocean at substantially different rates. Most of them must be wrong.
Further, there is strong evidence that AOGCMs generally mix heat into the ocean much too rapidly. See, e.g., Hansen (2011) “Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications”, or Forest, Stone & Sokolov (2008) “Constraining climate model parameters from observed 20th century changes.” Too rapid mixing of heat into the ocean results in an unrealistically high equilibrium sensitivity to TCR ratio (the ratio would be almost one if heat mixes into the ocean very slowly).
It’s also worth mentioning that there is no guaranteed correlation between a low (high) TCR and a low (high) equilibrium response. See a plot of the ratio of the TCR/Equili in AR4 models. http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/files/2010/08/ratio1.png
Chris, I don’t know how you’re interpreting your own link but I just see the number of models in the Y axis for some TCR/ECR ratios in the X axis. And I see very few that go as far as duplicating the TCR in equilibrium. In any case, I very well remember that in the TAR there was a remarkable correlation between models with low/high TCRs and low/high ECRs, which is only logical. A small response in the short tun is is not likely to provoke a large one in the long run. Unfortunately, I don’t have any link handy now.
However, the total anthropogenic forcing does not even overlap with a doubling of CO2, and is probably near ~2 W/m2, roughly one half of 2xCO2 forcing (what’s more, the climate has a current imbalance of some 0.5 W/m2, so there is still substantial heating in the pipeline for a stabilized forcing).
Well, who would have imagined that, with arbitrary adjustments and all, Chris would end up defending a lukewarmer position in this blog. If 1.5 W/m2 net forcing provokes 0.7C of warming (and that is assuming that all warming since the LIA is provoked by human causes), then 3.7 W/m2 (CO2x2) equates to just 1.7 C, at the very low end of the IPCC range.
Anyway, I left a comment further down for you, if you care to educate this humble layman: http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-179598
Further, it is unclear that non-GHG forcings total to a negative value, as you claim
Quite right, a point I’ve made myself elsewhere here.
To first order it’s an ordinary transient response, so that the strength of the forcing has no bearing on the lag that results. In other words, the temporal response is invariant with respect to forcing magnitude.
You miss the point, I think. If TCS is low then this points to equilibrium sensitivity being low (there being a known upper bound on heat accumulation in the ocean). For any given rate of mixing of heat into the ocean (effective vertical ocean diffusivity), the lower ECS is the shorter the delay until any given proportion of the equilibrium temperature rise is realised. So the effective thermal lag is smaller at low TCS, even though the ocean temporal response is invariant.
One important thing to consider is that Lindzen does not have to be right in everything he says for his main argument to stand: that is, the lack of observational evidence for a high sensitivity during the instrumental era.
Mikel, since none of the definitions of “climate sensitivity” take into account the role of the ocean as a thermal capacitor, none of them including Lindzen’s (assuming he even has a definition!) can be taken seriously.
So far no one’s come up with a definition of “climate sensisitivity” sufficiently robust that two people could get the same answer. That and only that is why everyone’s values for it are all over the shop!
GaryM and Anteros – thanks for the laugh.
I needed that!
Captain Kangaroo – you Are marvelous.
did you mean ……as opposed to the failure of the Pissant Left over 30 years.??
feet2thefire @28/12 1.05am
(re Callender.)
‘Say, Ice Core, your’e looking good.’
‘Thanks ,Glacier, I’ve been undergoing deep compression and I had a siple curve. Takes years off your age.’
(H/T Prof Zbigniew janorowski.)
If you prefer Kate – I am just a simple, lonesome cowboy on a blue horse – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=blue_horse.jpg – called Shibboleth out of Consensus.
Apologies to the good professor for mis-typing his name. Zbigniew Jaworoski.
Hmm, a rival. Gloves on! You jest can’t help it can you, Chief? LOL.
Fergot to mention, that Lanie Lane’s a terrific cowgirl, and very good with the lasso. Does she write her own songs?.
Guess the man in a mask routine don’t fool you none Beth my dear. Lanie Lane is a gorgeous cowgirl and songwriter.
Vaughan,
So on the basis of what Planck did, it would be quite reasonable for climate modelers to tweak their models by any means necessary until they were successfully hindcasting and forecasting, not troubling themselves overly with known physics ? And it would then be become the task of physics to explain just why the tweaked models were working ?
If so, the present problem is not that modellers are doing too much tweaking/cheating to fit current data, but that they are not doing enough of it.
In terms of what Vaughan Pratt said about how Planck’s law basically was an invention, the quality of this work hardly compares with the type of post hoc fudging that seems to be going on wrt climate models.
While many of these models have described past observations quite well it seems that their predictive power have not, or is now, not anywhere near accurate enough for the purposes of driving economic policy decisions.
If the models were indeed providing reasonably good predictions over the past 15 years or so, then none of us would be here on this blog. While some of us may be sad about this, I’m hopeful that the science will improve a lot in future as a direct result of these failings.
@Punksta: If so, the present problem is not that modellers are doing too much tweaking/cheating to fit current data, but that they are not doing enough of it.
I would phrase it slightly differently: they’re trying too hard to fit the current data to known geophysics in those situations where the data is better fitted to new geophysics yet to be discovered. This is not “cheating” as you call it.
Punksta,
Can’t you see I’m busy here?
It is impossible to include all scales and couplings – or even all mechanisms -in computer models. They all do pretty badly at reproducing climate variability – as in the current relative hiatus in warming. If they are broadly in line with global temperature to 2000 – it is the result of tuning. Or perhaps reverse modelling in the euphemism of the day.
‘Atmospheric and oceanic forcings are strongest at global equilibrium scales of 10,000,000 m and seasons to millennia. Fluid mixing and dissipation occur at microscales of 0.001m and 0.01s, and cloud particulate transformations happen at 0.000001m or smaller. Observed intrinsic variability is spectrally broad band across all intermediate scales. A full representation for all dynamical degrees of freedom in different quantities and scales is uncomputable even with optimistically foreseeable computer technology. No fundamentally reliable reduction of the size of the AOS dynamical system (i.e., a statistical mechanics analogous to the transition between molecular kinetics and fluid dynamics) is yet envisioned.’ James McWilliams
There is no reason to suspect that the Navier-Stokes equations don’t diverge – it would in fact be a first – within the limits of quantifiable inputs. Can they understand at all that the equations are not constrained and the that the solutions emerging from the models are therefore arbitrary?
Thus it is that prediction ‘of weather and climate are necessarily uncertain: our observations of weather and climate are uncertain, the models into which we assimilate this data and predict the future are uncertain, and external effects such as volcanoes and anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are also uncertain. Fundamentally, therefore, therefore we should think of weather and climate predictions in terms of equations whose basic prognostic variables are probability densities ρ(X,t) where X denotes some climatic variable and t denoted time. In this way, ρ(X,t)dV represents the probability that, at time t, the true value of X lies in some small volume dV of state space. Prognostic equations for ρ, the Liouville and Fokker-Plank equation are described by Ehrendorfer (this volume). In practice these equations are solved by ensemble techniques, as described in Buizza.’ (Predicting Weather and Climate – Palmer and Hagedorn eds – 2006)
Weather has been known to be chaotic since Edward Lorenz rediscovered the ‘butterfly effect’ in the 1960’s. This was in a simple convection model using the Navier-Stokes equations.
Abrupt climate change on the other hand was thought to have happened only in the distant past and so climate was expected to evolve steadily over this century in response to ordered climate forcing.
More recent work is identifying abrupt climate changes working through the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Southern Annular Mode, the Artic Oscillation, the Indian Ocean Dipole and other measures of ocean and atmospheric states. These are measurements of sea surface temperature and atmospheric pressure over more than 100 years which show evidence for abrupt change to new climate conditions that persist for up to a few decades before shifting again. Global rainfall and flood records likewise show evidence for abrupt shifts and regimes that persist for decades. In Australia, less frequent flooding from early last century to the mid 1940’s, more frequent flooding to the late 1970’s and again a low rainfall regime to recent times.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and declining since. The shifts are punctuated by extreme El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Fluctuations between La Niña and El Niño peak at these times and climate then settles into a damped oscillation. Until the next critical climate threshold – due perhaps in a decade or two if the recent past is any indication.
James Hurrell and colleagues in an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society stated that the ‘global coupled atmosphere–ocean–land–cryosphere system exhibits a wide range of physical and dynamical phenomena with associated physical, biological, and chemical feedbacks that collectively result in a continuum of temporal and spatial variability. The traditional boundaries between weather and climate are, therefore, somewhat artificial.’ Somewhat artificial is somewhat of an understatement for a paradigm shift in climate science.
The weight of evidence is such that modellers are frantically revising their strategies. They are asking for an international climate computing centre and $5 billion (for 2000 times more computing power) to solve this new problem in climate forecasting. The monumental size of the task they have set themselves cannot be exaggerated.
James C. McWilliams of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of California discussed chaos and climate in a 2007 paper titled ‘Irreducible imprecision in atmospheric and oceanic simulations’. ‘Sensitive dependence and structural instability are humbling twin properties for chaotic dynamical systems, indicating limits about which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable’. Sensitive dependence refers to qualitative shifts in climate and models that occur as a result of small changes in initial states. Structural instabilities are qualitative shifts in modelled outcomes as a result of plausible (within the limits of accuracy of measurements) changes in boundary parameters.
The bottom line of all this is that the current generation of climate forecasting models cannot be relied on as accurate representations of future climate. It will be quite some time before the new models are good enough to constrain the temporal chaos introduced by ‘sensitive dependence’ and ‘structural instability’. Is it any more likely that a deterministic characterisation of spatio-temporal chaos in the Earth climate system will emerge any time soon?
They have been so busy justifying the bloody models that they forgotten to assess the underlying limitations . The meta-view from leading practitioners suggests a role for climate models but not in the uses they have been put to. This has been to stifle dissent based on the supposed intricacy of models, the unassailability of the results and as somewhat of a sacred mystery understandable only by the few.
It is all such nonsense – but you keep up the good work. Now where was I …
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Thanks for that very brief note, Chief. Much of it – sadly – as yet still somewhat indigestible to my infant insides though. ( I do though like the Tsonis (?) point about first understanding the natural forcings, and then subtracting these from observed temperatures to reveal the anthro factor ).
But – is your specific point here, that while model-tweaking in ignorance of the physics a la Planck may be acceptable in principle, in practice the complexity hopelessly outweighs current computing power ?
Vaughan & Matt
Harmony of the climate: isolating the oscillations in many climate data sets
by Vaughan Pratt
http://bit.ly/rIyKwk
In the digital filter business, “Mean n” is what is called a low-pass filter. The WoodForTrees function “Isolate n” is the corresponding high-pass filter that passes through exactly what “Mean n” takes out. The original signal (with ceiling(n/2) months deleted from each end) is equal to the sum of the Mean n and Isolate n signals.
Vaughn, from your own article, Isolate = 720 (12months x 60 years) at woodfortrees.org gives you the 60-year oscillation pattern as shown below:
http://bit.ly/zHsPR5
As can be seen in the above plot, the warming from 1970 to 2000 is due to the cyclic 30 years warming.
In the above graph, as the isolate function truncates the data, I have include the global mean temperature data with the appropriate detrending and offsetting.
As a result, Latif’s interpretation of the global mean temperature ( http://bit.ly/wCsZym ) as a superposition of a long-term trend with multi decadal oscillation is appropriate. [ http://eprints.ifm-geomar.de/8744/ ]
Girma: As a result, Latif’s interpretation of the global mean temperature ( http://bit.ly/wCsZym ) as a superposition of a long-term trend with multi decadal oscillation is appropriate. [ http://eprints.ifm-geomar.de/8744/ ]
As I wrote below to Vaughan, you might be right. I expect I won’t claim to know before 2030. Of course, I shall be delighted by surprises along the way.
Punksta,
The point Vaughan was making was that the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation is something that is currently beyond the scope of physics. There is little to suggest that the underlying physics of the AMO is understood in a way that would allow for numerical modelling.
There are lots of unknowns and partially knowns and Hurrell and colleagues were suggesting that new and more complex approaches are needed – requiring a whole lot more computing power. This is what models are good for – exploring couplings.
But if solutions are projected forward – there are mutiple solutions to the same problem possible that will neccessarily exponentially diverge by the nature of the fundamental equations of fluid motion. This arises as a result of even small unknowns in input variables. So here we have an example with 2 starting points close together but the solutions radically diverge in a way that is not known beforehand.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=sensitivedependence.gif
This has been known without a doubt since the 1960’s. There is not a chance that current generation models can realistically predict climate 100 years into the future.
Cheers
Chief
The following 12-year old article supports your position:
Pacific Ocean Showing Signs of Major Shifts in the Climate
By WILLIAM K. STEVENS
January 20, 2000
Changes in the Pacific Ocean are making it more likely that winter weather in much of the United States will exhibit unusual warmth alternating with sharp cold, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported yesterday.
The researchers said the pattern, prevalent this winter and last, might predominate for 20 or 30 years.
The finding was based on calculations of the movement and temperature of ocean surface waters, and the varying amounts of heat they bear, based on measurements made by instruments aboard the Topex/Poseidon earth satellite.
The data reflect a naturally occurring oscillation in ocean conditions, not a sign of global climate change.
If the satellite images do indeed signal the beginning of a new climatic regime in the Pacific, there will be “fewer and weaker El Niños and more La Niñas,” said Dr. Bill Patzert, a research oceanographer at the Pasadena laboratory.
In the natural weather phenomenon known as La Niña, sea-surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are lower than normal.
This sets off a train of atmospheric events that affect weather patterns around the globe, especially in North America in the winter.
Sea surface temperatures in general have a major effect on atmospheric circulation patterns, and in large measure govern where storms develop and cold and warm air masses go.
El Niño is marked by abnormally high sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, which touches off a different set of winter weather consequences, often including heavy rains across the southern tier of the United States.
La Niña and El Niño typically last a year or two, but there is also a longer-term natural oscillation going on in the Pacific, this one involving a flip-flop in sea-temperature patterns on a scale of decades.
When the ocean flips from one of these states to another, Dr. Patzert said, “it resets the stage for the climate system; it provides a new background on which smaller events like El Niño and La Niña can occur.”
In one of these alternating states of what is called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, sea-surface temperatures are higher in the eastern equatorial Pacific but lower throughout much of the rest of the Pacific basin. That pattern predominated from the mid-1970’s through most of the 1990’s.
It was also a period of more frequent and stronger editions of El Niño.
Now, for the last two years, the opposite pattern has appeared: cooler water in the eastern tropical Pacific but warmer elsewhere.
That pattern last predominated from the mid-1940’s to the mid-1970’s.
While Dr. Patzert and other scientists said they believed that a flip from one phase of the oscillation to another had occurred, they also said it was too soon to tell whether it represented a true shift from one multidecadal regime to the other.
“There simply has not been enough time” since the shift took place, said Wayne Higgins, a senior meteorologist at the government’s Climate Prediction Center at Camp Springs, Md.
Five to 10 additional years of data may be required, Mr. Higgins said.
The shift is only two years old and whether it will last for a full 20 or 30 years remains to be seen.
…
http://nyti.ms/lVpyNW
Girma – is this the first mention of the Pacific Decadal Variation?
“A Lacis | February 29, 2012 at 10:58 pm |
I think that these points would be quite self-evident to anyone who has no real clue about the terrestrial climate system, or about how models that might be constructed to study this climate system.”
Andy Lacis seems to be under the wrong impression; that climate models can tell us anything about the real climate. They cannot.
Climate models are very good at producing very short term weather forecasts; less than 24 hours. Since pilots file tens of thousands of flight plans each day, and these rely on good weather forecasts, this is close to an essential service. Climate models are not bad at weather forecasts about a week into the future. After that, their reliability decreases rapidly, so that for 6 months in advance or longer, they are little better than guesses.
As with most scientific models, climate models are very good for helping design the next experiment. But to claim that understanding models helps us understand how the real climate works is sheer nonsense. The only thing that counts in helping us understand how the climate works is hard, measured, independently replicated, data. Nothing else is of any use at all.
The last time I saw Joshua was at RP Jr’s blog, where he was asked the following question:
“85. Gerard Harbison said…
A straightforward question for Joshua.
Are you Josh Rosenau of NCSE?
Simple question; it deserves a simple answer.
Thu Feb 23, 07:35:00 PM MST”
Did he then disappear just like Rumpelstilzchen did?
Re: http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-179390
Chris:
There you go again in your typical condescending mode, assuming that I haven’t read the literature (Knutti, Annan and all the rest of meta-analysis to derive the climate sensitivity from supposedly independent lines of evidence). In your mindset the only reason why anyone might not be convinced that all these authors have explained the lack of sufficient warming in the instrumental era if the sensitivity is high is that they “feel passionate that Lindzen is right” (sic).
As a matter of fact, I have already said that I’m not sure if Lindzen is right in most of the arguments he puts forward this time. Indeed, I’m not sure he’s right in his “main argument” and would like to be convinced that he’s not without resorting to the all too easy argumentum ad verecumdiam Certainly, I am no expert in the field but that should make it much easier to refute my arguments above with some sort of *quantitative* reply.
Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to debate but please take me out of my ignorance by kindly addressing these 2 simple points:
1) I have deliberately ommited any reference to the lack of observational evidence of any cooling at the surface in the regions most affected by anthopogenic aerosols (China, etc). I didn’t want Fred Moolten to come with his Wild et al paper, where all discussions must end. We know that anthro aerosols are strongly cooling the surface and that’s why a forcing of 3 W/m2 has produced such little warming but we cannot really observe this because their direct and indirect effects are too complicated to be observed. Alright. Then let’s look at that half of the earth where anthro aerosols don’t play any significant role. I am *not* saying that there is no biomass burning in Brazil or no industrial activity at all in places like South America and Australia. I’m trying to be serious and assuming that these forcings (of varied sign, btw) are negligible for such a vast area: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Gocart_sulfate_optical_thickness.png
So, in that half of the earth we have a GHG forcing of 2.7 W/m2 (IPCC AR4), a very small aerosol forcing and a concomitant warming of ~0.6C. How do we make this compatible with a sensitivity of 3C (5 times more) for 3.7 W/m2?
2) Using different lines of evidence to infer climate sensitivity is of course nice. But obviously not all observations have the same degree of accuracy and reliability. Scientists have precious, rather detailed data from the instrumental era concerning temperatures, GHGs and other variables. We may complain that we don’t know that much about aerosols. But if we resort to paleoclimatic changes the first things we need to do is i) assume that we know what cause them ii) estimate, among other things, the aerosol forcing at the time (!). Not to mention that the dT from the LGM to present varies by a factor of 3 in different studies. Unfortunately, the Pinatubo results are compatible with a wide range of sensitivities (1C to 9C, if memory serves). So, to this uneducated mind it seems obvious that the instrumental era observations must rule in a any meta-analysis.
@Mikel: We know that anthro aerosols are strongly cooling the surface
Which aerosols, Mikel? When driving from rural areas towards almost any large city today you see a pall hovering over the city that is at most 2 km high and that gets washed out occasionally by rains before it goes very far. A similar pall hovers over slash-and-burn and forest fires. Then there is the emissions from jets, which is left behind in the vicinity of the tropopause. And there is ash whenever there is a volcanic eruption.
Do all of these cool the surface? I can believe that jet emissions and volcanic ash have a cooling effect because they are at a high altitude. (Planes have been implicated in “global dimming” only in the last decade or so. We’ve known for far longer that volcanoes act like giant water pistols squirting ash very violently several miles vertically.) But the brown clouds afflicting urban areas and smoke from fires should have a warming effect because they are at low altitudes.
When you say “we know”, who is “we” and how do they know what aerosols do to the surface temperature? Do they have an actual physics explanation that a physicist would accept as sound, or is it just blind extrapolation from volcanic ash, which we do know exerts a very noticeable cooling effect?
(I should insert a plug here for my colleague Mark Jacobson’s book Atmospheric Pollution: History, Science, and Regulation. If you buy a used copy from anywhere (Amazon says they don’t mind where) at say $44.79, read it, then sell it back to Amazon (current price $33.26 but this will vary), you’re only out $11.53. Students taking Mark’s course who only need the book for the term, and those only wanting it for the time it takes to read it, may find this a better deal than paying $46.79 for the Kindle edition which of course can’t be sold back.)
You’re absolutely right, Vaughan, IMHO. Except that even volcanoes also have their problems. Try to find any sign of the huge Krakatoa explosion in the instrumental record, for example. Anyway, what I was trying to do is mimic what Fred Moolten (and the consensus followers) keep proclaiming. Aerosols cancel a good part of the GHG forcing but we don’t really have any good observational evidence, even for the direct effect. It was not my personal opinion.
Anyway, what I was trying to do is mimic what Fred Moolten (and the consensus followers) keep proclaiming. … It was not my personal opinion.
Oh, ok. Sorry I misunderstood.
Try to find any sign of the huge Krakatoa explosion in the instrumental record, for example.
The ocean tends to act as a heat sink that absorbs volcanic cooling, making land records preferable. The BEST land record clearly shows the cooling from Krakatoa. It also shows Pinatubo, but it was a bit of a wimp compared to Krakatoa. (I had to detrend the AGW signal, which has gotten so steep in the past few decades that it has been masking both volcanoes and ocean oscillations. One would think that detrending the supposedly flat period 2000-2010 would make it slope down, but I can’t see any sign of that, can you?)
We know that anthro aerosols are strongly cooling the surface … but we cannot really observe this because their direct and indirect effects are too complicated to be observed.
This notion of knowing something we cannot observe deserves some attention.
Bloody Heisenberg :-(
This notion of knowing something we cannot observe deserves some attention.
Touché.
Punksta: This notion of knowing something we cannot observe deserves some attention.
Like with Newton’s first and third laws of motion. We practically never observe an object in uniform motion without external action upon it; and we never observe both the “action” and “reaction” in order to test directly whether they are equal. Instead we have a lot of models (“projections”, “predictions”, “scenarios”, “forecasts”) about such things as rocket trajectories in interplanetary exploration, and we have a lot of experience confirming the accuracies of those model results.
Another example is the atomic theory of matter, which was known before atoms could ever be observed. Even the modern “observation” of individual atoms (by, for example, atomic force microscopes) is heavily dependent on an elaborate theory, complete with approximate mathematical models, on how the instruments work.
Another example is the atomic theory of matter, which was known before atoms could ever be observed. Even the modern “observation” of individual atoms (by, for example, atomic force microscopes) is heavily dependent on an elaborate theory,
I would consider Brownian motion a much less elaborate theory than that supporting AFMs. Lucretius’s physics book On the Nature of Things, written in verse around 60 BC, infers the atomic nature of gases from Brownian motion. Lucretius also anticipated the pure-probabilistic aspect of both modern (post-Einstein) quantum mechanics and Penrose’s quantum theory of the mind by postulating a tendency for atoms to swerve randomly, which he advanced as a mechanism for free will.
The reason we can’t say we know string theory is true is precisely because we haven’t observed it yet. The same goes for the Higgs boson: all we’ve accomplished so far is to greatly narrow the search space of where to look for it if it does exist. (As of November or so, that space has become so small that those who firmly believe it exists are convinced they’ve got it trapped in a corner from which there is no escape and it will now have to show itself. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, lately I’ve been leaning towards the latter.)
Hence my “touché” in response to Punksta.
‘This notion of knowing something we cannot observe deserves some attention’
I believe that those of the religious persuasion have been doing so for several thousand years. And a fat lot of good it has done them :-)
But hey, don’t let some little inconveniences like no data and no observations get in the way of the really urgent task of saving Mother Gaia. And smiting a few Deniers for her Greater Glory!
As usual these days I agree with Latimer. Ionesco had something to say about that. :)
A(ndrew A ?) Lacis, ref. your comment on 29th Feb. at 10:58 pm. I speculate that you (along with your buddy Gavin Schmidt) are another member of Professor Michael Mann’s “Hockey Team”. If my speculation is correct you support Professor Richard Alley’s misconception that CO2 is the controller of the global mean temperature (whatever that measure is supposed to represent in practical terms – see http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/authors/alacis.html and http://www.globalchangeblog.com/2010/10/co2-is-the-biggest-climate-control-knob/).
Following extensive but inconclusive discussions on Chris Colose’s “Richard Alley at AGU 2009: The Biggest Control Knob” (http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/richard-alley-at-agu-2009-the-biggest-control-knob/) and equally inconclusive E-mail exchanges with Professor Alley and co-researchers I remain of the opinion that rather than ice-core measurements of CO2 being a Gold Standard for past atmospheric CO2 concentrations they have allowed themselves to be fooled by the ice-core equivalent of FeS2 which “ .. Caution! May cause irritation .. ” (http://www.analytyka.com.mx/tabla%20periodica/MSDS/Fe/iron%20pyrites.htm).
More on that can be found in my work-in-progress article “Molecular Fractionation in Ice” (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2010/12/smogbound-on-molecular-fractionation-in.html) and constructive comments are welcome there.
As for your suggestion that Professot Lindzen is simply out to “ .. promote more confusion and misunderstanding about the global warming problem .. ”, methinks you were looking into the mirror when you thought of that.
Hi Jim (Cripwell), ref. your comment 1st March at 8:11 am. I totally agree with you. Those cobbled together models are no more useful at projecting future climates than are a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete, you write “Hi Jim (Cripwell), ref. your comment 1st March at 8:11 am. I totally agree with you. Those cobbled together models are no more useful at projecting future climates than are a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.”
Thanks. But it is much worse than this. The numbers people quote for how much effect CO2 has, without feedbacks, are sheer and utter nonsense. I have asked Andy Lacis to justify the assumption that you can estimate how much effect CO2 has, before feedbacks, by only looking at radiation effects. So far, I have had no proper response.This assumption has NEVER been justified. Since the vaste majority of the energy gets to the upper atmosphere, (where it is readiated out into spece), by conduction, convection and the latent heat of water, the assumption, to me, is clearly nonsense.
Hi Jim (Cripwell), ref. your “ .. the vaste majority of the energy gets to the upper atmosphere, (where it is readiated out into spece), by conduction, convection and the latent heat of water .. ”. I’m interested in your description of the mechanism by which the energy that is carried into the upper atmosphere is released as radiation into space. I’d appreciate a description for each of the means (conduction, convection and radiation) by which that energy gets up there.
Hi Vaughan (Pratt), ref. your “ .. The best modelers look for opportunities to simplify the model at hand, as the Copernican theory demonstrated for the Ptolemaic theory. Planck’s law demonstrated something similar for black body radiation .. ”. I suggest that the climate modellers have a long long long way to go before their models are of any practical value.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete you write “I’m interested in your description”
For the record, I hold a bachelor’s degree in physics; no specialty in climate science. My understanding of how the heat gets to the top of the atmosphere is as follows. Some of the heat goes from the earth to the bottom few millimeters of the atmosphere by conduction, and this heat is then carried upwards by convection. More heat evaporates water from the oceans and other bodies of water. These two sources of energy drive the heat engine, which is the earths weather system. Some of this energy gets carried to the top of the atmosphere by convection (lapse rate). Since all bodies above 0 K radiate energy, when the heat gets to the TOA some of it is radiated out into space. The tops of some clouds radiate strongly into space.
Of course, the earth also radiates LW radiation into the atmosphere, where it gets absorbed by H2O, CO2, and other GHGs; which in turn re-radiate this energy in all directions. A small amount is radiated directly into space at wavelengths where the GHGs do not absorb. Some of this radiation gets to the TOA, but it is a small amount compared that which gets there from conduction, convection and the latent heat of water..
Hi Jim (Cripwell), thanks for the response which is much as I expected. For the record my specialist subject was computer engineering, not physics, so I possibly do not have your understanding of the mechanism by which energy is radiate to space from the global system of atmos/hydro/cryo/bio/lithospheres.
I have no disagreement with your description of how the energy (in the form of heat) gets into the atmosphere or how some of the radiated energy from the surface escapes to space. With my limited understanding of the physics I am puzzled that you make no mention of that significant amount of energy which is carried into the atmosphere by N2 and O2 (by far the major atmospheric components) or which is transferred to them from gases like H2O and CO2. If I understand correctly that not much of it is radiated to space then what happens to that energy?
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete, You write “With my limited understanding of the physics I am puzzled that you make no mention of that significant amount of energy which is carried into the atmosphere by N2 and O2 (by far the major atmospheric components) or which is transferred to them from gases like H2O and CO2. If I understand correctly that not much of it is radiated to space then what happens to that energy?”
I tried to express my ideas with very few words. This a complex subject, and I am not sure how useful this discussion is. When air is heated by conduction, and then convects, the pretty well all of the energy is carried by N2 and O2. The earth needs to radiate as much energy as it receives. So, in simple terms, the lapse rate adjusts itself, so that just the right amount of energy gets to the TOA to maintain the balance. If too much energy is radiated, the earth’s surface cools, and less energy gets to the TOA; and vice versa..
Hi Jim (Cripwell), ref. your comment on 1st March at 9:32 pm. “ .. When air is heated by conduction, and then convects, the pretty well all of the energy is carried by N2 and O2. The earth needs to radiate as much energy as it receives. So, in simple terms, the lapse rate adjusts itself, so that just the right amount of energy gets to the TOA .. ”. You seem to have missed my point. What is causing that “right amount of energy” at the TOA to radiate to space if it can’t be radiated by the N2 and O2 that is carrying “pretty well all of the energy” to the TOA?
Does this help “ .. Diatomic gases, on the other hand, simply spin or vibrate without modulating ambient radiation (N2, O2) – hence >99% of the atmosphere is radiatively benign .. ” (http://faculty.eas.ualberta.ca/wolfe/EAS%20208/13_Jim_Hansen.pdf Page 10). If 99% of the atmosphere is radiatively benign what is radiating all of that energy?
Or this “ .. only absorbing gases (such as CO2, H2O, O3, but not the main components of air N2, O2, Ar), can emit radiation .. ” (www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/radiations+optics+atmos.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-384698-0 – end of Page 1165)
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I suggest that the climate modellers have a long long long way to go before their models are of any practical value.
Those who reject the idea that there is no unknown geophysics certainly have a long way to go. However unlike you I don’t believe all climate modelers are like that.
Science has a long history of moving forwards, accomplished inter alia by rejecting the ideés fixes of the old artery-hardened generation. More modern examples than Copernicus and Planck are Alfred Wegener (whose theory of continental drift took nearly half a century to be accepted) and Dan Shechter (whose theory of quasicrystals, for which he won the 2011 Nobel prize in chemistry, suffered a similar fate but only over half that period).
Just as nature abhors a natural vacuum, so does science abhor a scientific vacuum. It is hard to keep good scientists away from worthwhile problems such as models that have practical value.
Hi Vaughan (Pratt), ref. your comment of 2nd March at 8:41 pm. are you aware of any “ .. who reject the idea that there is no unknown geophysics .. ”? Because the subject of this thread is Professor Lindzen’s presentation on the CACC hypothesis I’ll make the reasonable assumption that you are directing that comment at those of us who discuss the issue. Most of the people that I discuss it with recognise that there is at least some uncertainty about the processes and drivers of the different global climates. Sceptics like me recognise that there are enormous uncertainties and scientists have a long way to go before they are resolved. That is why computer programmers cannot yet construct models for projecting future changes which are much better than a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.
You seem to have somehow convinced yourself that I am of the opinion that all climate modellers have “ .. the idea that there is no unknown geophysics .. ”. If so I don’t know what evidence you have used. I suspect that there is only a tiny minority who believe that, if any at all. Of course, because of the politicisation of the issue, I suspect that there are those who, as Professor Steven Schneider suggested, who “ .. “To capture the public imagination, .. offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have .. ” (http://www.john-daly.com/schneidr.htm).
Don’t do yourself down with comments like “ .. the old artery-hardened generation .. ” because even at 67/8 (http://www.trueknowledge.com/q/how_old_is_vaughan_pratt) you may still have a worthwhile contribution to make in your own specialist area of computer engineering/programming.
You may still be able to help good scientists to eventually produce climate “ .. models that have practical value .. ” but you, like me, may not see that achieved.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
You seem to have somehow convinced yourself that I am of the opinion that all climate modellers have “ .. the idea that there is no unknown geophysics .. ”. If so I don’t know what evidence you have used. I suspect that there is only a tiny minority who believe that, if any at all.
As it happens, Pete, I’ve been compiling a list of climate modelers asserting there may be unknown geophysics. If you have even one to add to my list, I’m all ears. Go for it. :)
If you can’t even name one you’re a babbling baboon.
Come to think of it, likewise if you can.
Vaughan: For your list of physical studies with missing physical processes:
Take my booklet, still unrefuted, transparently written:
“Das Ende der globalen Erwaermung, Berechnung des Klimawandels” ISBN 978-3-86805-604-4 on German Amazon.de
and you get a clear picture, that global temps can never rise again above
the present plateau level….
No the slightest doubt possible….
JS
How can this “be the most effective seminar he has given on Global Warming” when it is virtually exactly the same as the testimony he gave to the US House Subcommittee on Science and Technology hearing in November 2010 ? He didn’t even change the Sea Ice graphs ! Some people will just lap-up anything he says, I suppose…
J Murphy
Even if Lindzen’s HC seminar is virtually the same as an earlier one to the US congress, this does not mean that it was not both “effective” as well as informative and factual.
In fact, it would argue for the fact that it was all three (or he would not have repeated it).
Right?
Max
Let me be, in your words, “”effective””, “informative” and “factual” by repeating myself :
‘How can this “be the most effective seminar he has given on Global Warming” when it is virtually exactly the same as the testimony he gave to the US House Subcommittee on Science and Technology hearing in November 2010 ? He didn’t even change the Sea Ice graphs ! Some people will just lap-up anything he says, I suppose…’
@j murphy
I wasn’t there so I don’t know how it went first hand.
But your point (if there is one at all) is trivial. He was playing to a different audeince this time. Effectiveness is not a one-way effect. It needs the audience as well, and so the content may be the same, but the context changes its effectiveness.
Some nights on stage the same performance goes better than others.
Some nights on stage the same performance goes better than others.
If Lindzen’s talk went over better in the UK than in the US, Latimer, that’s a win-win for both of us. ;)
‘Models have been extensively used to simulate observed climate change during the 20th century. Since forcing changes are not perfectly known over that period (see Chapter 2), such tests do not fully constrain future response to forcing changes. Knutti et al. (2002) showed that in a perturbed physics ensemble of Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs), simulations from models with a range of climate sensitivities are consistent with the observed surface air temperature and ocean heat content records, if aerosol forcing is allowed to vary within its range of uncertainty.’ 4AR – http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-1-2-3.html
So here do we have vindication of of Lindzen (and Curry) on sulphates?
Probably not. ” During the last 3 decades (1976-2007), the best fit to the temperature responses in the models require negative forcing from tropical aerosols but positive forcing from Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude aerosols. ”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/04/yet-more-aerosols-comment-on-shindell-and-faluvegi/
Maybe that will help.
Capt. Dallas,
The very tedious discussion above involved tweaking of models using aerosol parametisation. Although there are numerous other choices possible for tweaking models – the fact that the sulphates and indirect effects are not perfectly known allows aerosols to be a tunable parameter.
The regional distribution of anthropogenic sulphate is not relevant in the context of the discussion – the fit to temperature is. In fact you add to the case.
Kind regards
Captain Kangaroo
I think the need for regional adjustment is more relevant than some may believe. It is almost impossible to distinguish between black carbon forcing and land use forcing. Winter wheat in particular often requires spreading compost or graphite blacken fertilizer on spring snow to reduce wheat snow mold. Short growing seasons, mechanization and ingenuity can alter nature’s timeline, in a good way :)
Vaughn
You are not responding to my reply to your claim of there is no cyclic component in the global mean temperature data and the long-term linear warming trend is baseless => http://bit.ly/zmTWpc
You are not responding
Sorry about that, Girma. If it happens again, just click where it says “Close this window” and I’ll reboot. ;)
the warming from 1970 to 2000 is due to the cyclic 30 years warming
What, no CO2 warming at all? Doesn’t this fly in the face of what both Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT and the IPCC have been claiming, namely that there has been some CO2-induced warming over that period? If you’re right, your result is a dramatic breakthrough that should be published at once!
You base your claim on your latest WoodForTrees plot. Since the only portion of the plot covering the whole of that period is the green curve, which is simply HADCRUT3VGL tilted over (via Detrend 0.76/Offset 0.62), how does merely tilting a graph prove that CO2 is doing nothing during that period?
Let’s try a more careful analysis. Noting that 1970-2000 is a 360-month interval, making shorter term fluctuations irrelevant, let’s smooth HADCRUT3VGL with 200- and 50-month box filters so as to remove enough of the irrelevant noise to yield this graph. (Notice that WoodForTrees removes 10 years from each end, as customary for box filters.)
I have modeled this graph as the orange curve labeled MODEL in this graph. You’ll notice that it is an extremely good fit to HADCRUT3VGL as smoothed above, as expected of models. (When comparing, bear in mind that my model does not use box filters and can therefore cover the full period 1850-2010. So chop 10 years off each end of my model when comparing.)
Using the published Arrhenius and Hofmann laws, I’ve analyzed the orange MODEL curve as MODEL = AHL + SAW, namely the sum of my estimates of AGW computed via the Arrhenius-Hofmann Law (AHL, the red curve) and the combined ocean oscillations (SAW, the green curve). Red is human, green is natural, orange is their sum.
As I understand you, you are using the same model, and the only difference is that you move more of the recent change to the green curve.
The Arrhenius-Hofmann law models AGW as the logarithm of CO2 (Arrhenius’s 1896 law) as given by the Keeling curve, extended backwards from 1958 to 1850 via David Hofmann’s 2009 law, obtainable by matching the CDIAC data for CO2 emissions since 1750 to the Keeling curve and to the ice core data.
The green curve, SAW, is obtained by modeling what’s left over. The MODEL is exactly the sum of AHL and SAW, as one might guess from the fact that the red and orange curves intersect exactly where the green curve is zero.
If I understand you correctly the green curve is what you have in mind by “the cyclic 30 years warming.” As you can see it is indeed cyclic and about 30 years for each swing up or down, just as you say.
Furthermore if you added “some of” to the start of what you said, namely “some of the warming from 1970 to 2000 is due to the cyclic 30 years warming,” then I would agree with you there too.
The only thing I would not agree with is that all of that warming is due to the natural cycle. And this should not be surprising, since as Richard Lindzen says in Statement 2 on Slide 3 of his talk,
2. If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C. The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments.
The terms “observed warming,” “derived sensitivity” and “existing models” in this statement refer respectively to the result of experiment (as measured by thermometers), a very simple theoretical calculation (based on the HITRAN tables), and a far more complex theoretical calculation (weather models extrapolated to climate models).
This raises the interesting question of how to choose between experimental observations and theoretical inferences. Absent any other criteria I would choose the former. How about you, Girma?
Lindzen begins that slide with “Here are two statements that are completely agreed on by the IPCC.” This is not just Lindzen saying all this but also the IPCC.
In claiming that there has been no observed warming due to CO2 during 1970 to 2000, you would appear to be contradicting both Lindzen and the IPCC. A good thing this is not the 15th century or you’d have been brought up on heresy charges and placed under house arrest.
In the 21st century we find Galileo’s arguments in support of heliocentrism very convincing. Will the 27th century find your simple-minded graph-tilting argument more convincing than the detailed arguments of Lindzen and the IPCC?
What would you guess, Girma?
The red curve is the “observed warming” Lindzen is referring to in this statement, namely the result of experiment. The “derived sensitivity” and “existing models” he also refers to are theoretical derivations that only a Fred Moolten would trust, certainly not Lindzen nor me nor most of the people on this thread. Would you trust them, Girma?
Girma, if you had to choose between experimental observations and theoretical inferences, which would you rely on?
I appreciate your considered response.
Thank you.
I agree with you:
Furthermore if you added “some of” to the start of what you said, namely “some of the warming from 1970 to 2000 is due to the cyclic 30 years warming,” then I would agree with you there too.
However, I don’t say CO2 has no effect. I just believe with about 1 deg C warming for doubling of CO2. Based on the data so far, there is no evidence for positive feedback as a result of warming.
How come you failed to comment on Latif’s paper (http://bit.ly/wCsZym)?
Vaughn
The problem with your graph (http://bit.ly/zQMoq7) is that your smoothed curve is off from the 1940s peak by more than half of the 1970-2000 warming, and it does not show the recent plateau. It contradicts with the observed data so it does not have any predictive capability.
In contrast, my graph (http://bit.ly/wzkYvi) shows 96% of the global mean temperature (GMT) data since record begun in 1850 is enclosed by a linear band. As at the moment the GMT is at its peak near the top of the band, in the next couple of decades it must move away from the top of the band towards the bottom of the band.
The above interpretation based on the GMT pattern can be physically explained to be due to PDO shifting in 1998 from its warming phase with more frequent El Nino to its cooling phase with more frequent La Nina as described in the following article:
http://nyti.ms/lVpyNW
Vaughan Pratt: This raises the interesting question of how to choose between experimental observations and theoretical inferences. Absent any other criteria I would choose the former. How about you, Girma?
This has been a very enjoyable debate between you and Girma.
As you are certainly aware, it will almost never be the case that all other “criteria” are “absent”, so the proposition is basically empty. Furthermore, it is almost always the case that experimental “observations” have theoretical inferences built into them, namely the theory of how the measuring instrument works, and the regression/inverse_regression estimate in the calibration. In the case of something like laboratory experimental observations (e.g. the absorption/emission spectrum of CO2) and theoretical inferences about climate, a fundamental “criterion” in the choice is whether the experimental observation refers to a large influence or a small influence in the system about which theoretical inferences are being made. And that probably can’t be decided (as now in the case of climate) until after it is known which theoretical inferences produce the most accurate mathematical models. As far as I can tell, on extant data, Girma’s model is still in the running to be (among) the best model(s).
But I repeat myself: the test of the climate models is underway and results won’t be very definitive until about 2030. You provide good reasons to doubt Girma’s model is correct, and I doubt that it is correct. My favorite word in this debate is “maybe”. “Statistics means never having to say you’re certain” — American Statistical Association slogan, available on mugs and t-shirts.
But your debate is mainly about which theoretical expositions, and their corresponding mathematical expressions, are best, not a choice between experimental observation and theoretical inferences.
Vaughn
You agree that isolate=720 give the 60-year cyclic pattern. Therefore, the 1970 to 2000 warming in this pattern cannot be due to CO2 emission. The effect of CO2 can only be hidden in the 0.76 deg (detrend=0.76) warming in 162 years, which gives a global warming rate of about 0.05 (0.76*10/162) deg C per decade.
http://bit.ly/zHsPR5
The global warming rate is only about 0.05 deg C per decade. Why is the IPCC claims it is 0.15 deg C? Why does the IPCC exaggerate the warming rate by a factor of 3?
As you are certainly aware, it will almost never be the case that all other “criteria” are “absent”, so the proposition is basically empty.
Spoken like a true theorist, Matthew!
I used to be a theorist until I recently when I began to appreciate that theory is all in the mind and can therefore easily mislead one. I am now much more experimentally inclined than I used to be, though I certainly have not renounced theory. Experiments should never get two steps ahead of theory because then you won’t know what they mean.
Which may have been what you were getting at, Matthew…?
The problem with your graph (http://bit.ly/zQMoq7) is that your smoothed curve is off from the 1940s peak by more than half of the 1970-2000 warming,
You raise an excellent point there, Girma. The discrepancy you refer to is a result of my graph filtering out the solar and ENSO cycles and all other phenomena cycling faster than that, namely all periodicities from 21 years on down. My apologies for not including what was removed in my analysis.
Let’s take a look at the most relevant omitted phenomena now.
The solar cycle has two components, the Hale or magnetic component, with a periodicity of 21 years, and the Total Solar Insolation component, whose periodicity is 11 years. You can see these two components here. They match up remarkably accurately with the “butterfly diagram” a few paragraphs down in this article.
Using the standard numbering system for solar cycles, cycle 17 peaked in 1940, and is moreover the strongest TSI peak in the last century and a half, just barely beating out peak 13 in 1900. Notice that the odd TSI peaks coincide more or less with the Hale peaks, most accurately for strong TSI peaks.
If you add the Hale and TSI peaks for solar cycle 17 you get an additional 0.12 C. This completely accounts for the discrepancy that’s bothering you.
and it does not show the recent plateau
Girma, please refer to the above graph again. Notice that cycle 23, another odd cycle like 17, is perfectly synchronized with its corresponding Hale peak in 2000. The Hale and TSI cycles in combination plummeted as strongly as they did between 1940 and 1950, another strong downturn that was not merely flat in HADCRUT3VGL but decreased substantially!
Had CO2 not entered the picture between 1940 and 2000 to offset the solar cycles, what you’re calling a “recent plateau” would have been a dramatic decline as strong as that from 1940 to 1950!
It contradicts with the observed data so it does not have any predictive capability.
Again my apologies for omitting the Hale and TSI cycles, without which your objection is very insightful.
Regarding your two concluding paragraphs, I’m having great difficulty following their logic. If you could express them simply as a sum of the relevant phenomena I’m sure I’d find them easier to understand.
Vaughan Pratt
Thanks for your good post.
However, I will not budge from my position of “AGW is not a settled science” until I see observed global mean temperature (GMT) in the region colored red in this plot => http://bit.ly/oembwR.
For me, the GMT pattern has not changed since record begun in 1850 (http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd ).
I don’t accept the statement that though the GMT trends for the two recent warming periods of 1970 to 2000 and 1910 to 1940 are nearly identical (http://bit.ly/xRZpvR), the recent warming is due to man but the previous one was due to nature.
I need to see a 30-year warming trend significantly greater than 0.15 deg C per decade to accept AGW.
For the past 10-years, the global has been cooling (http://bit.ly/nz6PFx).
For Feb-2012, the monthly GMT is – 0.12 deg C (http://www.drroyspencer.com/).
The PDO has shifted and expect more frequent La Nina and slight cooling until about 2030 (http://nyti.ms/lVpyNW)
However, I will not budge from my position of “AGW is not a settled science” until I see observed global mean temperature (GMT) in the region colored red in this plot => http://bit.ly/oembwR.
Eminently sensible of you, Girma. :)
But suppose in 2015 it does enter that region? What would you say then?
If you prefer to wait until it actually happens I will understand completely. :)
I need to see a 30-year warming trend significantly greater than 0.15 deg C per decade to accept AGW.
Since I trust the IPCC more than you do, Girma, this seems perfectly reasonable. Earlier you were offering to bet on these things. How about we make a bet that within two years we will see a 30-year least-squares warming trend significantly greater than 0.15 deg C per decade, the IPCC value you were objecting to?
If by “significantly'” you mean double, then that seems a bit much since not even the IPCC is claiming anywhere near that. How about “at least 5% more than that”?
Vaughan
But suppose in 2015 it does enter that region? What would you say then?
It is unlikely.
I am prepared to put $1000 on the GMT maximum for 1998 of 0.53 deg C will not be exceeded in the next five years.
Vaughn, let us wait and see. It is only five years.
I dearly hope they don’t “beef up” the temperature data.
To Girma y Vaughan:
Temps have reached the highest top plateau and cannot, by any
means, rise any further….
(1) One can put much more money on the bet and (2) forget IPCC
forecasts, they are clearly wrong, which will become clearer and
clearer by observations over the years…. (3) The “beefing up”
of temps is already done with HadCRUT4, changing the measurements
by “warm spot chasing” i.e. fast installation of devices in warming
spots and simultaneous dismanteling in cooling spots….(4) this,
however, will not lead to converting IPCC lies into non-existing
“IPCC- truth”….
JS
And that probably can’t be decided (as now in the case of climate) until after it is known which theoretical inferences produce the most accurate mathematical models.
Matt, what are you criteria for the accuracy of a mathematical model? Is it something you can assign a number too, or is it just a subjective judgement?
I am prepared to put $1000 on the GMT maximum for 1998 of 0.53 deg C will not be exceeded in the next five years. Vaughn, let us wait and see. It is only five years.
But in five years time 1998 will only be 19 years ago. What happened to your statement “I need to see a 30-year warming trend significantly greater than 0.15 deg C per decade to accept AGW.” We seem to be missing 11 years.
We seem to be missing 11 years
Holed up with the missing heat ?
Here are more detailed global warming rates for recent 30-year periods
http://bit.ly/w6OP3G
For 1975-2005 => 0.188 deg C per decade
For 1976-2006 => 0.186 deg C per decade
For 1977-2007 => 0.173 deg C per decade
For 1978-2008 => 0.171 deg C per decade
For 1979-2009 => 0.159 deg C per decade
For 1980-2010 => 0.160 deg C per decade
For 1981-2011 => 0.162 deg C per decade
Vaughan Pratt
You write to Girma:
Let’s go for “at least 10% above 0.15 deg C per decade from 1985 through 2014”?
If so, let me have part of the action, as well.
Max
Vaughan
Here are the GMT trends for hadcrut3vgl.txt
http://bit.ly/xdEo9M
For 1960-1990 => 0.09 deg C Per decade
For 1965-1995 => 0.13 deg C Per decade
For 1970-2000 => 0.16 deg C Per decade
For 1975-2005 => 0.19 deg C Per decade
For 1980-2010 => 0.16 deg C Per decade
I say, for 1985-2015 the warming rate will be less than 0.16 deg C per decade.
I say, for 1985-2015 the warming rate will be less than 0.16 deg C per decade.
Ok. I’ll still be here then, barring any medical catastrophe. How about you?
Met too, Vaughn!!!
Vaughan
Assuming we are discussing this in 1952
Here are the GMT trends for hadcrut3vgl.txt
http://bit.ly/xwFHOa
For 1900-1930=> 0.06 deg C Per decade
For 1905-1935 => 0.12 deg C Per decade
For 1910-1940 => 0.15 deg C Per decade
For 1915-1945 => 0.16 deg C Per decade
For 1920-1950 => 0.10 deg C Per decade
I would say, for 1925-1955 the warming rate would be less than 0.1 deg C per decade.
I would be correct.
It was 0.04 deg C per decade.
In fact 0.036 C per decade. Looks like you’ve got this bet sewn up. :)
Hi David (Young). Ref. your comment of 1st March at 6:11 pm. it’s good to hear the voice of reason amidst all of this angst.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
The Bishop-Hill site has posted Lindzen’s presentation as two videos. Links are on the page http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/2/24/lindzen-in-london-josh-152.html
Particularly interesting is the discussion of feedbacks in models and nature beginning about 28 minutes into the second segment.
This is an empty comment whose sole purpose is to increase the count of comments for this thread up over 1,000. We can remove it later if it proves redundant.
Mattstat: Your comment is the one, which can be cancelled from the list….
think of all the newcomers and generalists, who also want to participate….
One cannot only discuss stuff hard to digest, there must be threads
of easy to digest/understandable intellectual food…..
Not everyone is like you a number cruncher….
Oh come on, Matthew, don’t be such a wet blanket. Josh’s cartoons were inspired.
I especially liked “Trust me, I’ve been doing this for 4.5 billion years,” which put me in mind of my wish to see the unexpurgated version of my life flash before my eyes. My two fears are that it will be released early, and that I’ll blink during the scenes edited from the PG-13 edition.
The opportunity to ignite 200 million years accumulation of fossil fuel in a mere 200 years only happens once in the lifetime of a planet. It’s like a magnesium-powered flashbulb going off. The opportunity to do it again on Venus has passed, assuming that’s even what happened there. At surface temperatures hot enough to eliminate all seismic activity by making the surface plastic there is no fracking way to tell (or any other way).
Unless, that is, the third rock from the Sun shields the second rock therefrom with a parasol in the 25th century and then waits a few million years for it to cool down. Maybe in this way Venus and Earth can pass the baton of life back and forth until the fruitcakes on the extreme left or right on whichever planet has the upper hand gets the upper hand. (Democracy is not compatible with picosecond online trading.)
The curious thing is that it’s not the heat from the flashbulb, which is hardly anything. It’s the Sun, stupid, whose incoming heat is trapped by the burnt flashbulb and is millions if not billions of times the heat from the original flashbulb itself. That’s what’s happening on Venus today. There but for the grace of common sense goes Earth.
But hey, we’ll all be long dead and gone before anything like that happens on Earth. What, me worry? I’m just the messenger, my only worry is being shot at by extremists for pointing out the obvious. ;) Fortunately I’m as good at dodging electrons as Neo and Trinity are at dodging real (?) bullets.
Lucretius
Dr. Pratt,
What is it with you guys and Venus? It is sort of creepy how implying Earth could be like Venus sticks around, no matter the differences that make it impossible.
It is sort of creepy how implying Earth could be like Venus sticks around, no matter the differences that make it impossible.
Hunter, if there’s any difference that makes it impossible, I’m all ears. In an earlier comment I pointed out that if Venus were removed to Earth’s orbit it’s temperature would not decrease, not even slowly!
As for “creepy,” I’m with you 100% there!
Two corrections:
“temperature” –> “surface temperature”
“it’s” –> “its”
> If Venus were removed to Earth’s orbit it’s temperature would not decrease, not even slowly!
In that creepy case, one has to wonder from where would women come and this might not have any tangible effect on Earth’s temperature.
Vaughan Pratt: Oh come on, Matthew, don’t be such a wet blanket. Josh’s cartoons were inspired.
did I criticize Josh’s cartoons someplace?
Anyhow, the count is now up to 1022, so my superfluous comment added solely to boos the count can be removed.
In that creepy case, one has to wonder from where would women come
Willard, not everyone finds it creepy having women come closer.
Vaughan Pratt
Let’s boil down that last post of yours to its essential message:
Indeed.
Max
Vaughan,
I was presuming the alternative to the psychological fact that women comes from Venus was that they come from nowhere. But if they do come closer, I predict more global warming, and not just on the surface.
I was presuming the alternative to the psychological fact that women comes from Venus was that they come from nowhere.
Sometimes it seems that way anyway. Men too. Like the tree that leaps out onto the roadway in front of your car. “Officer, it came from nowhere!” Collisions are more common but less fatal in relationships than driving.
Out of curiosity I set out to prove Latimer, John Kowsowski, peterridley et al wrong, by showing them that in fact Martin Lack could be engaged on his blog on a rational basis. And for a day or so I succeeded. Whoop-dee-doo.
But I come here before you all now to confess my abject failure, having just received my marching orders, and so join the sullied ranks of Latimer and the others.
The explanation given was essentially that he is “bored” of hearing ideas he doesn’t like but has absolutely no answer for.
@punksta
I was wondering how long you’d last before Lack’s true bullying personality came to the surface once more. But we should also remember that he – and all his chums who believe that the climate debate is best conducted through a megaphone while wearing ear defenders – are the best ever recruiting sergeants for sceptics.
Rational sensible people take one look at the Lack’s of the world, note their incoherence and intolerance, their insults and their aggression, their inability to do anything but mindlessly rant and rave, and overall their sheer ineptitude at their chosen task of showing us ‘Deniers’ the error of our ways, and then decide that they want nothing to do with them.
Long may he continue along his path to persuade people that scepticism is the correct approach.
Latimer now calls me a “bully”! Are you people for real? You attacked me (i.e. ad hom) in very unpleasant fashion because you did not like what I was telling you (and/or could not be bothered to read what basis I have for saying it). Is this a valid line of argumentation when you cannot falsify what the other person says? I think not… But, hey, do carry on… after all, ad hom is all you have left.
Please note, I believe Lindzen’s career will soon be over – not because he is a bad scientist but – because he would now appear to have revealed himself to be a hypocrite, omitter or obfuscator of relevant facts, and generally prone to misleading people (although intent is still unproven). More on this story on Monday, me thinks…
Yes, Martin, you are a bully. Go on your site and count the number of times that you call people names, smear them or just threaten them. Then you martyr yourself on your site being a victim of ad hominem attacks. Please. Latimer’s suggestion that your believe system is faith based is not an “ad hominem.” It may be wrong or it may be right, but it is not an ad hominem. And, it is very relevant to explaining your bizarre behavior.
You tried your bullying technique here, and you got laughed off this forum.
Look at the rest of the posts on this blog where people of different views aggressively engage in reasoned debate of the issues supported by facts. That is simply not how your blog works. And your attempts at using your technique with Lindzen proved to be a colossal failure. Linzen is not interested in your 17 points, not because he is afraid you might prove him wrong, but because they are nonsensical and add nothing to the pursuit of the science. Then you have the arrogance to believe that when Lindzen tells you that your tobacco smears are libelous that he cares one iota about the rest of your “1800 word open letter.”
You simply have no grasp of reality. You really believe that Lindzen’s career is over because of the CO2 vs. temperature graph that was not included in the pdf handout. Martin, that is just bizarre.
If you make the point that one can define the units of a temperature vs. CO2 graph to make it appear any way they want, it might be a good point. But not much more than that. If you asked him about that, he might even agree and move on. Or he might challenge you to produce a more “fair” graph of sufficient time period showing a correlation between 20th century CO2 emissions and temperature. Everyone already knows that the correlation is not very good.
As someone even more pompous than me might say,
…off with his head.
Well I suggested that we were at war for the future of humanity – not very pompous. But I had a quick look in utter horror and dismay at his site and I noticed the same language from Martin. So really I was right and the guy is an idiot with a messiah complex. Just the sort we need to save the world from. And we are at war.
Best regards
Captain Kangaroo
Captian
I know I said I would not come back (because I have no desire to debate whose science is ‘sound’ and whose is ‘junk’), I kind of knew Punksta would do this. However, I would defy any reasonably open-minded person to review the exchange of comments that led to him being blacklisted (start here) and tell me I was not right to do so: Three times he made the same point and each time I provided good evidence to indicate that he is mistaken. In the face of such an almost incredulous degree of cognitive dissonance (a.k.a. willful blindness), there was no point continuing to talk.
As someone even more pompous than me might say, ” Whilst one can accompany a fine steed to the periphery of a water body, one cannot compel it to imbibe refreshment”!
Next please.
Martin Lacks.
==========
Suffice it to say Martin provided close to zero argument or evidence of anything. He shuts his mind by shutting off dissent.
As I said, I would defy any genuinely open-minded person to reach that conclusion.
Martin doesn’t lack illustrative power into the rhetoric of the true believer.
===========================
Martin
I don’t have a particular dog in this fight, so I went to your link ‘start here’ at 9.07.
All I saw from Punksta was a robust statement of his views, such as occurs here many times a day, every day of the week. It is called ‘debate.’
You may or may not agree with them, but they were not malicious unpleasant or out of order in any sort of debating forum.
So, sorry, I can’t see why he should be blacklisted.
Incidentally, when do you believe the world started warming? (This time round?)
tonyb
@tonyb. Did you read to the very end (i.e. the thread is disjointed)? I think Punksta effectively stated the fallacious “scientific conspiracy” theory three times; and each time I responded with evidence to indicate this is a phantom. According to Punksta, everyone who changes their mind has been duped by this imaginary conspiracy (i.e. latest victim = William Nordhaus). I can’t win against that degree of willful blindness.
What would be the point in continuing with such an exchange? I’m sorry but, I would have more respect for someone who insisted that the Moon landings were faked; and/or that 9/11 was an inside job.
OMG – now I’ve done it – you’re all going to tell me your fully paid-up members of the Truth Movement…
Martin
I read to the end if this was your final comment (at the time)
‘Punksta, you are boring me. For anyone to carry on interacting with you here would clearly be a waste of both their time and yours. Goodbye.’
tonyb.
Martin Lack,
I read a blog article today that looks to be written just for you. Now I am sure most here think that the Martin Lack horse has been beaten to death, but I disagree. The Martin Lacks of the world are dangerous and do great harm, but they don’t even know it. They need to be confronted at every turn.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/green-myths-theres-only-one-evil-species-on-earth-and-its-us/
“Environmentalism has over the last two decades perverted itself to the point where it’s become a pseudo religion, a cult worshipping the almighty god Gaia, who must be protected from the innate evil of humanity. When it comes down to a choice between us and Gaia, the cultists are quite prepared to sacrifice us on the altar of their beliefs. Let malaria kill millions of people yearly in the developing world, even though we could eradicate it there, like we did in our world, with DDT. Let people die of starvation because we’ve switched from growing staples to bio fuel crops; it’s to protect Gaia after all. Let other human beings live in the cold and darkness because we don’t think they should have electricity generation plants, though we do. Let them starve and die because we don’t think they should have disease resistant bioengineered crops, though we do….Two decades ago I was an environmentalist but not today. Today I hate it and believe that fighting it should be the moral imperative of our generation. What little good it now does is far outweighed by its crimes against humanity. It kills the most vulnerable of us, so we must kill it stone dead.
If the more brutal periods of history teach us anything, it’s that the only people we ever need saving from are those self-appointed people determined to save us from something.”
tonyb – Just so that I cannot be criticised for mentally pigeon-holing you, am I take it that you also believe William Nordhaus has been duped by your CAGW government-led conspiracy (to foist environmental alarmism upon a credulous world) into publishing this on The New York Review of Books website:
Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong
Or maybe it’s a “fake”? Of course, yes, it’s been faked, that’s it!
Martin
You asked for any reasonably open minded person to review the exchanges, which I did.
I then re-read it in case I did not see the entire exchange. I would suggest that you leave it for a few days then reread it yourself to see if it exceeds the normal cut and thrust of debate on climate blogs. I would suggest it does not.
I have no opinion on William Nordhaus who I do not know and do not follow.
.
Can you answer my question as to when you believe the world started warming? Thank you.
tonyb
That’s not the point and you know it. The discussion was going nowhere. We were both just repeating ourselves. Utterly pointless.
Lacklustre : The discussion was going nowhere. We were both just repeating ourselves. Utterly pointless.
[And so instead of just ignoring the pointless discussion, I silenced the person. This is the just fate of all who disagree with me and expose my egregious errors. When finally everyone agrees with me, they will be allowed to say whatever they like].
OK Punksta – You win. I will re-admit you. But, if you clog up my site with repetitious nonsense, I will ignore you. After all, even here in this reality-inverted world, repetitive posting of the same stuff IS a legitimate reason to blacklist somoene.
Hey JK (Rowling) You really weren’t seeking answers when you first came to my website 5 weeks ago, were you? What a complete waste of time that was for both of us! Seriously what was the point of all those comments of yours running into 100s of words at a time?
Quite why Barry does not seem to understand that this is the main reason I was suspicious of his wanting to be “helpful”, I don’t know! Having been fooled once, I think I had every right to be suspicious when history seemed to be repeating itself.
Good luck to all of you in finding your own way to the waterhole. I hope it ain’t dry by the time you get there…
Martin
I don’t know WHAT the point was. You asked people to look at the exchanges which I did. I do not say they were enlightening or clever or even that interesting. But they did not stray outside the boundaries of normal debate.
I have now asked you nicely twice as to when you believe the world started warming, so I will ask it again for a third time. Do you know? If not just say so.
tonyb
I was not aware of you asking before. I have better things to do than Occupy this blog.
1850-ish… and since you will otherwise ask, it did not stop in 1998 (or at any other time): Because the climate system is chaotic and CO2 is not the sole cause (though it is the dominant one) – change is non-linear.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47
Martin
You said on your blog;
Having posted something fairly controversial on Judith Curry’s blog earlier this week, I am now being referred to in absentia as ‘Joshua’ (for having the temerity to be so certain I am right and “sceptics” are wrong). Maybe so, but such an accusation is no substitute for not having a sound scientific basis for maintaining your “scepticism”. It is, however, entirely coincidental that this post should appear today (as I wrote and named it last Sunday).”
I am afraid you have completely missed the point here. Joshua is a very ardent warmist on this blog who went missing at exactly the time you appeared. The reference to him and you is merely in that context, there is certainly no clever biblical connotations.
tonyb
Already had that explained to me since I posted it, thanks. But I see no reason to change it, or are you going to get pedantic about this too?
Actually. No. You are right; I should change it – and I will. It was an innocent mistake and it is now a misrepresentation of the actual situation.
It is a shame that Professor Lindzen does not possess the same intellectual honesty to admit it when he has been caught out doing much the same thing.
Yes Martin,
I do seek the truth. I have not fully made up my mind yet on AGW, but it seems likely that there no cause for alarm. If facts and reason cause me to believe otherwise, I will fight against fossil fuel use harder than you are. However, people need fossil fuel to have good lives. I am going to do whatever necessary to prevent people like you from taking that away from them, unless, of course, we are headed for extinction from it. But again, that is seemingly very unlikely. And the truth is, I don’t think you care. I think you oppose growth, modernism, and consumerism regardless of any real impact on the environment. I didn’t know this about you when I first came to your blog, but your DDT discussion (that you brought up) sealed it for me.
Keep on with the revisionism but, I fear, you are seeking truth where it cannot be found. Yes, I believe in Limits to Growth – because I accept the reality of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics – but that does not make me misanthropic or a Communist. Yet again, it seems, that you forget – or would seek to obscure – the fact that I am a Conservative voter. If I lived in the USA, I would be a member of REP but, given the anti-intellectual stance of all GOP POTUS candidates would probably vote for Obama this year.
Martin
No, I can not see a reason for you to take down your post but a little addendum for the sake of accuracy would possibly be in order but its your blog.
Have I missed your response as to when the climate started warming?
Without knowing history it is a little difficult to know where the current era fits in to the great scheme of things. So nicely for the fourth time, when did the earth start warming?
tonyb
The explanation given was essentially that he is “bored” of hearing ideas he doesn’t like but has absolutely no answer for.
What? Like Nordhouse is a “nincompoop” for “swallowing CAGW whole” and supporting the government conspiracy to tax us into the ground? Hmmm…I’m inclined to say that if Lack’s temperament doesn’t appreciate your attempts to wind him up, he is entitled to throw you out of his house.
I think I’m relatively impartial because I do not like Lack’s and others’ use of climate war rhetoric one bit. Spencer and Lindzen can only be “defeated” if they are seen to lose the argument in a more rational way.
Oh I have no quibble at all with Lack’s right to ban me from his site. Its good information, telling me that – like Mann – he has zero interest in the truth, just wants CAGW to be believed.
And any talk of “conspiracy” is entirely Lack’s strawman. I essentially just point out that government has a vested interest in CAGW being believed, and is also the funding behind CAGW, totally dwarfing all other climate science funding. Government is just pursuing its self-interest, nothing too surprising or secret in that.
No mass conspiracy though there are those who have breathed together. Instead, it is an ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusion and Madness of the Crowd’. Those mooing catastrophe have stampeded the herd toward the cliff, and it pauses at the yawning chasm.
=====================
@steve m
Nobody is doubting his ‘entitlement’ to run his blog any which way he wants.
But – like anybody exercising their power – they also have to live with the consequences of those actions. If those are for many to conclude that he is little more than a self-important bully, then that is their prerogative too.
Peter Ridley has not been blacklisted, although – as it is with quite a lot of you – his pedantic return to the issue of who was responsible for my not getting to ask my question was indeed rather boring… “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” (Proverbs 26:11)
Please, please, please, don’t take this personally, Peter: All I am doing is advising you to learn from your mistakes; and stop using pedantism as an excuse not to deal with my detailed criticism of Lindzen’s talk.
insults, but don’t take it personally.. ;-)
I did askDr Mark Brandon to have a chat with Martin about Amtartica, but he thought he was some sort of sceptic. !! So I don’t blame Mark if he has stayed well away
My last words for Martin here:
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/pig-produces-calf-the-size-of-nyc/#comments
Martin – I was trying to help..
I contribute at WUWT because it has a very large audience, rather than a backwater like an individual blog (mine included)
I normally get told to hang out with my environmentalist friends!!! by people in the comments and accused of not being sceptical enough. Just shows the USA situation is horribly politicised/polarised.
I had never heard of you until you showed up at Climate Etc, and I have always wanted to talk to people that differed in opinions, or challenge my own ‘side’. Morano being next on my list.
I have interviewed BOTH Leo Hickman (Guardian) and James Delingpole for my blog articles, I disagree with both, but believe me, it takes trust and goodwill to do this on all our parts.
As to ‘not declaring’. I volunteered it as a sign of trust and goodwill. yet you seem to want to twist this.
WUWT is just a blog, like mine, like yours, where an indivudal has become very succesfull.
So Good Luck..
I could easily be spending my time writing something that would recieve tens, or hundreds or thousands of views for WUWT, I thought I might have a chat with you, so that we maight understand each other.. I can see your motives are sincere (I just think mistaken) it seems that you do not believe my motives are sincere.
So Good Luck
———————————-
I wil chat to anyone and be patient but unless people will meet you half way on goodwil/sincerityl, it is pointless.
Barry, now it is you that is walking away in a huff. Please, please, please look at the three replies I have posted to your comment while you were writing this (not so helpul) comment.
Why do so many people seem so willing to dish it out but unable to take it? How could I have been more emphatic in asking Peter not to take it personally? If I want to call someone a fool, I will do just that.
A huff? Ha, it seems more like a sigh to me.
====================
So, to use his own language, the vomit has returned to the dog – Lack is Back.
Having banned and/or admonished and/or given guidance from his lofty height to those on his site he has no answer for, he now enjoys Judith’s hospitality to say whatever he pleases to an audience of vastly more gravitas and number than his own cozy half-dozen group of fawners.
Be assured though, he feels no wrong in this, because his ’cause’ is the right one, and the end justifies the means, comrades.
If I was to be like some other people in here I would get insulted by this puerile attack but generally I will ignore it.
Don’t feed the attention-seeker.
He has already decided that He is the Saviour of the Earth and has come to show us the Error of our Ways.
Having flounced out from here once, he returned to his own blog and found no traffic at all.
Must have been lonely. Nobody to shout at, nobody to insult and nobody left to threaten or ban. I won’t say nobdoy to debate with, becauce Lack doesn’t debate. He harangues, hectors and bullies (I stand by that description). Then when anybody dares to advance a counter argument, he bans them.
So, finding himeslf in spelndid isolation, he (despite all promises/threats to never return), he pops back up. All guns blazing, style as aggressive and unpleasant as ever.
He seeks attention, he seeks to know that (in his own mind at least) he is Fighting the Good Fight, and Smiting the Deniers.
Best tto ignore him. Especially do not post at his blog. It only gives hiim that extra thrill of exercising his little power of ‘my blog, my rules, goodbye’
But should he ever have a pause for reflection in his crusade, he might wonder why – after at least a couple of dozen very badly recceived interventions here – our hostess as not taken steps to blackiist him. While it takes fewer than five from Punksta to earn ML’s displeasure and his Casting into the Fires of Damnation.
The answer is that here we believe in free, open and robust debate. A concept that Martin Lack is completely averse to.
This chat room is about as far removed as it is physically possible to get from a “free, open and robust debate”… As the only people here that don’t get subjected to pedantic diversions and cheap insults are those that do not challenge your ideological prejudices. Stop attacking me and falsify my message – i.e. that limits to growth exist and that anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is just the most obvious consequences we have yet come up against.
Once again, I think I must warn you that to simply deny that ACD is happening is to automatically invoke conspiracy theory. I know you don’t like me saying this but, denying it will not make it any the less true.
Martin, not true at all. There’s of course some conspiracy, which is obvious in the climategate emails, but it’s not predominant. Tha main factor is the CO2 paradigm paralysis (see Kuhn). In particular, confirmation bias, groupthink, conflict of interest and so on.
@martin lack
Thanks for the ‘warning’
I’ll take it just as seriously as I took all the previous such warnings from you. I lost count when we got to over half a dozen….
I’d merely point out that while you are a serial blacklister/banner of people you disagree with on your own blog, Judith has never felt the need to ban or blacklist anybody at Climate Etc.
And her blog attracts several hundred postings per day… from a diverse and outspoken set of contributors. I wonder if you can make a convincing case that your place does a better job than she does of promoting ‘free, open and robust debate’?
I’d be fascinated to now how you argue that ACD is a consequence of the idea of Limits to Growth’. You’ll need to show real evidence that one causes the other. Not just the thought that they are vaguely connected talking points. But an actual direct causal connection.
As to ACD I don’t believe that I have yet expressed an opinion to you about it. So if you think you have developed telepathic faculties, I think you should get them calibrated before using them unwisely.
If I may remind you, Latimer, you were backlisted for using my Christian background (ineligible grounds to demean points being made by another person) to prop up a fallacious argument that concern over ACD is a matter of belief (rather than science we have understood for over 150 years). However, if you will now accept that you are wrong on both counts, I would be content to re-admit you to my site (as I admit I lost my temper with you – sorry).
Since you ask ACD = a limits to growth phenomenon because over the last two centuries global population has grown to such a level that it is now causing serious stress to the global ecosystem (especially as we are actively destroying large parts of the very CO2 sinks we need to process all that CO2 we are adding to the atmosphere). If we pump it out there faster than trees and oceans can assimilate it we eventually start seeing adverse consequences. Thus it becomes a limit on safe amounts of quantitative growth beyond we should try not to get. Q.E.D.
@martin lack
‘population has grown to such a level that it is now causing serious stress to the global ecosystem (especially as we are actively destroying large parts of the very CO2 sinks we need to process all that CO2 we are adding to the atmosphere). If we pump it out there faster than trees and oceans can assimilate it we eventually start seeing adverse consequences’
Please provide some evidence for both ‘serious stress’ and ‘adverse consequences’. Both are good emotive terms and can easily get the tears flowing. But, leaving the emotions aside, what are the actual serious stresses and what are the adverse consequences? Show the hard evidence.
It would be perfectly possible to argue that on balance a warmer world is likely to be a better world for all its inhabitants. A simple example that we can look at is that Siberia is a lot more hostile to all forms of life than is the Tropical Rain Forest. .And so by oxidising pre-stored carbon all we are doing is liberating Gaia’s hidden potential to grow more crops, feed more people and increase the net human happiness. If one were religious (I am not) one could even wonder at god’s foresight in laying down all that carbon for our benefit in the past.
On the matter of your blog, the place where you can have a free, open and honest debate on climate issues is here. Where your views can be tested from a variety of angles. Not just the ones you are comfortable with or agree with. And where you can defend them – with evidence and argument, not just assertion from authority – if you can.
So thanks for the offer of re-admitting me to your inner sanctum…but only on your condition that I admit that I was wrong about something I wrote on a different blog from yours. That is stll a form of blackmail and that is still not behaviour I find attractive Neither do I have any belief that my views were wrong in themselves nor that I was wrong to express them. So no deal on all counts.
And I think you’ll find very few takers from serious correspondents at your place when the deck is so obviously stacked in favour of the house. ‘Come and waste your time posting at my blog until I have a fit of pique and ban you’ is not a seductive appeal.
I’ll prefer to express my views here and elsewhere where there is a wide readership and a diversity of opinion. And – unless I go seriously off the rails – little prospect of falling victim to a temper tantrum from my extremely equable host.
Your choice is to grow a thicker skin, tone down the unpleasantness a lot, learn to argue with evidence not mere assertion and be prepared to defend your corner against all comers. Or you can keep talking just to yourself on your own private highly-moderated, ‘Martin is King’ space. If your aim is really to influence people’s opinion. I know which I would choose.
Of men and apes there is no bigger difference than that by which apes look down on us from trees while men continually find new reasons to burn a forest. Oh but that there might come a time when apes will drive the machines of men while men burn in the fires of the own creation. :-(
I haven’t been paying attention to the exchanges between Girma (J Orssengo PhD – orssengo@lycos.com? or Todd – http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/learning-from-bastardis-mistakes/#comment-53505) and Vaughan (Pratt) and had the impression that Girma, like ex-Slayer Professor Claes Johnson, believed that Planck was misguided and quantum physics is a myth. Looking more closely at his comments elsewhere it seems that I was way off-beam. Girma/Todd’s hypothesis has already been given a thorough trouncing 6 months ago at the Tamino thread of staunch CACC supporter Grant Foster. I think that it is worthwhile mentioning a few of the comments on that thread.
I appears that Girma/Todd and the CACC supporters fall into the same trap, believing that despite having no or only a very poor understanding of the processes and drivers of the different global climates, they are able to make reasonable predictions/projections about what the global mean temperature (whatever practical significance that is supposed to have) is going to be decades ahead without having .
Robert Murphy declared “Girma, there’s no physics in your projection, just mathturbation. It’s therefore worthless .. ”. In my opinion that is almost equally true of the projections of the CACC supporters. All that is required is for the “no” to be replaced with “very little”.
One thing that Girma said with which I have no argument is “ .. The earth .. has a governor a thermostat that we have YET to understand .. ” and it is not CO2, which Professor Richard Alley would have us believe (http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/richard-alley-at-agu-2009-the-biggest-control-knob/). Anyone thinking about watching the A/V of his 2009 AGU presentation (http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml) needs to be aware of the risk of being hypnotised by Professor Alley’s hand-waving (maybe the good Professor has convinced himself of the validity of the ice-core record of atmospheric CO2 concentration – what he refers to as the Gold Standard – using self-hypnosis).
It has been suggested that Girma is “ .. a few grapes short of a fruit salad .. ” (http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/learning-from-bastardis-mistakes/#comment-53447) but no more so than Tamino, judging by his response to one of Girma/Todd’s comments. “ .. Global warming science is based on fundamental physics. Your theory is based on nothing but numerology .. ”. If it was Grant himself who said that rather than a moderator then he leaves himself wide open to the suggestion that he is a fruit and nut case.
I did like Rafael’s comment (http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/learning-from-bastardis-mistakes/#comment-53738) and recommend a read of it.
Hi again Vaughan (Pratt), ref. 2nd March at 1:04 am. “ .. Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT and the IPCC have been claiming, namely that there has been some CO2-induced warming over that period? .. ”. Although I haven’t been following your exchanges with Girma let me throw in my two-bits worth. What Professor Lindzen said was “ .. A doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1C to greenhouse warming. All models project more warming, because, within models, there are positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds, and these feedbacks are considered by the IPCC to be uncertain .. ”.
I see that “by itself” as meaning that there could have been some CO2-induced warming had all other processes and drivers remained constant. In the real world that we inhabit that is never the case. It is because the modellers and their computer programmer associates have only a poor understand those processes and drivers that their model projections are little better than the crystal balls or Tarrant cards used by fortune-tellers.
Hi Girma, please can you confirm that you are correctly listed as having provided oral or written input to the Inter-Accademy Council’s 2010 review of the IPCC’s processes and procedures (http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/report/Climate%20Change%20Assessments,%20Review%20of%20the%20Processes%20&%20Procedures%20of%20the%20IPCC.pdf). There seems to have been some procrastination by the IAC about the relase of the results of their questionnaire (http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/12/12/soon-and-sounds-of-silence-from-the-interacademy-council/) and I wonder if you have any information on that.
Looking through the report two items caught my attention “ .. the many statements in the Working Group II Summary for Policymakers that are assigned high confidence but are based on little evidence .. ” and “ .. Scientists and government representatives who responded to the Committee’s questionnaire suggested changes to reduce opportunities for political interference with the scientific results .. ”. I doubt that the IPCC will take any notice of those two recommendations and make an honest attempt to remove the politicization of the science.
BTW, are you still at the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, The University of Western Australia (http://www.geocities.ws/girmao/resume.htm http://wiki.mech.uwa.edu.au/upload/archive/7/70/20100425093736!Miller_2000_Pig.pdf)? I speculate that modelling those pigs brains was much easier than trying to model the processes and drivers of those different global climates.
Hi Max (Anacker), ref. 3rd March 3 at 3:32 am. maybe you should be a bit more wary of declaring “ .. What a bunch of baloney, Vaughan! .. ”. When debating an issue that is underpinned with uncertainty such as the CACC hypothesis this kind of statement has a nasty habit of rebouinding. “ .. This rate was slower prior to WWII, based on ice core estimates This is NOT false .. ” could also back-fire once there is a proper understanding of the processes that are distorting the original composition of the atmospheric air during the formation of an ice sheet (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2010/12/smogbound-on-molecular-fractionation-in.html). As the British Antarctic Survey expert Professor Eric Wolff said recently “ .. I think that none of us has a definite molecular-level understanding of the physical process occurring at close-off, and it would be great if someone can do the experiments in the lab to understand that better .. ” (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=38675.msg354373#msg354373).
BTW, I think that saying of Vaughan that “ .. I know you are a climate scientist .. ” is perhaps stretching the imagination rather too far. “ .. His research interests include computational complexity, logics of programs, natural language, speech recognition, foundations of concurrency, universal algebra, category theory, and most recently climate change .. ” (http://rp-www.cs.usyd.edu.au/research/news/pratt.shtml) that “more recently” being in June 2011. It takes longer than 9 months to convert from a computer engineer/programmer to a scientist, climate or otherwise. He may at one time have been employed in Stanford University’s Computer Sciences Dept. (http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Colloquium/Archives/01-02/01fall/Pratt.html) but appears to have been otherwise employed since 2000.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
BTW, I think that saying of Vaughan that “ .. I know you are a climate scientist .. ” is perhaps stretching the imagination rather too far. “
Pete, you may have overlooked my response to Markus F.
that “more recently” being in June 2011.
If everything else you say is this accurate, Pete, we can stop paying attention to you too. ;) I began studying the climate in earnest in 2009. That’s two more years than your questionable reasoning led you to believe, but still not long enough to qualify me as a climate scientist.
He may at one time have been employed in Stanford University’s Computer Sciences Dept. (http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Colloquium/Archives/01-02/01fall/Pratt.html) but appears to have been otherwise employed since 2000.
In the sense you’re talking about, I’ve been “otherwise employed” since 1965. I’ve worked for a number of companies between then and now. So what rule of inference did you apply here? That anyone with occasional corporate experience over a 45 year period must by now have become a drooling moron? You seem to have an extraordinarily low opinion of corporate experience, suggesting you’ve been either a student or self-employed most of your life.
For the record I’ve been a Stanford professor continuously since 1981, and am currently the only active faculty member in the Stanford Driving Group working on autonomous vehicles. And yes, our vehicles emit a ton of CO2 for every hundred gallons of gas we pump into them, in case you were wondering about that.
So why do you hang out at climate blogs, Pete? Your posts here seem to have more to do with judging people than climate. Keep an eye on Rush Limbaugh, if Fox News lets him go you might be able to get a corporate job for the first time in your life by stepping into his shoes and using the S word for climate scientists instead of women. ;)
Did Lindzen persuade anyone of any influence then? Or are we doomed to more taxes for more pointless follies to appease a green movement that the public ignores anyway? All this was just meant to be about the greenwashing of nuclear power. Some of you are diverging from the script.
Hi Peter317, thanks for your brief comment of 3rd March at 11:27 am. It encouraged me to look further into those Great Storms and led me to a very interesting book “Climate, history, and the modern world” by the highly respected meteorologist and climatologist Hubert H. Lamb in 1982. On Page 31 Lamb talks about “ .. great storms in 1588, 1703, 1839, 1881, 1928 and 1976 .. ” and “ .. impressive climaxes of storminess in this region in the 1570 to 1620’s period and in the 1690s to early 1700s and again in the 1790s .. the great storm reported in 1839 .. ” (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=P4n1z9rOh5MC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=%22Great+Storms%22+%221570%22&source=bl&ots=etwXSPmJYL&sig=iMuUaW8xi56zFUJR23yLEfjp3QI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cJFST5zWNMT_8QPYxvjwBQ&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Great%20Storms%22%20%221570%22&f=false). Let’s not forget the “year without a summer” in 1816 and all of those other “climate catastrophes” that occurred prior to CO2 levels increasing (http://clem.mscd.edu/~wagnerri/Earth%20in%20the%20Balance%20Chapter%203.pdf).
All of that storminess was happening when the claimed atmospheric concentration of CO2 was only about 285ppm (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/files/uploads/CO2.png). Of course we can expect the CACC supporters to jump in with “only regional” or “only weather events not climate”, having conveniently forgotten those arguments when claiming that similar events in current times are evidence of CACC.
Lamb, one of what Vaughan Pratt refers to as “ .. the old artery-hardened generation .. ” was, unlike Vaughan, a metoerologist and climatologist of long-standing, having worked with the UK’s Met (or is it Wet) Office and the WMO before he was invited to found the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in 1972 (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/). Lamb recognised that there had been no evidence to support a claim that the global climates had been stable until humans started using fossil fuels.
There are several revealing statements in that CRU article. The most significant one is “ .. Since its inception in 1972 until 1994, the only scientist who had a guaranteed salary from ENV/UEA funding was the Director. Every other research scientist relied on ‘soft money’ – grants and contracts – to continue his or her work. Since 1994, the situation has improved and now three of the senior staff are fully funded by ENV/UEA and two others have part of their salaries paid. The fact that CRU has and has had a number of long-standing research staff is testimony to the quality and relevance of our work. Such longevity in a research centre, dependent principally on soft money, in the UK university system is probably unprecedented .. ”. That gives a hint as to the incentive within the CRU for its scientists giving their unreserved support for the politically-sponsored CACC hypothesis. After all, does not a significant proportion of those grants and contracts that pay their salaries come from political sources and is it not politically expedient to encourage the taxpayer to believe in CACC?
From the point of view of us sceptics another significant statement is that “ .. The contribution of the Founding Director, Professor Hubert H Lamb, cannot be overstated. Hubert Lamb’s determination and vision can only be appreciated against the view, generally prevailing within the scientific establishment in the 1960s, that the climate for all practical purposes could be treated as constant. The weather changed from day-to-day, from week-to-week, and season-to-season. There was interannual variability, but over years (the perceived argument went) a constancy was reliably evident. It is now recognised that the climate is not constant, but changes on timescales which are of relevance to humanity and its social and economic systems .. ”.
“ .. Hubert Horace Lamb .. was one of the first meteorologists to point to changes of climate in human history. From records of European temperatures, especially a remarkably long series from central England, he deduced .. Medieval Warm Period and .. Little Ice Age .. ” (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/xLamb.htm) – you know, those periods that Professor Michael Mann was so determined to get rid of in order to produce his “hockey stick”. The IPCC’s convenient switch from Lamb’s reconstruction (used its 1990 and 1995 reports) to Mann’s reconstruction (used extensively in their 2001 report) is discussed in “Deja Vu ’72?” (http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/09/deja-vu-72.html).
Lamb recognised the significant Northern Hemisphere climatic changes recorded as occurring long before atmospheric CO2 concentration started to rise. In 1969 Lamb is reported to have said QUOTE: ..that the effects of CO2 were “doubtful… there are many uncertainties.” The CO2 theory, he pointed out, failed to account for the numerous large shifts that he had uncovered in records of climate from medieval times to the present .. UNQUOTE (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm). It is odd that I cannot find anything suggesting that Lamb challenged the change in perception that occurred withuin the UEA CRU after he stepped down as Director. I speculate that it may have had had something to do with the fact that as CRU Director from 1972 to 1978 his salary was guaranteed but not thereafter but I am not sure that he continued to earn a living at the CRU after 1978 – anyone know?
It is such a shame that Lamb handed over the reins so early to people like Tom Wigley, Trevor Davies, Jean Palutikof and Phil Jones who appear to have quickly set aside Lamb’s arguments about earlier climate changes.
Donald, ref. 3rd March at 12:23 pm. have you been watching Planet of the Apes again?
BTW, it looks as though Martin Lack has become bored with talking to himself on his blog. Although my gut reaction is to support John Kosowski I do not really believe that debating it with him will do any more good than I do when trying to convert the visiting Jehovah’s Witnesses to remove their blinkers. They simply keep coming back to the door with more of their nonsense. Martin is just the same. May I suggest that his comments here are just ignored, as tonyb encouraged us.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
Thanks for this post.
Well, what do you know, March already. Hard to resist the obvious response: “In like a Lamb, out like a Mann.”
Peter Ridley
I dont know if you caught my article carried here which juxtaposed the studies of Hubert Lamb and Michael Mann as regards temperature reconstructions. It cites many of his works.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/
I have just presented a copy of it to the Met Office library with a suitable dedication to Lamb. He is still held in High regards there and interestingly his son-an MP-is taking up an official Parliamentary overview of the Met Office.
As regards Great Storms Lamb enumerated them in his book;
‘Historic Storms of the North Sea, British Ilses and Northwest Europe ‘ It amply demostrates that Storms were far worse in the old days than in the current benign climate. That is because presumably there was greater energy in the atmosphere due to the combination of very cold and very cold weather that predominated during the LIA.
tonyb
Thanks for that reference, I missed that the first time round. It looks like a must read, bookmarked with gratitude.
Absurd facts. First the CO2 did not double yet.
C02 went from around 280 ppm in the nineteenth century to the present 393.9 ppm (February 2012).
Second, we have a global augmentation of one degree Celsius for an increase of about 50 ppm in the last 30 years. This means, using the brutish math of Lindzen, that a doubling of CO2 from here, would augment global temperature by an average of 8 degrees Celsius.
Now, of course most of the augmentation would be at the poles, so those would melt, and London would be under water. Also half of the excess CO2 dissolves in the oceans, making carbonic acid, so the oceans will soon get too acidic to support life.
A much better analysis, three years old:
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/biosphere-collapse-not-climate-change/
No one here but us swine, Patrice. Speaking for those of us paying attention to new inputs, we’re flattered that you would cast your pearls before us instead of Gavin Schmidt and Grant Foster. What’s Up With That? ;)
Oink, oink…grunt, oink!
[Translation: “How ’bout some real pearls?”]
Max
All yours Vaughan old buddy -I suggest that nodding strategically is the best idea. Along with making sure the meds have been taken.
Patrice Ayme
The “facts” are not as “absurd” as you claim.
Read what Lindzen states more closely.
He states that the impact of ALL GHG increases since industrialization has had roughly the same radiative forcing as a doubling of CO2 alone would have,
Several posters have confirmed that this is slightly exaggerated, but essentially correct (87%).
As far at the cherry-picked time period of the “last 30 years” goes, this is meaningless and has nothing whatsoever to do with Lindzen’s statement.
Max
Dear Manacker:
Well, if that is what Lindzen is saying, then he makes the case that the anthropogenic devastation of the atmosphere is truly devastating.
Although I am as hard core as they come about the GHG poisoning, even me is not as extreme as that (we are around 460 ppm of CO2 equivalence, by my reckoning).
Anyway, this is all becoming moot, as the situation is going to become incredibly catastrophic within years, no decades. The New York Times had Friday’s tornado devastation (40+ dead) in small letters….
Patrice Ayme
Can you provide a robust scientific link between the fractions of a degree C warming we have seen over the past 150 years and the recent US tornadoes?
Max
My arithmetic stays sound: as we got PLUS one degree Celsius for PLUS 60 ppm of CO2, we will get another degree in less than 20 years, and that may mean PLUS TEN degrees at the poles, hence TOTAL melting. On the positive side, the skeptics in Washington will sink.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Patrice Ayme You write “Anyway, this is all becoming moot, as the situation is going to become incredibly catastrophic within years, no decades. The New York Times had Friday’s tornado devastation (40+ dead) in small letters….”
This is nothing short of complete and utter garbage. Tornados are NOT associated with warm temperatures. They do NOT occur in the tropics; unlike hurricanes. Tornados form because of a DIFFERENCE in temperature. There is no known connection between global temperatures and anything to do with tornados. If you claim that there is, then where is the reference, please.
Patrice,
Bunk at every claim. You have no idea what you are claiming. Your ideas on OA are beyond science fiction.
Where are your alleged facts? Unsupported insults are just as spit in the wind, they often splash in the faces of brutes. Science is, indeed, beyond science fiction. Try to learn something. No learning, no hunting anything harder than cockroaches.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
peteridley – ref=March 3, 2012 at 6:28 pm
“I am home” :-)
Vaughn
For the record, here are the 30-year trends since the period ending in 1990
http://bit.ly/xe8oLr
Looking at this graph, I prefer to say the trend for 1985-2015 will be less than 0.19 deg C per decade.
Girma
You wrote:
That is an absolute no-brainer, Girma.
The average annual temperature in 2011 was 0.340 degC. Let’s take this as the starting point for the monthly projection beyond January 2012.
In order to reach an average linear warming rate of 0.19 degC per decade over the entire 30-year period from 1985 through 2015, the next four years would have to see a decadal warming rate of 1.8 degC per decade (i.e. from 0.340 degC in January 2012 to 1.045 degC in December 2015).
This is obviously NOT going to happen.
Max
Max
It is hard to predict in the short term.
http://bit.ly/xdP6wV
What the above graph clearly shows is the 30-years trend has been decreasing since 2004 from its maximum of 0.19 deg C per decade, but it is about flat since 2009 at about 0.16 deg C per decade.
The graph also shows the 30-years trend could increase by 0.02 deg C per decade in just one year as it did from 2003 to 2004. So it is possible for the current trend to go from 0.16 to 0.18 just in a year.
I had thought the 30-years trend had been decreasing. But it has been flat since 2009. Which way is it going to go in the next few years? Very interesting.
Now I am not sure the 30-years trend will be less than 0.16 deg C per decade for 1985-2015.
I hope they are not into “beef up”
Now I am beginning to understand where Martin Lack gets some of his odd ideas from about the processes and drivers of the different global climates. On 3rd March at 6:16 pm. he made reference to William Nordhaus, Professor of Physics – oops, sorry, Professor of Economics, Yale University (http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/cv_current.htm). Professor Nordhaus is not an expert in those, the poorly understood science or the models that are based upon it but in the economics of climate change and their Integrated Assessment Models, aka IAMs (http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cd/d18a/d1839.pdf and http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cd/d10a/d1009.pdf).
I’m inclined to agree with John Kosowski (3rd March at 7:03 pm) when he says that “ .. you oppose growth, modernism, and consumerism regardless of any real impact on the environment .. ”.
I have a suggestion for Martin – study the science instead of throwing in distractions like the imaginings of economists (whose IAMs failed to predict the global economic catastrophe) and cluttering up the threads of real scientists with nonsense comments like “ . Because the climate system is chaotic and CO2 is not the sole cause (though it is the dominant one .. ”.
I see that Martin has recruited a fellow CACC disciple to aid him in his CACC evangelism. He and Patrice Ayme were pushing their version of “truth” on Patrice’s nonsense article over at Learning from Dogs (http://learningfromdogs.com/2012/03/02/the-collapse-of-the-biosphere/) – an appropriate blog name?
I see that Patrice believes that is “ .. My arithmetic stays sound .. ” (4th March at 4:48 pm) but it’s a shame about his physics.
Hi Latimer Alder, ref. 4th March at 5:02 am. we (and Captain Kangaroo) have both fallen into his trap by giving him attention – dammit.
Hi Vaughan (Pratt), ref. 4th March at 4:00 am. so you believe that 3 years of dabbling in the numerous scientific disciplines contributing to improving our poor understanding of the different global climates has turned you from a computer engineer/programmer into a scientist! I have news for you, it hasn’t. Keep studying the science and one day you may make it.
Ref. 4th March at 5:20 am. and “ .. you’re a babbling baboon .. ”. You must stop talking to yourself like that. The men in white coats may pay a visit.
Hi Girma, ref. 4th March at 4:44 am. I think that you’ll probably lose your bet, not because of CACC but because your concern that “ … they .. “beef up” the temperature data .. ” through some unusual Mann-style statistical approach or the removal of more of those temperature measurement stations that persist in giving lower readings than they want.
Hi tonyb, ref. 4th March at 5:38 am. thanks for that link. I recall having visited and appreciating that thread some time ago but had forgotten about it. Commenter thingsbreak on 1st December at 3:21 pm quoted “ .. “and that overall the Medieval warm period was substantially less warm than the two most recent decades .. ” from Lamb’s “Climate of the Modern World”. I agree with your response about context, which was for that section “Assmetry … over the Northern Hemisphere”. If the predictions about the cooling trend for the next few decades turn out to be correct then it looks as though we have ahead of us a return to those colder and stormier weather conditions that Lamb talked about. Let’s hope that Mother Nature decides to keep it nice and warm instead.
BTW, Max Annacker’s comment there of 14th December at 7:34 am relates to my response to Girma about his bet with Vaughan. Max said “ .. We know that the number of measurement stations has been slashed by more than two-thirds around the 1990s, about the same time when temperature showed a strong rise. We know that many of the stations that were shut down were located in sub-Arctic regions of the old USSR, and that there were internal political reasons during that time to understate local temperatures in order to get fuel subsidies .. ”.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Prof Lindzen was speaking within the walls of the UK legislature, so he has to distil the message to that audience (not that there were many MPs in attendance – sadly – I was there), but I understand he met privately with a cabinet minister afterwards.
On you closing remarks.
1. “Lindzen’s persona and appearance, that reeks of scientific gravitas”
It doesn’t matter one hoot what he looks like, if what he is presenting is rational argument based on observation, then he could be humpty dumpty for all I care. What is good though is that he knows that facts and science will speak for itself and doesn’t need the huffing and blowing that we see from Mr. Mann, Gore or Monbiot. Which reminds me, Al has been very, very quiet recently. I wonder why?
2. “His argument in the first half of the talk is very effective, taking down the public statements by the NAS folk.”
Presenting reasoned science and rational argument is the most effective, but you still have to tailor your talk to the intended audience, which in this case, was one looking for political change.
3. “His scientific argument in the second half of the talk is appealing in that it relies on data and theory (rather than models).”
All scientists should rely on the data. Questioning must be to examine whether the methods of collecting the data and the interpretation of it is flawed and needs improving to strengthen the data. This is because the interpretation is often coloured by preconceptions, whether from training or experience, and that’s to be expected, even from Prof Lindzen. He does have appealing reasoned argument, but like all scientists, his argument must be continually tested against the data.
4. “Keeping policy and politics out of his scientific argument”
In one sense, yes, of course, but we have to remember here that the whole purpose of his visit was to inject science INTO politics. His scientific argument must therefore necessarily be targeted at the politicians and political policies that have been enacted in response to the AGW claims, which means framing the science to address and counter unsound science and the consequential political interpretation.
In many senses, the AGW debate is past science and now mostly political, but we should never stop striving to (i) improve the science with new discovery, which is why the latest work of Henrik Svensmark and his colleagues in the Danish National Space Institute is so important, (ii) do everything we can to make sure good science achieved by the proper scientific method is heard and understood by the politicians, and (iii) expose bad science and those who would demean science by ‘attacking the messenger’ to disguise their lack of observational data and a reasoned argument such that politicians cannot be comfortable using them as electoral tickets.
If Lindzen was trying to communicate a clear message effectively – he failed miserably. However, if he was merely seeking to tell an already “sceptical” audience what they wanted to hear – it was a masterpiece.
Personally, I suspect Lindzen’s words are deliberately opaque; they sound authoritative but, if anything, they convey an impression opposite to that which the facts imply… For example, you should always be consistent and either talk about CO2 alone or CO2e (all GHGs combined). Otherwise, you get in a mess yourself; or you mess with people’s heads.
The only question remains therefore is to establish which of these two things Lindzen was doing
@amrtin Lack
I note that the recording of his presentation is available for all to see. And that one of the criticisms made is that it was just the same one that he’s been giving for getting on for two years to a variety of audiences around the world, including to the US Congress
There are plenty of opportunities, therefore, for you to pick out specific objections to his remarks. And if you believe that ‘his words convey an impression opposite to that which the facts imply’, you should be able to find such instances fairly easily. If you do so, and if you try to approach him reasonably, perhaps Prof. Lindzen will be happy to discuss them with you.
But the only person whose head he seems to have really ‘messed with’ is yours. Perhaps all your hysterical public actions over the past ten days are just a symptom of cognitive dissonance?
Latimer, with regret, I feel certain most people on the planet (that are not lost in a world of sublime ignorance or conspiracy theory), would agree that it is not me – and people who know what I know – that is suffering from cognitive dissonance (CD).
People who suffer from CD (e.g. those who believe the Moon Landings were faked and/or that 9/11 was an inside job) have to keep re-writing history every time new information conflicts with their theory. The genuinely vast majority of the World’s active climate researchers are not doing this! History and science are only going one way; I just hope there is still time to stop them.
There is only one propaganda machine and one anti-intellectual, obfuscatory Establishment at work here – and I am not part of it:
Jacques, P. et al (2008), ‘The Organization of Denial: Conservative Think Tanks and Environmental Scepticism’, Environmental Politics 17(2), pp.349-385.
I think the time is well overdue that you widened the scope of what you read.
Martin,
I would suggest that you consider the idea that you are so angry with Lindzen that you ahve had to apologize for your boorishness is that Lindzen was not so much telling others what they want to hear, but was rather telling you what you refuse to consider.
We shall see, won’t we!
my apologies, this got caught in spam
Thanks Judith – It is nice to know you are watching this “discussion”(?) Have you any comment to make?
N.B. I am not seeking moderation or anybody (all is forgiven).
@martin lack
There is absolutely no point in you shouting yet again that anybody who disagrees with you must necessarily be convinced that the moon landings were faked, or that 9/11 was an inside job.
I have yet to encounter anybody on a climate blog (of whatever persuasion) who has ever advanced such theories. You may have read about them in some obscure ‘Big Oil Deniers Debunked’ conspiracy fantasy, but not out here in the real world.
And when we come to look at what the vast majority of climate scientists have actually signed up to it is no more than that they agree that
1. The world is warming and
2. There has been some human influence.
I imagine that few sceptics posting here would have much difficulty in agreeing with these statements.. I would not, and neither would Prof Lindzen (to name but one). They are pretty uncontroversial stuff.
The arguments come when we try to move from the qualitative (is it warming?) to the quantitative (how much?) causative (why?) and the consequential (do we need to worry about it?).
And it is in these spheres where actual evidence, not just shouting, is important. A concept that you have yet to fully grasp.
There are hopeful signs that you are slowly coming to terms with the idea. But you still have a lot more work to do,
If you want me to read an article that is difficult to download, takes 40 pages and may not be at all relevant to our discussion, you need to at least give me a potted precis of his argument first. Just providing a link without commentary will not whet my appetite sufficiently to make me wish to do so. And it leads me to suspect that you haven’t studied it in detail either. The one you point to was written well before I was interested in climate issues, so may just of historical interest (if at all).
And you still haven’t properly worked out that the purpose of this blogging stuff is to persuade your fellow bloggers – whether directly addresssed, other contributors or the many lurkers who read but do not write – that you have something interesting and worthwhile to say. Lots of things contribute to that impression, but a good track record of credible and well-argued points is an important pre-req.
Waving arounf your qualifications , throwing insults randomly about the place, demanding obedience, banning and blackmailing people are not the ways to generate such credibility. They merely reinforce the idea that you are well out of your depth.
For somebody who claims to have a Masters in Scpetic Psychology you show a very very limited grasp of even the most basic reasons why people are sceptical. Hint..it is no tbecasue their enormous pay cheques from the Big Oil Denialist Conspiracy mean that they want to make sure their children and grandchildren die a hungry death in the fires of eternal damnation…however many times you may have been told so elsewhere. Nor is it because they are too stupid to understand the huge favour that the noble and selfless climatologists are doing to warn us of our inevitable fate unless we change our evil ways ti better worship Mother Gaia by three weeks next Michaelmas three farthing,
You have resolved (yet again it seems) to reform. Good. Let’s the have a proper discussion of the issues. Without just your constant appeals to (your own) authority. They are not helping your cause one bit. .
“There is absolutely no point in you shouting yet again that anybody who disagrees with you must necessarily be convinced that the moon landings were faked, or that 9/11 was an inside job.”
Since you immediately lied about what Martin said, I can only conclude that you concede the point he made (the actual point, as opposed to your lie.)
Don’t you find it futile to lie about what was written a scant six inches of text above?
You shouldn’t need to overcome your raging case of CD to see how that is not an effective strategy.
hunter,
I would suggest that you consider the idea that my citation of Jacques et al (2008) supports my assertion that Lindzen’s apparent repetitive hypocrisy, obfuscation and misdirection are merely the most recent manifestation of the ideologically-driven denial of all our environmental problems – most notably ACD. I think, therefore, you should not refuse to consider the strong possibility that it is you that is wrong.
BTW, given all the Tornadoes touching down again this year in Oklahoma (because the Oceans continue to soak up most of the heat trapped by added CO2), do you think that Sen. James Inhofe (REP) deserves to be kicked out of office yet? At very least, maybe he should consider cancelling the publication of his new ‘fairy tale’ book; and sell it to the Tea Party so that they can at least have some fuel for their anti-intellectual book-burning ceremonies (although the CO2 emissions would not be good).
@robert
No lying from me, mon brave. Not guilty.
Difficult to read Lack’s article without gaining the very strong impression that my interpretation is exactly the one he wished to leave. Unless, of course, you judge that he is as intemperate with his writing as he is with his temper.
I think Cap’n K had him pegged actually – a wackjob dimwit with a saviour complex.
Latimer,
Although it was very kind of Robert to try and help you (and me) out here, I am fairly confident that Robert was correctly alluding to the main point of what I said (the use of bold text should have acted as a visual signal but never mind, eh?), which is that:
…the genuinely vast majority of the World’s active climate researchers are not suffering from cognitive dissonance!
. . . and that’s why you don’t take the word of a liar about whether they are lying.
To salvage some credibility here, you need to admit you lied and make some kind of a commitment to do better in the future. Denial and more lies aren’t going to help your case, mon coward.
I should say, LA, that I also like how you admit you lied about what Martin said, then try and justify lying by saying you find it “difficult to read” the article without truly believing your lies are in fact the truth.
Essentially you are defending your perjury via an insanity defense: “I can’t be blamed for lying because I find it too difficult to recognize the truth.”
Points for creativity!
I’m sorry, Latimer, but that is pathetic. Note I am not saying you are pathetic, I am saying your argument is pathetic. OK, so you cannot download the article. Big deal! As if I have not said it enough times in the last week myself, and now modified the tagline for my blog to make it transparent, the message of the entire article is very clearly flagged-up by it title. Environmental Skeptisism is an ideologically motivated campaign run by CTTs that seeks to downplay, deny or dismiss all environmental problems in order to protect the vested interests of a minority whose primary objective is to make themselves richer by reating the environment with contempt. Was it really that hard to work out or was it yet more feigned incomprehension (a.k.a. tactical avoidance)?
Martin,
You are now not only being tedious, but historically ignorant.
if you were literate with meteorological history, you would know that the tornados we are experiencing are not unusual in intensity, frequency or zone.
@martin lack
Here’s another of your assertions:
‘Environmental Skeptisism is an ideologically motivated campaign run by CTTs that seeks to downplay, deny or dismiss all environmental problems in order to protect the vested interests of a minority whose primary objective is to make themselves richer by reating the environment with contempt’
Whether you say it in bold or in normal type it remains no more than an assertion unless you can back it up with some evidence.
Which, as ever you have completely failed to do.
Here’s how you could go about constructing something approaching an argument.
Define what you mean by ‘Environmental Scepticism’. What do you include and what do you exclude? What is the touchstone for it? How do you identify those who are ‘Environmental Sceptics?’
Perhaps then you might consider identifying the ‘minority whose primary objective is to enrich themselves by treating the environment with contempt’ I suggest that it is relative;y easy to identify a few whose primary objective is to enrich themselves, but an awful lot harder to find those who have ‘treating the environment with contempt’ as part of their objective. You may think that this is a byproduct of their actions, but I doubt you’ll find any evidence of it being a primary obejctive for anyone. Or possibly you might wish to reconstruct that sentence.
Then you will need to identify the CTTs (Conservative Think Tanks?) ad show that they are running an ‘ideologically motivated campaign’ to ‘downplay deny or dismiss all environmental problems’.
Wow. Proving the ‘All’ in there is a hard ask. As is showing that the campaign is ideologocally motivated rather than profit motivated or religious or political or power or any of all the other reasons that people enter the public arena of debate to do.
Then to prove that they are actually running, not just participating or contributing or agreeing with, you will need to show soem actual actios concomitant with running/organising. Minutes of meetings, invoices, invitations, transcript sof secret discussions, copie sof paycheques to climate stooges etc etc .
To make your case, you will need to do all of those things. Good luck. I look forward to reading your results.
But until you do, we are back to assertion alone.
Latimer, Are you trying to make me laugh? First you tell me you cant download the article, and you request a precis. Then when I give you a precis, you demand evidence to back it up! Please stop wasting my time.
apologies, this got caught in spam
@martin lack
I read the article. And, as I was unsurprised to learn, it does not show very much of the argument that you think it does.
It actually does little more than say that the Conservative Think Tanks have been responsible for publishing some sceptical literature. And then gives a lot of opinion.
Here is the money quote
‘The central tactic employed by CTTs in the war of ideas is the production of an endless flow of printed material ranging from books to editorials designed for public consumption to policy briefs aimed at policy-makers and journalists, combined with frequent appearances by spokespersons on TV and radio’.
Which is hardly a huge surprise. In next week’s shock revelation, the Bishop of Rome reveals Catholic tendencies, and Bruin the Bear discusses his outdoor sylvan lavatorial habits
Martin, I know you like to have big books around you so that you believe that all you have to do is wave the relevant Chapter and Verse as the end of any discussion. That the final words on all topics have already been written by the great god(s) who came before. Be they from roman occupied Judea or from Jim Hansen or
some other guru that you have decided to latch on to this year.
But life ain’t like that. It’s far far more complicated. The scientific method is a way of trying to unpick that complexity. But you explicitly reject the ways of science in favour of the advancement of your faith.
To exaggerate your position only a little
‘Bugger the evidence, I don’t want to know. But Here Is The Word of the Prophet. Believe Deniers Believe, or I, Lack, will Smite You!’
One thing you forgot to mention, was the actual % of publications written by someone on the payroll of a CTT and/or financially supported by one. From memory, I think it is in excess of 80%..?
So then, Jacques et al (2008) provides solid proof that there is a well-organised right-wing conspiracy trying to deny all environmental problems and under-regulate and under-tax business so as to make a minority of people richer… If you choose to wipe your bottom with it rather than actually read – and take in what it is telling you – whose problem is that?
Like I have said to you before:
1. There is only evidence for one conspiracy;
2. The vast majority of climate scientists are not suffering from cognitive dissonance;
3. So called “sceptics” are not like Galileo; and
4. You are picking a fight with history and science and you will therefore lose.
This is not evidence of my having a “climate war” mentality; it is simply that concept you seem to have lost sight of a long time ago – the truth.
apologies, this message got caught in spam
No problem – I’m just glad you found it. Thank you for your commitment to free speech.
no idea why your messages are such a spam magnet
Dear Judith – can you please check the Spam bin again – my latest response to Latimer appears to have gone AWoL.
But Martin, you demonstrate no understanding of science or history, and you ignore the evidence of the AGW promoters playing a coordinated game to mislead deceive and silence.
You rely on axiomatic statements that you are unable to discuss, much less defend, and attribute motives of cynicism, actions of deliberate lying and bad faith to skeptics.
And you admit you are not science trained, so what you write and claim is by definition your opinion, and derivative at that.
Your sanctimony is simply a faith defense mechanism.
Martin,
I think I’ve finally “got it”, Martin You are armed with the Truth!–bits and pieces of Holy eco-Writ!, as interpreted and transmitted and waved about by Reverend Lack of the Church eco-Militant!. Your every word and deed trails eco-clouds of Glory! while the words and deeds of those in the way of Error! echo from the Koch Brother’s Stygian Depths!
Did I miss anything, Pastor?
hunter, I should like to take issue with two things you have just said about me:
1.“…you demonstrate no understanding of science or history…”
2. “…you admit you are not science trained…”
Whereas the first assertion is unsubstantiated (and the only science or history I do not understand is your versions of both), the latter is just flat wrong – as all I have ever said is that I am not a climate scientist (and I do not believe in the fallacy of ‘the marketplace of ideas’).
Therefore, whereas I accept the validity and reliability of the modern day scientific consensus over ACD (arrived at via 150 years of scientific experimentation and observation); you continue to deny it (as does Professor Lindzen apparently).
Therefore, I think it should be painfully obvious to any truly objective observer of this “discussion” that you are totally out of your depth – and have repeatedly failed – trying to falsify my criticisms of Professor Lindzen’s apparent hypocrisy, obfuscation and misdirection. He has certainly fooled you.
@martin lack
I confess myself that I am ungobsmacked in the extreme by the knowledge that conservative think tanks pay their authors. This hardly seems to be earth shattering news to me. Do all the opposite side think tanks expect their authors to work for free?
Like all such organisations of whatever persuasion, they wish to get their ideas into the public realm of debate. To do so requires a professional approach..to writing just as much as to anything else. And professionalism don’t come cheap.
I know the internal workings of a major national medical charity quite well, and they employ press officers for day to day stuff and professional publicity writers for their big fund-raising events. These guys are not volunteers and expect to get paid.
Or to choose pretty much at random the WWF, I find that they employ five press officers for the UK and also operate an out-of-hours service. Are you going to vituperate them too for paying their employees? And for conspiring to present their case into the public realm?
http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/press_centre/press_contacts/uk_press_team.cfm
If not, you are going to have to explain why the sauce for the WWF goose is not sauce for the CTT’s gander.
As to the rest of your assertions
‘Like I have said to you before:
1. There is only evidence for one conspiracy;
2. The vast majority of climate scientists are not suffering from cognitive dissonance;
3. So called “sceptics” are not like Galileo; and
4. You are picking a fight with history and science and you will therefore lose.’
since you categorically refuse to present any evidence, and rely on your own authority to persuade us that they are true, then I thnk I can safley declare that you have totally failed to convince anybody of them.
You really nust learn that your technique of standing up and loudly aserting something, then runnig way when challenged to justify it is the behaviours expected of a naughty toddler, not of one who purports to be a successful environmental lobbyist, I hope for your sake that no potential employer of yours ever gets to read this thread which shows just how much of a ‘professional’ disaster your catastrophic attempt to provoke a non-existent Lindzengate has become.
Martin,
The history I am referring to is the history of extreme weather events in the real world. The one the AGW community has to either ignore or adjust.
The science is that you believe CO2 = GHG means we are facing a global climate catastrophe.
That you can ignore climategatge and glocikgate and the Himalayan IPCC scam and the rest to conclude that it is wickd denialists who are conspiring is simply infantile.
That you on the one hand apologize for your rude ignorant behavior towards Lindzen while still making attributions of motive and accusations of fraud is simply demented on your part.
tonyb – Yes I do think you missed me answering your question (one of the many answered in my emails to Lindzen):
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-181143
Martin
Thanks. You are aware that the warming started around 1650 not 1850?
It had also been warming from 1450 to 1550 following the warming from 850 to 1300 . A lot of warming going on, some seven incidents sufficient to melt much of the ice during the Holocene.
Tonyb
Hi Tony, I am not denying that regional phenomena like the MWP and LIA happened; but neither am I denying that the warming since 1850 has been unprecedented. Furthermore, the last time CO2 was as high as 450ppm (where it is heading now) was 35 million years ago and the Earth was ice-free. If change like that now happens as rapidly as models suggest it will (remember the only significant uncertainty in model inputs is CO2 emissions projections), it is highly unlikely that many life-forms will be able to adapt fast-enough. I know that this is genuinely alarming but just telling yourself it isn’t going to happen (if we do nothing to stop it) is just simply not good enough.
Richard A Muller may have had the intellectual honesty to admit his BEST study gave him the opposite result from the one he and the Koch Brothers had hoped but, sadly, it seems he has not admitted he was wrong to claim the MBH98 Hockey Stick was an illusion. This is because the BEST study confirmed it is real:
Questions for Dr Richard A Muller (26 October 2011).
Hey Martin,
I was under the impression that CO2 levels were 400ppm and above 3 million years ago in the Pliocene. Did the hockey team revise that as well?
Martin
Interesting that you need to see the LIA and MWP as regional. Also interesting that you cling to MBH98 presumably because their demonstration of the virtual constancy of the climate -as shown in the blade of the hockey stick- looks much more frightening as it then ticks up in modern times after a centuries long gentle decline. It looks much less frighening when viewed from a centuries long upwards tren and we realise that DR Mann appears to have had the blade inclination upside down
I wrote about the reconstructions of Michael Mann and Hubert Lamb in this article
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/
It was the result of researching many hundreds of papers and tens of thousands of references and entailed desk work for several days at the arcives of the Met offive.
Perhaps ypu will do me the courtesy of reading it (and the references) and In return I will gladly read any papers you can cite that onfirm the validity of using tree rings as reliable proxies for thermometers. I regret to say I never came across any in my research. Thank you
tonyb
Thanks for that link, Tony. I don’t think I would have found it otherwise. It is very interesting and clearly expressed. Well done. Also, looking at it, the MBH98 hockey stick, and my piece on Muller all over again, it is clear that I should have said that unprecedented warming began at about 1900 (not 1850). However, I think the most telling paragraph of your article is this:
“So we have two competing climate history stories-one developed over a lifetime of academic research mostly before the computer era, and the other derived from a scientist using modern statistical techniques and the extensive use of novel proxies interpreted in a highly sophisticated manner using computers.” (my emphasis)
These “histories” are only “competing” because you don’t want to accept what modern science is telling us: In general, scientists get better at doing things and our understanding improves. Scientific conclusions rarely become less reliable over time (i.e. unless someone doesn’t want them to be so).
I therefore think it may be time for you to reconsider your position on all of this and/or buy a copy of Michael Mann’s new book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”. Good luck indeed with defeating your cognitive dissonance…
Martin
The link goes to another detailed paper at the back of ‘The Long Slow thaw?’ with hundreds of references. Very many of the articles cited are modern studies (far more than historic ones) from such luminaries as Jones and support the hypothesis of Lamb rather than that of Mann.That is to say that ‘modern’ research supports the older material.
‘Unprecedented’ warming can be traced several times in the record, most notably the early 1700’s.
I look forward to receiving your papers which explain why you have such faith in tree rings-which constitute a large part of Dr Manns output.’ I do not believe they are a reliable proxy of global temperatures to fractions of a degree but I look forward to your enlightening me.
Ps I have been perfectly civil to you, why did you think it neccesary to sign off with;
‘Good luck indeed with defeating your cognitive dissonance…’
tonyb
Tony this is my second attempt to reply to this. I will apologise for the CD remark but, why do you think it is necessary to mock me for not having a personal track record of peer-reviewed published research? Does that prove my opinion to be less valid than yours? I think not. The consensus is real. Your conspiracy theory is not. End of story.
Martin said
“I will apologise for the CD remark but, why do you think it is necessary to mock me for not having a personal track record of peer-reviewed published research? Does that prove my opinion to be less valid than yours? I think not. The consensus is real. Your conspiracy theory is not. End of story.”
Please clarify where I am supposed to have mocked you for not having a personal track record of published research. Where have I said that? Also, where have i ever expresed a conspiracy theory. I do not believe there is one. Are you confusng me with another commentator here?
tonyb
To all who are reading this blog:
Although I do not expect or demand that any of you reciprocate, I would like to apologise for the way in which I charged in here a week ago trying (and succeeding) to publicise my concerns about the nature and content of Richard Lindzen’s repeated presentations; and what I consider to be his highly-misleading “there is no cause for alarm” message.
I have now calmed down a bit; and am trying very hard not to get frustrated by the intransigence and tactical avoidance measures being repeatedly deployed against me here. Therefore, I would be extremely grateful if you would all stop attacking me personally; and start falsifying the argument I am making: It seems highly likely that Richard Lindzen is just telling you what you want to hear; and that he is in fact dangerously in error. Remember this is not just little ol’ me with an MA in Environmental Politics saying this; this is what the vast majority of climate scientists are saying (even if the Wall Street Journal will not print their letters)…
Are you all really that willing to gamble the well-being of your children and grandchildren on the validity of the words of one prominent scientist who once acted in the defence of tobacco companies by questioning the link between smoking and the development of lung cancer? As a consequence of this one single act, Richard Lindzen probably delayed effective regulation of cigarette smoking – and compensation for those affected by it – for over 10 years (in which time many sufferers died). As such, Lindzen was a significant actor in the nearly 45 year-long hiatus between the science being firmly established and the ‘Merchants of Doubt’ being successfully prosecuted.
We have already wasted nearly 25 years arguing with similar ‘Merchant of Doubt’ about whether or not the science of ACD is settled or not. Therefore, I should therefore like to invite you (very politely) to stop being part of the problem and decide today to be part of the solution. This is because the majority of climate scientists – and increasing numbers of economists (like William Nordhaus) and businessmen (like Richard Branson) – say we do not have the luxury of another 20 years to waste.
Yours hopefully,
Martin Lack.
Hey Martin,
Publicizing your concerns is nothing to apologize for. However, you aren’t making any arguments to falsify. You are just repeating your same broad conclusions without basis. I think people here want to know why, how, and what facts support such. Now, it seems likely that many here have similar conclusions as you do, but I find it highly unlikely that they reached their conclusions from reading posts such as yours. It is time to try something different.
But then you go right back into smearing Lindzen on the tobacco thing. Did it work last time you did it? What makes you think you will garner support doing it a second time? Just out of curiosity, what cigarette smoking regulation did Richard Lindzen delay? Do you have additional information here?
Branson and Nordhaus are not even second string authority, so why trot them out?
Martin,
Apology accepted.
Please define why you believe he is simply telling us what we want to thear and what dangerous errors he has made.
I also believe you should consider the implications of Lindzen, an academic, simply telling us what we want to hear.
As to your wager, it is basically a Pascal wager and the fallacies of that have been dealt with extensively.So if you are ready for a serious dialog, please clarify yourself and consider the terms you are seeking to frame.
Dear hunter,
I fear you will not like this answer but I shall give it anyway. Since first entering this ‘lion’s den’ (or is it a ‘bear pit’), I have modified the tagline to my own WP blog to make my position transparently clear. I am not a climate scientist but, because I acknowledge the fallacious nature of the concept of “the marketplace of ideas”, I do not question the validity of a modern-day scientific consensus arrived at over 150 years and conclusively proven by James Hansen in 1988.
I therefore have no intention of entering into a debate with you – or anyone else for that matter – about whose science is sound and whose is junk. That kind of stuff is straight out of the TASSC handbook on ,em>”How to confuse the ignorant public” and we have wasted nearly 25 years doing that already.
Despite everything anyone has ever said about my writing – either here or on my own blog – every question posed to Richard Lindzen had a purpose and every statement (that he has declined to dismiss) illustrates an aspect to the denial of reality in which (to me) you all seem to be enmeshed.
As I said, I know you won’t like it but, I am nothing if not honest.
Martin,
Thank you for clearing that up.
You can join the defenders of using leeches, tagamet for ulcers, Earth-centric astronomy, bodily humors, and other settled science of the age in your rightful position.
It is astonishing how few believers are able to actually defend their positions. Frankly, well educated Christian fundamentalists can defend their faith propositions better than you and most other AGW true believers.
So iow you are just another long winded, content free troll.
Lindzen’s humiliating failures are well documented. Surely you’re aware of his litany of mistakes, exaggerations, and outright lies?
@martin lack
‘I therefore have no intention of entering into a debate with you – or anyone else for that matter – about whose science is sound and whose is junk’
OK. Just assuming that this really represents your position and that you won’t recant it tomorrow or another day when it becomes apparent that nobody wants to ‘play’ with you, it begs the question.
So why are you here? Just to waste everybody’s time? If you don’t want to argue the science, this seems like an extraordinary place to want to spend time. Our host is a scientist, many of the threads are science based and many of the contributors have at least a scientific background. It is a ‘sciency’ place
I discussed before – to your apparent discomfort sufficient to ban me from your blog – my impression that your beliefs were faith-based rather than science-based. And now you seem to confirm that opinion in spades. You have already made your mind up that Hansen was right in 1988, and you refuse to discuss the matter further. No scientific evidence will change your mind since you already ‘know’ the correct answers. Nor do you feel any obligation to present us poor heathens with any of the reasons why you are so convinced. It is a matter of faith.
But faith and science do not often fit well together. The one can only be asserted, the other discussed. Once you have got to the end of saying ‘I believe this, but can’t/won’t tell you why’, you have really exhausted the possibilities for a conversation here.
Martin,
Yr. “…I would like to apologize…”
Since I’m one of the ones on this blog to whom you’ve addressed your “apology”, I feel at liberty to critically evaluate the same.
You know, Martin, as I learned the business, the offer of an apology is just that–a sincere acknowledgement of a wrong, regret at one’s wrong-doing, and an implicit, good-faith pledge to avoid the same sort of wrong in the future.
And, I also learned that an apology is properly delivered without a bunch of qualifications, and, most certainly, an apology is not to be offered up as a weenie-worded, perfunctory prologue to a follow-on point-scoring, passive-agressive, milquetoast rant of the sort we routinely get from you unmanly, zit-magnet eco-dorks in a dither.
Therefore, I find your “apology” is not in an acceptable form and I, accordingly, do not accept it.
Want to try again?
Martin,
Now it’s my turn to apologize. The word “unmanly” in my above comment was out of line. I had no business using such a term and offer you my forthright acknowledgement of my grossly inappropriate word-choice and my regrets for the same.
Martin,
In place of “unmanly” in my original comment, please read “Delinquent Teenager”.
“I have now calmed down a bit; and am trying very hard not to get frustrated by the intransigence and tactical avoidance measures being repeatedly deployed against me here.”
Try to be amused; it’s the only way.
“Therefore, I would be extremely grateful if you would all stop attacking me personally”
You really have only been here a week!
Look, these are not just climate deniers — hunter, mike, kim et al are failures in life as well as science, and the scale of their ignorance is matched only by their impotent hatred of anyone with any actual science chops.
They attack you personally only when they have no idea how to engage rationally. Which is all the time.
Try to enjoy having such pathetic losers for foils. I know I do!
Robert, I find this comment from you a bit…. curious. It’s sweet your offering a helpful suggestion….especially when put it in the context of your own apology you made to everyone….
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/30/year-in-review-2011/#comment-154369
Are you taking it back now? I thought you were turning the corner Robert…. or the other cheek. Oh well, whatever.
John, thanks for your concern, but allow me to correct a small error of fact on your part: I never apologized to “everyone.” Nor did I or do I need to.
You apparently took what you wanted to take from my comment. If you read a little more carefully, I’ll think you’ll find that I never aspired to turn the other cheek. Nor did I pledge to flatter the ignorant, or reply to rudeness with sweetness and light.
Now, I am not ruthlessly amoral and dishonest, like a climate denier. But nor I am a patsy for the liars and fanatics to practice their slanderous nonsense upon.
I know that the ability to reflect on your past behavior and admit fault is foreign to psuedoskeptics, but do not let its strangeness confuse you, such that you mistake it for weakness.
The ability of the pro-science side to recognize mistakes and shortcomings — to live a life of integrity — is why we’re stronger than those that hide behind denial.
“Now, I am not ruthlessly amoral and dishonest, like a climate denier. ”
Robert,
Two questions. By “climate denier” do you mean one that denies that we have a climate or one that denies the existence of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming?
And are you asserting that a CAGW denier is inherently amoral an dishonest?
Many thanks Robert; it’s a pleasure to get acquainted! :-)
Latimer, ref. 5th March at 11:38 pm. no arguments at all, simply to say that regarding your “ .. ‘Martin is King’ space .. ” let’s not forget that if the Universe is infinite then each of us is at the centre of our own Universe – and I don’t want anyone telling me to read Hawking’s “A short History of Time” because I’ve tried very hard to understand how time can be distorted but still can’t accept it as anything other than very clever mathematical manipulation with no practical significance. For me “Time Marches On” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DffS4szr1cw) far too quickly.
I had to laugh at Martin’s “ .. people who know what I know .. ”. I see that “ .. the intransigence and tactical avoidance measures being repeatedly deployed against .. ” Martin ar having the desired effect.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
It is amazing to me how the believer trolls obsess on tobacco. It also seems Martin is confusing Lindzen with Singer regarding tobacco.
I especially like how Marting engages in his conspiratorial magical thinking regarding skeptics and then falls back, ironically, on 911 truther type people. Yet his style is much closer to trutherism than skeptics or even sound science.
If we “obsess” about tobacco it is because we find it so hard to comprehend what level of willful blindness must be required to deny all the historical facts that link TASSC and all modern day Conservative Think Tanks into the web of denial.
And no, I am not confusing Lindzen and Singer. Singer has taken serial wrongness to another level altogether. Starting way back before the Berlin Wall came down – with the foundation of the George C. Marshall Institute: Through which, after the collapse of the USSR, Singer was merely the first to start mercilessly attacking climate scientists such as Hansen and Santer because, by then, the US had picked “environmentalism as its new enemy…” (Luke, 2000).
In stark contrast to your WMO/UN/IPCC state-sponsored money-grab conspiracy theory, the conspiracy I have just summarised to you is – as I keep saying – a well documented historical fact.
Theory and fact, hunter, please get acquainted with the difference.
Thanks for the support, Robert – Where have you come from?
Oh, I’m an old hand. My participation is sporadic because of the demands of my job. I’m a little better at keeping up with my own blog, although that suffers at times too. Time permitting, I’m always ready to assist those unfortunates who are wrong on the Internet. Fake skeptics especially!
“It is amazing to me how the believer trolls obsess on tobacco.”
While I, in contrast, understand exactly why deniers get so agitated when you bring up similar anti-science campaigns against the health risks of tobacco, the theory of evolution, or the safety of vaccines. Because the last thing the con artist wants is somebody to recognize him from the job he pulled two towns over.
Martin,
You lose it at ‘deniers’. That leaves you as outing yourself as just another bigot among many bigots, unable to think clearly or respectfully- much less honestly- about those who are skeptical of AGW claims.
I don’t see the IPCC as a conspiracy, I just see it as a group of rent seekers telling each other- and thier money sources- what they want to hear, and helping their friends engorge off the process. That, too, is well documented.
But for bigots like you and Robert, this is wasted, and I am busy with work, so have a great life.
If you can’t argue the facts, argue the word choice. That’s from the Denier Handbook, isn’t it?
Bobbie,
As usual you miss the point. But that is not unexpected. Thanks for playing.
I have just received a relevant E-mail from retired Canadian Science teacher Roger Taguchi (Professor Curry may recall the numerous “Greenhouse Effect” and “Back Radfiation” E-mail exchanges last year involving her, Roger, Professor Grant Petty, Chris Colose, the “Slayers”, etc.). Here is what he had to say QUOTE:
I’ve read the rebuttal to Lindzen at SkepticalScience (http://www.skepticalscience.com/lindzen-illusion-4-climate-sensitivity.html) .. . The straight answer is that if we look at the historic experimental record of 0.7 +/- 0.1 degree rise from 1850 (or 1750) to today at a time when CO2 increased from 280 to 380 ppm (300 to 400 ppm rounded off), detailed calculation from the physics of IR spectroscopy shows that we’d expect 1.4 +/- 0.1 degree for an increase of CO2 from 300 to 600 ppm. I.e. the climate sensitivity is at the low end of the accepted range of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees (which has a “best” value of 3 degrees). So my calculation is just barely consistent with the accepted value, but my possible error bars are much smaller (+/- 0.1 degree instead of +/- 1.5 degrees). That’s because no one else has thought of doing it my way (they look at correlations, which have huge possible error bars).
No one else has also noted that 0.7 +/- 0.1 degrees of the predicted warming has already occurred from 1850 (or 1750) to today. So we can confidently compare predictions of FUTURE warming as CO2 rises from 400 to 600 ppm by simply subtracting 0.7 degrees from the “climate sensitivity”. I predict 0.7 or 0.8 degrees, whereas the IPCC value of 3 degrees predicts 2.3 degrees, a factor of 3 higher. Because of “saturation” effects (diminishing returns), a 200 ppm increase in CO2 from today should produce significantly LESS than 2(0.7) = 1.4 degrees, so the IPCC value of 2.3 degrees is even on the wrong side of 1.4 degrees. The IPCC value is wrong.
This is important, because we can achieve 67% less than the IPCC predicted future warming by simply doing nothing about carbon emissions, carbon sequestration, carbon taxes, etc., at a cost to society of zero (except for the savings we’d achieve by firing all those involved in pushing the “global warming” debacle).
UNQUOTE.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Almost all the references to retired science teacher Roger Taguchi found through Google seem to be approving quotations from you, Pete, based on private communications. It’s curious, it say the least.
Your “quotes” from the mysterious Roger Taguchi are riddled with basic mistakes. He seems without insight into climate science, and without insight into his lack of insight. Has he published anything in the relevant fields? Or anything that is in the public domain and not a private communication to you beyond a few comments at CE?
Very strange.
Peter said detailed calculation from the physics of IR spectroscopy shows that we’d expect 1.4 +/- 0.1 degree for an increase of CO2 from 300 to 600 ppm. I.e. the climate sensitivity is at the low end of the accepted range of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees
Peter, (or should I say Roger Taguchi ?), you are confusing non-feedback equilibrium temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 with “climate sensitivity”. To estimate climate sensitivity, you need to take feedbacks in the climate system into account. It would be amazing if you could determine these feedbacks to an accuracy of 0.1 C, so if you are serious about this finding then please show the paper where you present how you obtained these results.
Hi Rob (Dekker) – ref. March 9 at 4:38 pm. – your comment is perfectly fair but is there any convincing evidence that the feedback is other than 0? If you think so then perhaps you can show otherwise.
Let me have your E-mail address and I’ll send you a copy of a 73-page Word document containing E-mails during September – October on “The Greenhouse Effect” and “Back Radiation”, in which Roger Taguchi discussed his analysis with the likes of Professor Curry, Professor Grant Petty, Professor John Nicol, Dr. Robert Knuteson, Dr. Joel Shore, etc. and John O’Sullivan’s band of “Slayers”.
The starting point for those exchanges was Roger’s comment on Professor Curry’s “Physics of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” thread (http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/#comment-108941) which I provided a link to here in my response to Robert on March 7 at 6:59 am.
I prepared the file for Professor Jeff Reynen, recruited to John O’Sullivan’s dwindling band of “Slayers” last October, but he may have decided to dissociate himself from them by now.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I thought it might be worthwhile to examine more carefully evidence related to a centerpiece of Lindzen’s claim that climate models overstate climate sensitivity by means of “fudge factors” involving aerosols. It restates a perspective I’ve described previously, but in a more nuanced way. The comment is long, and so anyone not interested in this topic should not spend time reading further.
In communicating with the public about Climate Change, Richard Lindzen has consistently claimed that climate scientists are overestimating the warming potential of CO2. Central to this claim is his assertion, unqualified by any caveats, that aerosol forcing is “unknown” but is “arbitrarily adjusted” in climate models to make them match observed trends. In particular, he suggests that most often the adjustments deliberately overstate the cooling effect of aerosols to bring the model trends down to the observed trends. We can therefore ask the following relevant questions: (a) Is aerosol forcing “unknown”? (b) Is there acknowledgment by modelers that they adjust the aerosol forcings for the purpose of matching observed trends? (c) If not, are the aerosol parameterizations they make justifiable on some other basis or are they “arbitrary”? (d) Is there independent evidence that can only be reasonably interpreted to mean that the adjustments are made to match observed trends? (e) If choices are made that are not clearly justified by the evidence, are they in the direction of exaggerated aerosol cooling? The answers can help us decide if what Lindzen states as fact is indeed a fact or if Lindzen’s claim in this regard is untruthful.
Before proceeding, it’s worth noting that there is no way to conclusively exclude the possibility that some model choices have on occasion been influenced, perhaps subconsciously, by an intent to match observed temperature trends. We can, however, ask whether this is likely to be true in general, and more importantly whether stating it as an established fact rather than a conjecture can be supported. I suggest that the evidence, taken in total, refutes Lindzen’s statement with high probability.
(a) Is aerosol forcing unknown? A frequent fallacy in blogosphere and some media criticism of mainstream scientific conclusions is the implication that if we don’t know everything, we know nothing. Clearly, if we knew nothing about aerosol forcing, any choices in models would necessarily be “arbitrary”. In fact, however, much is known about aerosol data in general, and in particular its incorporation into models. An example of the latter is found in Schmidt et al 2006, which includes extensive evidence based on physical principles and empirical data. Much also remains to be learned, but the evidence refutes the absolutist proposition that our ignorance is total.
(b) Is there acknowledgment by modelers that they adjust the aerosol forcings for the purpose of matching observed trends? One source on this issue is Gavin Schmidt, in both an exchange on collide-a-scape 334-378 and in the details of how aerosol forcing is developed in the GISS E model described in Schmidt et al 2006 (with coauthors who include modelers Jim Hansen and Andy Lacis). It’s hard to read what Gavin Schmidt wrote without concluding that he flatly rejects any motivation designed to match trends, and that he rejects the notion that such a motivation exists as a general phenomenon among the modelers. (A similar point has been made elsewhere specifically regarding GFDL and CCSM models – see Chapter 5 in the 2008 USCCSP report). What Gavin Schmidt says about how he and other modelers incorporate aerosol forcing into models contradicts Lindzen’s claim about their motivation, unless Gavin is either lying or engaged in self-delusion. His statements of course can’t exclude the possibility of exceptions among a few modelers that Schmidt et al are unaware of.
(c) Are the aerosol parameterizations modelers make justifiable on some empirical basis or are they “arbitrary”? The empirical basis was illustrated in the Schmidt et al reference cited above.
d) Is there independent evidence that can only be reasonably interpreted to mean that the adjustments are made to match observed trends? An important argument that there is some, perhaps unconscious, choice of aerosol parameters made with trends in mind among some modelers comes from papers by Kiehl 2007 and Knutti 2008, both of which report an inverse correlation (a weak one) between model climate sensitivity and total anthropogenic forcing in models that simulate 20th century trends fairly well – a low total forcing reflects primarily strong negative aerosol forcing. Certainly, one explanation for this might be a choice of aerosol forcings made with an eye toward matching observed trends. Since we have statements cited above that trend matching isn’t done, this creates a conflict that would be difficult to resolve if there were not other plausible explanations for the reported inverse correlation. We can explore this possibility.
At least two mechanisms might explain the correlation without invoking specific choices designed to match observed trends. The first is based on the principle that models are parameterized to match existing climatology in the absence of an imposed perturbation such as CO2-mediated forcing. This includes seasonal changes, for example, whereby temperature variation must be explained on the basis of forcings (including aerosols that affect albedo) and feedbacks (which affect climate sensitivity). It is conceivable that different modelers have made choices that permitted that matching but which varied inversely in the relative strengths of forcing and climate sensitivity ,and which then carried over into the trend simulations even though that was not the reason for the choice of parameters. In fact, it is possible that a choice involving a single parameter set could affect both aerosol forcing and sensitivity. For example, Knutti points out that in the case of aerosol indirect effects, both climate sensitivity and these indirect effects depend to some extent on a common hydrology, so that parameterization in that realm could create a correlation of the type observed.
A second mechanism that might contribute to the inverse correlation independent of modeler choice is selection bias. Many models have attempted to hindcast 20th century temperature trends. Those reported by Kiehl 2007 and the subset of CMIP3 models cited by Knutti 2008 do a fairly good job in this regard, but almost certainly others do less well. If, for example, the pairing of climate sensitivity strength and total aerosol forcing in models occurred in a random manner, those that paired them in the same direction (both high or both low) would do poorly and those that paired them inversely would perform better. In preferentially citing the latter, possibly because the poor simulations were less available, these authors have ensured that this type of randomness, if it occurred, would lead to the selective citing of the models that happened to “come out right” even if all models – skillful and unskillful combined – made their pairings at random, or at least independent of observed trends. It would be incumbent on anyone claiming deliberate, non-random pairing to provide direct evidence for that claim, particularly in light of the contradictory statements (see b above) that such deliberate choices were not part of model design. Note, however, that if some models matched temperature trends accurately “by chance”, the apparent accuracy probably overstates the actual skill of the models to make future predictions unless the same compensating errors exist in future simulations.
e) If choices are made that are not clearly justified by the evidence, are they in the direction of exaggerated aerosol cooling? Remember that one of the implications of Lindzen’s “arbitrary adjustments” claim is that they were needed to make the model simulations come out cool enough to match trends without requiring low climate sensitivity. However, if one looks at one of the choices that most significantly affects simulations, it was that most of these older models did not incorporate indirect aerosol effects into their negative forcing estimates. These effects are thought almost universally to be real, albeit fairly small. However, failure to include them makes the models run too warm, contrary to the implication by Lindzen that modelers are trying to overstate climate sensitivity by exaggerating aerosol cooling. Including the indirect effects cools the simulation, and so their absence in the majority of the models implies that the actual climate sensitivity might be higher than estimated from the earlier models. Whatever the practical reasons for excluding indirect aerosol effects, it is hard to see how it could have been motivated by a desire to exaggerate cooling. The omission of indirect effects is likely to be rectified in the current group of models. The absence of indirect effects in most models and their inclusion in others renders interpretation of model/observational relationships problematic. It’s not clear to me that we would see the same inverse relationship if all models had incorporated indirect aerosol effects.
Based on all the above, I find the most plausible interpretation to be the following. (1) Lindzen’s claim that modelers “arbitrarily” adjust “unknown” aerosol forcings to exaggerate the cooling effect of aerosols is unsupportable. (2) There is no convincing reason to doubt claims from modelers (e.g., Schmidt et al) that choices of aerosol parameters are based on available empirical evidence and are not designed to affect the trend simulations. However, the possibility of exceptions to this generalization among some modelers can’t be excluded. (3) The omission of indirect aerosol effects from models is a choice that would understate rather than exaggerate aerosol cooling. (4) Correlations between aerosol forcing and climate sensitivity are difficult to interpret from model simulations that include indirect effects is some cases but exclude them in others (the majority)*. (5) To the extent the inverse correlation would persist even if indirect effects were uniformly included, it can be explained at least in part without invoking deliberate choices by modelers designed to make simulated trends match observed ones. The assertion by modelers that they don’t engage in that type of “tuning” is not refuted.
*In an email conversation with Dr. Knutti, he informs me that the data from many models are inadequate to determine exactly what went into their forcings, and so categorizing the models may not be possible. Dr. Knutti repeats the inference he drew in his paper that some but not all models were guided by observed trends. My conclusion, based on the above analysis, is that at least many were not, and the possibility that some were is still unproven.
It might have worked, Fred, if they hadn’t been so obvious about it.
====================
kim,
If the GCM’s were producing meaningful data, the results would not be so easily confused with noise. One of the signs of bad science is that the results seldom if ever get beyond the margin of error or randomness. AGW is buried firmly in that area.
Fred, I’d like to make this a guest post over at my place. May I quote you in full?
Fred should consider if he wants to associated with a self-tracking idiot.
Robert – Sure.
reverse psychology in action.
lol.
Thx!
Its simple Fred.
Go find all the forcing data used by the 22 models in Ar4.
what do you see?
You need also consider this
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-2-1-2.html
the supplemental information regarding this appears not to be available anymore.
Anyway, one way to drill down into this is ask people for records of all the runs they perform. Not just the runs they publish. That’s kinda what we have to do in engineering.
Steven – Thanks. Elsewhere I’ve mentioned the distinction between inverse modeling and forward modeling – a distinction that has sometimes led to the erroneous conclusion that 20th century trend simulations used as hindcasts are based on inverse modeling. In the hindcasts, in fact, aerosol forcing is not generally entered as a specific value such as those found in table 9.1 in your reference, but is instead generated within the model from aerosol data and the relevant physics.
I agree it would be desirable to know the results of unpublished as well as published runs, and perhaps equally important, models entered into CMIP3 and those that weren’t. I think there is certainly a possibility of selection bias, as I mentioned in my comment.
The supplemental information is available, but it is only in the pdf-version of the report, not in the html-version.
The link on this page leads to the supplemental information
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_wg1_report_the_physical_science_basis.htm
Fred, I appreciate your carefully researched dissertation into the narrow question of how aerosol forcings are set. I am not prepared to argue with it except to note that Pekka and I are suspicious that implicit tuning takes place. Also note that aerosol forcings are a very small subset of other choices in subgrid models and I assume the aerosol subgrid models that can have similar effects on results.
But I think its largely an irrelevant and technical point. Lindzen’s point broadly stated is that without aerosol forcing, the data clearly show a rather low climate sensitivity to greenhouse gas forcing. The aerosol forcing is very uncertain and understanding is low so that its exact value is somewhat arbitrary. Thus, the whole model enterprise is dependent on the value of this largely unknown quantity. If in fact, its near zero, models would give a very large and unrealistic sensitivity. If its near its larger value, then sensitivity would have to be larger than estimated by the models assuming of course that our data isn’t wrong as Lindzen makes a case based on the missing hot spot that it might be. In any case, my perspective is that by focusing on this narrow point, we are ignoring the larger issue of model tuning and uncertainty which I claim must be larger than usually stated.
Just think of a subgrid model of convection and recall Isaac Held’s recent results and convince me the model doesn’t have large errors.
One of the things James Hansen laments in Storms of my Grandchildren is NASA’s repeated refusal over the last 25 years to invest in satellite programs that would have filled this gap in our knowledge (i.e. the negative forcing effect of aerosols). If they had done this, we would now have a much firmer grasp of just how much global dimming is masking the extent to which ACD has already taken hold.
Therefore, if and when less developed countries (LDC) finally get control of their air pollution (as we in the ‘West’ all did several decades ago), things will suddenly go pear-shaped much faster… But why am I bothering to say this; the need for and effectiveness of all forms of environmental regulation is just something else most people on this site would probably wish to deny (i.e. that is certainly the view of CTT’s that feed you with the pseudo-science you continually spout and all GOP candidates for POTUS).
Martin – I think you make an important point, because the extent of aerosol cooling portends the potential magnitude of increases in warming from future emissions controls in general or pollution controls in particular. There’s no doubt from observational data that the Global Dimming you mention has been non-negligible, but Lindzen and others are right that the precise magnitude of the cooling effect remains uncertain. An additional uncertainty relates to the indirect aerosol effect, which has been omitted from many models but which probably accounts for some slight additional negative forcing. For an interesting insight into how this has concerned some model design, see CCSM4 and CCSM3.
By the way Fred, you will note I’m not pulling out the standard Fred “expert” card. Turnabout would be fair play, would it not? In the case of models that in the case of climate are largely fluid dynamics, quoting others is not really the way to grasp the essential issues. Subgrid models are essential and generally much less accurate than imagined by the uninitiated. To suggest that they are based on “first principles physics” is showing little respect for the truth.
David – I agree with your earlier point that we shouldn’t spend too much more time on Lindzen, and I wouldn’t have commented in detail except that the thread was focused on him.
Regarding fluid dynamics and subgrid modeling, I’m sure turbulence and related concepts at the subgrid level is an important concern in modeling, although for long term global trends, I wouldn’t neglect the role of radiative transfer. You cite Held to make a point, but I’m not sure exactly what you were referring to in his blog. Can you be more specific?
The narrative that GCMs are constructed on the fundamental mathematical formulations of the basic laws is not correct. They are instead based on extreme simplifications of the fundamental formulations, and these are supplemented with a very large number of sub-grid parameterizations.The parameterizations, in turn, are based on various degrees of theoretical understanding, empirical data, and ad hoc-ness.
In process models like the GCMs, the skill of the modeling is dominated by the parameterizations. The skill is carried almost solely by the parameterizations. This has been known for decades within the Climate Science Community and it is that Community that continues to perpetrate the incorrect view. Process models having a large number of system response functions of interest, and thus a multitude of parameterizations, are open to getting the right answer for the wrong reasons. It is especially serious that some of the most dominating parameterizations are associated with the more complex and less-well-understood phenomena and processes: max fuzziness. Parameterization of convection, for example, is the anti-thesis of ‘the fundamental mathematical formulations’.
Here is an exchange in the peer-reviewed literature from the late 1990s. The first paper is an excellent over-view of the situation.
Simon Shackley, Peter Young, Stuart Parkinson And Brian Wynne, UNCERTAINTY, COMPLEXITY AND CONCEPTS OF GOOD SCIENCE IN CLIMATE CHANGE MODELLING: ARE GCMs THE BEST TOOLS?, Climatic Change Vol. 38, pp. 159–205, 1998.
A discussion by Henderon-Sellers and McGuffie:
Correspondence
A. Henderson-Sellers And K. Mcguffie, CONCEPTS OF GOOD SCIENCE IN CLIMATE CHANGE MODELLING Comments on S. Shackley et al., Climatic Change 38, 1998,
Climatic Change Vol. 42, pp. 597–610, 1999.
And response by the authors:
Simon Shackley, Peter Young And Stuart Parkinson, RESPONSE TO A. HENDERSON-SELLERS AND K. McGUFFIE,
Climatic Change, Vol. 42, pp. 611–617, 1999.
That’s interesting, Dan. I didn’t get the same impression from the papers you cited as the impression I got from your comment, but these late 1990s articles do reflect many of the uncertainties. Some of the concerns – e.g., deterministic solutions – are beginning to be addressed in more recent model efforts through stochastic parameterization. I also have noticed recently that GCMs are often foregone for important estimates in favor of EMICs and energy balance models; each has its own virtues and disadvantages.
Yet you haven’t PROVEN that cutting emissions would harm the economy.
Most economists disagree with you. They say the benefits of cutting CO2 emissions far outweigh the costs
Oh yeah that’s right – paying (vastly) more for energy, and so having less to spend on everything else, will make us richer.
Pure genius – there’s no other way to put it.
“Oh yeah that’s right . . .”
So Punksta admits he has no argument on the facts. That’s one. Anyone else feel like admitting they’re licked?
Robert, you seem to have forgotten your New Years resolution.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/30/year-in-review-2011/#comment-154369
It was the last paragraph that I thought you had turned the corner….
Meh, you have a point.
Just a friendly reminder.
Punksta,
I think the only way to prove that cutting emissions would not harm the economy is if you subscribe to CAGW of the Jim Hansen variety. Would the economy be better off if we cut emissions or if we vaporized all of the planet’s water?
Punksta. Before banning you for repeating a falsified argument twice, one of the many things I pointed you towards was Nordhaus’ recent rebuttal of the WSJ16 and skepticism in general.
As alluded to previously, rejecting he opinions of all those who change their mind and admit they were wrong (i.e. that they have now been duped by an imaginary conspiracy) is indicative of cognitive dissonance. In stark contrast to this, the consensus is continually reinforced by additional information confirming its validity.
I was going to suggest to you and all your “friends” in here that you give up before you become anachronistic but, I fear, it is already too late.
Yes the common element in the tobacco case and the CAGW case is huge.
Tobacco funding of smoking science told us smoking was safe – because that was where the funder’s vested interests lay.
In exactly the same fashion, political funding of climate science tells us there a case for more taxes and political controls – because that too is where the funder’s vested interests lie. This is what lies behind the systemic, unrepentant dishonesty that pervades virtually the entire climate science fraternity, as revealed eg in Climategate, and upon which CAGW acceptance crucially depends.
The ‘only’ difference is the scale of the fraud – climate science funding is untold order of magnitude larger, and will harm far more people to a far greater extent.
Hi Tony (Brown) ref. 6th March at 9:24 am. in your research into Mann’s Hockey Stick Illusion did you find anything about what that graph would have looked like if instead of splicing on the results of statistically manipulated real temperature measurements and using a highly dubious version of PCA he had stuck with the tree-ring record all the way to 2000? I recall reading that Mann found that he couldn’t rely on those tree rings to produce his hockey stick but that may just have been CACC-sceptic propaganda.
Robert – oh dear, we have a Martin doppelganger now. Pushes the IGNORE button and moves on. Talking with those two is like talking to a brick wall.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Peter, you are ignoring a vast body of palaeoclimatic research – as indeed did Lindzen appear to want to (i.e. the point I was trying to make at the 22 Feb meeting); and over 150 years of atmospheric research – beginning with that of Tyndall and Arrhenius.
You are therefore ignoring science and history. However, far from being a declaration of war, please take this as a polite warning that you should either go and get yourself acquainted with all the relevant facts; or prepare to be humiliated.
As Ben Goldacre says in his book Bad Science, only 49% of the population can be better-than-average at driving a car. The same logic applies to people’s ability to reach a valid conclusion about a subject they do not really understand. As for me, I don’t claim to understand it all; but neither do I choose to dismiss the opinions of the vast majority of relevant experts.
Peter
No, I was looking at the published works of Mann and Lamb so did not carry out the extrapolations you mention. I think they might have looked at that on CA.
I shall be returning to the Met office archives to try to do some more research on the two periods of warming I identified in the reconstructed CET record which directly contradicted Dr mann.. I was surprised to see their extent so would like to double check them.
Fortunately the 17th Century warming coincides with the English Civil war so there might be some background information to be gained from battles.
tonyb
On second thoughts, I couldn’t resist quoting this appropriate comment from Lucia’s thread (http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/manns-email-to-be-released/) QUOTE:
steven mosher (Comment #76350)
May 26th, 2011 at 10:02 am
Re: Robert (May 25 19:34),
Robert, why is your blog called “theidiottracker” where ever you go there you are. what’s to track? UNQUOTE.
Steven followed up with “ .. roberts off tracking idiots. err which he can do by chasing his own tail .. ” but he did let go of his tail and track down – Martin.
It seems that Robert scurried off with his tail between his legs after that lot.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Interesting that you’ve chosen not to respond to the above:
You seem to be a little scared, hmmm? Hoping to send the conversation off into another direction?
Sorry, my epic pwnage of Moshi is off-topic here. Why don’t you tell us more about your mystery denier?
robert,
You have now reached the point where the logical question is to ask you about your meds.
To quote Martin Lack, paraphrase at least “what is wrong with you people”!!!!!!!!!!!
Presented with real evidence and data on the crap that Lindzen talks you attack the messenger and retract into your denialist cave of illogic.
I can’t help but wonder how many of you are actually real and not sitting in the blog equivalent of a call centre, paid for by Gina Reinhart.
No, people have explained that Martin’s efforts to call Lindzen a liar, a dupe, a fool, a cynical fraud and etc. are not persuasive. And people have shared back to Martin that they find his arguments tedious, repetitive, fact free, and ignorant.
I do wonder if you are looking for your AK47 to take the next logical step of AGW true believers against skeptics?
Hunter, you have not falsified a single one of my arguments – you have merely hidden behind a demand that I simplify them for you. All this proves is that you have not got the requisite attention span to take in a well constructed demolition job from someone who was alive to what Lindzen was about to do and therefore took detailed notes while he was speaking.
Having failed to get a substantive response to either of my first two emails; I sent Lindzen a third on Monday – this time copying it to government representatives, journalists and bloggers all around the world. When even this did not work, I sent another email to over 300 people worldwide; asking them to consider very carefully whether someone who once acted to defend tobacco companies against a claim that smoking causes lung cancer is someone upon whose word they want to rely when he says “there is no cause for alarm”… I think you will soon hear their answer.
Therefore, please be advised that, if you thought Lindzengate was over, you are wrong; it has barely started.
Profiles of five prominent global warming skeptics (Lindzen is #2)
If Richard Lindzen shows up at your door, slam it
Is Richard S. Lindzen deliberately lying, or just deluded?
Lindzen Illusions
for those wondering why Tobacco keeps cropping up in discussions of Lindzen
For the record, I am grateful to Lionel A Smith for bringing most of the above-linked articles to my attention.
Martin,
we appear to be at the same impasse one comes to when discussing with a Jehovah’s Witness some aspect of their biblical interpretation: You are stuck on your faith-based axioms and cannot distinguiush them from evidence.
You are the one making certain claims. I have asked yo to provide evidence of them. You simply, increasingly tediously, repeat your points with no evidence.
But it works for you. It is obvious you derive a great deal of comfort from your AGW faith, and I am happy that you can set aside your reason and still be comfortable. It is special.
Oh, and obfuscating Gleickgate by fabricating something you fundamenatlists are going to deerivatively call “Lindzengate” is not going to work out like you wish.
I’m not convinced anyone here has actually listened to Lindzen, rather than getting their cues from Judith’s brief summary. Well he’s on youtube. Watch it! Try to ignore the awful intro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy50yaBIDPE
My own (imo better) summary:
,There is nothing untoward about 0.6 degrees a century; It happens all the time in history. There is nothing unusual either about the current sea level rise, polar ice, glacier melts or anything else.
,The Summary for policymakers is far more strident than the IPCC tome it is supposed to reflect. Many scientists just pretend the IPCC wrote something when it didn’t.
.We expect a beneficial 1.1K from increased CO2. We have no reason to expect an additional unbeneficial 2 to 4K from positive feedbacks. This postulated but undemonstrated feedback is the main issue; all the rest is pointless diversion.
.The models do not match the observations. In response, modelers just pretend their models are pointing out errors in the data; a complete reversal of both standard scientific practise and common sense. If 20 models agree with each other but none match the obs then the models are most likely all wrong.
It has become common practise for scientists to make wild claims to the press that are not actually able to be concluded from the literature. This amounts to dogma.
Personally I am sick and tired of skeptics being called immoral. Skepticism is utterly justified. Condemning todays generation to death by fuel poverty and starvation is the real immorality. As Christy says; “life without fuel is brutal and short!” I have been a supporter of alternative energy all my life, not because using fossil fuels is wrong but because they will one day run out. Meantime until alternatives are actually ready all those faux moralists should try to understand and accept that current policy is doing more harm than good.
James G,
With Martin and the other true beleivers busy trying to poison the well, it is good for you to actually let Profl. Lindzen speak for himself. There are enough lies and attribution of motives from the Martin’s of the world that letting someone clearly speak without being parsed or mis-quoted is important.
Thank you for letting Lindzen speak.
It is the transparent cowardice of trolls like Martin that is fascinating to watch. It is as if they clilng to their knowing full well it is a sham.
Hi JamesG, several people commenting here not only listened to Professor Lindzen but also actually attended the meeting. Did you?
Hi wheresmyak47, did eating too much of that left-over “ .. overprocessed, high GI carbohydrate .. ” from your favourite Melbourne Chinese take-away affect your brain (http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/cuisine/five-things-to-do-with-leftover-rice-20120303-1u966.html)? You do a lot of trolling on the Herald Sun site, don’t you, but otherwise just jump in at any old blog, throw in a nonsense comment liike “ .. Where can I get my 130 ”energy slaves” working eight hours a day to sustain my lifestyle? .. ” (http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/peak-oil-can-fuel-a-change-for-the-better-20120110-1psqg.html#ixzz1oNkLTeMX) then scarper.
You just hate industrialisation and those who benefit from it, especially the rich ones like Gina and “ .. those leaching baby boomers .. ”, don’t you. As one Tom told you recently “ .. You sound like a semi-literate 19-year-old uni student who has signed up for whatever groupthink is going this week. Still a long way to go to get a usable education, you poor thing .. ” (http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_about_our_right_to_a_force_that_demands_respect).
How about try understanding and commenting on the science for a change?
Best regards, Pete Ridley
RealClimate has pointed out another serious error in Lindzen’s presentation, which got much less attention. I’ve plotted the data myself and they are absolutely right. In his comparison of the GISS temperature anomaly differences between the current version and the 2008 version (meant to imply that we don’t understand the past enough), Lindzen did not compare two versions of the same variable. Instead, he used a land and land+ocean data product. This isn’t a hard mistake to make because a lot of those text files look similar, but his putting it up on a presentation without even bothering to check with the GISTEMP folks is irresponsible at best.
It would seem to me in any case that this comparison is useful as it seems to show the fact that GISS land only data (often used in model verification) is perhaps 0.3-0.4K higher than land+ocean which most people would say is more relevant. You know, I never cease to marvel at how the Real Climate “communication” team always puts the worst construction on everything and sees the negative in those who they dislike. It reminds me of the personal and bitter presidential campaign of 1912 in which as Morrison observed, many things were said that would have been better left unsaid. Steve McIntyre has noted very convincingly things that Schmidt for example has said very forcefully that turned out to be wrong and which he never corrected even when they were pointed out. Chris, we need to be broader minded than this narrow pettiness and point scoring.
In any case, Lindzen’s point broadly is right, viz., as we go back in time, uncertainty grows.
David, you are defending some that is not defensible. In fact, Lindzen’s point would be the complete opposite…that uncertainty grows as we go forward in time! But actually, all that he is showing is that the slope of the land temperature is larger than the slope of the land+ocean data in recent decades. There is no RC “construction” on what Lindzen said; Lindzen implied in his talk that the GISS data was somehow being manipulated or that the differences between two apples-to-apples datasets was roughly a quarter of the whole observed trend! It’s just wrong.
It is also well known that land will warm faster than ocean (and thus a combined land+ocean index). That is not surprising, and not what Lindzen was highlighting in his talk.
No, Chris, he is explicitly saying that “we can’t predict the past.” Uncertainty grows as we go back in time. I’m not defending it, just saying its probably not a deliberate mistake.
You know, you could politely contact Lindzen and point this out to him. Perhaps he will not include it in future presentations. You might even be able to get him to tell you how he generated the data. That would be the way a scientist would handle it. But, then I forgot that Real Climate regularly covers up the mistakes of people like Mann while trumpeting those of Lindzen. Chris, the larger point is that the supposedly serious “scientists” here are politicizing this debate. This is the Gleick problem. It is antithetical to the scientific ethic and the source of our problems in this field. See Richard Betts’ response to the Guardian’s stupid justification of Gleick for an example of scientific integrity. It’s a little like skeptics who try to discredit everything Hansen does by pointing to his 1988 testimony and how grossly wrong it was. It is not going to help us improve the science.
David,
think of Chris as the poster boy of “sophomore” in his maturity, and his need to pose as the smartest guy in the room. He would have done well at Enron, I am sure. He is perfectly willing to poison the well, misrepresent his betters and do the other toady things that indulges the latter part of the definition of sophomore. He is not here to engage.
Why bother?
David, the data is easy to download, plot, and analyze. In fact, it is rather trivial to reproduce what Lindzen did. You are wrong in your interpretation of what he said, what his data actually shows. You can convince yourself of that. Do it.
OK, Chris, but how about the larger point here? Why is this a bigger deal than Mann’s errors in the published literature, which you and Real Climate defend to this day? Climate science needs to do better and you could make your mark by being part of the solution, not another partisan also ran. Like I said, you should view Richard Betts as a mentor.
David, I really don’t think it’s a “big deal” and I’ll probably forget about it in a week. As I said in my original comment on this post, I don’t think Lindzen’s talk will have any influence on the scientific community, and virtually no influence in the public in the future. That said, this is a thread about Lindzen’s talk, so I thought it was appropriate to bring up.
Regarding Mann, I have only briefly defended his work (largely because I don’t work in the field of paleo-temperature reconstructions and don’t pretend to be well familiar with all the arguments, unlike most of the blogging population). But the broad picture behind his paleo-reconstructions has been supported by a number of independent studies, re-affirmed in many academic reports, and relatively insensitive to various criticisms thrown against it…much of which is unpublished blog stuff. There’s a lot of bright people that defend this work, and at least the main details of his conclusions, well apart from just me or RC. I also note the irony in thinking that something like how many PCs one retains or how one interprets their tree ring record deserves decade-long attention, but all of Lindzen’s mistakes get dismissed.
Chris
Whats your opinion as to when the SST’s become accurate enough to merit being used in models? Thanks
tonyb
I think that this is indeed an appalling piece of misrepresentation by Lindzen, and I’m not nearly so forgiving as Chris. The fact is that Lindzen accused GISS of altering the data in a major way. It just isn’t true. He mixed up the files.
But the fact is that anyone who has any familiarity with the indices would know that no change like that has happened. So if you find such a discrepancy, you should check carefully, and then again. Not trumpet it to the HoC as established malfeasance, under the heading “NASA-GISS Data manipulation”.
Looks like Lindzen didn’t make the mistake himself. He lifted it straight from junkscience.com. Presumably without checking.
Yeah, Lindzen publicly accused GISS of improperly manipulating the temperature record so it’s entirely reasonable for Gavin to make a public response and for Chris to adress the point in a public forum. To characterise this as climate scientists “politicizing the debate” is just odd.
So much for the touted ‘science’ credentials of Lindzens talk.
I guess Judith was right about this;
“The reasons that I think Lindzen’s presentation is so persuasive to public audience are ….Lindzen’s persona and appearance, that reeks of scientific gravitas”
It was all superficial.
Personal opinion and political leaning jazzed up with some slanted interpretations, reeks of gravitas to those failing to exercise scepticism.
But Lindzen does have genuine scientific credentials relevant to the subject in question, so to an extent you can’t blame an audience of laypeople for taking him seriously. That just makes his actions all the more reprehensible though.
Let us assume for the sake of the argument moment these criticisms of Lindzen’s comments are correct.
How do they stack up against 20+ years of relentless deceit and secrecy from the likes of Jones, Mann et al, using hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to bang the alarmist drum in order that the funder of alarmism – the state – can profit from it by means of more taxes and control over society ?
On the pervasive dishonesty and vested interest inherent in the CAGW position, our critics of Lindzen here have been quite silent.
Well that rather begs the question.
Mixing up the met station series with the global series is a common daft mistake and, to be perfectly fair, Lindzen did warn ya that:
“Because the quantity we are speaking of is so small, and the error bars are so large, the quantity is easy to abuse in a variety of ways.”
and then fesses up:
“Obsessing on the details of this record is more akin to a spectator sport (or tea leaf reading) than a serious contributor to scientific efforts – at least so far.”
First rule of a good presentation:
tell em what you’re going to tell them
tell em
tell em what you’ve told em.
I could use that series of slides to make exactly the opposite point which most people assume Lindzen was making. It would be interesting to see a video of him delivering it. Anyone know of one?
Nebuchadnezzar,
Not only did Lindzen get this all wrong, but he presumably stole the graph from “junkscience.com” (without any attribution) and did not even bother to check if it was right.
http://junkscience.com/2012/02/07/hayden-did-nasa-manipulate-the-temp-record/
Thisup thread post ahs the video of the actual presentation. Watch it and then, if you can be objective and honest, let us know if Chris and Martin and the other true believers are on target.
JamesG | March 6, 2012 at 6:05 pm | Reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy50yaBIDPE&feature=player_embedded
Notice that Martin and Chris never actually let Lindzen talk. They rely implicitly on being able to poison the well, parse and mis-quote him.
This sort of behavior seems more and more to be an integral part of the AGW culture.
Chris Close said, “Not only did Lindzen get this all wrong, but he presumably stole the graph from “junkscience.com” (without any attribution) and did not even bother to check if it was right.
http://junkscience.com/2012/02/07/hayden-did-nasa-manipulate-the-temp-record/”
Cool! So Lindzen plagiarized junk science who plagiarized Hayden! Boy this is getting interesting. I doubt that Hayden would grant permission without requesting attribution. You are on to something here Chris. You should ferret out the original source and demand satisfaction.
Since Junk science didn’t create the chart, ya think that “presuming” Lindzen stole it from Junk science (without any attribution) might be a bit hasty?.
Hunter
I looked at the video (your 11.07)
I suspect that -like jazz- you needed to be there to appreciate it. I thought it was fairly dull stuff and it was difficult to see the graphs. He came over as quite affable but it wasn’t a dynamic presentation and the music at the start was a bit daft (obviously nothing to do with Lindzen but it set the scene in a negative fashion.
Is that the whole presentation or is there a part two?
tonyb
We haven’t been silent, we’ve repeatedly said that most of those allegations have no basis in reality. Now, here in 2012 a lot of people do ignore it because it’s old, tiring, distracting, and because repeating the same talking points for the 560,000th time won’t suddenly make it right. Virtually no one in the academic community takes it seriously and it only lives on in bloggers imagination.
This would be the academic community whose integrity we know so well from Climategate, would it ?
I touched base with Lindzen today regarding this issue. It is a mistake, and it will be corrected.
Is it true that he got the slide from the JunkScience site?
KT,
The favorite refuge of the extremist is to claim their opponents are mentally ill.
Searching for “hunter “social mania”” gives 26 hits on this site – all the links I checked led to you.
You are showing remarkable self-perception today.
After reading recent comments, I’m regretting saying that now. I think this blog would benefit if there were a few more people adding balance to the discussion, but in a civil and constructive manner, and resisting perceived or real provocations.
Hell no
Patrice, you need to read the Bible for a change and study your J-O-B (Job, chapter 37) discription first. Then you may say…
Robert (ref. March 6 at 1:40 pm and 3:17 pm) you just can’t see beyond your nose-end can you. Try Googling – “Taguchi” “Judith Curry” – and you’ll find:
– http://judithcurry.com/2011/01/19/pierrehumbert-on-infrared-radiation-and-planetary-temperatures/#comment-37518 ,
– http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/08/lisbon-workshop-on-reconciliation-part-x-chris-coloses-comment/#comment-39829 ,
– http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/11/talking-past-each-other/ ,
– http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/ ,
– etc. etc. etc.
Oh, I nearly forgot, you could also try this very thread, starting at “Pete Ridley October 21, 2011 at 5:07 pm.” (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-125570).
You’ll find more that enough scientific analysis there to keep you going for a while, but you and Martin and wheresmyak47 will almost certainly end up saying that it is “beyond our ken”.
Hi David (Young) – ref. 6th March at 9:54 pm. “ .. Chris, we need to be broader minded than this narrow pettiness and point scoring .. ” so true. We must not overlook the fact that many CACC sceptics consider that Realclimate is the CACC propaganda blog of Professor “Hockey Stick” Mann’s hockey team. I prefer blogs that are as far removed from the “team” as possible, like this one. Of course Chris (Colose) is always eager to pounce on any little mistake made by CACC sceptics but chooses to ignore the numerous mistakes made by CACC supporters. During the Q&A session following his presentation in the Houses of Parliament on 22nd Feb. Professor Lindzen was perfectly happy to acknowledge some errors that had been picked up (possibly by the “Hockey Team” at Realclimate – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/lindzen-and-choi-unraveled/ NOT TO BE SENT) in a recent paper.
I can’t remember the title of that recent paper but I think it was “On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data” by Lindzen & Choi (http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf). Martin Lack, who was present at the meeting, may recall what it is. I remind you all that Martin is not a scientist but appears to be an out-of-work environmental activist, declaring himself to be an “ .. Environmental Advisor and/or Lobbyistperienced Professional & Environmental Lobbyist .. ” (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/martin-lack/5/170/801). He relies upon “consensus” but that has relevance only in politicised science like the CACC hypothesis.
Hi “Kilgore” (ref. March 6 at 10:53 pm.) cowards hide behind false names to throw insults. Did Martin drag you and scepticalWombat (another who doesn’t have the courage of his/her convictions)?) over here to help him out?
Hi Chris (ref. March 6 at 11:21 pm) “ .. I don’t work in the field of paleo-temperature reconstructions and don’t pretend to be well familiar with all the arguments .. ”. You appeared to me to be pretending just that on 28th Dec. 2009 with your pompous response to my comment questioning the validity of the attempts to reconstruct past atmospheric composition from air allegedly “trapped” in ice for decades, centuries and millennia virtually unchanged. You said “ .. Have you even read the papers you are criticizing, or are relying on Jaworowksi’s long-debunked nonsense about ice cores? Your references are not acceptable .. ” (http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/richard-alley-at-agu-2009-the-biggest-control-knob/#comment-1440) without having any expertise in the subject, unlike sadly departed Professor Jaworowski (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2010/12/smogbound-on-molecular-fractionation-in.html).
2 years older and hopefully wiser.
Hi Nebuchadnezzar (ref. March 7 at 6:20 am.) forgive me if I have misunderstood your comment but the re have been at leas three commenters here who have provided a link to an A/V of Professor Lindzen’s presentation.
(Ref. curryja | March 6, 2012 at 6:58 pm | apologies, this got caught in spam) – there are those who would argue that the best place for any of Martin’s comments is in the spam bin. We are fortunate to have a blog owner who encourages open discussion and only rarely intervenes.
(Ref. March 6, 2012 at 10:19 pm “ … all is forgiven .. ) halleluiah oh-Martin!
Best regards, Pete Ridley
peter,
You cannot actually think that holding Chris to standards like honesty or integrity would go far with him, do you?
Thanks Pete#I think we can safely conclude that Lack’s motivations in all this Lindzen escapade over the last week or so have been nothing more than to stage a publicity stunt to show off his skills as an advisor/lobbyist in the hope of getting hired somewhere.
Pity that has only served to demonstrate his complete unsuitability for either of those positions. Unless we turn him into a double agent. :-) He is the greatest gift to scepticism since the gang at CRU.
Peter, “…I remind you all that Martin is not a scientist…”
You are an absolute disgrace to humanity. How dare you willfully misrepresent me like this. You and others have criticised me for stating and re-stating my qualifications. You have visited my blog. You have rummaged around on it looking for sticks to beat me with.
I am 47 years old and have over 25 years work experience as a mine geologist and hydrogeologist; most of the last 20 years having involved stochastic modelling (yes that’s right – the kind used to model climate).
Please don’t lie about this again or I will make a formal complaint to Dr Curry about you.
Martin C. Lack. BSc (Geology), MSc (Hydrogeology), MA (Environmental Politics).
Martin
Way Upthread I posted this-I appreciate you may have overlooked it but would appreciate your answer
“Martin said
“I will apologise for the CD remark but, why do you think it is necessary to mock me for not having a personal track record of peer-reviewed published research? Does that prove my opinion to be less valid than yours? I think not. The consensus is real. Your conspiracy theory is not. End of story.”
—– ——
I replied
Please clarify where I am supposed to have mocked you for not having a personal track record of published research. Where have I said that? Also, where have i ever expresed a conspiracy theory. I do not believe there is one. Are you confusng me with another commentator here?
tonyb
—–Comments Martin?
tonyb
I must admit that re-reading “…I look forward to receiving your papers …” it is obvious you were actually asking me for references/citations. Sorry, at the time I was trying to multi-task and misunderstood.
Would you agree that Peter Ridley is bang out of order here?
Martin
I’ll take that as an apology then. Your reference to Pete Ridley merely illustrates that sceptics come in all sorts of flavours and you should not assume we are all the same.
I try to pass no personal comment on other commentators here unless there has been a direct exchange between us that warrants it. I have no opinion of Peter Ridley or his style of debate.
I will judge you on what you write and whether you are a scientist or not is not a concern to me. All the best
tonyb
Fair point. Question retracted. Thank you.
Peter, with respect, that is all bo11ocks. But boy, you have been busy trying to discredit me. Shall I start trawling the Internet to see what I can dig up on you? — House Rules contravention Alert! —
So now, according to you, a geologist and or hydrogeologist is not a scientist – I think the Geological Society of London and the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management will be disappointed to hear that. Do you realise that we don’t all have to have messy hair and swan about with white coats on?
So, according to you, my 20 years of probabilistic groundwater modelling, hydrogeological risk assessment, and contaminated land site investigation all ceased to be relevant the day I went off to do my MA? Did I have a frontal lobotomy without noticing? Did I suddenly lose the ability to assimilate and analyse information? No, of course I did not.
You are outrageous. I would not dare to pull your CV to pieces like this just because I could not find fault with your arguments. All you have demonstrated here is how desperate you are to discredit me. You have shot yourself in the foot, big time. However, for the record:
— Blogger is out of date – I am not maintaining it.
— Linked-in has been amended
Your attempt to justify yourself is almost beneath contempt.
Martin,
Yr. “You are an absolute disgrace to humanity.” and “Please don’t lie about this again or I’ll make a formal complaint to Dr. Curry about you.”
Martin, I see you’ve been taking some heavy “flak” on this blog from just about everyone (including moi), except Robert. But please allow me to change tack and join with Robert (barf!) in offering you an appreciative and encouraging comment.
I mean, Martin, as I see it you’ve got your own little story to tell and your own colorful and eccentric way to tell it. And I, for one, am warming to the screwy charm of your weltanschauung.
Let me add, “the team” seems determined to keep certain of this blog’s ecological niches topped up with its trolls. In that regard, you and A physicist seem to be auditioning as replacements for the position on this blog formerly filled by ianash and Robert (on a full time basis). Personally, Martin, I think you’re the best yet and vastly superior to A physicist and his buffoonish trollery.
So I hope you stick around. And, by the way, I love all those apologies of yours–good stuff! Keep ’em coming!
@martin lack
Let me restate Pete Ridley’s remark in a different form:
‘Martin may once have had scientific qualifications, but is not acting scientifically here’.
As many have pointed put, you seem to be acting on faith. That faith may be based on a carefully chosen selection of writings by scientists and other commentators, but you believe them. discuss them. ‘defend’ them and proselytise about it in faith-based terms, not science-based ways. Nobody acting scientifically could possibly write
‘I do not question the validity of a modern-day scientific consensus arrived at over 150 years and conclusively proven by James Hansen in 1988’
and expect to be taken seriously. But more as a self-parody of the uber-warmist tendency.
And with your one-time belief in the writings of the prophets just transferred to Hansen and his crew. Same old ideas as evangelical christianity (original sin, fall of man apocalypse, redemption, devils, sacred unchallengable writings, apostasy, burn the heretics ) just a different manifestation.
Which kind of explains why many here, I included, find it difficult to take your hysterical, intemperate and ill-judged ravings very seriously.
But please keep entertaining us on otherwise slow news days. A bit of light comedic relief from the more serious stuff is always welcome.
@Mike
If “to err is human but to forgive is divine”, then, surely, “to apologise is intellectually honest”?
@Latimer.
“Martin may once have had scientific qualifications, but is not acting scientifically here… As many have pointed put, [he seems] seem to be acting on faith…”
I must first give you credit for being polite (not something you appear to find easy when addressing and/or attempting to dismiss me). However this is still a deeply-flawed argument that is, whether you like it or not, entirely contingent upon conspiracy theory: You simply cannot dismiss the conclusions reached by all but a handful of genuine climate scientists any other way.
Therefore, whereas my position is founded upon a vast body of peer- reviewed literature in well-respected journals, yours is founded upon poorly-reviewed articles in journals like Earth and Environment; and/or misinformation being peddled by CTTs and those like Lindzen and Inhofe (e.g. in USA); and Piers Corbyn and the the GWPF (e.g. in the UK). If not directly financed by the fossil fuel lobby, this misinformation is driven by ideological prejudice against environmental concern that is itself rooted in the Enlightenment belief that man is superior to nature rather than part of it. This was and is a dangerous error – and all ‘Limits to Growth’ and/or ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ problems stem from this intellectual error.
In summary, it is you – not me – that is indulging a post-Christian faith-based belief system – and its prospects are not looking too good. Therefore, only one problem remains – your suicidal mission seems to be taking the entire habitable planet along with you for the ride…
@martin lack
Can you please mak up your mind exactly what is driving us sceptics? You seem to change your views each time ou change your underwear.
Not ten days ago, you asserted (as ever without much evidence) that it was because we all must necessarily believe in some vast conspiracy. And when that got shot down in pretty short order you turned to the idea that we were all tools of the conservative think tanks who have the temerity to publish their views (shock horror! ) and even pay people to write their stuff! (fit of the vapours time!). Then you flirted with the idea that we were all in the pay of Big Oil (I wish :-) ).
But your new theory is one I have rarely heard before.
‘ideological prejudice against environmental concern that is itself rooted in the Enlightenment belief that man is superior to nature rather than part of it.’
So its all back to the Enlightenment is it? Locke and Voltaire and Descartes and all those old guys. Interfering with the nice set ideas handed down from the Great Ones of the past. And wittering on about freedom of thought and all that stuff you dislike so much.
Tonyb has been very kind and gentle with you in breaking the devastating news that not all sceptics think alike. That saying ‘sceptics all believe’ is rarely a sensible remark. I’d have thought with your much waved MA in the Philosophy of Scepticism or whatever it is, you’;d have worked that out on your first day before coffee time. It seems not.
You are fighting an enemy that substantially exists only in your imagination. You and your chums may have persuaded yourself of all the things that you think sceptics believe. But you have never road tested these ideas before tilting so noisily and ineffectively at the non-existent windmills of your mind.
You could, of course, take time to stop shouting and berating and haranguing and maybe try to listen a little to what sceptics actually do believe. and maybe even try a little critical examination of the foundations of your own deeply held beliefs. But I think that you are beyond that point. You are no longer capable of assessing the evidence. You just ‘know’ that you are right and that is good enough for you.
And listening to anybody else is the last thing on your mind. Your behaviour on your own blog (warn, threaten, ban) shows that you have no interest in contrary views
Good luck with the blogging . Lets see how it goes. Initial indications do not seem to show a raging success (yet?).
You are under the infleunce of all three (even if you can’t or won’t admit it to yourself). As for my blog’s succees, I think you spoke too soon…
Latimer, where you describing me or yourself here:
“But I think that you are beyond that point. You are no longer capable of assessing the evidence. You just ‘know’ that you are right and that is good enough for you.”
This is the problem, don’t you see? We both think we’ re right, but only one of us can be. You have no sound scientific basis for your beliefs, whereas I do.
You believe CAGW stopped in 1998, I know that the global dimming and El Nino/La Nina effects that have stalled warming (except at the poles and in the oceans – where it is ACD as usual) will soon pass and then you really will have to admit you were wrong.
I was just trying to give you a head start…
@martin
‘you believe CAGW stopped in 1998’.
Matey, I don’t believe Catastrophic AGW has ever even started. I have never seen anything at all catastrophic about climate changes. Its been changing since Adam was a lad and it’ll undoubtedly change in the future. But, unless you are the first alarmist who can come up with anything more concrete than the rest of your clan, I do not buy into the Catastrophic idea.
Yes, an absolute gem – excellently disguising the writer’s own deep ideological prejudice ifo a more totalitarian society. He goes on about a few million spent by Heartland et al on skepticism, calmly ignoring the billions spent by governments building up alarmism.
Only one problem with that fallacious line of argument – I have previously told you I am a Conservative voter. See also
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/brendan-oneill-a-leftwing-sceptic/
Martin,
Conservatives can be totalitarians, too.
But really, if it is not tobacco you are quibbling with, it is attribution of motive or reliance on strawmen and red herrings.
Martin
You said to Latimer at 3.39
‘…this misinformation is driven by ideological prejudice against environmental concern that is itself rooted in the Enlightenment belief that man is superior to nature rather than part of it. ‘
I have said previously that scepics come in all sorts of flavours which perhaps you had not realised before-you do tend to tar us all with the same brush. One of those misconceptions is that many warmists seem to believe sceptics are automatically environmental neanderthals.
Personally I am a vegetarian , buy local food in season when possible, shop locally for most of my needs, I am in favour of renewables but believe they are currently doing more harm than good in the UK, I ‘own’ an acre of rain forest to prevent it being logged, and am just about to go out on my electric bike which I top up via a solar panel.
Many of my fellow sceptics are equally concerned by environmental matters, but are just not convinced by the CAGW argument.
Personally I have never received a penny from the oil industry and know of no sceptic that ever has. The large organisations of which you speak also have environmentally aware people working within them and CRU has had far more money from big oil than than such sceptical organisations as the gwpf ever would.
My speciality is history and I am certainly worried about the lack of historic context within such as the IPCC reports. I was an ‘expert’ reviewer on the draft of AR5. They do not put into context sea levels, SST’s, Arctic ice melt, previous periods of warming and cooling and all manner of other aspects of our climate where their snapshot conflicts with that of the available evidence over a longer time scale than the satellite era.
As an example, great comment is made of glacier melt but not that it was noticeable by 1750 or that it had been melting up until the 1550’s or that in Roman times the glacier line was much higher than today in the Alps..
I have written about the evidence in a number of articles and spend a great deal of time (too much) on research and in acquiring articles behind pay walls that I have to purchase with my own money.
We are not all the same and you continually underestimate the depth and breadth of knowledge that many of the posters here on this blog have.
BTW, for what its worth I have now looked at the Lindzen video and thought his presentation dull, (the graphs were difficult to make out) but I guess you needed to be there to get the full context and atmosphere.
Have a good day.
tonyb
Hi Tony (Brown) – ref. March 8 at 4:27 am. (and Latimer March 8 at 9:36 am) – I’m sure that Martin would be very surprised by the life-styles of many of us who reject the CACC hypothesis. Regarding Lindzen’s presentation, are you aware that the material he used is available as an Adobe Acrobat document? I can forward you a copy if you like.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Hi again Tony, I’ve just noticed that Professor Curry gives a link to a pdf of Professor Lindzen’s presentation material.
Pete R
Warning: This is not an apology!
I realise the error of my ways. It was utterly pointless of me to waste emotional energy getting upset by the diversionary tactics of people like Peter Ridley (and many others). Therefore, despite the fact that two wrongs don’t make a right – and I may well be accused of lowering myself to your level – I think I shall henceforth only refer to him as Rita Pidley.
@martin lack
‘Rita Pidley’.
Wow, that’s a real rib-tickler! I hardly have chortle room left.
Perhaps you should send it in to the Chuckle Brothers (UK children’s TV entertainers. My 6-year old granddaughter loves such puns. She thinks ‘Lartin Mack’ is pretty funny too.
When she is a wee bit older I will try ‘Hugh Jarse’ and ‘Norma Stitz’ on her too.
Meanwhile, away from the kindergarten, your normal Climate Etc programming is resumed below…….
Isn’t Lartin Mack… Lee’s brother? (Only Brits will get this)
Martin,
Your mature, in depth and thoguhtful creative replies are really changing the way I think about climate.
Not.
OK Martin, time to grow up. There is a point to ridicule, but self ridicule, punning and referential exaggeration among other tactics are effective. Playground level stuff merely makes people ignore you for being rather stupid. If you are going to play the dozens, do it well.
Eli Rabett
Eli, I am grateful to BarryWoods for alerting me to your contribution to this “debate”. If you are in any way defending Lindzen’s behaviour, I am quite frankly astonished. Let me tell you why:
I seem to have been 1 of only 2 people in the audience capable of seeing through what Lindzen was doing (i.e. the kind of person that Lindzen would not have expected to be there). Therefore, I believe I am very well placed to call him to account for the huge damage he has done to science as a profession (or will have done by the time his mis-deeds are admitted); and for the way in which he has re-inforced erroneous beliefs in the minds of predominantly non-scientific, deeply-suggestible “sceptics”. This is why I am not going to drop this issue. Far from it, my “inside knowledge” is now gaining attention on both Skeptical Science and Real Climate; and the traffic to my blog continues to grow steadily.
Professor Lindzen may now have re-inserted the “missing” slide into the PDF, but this does not change the fact that it was highly-misleading: The Keeling Curve and Temperature did not appear to correlate over the short term; so what! If you stretched the temperature axis far enough, they would have correlated perfectly! Therefore, this (not now missing) graph neither proves not disproves anything. Lindzen must know that. If he doesn’t know that, he should not be at MIT.
People seem to keep forgetting that I was actually in the room and I quite literally could not believe what Lindzen was doing. I have never seen anything like it in my life before; it was absolutely disgraceful.
That is why I have submitted a formal complaint to MIT, and to my MP (because Lindzen may have slandered Govt advisors and UK-based IPCC contributory authors), and that is why I am now calling this “Lindzengate”.
So, please don’t make the mistake of thinking this is all “a storm in a tea-cup”; because I am very confident Lindzengate has barely begun.
Martin
Can I respectfully suggest you cick on Eli’s name and see who he is and on which side of the debate he is on?
He was offering you good advice and whilst I often disagree with him I do listen to him as he has a sense of humour and is reasonable in his tone
all the best
tonyb
Martin,
Now you are reaching the self-caricature stage of the internet expert: you can determine Prof. Lindzen’s qualifications to be a part of the MIT faculty.
Do you have any idea just how ridiculous you are making yourself appear?
Martin, people are responding to you for the same reasons people try and reason with UFO abductee believers. It has nothing to do with their having ever been actually abducted.
You have now gone from tobacco obsessed quibbling troll to a full blown clown.
@martin lack
Keep it up Martin. Good to know that you’ve heard nothing and taken no advice since this whole charade began. We like the free comedy you bring to the party..
We’re all agog to hear that MIT has disbarred Prof Lindzen has based on your charges. I’m sure that he is already packing his bags and negotiating an exile in some country where the long hand of Lack’s Law can’t find him.
Do keep us posted on an hour by hour basis. If the TV crews don’t get there first.
And post the reply from your MP here. It’ll surely be good stuff.
Is it possible that he can be banned from entry to the EU in future? If not, suggest you demand that the Home Secretary pass a one-off Act that ensures that he is never allowed here again. No doubt, Mrs. May will recognise an unstoppable force and it will be done by tomorrow morning, I hear also that the Prime Minister has cleared his dairy for the next few days so that you may summon him to Lack Towers at any time for his new instructions. But timezone differences mean that Obama has yet to do so.
Martin
One other thing you might want to know about sceptics is that a good proportion of us started off on your side but then started to review the material for ourselves.Once you do that you start to question what we are being told.
tonyb
Thanks tonyb. I had done that; and I believe I have explained why I am going to exercise my right not to take his advice.
tonyb – I am surprised you saying that. With the greatest of respect, it sounds like you went fishing for a conspiracy and, guess what, you found one. However, I am not going to repeat myself; other than to say that, to me, it appears that the trusty steed I mentioned is still refusing to imbibe refreshment.
Martin
Why would you assume that I went fishing for a conspiracy theory? I believed the ipcc line at first like some other people who are now sceptics.I am merely pointing out that we know many of the arguments because we accepted them at the time
Difficult to know what the first intimation that something was wrong actually was. Could have been the notion of sea level rise at an alarming rate-Hansen has a lot to answer for with his wild scaremongering. Could have been the ludicrous manner in which sst’s have been over elevated in importance. Could have been the knowledge of warmer times in the past .
I will repeat again that I do not believe there is a conspiracy but I do believe there is a lot of unresolved and incomplete science.
Tonyb
Furthermore Eli. If you were seriously telling me to grow up, you have not reviewed what has been going on here for the last 7 days. It is only in the last 24 hours that I have lowered myself to the level of mocking people. In stark contrast to this, from the moment I walked in here, I have been mocked relentlessly; I have had my entire CV investigated by Rita, I have have been repeatedly misrepresented; and had stupid things done with my surname. If people here can’t take it, they should stop dishing it out.
@martin lack
I think we are all quite capable of both taking it and dishing it out.
Read the archives for some very ‘robust’ conversations.
But it is your overweening pompous self-importance without any corresponding self-knowledge (or leavening of humour) that positively begs to be ridiculed. When ‘Rita Pidley’ is the best riposte you can manage it really is – as they say in the military – ‘a target-rich environment’.
There are many here with whom one might disagree very strongly, but still imagine one could share a convivial evening with. Disagreement is not necessarily a reason to dislike…and may indeed be the opposite.
But such an evening would be conducted with a basic good humour and goodwill. I fear that I would not envisage such an evening in your company. The sheer naked ferocity you exude and vastly intemperate language you use is decidedly unpleasant and turns people off in spades. When even Eli – normally the most vocal and passionate defender of the warmist cause – tells you to cool it, you really should take some notice.
But you won’t. So we’ll carry on exploring all the goodies presented by the TRE you bring to our attention.
Tonyb – Thank you for being so reasonable.
My remarks may be a generalisation but if there were no truth in them we would not be in the mess that we are today. I very much welcome all the things you said. Your commitment to sustainable living is commendable but, again, if everyone was like you, we would not be having this foolish “debate”.
The question you have to ask yourself is why are you not convinced that anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is happening? Who has bewitched you? Why do you not accept that there is a direct link between the denial of all previous environmental problems (smoking, pesticides, CFC’s, and acid rain) and denial of ACD?
If you and so many other climate change “sceptics” accept the value of good environmental legislation and regulation, why do you think the Republican Candidates for the US Presidency are indulging in such a transparent race to-the-bottom to see who can promise to repeal the most legislation? In addition, even if you are not a US citizen, does it not concern you at all that the denial of ACD within the Republican Party appears to be part of a much wider ultra-Conservative bias that results in the denial of abortion and evolution? You will note here (if you have succumbed to Rita Pidley’s distractions) that I have indeed come a long way from my former evangelical Christian days (although I think I gave up on Young Earth Creationism at about the age of 7).
I would love to hear about all this ‘Big Oil’ money pouring into CRU – what the hell was that for? Whatever it was, rather than investing in sustainable fuels (such as biogas, WfE, and algal biofuel), they are putting far more of their obscene profiteering from environmental rape into denying responsibility for ACD.
You are right to highlight the lack of accounting for positive feedback mechanisms (which Lindzen says do not exist) in the IPCC’s AR4: This is why things are going pear-shaped faster than expected.
Biello, D (2007), ‘Conservative Climate: Consensus document may understate the climate change problem’, Scientific American, March 18, 2007.
I don’t know about glaciations in the Alps (I have not looked into it), but I have trekked to Everest Base Camp in the Himalayas; and I could not help noticing that there is no evidence that glaciations there has ever much less – or even slightly more – extensive than it was 100 years ago; whereas there is now a great deal of photographic evidence to show very significant losses in ice volume have occurred in the last 90 years.
For your information, Owlbrudder has now posted a response to my 17 rhetorical statements demonstrating why Lindzen has not responded – because for him to have done so he would have to have exposed to the World that he is lost in a pit of denial from which death is likely to be his only escape.
I hope you have (had) a good day too.
For the avoidance of any doubt, this is not a death threat – it is merely a statement of my belief that – even if shamed into admitting he is guilty of repetitive poor performance – Lindzen will never recant from the ideological prejudice that drives his need to deny all environmental problems.
Judith – Can you please edit my long post – and remove one of the two quotation marks at the end of each URL. If you do this, all of them should then work. Thanks in anticipation. Martin.
Martin,
It’s more than plausible that recent warming has influenced the glaciers but linking all of that to AGW is certainly not justified. That can be seen from this figure from the infamous IPCC WG2 chapter on Himalayan glaciers.
http://ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/figure-10-6.html
I don’t refer to this figure to discuss the error, but to point out, what’s really shown there. Looking at the estimated extent of the glacier since 1780 you can see that the retreat is a old phenomenon. There may be some sign of acceleration, but the rate has varied also in the past so much that even this evidence is rather weak.
The same is true for the Alps, for Kilimanjaro, etc.
You write also “we would not be in the mess that we are today”, but are we really in an obvious mess today, and if we are, is the mess more an issue of economy than an issue of environment?
There are valid reasons for being worried. Those reasons are seen differently by different people. Personally I’m worried about the climate change, but I cannot see, how it could threaten the whole human species. I see real possibilities of severe consequences, but nothing severe enough to justify fatalism or panicky reactions. If major actions are, indeed, needed they must be based on a realistic comparison of costs and benefits, where also costs may well be environmental or affect severely human well-being.
The climate change is not the only important issue and quite possibly not even very close to the top of that list.
Pekka – thanks for that reply.
Why is that when Satellites recently found that over 500 billion tons of land ice is melting worldwide every year, the newspaper headlines just focussed on the Himalayas (which are fairly static at the moment due to global dimming)?
Martin,
This is again one set of observations. That adds to our knowledge. To me it’s rather obvious that CO2 is playing an important role in the warming and that warming leads to more melting. It’s also obvious that all this is going to have negative consequences.
All the above is intuitively pretty clear and there’s also quite a lot scientific evidence for that.
But then we have the “but”. Attempts to draw more precise conclusions meet severe problems. According to the IPCC reports the uncertainty in the rate of warming is large – for the same amount of CO2 the high estimates are several times higher than the low estimates. Some scientists (fully respected scientists) claim that IPCC is too careful and not willing to state that the reality may be even worse while others consider the IPCC range to be rather on the high side. Many recent publications seem to support this second view, while it has been also claimed that the first view has got new support. I must say that what I have read from recent science has been more on the side telling that the high estimates are unnecessarily pessimistic, but that’s only my impression.
So we have the but on the strength of the warming. The next but is on the consequences of warming. Here we have the interpretation of the glacier retreat, but more significantly we have issues related to effects on people. On these issues the state of science is much worse than on the climate itself. Climatic phenomena have led to severe problems in some areas, but similar phenomena have occurred before and nobody can really tell the role of AGW in that. I’ll not go deeper in that, but this is really a source of much uncertainty.
The final and perhaps most important but is related to policies. If we want to reduce CO2 emissions to a really significant degree, very strong policies are needed. Unfortunately any strong policy has side effects, and it’s not at all uncommon that the side effects turn out to be more severe than what’s ultimately achieved on the target of the policies. We cannot afford so serious errors on really strong policies, and that’s the big but. That’s what I meant when I wrote the words panicky reactions.
This is a complex issue that builds up over decades. While the argument that delayed actions are less effective than immediate is true the additional knowledge that we are going to have has the opposite effect and this effect is certainly larger whenever the early actions are as badly understood as all strong policies are right now.
You get a lot of respect from me, Pekka, when you write stuff like this. Now, when you finally realize that the warming gives net benefits, it will all fall into place for you, science and policy, guilt free at last.
========================
Pekka – I think you will find your “wait and see” argument has now been comprehensively rebutted by William Nordhaus (2 March 2012). Skeptical Science have a nice summary but, in effect, the choice appears to be do we want to spend $US 35 Trillion or $US 70 Trillion dollars on ACD mitigation/adaptation and damage repairs?
Please don’t spend too long thinking about it though.
Martin,
As a matter of practical reality, “wait and see” is exactly what is going to happen no matter what the developed world does. India and China are on an unstoppable path of a much higher CO2 output per capita than the developed world today.
Your current approach of alienating all but the most die hard of fellow ideologues does more to further the policies of “wait and see” than it does to prevent it.
It comes down to this – huge known amounts on vastly more expensive energy, guaranteed to bring mass poverty; or imaginary amounts (al la Nordhaus) based on ideological commitment to an uncertain science that is also known to be riddled with fraud.
Please don’t spend too long thinking about it though.
Martin,
There are many options between pure “wait and see” and “do as much as you can even totally stupid things”. All these options are more difficult, but those must be analyzed before wise decisions can be made. I’m sure that Nordhaus agrees on that. I have read so much of his writing that I’m confident on that.
Kim,
I have a similar feeling to what Pekka said, and what you said.
Thanks, Gil. There it is. He’ll figure it out. He’s a bright boy.
===================
@martin lack
500 billion tons sounds like a lot of ice. But when we come to look at your referenced article, Figure 2 helpfully translates this into the resultant worldwide sealevel rise. Of 60 mm in 20 years. 3mm per year. An inch every 8 years. Which is a rate of about a foot in a century. And pretty much the same as has been happening for a couple of hundred years. (Tonyb will correct me if I am dramatically wrong here)
Now, best will in the world, I really really cannot believe that a rise of a foot in 100 years is going to bring about the end of civilisation as we know it…or anything approaching it.
I regularly walk across many of the bridges of London, and I see the river wall showing low water and high water marks. At London Bridge the tidal range is 14 feet every 6 hours. In Bristol it is approaching 40. We know how to handle this stuff. It isn’t difficult and it certainly isn’t urgent..
Please explain exactly how this entirely unexceptional rise in sealevel will have all the dread consequences you seem to be so frightened of. Or do you agree with me that the article really should be entitled
‘Satellites find global warming leads to only a foot rise in sealevel per century. No cause for alarm as we know we can cope’?
I think the purported cause for alarm is that, according to Hansen, “when there have been warmings of several degrees Celsius, which is what we will get if we will follow business as usual, the earth lost more than half of its species.” I think Hansen is wrong, misleading, or even misrepresenting the facts here as there have been many warmings of “several degrees” C without mass extinction events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zi12lZIdGjQ
@ 1:20.
Furthermore, Hansen implies in “storms..” that our current course will vaporize all of the water on the planet in a few centuries.
This, to me, is the very proof that the alarmist view of AGW is not “consensus” as Hansen seems to be very much out there on the fringe.
I am not saying that Hansen’s views are not worthy of investigation, just that they hardly represent a consensus or that they represent “settled” science.
@john kosowski
Hansen says:
‘our current course will vaporize all of the water on the planet in a few centuries’
Last time I looked the BP of water at STP was about 373K. We are currently at about 285K +/- a few. That’s a heck of a lot of warming needed (85K) in just ‘a few centuries’. Say 20K per century for 4 centuries.
Has anybody recently done the sum again for the amount of warming expected if we burn all the fossil fuel that exists? Didn’t come out to anywhere near that IIRC.
But since the world will already have come to an end if it goes up by 2K from the absolutely ideal and perfect pre-industrial 283K to the completely uninhabitable 286K in the next 100 years, we will not be around to worry about it.
But, it must be going to happen, despite practical considerations, since, according to Martin Lack, Hansen proved all climate science to be unquestionably true in 1988. What a clever guy he must be!
(Hansen I mean, not Lack)
latimer,
A Lacis asked a question to the effect why is it that meteorologists, who do not study the theory of climatehave so many doubts about climate change?
That made me wonder of the reverse: Why is that climatologists, who study so little of actual weather, find that we are experiencing to be so unusual? I believe that meteorologists, geologists, engineers, etc.- people who actually have to deal with the world as it is and deal with the consequences of being wrong- are much more likely to have a haelthy understanding of claimte related issues that are AGW true believers, promoters or profiteers.
Kim,
Don’t hold your breath.
… Satellites recently found that [] land ice is melting worldwide every year [but] the Himalayas [] are fairly static at the moment due to global dimming …
So why does global dimming only affect the Himalayas ?
Florrie,
Perhaps it is because of all the secret monk keys that exist in the land of Shangri-La, the home of outcome based education.
For the geographically challenged, the Himalaya are below 30N.
So the answer to Florrie’s question: “So why does global dimming only affect the Himalayas?” is… yes that’s right…
For the same reason global warming is having most impact (so far) at the poles.
As I have said before: Next please!
Is that your substitute for having a reason for still being “sceptical” about ACD?
I don’t even have to pretend not to understand it, I genuinely have no idea how you are trying to insult me, but I am sure that you are.
Even when I was a teenager, my skin was to dry for me to have spots; and that is now 30 years ago.
Next please.
So, that would be very thin, dry, skin for the past thirty years Martin? Sorry to hear it.
Martin,
Where is all this coming from? I mean, here you are talking to some imaginary person about some sort of imaginary insult while having no idea about how that imaginary person is trying to insult you. And then there’s all that (kinda creepy) business about your skin being dry and “spot” (on this side of the pond we call them “zits”) free.
This is crazy talk, Martin.
“For the geographically challenged, the Himalaya are below 30N”.
For the literacy- and clarity-challenged, the original comment neglected to mention that the other land ice referred to was not at those latitudes.
He’s awfully polished for stupid and ugly, eh?
================
Over on Real Climate in the Misrepresentation from Lindzen thread I posted this:
Diverging between the Global temperature and the AMO in the 1960s from the previously and subsequently strong correlation (graph 2)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GT-AMO.htm
needs clarification.
They found it offensive and it was deleted, can’t see why, unless of course there is indeed something questionable in 1960s data.
Chris ?
I can’t really see what your point is, or why it should be relevant to the topic of Lindzen’s talk.
snipped. off topic for this thread. put it on week in review, or denizens thread. – JC
Martin and Pete – hooray! A genyewine groundwater enhancement challenge of the amber-colored variety! Well, this engineer wouldn’t contribute similar material if your credentials were on fire.
Amusing and revealing those who think by “reference” only. What’s their ultimate authority? The Bible?
Too much referencing make the loonies forget that SCIENCE IS COMMON SENSE, ARMED WITH FACTS. Thus they think that, as long as they quote, they have reasoned. But they did not. All sorts of fascists do exactly that: quote, refer, defer… Reasoning by themselves, not an option…
Tornadoes result from sharp differences between Arctic and Tropical air. Because of the Coriolis effect, the collision of these masses create angular momentum. Tornadoes are basically free range Carnot engines. The USA are more often victims of tornadoes because the Middle West, an ancient sea is flat, devoid of none of the mountain ranges the rest of the world has in this latitudes (Australia has an ocean between itself and the pole, not so the American Mid west).
As the Gulf of Mexico warms up, the air rising from there is ever more energetic. Whereas the North Pole, although melting, is still cold, like any block of ice on its way out.
Thus ever more energetic tropical air meets with roughly as cold as ever Arctic air. Thus, more tornadoes. Reference? Myself, and the pure logic deployed above.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Nice one, Patrice.
I should like to draw attention to the near co-incidence of yet more record-breaking tornado strikes in Oklahoma and the impending release of Senator James Inhofe’s new book:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/27/432986/james-inhofe-climate-conspiracy-statereels-from-record-heat/
Therefore, I wonder how many in this forum would now agree that:
1. Sen. Inhofe deserves to be unseated because he is clearly not representing the interests of those in his constituency; and
2. He should cancel the publication and sell all the stock to the Tea Party movement so that they have something to destroy at their next anti-intellectual book-burning ceremony?
Heh, for Inhofe the bread turned miraculously to roses
============
…conspiracy theory: You simply cannot dismiss the conclusions reached by all but a handful of genuine climate scientists any other way.
A cretinous comment indeed. These ‘genuine’ scientists are all state shills, who we know from Climategate etc have repeatedly been caught lying, hiding data, sabotaging peer-review, etc etc, in order to advance their paymaster’s vested interests. No real disciplinary action has been taken against them, and scarely a murmur of concern has been voiced from the climate science rank and file. Indeed the only response has been coverup after coverup.
This ‘consensus’ has not shred of integrity left, and only a complete moron would accept their conclusions. Or someone of neo-religious makeup, who shares the underlying heavily ideological motivations that drive these deceptions in the first place.
( And as far as the ridiculous and tired old “conspiracy” strawman dragged out above in utter desperation – yet again – is concerned, you don’t need a conspiracy for an organisation to pursue its own interests; that’s just normal behavour. Here, government scientists advance the CAGW thesis, whose acceptance would massively boost the state’s interests; no Nobel prizes for spotting the connection. Indeed you’d be be amazed if this did nothappen – now that would require a conspiracy. ).
Hey Spunksta,
If you can recall that far, I think it was your attempts to merely contradict me without any evidence to support your position (3 times) that resulted in you being banned from my site. You may do so here as many times as you like but do not expect me to reply further.
‘Spunksta’. Another huge witticism from Lack.
But I think my granddaughter is to young for that one at only 6. Ditto the Chuckle Brothers. Try a teenage mag for pubescent boys. They’ll find it hilarious.
Otherwise grow up.
Hey Lacklustre
Yes I do recall you banned me because you had – and still have – no answers to speak of.
Nope, the problems are (1) you don’t understand the question or (2) you don’t actually receive the answer. a.k.a. ineffective communication.
Still no answers I see.
JC
Could we have Part II for Lindzen’s seminar?
Currently it is too long and it is too slow on our computers for browsing.
will do
I use Google Chrome, and on long posts like this it’s blindingly fast in comparison with IE and FF.
Also, page searches are virtually instantaneous, even on very long pages.
I don’t think “NASA-GISS Data Manipulation” claim by Lindzen is correct.
This is because the current GISTEMP LOTI trend is nearly identical to that of HADCRUT3 as shown => http://bit.ly/w337Nb
They both have a long-term global warming rate of 0.6 deg C per century.
If it were adjusted according Lindzen’s claim of +0.14 deg C per century, GISTEMP would have had a warming rate of 0.74 deg C per century.
The tearful, self-elevating wrath of the truebeliever.
“great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing”
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Much of my comment of March 7 at 2:23 pm. that was “ .. snipped. off topic for this thread. put it on week in review, or denizens thread. – JC .. ” will be posted to “The denizens of Climate Etc” (http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/12/the-denizens-of-climate-etc/) as Professor Curry suggested. Out of respect for Professor Curry all of my comments about CACC evangelist Martin Lack and his ilk will now be posted there as they have no place on this thread about the highly respected CACC sceptic Professor Richard Lindzen or any other thread concerning the science.
Herewith part of that “snipped” comment that I think is still on-topic here QUOTE:
Hi Dan (Hughes – ref. March 7 at 11:07 am.) I have no arguments with what you say but would simply add that those who designed the models and tweak them in order to get the desired output have no intention of letting independent and professional Verification, Validation and Test practitioners undertaken any VV&T procedures on those models. I wonder if anyone can guess why!
UNQUOTE.
Hi Patrice (ref. March 7 at 7:28 pm) there are plenty who would challenge your argument that “ .. that SCIENCE IS COMMON SENSE, ARMED WITH FACTS .. ”, one being Einstein “ .. Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before your reach eighteen .. ”. “ .. Common sense intuitions serve as the basis for making sense of the world: .. While it is a necessary element of human cognition, common sense can nevertheless lead us astray if we are unaware of its contours and limitations .. ” (http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1780828).
You may find enlightening “THE CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND COMMON SENSE AND WHY IT IS INEVITABLE” by Stephen J. Noren, which “ .. is an investigation of the view … that there is an unbridgeable gap between science and common sense .. ” (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2041-6962.1975.tb01238.x/abstract). If that’s too heavy for you then try this “Science and common sense” (http://lclane2.net/commonsense2.html)
Wasn’t it “common sense, armed with the facts” of the day, that led to the conclusion that:
– the Earth is the centre of the Universe,
– the Earth is flat?
Best regards, Pete Ridley
@martin lack
Just wondered if you were still here, or if you had been called away on urgent business to No 10 Downing Street, MIT or The White House?
The following questions from me are still outstanding for your attention;
1. Why it is OK for (say) the WWF to pay its authors/press officers, but a major scandal (in your mind) if Conservative Think Tanks do so?
2. Impact of an 8-12 inches sea level rise over the course of a century?
From others:
1. Relevance of Himalayas being below 30N to ‘global dimming’ discussion
2. Real current observed impact of ‘climate change’. Lack of dreadful effects
There are probably many others, but I just thought it was worth recording these few.
Just to comment also that I also glanced at your blog this morning. It seems pretty static in the comments section (apart from those posted by your self). Perhaps you have finally succeeded in having banned/turned off all commentators who just might be interested in an exchange. Good for you! A Prophet with zero followers is effective indeed!
But I did notice one glaring error that you might choose to correct (with due acknowledgement to me of course).
Your latest thread (though so far without any comments) is entitled
‘Is there an up-side to an ice-free Antarctica?’
and then you proceed to write at length about the Arctic and Alaska. Even in the wildest dreamings of the most rabid ubergreenist, an Ice-Free Antarctica is not on the cards.
And I would have expected one who so regularly throws his weight around on geographical matters (‘“For the geographically challenged, the Himalaya are below 30N”.) to know the difference
@Latimer, passim
Lack in hiding?
It’s just his way of resolutely not facing up the facts that
– governments have a massive vested interest in CAGW being believed
– governments are also the source of funding for CAGW thinking, outspending everyone else in climate science by numerous order of magnitude
– this CAGW government climate science is riddled with secrecy and fraud, for which – barring the odd dissenter – no remorse or disciplining has been forthcoming. All we have had is coverups. Its credibility is thus zero or thereabouts.
Climate science credibility is the square root of a negative number. All they got is Arrhenius, who imagined two different numbers at two different times.
============
Judith, you wrote :
There has been a doubling of equivalent CO2 over the past 150 years” Not exactly sure what that means, perhaps equivalent means also CH4, etc? This does not seem correct.
If one counts up all the forcings for well-mixed GHGs, using the NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, the greenhouse gas (GHG) radiative forcing (compared to 1750) in 2010 was 2.81 W/m2.
That is only 76% of the way to doubled CO2-equivalent (3.7W/m^2), so it seems that you are right and Lindzen is indeed incorrect on his statement.
Still, if we grant him some slack (what is -0.9 W/m^2 between friends), then his other statements on page 4 sound convincing, including this one :
Indeed the actual warming is consistent with less than 1C warming for a doubling.
Which, combined with the first statement, seems to suggests that Lindzen finds that a doubling of CO2 is consistent with only 1 C temperature increase.
But it seems that there is more that Lindzen ‘forgot’ on this slide 4 :
For example, it seems that he completely ignores aerosols.
With aerosols estimated between -0.4 and -2.5 watts/m^2, with some -1.2 w/m^2 being most probable (approximate AR4 uncertainty range, direct plus indirect effects), this seems to be a major oversight by Lindzen.
Besides, heat capacity (oceans mostly) will surely cause a delay in response as well. AFAIK, heat uptake by the oceans is currently at some 0.6 W/m^2 (ARGO float best estimate for oceanic heat uptake) which also should be deducted.
Now we are some (0.9 + 1.2 + 0.6) = 2.7 W/m^2 lower than Lindzen’s 3.7 “There has been a doubling of equivalent CO2 over the past 150 years” estimate, which leaves us with about 1.0 W/m^2 forcing, responsible for 0.8 C increase in temperature.
That would imply that in reality, the “actual warming” observed is consistent with a climate sentitivity of about 2.96 C per doubling (which is remarkably close to the IPCC mean estimate), rather than the 1 C that Lindzen is suggesting here.
So where Lindzen suggests that observations are consistent with 1 C increase in temperature for a doubling of CO2, in reality observations match the IPCC mean climate sensitivity quite nicely.
And this was presented to UK MPs ?
Who organized this deceptive presentation ?
Hi Rob Dekker (ref. March 9, 2012 at 4:11 am.) I refer you to my comments of March 6, 2012 at 8:22 am. and March 7, 2012 at 6:59 am
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Rob said
‘And this was presented to UK MPs ? Who organized this deceptive presentation ?’
Sorry, are you talking about Al Gores presentation to British MP’s in 2006 including to our then Prime Minister Gordon Brown and our current one David Cameron? Two years after this the Climate change act was produced setting legal limits for Co2 emissions.
Oh, I see you’re actually talking about Lindzens rather irrelevant and somewhat amateurish presentation to a much more general audience than Al Gore addressed.
Perhaps you might like to persuade the British High Court to do a ruling on Lindzens presentation as they did in 2007 on Gores multi million ‘an inconvenient truth’ which had nine scientific errors?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7037671.stm
Or is it OK for Al Gore to use his dubious material with our then Prime Minister and our current one, but not for Lindzen to address an audience that included none of the decision making elite?
tonyb
Dust mote, hockey beam.
================
tonyb | March 9, 2012 at 5:10 am
” Lindzens rather irrelevant and somewhat amateurish presentation”
Well, yes. But Lindzen isn’t supposed to be an amateur. He’s the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT.
Now, Al Gore, there is a pro.
====================
Nick
I dare say if this presentation took place in a suitably equipped meeting room and to a more formal agenda and to a more specific audience it would have been highly polished.
However, having said that being a Professor doesn’t automatically make you good at public speaking does it? There are very few people I can think of on either side who stage compelling public presentations, can you?
tonyb
It’s worth remembering that the British High Court ruling went against the plaintiff who was trying to prevent AIT being shown in British schools.
It is worth remembering the long list of caveats and corrections which the BHC required to be appended to ‘A Convenient Untruth’.
========================
Gee, Tony.
If Lindzen’s presentation was “irrelevant”, and “none of the decsions making elite” was present, then why did Lindzen fly out there in the first place ? And why was the meeting in a room of the House of Commons ?
And why then would Lindzen risk further damage to his already brused scientific reputation by making a huge (factor of 3) mistake in his core argument on climate sensitivity, as well as a total lack of evidence to back up his conclusions ?
Not to mention the unfounded and disingenuous (and that is very nicely worded) attempt to discredit GISS records.
After this, and his previous embarrassing scientific blunders (like counting black-body radiation as a negative feedback and then trumpet the results on international news networks as “the end of the AGW scam”), I don’t see how we can take him scientifically anymore serious than the chairman of this meeting.
The questions have made it to youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=69kmPGDh1Gs
As you can see, Martin gets his chance, makes a statement about Milankovitch cycles, and Lindzen debunks it. However, Martin doesn’t let Lindzen finish. Lindzen was about to cite Roe who compared the Milankovitch factors to time rate of change of ice volume. I cited Roe earlier on this page and even another video of Lindzen explaining Roe’s results.
Martin gets his chance at about 5:30
As usual, a picture is worth a thousand words. Martin, you need to scratch your forehead rather than finger your chin. You want to stimulate the cerebral cortices, not your guts.
==============
John
The sound quality is quite problematic. I think you needed to be there.
tonyb
Yesterday, a fellow CACC denier the Rev. Philip Foster, who had helped organise what supporters of the CACC religion might consider to be that blasphemous presentation by Professor Lindzen on CACC denial E-mailed me a link to the A/V of the Q&A session of that devil-worshipping gathering in the Houses of Parliament (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69kmPGDh1Gs). Our resident CACC evangelist declared in his first comment here “ .. I was there. .. i was prevented from actually asking a question. … ” (http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-178256)
Another disciple of the CACC devil, Barry Woods dared to suggest that the resident CACC evangelist had lied, saying “ .. why misrepresent what happened. You initially asked a very long question… publically.. ” (http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-178872).
SO, who was telling us the “truth”, was it the CACC evangelist or the CACC denier.
What does that A/V show us?
From 3:07mins. A UK MEP was given 1 minute in which he genuinely started with a question then went on to mention to an European initiative to put a stop to the EU’s damaging plans for promoting renewable energy in the name of taking over Mother Nature’s job of controlling the different global climates.
Immediately afterward, from 05:30 mins. our resident CACC evangelist was allowed over 2 minutes to put his question but he instead used it to evangelise. Professor Lindzen spent almost 2 minutes responding to the CACC evangelist who then tried to continue with his sermon despite having taken up over 4 minutes of 30 minute Q&A session. At 09:18 you can see Rev. Foster checking his watch, just as the chairman saw fit at 09:14 mins. to cut the evangelising short and give others a chance to ask their questions, emphasising that “ .. we only have a few more minutes left for questions. We’re going to take SHORT questions.
There followed from 09:26 mins. a 30 second question about the error in Professor Lindzen’s 2009 paper (se my comment of March 7, 2012 at 6:59 am.) which were corrected in Lindzen’s 2011 paper. Professor Lindzen made no bones about the embarrassment of making such a mistake but isn’t that what genuine scientists do? It’s only the charlatans
From 11:50 1 minute was allowed for Peter Lillie to put his question. Lillie is one of only 3 UK MP’s who in 2008 had the sense to speak out against the Climate Change Bill (http://www.peterlilley.co.uk/article.aspx?id=10&ref=1306) and one of the few UK MPs to know what he’s talking about, having studied Physics at that esteemed educational institution that gives its staunch support to the CACC hypothesis, the University of Cambridge.
In summary, during that 27 minute Q&A session (which had to end promptly to allow the next scheduled meeting (of the 22 committee) to go ahead as planned, there was time for about 11 questions, and guess who was given the most time – our resident CACC evangelist, who was allowed about twice as much time as anyone else. (NOT TO BE SENT other comments at 11:25 – 11:48; 13:39-13:54; 15:54-16:06; 17:53-18:54 + his 30 sec. response; 19:42-20:21; 23:34-23:57 & 24:46-24:50; 25:54-26:01).
At 23:30 the resident CACC evangelist tried to get on his soap box again but thankfully the chairman gave the floor to others.
As a youngster I was brainwashed by my mother and the schools into believing that I was a Christian. I recall being told repeatedly things like “Beware false prophets” and the 9th Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness”. These things stick, don’t they Martin!.
Perhaps you expected me to tremble at your pronouncement that I was “ a disgrace to humanity .. ”. Instead I refer you to “THE PARABLE OF THE SPECK AND THE PLANK” (http://www.cultwatch.com/Devotional38.html).
If anyone feels that I have misrepresented the truth here then please let me know how and I’ll consider whether a retraction and apology are warranted.
Hi Tony (Brown) – ref. March 9, 2012 at 5:10 am. – the court judge mentioned only 9 of the many errors in Al Gore’s CACC-propaganda movie. The chairman of the 22nd Feb. meeting when Professor Londzen gave his presentation (and Martin Lack was allowed over 2 minutes in which to put his question) Lord Monckton identified “35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie” (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html).
BTW, there were several in the audience at that meeting who I have exchanged opinions with on the blogs and I’d love to be able to put a face to their names. Can any of you who attended the meeting identify yourselves or others in the audience. At 03:09 and 9:28 mins you can just see my bushy eye-brows pointed your way.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
I have just listened to the Q and A (see post at 6.23 by John) after listening to the actual presentation several days ago. Consequently I am now able to put Martin Lacks comments about being prevented from asking a question into a better context.
As I said above, I found the sound itself to be problematic ,The room doesn’t seem to have the ideal acoustics to make a presentation in. However, Martin can be heard to make a long and somewhat rambling question (about 5 mins 30) before getting to the point. Lindzen answered quite well and was obviously about to say more when Martin started to interrupt him .
Monckton quite rightly pointed out the time constraints (and perhaps thinking Martin had already had one big bite of the cherry) and moved the questioning on.
I can not see that Martin can complain that Lindzen did not answer his question. I listened up to about 12 minutes. Were there any other highlights from him or other warmists it is worth tuning into? Is there a transcript available?
tonyb
Tony,
If you want to hear what Lindzen was going to say before Martin cut him off, watch this clip:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-179858
Regarding the sound in the q&a, I have no problem listening to it on my end. Maybe something is up with your computer?
John
Thanks for this. I thought his presentation much more impressive there than the house of Commons one, standing at a podium in this manner works much better.
I plugged in my best set of headphones-the sound quality is ok but the acoustics are not good and the room has an echoing quality to it.
I thought Martin got a very fair crack of the whip and I liked the way Lindzen put him at his ease with his geologists crack-Martin seemed quite nervous, which is possibly why his question was not succinctly framed.
tonyb
tonyb – How many times do I have to say this? I had a prepared question:
“Concern over anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is based on the study of palaeoclimatology, not on computer modelling. However, models have helped to predict the atmospheric response to greenhouse gas emissions; and any uncertainties in model predictions have been due to uncertainties in emissions projections. Therefore, when reviewed retrospectively (choosing the most appropriate emissions scenario that reflects what actually happened to emissions), the models are demonstrably very accurate (if they include all climate forcings). Given all of this, why is it that you maintain that we have no reason to be concerned?”
As the context for my question was missing, I had to state it first. Therefore, I did not get to ask my question!
And yes, I was very nervous. I think you would have been too (if put in that situation).
Martin
Are you saying that your long exposition was merely leading up to a question and you would then have taken another thirty seconds to get to the point? You had a very fair crack of the whip bearing in mind there was a schedule to keep to.
Yes I would have been nervous to, but you got a better answer than I did from dr Iain Stewart when I asked him a sceptic type question after a talk he gave at Southampton university. He suggested we ask it in person once the meeting had finished thereby avoiding having to answer it in open session.
Will wait and see if we are engulfed by lindzengate, all the best
Tonyb
@martin lack
You had a prepared question. In 2 minutes ‘airtime’ you failed to ask it.
This is not you being ‘prevented’ from asking it. This is you being incompetent.
Plenty of others had other questions that they were interested in asking and got no airtime at all. You wasted yours and stole the opportunity from those guys.
Face it – you blew your big chance bigtime. There is no escape from blaming your own ineptitude.
tonyb, Yes. Like I said, with the benefit of hindsight, I could not have expected to turn the talk into a debate. I made a good effort of making a clear (unrehearsed) statement. The only reason I interrupted Lindzen is because I felt he was merely trying to cover-over what I said with some fine-sounding words. They may have impressed JohnK but they did not impress me. As people have said on my own blog, he was filling-in time while Lord Monckton loaded the torpedoes to sink me once-and-for-all.
Latimer – Unlike everyone just about else in the room who had come to venerate their now fallen idol, I had come to the meeting in the hope of getting some sense out of Professor Lindzen. We both failed to deliver.
Ineptitude doesn’t come into play at all; and quite what Lindzen was doing has yet to be determined…
Martin,
If that’s the case then everybody knew already Lindzen’s position in the debate. Those who wished to hear support for their own views knew that they are going to have that and you and perhaps a few others knew that you are not going to agree with him. Everyone could happily keep his or her views intact. Questions and answers to questions had no change of changing that.
So basically we have Martin restating a theory on how CO2 drives temperature in between Milankovitch cycles as if it is a “fact.” However, he states it as a thermostat metaphor rather than just stating specifics. Talking metaphorically is more useful when talking to the general public, but I am not sure I would do it with a scientist. Then Martin just proclaims that he finds it “bizarre” that Lindzen didn’t mention it.
Now this is where LIndzen’s style is the masterful oozing of scientific “gravitas” that Judith Curry mentioned above. This is regardless of whether you subscribe to his conclusions.
Lindzen just calmly states “I don’t think there is any case to be made for that.” It is worth listening to that one line alone because of the way he says it.
Then Lindzen starts to explain the Roe finding, but Martin, a bit rudely, cuts him off before he finished the explanation.
Martin was polite and nervous, the latter of which is very understandable.
tonyb – Lindzen interrupted me first – almost certainly because he knew what I was going to say if he did not. He therefore started trying to claim that Roe (2006) refuted what I had just said. However, Roe (2006) says:
“…variations in melting precede variations in CO2. Thus, the relatively small amplitude of the CO2 radiative forcing and the absence of a lead over dV/dt both suggest that CO2 variations play a relatively weak role in driving changes in global ice volume compared to insolation variations. This certainly does not rule out CO2 as a primary cause of tropical or other climate variations, or of the apparent synchronization of the ice-age signal between hemispheres”.
To me, none of this could have been – or can be – used to refute what I had just stated is the consensus view, which was that:
“…because natural change is temperature-driven, we can be sure that unnatural change now being driven by CO2 will cause temperature change because radiative energy balance must always be restored…”.
In other words, I was pointing out the completely false premise of Lindzen’s entire presentation – namely that global warming alarmism is all based on unreliable models. This is why Lindzen and Monckton therefore conspired to shut me up.
Standby for Lindzengate to hit town. It’s gonna be awesome!
I have just realised who the resident CACC evangelist reminded me of. About three years ago I was engaged in exchanges on the CACC hypothesis on the forum of Australian Senator Steve Fielding with another and CACC believer Ross Brisbane (http://www.facebook.com/people/Ross-Brisbane/776118965) who, like Martin, was convinced that he had a direct line to the “truth”. Ross’s obsession wrt CACC was those “tipping points” (mentioned during the Q&A session with Professor Lindzen) which Ross never ceased going on about. No doubt Martin will pick up on that one before long. The similarities are striking.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Hi Tony (Brown) – ref. March 9, 2012 at 7:03 am. – I, like John (Kosowski) have no problem with the sound although I did have difficulty hearing what was said by questioners (and Martin) during the actual live meeting on the 22nd Feb. because there were no mics. for the audience. Lndzen’s presentation came across fine whenever he used his mic properly but he frequently lay back away from it (in his usual relaxed manner) or turned away to face the projector.
Proferssor Lindzen was unable to answer Martin’s question because Martin did not put a question to Professor Lindzen. All that he did was to waste the opportunity by ranting for more than a couple of minutes. Lord Monckton did the right thing to refuse him more time when he interrupted Professor Lindzen and also refused to let him jump in again at 23:30 minutes. After Martin’s initial rant both Lord Monckton and the Rev. Foster can be seen looking at their watches out of concern for the time that he had taken away from the others of us who wanted to raise questions rather than make points.
I’ve E-mailed Philip Foster asking if a transcript is available and will let you know.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
You might notice that Martin acknowledges in that video at 05:38 mins into the Q&A session that it was Rev. Philip Foster who invited him to the meeting. Philip has just sent me a link to an interesting article “The high priests of global warming have lost their prestige and the realsists are winning the debate” by Martin’s nemesis James Dellingpole. James talks about his scheduled 10-minute CACC Q&A slot on LBC, a talk radio for current affairs and news affecting London. James was so popular the slot was extended to I hour and I love this comment QUOTE: .. There was one big problem though: “We can hardly find ANYONE who disagrees with you,” whispered the show’s host, Julia Hartley-Brewer .. UNQUOTE.
As James said “ .. we card-carrying Satanic “deniers” are so used to being vilified at every turn it really feels kind of weird suddenly to be in tune with the popular mood .. ”.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I would love to have the opportunity to debate the science of global warming with a self-confessed, scientifically-illiterate, graduate of English Literature. It would be hysterical. Unfortunately, the only way that Delingpole is able to deal with me is via the use of sarcasm. Many here have clearly learnt well from their Master.
I think I did well to juxtapose my critique of Delingpole with that of Mark Lynas because, whereas mine may be seen as being quite funny, Lynas’ is much more aggressive. Why not take a look and tell me what you think? Both quotes can be found at:
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/be-strong-and-courageous/
However, to avoid any further pedantism, please note I have now acknowledged my complete miscontrual of your calling me ‘Joshua’ (the whole thing having been a weird coincidence).
No ‘Master’ to me, young Lack.
I was doing sarcasm when he was in nappies.
Ah well, my apologies for being so presumptuous. You see, James and I are the same age but, if you are older (James and I would have been in nappies 45 years ago, so that makes you at least 55?), that may explain a lot: Forgive me for not having the data to hand but, there are surveys that have been done that show that, just as climate change “scepticism” is very rare amongst people in poor countries already suffering adverse consequences; it is disproportionately more common amongst the more senior members of more affluent and insulated societies.
Martin, without using hearsay e.g. By providing peer reviewed studies, please give us some examples of these countries suffering adverse consequences through agw
Tonyb
@martin lack
Your point is what exactly?
That ‘senior members’ of more affluent societies are lucky enough to likely be better educated, have had a wider and more diverse set of experiences in their life and may have a bit of leisure time and to study and reflect upon all the enviro-scare stories that they have somehow, despite all the warnings, lived through? Acid rain. pesticides, CJD, DDT, the ozone layer, the next Ice Age and all the other dooms that were awaiting us unless e immediately changed our evil ways.
And that when they do so, they see that CAGW is – like all the others – a scare built upon not very much at all?
If that is indeed your point, then I agree with you.
tonyb – I know that New Scientist is not a peer-reviewed journal but this is, nonetheless, real news about real people who are already living with the reality of anthropogenic climate disruption:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928015.300-a-country-with-no-time-for-climate-change-scepticism.html
Consider all the famines and food shortages in Sudan and Kenya last year; and now across the Sahel region of sub-Saharan West Africa: In the late 60’s and early 70’s, many right-wing politicans criticised people like Paul and Anne Ehrlich and the Club of Rome (itself a bunch of plutocrats) for writing stuff like The Population Bomb and Limits to Growth but, far from being proven wrong, history is now proving them right… Leaving aside the market distortions and perpetuation of dependency caused by the CAP flooding world markets with subsidised produce, there are far too many people living in areas that cannot support their numbers; and ACD will only make matters worse.
Denial has not worked – our problems have just grown bigger.
Martin
Population growth is a serious problem in such countries, and as such this also potentially ruins habitats, so I have no doubt that they are locally changing the climate/environment, but its nothing to do with co2. You need to demonstrate these climate disruptions are caused by mans co2, Quoting a single article does not do that.
Did you know the temperature in Ethiopia hsas been falling?
However its population is now double that at the time of Live Aid. What is more likely to be the cause of famime in such countries? Too many people for its farming intrastructure or too much co2? A regular change of climate can be observed all over the world. I documented numerous examples of it in ‘the long slow thaw?’
by the way, still waiting for your links to papers demonstrating how tree rings can give us accurate global temperatures to fractions of a degree going back hundreds of years..
tonyb
tonyb. Very sorry for repeatedly over-looking your query regarding dendrochronology. I am not sure why you are so suspicious of this line of study but, presumably, it is because it was the first to produce a hockey stick graph.
Contrary to what a Chartered Accountant may have told you, this did not make the the MWP or LIA disappear, it just demonstrated that warming since 1900 has been unprecedented. Furthermore, hockey stick graphs have been replicated using numerous other proxies (such as corals), which is very strongly suggestive of the fact that the unprecedented recent warming is “signal” rather than “noise”.
Please watch this 8-minute video of Lisa Graumlich of the Big Sky Institute in Montana (MSU):
Tree Rings: Counting the years of Global Warming
@martin lack
I watched the video. It is indeed a smart production. Lots of nice pictures of Montana and of earnest scientists going about their business. Nice music in the background.
But, and I was not all surprised to find it – no actual evidence that dendro counting has anything to do with temperature. Just an assertion that it does. See about 5:55 onwards.
And as to your assertion that the Hockey stick didn’t make teh MWP or LIA disappear, I don’t need anybody else to tell me so. I can go back to the original graph and see that it did. I have it in front of me now.
So, Marttin Lack, either you have not seen the paper (in which case more fool you), or you are deliberately misrepresenting what you know to be the case. There is a stronger word for that, too.
For one who makes such a song and dance about Lindzen’s alleged deficiencies, it is hard to not to conclude that you are very good at the ‘Do As I Say’ bit, but your ‘Don’t Do As I Do’ does not stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny. Hypcocrisy and mendacity seem to be your specialities.
Martin
Your 5.37.
I have looked very extesively at Dr Manns work and wrote about it at great length here
.http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/#more-6022
I have also consulted with people who used tree rings and tried to find literature that explains why it is considered so accurate, as it seems a hopeless measure of temperature for reasons you surely know, otherwise you would have quoted me some studies.
I have nver read Andrew Montfords book if that is who you are referring to by saying ‘chartered accountant.’
By the way warming since 1900 is not unprecedented- in the study are a variety of graphs demonstrating this. If you want to see ‘unprecedented’ I suggest you reaearch the period from around 1690 to 1740.
tonyb.
Once again tonyb, I refer you to the post on my blog where I have overlaid Muller’s BEST results on the MBH98 Hockey Stick. The MWP and LIA are still visible as fluctuations in an otherwise slightly declining trend, until 1900, when things began to rapidly warm up. If you continue to dispute that this is what has happened then you are, IMHO, being willfully blind.
Seems to me that the ‘magic’ of dendrochronology could be very easily shown experimentally. Or not.
Just get the dendros to nominate 1000 different sites around the globe which they believe truly reflect examples where temperature – and only temperature – is the driving force for tree ring growth. Attach accurate thermometers to the trees in question (you can solar power them to send back the data by radio).
Wait 10 or 15 years.
Take core samples from all the trees and see if they actually correlate well with temperature.
If they do, triumph! Unquestoniable experimental demo that dendroois the bees knees..at least for that 1000 samples.
And if not, clear evidence that its all a waste of time.
Simples…so why hasn’t anybody done it?
Martin
Yes i have seen your graph.Have you bothered to look at the twenty or so graphs I produced for ‘The long slow thaw’ which included BEST?
There is no evidence the temperature had been declining.for centuries (other than the Hockey stick) See the numerous peer reviewed articles I cited
There is plenty of evidence of great variability. See the peer reviewed studies I cited.
BEST also show this long warming trend that I mention that you seem to omit in your overlay. Also they mention the one third of stations that are cooling worldwide (in contradiction to the IPCC and MET office assertion)
How do you account for those?
tonyb
Latimer, I was thinking more along the lines of.. “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks…”; but would also refer you to my previous answer to tonyb (above).
Let me translate that into English for you.
The ‘more senior’ persons have had longer to develop their BS detector mechanisms and seen more examples to train them with. By about 55 yo they are firing on all cylinders and at the top of their game.
Mine, for example, has been in overdrive since I read this entertaining post and the subsequent discussions that have provided so much amusement in both Latimer Towers and the Dog and Duck
http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/27/lindzens-seminar-at-the-house-of-commons/#comment-178256
tonyb – With respect, I think you need to prove that climate change (i.e. increased frequency of extreme weather events of all kinds and record-breaking costs arising from insured losses) is not being caused by the unprecedentedly-rapid increase of atmospheric CO2 levels since the Industrial Revolution.
In the context of the palaeoclimatic record, a 40% increase in CO2 (i.e. a 75% increase in CO2e from all GHGs) in 200 years is extremely significant. In that time, nothing else has changed significantly, not total solar irradiance, not average sunspot activity, not solar flare or coronal mass ejection frequency, not volcanic activity.
As I am sure I have said before, the fact that CO2 and temps have both been much higher in the distant geological past (than they are now or may yet get) is utterly irrelevant because modern civilisation was only made possible by the climatic and sea level stability of the last 7000 years. All life on Earth is adapted to the way things are now; but we are now heading towards conditions not seen for 35 million years (when Antarctica first became glaciated). We are currently sacrificing the habitability of planet Earth for future generations; merely to allow oil companies to carry on selling us stuff with which we pollute our atmosphere.
What is this, if it is not insanely short-sighted, selfish and, ultimately, self-defeating?
This is why it seems to me that the only reason people continue to deny that we are responsible is that it clearly demands significant behaviour modification. As with deducing the cause, the demand for action is a ‘fair test’ for intellectual honesty. Unfortunately, many people seem to be failing both.
martin
it is you who are saying things are abnormal so it is you who needs to prove the climatic status quo is changing due to mans emixssions. i am still waiting for studies of unprecendeted events. also the tree ring info
tonyb
…we are currently sacrificing the habitability of planet Earth for future generations
As we know from Climategate, the only people saying this are known, unrepentant science fraudsters, and others like Lack with obvious overriding ideological motives.
I would like to see the evidence also. We even have James Hansen saying “we can say with a high degree of confidence that the severe Texas and Moscow, heatwaves were not natural, they were caused by global warming.”
TED speech at 13:20. He also says that 20%-50% of all species will be “ticketed for extinction” by the end of the century along with a 5 meter sea level rise.
I think you need to prove that climate change (i.e. increased frequency of extreme weather events … is NOT being caused by the unprecedentedly-rapid increase of atmospheric CO2 levels
This seems to be a variation on the new improved last-gasp Trenberth-style null hypothesis : assume any old alarmist crap, and if noone falsifies it, deem it proven.
Note the evolution of the lie about human guilt. First, global warming, then climate change, then climate wilding. Global warming was exaggerated, climate change inconveniently natural, and climate wilding is simply a lie. But humans have great capacity and need for guilt. I could show a contemporary example with more than his share of it.
===================================
Sorry, I forgot to post the lik to that James Dellngpole article – http://www.thecommentator.com/article/972/the_high_priests_of_global_warming_have_lost_their_prestige_and_the_realists_are_winning_the_debate
I have just received this from Philip Foster, demonstrating once again that Professor Lindzen is a proper scientist who is always prepared to acknowledge and correct any error that he has made, unlike some other scientists QUOTE: .. ERRATUM: NASA-GISS Data slide 12 on original PDF/PPT and page 9 in the
booklet.
Prof. Richard Lindzen writes:
Please accept my apologies for using the graph from Howard Hayden that purported to suggest that GISS had manipulated the temperature data.
I asked Howard to check how he arrived at this conclusion. Here is his response:
Please accept my sincere apologies for misrepresenting NASA-GISS data.
I downloaded temperature data from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt to make a
graph in 2009. About a month ago, I went to the same file to get the more recent points and was surprised to find a considerably different data set. The formatting of the data set was the same, and I did not notice that the heading said that the data referred to meteorological stations only. As a consequence I concluded, incorrectly, that NASA-GISS had manipulated the data. I am making every effort to correct my error .. UNQUOTE.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Peter, Why did you leave out his final quip about “confirmation bias”? As many have said over on Real Climate, the words pot, calling, kettle, and black come to mind….
As with just about everything else Lindzen says; he spends most of his time appealing to himself as the sole arbitter of truth; and declaring that everyone else is wrong (or involved in some alarmist conspiracy).
I am fairly certain the AGU will want to discuss the latter with him quite soon…
@martin lack
‘I am fairly certain the AGU will want to discuss the latter with him quite soon..’
Just wondered if you were predicting this to occur before or after MIT expel him based on your ‘evidence’ of his moral turpitude or whatever it is…….
And feedback from the Institute yet? Has the ‘trial’ date been set? Stake and faggots erected outside the faculty building? Maybe the MSM are just waiting for the Sundays to splash Lindzengate across the front page?
But I hope that , when summoned as Witchfinder-in-Chief, your evidence delivery is better prepared than your questioning technique, now available in glorious technicolor for all to see.
Mrs. McCave and Too Many Daves.
Hi John (Kosowski) I’m afraid that your comment is too deep for me. I don’t see more that three of us on this specific topic and we are each clearly identified, unlike the 23 Dave’s (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171612), unless one was renamed Zanzibar. Please would you elucidate.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I leave it to you all to guess who declared on 7 Mar 2012 at 7:42 AM on the “Hockey Team’s” thread “Misrepresentation from Lindzen” QUOTE: .. I have done what I have in the service of scientific integrity .. UNQUOTE – Hallelujah!
Perhaps he was inspired by another “ .. man on a mission – to save the planet and its oceans. The youngest co-founder of Greenpeace .. ” Paul Joseph Watson “ .. a Canadian animal rights and environmental activist .. ” who said “ .. I have done what I have been able to do with the resources available to me .. ” (http://www.global1.youth-leader.org/2011/08/captain-paul-watson-skippering-earth%E2%80%99s-navy/).
Look who’s face is peeping put at you from the header of that page. It’s Polly Higgins of “Trees have rights too” and “ .. spear-heading the Ecocide campaign, proposed to the UN that Ecocide, the environmental equivalent of Genocide, becomes the 5th International Crime Against Peace alongside Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, Crimes of Aggression and War Crimes. Fame .. ” (http://woodbrookegoodlives.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html) – boy oh boy!
Talking of Greenpeace reminds me of the UN’s 2009 COP15 Catastrophe in Copenhagen just after Climategate, when CFACT draped their “Ship of Lies” banner on Greenpeace’s ship Archtic Sunrise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6kJ8uWBrRw). CFACT followed that with Lord Monckton (chairman of that 22nd Feb. meeting where Professor Lindzen made his presentation) “ .. parachuting for truth .. ” at the UN’s COP17 Debacle in Durban just after Climategate 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I9PoOjPa_w&feature=player_embedded – Climate Depot’s Mark Morano 6 seconds into his introduction).
Marc’s blog (http://climatedepot.com/a/40/ClimateDepotcom-Launch-Aims-Tonbsp-Redefine-Global-Warming-Reporting) does not only provide us all with enlightenment about climate, environment, ecology and energy. It also provides a link to blog that should be of great interest to those with an evangelical bent, the Cornwall Alliance’s “Resisting the Green Dragon: A Biblical Response to One of the Greatest Deceptions of Our Day ” (http://www.resistingthegreendragon.com/).
Best regards, Pete Ridley
BTW, Professor Curry, if you choose to “snip” any of my comments would you be able to make the time to explain briefly what part you object to.
It takes always a couple of days for the mail to deliver New Scientist to Finland. Now I have been reading last weeks issue noticing that it contains exceptionally many articles related to the discussions of this site:
The special topic of the issue is “The deep future” where the future of mankind is discussed looking 100000 years to the future. The main message of that section is that none of the presently emphasized threats is likely to be existential in the sense of risking the survival of the human species because humans can certainly adapt to any of the changes foreseen. There is some more specific discussion of climate change in the article “Where will we live?”.
A short news article tells about the recent paper of Jiping Liu, Judith, et al. and another about the role of rain in dissipating energy in the atmosphere.
There’s also a two page interview of Jonathan Haidt discussed in the recent thread on telling the truth.
And finally there’s short review of Mann’s book on climate wars.
I thought I was writing in the thread “Weak in review”, but that was evidently not the case.
The Deep Future articles look quite interesting, I wish there was a way to purchase access to single issues.
I have noticed that New Scientists makes some of the content available for registered visitors, but as a subscriber I cannot check what’s available based on free registration.
i’ll take another look
To all those of you who have responded to my recent comments:
John Kosowski referred to James Hansen’s recent TED talk but, here are a few things he failed to mention:
1. The Earth’s current energy imbalance is 0.6 Watts per sq.m.; a rate of energy input 20 times greater than all human activity and equivalent to the detonation of 400,000 Hiroshima A-bombs per day.
2. Since measurements began in 2003 there has been a noticeable acceleration in the annual rate of mass loss from both the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps.
3. The last time atmospheric CO2 was 390 ppm sea levels were 15 m higher than they are today, which implies even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels tomorrow, this is where they would end up several centuries from now because the warming is already in the pipeline (i.e. the Earth must restore it energy imbalance).
4. Unless we stop burning fossil fuels soon, sea level rise will continue to accelerate, which is likely to cause between 1 and 5 metre rise by 2100AD depending on how quickly we stop.
5. If we had started to get off fossil fuels in 2005, it would have required 3% reduction per year in order to restore energy imbalance by 2100AD. If we start next year, it will require 6%p.a. If we wait 10 years it will require 15%p.a.
6. Hansen uses the analogy of an approaching asteroid – the longer we wait to prevent it hitting us the harder it becomes to do so.
You will no doubt respond to all of this by claiming that Hansen is just seeking to make money out of alarmism (i.e. by citing his Blue Planet award for a lifetime’s work) but it is no longer just Hansen that is saying these things. He is now joined by people like:
— the International Energy Agency; and
— William Nordhaus.
How much longer are you people going to hold out against the tide of history, science and now economics? What are you going to say to your children and grandchildren when you are finally proven wrong? (You had better start planning those speeches because it will happen).
Martin
This silly talk of 5 metre rise by 2100 comes straight from Hansen. Draw a graph and post it here of sea level rise over the last century and then project that to a 5 metres rise within 88 years. It is sheer nonsense. You are aware of the studies by such as holgate demonstrating that sea levels rose faster in the first half of the 20th century than the second half? You are aware of the stutter in levels over the last few years?
Please cite some credible studies confirming such an increase. It certainly wasn’t in the draft of ar5
Why do you choose to believe in this stuff?
Tonyb
Tonyb, Nice bit of tautology, well done. I was summarising things Kosowski failed to mention regarding Hansen’s presentation…
Have you heard of exponential growth and/or J-curves? As opposed to linear growth, both are actually quite common in nature. For example, in laboratory experiments with fruit flies, so long as there is an absence of preditors, population growth will be exponential until food supply runs out.
Up until now, at least, the IPCC has under-estimated the nature, scale and urgency of the problem we face because they have been forced by external reviewers and/or line-by-line government scrutineers to leave out mention of all the positive feedback mechanisms that are now causing accelerating rates of glacier and sea ice melting; and methane release from thawing permafrost.
The existence of all of these positive feedback mechanisms (that Lindzen insists on denying) mean that you cannot extrapolate anything linearly from current rates of change. However, you can behave like the driver of an accelerating car about to hit a brick wall who might well say ‘so far so good’… but that does not mean that the wall is not there! (Dryzek).
Martin
So by 2100 you believe the sea level is likely to have risen by….?
Please fill in the missing part as I’m not sure what you are arguing
tonyb
I don’t see what the problem is here. All I have done – and am doing – is citing Hansen’s view that, because we appear now to be passing the tipping point at which positive feedback mechanisms take over and make change irreversible, it is highly likely sea level could be 1m higher than pre-Industrial level by the end of this century. Furthermore, Hansen’s view (based on palaeoclimatology NOT modelling) is that, if we continue to burn all the Earth’s fossil fuels, things could get significantly worse than that. I repeat, you cannot infer anything about what will happen over the next 90 years from what is happening now. Earth systems science does not work like that, this is a non-linear problem.
@tonyb
Give up now, mon brave.
Lack will merely carry on repeating the words of the Great Hansenic Guru until we all run out of patience with him. Should that not have arrived already.
It is clear that he has no concept of scientific evidence and has merely substituted one evengelical belief in one Big Black Book (this one apparently the tome by Hansen) for his previous evangelical belief in the christian bible.
Expect him next to be quoting as follows
‘Yea Verily – For It Is Written – (Storms of My Grandchildren Ch5 p12-13, verses 14-17) that the Deniers Shall Be Smitten By The Chosen. And The Cold Shall Be Made Warm. And the Unbelievers Will Drown In The Revenge of the Sea.’
or some other such bollocks.
Perhaps he’ll also provide us with a handy guide of daily readings form Saint Jim, just in case we are slipping too far away from Orthodoxy.
Latimer, why do you keep re-stating arguments I have already proven to be invalid? Leaving aside your attempt to drag my personal history back on to the table for dissection once more, there are no grounds for equating faith in God (something science cannot prove) with faith in ACD (something science has proven beyond reasonable doubt).
If you wanted the World to take you seriously, you would have to have a sensible alternative explanation for the 20th Century warming and the fact that, since the 1970’s each decade has been warmer than that which preceded it. You therefore need to stop pretending that warming stopped in 1998 (i.e. “going down the up escalator” as Skeptical Science describes that fallacy), and accept that a 40% increase in CO2 is the most likely explanation (especially given the way the Earth regulates its temperature and irons-out radiaitive energy imbalances).
Martin,
You have not disproven anythign except your claims of being anything other than a troll.
How is your campaign to have Dr. Lindzen’s tenure revoked going?
And don’t forget: tobacco causes AGW.
The bottom line is that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming clearly has NOT been proven; it is but a suspicion. The full underlying physics are as yet still unknown. The pretense of it being beyond a reasonable doubt is just the immense power, vested interest and money of politics talking.
The fact for a few decades since 1970 there has been warming PROVES nothing. It may be significant, it may not be.
And the attempt to deny the obvious temperature plateau of the last 10 or so years … well, that can only be a strain of religious-like faith. From the leaked emails we know that, whatever they say in public, in private even the most die-hard warmists are conflicted over this inconvenient truth.
@martin lack
You ask
‘Latimer, why do you keep re-stating arguments I have already proven to be invalid?’
So I trawled back through here for any argument of mine that you have even attempted to discuss, let alone any that you have ‘proven to be invalid’. And I don’t find any.
If I have actually missed one. please point it out explicitly.
Indeed, I have asked you many times for evidence of your assertions. Rather than produce such evidence and be prepared to defend it, you adopt one of three standard strategies.
1 Evade it by wittering on about something completely different
2. Affirm that you have already proved it (see above) and avoid the subject by arguing about a strawman of your own making.
3. Quote the opinion of Hansen or any other guru you can think of.
In no case do you confront the question head on. And so you have absolutely no chance of proving anything whatsoever.
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that you are indeed incapable of doing anything other than regurgitating others opinions as of they were Holy Writ. But whereas we might expect them to at least understand the points they make, you seem to be incapable of doing so. You cannot sustain a logical argument at all.
martin lack
who are these ‘government scrutineers’ of the ipcc and what actual evidence is there that mention of positive feedbacks was excluded?
Coalraker, I think you need to read this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=conservative-climate
No actual evidence of even a claim that positive feedbacks being excluded. Not even from Scientific American, who are utterly committed to the cause.
You may not be able to perceive it but this is the reason why change is now happening faster than AR4 predicted:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
And pleeeeeese don’t criticise me for using Wikipedia as a one-stop-shop to provide links to peer-reviewed literature (as there is literally bucket loads of it).
Martin now makes a classic statement of the cargo cult believer:
“You may not be able to perceive it but this is the reason why change is now happening faster than AR4 predicted:”
IOW, even though it is not detectable by the mormal senses, AGW is even more real for those who are enlightened by faith.
My question was – what evidence do you have for your claim that positive feedbacks are being excluded?
Your non-responsive answer tells me there is none.
There’s positive feedbacks here.
Where they are ain’t exactly clear.
Wikipedia over there.
Tellin’ you, you ought to beware.
==============
“My question was – what evidence do you have for your claim that positive feedbacks are being excluded?”
I think you correct in they have been included in past projection of global temperatures, but the older projections have been obviously been proven wrong, and reason was due to the inclusion of positive feedback.
There seems a simple conclusion if one had significant feedback in your model, you ended up wrong, if you didn’t you had better chance of predicting the future.
It seems the only positive feedback which may be seen in the historic record is that glacial growth of an ice age seems to keep temperatures lower. Whereas warmer temperature does not seem to cause more warmer climate or cause stable plateau of warmer conditions.
It also seems there resistance to the planet being completely covered with ice- it seems the tropics and some extent the southern hemisphere is firewall.
Yes the claim the positive feedbacks are “excluded” by the ipcc really is bizarre. It’s the whole basis of their message of concern/alarm. The fact is feedbacks (of both signs) are still a huge unknown factor.
Another “interesting” claim is that Lindzen denies the possibility of positive feedbacks.
“How much longer are you people going to hold out against the tide of history, science and now economics? What are you going to say to your children and grandchildren when you are finally proven wrong? (You had better start planning those speeches because it will happen).”
Projecting?
Martin, your need to start wrapping your head around the most probable of all possible scenarios; that we as a species will continue to burn fossil fuels for energy usage for probably most of this century. If you take the example of a country like Greece, a country forced in to extreme austerity measures to ‘fix’ their economic problems…. that would be a close approximate of what all western developed nations could expect economically if a 3% reduction of fossil fuel usage was mandated without any cheap equivalently abundant form of energy to replace it. It would be economic suicide. What speech would you have ready for your children to explain how we plunged the economy into a death spiral resulting in anarchy, mass civil violence and world war because we might see some small changes in the climate?
I used a bit of a alarmist rhetoric here wrt to an economic collapse… did that change your mind? I thought not. Martin, if you want to make progress in this discussion, you have to abandon the thermageddon argument…. it does not change reasonable peoples attitudes about climate change. In fact it achieves the opposite… it tunes people out.
The first world has to continue making things, using energy, producing etc… in order to maintain and feed the current population. Third world countries need more cheap energy to stop their escalating population boom. This part of the problem does not go away in any of the civil scenarios.
His grandchildren will understand that he, and the masses, were the victims of a gigantic guilt trip. And they’ll wonder that he thought that climate revolved around carbon dioxide rather than around the sun. He will have become quaint.
========================
Kim you insult Martin by saying he’s a mere victim of the whole CAGW guilt trip. He has actually played a very active part himself in promoting it, siding himself unswervingly with the deceit and bias approach of the IPCC cadre. Who knows – this aggrieved little corporal may yet have much in store for the world.
When in a hole, you should stop digging.
The civil disorder that will be caused by relentless, accelerating, sea level will make London 2011 and Greece 2012 look like a tea party.
Martin,
You actually beleive that AGW is going to cause London to be inundated?
hunter, I am quite certain that the Environment Agency are not looking around for things to spend their limited finances on. However, they are already assuming that within 20 years the Woolwich Flood Defence barrier will be redundant (because of the potential combination of fluvial flooding, spring tides and storm surges. They are already in the preliminary stages of planning to replace it with something bigger further downstream.
Why would they be doing all this if CAGW were a f***ing hoax?
Martin,
You are using a childish argument to avoid the issue.
People do wasteful things because they understand the issue wrong. it does not have to be a hoax in order for the plans to be wrong. The majority of government programs are terminated because they fail. That does not mean they are a hoax or a conspriacy.Think of the Maginot Line as an example. It was a massive waste of resources and dealt with the wrong problem.
Using the line of arguement that it can only be wrong if it is a hoax or conspiracy is historically ignorant on your part.
Martin,
Yr. “Why would they be doing all this if CAGW is a f***ing hoax?”
Three points, Martin:
1. CAGW is a f***ing hoax–and that’s why you’re not concerned, Martin, about that jumbo-ized, double-whopper, eco-hypocrite carbon footprint you bequeathed to posterity with your little “once-in-a-lifetime” (how precious!) jaunt to Shangri-La.
2. We can be sure any project that is sold on the basis of CAGW fear-mongering has behind it some well-connected greenshirt philosopher kings and queens with their itchy-palms out for a big pile of taxpayer rip-off dough.
3. And, finally, it’s because “they” are mouthy, greenie-weenie noogie-magnets whose weirdo Gaia belief system obligates “them” to eat “their” boogers.
That’s why, Martin!
There is nonetheless still no evidence for the conspiracy theory espoused by you and/or coalraker.
On the other hand, there would be a very clear financial incentive for the fossil fuel lobby (FFL) to want to deny that their business is responsible for ACD and – just as with manufacturers of cigarettes, pesticides, CFC’s and industry in general (w.r.t. acid rain) – there is a great deal of evidence for just such a FFL-led conspiracy.
No matter how many times you deny it, it will not make it cease to be a well-documented historical and ongoing reality.
For example, take a look at this:
http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/ew@shell/API-prop.html
Martin your 12.25pm
Let me repeat that I do not believe AGW to be a hoax (merely misguided) however, having served for many years on the flood defence committees of the Environment agency I am afraid coalraker (12.47) is much nearer the mark with his comment than you are.
Countries that sign up to the Kyoto protocol then have certain legal obligations placed on them, in the case of the UK it is to follow their diktats on such things as flooding . It goes like this;
UN to IPCC
IPCC to signed up govts
In our case via Dept for Climate Change to Defra
From Defra to its agencies, one being the Environment agency .
It then cascades down via Assemblies and County councils to education authorities and parish councils
The EA are obliged by Defra to put 20cm on to projected flood defence walls to account for sea level rise and greater fluvial volume over the next 50 years.
Our local town has just got a flood defence wall but as the sea levels disobligingly started to level off or drop during planning, they had to install a brand new tide gauge to realign with Newlyn- the central point for the UK. With that sort of coastal work satellites are far to imprecise to use as they only have an accuracy level of 15cm (accuracy to the 3mm claimed for the annual rise is laughable)
This gauge confirmed that sea levels were indeed dropping. They have perhaps just started to rise again in an entirely unremarkable fashion on a very well established trend-land rising or falling is of far more significance than sea level change.
The Met office are the experts in modelling potential sea level rise from glacial melt etc. They admitted they had no idea of the potential for increase when they advertised for a modeller just two years ago admitting there were great uncertainties.
I have written an article on sea level rise which quotes numerous peer reviewed studies but you seem to prefer the wild guesses of Hansen who does your cause no good at all so I won’t bother to link to it.
incidentally, the Thames barrier is likely to be raised for several prosaic reasons unrelated to an expected inundation, one of which is the land sinking but the plans are more closely related to John Prescott’s scheme to build 160000 new houses in east London.
That requires an increase in protection height for planning reasons (see above re Kyoto impositions) and for practical purposes it is likely to be moved downriver to provide greater protection to these houses which are still chuntering through the system. No enhanced tidal defence no large scale housing.
tonyb
Martin my 3.43
Here is the stumbling in sea levels i referred to in my post.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
As i said previously Simon Holgate confirms that sea levels rose faster in the first half of the twentieth century than in the second half (but it was not statistically meaningful.)
There is no sign at all of your tipping points except in the fevered imagination of James Hansen-the sceptics best friend :).
tonyb
tonyb – predictably you and everyone else it seems is going to ignore the evidence presented to show that the API were committed to spending $5M on climate change denial in 1998/99….
However, w.r.t. Thames Estuary, I accept there are other issues in play dictating the replacement of the Woolwich Barrier.
Thank you for the link to the Colorado website; on which I find a number of interesting articles and/or links, including:
1. one that explains the recent hiatus in terms of El Nino/La Nina effects (as indeed one can do for the atmosphere in terms of global dimming also); and
2. they “expect the global mean sea level estimates to also reverse their recent downward trend and begin to increase as the La Niña effects wane”.
However, what all of this ignores is what I have repeatedly said to Lindzen and to people here, short-term trends are irrelevant in the context of 7000 years of relative stability. The shortest-possible period of significance is several decades in length and in that time the change is going only one way. Therefore the only question that remains is, is the change unprecedented? This is where Hansen’s focus on palaeoclimatology – rather than models – becomes important.
Whereas I was taught in first year Geology class the Principle of Uniformitarianism dictates that the present is the key to the past, in climate science the study of the past is the key to the present. You ignore this at your peril.
“the API were committed to spending $5M on climate change denial in 1998/99….”
why are you co concerned about this trivial amount when the US government commits many thousands of times every year that much to alarmism ?
Coalraker – two things:
1. Show me the evidence for unnecessary govt spending.
2. Explain the motivation (in the midst of a global debt crisis)
Martin said
‘API were committed to spending $5M on climate change denial in 1998/99….’
I have made no recent comment on that subject and am not sure of the relevance of this tiny amount of money dating from 12 years ago.
To get back to the point, sea levels are unremarkable and do not show any strange upsurge-Hansen has no especial knowledge on this subject and needs to stop making his absurd predictions. You do realise that the wiki article you link to splices together two utterly separate records, that of tide gauges (drawn originally from only 7 gauges- all in the Northern Hemisphere and four from the same tidal basin-and all but one of which has moved its location-and satellite readings-so you are comparing apples and oranges and the apples are highly selective and the oranges are very inaccurate..
I watched your tree ring video from Montana-it did not give the evidence that tree rings are a reliable proxy for temperature at all. How can they be bearing in mind any signal (mostly moisture related) is restricted to a short growing season-3 months-and are extremely vulnerable to micro climates? How does that give us a 12 month record of day and night temperatures? Please link to scientifc evidence not opinion pieces.
I looked at your graph when you spliced together Manns Hockey stick onto to BEST. You failed to reply to my point that BEST shows warming since 1820 and that one third of all stations are cooling. Again I have written on these subjects in ‘the long slow thaw’ and ‘in search of cooling trends and have communiucated with Muller on the matter.
Both the IPCC and the MET office claim there is no cooling at all except in South Greenland and a very few places in the tropics..This is simply untrue as a few minutes of your time will confirm..
‘
I agree with you that short term trends are irrelevant, that is why all my articles try to look at the broader pictrure , anything before the Holocene is likely to be immaterial as that is when humans first started farming and we can trace any changes more accurately through science and contemporary evidence. Prior to that you have to take into account the positions of the continents and all sorts of other factors and the signal becomes very messy.
My next article ‘Historic variations in Arctic Ice Part two’ goes back to the melting of the ice and rise in sea levels around ten thousand years ago, which in turn will inform my future article ‘historic variations in sea levels part two.’
I fully agree with your last paragraph. I quote far more sources than Hansen and draw on a much wider body of literature than he does. You need to get out more :)
tonyb
first address my question martin : why are you worried about millions spent questioning cagw, when billions are spent promoting it ?
coalraker says – “why are you worried about millions spent questioning cagw, when billions are spent promoting it ?”
How can anyone promote an approaching environmental catastrophe?
Sure, they can take steps to mitigate one but, governments are not short of things they need to spend money on at the moment, so why would they dream-up some spurious reason to do so; and where is the evidence they have done so. N.B. Climategate is not the answer!
Your entire conspiracy theory makes no sense. This conversation is clearly going nowhere. Get back to me when you are willing to engage with reality.
Q: why are you worried about millions spent questioning cagw thinking, when billions are spent promoting it ?
STILL no answer from martin …..
“governments are not short of things they need to spend money on at the moment, so why would they dream-up some spurious reason to do so; ”
you’re really asking why would they would fund an argument that gives them an apparently iron-clad excuse to raise even more tax and expand itself …?
“and where is the evidence they have done so”
it’s in government’s self-interest. where is the evidence that government is NOT acting in it self-interest here? do you maintain is there some sort of unique conspiracy of integrity going on here?
” N.B. Climategate is not the answer!”
Not sure exactly what question you’re referring to. But since you bring it up, Climategate revealed how government-funded climate science cooks the books so as to strengthen the cagw argument so as to strengthen the case for more governrment
“Your entire conspiracy theory makes no sense ”
It is only your suggestion of conspiracy that makes no sense. And your naive take on politics.
Climategate? I have read your writings on climategate, and again, you do nothing but just state conclusions without any facts and argument.
Climategate tells me that we have a group of very dedicated ideologues that are attempting to do temperature reconstruction for the very specific purpose of proving that recent warming is unprecedented. We don’t have objective scientists honestly trying to find out what happened purely for the knowledge of what happened. That is a shame.
yes, the basic lesson of climategate was that climate science is in the grip of alarmist ideologues
had climategate provoked some sort of cleanup or backlash in the profession, it would now have some credibility with thinking people. instead, though, they chose to go for coverups, with little criticism from the profession’s silent majority emerging.
it is this this deafening silence from the profession as a whole that is the most serious aspect. it tells us the problem is much deeper than just a few activists at the top; and that bias, corruption and an advocacy agenda has permeated all the way through.
@martin lack
The original design life of the Barrier was to 2030..almost exacty twenty years from now.
But they have recently concluded that it may last an extra 40 years before a replacement is needed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/31/thames-flood-barrier-london
BTW – to find this earth shattering news I needed to do no more than search ‘Thames Barrier Design Life’ in Google. It ain’t very difficult to check things – even a little bit – before publishing them. Don’t you ever tire of setting yourself up as a whipping boy?
Why would the Environment Agency get on the CAGW bandwagon if it’s a hoax?
Because they’ve been told to. CAGW is an overall political initiative, so everyone in all arms of government must fall into line if they want to prosper.
Apart from there being a conspicuous lack of evidence (no pun intended); such a fanciful conspiracy would require collusion on a grander scale than that required to cover up the CIA-backed assassination of JFK, the faked moon landings, MI5 involvement in the death of Princess Diana, and the controlled demolition of the WTC – all combined together.
no evidence that is CAGW a political initiative….??
Other than being entirely politically funded.
and by what bizarre logic would it require a “conspiracy” and “collusion” for political institutions to act in their own self-interest (selecting personnel, allocating funding, etc) ? the notion that this does NOT happen is what is fanciful.
coalraker your 5.16
see my reply to martin at 3.43 and 3.54 yesterday and my reply to him at 5.19 today. It doesnt need a conspiracy-it is politics.as you say
tonyb
yes “hoax” is just a strawman beloved of the more ardent cagwites. it’s more a question of confluence of interests. government obviously likes to hear justification for expanding itself, so preferentially gives money and hires people who provide such. nothing more mysterious than human nature at work here.
(another popular strawman is the suggestion that a “conspiracy” is needed for government to spend money in ways that advance its own interest)
@martin lack
‘the API were committed to spending $5M on climate change denial in 1998/99…’
You really mustn’t overstate your case. Because every time you do so your credibility takes yet another knock. And my belief that you are simply incapable of objective assessment is strengthened yet further.
The document you link to
http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/ew@shell/API-prop.html
does not show that the API were committed to spending any money at all. It is a draft discussion document showing a possible proposal for money to be spent. Here’s where its status is discusssed
‘.. we have scheduled a follow – up team meeting to review the plan in person on Friday, April 17, form 1 to 3 p.m. at the API headquarters. After that, we hope to have a “plan champion” help us move it forward to potential funding sources’
It does not show a commitment to spending money. It shows that they do not have the money to commit. What it does show is that at the time of writing, some members had an aspiration to try to raise some money to spend on what they term ‘global climate science communications’.
Either you have not read the document (in which case it is extremely foolish to present it to Climate Etc denizens who have the habit of checking these things), or you have not understood it (oh dear!) or you have misrepresented what it says in the hope that we won’t notice (oh very very dear!!).
It may be that the API subsequently did raise the money and did spend it in the way described. Or maybe they didn’t. But to prove it one way or the other you will need to go and find some documents much closer to actual invoices or concrete plans than just a copy of an aspirational document. If you have such, please present them.
I warned before that you should not approach the Crown Prosecution Service (sort of similar to a DA in the States) for a jo as your ability to assess evidence is fundamentally flawed. Your latest effusion only emphasises how sound was my advice.
Martin,
Just out of curiosity, Martin, your web-site has a recent post that features some pictures of your trip to Mount Everest. So how’d you get there, Martin? In carbon terms, that is.
And, Martin, how is it that the obscene carbon-footprint of your little, self-indulgent trip to the “roof of the world” is such a matter of indifference to you, a wannabe “for-hire” Environmental Lobbyist, that you betray not the slightest discomfort in using your preachy little blog to taunt your readership with your brazen carbon-schweinhund eco-hypocrisy?
And, oh by the way, when are you going to take on Big-Green’s carbon-hog elite and their carbon blow-out, jet-set lifestyles–palatial mansions by the dozens, fleets of private jets, chauffeured limousines, etc.? You know, when are you going to bite the hand you’re looking to for a hand-out, Martin?
And then there’s the Rio+20 conference up-coming. Think of all the carbon emissions that could be saved if that conference, and the many other UN enviro conferences, were conducted via video. So, Martin, when are we going to see a post on your blog denouncing the trough-addicted, party-animal, carbon-swine eco-hypocrite pals of yours (oink!-oink!) who attend those UN sponsored carbon pig-out conference bashes in reckless disregard of our children’s future?
I do hope you answer my questions, Martin, so that we don’t have a Lack-gate scandal on our hands. And thanks for raising my consciousness with regards to the need to reduce our carbon emissions.
Mike, this is very predictable. If you bother to follow the links to two other posts where I have displayed other such photos, you will find your answer. I suspect that I have done a great deal less flying than just about anyone else contributing here. But, you’re not interested in that really, are you? All you are interested in is avoiding dealing with the actual issues raised in Hansen’s talk. Prove me wrong, why don’t you?
Sorry Martin, nice try, but I’m not going to let you brazen your way out of this one. The issue, Martin, is not that you’ve “done a good deal less flying than just about anyone else contributing here”. Rather, the issue is that you fly at all, Martin, given your self-interested convictions and motor-mouth, self-righteous, public utterances about the perils of demon carbon.
Remember, Martin, you’re the one pounding on the pulpit. You’re the one urging sacrifice on others. So you’re the one to set the example. Right, Martin? But what example do you set–there’s ol’ Martin, audaciously bragging about and flashing pictures of his frivolous, carbon-sucking, what-happens-in-the-Himilayas-stays-in-the-Himilayas, my-carbon-emissions-are-de-minimus-yours-intolerable!, eco-hypocrite, little adventure hiking at the base of Mount Everest. I mean, isn’t there any place to hike within walking or biking distance of your humble, low-carbon (yeah, right!) abode, Martin?
Or, Martin, is it that you subscribe to the notion, current in the best watermelon circles, that greenshirt philosopher kings/queens (and the best of their smarmy toadies) deserve “passes” for their audacious carbon-piggery. You know, Martin, the notion that our carbon-junkie betters, unlike the scrofulous hoi polloi, deserve their obscene load of carbon-swill because our betters (and the most useful of their noxious lickspittels, of course) “care” more, because they are “smarty-pants” and the “little people” are not, and, well, just because they are “special”–untested, untried, spoiled-brat, sweetie-pie creep-outs whose whole lives have been nothing but one whee!-whee! joy-ride after another of unearned-praise, unearned good deals, and no-penalty, shirker “bug-outs”.
The hoi-polloi?–you ask, Martin. You know, the “small people” who actually work for a living, contribute to their communities, spend their entertainment pence at their neighborhood pub–not the one in Katmandu, raise their families on considerably less that 40,000 pounds/year, fight their country’s battles, take their low-carbon vacations locally, and, generally, keep going the society that makes it possible for their improbable, useless-eater, parasite betters, perpetually bloated with their blood-meals, to survive. You know, Martin, the “small people” who now need to reduce their already low-carbon lifestyles because some two-faced carbon-piglet, seeking flunky employment as a bought-and-paid-for, Big-Green lobbyist says so.
Sorry, Mark, nice try but I’m not going to let you bully your way out of this one.
1. You are in effect, acting like a non-Muslim attempting to have me executed under Sharia law.
2. Since I have only been on four holidays that required long-haul flights in 20 years – and Everest was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, I am hardly guilty of excess.
3. As much as you might wish to paint me as dictatorial, all I am doing is calling for collective restraint to be “mutually agreed upon” (Hardin, 1968) in order to avoid the self-destructive Tragedy of the Commons problem.
4. As I seem to have to keep saying (presumably because your cognitive dissonance won’t allow you to take it on board), I do not fit your eco-Socialist/Watermelon stereotype. I have thought through my pro-environmental (i.e. not misanthropic) stance very carefully over a 25 year period of time; probably much longer than it has taken you to adopt your ideologically-prejudiced view of environmentalists:
A brief history of mine (12 March 2012)
“I am hardly guilty of excess.”
Tell that to someone living on pennies a day.
Tell that to the grandchildren of those people –
that you used massive energy to rapidly transport you to Everest – and that is not excessive spending – you’ve been a very good boy !
ike,
Notice how the eco-crats always rationalize their behavior while imposing ridiuclous burdens on the rest of us.
My total air miles so far this century: 0
Air miles/decade in the last 2 decades of the 20th century: < 10000
None before that
All business flights, no holiday flights.
Can you beat that?
Only this century? My neighbour is your partner: He is sitting under
his olive tree, his eyes half open and watching the goats…ALL his
life, he does not even know how to write AVION ……so you are
in best company……
Here, on his own blog, is a nice picture of Lack standing next to a socking great Australian earth-mover.
Absent the fact he got there by divine telekinesis, it seems likely that he flew there. Australia is a long. long way from UK. His statement
‘I suspect that I have done a great deal less flying than just about anyone else contributing here’
is pretty unlikely to be true. Especially given his recent trip to Everest. One might even speculate that his nickname should be ‘Airmiles Marty’
Amusingly, but in true Lackian style, it comes in the middle of a rant called:
‘When In Hole, Keep Digging’
Advice he seems to have taken to heart.
It is (almost) sad to relate that though Lack does an awful lot of writing, he seems to have very few readers or commentators. The last week has produced a total of only four.
For a man whose avowed intention was to desroy scepticism at its roots, end Lindzen’s career and otherwise change the world according to his ideas, he seem to have quite a bit left still to do.
Get a life, Latimer (or at least attack the message/science instead of the message/scientist). The photo was taken nearly 25 years ago; and my trek to Everest Base Camp was nearly 5 years ago.
I am quite content with 70 hits per day (instead of the 700 my intervention here generated 4 months ago); as indeed I am with 130 subscribers and 25k hits in 10 months. How is your blog doing by comparison? Oh, that’s right, you don’t have one.
Having gone on record as accusing almost all his fellow AGU members as stupid, incompetent or mendacious (i.e. conspiracy theory), Lindzen’s credibility has now reached an all time low; he is little better than Lord Monckton. I did not need to end his career; he has done that himself (and will now retire to the south of France).
Obviously, I meant to say “instead of the messanger/scientist)”.
You may not have ‘needed’ to end his career, but it was your proud boast that you were going to do so. And bring down scepticism as well.
It seems you have failed. Get over it.
I was merely being provocative to generate traffic to my site. I succeeded. Get over yourself.
OK. Thanks for the admission.We should all know that we cannot rely on what you say. You don’t mean what you write…it is all just a publicity stunt.
But you spent an awful lot of time and effort in ‘being provocative’ in what you call ‘Lindzengate’…an 1800 word tedious e-mail to Lindzen, a sorry-fest of subsequent apologies, two or three rounds with MIT and the AGU, a variety of bannings and witch-burnings at your blog.
Seems unlikely to me that it was all just a stunt. You don’t have the aptitude for that. Unless you are a far better actor than you appear to be.
You are truly pathetic. Lindzen never answered my questions because to do so he would have to admit he is a conspiracy theorist. You are the same.
All you can do, it seems, is to keep dredging up the past; accusing me of hypocrisy; and engaging in pedantic debate about who said what. Since it is you that re-ignited this pointless “debate”, I think it is you that needs to move on, not me.
@martin lack
I don’t need to ‘indulge in pedantic debate about who said what’. The miracles of the interweb thingy mean that all you writings are preserved for posterity, and everyone can assess your level of hypocrisy for themselves.
But posting photos of you with big trucks in Australia and wittering on about your trip to the Himalayas – while simultaneously berating others for their supposed antisocial travel habits – certainly dings my bell way high up the scale for that unpleasant characteristic.
And do you have any evidence that Prof. Lindzen has indeed retired to the south of France? I can’t seem to find any in a quick web search. I’m off there soon (by train to join a cycling holiday) and it’d be nice to say hi!
Let me guess : to Lack, anyone who fails to deny the obvious conflict of interest and bias in favor of government, in government-funded climate science, is a “conspiracy” theorist. So to avoid being thought of as a conspiracy theorist, therefore, one must – like Lack – deny the obvious, and simply swallow government propaganda on climate whole.
Chris Lack : Lindzen’s career is over, he’s off to lick his wounds in obscurity in the south of France.
Good grief, this blog does attract its share of militant ignoramuses and self-aggrandizing slobbering morons, doesn’t it …
Sorry …it seems I forgot the link
http://lackofenvironment.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/me-with-big-truck.jpg
Mike,
I would be curious to know why James Hansen is so concerned about his grandchildren, but not enough to keep him from jetting around the world accepting $500,000 awards. For that Blue Planet award, they paid him $18,000 to reimburse travel expenses for him and his wife. And they did the same to the tune of $26,000 for him and his wife to attend a lecture.
http://www.atinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ATI-NASA-Hansen-SF-278-2010.pdf
With his very grandchildren hanging in the balance, one would think he would accept the award via teleconference or something similar.
I would very much like to know what kind of carbon dioxide footprint is attributed to a $26,000 vacation.
John,
Great questions. Just the sort of thing for Martin to address in one of his blog posts. Hear that, Martin?
Incidentally, John, I’m pretty sure answer is that astute, Big-Green courtiers like Hansen know the score–CAGW is a preposterous, humbug hustle, but a once-in-a-lifetime chance at the carbon-swill trough for those who make themselves useful to their make-a-buck/make-a-gulag betters. But I don’t want to steal Martin’s thunder.
John,
Hansen’s concerns for his granchildren, to judge by his actions and not his words, has to do with funding trusts he has likely set up for them with nice wads of cash from fear mongering.
Hi mike (ref. March 11 at 11:57 am.) that was quite a rant aimed at poor old Martin (the CACC evangelist) Lack – but I can’t argue against your suggestion that he is a pulpit-pounding hypocrite.
He bleats childishly (March 10 at 4:02 pm) that “ .. Lindzen interrupted me first .. ” when if fact he had been allowed over 2 minutes in which to put his question but chose to squander it on his pointless evangelising. Lindzen and most others in the room have heard that same dogma for years and didn’t want to waste any more valuable Q&A time hearing Martin on his soap box.
Hi Tony (Brown) – ref. March 9 at 7:03 am. – I have produced a transcript of the Q & A session that followed Professor Lindzen’s presentation and if you like I can E-mail a copy to you (and anyone else who is interested). In a few days time I propose to post it on my blog with a few comments of my own and welcome others who wish to make constructive comments (but not evangelists). There were one or two comments that I couldn’t quite make out and very few of the people asking questions identified themselves so if anyone can help out on that then please do so on my blog.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete
Just post it on your blog in due course and I’ll have a read.Thanks
tonyb
Hi Tony
Sorry to intrude. Forbush or no Forbush a rely exceptionally sunny and warm day yesterday. Since large part of the USA was or is deluged by rain and snow, no one is bothered about it, so if ain’t happening there ain’t worth a bean.
vuk
so are you saying the effect can’t be discerned? Exceptionally low cloud (fog?) here today-Tuesday
tonyb
Hi Tony (Brown) and any others who are interested, I’ve put my transcript of that Q&A session on my “Professor Richard Lindzen at the Palace of Westminster” thread (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2012/03/professor-richard-lindzen-at-palace-of.html).
There are a few items outstanding (marked in red) and I’d appreciate any help in clearing them up. Also, if anyone wants to comment then please do so.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete
Thanks, will have a read
tonyb
I see that at least one European country, Poland, has seen the light and vetoed the EU’s plans for “carbon” reduction (http://www.wbj.pl/blog/The_Warsaw_Blawg/post-343-poland-had-no-choice-but-to-veto-further-co2-reductions.htm). We look forward to others following suit through the European Citizens’ Initiative, with the UKIP MEP, farmer Stuart Agnew, doing his best to encourage this (see his question/comment from 03:06 minutes during Professor Lindzen’s Q&A session (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2012/03/professor-richard-lindzen-at-palace-of.html).
There’s also encouraging news from the UK home front, with the Guardian reporting “UK opposes 2030 renewable energy target” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/11/uk-renewable-energy-target-nuclear-power) that “ .. The UK government wants nuclear power to be given parity with renewables in Europe, in a move that would significantly boost atomic energy in Britain but downgrade investment in renewable generation .. ”. It also has been leaked that th eUK’s Cuadrilla Resources will be allowed to resume “Fracking” operations in Lancashire. What wonderful news about our continuing use of the most economical fuel source available, fossil fuels.
Of course greenie Guardian readers and their friends in Greenpeace and WWF will not be too pleased, but they are a small minority of the population. Most thinking individuals recognise that renewable sources such as wind and solar are useless for base-load generation of electricity and only have value in niche applications where follis fuels and nuclear are inappropriate.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I’ve now had a chance to catch up on all of the comments that have been made while I was doing the transcript of the Lindzen Q&A session. Martin complained (March 10 at 4:02 pm) about “ .. why Lindzen and Monckton therefore conspired to shut me up .. “ but refuses to recognise that he was allowed far more time than anyone else to put a question but squandered it by ranting, which is clear from my transcript (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2012/03/professor-richard-lindzen-at-palace-of.html). As someone on the panel said recently “What a plonker” – no arguments there.
Hi Tony (Brown) in you comment of March 10 at 4:54 pm. you complained about Professor Iain Stewart but I wopuld expect nothing less from a disciple of the CACC religion. Stewart has declared openly that he campaigns for the cause. If you are interested I have commented on this and elsewhere and a good starting point is Professor Curry’s “Letter to the dragon slayers” thread (http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/15/letter-to-the-dragon-slayers/#comment-133756 , #comment-166967 and #comment-170078) but also follow the link to the University of Cambridge’s “Naked Scientists” Science Forum.
In his comment of March 10 at 4:59 pm. Martin made reference to Mark Lynas’s sarcasm. It was not staunch environmentalist Lynas’s “aggressive” sarcasm that attracted me to the CACC debate but his misrepresentations, distortions and omissions in his scare-mongering CACC propaganda booklet “Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet”. I made numerous comments on his blog about these but he carefully avoided entering into discussion about them. I was astounded to find that his booklet was awarded the Royal Society science book of the year prize in 2008 (worth £10,000) so checked up on who was on the selection panel. As I recall only one scientist was on it and, surprise surprise, it was – Iain Stewart (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/17/news.science).
In his comment of March 11 at 6:37 am. Martin again deminstrated his hypocrisy, saying of CACC “ .. the only reason people continue to deny that we are responsible is that it clearly demands significant behaviour modification .. ” yet he himself continues to enjoy the enormous benefits that our use of fossil fuels bring. I speculate that he uses natural gas or oil to heat his home, that he uses plastics an dother synthetic materials extensively, that he lives in a brick-built house, runs a car on the UK’s roads to pursue his environmental activist, photography and nature-study activities. I also speculate that he considers that to be justified because he is a “special case” following the instructions of his chosen super-power.
In his comment of March 13 at 5:09 am. Martin shows a complete Lack of understanding of political motivation when he asks “ .. Explain the motivation (in the midst of a global debt crisis) .. ”. I don’t know what he tried top learn on that Masters of Environmental Politics course but it clearly included no political economics module. I’ll try to enlighten him – in order to have money to spend on their pet causes politicians need to raise some from the poor suffering taxpayer. Better by far to try to persuade them to give up their hard-earned cash in order to save their children and grand-children from a fictitious catastrophe of their own making. That way they’ll not only hand over the money willingly, they’ll vote you in at the next election.
I can’t take any more of Martin’s nonsense today. Maybe I’ll get back tomorrow – better still, I’ll think seriously about putting him on “IGNORE”.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Further to my comment of 13th March at 5:11 pm. there is more good news which aligns with what UKIP MEP Stuart Agnew talked about during the Q&A session following Professor Lindzen’s presentation (03:06 minutes on http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2012/03/professor-richard-lindzen-at-palace-of.html).
The Wallstreet Journal reports in “Poland Tries to Block EU Emission Goal” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303717304577277501277395044.html) that “..Poland is lobbying its neighbors on the European Union’s less-affluent eastern edge as it seeks to block efforts by the regional group to sharply reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, arguing that the planned cuts will hurt economic growth and fuel inflation .. ” – more wonderful news!
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete
You can get a daily summary of news like this from the GWPF
http://thegwpf.org/
Hi Latimer, yes thanks, that’s my source but not everyone here may use it and I like to spread the good news.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
The over arching impression that one may come away with is that humanity, and as some may be surprised climate scientists included, are little removed from our primitive ancestors who stand over a slain offering to appease their all knowing creator to arrest some local hazard that has wrongly been visited upon their tribe. In too many ways we as a society have not progressed beyond our primitive impulses. As always Lindzen renders the diffuse and complex into understandable and rarefied products of clarity. In this regard I found JC’s commentary superfluous,
Lindzen is smart, but he is not infallible. He continues to use the line of reasoning that I find first note of in 2005.
http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1714
“…
Let me summarize the main points thus far:
1. It is NOT the level of CO2 that is important, but rather the impact of man made greenhouse gases on climate.
2. Although we are far from the benchmark of doubled CO2, climate forcing is already about 3/4 of what we expect from such a doubling.
3. Even if we attribute all warming over the past century to man made greenhouse gases (which we have no basis for doing), the observed warming is only about 1/3-1/6 of what models project. We are logically led to two possibilities:
1. Our models are greatly overestimating the sensitivity of climate to man made greenhouse gases, or
2. The models are correct, but there is some unknown process that has cancelled most of the warming.
…”
I’m thinking he egregiously overlooked a 3rd possibility, that the system has not yet reached an equilibrium. It is not cancelled; it is just not fully realized. Does anyone seriously contend that the climate’s response to a forcing should be effectively instantaneous?
Um, since the proposed/assumed mechanism is interception of IR — yeah, pretty much instantaneous. Give or take a few ms.
Wow.
OK, anyone except Brian live in a universe where ice melts instantly, there is no delay between applying heat to water and having it come to an equilibrium temperature, etc?
Kind of wondered who would say something like this; so, I looked at some of Brian’s other comments. This is interesting:
“It spreads by various means. Eventually it will be spread …”
So, he is aware that heat spreads, and that it takes some time to do so; yet, he then claims that everything that will be caused additional energy in the earth system will happen instantaneously, or within a few minutes. Kind of wondering by what means he imagines energy at the surface penetrating to the depths of the ocean, or melting a mile or two of ice sheet, all within a few minutes.
Tell us, Chris, what is step one of the hypothesized “back-radiation” process? The instant that bounce-back happens, there’s more energy in the system than there would be if it zipped straight out to the Deep Black.
Also recall that the so-called “surface temperatures” over land are actually air temps 2m above the surface, and can and generally do differ significantly from the ground temperature, whatever that might mean. Those don’t require any of the other heat stores to be affected. In a sense, the ocean and ice conditions (few or none of which are effectively measured) serve mainly as hand-wave fudges to “explain” the non-responsiveness of the “climate” (near-surface air T, de facto) to CO2 forcings.
Brian,
Hypothesized? You know, CO2 absorbs and emits radiation; it always has. I’m sure this has been explained to you before, but here is a start:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/General_Astronomy/Molecular_Emission_and_Absorption#Emission_and_Absorption_Spectra
It’s not like the laws of physics changed when mankind started burning fossil fuels.
Uh, yeah, the earth is more than just whatever air happens to be at two meters above the surface, and contrary to what you say, in this universe, there is a lot of interaction between the surface and the air immediately above it.
Back-radiation
No mystery – as ChrisG mentions, CO2 absorbs and emits radiation
Anyway, seems this is all an extreme weather event in a measuring beaker. According to ScienceofDoom, it is anyway not reckoned to be a major factor (see latest comments in
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/17/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation/#comment-16836)
“Uh, yeah, the earth is more than just whatever air happens to be at two meters above the surface, and contrary to what you say, in this universe, there is a lot of interaction between the surface and the air immediately above it.”
Yes, a lot of interaction at the surface (net radiation, evaporation/latent, convection/sensible, geothermal) and very interesting. Many unknowns, but it can be analysed/measured. The averages may be too simplistic. The system is oscillating.
Back-radiation and forth-radiation are two sides of the same IR coin, which is a component of the net radiation coin. All coins are to be counted.
The atmosphere’s bottleneck is the cold side (radiative colling to space). CO2 emits radiation. Hmm.