by Judith Curry
By popular request, here is new thread on one of the original ‘hot topics’ at Climate Etc.
Somehow, an old post from Nov 2010 Skeptics: make your best case has become revitalized, with some new comments. There seems to be interest in re-opening this topic, so here is a new thread. From the original thread, the objectives:
This thread provides an opportunity to put forth skeptical arguments related to the topics broadly covered by the IPCC WG I Report The Physical Science Basis. This thread is designed for academic and other professional researchers as well as citizen scientists.
Here’s Tree Lobster’s best case:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/2126384614
Brains. Good.
I agree. Humans use only 10% of their brains. Jeff Condon is struggling with that issue today, realizing that despite all his efforts our country has become one of entitlement rather than empowerment.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/the-healing-blog/
It is hard to “make your best case against AGW propaganda because Climategate exposed sixty-four years (2009 – 1945 = 64 yrs) of international intrigue that has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with climateand everything to do with establishing the tyrannical government that George Orwell described in 1948: http://www.george-orwell.org/1984
However, I will respond by posting the case against AGW dogma here:
https://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1127
Here’s an excellent video on the current status of the rapidly unfolding drama of Climategate, as we head toward an election or revolution:
http://tinyurl.com/9stcnxw
You got me good with that one. I guess I’ll need to revise my belief that you have no sense of humor.
Thanks, David. Steven Goddard (and Josh) seem to grasp that humor may be our only defense against organized insanity until
a.) Constitutional limits are restored on government, and
b.) Integrity is restored to government science.
Humans use only 10% of their brains.
I’m very skeptical of that! :-)
The 10% of your brain thing is not science. It’s an idea that dates back to the 1890’s. MRI’s and other types of research reveals most of our brain is active most of the time.
Are you skeptical of efforts to distract attention away from real problems, by trying to incite Mideast violence for their own purposes?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/cindy-lee-garcia-actress-islam-bashing-movie-vile-death-threats-forced-family-hide-article-1.1161852?localLinksEnabled=false
omanuel: Humans use only 10% of their brains.
I understand Albert Einstein was so smart he only had to use 7% of his brain. A lot of people in America today seem to need at least 35% of their brains to use a vending machine.
Thanks, vrpratt. As concluded in my summary of Climategate, most politicians have succeeded well by not using their brains:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1127
vrpratt, here’s the conclusion to AGW propaganda:
http://personalliberty.com/2012/09/24/propagandizing-the-masses/#comment-714735
“Here’s an argument that suggests to me that the transient climate response (TCR) is unlikely to be larger than about 1.8C. This is roughly the median of the TCR’s from the CMIP3 model archive, implying that this ensemble of models is, on average, overestimating TCR”
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2012/04/30/27-estimating-tcr-from-recent-warming/
With prominent skeptics like Isaac Held making such a case and the decreasing rate of ocean heat uptake, possibly due to changes in cloud behavior indicated in recent studies, the discriminating skeptics think it is the “believers” that should be making their case with data sets extending past 2000.
Forgot the story line.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/Global%20Warming%20Graph_zps61ae4444.png
Except for the fact that there is no decreasing rate of ocean heat uptake.
The Sketical Warmist (aka R. Gates)
Since the threading is FUBAR, http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-241689 that was my response.
One of the reasons that I doubt estimates of long term ocean heat uptake is that there is a limit to OHC or our world would not be covered with water.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/drawing%20outside%20the%20lines%20WC%20co2%20and%20Milankovic_zpsd3176c2f.png
The Antarctic ice cores and special trees in the Rocky Mountains are poor representations of changes in OHC over the past thousands of years. Tropical oceans would be the better measure of changes in long term capacity since they are the primary region of ocean heat uptake. The pole are examples of ocean heat loss. So you should be determining how much CO2 impacts the rate of heat loss at both poles.
Your confidence on the degree of ocean heat uptake and the cause of the ocean heat uptake are rather entertaining, but I will repeat, that the rate of ocean heat uptake has reduced and that there has been a recovery of heat loss from ~1900AD.
Every hear of Unforced Variations? There are Bond Events and D-O events that require some settling time where heat capacity tries to settle into a new “normal” They are quite repetitive and not limited to the Northern Hemisphere Climate.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/unforced-variations-in-climate-not.html
captdallas
Um, Held is suggesting that CIMP3 ensembles overestimate transient climate response by just 0.2C. Even if we assume (very unscientifically) that he is bang on, this is hardly cause for jubilation and champagne.
***
I’m only going from your graph, but you seem to be conflating SST with OHC. They are of course not equivalent nor necessarily even correlated.
BBD,
Actually, SST is a good proxy for OH uptake. In 1995 the rate of SST increase slowed in time with the rate of stratospheric cooling. Comparing SST with lower tropo, mid tropo and stratospheric temperatures is a simple Wattmeter to estimate the rate of positive or negative imbalance. You can even compare troposphere temperature to detrended sea level rise to verify the change. There is a crap load of data including El Nino 3.4 heat change in the upper 300 meters and ARGO to 1000 meters showing the change in the rate of ocean heat uptake. The 0 to 2000 meter ARGO still shows an increase which is consistent with the thermal lag one should expect. Yet youse guys cling to any thread to support “theory” like true believers.
For Held’s 0.2C, that still doesn’t include the natural variability that appears to be grossly under estimated in the models.
SSTs are a better indicator of heat flux from the upper ocean to the atmosphere than of *OHC*.
And wrt Held, TCR and models, natural variation *averages to zero over time*.
BBD, SST are a good indication of ocean heat uptake. The energy entering the oceans would be related to the temperature at the ocean atmosphere interface by temperature differential. Heat does not miraculously “jump” over that interface through some mystical back door. Since we have thousands of proxy reconstructions of past sea surface temperature, relating current heat uptake to surface temperatures allows one to estimate past ocean heat content.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-best-place-to-start-is-at-beginning.html
You may find that amusing since I am not a “scientist” , but with the newer data available only in the past decade, there are a lot of interesting anomalies that are not only diverging from the models but the theory. Several theories actually.
Peter Webster turned me on to this author, http://amselvam.webs.com/earlsel/socpp.PDF , and I found a “soft” science in search of mechanisms. Her work indicates there are a variety of natural cycles which because of entropy, will average out over an extremely long period of time. There are a few of those “pseudo” cycles that may be somewhat predictable, one with a period of 1470 +/- 500 years and another with a period of 150 +/- 50 years. The cooling event in ~1900 looks like it reset the 150 +/- 50 year cycle and since current SSTs are near the average upper bi-stable limit of long term SST, I thought it might be kinda cool to ties some theories together.
Doing that requires thinking way outside of the current thermodynamic box using non-equilibrium thermodynamics which basically allows you to make stuff up, see if it works, then go with the results. Kind of liberating actually :)
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/Eastern%20Pacific%20SST%20with%20CO2%20and%20Milankovic_zps26b4f6e8.png
That is 400k year of Eastern Pacific, CO2 and Milankovic cycles. Believe it or not, the Eastern Pacific so far more closely matches CO2 than any other location. So I am fairly confident that longer term natural variations are a tad larger than 0.1C degrees. As a matter of fact, that crazy 1945 drop in temperatures appears to be ENSO related.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/super-duper-la-nina.html
A Super Duper la nina associated with the AMO shift. Imagine that?
I could be wrong, but hey, I am having fun :)
captdallas
Natural, internally forced, not externally forced variability gets you wiggles. Longer term trends require external forcing or a reorganisation of the laws of physics.
BBD,”Natural, internally forced, not externally forced variability gets you wiggles. Longer term trends require external forcing or a reorganisation of the laws of physics.”
Nonsense. If I divert 20% of the ACP current up the west coast of south Amercia it would change the rate of heat uptake and distribution. You would have a more sustained la nina climate for centuries until the deep oceans arrived at a new relative equilibrium. That just requires redistribution of the Antarctic Sea Ice extent from western to eastern which could be forced or the result of forcing a thousand years ago. Internal variability has longer time constants that have to be considered.
So go ahead and do it. The nonsense is exactly illustrated by your example.
Evidence? (Not self-published graphs).
captdallas
Are you by any chance trying to ‘get rid’ of orbital forcing? ;-)
A small point, but the ‘mismatch’ between orbital forcing and glacial terminations is an illusion. Unfortunately, one fostered by much talk of a ‘100ka cycle’ which does not exist.
Late Pleistocene terminations occur every second or third obliquity cycle (41ka) when low eccentricity modulated both by obliquity and precession result in summer insolation maxima at 65N (Huybers & Wunsch 2005). This yields a range of 82ka – 123ka between terminations and eliminates the ‘mismatch’ with the misnomered ‘100ka cycle’.
A fundamental issue for ‘orbital sceptics’ (sorry) is the mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). The 41ka obliquity cycle is clearly dominant during the late Pliocene/early Pleistocene but around 700ka this shifts to the approximately 100ka cycle. To paraphrase an apocryphal elderly lady: ‘it’s orbital cycles all the way down!’
BBD, not trying to get rid of anything. The Earth response to orbital cycles would change with time. The more efficient the circumpolar current becomes at regulating heat flow the smaller the amplitude of the apparent solar forcing. With a small response, the rate of procession would become more stable. Like the absence of the Chandler wobble, the top spins more evenly, at least until the next major event. Since Summer/Winter orientation is a major orbital factor some what independent of solar system dynamics, you can’t use one without considering the other. That improved stability provides an opportunity to better define internal oscillations that impact procession.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/Atlantic%20SST%20with%20CO2%20and%20Milankovic_zpsc5111ef5.png
With the exception of the last glacial maximum, the Atlantic varied in a 2C range. The mass of the ice during the LGM likely had an impact on the procession and may have “reset” orbital impact to a new apparent frequency. The “normal” 2C range should help reconstruct orientation and answer a few of the remaining questions.
The first would be a reasonable estimate of the upper limit of average global SST. That appears to be 21C +/- 0.5C. Global sensitivity would depend on base line selection, but the oceans will provide a limit.
If you are curious you can use the new BEST data base with the Tmin option and see that there are some interesting differences. In the Southern hemisphere, the rise in Tmin has been very stable and now the diurnal range is getting larger again.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/oceaniaTmin.png
What does that indicate to you?
I’m sorry captndallas, but we don’t seem to have enough common ground to continue a rational discussion.
BBD, that doesn’t surprise me :) When you think natural variability will average out over a couple of decades, rational climate conversation is limited :)
A transient climate sensitivity of 1.8c is right about what we would expect for an equalibrium response of 3c. Held is a real skeptic, not a climate “skeptic.”
So that makes an unreal skeptic that should tell scary stories about “global warming” melting Andean ski slopes? There was anthropogenic impact there with all those snow bunnies skiing on a 40k year old glacier.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/08/more-land-use-stuff.html
That might of had an impact too?
Robert: A transient climate sensitivity of 1.8c is right about what we would expect for an equalibrium response of 3c
How does an equilibrium response have anything to do with the next two centuries? An equilibrium response is something calculate thousands of years into the future.
A measured value for the total climate sensitivity of CO2 ought to be the holy grail of the proponents of CAGW. After all, if one could actually meaasure how much global temperatures rise as a result of an increase in CO2 content of the atmosphere, and prove that all the rise in temperature was, in fact, caused directly by the additonal CO2, it would settle for all time whether CAGW existed or not. It would be like a Michelson/Morley moment. There would be no more arguments, no more uncertainties. Just plain old classical physics as practiced by the giants of the past. No more post-normal science.
Yet, it is a strange fact that none of the proponents of CAGW seem to be the least bit interested in trying to use what little empirical data we have, to try and come up with a measured value for total climate sensitivity. So far as I am aware, only two of us have tried; Willis Eschenbach and myself. IIRC, Willis came up with a figure of around 0.1 C for a doubling of CO2, and I think the value is indistinguishable from zero.
I wonder why the proponents of CAGW are so reluctant to even consider how total climate sensitivity might be measured. It is almost as though they were afraid that the number, if it could ever be measured, would be found to be completely different from the hypothetical values they derive from dubious physics and the output of non-validated models.
Jim Cripwell,
No it wouldn’t. Because even if CO2 increases and temperature increases (or helps to avoid cooling), the benefits may exceed the costs.
Therefore, climate sensitivity is one important input to demonstrate CAGW. there are two other essential inputs:
First, the ‘damage function’. that is how bad or good are te impacts of warming. We have very little information on that.
Second, the ‘rate of decarbonisation of the global economy’. I suggest we will decarbonise the global economy this century and we could do so far faster then we are doing if the ‘Progressives’ would stop blocking progress. If we decarbonise faster, then the climate sensitivity is irrelevant.
Yes. Those progressives have so much power, don’t they Peter? Wby everything you don’t like can be blamed on them.
The victim mentality is really strong in you, isn’t it?
You are right, Joshua. Bet you don’t hear that very often, do you? The Progressives are not the only problem. There are meddlers of every political persuasion who use sound bites, fear mongering, and feel good slogans to pass all kinds of laws and regulations without looking at the bigger picture for unintended consequences or going back later to fairly evaluate if the policies worked. Instead a different set of meddlers will react emotionally or in a calculated way (as politicians are wont to do) and pass a new set of laws in reaction to the unintended consequences of the first 1,000 laws and regulations. 80 years later, here we are. Stuck on a blog arguing with economic illiterates who want to use sound bites, fear mongering, and feel good slogans to continue the cycle. But Progressives are the worst because that is their sole purpose in politics. Republitards suck almost as bad and have equally bad policies in most of the same places as Proglodytes but also have asinine policies all their own.
“Possessive’s”
Joshua,
As usual you avoid the point. Typical.
It’s another example demonstrating it is impossible to debate what’s important with CAGW alarmists.
Peter Lang,
…it is impossible to debate what’s important with CAGW alarmists.
So you’re saying that we are impermeable to reasoned argument? That no matter how you put it, we just refuse to see the evidence that’s as plain as day that CAGW scam is part of a wider UN conspiracy to impose world communist – led government?
On the other hand, you guys carefully weigh each piece of scientific evidence. The word ‘denier’ couldn’t be further from truth. You are genuine seekers after truth and aren’t quite convinced that the argument for CO2 control is quite as strong as the IPCC might claim.
Is that a fair summary?
Peter, you are tangling in the economical issues with the scientific question. His question was just on the science, as is this thread (WG1).
Jim,
If applied science is not focused on what is relevant, it should not be funded.
Climate science needs to provide the information needed for policy decisions. If you don’t want the science to be guided by what is needed for policy decisions – i.e the economics of adaptation versus mitigation policies – then please accept that the public funding for poorly directed and irrelevant research should be terminated.
The purpose is to find the extent of the problem first. Economics cannot make any sense until that is done first, otherwise it is even more hypothetical than it usually is. Sure, you can assume AGW is correct and cost that, but that is not what is being discussed at all on this thread.
I wonder how the CAGW alarmists will respond to the comment by PJB. Will they ignore it or will they comment. I’ll be interested to see how these people comment:
Robert
Joseph
BartR
WHT
Glenn Tamblyn
Jim D,
You don’t understand. Climate Scientists have been playing with that for over two decades and making little progress in reducing the uncertainty of climate sensitivity. Meanwhile, the other important parameters – e.g. damage function and decarbonisation rate – have had little attention. If these had had as much attention as climate sensitivity, we may have discovered – as many already expect – that warming is no big deal and we will solve the issue with economically rational solutions. That is, there is no need and no justification for the high costs, highly damaging mitigation policies advocated by the Alarmists.
I suspect it is pointless trying to explain this to you. I doubt you can understand it.
Jim D,
I’ll try to make this even simpler for you.
If global warming is not a problem, climate sensitivity is irrelevant.
And another point, if we can achieve decarbonisation without economically damaging policies, again climate sensitivity is irrelevant.
Do you get it now?
Since we are making slow to negligible progress reducing the uncertainty on climate sensitivity, it makes sense to out the effort into investigating the other two parameters:
– damage function
– decarbonisation rate
Do you get the significance now?
Jim, Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change inextricably blends economics, politics and climate “science” together. Post-Normal Science blends science and policy. Policy introduces politics. Politics affects regulation (control) and economics. Regulation limits the liberty to decide for yourself and the funds you may earn and keep to act on your decision.
The issue is not warming from trace CO2. The issue is how much, when and whether it would be harmful or beneficial.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
@Peter Lang: If global warming is not a problem, climate sensitivity is irrelevant.
One of the rare occasions on which I get to agree with PL.
Peter Lang,
If applied science is not focused on what is relevant, it should not be funded.
Economists often say things like this about all science, not just applied science , or even applied climate research science.
The problem is that all science first has to be funded, and then has to be done, and only then, or even much later than then, can any sensible decision be made on relevance.
I believe both Girma and DocMartyn have at various times plotted the CO2 and against temperature and found a sensitivity corresponding to 2 degrees C per doubling. This is the simplest way to get the data to show consistency with AGW.
The idiot tracker has this one nailed
—————————–
Here’s the problem. Lukewarmism doesn’t get its adherents where they want to go – because even if we accept at face value their claims, the world would still require intense efforts to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases in order to stave off disaster.
Scientists estimate a warming of 2C as the upper limit of what our civilization can adapt to, and not suffer disaster on a planetary scale. This is probably an optimistic number:. . .
The hard lower limit of climate sensitivity — the lowest it can possibly be and account for our direct observations – is about 1.1C (the real number is very likely to be in that range of 2.6C-4.1C – but we are following the “lukewarmist” argument to see where it leads). The change in forcings expected from a “business as usual” 21st century are +8.5W/m^2 – about 2 1/3 doublings of CO2.
Hence with the lowball number – the number Steven Fuller attributes not to lukewarmers but to out-and-out deniers – put us on course for 2.5C of warming this century. In other words, the lukewarmers’ own numbers belie their causal attitude to reducing greenhouse emissions.
——————————-
Lukewarmerism is incoherent. Flat out denial of human driven climate change is intellectually confused.
“Scientists estimate a warming of 2C as the upper limit of what our civilization can adapt to, and not suffer disaster on a planetary scale.” This is made up non-sense. There is no bounded, well defined description of any disaster. The Holocene Climatic Optimum involved Northern summers that were MUCH hotter ( unless someone has a theory as to why 50 W/m^2 more of TOA insolation didn’t matter ) and at the same time colder winters. Civilization didn’t collapse, on the contrary this was the ‘Cradle of Civlization’! Imagining a ‘disaster’ without bounding and defining it, doesn’t make it so.
—- “The change in forcings expected from a “business as usual” 21st century are +8.5W/m^2 “—-
See the nice, linear, save for some wiggles trend?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2012.fig3.png
0.8 W/m^2 for a third of a century?
2.4 W/m^2 for a full century not 8.5?
It is just this type of exaggeration that is the best case against gw hysteria!
The coney honey has a gripe on for us lukewarmers. Pity he has to cite a fool who labels himself (quite accurately) an Idiot who can’t keep track of the people he slimes.
Perhaps Eli’s definition of incoherence is due more to academic sherry than logic. But then, Eli’s slipping a bit and needs whatever help he can get. As one half of the Steven Fuller cited by Mr. Idiot and his mental equivalent, Eli Rabett, I can tell you that our Lukewarmer proposition of a sensitivity of 2.5C was a political offering made in hopes of reaching a political agreement.
Back to your TA’s, Eli. And your teaching assistants, too.
“Scientists estimate a warming of 2C as the upper limit of what our civilization can adapt to …” Eli, some years ago a US campaign, still alive in Australia, advocated (approx) eating “five serves of fruit and veg a day.” The number was arbitrary; it was picked as being good for sloganeering. Similarly, and, I think with reference to that, the source of the 2C figure was a leading German climate scientist who was asked to nominate a target temperature increase figure which could be used in warning (or frightening) the populace at large about CAGW. He admitted in a long interview with Der Spiegel, linked on No Tricks Zone at the time, that there was no scientific basis for the 2C figure he nominated, he thought that it would serve the purpose. (I saved the article but can’t find it.) He did not say that it was “an upper limit of what our civilization can adapt to.” I’ve never seen an authoratative explanation as to why our capacity to adapt would be so limited, nor can I imagine how it would be. Unless you can produce such an explanation, you should drop that statement.
Lets see I I can clarify for Eli since I’m somewhat of the father of Lukewarmerism.
Origins: The position First got its name back on climate audit where bender was taking a poll about the following; How much warming that we see is due to humans. There were roughly three positions;
None: less than 50%, more than 50% and the majority of us were in the middle. A) the world is getting warmer. B) C02 warms the planet.
C) less than 50% of observed warming is due to humans. The position was named Lukewarmer.
Later, Lucia picked up the term and she was looking at projected trend from GCMs. The IPCC was saying .2C per decade. Observations were tracking at about .15C per decade. So, this seemed a better number to put as the basis of our beliefs. The models run hot, we think that we will see less than .2C per decade.. because that is what the data shows.
Later I cast the definition in terms of basic physics and sensitivity.
A) since we believe in radiative theory we are committed to a sensitivity value of NO LESS THAN 1.2C per double.
B) Since we think the models run hot at 3.2C per doubling…
We conclude. There is a greater than 50% probability that the true
sensitivity values lies between 1.2C and 3C. That is, given an over/under bet of 3C.. we take the under bet.
You are welcomed to look at the CDF of the IPCC sensitivity PDF.
That is our science position. Its the ONLY position we all agree on.
Policy? Well Tom has suggested that we can agree to base policy on 2.5C. I’ve said we can base policy on 3C. Bottom line WE TAKE NO POLICY POSITION. Now, this position which I’ve laid out manytimes has been systematically misrepresented by Robert, by BBD, you name it. Lets just repeat for the record what I’ve said consitently
Lukewarmers stand for: Free data; Free code; Open debate
On the science: radiative physics is correct. There is Greater than
50% chance that sensitivity falls below 3C rather than above 3C.
A lukewarmer could choose to be concerned about the high tail.
THAT is a risk/policy choice. Not science. Lukewarmers are free to promote any or no policy. Science is one thing, what we choose to do about the risk is something different.
Just curious how the rate of change in CO2 is factored into the range of estimates for temperature increases. Rates of change in forcings have big impacts on feedback processes, and thus, a doubling of CO2 over 1,000 or 10,000 years will have a much different final effect than a doubling over 200 or so years. This isn’t just that the equilibrium temperature will be reached sooner, but that the final equilbrium temperature will be different in both cases as the nature of the system and the character of the feedback processes is changed because of the different rate of change in each. We see this all the time in biological systems, and it likely occurs in the complex dynamics and feedbacks of climate as well.
Steven Mosher,
Thank you for stating the position of ‘warmists’ very clearly. On the basis of that definition I am definitely a warmist.
One of the key points is: 50% probability climate sensitivity <3C.
Now for the policy bit (my interest). Nordhaus uses 3 C as the central estimate in his analyses and also considers the effect of the distribution on the cost-benefit results.
Based on the climate sensitivity and the other inputs (which as per AR4) he uses for his cost benefit analyses he concluded there is a $3.5 trillion net benefit to 2050 benefit of applying a carbon tax based on the assumptions used for the analyses. (i.e. negligible when put in context of global GDP of $35,000 trillion over 50 years). However, the assumptions used in the analyses are academic and totally unrealistic for the real world – they cannot be achieved. As Richard Tol said here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-239101
It is clear to most people that carbon pricing is an unrealistic aim.
LOet’s drop the idea of carbon pricing as soon as we can. Instead, let’s develop a pragmatic solution where everyone can be better off. A “No regrets” policy, where the solution to cutting GHG emissions is also a solution that improves economic growth, not impedes it, and by so doing improves health, wealth and happiness for the peoples of the planet. Impeding economic growths with high cost, ineffective policies like carbon pricing and renewable energy will have the opposite result.
We could have that solution if we wanted to. If you look carefully at the Nordhaus analyses, the solution will become apparent to most.
Details summarised here:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/#comment-234611
Corrections to my previous comment. My first three sentences should have said:
Steven Mosher,
Thank you for explaining what ‘Lukewarmists’ means. On the basis of that description I am a Lukewarmist.
One of the key points is: >50% probability that climate sensitivity <3C.
Wow Dr. Halpern. Experts say that? There are additional factors you ignore here. The gigantic error bars on direct and indirect aerosol effects. The serious problems with trying to say there is a single temperature that can be measured with reasonable error bars for the entire planet. The huge size and complexity of the problem when you are dealing with every single aspect from the sun, possibly other planets, and dealing with atmospheric physics and chemistry, geology and vulcanology, and the entire ecosystem of the planet and trying to measure and model all of them together. And yet with all this complexity, you KNOW that this is an extremely serious problem and seem to have few remaining questions. You just want immediate action and want to poke fun at anyone who has a more cautious view.
Just to pick a few specifics. There is a lag due to the heat capacity of the oceans. No one understands what the lag actually is yet. This could change the result to 1.1 degrees C in 180 years instead of 90. No one knows for sure how well ecosystems will adapt but most catastrophic scenarios in the past have been wrong. Such as attributing problems in frogs with human causes and then later finding out it was a fungus (or virus?), no time to look it up, must go teach my class in membrane biophysics. Maybe you should stick to spectroscopy for awhile. My view is that another 10-15 years will tell us a lot. How much is due to a natural cycle and the fact that we have only had satellite data for 30 years. Whether arctic ice starts to recover, whether coral starts having a hard time, whether the planet begins to green significantly (although 15 years is a pretty short time, maybe more studies with data from 1979 to 2025 will be published), and what the sun does, do temp.’s stay flat, fall, or rise steeply again. No reason to get your panties in a wad, doc.
Dear Eli,
I believe you miss the most important quote:
> Or they could take the bull by the horns and claim, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that warm can tolerate warming of 3C or 4C without any major problems (the last time the world was that hot was several million years ago; there were no ice caps to speak of and the sea level was hundreds of feet higher). The trouble with that position is that it undermines the whole thrust of lukewarmism – which is to acquire credibility (or, to be fair, possibly to exercise intellectual honesty) via the advantages [physics exist, it is warming, and there are no conspiracy].
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.ca/2010/09/between-science-and-hard-place.html
That last point is a bit moot, considering that cynics could assume a lukewarm position:
> A cynic might even point out that there was more money for studying tree rings if you hooked it up with climate change, than in dating pueblos. Sort of like adding in a terrorism angle if you’re looking for government funding for municipal works.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/31826075755
***
Besides, you might be interested in this explanation of the Overton window by way of the decoy effect:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-241688
Marketing gurus should be able to discount the decoy effect, on which perhaps the auditing sciences rest.
Bill,
You say:
> No one knows for sure how well ecosystems will adapt […]
Is this your opinion as someone who did study this question?
If you did not study that question, on what is based this appeal to ignorance?
For you do realize that you’re making an appeal to ignorance, right?
Not that we can be sure about that.
No one knows for sure that you exist.
All we know is that you’re on the Internet, and that you’re a dog.
tl;dr – Please mind your ad hominems.
The Rabett, as usual, is fixated on phony choices.
———- ” I happen to be quite alarmist.”
Which part of the scientific method is ‘alarm’?
“Business As Usual”
Please Eli, stop using this false construct.
What does Minnesota Mining and Minerals(3M) make today? It doesn’t have much to do with mining.
What is the predominant product produced today by Pittsburgh Plate Glass(PPG)? It isn’t plate glass.
How much coal consumption did the US EIA project for the US in it’s 1979 projections for the year 2010? Try two billion plus tons of coal by 2010.
Ten years ago anyone who would have claimed that coal mine productivity in the US(and for the most part globally) was going to drop 30% in a decade would have been locked in a looney bin. Coal mine productivity did drop 30%.
What will coal mine productivity be in the year 2020? 2030? 2040? What will the costs of alternatives be?
I don’t know, you don’t know, no one knows. All we know from past experience is it will be different then what we expected.
We can make nonsense statements like ‘if current trends continue’…but we know ‘current trends’ don’t continue indefinitely.
Energy is a multi-trillion dollar business and there are a lot of people who would like to help themselves to a share of that business by doing something called ‘innovating’.
To paraphrase a great Victorian Tory :
Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.”
“You speak of — “said Egremont, hesitantly.
“Scientists and folk who but comment in climate blogs.”
You’re about the sixth person I’ve heard claim that. Let’s compromise; in the future, I will refer to you as the lukewarmer’s chief deconstructionist and literary adviser. Fair?
Now, I defined lukewarmism as I was using the term in the post above. I primary used Easterbrook’s definition (he’s one of the other five.) You are welcome to your definition, but it sounds to me as though you’re really just describing yourself.
That was one of the points I made; nothing lukewarmers say about climate sensitivity is anything you can’t find in the AR4 (as the prediction based on certain studies). But because lukewarmers, in my experience, define themselves in part as in opposition to the “consensus,” there has to be more to what they believe than just a low-ish climate sensitivity. And that’s where the problems arise.
I used to drive Lucia nuts with this, before the Blackboard became primarily gambling with fake money and recipes. “The trend is 0.15C! (or whatever) The multimodal estimate is too high!”
“OK.” I would say. “Perhaps in the fullness of time you will be proven right about that. Climate sensitivity could be 2.4C — even 2C! Of course, while that is interesting from a scientific perspective, it’s totally irrelevant from a policy perspective because you need aggressive mitigation in either case.”
My, she hated that. Wouldn’t have the discussion at all. Insisted low(ish) sensitivity = no problems. And I’ve found that same fallacy among many self-described lukewarmers. You, I think, are an exception.
Dear Eli,
A simpler explanation of lukewarmism (of which Moshpit only gets the trademark, a trademark he borrowed I believe, if I read CA correctly, since the Pope of lukewarmism is Dick) is this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoy_effect
Basically, the strategy is this one:
1. Portray your opponents as alarmists.
2. Present yourself as the rationally optimistic middle ground.
In politics, this is the Overton window:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Marketing gurus know this.
INTEGRITY ™ – It’s what we sell
1. Portray your opponents as alarmists.
2. Present yourself as the rationally optimistic middle ground.
##############################################
our opponents are not alarmists. Our opponents are
A) skeptics and ignorant people who dont understand science
B) scientists who over estimate their certainty
We have no position on policy. I happen to be quite alarmist. I think there are actions we must take today if we are to have any chances in the long run.
As for being optimistic? Not so much
Middle ground? I would say we exist above the debate.
willard, complicating the definition of lukewarmer is not simplifying it. Moving ahead of the two failed sides of the climate argument does not leave us in the middle.
You are correct about Eli missing the point, however. He does, as usual. So do you.
> Scientists who over estimate their certainty.
Replacing “alarmists” with “scientists who over estimate their certainty” would suit me well.
But then why is it that the term “alarmist” get so much ice time?
For instance,
> Some might notice Keith’s remarks about how Andrew Revkin, a member of the media, served as an effective counterbalance to the press releases overhyping research results and climate alarmism.
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2012/09/03/pushing-back-on-climate-hype/#comment-119585
INTEGRITY ™ — De-Hype the Hype
***
> We have no position on policy
The majestic We, yet again.
As if any tribe position on that debate entailed a policy.
Most of the times, it’s the other way around.
This meme is a fake.
INTEGRITY ™ — Genuinely Fake
***
You are being lukewarmingly “handled”, folks.
mosh
what actions do you believe to be so urgent that they need to be taken today?
tonyb
+1
willard
“The majestic We, yet again.
As if any tribe position on that debate entailed a policy.”
The reason why “we” have no position on policy is that policy is not proscribed by any set of facts. Minor matter of an is/ought distinction.
basically, we have a position on the science. We don’t enforce “thin green lines” or try to throw people who agree about the science under a policy bus. We are not advocates. We are not in the middle of the debate, we are above it. I love spatial metaphors.
> We are not advocates.
Honest brokers might consider that all this branding amounts to stealth advocacy, then.
Speaking of greenline tests:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/beingtested
Claiming “We don’t enforce “thin green lines”” (notice again the majestic We) might run contrary to facts, notwithstanding the wiggling room left under the verb to enforce.
Maybe it’s just a vocabulary thing.
INTEGRITY ™ — It Depends What You Mean
tony
“mosh
what actions do you believe to be so urgent that they need to be taken today?
tonyb
################
for one, helping china shift from coal to gas.
Robert
“You’re about the sixth person I’ve heard claim that. Let’s compromise; in the future, I will refer to you as the lukewarmer’s chief deconstructionist and literary adviser. Fair?”
Actually not. I believe if your do your research you will see that I was there at the birth of the movement when the term was coined. And then throughout the history of its development I was there at every step shaping the definition.
Go ahead prove me wrong
> Go ahead prove me wrong.
How to switch the burden of proof in one step only.
Yet another fake argument.
***
In any case, I believe the name of David Smith (a “voice of reason”, if Judy remembers what some old students told her) should be mentioned:
> Personally, I’m a “lukewarmer”, in that I believe that manmade CO2 makes the world warmer than it would otherwise be, but whether that effect is big or small, or important or not, is unknown to everyone. My suspicion is that the CO2 impact is small and not particularly important, but I keep reading and asking questions, in the hope of learning whether my suspicion is valid or not.
http://climateaudit.org/2006/10/08/currys-comments-on-klotzbach/#comment-66275
***
There are other questions, but we won’t burden ourselves with lukewarm paternity claim about branding of what honest brokers may see as stealth advocacy.
Another from David Smith:
> Here is a goofball site I stumbled across while doing some tornado reading. I have no idea who writes this stuff. It appeals to my lukewarmer, we’re-gonna-be-OK inclination.
http://climateaudit.org/2006/10/29/road-map-2/#comment-67964
Jim Cripwell
Re: applying empirical data to evaluate climate sensitivity. Some other examples:
“Dr. Sherwood Idso describes 8 natural experiments to determine climate sensitivity:
1. Changes in atmospheric water vapour at Phoenix, Arizona 0.173 C/W/m2.
2. Changes in atmospheric dust at Phoenix, Arizona 0.173 C/W/m2.
3. Annual temperature change (land 0.171 coast 0.087) 0.113 C/W/m2.
4. Earth total GH effect 0.097 C/W/m2.
5. Equator to pole temperature gradient 0.103 C/W/m2.
6. Venus – Mar extrapolated to Earth (0.4 C) 0.1 C/W/m2.
7. Faint early Sun paradox (0.4 C) 0.1 C/W/m2.
8. Tropical ocean water vapour (ocean 0.071 land 0.172) 0.101 C/W/m2.
Best estimate 0.10 C/W/m2. The corresponds to a temperature increase of 0.37 Celsius for a doubling of CO2.”
Sherwood Idso, CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change, Climate Research, Vol. 10, 69-92, April 9, 1998. etc.
Lindzen, R. S., and Y.-S. Choi (2009), On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications. Asian Pacific Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 47(4), 377-390, 2011
DOI:10.1007/s13143-011-0023-x
See also NIPCC reviews on Climate Sensitivity
It is sad for their theory that we have already had twice their 0.37 C warming with only half a doubling. They may be off by a factor of 4.
Are you assuming there is no “natural” non co2 component to warming? If most of the observed warming is natural (non co2) then their theory could be correct.
It’s been warming since the low point of the Little Ice Age was reached in 1650. Whatever caused that can be responsible for most or all of the warming since 1850 as well.
If climate sensitivity were really that low, it would take a gigantic natural forcing to make up even half of the observed warming. Yet we find no evidence of such a forcing anywhere.
Woo look! Mystery forcings. Well, I say ‘look’, but obviously we can’t see them or detect them or measure them or anything like that. We just… have faith… ;-)
Mr. Natural is whipping up some clouds and some raindrops.
David L. Hagen | September 18, 2012 at 10:41 pm | Reply
” Best estimate 0.10 C/W/m2. The corresponds to a temperature increase of 0.37 Celsius for a doubling of CO2.”
Interesting. I arrive at roughly the same number from a different path. Assume 1.1C is no-feedback sensitivity over dry land. Multiply by percentage of earth that is dry land. 0.30 * 1.1C = 0.33C. Land isn’t totally dry and ocean isn’t entirely cooled by latent flux so that’s no more than a ballpark number but 0.37C is not just in the same ballpark it’s in the same dugout within spitting distance of the same spittoon.
@David Springer: Assume 1.1C is no-feedback sensitivity over dry land.
Why? No one has a clue what “no-feedback sensitivity” means. It’s a completely vacuous concept.
Peter Lang,
You don’t understand what Jim Cripwell has been boringly droning on about for the last few months. He’s saying that Climate sensitivity needs to be measured. The only way that can be done of course is to allow CO2 to increase to much higher levels than we now have and see what happens. If the effects are small then people like Jim will say “see nothing to worry about after all’. If not, they’ll come out with the “correlation doesn’t prove causation argument” and deny that anything has been measured anyway.
So, you see, its not a real argument. Its just way of saying that nothing needs to be done on CO2 emissions right now.
@tt: He’s saying that Climate sensitivity needs to be measured. The only way that can be done of course is to allow CO2 to increase to much higher levels than we now have and see what happens.
I would be fascinated to see any evidence whatsoever that this is the only way. We have 160 years of data, is all that just chopped liver for you?
We don’t know the net ‘forcing’. The only way is when the cooling is so strong that warmists cannot come up with more ad hoc negative forcings.
“Yet, it is a strange fact that none of the proponents of CAGW seem to be the least bit interested in trying to use what little empirical data we have, to try and come up with a measured value for total climate sensitivity”
Not true Jim. The majority of scientific studies into Climate Sensitivity do that just that. They look at empricial evidence of how climate has reacted to changes in forcing. By looking at past climates. From recent things like the impact of volcanic eruptions, to one study looking at geological estimates of past climate looking back over 420 million years. And it is those studies that are starting to narrow the range of possible values down. Less than 2 – very unlikely. 2-4 most likely 4+. moderate possibility.
This is a problem with trying to use the blogosphere to inform yourself about what is going on in climate research. It doesn’t happen on the blogosphere. If you want to see what is happening you will unfortunately need to spend a bit of money, buting subscriptions to the top 10-20 scientific journals where the real conversation happens.
Blogs like this are just a shadow play in comparison.
Did you really write this?
“So, either Mother Nature deigns to give the world a terrifying wake up call. Or people like us have to build the greatest guerilla force in human history. Now. Because time is up…Someone needs to convene a council of war of the major environmental movements, blogs, institutes etc. In a smoke filled room (OK, an incense filled room) we need a conspiracy to save humanity.”
Oh Steven, where would we be without stolen emails, eh?
Still, at least this one proves, once and for all, that the
conspiracy theorists‘sceptics’ are indeed imagining things. Unless of course GT has been deliberately excluded from the real conspiracy.;-)
For Whom the Wakeup Bell Tolls,
It Tolls for Thee.
So what if he did?
BBD
“Oh Steven, where would we be without stolen emails, eh?”
well, for one we would think that Glenn is sincere in his attempts to engage. Now of course he can apologize for what he said. Many of us have had to do that. Before I jump to the conclusions that the text was accurate I thought I would give him the benefit of the doubt.
Fair. But since you want to assume its accuracy before you hear from Glenn, I’m wondering what you think of it?
OOOOHHH
Cat Fight
Subscriptions to 10-20 top journals where the real conversation happens.
You mean where the real pal review happens.
Plenty of data leaks out from behind the paywalls. Sometimes you don’t even need FOIA authority to pry it loose!
Besides just one pal with university access can email the PDF’s to those unfortunates adrift amongst the ignorant unwashed masses outside the academic profiteers and their enablers in the trade rag business.
Glenn Tamblyn: From recent things like the impact of volcanic eruptions, to one study looking at geological estimates of past climate looking back over 420 million years.
This is complete garbage. Neither volcanic eruptions nor paleoclimate has anything whatsoever to tell us about modern global warming. If you think otherwise prove it with real data.
That is a rather fuzzy “fact” I would think. I think it is more like follow the Orange line in the absolutely marvelous graphic linked above. Whether the pace of ocean heat uptake returns to the 1955 to 2000 pace in less than 60 years is likely or not would be a more sensible topic to discuss than “fuzzy facts”. There are oscillations to consider after all :)
Let me point out that on the previous thread about Arctic sea ice, I put forward a case, based on very simple science and logic, that if we look at Antarctic sea ice extent at the same time we look at Arctic sea ince extent, it is absolutely clear the whatever is happening in the Arctic, it is regional. There is no case to be made that the record low levels of Arctic sea ice have anything to do with CAGW and increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Whatever the cause is of a massive melt of Arctic sea ice this year, it is completley natural. And no-one has challenged my approach.
I believe I replied twice on the previous thread about why positive albedo feedback applies more strongly to the Arctic than Antarctic. Also it is tough to melt a continental ice cap, as we see also with Greenland.
No Jim. We can’t say that. Yes, the change is regional but that doesn’t mean the underlying causes aren’t more global. Warmer ocean currents flowing into the Arctic from the Atlantic and through the Bering strait. Increased flows of (relatively) warmer fresh water from rivers in Siberia due to melting Permafrost for example.
And the issue with Arctic melting is less about what is causing it but rather what the impacts will be.
The warmer flows into the Arctic Ocean combined with low ice cover results in a much higher loss of heat to space than there would have been with high September ice coverage. In other words, the amount of ice coverage acts as a governing mechanism on Northern Hemisphere and probably global temperatures. The low albedo of open ocean compared to sea ice is of little importance when the seasonal isolation is low.
+1,000,000
−1
OK, in addition to the positive feedback, the fact that the warmer water flows north, not south in the major oceans, is a big factor too, plus the warmer rivers come off the warmer northern continents into the Arctic Ocean. Many factors favor the Arctic for warming.
My best case:
The AGW sand castle, as shown in the graph below, was built by smoothing all the oscillations in GMST before 1970s and leaving the warming phase of the oscillation since then untouched and calling it man-made.
http://bit.ly/OaemsT
I call this the “Hockey Stick” of the 20th century, in contrast to the Hockey Stick of the millennium.
The handle of the hockey stick of the 20th century is made of the secular trend until 1970 and its blade is made of the transient (multidecadal oscillation) warming trend since 1970.
What the data shows is a uniform warming since the little ice age => http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd
There is no HOCKEY STICK in the data.
Girma, your chart shows Hansen’s C forecast nailed it, his B was better than a no-change extrapolation, and his A was no better than a no-change extrapolation. Two out of three ain’t bad.
My best cases
The models are wrong in their projections as shown below:
Observation versus IPCC Projection =>http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/IPCC-Predictions-2011.PNG
Observation versus Hansen Projection => http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/Hansen1988Scenarios.gif
AGW and ice albedo have nothing to do with it: wrmists are in denial about the blooming plankton abehind the meltdown .
Capelin rush into the Arctic to feed on the things, hotly pursued by bigger fish, culminating in the hot-blooded tuna atop the food chain.
As the bluefin buzz about scarfing down their unlimited calorie diet, they release prodigious amounts of metabolic heat, contributing to the underwater volcanic eruptions that cause the so- called albedo feedback loop by cooking entire schools of squid and releasing their ink into the water.
As everyone knows , there is no such thing as “back Radiation” and hence nothing to stop galactic cosmic rays from magnetizing the ink, and causing it to be drawn to the surface by the iron sun. Nor, despite repeated FOIA requests, has the Unviversity of Virginia released any data demonstrating growth rings in medieval tuna otoliths prove the CACW theory.
Killer read, O-man.
It skewers all the climate clowns presenting their crackpot theories on this thread.
So this is what it has come down to. A request to present the best-case and predictably the immediate knee-jerk response comes from about a dozen of the 3 dozen clowns that push their pet ideas. All worthless, BTW.
You have to stand back and marvel at how this has turned into a Coast-to-Coast wacko fest.
Observation versus IPCC Projection =>http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/IPCC-Predictions-2011.PNG
Observation versus Hansen Projection => http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/Hansen1988Scenarios.gif
There is no hockey stick in the temperature record => http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd
Is that wacko fest?
In science, if theory does not match the observation, you chuck the theory. So chuck, AGW.
In science , <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1TbosA_JLgwcjj6SfOqmvQu4oEgkWNQOw7XgvxvUZoJE"when crackpots ignore the data , you chuck the crackpots.
Girma, have you defended your work at Rons or Nicks?
WHT and O-man just proved the warmists have no science to discuss.
Jim2 are you that clueless to fail to see what kind of comedy circus you are a part of?
Ever heard of the Journal of Irreproducible Results? Long history of scientists engaging in sarcasm.
> You have to stand back and marvel at how this has turned into a Coast-to-Coast wacko fest.
Indeed, marvelling could become contemplative and induce calmness.
Marvel? Or cry?
We sat down by the rivers of Bullshit and wept
Very clever, OmniPepsodent!
Not.
Probably written through the process of Intelligent Design.
My best case is simple, as science should be. AGW via GHGs is about atmospheric warming, which should be relatively steady, as every new GHG molecule counts. The satellites are our instruments for measuring whether or not this warming is occuring. The only warming they show, in the last 30+ years, is a single step warming coincident with the great ENSO. Thus there appears to have been no new GHG warming. None, so AGW is falsified. QED by observation.
I see no “single step”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/39220/data/graph6gliksonjpg-data.jpg
Your graph is too messy. If you plot UAH from the beginning until the beginning of the big ENSO cycle in 1998, you get a flat line. Then plot it from the end of the cycle in 2001 until today and you get another flat line, but this second flat line is higher, that is earmer, than the first flat line. This difference is the step warming, which coincides with the big ENSO cycle.
My conjecture, and it is only that, is that this step is a small abrupt event, due to an ocean circulation change, which is the standard theory for abrupt events.
The primary point is that there is no evidence of GHG warming in this specific pattern, and UAH is the best data we have. Science is about specifics, because it is the specifics that falsify hypotheses. In this case AGW is the hypothesis.
I agree with the step up in baseline in 1997/1998 El Nino. I pointed this out at the Blackboard a couple years ago. Lucia said she didn’t believe in step functions in fluid mechanics.
My guess was that was disgorgement of missing heat in the pipeline. Therefore, future global warming will reveal itself in a punctuated equilibrium style.
Who knows! That’s the real point
actually, bifurcations and shifts are not uncommon in nonlinear dynamics
… such that the mean of many thousand dynamical bifurcations and shifts in the course of any given year adds up to a planetary energy budget that is remarkably predictable.
Excellent point, Judith … numerous climate-skeptic concerns are allayed by embracing global energy measures! :) :grin: :lol: :!:
Fan-Oh-More
Exactly. And the uncertainty in the planetary energy budget is orders of magnitude greater than the sum total of CO2, feedbacks and aerosols. That’s a big fudge-factor to cover your disgorgement of weasel-words!
Isn’t the onset of turbulence basically a step function? The flow capacity of a pipe drop suddenly when laminar flow abruptly becomes turbulent. This is central to fluid mechanics.
Your observation is correct, David Wojick! :) :) :)
But when we observe the fluid dynamics of the ocean and atmosphere, we do not see “the onset of turbulence”, rather what we see is nearer to fully developed turbulence.
This is why local prediction of weather is infeasible, whereas reasonably reliable long-term energy-balance predictions of warming can be based upon (relatively) simple thermodynamical considerations.
The key ideas of global-scale climate-science are not complicated, David Wojick! :) :) :)
@curryja: actually, bifurcations and shifts are not uncommon in nonlinear dynamic
Are they in any way common in multidecadal climate?
Which is all that matters when projecting forward a century.
@David Wojick: UAH is the best data we have
Best for David Wojick. UAH is actually pretty bad given how little data we get from it: only from 1979, and only from thousands of times further away than a vast amount of other temperature data that has accumulated since well over a century ago. UAH data is basically garbage.
Wrong does not describe what he is. Wrong does not cover enough ground to do the job.
You need to think like a geologist and auto-filter the noise with your eyes.
David,
First of all, satellites are not our only instruments for measuring whether warming is occuring, we have thermometers too.
Secondly, although the warming effect of GHGs should be relatively steady there are of course other factors affecting atmospheric temperatures on shorter scales, so one would not necessarily expect the observed warming to be steady over short timeframes.
Andrew, there is no thermometer that measures average atmospheric temperature. We do have complex statistical models that attempt to derive an average temperature from an unrepresentative sample of thermometers located in the boundary layer, but that is a model, not an instrument, and a questionable model at that.
Nor is 32 years a short time frame. This is in fact the time frame that AGW is based on, containing the supposed warming in the surface statistical models, which does not exist in the satellie record.
In two more years we’ll have two disjoint 17-year periods of satellite observation; of course, 1970’s satellite technology interpreted by evangelical missionaries who put the Bible back in Science may not be everyone’s idea of the most reliable dataset, but at least it’ll amount to something then. And when we have five disjoint 17-year periods, we’ll have something statistically worth looking at, maybe.
Five disjoint 30-year spans would be better.
But then, we already have all of that and more from the surface record; while it’s not the dataset anyone sane would have set out to use to record climate observations globally if they knew what we know now, it’s been validated and verified, and stands up for some limited uses.
Such as verifying that David Wojick is just plain wrong on facts.
I am assuming you are referring to the caped crusaders Spencer and Christy.
Bart, what you are calling a dataset is the output of several questionable complex statistical models, operating on poor data, not an observation. These models have neverq been validated, in fact the satellite record falsifies them. What other source of validation is there?
What specific facts are you claiming I am wrong on?
By the way Bart, your 17 year number has no mathematical meaning. It is a rule of thumb derived by Ben Santer, using a surface statistical model, and assuming AGW. Nor are the flat periods in the UAH step pattern disjoint in any meaningful way. The pattern covers the entire 32 year period.
> [Y]our 17 year number has no mathematical meaning.
A rule of thumb sounds like a mathematical meaning, cf. heuristics.
The notion of “mathematical meaning” deserves due diligence.
By no mathematical meaning I mean it is not derived from statistical theory, the way, say, a confidence interval is. It is an empirical claim, based on the lengths of flat intervals in the HadCru temperature model output, and assuming there is an underlying warming trend due to AGW. Given that the statistical model is weak and the assumption is merely an hypothesis, it has very little credibility.
Indeed, BartR’s claim is empirical. This was the hint:
> Such as verifying that David Wojick is just plain wrong on facts.
This means that the “this has no mathematical meaning” jab is quite meaningless.
Speaking of meaninglessness, here’s a gem:
> Given that the statistical model is weak and the assumption is merely an hypothesis, it has very little credibility.
I too prefer when my assumptions are not merely hypotheses.
We have at least 100k worth of philosophical credibility just there.
Bart R
”when we have five disjoint 17-year periods, we’ll have something statistically worth looking at, maybe.”
+1
David Wojick | September 19, 2012 at 11:40 am |
For someone who claims to have studied Logic at some point in the distant past, your inability to handle contrapositive conditionals is surprising.
I don’t need or make special claims about any magical properties of Dr. Santer’s 17-year periods here; all I need is to communicate the understanding that shorter periods than 17 years are inadequate for any sort of trendology due low signal:noise ratio on the dataset Santer used, which gives us plenty of cause to consider Mr. Christy’s salted dataset inadequate to the use you put it to.
32 years doesn’t provide a statistically significant number of disjoint climates, which the Meteorologists still define as 30-years, to establish comparisons.
Like Sheik Amar, “No matter your skills as a promoter, you can’t organize an ostrich race with just one ostrich. “ All you can do is stick your head in the sand.
Bart R
I am not sure where you learned your logic. For a guy who berates the other one for not understanding logic and contrapositives, you probably need to revisit you understanding (if any) of logic and contrapositves. There are several problems in your statement. But I dont have time (given that it is insanely late now) to address all of them. I will address one of them.
You state the “understanding” (axiom as implied by you) that “shorter periods than 17 years” (call it variable P) “are inadequate” “for any sort of trendology” [whatever that means, call it variable Q]. lets make it simple and say Q is really “no trend”. So now we have you saying P->Q is an axiom, without showing how it is an axiom. It is not like you are saying cows moo, for us to take that as an axiom, without questioning you. That is what David was questioning to begin with. The contra positive on this says if there is no trend then that means the period is shorter than 17 years. How in the world is the statement you make below (where the axiom is not at all an axiom) “which gives us plenty of cause to consider Mr. Christy’s salted dataset inadequate to the use you put it to” anything to do with the contrapositive of the first statement, not to mention has any implications to the 32 year period David talks about?
If you really have some explainable logic behind these assertions, you should at least make your english translations much more comprehensible and tight so we can actually see the logic there, instead of berating the other guy for lacking logic.
sorry I meant to say the contrapositve statement is “if there is a trend then the period is longer than 17 years”. Not the one I wrote below. before I fixed it was I reading it back, I ended up clicking on Post comment by mistake . I guess I need to get to bed, this being too late.
The MSUs don’t measure temperature directly. The TLT *estimate* is a patchwork of modelled (!) reconstructions, nothing more. And it is quite possibly biased low (Po-Chedly & Fu 2011) because errors in processing data from higher in the troposphere affect the *estimated reconstruction* of TLT temperature. Nobody can say that the satellite reconstructions ‘falsify’ anything.
Shiv,
> You state the “understanding” (axiom as implied by you) that “shorter periods than 17 years” (call it variable P) “are inadequate” “for any sort of trendology” [whatever that means, call it variable Q].
P and Q are propositions. If they are to be variables, they should be propositional variables. That means there is one and only one proposition there:
(P) Shorter periods than 17 years are inadequate for any sort of trendology.
The emphasis is there to show the important part of propositions.
There seems to be a confusion between propositions and predicates in your analysis.
Shiv | September 20, 2012 at 2:54 am |
Brave effort, and nice to see.
I don’t pretend to be faultless; (sometimes, I even purposely include errors out of some mischief or for some pedagogy-inspired ends, which is silly as the errors I make naturally far exceed the learning opportunities of the cleverness I imagine I have). See if you can spot the difference between the purposeful error I make below, and the unintended ones:
But what willard said. Sort of.
I have two unknowns, X and Y. If they are fully disjoint and well-ordered, I can know if X>Y is true. This is axiomatic.
Trendology requires us to know if X>Y for all values in the sample domain over a range to establish if there is a trend on that range. We require a bit more if we’re to apply Statistics.
In the case of Climatology, Dr. Santer has shown by confidence intervals (signal:noise ratios) that if our domain is global average monthly temperature (a clumsy metric to rely on), then the requirements of Statistics are not fulfilled without disjoint collections spanning at least 17 years on the HadCRU dataset to use as representative samples. Other datasets may have different values than 17 years.
A decent statistician won’t call statistics on less than five samples meaningful. UAH can’t even give us two samples yet.
A decent Meteorologist, according to the published standards of their profession, considers 30 years (not 17) the minimum length of a climate.
Either way, GISS, CRU, and BEST can provide enough discrete samples to allow meaningful statistical processing.
If you can’t provide enough discrete samples to allow meaningful statistical sampling, you cannot make meaningful assertions of the type Dr. Wojick has about step functions or trends with any confidence.
Construct for me, if you would, in terms of predicate logic the propositive form of this statement.
Then you will see why I “berated” Dr. Wojick for failing to recognize the appropriate corollary contrapositive.
“The MSUs don’t measure temperature directly. The TLT *estimate* is a patchwork of modelled (!) reconstructions, nothing more.”
There are reconstruction, as are ground station measurement – as all systems which attempt measure global temperature.
But satellite measurement is more accurate way to measure global temperature, than compared to using a weather network which measure local temperature [for weather purposes] and attempting to average these.
“And it is quite possibly biased low (Po-Chedly & Fu 2011) because errors in processing data from higher in the troposphere affect the *estimated reconstruction* of TLT temperature. Nobody can say that the satellite reconstructions ‘falsify’ anything.”
Your reference if correct, doesn’t make your point.
“The analysis reveals that the UAH TMT product has a positive bias of 0.051 ± 0.031 in the warm target factor that artificially reduces the global TMT trend by 0.042 K decade−1 for 1979–2009. Accounting for this bias increases the global UAH TMT trend from 0.038 to 0.080 K decade”
The claimed error is 0.051 ± 0.031, ground stations have a larger error.
So, if satellite can’t falsify, than nothing we got can falsify. And so we left with the wonderous pseudoscience.
@Shiv: I am not sure where you learned your logic.
I’m sure you learned your logic here. You write like a crackpot.
@David Wojick: By no mathematical meaning I mean it is not derived from statistical theory, the way, say, a confidence interval is. It is an empirical claim, based on the lengths of flat intervals in the HadCru temperature model output, and assuming there is an underlying warming trend due to AGW. Given that the statistical model is weak and the assumption is merely an hypothesis, it has very little credibility.
I beg to differ. No assumption about AGW need be made to demonstrate that 17 years is an excellent number to use in this context.
All you have to do is ask what fraction of n-year windows exhibit a rise in temperature, as a function of n. 18 months before Santer came up with his 17-year figure, my energetic assistant Robbie calculated that 15 years was the bare minimum.
The data for this can be seen here. As n is increased from 5 to 15 years, the above-mentioned fraction gradually increases from a half (i.e. completely random chance) to one (100% certainty).
No assumption about AGW is made here. If David Wojick continues to insist otherwise in the face of this clear data then his pants are on fire.
Faulty basic premise David. That the primary place you would expect to observe ‘warming’ is the atmosphere. Actually the key place you look for warming is the oceans. It takes more than 1000 times as much heat to warm the oceans by 1 Deg as it does the atmosphere. And relatively small variations in heat trasnport betwen the air and the oceans can make the air temperatures jump around quite a bit while having minimal impact on the oceans.
So the kkey indicator is heat build up in the oceans. And they have been warming steadily since around 1970. No slow down, no cooling.
What they say is the oceans were thrown into the mix, a hasty patch job for GW theory, once surface temperatures plateaued. It’s retarded, but that is what they claim.
Indeed JCH, the idea that an atmospheric GHG increase should warm the oceans without warming the atmosphere is a major rewrite of GH theory, to say the least.
Moreover, the statistical model that purports to show long term ocean warming is far worse that the surface statistical models, which only use area averaging, not volume averaging, and which at least have some fixed stations. Cobbling together miscellaneous Navy submarine reports to get hundredth of a degree changes is not a sound model.
Then too, if all of the GHG increase heat is going into the oceans, who cares? The oceans are very cold. Not that I believe this is actually happening.
It is not a rewrite. In terms of the history of the theory, the pipeline is very old.
David Wojick
Eh? You’ve heard of the ‘Charney Report’, I hope? You know, the one from 1979 which states:
My mistake. It should not surprise me that there is a 33 year old speculation lying in the literature that might explain what we see. I would be happy if the climate community recognized the step as real and began investigating why it has happened, including this qualitative possibility.
David Wojick
You are desperately ill-informed.
As opposed to BBD who is just desperate.
And cowardly. A desperate coward conspiring behind closed doors. You’re a butt buddy of Glenn Tamblyn, huh?
David Wojick: the idea that an atmospheric GHG increase should warm the oceans without warming the atmosphere is a major rewrite of GH theory, to say the least.
Quite right. So was the transition from a geocentric to a heliocentric model of planetary motion. What point are you trying to make here?
OMG! Steadily since the around 1970s! Now I have a new arbitrary baseline to consider!
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/oceaniaTmin.png
Oh sorry that is the BEST Tmin temperatures for Oceania. I hear that Tmin is kinda an indication of CO2 forcing. Of course there is probably a tree in Siberia that is a more scientifically correct proxy for the true temperature change or perhaps we could ask the Tuna?
Your attempt at falsification of AGW suffers from a fatal shortcoming. This is that the entity which would have to be observed, an event belonging to a statistical population, does not exist for IPCC climatology.
Great topic. I got into it a bit with Andrew Revkin about the lack of warming over the last 15 years. His point was that since it was a “super el nino” that marks the fall off in warming starting after 1998, it’s not legit. to attach much importance to it. He’s invoking “natural variability.: Ok, but when Hansen issues his frequent predictions of another super el nino (ever hopeful, always wrong) he’s clearly not thinking natural variability, but I suppose a “loaded dice” scenario…
I think the skeptic’s answer to revkin et al would be well, show me some predictions from 15 years ago stating that since we’re coming off a super el nino there won’t be any warming for the next decade or two. Failing that, I don’t see that it’s at all fair to start waving the natural variability flag after the fact.
Anyone?
Pokerguy,
I don’t know what people were saying in 1998, I wasn’t following this issue very closely then, but surely what matters is what we actually know now. The argument that it is misleading to draw conclusions based on trends starting in 1998 is either correct or it’s not – I would argue that it is, given that there was a clear spike in 1998 and temps immediated dropped back down again (according to HadCrut 1999 was cooler than 1997). But either way that argument is entirely unaffected by what someone might have said or not said in 1998.
Glenn Tamblyn,
I am a sceptic about catastrophic consequences of global warming and about the mitigation policies, both proposed and already implemented. Furthermore, I’ve been following the policy debate on CAGW, including providing policy advice to government, for over 20 years – i.e. since before the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
You say:
IMO, this comment demonstrates why you believe what you are saying, while I disagree with you. I agree with Judith. Your comment shows you are talking just about climate science. But the sceptics see climate science as one issue amongst many. They bring a much greater breadth and depth of knowledge and experience to the debate. Climate scientists and academics simply do not have as large a breadth and depth of relevant experience to draw on.
Your comment states many of the standard down-in-the-weeds arguments about climate science. But it avoids what is important to know for rational policy advice, such as:
1. What difference will the Australian carbon tax and ETS make to the ecology of the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park and to rainfall in the Murray Darling Basin?
2. What is the cost and benefits of carbon pricing, given that the assumptions that underpin the modelling are impracticable and cannot be achieved in the real world? As Richard Tol said in answer to my question here:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-239101
See my question here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-239089
4. What is the impact of global warming. I am not interested in the scaremongering adjectives and narrative. I want to know the damage costs per degree of warming. We know climate change is not catastrophic, so we must make policy decisions on an economically rational basis. But so far, after 20 years of very large taxpayer funding to climate science, we still have little useful information on the damage function (see Nordhaus Table 7-2 here to understand what I am talking about http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf).
5. The ‘Garnaut Climate Change Review’ has exaggerated the impacts of climate change and the damages so as to provide justification for the Australian carbon tax and ETS. (see my comment of earlier today here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-240670
My BS meter is set to high sensitivity because activist climate scientists have been exaggerating and overstating the case for urgent and economically damaging policies for over 20 years. James Hansen predicted the oceans would evaporate. You know about Australian Climate Commissioner, Tim Flannery’s exaggerations, overstatements and scare mongering. Similarly, with Will Steffen. You’d know about how we were led to believe in the early 1990s that the planet was doomed unless we quickly reduced our CO2 emissions. You’ll recall the Australian Government committed in 1992 to the ‘Toronto Targets’ – “Australia will cut its CO2 emissions to 1988 levels by 2000 and to 20% below 1988 levels by 2005”. Of course, as we all now know, the arguments about imminent catastrophe were exaggerations and false.
Glenn Tamblyn,
You ask:
Well, why didn’t you start your comment by stating your definition.
As generally used catastrophic climate change means:
1. If we don cut CO2 emissions by 20% below 1988 levels by 2005, it’ll be too late. We’ll have runaway global warming and life on Planet Earth will cease to exist [stated in various ways by Bob Hawke’s government (1991-92) based on information provided by climate scientists and fanned and encouraged by them)
2. If we don’s stop burning fossil fuels and stop the coal death trains in the very near future, life on the planet is doomed (Climate change scientist and activist James Hansen)
3. If we don’s stop burning fossil fuels the oceans will evaporate
4. Garnaut Climate Change Review added cherry picked upper bounds upon cherry picked upper bounds to get a sea level will rise of 1.1 m by 2100 as a basis for his damage cost estimates for justifying the Australian ETS.
Sea level rise is not catastrophic when taking proper account of the times scales involved and demonstrated our ability to adapt. It is just a cost, and not a big cost anyway when put in proper context. It may be offset by benefits of warming, we just don’t know because the work has not been done on the damage function.
You haven’t mentioned the time it will take. As you put the question, it is simply extreme scaremongering. You are implying it is a threat for the near term. Sea level will not rise as a tsunami so it is not catastrophic. It’s just a cost to be weighed against other costs and benefits of warming and reducing the risk of cooling or delaying cooling.
How can ice starting to melt (your words) be catastrophic? Its ridiculous to say ice starting to melt, even if true, is catastrophic.
Have you considered how catastrophic would be to hold CO2 levels to 450 ppm, especially given that most climate Alarmists oppose us getting low cost nuclear power. Low cost nuclear power is the most viable alternative we have to cut CO2 emissions, but it is opposed to most climate alarmists. That is a prime example of the irrationality and lack of objectivity of climate scientists. If you have no idea about how catastrophic it would be to hold CO2 concentrations to 450 ppm, then perhaps you could get an idea from these two references:
Nordhaus (2008) A Question of Balance
Pielke (2011) An evaluation of the targets and timetables of proposed Australian emissions reduction policies.
Your credibility is gone at the first paragraph in your comment. I’ve dismissed you as an irrational, alarmist.
If you want to get through to me, you’d need to make a contribution at the level of rational policy debate. You could start by pointing out if there are any serious errors (not the relatively minor ones I know and have discussed in comments) in this post:
What the carbon tax and ETS will really cost
And this comment (and my two preceding comments) on SkepticalScience on the misleading thread about Nordhaus (written by Dana 1981): http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1325#82373
Could I urge you to look at my comments near the end of this thread in which I summarised the costs and benefits of the proposed climate mitigation policies, including limit CO2 concentration to 450 ppm. My summary comments start here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/#comment-234611 The first comment uses Nordhaus’s results to highlight that a low cost alternative to fossil fuels is by far the best policy.
You asked why global warming is not catastrophic. Here is my answer:
How bad is global warning?
Following are a few key references that, taken together, show global warming is not a threat of catastrophe. It is a matter of costs and benefits and appropriate policies informed by economic analyses.
Copenhagen Consensus 2012 does not rank mitigating climate change as one of the top priority items we should spend our resources, effort and wealth on to improve human well being.
Scotese Palaeomap shows the planet is in a ‘Coldhouse’ phase – i.e. there is plenty of room to warm before we get outside the planet’s ‘normal operating temperature. The chart shows that the planet’s temperature ranges between a minimum and maximum temperature (about 10 C to 25 C). The ‘normal temperature’ is near the higher end of the range. The current temperature is nearer to the low end of the range. Only three times since multi-cell animal life began (about 550 million years ago) has the planet sunk into a coldhouse phase like we are in now. The planet is in an unusually cold period. So what is so bad about warming?
IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6, Figure 6.1 shows that for most of the past 400 million years the planet has been without polar ice caps – i.e. the planet is normally much warmer than at present. So what is so bad about warming?
IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6 includes statements buried in the text that show life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder. So what is so bad about warming?
Hansen and Sato (2010) (Figure 1
) shows the planet has been in a cooling trend for the past 50 million years. And we’ve recently (8000-5000 years ago) past the peak temperature in the current 100,000 year Glacial-Interglacial cycle. So the planet is in a cooling trend – heading down towards the next ice age. Cooling would be catastrophic. Arguable, anything we do to reduce the risk of cooling, and extend the period until cooling begins, is good for life on planet Earth.
Nordhaus (2012) “Economic policy in the face of severe tail events
” says no identified ‘thick tail’ risk of catastrophic consequences has been identified. The Abstract says: “However, we conclude that no loaded gun of strong tail dominance has been uncovered to date.”
Conclusion, Global warming is not catastrophic or dangerous. There will be transition costs. So, we need policies to minimise the costs and disruptions. We first need to understand the costs and benefits of different policy options.
References:
Copenhagen Consensus (2012)
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Projects/CC12.aspx
World Economic Forum “Global Risks 2012”
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2012-seventh-edition
Scotese Palaeomap
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6, Figure 6.1
http://accessipcc.com/AR4-WG1-6.html#6-3-1
IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6
http://accessipcc.com/AR4-WG1-6.html#6
James Hansen and Makiko Sato (2010) “Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change” (Figure 1)
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
Nordhaus (2012) “Economic policy in the face of severe tail events”
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2012-seventh-edition
Nordhaus (2007) “A Question of Balance”
http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf
Peter Lang (2012, What the carbon tax and ETS will really cost
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/
“You asked why global warming is not catastrophic.”
No, he didn’t. He asked for your definition of “catastrophic,” a term you were using. Instead, you provided a rush of diarrheal misinformation, and failed to answer the question.
Robert,
That comment is the sort of avoidance and obfuscation that is standard practice for the CAGW Alarmists. It’s why I don’t trust anything you or the others of your ilk preach. “Catastrophic climate change / global warming” and “dangerous climate change / global warming” are CAGW advocates terms. Therefore you and your ilk need to define them. I’ve given you many examples of how these terms have been used over a period of two decades.
Why don’t you Google the terms and find out for yourself. The fact you didn’t and play avoidance and obfuscation like this clearly displays your intent, and it doesn’t look appear to be scientific honesty or professional integrity to me.
I Googled and the first hit is:
Weitzman (2009),ON MODELING AND INTERPRETING THE ECONOMICS OF CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE
http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3693423/Weitzman_OnModeling.pdf?sequence=2
Cited by 524 (mostly CAGW alarmists I’d guess)
Your comment is another example of why nothing you and your ilk say can be trusted. You are all about weaselling disinformation and trying to mislead those who do not have the time to check.
Robert,
Here’s another, a section heading in IPCC AR4:
2.2.4 Risk of catastrophic or abrupt change
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2-4.html
It’s from your bible so that must be good enough for you, or wait ….. how will he weasel out of this one?
Peter’s still to scared to answer the question.
What is your definition of “catastrophic,” Peter?
You don’t know, do you?
Are you such a coward that you can’t define your terms, fearful of how easily your arguments can then be shredded?
Why don’t you face your fear and answer the question?
I presume, since no one has attempted to refute this, let alone provided a persuasive argument to refuted it, that it stands. That is, man-made global warming is not catastrophic.
I take it that this must be accepted as irrefutable by the CAGW Alarmists and they think their best tactic is to ignore it rather than challenge it. I expect they have made the tactical decision to not challenge in case, by challenging, they undermine the arguments their beliefs are founded on.
If I had the weak case they have, I’d be pretty quiet too.
Wow, you’re pathetic.
Too scared to say what you mean by “catastrophic.”
Ignoring repeated questions to that effect.
And from your hiding place, you accuse others of ignoring you.
Funny! :)
Robert
You are an idiot. You have never been able to justify that the mitigation actions you favor make sense in a world with limited resources.
Robert,
“Catastrophic Climate Change” (and variants of it) are CAGW terms. Therefore, you should be telling me the definition, not me telling you. I am quoting the CAGW Alarmists’ term.
Why don’t you tell me what you think it means since a) you are one of the CAGW alarmists and it is them who use the term (as a weapon in their scaremongering campaign), and b) you don’t accept what I’ve written as sufficient explanation of what I understand the CAGW Alarmists mean by the term? I’d point out that I’ve referred you to your bible, IPCC AR4, where ‘Catastrophic’ is used in a section title and also referred you to the first paper that came up in a Google search (it has over 500 citations). If that’s not sufficient for you, nothing would be.
I actually recognise that no answer would suit you because you are an ideologue and zealot of the worst kind. Your mind is locked shut.
I also recognise that the irrelevant comments and vitriol you post frequently are your way to divert discussion from what is important.
I suggest Rob Starkey’s comment is spot on:
Peter, I thought this was an excellent and well reasoned post. Food for further thought.
Like many Americans, you should really start eating better.
@Peter Lang (definition of CAGW): If we don cut CO2 emissions by 20% below 1988 levels by 2005, it’ll be too late. We’ll have runaway global warming and life on Planet Earth will cease to exist [stated in various ways by Bob Hawke’s government (1991-92) based on information provided by climate scientists and fanned and encouraged by them)
Climate skeptics have been using the term CAGW for years without ever defining what climate skeptics mean by it. Great to have a definition at long last. Many thanks, Peter.
Here’s IPCC on cataspstrophic (abrupt, irreversible?):
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2-4.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains3-4.html
Peter Lang,
You keep on quoting William Nordhaus as if he were agreeing with your line of argument. He isn’t.
He’s saying ” My study is just one of many economic studies showing that economic efficiency points to the need to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions immediately. Waiting another 50 years is not only economically costly, but will also make transition more costly when it eventually takes place.”
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/global-warming-real-has-consequences-part-i
Here is a somewhat less technical case.
Stipulate that the earth has warmed over the past 130 years and that CO2 is the dominant driver over the past few decades.
Catastrophic, runaway, tipping-point global warming requires net-positive feedback–requires that the system be unstable. Yet the climate system has apparently maintained equilibrium for eons, through periods when the CO2 level was an order of magnitude higher than today’s and the temperature was many degrees higher (I will not right now research the exact numbers).
We know that Earth’s temperature, define it however you want, is stable. We know this.
We know this from the geologic record and from the fact that we live in the environment we live in and not in a runaway greenhouse. I cannot accept any theory that requires this not to be so.
Positive feedback doesn’t imply runaway. This has been over many times before as it is commonly misunderstood. It implies an amplification factor greater than 1 for a forcing change. Since the forcing change is finite, so is the feedback.
We all go to the climate wars with the troops we’ve got.
it’s unfortunate that Judith Curry’s have turned her into a virtual Bill Moyers by creating a forum where those who don’t know what they are talking about convene to disinform not only themselves but the public at large.
All can freely express themselves at ClimateEtc without censorship. The AGW proponents have the opportunity to refute the skeptics argument at ClimateEtc. What is wrong with that?
We are not allowed to comment at RealClimate. We are not allowed to comment at Deltoid. We are not allowed to comment at OpenMind. We are allowed to comment only at ClimateEtc. Why do you want us censored?
Girma | September 18, 2012 at 10:47 pm said: ” Why do you want us censored?”
Girma, freedom of speech is more important, than all the money in the world. This is from somebody who has grown up, east of the Iron Curtain.
Only people interested in brainwashing and manipulation, impose censorship. People ”knowing” that they are wrong; prefer the other side of the story not to be known. People with bad intentions; prefer everything different, to be silenced.
Instead of Al Gore; we should nominate Judith Curry for Nobel p. As defender of freedom of speech and the traditional American way. It’s a pity that most of the commenters would prefer somebody to be silenced – it tells everything about them
Omniloxodont,
If you don’t want your beliefs challenged, then why don’t you stick to the web sites where they cannot be challenged – where opposing views are deleted. There are plenty of such sites.
@Peter Lang: If you don’t want your beliefs challenged, then why don’t you stick to the web sites where they cannot be challenged – where opposing views are deleted. There are plenty of such sites.
Spoken by someone who is so opposed to having his own irrational ideological beliefs challenged that he insults everyone who doesn’t accept them by calling them irrational ideologues.
Perhaps we’re all irrational ideologues.
In a dramitic declaration against interest Leftists in Boston reveal words from the Golden One. Incredible:
http://start.toshiba.com/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CDA1CGO902%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1018
He says, Oy veh it’s hotter than hell woman.
Judith: Are Lukewarmers allowed to submit topics on this thread?
If so, then I’ll suggest that climate scientists re-examine satellite-era sea surface temperature data, using the best dataset that’s publically available, Reynolds OI.v2. While that sea surface temperature dataset indicates the global oceans have warmed, it shows no evidence of an anthropogenic warming signal. None whatsoever. My most recent post on the subject is “The Warming of the Global Oceans – Are Manmade Greenhouse Gases Important or Impotent?”:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/the-warming-of-the-global-oceans-are-manmade-greenhouse-gases-important-or-impotent-2/
Bob you have made a strong well supported case for other than CO2 as the driver of at the least much of the warming in the last half century.The argument that “We have looked everywhere and it can only be CO2” studiously avoids the influence of ENSO.
dalyplanet | September 18, 2012 at 11:40 pm said: ”Bob you have made a strong well supported case for other than CO2 as the driver of at the least much of the warming in the last half century”
.
dalyplanet; that is a ”loaded comment” It hasn’t been any warming in 20 century; saying that was warming = you are promoting swindler’s lies. Nobody knows what was the GLOBAL temp last year, to save his life. Nobody is monitoring the GLOBAL temp; they monitor on few places; as fodder for the ignorant. Comparing one unknown with other unknowns – is the contemporary CON. Warmings / coolings are localized – there is NO global warmings; same as the universe wasn’t spinning around the earth, and never will. Confusing climatic changes, big and small as GLOBAL warmings – is the mother of all con.
God theres absolutely no agreement among skeptics is there. If they had a good case between them ud think they’d have largely all honed in on it.
lolwot has a good point thee. Not a new one, just a good one.
First I never said global warming as warming is regional. Second your theory, and I have visited your site to see your ideas presented, ignores the solar ocean cloud coupled mechanism that the earth can gain and lose energy over short and long time periods affecting regional temperature fluctuations.
loiwot It seem to show you have to deny, distort, and delete a lot of science to conclude that CO2 is the sole thermostat controlling the earths temperature.
Bob should do a post on his obsession with ENSO and sea surface temperatures. Then we can bring up the topic of the real metric of anthropogenic warming in the oceans which is ocean heat content, and also talk about the fact that SST’s are not a good metric of the total heat being stored in the ocean, but rather, better indicators of heat flux from ocean to atmosphere. Then we can talk about the reason why tropopsheric temperature records are usually set during El Nino’s as more heat is being released from ocean to atmosphere on average during El Nino’s, and conversely, more energy is being retained by the oceans during La Nina.
Of course, the notion that La Nina and El Nino are “opposite” of each other is NOT something that is being taught by any qualifed expert, and exists only in the uneducated mind. In this regard, Bob is correct in saying that La Nina is the normal state of the tropical Pacific, and that El Nino is an “abnormal” state (hence why tropospheric temperature records are often set during this “abnormal” El Nino state when their is higher net heat flux from ocean to atmosphere.)
But the focus on SST’s and ENSO by Bob is a bit of a side-show distraction. The main event going on in the oceans is the storage of energy deep down…far below the sea surface. 10 years ago the uncertainty surrounding how much energy was being stored was very high, but in the past few years we’re getting a better and better handle on the exact amount being stored. We also are getting a better and better handle on how this heat is being transported around the global ocean at depths below the surface, and even how much of this heat is being transported to the Arctic via deeper currents, where it is doing considerable damage to the sea ice.
So bring it on Bob. Let’s talk about your ENSO and sea surface issues, and then we can talk about where the real action is in terms the anthropogenic effects on the global ocean.
R. Gates says: “Bob should do a post on his obsession with ENSO and sea surface temperatures. Then we can bring up the topic of the real metric of anthropogenic warming in the oceans which is ocean heat content…”
R. Gates, it’s not an obsession. I’m providing a service—you’re just too blinded by your misunderstandings and preconceptions to see what I’ve been doing.
Additionally, you’re well aware that I have also addressed the natural warming of the global oceans using NODC Ocean Heat Content data in past blog posts. In fact, if you had bothered to read the Table of Contents in the Preview of my book, you’d have noted that it’s presented in “Chapter 5.9 A Look at the Long-Term Impacts of ENSO and Other Natural Variables on Ocean Heat Content Data”. In it, I’ve expanded on those past discussions and data presentations. Here’s a link to the preview. The preview is free, R.Gates.
R. Gates says: “Then we can talk about the reason why tropopsheric temperature records are usually set during El Nino’s as more heat is being released from ocean to atmosphere on average during El Nino’s, and conversely, more energy is being retained by the oceans during La Nina.”
Being a former denizen of WUWT, you’re also quite aware that I’ve presented discussions of the natural warming of the land+sea surface temperatures and lower troposphere temperature anomalies in my past posts. I’ve also included them in my book in “Chapter 5.10 Examples of the Obvious Long-Term Impacts of ENSO on Lower Troposphere and Land-plus-sea Surface Temperature Anomalies”. Refer again to Table of Contents in the Free preview linked above.
All you have to do is follow the warm water that’s left over after an El Niño, R. Gates. Recall that Trenberth was very upset about not being able to determine the volume of that leftover warm water, and not being able to determine where it goes. Well, for the past 3 ½ years, I’ve simply been illustrating the aftereffects of that leftover warm water.
And your comment “…more heat is being released from ocean to atmosphere on average during El Nino’s, and conversely, more energy is being retained by the oceans during La Niña…” is only partly correct. It’s true for the tropical Pacific, but not for the rest of the global oceans. We’ve had that discussion before, R. Gates. ARGO-era ocean heat content data of the tropical North Atlantic, for example, shows very clearly that ocean heat content there increases during El Niño events and decreases during La Niña events.
R. Gates says: “But the focus on SST’s and ENSO by Bob is a bit of a side-show distraction…”
The reality: your attacks on my work are groundless; they are based on your misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the breadth of my work; so your comments here are the distraction. Do something constructive, R. Gates— buy a book—it’s got lots of pretty pictures. You might even learn something if you can remove your AGW blinders. On second thought, don’t bother—I don’t want your money. It’s more fun having you as an adversary who comments without knowledge of the subject matter. Keep this up, though, and people might think you’re working for me on a commission, presenting arguments that are easily dismissed, so that I can sell more books.
Adios
When somebody says more heat is released during an El Nino, they mean net. So which is it? If there is an El Nino, ocean wide, does OHC go up or go down?
Again Bob, you proven why your obsession with ENSO and SSTs is a distraction from the issue of what is causing the long-term warming of the planet. Why is ocean heat content increasing to the deepest levels of the ocean we are regularly able to measure? This is the only question that matters in terms of Earth’s energy imbalance. Also, we are seeing the warmest oceans in hundreds if not thousands of years as measured by paleo data. Clearly something beyond the ENSO cycle is at work here.
R. Gates says: “Why is ocean heat content increasing to the deepest levels of the ocean we are regularly able to measure?”
Curiously, R. Gates, the last time I looked, the Ocean Heat Content was not increasing per theory as represented by Climate Models:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/figure-112.png
Looks like I’ve gotten behind in my OHC updates. The last one was is more than 6 months old:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/october-to-december-2011-nodc-ocean-heat-content-anomalies-0-700meters-update-and-comments/
R. Gates says: “This is the only question that matters in terms of Earth’s energy imbalance.”
We cannot account for the energy imbalance so introducing it is misdirection in this discussion. You go off and worry about energy imbalance while the rest of the world considers global temperatures, 70% of which is made up of sea surface temperature.
R. Gates, you haven’t changed. I thought your new blog name had some meaning. Apparently it doesn’t. In a discussion of sea surface temperature, you’re happiest attempting to redirect the topic of conversation. You may wish to check the definition of a troll.
Adios, R. Gates.
JCH: The key term in your question was “ocean wide”, which I assume means globally. We’ve only got a few years of truly global Ocean Heat Content data. For the 2009/10 El Niño, the loss in OHC from the tropical Pacific was countered by the gain in the Rest of the Global Oceans, so there was little gain or loss.
Something curious happened, though, during the 2010/11 La Niña. One would have expected tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content to rebound during it, but there was no rebound. Either cloud cover didn’t decrease to the extent it normally does during a La Niña or the tropical Pacific redistributed warm water faster than could be made up by an increase in Downward Shortwave Radiation (which is associated with the decreased cloud cover). The rebound in tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content didn’t happen until the 2011/12 La Niña.
Regards
Bob Tisdale says:
“You go off and worry about energy imbalance while the rest of the world considers global temperatures, 70% of which is made up of sea surface temperature.”
——
Bob, can’t you see how your obsession with sea surface temperature has skewed your perception of reality? 70% of global temperature is made of of sea surface temperture? Seriously Bob, are you just going to ignore the rest of the ocean down to greater depths and atmosphere, for the sake of the your beloved sea surface? Here is where you show your true colors. Your refusal to look at warming from an total energy balance perspective, which is the only honest way from a pure physics perspective betrays your obsession with ENSO and SST’s, which in the long-term, simple are indicative of energy in transition within the Earth system, but add no energy to the overall system– i.e. ENSO does not represent a net forcing on the system but amounts to a zero-sum game in terms of Earth’s energy balance. Hence, in terms of the long-term energy we are seeing added to Earth’s energy system, your beloved ENSO is a dead-end explanation.
R. Gates: Are you still here, yakking to yourself? You go round and round with the same failed arguments, shifting variables. Everyone here can see that, R. Gates. Round and round in circles, simply rewording your opinions a little.
I started off with sea surface temperature. You shifted to TLT and OHC. When I reminded you of my blog posts that showed ENSO can explain the warming of TLT and that land+sea surface temperature and that ENSO and sea level pressure can explain the warming of OHC—and further advised you that I went into more detail on those topics in my book—you shifted to radiative imbalance. I then had to jog your memory again—that there’s no way to attribute the radiative imbalance to Mother Nature or greenhouse gases. So what do you do then? You turn around and start back on TLT and OHC again and twist in radiative imbalance.
Oy vey!
Then, to top it off, in your recent comment, you add a statement that is blatantly incorrect and it’s so very obviously wrong that anyone who understands ENSO can see it. You wrote, “ENSO does not represent a net forcing on the system but amounts to a zero-sum game in terms of Earth’s energy balance.”
The only place where ENSO “amounts to a zero-sum game in terms of Earth’s energy balance” is in climate models, R.Gates. If you understood the processes of ENSO, you would not make such a goofy statement. Or maybe you have learned ENSO and you’re purposely misrepresenting it. It’s not beyond you. In the past, you’ve misrepresented what I’ve said—which is why I banished you from my website.
Good-bye, R. Gates. Your new audience here at Judith’s blog will catch on to your nonsense eventually—if they haven’t done so already.
I’m done replying to you here, R. Gates. Feel free to continue to preach to your audience of one, yourself.
Tisdale, you are a clown if you think that pressure alone can increase ocean heat content (OHC).
You are one of roughly 40 Crackpots competing with an alternate theory on this blog’s comment site. Just so you know who you are competing with. And that doesn’t consider the consensus position that heat content is increasing based on the GHE
WHT
Eh, dearie me. Is it that many? I’m so new here it just seems like ‘many’.
WebHubTelescope says: “Tisdale, you are a clown if you think that pressure alone can increase ocean heat content (OHC).
I’m not sure M. Susan Lozier, Susan Leadbetter, Richard G. Williams, Vassil Roussenov, Mark S. C. Reed and Nathan J. Moore, who are the authors of “The Spatial Pattern and Mechanisms of Heat-Content Change in the North Atlantic” appreciate being called clowns, WebHubTelescope.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5864/800.abstract?rss=1
Also, would you like to explain the late 1980s shift in North Pacific OHC with something other than sea level pressure?
http://i48.tinypic.com/731mb7.png
Without that upward step cause by a shift in North Pacific sea level pressure, WebHubTelescope, North Pacific OHC would have cooled over the past 55+ years.
WebHubTelescope, YOUR comment broadcasts your ignorance about what warms the oceans to depth.
Feel free to reply when you can base your comments on data, not on your assumptions.
Adios.
I am not going to disagree that the deep ocean water is important, however it does seem quite simple to replicate the surface temperature history using a moving average of Nino3.4 with solar and aerosols (if one can accept a bit of a major fail pre-1900 and in the late 1940’s):
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/97672676/HadCrut3%20and%20simple%20moving%20average%20Nino%2C%20Solar%2C%20StratAero%20model.jpg
Why are El Nino and La Nina episodes and events relevant to temperature in 2050 when they don’t last any longer than 7 years?
Well, annual global temperatures don’t last any longer than 1 year either.
It might be relevant because ENSO seems to have always had a bit of a mind of its own. e.g slides 10 and 11, in:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~atw/yr/2011/wittenberg_20111017.ppt
They are not. Bob T., thinks he’s discovered some new energy source for the planet. When I said ENSO is a zero sum game in terms of Earth’s energy balance Bob scoffed at that. Is there some new energy here Bob? Over the long-term of course ENSO is a zero sum game. It is all about energy distribution within the Earth’s energy system, but Bob seems to think that it can account for long-term warming, which of course it cannot. When I point this out, and the fact that OHC is far more important in terms of Earth’s energy balance, he declares he is through with me. Very sad.
R. Gates, I have requested directly to you somewhere recently, to explain how this ocean heat is being invisibly transported into the ocean depths, and how this heat will reappear in the short or distant future. A clear description would be enlightening to my understanding and greatly appreciated.
dalyplanet | September 22, 2012 at 10:39 pm said: ” to explain how this ocean heat is being invisibly transported into the ocean depths, and how this heat will reappear in the short or distant future”.
dalyplanet, Gates is not here to enlighten, but to keep the confusion. go back tro my blog and read all 11 posts; you will have answers even on questions you never asked regarding climatic changes and the PHONY global warmings.
Here is small example on your question: oceans warm up extra, on different places -El Nino / La Nina. It’s triggered by activating submarine volcanoes / hot vents (99.9% of them are on the bottom of the sea) – currents distribute that heat.
For any reason gets warmer, the sea doesn’t store heat for long period. Reason: as soon as it warms up extra -> evaporation increases INSTANTLY. Evaporation is cooling process 2] more evaporation = more clouds; clouds are as ”sun-umbrellas’ for the sea. I didn’t overlook, what you are referring – if it’s not in the first sentence. It’s all there; don’t run away from all the real proofs
Here is the best base case:
ALL the global temperature data sets since 1979 indicate a trend LOWER THAN HANSEN’S SCENARIO C.
That was the scenario in which emissions stopped in 2000.
So, doing nothing has been even better than completely stopping CO2 emissions by Hansen’s own testimony!
If that is not an indictment of AGW over-reaction, I don’t know what is.
You can see this, if you have an HTML5 capable browser here ( wait 30 sec for the page to load all data sets. ):
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/ClimateWatcher.html
So why do sceptics have to make a case? Amazing. How about warmers prove their case and show the data, now that would be novel. Hey maybe debate, know that would be really novel.
How come warmers are so vile? See what happened to Anthony Watts after he appeared on PBS.
They have. It is called the IPCC WG1 report.
Right. All global temperature trends since 1979 are less than the best estimate low scenario rate.
Because they have not attended charm school.
What happened? Did Big Bird lay an egg?
“See what happened to Anthony Watts after he appeared on PBS.”
Be not afraid. If public ridicule of his ignorance and dishonesty harmed him, Mr. Watts would long ago have had to find another line of work.
At STP, one cubic meter of pure, dry air has a mass of 1.29 kg and contains 0.00078 kg of carbon dioxide. How can such a small amount of carbon dioxide absorb enough OLR to cause any heating of this large mass of gas?
Because at stp, one cubic meter of air contains around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 CO2 molecules. More than enough to absord virtually all the IR radiation being radiated from the surface up through that cubic meter, at least in the bands where CO2 absorbs.
100000000000000000000000 is 393 ppm, correct? So for each CO2 molecule you have 500 oxygen and 1900 nitrogen molecules, and the oscillations of those CO2 molecules due to the fractional IR spectrum absorption at 2,4, and 15um is not only trapping all the heat, but a very slight change in the molecular ratio to 2:500 and 2:1900 (Co2 doubling) is supposed be the driving force in this system?
With this level of accuracy in the reasoning, one could disprove every known law of physics.
current temperature is well inside the bounds of the past ten thousand years. there is no better case than that.
To make the best case, look at the actual data. What the alarmists are saying and forecasting is just not what is happening.
It’s not well inside the range, its creeping towards the top. 1c more warming and we’ll be well outside it.
Temperature has been within plus and minus two C for the past ten thousand years. currently we are less than plus one.
one more still keeps us inside the range of the past ten thousand years.
Provide the data that is the basis for your wrong claim and I will show where you are wrong
NOAA ice core data shows plus and minus two degrees for the past ten thousand years and they show us to be less than plus one right now.
Please show NOAA where they are wrong
What NOAA ice core data for GLOBAL temperatures are you using?
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page7.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page8.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page24.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page9.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page10.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page14.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page38.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page27.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page16.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page28.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page19.html
“current temperature is well inside the bounds of the past ten thousand years. there is no better case than that.”
If only it were true.
This thread is proving a rich mine of denier delusions. Most “best case” comments, much like this one, start with a simple factual error right out of the gate.
I am not a sceptic for two reasons:
(1) I have never seen a good scientific argument for dangerous global warming. In the 20th and 21st centuries even the correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration is poor. There is no argument worth being sceptical about. The reasons were basically risk assessment, not science.
(2) Before 1940 anthropogenic global warming of 0.45C did occur but then it stopped, either because the degrees of freedom of the CO2 molecule had all been used, or the quantum of heat necessary to excite the next level was insufficient to do so. The pre-1940 heat was permanent and worked its way through the oceans until 2000 when a new equilibrium was established.
Alexander
One problem with thinking that the warming in the 1940’s was global. It wasn’t. It was primarily warming in the Arctic. Now we are seeing warming all over the globe.
Yes, YOU are seeing warming all over the globe but is it really there?
THAT is the 64,000 trillion dollar question that is yet to be answered to a sufficient level of quality. Very extraordinary evidence is necessary to justify the destruction of modern technological civilization and to establish a global dictatorship who is to micromanage every person’s daily activities.
As far as any rational investigation can expose, the cost of such a solution vastly outweighs the cost of doing nothing but what humans and humanoids have done for the past several million years: change the environment to suit his wants and needs. THIS is the connection between science and economics. It is real and the quality and duration of our lives is dependent upon getting it right.
Now, if you presume as the extreme environmentalists presume, that man is a blight on the earth and must be eliminated, you may apply the solution to your self and lead by example. You will then have my respect for being consistent but I will NOT follow your lead.
And the predominant warming still seems to appear in areas of the globe where there are few temperature monitoring stations. Why is that? And Glenn claims “warming all over the globe”. If so, why did BEST show about a third of stations showing cooling or flat temperatures? It was only in the aggregate of all data that they were able to achieve a net global warming.
Actually two adjustments to the raw data SHAP (Station Homogeneity Adjustment) and TOBS (Time of Observation Bias) account for ALL the warming in the instrument record produced by BEST and predecessors. Half the warming since 1880 is attributable to each adjustment. More people should know that.
warming all over the world
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=8&sat=4&sst=4&type=trends&mean_gen=08&year1=1900&year2=2012&base1=1900&base2=2012&radius=250&pol=reg
lolwot
GISS BS.
Before 1940 anthropogenic global warming of 0.45C did occur but then it stopped, either because the degrees of freedom of the CO2 molecule had all been used, or the quantum of heat necessary to excite the next level was insufficient to do so.
Only a very small proportion of the warming pre-1940 was anthropogenic – the largest factor is believed to be solar, with volcanoes also playing a role.
That claim is hilarious!! Who threw the switch (turning off solar and volcanic influences and turning on the anthropogenic one)?
Solar activity levelled off, volcanoes became more active again, the anthropogenic influence grew as emissions and the overall level of GHGs in the atmosphere increased. These things happened gradually, n one threw a “switch”.
Doug Hurst 19 September 2012 at 1335
Good science should produce good predictions and no alarmist prediction I know of in the past twenty years about temperature, sea level, storm frequency etc has even approached reality. Something is clearly wrong with the data, the science, or both – sufficient grounds alone for scepticism.
Again, a “best case” that is just factually wrong.
Every thing that we keep track of that has to do with climate is well inside the bounds of the past ten thousand years except co2. That does mean that co2 does not have an effect on the other parameters. Temperature and sea level and albedo do their own thing with no care about what happen with co2.
Having once been a “warmist” I was astounded by some catastrophic predictions from Tim Flannery, James Hansen, Al Gore and the rest of their ilk. We all know now that it was nonsense, meant to install fear. Luckly for us cooler heads prevailed. The penny dropped, these people were (and are) doing very well keeping the faith (and fear) alive. They reminded me of the fire and brimstone preachers and other evangelists – and then it hit me. It’s the new religion; its all here – blame, guilt, redemtion and now the crusades (Greenpeace demonstrations and obstructions etc).
As an amateur astronomer, I always assumed the mantra that Venus has a “runaway greenhouse” and that the Earth could become like Venus if CO2 concentration rose. This is not entirely wrong, just mostly so.
The term “Venus’s runaway greenhouse” was introduced (by James Hansen) to explain its high temperature of 475 degrees C, higher than Mercury being much closer to the sun. This instilled the seed that this could happen to Earth. What was conveniently left silent was the 92-93 atmospheric pressure at Venus’ surface and Mercury atmospheric pressure being zilch. At this pressure CO2 is supercritical (it becomes supercritical at about 40 atmospheres – i.e. a gas acting like a liquid with wider absorption lines) and gas temperature/pressure equations(eg Avogadros and the combined gas law PV=nRT ) no longer apply. Yes, pressure has a greater influence on temperature than a greenhouse effect.
We could compare a hypothetical Earth’s much higher temperature with a 92 atmosphere pressure but it would be largely irrelevant for a Venus/Earth comparison. However if we rise higher up, some 50 km, above Venus’s surface the pressure is around 1 atmosphere. This is closer to a like with like comparison. So what is the temperature there?
Lo behold, according to Magellan and Venus Express the temperature at 52.5 km and 54 km is between ..wait for it.. 37C and 20C.. similar to Earth (well, well). Even the function between height and altitude is similiar to Earth at that height. OK, not convinced? Let’s look at the worst – lets’ go down to 49.5 km – we are now at a pressure a little higher than Earth’s atmospheric pressure and the temperature is as high as 75 C. But wait there is more – solar radiance is 1.9X times Earth. So using I=kT^4 for black body radiation, and if you apply that to Earth’s mean temperature (ie bring Earth to Venus’s distance from Sun) of 15C it will increase to about 67deg C; at the very worst case Venus is about 8 C degrees warmer. And remember we are dealing with 97-98% CO2 atmosphere (v Earth’s 0.039%).
Yes, it could be argued that there are discrepencies in this comparison – of course there are. Other factors, for example, would include Venus’s near twice Earth’s albedo (reflection of the visible spectrum) – countering the increase solar radiation, Earth’s ocean cooling (releasing latent heat high in the atmosphere, radiating the heat into space) lacking on Venus, Venus’s lack of water vapour (greater greenhouse gas than CO2), the radiation from below making Venus’s bond albedo (emission from all wavelengths) to be nearly 3x Earth’s which radiates warming up the higher atmosphere. These discrepencies and others have an effect of countering more/less each other, how much and how relevant is debatable.
But this comparison does point to the fact that once you discount pressure Venus is not that hot after all, despite 97% CO2 atmosphere. It does make you think and ask the question – “Is there a problem, really?” and, as Peter Lang raised, what is the real harm of a warmer world? Even at much higher concentrations CO2 does not harm us (it is not a pollutant); submariners breath up to 8000 ppm CO2 over considerable periods. Horticulturists have shown that crop production is dramatically boosted at 600-650 pmm CO2.
Perhaps our world would be a better planet a few degrees warmer and we should look at this in a positive frame of mind rather than the negative alarmists.
I can’t but feel that all this climate alarmism has similiarities to Shakespeare’s play “Much ado about nothing”.
John Morland, you have been added to the list.
Nice crackpot spin rationalization, “what’s the problem with a Venutian climate?”
Thank you, WebHubTelescope, I appreciate being added to yet another “list”. This has happened numerous times in my life and this is another notch for my continual challenging any apparent BS that comes my way, questioning and seeking clarification of new thoughts or views and my reasoned and flexible approach to life.
In my humbe experience I have noticed those who keep a “list” tend to be those rigid people who have difficulty with rational points of view (such as religious zealots, egotists, conspiratists, doomsayers and “settled” or junk science advocates).
As for “what’s the problem with a Venus climate?” – No problem. Conceivably you could have floating settlements with crew and scientists at approx 50 km above Venus’s surface at 1 atmosphere pressure with a comfortable temperature outside (bring the nitrogen and manufacture oxygen and food/water of course) -just like you can have settlements on Earth’s surface or floating on Earth’s oceans. The engineering challenges are different, of course.
Oh and I forgot to mention – Gilbert and Sullivan’s lord high executioner (in “The Mikado”) singing “As Some Day it May Happen”
“As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There’s the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs —
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs —
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with ’em flat —
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that —
And all third persons who on spoiling tête-á-têtes insist —
They’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed!
CHORUS
He’s got ’em on the list — he’s got ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed — they’ll none of ’em be missed.
WHT, I agree with most of what John Morland has to say. Could you be more specific as to your objections?
(On the other hand I don’t see anything in JM’s understanding of Venus’s situation that would contradict the premise that rising CO2 on Earth poses a hazard.)
Vaughan
I will pick one statement of Morland
Webby, you need to improve your reading skills.
Nobody (except you) has written “what’s the problem with a Venutian climate?”
The problem is that there are some wingnuts [your expression] out there who are suggesting Earth might get a “Venutian climate” if human CO2 emissions are not curtailed drastically.
This is obviously BS.
There isn’t enough carbon in all the remaining fossil fuels on our planet (as you know full well) to get over about 1,030 ppmv in our atmosphere WHEN THEY ARE ALL GONE.
To put that into perspective for you:
Earth has an atmospheric mass of 5,140,000 Gt.
When all fossil fuels have been burned up, it could have a CO2 concentration of around 1,030 ppmv or 1,563 ppm(mass), which means a total CO2 mass of 8,033 Gt.
Venus’ atmosphere has 93 times the mass of Earth’s
It is composed of 96.5% CO2
So Venus has 461,300,000 Gt CO2 or 57,500 times as much as Earth could ever have.
So, if total atmospheric CO2 is your worry – there is no comparison.
If total atmospheric mass is your worry, there is also no comparison.
Let’s leave Venus where it is and forget all these BS warnings of a “Venutian climate” on Earth, caused by AGW.
Max
@manacker: When all fossil fuels have been burned up, it could have a CO2 concentration of around 1,030 ppmv or 1,563 ppm(mass), which means a total CO2 mass of 8,033 Gt.
Oh Max, you are such an unreliable fount of information. Where on earth did you get this 1030 ppmv figure? Even 6000 ppmv would be a gross understatement. Earth’s crust contains way more fossil fuels than you imagine.
John Morland,
Let me try to understand what you are saying. You are saying Venus isn’t that hot at 475 degC surface temperature because the pressure is much higher at 92 atmospheres. I pump my bike tyres up to about 9 or 10 atmospheres and they end up at ambient temperature if I don’t ride on them for a few hours. Even if I had tyres which were inflated this hard they wouldn’t be noticeably hotter either.
You can go underwater in the ocean to experience higher pressure too. Its actually colder down there.
But if we went higher in the Venusian atmosphere it will be cooler? Just like it is on Earth? So if we don’t like the result of global warming we can build tall towers and live in them?
So the first part of your argument is intended to show that CO2 is not a pollutant, not a GH gas and any increase is not going to make the Earth warmer? But, you seem to accept that you may be wrong about all that, and then ask “what is the real harm of a warmer world? ”
So, if you are wrong about CO2, you reckon you’ll still end up being right as any warming will be a good thing?
It’s not the most convincing of arguments. I’d say if you can’t even trust yourself to know the answer to the first part of the question you can’t trust yourself on the second either.
tempterrain
It’s the “density of the atmosphere” rather than the “lapse rate”, which makes the main difference between Earth and Venus (or Venus and Mars, which both have a CO2 atmosphere).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/08/venus-envy/
Max
WUWT ?? Oh come on, Max, if you are going to provide a reference, try to make it from a scientific source.
tempterrain
You scoff at WUWT as a source.
Yet you apparently did not even read the interesting lead post on ESA’s Venus Express Mission by guest poster Steve Goddard.
Instead of “attacking the messenger”, address the content (if you can).
Otherwise, you just look silly.
Max
Who is Steve Goddard? Is that his real name? Where’s the evidence he knows what he’s taking about?
tempterrain
You ask me:
IOW, you don’t even know who the messenger is, yet you attack him, rather than addressing his message (which really has nothing to do with AGW on our planet, in the first place).
“Goofy”, is what I call that behavior.
Max
Attack him? I think you must be confusing me with someone else. I’m just asking a few questions.
Your bike tyres are warm when you pump them up to (say) 50 psi , which is not 9-10 atmospheres, but a little over 3 times more than outside atmospheric pressure. The tyres cool shortly afterwards because they do not form part of a powered system, Venus does.
However, If you could pump, quickly, CO2 in your tyres to 93 atmospheres they would melt before you could get anywhere near that pressure.
If you want to experience first hand air pressure and its effect on temperature (Gay-Lussac’s and the combined – ideal gas laws), go to Death Valley, in winter. You walk around sweating in shorts, T-shirt and hat at nearly 200 feet below sea level whilst surrounded by the 10,000 -11,000 foot snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Then the Sun sets, shortly after you start reaching out for your pullovers and coat. Yes, pressure makes a difference and, yes I have experienced just that in February 1998.
Let’s push the boundaries further, Jupiter (rather a poor example, I know, because it emits more energy that it receives from the Sun – i.e. its own continually powered system from within) but still shows the effect of pressure with temperature – Jupiter, 5 times further from the Sun than Earth, with a very, very thick atmosphere.
What is the temperature at the bottom of its atmosphere? Well, an educated guess is 10,000 degrees at 200Gpa. Go further out, Saturn (9x further than Sun -Earth), and you will find similiar temperature and pressure figures.
The ocean, ah yes, the ocean – glad you mentioned it. The last time I checked water is not a gas and it is incompressible (ok, except in neutron star like gravitational force), most light (and certainly infra-red part of the spectrum) is absorbed in the first few feet, by the time you get to (say) 100 feet it gets dark indeed (yes I have dived to that depth) not much heat/radiation there!
Now the last part, not trusting myself by covering my bets. I am not an utter denialist (climates change – period), and I did point out differences between Venus/Earth at 1 atmosphere, but you got to admit, the temperatures are similiar despite the CO2 difference.
We are adding mass to our atmosphere (CO2 as 29% more mass than O2), hence very slight pressure increase over time. And the mere fact we are burning the fossil fuel adds to the overall heat input into Earth’s atmosphere, which has to be radiated out to space. As well, there is the main infrared 15-micron (+/-2 micron thickness) CO2 absorption line (which under Wien’s displacement law peaks at 193 degrees Kelvin, -80 degrees C. Gosh, a lot of warming influence there!). So yes, there is a slight warming (emphasis on “slight”). But after hearing the alarmist/catastrophic predictions, my comment is “Oh please!
The view I expressed of the warmer world could be better, is for the doomsayers. Even if they are right, then why be so negative? Why do they act like the merchants of doom? Can’t they see warming and higher CO2 levels could be better for life (and humanity) on Earth? Would this help to dissipate the angst and confrontations in the current debate. Or do they view it is in their interest to promote the fear?
John Morland,
Firstly my bike tyres are those thin high pressure type which do need to be inflated to much higher than 40psi.
But mainly I’m querying your assumption that higher pressure necessarily means a higher temperature.
It does in the Earth’s atmosphere up to about 10km or so but as the troposphere turms into the stratosphere it starts to get warmer again.
In this reference, the authors say in their abstract:
http://www.nioz.nl/public/fys/staff/theo_gerkema/jas04.pdf
“A column of dry air in hydrostatic equilibrium is considered, bounded by two fixed values of the pressure, and the question is asked, what vertical temperature profile maximizes the total entropy of the column? Using
an elementary variational calculation, it is shown how the result depends on what is kept fixed in the maximization process. If one assumes that there is no net heat exchange between the column and its surroundings—implying
that the vertical integral of the absolute temperature remains constant—an isothermal profile is obtained in accordance with classical thermodynamics and the kinetic theory of gases”
So would the Earth’s atmosphere without GH gases, ie totally transparent to IR, have an adiabatic lapse rate or would it be isothermal?
I had a discussion with Pekka on this point a year or so ago. I think initially I was wrong and I’ve now changed my mind. It would be isothermal. So the presence of the existence of an adiabatic lapse rate is evidence that the GH effect does exist.
Jupiter is undergoing gravitational collapse and the compression generates heat. Venus is undergoing compression and so does not generate heat by that method. High pressure on venus is an effect, not a cause of it’s high temperature. That high temperature is caused by its greenhouse effect.
tempterrain,
What does the pressure in your bike tires have to do with the effect of gravity inside a ball of gas?
Gases are compressible. Liquids aren’t. Water is a liquid.
Yes it is cooler as one ascends above the Venusian surface, or climbs a terrestrial mountain.
So far, no theory or evidence has been presented that shows how CO2 might have the proclaimed warming effects. All there is is a hypothesis that is based on a theory of how a greenhouse works which has been proven invalid.
But that aside, what is wrong with either a warmer world, or one that is colder? You don’t expect things to be static, do you?
I have a motorcycle sitting in the garage that hasn’t move in years. The tires are inflated to 40 psi and are exactly the same temperature as anything else in the garage. Heating due to ideal gas law in a closed volume only raise temperature as the compression is taking place. Absent constantly increasing pressure the gas reaches equibrium with the ambient temperature like anything else. The gravity of Venus is not constantly increasing. As well the ideal gas law is different for closed vessels of constant volume and gravitationally confinement. Gravitational confinement isn’t constant volume. As energy is added to a gravitationally bound gas it is free to expand instead of rising in temperature. Volume instead of temperature is the free variable.
Assume that the super-critical CO2 of the Venusian troposphere insulates the surface as well as rock. Also assume that Venus’ heat of formation and ongoing internal heating by radioactive is the same as the earth. Lastly assume that the geothermal gradient of the earth’s crust as we dig down into the rocks and get closer to the molten core continues, unlike on the earth, up through that uber dense CO2 troposphere on Venus. You’ll find that the depth and thermal resistance of the Venusian troposphere is sufficient to account for the surface temperature of the rocks. In other words the Venusian troposphere isn’t trapping heat from the sun it’s trapping heat from the molten core of the planet.
One of the big giveaways that Venus’ surface temperature isn’t due to the sun is that the surface is isothermal. Venus’ daylength is almost the same as its year length which means the same side faces the sun for months on end. Yet the surface temperature is isothermal, same on both day & night sides, same at equator and poles. Surface winds are very slow and cannot account for this. Venus’ surface is rough and rocky. With a 90-bar atmosphere and high winds its surface would be scoured smoother than a billiard ball.
Thank you David Springer, you have clarified what happens at Venus’s surface and why it is continually so hot. This further shows that comparing Venus’s temperature surface with a hypothetical 93 atmosphere pressure Earth would not be as relevant comparison as the 1 atmosphere comparison. This is mainly due to the different gases (CO2v O2 and N2) having different thermodynamic critical points at different pressures and temperatures . However just for the record, if Earth could have a 93x atmosphere, the temperature would very high indeed, perhaps as high as in the ball park figure of 400 deg C.
Tempterrain
I am using David Springer’s reply button (David, my apologies!) to repond to your comments above. Yes, the stratosphere gets warmer, this is a new ball game – where ozine (o3) absorbing UV radiation turning into O atoms. This is outside the parameters under discussion which is like with like (Venus v Earth). Venus does not have ozone in its upper atmosphere.
As to yout comments if the atmosphere i totaly transparent (ie no greenhouse) then I doubt it would matter what pressure the atmosphere is. This whole warming only happens if there is some (even small) greenhouse effect. Once that has been established then pressure/temperature is game on in the solar powered system. If there is NO greenhouse then the whole thing becomes like your tyre. Conversely if there is more greenhouse effect (eg CO2 atmosphere) there would not be much change in temperature.
As to whether this hypothetical atmosphere have an adiabatic lapse rate or be isothermic – I agree with you (and Pekka), it would be isothermal.
John Morland,
You accept that when the transparency of a planet’s atmosphere is very high, or even totally transparent, then the atmospheric pressure is not a factor which would determine surface temperature. Good – but this acceptance seems to be at odds with your previous statements on pressure and temperature. In fact the surface temperature would be the planet’s effective temperature which is 255K for Earth and 231K (surprisingly low) for Venus.
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Albedos.html
So, to continue with a thought experiment, what happens when we reduce the transparency? The elevation at which the Earth has a temperature of 255K starts to rise. The more GH gases which are added the higher this level becomes. At present this height is approximately 5km, on average. Heat is transported upwards by a process of convection which of course can only happen if there is a temperature gradient to drive it. The lapse rate. This means that the Earth’s surface becomes warmer than its effective temperature.
It is the same with a Venusian atmosphere. The Venusian atmosphere is much less transparent than that of Earth and so the difference between its effective temperature and measured surface temperature is much greater.
“So would the Earth’s atmosphere without GH gases, ie totally transparent to IR, have an adiabatic lapse rate or would it be isothermal?”
Sum the kinetic and gravitational potential energy of a pound of air at the surface and a pound of air at high altitude and it will be equal in an isothermal gravitationally confined column.
If you use a thermometer alone to measure thermal energy you’ll miss the gravitational potential energy and observe a lapse rate. The strict defintion of thermal energy however includes gravitational potential energy because conservation requires it.
Hope that helps clear things up.
David Springer,
Clears things up? I must admit that I’m still not sure either way about this. But the natural intuition that the temperature must be warmer at the bottom, because molecules gain energy, when falling, is (possibly?) wrong because it’s exactly compensated by another phenomenon: Those molecules that have little energy cannot go up as well as those with more energy.
Don’t know what to say. Testing it is difficult. It’s hard to isolate a gravitationally bound column of gas and stop convection in it. See here for someone that claims to have done it and how:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/lucy-skywalker-graeffs-experiments-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
Basically what I described is the Loschmidt Gravito-Thermal Effect. It’s very old controversy, not disproven, dates back to a 3-man dispute between Loschmidt, Boltzmann, and Maxwell. I actually formulated Loschmidt’s position from first principles and then went on to discover Loschmidt beat me to it 150 years ago.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-nWyk7jH5_EC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=loschmidt+boltzmann+maxwell&source=bl&ots=51peIH0WPJ&sig=l8BEj_PBj8OJOQgyD4qklES5SF8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nrBcUJbeK8z9rAGdwoHYDw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg
The main objection is hand-waving about it violating 2LoT – a perpetuum mobile of the second kind. PM2s are not prohibited by law since they don’t violate conservation so they’re uber fun for wool gathering by engineers. But no one has observed or constructed one. Maxwell’s Demon is the classic thought experiment. I don’t believe a gravitationally induced lapse rate will supply the mechanism but I could be wrong. I just couldn’t think of a practical way to exploit it but I didn’t waste a whole lot of time trying. I believe Hawking Radiation is a Gendankenexperiment that demonstrates the possibility of a PM2 – a mass collapses into a black hole and eventually it all radiates away via Hawking Radiation leaving nothing behind. That’s a PM2. Gravity does weirdshit so I wouldn’t be real quick to write off Loschmidt but I’d be highly inclined to write off any human-made PM2 in the foreseeable future. :-(
Don’t know what to say. Testing it is difficult. It’s hard to isolate a gravitationally bound column of gas and stop convection in it. See here for someone that claims to have done it and how:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/lucy-skywalker-graeffs-experiments-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
Basically what I described is the Loschmidt Gravito-Thermal Effect. It’s very old controversy, not disproven, dates back to a 3-man dispute between Loschmidt, Boltzmann, and Maxwell. I actually formulated Loschmidt’s position from first principles and then went on to discover Loschmidt beat me to it 150 years ago.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-nWyk7jH5_EC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=loschmidt+boltzmann+maxwell&source=bl&ots=51peIH0WPJ&sig=l8BEj_PBj8OJOQgyD4qklES5SF8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nrBcUJbeK8z9rAGdwoHYDw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg
The main objection is hand-waving about it violating 2LoT – a perpetuum mobile of the second kind. PM2s are not prohibited by law since they don’t violate conservation so they’re uber fun for wool gathering by engineers. But no one has observed or constructed one. Maxwell’s Demon is the classic thought experiment. I don’t believe a gravitationally induced lapse rate will supply the mechanism but I could be wrong. I just couldn’t think of a practical way to exploit it but I didn’t waste a whole lot of time trying. I believe Hawking Radiation is a Gendankenexperiment that demonstrates the possibility of a PM2 – a mass collapses into a black hole and eventually it all radiates away via Hawking Radiation leaving nothing behind. That’s a PM2. Gravity does weird stuff so I wouldn’t be real quick to write off Loschmidt but I’d be highly inclined to write off any human-made PM2 in the foreseeable future. :-(
tt@ It is the same with a Venusian atmosphere. The Venusian atmosphere is much less transparent than that of Earth and so the difference between its effective temperature and measured surface temperature is much greater.
Although John Moreland seems to know what he’s talking about, tempterrain nevertheless has exactly the right answer here. I’d be very interested to see whether tt and Moreland can reconcile their ostensibly very different viewpoints.
Nobody knows what is the GLOBAL temperature. Global temp is NOT as human body I.e. when it gets warmer by a degree under the armpit – the whole body is warmer by that much – global temp variations ate on trillions of places. b] human temp is same day and night, not global – why is global temp treated as monitoring human temp? To mislead!!! http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/unavoidable-two-hurdles-to-cross/
2]”Official Global temperature” is ALL the heat in the troposphere and NOTHING more. Including ”stored sea temperature” into it; is same as including heat stored in the new trees, heat stored in the magma, in the plutonium – cherry picking is for smokescreen and confusing the already confused http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/global-temperature/
3] the amount of polar ice doesn’t depend on the phony GLOBAL warmings / global coolings; but on the availability of raw material (water vapor) for renewal of ice melted b] on increasing / decreasing speed of the sea currents below the ice. Using polar ice for confusion – is prevention to protect the ice, from the real offenders = premeditated crime.
Stefanthedenier,
“when it gets warmer by a degree under the armpit – the whole body is warmer by that much
That’s not true for males. Male reproductive organs are designed to be cooler that the rest of the body. Then hands and feet can be noticeably colder than the rest of the body in cold weather, as you might have noticed yourself.
So does that mean “nobody knows” what my or your body temperature is either? If its not uniform, it’s just too hard to calculate? Is that what you are saying?
tempterrain | September 19, 2012 at 4:58 am said: -” Male reproductive organs are designed to be cooler that the rest of the body”
tempterain, if they get a degree cooler, is 36C. Temp in 12h gets cooler out there, by 10-15-20-25C – but differently every night, different on trillions of places; unless you put your ”pee-nuts” in the freezer every night… if you do, I’ll believe you – Warmist are a weird mob. . Your thermometer shouldn’t be shoved under your armpit – but where you keep your fingers – will be same temperature, thermometer and your fingers.
tempterain, you will not be able to split hair; when you are under oath, on the witness stand
Male reproductive organs are designed to be cooler that the rest of the body.
Why do you think we Scots wear kilts? (My great-great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland to Australia in the mid-19th century. Here’s me at age 17.)
Vaughan Pratt | September 22, 2012 at 2:40 am asked: ‘Why do you think we Scots wear kilts?”
Vaughan, thank’s for proving my point, by correcting me. usually I don’t comment on anatomy; but tempterain was splitting hair; to show how wrong he can be, so I did, and will now
.
Because human body can tolerate temp up to 41C, but not the testicles – they have a self-regulating system, to stay around 37C, Even if person is shivering or overheating. a]Scots don’t need pants, because of constant coldness, the prunes disappear in b]. In the tropics they spread to cool and hit the knees. (proves that tempterain doesn’t know even about his own testis – but he talks about climate on the other side of the planet, and the phony global warming) Vaughan, thanks for the assistance
tempterrain | September 19, 2012 at 4:58 am | Reply
“Male reproductive organs
are designedhappen to be cooler that the rest of the body.”Fixed that for ya. Talk like that will get you in big trouble with your peer group. Quote miners like me can then come along and say things like “See, you can’t even casually talk about living things without saying they were designed.” Bandwagon science requires exquisite care be taken in the narrative lest in a moment of weakness your common sense gets the better of you and you stray off the reservation as a result.
Well I sometimes use the word creatures too. That doesn’t mean I think they were created by a supernatural being.
The skeptic case is easily summarized – and proven – as follows.
1. The historical record and the geological record show no correlation whatsoever between global temperatures and CO2. Three historical warm periods prior to the present – the MWP 900-1300 AD, the height of the Roman Empire 100 BC-300AD, and the Hittite-Mycenean period, 1800-1400 BC – occurred with much lower CO2 concentrations in the air than today, and again we have the decline in temps since 1998 despite increased CO2 in the air during this time. Not to mention the melting of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. Moreover, 1.5 billion years ago, as blue-green algae were just starting to produce O2 from CO2, Earth’s atmosphere was ~ 20 percent CO2 (and 20 percent of an atmosphere at least 50 percent thicker than today’s). So why didn’t the Earth burn up and the oceans boil off then?
2. Direct observations and simple arithmetic show that human-caused emissions are an infinitesimal fraction of all biogenic emissions of CO2. Humans alone exhale 3.5 gt of CO2 every year. We are among the lower emitters on a per-pound-of-body weight basis among the animal kingdom (birds and small mammals can emit up to 10 times as much PPOBW). Even ectothermic vertebrates emit more than humans, on average – don’t forget that reptiles always warm themselves in the sun, and their CO2 output increases to endothermic levels. Insects, which probably make up the biggest share of anumal biomass on Earth, may emit CO2 at even higher PPOBW rates than birds and shrews. And humans represent less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the animal biomass on Earth. Where does that lead, in terms of just one source of CO2? Do the math – if humans are average emitters, that’s at least 70 gt/yr from animal respiration alone, the the actual figure is probably substantially higher for the reasons just stated. And what about volcanoes? A single eruption can emit more CO2 than a year or more of burning fossil fuels – this is calculated by the amount of volcanic gas propellant (95 percent CO2) needed to transport ash and debris in the quanrtities and to the distances observed. In 1815, when the volcano Tambora erupted, it flung at least 60 years’ equivalent of today’s fossil fuel burning in order to propel the trillion tons of dust around the world that made 1816 the year without a summer. And then what about CO2 emissions from tectonic plate movements? What about releases from the oceans? In comparison with these other sources of CO2, fossil fuel burning pales into mathematical and statistical insignificance.
2. Further direct observations show that CO2 itself is an infinitesimal factor in climate change compared to other factors. Water vapor, an equally potent heat trap, composes, at normal temperatures and humidities, anywhere from 30 to 140 times as much of the atmosphere. as CO2 does This is figured very simply by taking the vapor pressure of water as a fraction of atmospheric pressure at a given tempereature, and then multiplying it by the relative humidity. And besides water vapor, what about solar luminosity (which can vary by up to 3 percent over a 1,000-year period, or the density lf the interstellar medium that the Earth passes through, also variable and with varying effect on solar radiation reaching Earth?
Moreover, 1.5 billion years ago, as blue-green algae were just starting to produce O2 from CO2, Earth’s atmosphere was ~ 20 percent CO2 (and 20 percent of an atmosphere at least 50 percent thicker than today’s). So why didn’t the Earth burn up and the oceans boil off then? And the Venus analogy is inapplicable. Venus, with at least 250,000 times the atmospheric CO2 inventory of Earth, is hot really only because of its high atmospheric pressure, 94 x Earth;s – an effect similar to what happens with compression in the cylinders of a diesel engine.
3. The methods and tactics used by the AGW scaremongers themselves give compelling evidence of the falsity of their claims (and incidentally, of what to expect in terms of oppression, economic ruin and millions upon millions of unneccessary deaths if they get their way in policy). If you use false data, which as the Climategate emails show you know is false, to predict climate change, you cannot get a true and honest result. If you use models engineered to confirm a conclusion already reached before any “research” is done, as again you described and admitted to in the Climategate emails, the you will not get a true and honest result. What you have is garbage in, garbage through and garbage out. What is most striking is that some of the people doing these things even admit to lying and yet claim it’s OK to do so. Of course, for these people the end justifies the means, no matter how ugly the means.
And then the efforts to suppress contrary evidence, the libeling of skeptics (Dr. Fred Singer, for example) and the bullying and intimidation (to the point of physical threats against skeptics) by the AGW crowd is itself an admission that they know they haven’t a leg to stand on. Why would you shout down, or cut off the microphone of, someone trying to present the results of their research which differs from yours, if you were secure in your own findings? The AGW crowd’s attitude is, if you can’t win an argument by reason and facts, you win it by force.
In contrast with the AGW scaremongers, the skeptic commenters on this blog have pretty consistently demonstrated a commitment to honesty and concern for human well-being. As I’ve said before, it is we skeptics who hold the moral high ground in this controversy, whereas the AGW crowd wallows in a stinking swamp of venality.
CRL/AGW scaremongers reading this – you can deny the phyical fact tha AGW is bull@#$%&*!!, that it is political hackwork and not science all you want, and it won’t change things one iota (except perhaps to make you look even stupider and more mean-spirited than you already do now)
I rest my case..
This is the kind of thing that convinces you but not the fact that the last time CO2 had values over 500 ppm was the Creataceous period that was much warmer, and basically an ice-free hothouse. Are you just being selective with your facts, or did you not know this?
The point is not that it was warmer at 500 PPM but that the supposed secondary positive feedbacks from water vapor, methane, etc. were not open-ended and the Earth eventually cooled. The same logic can be used for when CO2 levels were far lower then the present, why didn’t the the Earth keep cooling, causing a perpetual Ice Age?
“Earth eventually cooled.”
Millions upon millions of years later.
It cooled because CO2 was reducing due to geological processes in the last few hundred million years. You could consider that there is an equilibrium temperature for each CO2 content.
Thanks Chad
Excellent contribution by John Morland, where most of my family and relations live they could have done with some extra degrees since May, and more so over the next 6 months when all gardens in England will be moribund. The total lack of common sense of all climate scientists is their main characteristic, apart from their determined ignorance. For example a widely syndicated op.ed in The Sunday Times reached The Australian on Monday and showed that GHGs “trap” heat without mentioning that they also radiate it. Real scientists see no evidence in the infrared spectrum of any buildup of heat from rising CO2, for the simple reason that it is almost instantly radiated to space, as John Tyndall first showed back in 1861.
Australian climate scientists have gone one better, with their childish belief that it is the aggregate of GROSS cumulative emissions of GHGs since 1750 that is what produces whatever virtually undedectable warming there has been since then, regardless of the vast absorption by the oceans and biospheres such that only 44% of CO2 emissions have remained airborne.
The question is not well posed. Best case for what? I would suggest best explanation for why the world is at least half a degree warmer than it was half a century ago. Or for some, best case that it isn’t.
Jim D
I have to disagree with your opinion that “the question is not well posed”.
This seems pretty self-explanatory.
What part do you not understand?
Max
“Best case for what?”
At a guess, I think she means your best case for ignoring the conclusions of the vast majority of trained and publishing climate scientists in favor of a fossil-fuel-funded exercise in wishful thinking.
Robert,
You just can’t help spewing your compulsive and trite fossil-funded nonsense. Try to stifle this knee jerk impulse, it just results in an “own goal”.
Robert
You are on the slippery slope of “argument from authority” rather than “argument from evidence”.
It’s a loser, Robert (check Feynman for “why”).
Max
The IPCC puts forward multiple lines of evidence pointing to AGW, so a best case has to go through all of these lines and give an alternative. I thought I would give you an easier target, but you don’t even want to take that up.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system. ‘ AR4 s3.4.4.1
Low frequency variability is real. They seem to involve changes in cloud radiative forcing. Voilà – most warming in the satellite era was from cloud radiative forcing.
I’m skeptical of everything. The first response, the first reaction, to any new idea or thought I see or hear or imagine is, for me, always “NO! NO! NO! That’s NOT right! That can’t be how it works! That’s WRONG!” Your ideas. Their ideas. My own ideas. Every time.
Which, I can assure you, is not a particularly comfortable tic to be obliged to endure, an abnegatory Tourettes, a cynical tinitis ringing in my head whenever I, for instance, come here and read comments. Or go anywhere and read anything.
The redress for this condition is to return again and again to Cartesian epistemology, reasoning from First Principles, building a bridge from that arch-denialist kneejerk reactionary to the relatively more pleasant world of ordinary acceptance or rejection or uncertainty in varying degrees about all things one slender plank at a time, to an ab initio nehwon lit by logic, thence Mathematics, thence reasoning by other well-founded formulations.
I don’t imagine I’m alone in the world with issues of kneejerk reactions to new ideas; there’s plenty of evidence others make instant decisions about things they read, see or hear. The difference appears that many seem to enjoy wallowing in unconfirmed first impressions, living an unexamined life in a prima facie sty.
From first principles: blue eyes do not contain blue pigment; this can be confirmed in any well-equipped high school biology laboratory if you are not squeamish and they have appropriate blue-eyed animal subjects to examine, though simpler to reproduce the same blue tint by adding flour to milk and stirring in front of a bright light. Ergo, particles suspended in solution can scatter light differentially in a way related to their size and the wavelength of the light.
There are invisible wavelengths of light, including infrared; this can be confirmed by diverse methods. Tyndall and Arrhenius laboriously and painstakingly — according to lengthy recorded documentation — confirmed these facts by experiments and arithmetic anyone can reproduce today upon the effects of CO2 (and other GHG’s) on the scattering of heat produced by the effect of visible (and other light) absorbed at the Earth’s surface as infrared. We know this ab initio, and any hypothesis conflicting with this must account for what effects cancel this foundational fact of radiative transfer Physics.
When we observe global patterns of temperature — a horrible metric, to be sure, but one which heroic levels of statistical processing done by Dr. Richard Muller’s BEST team have hammered to confidence levels that allow us to be more than 95% certain of these scientific observations, and by Newton’s Fourth Principle we must therefore accept as true, or very nearly accurate — we do see there are effects that partially occlude or cancel the Greenhouse Effect on some spans of time. The two principle obscuring effects appear to both be aerosols: industrial soot and volcanic dust. While we might be able to keep soot in the atmosphere for generations, there are good reasons to expect that’s a bad plan.
Other more minor occlusions to GHE include ocean circulations which by their nature are limited by the number and size of oceans, and anyone who can count into the double digits will realize we’ve enumerated all the oceans on Earth, and therefore know the number and length of their major circulations. None of these major circulations much exceed seventy years so far as has been observed, and we’ve had in excess of seventy years of Global Warming.
In all and in sum, considering solar and orbital effects — or as the South Dakota Legislature would have it (http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2010/Bill.aspx?File=HCR1009P.htm), all “variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena,” (I kid you not, that’s actually in something passed by the SD legislature) do not by first order estimation amount to any effect that will lastingly and in balance counteract AGW, and land use only appears to push in the same direction as the GHE. For the sake of brevity, if you doubt this, look up the size of each influence ranked by amount of energy per unit time per area: even the much-vaunted UHI is only 10% or so of GHE, at most, mostly in the same direction, and itself occluded by the effects of Urban Dimming of roughly the same scale.
Which tells us we can identify CO2E level change due human causes as the largest and most persistent external forcing on the Earth climate. We can rest here. Temperature is not important. Climate sensitivity is not important. We have a complex system and Chaos and perturbation. Chaos Theory demonstrates clearly the common general traits of such systems: they change state to less stable conformations, or they collapse spectacularly to a ground state.
Given the size of the Earth, ground state collapse is unlikely. But unstable climate with increasing extremes is a situation of Risk imposed by the sources of the external forcing.
Risk is costly, it has a price. We can identify the sources of the perturbation as the emitters of CO2E beyond the ability of the Carbon Cycle to buffer in natural sinks. The Carbon Cycle is therefore scarce, rivalrous, excludable and valuable; emitters of CO2E are thereby Free Riders, and governments that do not privatize the Carbon Cycle are condoning the picking of our pockets by these Free Riding carpetbaggers.
Sure, you can go on and calculate all the fine points of temperature and ocean acidification, use climate models and ice cores — in fact, I endorse Scientific pursuit of more such knowledge — but there’s no economy in decision making involving such extraneous details.
We know everything we need know. We’re being stolen from, and we should be reimbursed for our losses.
BartR,
You are an example of a closed minded ideologue.
You practice “policy driven science”, where you policy is to promote anything that assists your Left ideology.
Funny. I thought Bart was advocating private and market-driven approaches, in particular free of government subsidies. Doesn’t really sound leftist to me.
It must be an attitude that sets off these wingnuts into a rage.
Webby
Left.
Right.
Fuggidaboudit, man.
Sloppy agenda-driven “science” doesn’t need to carry a political affiliation.
It remains sloppy agenda-driven “science”.
Max
Bart R. has some very odd ideas the definition of “free.”
WHT,
I think in Peter Lang’s lexicon ‘Left ideology’ is so inclusive that it would take in anyone in the US Republican Party, the UK’s Conservative Party, and Australia’s Liberal Party etc who might advocate sensible economic policies.
He’d find it inconceivable that someone who might accept the consensus position on AGW wouldn’t also be a ‘leftist’.
What you seem to miss is that I don’t do the Science.
I skeptically evaluate it, and do the Economics.
Why is it you don’t recognize Economics when you see it?
Bart writes a very long piece about all sorts of things – scientific methods, techniques for thinking about things etc. And your response is that he is practicing ‘policy-driven’ science and its about a ideology.
Thank you Peter for one of the shorted, most concise examples sI have ever seen of psychological projection I have ever seen.
Fixation on questions of ideology and so on is obviously a very large part of your personality since you are so quick to think you are seeing the same thing in others.
Here is something you might like to try doing Peter. Try it just for a day and see what happens.
Every time you hear/read something you don’t agree with, try to imagine why that other person might have said thatt if their motives WERE NOT about ideology. Could you manage that Peter? Could you try to put yourself into the minds of others, of people who couldn’t give a tinkers damn about looking at life in Ideological terms. People for whom Ideology, of what ever flavour, is about as dull as watching grass grow.
You might discover a few things about your fellow travellers on this planet Peter. The vast majority of us don’t operate from an Ideological basis. That’s just too boring. We leave ideological thinking to politicians and other weirdos.
So if you can then imagine people holding views for easons other than ideology, you might be on the road to understanding your fellow humans a whole lot better Peter.
Well said Glenn.
You and Marlowe beat me to it, so just a futher +1.
What makes me despair is that no matter how logical, articulate and internally coherent the comment (outstanding example: BartR, above) the reflexive denial is always the same.
Glenn,
Every day, in every way, you just keep on getting better and better. And I am so impressed, Glenn, that you have no truck with any of that there tacky, ideology business. But, then, I guess you’re just that kinda guy–right, Glenn?
Rather, it appears, Glenn, the things that make you what you are–make you “tick”, Glenn–seem to sort themselves out, in part, as follows:
-A predictible, pretentious penchant for “psychological diagnoses”, of the two-bit, useful-to-the-hive’s-agenda variety
-Another predictible penchant for patronizing, holier-than-thou, sanctimonious, oh-so-long-suffering, self-congratulatory, Pecksniffian outbursts of pity for us ignorant-peon, “fellow-traveler” earthlings who “just don’t get it” (Did I just hear the words “fellow-traveler”!?–now there’s a “slip” of a term, Glenn, that should instantly engage your inner, totally-non-ideological Dr. Freud. Unless, of course, your employment of the term, “fellow traveller”, Glenn, was really nothing more than some sort of dog-whistle, “Secret Forum” code word, served up to activate BBD and Marlowe Johnson so that they’d pop-up and spit-out a couple of good-comrade, conditioned-reflex, gushing, hive-bozo “attaboy” comments in support of your last.).
-A somewhat original penchant for Dr. Phil-wannabe, over-earnest, orotund, kinda-creepy lecture-boogers, remarkable for the freak-show extravagance of their unctuous moralizing.
-And, Glenn, if a certain, hacked, “Secret Forum” e-mail, currently circulating the blogosphere, is, indeed, one of your little, hopped-up, scary-dork, tin-pot Giap masterpieces, then we can add to the list a penchant for conspiring to start “guerilla wars” (Oh brother!)–not for ideological reasons, we know that, Glenn, but apparently for nothing more than just the hell of it!
You know, Glenn, we all appreciate that you eschew all that darn ol’ boring ideology good stuff and all. But, I gotta tell yah, guy, those thingies you do embrace in the place of ideology, through some sort of an amazing, once-in-a-millenium-fluke, believe-it-or-not co-incidence, seem to be pretty much precisely those that are also embraced by your basic, dime-a-dozen, hive-creep, party-line hack, scare-mongering, lefty ideologue. Curious co-incidence, don’t you think, Glenn?
Bart R
You start off pretty well with:
But then you mess it all up with a long, confusing ramble.
Let’s let those who are truly skeptical of the IPCC report and its CAGW premise point out specifically why they are so, and let’s see if you can rebut these arguments (if you are skeptical of their validity).
Max
manacker | September 19, 2012 at 5:17 am |
You’re a little late to the party. Most comments posted as ‘best cases’ so far are rehash of previously rebutted, invalidated, deprecated, proven faulty pet theories. Can you point to one that isn’t?
Statements that stick?
1. “I am not a crook.”
2. “I did not have sex with that woman…”
3.’climate change is not a hoax,’
11062012
You didn’t build that.
Tom may be a piece of fake data trying to make McIntyre and Watts look bad.
Bart R
You ask me:
Here’s one: I challenged you to come up with empirical evidence to support IPCC’s premise of strongly positive net feedback from clouds.
In my challenge I cited one recent study, which shows (based on CERES satellite observations by Spencer + Braswell), that the net overall feedback from clouds with warming is strongly negative, rather than strongly positive, as assumed by IPCC’s climate models..
So far you have skirted around this challenge.
Balls in your court, Bart.
Max
manacker
If cloud feedback was strongly negative, the climate system would be relatively insensitive.
Internally forced variation would be damped down over short timescales. Externally forced variation on decadal and multi-decadal scales would be flattened out. Nor could a mere spatial and seasonal reorganisation of summer insolation be capable of terminating glacials.
In other words, every single thing we know about climate including the beloved MWP and LIA, would not – could not – have happened.
We’re being stolen from, and we should be reimbursed for our losses.
Are not you yourself the user of fossil fuels? How can you steal from yourself?
Girma | September 19, 2012 at 7:37 am |
The issue of course isn’t the access to the fossil fuels, which are carefully guarded and priced and licensed and owned and protected by their interested drillers and refiners and distributors.
The issue is the access to the unguarded and unprotected, but infinitely more valuable Carbon Cycle that all life and all climate depends on for survival and stability. I’m merely arguing that this scarce, rivalrous, excludable, valuable resource ought be treated with the same principles of Capitalism as fossil fuels, and the owners of this resource get paid by the Law of Supply and Demand.
Why do you object to Capitalism?
Terrestrial plants get their carbon directly from the atmosphere. Animals indirectly get their carbon from plants. You are arguing for keeping carbon locked up underground depriving living things of it. I’m for unlocking it putting it where it does the greatest good for the greatest number of living things.
I say this just to be clear which one of us is interested in abundance of life and which of us is stupid and greedy.
> Terrestrial plants get their carbon directly from the atmosphere.
That must why we call them terrestrial.
David Springer | September 19, 2012 at 11:49 pm |
Please don’t open up the “stupid and greedy” thing. It’ll draw willard down on your head, and we know you don’t come off well in those things.
I don’t think everyone agrees your way to promote living things is exactly for the greatest good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8
Which makes it a good thing you were never elected to speak on behalf of all life on Earth.
BartR,
Since David Springer is all for unlocking it for the greatest good of the greatest number of living things, we all should expect him to redistribute all his ressources soon.
I’ll take one of his dog, if you don’t mind.
God beat you to it, Willard. But thanks for the offer.
David Springer,
Too bad.
You should bear in mind that arguing from the greater good and all that might be tough to reconcile with your “get out of my lawn” stance.
Even clowns can see that:
http://clowninginthemidwest.wordpress.com/2007/04/26/its-official-davescot-is-a-weak-excuse-for-a-human-being/
Bart R | September 19, 2012 at 2:05 am | Reply
“When we observe global patterns of temperature — a horrible metric, to be sure, but one which heroic levels of statistical processing done by Dr. Richard Muller’s BEST team have hammered ”
Penciled, not hammered, is the word you’re looking for. There is no warming at all in the raw data. It’s entirely manufactured by two “adjustments” invented in the 1980’s. Somehow the temperature record didn’t need these adjustments for the 100 years prior to that or prior to the need to show that anthropogenic CO2 was more than plant food.
The two adjustments are called SHAP and TOBS for Station Homgeneity Adjustment Procedure and Time of Observation Bias respectively.
The only reliable temperature record that gives us global coverage, designed to accurately measure trends in the hundredths of a degree per decade, and truly global coverage is the satellite record beginning in 1979. The rest is useless as it is simply not fit for the purpose, was never designed for that purpose, and not amount of manipulation can bring it up to the task. You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Garbage in, garbage out.
David Springer | September 19, 2012 at 7:03 pm |
Fallacious arguments. You have got to stop playing with fallacies like this. You’ll go blind to reason.
All data analysis is interpretation. The interpretations of the datasets are routinely challenged and compared to rigorous standards and audited. It’s true that at the outset these audits and challenges were inadequate and lazy, and the data management outside of a limited set of efforts remains less than desireable, and it took things like McIntyre’s audits and revisiting of the data by the likes of Muller to shape things up so far as they have gotten.
But the satellite record itself isn’t that great.
Here’s a glimpse at the standard I’d like to started in the 1970’s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0_VSkoZvaE&feature=related
Of course, the materials, techniques and technologies didn’t exist in their current form back then, but now that we do have them, it’s really long past time we stopped being so slack.
That said, the data can be shown to be fit to some purpose; such as showing AGW to be significant above a 95% confidence level on the multidecadal scale, and that CO2 level modified by volcanoes and industrial particulates expresses fingerprints of the connection of CO2 to temperature to the extent of coffin nail spikes reducing the degrees of freedom of curve fitting to zero: CO2 causes warming.
http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/annual-with-forcing.pdf
Bart R | September 19, 2012 at 11:58 pm | Reply
“Here’s a glimpse at the standard I’d like to started in the 1970′s”
You go to war with the instrument record you have not the instrument record you wish you had.
BartR,
You want the truth?
You can’t handle the truth!
If truth had handles, you could.
But truth does not come with handles.
So you can’t.
Oh, and please come back to war when you’ll have a gun as big as David’s. No, not a slingshot. A real gun.
willard (@nevaudit) | September 20, 2012 at 10:05 am |
You think size matters?
Springer’s a signalman. I am a lighthouse.
BartR,
Who cares who you are
What matters is light
To make love shines through
Any hardness, any size.
Bart R
You may be “a lighthouse”, but it appears that the switch is turned off.
Max
manacker | September 21, 2012 at 10:39 am |
Does no one know this joke? Astounding. One of the finest bits of military humor in history.
http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp
Yes! Tourettes! That explains the gratuitous insults sometimes dispensed by Bart R!
Not in this post, thankfully.
It is a good and entertaining post but still boils down to “we can’t think of anything else” for an explanation. On your comment “None of these major circulations much exceed seventy years so far as has been observed”, consider that the “circulations” are not synchronized and thus likely have longer term global implications. You make it all sound suspiciously simple.
Robert Austin | September 19, 2012 at 8:41 pm |
Technically, they’re incidental insults, not gratuitous insults. And really, I think they’re more than just a sometimes thing.
The standard you set of “we can’t think of anything else” is inaccurate. “We” used heuristics to guide our discovery of first causes, and followed scrupulous ab initio reasoning, which is the opposite of “can’t think of anything else” in epistemology. Because of the form of strict logic to develop the inference of AGW, “we” _don’t_ think of anything else, because nothing else comes out of the logical method.
But then “we” go on and do think of everything else “we” can to challenge the findings “we” have deduced logically from the fundamental principles of Physics, because “we” in this case refers to a bunch of Scientists, and a majority of them actually embrace the precepts of Scientific skepticism, and test their conclusions tirelessly.
And sure, if there were teleconnections that could be established that might imbue the temperature changes due circulations with a span in excess of seven decades — based on the interference patterns of said cyclic phenomena — that might mean something. But the teleconnections are weak and there are enough of them across the fifty some climate basins of the globe that we can treat them as nondeterministic. Which means we have plenty of data to use to challenge the ocean circulation hypotheses, and when we expose these to even rote trendology we see they fail. As do solar cycles. As do zodiacal cycles.
All of which we even mention not because we’re straw-graspingly trying to think of anything else, but because we have a conclusion from logic that we want to test, because Science doesn’t rely only on pure reason, but also on the experimental method.
And these tests are valuable. If not for the skepticism and investigations and examinations and discussions, we’d likely have a much poorer understanding of Climate in Science today. Pressure makes diamonds.
A Global Temperature is irrelevant.
Yarbles, I’m afraid old chap.
But don’t mind an old warmist commie like me. Here’s prominent sceptic Dr Roy Spencer, PhD, explaining why you are mistaken on this point.
Enjoy!
Interesting. Anonymous coward BBD is willing to quote Spencer so long as Spencer agrees with anonymous coward BBD. Fascinating. Hypocrisy thy name is Big Butt Dullard or something equally fitting with those initials.
Yes, BBD will troll like he’s getting paid for it.
Andrew
David,
That’s British Bull Dog.
Please mind your acronyms.
I’m sure you like that one.
Yap! Yap! Yap!
Do you chase postmen?
Sorry willard old chap. The yapping dog I refer to above is some kind of springer.
Thank you BBD,
That was an informative link but I disagree with Spencer on this. Just as the most important index the world economy is not a global average yearly income and then making estimates of what the incomes were in ancient times and comparing them. The planet has several climates and microclimates. For example the ice levels are unusually high in the Antarctic now and low in Arctic and its in the local climates that we should worry about. Greenhouse gases vary greatly at the poles from the equator.
Are you a credentialled expert? If not, who cares what you think? I don’t mean this harshly – it’s just how things work.
> Just as the most important index the world economy is not a global average yearly income and then making estimates of what the incomes were in ancient times and comparing them.
Is the world economy an index?
Bad Andrew
I’ve been looking at your horrifying little blog. I understand you better now, but like you even less.
Jim D –
You mistakenly attribute the warmth of the Cretaceous to CO2 concentration. If your logic applied to the early archeozoic, when, as I pointed out, CO2 was 200,000ppm at a time when there was 50 percent more atmosphere, the Earth should long since have lost its oceans and burned up But it didn’t, and it isn’t about to today. In fact, your citation only provides further proof of the disconnect between CO2 and temperature over geologic time.
Bart R –
You’re absolutely right, we are being stolen from – and if there is any justice the purveyors of AGW bull@#$%&*!! should be made to disgorge all the monies they took in “research” grants, and all the monies already wasted on futile schemes like sequestration – and the government entities who fostered theft by carbon taxes should be compelled to refund all such taxes paid by the victims of this thievery in Australia and British Columbia and wherever else, back to those who have been thus ripped off.
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 2:41 am |
I don’t say this lightly. Your reasoning abilities reflect poorly on the human species.
British Columbia, let me use small words, does not keep the fees it takes from those who buy carbon to burn.
The BC “Carbon Tax” is revenue neutral. The BC government doesn’t get to keep what it collects, but must in the same tax year it collects pay out the CO2E fees to the people directly, and has done so either by check or by tax rebate since day one. True, they don’t do it the way I would, by floating the rate of the fees to maximize return to investors — the people of BC who arguably own its air equally – by the Law of Supply and Demand, but it’s a start. In other words, while the theft is still ongoing in British Columbia, it’s going on less than anywhere else in the world.
You really should stop talking crime-coddling crap.
Chad
Apart from not knowing where you get your figure of 200,000 ppm (20%), yes you are right – go back through geological time and CO2 levels were very much higher than now. Which is just as well really soince in the past the heat output was lower. Higher CO2 levels compensated for a cooler Sun to stop the Earth from freezing.
It’s amazing how easily one can reach totally the wrong conclusion by only considering some of the facts but not all of them.
Greenhouse effect doesn’t fix Faint Young Sun paradox. You should know that. It’s why it’s still a paradox. Duh.
Faint young Sun paradox remains
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Arising from M. T. Rosing, D. K. Bird, N. H. Sleep & C. J. Bjerrum, Nature 464, 744–747 (2010)
The Sun was fainter when the Earth was young, but the climate was generally at least as warm as today; this is known as the ‘faint young Sun paradox’. Rosing et al.1 claim that the paradox can be resolved by making the early Earth’s clouds and surface less reflective. We show that, even with the strongest plausible assumptions, reducing cloud and surface albedos falls short by a factor of two of resolving the paradox. A temperate Archean climate cannot be reconciled with the low level of CO2 suggested by Rosing et al.1; a stronger greenhouse effect is needed.
The Faint Young Sun Paradox is the reason we are here. The guys that posed the paradox are the geniuses that figured out Venus and applied that “greenhouse: effect to Earth. I guess if you can’t deal with real problems you major in astrophysics.
Furthermore, for the benefit of those who mistakenly say the Sun was much cooler 50 million years ago, it wasn’t. The Sun wasn’t “a lot cooler” 50 million years ago when Earth’s temperature began its decent towards ice ages and, if it continues, to the end of civilization as we know it. (it was perhaps 0.3% cooler 50 million years ago).
If we could avcoid our biases for a moment, and consider this issue:
The planet is in a long term cooling phase. What should we do about it to protect civilisation, to slow the decline into the next ice age, to reduce the probability and severity of a sudden cooling of the planet?
What could we do? Let’s think. Any ideas?
The planet is in a long term cooling trends when we consider periods of 50 million years, 10 million years, 3 million years, 400,000 years, 8,000 years. (see Figure 1 here:
James Hansen and Makiko Sato (2010) “Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change” (Figure 1)
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
We have more hope of understanding the climate in the Cretaceous than in distant eras where we have insufficient evidence of the atmosphere’s constituents. Let’s make an effort to understand why the Cretaceous was warmer with 500-1000 ppm of CO2, because those numbers are reasonably well known. It is common for skeptics to say, but we don’t know this or that a billion years ago, so we can’t understand 100 million years ago, even if we know ten times more about it. This is just drawing the conversation off the topic, however deftly it is tried.
Bart R, you say:
“Tyndall and Arrhenius laboriously and painstakingly — according to lengthy recorded documentation — confirmed these facts by experiments and arithmetic anyone can reproduce today upon the effects of CO2 (and other GHG’s) on the scattering of heat produced by the effect of visible (and other light) absorbed at the Earth’s surface as infrared. We know this ab initio, and any hypothesis conflicting with this must account for what effects cancel this foundational fact of radiative transfer Physics.”
Earth’s surface radiates more than it absorbs (as infrared or longwave) and the net flux is upward in average. Net radiation at the surface counts and of course the other non-radiative fluxes need to be taken into account properly. Evaporation and convection transfer more heat away from the surface than radiation. The atmosphere on the other hand is cooled exclusively by radiation where the so-called GHGs radiate the gained energy to space.
Falsification of AGW doesn’t have to conflict with the radiative properties of H2O and CO2.
Edim | September 19, 2012 at 2:57 am |
Earth’s surface radiates more than it absorbs..
Case in point of ideas that make me respond skeptically.
Conservation of Energy suggests were this assertion of radiating more than is absorbed true, to any significant degree, then Earth must needs cool at an alarming rate. I’ll accept that this tidbit — as it’s superfluous to the main point — is a mere eccentricity, based on the plentiful evidence than commenters here have an eccentric bent.
Which still leaves a group of assertions that do not square with observations reported by NASA (look it up), and confirmable by any individual willing to launch a weather balloon (it costs a few hundred dollars, but it can make you a Youtube celebrity, so a value proposition for those who seek social media renown), or more simply survey the consilient non-NASA sources (look them up) and do some math.
You haven’t falsified AGW by assertion.
You’ve merely shown more reason to be skeptical of claims unverified by scrupulous ab initio methods.
Which, when done, tend to confirm AGW by the GHE, and a direct correspondence between human caused CO2 level change and costly extreme weather events and expensively shifting agricultural conditions.
Edim.
“Earth’s surface radiates more than it absorbs (as infrared or longwave) ” ! And what source do you have for that quite amazing statement?
I said Earth’s surface and as longwave, red arrows here:
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
What I mean is that the net longwave flux is upward.
Steven Mosher | September 19, 2012 at 1:07 am |
“…..Later I cast the definition in terms of basic physics and sensitivity.
A) since we believe in radiative theory we are committed to a sensitivity value of NO LESS THAN 1.2C per double.
B) Since we think the models run hot at 3.2C per doubling…
We conclude. There is a greater than 50% probability that the true
sensitivity values lies between 1.2C and 3C. That is, given an over/under bet of 3C.. we take the under bet.
You are welcomed to look at the CDF of the IPCC sensitivity PDF.
That is our science position. Its the ONLY position we all agree on.
Policy? Well Tom has suggested that we can agree to base policy on 2.5C. I’ve said we can base policy on 3C. Bottom line WE TAKE NO POLICY POSITION. Now, this position which I’ve laid out manytimes has been systematically misrepresented by Robert, by BBD, you name it. Lets just repeat for the record what I’ve said consitently
Lukewarmers stand for: Free data; Free code; Open debate
On the science: radiative physics is correct. There is Greater than
50% chance that sensitivity falls below 3C rather than above 3C.
A lukewarmer could choose to be concerned about the high tail.
THAT is a risk/policy choice. Not science. Lukewarmers are free to promote any or no policy. Science is one thing, what we choose to do about the risk is something different.”
Well, I guess I am not a lukewarmer.
I do not think global temperature will rise more than 2 C before get to the year, 2100.
Nor do I think global CO2 will exceed 800 ppm before 2100.
And I think it’s silly to worry about something more than 88 years into the future.
I think of 2 C as being the upper limit, and 3 C as next to impossible- and would go so far saying unlikely – to next impossible within 200 years- despite the idea that stupid to look this far in the future.
I do not know why within the next 88 years we can not have some serious volcanic eruptions someplace in the world, and would say the 20th century appears to be fairly quiet in terms of large eruptions. It seems possible that before we get to 2100 we could more volcanic activity than we had during the 19th century. How one ignore potential eruptions that may put over 100 cubic km into the atmosphere when talking about climate, is a wonder.
It also seems there could 50% than we could some longer periods of low solar activity in time period up to 2100.
It seems recent trend has less than .15 C per decade, and that 1.5 C in century is probably on the high side.
It doesn’t seem in the least rational to assume that rising global Co2 levels caused global glaciers to stop advancing and begin the global retreat. And it seems it’s unlikely that any human activity was responsible for stopping the advance of glaciers globally, nor were responsible causing them to retreat globally. And it seems a large part of warming of 20th century was not caused by human activity, or specifically an increase in Global CO2 levels caused by human activity.
It does seem that some amount of warming could caused by rising CO2 levels but it seems it’s less than 1/2 of the warming.
It seems to me, that at some point before 2100, that wine grapes may grow in the UK, it seems the treeline may extend northward, and Greenland may get as warm as during MWP. I would it’s somewhat surprising this hasn’t already happened as much one could expect, but I believe this is possible before 2100. Though I don’t see tropic condition in UK occuring in centuries- well beyond time period worth considering.
It also seem possible we see more ice free arctic waters, but don’t see how such conditions lead to any “runaway warming”, cooling effects seems more likely
Following are three major issues distinguishing natural forcing over anthropogenic forcing of temperature etc.:
Phase Lag of Global Temperature
David Stockwell at Niche Modeling shows a high correlation of the integral of Total Solar Insolation (TSI) variations and global temperature with a 2.75 year lag. This matches the Pi/2 (90 degrees) lag predicted by Stockwell’s Solar Accumulation Theory. See: Key Evidence for the Accumulative Model of High Solar Influence on Global Temperature
I see Sockwell’s correlation evidence of this lag vs IPCC’s rejecting TSI’s impact as critically important evidence for the dominance of natural causes over the anthropogenic greenhouse model.
Temperature and CO2 Phase lag
I expect the global temperature shows a phase lag because of the land/ocean and heat capacity difference between hemispheres. I expect Stockwell’s solar – temperature phase lag model to also apply to annual variations in ocean temperature which should vary with latitude with the poles being 180 deg out of phase. (This will be smeared out by the thermo haline circulation.)
Consequently, there should be a corresponding annual variation with the solar – ocean temperature phase lag in CO2 concentrations varying with latitude and 180 deg out of phase at the poles. For visual confirmation, see Fred Haynie’s CO2 graphs in FUTURE OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE – Kidswincom.net
http://www.kidswincom.net/climate.pdf
Natural oscillation based temperature predictions
Temperature predictions based on natural trends and oscillations with minor (if any) anthropogenic contribution appear to be performing better than IPCC’s GCMs. e.g., See:
Nicola Scafetta’s hybrid temperature model predicting temperatures from 2000.
See scafetta’s updated prediction at the bottom of his web pate: Scafetta v IPCC
Scafetta N., 2012. Testing an astronomically based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation climate models
In 1999, geologist Don Easterbrook began predicting a change in temperature regime (about 2000?) due to the change in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from warm to cold. See:
Evidence-Based Climate Science: Data opposing CO2 emissions as the primary source of global warming (2011) Elsevier Science ISBN: 978-0-12-385957-0
See preprints
D’Aleo, J. and Easterbrook, D.J., 2011, Relationship of multidecadal global temperatures to multidecadal oceanic oscillations: in Easterbrook, D.J., ed., Evidence-Based Climate Science, Elsevier Inc., p. 161-184.
Note especially:
See also: Syun-Ichi Akasofu who models temperature as a long term warming from the Little Ice Age superimposed by a PDO based temperature oscillation. e.g. On the recovery from the Little Ice Age Natural Science Vol.2, No.11, 1211-1224 (2010) doi:10.4236/ns.2010.211149
Hale Cycle drives Precipitation & Runoff cycles, NOT surface evaporation
WJR Alexander et al. showed strong correlations/causation between the (~21 year) Hale solar cycle and Southern African Precipitation & Runoff, but NOT with surface evaporation.
.
Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development*
W J R Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe and N Willemse Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering • Volume 49 Number 2 June 2007 pp 32-44
https://www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/5326/1/Alexander_Linkages(2007).pdf
CO2 LAGS global temperature
The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature, Ole Humlum, Kjell Stordahl, Jan-Erik Solheim, Global and Planetary Change Available online 30 August 2012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2012.08.008
Discussion: Review of Humlum Et Al 2012 “The Phase Relation Between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide And Global Temperature” By Donald Rapp
Decadal temperature trends decline from warming to cooling
As Easterbrook, Scafetta etc. predicted, the global temperature trend has been declining from mild warming to flat and now has begun to cool.
See Lucia Lilijgren at The Blackboard
Using ARMA(1,1): Reject AR4 projections of 0.2 C/decade.
With solar cycle 24 being the lowest in a century, this could mean substantial further global cooling over the next couple of decades. e.g., until the ~60 year PDO cycle starts to turn to its warm phase in ~ the mid 2030s.
Solar Climatology
Jan-Erik Solheim, Kjell Stordahl & Ole Humlum
“The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24”.
David Archibald predicted>:
Mae culpa. Lucia calculated trends from each year up to the present, starting in 1975 up through 2003 – not “decadal” except the last.
The IPCC is a child of the UNEP and the WMO, both UN agencies. The UNEP head, Maurice Strong, leading the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, stated “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?” The UNEP is responsible for Agenda 21.
Reasonably democratic countries make up only about 50 of 194 members of the UN. The UN sponsored the Commission on Global Governance, 1995 which recommended: global taxation, a standing UN army, end of the veto powers in the Security Council, a parliamentary body of NGOs, binding verdicts from the International Court of Justice. The UN Durban conference called for an International Climate Court to compel Western nations to make reparations for a past climate debt.
The climate conferences prior to 1985 were unwilling to make strident statements due to the uncertain state of climatology but the Villach conferences in the mid 1980s brought the UNEP and NGOs to the conference and the first strident calls emerged.
At the Madrid conference in 1995, the IPCC chair Bolin and the WG1 chair Houghton allowed Ben Santer to rewrite WG1 Ch8 to bring it into line with the politically approved SPM.
In 1998, Stephen Schneider, an IPCC coordinating lead author stated: “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
In 2010 the InterAcademy Council reviewed the processes and procedures of the IPCC. It’s Exec Summary omitted all of the negativity of the body of the report which identified: conflict of interest, poor management, poor treatment of uncertainty, bias and political interference. Some quotes: “High confidence was attributed on little evidence and to vague statements; Conclusions were stated so vaguely as to make them impossible to refute; Many statements have weak evidentiary basis.”
The current IPCC chair, Rajendra Pachauri, does not have the background to head a credible impartial assessment agency, being on the board of the failed Chicago Climate Exchange with Maurice Strong and other environmental advocates. Pachauri’s running of his own NGO TERI should have disqualified him. The IPCC authors have never been selected by an open process similar to the selection of a jury. Many would loose their jobs if the belief in CAGW cannot be sustained.
The IPCC never conducted literature searches to identify the papers to be addressed rather it allowed chapter authors to choose papers that were suitable to illustrate their story. Many chose their own papers. Many papers were published by journals with IPCC authors on their editorial boards. Papers were written especially for the story and deadlines eased to allow their publication.
The ClimateGate emails discredited some important AR4 WG1 authors. A co-chair of AR5 working group, Ottmar Edenhofer, stated in 2010 “But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
I would be skeptical of any report on the benefits of smoking by the Tobacco Institute and see no reason to treat the IPCC any differently. For me the science is not settled. It has never been assessed.
Wow! That really puts the case concisely in one place as to why we would be foolish to put much faith in IPCC or ‘policy driven science’.
What an excellent and concise summary.
I dunno about concise. It was a detailed story about IPCC corruption that can be summed up by three words: “Follow the money”.
I wonder how the CAGW alarmists will respond to the comment by PJB. Will they ignore it or will they comment. I’ll be interested to see how these people comment:
Robert
Joseph
BartR
WHT
Glenn Tamblyn
Peter Lang | September 19, 2012 at 4:22 am |
It’s hilarious that you congratulate a conspiracy theorist for his concise summary of fear-mongering “One World Government” paranoia and then have the hypocrisy to use the word “alarmist”; it doesn’t occur to you that spreading myths about a cabal at the UN taking over the world is alarmism?
Cherry picked out-of-context lines from oil baron Strong and lifelong scholar Schneider, given that both have a huge body of public work to draw upon to glean better understanding of the subtle irony, nuance, and actual intent of those lines when revisited in context tell us all we need to know about pjb253: he either thinks we’re idiots who would believe such a slim fabric of propaganda, or he’s genuinely disconnected from any semblance of reality. Clearly, you didn’t go back to the text of Strong’s speech, where you won’t find him saying the line so frequently attributed to him by sycophantic George Hunt acolytes.
The Maurice Strong quote is actually taken from a 1992 interview about a fictional novel Strong was thinking of writing: “What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is ‘no’. The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”*
Look it up from primary sources. Like a skeptic would. *Gibson, Donald. Environmentalism: ideology and power
Or do you think “fictional novel” is secret code for “plan to take over the world?”
While I don’t agree with Strong on a lot, and Schneider had his share of foot-in-mouthitis, I just don’t get the fascination paranoiacs have with either of them. Why can’t they go back to blaming aliens and Satanic cults?
Bart R
I was not aware of Gibson’s book. Its reviews look interesting. However I can’t find a copy for less than $85 so it will have to remain on my wish list for a while. I have read many of the books that it covers, post 1900 anyway.
Not motivated to wade through the “huge body of public work” of the “lifelong scholar Schneider” who reserved the right to decide between effectiveness and honesty.
I advanced no conspiracy theory, merely offered some points. Connect them as you please.
Climatology is such a broad subject that an assessment would require an IPCC like effort and I don’t find the IPCC credible enough to justify the policy decisions that have already been taken.
> I advanced no conspiracy theory, merely offered some points. Connect them as you please.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
BartR is correct about the origin of the Strong quote being from a description of a novel.
BartR,
If you prefer a non-fictional source, try this:
> America, these are desperate times, and I’m beginning to think that our measures just aren’t desperate enough. If we are to counter the many negative factors currently affecting our economy, we’re going to have to do something drastic. Luckily, it turns out that our values are worth money, and if we’re having a yard sale, we might as well go all the way. I guess what I’m saying is — isn’t it time we start talking about legalizing violence?
http://bygonebureau.com/2010/05/21/a-proposal-for-the-legalization-of-violence/
I’m sure Rich Matarese would agree.
pjb253
You have given an excellent summary of the historical and political background leading directly to the current CAGW hysteria. This story is important for us all to read, in order to understand how things could become so wacky.
On this thread skeptics can also address specific points related to the shaky “science” behind the IPCC claims and the CAGW premise.
There is no question that the politics (as you describe it) came first chronologically – but the “science” is being used today to sell the political agenda (and this “science” is faulty, as is being pointed out here).
Max
pjb253 | September 19, 2012 at 6:53 pm |
Demanding impossible perfection is a form of fallacy.
So you don’t trust the IPCC? Boo-hoo. So what?
How is that an argument that justifies to me the continued picking of my pocket by people squandering the Carbon Cycle that I have an equal share in, and ought expect equal benefit from, and to be able to limit unequal harm to my interests by its overuse?
pjb253 | September 19, 2012 at 6:53 pm |
So I’ll take it that now that you’re aware of Gibson’s book, you’re acknowledging that the entire foundation of your narrative is false, based on a misquote and the narration of an event that did not happen the way you said, and you’re withdrawing your claims in their entirety because you were just plain wrong?
I have just read a 20 page summary of Gibson’s book. While there is a possibility my Maurice Strong quote was out of context, the book’s summary offers far more points than my comment and they can be connected into a far more sinister narrative. Thanks for the reference. Goodbye, as I have used up the 3 comments per posting that are allowed to a polite person.
Bart, are you really suggesting Strong wasn’t expressing his own strongly held views in that passage? Interesting way to look at it.
Jim
JimJ | September 20, 2012 at 9:56 pm |
I’m suggesting that people who build arguments on lies and then lie about them are liars, however polite they pretend to be. Of course, these are just suggestions.
Connect them how you will.
Back radiation is a complete BS. Atmospheric CO2 has no physical property to cause any warming. CO2 does not retain heat content. CO2 is one of the best ingredients that earth living things have to change the sun’s energy into stored chemical energy. Thanks to CO2.
“Back radiation is a complete BS”
One small fly in the ointment there Sam. We have been able to observe backradiation for decades. How can something that actually exists and has been observed be BS?
Simply you guys (warmists) misunderstood your observation of radiation as back radiation.
I’m afraid you’re demonstrably wrong there, Sam. Back-radiation is the theory of operation behind millions of electronic ventilation controls for commercial buildings where fans that exchange outdoor air with indoor air are triggered when CO2 generated by the building’s occupants rises above a set level.
This manufacturer of such ventilation controllers was kind enough to put a theory of operation document on the web:
http://www.raesystems.com/sites/default/files/downloads/FeedsEnclosure-TN-169_NDIR_CO2_Theory.pdf
The construction is basically the same as 19th century experimental physicist John Tyndall’s laboratory apparatus for measuring the far IR absorptive properties of different gases except these devices use modern technology to reduce a roomful of gear down to the size of a thimbal and also acheive accuracy and precision that Tyndall could only dream about.
The flaw in the CO2 global warming hypothesis isn’t that back radiation doesn’t exist. It clearly does and is used for practical applications. The biggest flaw in the ointment is how a body of water responds to increased back-radiation. It raises the evaporation rate. Rather than heating the water it simply converts liquid water at temperature X to water vapor at temperature X with an enormous amount of energy stored in the vapor insensibly. This stored energy, which does not manifest as an increase in temperature (which is why it’s called latent energy) is mechanically transported by convection thousands of feet above the surface where it eventually becomes sensible again when the vapor condenses into a cloud. Thus the increased back radiation is carried away from the surface without raising the surface temperature. This then changes the environmental lapse rate so the air at say 1000 meters altitude is 1C warmer that it would have been otherwise and clouds are now forming 100 meters higher than they would have otherwise. This mechanism requires no change in surface temperature. Clouds, which have a net cooling effect by shading the surface, do not contribute to surface warming. This is unlike rocks exposed to back radiation. Rocks don’t evaporate. They must necessarily get warmer. But the earth’s surface is mostly water and even in the 30% which isn’t ocean surface there’s still a lot of evaporative cooling taking place and evaporative cooling drills right through the greenhouse gases like they weren’t even there.
Thus we have, roughly, a maximum surface response of 1.1C temperature rise to a CO2 doubling over very dry (including frozen!) land only with much lesser amount over moist or liquid surfaces. Overall I belive this works out to as much as 0.5W of surface warming per CO2 doubling. Natural climate variation appears to bury anthropogenic CO2 forcing in the noise except perhaps over many decades of observation with suitably sensitive instruments. We’ve had suitably sensitive instruments deployed for only 33 years and the record we’re getting from them supports a sensitivity well below the IPPC-blessed minimum of 1.2.C which is rightly a maximum in the absence of water vapor feedback not a minimum. The earth is a water world not a solid grey body. Catastrophic global warming hypothesis is built upon how an ideal grey body equally illuminated over its entire area would respond to increased CO2 not on how a rotating sphere mostly covered in water and unequally illuminated responds to the same variation.
“as much as 0.5W of surface warming” should read 0.5C instead
David Springer,
You have no clue about Trenberth’s back radiation BS.
David Springer,
If you considered yourself a skeptic, you should be able to tell radiation Vs back radiation.
On general topic of skeptics or those with different view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Hg-Y7MugU&feature=player_embedded
Linked from:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/
[This was posted yesterday on the old “Skeptics” thread, but am re-posting here]
IPCC claim on AIS mass loss
A few years ago, Paul Matthews compiled several cases of IPCC errors, distortions and exaggerations in IPCC AR4 WG1 report:
https://sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/ipcc
These were gathered on a now-defunct Climate Audit thread, with several contributors.
Here is one specific example (copied from Paul’s summary with minor changes and my comments added):
The WG1 SPM states (p 5) that
In Table SPM1 they attribute 0.21 mm/yr of sea level rise over the period 1993-2003 to Antarctic ice loss.
These claims are contradicted by recent papers that show that the Antarctic ice sheet grew over the stated time period.
– I. Joughin and S. Tulaczyk, Positive Mass Balance of the Ross Ice Streams, West Antarctic, Science 295, 476-480 (2002) – They found strong evidence for ice sheet growth in West Antarctica.
– C.H. Davis et al, Snowfall-Driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-Level Rise, Science 308, 1898-1901 (2005) – They found that the East Antarctic ice sheet is growing at 45 Gt/yr, corresponding to a sea level decrease of 0.12 mm/yr.
– D.J. Wingham et al, Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet, Phil Trans Roy Soc A 364, 1627-1635 (2006) – They found that the Antarctic ice sheet is growing at 27 Gt/yr, corresponding to a sea level fall of 0.08 mm/yr. The study covered 72% of Antarctica and the period April 1992-April 2003.
The IPCC cites the Davis et al paper in section 4.6 but ignores the Wingham et al paper (this paper came out in 2006, but other 2006 papers are cited).
On the other hand, the IPCC cites other papers by Shepherd and Wingham that happen to support the IPCC agenda (for example “Warm ocean is eroding West Antarctic Ice Sheet”).
The Joughin et al. and Davis et al. studies cover only a portion of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, but the Wingham study has calculated a mass balance for the entire AIS, based on continuous 24/365 satellite altimeter measurements over the entire time period mid-April 1992 to mid-April 2003 covering 72% of the AIS and has extended this to the whole AIS by adding estimates for the non-measurable areas too close to the pole and near shorelines, which are not captured by satellite altimetry.
Wingham’s findings of 27 Gt/year mass gain are clearly not compatible with the IPCC claim of 71 Gt/year mass loss over the same time period.
Instead of citing (or even acknowledging) the Wingham study, IPCC chose to simply ignore it.
Max
PS I will cite other examples from this summary in separate posts, with thanks and credit due to Paul Matthews, who provided several of the examples and compiled the summary.
All of this is rather irrelevant given data today (eg grace) shows greenland and antarctica losing mass (even acceleration). Not to say I trust this Paul Matthews analysis anyway, I don’t. I’ve seen how skeptics screw up the most basic analyses and seen them concoct fake biases in other areas of ar4 (eg the section on solar influence).
lolwot
What a silly statement.
The brief here is to list specific claims made by IPCC in its AR4 WG1 report which are not well founded or based on cherry-picked supporting reports while ignoring other conflicting reports.
I just presented two such examples, both specifically related to the time period 1993-2003.
IPCC reported mass loss in both ice sheets over the 1993-2003 time period, while reports based on continuous measurements over the entire 1993-2003 time period showed mass gain.
IPCC simply ignored these reports and based its conclusion on spot studies covering only a small portion of the time period or only parts of the entire ice sheet.
What happened after the 1993-2003 time period or in some other part of the world is totally irrelevant, lolwot.
Max
What exactly is your point then? Antarctic and Greenland are losing mass. We know that.
“IPCC simply ignored these reports and based its conclusion on spot studies covering only a small portion of the time period or only parts of the entire ice sheet.”
Or so Paul Matthews claims. It might have been a relevant discussion if we didn’t already know Antarctic and Greenland are losing mass.
lolwot
Are you dense?
You ask “what exactly is your point?”
It is simply that IPCC IGNORED the ONLY scientific study, which estimated the mass balance OF THE ENTIRE ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET with measurements TAKEN CONTINUOUSLY OVER THE ENTIRE TIME PERIOD, which concluded that THE AIS GAINED MASS OVER THIS TIME PERIOD, when it made its contradictory claim in AR4 WG1 that the AIS LOST MASS OVER THIS TIME PERIOD.
What happened BEFORE or AFTER this time period is immaterial to my “point”.
What was concluded in SPOT STUDIES cited by IPCC, which covered a SMALL PORTION of the ENTIRE SURFACE of the AIS or of the 1993-2003 TIME PERIOD is also immaterial.
Have you grasped it now?
It’s really not that complicated, lolwot.
Max
Max,
The Antarctic ice sheet contribution to sea level rise over 1993-2003 was given as 0.21 +/- 0.35. Clearly this range includes the possibility of a -0.08mm/yr contribution, so the Wingham paper would not have altered it. Obviously at least one paper which inferred net mass gain over Antarctica must have been included in the AR4 review, which makes the agenda/conspiracy angle look odd.
This is one of the problems with scientifically ignorant people trying to critique science. Different papers reach different conclusions –ooooh, scandal!
And if they stumble upon a case where science has advanced in the last decade, why, it’s the second coming of Richard Nixon. Never mind that science is full of disagreements, and changing understandings of different phenomena.
Fraud! Incompetence! Bad things!
Robert | September 19, 2012 at 6:08 pm | Reply
Yes Robert. Science, unlike every other human endeavour, is totally devoid of fraud, incompetence, and bad things. It’s as pure as the driven snow. So honest and full of goodness it makes Mother Teresa look like an incompetent Attilla the Hun.
Do you have any idea how ridiculous you are?
Paul S
The old rationalization that somehow the net gain in Antarctic Ice Sheet mass was included in the error bars of the claim that there was a net loss in Antarctic Ice Sheet mass is ludicrous.
And, yes. there were “other studies” that showed mass loss.
These were largely spot studies covering a small portion of the cited 1993-2003 time period or only a small portion of the total surface area.
The ONLY report, which covered the ENTIRE April 1992 to April 2003 period and the ENTIRE AIS was the Wingham study, which IPCC ignored.
Sorry, Paul: NO SALE.
You’ve got to come with a better argument than that.
Max
IPCC claim on Greenland Ice Sheet over period 1993-2003
OK, here’s another one, also from Paul Matthews’ compilation (cited above).
The AR4 WG1 SPM claims (table SPM.1, page 7) that sea level rose at 0.21 mm/yr over the period 1993-2003, due to melting of the Greenland ice sheet. But several published papers have found that in fact the Greenland ice increased or was static over this time period:
– H.J. Zwally et al, Growth of the Southern Greenland Ice Sheet, Science 281, 1251 (1998). They found an ice sheet thickening rate of about 5 cm/year.
– C. H. Davis, C. A. Kluever, and B. J. Haines, Elevation Change of the Southern Greenland Ice Sheet. Science 279, 2086-2088 (1998). They found a small increase (1.5 cm/year) over the period 1978-1988.
– R. Thomas et al, Mass Balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet at High Elevations. Science 289, 426-428 (2000). They find that “On average, the region has been in balance”.
– O. M. Johannessen, K. Khvorostovsky, M. W. Miles, and L. P. Bobylev, Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland. Science 310, 1013-1016 (2005) – They used satellite altimetry over the period 1992-2003, and found the “spatially averaged increase is 5.4 cm per year over the study area”.
– H.J. Zwally et al, Mass changes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and shelves and contributions to sea-level rise: 1992-2002. J. Glaciol. 51, 509-527 (2005) – Found an overall mass gain of 11 GT/yr.
AR4 cites the last two of these (though they incorrectly refer to Zwally et al as 2006) but not the first two. AR4 also incorrectly shows Zwally et al as showing mass loss in fig 4.18. AR4 also attempts to discredit Johannessen et al (fig 4.18 caption) by saying that the results were ‘without firn densification correction’, and by showing it as a dotted line in their figure.
Several alternate measurement methods were in use over the 1993-2003 time period. Most of these only covered a small portion of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Many were spot studies covering a few weeks or months. The only measurement method that continuously covered the entire GIS except coastal areas that cannot be captured is satellite altimetry.
Johannessen covers essentially all of the GIS except coastal areas, but does not convert the elevation changes to a mass balance. Zwally provides information, which is not contained in the Johannessen study: namely, converting elevation change to mass balance, including the firn correction and extending the study area to cover the entire GIS. It covers essentially the same time period as Johannessen (mid-April 1992 to mid-April 2003), but truncates the 6-month colder period from October 2002 to April 2003 from the study. This leads to the supposition that Zwally’s reported gain in ice mass of 11 Gt/year may be understated, since it ignores the gain in snow mass from an entire 6-month cold season. Simply substituting Johannessen’s figures, which DO include these six months, for all the areas that could be measured by Johannessen and using Zwally’s numbers for the remaining non-measurable marginal areas results in a calculated increase of GIS ice mass from around 11 to around 23 Gt/year.
With or without this adjustment, however, either result is clearly incompatible with the IPCC claim of a loss of 71 Gt/year over the same period.
Again, IPCC has cherry-picked the reports it considers relevant and ignored the others.
Max
(More to follow)
Until someone can show me a lab experiment which shows that adding another 100ppm of CO2 to the current atmosphere will show a temperature increase, I see no reason to believe any of this. Nobody on here can provide me with a link to any such experiment.
Videos on youtube of alka seltzer in soda bottles don’t count (because the pressure inside the fizzing bottle will be higher, and the carbon dioxide level will be higher than is relevant)
The daft BBC video of venting (very cold) CO2 in front of a flame doesn’t count.
Neither do experiments measuring absorption lines of atmospheres and CO2, because they are not measuring temperature.
It is up to the warmists to demonstrate the science to the skeptics.
Mark
The experiment can’t be performed in a laboratory or anything of a similar scale. To demonstrate the GH effect or any change in it you need a very tall air column – kilometers long – that is at different temperatures and prssures at different altitudes. It is essentially the density & temperature variations up through the air column that is the source of the GH effect.
However you can investigate it using the methods employed in many branches of science. You use the natural world around us as your laboratory. So you take your knowledge of the properties of various gases, perform the calculations to determine what observations you would expect to see. Then you go somewhere where tose conditions do occur and take some measurements. If your measurements agree with your expectations that gives your theory some support. If you repeat this many times, under different natural conditions and keep getting results that agree with your expectations, your theory gets stronger.
And this is exactly what was done, many times over during the 60’s and 70’s. Using balloons, high flying aircraft then satellites observations were made of the IR spectrum observed at different altitudes and compared to the expectations from theory. This was done so often back then that the science of the GH Effect was basically proven by th mid 70’s.
If you want to repeat the experiments tourself you can. Take the following steps.
1. Collect the data on the radiative properties of the gases in the atmosphere – this is freely available in databases such as HiTran.
2. Write a computer program to apply this data and information about the temperature and composition of the air column to the solution of the Equation of Radiative Transfer. You will need to put a fair amount of effort into getting this right since there are lot of important details to consider. But there are loads of textbooks on this subject to guide you. You will also need a computer with some serious horsepower to do the calculations.
3. Gather meteorological data on the composition of the gases in the atmosphere. You can do this for all the gases except water vapour – you will need to measure that in step 6
4. Buy a high altitude Weather Balloon.
5. Fit it with good quality instruments to measure temperature, air pressure, humidity and altitude. Also a good quality instrument for measuring the IR spectrum in detail.Also radio so the results can be transmitted back down to you.
6. Launch your balloon and let it ascend nice and high. Preferably to at least 20,000 meters
7. Take the meteorological readings from the balloon and all the other data you have collected and feed it into your program and calculate the IR spectrum you expect to have seen at different altitudes as the balloon ascended.
8. Compare this with the IR spectrum you actually measured on the balloon. If they agree pretty well then you can give that run a tick.
9. Repeat this process at different locations, times of year etc and hopefully keep accumulating ticks.
If you have a lot of money you might be able to afford a high altitude aircraft – a U2 or something. Maybe even your own satellite. Al so you can extend the altitudes at which you take measurements
Or. You could just rely on the results from 2 decades of exactly this sort of research during the 60’s and 70’s to provide you with the proofs you are looking for.
Thanks Glenn for you very thorough answer.
I would still like to see the results of an experiment done in the lab, adding a small amount of CO2 to the atmosphere and measuring the temperature changes.
Glenn, you said
“It is essentially the density & temperature variations up through the air column that is the source of the GH effect.”
I can’t see how a few hundred ppm of CO2 can make any significant change in the density of the air. And the effect of temperature variation of the atmosphere, due to CO2, can be determined by lab experiments. (These could be done at different pressures).
However, I can see how density and temp variations, high up in the atmosphere, can cause a greenhouse effect, independent of CO2.
I fully admit that I am not a scientist, so I appreciate input from people who are
Mark B
Adding CO2 to a parcel of air in the lab won’t change the temperature at all. That is the point. The GH effect doesn’t work that way.
To elaborate. When I referred to density it was referring to the overall density of the atmosphere of the atmosphere, not CO2’s contribution to that. Density matters in this way.
At sea level pressure, and hence density a cubic meter of air contains around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 CO2 molecules out of a total of around 25,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 total of all molecules.
That tells us the number of CO2 molecules available in that cubic meter of air to absorb photons of Infra-red radiation. Then we need look at the probability of a CO2 molecule absorbing such a photon if they happen to interact – the probability isn’t 100%. And the probability isn’t the same for all frequencies. CO2’s propensity to absorb IR radiation varies significantly for different frequencies.
Knowing this we can start to estimate how far a photon of any particular frequency will travel before it is likely to be absorbed – probability of encountering a CO2 molecule x probability of being absorbed by it. This lets us work out the average distance it takes before essentially all the photons at any particular frequency have been absorbed. For the peak absorption frequencies of CO2 at sea level pressure that is of the order of 10’s of metres.
We can then do similar calculations for water vapour and other GH gases and combine all those results.,In practice this is done in Spectroscopy by measuring in the lab what is called the Absorption coefficient of a gas at each frequency.
The net result is that across all the frequencies where GH gases have an affect, virtually all the IR Radiation is absorbed within 10’s of meters.
Once a GH gas has absorbed a photon and its energy level has increased it doesn’t just hang on to that energy forever. It can pass that energy off. Firstly it can re-radiate that energy. producing another photon that heads of in a random direction with the same energy as the previuos photon. For radiation in the IR bands we are talking about the average time before this re-radiation event occurs is of the order of 10’s of milliseconds. In contrast for radiation in the visible light bands the average delay is of the order of a billionth of a second – the equation used to calculate this average time was first discovered by Albert Einstein.
There is a second way in which a GH molecule can give up the energy it has acquired and this is through collisions with all the other molecules around it. At sea level temperature and pressures, every molecule in the atmosphere collides with billions of other molecules every second. Like billiard balls crashing together, spreading the energy around. And since this happens very much more often than the reradiation events, this is overwhelmingly the method by which the absorbed IR radiation is distributed. At ends up being added to the general pool of energy in the air – within 10’s of meters.
But the story doesn’t end there. All these continuous collisions between all the molecules mean that at any instant a certain percentage of all molecules will spontaneously by at higher energy levels. And a certain percentage will spontaneously radiate some energy as IR radiation as a result – Einstein discovered the equations that govern this as well. But then this spontaneously emitted IR radiation will only be able to travel 10’s of meters in any direction before it is re-absorbed by another GH molecule.
So the net effect is that the air is a continuous ferment of collisions, radiation and re-absorption. And the energy that is absorbed by the air from radiation from the surface is simply adding to this stew. If our eyes could see in these IR frequencies, the very air itself would look fairly opaque and glowing.
So if radiation from the surface is continually being added to this ‘stew’, why doesn’t the air just keep getting hotter and hotter? Close to the ground some of this radiation can actually be reabsorbed by the ground – this is called back radiation. But as well the energy can slowly makes its way to higher altitudes. Not by a single sudden transmission of a beam of IR radiation, but by a chaotic dance of collisions, absorption and re-radiation that slowly moves energy upwards.
And there is another important factor here. Convection. Hot air rises so as the atmosphere lower down is absorbing energy – not just from absorbing IR radiation from the Earth but also due to convection off the Earth’s surface and from evaporation, convection is moving this air upwards. In fact convection is the much larger part of how energy gets moved to higher altitudes, with the radiation ‘dance’ I described being a much smaller part of the transport mechanism.
So, the lowest part of the atmosphere absorbs virtually everything radiated by the Earth in those frequencies where GH gases are active. Some o this gets radiated back down to the surface, the rest of the energy gets transported to higher altitudes.
Now, finally, we get to my point about density and altitude. As you rise higher into the atmosphere, the air gets thinner, its density is lower. The GH gases such as CO2 will still be the same PROPORTION of the total number of molecules in the air (around 0.04% for CO2), but the total number of molecules in any cubic meter of air drops. So each time an increase in altitude drops the density by 10%, take one zero of those large numbers I mentioned above.
The important consequence of this is that the average number of collisions between molecules drops because there are fewer of them around, and the average distance that a radiated IR photon can travel before it gets absorbed again becomes longer. Instead of 10’s of meters it bcomes 100’s then 1000’s of meters. So the balance of the processes that spread energy around start to shift more to reradiation and less due to collisions.
And importantly, as the average length needed before re-absorption occurs increases, more and more of the IR photons that are emitted upwards are actually able to travel far enough without being absorbed that they make it all the way out to Space and escape. So energy that was radiated by the Earth’s surface but absorbed by GH gases is finally able to escape to space at much hhigher altitude.
Thus the importance of density as I described it earlier. But all that I have described so far only delays the escape of energy to space. But it doesn’t restrict it. There is still a missing piece to the puzzle.
Temperature. At higher altitude the air temperature is colder, much colder, way below zero. And at lower temperatures, the total amount of IR radiation being generated is lower. So if we had eyes that could see in the Infra-Red, the air at higher altitude wouldn’t be glowing as much.
So although energy can now escape to space up there, the amount of energy that can do so is lower than it would be if it was ground level because the air is colder. This is the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle.
If there were no GH gases, the Earth would be much colder. A common figure given is -33 C rather than the actual average temp of +15C but this is only indicative. What we would see is that when looking at the Earth’s IR spectrum from space we would observe a pattern of IR radiation that matches a surface at this colder temperature. And it would be a, relatively speaking, smooth curve following the expected curve defined by something called the Planck Function that describes the expected radiation spectrum you will see for a body at a certain temperature. The Sun’s spectrum for example follows the Planck function for its surface temperature pretty well.
In contrast, the spectrum for the Earth is very much more irregular, with some sections reflecting what we would expect to see from a body at -55C, and others those of the average surface temperature +15C. Because in some parts of the spectrum the GH gases are reducing the emissions to space by the method I described above. As a consequence the surface is warmer and in those parts of the spectrum where GH gases don’t have an effect, the spectrum is showing more energy reaching space.
Because the GH gases are restricting how much energy can get out to space at some frequencies, the Earth warms until the energy that is able to escape to space in the other frequencies where GH gases don’t operate is large enough to compensate for this. And it takes warming of the surface to achieve this.
So what happens if we add more GH gases, particularly CO2. The section of the spectrum that is reflecting a temperature of -55C corresponds to the lower and middle Stratosphere. Higher still in the very high atmosphere temperatures actually start to rise again. So more CO2 can’t force the spectrum down to a temperature corresponding to a temperature below -55C because that is as cold as it gets up there. Rather what happens is that the part of the spectrum that corresponds to -55 C gets wider.
Earlier I described how the probability of a CO2 molecule absorbing an IR photon isn’t constant across all the frequencies that CO2 can absorb in.The propability of absorption is higher in the center of CO2’s absorption band and lower at the edges, the so-called ‘wings’.As a result, in those frequencies in the wings the lower probability of absorption means that the altitude at which IR radiation in those frequency bands is able to start escaping to space is lower down in the, relatively, warmer upper Tropospehere. If the concentration of CO2 increases, the air needs to be thinner before those frequencies can start to ‘reach’ space. And this shifts them further up into the colder loswer stratosphere. The net effect of this is that the ‘notch’ that can be seen in the IR spectrum due to CO2 gets wider. So less energy is able to escape from the Earth. So the surface warms to compensate until the energy escaping through the regions not affected by GH gases has increased enough to compensate. The energy balance is restored but the suface has had to warm to bring this about – Global Warming.
Good exposition, Glenn Tamblyn.
The only thing that I would point out is that the characteristic emission altitude is not governed by the partial pressure of a greenhouse gas but is governed by the overall pressure at that altitude. That altitude occurs where the atmosphere is thin enough such that the mean time between molecular collisions is larger than the excitation time of the greenhouse molecules. A large change in, say a doubling of CO2 concentration results theoretically in only a minor change in the altitude of characteristic emission to space. The altitude of the characteristic emission layer defines the top of the troposphere and the lapse rate structure of the troposphere dictates the surface temperature of the earth. This is why, paradoxically, the temperature structure of our troposphere is defined by greenhouse gases but is not particularly sensitive to their concentration. Hence the logarithmically declining surface temperature increase from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Likewise, the tropospheric temperature profile of Venus would be little different if the 97% CO2 was changed to 1% CO2 plus 96% of a non radiative gas of the same molecular weight as CO2.
Glenn,
Again, I appreciate the time that you must have spent writing such a detailed answer.
It is the first paragraph that puzzles me most: If CO2 is absorbing infra red (as the absorption spectra observations indicate), why couldn’t this be detected as a temperature increase in lab experiments (using an infra red heat source or sunlight)? As I have said previously, these could be done at different pressures and with different water vapour concentrations to simulate different altitudes.
I am reading through Tamblyn’s beautiful exposition of CO2 green house effect (where were you a few years ago with this for me) but I am mentally saying to myself, yes –but, yes –but. Then along comes Springer and he elegantly lays out the “but” part completing the picture. Now how to condense those two posts into an elevator speech ? Thank you gentleman for making the complex simple.
I think the lab would have to have a chamber that would extend from the depths of the ocean to outer space, and then it would have to perform some tripped out special effects. It’s probably beyond the engineering capabilities of mankind: recreating the earth’s climate system in a bottle.
And, it would probably still require a model!
Glenn Tamblyn | September 19, 2012 at 8:47 am | Reply
“The experiment can’t be performed in a laboratory or anything of a similar scale. To demonstrate the GH effect or any change in it you need a very tall air column – kilometers long – that is at different temperatures and prssures at different altitudes. It is essentially the density & temperature variations up through the air column that is the source of the GH effect.”
No, it isn’t. The greenhouse effect is insolation in the tropics able to warm the mixed ocean layer to a maximum of 35C, which is the highest temperature seen by ARGO buoys on the surface anywhere. The warm tropical mixed layer then spreads out across the ocean surface somewhat like a drop of oil. The greenhouse effect on a water world is due to the ocean not the atmosphere. Water is a greenhouse fluid. Pure H20 is virtually transparent to shortwave and thus the ocean is thermalized by impurities which absorb shortwave. Water is exceedingly opaque, far more than any greenhouse gas, to far infrared. So the ocean thermalized by sunlight to a depth of 300 meters or so cannot cool by radiating upward. That sun-warmed water must be mechanically transported to the surface somehow where the majority of the solar-acquired energy leaves the ocean body by way of latent heat of vaporization.
The very things that define a greenhouse gas are transparency to shortwave and opacity to thermal radiation. Liquid water meets that definition better than any gas and has such a hugely larger mass and heat capacity than the greenhouse gases above it, makes the atmosphere’s composition inconsequential in comparison. Sunlight heats the ocean which causes evaporation and clouds. Clouds block sunlight slowing the rate of evaporation until a balance is reached. It don’t matter what the air is made of because the water cycle is the thermostat. This is how the Faint Young Sun paradox resolves. The earth’s albedo self-adjusted lower by dint of fewer clouds. Modern albedo is some 35% -+3% or so. Ocean is in the low single digits. So theoretically a sun that is 35% dimmer can maintain 17C average surface temperature by dint of no clouds which allows the ocean to absorb virtually everything that arrives at TOA. Absent evaporation and clouds the only way for the ocean to cool is through radiation and conduction and those are far less efficient than evaporation and convection.
It’s all about the ocean, little buddy. Forget about the atmosphere other than as a medium which makes a water cycle possible and you’ll be much farther along in understanding the big picture.
All bets are off of course when ice manages to get the upper hand over liquid water at the surface. There’s nothing much setting a floor on minimum temperature except for volcanism darkening the surface with soot and spewing out greenhouse gases until the combination is enough to start a positive feedback effect rapidly decreasing albedo.
This is why glacial periods in the Pleistocene end so rapidly. Interglacial period beginnings are marked by a rocket-like ascent of global average temperature which even more suddenly stops rising like it hit a ceiling made of stone at the same point every time. The stone ceiling is where evaporation and cloud formation come into balance.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data2.html
We have nothing to fear from CO2 because the water cycle sets a temperature ceiling. What we have to fear is, climatologically speaking, being near the far side of the short warm temperature plateaus called interglacial periods.
But that’s a pure water world. Our is ~30% solid surface with quite variable amount of water available for evaporation on it ranging from essentially zero evaporation below freezing to a rain forest which might as well be an ocean to a desert.
(con’t) It is the land surface that throws a big monkey wrench into the elegance of a pure water world. Dry land, unlike water, doesn’t evaporate in response to downwelling thermal. It’s mode of cooling is always the less efficient radiative path and to a much smaller extent the even more inefficienct conductive path. There and in the case of no evaporation because the surface is frozen, CO2 comes into play as a greenhouse agent. But its effect is only about 30% of what it would be if the entire earth were dry rock or frozen.
In few words one might aptly characterize non-condensing greenhouse gases and soot from volcanoes as the kindling which ignites the water cycle. Once its use as kindling has been fulfilled the water cycle is mostly in control.
David you might like this,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/WesternCaribbeanCO2andmilankovicwithlightsmoothing_zps193611da.png
The Delta CO2 is EPICA anomaly, Qday is the Milakovic 65N solar anomaly and the Schmidt et al. Western Caribbean SST reconstruction shows how stable SST can be through glacial periods. I would think reconstruction of a water world climate should start with the water.
After studying Glenn’s explanation and this one I have I have concluded that David’s is the more plausible, simply because I have the direct experience of swimming in the sea, and unheated swimming pools which have both got warmer after being exposed to a full day of sunshine. Water has a very high thermal capacity, so a lot of energy must have been absorbed.
By contrast, Glenn’s relies entirely on the property of trace amounts of carbon dioxide to heat up in the sunlight, to such an extent, that the whole atmosphere would show significant warming. But Glenn said that a laboratory experiment wouldn’t show any more warming in an atmosphere with increased carbon dioxide (another 100 ppm), compared to an atmosphere without any carbon dioxide added.
This posted poorly so I will repeat
I am reading through Tamblyn’s beautiful exposition of CO2 green house effect (where were you a few years ago with this for me) but I am mentally saying to myself, yes –but, yes –but. Then along comes Springer and he elegantly lays out the “but” part completing the picture. Now how to condense those two posts into an elevator speech ? Thank you gentleman for making the complex simple.
Bart R –
My reasoning abilities? What spasm of effrontery and arrogance makes you think you’re competent to judge my reasoning abilities? Prove it.
You just can’t deal with your own inability to reason regarding AGW, and are trying to project that on skeptics like me.
Any skeptic can out-reason the likes of YOU. That’s a fact. You lose this argument along with all your other AGW arguments. Get used to it.
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 4:57 am |
Oh, I think we can all judge your reasoning abilities for ourselves. No need for me to help anyone else come to their own conclusions.
Proof?
http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/tbs/tp/climate/A1.htm
There you go. Proof you have nothing but bluster and bullshit about carbon taxes. QED
Dr Curry,
It has been a good two years for the Kriegsmarine Hypothesis, not least because I have learnt to spell the word.
Arctic warming: 150 million gallons US of light oil is being pumped onto the sea north of Siberia each year, one Exxon Valdez every five weeks. This is enough to coat the surface of the Barents, Kara, Laptev and East Siberian seas many time over. Bacterial degradation of oil is slow at low temperatures so there will be a build-up year on year, with each successive melt amplifying the reduced albedo (fewer aerosols and smooth water), lower emissivity and reduced evaporation effects of an oil-smoothed surface. The Kara Sea exports its surface waters in a huge right hook aimed at the Pole. These pollution-warmed waters will presumably appear as they are flushed through the Fram Strait some years (4? 5?) after they initially hit the ice edge. Is the ice debris coming through the Strait carrying Siberian-signature oil? I’m not a betting man but I’d venture a half pint of IPA on it. As to the general spread of oil pollution in the Arctic, 92 million gallons of oil went ‘up in smoke’ in 1994, much more now of course, and some of that will have been falling on the ice. A cursory examination of melting ice images, with or without the compulsory forlorn polar bear, will show a smooth on many of them as the ice releases its frozen-in contaminants. (Some of that oil will be biological, of course — this message courtesy of Richard Feynman — but not enough for my purposes).
The warming in the Arctic around the mouth of rivers which drain from oil-producing regions is very high. Someone should sample the surface boundary layer.
In March we went to Madeira, coasting out from Northern Spain and flying over a region which had been sitting under an Azores high for some days. The smooth was astounding, extending from just below abeam the Straits of Gibraltar for 40 minutes flying time, hundreds of miles, so wide that the edges merged into the horizon haze. If we call the width a hundred miles, the entire smooth was tens of thousands of square miles. Then at the edges things changed. Let me quote myself:
“The edges sent meandering, river-like extensions into the wave-covered sea, and outside the smoothed areas some whitecaps showed, an indication of the wind speed that an oily sea surface can resist, quantifying its ability to suppress wave action. I’d judge the wind over the unpolluted sea as 4 on the Beaufort scale with the polluted areas right next to it as smooth as glass. There is an interesting paper produced by the FAO plotting winds over the four major ocean basins: during the years of World War II, wind speeds in the North Atlantic show a strange blip, about 7 m/s extra at its greatest. What caused this blip? Well, when the surface is smooth, the wind and waves decouple. Thanks to the submarine offensive there was a lot of spilled oil during those years. Normally the wind is slowed by turbulence over the waves, but a smoothed surface will aid laminar flow until at a certain point it breaks down. That is what I observed as I looked down onto those meandering striations and those thousands of square miles of smooth.
This brings us to another blip. Temperature reconstructions covering the same period as the WWII wind excursion also show a blip, a quick rise of .3 to .4 deg C and an abrupt fall in 1945. It is seen most easily in older reconstructions: it is so obviously an outlier that it has been subjected to some rather ad hoc corrections to make records match climate models and theory, a possibly dubious procedure. Perhaps the blip was a real phenomenon as there are ways in which an oil-smoothed ocean might become warmer.”
For a short ecstatic moment I thought I could assign the smooth to Mediterranean pollution — the Med is oil-covered from end to end* as I have seen from the 1970s — but then I remembered that the currents are into, not out of, the Straits. So, where did the oil/surfactant come from? East coast of USA is a reasonable guess, but I don’t know. It was a vivid illustration of how big the problem is and made me wonder if the entire ocean surface is coated with oil/surfactant which only shows at wind speeds of less than force 4. Prediction: windy regions of ocean will warm slower than calm areas.
Dr Halpern wrote:
quote
The hard lower limit of climate sensitivity — the lowest it can possibly be and account for our direct observations – is about 1.1C (the real number is very likely to be in that range of 2.6C-4.1C – but we are following the “lukewarmist” argument to see where it leads).
unquote
Unless there are other warming factors not accounted for — i.e. assumed away. Any other warming will limit the upper bound on CO2 sensitivity.
Jim Cripwell wrote:
quote
Whatever the cause is of a massive melt of Arctic sea ice this year, it is completely natural. And no-one has challenged my approach.
unquote
See above.
JF
* What is the aerosol trend over the eastern end? I’d guess it has been lowered considerably with concomitant reduced rainfall.
Julian
I have never heard of the oil slick you mention nor what effect it might have. Do you have any papers you can link to please?
tonyb
As far as I know the idea that oil/surfactant pollution is disrupting the normal processes that pull down CO2 is my own, so no papers directly related to it. However…
GLOBAL WARMING IN THE 20TH CENTURY: AN ALTERNATIVE SCENARIO
AGW may have causes other than CO2, e.g. alternative GHGs, soot, and land-use albedo change.
[http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200111_altscenario/] There is another forcing to be considered which may limit estimates of CO2 sensitivity.
Background
NASA gives 1994 figures for oil pollution at [http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html]: 363 million US gallons of oil flows down the drains every year. Oil’s smoothing effects on water have been known for millennia [Pliny, Plutarch, Bede, Kipling]. Benjamin Franklin’s experiment [http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf3/letter12.htm] allows the rough calculation that 5ml of light oil will smooth one hectare and that enough light oil flows onto the oceans to cover them completely every fortnight. Surfactant pollution also smooths the surface, with the contribution of synthetic surfactants being particularly interesting as a naive biosphere will have difficulty dealing with these pollutants.
A smoothed ocean surface means fewer breaking waves [http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-16-8-2257]. A breaking wave drives bubbles down to where gas exchange is facilitated and organic debris entrained. When the bubble subsequently bursts it releases cloud condensation nuclei as salt and dimethyl sulphide from stressed phytoplankton (dimethyl sulphide, DMS, is produced by phytoplankton and converts to particularly effective cloud condensation nuclei (CCNs)). Fewer waves, therefore, mean fewer CCNs. Only near shorelines and in very shallow water will the normal amount of stirring and CCN generation occur.
An oily oceanic boundary layer generates oily water droplets which are more prone to join together and fall back [Garrett 1978], further reducing the number of CCNs. Polluted CCNs are less hygroscopic [Fuentes et al Feb 2010]. Polluted nuclei will grow more slowly and local relative humidity around them will be higher. Droplet size will be larger and the resultant cloud — oceanic stratocumulus — will have lower albedo.
A smoothed ocean surface has lower albedo and lower emissivity than one ruffled by wind. Smoothing decouples the wind from the surface, there is less turbulence, and the boundary layer weakens.
Reduced wind/wave coupling over a smoothed surface will slow currents and reduce upwelling of nutrient-rich water. Wave action stirs the upper ocean, replenishing nutrients which are continually depleted by phytoplankton, and pumping in atmospheric CO2. Fewer breaking waves means lower nutrient levels in the upper ocean.
Plants fix carbon by different methods: C3, good when there is an abundance of CO2 and nutrients; C4 which needs less of both; CAM, the same; and C4-like, employed by diatoms. Only the first discriminates strongly against the heavier carbon isotopes.
The System Of The World
Oil covers the oceans. The wind/ocean interface decouples. Evaporative cooling slows. [G Meyers, J R Donguy & R K Reed 1986] The stratocumulus layer above becomes less opaque and has a higher relative humidity as the number of mechanically-produced CCNs falls. The smoothed surface exposed to sunlight warms more readily and, at night, cools more slowly. The surface layer warms. Less CO2 is absorbed.
Warm water stabilises and the upper ocean becomes stratified. Mixing, already slowed by the lack of wave action, reduces further. The starved waters feed fewer phytoplankton and the amount of DMS falls. Warmer air slows cloud formation. Stratocumulus cover is further depleted. The cumulus heat pump slows.
Starved phytos revert to C4 carbon fixation or are replaced by obligate C4 species: a light isotope signal is left in the atmosphere.
Silica from farming runs into the oceans or falls as dust. Diatoms flourish as limiting silica is more readily available. Their C4-like metabolism pulls down more C13, adding a spurious boost to the atmospheric C12 signal. [Dugdale and Wilkerson 2001, Neff et al 2008]
Phytoplankton populations collapse [Boyce et al, 2010] and ocean albedo reduces further, while oxygen production falls.
Oceans have reduced biological production and lower DMS generation. Relative humidity rises above them and water vapour GHG heating warms the surface. Warming surfaces discourage low level cloud formation.
‘Natural Experiment’ Demonstrations
The WWII Kriegesmarine offensive caused vast oil spills and a temperature ‘blip’ [http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1017])*
PETM [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/], one might speculate that a leaking oil reservoir heated the oceans beyond the clathrate tipping point.
The Mexican Gulf oil spill where the slick can be seen rotting clouds around its edges [http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/oil_spill_initial_feature.html ]
The Andaman Sea [http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2010/2010-08-16-02.html]
Lake Tanganyika’s anomalous warming. [Verburg, Piet, and Robert E. Hecky ]
The physics of the warming of Lake Tanganyika by climate change is too large to be caused by CO2 effect.
The Gulf Oil Spill: looking at the images shown on http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/alleyes/content/gulf-oil-spill-satellite-images-click-see-all-11-images , the sympathetic eye will discern anomalous effects on the local low level cloud. A scientist specialising in aerosols tried and failed to get the aerosols above the spill sampled.
A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite on January 4, 2012 shows the effect of Mississippi pollution on low level cloud in a striking manner. See http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/VIIRS_4Jan2012.jpg It would be interesting to see temperature data, aerosol profiles and salinity measurements in the cleared area.
Summary
Oil and surfactant polluted oceans have lower albedo, higher emissivity, less evaporative cooling, and produce fewer DMS and salt CCNs, reducing the albedo of oceanic stratocumulus cloud and slowing the cumulus heat pump. These effects warm the surface and limit the value we can put on CO2 sensitivity.
Julian Flood
*Author’s note: there are moves afoot to correct the temperature history of WWII such that the blip is smoothed away. However, there is in existence an FAO record of wind speeds during the appropriate years, produced as an aid to understanding ocean productivity. I have seen this document, but cannot find it even on the Web, perhaps because it is in GIF format and so unsearchable. However, as far as memory serves the wind increased by up to 7 m/s in the North Atlantic with lesser increases in the South Atlantic, North Pacific and South Pacific respectively, suggestive of a cause that was worldwide but less obvious in the basins further from the main Nazi submarine pens. The blip, whatever its cause, is real. The change in emissivity caused by ruffled and smooth surfaces might explain the extra heating effect. Perhaps a teaching academic could cuff a passing graduate student and set him to tracking this item down.
(don’t forget to look for those images of oily polar bears…)
JF
Tony,
I’ve tried to reply but my comment has vanished: maybe it’s dropped into the spam folder as it had lots of references — my attempt to cloak a lot of handwaving with the appearance of verisimilitude. I’ll work on it.
Briefly, I don’t think anyone else has noticed.
JF
BTW, it’s not a slick, it’s a film a few molecules thick at most.
Julian
Thanks for your detailed reply at 7.44.
I was especially taken with your earlier comment;
“Arctic warming: 150 million gallons US of light oil is being pumped onto the sea north of Siberia each year, one Exxon Valdez every five weeks. This is enough to coat the surface of the Barents, Kara, Laptev and East Siberian seas many time over.”
It seems a vast amount when taken cumulatively over the years, I have no idea of its overall effect as a CHG or as any type of aerosol, pollutant etc that may affect ‘global warming.’ in the manner described, but perhaps some like the Chief Hydrologist or Webby might have the expertise to comment.
However there are some interesting asides to your comments.
During World War two Britain had many intriguing plans to keep the Germans at bay, many of these included petroleum. The use of the stuff to set fire to the sea was well known-see section ; ‘guns petroleum and poison’ some way down this wikipedia link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_anti-invasion_preparations_of_World_War_II
There was also an enormous effort called operation pluto to send petrol from the UK under the sea in pipes to France to aid the invasion-some of which leaked into the ocean;
http://www.combinedops.com/pluto.htm
Amongst the ‘boffins’ searching for ways to use petroleum during WW2 was none other than GS Callendar the ‘father’ of the Co2 theory who was briefed to use Petroleum to smooth seas, to set fire to the seas and to clear fog from airfields, which was done by burning vast quantities of petroleum and creating a micro climate.(there is a ‘Callender cable co mentioned in operation pluto-I don’t know if there is any connection.)
Somewhere in the British war archives would be reams of information on the experiments carried out using petroleum and what effects it had. I note your comment here;
“Author’s note: there are moves afoot to correct the temperature history of WWII such that the blip is smoothed away. However, there is in existence an FAO record of wind speeds during the appropriate years, produced as an aid to understanding ocean productivity.”
I have access to a well researched book about World War two temperatures, (not yet published) Contact me privately if you are interested and I will ask the author if you can see it as it has a lot of weather data which might be of interest to you
tonyb
Julian Flood, The 1945s drop in temperature is one of the more interesting events in the record. I have gone through a good bit of the surface temperature data, and it does appear to be real and a southern hemisphere event.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/oceaniaTmin.png
Using the BEST Tmin data, someone really curious could come close to locating the “epicenter” of the event.
>Cosmoclimatology
Julian Flood re clouds
The major model for external forcing of clouds and thus climate is from Henrik Svensmark‘s Cosmoclimatology.
Note the impact of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) on cloud condensation nuclei with ultraviolet, sulfur dioxide, ozone and water. e.g.,
Response of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (> 50 nm) to changes in ion-nucleation Svensmark et al. 2012
Note also:
The Antarctic climate anomaly and galactic cosmic rays Svensmark, 2006
Julian Flood | September 19, 2012 at 5:07 am | Reply
“Prediction: windy regions of ocean will warm slower than calm areas.”
That isn’t a prediction it’s a well established fact oil or no oil. Try something like more warming in the northern ocean for same amount of insolation and same average wind speed because the oil damps the rate of evaporative cooling.
Bart R –
I’ll ignore your catatonia and dyslexia with regard to my reasoning ability for a moment, and make a point for the benefit of other commenters here.
If you understand economics, NO tax is ever truly “revenue neutral.” There is the cost of the bureaucracy associated with it, which for things like a carbon tax may approach the amount of the tax itself (which, regardless of claims to the contrary. is the real purpose of the tax – to support otherwise unproductive bureaucrats). And then there is the issue of inevitable income redistribution, which, as slavery taught us, is theft, plain and simple.
No matter how it is rationalized, all that a carbon tax ultimately does is waste capital. Even if, as you claim, the money is refunded to the taxpayers who paid it, which is a practical impossiibility, there is still the needless cost of running the system – monies that shourely could be better spent elsewhere, not to mention imposing more oppressive regulations on people’s daily lives.
Surely the officialdom who sponsored this exercise in economic illiteracy will deny what I’ve said here, and if they do, they’re lying through their teeth.
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 5:19 am |
Again, you reveal the depth of ignorance of those who talk without even reading the primary sources, furnishing further evidence for people to judge your reasoning abilities. Perhaps not the benefit you intended them to glean. Also, you may wish to study up on the psychobabble: dyslexia and catatonia don’t appear to mean what you think they mean, judging by your usage. If you wish, I can connect you to support websites for people afflicted by these conditions, whom I am certain will appreciate your sensitivity.
The BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax isn’t a tax in the usual sense. The marginal cost associated with administration is tiny, as it was folded into pre-existing bureaucracy; in point of fact, by reducing tax churn, the BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax pays for its own puny marginal administrative costs by reducing the effective interest on tax. Look it up.
Also, what do you know about what slavery taught ‘us’? Personally? From family history? Something you read about? This polemics of yours is too banal. Give up sermonizing about the suffering of peoples whose descendents disagree with your position. Try using facts instead of arguments from emotion that you have not the slightest plausible connection to or right to invoke.
The redistribution that’s going on is from the many who own an inalienable inherent share in the air — in the Carbon Cycle — to those few who burn excess carbon for no good reason or for personal lucrative benefit. That’s called “Free Riding”. Look it up.
I understand you prefer to fear-monger some socialist left-wing one-world-government conspiracy theory over dealing with the way things really are, but can you stop insulting our intelligence by presuming anyone would be so ill-informed and relentlessly gullible as to fall for such transparent propaganda?
Bart R –
The only people here who are coddling crime are the cowards in the UK government who refused to prosecute the Climategate frauds – and the AGW scaremongers who apologize for people who lie on their applications for government grant money and use that money for their political campaigning and hackwork. THOSE actions are the real crimes – they are ILLEGAL, for good reason – and by covering for the people who do these things the AGW crowd are the ones coddling crime.
Before you make such accusations you’d better get your facts straight. I don’t see, and I imagine my fellow skeptics also don’t see, any evidence of crime coddling amongst us. Your accusations, along with all the other fascistic rubbish put out by the AGW crowd, place the lot of you squarely on the wrong side of the ideological and moral divide.
Skeptics are not one single entity, so youd all have your own individual criminal behaviors. I was at the UN office the other week, we are working on a set of laws wrt criminalizing climate denial.
Do you know yet, what color armbands we’ll be wearing?
bwdave
The zippiest armbands (now no longer available) were those red ones with a white circle including a silly-looking black cross.
They lost popularity and red ones with a sickle and hammer were in vogue for a few years. These have also become “out”.
The current fad appears to be moving to green.
Max
lolwot | September 19, 2012 at 5:53 am said: -”I was at the UN office the other week, we are working on a set of laws wrt criminalizing climate”
lolwot, if one denies that the climate is changing, doesn’t need criminal penalty – needs to be taken to a Funny -Farm. We ”DENY that is any GLOBAL warming – because isn’t one; and I can prove it
lolwot,, you need criminal penalty, as a Grim-Ripper – for you is every day of the year Halloween; BOO! How many children did you scared last week?!.. Another 88years, brimstone and petulance!!! What about if you can predict which lottery number is going to win next week…? That would be much easier; and you don’t have to sponge taxpayer’s cash.
lolwot
How about laws criminalizing “freedom of speech”?
Are you working on that as well?
Max
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 5:46 am |
Which is it, fascistic or left wing? They’re opposites, you know.
Also, in Inhofe a coward? Because he certainly was stopped dead in his tracks persecuting (or you may prefer prosecuting, at least in public) Mann by the simple fact that there was no criminal activity that could bring a conviction. I know it’s hard to let go when you felt you were so close, but you have to face reality: Climategate has had its day, its inquiries were held, blames assigned, penalties meted out, procedural changes made, and everyone rational has moved on. Imitate them.
And .. do you not get the irony of spouting nonsensical, barely grammatical, defamations so rantingly and then saying, “Before you make such accusations you’d better get your facts straight”?
Also, though I am a skeptic, and by objective standards far more skeptical than you, I don’t count you as a fellow, if you so disparage Market Capitalism ideology and morality; you may be surprised how few do, behind your back.
Since you cite Inhofe, listen to Senator Inhofe in his own words.
See his Environment and Public Works Minority web site Welcome to the Inhofe EPW Press Office
This Inhofe?
No. See Monckton’s description of the IPCC spade.
See the unedited Inhofe
Lord Monckton also has an eloquent way of presenting the issues.
David L. Hagen | September 20, 2012 at 12:27 am |
Lord Monckton also has an eloquent way of presenting the issues.
Yes. It’s called lying.
“Lying” implies self-awareness and deception.
But Monckton is far too stupid to understand how stupid he really is.
“Making sh*t up for money” works for me.
Bart R
I find you provide no evidence for your accusation and thus fail your elementary burden of justification.
Proverbs 26:2 NIV
Can you raise yourself to study classical logic and rhetoric, evaluate the evidence, and understand the constructs and arguments?
Rise to be a man and address the facts, logic, and derivations, not the man!
David L. Hagen | September 22, 2012 at 11:11 pm |
To prove lies?
Look, Monckton’s been bearing false witness for decades, professionally. He’s a Lord, and he’s paid for speaking on topics, both of which put him in the position of a sophisticated party, which means no one ever has to prove Monckton knows what he’s saying is false to prove he’s lying.
All that is necessary is to show Monckton says untrue things. Period.
His position puts added onus on him to ensure he is truthful.
You are familiar with the expression, “false witness”, right?
And don’t go trying to snow me about DDT or malaria. I did due diligence to confirm the facts in the link I posted before I posted it, even though I’m neither a Lord nor professionally paid to offer my views. Save your own false witnessing for the Monckton fanboys. They’ll believe anything.
On the last day, you will be held accountable for every word you say.
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/monckton-lies-again-and-again-and-again-and-again-the-continuing-saga-of-a-practicer-of-fiction/
There’s a point to the denouncement of ad hominem attacks as fallacious; however I do not say Christopher Monckton smells funny or cheats on his partner. I say he lies. This is a matter of established fact.
I do not curse him. Indeed, I do not cite religious scripture in open attacks of a religious nature. I correct the character testimonial giving credence to a man who has so defiled every precept of credibility as to abandon any refuge or shelter protecting him from the calumnies his prevarications obtain.
Monckton’s lies have done him in. All I do it remind readers of this well-founded, often proven, publicly known fact.
Bart R
To prove lies, you must prove both that the statements are false AND that the speaker knew that they were false before stating them.
You have done neither. Consider very carefully the quantifiable facts and your ability/inability to show clear moral intent, before you make such accusations.
DDT v Malaria is much more complicated.
Deaths from malaria are ignored or strongly under reported.
e.g., See: 3 billion and counting
Application of the Malaria Management Model to the Analysis of Costs and Benefits of DDT versus Non-DDT Malaria Control
DDT and Malaria Prevention: Addressing the Paradox
India Malaria Deaths Under reported
DDT
Best case? Extraordinary restrictions on the rights of the people to life, liberty and property require solid, quality evidence. The stampede to consensus is littered with the remains of so many remarkably shoddy studies and assessments because the process is bereft of any quality standards.
The case for warming has no credibility because the proponents lack integrity — integrity in terms of quality processes, integrity in terms of personal honesty, and integrity in terms of policing the corruption of others.
The 3 studies used most often around the world to push global warming on the public are: 1) the hockey stick, 2) Rahmstorf’s “worse than we thought”, and 3) Monnet’s polar bear mess.
’nuff said. Credibility exited stage left. Integrity has left the building.
Phony IPCC claim of accelerated rate of sea level rise
(Also taken from Paul Matthews compilation and modified slightly to stay within the 750-word limit)
The IPCC claims a faster rate in sea level rise in the period 1993-2003 (3.1 mm/year) compared with 1961-2003 (1.8 mm/yr), see WG1 SPM p 5,7, table SPM1. To make this claim, the IPCC have employed two misleading tricks simultaneously – (a) compare a short period with a longer period (in a record that shows strong cyclical variability), (b) change the measurement technique and scope.
Prior to 1993 IPCC uses the tide gauge record of sea level, which records measurements at several shorelines; in 1993 this was changed to satellite altimetry, which measures the entire ocean (except locations near shorelines, which cannot be captured by satellite altimetry). The change in method results in an apparent acceleration of sea level rise over previous longer time periods, which IPCC attributes to AGW, throwing out the tide gauge record, which shows significant fluctuations but no such acceleration.
To compare one set of results using one method over one time period (prior to 1993) with another set of results using a different method over another time period (after 1993) and then using this cobbled-together record to claim an accelerating trend between the two time periods is bad science, at best, especially if the record for the latter time period which uses the same method for both periods and shows no acceleration is ignored.
These false claims are repeated in the main body of AR4 WG1, in section 5.5. On page 409 it is stated that
with no supporting evidence. This last statement is contradicted by the papers by Holgate and Woodworth and by Douglas below.
Comparing two periods of similar time length and using the same methodology, Holgate found based on the long-range (1904–2003) tide gauge record that
Later on in chapter 5 (p 413), the authors acknowledge that there has been no acceleration, but attempt to rationalize this:
The IPCC authors appear to be in denial of the facts – they ‘know’ that sea level rise must be accelerating, and if the data doesn’t show it, then there must be something wrong with the data. They then make the unscientific comparison of two different time periods using two different scopes and methods of measurement to claim an acceleration between the two.
Using several different observations over the same 1993-2003 time period, Wunsch et al. found a rise of 1.6 mm/year, but added the caveat:
The chart below shows the extended sea level record, with the large decadal variations, and various estimates of the rate for the specific 1993-2003 time period cited by IPCC in AR4 WG1.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg
Research papers on this subject include:
– J. Church and N. J. White, A 20th century acceleration in global sea level rise, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01602 (2006). They find a minute acceleration in sea level rise (0.013 mm/yr/yr).
– B. C. Douglas, Global sea level acceleration, J. Geophys. Res., 97, 12,699–12,706 (1992). He finds no acceleration (despite his title!) and in fact finds a slight deceleration of -0.011 mm/yr/yr. “Thus there is no evidence for an apparent acceleration in the past 100+ years”.
– S. J. Holgate and P. L. Woodworth, Evidence for enhanced coastal sea level rise during the 1990s, Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L07305 (2004).
– S. J. Holgate, On the decadal rates of sea level change during the twentieth century, Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L01602 (2007).
– C. Wunsch, R.M. Ponte, P. Heimbach, Decadal Trends in Sea Level Patterns: 1993-2004, J. Clim. 5889 (2007)
Max
four leap seconds have been added in the past fifteen years.
fourteen leap seconds were added in 1972 through 1987.
spin rate of earth is faster now than then. that does mean that the oceans have dropped compared to then.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page28.html
ice volume has increased and in some more years, this ice that is at the heads of glaciers and ice pack will advance and cool the earth again as it did after the snow that fell in the warm part of the Medieval Warm Period.
Today WUWT/Anthony Watts posted yet another refutation of Stephan Lewandowsky’s thesis that climate-change denialism is linked to obsessive conspiracy-theoretic cognition …
This is WUWT/Anthony’s sixteenth post condemning Lewandowsky’s thesis. WUWT indeed? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Meanwhile the USCG icebreaker Healy, sailing at 80° north, is may finally seeing the earliest signs of the 2012 Arctic freeze-up … a freeze-up that is mighty late and mighty far north. :shock: :shock: :shock:
“This is WUWT/Anthony’s sixteenth post condemning Lewandowsky’s thesis. WUWT indeed?”
______
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Max_OK
Hey, Maxie, take it easy on Anthony.
When you’ve got a good thing going and are on a roll, you’d be crazy not to play it to the hilt, right?
Max (not from OK)
My skepticism is mostly related to WG2, I have not many issues with WG1.
To synthetize my opinion of WG1 would be to say that they don’t observe the Einstein’s recommendation : “Make it as simple as possible but not simpler.
WG1 made it much much simpler.
The penalty for that is loss of predictive skills.
For me the starting point is to recognize the system for what it is – a non linear dynamical dissipative system perpetually out of equilibrium and never in steady state.
An example of such a system even if much simpler is fluid dynamics and its governing equations, Navier-Stokes.
Such systems represent spatio-temporal chaos and this has been known for more than 50 years.
I will not repost links to papers which prove existence of attractors for Navier Stokes solutions in Hilbert spaces which are a characteristic of such systems, I already did so several times.
A hint of such an attractor is given by the observation that the temperature field (yes one has to consider the whole fields, averages are irrelevant) has been constrained to a rather small interval (the norm that has to be used here is the Hilbert space norm) for billions of years.
Of course the temperature field is just an example and not the most important one because for the whole space of solutions one has to consider among others pressure and velocity fields which are more difficult.
From the paradigm point of view ,Tsonis work is nearest to consider the system as spatio temporal chaos. I have some difficulties with Tsonis too, especially because his choice of indexes necessitates a belief that these few arbitrary indexes somehow magically capture the dynamical behaviour of the WHOLE spatial component of the fields what is far from certain. But at least it goes in the right direction.
From that follows among others that the system doesn’t “return to some equilibriums” because the thermodynamical equilibrium points are not on the attractor. Equally notions of “sensibility” relating the energy field to the temperature field is not a constant but a function of time and space.
Giving just a single number is so oversimplified that it is useless.
Finally the important conclusion is that such a system is deterministic but unpredictable, e.g you cannot find a unique solution for the non linear partial equations describing it.
This is an impossibility of principle – it doesn’t matter what is the power of computers or the accuracy of the numerical models.
So what stays then are only stochastical approaches. But here the key is ergodicity and I have written much about this notion, trying to explain why it is fundamental.
To avoid repetitions, an ergodic chaotic system GUARANTEES the existence of an invariant PDF of the dynamical states on the attractor.
It doesn’t of course mean that it is easy to find but at least one knows that it exists and so, by definition, there is a chance to find it.
Ergodicity provides a foundation for the notion of “ensemble averages” because the ergodic theorem is precisely a statement about averages in the phase space (“ensemble averages”).
It is here that is situated my skepticism of WG1 – I do not see any serious work trying to prove that the climate system is ergodic.
And of course if it isn’t (many spatio temporal chaotic systems indeed are not ergodic) then any method using “ensemble averages” fails.
For all these reasons I don’t see the WG1 able to make any deterministic predictions for the climate relevant fields at long centenial time scales.
As for being able to give the invariant PDFs for the future states (e.g “uncertainty bars”) it is worse – they didn’t start working on that seriously yet and don’t even know if they exist.
Finally WG1 is work in progress and still far from the point where some semi reliable predictions on centenial scales can be made.
Btw just for the record – radiative physics, quantum mechanical absorption/emission processes and energy conservation are totally irrelevant to what I wrote above.
These fields are century old established physics that every physicists knows well and which stay basic regardless whether they are in some WG1 or not.
actually there are quite a few (some rather prominent) crackpots who contest QM and the Copenhagen interpretation but that discussion would be off topic :)
Tomas said that ‘averages are irrelevant’.
This is a most bizarre statement and makes his ensuing argument completely irrelevant.
Tomas along with Lubos Motl is the smartest the skeptic team has but they make rookie mistakes.
WebHubTelescope | September 19, 2012 at 7:49 am | Reply
“Tomas along with Lubos Motl is the smartest the skeptic team has but they make rookie mistakes.”
Really? According to who?
WHT
Tomas Milanovic provided a logical reasoning path that many of us – including me, and, most likely you – are unable to follow completely, but the key “take home” conclusion I understood very well was:
This pretty much tells it all to me.
In layman terms this is like: “OK, guys, this baby won’t fly – back to the drawing board.”
Max
“Tomas along with Lubos Motl is the smartest the skeptic team has……..”
Well, I don’t know about that. But anyway, the important thing is whether they are the smartest the scientific team as a whole have? What are their major contributions to climate science?
Temp, I think it is more, “What is their contribution to applying their science.”
They tend to fly into discussions of phase space and butterfly wings instead of throwing raw meat to the crowd.
Like,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Hopf-bif.gif
“Just like a rogue wave in the oceans, a seemingly normal wave colliding with a saddle or standing wave can produce a wave of twice the magnitude of either wave. Energy travels in waves and can synchronize in the same manner.”
You know, some in your face non-linear dynamics in a non-equilibrium semi-reversible dissipative system with kick butt oscillations of microsecond to millennial duration! Model this beyatch :)
Or they could link to stuff like this,
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/12/13/2005/npg-12-13-2005.pdf
I should point out that the skeptic team consists of bloggers and others that are on the periphery.
I am still waiting for Tomas to give us a toy model which shows that the earth’s average thermal energy won’t change given a forcing function change. He apparently claims that the chaotic motions will counteract any change due to a forcing function. A toy model shouldn’t be too hard to create if he draws from all these fundamental principles that he claims governs the dynamics of the system.
Tomas has no time to trifle with linear no threshold peons than can’t visualize a thermally asymmetrical liquid planet with symmetrical chaotic atmospheric energy distribution and the variety of internal oscillations possible with the numerous thermodynamic and fluid boundaries.
Suggested reading, http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/12/13/2005/npg-12-13-2005.pdf
O r some word salad if you like :)
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/states-of-climate.html
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/states-of-climate-ii.html
‘We construct a network of observed climate indices in the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective behavior. The results indicate that this network synchronized several times in this period. We find that in those cases where the synchronous state was followed by a steady increase in the coupling strength between the indices, the synchronous state was destroyed, after which a new climate state emerged. These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift of the 1970s. We also find the evidence for such type of behavior in two climate simulations using a state-of-the-art model. This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of the size and complexity of the climate system.’ </i)
Tsonis, A. A., K. Swanson, and S. Kravtsov (2007), A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L13705, doi:10.1029/2007GL030288.
‘Proxy and instrumental records reflect a quasi-cyclic 50-to-80-year climate signal across the Northern Hemisphere, with particular presence in the North Atlantic. Modeling studies rationalize this variability in terms of intrinsic dynamics of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation influencing distribution of sea-surface-temperature anomalies in the Atlantic Ocean; hence the name Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). By analyzing a lagged covariance structure of a network of climate indices, this study details the AMO-signal propagation throughout the Northern Hemisphere via a sequence of atmospheric and lagged oceanic teleconnections, which the authors term the “stadium wave”. Initial changes in the North Atlantic temperature anomaly associated with AMO culminate in an oppositely signed hemispheric signal about 30 years later. Furthermore, shorter-term, interannual-to-interdecadal climate variability alters character according to polarity of the stadium-wave-induced prevailing hemispheric climate regime. Ongoing research suggests mutual interaction between shorter-term variability and the stadium wave, with indication of ensuing modifications of multidecadal variability within the Atlantic sector. Results presented here support the hypothesis that AMO plays a significant role in hemispheric and, by inference, global climate variability, with implications for climate-change attribution and prediction.
Wyatt, Marcia Glaze , Sergey Kravtsov, and Anastasios A. Tsonis, 2011: Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and Northern Hemisphere’s climate variability Climate Dynamics: DOI: 10.1007/s00382-011-1071-8.
In a post on this study.
‘Climate is ultimately complex. Complexity begs for reductionism. With reductionism, a puzzle is studied by way of its pieces. While this approach illuminates the climate system’s components, climate’s full picture remains elusive. Understanding the pieces does not ensure understanding the collection of pieces. This conundrum motivates our study.
Our research strategy focuses on the collective behavior of a network of climate indices. Networks are everywhere – underpinning diverse systems from the world-wide-web to biological systems, social interactions, and commerce. Networks can transform vast expanses into “small worlds”; a few long-distance links make all the difference between isolated clusters of localized activity and a globally interconnected system with synchronized [1] collective behavior; communication of a signal is tied to the blueprint of connectivity. By viewing climate as a network, one sees the architecture of interaction – a striking simplicity that belies the complexity of its component detail.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/guest-post-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-and-northern-hemisphere%E2%80%99s-climate-variability-by-marcia-glaze-wyatt-sergey-kravtsov-and-anastasios-a-tsonis/
Chaos theory is not choatic motion – the latter I assume is something like randomness or stochsticity. Statistical properties of simple systems. But the above per reviewed papers provide ‘toy models’ of networks or nodes that show the behaviour of the underlying dynamically complex system.
‘This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of the size and complexity of the climate system.’ The clues were there – easy to see after the fact – but this is an an astonishing discovery.
Its interesting that, in response to Tomas’s post, we’ve had comments like:
” I expect I understand perhaps 1% of what you are saying.”
and
” I consider that there would be only a handful on this planet who fully understands what Tomas is saying”
But even though people don’t seem to have a clue what he’s on about, they certainly do seem to like, or claim they like, what he’s saying. Is it a bit like claiming to like the music of Shoenberg or Cage maybe?
Or maybe not. I think they like phrases like “non linear dynamical dissipative system” and “ergodic theorem is precisely a statement about averages in the phase space “. Now I’m not sure just how much validity there is in these comments, but the message itself is clear enough, and it is that the Earth’s climate is just so complex and so complicated that there’s just no hope of ever knowing what will happen if CO2 levels double or even treble . It can be further reduced to ‘because we cannot know everything therefore we know nothing so who’s to say high CO2 concentrations mean anything at all? ‘.
If Tomas is convinced that this should also be the view of mainstream science then he needs to start writing papers for peer review to test out his ideas in the normal way.
When he’s done that he should perhaps look at how the really good top scientists actually engage with the public. I’ve always been struck by just how intelligible they can make it all seem when presenting their lectures. It’s hard to imagine ever feeling that way about a TM lecture.
i>’The admission of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. Socrates
You should admit ignorance TT – you have such a lot to admit to. If we were stuck with accepting such science as you understand it – it would be a sorry state. But I have linked another few peer reviewed studies from very reputable journals just above. I don’t think it is all that difficult – by ‘viewing climate as a network, one sees the architecture of interaction – a striking simplicity that belies the complexity of its component detail’. But it is in pedagogic terms a threshold concept. A concept that must be mastered before broader aspects of the discipline can be appreciated. A threshold concept is:
•Transformative: Once understood, a threshold concept changes the way in which the student views the discipline.
•Troublesome: Threshold concepts are likely to be troublesome for the student. Perkins has suggested that knowledge can be troublesome e.g. when it is counter-intuitive, alien or seemingly incoherent.
•Irreversible: Given their transformative potential, threshold concepts are also likely to be irreversible, i.e. they are difficult to unlearn.
•Integrative: Threshold concepts, once learned, are likely to bring together different aspects of the subject that previously did not appear, to the student, to be related.
•Bounded: A threshold concept will probably delineate a particular conceptual space, serving a specific and limited purpose.
•Discursive: Meyer and Land [10] suggest that the crossing of a threshold will incorporate an enhanced and extended use of language.
•Reconstitutive: “Understanding a threshold concept may entail a shift in learner subjectivity, which is implied through the transformative and discursive aspects already noted. Such reconstitution is, perhaps, more likely to be recognised initially by others, and also to take place over time (Smith)”.
•Liminality: Meyer and Land [12] have likened the crossing of the pedagogic threshold to a ‘rite of passage’ (drawing on the ethnographical studies of Gennep and Turner in which a transitional or liminal space has to be traversed; “in short, there is no simple passage in learning from ‘easy’ to ‘difficult’; mastery of a threshold concept often involves messy journeys back, forth and across conceptual terrain. (Cousin [6])”.
http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html
No one likes modern classical. But I love Frank Zappa. Once I realised how deep Zappa’s roots go into modern classical – it was a bit transformative.
Couldn’t resist the Norman Gunstan interview. Norman is an Aussie cultural icon in his own right.
The most important post on this thread and the only reply is a dismissive post by WHT? Sometimes science is hard.
To be honest, I consider that there would be only a handful on this planet who fully understands what Tomas is saying. I do not claim to be one of them.
“For me the starting point is to recognize the system for what it is – a non linear dynamical dissipative system perpetually out of equilibrium and never in steady state.”
If it’s warm today, it doesn’t mean it will as warm or warmer tomorrow.
Applies locally or globally.
Clouds can add stability, in terms of temperature but cloud aren’t stable, high pressure systems can somewhat stable, differences of terrain will add instability.
Earth is basically a heat engine, but has water in the fuel lines.
“From that follows among others that the system doesn’t “return to some equilibriums” because the thermodynamical equilibrium points are not on the attractor.”
Hmm, earth isn’t trying to be a certain temperature??
Not sure what means by attractor. Earth has a limits to surface
temperatures- such limits to skin temperature commonly reached. Earth dominated by ocean, it’s max skin temperature close to air temperature, land max skin temperature is not close to it’s air temperature- ocean large controls global temperature- it is global temperature. The instablity of tropical ocean is due to cold polar water- without it, they would be stable and warm uniformity throughout. But such stability [I guess] would would crash eventually- it seems the little instabilities add stability- which similar in general to all biological systems.
“So what stays then are only stochastical approaches. But here the key is ergodicity and I have written much about this notion, trying to explain why it is fundamental.
To avoid repetitions, an ergodic chaotic system GUARANTEES the existence of an invariant PDF of the dynamical states on the attractor.
It doesn’t of course mean that it is easy to find but at least one knows that it exists and so, by definition, there is a chance to find it.
Ergodicity provides a foundation for the notion of “ensemble averages” because the ergodic theorem is precisely a statement about averages in the phase space (“ensemble averages”).”
What makes earth cool. That would seem to be what I think is meant by an attractor. At least during this Ice Age we are in.
Thanks gbaikie for elucidating some of Tomas’ main points. You have made things clearer to me and I’m sure, many others as well.
Chief mentioned in a post above that some form of reductionism will need to be done in order to unravel many of the complexities in the climate system.
I also believe that non-linear systems can also be discretised so as to enable conventional ODE’s to be substituted for PDF’s that do not yield solutions.
Sure, many assumptions need to be made but steady application of this process will progressively add to the sum total of our knowledge over time.
Sorry PDE’s not PDF’s
I responded to Tomas below.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242194
Like I said, he makes rookie mistakes.
Always a breath of fresh air Tomas – although I feel like professing many worlds just to be contrarian.
BTW webtubcolonoscope – way to put a densely reasoned and cogent agument.
Hidden variables for me.
???
Tomas
You appear to be describing the weather not the climate. Never in equilibrium? The earth has experienced periods of hundreds of millions at a stretch where the climate was constant. That doesn’t sound very far from equilibrium to me. While it’s true in a sense it never reaches equilibrium it’s in the sense that no ideal black body exists in nature either. It’s a matter of whether it gets close enough to equilibrium so there’s no practical distinction from perfection.
The attractors, by the way, are phase transition points of water and latent energy therein the speedbumps. Quauntum physics in this discussion is a red herring and the Copenhagen interpretation is a wonderful example of a bandwagon. Physics is incomplete. What’s the consensus on dark energy these days? And are you still pushing that inflation hack in the early universe? And what’s up with the seasonal change in radioactive decay rates noted by many labs around the world? In the words of Ricky Ricardo, you quantum physicists have some ‘splainin to do.
David Springer | September 21, 2012 at 6:23 am said: ”You appear to be describing the weather not the climate”
David, weather is climate! Because they succeeded to brainwash you all; that climate is same thing as the phony GLOBAL warmings – that doesn’t mean that climate has nothing to do with the wet / dry weather – extreme cold / hot days / nights. It only means that: you are wrong on more things than you can comprehend.
Tomas Milanovic,
Thank you for your comment. It’s interesting, although I expect I understand perhaps 1% of what you are saying. However, this bit has passed my BS meter:
I’ll make a big leap and say that this means dramatic changes of climate are totally unpredictable and could occur any time whether the planet is warmer or cooler, and whether it is warming or cooling. We know this anyway from the paleoclimate data.
However, we also know we are better off warming than cooling, and if we had to make a choice between warmer or cooler, we’d choose warmer.
We also know that the areal extent of ice sheets can expand and contract rapidly. Ice sheets in the polar regions and increases the sensitivity of the climate and increases the speed of climate change and the amplitude of climate change. Climate changes are slower and the amplitude smaller when there is less or no ice at the poles. See James Hansen’s Figure 1 here: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
Given this, it seems clear we should not waste our money on mitigation polices that inevitably have negligible probability of reducing the risk of sudden climate changes.
Furthermore, taking everything into consideration, we are better off to be warmer than cooler.
And another point, Pekka Pirila, Faustino and others have been arguing, forcefully, that any economic forecasts that run beyond a decade are virtually useless.
Put all this together, and I’d say we should stop wasting money on high cost, economically irrational mitigation policies.
Bjorn Lomborg has been making the case for over a decade.
We have a potential viable option for massively reducing CO2 emissions – nuclear power – but it is not yet acceptable. When these advocating mitigation but blocking progress to remove the impediments to low cost nuclear, stop blocking progress, we’ll be able to cut emissions without damaging the economies of the world.
What case has to be made? There is a problem either with the data or the understanding. I don’t know where the problem is but the people responsible need to figure it out before they should request that the rest of us take their projections seriously.
What happened to the cooling stratosphere being the “fingerprint” of AGW?
Why did about half of the increase of the OHC of the upper oceans between 1980 and the present occur in about a one year period that just happens to coincide with when the calibration to the ARGO system occurred?
Why does the most recent water vapor data show no atmospheric increase?
How come it takes CO2 takes 300 years to achieve equilibrium yet solar is expected to have achieved equilibrium and provides negative forcing the moment you get a slightly weaker solar cycle?
Why is heat transport incapable of making a difference now yet you will argue that a change in heat transport made a profound difference in the YD event?
Does AGW cause colder or warmer winters? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? More snow? Less snow? Floods? Droughts? Will I stub my toe more often due to global warming?
Get your act together and get back to us in the general public. We are patiently awaiting a cohesive hypothesis that doesn’t change every 5 minutes based upon the latest weather events. Don’t take too long. Don’t forget you have a world to save.
… and once more into the fray.
… and once more into the fray.
Best case argument against CAGW theory: Violation of thermodynamic steady-state constraints for the dissipation of energy fluxes in thermal gradients.
1. The existence of such constraints is terra incognito for every climate scientist and wannabe.
2. These constraints cover the totality of thermal energy transport mechanisms, make no presumptions of linearity and are 3-dimensional. Mathematically, they are phenomenological consequences of applying the theorem of the divergence to a system for which a non-divergent flux functional exists, thereby reducing a 3-d integral to a surface integral.
3. The classic example is energy dissipation due to a coulomb flux in electric potential gradients, W=J(V1 – V2), a surface integral in which J is the non-divergent flux normal to two surface regions of specified potential. This constraint says nothing about what’s within the surface and makes no presumption about the functional relation of flux to potential, only assuming a steady-state exists within for profiles of potential and current.
4. A corresponding expression can be derived for energy transport in thermal gradients with vector calculus. (Hint: the relevant non-divergent flux functional to be derived is the free energy flux divided by the absolute temperature).
5. The Manabe adjustment does not yield a steady-state thermal profile. Were one to create such a profile in a thermodynamic system for the given boundary conditions, it would relax towards a steady-state with a significantly lower surface temperature.
This is probably all gibberish to the majority of commentarians here, but there may remain a few lurkers functionally literate in physical science.
pdq
My proof that the global warming rate has not accelerated as shown by IPCC climate models (http://bit.ly/OaemsT ) after 1965 is the sea level rise (http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/2sources.jpg ) that does not show the corresponding acceleration.
*More* or less…
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/19578206/fake-gold-bars-turn-up-in-manhattan
we need to see things for what they *are*?;o)
Rough translation:
The heat transfer between the various thermodynamic boundary layers are not properly considered in the coupled ocean/atmosphere models. As a result, AOGCM over estimate atmospheric climate sensitivity, by not properly modeling 70% of the surface and 99.9% of the global thermal mass that interacts with the atmosphere.
Steven, please be aware that climate scientists have worked hard to heed your request! :) :) :)
To the degree that rational skeptics have read-and-reflected upon the aggregate scientific evidence, their rational skepticism has been materially abated, eh? :) :) :)
As for non-rational, ideology-first, conspiracy-theoretic denialists … heck, no-one foresees that these folks will ever let go of their numerous, various, conspiracy-centric worldviews.
On the other hand, neither is it likely that the conspiracy theorists will ever agree upon one over-arching super-conspiracy … will … they … !!! :lol: :shock: :lol:
Ain’t that plain common-sense, Steven? :) :) :)
Oops … conspiracy-theory linkey! ;)
Fan, common sense is you either understand the system or you don’t. If you have to constantly change your hypothesis based upon current events you don’t understand the system. Understand?
With respect, Steven, very few scientists would agree, and no Bayesians, and definitely not the Pope! ;) ;) ;)
Uhhh … unless they’re all colluding in the Great Conspiracy, that is! :lol: :lol: :lol:
Fan? What conspiracy? The oil company money conspiracy? Address my points if you wish but don’t bother me with innuendos regarding my motivations.
Locally, heat transport is perpetually dynamic, and yet via the First and Second Laws we *can* reliably predict earth’s energy imbalance and implications .
The fundamental ideas of climate-change science are simple, Steven! ;) ;) ;)
The Earth climate is a non-equilibrium thermodynamic system. It has many extensive properties that mean that the 2nd law – the production of entropy – is not simple but complex. Ultimately the 1st law will always work.
50/50 work for you FOMBS? :cool:
Fan, and the point I have made that you intended this to refute is?
First, thanks to Mosh for the history of Lukewarmerism, from the father thereof. As Churchill once said during World War II “History will treat me kindly, for I intend to write it.” But that didn’t make his account useless by any means. (Though it needed correcting of course, notably when the cabinet papers for May 1940 were released, showing the extent of the opposition from the most powerful in the land to Churchill in his first week in seeking to fight on – something he greatly downplayed but makes his efforts all the more heroic. In this he’s treated more kindly now. Magnanimous indeed.)
Second, has anyone on Climate Etc commented on how the PBS piece Climate Change Skeptic No Longer Doubts Human Role in Global Warming introduces Dr Curry as a sceptic who is critical of Muller on attribution. Nothing untoward about that except the label – followed at once on screen by Judith’s academic credentials beside her effective comments. As someone who is a sceptic about all the labels this interested me. The most important takeaway point: the MSM is beginning to tell the story with ‘sceptics’ a combination of Watts (who also declined the label) and Curry. A sign of significant progess in the debate, of not in the precision of the labels.
Richard Drake
“Labels”, such as “warmer”, denier” or “skeptic” are silly and usually wrong.
But here is a more appropriate one for our hostess:
Judith Curry is a climate “realist”
Definitions (from on-line dictionary):
This would be opposed to a climate “idealist”, where
and an “idealist” is defined as:
These would be “neutral” definitions, as they do not presuppose that either category is “good” or “evil”, “intelligent” or “stupid”, or acting primarily in self-interest or for some other ulterior motive.
Would you agree?
Max
Well, I like it but I don’t expect any “idealist” to adopt it :)
Moderators,
I had a posted reply to tonyb which has vanished without trace. Perhaps you could look in the spam bin as it had several links.
TIA (Ta in advance).
JF
Perhaps the best case is to wait and see for a few years, and see what temperatures do. As we are now extremely unlikelyto actually see any overall global co2 reductions, China India and the devloping world made that quite clear at Copenhagen, and even Germany is building coal fired power station, in an endeavour to keep the lights on, and electricity cheap enough for industry.
Then I think, waiting and seeing, is what will happen (despite many claims, that we can’t afford to wait) waiting and seeing, is what will happen due to economics and politics (and Chinas emmssion and global co2 will continue to grow)
Thus to my point:
If after 8 years (ie by 2020) we do not see any particulalry large increase (or reduction) of more than + or – 0.1C (or even + – 1.5C) would it be safe to assume that the model assumptions over state warming, and that sensitivity is low (or feed back are only weakly positive or even weakly negative)
ie.. when this graph has 8 years more data on it, and perhaps is still plateaud or + 0.1C
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/_nhshgl.gif
Will the politicians care?
Hopefully we can agree that graph is from an impecable source ;-)
Will everyone still be demanding urgent action?
As no action I think will be taken on emmisions by any of the major emitting countries in at least the next 8 years, wait and see is just going to happen.
Whether anyone likes it or not.
Excuse me, but is this thread for CAGW skeptics or AGW skeptics?
A significant difference, don’t you agree?
Personally, I am a CAGW skeptic, but a don’t care one wit about AGW.
John Silver
You raise a very important point.
It is for “CAGW” skeptics, i.e. those who are skeptical of the IPCC premise that most of the observed global warming since 1950 can be attributed to increased concentrations of human GHGs, principally CO2, and that this represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment, unless actions are undertaken to drastically curtail the emissions of GHGs, principally CO2.
I also am not skeptical of AGW per se and, like you, don’t care a wit about it, either.
Max
Here is the proof (observation) that climate models are incorrect.
IPCC projections for 0.2 deg C per decade warming for the next two decades => http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-ts-26.html
My model shows a plateau for the next two decades => http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/GmstModel.png
Let me bring this as a new piece. David L. Hagen | September 18, 2012 at 10:41 pm
gives me several references of people who have used empirical data to try and measure total climate sensitivity, and I am extremely grateful to you David. Thank you very much indeed.
However, this emphasises one of the points I tried to make originally, and which has got lost in the subsequent discussion. All the references that David produced were written by what can only be described as skeptics. None of them could be classified as proponents of CAGW. So this emphasises my point that none of the proponents of CAGW seem to be interested in using what little empirical data we have, to try and derive a measure of total climate sensitivity, and I have to wonder why.
I have read the posts on this new thread, and there is a common theme running through them. The empirical data does not support CAGW. So the obvious reason why proponents of CAGW stick to what they have been saying for decades, and refuse to look at the empirical data, is that it is obvious to them that the empirical data shows that CAGW is just plain wrong. I can see no other logical reason why any group of advocates would abandon the approach of classical physics, which have worked so well for centuries.
The only reason why proponents of CAGW are not trying to use empiical data to support their case, is that all the empirical data we have, and it is not very much, but all that we have strongly indicates that CAGW is just plain wrong. And according to the scientific method, if the empirical data disagrees with the hypothesis, we abandon the hypothesis.
What a solemn responsibility. I guess I will have to put my Chief Hydrologists hat on – h/t Cecil. As a starting point we can do no better than Newtons 4th rule of natural philosophy which is at the core of modern science.
‘In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.
This rule should be followed so that arguments based on induction be not be nullified by hypotheses.’
Natural philosophy is of course concerned with the big picture. Proceeding from observation to a theory of everything. An overarching theory that is like a bridge constructed on the foundations of empirical science. As a civil engineer I know that the sturdiness of the bridge is predicated on the soundness of the foundations. Some foundations are comparatively shaky. The NAS Committee on Abrupt Climate Change characterized paleoclimatic data as like feeling around in a dark room to get an idea of the layout. We should be wary therefore of placing too great a load on such an uncertain structure. Things improve with the instrumental record of the scientific enlightenment – and although Newton said that we stand on the shoulders of giants I think rather that we are forever in the debt of many humble workers in the vineyard of science. A 400 year record of sunspots amuses me hugely – but there are many other examples.
My story starts innocently enough with a paper appearing in a volume on geomorphology I came across in an environmental science Masters program in the early 1990’s. Erskine, W.D. and Warner, R.F., 1998, Geomorphic effects of alternating flood- and drought- dominated regimes on NSW coastal streams. In R.F. Warner (ed) Fluvial Geomorphology of Australia, Academic Press, Sydney, p.223-242. The paper commences with a simple observation that these streams changed form in the late 1970’s from a high energy braided form to a low energy meandering form. On examination of the flood records from 1840 – multidecadal periods of high flows and low flows were identified. In the 20th century this included a shift to drought conditions around 1910, to a flood dominated regime in the mid 1940’s and again to drought conditions in the late 1970’s. Intrigued – I began a quest for the source of these mysterious multi-decadal regimes.
ENSO is of course involved as this is the major source of rainfall variability in north eastern Australia – and many other places globally. But the periodicity cannot be reconciled with a 25 year regime. No matter how I struggled with the mechanics of Rossby waves it simply did not fit. A clue came with the description of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation in 1996. Mysteriously – the periodicity of the PDO was exactly that of Australian rainfall regimes. How could sea surface temperature in the north-east Pacific influence decadal rainfall patterns in Australia?
It had been noted for some time that ENSO changed in the late 1970’s to more frequent and intense El Niño. It was thought that this might be a response to a warming world. The shift explained the long drought in Australia that perhaps would continue indefinitely. Knowing that these shifts had happened before – I was inclined to think there was some natural pattern in this and that we might shift back to a flood regime by sometime around the end of the century. By then it was clear that the PDO and ENSO acted in unison – with cold PDO associated with more frequent and intense La Niña and vice versa. The biological response to immense upwelling or cold, nutrient rich water – or not – in the eastern Pacific provided new ways of tracking the phenomenon. Phytoplankton in the central Pacific, sardines or anchovies in Monterey Bay, the weight of seal pups on the west coast of the US, salmon in US streams. By early in the last decade it was clear that the regime had shifted again – although the picture from SST was confused and NASA didn’t declare a shift until 2008. Close enough for Government work I suppose.
Although there were a number of related phenomenon – it explained nothing fundamental. Around 2003 I was looking at the CRU temperature record and it dawned on me – like a tonne of bricks – that the trajectory of surface temperatures reflected exactly the periods of the interrelated hydrological, oceanographic and biological phenomena I had been investigating for more than a decade. I thought about this for three days straight – and then rang a skeptic hydrologist who at least confirmed that I wasn’t going mad on my own. By 2007 I was still thinking that this was purely an energy transfer between the ocean and atmosphere. Papers emerged linking ENSO with TOA power flux in reflected shortwave – so it seemed that cloud radiative forcing was implicated as well. More recent work showed decadal changes in low level marine stratocumulus in the north-eastern Pacific (Clement et al 2009) and in the central-eastern Pacific (Burgmann et al 2008) in both the ICOADS observations and in satellite records. We can consider the latest Dessler paper on cloud feedback to ENSO – using CERES – as confirmation of these cloud dynamics.
The IPCC seems cognizant of the TOA flux record – and the implications for ocean heat content. ‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ AR4 s 3.4.4.2
The ERBS and ISCCP-FD records show that all warming in the satellite era was in the short wave. CERES shows that all of the ‘missing energy’ was in less reflected short wave. The conclusion to be drawn seems evident. The practices of many seem less to be in accord with Newtons 4th rule and more – at the most charitable interpretation – confirmation bias.
The story doesn’t end there. The interesting question of what drives both ENSO and the PDO provides answers to the pole to pole interconnectedness of processes in the Earth’s climate system. Subtle differences in sea level pressure at the poles caused by solar variations in TSI and UV drive more or less cold water north and south in the Peruvian and Californian Currents respectively. This dilutes the warm surface layers facilitating the upwelling of cold, subsurface water on the west coast of the Americas – the origin of ENSO and the PDO. TSI and UV are control variables that drive nonlinear feedbacks in the climate system. In the Tsonis formulation ENSO and the PDO are network nodes that – with others – are major modes of climate variability that can be used to illuminate the underlying physics of the system as a whole. It shows that the system is deterministically chaotic – in the sense of theoretical physics – at many scales. This new paradigm of climate science has yet to be widely understood.
Chief,
Let’s see someone formulate an intelligent rebuttal to this. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting, and please don’t shrug.
The science is one thing Joshua. Not interested? Why are you here? No soul – no wonder – no humour? Think of the happy seal pups in Monteray Bay and the salmon leaping in sparkling streams threading a garrison of fat bears.
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.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Let’s start with the first four sentences, shall we, Chief?
Huh? Why is this orphaned comment directed at me? Oh. I get it. You took insufficient evidence and drew a conclusion. Unlike what a skeptic would do, you underestimated clear uncertainties and made a foolish error in the process
I’ve never said that I’m not interested in the science. In fact, I’ve stated otherwise. I’m here because among my interests is looking at the science.
I’m here to read about the science, and to observe the combatants. I find it interesting to observe how they reason – and in particular I like looking at the climate debate as an object lesson for how people reason in controversies that overlap with political, social, cultural, and personal identifications. I have explained this many times, and you are obviously a dedicated reader of my comments. No doubt, you are asking questions for which you already have read the answers. Apparently, either you think that doing so serves some rhetorical purpose or you have difficulty integrating information when it is in contradiction to the biases you seek to confirm. My money is on the later.
Ah yes. Once again, chief dips into his endless supply of insults – which he alternates with complaining about people insulting him (something I don’t do, by the way) and expressing his disapproval of those who write insulting blog comments.
Joshua, I am 99% certain that the chief is a scientific poseur. All the evidence points to that, as all he does is regurgitate what someone else says, and is unable to come up with any deep insight on his own.
It is interesting to observe how fakes and poseurs reason, in some cases deliberating obfuscating to increase the level of FUD. These are confidence games at some level, and the challenge is to understanding at what level.
Much is at the coast-to-coast crackpot level. Others are at the political agenda level. Still others are at the psychological mind-games level. There could be agent provocateurs on each side amongst the fakes, some deliberately appearing stupid to create fake concerns, thus raising the level of FUD.
I could be wrong about the chief. I don’t make predictions on future temperatures because I am not ready. But on this one, I have been ready since day one. The sockpuppet cappy chief is a dragon-king of a fake.
WHT –
I don’t know. Of “skeptics” at this site, I do think that Chief does add some value to the scientific discussion – not the least when he talks about some of the more peripheral science such as the environmental questions that are not directly related to ACO2. He is one of the few that seems logically consistent (David W., who admits that he doesn’t think that the Earth is warming, is another), even if his underlying premises might be flawed (which I can’t really evaluate).
Of course, my ability to parse the technical discussions is limited, but from what I can tell he does present some solid skeptical questions. I am a fan of skepticism, and from that side I appreciate his input in the scientific debates. I see some overlap between what he says and what Mojib Latif says – and from what I can tell, Latif is credible.
Maybe Chief only does a good job of creating a valid veneer to cover up underlying logical flaws, but I haven’t really seen it. He could simply be someone who has some skill with the language of science but doesn’t really understand the words he’s using; it doesn’t strike me that is the case, however.
The most solid evidence that works against the validity of his scientific input is twofold: The first “fold” is that he shows astounding inaccuracy in his input to the political discussions that spin off the scientific discussions. The second “fold” is that he shows a lack of introspection and consistency in how he feigns upset with people writing insulting comments even as he regularly writes long diatribes filled with insults. People who make such obviously flawed arguments in one area, and who display such a lack of insight, are often very likely to carry over those attributes to their intellectual processes across the board.
But even there, he isn’t quite at the level of of the “denizens” who don’t even attempt to account for anything less than extremist perspectives. I find it interesting that Chief takes issue with some of our much beloved extremist libertarian “denizens,” even as he does fall into some of the less extremist ideological traps that they fall into. And in a way, objecting to the vitriol even as a purveyor of vitriol is probably showing a higher state of introspection than someone who just slings insults without even perceiving that there’s something questionable about that behavior. I’m sure that you can think of many “denizens” who fit that description.
I think that the jury is still out on the Chief.
The chief is playing lots of readers like a violin. His inconsistency is his consistency.
Joshua, I only wish that you had more grounding in the details of science, because only then can you see his obfuscation. At least you are honest.
I wish you had more grounding in hydrology, chemistry, biology, oceanography, etc – not to mention the classics, poetry and The Simpsons.
Lat’s make a deal. You stand on one leg and whistle dixie – and I will keep on laughing at you.
Josh,
“I think that the jury is still out on the Chief.”
We’re pretty close to finding him guilty as charged. Even Peter Lang has commented:
“I can see you [chief] have strong opinions. I can also see it is based on big ego and little knowledge”
I’m pushing that we should recommend a non-custodial sentence providing he commits to enroll in a climate science class at his local Tafe. (technical college)
Oh, I forgot, he’s also not to use the word “pissant” for the next six months.
As if Peter or yourself have any credibility TT. Peter was annoyed when I called him on nuclear waste facilities. You – well you are just a pissant progressive with no founding in science at all and merely a line in idiotic sociological narative about conservatives and sceptics. I am not a sceptic. I am a climate catatrophist. Peter doesn’t like that either. Rat’s arse territory as far as I am concerned.
I apologise if I attributed the sockpuppet to the wrong troll. It seems to suggest sarcasm at its cryptic worst – and pissant progressive is something you took particular umbrage at. The science is one thing and the content less drivel in the form of an enigmatic snark is another. I expect someone with your liberal arts talent for language to be able to fill in the gaps.
You know I don’t generally read your comments. You are a combatant whose only purpose is to make silly little debating points where you think you can. You practice the art of the out of context quote and the smarmy gotcha. And you want me to play with you? I don’t think so.
You pretend as well that there is a moral equivalence between us and the neo-socialist, green/red barbarians inside the walls of the enlightenment citadel. There is not. There is a bright future for humanity or it is the future dystopia socially engineered with lies and deceit by an extremist few percent – the students and self styled intellectuals who imagine they are leading the world to a new Eden. Forgive me if I am not impressed and don’t agree that there is any moral equivalence at all.
The whole quote is as follows. Let me explain. The whole thing is a metaphysical conceit – the first three sentences being an unlikely rhetorical device and the last a resolution that suggests natures remedy for the ennui of the soul.
The science is one thing Joshua. Not interested? Why are you here? No soul – no wonder – no humour? Think of the happy seal pups in Monterey Bay and the salmon leaping in sparkling streams threading a garrison of fat bears.
I am unhappy with the metre – let me rewrite it.
The science is one thing Joshua. Not interested in science? Why are you here? Do you have no souls – no wonder – no humour? Think of the happy seal pups in Monterey Bay and the salmon in sparkling streams threading a picket line of fat bears.
Much better. But an insult? I think not.
Chief –
Once again, you misunderstand – and ignore obvious evidence. There is no need for apology. No offense was taken. To the contrary, I made it quite clear that in that instance, as in this one, a stupid error is useful because it exposes a lack of consistency in your skepticism. you clearly don’t think things through when you make such obvious errors.
And once again – we see evidence of the same. I have explained that I take no umbrage at your use of that term to describe hundreds of millions of people. I don’t assume responsibility for your political extremism. You can call me any names you want – it really doesn’t bother me, and in fact I find it useful when you do show how prone you are to careless and facile analysis.
And once again, the same pattern repeats itself. In a post filled with vitriol and insults, you come after me for “content less drivel in the form of enigmatic snark. This behavior once or twice wouldn’t be particularly instructive, but when you repeat it over and over, it does become instructive.
Really? You have made this claim before, yet you often reply to my comments. The fact that you mistook someone else’s comment for mine also undermines this statement. Also undermining your statement is that you have said numerous times that you were going to not read any of my comments, or stop responding to me (remember when you said you were going to take your ball and go home?) – yet never lived up to those statements of intent. I don’t know how many of my comments you read, but you often respond to my comments with remarks that show that not only have you read what I’ve written, you’ve also given what I’ve written some thought and felt compelled to respond.
You’re entitled to your perspective, Chief, but the fact that you think that you can determine what my “purpose” is not only shows hubris, but again, a propensity for ignoring the obvious. In fact, you have no way of knowing my “purpose.” You might guess or form an educated guess, but the fact that you allow no room for your suppositions is again representative of the pattern I’ve pointed out.
Always the master of unintentional irony, eh Chief? Do you really not understand just how little awareness you show with that statement? Are you actually that unaware in real life? And no, Chief, your notion that I want you to “play with me” is also a self-delusion. Do what you want. If you decide to respond to my posts, don’t assume that you’re doing anything that I “want” you to do. You’re doing that entirely because it is something that you want to do.
Nice rant, Chief. One of these days you will realize that such unhinged diatribes only undermine the credibility of your scientific analysis.
Spin it any way you want, Chief. If you think that your cute little rhetorical questions aren’t content less snark and insults, more power to you.
Actually, Chief, what you’re doing is repeatedly ducking the obvious errors in your thinking that I continuously point out. The fact that you consider your obvious errors of logic – no doubt attributable to your fanaticism – to be devoid of any substance is simply a failure of accountability. You avoid accountability by various means – often through insults, but certainly that isn’t your only method.
And Chief, you really don’t have to keep explaining how high an opinion you have of yourself. You have made it quite clear numerous time how superior you consider yourself to be — by many measures. I get it.
And Chief – as I have already said – you have claimed quite a few times that you don’t read my posts, and that you are going to stop responding to my posts, and your repeated responses to me make both claims obvious false. Perhaps you should consider what compels you to make those claims and then obviously fail to follow through. A skeptic would certainly consider whether such contradictory behavior is a sort of denial or failure in accountability.
‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson
And you certainly do have a small mind Joshua. You can imagine that I hang on your every word as much as you like. Quite obviously I find the feigned umbrage and the dissimulation odious, the rabid progressive ideology absurd, the doggerel tedious, the characterisations strained and the terrier persistence ridiculous – and prefer to avoid the dog doo on my shoes as much as possible.
And while it is true that I am your superior in every way that matters – intellect, education, imagination, culture – I don’t normally make a point of mentioning it. Perhaps should ask yourself whether it is not your obvious inadequacies speaking.
Chief –
You are, once again, mistaken. Once again you have allowed your biases to lead you to completely incorrect conclusions.
I don’t think that you hang onto my every word. It think that you regularly read my posts and consider what they say. I think that because you regularly respond to my posts. I have direct evidence on which to base by perspective..
I think that because you write posts in response to me even when I didn’t write the post that you’re responding to.
I’m clearly in your thoughts even when I haven’t done something to give you reason to think about me.
And all of this as you repeatedly claim, in contradiction to obvious and indisputable facts, that you don’t read my posts or that you will in the future stop responding to me. (I love how how you’ve moved the goalposts to claim that you only sometimes read my posts.)
Wrong. Yet again. I have never expressed umbrage to anything that you’ve posted – feigned or otherwise. It simply hasn’t happened. It exists only in your head. In the fantasized version of me that apparently inhabits your thoughts. You think that somehow I object to you using the term pissant progressive. Once again, Chief, you severely over-estimate your own importance. Use that term all you want. I find it useful when you use that term.
Does it ever give you pause that you are wrong with such consistency? Don’t you even wonder why that happens? Why would you make claims that are in obvious contradiction to easily proven reality? Don’t you stop to think why you think about me even when you are reading a post that someone else has written?
Don’t be so literal, Chief. It suggests a lack of depth in your approach.
As someone who is capable of sophisticated analysis of complicated dynamics – to display such a lack of depth in specific areas suggests a problematic bias.
You don’t “mention it” directly, but it is implied very consistently in any number of your posts. It is implied in your impression that repeating the same things in thread after thread, day after day, in the depths of blog comments, is somehow important or a noble endeavor that will have any impact on the world.
It is implied in your complete inability to see that your insult-filled diatribes are not any more elevated in meaning or importance than the insult-filled diatribes of any other climate combatant.
It is implied in your notion that your insult-filled diatribes are poetry – that are somehow meaningfully improved by consideration of meter. Seriously, bro’, it it possible to write something more pretentious than that?
Chief – I imagine that you have more insight about yourself in real life than you do when writing blog comments, but I have to say the lack of depth in these posts that you’ve written is quite remarkable. Consider what it means that even someone like me, so far inferior to you in so many (if not all) respects, can so easily point out, over and over, the stunningly obvious errors in your analysis.
Another long winded and trivial comment devoid of any substance but replete merely debating points with vacuous and contrived debating points. Forgive me for spelling out yet again that I am speaking past you and not to you. The latter is of course an utter waste of time. There is a broad class of the scientifically and economically illiterate people I refer to as pissant progressives. You are one – and I assume are resistant to spot changing. A sad but undeniable fact that your mind is a closed and very murky shop.
Please feel free to go back to your inconsequential trolling – and I will feel free to pass over most of your nonsense in silence. Deal sunshine?
Just because I know you wouldn’t want to miss my post ….(even though you’ll likely claim yet again, in contrast to the obvious facts, that you don’t read my posts).
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242554
Cecil might appreciate the longer term relationship between solar, CO2 and sea surface temperature. I chose the Western Caribbean, mainly because it has the neatest wiggles :)
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/drawing%20outside%20the%20lines%20WC%20co2%20and%20Milankovic_zpsd3176c2f.png
God bless those Western Caribbean wiggles!
especially in colorful bikinis!
Love those Caribbean Wiggles, but there are great wiggles all around the globe.
China got sexy wiggles,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/S.%20China%20Sea%20with%20CO2%20and%20Milankovic_zps13cbef33.png
The Atlantic got wiggles,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/Atlantic%20SST%20with%20CO2%20and%20Milankovic_zpsc5111ef5.png
Arabia got wiggles,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/Arabian%20Sea%20SST%20with%20CO2%20and%20Milankovic_zpsb0e8d145.png
Eastern Pacific Got Wiggles,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/Eastern%20Pacific%20SST%20with%20CO2%20and%20Milankovic_zps26b4f6e8.png
What is great though is the different wiggles,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/Eastern%20Pacific%20SST%20with%20Atlantic%20and%20Milankovic_zpsb3d8a87e.png
:)
Capt’nDallas,
My problem entirely, butttttt. would it be possible animate or do consecutive graphs where layering one line series onto the next (building) so as to end up with your final product? While my mind’s eye is busy following one line, my mind is discounting all the others and my mind, such as it is, becomes confused. My confused mind takes some time to recover before making another run at it.
Thank you for all you can do to unscramble my mind.
HiRoo8, I am working on that, but a somewhat chaotic system is somewhat chaotic :) The range of SST for the past 400K years is pretty stable though and does tend to follow the Milankovic cycles with the high temperature more limited than the low temperature. That implies the latent heat of fusion/evaporation does constrain SST well below the 3C model projections.
David Archibald, who is more of a cyclomaniac than I am, seemed to get a kick out of the correlations and he makes prettier graphs than I do :)
Chief, you are long on talk but short on proof in the form of links to data and research (that doesn’t take the form of any graphs you’ve cherry picked data to create).
I have linked them all previously – including the IPCC. But try these.
IPCChttp://judithcurry.com/2011/02/09/decadal-variability-of-clouds/
I have a collection of graphs extracted from literature or reputable sources. But there were no graphs in the above. I was making it personal and purely about narrative.
I’ve read through the comments with a growing sense of wonder – why has no one mentioned the elephant in the IPCC’s living room?
Numerous papers have shown a clear and unambiguous correlation between the Sun’s magnetic activity and temperatures here on earth. Correlation does not prove causation I here you cry? True, it doesn’t. It can prove a big hint as to the right direction though. What’s more, some of the normal objections would not apply in this case. There can be no confusion as to the direction of possible cause- and-effect. Nothing taking place here on earth can be affecting the magnetic activity of the Sun. Similarly so for any ‘third variable’.
Once accepted, even if the precise mechanism isn’t proven yet, this provides a full explanation to the earth’s climate variability throughout the Holocene.
The rise in temp in the 1st half of the 20th century.
The increased rise 1970-2000.
The flat temps post 1996.
The Medieval Warm Period.
The Little Ice Age.
etc. etc. …….
The IPCC have studiously ignored the effect of the Sun on our climate!!
“elephants in living rooms eh?” You sure it’s an elephant? It looks very much like a tired old cliche to me. Not worth a mention at all.
slightly off topic
but Dr Oberauer and Profesosr Lewandowsky are apparently publically accusing Steve Mcintyre of spreading misinofrmation (manufacturing doubt) and being useless at Stats..
http://shapingtomorrowsworld.org/oberauerEFA.html
I can’t quite remember who said the poking Steve Mcintyre with a stick, is not very wise (ie ask Mann)
i suppose it is progress at Lewandowsky’s blog – ‘he who should not be named’ – steve Mcintyre, is now named..
why can’t the professor just be professional, and just say (and show) why Mcintyre is wrong (or not) withoutthise silly activist rgeoric and rude behaviour (amateur at stats, implying unethical motives, etc)
“Why can’t …” Because he has no leg to stand on, he is a disgrace to academia.
We recently had a discussion on BS detectors. Maybe we could now have one on irony meters, because mine just exploded.
The numbers used to concoct AGW senarios arent verified, or verifiable at this point.
Andrew
Hi Judy
I certainly am not a “climate skeptic”. However, I have posted and written quite a bit on the bias in the 2007 WG1 and related reports. As examples, see
Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2005: Public Comment on CCSP Report “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”. 88 pp including appendices.http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/nr-143.pdf
Pielke Sr., Roger A., 2008: A Broader View of the Role of Humans in the Climate System is Required In the Assessment of Costs and Benefits of Effective Climate Policy. Written Testimony for the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Hearing “Climate Change: Costs of Inaction” – Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman. June 26, 2008, Washington, DC., 52 pp.http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/testimony-written.pdf
Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/12/r-354.pdf
I can provide quite a bit more on the WG1 issues (and the failings of that assessment) if requested. :-)
Dr Curry,
Firstly, many thanks for hosting the Climate Etc blog. I am a regular reader, if infrequent poster – although I have had several interesting discussions!
If I may, I’d like to beg your indulgence in reading this post from a layman. I do not know whether the points I make are strong enough to warrant an open discussion, but I would appreciate an opinion that I am at least making a valid point! I appreciate you are busy and entirely understand if this missive goes unanswered.
*
Should science make sense?
The best way to start dealing with a problem is to admit there is a problem.
As a non-scientist, I believe science should make sense and, to that extent, I asked a question some time ago on this blog. The question is simple:
“How much does CO2 contribute to the Greenhouse Effect?” The answer can be expressed as a percentage of the Greenhouse Effect (GE), or a direct temperature figure, since the overall figure of the GE is generally agreed to be approximately 33 deg C.
So far, no one on this or any other blog I have visited has been able to provide me with a suitably supported (by empirical evidence) answer to this question. All they have are estimates based on models. If anyone has an answer based on real-world measurements, I would love to know. Given that ‘uncertainty’ seems to play an increasingly large part in the cAGW debate, I would prefer to witness minimal uncertainty about the core subject.
Estimates of the contribution of CO2 vary from 9-26%. (Ref: Kiehl & Trenberth 96)
(Ref: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/lacis_01/.) (Ref: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/)
A Lacis quotes 20% for CO2 and a further 5% for other GHGs so I’ll work with this for the purpose of this post. Let me therefore – and for the sake of this post – assume that Lacis’ figures are correct.
The Greenhouse Effect is currently approximately 33 deg C. In 1850 the measured global temperature was 0.8 deg C cooler than today, so lets say appx 32 deg C for the sake of argument. 20% of 32 C is 6.4 C. Hence the contribution of CO2 was, according to Lacis, equal to appx 6.4 C back in 1850. Just to be clear about this important point, back in 1850 the 280 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere contributed – according to A Lacis – 6.4 deg C towards the GE. He asserts that, additionally, the other radiative GHGs exert a further 5% (1.6 C in 1850) contribution.
The radiative forcing theory of cAGW is a ‘given’ by many posters. Some well-known contributors to the blogosphere – and who refer to themselves as scientists – consider anyone who doubts the veracity of the radiative theory of cAGW to be ‘stupid’. But the radiative properties of individual CO2 and other GHG molecules, of themselves, aren’t the problem. They are not even the debate; there is no doubt that thee molecules have radiative properties. It is the quantification of the theory based on those radiative properties into much-hyped alarm that is the subject of most heated debate. The term ‘catastrophic’ was not added to the AGW debate by sceptics, but by the IPCC itself (Ref: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2-4.html) Over the years, it is the ‘catastrophic’ nature of AGW that has been pushed by the media, the politicians and the climate scientists who endorse it.
Yet it is the ‘catastrophic’ label that is the least supported by observed evidence. That CO2 can absorb and re-emit radiation has been pretty well established, and this fact should (nb) imply a certain (nb) contribution to the GE by CO2 and the other radiative GHGs. However, ‘certain’ can mean any quantity from ‘negligible’ to ‘significant’. Those who fully support the cAGW theory state the quantity to be significant; those who are sceptical state it is negligible, or at least not proven. The ‘lukewarmers’ probably think it is somewhere in between but I don’t know of anyone who states it is zero, given the ability of CO2 to absorb and re-emit radiation. To attempt to quantify the exact contribution is therefore entirely understandable. However, honest science demands, in my opinion, that the prediction – initially made by Arrhenius and then reinforced by Callendar – is supported by observed data. (Ref: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm)
If the data effectively falsifies (or fails to support) the prediction, then the prediction – or hypothesis, or theory, or suggestion – is invalid.
If we approach the subject from the point of view of logic, rather than science, we may end up with a clearer view.
If the Radiative Transfer Theory of cAGW is correct, ‘consensus logic’ would dictate that AGW is not only going to increase but it will increase at an accelerative rate. This is certainly the idea being pushed onto Joe Public via the MSM and pro-AGW literature. (Ref: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/postpn245.pdf)
The IPCC reports, and subsequent political statements, frequently use the two adjectives ‘rapid’ and ‘accelerating’ when applied to the effects of AGW.
The lack of warming since 1998, and the lack of acceleration overall, is an effective falsification of the theory as originally posited. When challenged on this, supporters of the radiative theory will usually attempt to explain the anomaly using various arguments such as ‘natural variation’ or ‘negative feedbacks’ or, the ‘warming is in the post (or something like the ill-advised oil tanker analogy)’.
There is, however, no specific real-world evidence for either the observed warming being due to anthropogenic GHGs, or for any of the other arguments used to explain the lack of predicted warming. The IPCC indicates that the year 1850 marks the start of accurate temperature data recording. (Ref: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-3-1-1.html)
The IPCC also states that anthropogenic effects commenced in the mid-eighteenth century (Ref: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-human-and.html.) Since 1850, there has been an overall warming of appx 0.8 C in just over 160 years. I will use the HadCRUt data for the purpose of this post. Ref: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt)
In this period, there have been three distinct warming sub-periods: 1875-1878, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998. Each sub-period has been followed by a further sub-period of relative cooling. There is currently no way of knowing what portion of the warming has been contributed by either anthropogenic or natural factors. Some argue that the period 1975-1998 was ‘anthropogenic’ whilst the earlier sub-periods were ‘natural’. This argument appears to have no logical foundation. The sub-period 1910-1940 warming was appx 0.8 C and the sub-period 1975-1998 warming was appx 0.8 C. To attribute a different reason for these two (close) periods of similar warming may be valid, but there is presently no definitive evidence to suggest a difference. If, as some suggest, the CO2 ‘signature’ commenced in 1975, then the lack of subsequent warming since 1998 needs to be similarly explained. The fact remains that the overall warming since 1850 is 0.8 C, which is an overall dataset trend of appx 0.06 C per decade.
So where is the evidence to support the initial theory by Arrhenius? For CO2 to exert a significant effect, there has to be a fundamental reason. In my view, the argument of molecular radiative forcing fails when it is faced with numbers, historic data and logic. In a well-mixed dry atmosphere each molecule of radiative GHGs will be surrounded by – very approximately – 2500 molecules of Nitrogen, Oxygen and Argon. This is because all the ‘dry’ GHGs together make up less than 0.04% of the dry atmosphere. The figure of 2500 assumes that all the molecules are of similar size but the numbers shouldn’t be too far off. At the relevant wavelengths, O2, N2 and Ar molecules are incapable of absorbing or emitting radiation. This means they cannot be heated by radiation. They can only be heated by conduction. With the low concentration of radiative GHGs, relatively few will be heated this way. The only other molecule in the atmosphere which is capable of absorbing ‘relevant’ radiation is H2O. If we average the amount of H2O in the atmosphere, we get appx 2.5% but this is an addition to the dry atmosphere. This means that of the 102.5% ‘real’ atmosphere, 99.96% is incapable of being warmed by radiation and only 2.54% is capable of being warmed by radiation. Also, only 0.04% is capable of emitting radiation. Why is this important? Because it shows that, for anthropogenic GHGs to be credited with having a significant (as opposed to negligible) warming effect, their natural counterparts must have had the ability to exert a significant effect prior to 1850. If not, they are a practical irrelevance in the real world, particularly compared to H2O. Hence the question at the top of this post. To develop the question: how can 280 ppmbv (0.028%) contribute 6.4 C to the GE, when a relatively large increase in GHGs (appx 40%) to 390 ppmbv can only be credited – by some – with only an unknown portion of 0.8 C?
This is what doesn’t make sense to me. To attribute the anomaly in contribution to ‘the log effect’, or ‘negative feedbacks’ or ‘an oil tanker analogy’ effectively discredits the contribution prior to 1850. If the warming diminishes with increasing GHG addition, then what is the problem? If assumed anthropogenic forcings lead to assumed anthropogenic negative feedbacks, then what is the problem (in terms of warming)? If the oil tanker has taken a long time to commence its turn, then how come it is currently turning the opposite way with the rudder still applied in the initial direction?
Dr Curry, I put it to you that any debates about natural periodic oscillations, uncertainty or political mitigation policies, whilst of academic interest, are minor compared to clarifying the initial basis upon which the debate is centred.
On a personal note, I am saddened by the alacrity with which some scientists have allowed themselves to become subsumed in politics. I appreciate scientists are human but I have always considered that objectivity is a prerequisite of the discipline. You appear to demonstrate objectivity and balance. I would also like to say that at least your blog allows for a reasoned and considerate debate without dogma, and I hold you in high regard for that.
If I have made some fundamental error in any of the above points, please let me know!
Kind regards,
Arfur Bryant
That’s definitely worth ‘Arfur Crown. As a non-scientist, I find it very coherent. Convincing rebuttal, anyone?
I missed this one.
I tend to skim over long posts, but found this one a good read. Well referenced and easy to follow from my layman’s perspective.
I generally agree with Arfur’s position wrt AGW and it is a position based on the science (or lack thereof) and not dogma.
Well done.
Erratum
Paragraph starting “So where is the evidence…”, Line 19, new sentence should read:
“Also, only 0.04% is anthropogenically affected and capable of emitting radiation.”
Sorry, rushed proof reading!
Faustino and peterdavies252, many thanks for you kind words and for commenting. I appreciate your time.
Arfur
0.04% is about 400ppm. I suppose you meant 0.04% of 400ppm is anthropogenically affected. Any matter above absolute zero temeperature is capable of emiting their specific radiation spectrums of wavelengths if the surrounding atmospere is less than the matter. If the temperature above, the matter absorb the like radiation only, not all of the wave spectrums.
Thanks SamNC,
What I was trying to say (most inarticulately) was that only 0.04% is classed as ‘anthropogenic gasses’, as the IPCC does not include water vapour in its list of anthropogenic radiative factors (see AR4-wg1-Ch 2 p135/136). I agree that the percentage of the 400ppm which is attributable to anthropogenic reasons is relatively small, although maybe not as small as 0.04%!
Regards,
I don’t agree with Mosher’s definition of a lukewarmer. I think a lukewarmer is characterized by the following attributes:
(1) Climate change is complicated and in most cases, data are noisy and of inadequate duration.
(2) Most (if not all) estimates of climate sensitivity depend on data that are not adequate, and are therefore dubious.
(3) Nevertheless, rising CO2 has a tendency to produce warming and it is highly likely that further increases in CO2 in the 21st century will produce additional warming.
(4) The role of the El Nino – La Nina balance in the Pacific Ocean is important in regulating the climate and it is likely that preponderance of El Ninos from 1900 to 1940 and from 1976 to 2000 contributed significantly to warming in those periods (along with rising CO2). The future depends to some degree on the vagaries of the Pacific Ocean.
(5) The history of “natural” climate change over the past 2,000 years is uncertain due to the inadequacies of most proxies. The “hockey stick” is based on bad math.
(6) The earth warmed over the past 120 years, but measures of that warming are probably on the high side due to imperfections in the monitoring system and procedures for data processing.
(7) The claims of alarmists that they can estimate future temperature rise due to rising CO2 are fragile.
(8) The claims by alarmists of catastrophe for humanity due to rising temperatures from rising CO2 are exaggerated, but nevertheless are worthy of concern.
(9) All things considered, we should vigorously push decarbonization in the 21st century through improved energy efficiency, development of renewable energy, and other steps. Getting all nations of the world on board to do this will be difficult.
(10) With global population rising, and developing nations industrializing, world demand for energy will continue to rise in the 21st century despite improvements in energy efficiency.
(11) Reaching goals set by governments (80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050) (actually 87% reduction from BAU in 2050) is desirable, but almost certainly not feasible technically or economically.
(12) Despite our best efforts to decarbonize, CO2 concentrations will undoubtedly double in the 21st century if the world is to be provided with adequate energy to operate.
(13) Providing the people of the world with energy is more important than controlling CO2 emissions. If we have to choose between the two, let’s opt for energy.
Wow. Just wow.
A quick skip through the thread and not a single coherent post which explains the empirical observations. Except for Steve Mosher, whose definition of “lukewarmer” (>50% likelihood that sensitivity is between 1.2 – 3.0C/doubling) sounds mainstream to me.
So many wacko pet obsessions. So much reference to libertarian economics (Lewandowsky anyone…) It’s like an online asylum.
Judith, honestly, what goes through your mind when you read this stuff?
Fame and fortune? Conquer Portugal, then the world.
Yeah, it struck me that there was little in Mosher’s definition of “lukewarmer” that most of us “warmists” wouldn’t agree with.
VTG said:
Their skepticism will be proven right by reason of insanity. It’s been known to work occasionally in a court of law, so it has become their “best case” argument.
Here’s the case for AGW:
1) Man made emissions will more than double atmospheric CO2 by the century’s end
(evidence – direct measurement. Isotopic analysis, oxygen depletion and mass balance confirm attribution)
2) A CO2 doubling will raise equilibrium temperature by just over one degree C without feedbacks.
(evidence – direct measurement of CO2 absorption spectrum. Line by line heat transfer model of the atmosphere)
3) Feedbacks will amplify this to a range roughly 2-4 degrees
(evidence: GCMs or paleoclimate – ice cores. Low sensitivity is incompatible with the existence of ice ages)
That’s all you need. There’s plenty more of course, for example
4) Warming already realised is consistent with sensitivity of 2-4 degrees
(evidence: surface record, satellite record, ocean heat uptake, ice retreating and many other proxies)
Now, here’s a challenge. Without resorting to paragraphs of waffle let’s have a theory which explains the evidence of 1-3 *and* is self consistent and coherent.
Oh, and btw, you must obey the standard laws of physics.
Good luck with that
In regard to obtaining climate sensitivity from paleoclimate data, I suggest you go to http://www.spaceclimate.net and scroll down to “Ancient Climates” and click to download the pdf that reviews attempts to derive climate sensitivity from paleoclimate data. I concluded:
“A review of the various studies of the relationship between CO2 concentration and global climate from paleo data. This includes studies of the Last Glacial Maximum, data over hundreds of thousands and millions of years, dating back as far as 500 million years. Attempts to derive climate sensitivity are obstructed by lack of reliable critical data.”
As to the rest of your message, apparently you are one of those who derive a dollar’s worth of conclusions from a penny’s worth of data.
VTG, you write “2) A CO2 doubling will raise equilibrium temperature by just over one degree C without feedbacks.
(evidence – direct measurement of CO2 absorption spectrum. Line by line heat transfer model of the atmosphere)”
Sorry, VTG, this is just plain wrong. The claim that CO2 doubling will raise global temperatures has nothing to do with the line by line radiative transfer models. The radiative transfer model yields a change of radiative forcing of around 3.7 Wm-2. The problem is, how do we estimate the change in global temperature when the radiative forcing changes by 3.7 Wm-2? This is where we find the dubious physics, and the unsupported assumption that the whole of this change in forcing must be countered by radiation changes alone, with no consideration of a potential change of lapse rate.
Jim, lapse rate feedbacks are included in the overall feedbacks referred to in point 3. As I note, there is GCM and paleoclimate independent evidence showing a low sensitivity is highly unlikely. An inconvenient truth for sceptics, no? As with all these topics, there’s an excellent review of the multiple studies in this area at Skeptical Science for laymen such as ourselves.
Donald, I won’t do you the disservice of critiquing your 53 page PDF in one paragraph, but constrain myself to observing that your laudable enterprise includes the very self aware note that the standard literature includes “arguments that are difficult for this writer to comprehend.”
If I were you, I would spend some more time on that comprehension.
VTG, you write “Jim, lapse rate feedbacks are included in the overall feedbacks referred to in point 3.”
Sorry, again, you are wrong, as you were with your original statement, which you did not scknowledge. The potential change in lapse rate is NOT a feedback. It is a parallel potential way in which the change in radiative forcing can be countered. This means that the hypothetical change in temperature which might result from the additional CO2 to the atmopshere never happens. So the estimations of what happens to the feedbalcs are just plain wrong.
See Ar4 Fig 8.14 for example
VTG,
At the end of all this you appeal to the authority of the IPCC. So that’s all you’ve got, eh. Appeal to a politicised UN body.
Peter – it’s just a graph of the published results on feedbacks.
Your dogmatic libertarianism has you swinging at shadows.
There is a somewhat arbitrary element to what is and isn’t considered a feedback. However, in the standard frame of reference for radiative forcing a change in the lapse rate is considered a feedback. You can argue that it isn’t a feedback if you like, but you need to realise doing so is simply changing the frame of reference and makes no difference to the overall picture.
Very Tall Guy: A CO2 doubling will raise equilibrium temperature
Because the Earth climate system is never in equilibrium, that’s not a relevant point. As explained by Kondepudi and Prigogine in their textbook on modern thermodynamics, a high-dimensional non-linear dissipative system, even with constant input, can not be assumed even to have an equilibrium, or a steady state, or even a stationary distribution.
Feedbacks will amplify this to a range roughly 2-4 degrees
This is assumed but not known. Citing the GCMs as evidence when they are demonstrably not very accurate is at best a leap of faith; ignoring the fact that the feedback effects of clouds are not known is positively anti-science.
MattStat,
so, what’s your point Matt? The *implication* is that the climate is fundamentally unpredictable.
However, the Milankovitch cycles appear to contradict that view, being both predictable and requiring a high sensitivity for the wide swings in climate that result.
So, please build on your post and give us your theory which explains the evidence of 1-3 *and* is self consistent and coherent.
VTG and Matt
Sorry to cut in on your exchange, but there appears to be a mis-communication (or misunderstanding) between you.
(Among other things) Matt states to the overall feedbacks assumed by the IPCC climate model simulations:
Then VTG asks Matt to
It appears to me that it is up to the defender of the hypothesis (or premise in this case) that net total feedbacks amplify the theoretical “clear-sky no-feedback 2xCO2 climate sensitivity” by a factor of 2 to 4, to come up with the scientific evidence to support this premise, not up to the skeptic of the premise to come up with a theory why the assumed hypothesis (or premise) is incorrect.
Have I got this ass-backward – or am I right?
If I’m right, it’s up to you, VTG, to cite the specific scientific evidence supporting the net overall 2 to 4-fold increase of climate sensitivity from feedbacks.(assuming you are in agreement with this premise).
As IPCC has conceded (and Matt has mentioned):
Yet IPCC models assume (or estimate) a fairly strongly positive net overall feedback from clouds, without which the overall CS would be significantly less than the cited range. In AR4 WG1 Ch.8, p.633, IPCC states:.
So the “cloud feedback” assumed by the IPCC models constitutes an equivalent of 1.3°C out of the 3.2°C overall climate sensitivity (or 41% of the total).
This is probably the first place where the IPCC premise (or hypothesis) should be backed by some scientific evidence, don’t you guys think?
For if this model-based assumption turns out to be false, and net cloud feedback is actually strongly negative (as Spencer + Braswell, 2007, observed from CERES satellites after AR4 was published), we have a whole new 2xCO2 CS of around 1°C, rather than one that is 2 to 4 times this high.
Max
Manacker
“Have I got this ass-backward – or am I right? ”
You’re ass-backward.
Judith’s challenge is for sceptics to “make your best case”
I naively assumed this “best case” would be a consistent theory of climate which showed that the impact of CO2 was low.
Your “best” is a reference to a *single* study, published in a non-mainstream paper, the editor of which resigned afterwards when he realised how he’d been misled, saying “I would like to take the responsibility for this editorial decision and, as a result, step down as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Remote Sensing”
This is way beyond weak. In fact, it’s pathetic.
Milankovitch optimum conditions for glacier growth is axial and orbital precession, which have different periods, becoming aligned at the point where temperature difference between northern hemisphere winter and summer is minimal. Warmer winter encourages more inches of snowfall and cooler summer melts less of it. As more land is covered by snow for more of the year the increasing albedo acts a positive feedback for even more southerly advance.
This does not speak to high sensitivity as albedo change from rocks to ice is a huge amount of energy no longer absorbed by the surface.
Dave Springer,
yes, that’s right, albedo feedback is one of them. Add up the others too, see what you get…
@vtg (whoever that is)
I’ve already falsfied your hypothesis that Milankovitch cycles require high sensitivity. A very low sensitivity would work as well because albedo changes are arbitrarily large feedbacks.
You would need to demonstrate that water vapor feedback is positive for warming. Given that the atmosphere stops well short of complete saturation or 100% cloud cover it becomes obvious that water vapor has a negative feedback which limits RH and total cloud cover. The highest mean annual temperature on the planet happens to be an equatorial desert not an equatorial jungle which is further evidence that water vapor feedback is net negative. Moreover the record highest annual mean temperature was recorded from 1960-1966. One might expect with CO2 growth since then being about 30% the record would have been set more recently, eh? Without water vapor amplification the sensitivity to CO2 doubling is a comfortable 1C and that probably only happens over land where water available for evaporation in response to increased downwelling far infrared is minimal. Wherever water is avaialble for evaporation latent heat transport (with no change in surface temperature which is precisely why it’s called ‘latent’) dominates the surface heat budget on upward flux side. The actual sensitivity to CO2 doublings might be quite a bit lower than 1C globally due to the ocean’s poor ability to be warmed by downwelling far infrared. Trenberth’s so-called missing heat is in a sphere surrounding the earth with a radius of about 50 light years. It got there through latent transfer to the cloud deck and from clouds to space by radiative transfer.
The above is copacetic with all the physical evidence.
@vtg (whoever that is)
In addition, Dessler 2012 (in press, preprint below)
http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/216/dessler2012.pdf
reanalysis of the decade ending in 2010 using both control GCMs with internal variability-only and GCMs incorporating anthropogenic forcings finds the control group the more skillful. Dessler identifies lapse rate associated with cloud formation to be the source of error in the latter which is precisely what I identified before Dessler’s study was released although mine was just from a rough evaluation of the physical properties of water especially in regard to response to downwelling far infrared. Dessler goes on to make a gratuitous warning (he’s an alarmist so he must still sound the alarm however muted it may be) not to become complacent about climate change just because internal variability stabilized it from 2000-2010.
His warning would have been muted far more if he’d included 2010-2012 in the reanalysis because global average temperature took a scary-large nosedive in the past 20 months.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2010/plot/wti/from:2010/trend
If the above trend lasts for another 20 years we’ll be left with no more than fond wish that anthropogenic CO2 could warm the planet in any significant degree.
@vtg (whoever that is)
correction: I should have written “scary nosedive in the past 32 months” not the past 20 months. Lost a year’s worth of months there going back to 2010. Mibad. The plot is for the correct period of time however.
Very Tall Guy
You write:
I really can’t help it that you made a “naive assumption”, VTG. It can happen to the best of us.
But the topic is NOT whether or not I can present to you “a consistent theory of climate” to disprove the model-derived 2 to 4-fold increase in the “estimated clear-sky-no-feedback-2xCO2-temperature-response caused by feedbacks” – again you’ve got it ass-backward (as I pointed out earlier).
You asked for my “best case”.
There are actual physical observations which point
a) to a very much lower short-term water vapor feedback than assumed by the IPCC GCMs (Minschwaner + Dessler, 2004)
b) to a “decrease” in long-term tropospheric specific humidity with warming (NOAA record from weather balloons since 1948)
c) to a strongly negative net feedback from clouds with warming (Spencer + Braswell, 2007)
[There may be other examples of “physical evidence”, but these are the ones I’ll rest my “best case” on for now.]
So here’s my “BEST CASE”:
Ball’s in your court, VTG…
Tip: Referring me to AR4 WG1or to any model simulations is NOT citing “empirical scientific data” (check Feynman again)
Max
PS And cease and desist with silly snide remarks, such as: “This is way beyond weak. In fact, it’s pathetic.” They only backfire on you.
Very Tall Guy: So, please build on your post and give us your theory which explains the evidence of 1-3 *and* is self consistent and coherent.
I am making the case for skepticism, as suggested by Dr. Curry. There is no adequate theory.
So, you have no consistent or coherent theory of climate.
Thought not.
Very Tall Guy: you have no consistent or coherent theory of climate.
That is what I said, though I usually emphasize that there is no reasonably accurate and complete theory of climate. I expect that there will be a reasonably accurate and complete theory of climate 100 years from now. maybe sooner. Your argument is that one can not be skeptical of current theory because that future theory has not yet been developed.
I naively assumed this “best case” would be a consistent theory of climate which showed that the impact of CO2 was low.
That would be naive. A case for skepticism of a proposed theory is the list of inaccuracies and omissions of that theory. A reason to doubt your theory, for example, is that cloud feedback effects are not known, contrary to your assertion. Another is that the concept of “equilibrium” is empty for nonlinear dissipative systems of high dimension with non-constant (or even constant) input. Put differently, you have a coherent theory of something that does not exist.
1) Agree
2) Agree
3) How does CO2 forcing account for the RWP, MWP, LIA etc.?
Perhaps this image might give you a clue.
http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg824/scaled.php?server=824&filename=bondetal2001.jpg&res=landing
The red line is a proxy for the Sun’s magnetic activity.
The blue line is a proxy for N Atlantic temps.
CO2 was essentially flat during this period.
Paleoclimate infers the Sun.
GCM evidence is no evidence at all.
Derek,
Co2 forcing is only one of many factors affecting climate. No-one claims Co2 forcing is the only factor in climate.
VeryTallGuy
No.
But (as part of its “CAGW” premise) IPCC claims that human GHG forcing was very likely responsible for most of the observed global warming since 1950.
Yet IPCC cannot back this claim with empirical scientific evidence – only with results of model simulations, which are no better than their input assumptions.
Our hostess here has pointed out that IPCC’s claim can be questioned scientifically, because of the many uncertainties regarding the relative importance of natural versus anthropogenic forcing factors.
On top of all this comes the current “unexplained lack of warming”, which has lasted for 180 months now, and which Kevin Trenberth has described as a “travesty” – in an interview Trenberth suggested that the “missing heat” may have been reflected “out to space” with clouds “acting as a natural thermostat”. UK MetOffice simply attributed it to natural variability.
This all makes good sense to me, but I am rationally skeptical of the above IPCC claim and its “CAGW” premise..
So you see, VTG, no one is challenging the validity of “AGW” per se.
It is the “C” in “CAGW” that is being challenged.
And you appear unable to defend the “C” with scientific evidence.
Max
VTG Wrote
Here’s the case for AGW:
1) Man made emissions will more than double atmospheric CO2 by the century’s end
(evidence – direct measurement. Isotopic analysis, oxygen depletion and mass balance confirm attribution)
My response- Wrong on many counts. CO2 concentrations are far more likely NOT more than double by 2100. Based on the trend of growth of CO2 and the improving efficiency of automobiles it is unlikely that concentrations will be higher than 550 ppm by 2100. Your comments on isotropic analysis etc. is foolishly inaccurate as it is not possible to determine the percentage of human released CO2 in the atmosphere. There are only means to roughly estimate the percentage.
2) A CO2 doubling will raise equilibrium temperature by just over one degree C without feedbacks.
(evidence – direct measurement of CO2 absorption spectrum. Line by line heat transfer model of the atmosphere)
My response- Agreed
3) Feedbacks will amplify this to a range roughly 2-4 degrees
(evidence: GCMs or paleoclimate – ice cores. Low sensitivity is incompatible with the existence of ice ages)
My response- Largely supposition on your part. GCM’s are poor predictors and the paleoclimate record tells you almost nothing definitive.
Nothing you have written provides evidence to support a warming rate greater than 1.2C and does not demonstrate that there are net long term harms due to it being warmer.
Very Tall Guy
You apparently still don’t get it.
It is not up to the skeptic of your posited premise to come up with theories which “obey the laws of physics” to demonstrate that your premise is false.
It is up to YOU to provide compelling scientific evidence to support your premise.
Let me address your “case for AGW“ one point at a time, using simply basic logic.
First of all, let’s be clear. I am not questioning whether or not:
– CO2 is a GHG
– GHGs absorb and slow down outgoing LW radiation, thereby contributing to warming
– Humans emit CO2
– Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased, at least since reliable measurements were introduce at Mauna Loa in the 1950s
– “Globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature” HadCRUT3) has increased by around 0.7 degrees C since the record started in 1850
So, if that’s what you mean by “AGW”, I have no reason to be skeptical of your premise.
But I assume that you are talking about “CAGW”, the IPCC “consensus” premise that human GHGs (principally CO2) have been the principal cause for global warming since 1950 and this represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment unless steps are taken to drastically curtail GHG emissions (principally CO2). Right?
Now let’s get to your points:
More than double compared to what?
If you are referring to the estimated 1750 “baseline” value of 280 ppmv, you are probably right. If this continues to increase at the current exponential rate, we should reach around 580 ppmv by 2100. If you are referring to today’s value of 392 ppmv (which we have reached with no adverse climate impacts noticed yet, thank you) you are most likely exaggerating. There is only enough carbon in all the optimistically inferred possible fossil fuel resources on our planet (WEC 2010) to get us to around 1,030 ppmv WHEN THEY ARE ALL 100% USED UP, so it appears unlikely that we would reach 784 ppmv by 2100. Human population growth rates have already slowed down and are expected to continue to do so, with population reaching around 10 billion by 2100 (UN estimate). So let’s agree that CO2 could reach 560-600 ppmv by the end of this century (IPCC cases B1 and A1T). OK?
Two problems here.
First let’s again establish the baseline. If you are referring to the estimated “pre-industrial” level of 280 ppmv, I’d agree. This means 1 degree C hypothetical warming from CO2 alone between 1750 and 2100, of which we have seen roughly half today, using the logarithmic relation, leaving slightly more than 0.5 degrees hypothetical warming from CO2 alone between today and 2100 .
The second problem is your leap of faith from laboratory measurements of CO2 spectrum to postulated global atmospheric warming from a ppmv increase of CO2 in our atmosphere. Sorry. There are some intermediate steps you’ve skipped – such as providing scientific evidence based on empirical data (actual physical observations or reproducible laboratory experimentation) to support this hypothetical warming estimate. It’s a nice estimate, to be sure, but it is not corroborated by any empirical data as far as I know. Demonstrate that I’m wrong, if you can.
Here you are taking a giant leap of faith. Evidence: GCMs or paleoclimate – ice cores. Sorry, VTG, NO SALE. GCMs are no “evidence” at all – their estimates are only as good as the assumptions that have been fed in (you know, the old “GIGO” syndrome). And subjective interpretation of dicey paleoclimate data is poor evidence: it’s like reading tea leaves; one can “prove” almost anything one wants to. Bring some real scientific evidence, i.e. empirical data based on real-time observations, to demonstrate the two to four-fold amplification. It should be easy, if it truly exists. To make it easy, start off with the cloud amplification (IPCC tells us this is fairly strong, from a 2xCO2 CS of 1.9 degrees to 3.2 degrees C, yet Spencer + Braswell subsequently found based on physical observations from CERES satellites that the overall net cloud feedback was strongly negative instead of strongly positive, as estimated by the IPCC GCMs. This would reduce 2xCO2 CS from 1.9 to around 1.0 degrees C, assuming all the other IPCC model assumptions are OK.
VTG, you can make a reasonable case for AGW per se. But so far you have not made a reasonable case for the IPCC “CAGW” premise as outlined above. And that is what is being debated here.
Keep trying.
Max
@VeryTallGuy | September 19, 2012 at 10:18 am |
“1) Man made emissions will more than double atmospheric CO2 by the century’s end
(evidence – direct measurement. Isotopic analysis, oxygen depletion and mass balance confirm attribution)”
Regarding your evidence:
Isotopic analysis.
I’m not sure if this is evidence for anything. Just about every other reasonable source for increased atmospheric CO2 (land ad ocean CO2 fluxes) will have been ultimately derived from plants and will therefore have the same isotopic ratio as burning fossil fuels.
Oxygen depletion.
This is more like speculation than evidence. Correlation of oxygen depletion with fossil fuel burning is poor. It is just as likely (and just as speculative) that the depletion is due to land use changes, or perhaps simply due to natural changes in the biosphere as temperature and CO2 rise.
Mass balance.
The mass balance argument is a bit of a scam. It is based on the premise that natural CO2 fluxes into and out of the atmosphere remain unchanged regardless of atmospheric CO2 concentration. I believe this violates Le Chatelier’s principle.
“2) A CO2 doubling will raise equilibrium temperature by just over one degree C without feedbacks.
(evidence – direct measurement of CO2 absorption spectrum. Line by line heat transfer model of the atmosphere)”
On the Science of Doom website, there is a post titled “Understanding Atmospheric Radiation and the ‘Greenhouse’ Effect – Part Four”. In Figure 4 of that post SoD shows the relationship between the lapse rate and TOA radiative flux, and between the lapse rate and DLR. When the lapse rate is 0 K/km, DLR is at a maximum. At the same lapse rate of 0 K/km, the TOA flux equals the flux at the Earth’s surface, implying no greenhouse effect. It would seem SoD’s calculation is contradicting your evidence.
“3) Feedbacks will amplify this to a range roughly 2-4 degrees
(evidence: GCMs or paleoclimate – ice cores. Low sensitivity is incompatible with the existence of ice ages)”
GCMs have yet to prove themselves. Paleoclimate data shows that, during periods of glaciation, temperature affects CO2 concentration, not vice versa.
VTG says,
Where’s he been. How could he misunderstand so badly what the real debate that concerns the public is about and yet have the audacity to criticise the blog host.
To make it simple for VTG to understand what he’s missed, I’ll explain in a short sentence:
“VTG, what is the consequence of warming?
Is it good or bad? On balance, is it more good or more bad?
How much?
Is it significant? In what context is it significant?
Answers with scary adjectives are irrelevant.
Answer quantitatively in a way that is policy relevant. Such as what are the costs and benefits of warming? What are the benefits of potential sudden planetary cooling events avoided or delayed? And what are the costs and benefits of mitigation policy options that based on realistically achievable implementation assumptions.
“1) Man made emissions will more than double atmospheric CO2 by the century’s end
(evidence – direct measurement. Isotopic analysis, oxygen depletion and mass balance confirm attribution)”
What a joke on oxygen depletion! All climate model result jesters have no sense of order of magnitudes, such as 20% compared with 0.04% (400ppm).
Mass balance? HA! HA! HA! HA!
“2) A CO2 doubling will raise equilibrium temperature by just over one degree C without feedbacks.
(evidence – direct measurement of CO2 absorption spectrum. Line by line heat transfer model of the atmosphere)”
One degree C rise per doubling CO2 amount? A total BS. CO2 does not absorb all spectrum, only a few specific wavelengths and can only release them back at those specific wavelengths. CO2 does not retain absorbed. Climate modeling jesters are extremely naive about the results having no clues other factors affecting their models.
“3) Feedbacks will amplify this to a range roughly 2-4 degrees
(evidence: GCMs or paleoclimate – ice cores. Low sensitivity is incompatible with the existence of ice ages)”
Another BS about feedbacks. GCMs are GIGOs. You blindly trusted GOs from GCMs. You were unable to differentiate modeling results and reality.
“Oh, and btw, you must obey the standard laws of physics.”
Your 1), 2) and 3) violated all laws of physics. You really need to study physics hard. At your present misinformed physics knowledge, your professor should give you an ‘F’ in your physics exams.
Finally, for anyone who’d actually like to *learn* about climate science on a blog, try this oasis of sanity.
http://scienceofdoom.com/
100% agree.
A load of CO2 BS. Don’t waste your time.
Excuse my alias, this is Beth Cooper using a family computer. My young nephew gave me unsolicited “tech support” : ( and I can’t log on. This is a test run…
Obviously worse than the unsolicited tech support from my cats. At least one chose to vomit this morning on my wife’s netbook rather than my PC.
Hi Beth
More unsolicited tech support here :)
Try a system restore in control panel under “system” icon in your Control Panel. It will take your system back to a previous restore point that was used by your MS Updates service. It needs to be prior to your nephew’s intervention. Just follow the prompts. No harm will be done to your programs and data.
Oh BTW if you are not able to boot due to password (I never use them – too much hassle) you need to boot with Windows disk in the ROM drive.
I haven’t actually plowed through all the comments, so I can’t guarantee this hasn’t been brought up, but here’s my favorite detailed skeptical argument: Recently somebody linked to a post at RealClimate by Peter Minnett: Why greenhouse gases heat the ocean. This post discusses the skin layer, the top fraction of a millimeter of water which is where all IR from the atmosphere is absorbed, and from which all IR leaving the ocean is radiated. Differences in downwelling IR can produce a difference in the average temperature of this radiating surface (relative to the bulk water below) corresponding to around 0.002ºK/(W/m^2). This data comes from a “ cruise of the New Zealand research vessel Tangaroa” where
The actual source of the IR was clouds, since:
[…]
Now, this all makes perfect sense to me, however AFAIK there are many situations under which most of the loss of heat energy from the ocean is through evaporation. Under these circumstances, a change in skin temperature will translate to a change in evaporation rate, much greater than any change in atmospheric temperature due to radiation (or conduction) from the surface. This means the primary effect of the increased greenhouse effect will be increased evaporation without an equivalent increase in air temperature. Of course, this would only occur when the conditions were right for it, other times and places air temp would increase correspondingly so on average the relative humidity would be the same. But when conditions are right, increased downwelling IR will produce increased relative humidity. This would usually (AFAIK) lead to increased cloud formation, increasing the albedo and reducing heat energy gain from shortwave solar radiation. Not only that, but cloud formation would produce a positive feedback up to 25 times as great as a doubling of CO2 (see above). Under these circumstances the effect of increased GHG concentrations would be a reduced overall retention of solar energy, perhaps a substantial one. Now, AFAIK this effect hasn’t been studied, or even considered. Perhaps it has and I just don’t know about it (that would be easy enough, I’m not that good at literature searches), but even if it has, the measurements only began with a cruise that was “recent” in September 2006. This isn’t much time for the whole thing to be considered, modeled, and included in current GCM’s. Even if it has been parametrized, I suspect considerable circularity, as well as a tendency to dismiss the whole thing as trivial because inconvenient. (I’m not talking about political inconvenience here, just the fact that it would add complexity to models if handled fully.)
Sorry about the lack of paragraphs, it seems the comment software stripped out some of my HTML.
OK. So far I have shown three false claims in IPCC’s AR4 WG1 report relating specifically to
– Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the period 1993-2003
– Mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet over the period 1993-2003
– Rate of sea level rise, 1993-2003 versus 1961-2003
Here is another one relating to temperature trends.
IPCC states (AR4, WG1, SPM, p.5):
The actual HadCRUT3 record from 1901 to 2000 showed a linear increase of 0.65°C (rather than 0.6°C), so the difference resulting from the 5-year shift is really only 0.09°C (rather than the implied 0.14°C).
But what is the real reason for this apparent increase? A closer look at the HadCRUT3 record shows that two-thirds of this increase results from the elimination of a strong cooling trend from 1901 to 1905, and only one-third from adding the years 2001 to 2005. So the implied reason for the increase (by the word “therefore”), as well as its implied magnitude is false.
But there is another bit of IPCC “smoke and mirrors” here. IPCC claims that the shorter 50-year period 1956 to 2005 had a warming trend “nearly twice that for the last 100 years”.
An analysis shows they could just as well have said that the 40-year period from 1906 to 1945 at the beginning of the century showed a linear trend nearly twice that for the entire 100 years. The trick here is that shorter periods can always be cherry-picked to show greater trends than longer periods, in a record such as this with several multi-decadal warming and cooling cycles.
IPCC compounds this “smoke and mirrors” approach in AR4 WG1 Ch. 3, p.253, where it shows a graph of the HadCRUT3 temperature record since 1850 with several trend lines covering successively shorter time periods with increasing slopes, with the note:
This is covered in more detail, along with the background explaining how this curious chart came into the report in the first place, in Paul Matthews’ summary under “How the IPCC invented a new calculus.”
http://sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/ipcc
Max
AK,
The surface skin layer situation is a fun issue.
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/science-focus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp.shtml
According to this NASA source, there is a rather large fluctuation in the temperature gradient of the surface skin layer between day/night windy/calm conditions.
Interestingly, the average surface temperature of the global liquid oceans is about 21C degrees, as measured by satellites using radiant physics models to determine temperature. According to surface measurements by various methods at various depths, the average SST is about 16 to 17 degrees C. A rather significant error could be made using the wrong “average” temperature to predict GHG impact on ocean heat uptake if the wrong temperature reference were selected. Luckily, the estimates made in the 70s and 80s were so correct that adjustment of the satellite temperatures readings may soon be required :)
Thanks for the globalwarmingquestions/ipcc link.
By wild coincidence, I stumbled over this yesterday. It verified that I am in fact a complete geek as I almost lost control of my bodily functions laughing at explanations of carbon absorption etc. WARNING: There is some language. Generally though, a lot less than South Park.
Nah, you haven’t truly arrived in Geek City until you understand everything they’re talking about in this xtranormal production below. I quote lines out of it every once in a while when I encounter particularly egregious displays of incompetence by self-annointed experts.
Steven, with sincere respect, and recognizing that reasonable analyses may vary, climate-change decision-making in accord with the USMC’s general rule-of-thumb “Be 70% sure — Then Take Action“ fully accords with your request, eh?
For the common-sense reason, that accepting risk *IS* reasonable.
Indeed, it is necessary, eh? :) :) :)
Thank you for your (very reasonable) request for urgent action, Steven! :) :) :)
Fan, again you fail to address any of my points. Deciding to wait on better information is taking an action. I wasn’t in the Marines. Aren’t they the guys we throw at beachheads and see if they live?
The only case skeptics need to make is the one that has been made very well for quite some time:
That the predictions of current disaster regarding CO2 increases have failed.
That the claims about unusual or more dangerous or more frequent extreme weather have not held up under reasonable scrutiny.
That the case for imminent peril does not hold up under reasonable scrutiny.
That the policy demands have completely failed to make a difference in CO2 or the climate/weather system.
To Steve Mosher, a.k.a lukewarmer:
You say the lower bound of sensivity is 1.2C.
This assumes that no negative feedbacks are possible. Why do you think so?
I’m more with JC on this: sensitivity is between 0 and 10C, which means: we don’t know. All sesitivity numbers mentioned are just guesses.
Mosher is an appeaser which is to say a weakling who eschews a principled position in favor of perceived political advantage ergo lukewarmer. The moderate. The voice of reason. The least controversial. As a self-described conservative living in San Francisco appeasement must be a way of life to him as I can’t imagine how a principled conservative could ever get along in that city.
The question isn’t about Mosher, it’s this: why is the possibility of negative feedbacks discarded ?
There is only one thing I know with absolute certainty: the 300 billion $ or so spent so far, globally, on mitigation (i.e. windmills and solar panels) will have absolutely no effect on climate, ZERO, zilch.
My best case is there is no case yet. Paleo is bogus, aerosols a mystery, cloud feedback responses unknown and major ocean oscillations unpredictable. The sky is falling meme is not working. Policy selling climate scientists should go back to the field and labs and tie up these foundational issues before spiking the football.
+1
There is no theory of climate. There are hypotheses that have failed and hypotheses that have not been tested.
I am having a discussion with VeryTallGuy on an issue that has bothered me for some time. Here on Climate Etc. I have a group of people on both sides of the issue who, I hope, will tolerate my musings, and give me their opinion as to whether I am right, or whether I just have no idea what I am talking about. The issue is no-feedback climate sensitivity.
As I understand the way the estimations are made, it is assumed that the amount of CO2 in the atmopshere instantaneously doubles. This will result in a radiative imbalance of 3.7 Wm-2, which must be countered by a change in surface temperature. The assumption is made that this imbalance is countered solely by radiation effects, and the change in surface temperature is 1.2 C. Then it is assumed that the feedbacks will amplify this number. And is is assumed that a change in lapse rate is a feedback.
I argue that a change in lapse rate is not a feedback; it is a parallel way in which the radiative imbalance can be countered. Therefore, the proper way to do the estimations is to take into account the effect of radiation and lapse rate at the same time. The estimations would then be done by some sort of iterative procedure. One would assume that the surface temperature rises by, say 0.001 C. When this happens x Wm-2 would be countered by a change in radiation, and y Wm-2 would be countered by a change in lapse rate; for a total change of x+y. This procedure would then be repeated until x+y was equal to 3.7 Wm-2., and the amount the surface temperature changed would then be the no-feedback sensitivity.
Am I completely off base on this issue, or does my way of doing the estimations make more sense than that used by the proponents of CAGW?
Jim,
My understanding:
Your description is correct. The effect of the change in lapse rate in the iterative procedure you describe is termed the lapse rate feedback.
See my post above, ref IPCC AR4 fig 8.14.
If you want a proper debate on this I’d recommend Science of doom, not here. You’ll get a far better answer there than I can provide.
VTG, you write “My understanding:
Your description is correct.”
Many thanks. Then if I am correct, I dont want any further discussion. What I want is the modified value of the no-feedback climate sensitivity, when lapse rate is taken into account, which is, presumably, less than 1.2 C. Do you know where I can find this number?
Jim,
You don’t know CO2 physical properties and fall into the trap of climate modeling result BS.
Dr. Curry,
“Somehow, an old post from Nov 2010 Skeptics: make your best case has become revitalized, with some new comments.”
I’ve been recently posting the old link in relation to your “Making the lukewarmer case” article.
I’m seriously considering the development of a website to serve as a Press Kit for the climate science/IPCC conclusions debate. Including a glossary of terms related to the various groups in the debate seems logical. It might be more logical to simply seek agreement so all climate sites can share the same definitions?
IMO, the disinformation in the debate is thwarting reasonable dialogue and the Press needs to understand the difference between Alarmism and the groups who question or support the Science.
I know from experience, when a logical approach occurs to me its likely already available.
Are you aware of a document, site, or effort that has defined the taxonomy of the various self-labeled groups in the climate science debate and or offers a Press Kit?
IMO, properly defining the true meaning of these self-labeled terms and their origin would be a logical dance card for the Press.
I’ve pulled together a general shopping list of terms and was struck by the origin and definition I found for Warmer and LukeWarmer.
see Steven Mosher’s comments:
Making the lukewarmer case Posted on June 1, 2011
by Judith Curry
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/01/making-the-lukewarmer-case/
the labels thing is a bit of a nightmare. a number of people have tried taxonomies, but most don’t really work other than to categorize the extremes in the debate. For example, I have no idea how to categorize myself in any of these schemes.
I wondered if you had self-labeled your position. Its funny that other sites label you as a LukeWarmer which implies more than one definition is being used.
My interest isn’t to define the terms but to poll the various sites to see how they define the terms. Clearly, there are numerous shades of gray within each group.
I’m also have difficulty defining terms for those who support IPCC conclusions. I’m finding the term “Believer” used a lot on the blogs but it implies lack of understanding IMO.
Even if the taxonomy is a work in progress, wouldn’t it help to define the issues within the debate for the Press?
Several things get mixed up in such taxonomies: there is the basic science, then the issue of ‘dangerous’ and then the issue of policies. People can be lukewarm on the science, and then highly risk adverse and alarmist re policy (I think Mosher described himself in this way). So to make sense of this, i think you need to sort out these three aspects of the debate.
we need a matrix :)
I completely agree and the Press needs some basis for Fact Checking that clearly helps them to ask the right questions to background issues.
IMO, this is one of the true causes of miscommunication in the debate.
Understanding of the Science
Basis for self-labeling (Mosher’s LukeWarmer is a good example that reveals the Scientific issue and degree of acceptance)
in relation to behavior regarding perceived importance and policy
example:
“Climate realists believe that the danger of climate change has been exaggerated both as to the magnitude and the degree of human causation, and that most of the proposed “solutions” are not viable anyway.” –Arthur Wiegenfeld
Judith Curry
Yes. And this should start off as simple as possible, into plus, minus (and zero).
a) those who accept IPCC’s “CAGW” premise (for whatever reason)
b) those who reject IPCC’s “CAGW” premise (again, for whatever reason)
c) those who are uncertain
Once you define the premise being debated (i.e. the validity of IPCC’s “CAGW” premise), it’s pretty easy to pick sides.
IMO it is senseless to try to shift the debate to the validity of the GH theory, the accuracy of the temperature record, the shrinking rate of Arctic versus Antarctic sea ice, whether or not a carbon tax is a good thing, etc.
These are peripheral issues to the main scientific debate, which simply revolves around the validity of the “C” in “CAGW”.
That IMO is where “the science is NOT settled”.
Once you have defined this basic split, you can always embellish the matrix. But it should start off simple and digital IMO.
Max
Max @ 6.37, correct, if there is little or no reason to believe in impending catastrophe, then the whole issue is irrelevant. Classify me (b).
John from CA | September 20, 2012 at 1:06 am said: ”’stefanthedenier ,
Like anyone else in the debate you have a right to voice an opinion but it isn’t about me”
John from CA, your questions are too broad; to be answered in one paragraph. If you read this post and 3 other on my ”homepage” will answer on many questions, that you never even asked before. If you want something original – it’s there. Here most of them are parroting same thing – what they have being instructed to do. The only place to learn new, instead of outdated paganism, broaden your knowledge, be fair to yourself: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/climate/
curryja | September 19, 2012 at 2:36 pm | Reply
“the labels thing is a bit of a nightmare. a number of people have tried taxonomies, but most don’t really work other than to categorize the extremes in the debate. For example, I have no idea how to categorize myself in any of these schemes”
I’d characterize you as objective. Non-partisan. Fair and balanced. Unbiased.
Most of the time. No one’s perfect.
Doesn’t prevent you from labeling others though, now does it?
Labeling people is nightmarish, except when you do it. Did I get that right?
Its impossible to avoid the use of labels in the debate but the true meaning of the labels becomes extremely important if used in research and surveys.
The terms Affirmer and Denier are nicely defined in Lord May’s presentation. True Believer is the same as Affirmer — one who blindly accepts the IPCC conclusions with little to no understanding of the Science?
see:
Nullius in Verba
source: http://judithcurry.com/2012/02/10/nullius-in-verba/
by Dr. Judith Curry
The motto of the Royal Society is:
Nullius in verba: on the word of no one
“I encountered Lord May at the Royal Society Uncertainty Workshop, and I liked his presentation Science as Organized Skepticism”
Science as Organized Skepticism by Lord May
http://downloads.royalsociety.org/audio/DM/DM2010_03/May.mp3
I agree. And even if it were possible for any one of use to avoid usage of labels, their use is ubiquitous. Their use is important if it is used in research and surveys, and it is also important in understanding the dynamics of the debate. Who uses them? What type to they use? Do people use the labels accurately? What labels to they object to even as they use labels themselves.
As an example, Judith regularly criticizes the use of the term “denier” but then herself uses the term “true believer,” – which basically has the same connotation of someone who disregards the science and formulates opinions merely on the basis of “faith.”
I think that we should all try to be as precise as possible with the terms we use.
From my observations, I think that there is a range on both sides. On one side, we have a range from those who are those who are relatively unskeptical in their acceptance of the “consensus” viewpoint to those who are skeptical and yet think that statements like “most recent warming is most likely anthropogenic in nature” are valid. On the others side we have a range from those who skeptically reject the “consensus” viewpoint to those who unskeptically reject the “consensus” viewpoint.
Good points Joshua,
““true believer,” – which basically has the same connotation of someone who disregards the science and formulates opinions merely on the basis of “faith.””
I probably would have said on the basis of belief. The interesting question is, do True Believers include individuals who have an extensive understanding of the science?
The term doesn’t exist outside of the minds of those who use it. So the question as you frame it seems to me to be unanswerable.
I think that whenever I have seen it used, it has been used to connote a religious belief (faith) that is not based on science. That would be parallel to the term “denier.” As such, it (like “denier”) is no doubt overused. When used indiscriminately as Judith did, then it reflects bias.
Both terms are probably accurate for some subset of the combatants. But since the terms are so absolute – I’d have to say that the vast majority of the usage is probably quite inaccurate. For example, I have been called a “true believer” many times, by people who have no idea what I do or don’t believe and who make entirely unskeptical assumptions in that regard. Certainly, we have both read many a testimonial from “skeptics” that the term “denier” has been used inaccurately to describe their beliefs.
My own personal perspective is that we all have some element of motivated reasoning that affects our beliefs – and that in effect means that we all reason at some level on the basis of “belief” or “faith,” in a sense.
The impact of that probably varies in degree depending on the individual. However, if anyone doesn’t make a serious attempt to control for the impact of motivated reasoning in their own analysis – by either dismissing the phenomenon of motivated reasoning or arguing that motivated reasoning exists only in those that they are in disagreement with (both of which I see often on both sides of the climate debate) – then they are sending up a red flag about the extent to which “belief” is operational in their analysis.
We all have a bit of “true believer” or “denier” in us. But to characterize someone (particularly someone that you’ve never met) with those labels is bound to be more of a reflection of the label-er than the label-ee.
John from CA
You and Joshua are slipping into a “why” discussion, which becomes a slippery slope.
“Why” someone accepts or rejects the CAGW premise is more difficult to categorize than simply categorizing the “accepters” and “rejecters”. This differentiation should be the first “cut”.
And the debate is NOT about “AGW”, per se (because many who reject the “CAGW” premise accept the validity of AGW per se).
I, personally, count myself in the group who are rationally skeptical of IPCC’s “CAGW” premise, although I can accept the premise that AGW itself is plausible.
Where do you guys stand?
Max
Good points Joshua,
The labels are frequently used in heated conversations and are therefore not representative of self-labeling. The only way to get at the proper terms and definitions is to poll for them.
Warmer, as opposed to Steven Mosher’s usage related to climate sensitivity, could easily apply to one who supports the theory of Global Warming aka Warmer. A Proponent of AGW (note the generalization) doesn’t imply the extent of support for IPCC conclusions.
The use of terms like Skeptic and Climate Denier in research papers and studies without appropriate questions to support self-labeling is very misleading.
Good question manacker,
“I, personally, count myself in the group who are rationally skeptical of IPCC’s “CAGW” premise, although I can accept the premise that AGW itself is plausible.”
“Where do you guys stand?”
Based on the IPCC’s AR4 claim: “90% certainty” that “most” of apparent global warming of the last half of the last century is due to increasing atmospheric CO2, I’m skeptical of their multiplier and CAGW theory.
If this was a simple matter of Scientists working on research to further an understanding of the Climate System, I would fully support the efforts. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case and the inclusion of solution work groups who leverage the the WG1 conclusions further indicates failure by design.
Self-labeling as a Skeptic includes issues beyond the state of the science.
Joshua | September 19, 2012 at 3:14 pm | Reply
You’re a misogynist, huh? An anonymous coward with an inferiority complex and confused sexual identity tossing insults at a courageous woman unafraid to be castigated by her peers for bucking the party line. You’re a real piece of work. Is $14 enough to purchase the courage for you to come out of the closet?
Judith
I’d agree with you that the whole “labeling” idea is a “nightmare”.
It basically started out with simple childish “name calling” and deteriorated from there.
And, yes. The “extremes” are easy to categorize.
But if we establish that the topic of debate is basically the “C” in the “CAGW” premise, then we can categorize those who
a) are convinced that human GHG emissions have been the primary climate driving force since 1950 and therefore represent a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment unless actions are undertaken to drastically reduce human GHG emissions (principally CO2),
b) those who reject this premise for whatever reason and
c) those who are unsure and are still “on the fence”.
Some would like to read a political affiliation into the groups, but I think one should first start with the debate surrounding the science (which we all know is NOT “settled”), before discussing the policy.
From what I’m seeing here and elsewhere, the first two groups appear to be about equally represented among scientists and technically oriented individuals, such as engineers, while those “sitting on the fence” are hard to quantify.
If we expand the topic of debate to include the GH theory per se we have a relatively small percentage who reject this.
So the debate is really about the “C” in “CAGW”, although Group a) would like to move it more into the “comfort zone” of simply defending “AGW”, possibly because they, themselves, are not too sure about the “C” in “CAGW”.
That’s how I see it, as a member of Group b).
Max
You’re correct in your assessment but its a catch 22 for journalists who aren’t up to speed on the debate and the terminology.
Example: The term quality has an excepted definition but is essentially meaningless until specifically defined in context.
If there was an objective Press Kit for the Climate debate, would it help to eliminate the distracting Alarmist nonsense?
John from CA
Thanks for response.
Agree that there are many nuances to the specifics of the ongoing scientific debate, which may be difficult for a journalist (or any other non-specialist to grasp), but that does not change the basic ongoing scientific debate – it is about the validity of IPCC’s “CAGW” premise.
And there one can divide the interested parties into three basic categories:
a) those who accept this premise
b) those who reject this premise
c) those who are undecided
Once these three basic categories are defined (and suitably “labeled” for ease of recognition) one can move on to the “why” questions.
There will obviously be less unanimity in the “rejecters” group, because some individuals may have decided to “reject” the premise for different reasons than others, while the “accepters” are probably more unified (which does not in any way imply that they are, thus, more likely to be correct).
Do you follow my logic here?
I cannot speak for Steven Mosher, but to use him as an example. If he is convinced that AGW exists, but is not convinced that this represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment over the next 100 years or so, he is either a “rejecter” of the “CAGW” premise or he is still “on the fence”.
It would be fairly easy to make a survey of the denizens here to see which of the 3 basic categories each fits in. This could be embellished with a one sentence explanation “why” the respondent has put him/herself in that category.
What do you think?
Max
manacker,
Let’s extend Lord May’s approach for some context.
Affirmer: one who blindly supports the IPCC conclusions with little to no understanding of the science and reports.
Denier: one who blindly rejects the IPCC conclusions with little to no understanding of the science and reports.
Everyone else, to one degree or another, is skeptical of IPCC conclusions. Climate Scientists, Scientists, Warmers, LukeWarmers, and Skeptics support aspects of the IPCC conclusions to varying degrees. The science isn’t settle but a segment of the Climate Science community feels a consensus has been achieved.
Warmer: one who supports the science and IPCC’s consensus of CAGW.
LukeWarmer: one who supports the science but doesn’t support IPCC’s consensus of CAGW.
Skeptic: one who supports portions of the science but doesn’t support consensus for a variety of reasons.
Climate Realist: one who believes the danger of climate change has been exaggerated both as to the magnitude and the degree of human causation, and that most of the proposed “solutions” are not viable.
Alarmists have a vested interest, either financially or psychologically, in the outcome/solutions with an understanding of the science that varies from 0% to 100%. Alarmism is a behavior and can include any of the climate groups.
John from CA | September 19, 2012 at 7:59 pm said: ”Denier: one who blindly rejects the IPCC conclusions with little to no understanding of the science and reports”
John, your comment only points, in which category of nutters you belong.
Deniers of .climatic changes are the second biggest nutters, that ever existed. That’s why the Warmist labeled them ‘Climate change Skeptics / Deniers” it suits the Warmist. .Because even children, before brainwashed; know that climate is in constant change.
2] the biggest nutters are like you; that cannot understands the difference between ”climatic changes” and the phony GLOBAL warmings. Denying global warmings, is like denying that the universe is spinning around the earth. b] Fakes say that; it has being documented. It’s being ‘documented” that: ”Icarus was flying close to the sun – using feathers and wax, to stitch them”. If one denies that = is just common sense. c] before understanding other side’s of the story – you pas judgement – it says ALL about SHALLOW you; not about the real deniers.
3] what comes from IPCC, same as from Disneyland, is not factual – but works on people like you. John, guess what’s the temperature in your room, then look at the thermometer – you will be wrong by 1-2-3-4C on most occasions. Nutters as Springer and similar, can guess correctly; what was the temperature 400y ago, for every day and night around Midway in central pacific + in Australia – 100y before Cook arrived + on Antarctic ocean / continent – before thermometer was invented; and after, when was few thermometers around the planet. For you, they are correct; even though they are brain dead, to believe in fairy-tales. Go to my blog – learn about ”the self adjusting mechanism” the atmosphere has – then ask IPCC; why my proofs are not included?
Maneker doesn’t know: what was the planet’s temp last year, to save his life – but he is lying about the temp of 50-100-300-800 years ago…? John from California, most of the people believed that the universe is spinning around the earth – well, they were in majority; same as the nutters in your group, but truth changes minds with common sense. If the phony Skeptics believe that IPCC will admit guilt (to end up in jail), because Fake’s fairy-tales,.. proves my case that: IPCC, Al Gore ride on the fake Skeptic’s backs. John, learn what the real Deniers have, then pass judgement
stefanthedenier ,
Like anyone else in the debate you have a right to voice an opinion but it isn’t about me.
Where do you stand on the science and how do you label yourself?
To Dr. Curry’s credit, after self-labeling, describe the level of danger, and your opinion on current policy to mitigate your perception of the issues.
The cladastic matrix Judith has called for already exists !
Bart R you say the BC carbon tax is revenue neutral, ya right–http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/08/13/bc-carbon-tax-ctf.html
nc | September 19, 2012 at 2:37 pm |
The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation has such a promising premise. A grass-roots organization founded on the principles of taking back the country from Big Government, citizens working together to protect themselves from overtaxation and overspending, and a lasting identity for people of like mind to unite under the banner of independence and self-sufficiency.
Why is it these groups always seem to get co-opted by crackpots?
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/08/14/taxpayers-federation-slams-b-c-carbon-tax-but-expert-says-the-fed-is-wrong/
The CTF is “wrong on all counts”; the BC Carbon Tax remains revenue neutral, and remains not the way I would do it, but a good start.
Businesses in BC argued that, since businesses pay about two thirds of the BC Carbon Tax and individuals pay only about one third, that it’s not fair that individuals get over three fifths of the payouts, while businesses get less than two fifths of the revenue in terms of corporate tax relief and business subsidies. You must know by now I don’t favor subsidies.
So while I empathize with the CTF, I wish they’d gotten at least one fact straight, and I don’t understand why they’re lobbying against a measure that lowers taxes to individuals, which is their entire mission. Oh, wait, this news just in — CTF infiltrated by Fraser Institute members, a thinktank linked to the Heartland Institute and backed by the petroleum industry. Hrm.. A broad-based grassroots organization subverted from its original mission to bark at the end of the oil industry’s leash? Could that be what happened here?
Yes, the BC Carbon Tax would be better if every penny of revenue went to citizens of BC per capita, and if the fee levels were set by the Law of Supply and Demand, maximizing revenues to citizens for the rent of what belongs rightly to them — true privatization of the commonly held resource. But I don’t have any sway with or influence over how BC sets its policies.
I do have the ability to make my case here, skeptically, for such policies, however, and to point out the first in benefits most. And so far, BC has the lead: all they need to do is redirect that under 40% back to individual citizens, and let maximized revenue determine the rate.
Do you really want to be beat by Canada?
The revenue neutral carbon tax might be good and fair. I’m in favor of a carbon tax replacing the income tax.
One thing should be clear, though: you won’t get any significant emission reductions (in the next 30 or so years, we can’t predict more) – because they are technically not possible now.
Maybe in the future, some new energy sources will be found, but the carbon tax is irrelevant. The lack of carbon free energy technology isn’t due to people not trying to find it, or their ignorance about it’s desirability, or lack of incentives.
jacobress | September 20, 2012 at 11:21 am |
An excellent observation. Incorrect in a quibbling way, but excellent.
BC has been shown to have a 15% reduction in emissions since introducing its Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax, even with returning 100% of the fees collected to its happy citizens. This is by far the highest drop of any Canadian province, so cannot be attributed to other economic factors, and BC’s economy weathered the worldwide economic collapse as if there hadn’t even been one, so a Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax cannot be claimed to be harmful to an economy.
What you may mean by “significant” might be “sufficient” — and I’m with you there. Until the whole world’s innovation is bent to the technical problems — perhaps Terrapower, perhaps Thorium reactors, maybe http://www.makanipower.com, or Zenith Solar, or Dan Nocera’s enterprises and ideas, or Zero Fuel, alone or in combination with any of a thousand other possibilities — we will not see the fastest, most efficient progress to technical solutions. Which any Economist could tell you is being hampered by continued subsidies — extrinsic and intrinsic — to old line fossils and biofuel scams and failure to send an effective price signal about the fair Market value of the Carbon Cycle.
Ask a few. Get them to show you the math. If they can’t, just replace “Carbon Cycle” with “Mobile Phone Bandwidth” and see if they change their tune. Or do you think the progress that allowed cell phones to work was a matter of waiting for “the right time”?
Because Hedy Lamar invented that technology in 1941.
We seem to have been invaded by cowardly anonymous trolls. How many is unclear as one of them can wear many anonymous hats and when they screw up or people get tired of them make up a new cowardly anonymous name.
Perhaps Curry would consider hosting a blog where only verified real names are able to comment. Those of us interested in a more professional exchange of ideas can go there and the anonymous trolls can go elsewhere.
Anybody that watches the popular new HBO series “The Newsroom” might recognize this request as being the same as Jeff Daniels’ character Will McAvoy’s “Mission to Civilize” one aspect of which is to refuse to allow unverified posters on his blog or talk to or take questions from unidentified viewers.
Anonymity on the internet is ridiculous in blogs such as these. We’re talking about climate change not testifying against the mob fercrisakes.
Literary Agent, Attacked; Author Taken Into Custody :shock: :!: :shock:
Conclusion Beware of abusive nutjobs.
It’s nice to know we have areas of agreement!
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~ Benjamin Franklin
I hear ya, Ben. I refuse to dissociate my name from my speech in order to feel more safe. What courage hath our hostess compared to all you anonymous cowards? You anonymous male losers should slink away in shame for the having the audacity to seek some comfort in anonymity on a blog hosted by a girl unafraid to voice her very controversial opinions. A girl fercrisakes. She’s got more balls than all of you combined.
And before you mention the Federalist Papers again, John Sidles, be aware that Franklin may very well have had Hamilton, Madison, and Jay in the back of his mind when talking about trading freedom for safety.
The immortally anonymous Publius is a fine American example, David Springer! Thank you! :) :) :)
But it was Tom Paine’s anonymously published Common Sense that first came to mind. :) :) :)
America’s Founders and Framers had to prudently beware of angry nutjobs, eh?
dont think gender has any relevance
lolwot
I rarely agree with you, but this time I do (for what it’s worth).
Max
Women are generally victims of physical aggression not the perps. Maybe females of your species on your planet are the more aggressive but not here.
Hmmmm … Franklin … Ben Franklin … say, wasn’t he the wild-eyed colonial rebel who published anonymously as “Silence Dogood”? ;) ;) ;)
And didn’t Ben Franklin subsequently publish under pseudonyms that included: Silence Dogood, Harry Meanwell, Alice Addertongue, Richard Saunders, and Timothy Turnstone? :) :) :)
Yer posts are batting zero percent, by the umpire of American history, David Springer! :) :) :)
Franklin wrote using the pen name DoGood when he was a teenager because no one would take him seriously because he was a teenager.
Maybe you have a point, John Sidles. No one would take you seriously if you didn’t use a pen name because you’re a bow-tie wearing fruitloop. Score one for you.
What’s this *We* $hit Kimosabe?
Take a look in the mirror: everyone is a troll except Dr. Curry. Some trolls make more sense than others. IMO you rank near the bottom with your hysterical to childish debate tactics and udder ignorance of natural science.
+1
Wow! Did she write an article critical of the Prophet Mohammed?
Death-threats from offended Muslims? That would be Salman Rushdie :shock: :!: :shock:
And Sherman Alexie had better watch out, too. :shock: :!: :shock:
There’s no shortage of angry nutjobs, eh? :( :( :(
The anonymous troll invasion appears to be staffed by associates of SS author/moderator Glenn Tamblyn. I hope they limit themselves to coordinated trolling of unmoderated climate science blogs and stop short of the assassins they were fantasizing about. As a United States Marine Corps sergeant during the Vietnam Era I find Glenn’s talking about skeptics being like Viet Cong particularly offensive.
he’s more of an SS commander than a mere author/moderator.
I understood John Cook to be the HNIC (Head Nutcase In Charge).
David Springer,
Yes,
John Cook’s training and profession is “communications”.
To clarify what that means, it means trained to ‘spin’, distort, mislead to achieve political goals. In short and expert in BS.
BTW, Glenn Tamblyn is one of his specialists in this ‘profession’.
What was your MOS, which unit did you serve in, and what were the dates of your tour of duty?
I do hope you are being frank with us.
Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Another Record – Forbes
Don’t tell the MSM–
Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year). Please, nobody tell the mainstream media or they might have to retract some stories and admit they are misrepresenting scientific data,
~James Taylor
ha james taylor complaining about misrepresenting scientific data. Priceless.
Facts are facts. To the Left it’s always a crisis when one man tells the truth. But all men know the truth, it’s a catastrophe.
So in what way have the mainstream media “misrepresented scientific data”? James Taylor doesn’t say. I think you’ll find the mainstream media have been using Facts.
“colder temperatures yearned for by global warming alarmists may negatively affect polar bear populations…”
Since 1960 all volcanoes in the world have been emitting more and more CO2 each year. Climate scientists (herein referred to as “Scientific Frauds”) noticed this and deliberately chose to measure CO2 on top of a volcano knowing that this would create a rising CO2 trend they could use to defraud the world and usher in a New World Order. Of course no fraud is complete without choosing a nice vacation hotspot like Hawaii to live out the criminal act.
The Western AGW hoax may be a crime against humanity.
Another instance of what McIntyre might call false data. You just post outrageous stuff to make skeptics look bad.
And, how about fear of global warming? The truth is, so long as the outsiders are less than 50% the Left still cannot rewrite history and those who seek the truth will know communism is, The Hunger Games: an abject failure that has been the sower of so many millions of graves. The only thing you can do to save dead and dying Old Europe this time is to help them help themselves by turning your back on the failed course they took.
The truth is, “Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom.” (Marilyn Ferguson)
So you’re saying that Wagathon is the John Sidles of Climate Change Denial?
lolwot
Problem with estimating the impact of volcanoes on Earth’s carbon balance is that arguably over 90% (or 99%?) of all volcanic activity (including emissions from fissures in Earth’s crust) are underwater, rather than on land and most of these are unknown, so we really do not know how much CO2, etc. is entering the ocean and where it is ending up.
As to Mauna Loa as a site for measuring atmospheric CO2, I have seen no conclusive evidence that these readings are greatly different from others around the globe, although I could accept the premise that there might be some local variations for one reason or another.
Max
Sarcasm doesn’t work for you.
See Poe’s Law.
Skeptics: make your best case. Part II
I roll back and document all the Skeptic positions stated in Skeptics: make your best case and list them here.
Circumstantial reasons to question IPCC conclusions:
– IPCC conclusions which have been clearly ranked with low confidence in the IPCC reports are a basis for a Skeptical view of the generalized claims and proposed policies/solutions.
– IPCC model projections that have not accurately reflected temperature changes.
– Simplistic interpretations of the science popularized by Alarmist groups who have a vested interest in the outcome.
– Ongoing research to formalize the Carbon Cycle, Water Cycle, role of Salinity, etc. implies an incomplete understanding.
– Current research related to poorly understood forcing and feedback mechanisms
– Al Gore and other zealots who undermine the integrity of the scientific effort with absurd generalizations
John from CA
A good list.
You state:
Two that come to mind, which are very crucial to the validity of IPCC’s “CAGW” premise are:
– the attribution of past climate warming (from 1750 to today) to natural (solar) versus anthropogenic forcing.
IPCC models estimate that only 7% of this past warming can be attributed to the sun, conceding, however, that its “level of scientific understanding of solar forcing is low”
Several solar studies have concluded that around half (not 7%) of past warming can be attributed to the unusually high level of 20th century solar activity (highest in several thousand years).
This change would greatly reduce the amount of past warming that could be attributed to human GHGs.
– the feedback impact of clouds on 2xCO2 climate sensitivity
IPCC models estimate a strongly positive net feedback from clouds (enough to increase CS from 1.9 degC without cloud feedback to 3.2 deg C with cloud feedback), conceding, however that “cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty”
Actual physical observations made from CERES satellites (Spencer + Braswell, 2007) after the IPCC report showed that net overall feedback from clouds with warming was strongly negative.
This would reduce the estimated the 2xCO2 climate sensitivity substantially (from 3.2 to around 1 degC) if corrected by IPCC.
Either one (or both) of these areas where IPCC is uncertain of its assumptions and other evidence points to a different interpretation could dramatically change the IPCC conclusions on past warming and projections of future warming, pretty much eliminating the “C” in the “CAGW” premise
Max
Max, that’s the second time you’ve quoted Spencer and Braswell and the second time you omitted the detail about the journal editor resigning after its publication because he realised he’d been duped into publishing dross.
And this is the *best* you can do.
Not impressive.
VeryTallGuy
You are again missing the point here and your post is (to put it into your words) “not very impressive”. FYI we are discussing the robustness of the science supporting IPCC’s premise:
and its “CAGW” premise (which I will attempt to paraphrase as follows):
We are not discussing “politics” or which goofy editor of which journal did what. These topics might be interesting, but they have no bearing on the discussion at hand. Got it?
The Spencer and Braswell (2007) paper to which you apparently refer has not been refuted scientifically. It has demonstrated, based on CERES satellite observations that the net overall feedback from clouds with warming is negative rather than positive, as assumed or estimated by all the IPCC models.
Since IPCC has calculated that net positivecloud feedbacks increase the 2xCO2 “climate sensitivity” from 1.9 to 3.2 degC, a net negative cloud feedback would reduce IPCC’s model-derived overall “climate sensitivity” to around 1 degC, and thereby remove the “C” from IPCC’s “CAGW” premise.
So, again, so you understand it.
My “best case” for skepticism of IPCC’s “CAGW” premise is that it is not backed by empirical scientific evidence based on actual physical observations or reproducible experimentation (Feynman) – and my challenge is to you to cite such scientific evidence to support the “C” in IPCC’s “CAGW” claim.
Really quite simple, VTG.
Step up to the challenge.
Or hold your peace.
Max
John from CA
Not to bore you, but let me give you one more example of a specific point, where IPCC is uncertain.
The HadCRUT3 temperature record (used by IPCC) has two statistically indistinguishable cycles of warming during the 20th century: an early-20th century period from around 1910 to 1940 and a late 20th century period from around 1970 to 2000. In between there was a 30-year cycle of slight cooling.
IPCC models have been unable to explain the early 20th century warming period, as this occurred before there was much human GHG emissions (primarily CO2).
So the IPCC logic goes basically as follows:
Max
Thanks manacker — not boring at all.
A good summary Max
My best case for being a skeptic.
1. Dr. David Whitehouse
2. Dr. Henrik Svensmark
3. Dr. Richard Lindzen
4. Dr. Roy Spencer
5. Dr. John Christy
6. Steve McIntyre
7. Dr. Tim Ball (former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg)
8. Japanese Scientists (they did their own paleo reconstruction and found no hockey stick and found we are currently cooler than the MWP. They gave the finger to Kyoto ,ironic isn’t it.
9. Russian Scientists (they never bought into cAGW)
10. Etc. Etc. Etc.
11. When the above change their minds I will
More reasons for NOT being in the cAGW camp. . .
1. ClimateGate 1
2. ClimateGate 2
3. David Suzuki (CBC media darling)
4. Al Gore (politician)
5. Rajendra K. Pachauri (railway engineer)
6. skepticalscience.com (a lie in the name, no skepticism is allowed)
7. the IPCC ( a political body, no science required)
Tony
Threading seems to have been disrupted.
“to clear fog from airfields”
That was FIDO — would you believe Fog Intensive Dispersal Of? Only the RAF… My first Vulcan captain remembered it.
The Kriegsmarine Hypothesis needs a test, it needs someone to actually do the science. It’s all very well pointing to the ‘natural experiments’ which have happened in enclosed waters, it has to be a controlled pouring of pollutants onto a pristine surface to watch and measure the results, Where to find such a surface? There’s the rub. The odds are that the southern oceans are merely too windy to show the effect rather than unpolluted. Maybe off Fiji. I could go along to give advice. Or cook. Carry luggage…
The simplest test would be in the lakes of Arctic Canada. Choose two lakes as similar as possible, close together. Keep one oiled as winter came on, ensure the other was as clean as possible. But it would be a silly experiment, because the oiled lake would freeze later, it has to because of all the effects of surface pollution.
An ideal would be to clean up the North Slope or the Yenesei river. That would really be interesting.
JF
Julian
I was going to selflessly offer to go to fiji with you to independently observe the experiment on behalf of Climate Etc but then I thought that perhaps the controlled polluting of their pristine environment might not go down too well….
What you have outlined must have some effect, but whether it is significant or not is way outside my experience but it does seem worth persevering with your enquiries.
tonyb
On the Arctic sea ice
Don’t see what is all the fuss about, expect the same or similar again the next summer, and for some years to come.
Ice summer melt and winter formation in the Arctic is all to do with temperatures of the North Atlantic currents inflow.
Less ice build up in the winter larger the extent of the ice summer melt.
The summer temperatures have little changed in the last 300 years, while the winter temperatures have been on the rise for the last 300 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MidSummer-MidWinter.htm
Even “More reasons for NOT being in the cAGW camp. . .”
Roberta
Joshua
Fan
lolwot
Dr. Curry
tempterrain
Webby
Bart R.
Mosher
BBD
My Stupid Liberal Aquaintences…
Andrew
I have worked in climate science as a lowly postdoc, not any more but I have followed the arguments for about 4 years.
I largely accept the data as presented (CO2, global temperatures etc) but I know enough about data to know I wouldn’t be surprised if the UHI was underestimated and overall warming was lower.
the warming since 1700 or so could be wholly a natural cycle. it would largely fit in with the cycles over the last 10 thousand years – but we don’t know. we dont know what the climate would be doing if we weren’t emitting CO2.
i don’t see any evidence of a catastrophe in the making. temperatures were warmer in the Eemian and sea levels much higher (4-6m). as humans we will cope with any change that happens over a few hundred years or so.
we will probably largely have decarbonised in 50 years anyway. it is unlikley fossil fuels will get cheaper over time, alternatives certainly will.
Russ
Bart R | September 19, 2012 at 4:14 am | Reply
>>Edim | September 19, 2012 at 2:57 am |
>>Earth’s surface radiates more than it absorbs..
>Case in point of ideas that make me respond skeptically.
Low hanging fruit. It’s really all you can reach.
David Springer | September 19, 2012 at 7:13 pm |
Dude, it’s not pretty when we see two fallacies get intertwined so sloppily.
Wedding your sour grapes to Edim’s low hanging fruit is not a valid marriage in Rick Perry’s Texas.
If you’d had the fortitude to postpone your gratification long enough to read a paragraph or two more, you’d have noticed I gave Edim a pass on this little Physics mistake to go on and address the rest of Edim’s fruitiness.
Here, I’ll repeat myself for you, because we know you enjoy repetitive tasks:
Which still leaves a group of assertions that do not square with observations reported by NASA (look it up), and confirmable by any individual willing to launch a weather balloon (it costs a few hundred dollars, but it can make you a Youtube celebrity, so a value proposition for those who seek social media renown), or more simply survey the consilient non-NASA sources (look them up) and do some math.
You haven’t falsified AGW by assertion.
You’ve merely shown more reason to be skeptical of claims unverified by scrupulous ab initio methods.
Which, when done, tend to confirm AGW by the GHE, and a direct correspondence between human caused CO2 level change and costly extreme weather events and expensively shifting agricultural conditions.
[reposted with corrected formatting]
Bart R
You mention weather balloons and NASA measurements, but this line of argumentation gets you on a “slippery slope”.
IPCC AR4 Ch.8, p.632 tells us:
And
IOW IPCC model-based water vapor feedback estimates are based on the premise that total water vapor content (specific humidity) will rise with temperature to essentially maintain constant relative humidity, and that this will roughly double the 2xCO2 warming response.
Oh, if life were only as simple as the hypothesis!
NASA-NOAA measurements made from those “weather balloons” you are touting go back to 1948. These show “short-term blips” where tropospheric water vapor content (specific humidity) does rise and fall with temperature, but the long-term trend shows just the opposite
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3606945645_3450dc4e6f_b.jpg
IOW, total water vapor content (specific humidity) has decreased as temperature has increased, indicating a counterintuitive negative long-term water vapor feedback. Is this observed phenomenon due to some “natural thermostat” (possibly from clouds), which counteracts the short-term warming effect of added water vapor content?
Even the measured “short term blips” don’t march in lockstep with the “constant relative humidity” premise of the IPCC models.
Minschwaner + Dessler (2004) made such actual measurements over a short time period and concluded:
http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/library/Minschwaner_2004.pdf
And
OK. SoIPCC has overstated (or exaggerated) the impact of water vapor feedback in its estimate that this feedback almost doubles the 2xCO2 warming response.
But how large was this discrepancy?
”A picture is always worth a thousand words”, as they say.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3347/3610454667_9ac0b7773f_b.jpg
Figure 7 of the M+D report shows the magnitude of the discrepancy. The IPCC model assumption of constant tropospheric relative humidity results is a hypothetical increase of 26 ppmv water vapor per 1°C warming, while the actually observed range was 1.5 to 4 ppmv – an exaggeration by IPCC of “water vapor feedback” by a factor of 6.5X to 17.3X.
Ouch!
So, Bart, it’s clear that both the long-term and short-term physical observations that have been made (by weather balloons and satellites) show that IPCC’s model-based estimates on water vapor feedback are greatly exaggerated.
Max
Did you learn to read graphs from Girma?
From 1948 to 2008, y=-0.0005x +C;
From 1970 to 1990, y~=+0.0015x +C;
One third of the period reverses the overall trend observed. Why?
Did you have a look at the r^2 values on those relationships taken from the important, but not universal nor deterministic, tropical upper troposphere?
Figure 6 shows the relationship between 215-mb humidity and cSST after inclusion of a 1-month phase lag. The least squares regression has an r value of 20.33 and a slope of 24.8% 6 3.4% RHi K21 (2s uncertainty). No other significant correlations were found..
Did you even check out the instrumental precision claimed?
The mean precision of a single measurement at 215 mb in the Tropics is about 15% RHi, and although the microwave observations are relatively unaffected by aerosol, haze, or thin cirrus, there do exist cases where moderately thick cirrus or convective clouds can elevate measurements to values well above 100% RHi. On the other hand, it is clear that supersaturation can occur in the UT (Jensen et al. 1999) and even subsaturated air may produce measured values in excess of 100% due to random errors. The recommended threshold for probable contamination of MLS UT water vapor by clouds is 120% RHi (Read et al.2001).
And other sources of error:]
Even with perfectly uniform sampling, however, there is a possibility for artificial variations arising from month-to-month changes in the number of observations contaminated by cloud. These typically composed between 5% and 10% of the available tropical measurements within any given month, and their spatial distribution correlated well with areas of low monthly mean outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), confirming a high likelihood that these humidities were artificially enhanced by clouds.
Has Dr. Curry not warned of overconfidence in claims about climatology?
Have you not understood the problems with cherry-picking single studies out-of-context?
All we get is confirmation that there’s wide uncertainty about water vapor. Whoopie. Something we already knew.
While it’s a nice study, it isn’t conclusive, it isn’t the entirety of the body of climate knowledge, and it’s a highly contentious area of research.
None of which really matters to the interesting part of the discussion, which is why people believe they have the right to pollute freely and without limit, and why the rest of us must do nothing about it.
Huh. Something strange with the cut&paste function. That’s “an r value of -0.33 and a slope of -4.8% +/- 3.4% RHi K^-1”
Bart R
As far as the NOAA humidity data are concerned, I’m not here to defend their accuracy. They are published data, and until they are refuted with new data from NOAA, I’ll accept them.
The temperature data are from the HadCRUT3 record.
The Minschwaner + Dessler study was made over a shorter term period in the tropical troposphere. It simply showed that the water vapor increase with temperature assumed by the IPCC climate models was severely exaggerated, IOW the water vapor feedback, as assumed by the IPCC climate models is exaggerated.
And that was my point, which you have been unable to refute with any other empirical data.
Max
Sufficient disproof is when we stop, in logic.
The contents of the source you cited were sufficient to refute your claims. No other evidence was offered as no more was needed.
What, you need me to tell you when I’ve shown your errors?
Should I end all my replies to you with QED?
Bart R
You wrote:
THIS IS ALL UNTRUE
I have just gone back to the original data sources (as cited)
From 1970 to 2008:
Specific humidity decreased [y = -0.0006 + 0.2753]
while
Global surface temperature increased [y = +0.008 – 0.2525]
Bart, when you make stuff up to prove a point, it always backfires.
Max
PS You just have to look at the graph to see that your claim was bogus!
manacker | September 21, 2012 at 8:04 am |
I’m not quite caffienated to keep up with the production-line like volume of errors you post, so this reply is a bit out of chronological order.
Do you even read the sources you post?
From 1948 to 2008, y=-0.0005x +C; is taken directly from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3343/3606945645_3450dc4e6f_b.jpg as Trendline Water Content y=-0.005x+0.2821;
See? I simply used what you posted.
That you can’t follow your own argument even a few hours later tells us all we need to know about it, and you.
Oops.
Munged the italics with a missing end-italics. My bad.
Bart R
Fer Chrissake learn how to read.
You stated:
I did NOT question the overall trend from 1948 to 2008, but I simply corrected your statement on the trend from 1970 to 2008.
This was NOT an INCREASING trend y = +0.0015x +C (as you claimed) but was a DECREASING trend, y = -0.0006x +C.
So there was NO reversal of the decreasing trend after 1970, as you claimed
Got it now?
Max
end italics?
manacker | September 21, 2012 at 4:43 pm |
Use a magnifying glass; there’s an option for it in Microsoft Command Center under Accessibility Options.
I referred to the period from 1970 to 1990, not from 1970 to 2008.
True, I eyeballed the rate, but what else could I do, given your poor citation practices?
Bart,
I’m not sure its fair to keep referencing NASA sources on the AGW issue. The skeptic/deniers don’t really trust NASA.
They’ve never been fully convinced that those Space Shuttles can really orbit a flat planet.
Bart R
Huh?
You “eyeballed the rate” for a cherry-picked sub-period of the total time period to come up with an incorrect conclusion – namely that the decreasing trend in specific humidity (total water vapor content) in the troposphere as measured by NOAA weather balloons since 1948 “reversed itself” toward the end of the period (which it did not, in actual fact)?
OK.
So you screwed up.
It can happen to any of us, Bart.
We can move on.
Max
tempterrain
Hey, I don’t know what they teach you guys in school down there in Australia, but I learned that the Earth was (nearly) spherical not flat.
Max
manacker | September 22, 2012 at 4:31 pm |
Dude, you’ve lost it.
Let me parse this out into smaller bits, to see if that helps you handle what was said.
There is a line of falling humidity in a graph you cited. Agreed?
The total span of that graph is 60 years from 1948 to 2008.
If looked at by eyeball (since the raw data wasn’t supplied in your cite), we can divide that graph into three approximately equal periods of about 20 years. The first and last span were generally falling. The middle span was generally rising. There were, therefore, two reversals (one up, one down) over the span.
There were no matching reversals in the temperature line on the same graph you supplied.
Any competent analyst looking at the graph you supplied would have a real problem with that.
Further, the rate of falling humidity is orders of magnitude smaller than the rate of rising temperature. Is it even a statistically significant rate of decline? What’s the CI again?
What’s the r^2 for humidity vs. temperature on that graph?
You’ve presented us with too little information to say precisely (though I admit, I could do the work of digging into it and getting the actual figures, that ain’t gonna happen; go find the figures that undercut your case for yourself), but it is really easy to see your claims go nowhere.
Bart R
You poked a stick into a hornet’s nest with your suggestion to David Springer to “look it up” by checking “NASA as well as non-NASA sources” in addition to your (bold-face type) statement:
You haven’t falsified AGW by assertion.
Well, of course not, Bart. No one is “falsifying AGW” per se. It’s the “C” in “CAGW” that is being questioned. And rightly so.
IPCC estimates that a doubling of CO2 will result in an equilibrium temperature response (“equilibrium climate sensitivity” or “ECS”) of 3.2°C on average.
This is a model-derived value, based on adding in various theoretical “feedbacks” to the theoretical “no-feedback clear sky” 2xCO2 warming estimate of around 1°C.
IPCC model-based water vapor feedback estimates “almost double” the “no-feedback” ECS of around 1°C.
The model estimates for “lapse rate feedback” (negative) and “surface albedo feedback” (positive) essentially cancel one another out.
IPCC model-based estimates for net overall feedback from clouds is strongly positive, raising the 2xCO2 ECS estimate from 1.9°C to 3.2°C
But now we have both long- and short-term observations, which tell us that IPCC model-based estimates for water vapor feedback are grossly exaggerated (see earlier post of September 20,2012 at 7:05 am) and independent physical observations from CERES satellites (Spencer + Braswell, 2007) that tell us that the net overall feedback from clouds is strongly negative instead of strongly positive, as estimated by IPCC models.
The cornerstone for the “C” in the IPCC “CAGW” premise is a model-derived ECS of 3.2°C on average, and this is based on strongly positive feedbacks from both water vapor and clouds. Without these, the cornerstone has crumbled and we are back to simple “AGW” – without the posited “C” – and, as a result, without the scare factor or the need to consider any drastic “mitigation” actions.
Pretty simple to me. Bart.
If you want to take the effort to refute any of my arguments by demonstrating that the cited data are incorrect, be my guest.
As Clint Eastwood might say, “make my day”.
Max
manacker | September 20, 2012 at 8:13 am |
You make several elementary errors.
I don’t need to refute the correctness of the cited data; merely your grasp of the cited Science, and your overconfidence in it. Done and done.
The arguments of Spencer that you rely on, clearly bogus, and to me, explicitly unimportant.
See, I’m in the RAGW, not the CAGW, camp.
Spencer argues (falsely) that he’s disproven the cornerstone of catastrophic change. He hasn’t, and he hasn’t touched the Risk. His innuendo of scare factors and baseless characterisation of drastic, likewise, are assertions from a source without establishment in his references. You really may wish to cite a more rational source going forward.
Have a made day.
Max, and the *third* time you’ve quoted Spencer and Braswell whilst omitting the detail about the journal editor resigning after its publication because he realised he’d been duped into publishing dross.
A less charitable observer might think you were deliberately trying to deceive people about the quality of the paper.
Bart R
Simply saying that a study is “bogus” (because you don’t like its conclusions) means absolutely nothing.
I have seen no serious scientific rebuttal of the CERES satellite findings of Spencer + Braswell 2007, which showed that the net overall feedback from clouds with warming is negative, rather than positive, as assumed by the IPCC climate models. Have you? Please cite.
The fact that it’s been out there for five years now makes me conclude that there will not be any scientific falsification of the S+B study.
Max
PS Please don’t cite me SkepticalScience or RealClimate blurbs as “serious scientific rebuttals”
Very Tall Guy
Pardon me for being a bit blunt, but you are beginning to look a bit silly with your story about “the science editor who resigned”. I have zero interest in this waffle.
This has nothing (nada, zilch, nichts) to do with what we are discussing here,
I can only conclude that you are throwing out this side track to evade the real issue, namely that you have no empirical scientific evidence to back up the IPCC model-based cloud feedback estimate, which even IPCC itself conceded (prior to S+B 2007) “is the largest source of uncertainty”.
Max
Bart R
Ok. Now to get to your statement that you are in the
“RAGW” rather that the “CAGW” camp.
I have defined the “CAGW” premise = the IPCC claim from its reports:
a) that most of the global warming observed since 1950 is more than 90% certain to have been caused by increases in human GHGs in the atmosphere, and
b) that this represents a serious potential threat to humanity and to our environment, unless actions are undertaken to curtail human GHG emissions (principally CO2)
If you ascribe to the above premise, you agree with IPCC that 2xCO2 climate sensitivity is around 3.2 deg C and that AGW could cause warming of up to a maximum of 4-6 deg C (above 1980-1999 average) by 2090-2099, in other words, what is assumed to be “catastrophic” warming, justifying mitigation action (so you are in the “CAGW camp”).
If you do NOT believe that the warming by 2090-2099 will be above around 2 degC (IOW not “catastrophic”, with no mitigation action required), then you do not subscribe to the IPCC premise and we have no basis for a debate.
“RAGW”?
-Rationalized AGW
-Razzmatazz AGW
-Redundant AGW
-Regurgitated AGW
-Religious AGW
-Revenue-generating AGW
-Ridiculous AGW
-Rigged AGW
-Runaway AGW
The mind boggles.
Max
manacker | September 20, 2012 at 6:42 pm |
You may want to cut back on the coffee.
R = Risk.
So, up to that point there is no logic that derails the IPCC case.
Caring about Climate Sensitivity? Not a very big deal for me. Is it 1.5? 2? 3? 30? Immaterial to the case. It’s the Risk that is being imposed that is costly, and the fact that the imposition is unconsented.
If you’re going to force your pollution on me, force Risks on me due your lucrative and wasteful adventures, I’m right to demand compensation. If you’re exploiting scarce, valuable, rivalrous excludable resources to do so, I’m right to require payment for my share.
Where’s my money?
Why don’t you want yours?
BartR,
Sometimes, I wonder why you bother.
But then I remember that this makes me read this.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/31967189834
I like RAGW.
Why I bother?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h04_6GxIZhg
Because someone bothered for me.
But enough about me.
manacker | September 20, 2012 at 5:50 pm |
I’m unfamiliar with SkepticalScience or RealClimate, but I should point out that simply saying that a blurb is “bogus” (because you don’t like its conclusions) means absolutely nothing.
But I wasn’t actually talking about the study on the whole; I was talking about the arguments in it. By ‘clearly bogus’, I mean they were nothing but a fabric of fallacy and illogic, and patently so. That itself does make the study bogus, of course, though it has nothing to do with the likeability of its conclusions. I call people whose conclusions, wrongly drawn, are to my liking on their errors too, routinely.
But since you want to know what a competent refutation looks like, here’s a fair example:
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/roy-spencers-great-blunder-part-1/
I can supply about a hundred more refutations of similar quality, if you’re really interested.
Bart R
“Risk”?
Risk – shmisk.
What is important here is whether or not you support the IPCC premise
a) that most of the observed late 20th century warming was with greater than 90% probability caused by increases in human GHG concentrations and
b) that this represents a serious, potential threat to humanilty and our environment, unless actions are undertaken to drastically curtaiil human GHG emissions, principally CO2).
Simple questio:
Do you, or do you not support this premise?
YES or NO.
If so, you are in the “CAGW” camp.
Max
PS As an example, our hostess here has shown by her papers and congressional testimony on the topic, that she is NOT in the “CAGW” camp: she questions IPCC premise a) and has testified to b) that she has not concluded that AGW represents an existential threat by 2100 even in its worst incarnation. She has also testified that AGW is real but that its magnitude is uncertain.
WHERE DO YOU STAND?
Max
I’m not surprised you have zero interest in the response of the editor. That’s because he resigned, due to the fact that the paper which you rely on as your best rebuttal of AGW, was dross and was wheedled past his review process with the intention of deceiving him.
And then you complain that I call your behaviour pathetic?
It’s downright deceitful.
And btw it was rebutted, the journal subsequently published a response.
manacker | September 21, 2012 at 8:17 am |
Are you intentionally self-parodying?
Look, this too-precious sophistry you’re doing in such a pointless downward spiral got dull shortly after it got dim, which was a few topics ago. But I’ve been indulgent. People have even questioned why I still bother. But I’m not giving up on you.
I believe that somewhere, deep down inside you, is a spark of something that is just not this impenetrably twisted. Well, I don’t so much believe it as wish it were so. Hair-splitting distinction, I know. Sort of like where you believe the IPCC report’s logic weren’t unassailably confirmed by data and observation and test and re-test and validation and re-validation and verification and re-verification.
Cancer research isn’t half so meticulous as the Science represented by the IPCC. AIDS research, too. CERN and the Mars probes, though many many times as much have been spent on them, do not show such robust character overall. Sure, there are a few problems. But show me a single field in all of Science with better credibility, or so nearly bulletproof.
Manacker,
I’d like a quote and a specific cite for this “premise”:
> That this [the A in GW] represents a serious, potential threat to humanilty and our environment, unless actions are undertaken to drastically curtaiil human GHG emissions, principally CO2.
I would also like to know what you mean by saying that this is a premise.
If it’s the IPCC report, should it not be some kind of conclusion?
Many thanks!
Bart R
You cite a so-called “refutation” of a book written by Roy Spencer.
Huh?
What in hell has that got to do with what we are discussing here?
[I’ll answer that one for you: nothing, nada, zilch, rien.]
Refute (if you can) the specific arguments I made that the model-based strongly positive feedbacks postulated by IPCC from clouds and water vapor (leading to a 2 to 4-fold increase in 2xCO2 “climate sensitivity”) are not supported by empirical scientific data.
That’s what you should try to refute, Bart.
All you’ve got to do is cite the empirical evidence supporting the IPCC feedback assumptions. That’s all.
Try again…
Max
Manacker,
You claim to have made specific arguments according to which:
> The model-based strongly positive feedbacks postulated by IPCC from clouds and water vapor (leading to a 2 to 4-fold increase in 2xCO2 “climate sensitivity”) are not supported by empirical scientific data.
I’m not sure where are these specific arguments.
Nor if these specific arguments lead to this conclusion.
Nor if this conclusion has any relevance whatsoever the price of tea.
Nor it this conclusion has any meaning, really.
Could you state these (note the plural) arguments (note the function) and the way we can infer (note the reasoning step) in a way that we can understand both the meaning and the relevance of your conclusion?
Many thanks!
manacker | September 21, 2012 at 11:51 am |
I see no need to refute your magic moving goalpost.
Considering Bickmore carpet-bombed the heck out of the whole playing field with a series of blog posts (which apparently you read part of one paragraph out of before giving up — was it all the big words he used?).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu8VppgpyVs
Look, I see no need to spike the ball, but the corpse of Spencer & Braswell 2007 is resting at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It’s dead. Move on.
Bart R,
Why twisting my words? Deliberately in order to mislead and sabotage the discussion?
I said:
“Earth’s surface radiates more than it absorbs (as infrared or longwave) and the net flux is upward in average.”
It was a response to your:
“Tyndall and Arrhenius laboriously and painstakingly — according to lengthy recorded documentation — confirmed these facts by experiments and arithmetic anyone can reproduce today upon the effects of CO2 (and other GHG’s) on the scattering of heat produced by the effect of visible (and other light) absorbed at the Earth’s surface as infrared.”
There’s no net absorption as infrared at the surface – the net flux (as infrared) is upwards.
Edim | September 20, 2012 at 8:51 am |
Don’t blame me for your apparently ambiguous grasp of Physics. You posted it. You wear it.
I’m glad you’re clarifying now what you meant, at least a little; Tell me, this evaporated and convected matter that isn’t radiating.. how does it lose its energy when it cools?
Bart R, what’s wrong in my first comment? I see nothing.
The atmosphere cools exclusively by radiation. All the heat carried away from the surface (evaporation, radiation, convection – in that order) is radiated to space by radiatively active atmospheric gases and clouds. One small part is radiated directly from the surface to space (the atmospheric window).
Furthermore, if we include all radiation at the surface, the surface absorbs MUCH MORE than it radiates.
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
51% of the incoming solar energy is absorbed and less than half of that is radiated by the surface (21% of the incoming solar) – the rest (30%) is transferred away by evaporation and convection.
Here is my best case:
1. Robust work by John Tyndall in the late 1800s demonstrated the ability of a gas to not transmit IR radiation. The work has important implications in molecular structure and atomic bond energies. Tyndall’s experiments been widely misinterpreted as showing heat absorption rather than absorption/emission/scattering. Tyndall’s work reinforces the notions of DeSausure, Fourier, Pouillet and Hopkins that interception of terrestrial IR rays by aqueous vapour is important in climate. The effect of water vapour in the atmosphere is well known. There is to date no empirical evidence of thermalization of IR by CO2, despite arguments on a theoretical basis both for and against. The question of thermalization of IR by gases can be easily settled in a physics laboratory.
2. The laws of Stefann Boltzmann and Kirchoff widely used in the study of bodies in the universe have been applied to the surface of earth. The results appear to justify that a greenhouse effect is required to explain that the earth’s surface is warmer than it should be. Postma argues that this calculation is a misinterpretation and that the temperature of the earth as seen from space is as it should be and that surface temperatures are explained not by a “greenhouse” effect but by a thermodynamic atmosphere.
3. Radiative transfer theory is well founded in molecular physics. Radiative transfer data are widely used for remote sensing applications. The application of radiative transfer data to problems of thermodynamics is confounded by the fact that radiative transfer data is measured in IR reflective chambers (so as to magnify the effect of IR absorption to make it measurable). Consequently, the use of radiative transfer data in thermodynamic problems is mistaken. There is still no empirical evidence of thermalization of IR by a gas outside of an IR reflective chamber and the existence of radiative transfer theory and mountains of radiative transfer data is not proof of thermalization of IR by gases.
4. Despite the apparent climate scientist consensus on CO2-induced AGW, there is no consensus on a physical theoretical mechanism. Gerlich and Tscheuschner argue that any such mechanism is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Without a physical theory to test, there is no empirical validation. Candidate theories appear to require the presence of Maxwell’s demon. There is no empirical evidence that a different physical composition of a body (or surface of a body) when subject to alternate regular heating and cooling cycles by a radiative source with a period of 24 hours will make any difference at all to equilibrium mean temperature of the body. Existence of any such effect presupposes the existence of Maxwell’s demon. This question could be easily settled in a physics laboratory.
5. Statistical demonstration of warming can only be achieved by selective use of data from the past century or so. Adding paleoclimate data demonstrates no clear warming trend beyond the range of preexisting natural variability. There are numerous theories of natural variability which could explain current global temperature changes without CO2 forcing. Without a clear demonstrable experimentally verifiable CO2 thermalization effect, it may well be that CO2 levels reflect correlation rather than causation. Laboratory experiments are required to clarify the basic science of causation.
6. Nordell claims a large proportion of the recent observed warming could be attributed to thermal pollution. That heat energy can cause warming is unquestionable. The basic relationship of heat energy, mass, specific heat and temperature is unquestionable. Climate scientists continue to disagree without empirical evidence. There is no law of “conservation of radiative energy” and to whole notion of radiative energy balance is unfounded in theoretical physics.
AGW appears the result of political dogma corrupting proper scientific thought. Convenient misinterpretations of basic science in combination with large amounts of confirmation bias have obscured the scientific method. The scientific foundations of the “greenhouse effect” and “radiative forcing” appear baseless. The scientific questions can be easily settled in a physics laboratory.
I agree with the general points that have been raised but rather doubt that a lab can adequately account for the known forcings affecting the Earth’s climate system.
@peterdavies252, That is mainstream climate science position – that the atmosphere is too complex to permit valid experiments. As a scientific position, it is completely untenable. The notion of “forcing” is mistaken – certainly changes in solar output will produce a change. That *anything* on earth can increase heating without increasing cooling (given constant solar output and 24hour cycles) and result in a change in equilibrium mean temperature is pure fantasy until the effect can be demonstrated in a lab.
Thanks for responding blouis79.
The Earth’s climate system is more than just atmosphere and there seems to be more factors affecting the system than solar output and 24 hour cycles. It is widely considered to be dynamic and non-linear with chaotic disturbances affecting its trajectory.
A good example of recent experimentation has been the CERN cloud studies but even this experiment only provides an indication of the likely albedo effect of clouds. A lot more work needs to be done to prove causality.
jacobress | September 20, 2012 at 11:36 am |
“what about albedo?”
In point 4, I argue changing *any* physical characteristic makes no difference to temperature – this includes albedo. In absence of Maxwell’s demon, a reflective body will heat slower in radiation and cool slower in space. Conversely, an absorptive body will heat faster and cool faster. So unless one can selectively change albedo on the light side and dark side, I hypothesise that changing albedo will make *zero* difference to mean temperature of the body. Now to date, I don’t think climate scientists have claimed that as a mechanism. I dont; think we have seen any empirical evidence of differing albedos on the light and dark sides of earth.
@peterdavies252, my case as stated implies that the net heat energy in the earth system will not change if the solar output is constant. This is regardless of anything one could do the the earth system from within. Within the earth system, we have a complex chaotic system which appears to be so complex as to defy mathematical solution. From that emanates some notion of a global mean equilibrium surface temperature. G&T argue such a notion is nonsensical.
In any case, mainstream climate science argues on the one hand that “forcing” will increase the temperature (and presumably energy) in the earth system somehow from within – this I argue is fallacious and unproven. Mainstream climate science on the other hand claims to be able to predict the behaviour of the complex chaotic earth atmosphere system assuming the “forcing” exists. Well, if the internal forcing doesn’t exist, the likely result is a complex chaotic system with a stable amount of internal energy which in the long-term will remain stable.
I believe there are only two real “forcings”, which are “external” to the surface/atmosphere earth system:
a. geothermal energy, which presumably varies over time
b. solar output, which also varies over time
Mainstream climate science ignores both of these.
@blouis79, While your points are agreed with I still maintain that experimentation with climate remains problematic due to inherent ergodicity of the system with lack of predictability. Same problem as for economics and stock markets etc.
I meant non-ergodicity of the system
@peterdavies252, I agree with you on experiments on climate. But the required experiments are simply about verifiable mechanisms thought by mainstream climate science to be responsible for warming – the core physics can certainly be studied experimentally.
There is a big difference between the equilibrium mean over the whole earth (claimed warming) and the specific behaviour of temperature for any single small patch. Small patches of earth may be chaotic and unpredictable, but the upper and lower bounds are well established with zillions of data points.
blouis79
Your excellent summary, plus the exchange with peterdavies252, present several reasons based on physical theory to be skeptical of the CAGW premise of IPCC.
Thanks.
I believe that, in addition to the theoretical considerations, one should look at empirical data based on actual physical observations (Feynman). As you have concluded, reproducible experimentation on a planetary climate scale may not be possible, but we do have some actual physical observations. While these cannot confirm causation if correlation exists, they can tend to falsify causation where correlation does not exist. And this appears to often be the case.
Just coming at it from another perspective: the empirical rather than theoretical.
Max
what about albedo? small changes in albedo can change the energy absorbed from the sun.
(Sorry, put this reply in the wrong spot.)
blouis79 | September 20, 2012 at 5:28 pm |
jacobress | September 20, 2012 at 11:36 am |
“what about albedo?”
In point 4, I argue changing *any* physical characteristic makes no difference to temperature – this includes albedo. In absence of Maxwell’s demon, a reflective body will heat slower in radiation and cool slower in space. Conversely, an absorptive body will heat faster and cool faster. So unless one can selectively change albedo on the light side and dark side, I hypothesise that changing albedo will make *zero* difference to mean temperature of the body. Now to date, I don’t think climate scientists have claimed that as a mechanism. I dont; think we have seen any empirical evidence of differing albedos on the light and dark sides of earth.
Quack , quack,
BL is another quackpot indeed.
@WHT, I have made statements which represent scientific hypotheses which can easily be verified or refuted in a physics laboratory. I’d love to be shot down by some verifiable experimental science.
@Max, I think the major problem in the climate science debate is too many observations and too many models. We all know there isn’t verification and validation of the models. The vast range of available observations makes numerous conclusions possible aided by statistical cherry picking. Regardless of how complex and chaotic the system is, there must be some verifiable core science demonstrable by laboratory experiment which will permit some of the science to be “settled”. Without this, the argument continues ad infinitum (as is has been for years). And there are still commentators in the media who wish to blame the existence of skepticism on trolls funded by right wing big oil/coal-funded groups. Sad.
Thank you, Tamblyn, Griffith, Austin, Springer and Lolwot for your replies. Judith did ask for your best cases as sceptics.
Tamblyn: You produced an assertion but no evidence.
Giffith: Yes, I agree. The signal to noise ratio is poor and barely adequate, but in the Southern hemisphere Australia’s reputation as a reliable measurer is good. As for environmentalists, many are not scientists. It is a case of the blind leading the blind (metaphorically) following economists and politicians who have jumped on the bandwagon.
Austin: You give no evidence to support your assertion.
Springer: As far as I know, the BEST project showed no warming during the past decade. I know of no arbitrary adjustments to thermometers, but if it happens they should be weeded out. Ideally thermometers should be scattered uniformly round the globe and all read at the same time to get a good average. There are probably more in North America than in Antarctica so that would give a bias to USA temperature. How is that corrected to give more weight to Antarctica? I don’t know.
Lolwot: I agree and you do give evidence. Thanks.
lolwot is a sceptic? I’m sceptical about that.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif
Now you know.
Here is my best case:
It’s been 30 years, where are all the bodies?
Zombies…
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/250337-nader-capitol-hill-needs-substantive-climate-change-debate
Bye-bye
Skeptics should not need to make any case. Following Richard Feynman’s approach reflecting on the scientific method it is incumbent on the warmists to tackle all the issues in a logical, scientific manner – and that does involve honest skepticism.
This seems to be missing – almost completely to the extent that the same scientists pushing the alarmist case have admitted to exaggeration. The science resides in the next room and not “here.”
The quantified working hypothesis has to be derived from projections – it’s like extracting teeth from a chook. The test of science – experiments on this hypothesis all fail. By that I mean the various projections, when adjusted for actual CO2 conc., all fail after a few years (Hansen, IPCC projections).
They fail in hindcasting – not that success here would prove much but it would be nice to have. At least it would be a good start in favour of the models. If the models actually held then perhaps they would be robust and not be so alarmist with their predictions.
From a science viewpoint little else is needed to debunk an hypothesis no matter the elegance of the bits and pieces studied in a localised fashion. Let’s face it the key issue here is the alarmist T hypothesis. Everything else is secondary from a global viewpoint and would hardly make headlines.
TonyM | September 19, 2012 at 8:45 pm | Reply
“Skeptics should not need to make any case.”
No schit. Billions of years of history where earth has been at various times one big snowball to green from pole to pole and everything in between and none of it anthropogenic. Yet by fiat the warmists want the null hypothesis to be that recent small increase in temperature is anthropogenic. Non sequitur.
Those silly scientists think they can choose the null hypothesis.
Max_OK
Naw, Okie – not all of ’em. Jest a coupl’a dingbats like Trenberth (but he’s gotten shot down in the meantime).
Max (not from OK)
David Springer | September 20, 2012 at 12:05 am said: ”’ Billions of years of history where earth has been at various times one big snowball to green from pole to pole and everything in between”
Those swindlers that concocted those theories for the last 150y; were bigger con artist than you and Hansen – the only difference; they were not scrutinized. Those that brainwashed you, that: they know the temperature on the WHOLE planet for a whole year or millenia; by few, or one imprint – they are the precursor of today’s phony GLOBAL warming – Warmist are succeeding, because of morons like you. Ask them for couple of $$ donation, for .your contribution in misleading.
OT but perhaps of interest:
Some CE posters favour thorium reactors. The UK National Nuclear Lab has recently issued a short paper assessing The Thorium Fuel Cycle. It says that “The uranium fuel cycle now represents a commercially demonstrated fuel route, deployed worldwide with all of the commercial power stations using uranium as its source of fuel. Therefore, any future alternative to this technically mature, proven, commercial fuel cycle would need to demonstrate clear notable benefits over the existing options in order for it to be adopted e.g., benefits associated with the technology, economics, safety and security, environmental performance, sustainability etc. “
The NNL concludes that: “Reactor type: In the foreseeable future (up to the next 20 years), the only realistic prospect for deploying thorium fuels on a commercial basis would be in existing and new build LWRs (e.g., AP1000 and EPR) or PHWRs (e.g., Candu reactors). Thorium fuel concepts which require first the construction of new reactor types (such as High Temperature Reactor (HTR), fast reactors and Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS)) are regarded as viable only in the much longer term (of the order of 40+ years minimum) as this is the length of time before these reactors are expected to be designed, built and reach commercial maturity. …
“Resource availability: … in those countries that either have or can readily access uranium ore and fuels, there is no incentive to move to a thorium cycle either now (as the uranium ore exists at an economic price) or in the future as the closed uranium-plutonium fuel cycle will provide a sustainable option. In those countries such as India where uranium resource was limited, the use of the alternative thorium fuel cycle is understandable. …
“While the thorium fuel cycle is theoretically capable of being self-sustainable, this is only achievable with full recycle. This would involve the implementation of THOREX reprocessing and a remote fabrication plant for the U-233 fuel due to the high gamma dose from the feed material, both of which present very large technological, commercial and risk barriers, each with a significant cost component. …
“Economics: NNL believes that while economic benefits are theoretically achievable by using thorium fuels, in current market conditions the position is marginal and insufficient to justify major investment. There is only a very weak technical basis for claims that thorium concepts using seed-blanket PWR cores will be economically advantageous. The only exception is in a postulated market environment of restricted uranium ore availability and thus very high uranium prices. This is not considered very likely for the foreseeable future, given that economically recoverable uranium reserves are thought to be very price dependent and therefore if uranium prices were to increase, then more uranium would be available to the market. …
“Summary: NNL believes that the thorium fuel cycle does not currently have a role to play in the UK context,” and that significant R&D investment would be needed to pursue it: “Any investor needs to be cognisant of the immaturity and therefore the risk associated with such an undertaking as well as the level of investment needed at each and every process/stage of this entirely new furl cycle.”
http://www.nnl.co.uk/media/27860/nnl__1314092891_thorium_cycle_position_paper.pdf
In the context of the recent discussion of the Stern review, discount rates and our ability to assess the distant future, I note that NNL takes a similar view to me with its comment: “In the foreseeable future (up to the next 20 years) …”
Faustino,
Thank you for that comment. That is the position of all but a few thorium advocates. Ziggy Switkowski, who was head of the 2006 “Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy” Task Group for the Australian Government made the same point.
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/tep/66043
These types of new technologies are at least 40 years from being commercially viable.
When I advocate small modular factory built and refuelled nuclear power plants, I am not advocating these way-off-in-the future technologies. I am advocating the ones that have been going through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission process for a decade or so. (and yes, I do realise that you can include some thorium in a CANDU (the Canadian heavy water design). The CANDU is a very flexible reactor. And of a size that could be accommodated in the Australian grid, whereas the large Gen 3 power plants could not without huge cost for transmissions system upgrades.
James Hansen’s Plan to Convert Rational Climate-Change Skeptics
The recent article Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications (2012), by Hansen, Sato, Kharecha, and von Schuckmann, states plainly their plan to convincingly refute most forms of rational climate-change skepticism that have been expressed here on Climate Etc.
Phase I: More-and-better data As the article says:
Phase II: Smoothed global view For reasons noted in a preceding post, reliable long-term energy-balance predictions of warming can be based upon (relatively) simple thermodynamical considerations, even though local climate fluctuations typically are large.
Therefore, by verifying their predictions against smoothly-rising global observations of a sustained total energy imbalance, Hansen and his colleagues anticipate that they will effectively rebut all of the statistic-driven criticisms that are commonplace here on Climate Etc.
———-
Conclusion Hansen and colleagues are confident that accurate global measurements of the earth’s total energy imbalance will show, via multiple redundant planetary-scale observations, a smoothly accelerating heat-rise that will effectively refute all rational climate-change skepticism.
As for the ideology-driven denialists … well … nothing will convince *them*, eh? :) :grin: :lol:
This is why you are such a Muppet.
“The required measurement accuracy is ~0.1 W/m^2, in view of the fact that estimated current (2005-2010) energy imbalance is 0.59 W/m^2”
This is a estimate of of an AVERAGE of yearly energy difference over the AVERAGE surface of a spinning globe. This difference is on a background of an AVERAGE yearly influx, over the AVERAGE globe of about 240 W/m^2.
Hansen believes that he can measure 100%*(0.1/240) = 0.041%.
Remember the estimate of influx is between 230-250 W/m^2.
Hansen talks bollocks; quite common in people who do not understand haw to describe cyclical systems.
The radiant imbalance caused by greenhouse gases at TOA can’t be measured. The radiant flux response adjusts as the surface and atmosphere warms. Gases are emitted, the world warms and the radiant flux increases by thermal compensation.
Hansen is delusional or a fraud – there are no other choices.
It is not neccessary to know what the balance of ingoing and outgoing flux is to determine whether the planet is warming or cooling. The planet warms and cools in the atmosphere and oceans – and we can measure that directly. The changes in flux – both ingoing and outgoing – can be measured precisely and the drift is less than 0.1W.m2/decade in modern instruments. Thus we can see that cloud and not CO2 or sulphate is the dominant cause of recent climate change because short wave flux changes most.
Good job Fan. It looks like the skeptics are getting upset that you are destroying their arguments. Without those arguments to lean on, it appears that they have become dispirited.
Oh comedy … DocMartyn, the nature of your criticism suggests that you are criticizing an article by Hansen that you have yourself never read! :) :) :)
For in the article in question, namely Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications , we read the following harsh criticism of satellite measurement accuracy:
So you and James Hansen are totally on the same page, eh DocMartyn?
That is, you *would* be on the same page … if you ever troubled yourself to *read* that page! :) :) :)
Ho ho ho Chief Hydrologist, your post qualifies you, along with DocMartyn as belonging to the remarkably numerous class of climate-change pseudo-skeptics, who harshly criticize Hansen’s articles … without ever bothering to read them! :) :) :)
There are no satellites at the Lagrange point. Never will be. Here’s how it really works. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=148836911
What we are looking for is not absolutes but trends. Absolutes suffer from the calibration problem – trends only from drift. The drift of earlier instruments was about 0.3 W/decade. CERES is much more accurate.
I did read the paper. Ny verdict? Simplistic and irrelevant just like you.
Chief, the complete confidence of that assertion strikingly contrasts with its utter ignorance of past, present, and future satellite missions to the Lagrange points.
Usually, this level of confidently-expressed ignorance would be enough to win Climate Etc’s Dunning-Kruger Prize-of-the-Week, however David Springer’s heat-balance and American-history fantasies have already claimed this week’s Dunning-Kruger honors. :) :) :)
You are the principle reason I don’t bother with this forum any more. You completely destroy threads and arguments.
But it is fairly certain that the CERES instruments are still in low earth orbit. You understand of course that we are talking about the Earth’s radiant energy flux and not some othrr intersting but f\hardly relevant scientific experiment? I suggest we keep things in context. What am I saying – it is FOMBS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Qmue54W14
Perhaps I should inauguate the AGW space cadet award – but you would dominate to proceedings.
‘The exact origins of a space cadet are unknown but rumor has it that their home planet was destroyed due to pollution caused by poor house keeping. Following this disaster they proceeded to disperse themselves throughout the universe and litter the gene pool. Space cadets are known for their poor skills in common sense areas such as coordination, food preparation, basic cleaning and processing simultaneous coherent thoughts.’
Fan,
Its a load of BS from Hansen and the likes. They are science and energy naive.
Fan
You cite James E. Hansen’s “it ain’t changin’ much now, but wait’ll next year” musings on global sea level.
Since when was JEH an expert on sea levels?
Here’s what the real experts (the tide gauge folks, that have been measuring sea level for centuries) have reported.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg
As you can see, the decadal rate of global sea level change has bounced all over the place, like a big sine curve (where is Girma when we need him?).
The record shows a very slight deceleration over the 20th century, but -more important – it shows dramatic decadal variability and does NOT show an accelerating trend, as claimed by IPCC (and conjured up by Hansen).
Max
Take the scenario data that Hansen testified to Congress with in 1988.
Calculate an OLS trend of all the available data sets since 1979 ( giving him a 9 year head start for his 1988 testimony ).
Compare with the three scenarios.
Note that all the observations are lower than Scenario C, the one in which CO2 emissions completely stopped in 2000.
Conclude that doing nothing has turned out better than completely ceasing CO2 emissions, as theorized and testified to by Hansen.
Done.
Climate Weenie
Here’s the graph to go along with your post on Hansen’s 1988 forecast.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2537/5738998081_b3b3e55049_b.jpg
[BTW, he slightly underestimated the rate of increase of GHG emissions (emissions of CO2 – the principal human GHG – were slightly higher than his estimate for Case A – but the actual warming followed his warming forecast for the “no more human GHG” Case C)].
Max
On the end, will be proven that: ignoring my proofs, will decimate the ice and that will bring more freezing winters in Europe & north America. let it stay as a record! ::
1] bigger and bigger ”dry heat” produced in sub-Sahara (lake Chad is getting dry) -> extra dry air goes west into north Atlantic and destroys the ”raw material” for renewal of that ice. (Sirocco winds start blowing from Arctic, south -> to avoid vacuum -> moist air from North Atlantic goes north and replenishes the ice deficit. Less moisture in north Atlantic = less raw material for Arctic (same ”extra dry heat created, will slowly devastate the Congo basin -> dry heat will double in strength) Climatologist declared that ”raw material” as bad for climate…?!http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/water-vapor/ Otherwise, there are still prevention and solutions for the real problems; but NOTHING to do with CO2 +phony global warming CON!
B] higher ”dry heat” produced in Sahara = higher evaporation in the Mediterranean -> the Gulf stream increases speed -> more water from Mexican gulf -.> more ”extra” water siphoned from under the Arctic ice. C] that ice to protect itself from the salty seawater – sacrifices from itself some, to create freshwater -> stronger current = more and more sacrifices. PLUS, shonky experts and spectators go and for them the big Ice Crusher ships are vandalizing more ice by making many corridors -> ruff water, because of that, damages after 10000 times more -> they are rejoicing for being ”less ice”…
C] ice as the best insulator, protects the water from the unlimited coldness in the air. No ice -> water absorbs extra coldness -> in combination with the coldness in the air, as ripples -> intercept the moisture south = double the snow south in Europe & USA- no moisture left for renewal Arctic’s ice (if you know reliably, where ice is missing – from there where winds blow in January south = can predict where is going to happen, what happened last season in central Europe – for 2-3 y before, in northern Europe +USA) You people can ignore my proofs; but the weather will not… hope this year to be in north Europe + north America – where the shonky ”CLIMATE MODELERS” are. The bigger blizzards there – climatologist will not be fashionable; they are shooting themselves in the foot, by rejoicing the less ice on arctic. The ”Devil’s Advocates” will start getting what they deserve, not more cash.
2] 80% of water from the Russian rivers drain into the Arctic -> spread on the top of the salty / heavy water and protect the ice. Less of that freshwater -> Arctic siphons ‘extra” warm / salty water from north Pacific, via Bering’s death to the ice. Those ”death spirals” are created by the ”Warmist ideology”; NOT by natural variations. Misleading that: the non-existent GLOBAL warmings & CO2 are controlling climate, instead of H2O. That’s why they are wrong and back to front on everything:: http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/midi-ice-age-can-be-avoided/
ALL HONEST PEOPLE SHOULD COPY THIS COMMENT, AND KEEP IT AS A RECORD.
Climate Change: A Cargo Cult Science?
So, we have a very interesting “chunk” of evidence. Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Doubling its concentration should cause 1 deg C of warming if nothing else changes. Positive (P) or Negative feedbacks may change the response.
So here we have a theory. To support the theory (P), we need additional evidence:
What about water vapor feedback ? Yes and No. The climate system is complex, e.g. many factor are inter-related. In this case, using water vapor feedback as an additional piece of evidence is negated by the fact that any natural warming signal would likely also include a water vapor signature.
What about the cooling stratosphere ? Yes and No. The climate system is complex, e.g. many factor are inter-related. In this case, using the cooling stratosphere as an additional piece of evidence is negated by the fact that any natural warming signal would likely also include a cooling stratosphere signature.
What about the warming climate ? Yes and No. The climate system is complex, e.g. many factor are inter-related. In this case, using the warming climate as an additional piece of evidence is negated by the fact that any natural warming signal would likely also include a warming climate signature.
etc. etc. melting ice, you name it, etc.
In each case above, it is quite clear that the additional evidence needs “additional evidence in its self” in order to support the original theory, since that same additional evidence could also be used as evidence for natural internal variability. Correlation does not equal causation for this precise reason.
Conclusion: There was never enough evidence to say that warming since the ’50’s was very likely due to man. You have been conned.
If any body does find addition “feynman-like” evidence, please contact AL Gore on 1300 -ALGORE
X Anomaly | September 19, 2012 at 11:38 pm asked: ”What about water vapor feedback ? ”
X, you ask the question, but do you really like to know the answers? on the 3 posts that are on the home page – you will find ALL the correct answer on ALL your questions, Here:
http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/water-vapor/
To all warmers, luke warmers or catastrophic warmers, is there any instance where a change in the physical attributes of the climate would change your opinion that CO2 was the main cause of global warming? I use the term “global warming” because that’s the term that was used to start this discussion way back when. Anything, is there anything that would change your mind and cause you to believe that the earth is organized the way it is to do what it does and man isn’t going to drive it off a cliff with CO2 output? Please be honest and courteous. Oh, and ” when hell freezes over” is already taken :)
Ocean heat content decreases for a decade or two while the summer Arctic sea ice minimum goes back up to 7 or 8 million sq. km. during the same period– both of these in the absence of some mega-volcanoes going off would cause me to seriously reconsider the CO2 driven global warming hypothesis.
Double ditto! :) :) :)
The average temperature of the global ocean is 4C. It’s a pretty f*cking sure bet that 17C average air temperature above it isn’t going to drive it any lower. It’s been gaining heat since the beginning of the Holocene Interglacial. I can’t quite decide if asking for the impossible is because you’re smart enough to know it’s not going to happen or because you’re too stupid to know it’s not going to happen.
Dave Springer, are you aware that utter confidence in factually wrong beliefs is characteristic of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome :?: :?: :?:
Now please calculate for yourself, that if the present planetary energy imbalance of 0.59 W/m^2, had been sustained for the 12,000 years since the Holocene began, that the earth’s oceans would have warmed 20°C during the Holocene :shock: :shock: :shock:
But that is impossible, eh Dave Springer?
Because the present-day mean temperature of the oceans is much colder than 20°C, eh? As you yourself correctly noted, eh? :) :) :)
And so your belief, that the earth’s present energy imbalance is in any respect typical of the Holocene, and/or sustainable over long periods, is completely, utterly, totally, physically, impossible, eh Dave Springer?
Hmmm … perhaps your own confidence in the reliability of your own technical judgment, is similarly misjudged, eh? ;) ;) ;)
Changes in the charge on the electron, Planck’s constant and the mass of the proton and neutron leading to a shift in the absorption spectrum of CO2 away from the emission spectrum of ~ 300 K grey bodies like the Earth.
Positing any change in the laws of thermodynamics would only tempt Chris Horner to sue for their repeal in the courts of Virginia.
Chill, Einstein. The earth isn’t anywhere close to an ideal 300K grey body. If it were you’d have a point but it isn’t so you don’t. It’s a rotating water covered sphere and the primary means of surface cooling isn’t radiative it’s latent. Get a few clues about the physics of water and then reconsider your specious drivel about black body radiation.
Insert 50 Shades of Grey body joke here.
Here is why I am sceptical. I should add that I’m a professor in physics. I mention this not as a spurious appeal to authority argument, rather that it puts my points in a better context. I spend my time testing theories.
The confidence with which one can assess whether (and the extent to which we are altering our climate) depends on the falsifiability of various hypotheses. Ideally, to show substantial human-induced climate change one must falsify the hypothesis of natural variation and subject predictive climate models to falsification tests i.e. test them with measurements which could, in principle, kill the hypotheses underlying them and not just lead to further model parameter optimisation. In the former case (natural variability), I’m disappointed by the “hockey stick” graphs. I find Steve Mc’s arguments compelling (and, unfortunately, somewhat obvious) and the response from the community disappointing. Indeed, if the community had responded along the lines of “yes, he has a point for studies X and Y, we won’t show them again” I may be more inclined to think better of the body of work and the scientists who produce them. However, they went into bunker mentality mode. For the latter case (models), whenever I’ve asked climate scientists about quantitative falsification tests which their models must undergo they respond as if I’m trying to score a political point. I’m not. This is important. A model which has never been subjected to a classic falsification test can not be regarded as being as reliable as one which has. It may be that our understanding of the climate is tentative and that classic falsification tests are hard to find. Furthermore, the more alarmist models may even be right. However, one must be prepared to admit that they lack classic falsification tests and devise policy accordingly.
I’m not sure how I class myself ( “lukewarmer” etc) and would prefer to avoid a label and instead state my position. This is that I’ve yet to see the data analyses presented and defended in a convincing way and am disappointed that the climate community seem not to share my opinions on what is that needs to be done in order to demonstrate strong hypotheses.
To move forward, I would like to see several groups of experts in the physical sciences, stats etc. be formed and tasked with reproducing the key results of climate science which are necessary for policy. The group members would have PhD students and be given several years and generous funding to carry out their tasks. The groups would not be staffed with “the great and the good”. Instead, active independently minded scientists would be assigned. I realise that this is quite a wish list but its one way in which I (and probably many others) could be convinced that the science is sound.
I agree. I have suggested in my Denizens entry that such a group of volunteers could be convened and using an agreed praxis, redevelop climate science from scratch via wikis.
Excellent point Dave
Dave | September 20, 2012 at 1:53 am |
..experts in the physical sciences, stats etc. be formed and tasked with reproducing the key results of climate science which are necessary for policy.
Can you expand on how that differs from BEST?
From the IPCC?
From you taking on the key results which anyone could reproduce themselves singly or with the cooperation of a few other interested hobbyists in the community?
See, I can reproduce the first of the key results of radiative transfer physics with a glass of milk, a tablespoon of flour and a strong source of white light. Have you?
Are you satisfied with the Physics climatology relies on for the GHE?
Do you find the IPCC results about the CO2 level over geological timescales convincing? Over millennial timescales? Decadal timescales? Has the hypothesis of natural variability in CO2 level been overturned for you? Have you checked it yourself? It’s not that hard.
Have you taken any steps to parameterize the problem space? To use first order approximations of the scale of factors involved? Done any estimation?
Because nifty as testing theories sounds, I remain skeptical of the ardor for resolution embodied in your comment. It sounds like you really don’t want to know, and want your unknowing handed to you on a silver platter.
“See, I can reproduce the first of the key results of radiative transfer physics with a glass of milk, a tablespoon of flour and a strong source of white light.”
Radiative transfer is not the whole story. The surface is cooled primarily by non-radiative heat transfer (evaporation and convection) and secondarily by radiation. On the other hand, the atmosphere is cooled exclusively by radiation, where the radiatively active atmospheric gases do the cooling job.
Edim | September 21, 2012 at 4:55 am |
Oddly, one can also do confirmatory experiments on convection and evaporation, too.
They are indeed real things.
And guess what? They were real a hundred years ago, too.
Of the three, radiative transfer, evaporation and convection, which do you suggest has changed most in that time?
What possible method could you conceive of to establish the ratio of the component of energy exchange represented by changes in each over time?
And what are those ratios?
BEST reproduced the surface temperatures (and its great that they did this). Although they tried to claim otherwise, they had little to say about attribution (even Mann hated this).
Regarding the IPCC, in response to your question, I don’t find it convincing. Showing Hockey Sticks based on poor statistical analyses, and cutting out adverse data, isn’t impressive in the slightest. As a scientist I’m appalled by this. Furthermore, the job of the IPCC is to provide a summary of existing literature. I’m proposing a complete reproduction of key results using the best statistical techniques etc. We are constantly told that this is a major problem for mankind. The costs involved in independently reproducing the results with a group of top scientists who have no “dog in the fight” are minimal. I’m surprised that there is little support for this from CAGW-believers. After all, its not as if you’re winning the argument when it comes to public opinion.
Regarding your comment..
“Because nifty as testing theories sounds, I remain skeptical of the ardor for resolution embodied in your comment. It sounds like you really don’t want to know, and want your unknowing handed to you on a silver platter.”
I’m not sure how to react to that. I’ve just finished a submission of a research article to a journal today and spent a little time earlier today teaching students how to conduct experiments and avoid biases when studying data. Yet you think I don’t want to know…Finding out things through experiment is my job. I made my proposal because I *want* to know – its just that I’m not sure whether to trust the information being given to me. If that annoys you then write to certain climate scientists and tell them to admit in public that, eg, many of the historical temperature reconstructions are flawed and that, shock horror, a Canadian mining engineer was right. Paradoxically, you might find their credibility when putting forward other climate-related research *increases*. Arguing that black is white only works on a blind man.
Great post and response…… I see there are no rebuttals. Speaks volumes as to motive and bias. I asked a question above if there was anything that could possibly change the minds of those that believe global warming was totally man made by CO2. Three responses from everybody here and one of them very silly.
Kent Draper,
Here’s the answer I serendipitously fished out today, entitled **How to Falsify AGW**:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/31982609327
It is written by Vaughan Pratt.
I hope you will not find it silly.
Enjoy,
w
Dave | September 21, 2012 at 12:10 pm |
Thank you for your response. And I agree, it’s great BEST was done, and continues to be improved on. I won’t hold it to an impossible standard, however, or demand it solve all my problems for me. The circumstance we are in that we even need a BEST project, considering we’ve had the means to collect far more and better data, and manage it far better and more openly globally for many decades remains a travesty. The salvage of the wreckage of observations we’re left with done by BEST is astounding, a true monument of Statistical prowess. I look forward to more.
Can BEST speak to attribution?
Not so far as I can see, from the goals of the project. Attributionis a matter of inference, not observation, and BEST exists to improve observation quality by technique, not perform analysis of first causes.
Could the people involved in BEST speak to attribution? Certainly. Inference is not all that difficult. By Newton’s Principia we know what attribution we must accept. http://web.visionlearning.com/custom/ProcessofScience/custom/Newtons_four_rules_table.shtml
What is the most parsimonious, simple, universal, accurate proposition of attribution? Anthropogenicity. QED
But back to other matters.
Showing Hockey Sticks based on poor statistical analyses, and cutting out adverse data, isn’t impressive in the slightest.
You’ll have to clarify what you mean by poor statistical analyses, and cutting out adverse data.
While much that went on in CRU in the privacy of their personal email exchanges was appalling when the harsh light of day was shone on it, and not in the spirit of Science (which if you knew me, you would understand is perhaps the worst thing I can say about a scientist), while Steve McIntyre discovered issues (albeit with less than one percent of the data used by the IPCC in the analyses in question) that required adjustments, while almost all paleo is inevitably at least an order of magnitude less precise and less reliable than direct instrumental observation (especially as regards temperature), I’ve been back and forth through the literature and cannot find serious and legitimate confirmation for arguments dismissing these analyses, merely enough to deprecate them to about the level any competently skeptical reader should have given the caveats in the IPCC reports themselves. If that’s what you mean by not impressed, we’re in complete agreement.
As to public opinion, only in the USA, and generally among the same populations as believe angels are winged men who walk among us and fly invisibly about the countryside is there a significant issue with acceptance of the IPCC position. Unless you count Australia, which who does?
I’d be delighted to have a BEST for every “key”, and heck, even every minor, finding of the IPCC. However, since the reports of the IPCC are already compiled from the independent work of scientists who do not have a dog in this fight, as well as scientists who do, I don’t see exactly what you’re asking for. You want how many levels of retesting of established and generally accepted peer-reviewed science, but only if it happens to have made it into an IPCC report?
Do you understand why someone might find that position suspect?
..its just that I’m not sure whether to trust the information being given to me. If that annoys you then write to certain climate scientists and tell them to admit in public that, eg, many of the historical temperature reconstructions are flawed and that, shock horror, a Canadian mining engineer was right. Paradoxically, you might find their credibility when putting forward other climate-related research *increases*. Arguing that black is white only works on a blind man.
Let’s take on “annoys” first. I’m of naturally sour disposition, what with the buzzing in my head that tells me to be skeptical of all things. You really can’t annoy me. Heck, we’re in extraordinary agreement about most of what you’ve said.
As to trusting, the position of Halley and of Newton, established 300 years ago, about trust is that you go to first sources, examine them, and confirm with your own independent work. Have you examined first sources? Have you confirmed with your own independent work? Or do you just doubt, and do nothing about those doubts. Because when I don’t trust something, I either satisfy myself by inquiry, or I generally avoid it. And you’re not avoiding it. You’re putting your professional integrity on the line to dismiss it utterly and raise the FUD level.
Also, Steve McIntyre is not a mining engineer. He’s a mining accountant. Subtle difference, but people keep on getting little things wrong surrounding the man, and it’s frankly appalling to see such hypocrisy about people hypersensitive to every detail in work they claim they’re just being objective about dismissing, while so gullibly accepting of everything that appears to confirm their biases. And you teach testing? Do you not know what confirmation bias smells like?
Have you read McIntyre’s actual criticisms, and confirmed his facts for yourself? Or do you just trust third-hand reports about them? There is none so blind as him who hasn’t even looked, but proclaims what he just knows he’d see if he opened his eyes.
willard (@nevaudit) | September 21, 2012 at 6:00 pm |
Vaughn Pratt’s wrong.
A return to a period of lower rates of extremes does not falsify AGW.
That’s one of the problems with Chaos: it really doesn’t conform to pattern analyses.
A period of lower rates of extremes would indicate a shift to a new stable state, or to a transient. It would also require a return to balanced rates of extremes, and to the rates of extremes we would expect had the perturbation not occurred, and to the conditions prior to the state shift, and it would have to last for at least 30 years, to count as a meteorological climate state. Given that climate naturally exhibits clusters of extreme events on the sub-decadal timespan, we’d need one heck of a Bayesian analysis to falsify AGW based on Vaughn’s rule.
Though if the rate of extremes does continue, it won’t really be a question that matters.
‘It’s quiet in Minnesota in February’. http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2011/02/26/scripts/minnesota.shtml
Bart contracted brain freeze in the long, snowy Minnesotan winters and has never recovered. He knows everything he needs to know because he makes it up as he goes along. The ongoing Aussie jibes are a bit unfair as well. I don’t retaliate in kind – I don’t agree with our treasurer at all and quite approve of the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In Bart’s case, however, it is a bit of a brain frozen, zombie nightmare.
Chaos theory is not a theory of climate. It is a theory of complex and dynamic systems. It says that complex systems, such as climate models, exhibit certain behaviors. Chief amongst these is sensitive dependence, dragon-kings (equivalently noisy bifurcation) and slowing down. If this behavior if looked for and found in climate – as it has been in modern data – then we can be sure that we are dealing with dynamical complexity.
Thus we can look in the right place for answers but it tells us nothing at all about the processes in play. At this stage there are a few ideas about identifying dragon-kings and slowing down but nothing that has moved much beyond the conceptual and descriptive.
Sensitive dependence happens when the value of control variables passes a critical threshold. The control variables are solar irradiation, orbital eccentricity or atmospheric composition. At some tipping point changes start propagating through the system with changes in cloud, snow, ice, biology, dust and ocean circulation. As this stage there are extreme fluctuations as the system components adjust and readjust to the rapidly changing state – this is when climate extremes happen such as the 1998 El Niño. It is followed by a period of damped oscillation as climate settles into the new state – technically termed slowing down – until a new climate threshold is passed and climate shifts again.
We can use terms such as phase space or strange attractors but they are simply terms for climate shifting from one more or less stable state to another. The states have different characteristics – different temperatures, different rainfall patterns, more or less ice, changes in ecosystems, etc – and different climate averages which are not predictable beforehand. It may be benign or it may be utterly inimical to human societies. Thus it seems entirely sensible to be a climate catastrophist in the sense of René Thom – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory
@Willard
Of course if the temperatures went down to 1960’s levels and stayed there for a very long time then it would falsify our current hypothesis that the recent temperatures rise + predicted continued rise are largely because of human influence. However, its far from a practical falsification test since the time scale is likely decades. Also, since the central “prediction” of CAGW is temperature rise its also rather facile. I could posit “Dave’s theory” which predicts temperature rises – Look ! the temps have risen, I’m right! The reason why many take CAGW seriously is because they believe that the underlying theory is sound. However, the underlying theory underpinning CAGW is complex, being based on fundamental laws of physics which are then modelled with phenomenological techniques. That said, we have a number of observables which are measured to various degrees of precision (temperature, water vapour densities, ice-levels, as a function of position and time etc. etc.). My problem is that none of these observables seem able to falsify the models. If something doesn’t agree with the model, the model is changed or the disagreement is deemed to be unimportant. This all may well be fine. However, in doing so one is missing the falsification tests. We believe in relativity not because Einstein was smarter than us but because his theory worked, time and time again at experiments where it could have been killed. Measurements of, eg, the bending of light could have turned out the other way and disagreed. If that had happened, Einstein would still have been a smart man and premier scientist – its just that the idea he had for nature wouldn’t have been deemed to have worked i.e.it would be falsified. He knew this and the community at the time knew this – that’s why these measurements of observables were so useful. That’s why we trust relativity when it makes predictions because there were many opportunities with which his paradigm of gravity could have been put to the sword but survived. Its far from unreasonable to ask for the list of observables which, if they disagreed with the climate models, would have falsified them and the paradigm underpinning them. The fact is that climate science is far messier and models have a greater flexibility in that they can be adapted to describe data. Adapting models may make for a more reliable model. However, it may also make a model which describes well today’s (+ historical data) but which loses predictive power. I have no idea if the models are reliable predictive approaches or not. However, its far from unreasonable to suppose that models which haven’t undergone rigorous falsification tests like relativity or quantum mechanics have a question mark over their predictive power. Its unfortunate that asking about falsification elicits snarky responses. Falsification is an important part of model building (its the first thing I mention when I teach about the scientific method).
@BartR
Whether Steve M. is a mining engineer or accountant is irrelevant (though I’m happy to be corrected). What is relevant is whether or not specific criticisms he made of certain papers are sound. Unfortunately, I am persuaded that many of these criticisms are reliable. Taking one example (Mann, Bradley, Hughes – Nature, 1998- you know the one) , a method of producing a hockey stick from proxies which also gives a hockey stick from essentially random data doesn’t necessarily means its wrong but it does mean one needs to work a hell of a lot (and show that work) to demonstrate significant results *even though noise gives similar results*. This wasn’t done. Similarly, if it is stated that results are robust to the choice of proxies and this isn’t the case then this is also very wrong. It shouldn’t take a blog campaign to point this out. Were I the author of this paper and someone had pointed out such flaws I would have simply retracted the paper or published another paper pointing out the many flaws in the first one, asking people not to consider it further, and, this time, doing it properly. My colleagues in the field would also have pushed me in this direction, especially if the paper had gained international prominence in the public sphere. They would have published detailed and devastating criticisms themselves. The opposite seemed to happen in the case of this paper (one forced and limited correction aside) . A support paper was written by the main author’s former student which invented an entirely new stastistical quantity to demonstrate significance (never appeared before or after) to “refute” the criticisms. This should have been embarrassing for the field, not least since poor use of statistics lay at the heart of the original criticism. There are a number of other examples of poor data analysis. This is why I’m unhappy not just with one scientist (we all make mistakes, big deal) but a field which supports a low quality of work. You asked if I had the read the criticisms – yes, I’ve read the original papers, criticisms and the various reports of the great and the good. Furthermore, I understand PCA’s and data analysis. That paper was awful and the results should no longer be disseminated. Instead, its results have been sent through people’s letter boxes. My wife had to sit through a presentation which included its results when she was getting her driving licence. This is ridiculous.
One can move on and talk about removing late 20th century data since it showed a decline in reconstructed temperatures for a recent IPCC report (you know what I’m writing about here). This is just plain wrong. One doesn’t need to throw accusations of fraud around (I’d rather people didn’t). However, this type of thing isn’t allowed in science since it presents a tidy picture that doesn’t exist. Data are messy and science is messy. Sometimes the dust is blown away naturally by the wind and an amazing structure is revealed. Selectively blowing some of the dust away isn’t the same thing.
Regarding the IPCC and the layers of testing, retesting, peer-review etc. my response here is big deal- I work on a large particle physics collaboration (4000 scientists) and we have similar procedures. However, one critical difference is that when a result comes out a critic or referee can argue his/her point all the way to the top as the result is coming out through its many layers of review . The person whose work is attacked is required to defend time and time again as the attacking argument becomes more honed. This is all played out not just via mails but in front of anyone in the collaboration who would care to attend the meetings (or connect remotely). Similarly, when we make mistakes, we admit them. We don’t attack critics who put forward sensible arguments as putting forward “voodoo science” . We listen to the arguments and respond. Perhaps this is because our head of experiment is elected by the scientists themselves and is a respected scientist and not a political appointee. I would certainly defend our processes as being at least as good as the IPCC (and probably better) and we are still far from perfect. Indeed, if the IPCC procedures were so good they would not have allowed the deletion of data from a graph to artificially show a tidy picture. Nor would they have allowed results with obviously dubiously statistics (eg MBH) to be shown.
Finally, I’d like to make a general point (to anyone who may be reading this) about peer-review . Peer-review is a dreadful system. Its easy to game it and is often no guarantee of quality or correctness of a study. Its also the best system we’ve got for disseminating good results. However, that doesn’t mean that a well motivated criticism needs to be ignored until such a time as a critic writes a paper. It wasn’t this way before peer-reviewed literature took a grip on the fields and it won’t be again – this is the blog age whether we like it or not. A good criticism is a good criticism and an author should act on it regardless of any personal antipathy he or she may feel towards the critic or how the criticism was put forward. The protection many authors have by claiming that critics ought to always “publish in peer-reviewed literature” to make the point is a false one and protects bad science (in all fields). Its time to stop making that argument and start making another argument : is the criticism important ?. This needn’t mean an author spends all his/her time responding to stupid comments. A balance should be struck. Its also unavoidable since blogs are here and they are being used. Sometimes a peer-reviewed criticism may be needed, other times not.
Dave,
I know that what Vaughan suggests is far from a practical falsification test since the time scale is likely decades. That was the point.
Practical falsifications are not always possible. Popper’s point was just a theorical one. As such, it got replaced with holism:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/HolismWins
In the end, holism wins.
Steve’s not an engineer, btw. He’s a mining consultant:
> Mr. Steve McIntyre has been appointed as Chairman of the Board of Trelawney Mining and Exploration Inc with effect from June 30, 2011. Mr. McIntyre has over 30 years experience in the mining and mineral exploration business, including over 10 years with Noranda Mines Ltd. and 20 years as an officer and director of several junior mineral exploration companies, including Dumont Nickel Inc., Northwest Explorations Inc., Timmins Nickel Inc. and Vedron Gold Inc. Most recently, Mr. McIntyre has achieved international prominence through critical statistical analysis of climate research. In 2010, he was named as one of “50 People Who Matter” by the New Statesman, an English magazine, and was co-winner of the Julian Simon Award from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r-TYHJHkKR8J:www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyOfficers%3Fsymbol%3DTWNNF.PK+steve+mcintyre+mining+consultant+reuters
At least until last July he was.
And his diploma is PPE, not maths:
http://www.ppe.ox.ac.uk/
Unless you want to say that all math undergraduates are mathematicians, you should not say that Steve’s a mathematician. The best you can say is like Steve: “contest-winning math student”.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/09/18/lewandowskys-fake-correlation/#comment-354635
Always refer to Steve to see what is the best way to promote (in a technical sense) Steve.
Dave | September 22, 2012 at 7:38 am |
Your replies leave me wondering, do you have a certificate as a professional tester? Training specifically in testing as a subject itself? Qualifications through a professional body or organization dedicated specifically to testing? Because nothing in what you’ve said indicates aptitude for the job.
You brought up the topic of Steve McIntyre’s profession. A tester practices parsimony, so if a tester mentions something, that means it is relevant; furthermore, while I agree that it is not parsimonious for you to have brought up the topic, once the topic is introduced it is patently relevant as it is an error in your argument and also it is a recognizable propaganda technique (see “Transfer” in http://mason.gmu.edu/~amcdonal/Propaganda%20Techniques.html) and technique of marketing manipulation (halo effect). You have leapt out of the practice of science into social engineering. You’re deceiving us.
Let’s look at the rest of your reply for other examples of propaganda. “Testimonial” is there in your rather blundering description of how transparency and openness work in your organization of 4,000 nuclear researchers.. Because no one whose seen this sort of thing in action where it actually works would be satisfied with such a description. If any scientist in any organization behaved the way Mr. McIntyre did, and achieved so little actual result — documented as a correction of less than 1% of the amplitude of less than 1% of the span of ONE SINGLE LINE in a graph — he’d be quietly encouraged to teach freshman algebra and stay the heck out of Physics.
Glittering generalities? Wow. “..specific criticisms he made of certain papers are sound. Unfortunately, I am persuaded that many .. Just bury the needle with that one little example of glitter handwaved over the whole topic.
Name-calling? Oh. No, that’d be me doing that.
Card Stacking? Pretty much textbook case of it with you.
You missed your calling, if you chose the sciences.
More like.. used car salesman.
Bart R., be Captain Blithe…
“What is the most parsimonious, simple, universal, accurate proposition of attribution? Anthropogenicity. QED
But back to other matters.”
Kent –
Would you mind stating who believes that?
Willard
I know all about Popperism and the difficulties of falsification. However, that in no way negates my point that theories which are falsifiable and which have survived falsifying tests can be relied in the field upon more than those which have’t been tested this way. Why this should be remotely controversial to many CAGW-proponents is baffling to me. Rather than cussing and sneering, a more appropriate response to the question of falsification would simply be for them to state that its difficult. This is a weakness of the models – it should be admitted – end of story. Advocates on both sides need to realise that the failure to concede any weakness in their positions is, in fact, a weakness for their credibility.
Regarding Steve M, as I mentioned, I really don’t care less what his qualifications and experience are. Its his arguments which are important. In my opinion he has made sound ones and the responses to them have been (like the falsiification issue) weak and not to the credit of the field.
To go back to my first post, its as much the behaviour of the field when faced with valid criticisms as the criticisms themselves which make me question the human-induced climate change hypothesis
Dave,
You claim:
> However, that in no way negates my point that theories which are falsifiable and which have survived falsifying tests can be relied in the field upon more than those which have’t been tested this way.
My point would be that I have yet to see the falsifiable theory you claim exists. If you can produce one, please go to
http://www.scienceofdoom.com
and produce it. Or better yet, publish it.
Money and fame awaits you.
In other words, go play the tough guy with other meanies like you. Since you’re an irascible,
***
TCO seems to agree with you about what makes a scientist. It seems that criteria suffices to discredit Steve himself:
http://moyhu.blogspot.ca/2011/06/effect-of-selection-in-wegman-report.html?showComment=1307795247876#c6581465058188813939
***
If credentials were of no importance to you, I would like to know why you have prefaced your comment by mentioning that you teach Physics. I’m glad you are. I’m a ninja myself.
My biographical note was simply there because you said that you’d gladly be corrected.
It seems you’re not.
My bad.
Willard
Thanks for the reply. Its interesting that, once again, a discussion on falsifiability of models elicits a sneering response. Funnily enough, it doesn’t when discussed in mainstream physics. We have many models which are interesting but which aren’t yet falsifiable. The model developers recognise this and don’t hide it or pretend it isn’t important. Its not particularly controversial.
I’m afraid what passes for your arguments make little sense. If the model predictions are direct applications, as we are told, of fundamental physics laws then of course they are falsifiable in principle since these laws themselves are falsifiable (that’s how the laws were discovered and quantified in the first place, it wasn’t through a straw poll showing,eg, 97% of scientists support Newton’s second law for explaining falling apple motion). If the models comprise layers of data-optimised phenomenological ideas on top of the fundamental laws and the models are, in principle, not falsifiable in any practical sense, then supports the argument that predictivity is an issue since while the physical laws have been developed and then tested in falsification tests, the phenomenological add-ons haven’t.. Again, I have no idea why this is controversial. Actually, that’s untrue. I think its because CAGW-proponents don’t want to admit the slightest weakness in their position – maintaining the all-is-perfect-fiction is ,in fact, a greater weakness than admitting to using models for predictions which describe current data but which haven’t undergone falsification tests).
Regarding my mentioning that I’m a professor. (As I already wrote) I didn’t do so out of any spurious appeal to authority. (Also as I already wrote) I test models for a living. I’m therefore happy to have a discussion on relevant aspects of model testing which is informed by my direct experience. This is just what I’ve done.
Regarding Steve M,, the fact that you clearly dislike him (have you ever met him btw ??) is irrelevant . What you have failed to do is explain quantitatively why he’s wrong. Try to attack the argument and not the person.
Dear Dave,
Here is why I am sceptical of your skepticism. I should add that I’m a ninja. I mention this not as a spurious appeal to authority argument, rather that it puts my points in a better context. I spend my time reading comments with all the salesman (h/t BartR) techniques like the serie of comments you just wrote .
You’re right to underline some things you say as uncontroversial. I just conveyed the idea that they were uncontroversial. What is controversial are the falsificationnist innuendos that you’re promoting. In fact, these innuendos are more than controversial: they are used to create a controversy where none exists.
If you really are a teacher and a tester as you say, then act like one.
Finally, please bear in mind that I like Steve. He has a strange way to pick up his friends, but such is life. I would not bother if the sum of his contribution was as repugnant as some of them. So please do not reorient yourself into the business of reading minds.
w
PS: There is a reason why I use the word “repugnant”. Please beware that I am a ninja.
PPS: And no, I’m not a real ninja. It’s just an old Internet joke.
Dave | September 23, 2012 at 7:43 am | Reply
“Funnily enough, it doesn’t when discussed in mainstream physics. We have many models which are interesting but which aren’t yet falsifiable. The model developers recognise this and don’t hide it or pretend it isn’t important. Its not particularly controversial.”
Modern physics and non-falsifiable models reached the level of popular TV sit-coms. Johnny Galecki on “The Big Bang Theory” had a line in one program describing what he and Sheldon do (theoretical physicists) explaining to a girl why they weren’t famous. “We make up abstract models about things no one can see and we can’t prove anything so all we can do is say one model has more internal consistency than another.”
There’s a lot of subtle humor in that sit-com that must go unnoticed by most of the viewers. Either that or I’m way underestimating the number of people who keep up with developments in theoretical physics, or rather lack of developments in theoretical physics.
Bart
Thanks for the post.
I think my points about falsifiability and the dangers of data analysis in situations in which background and signal signatures overlap are clear.
Rather than insulting me, perhaps you could try to quantitatively engage in the points. They are obvious and (outside of climate science) entirely non-controversial. The fact that they evoke such a response here really should be ringing alarm bells.
Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, I spend my time lecturing and writing scientific papers. Yet I’ve never had a reaction to any lecture/seminar/paper/mail similar to the one you’ve given to my posts. Empirical evidence suggests that I ought not to take your criticism too seriously.
Dave | September 23, 2012 at 10:25 am |
Let’s try discussing just the ideas, and leave your qualifications out of things for a while. If you can stop reminding us of them.
Let’s also leave out Steve McIntyre entirely, who everyone agrees is a very nice guy in person. Mild, pleasant, quiet and intelligent, courteous, mannerly, thoughtful, why I’ve heard all of these mentioned. It is hardly surprising that he rose so high in his field of using numbers to persuade governments to give mining companies tax breaks and subsidies and get people to invest in risky, low-payoff ventures.
I’ll try to enumerate the ideas you’ve introduced pertaining specifically to Climate Science:
1. The confidence with which one can assess whether (and the extent to which we are altering our climate) depends on the falsifiability of various hypotheses.
Strictly speaking, your premise is incorrect. Falsifiability is not connected to confidence in any way, shape or form. Confidence is an issue of reliance on data for inference. Inference itself is a matter of pure logic, so has 100% confidence: correctly applied logic neither increases no decreases confidence of observations. Falsifiability is not inference.
Further, “various hypotheses” is a glittering generality, and absolutely meaningless without complete details of every hypothesis intended. Also, Newton warns us in the strongest language to beware feigning hypotheses — we stop with the accurate, or very nearly true, one hypothesis that best fits the data under the precepts of parsimony and simplicity, until new data shows that one hypothesis no longer accurate.
2. Ideally, to show substantial human-induced climate change one must falsify the hypothesis of natural variation and subject predictive climate models to falsification tests i.e. test them with measurements which could, in principle, kill the hypotheses underlying them and not just lead to further model parameter optimisation.
Again, no.
To show substantial human-induced climate change one may stop when one has shown fingerprints of human activity in climate results, reducing the degrees of freedom on rejection of the hypothesis of anthropogenicity to zero.
Muller’s done this lately, re-confirming yet again AGW. When the two major factors — CO2E and volcano activity — are matched against temperature curves (which we could not do were these curves perfectly linear, by the way), we see exactly the coffin nails of temperature drops due volcanoes in exactly the correspondingly nonlinear CO2E and temperature relationship.
Your argument is, in effect, that the fingerprints at a crime scene should not be considered incriminating until compared to every other human finger on the planet, and also that the jury must consider there’s a chance the pattern could have spontaneously been generated by some sort of fungus. Anyone can see how patently false the reasoning you introduce is.
2. a) In the former case (natural variability), I’m disappointed by the “hockey stick” graphs. I find Steve Mc’s arguments compelling (and, unfortunately, somewhat obvious) and the response from the community disappointing.
Okay, normally in Logic, sufficient disproof or the first error in the argument is cause to stop, so I ought not comment further on your argument.
Mr. McIntyre’s persuasive snowjob has been met head on many times by qualified commentators. Some of what he said had some merit. Much of it was mere flim-flam.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/myths-vs-fact-regarding-the-hockey-stick/ details four myths and eleven citations which clearly you are disappointed about. Further, Huybers 2005, and Wahl & Ammann 2007, as well as the IPCC 2007 report rebutted the overstatements of McIntyre and McKitrick.
2.b) Indeed, if the community had responded along the lines of “yes, he has a point for studies X and Y, we won’t show them again” I may be more inclined to think better of the body of work and the scientists who produce them.
Is refuting the errors on all sides independently of who makes them not what we hope to see happen? McIntyre had a point in less than one percent of the amplitude of less than one percent of the span of one curve, and was refuted entirely on Hockey Stick. Mann had many more errors than McIntyre caught, and others — and Mann himself — have published peer-reviewed corrections of those errors, as well as peer-reviewed new findings that tend to confirm the findings of the IPCC.
You’re surely aware of this.
2.c) However, they went into bunker mentality mode.
They were always in bunker mentality mode. They’re slightly paranoid, slightly cliquish, slightly expecting to be martyrred as they turn each new corner, slightly persecution-complex suffering academicians. Like fully half of all academicians always. So they’ve got horrible people skills? So what? Talk about irrelevant.
3. For the latter case (models), whenever I’ve asked climate scientists about quantitative falsification tests which their models must undergo they respond as if I’m trying to score a political point. I’m not.
I’m not a people person either. However, I’ve found that if everyone responds as if I’m doing something socially unacceptable, and they all respond as if it’s the same socially unacceptable thing, then likely I’m doing something socially unacceptable. Like where you use a faulty premise (as we’ve shown above) to ask a leading, manipulative question.
Surely, you have the resources and expertise to discover how the models are constructed and recommend fitting tests yourself that you would feel appropriate? I mean, the internet is full of laymen and hobbyists who have done exactly this. Wouldn’t that be the approach one would take were one interested in making a productive contribution, rather than scoring political points?
4.This is important. A model which has never been subjected to a classic falsification test can not be regarded as being as reliable as one which has. It may be that our understanding of the climate is tentative and that classic falsification tests are hard to find. Furthermore, the more alarmist models may even be right. However, one must be prepared to admit that they lack classic falsification tests and devise policy accordingly.
We consider these models reliable? Who told you that? I certainly don’t consider the models reliable. I mean, look at any five or more set side-by-side. What’s ‘reliable’ about them? And what’s with the prejudicial use of the word ‘alarmist’? It doesn’t sound like an objective term describing data. It sounds.. political. And the IPCC reports that discuss models set these issues out explicitly, they’re not new. (Well, except the one about polemics; that’s something new you introduced.)
5. ..This is that I’ve yet to see the data analyses presented and defended in a convincing way and am disappointed that the climate community seem not to share my opinions on what is that needs to be done in order to demonstrate strong hypotheses.
This point is extraordinarily general. No one can guess which data analyses you’ve seen presented and defended, and really your disappointment in the climate community is as irrelevant as anything else you’ve said to the truth of the ideas at issue. Appeal to emotion is simply another fallacy you employ casually in your arguments, which tends to invalidate them.
6. To move forward, …
Clearly, your ideas on moving forward are simply ideas on not moving at all, when translated into specifics. Either everything you suggest has already been done, is being done, is impractical, or would have no bearing, but might take ample time.
In short, if you really believe what you’ve said, then you should revisit your motivations; there’s considerable evidence of bias, which any tester would recognize is lethal to the validity of testing.
I’ve been courteous enough to once again explicitly address your issues in exactly the manner you demanded, and you have yet to address a single question I’ve asked.
Those would be the sentences followed by question marks.
Bart
These fingerprints of human-induced climate change are surely falsification tests of the CAGW-hypothesis. Great, wonderful ! Where I can find (a) quantitative predictions of them in advance of a measurement (b) predictions for all of them (as currently known) and correlations between them and (c) demonstration that natural variation can’t also produce them ? Remember to prove (c) you must show you understand measurements of natural variation over a fair time scale (the earth has been around for some time). For a science -is-settled case (a) (b) and (c) must hold unfortunately for you to make the case. One can always make a fair argument if only some are satisfied but this isn’t what is being done here. BTW – this is how we do it in physics. The bar is not being set artificially high for climate science.
Regarding Steve M., as I mentioned I’ve read his complaints, the original papers, the replies and the reports of the great and the good. I also understand PCA analyses and (critically) understand why its terribly wrong to run an algorithm which gives a signal from noise without addressing this in a paper. If one of my students did this in a project he/she would fail. I’m sorry if this offends you but this is the way that it is. Similarly, if the student made a claim that the result is insensitive to the different datasets when it clearly is then again, that would be a fail. I don’t care less if this hockey stick a small part of the whole picture. It is a highly visible part which the community chose to promote. They can’t then be upset when people lose confidence in them when they not only promote but defend such flawed work. One could add that deleting data from graphs to show a tidy picture when a tidy picture doesn’t exist (and then to defend it when the practice is exposed) is also a good way for somoene to lose confidence in a field’s ability to do science to the highest possible standards.
I find your comment about my job a little curious. I mentioned it at the start and then again after someone commented about it. I mention it again only because you now comment. Or is that you don’t like me comparing practices in different fields ? I would have thought that input from someone with direct experience of model testing in the physics would have been useful, not least if I can point out the differing standards. As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, a big issue for me is how this field responds to criticism. An everything-is-fine,science-is-settled, look-at-our-“consensus” approach is a curious way to put out a scientific message for such a complex field. It invites criticism.
> For a science-is-settled case (a) (b) and (c) must hold […]
And just when we thought falsificationism was accepted as dead, it’s pulled back in. Popper never held such a naive conception of science.
Citation needed for the **must**, unless, of course, saying one is a physics teacher is evidence enough.
Perhaps the answer is only available to those who subscribe to Dave’s email seminars?
Willard
As I mentioned, mentioning falsifiability leads invariably to sneering in climate circles. This is very sad and goes to the heart of the theme of this thread i.e. why one is sceptical. Falsifiability is recognised in successful disciplines as being an essential part of the experimental method. Those same disciplines reject concepts such as “consensus” arguments so maybe this is all linked.
Strangely enough I think that should a climate model pass a falsification test CAGW-proponents would shout the news from the roof tops. I also think that you know this to be true as well and that you would be one of the loudest…
Do you argue from principles and knowledge or basic tribalism ?
Dave,
Again with the rope-a-dope. Let’s cut to the chase:
> [N]o experiment, experimental report, observation statement or well-corroborated low-level falsifying hypothesis alone can lead to falsification. There is no falsification before the emergence of a better theory.
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/lakatos_prediction.html
Please also note what Lakatos says a bit earlier:
> Intellectual honesty consists rather in specifying precisely the conditions under which one is willing to give up one’s position.
If you insist on falsifying the AGW hypothesis, I suggest you present an alternative hypothesis. More importantly, I suggest you specify the conditions under which you are willing to give your position.
As far as I know, no one succeeded in meeting that challenge so far.
If you think you can meet it, please go to
http://www.scienceofdoom.com
and formulate your proposition.
But if you insist in parroting the usual memes, I might be tempted to follow your rope-a-dope. The fact that you are parroting these memes makes me doubt you’re a novice in rope-a-doping, but if you are, prepare to move your feet.
I sure love to dance.
willard:
In a statistical population, the outcomes of events have relative frequencies. A predictive model states a claim about the magnitudes of these relative frequencies. Conditional upon the existence of a statistical population, this model’s claims can be checked by comparison of the predicted relative frequencies to the observed relative frequencies in a sample drawn from the underlying population. If there is not a match, the model is falsified by the evidence. Thus, an alternative to hypothesis X is unneeded for the falsification of hypothesis X. On the other hand, a statistical population is needed. In the case of CAGW, a statistical population does not exist. Thus, as a model CAGW is non-falsifiable and hence is non-scientific.
Terry Olberg,
Please provide a citation for what you refer as “the CAGW model”.
A specification would be nice too.
willard:
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify. By the “CAGW model” I mean the model by which IPCC Working Group 1 reaches its conclusions in AR4. Among these conclusions is that the magnitude of the equilibrium climate sensitivity is about 3 Celsius per doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. As the equilibrium temperature is not an observable, this conclusion is not falsifiable; thus, once the Popperian strawman is exposed for what it is, this conclusion is revealed not to be a scientific conclusion. While the magnitude could be 3, it could be 0, 6 or any other number.
Terry Olberg,
Since you seem to appreciate clarity, I would like you to clarify again.
First, this:
> By the “CAGW model” I mean the model by which IPCC Working Group 1 reaches its conclusions in AR4.
I’m not sure where you get the “C” in WG1’s conclusions. Could you provide a quote where we clearly see why you call it a model, and more importantly a CAGW model?
Second, you say:
> As the equilibrium temperature is not an observable, this conclusion is not falsifiable[.] Among these conclusions is that the magnitude of the equilibrium climate sensitivity is about 3 Celsius per doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
I’m not sure what you mean here. If it gets colder and colder and another Ice Age hits the Earth by 2050, would you still maintain that you can’t observe the equilibrium temperature or that the claim ? I’m sure that if James Annan sees -10C on his thermometer in July 2050 while he stays in Japan, he’ll think that something in AR4 or in WG1 went wrong.
Third, you say:
> While the magnitude could be 3, it could be 0, 6 or any other number.
Indeed, it’s not impossible that it’s 0, 6, or 1689372616782023482. But while hitting two sixes is not impossible in backgammon, it’s also less frequent than hitting a sum of 7 with two die. (I’m not saying this as a formal analogue to climate ensembles, mind you, just to show that arguing from possibilia is not quite to the point.)
This last example shows the problem with this previous claim:
> A predictive model states a claim about the magnitudes of [statistical] relative frequencies.
Could you provide an example of something that is both subject to a predictive model and is an observable? I’m not sure what you mean by that. This is more important to clarify than what you mean by the “Popperian strawman”, but I’m not sure you could, since we established that you had no idea what you were talking about.
But I want to know what you mean by a predictive model and how this is crucial to do science. My feeling is that this notion runs contrary to everything you said about induction in another thread. More importantly, it seems to run counter to the idea that we could build machines that could outplay us in backgammon.
That last observation is quite daunting, since we already can build an super-human backgammon player with a neural network consisting of a very simple neural network:
http://www.research.ibm.com/massive/tdl.html
This has been done more than two decades ago.
Willard:
In AR4, Report of Working Group I, the IPCC asserts the existence of a probability density function (PDF) over the equilibrium climate sensitivity (TECS). This function is an example of a “CAGW model.”
TECS is the proportionality constant in a function that maps increases in the logarithm of the CO2 concentration to increases in the equilibrium temperature. Figure 9.20 (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-6-2.html0) presents a number of different estimates of this PDF. It is notable that numerical values for TECS that extend over the range from 0 to more than 10 Celsius per doubling of the CO2 concentration are indicated as being possibilities. Under the precautionary principle, it would seem, policy makers are impelled to prepare for any value of TECS up though and including infinity. This would imply an immediate halt to emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels.
There is a logical flaw, though, in the argument that leads to this conclusion. This is that the equilibrium temperature is not an observable feature of the real world. The numerical value of TECS is a function of the equilibrium temperature. Thus, when it is asserted that TECS has this or that numerical value, this assertion cannot be checked by measurement. It follows that this assertion and others like it is non-falsifiable, thus lying outside science.
A different take on the same phenomenon is provided through an application of an idea from information theory. Information theory features a measure (sometimes called “Shannon’s measure) that is defined on relations between observable state-spaces such as their intersection. The quantity that is called the “mutual information” is the information that one gains about the state in one of these state-spaces from learning the state in the other. Thus, as the CO2 concentration and the global surface air temperature are examples of observable state-spaces, knowing the CO2 concentration might provide one with information about the global surface air temperature.
There is a problem though with the equilibrium global surface air temperature as a scientific concept. The problem is that this state-space is not observable. It follows that knowing the CO2 concentration provides no information about the state in this state-space. When the IPCC supplies a policy maker with a numerical value for TECS this policy maker undoubtedly thinks he/she has been provided with information about the outcomes from his/her policy decision but in reality he/she has been provided with no information. The apparent information has been fabricated by the IPCC.
In making policy decision, policy makers need information about the outcomes of their policy decisions. The way to provide it for climatologists to reform climatology by replacing the idea of an equilibrium temperature with the idea of a temperature for unlike an equilibrium temperature, a temperature is an observable state-space. A consequence from fulfillment of this reform would be the existence of a statistical population that was descriptive of time-varying surface air temperatures. This population would provide bases for: a) building a model that was suitable for policy making and b) statistically validating this model. If all were to go well then this model would provide policy makers with the information about the outcomes of their policy decisions which currently is missing.
Terry Oldberg (and willard)
An interesting exchange on “falsifiability” and its importance.
Specifically, it is the “equilibrium climate sensitivity” which is not “falsifiable”.
Its magnitude appears to have been determined by “circular logic”:
– Our models tell us we should have seen warming of X
– However, we have only observed warming of X/2
– Therefore, another X/2 of warming is still “hidden in the pipeline” (let’s say in “the upper ocean”)
– And let’s say that this will be added to the observed warming of X/2 at “equilibrium”
– Ergo the “equilibrium climate sensitivity = X”
Max
Max – again, according to you “hidden in the pipeline” was dreamed up ~2005 to explain away the “lack” of warming. Is that about right?
JCH
See:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
Max
Well, I think you are off by at least 20 years.
And the pipeline is not in the oceans.
manacker,
Here is what John Nielsen-Gammon claims:
> Climate science makes lots of predictions that can be and have been verified. “Prediction” doesn’t just apply to future events, but also (and in science, mostly) to things yet to be observed about the present. In that regard, climate science has a strong record.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/9454365423
If you follow the link to the source from which this quote is excerpted, you’ll see how honest brokers cut their losses in a discussion that might not turn in their favor:
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/roger-pielke-jr-s-inkblot/
Dodger Junior was quite artful, as always.
I’m not sure if our discussion about falsifiability has more than didactic value. I do not share BartR’s interest for pedagogy, nor do I have his patience and his tact. So please considered yourself forewarned.
To have a sneak preview of what’s coming up next, note that when you talk about circular logic, you are conflating models and theorical explanations: as long as CS is not there to **explain** anything (it’s only an estimate), you do not have the trump card you have.
In other words, holism wins.
Willard:
The proposition “Climate science makes lots of predictions” is false. A “prediction” is an extrapolation from an observed state to an unobserved but observable state wherein the observed and unobserved states are properties of an event. The complete set of events is an example of a “statistical population.” For modern climate “science,” there is no such population. As predictions are a requirement for a field of inquiry to be “scientific,” there is no such thing as climate “science.” Dr. Curry advises me that there are occasional exceptions to this rule.
manacker,
You do not have the trump card you you might think you have, of course.
You do have the cards you have, of course.
willard
I’m not sure we really have a disagreement.
jch
Hansen et al. tell us regarding the magical “pipeline” (in 2005)
As we both know, there were no “precise measurements of ocean heat content” prior to the commissioning of the Argo devices in 2003.
The earlier spot measurements were taken by expendable XBT devices, which are now known to have introduced a false warming bias.
Longer-term ocean heat content figures prior to Argo data show rapid increase based on XBT data “using best-known corrections for systematic errors”, but these are questionable, as indicated.
Ocean heat content appears to have flattened out since Argo measurements are included, with some studies showing a slight cooling.
I don’t think we really know whether or not the ocean has warmed significantly, slightly or not at all – the disturbing thing is that the new more accurate and more comprehensive measurements seem to show something quite different than what was concluded from the old, inaccurate spot measurements.
IOW, the more we know, the more we don’t know…
Max
manacker,
For now, our disagreement would be about your use of the expression “circular logic”, and more generally the consequences of epistemological holism.
Returning to John Nielsen-Gammon should help use the appropriate framework:
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2011/08/roger-pielke-jr-s-inkblot/
This example seems more appropriate to talk about falsifiability than what I believe is an irrelevant jab at Hansen.
For clarity, I recommend that you add the idea of an “independent event” to your repertoire. If you do that, I believe you’ll find that some of them warm and that others cool. Thus, the generalization that all of them warm will be shown by your own data to be false.
Terry Oldberg,
I just noticed your last reply at September 25, 2012 at 12:41 pm. Since you have not provided a quote, I’ll go take a look myself, and thus reply later tonight.
I still insist to talk about logic. So be it.
Terry Oldberg,
I got lucky and found the appropriate section to evaluate your claim. Here it is where it starts:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9s9-6.html
Please tell me where, in that section, we can see that:
> [T]he IPCC asserts the existence of a probability density function (PDF) over the equilibrium climate sensitivity (TECS).
and that this existential claim has anything to do with the price of tea.
***
Then, please tell us how we should understand:
> This function is an example of a “CAGW model.”
On the face of it, a PDF function does not seem to be a model by itself.
It might belong to a model, though. Which one?
As far as I can see, using the expression “CAGW model” looks a lot more a priming function in a marketing model than it refers to what the IPCC is doing at all.
The smokescreen gets more dense, so my hypothesis still holds.
Willard:
I’m willing to contribute my time to debating sustantive issues with you. I’m not willing to contribute my time to arguing over semantics. As your latest post appears to me to fall in the latter category, I’m opting out of the discussion.
Terry Oldberg,
Here’s my hypothesis: you’re building up a smokescreen.
Here are my observations:
– you used an etymological argument, which is never that strong, and quite intriguing, considering that now you claim not wanting to argue over semantics;
– that etymological argument contradicts what you claimed about falsifiability;
– you hold falsifiability as the utmost important scientific principle (i.e. meta-scientific) while presuming that a “fact” is something that has been demonstrated;
– you handwaved to some “Popper strawman” to editorialize about nepharious IPCC scientists;
– you used the expression “CAGW model” to refer to an estimate function;
– you are armwaving something about the assumption of an existential proof without providing any quote;
– and now you express the wish not to play semantical games whence the very concept of model is a semantical notion in logic.
For now, my hypothesis that you’re blowing a smokescreen has yet to be falsified.
Willard:
My purpose in introducing the term “scientia” is not etymological but rather logical. In sharing ideas with you, my aim is to expose logical errors, if there are any, in the methodology of the study that is referenced by the IPCC as the basis for the IPCC’s claims in AR4. In the context of this aim, use of the English word “science” has the drawback of making ambiguous reference to the associated ideas with consequential violation of the law of non-contradiction. Though use of the negated law as the false but apparently true premise to an argument, a swindler could compose a specious “proof” of a falsehood, e.g., IPCC research had a scientific methodology. To head off this possibility, I use the Latin word “scientia” in reference to the idea of “demonstrable knowledge.” A model that produces “scientia” makes a falsifiable claim, by the definition of terms. A model that is “scientific” does not necessarily make a falsifiable claim.
In concentrating on marshalling support for your fanciful “smokescreen” conjecture, you have neglected the substance of my argument. Among my substantive claims are:
a) No statistical population underlies the claims of the IPCC climate models,
b) The claims that are made by the IPCC climate models are not falsifiable,
c) The IPCC climate models provide policy makers with no information about the outcomes from their policy decisions thus being completely unsuitable for policy making purposes and,
d) All of the information about the outcomes of policy decisions that appears to policy makers to be provided by the IPCC climate models is fabricated.
What, if anything, do you have to say in opposition to these claims?
There isn’t anything that can properly be called CAGW theory – or even AGW theory or climate theory. There is a field of science called climate science and that field of science has produced many results including quantitative estimates that are falsifiable. Climate science is a physical science built largely on well established physics supplemented by a lot of empirical data and models that are known to offer only an inaccurate description of many important phenomena.
Some of the results of the climate science are a on a stronger ground than others. Some of the results are empirical, some theoretical and some based on large computer models.
It’s absolutely certain that some of the results are wrong and some are correct. That more CO2 has a warming influence is one of the most certain results but estimating the strength of that warming has turned out to be rather difficult.
It’s totally nonsensical to discuss falsification of AGW or climate science while it makes perfect sense to discuss falsification of some specific well defined results of climate science. Estimates on the strength of the warming effect of CO2 belong to those results when they are presented for suitable specific periods like for average temperatures of two decades separated by 30 years as an example and given specifying a range of uncertainty.
Pekka:
I don’t believe there are any falsifiable claims. If you know of any, kindly provide references to them.
Terry,
I see them all around. If you don’t see them without my help then you wouldn’t necessarily agree on what I consider totally obvious.
It comes back to semantics and misuse of formal requirements set by individuals in disregard of common thinking.
Pekka Pirila,
True, and not disputed. But so what? What is the impact? That is highly uncertain.
I’ve been making the case for a long time that our understanding of the impacts is highly uncertain and probably grossly overstated (e.g. ‘dangerous’ and ‘catastrophic’. The more we look at the consequences of warming the less significant they seem to be.
Importantly, the policies being advocated to control the climate have very high uncertainty. They would almost certainly fail.
I’ve posted the arguments repeatedly and they have not been refuted. I’ve just posted a summary on my argument at the end of Faustino’s thread The-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming here:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-245003
Do you disagree with the substance of the argument put in that summary?
Terry Oldberg,
I will let my smokescreen aside for the moment, and propose that you work out your analysis considering the concepts as already defined by the IPCC.
Here is the IPCC’s own definition of projection:
> A potential future evolution of a quantity or set of quantities, often computed with the aid of a model. Projections are distinguished from predictions in order to emphasise that projections involve assumptions concerning, for example, future socio-economic and technological developments that may or may not be realised, and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty. See also Climate projection; Climate prediction.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_appendix.pdf
Here is their definition of Climate prediction:
> A climate prediction or climate forecast is the result of an attempt to produce an estimate of the actual evolution of the climate in the future, for example, at seasonal, interannual or long-term time scales. Since the future evolution of the climate system may be highly sensitive to initial conditions, such predictions are usually probabilistic in nature. See also Climate projection, climate scenario.
Here is their definition of Climate projection
> A projection of the response of the climate system to emission or concentration scenarios of greenhouse gases and aerosols, or radiative forcing scenarios, often based upon simulations by climate models. Climate projections are distinguished from climate predictions in order to emphasise that climate projections depend upon the emission/concentration/radiative forcing scenario used, which are based on assumptions concerning, for example, future socioeconomic and technological developments that may or may not be realised and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty.
Here is the definition of Climate scenario :
> A plausible and often simplified representation of the future climate, based on an internally consistent set of climatological relationships that has been constructed for explicit use in investigating the potential consequences of anthropogenic climate change, often serving as input to impact models. Climate projections often serve as the raw material for constructing climate scenarios, but climate scenarios usually require additional information such as about the observed current climate. A climate change scenario is the difference between a climate scenario and the current climate.
Sometimes, it really is important to pay attention to glossaries.
***
Besides the smokescreen hypothesis, I could formulate this other one: your analysis does not rest on a close reading of the IPCC’s documents. Here are my observations:
First, you don’t seem to distinguish a projection from a prediction. The main reason why climate models are unfalsifiable is because it makes no sense to believe they could be falsified: they’re projections, not predictions.
Second, you don’t quote the text you wish to criticize. If you wish to say that the IPCC claims such and such, please quote where it claims so. To criticize a document without quoting it is counterproductive and runs counter to empiricism. Your data is the text: use it.
There is no need to invoke Shannon’s theory to understand what the IPCC is talking about. Shannon’s theory seems to rely on the notion of outcome, which might very well be compatible with the notion of a model realization. In any case, to invoke information theory when one’s analysis does not take into account the distinction between a prediction, a projection and a scenario while resisting to provide the appropriate quotes does not look very well.
***
I try to be gentle, not without being firm from time to time I admit, but you’re making it tough. Please take some time to think about Pekka’s position above, and reproduced on my tumblog:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/32275440954
I’m not sure I agree with everything there, but at least his position makes sense.
Willard:
By your silence, I gather that you have no quarrel with my claims.
Terry Oldberg,
Please quote the “IPCC claims” you’re alluding to. If you don’t quote the IPCC claims to which you take objection, what is there to comment?
Please note the bit about “outcomes.”
Please reconsider Pekka’s offer.
Willard:
FYI:
The “claims” that I meant to reference were not those of the IPCC but rather were those of me, labelled a), b), c) and d) in my post of September 25, 2012 at 8:02 pm. I don’t believe that you subsequently have either refuted these claims or made an attempt at doing so.
I don’t believe these claims are refutable. Do you agree? If not, please present your argument.
Willard:
I’ve searched the thread and have been unable to find a single instrance in which I used the phrase “IPCC claim.” Others in this thread have used the phrase but I have not.
My interest is not in discussing IPCC claims but rather is in discussing possible deficiencies the methogology of the IPCC’s inquiry into global warming. Toward that end, I have stated claims of deficiencies in this methodology labelled a), b), c), d). You did not to respond to this issue but rather responded with the inappropriate demand that I cite the IPCC claims which I wished to discuss.Is there a way in which we can get the discussion of methodological deficiencies which I initiated back on track?
Terry Oldberg,
Here are claims (a) and (b):
Both claims refer to “the claims of the IPCC climate models”. Assuming that models claim anything, to what (a) and (b) refer has not been properly identified. Quotes are needed to identify the object of your claim (a) and your your claim (b).
Your claim (a) is a simple proof by assertion, since no analysis of any claim made by the IPCC climate model (?) has been offered so far. In fact, (a) could very well be meaningless, since it rests on a what seems to be an idiosyncratic interpretation of probabilities.
Your claim (b) has already answered. If (b) refers to projections, it is absurd. There is no need to ask for projections to be falsifiable. They have no explanatory power. Even if (b) does not refer to projections, it could still be absurd. We’ll see when we’ll have a specific quote identifying the object of the claim in the text.
Your claims (c) and (d) lie outside your overall epistemological argument and are extraneous editorials from your part.
***
The claims (a)-(b) might very well be irrefutable, but that does not mean that they’re true. That might simply mean that they’re not very scientific, if we’re to apply your own criteria of falsifiability.
willard:
A pair of sets of claims are at issue between us. One consists of the claims, if any, that are made by the IPCC in AR4. The other consists of claims that rea made by me and that I’ve labelled a) and b).
In your response, you seem to deny that the IPCC has made scientific claims that are pertinent to policy making on CO2 emissions. If this is your assertion, I certainly agree with you.
If, to the contrary, you assert that the IPCC has made scientific claims that are pertinent to policy making, what are these claims? It seems to me that you are dancing around this issue.
Terry Oldberg,
I’m not the one who makes any claim about the AR4.
I certainly don’t preclude the possibility that you could provide quotes and analysis. I’m not denying anything, I simply want to know what the hell you’re talking about. To use the Auditor expression, the onus is on you to provide relevant quotes, followed up by an audit.
Both (a) and (b) are felicitous insofar as you can quote something that proves that you’re not stuffing up a strawman beating his wife after getting drunk and eating red herrings.
And that’s only the first step. The second one is to provide an analysis whereby we clearly see that (a) and (b) is the result of the auditing sciences.
In other words, now that I followed, show us your hand.
The only raise I made was about the IPCC’s glossary of their technical terms, where I provided quotes showing that there was a distinction between projections, predictions and scenarios. You seemed to have passed on this one.
In fact, you seemed to pass a lot. It’s not because I don’t mention it that I forgot, you know. For instance, I did not forgot that you still hold an erroneous conception of scientia.
I don’t mind waiting with an hand full. The Internet is an eternal process.
Willard (Sept. 24, 2012 at 8:22 am):
Contrary to your apparent belief, falsifiability is not a philosophical position which can be discarded at the whim of the researcher. It is a design principle for research that has the possibility of producing “scientia.” “Scientia” is the Latin word for “demonstrable knowledge” and is the source of the English word “science.”
Unfortunately, “science” suffers from an ambiguity in which it also means “the process that is operated by people calling themselves ‘scientists’.” IPCC climatologists have seized upon the opportunity for mischief that lies in this ambiguity by claiming the knowledge that they create to be “scientific” though it is not demonstrable.
Though this strategem has been successful in the sense of furthering the careers of these “scientists” and their political allies it has exacted a terrible price from the rest of us. The price is for the 100 billion U.S. dollars or so which they have spent on global warming research to provide policy makers on CO2 abatement with no information about the outcomes from their policy decisions. The conclusion that no information is provided to them follows from the demonstrability (falsifiability) of the quantity that scientists call “information.”
Terry Oldberg,
It’s been a while since I’ve seen an etymological argument:
> “Scientia” is the Latin word for “demonstrable knowledge” and is the source of the English word “science.”
(Take note, Moshpit.)
My own reading of Popper is that he invented his criterion of falsifiability exactly because he felt that the empirical sciences never led to demonstrations:
> The old ideal of episteme — of absolute certainty, demonstrable knowledge — has proved to be an idol.
That’s from his **Logic of Scientific Discovery**, on the section entitled Some Structural Components of a Theory of Experience.
For Popper, the empirical sciences are only a bunch of conjectures and refutations.
So I have no idea what you’re talking about.
This, at least, we have in common.
willard:
A strawman argument that is prevalent among climatologists ties falsifiability to Karl Popper with the intent of forcing the proponent of falsifiability as the criterion that separates science from dogmatism to defend against whatever mistakes Popper may have made in any of his published works. Absent this strawman, it seems to me to be clear that dogmatism is marked by the imperviousness of arguments to observational findings (e.g., the Church’s imperviousness to Galileo’s finding of a heliocentric solar system) and that science is marked by the opposite characteristic.
Terry Olberg,
Let “to demonstrate” means to prove true.
And “to falsify” to prove false.
How can one falsify what has been demonstrated?
One just can’t.
One could show that
the demonstration was incorrect.
But it was not a real demonstration, then.
It was not episteme, nor scientia.
Is empirical episteme or scientia possible?
I suppose not, so why then the etymological argument?
An hypothesis would be for a smokescreen effect.
Your last comment does not falsify that hypothesis.
willard:
As you point out, a conclusion may not logically be falsified once it has been proved. Under circumstances found in practice, however, it would be impossible for one to empirically prove a conclusion. That 100 swans have been observed, all of them white, does not prove the conclusion that “all swans are white,” for example, as all of the unobserved swans are not necessarily white.
It follows from this reality that many scientific arguments are described as “theories” and not as “facts.” A scientific “theory” is one whose conclusion has not been empirically disproved but that might be disproved upon subsequent observation. CAGW cannot be regarded as a scientific theory because it is insusceptible to being disproved upon subsequent observation. For susceptibility to disproof, we need a statistical population but this we do not have.
Terry Olberg,
> It follows from this reality that many scientific arguments are described as “theories” and not as “facts.” [1] A scientific “theory” is one whose conclusion has not been empirically disproved but that might be disproved upon subsequent observation [2]. CAGW cannot be regarded as a scientific theory because it is insusceptible to being disproved upon subsequent observation [3].
[1] This distinction between theory and fact gets some ice time in darwinist debates, where opponents insist that we talk about evolution as a theory.
[2] This amounts to claim that a theory that has been proved false is not scientific anymore, which sounds strange to me.
[3] While I’m not sure about CAGW, inducing an Ice Age in 2050 simply by dumping more and more C02 into the atmostphere might very well disprove AGW.
Terry Oldberg,
I just notice that I constantly miss the “d” in your last name.
Sorry about that.
Also, in the spirit of openness, please bear in mind that following what you say about facts leads to the curious situation where only analytical truths are facts.
Max:
A “fact” is a true proposition, where the truth is determined by means that include observation.
Dave | September 24, 2012 at 2:28 am |
Much as I detest playground games, I believe it’s my turn to ask questions and get answers.
1. Do you have any credentials in testing as a distinct discipline from any recognized professional testing organization? If so, please identify that organization and that credential.
2. Do you dispute Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia as regards the Philosophical basis of Science, in particular about parsimony, simplicity, universality and accuracy? If so, where do you find errors in Newton’s logical arguments or facts?
3. Do you understand what we mean when we say, “In logic, we stop with the first error”?
I am a climate catastrophist. I used to believe in cycles. But it isn’t. It’s dynamical complexity. Turtles all the way down as Dave S would say. He does wonder what we can do with this knowledge – but I explain about drunks, streetlights and car keys. Little wonder then at my fall from sceptical grace. I was a poster boy for American Thinker, recruited by Marc Morano for James Inhofe’s gang of 400 politburo, corresponding with sceptics world wide, published in Energy and Environment. Now none of them will return my phone calls. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it. Instead of hanging around here swapping insults with some schmuck electrician.
Let’s face it people. We are in an interglacial for God’s sake. They call it interglacial because it is in *between* glacial. We are on the clock here and there has been too much fart arsing around. If this particular firecracker goes off you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life. You just never know when it is going to happen. We’ve found something extraordinary… extraordinary and disturbing, that is. You recall what you said in New Delhi about how polar melting might disrupt the North Atlantic current? Well… I think it’s happening. “Surely you can’t be serious.” you say. I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley.
I’ve always believed in numbers and the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask,
“What truly is logic?”
“Who decides reason?”
My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional — and back. What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
Hey Chief, those last lines are lifted straight from “A Beautiful Mind” in John Nash’s (played by Russel Crowe) Nobel acceptance speech near the end of the movie. Except for the very last line which is lifted from “Cool Hand Luke”.
Now I realize that you and Crowe are both Aussies but that really doesn’t give you the right to take words written by others and not give them proper attribution. The line from Cool Hand Luke has probably entered common usage in most definitions but the several before it from Beautiful Mind have not.
There was On the Waterfront – the famous Marlon Brando speech – Casablanca, The Day After Tomorrow and Flying High as well. While we would properly reference obscure academic work – such famous cultural references are fair game for parody – especially self parody.
Cartoonist Michael Leunig says that the only reason angles can fly is that they take themslves so lightly. I agree.
Thank you.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/31968333905
I am sure you are welcome – and I even spelled Angel wrong. But are you sure the blogosphere is ready for autoparody?
Yes.
Within humane uncertainty margins, of course.
That may be the stupidest youtube video ever. At least it was brief.
Chief Hydrologist | September 20, 2012 at 2:53 am |
http://www.aa.org.au/
Good luck.
I have a bottle of very good sparkling wine that has been in the fridge for several months. If I were a drunk – the standard response would apply. I would be sober in the morning but you would still be stupid.
One bottle of sparkling wine that’s been in the fridge for months. It must have a story behind it. Do tell.
Despite exercising and eating right and not being notably overweight I have type 2 diabetes – who said life was fair. I occassionally drink.
Chief,
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/websters-follies.html
Since Webster is such a joy, how do you think he will respond to this little bit of “observational” data that appears to contradict his detailed “master” equation revelations?
Since he wanted a “diffusion” rate, my answer would be “it varies” :)
By popular demand, ‘Skeptics Make Yer Best Case: Part 11.’ With 485 comments, perhaps there’ll be a Part 111. Skeptics making a case, hmm, better than reductive assessments of “The Republican Brain,” “The Pesky Denier.”
Herewith “A Discourse on Skeptics” (hey, Fan!) by Beth Cooper on a family members computer, due ter young nephew giving unsolicited tech support so that she can no longer log in on her own computer. This may or may noy be the last of these content free discourses fer a while due ter above .. Its hard ter predict…Skeptics, …Kenneth Clark in ‘Civilization’ made a distinction between two strands of Scottish thinking, the romantic visionary and the hard headed skeptic.Its been suggested that Robert Louis Stevenson in ‘Kidnapped’ portrayed in Alan Breck and David Balfour, two aspects of his own character. This complexity, fortunately, is not restricted ter the ‘Scottish character.’ Crossing boundaries,creating ‘fizz’ happened in the sublime transition in music from the classical ter the romantic, Beethoven, Schumann, it happened in cities at sea ports, Pericles Athens, Renaissance Venice. Part divine madness, risky analogy and daring conjecture but then critical method, criticize and test.
Skepticism is the friend of the people, the enemy of oligarchy and bureaucracy, the friend of empiric truth and the enemy of propaganda’s
myth making. Centralized government and bureaucratic thinking? …Fergit it,- it so easily becomes conventional and self serving, an enemy ter the open society…
But …don’t – fergit – ter – wonder – at – the – stars – and – us – flawed – humans – who – created – poetry, – philosophy- and – science, seeking ter make sense of our world.
Beth me Darlin’
I have always had a soft spot for the romantic visionaries. Perhaps a modern example.
Halley’s Comet
Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk
across the board and told us
it was roaring down the stormtracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course
and smashed into the earth
there’d be no school tomorrow.
A red-bearded preacher from the hills
with a wild look in his eyes
stood in the public square
at the playground’s edge
proclaiming he was sent by God
to save every one of us,
even the little children.
“Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,
waving his hand-lettered sign.
At supper I felt sad to think
that it was probably
the last meal I’d share
with my mother and my sisters;
but I felt excited too
and scarcely touched my plate.
So mother scolded me
and sent me early to my room.
The whole family’s asleep
except for me. They never heard me steal
into the stairwell hall and climb
the ladder to the fresh night air.
Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red brick building
at the foot of Green Street —
that’s where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I’m the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end.
Belinda
Just to pretend to keep vaguely on track, did you realise it was RLS’s father-Thomas-who invented the Stevenson screen which arguably enabled temperatures to be recprded on a consistent basis?
Some might say the data has been ‘Kidnapped’ whilst others might conclude that the invention has brought out the Jekyll and Hyde in those interpreting it.
tonyb
From the following comments in this thread, it looks the skeptics’ best case includes accusing scientists of lying about AGW, being crazy, or being a party to government tyranny:
omanuel | September 19, 2012 at 10:56 am
“It is hard to “make your best case against AGW propaganda because Climategate exposed sixty-four years (2009 – 1945 = 64 yrs) of international intrigue that has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with climateand everything to do with establishing the tyrannical government that George Orwell described in 1948: http://www.george-orwell.org/1984 “
Wagathon | September 19, 2012 at 4:48 pm |
“The Western AGW hoax may be a crime against humanity.”
Lionell Griffith | September 19, 2012 at 11:35 am |
“Very extraordinary evidence is necessary to justify the destruction of modern technological civilization and to establish a global dictatorship who is to micromanage every person’s daily activities.”
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 12:56 am “The methods and tactics used by the AGW scaremongers themselves give compelling evidence of the falsity of their claims (and incidentally, of what to expect in terms of oppression, economic ruin and millions upon millions of unneccessary deaths if they get their way in policy).”
Tom | September 19, 2012 at 11:40 pm |
Statements that stick? 1. “I am not a crook.” 2. “I did not have sex with that woman…” 3.’climate change is not a hoax,’
Chief Hydrologist | September 20, 2012 at 12:46 am
“Hansen is delusional or a fraud – there are no other choices.”
Max-o-poto
‘ All objects give off or emit infrared radiation. The warmer the object the more infrared radiation it emits.’ The radiant imbalance caused by greenhouse gases at TOA can’t be measured – because it doesn’t exist. The radiant flux response adjusts as the surface and atmosphere warms. Gases are emitted, the world warms and the radiant flux increases by thermal compensation.
I believe you don’t understand the physics of global warming – but Hansen should hence:
Hansen is delusional or a fraud – there are no other choices.
Quote in full – this is not arbitrary but based on Hansen’s communication of misleading information.
Don’yt take it personal boyo.
No science in the best case, just accusations that climate scientists lied. Well, not accusations against all climate scientists, just a few you don’t like.
I doubt the accusations will convince all those scientific societies you have a case, but if not, you can always say those organizations have been taken over by liars.
My post was for Latimer, not Chief Hdro. The Chief thinks (a) he is smarter than Hansen, or (b) Hansen is a fraud. That gives Chief an out.
No – just atmospheric physics for toddlers.
‘When something absorbs radiation it heats up. The photons of radiation can interact with matter. How they interact depends on the properties of the photon (wavelength) and the properties of the atom or molecule of matter. (At the wavelengths we are talking about these properties mainly have to do with the energy states of its electrons.) When substances absorb radiative energy they increase their thermal energy. They get warmer.
Warm things emit radiation (see above). The warmer they are the more radiation they emit. The warmed greenhouse gases emit more infrared radiation than they did when it was cooler. Some of that radiation escapes into space. Some is absorbed by other parts of the atmosphere. And some if it is absorbed by the Earth below, making it a little warmer.’
So we can tak about more radiation emitted by a warmer planet – so we may speak about thermal compensation that tends to equilibrium with the incoming radiation. But the number 0.59 W/m2 as an ‘imbalance’ is a crock and very misleading to you my dear innocent abroad.
@Max_OK
And – as a famous U-boat Captain once said – ‘your name will also go on the list’
For FS – you cannot even be relied upon to report a five word remark accurately.
I did not say that they had ‘lied’. I said that they were ‘totally untrustworthy and barely competent’. They are not the same.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242081
If getting this simple stuff right is beyond you (you could have used copy and paste if you found the speling to dificult), is it any wonder that I find it very hard to give credence to anything else you say?
In sales there is a phrase ‘you have to earn the right to be heard’. Which means that there is a threshold of minimum credibility that anybody has to pass to be listened to at all. Very few alarmists cross that threshold for me. You do not.
Ellison might not be smarter than Hansen but he’s in the same ballpark. What Ellison has in spades over Hansen is integrity for sure and probably respect for the law as well if Ellison’s been in handcuffs fewer times than Hansen.
Absolutely David – I am much smarter than Hansen. They haven’t caught me yet.
Latimer Alder | September 20, 2012 at 5:52 am |
Please note that: the boys from Dad’s Army are much more dangerous on the sandpit, than the others; the toddlers
I stated facts; OK_,Max
A best case for skeptics is a target rich environment. At the end of the they’re all narratives just like the “consensus” narrative. The most entertaining might be a better metric. It’s all academic, ya know. Right or wrong fossil fuels are going to be consumed on demand until either something better comes along, we run out, or we all suffocate in our own emissions. Personally I’m pretty confident something better will come along before either of the less savory alternatives.
My best case for Scepticism?
Climategate
When leading lights of climatology show themselves to be totally untrustworthy and barely competent – and with nary a word of censure from their mates – it is wise to treat all their work with a very healthy degree of scepticism.
And their childish and petulant approach to any criticism is worthy of toddlers at playtime not of mature adults working on supposedly serious problems.
The UK TV interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, is reputed to approach all his interviewees with the mental approach of ‘why is this lying bastard lying to me?’.
Sound advice..
“Hansen is delusional or a fraud – there are no other choices.”.
That is really a very interesting statement. It could be reapplied..or rephrased..
“Lindzen is delusional or a fraud – there are no other choices.”
Both are extremely competent and skilled in the art ( of climate science ), both have the highest credentials, if the course is clear, they SHOULD be able to come to a common view and yet they cannot agree on the science. Does that mean they have just not exercised due diligence? Have they not tried hard enough to come to an agreed upon interpretation of the data we have?
Delusional or a fraud,neither surely is, so is there another choice?
I think so. I think that the other choice is, that the science, as it stands, isn’t good enough to agree on. And for me, that is not good enough to demand we zealously implement a zero carbon future, trash what economics we have going in the world and thereby starve a great deal more of humanity. For that, I need agreement.
Lee L,
You’ve explained the issue very clearly. I don’t see how any rational thinker could disagree with you.
What he said was the equivalent of punting on first down.
Scientists never punt on first down.
And so both sides need observational data to confirm their views. I am reminded of the phrase from the movie “Casablanca”…. and “so they must wait…….and wait……and wait”.
But then of course I was talking about a very limited aspect of atmospheric physics on which there is firm understanding – and not the entire field of climate science.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242106
The entire field in encompassed by Tomas above. The Earth’s climate is a nonlinear dynamical, dissipative system never in equilibrium or in a steady state. This is undoubtedly true and there is possible a binary response – comprehension or lack of it. In pedagogic terms – it is a threshold concept beyond which doorway there are many wild and wonderful implications. I commend the journey.
+1
Well said, Lee L.
Max
LL. That was sensible and well said. But I don’t understand Hansen’s extreme claims of impacts. Lindzen leaves open to future measurement the problems but Hansen claims massive changes and impacts without evidence beyond models. He seems too overconfident.
Scott
Global warming trends are cyclic as shown=>http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/GmstTrends.png
Climate chage is deterministically chaotic. You have too little data.
The topic begs for the usual assertions from the sceptics but I prefer not to play this game until I feel that I have learned sufficiently of the physics of climate and can contribute constructively to the discussion.
The IPCC WG1 paper is a good summary of the state of the science and I find it to be a good resource, notwithstanding that some of their conclusions seem not to be supported by the evidence.
Hence, I am not convinced that the science behind AGW is settled and regardless of whether one thinks that present CO2 levels in the atmosphere are problematic or not, I am not comfortable with some of the policy options being promulgated.
It would be nice to find more commenters with an open mind on the AGW issue because I don’t consider that there is enough evidence for drawing any conclusions, one way or the other, and that both sides of the debate should try to stand back and be more objective in their approach to climate change.
It is quite possible that many lurkers are intimidated by some of the language being used and will not have their say because of a fear of being ridiculed or abused.
Yes I made that argument yesterday. For the verbose and belicose (moi?)the rough and tumble is what it is – tedious and annoying. We should do a reverse twitter. Anything less than 140 characters should go in the bin.
How about anything more than 500 words Chief? I would like to see more conciseness in posts but this is probably an oxymoron :)
Are you trying to cramp my style peter?
More conciseness is what I do besy. :lol:
Ah..Peter..best…Oh well
This is a test and I am grongo
Chief me darlin’ )
I understand yer response. The first poem that I ever deliderately composed was ‘Halley’s Comet,’ It descrides an actual experiencem I did get out of bed, climb the hill, walk among the cows, lol:
Rising before dawn I venture out,
Climbing the moonlit hill
Beyond the house
My feet make no sound
Crushing the damp grass.
As the comet, fiery tailed,
Follows its timeless course
Through the meteor belt,
I manoeuvre myself
Through a barb – wire fence.
As transmitting stars, light years apart.
Send static signals across your rushing path,
I walk among the staring cows,
Motionless as though
Enacting a nativity scenario.
Glittering planets, diamond sharp,
Litter the vast vault of night,
To the south east I think I see you,
A faint smudge above the cow shed,
As pale dawn lights up the eastern sky.
Mahtee purty, Beth – brought tears to mah eyes the size uv cow pats…
[I alweez did lahkk po’try]
Max
Beautiful. My first poem was a reimagination of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
I stand upon my plastic deck and gaze upon my plastic mast,
I say for all the world to hear – thank God for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
Well I didn’t say it was good.
Goodnight my love – when the planets dream they will whisper your name to me in diamond bright syllables.
Funny that RLS should have come up. Watching you and Beth billing and cooing always puts me in mind of his Songs of Travel:
I will make you brooches, and toys for your delight,
Of birdsong at morning, and starshine at night
I will make a palace fit for you and me
Of green days in forests, and blue days at sea.
I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river, and bright blows the broom;
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.
And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches, and the roadside fire.
Nice, innit?
Very nice. I must admit I am not across the breadth of Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson.
Havin’ trouble with this jumpin’ computer, fergive erreta!*#!
Hi
…we showed that the rapidity of the warming in the late twentieth century was a result of concurrence of a secular warming trend and the warming phase of a multidecadal (~65-year period) oscillatory variation and we estimated the contribution of the former to be about 0.08 deg C per decade since ~1980.
Wu et al.
On the time-varying trend in global-mean surface temperature
http://bit.ly/PDBWyZ
As explained by Kondepudi and Prigogine in their textbook on modern thermodynamics, a high-dimensional non-linear dissipative system, even with constant input, can not be assumed even to have an equilibrium, or a steady state, or even a stationary distribution.
It is not only Prigogine. The whole scientific community of non linear dynamics knows that too.
This insight is one of the most important insights of the last 50 years in physics.
Unfortunately very few people in the climate branche are trained in non linear dynamics.
I know only 3 who published in this direction – R.Pielke, A.Tsonis and Nicolis.
This is a good reason why to be skeptical about WG1. Not about what they say – much is (almost) trivial but about their prediction skills that I consider negligible.
Uhhh … someone forgot to tell Boeing and Airbus, eh?
Because airflow over an aircraft on final approach is fully turbulent, yet the flight-path is accurately predictable … fortunately! :) :) :)
Tomas, the sole reason your has not won this week’s Climate Etc Dunning-Kruger Prize, is that Chief Hydrologist and David Springer have already posted even stronger entries! :) :) :)
Nope Fan, I think you you just won it with your post. Tomas Milanovic is one of the relatively few people here who actually knows what he is talking about.
Judith, I agree that one has to parse Tomas’ phrase “cannot be assumed to have an equilibrium” very carefully and on a case-by-case basis … the key question is whether the earth’s turbulent ocean-atmosphere dynamical system has a reasonably stable global energy-balance.
James Hansen and colleagues are of course entirely correct in insisting that accurate global-scale observational measurement programs are essential to answering this question, eh? :) :) :)
Dave Springer, how was that “perfectly controlled” landing achievable, given that the airflow over that low-and-slow, gear-down, flaps-down, gust-laden 747 was fully turbulent :?: :?: :?:
When you can answer that question, Dave Springer, you will have gained a good appreciation of James Hansen’s scientific strategy for making predictive scientific sense of earth’s turbulent air-ocean dynamics, eh? :) :) :)
It’s a serious task, eh? Crashing a 747 would be very, very bad … crashing a planetary ecosystem would be far, far worse. :shock: :shock: :shock:
Fan,
All these geniuses such as Tomas have to do is create a toy mathematical model where they show how the cumulative heat content of a closed system spontaneously oscillates. Or, even easier, that it starts oscillating with a forcing function or external energy stimulus.
To someone like Tomas, this shouldn’t be that hard to actually create a trial balloon model that will do something interesting. He obviously has some math expertise. But, of course, he won’t, because the math and physics wizards will come out of the woodwork and destroy the model with glee. That’s what we do for kicks.
On the other hand, it is very easy to go off spouting and spewing these ambiguous, rhetorical exercises where one can claim anything. The wizards don’t care and just consider this as torpid, boring trollish behavior, not worthy of the effort to deconstruct. I only do this deconstruction, because like you, Fan, and Joshua, Willard, BartR, and Michael Shermer, I have an interest in understanding why people believe weird things.
http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893
curryja | September 20, 2012 at 7:43 am |
Dr. Curry, with all due respect, if Tomas attracted an enthusiastically uncomprehending science fiction publisher and a fraudulent legal advisor, he’d be indistinguishable from Claes, who also actually knows what he is talking about in part of his own narrow field.
While what Tomas says is technically correct, it also is technically correct in ways that simply do not appear to apply to the cases at hand.
Yes indeed, Claes will produce reams of perfectly good technical descriptions suitable for textbooks, yet then go over the top on some aspect. That’s why he can be a professor, as he can separate his job from his hobby. And his hobby is just that, to somehow stoke his insanity.
Completely mystifying behavior.
How many people are there in the world? It only takes a few out of that bunch to create a following. Amazing that more people are not familiar with Michael Shermer’s work who essentially describes how a Claes Johnson can exist.
@steven | September 20, 2012 at 9:22 am |
“Web, the earth is a closed system for many things. energy isn’t one of them.”
That is a major question. While it may not be “closed”, I think that given constant solar input that it is effectively stable. Oscillating heating/cooling cycles with rotation will result in a “stable” amount of energy. Someone prove to me that changing the surface composition of a rotating body can change it’s heat energy. I’m arguing “what goes up must come down”- if it warms faster, it will cool faster – and that it does not matter one iota what the surface composition is, that the “stable” amount of energy cannot be changed. (Solar ouput and geothermal heat load being constant.)
Whether it’s CO2 or albedo, or *anything else*, I think it makes *zero* difference. And if there could be a difference it would be easy to show in a real physics lab just as blackbody emission was characterised.
So if we’re arguing about climate change as altered heat distribution within a stable (for the argument, constant or closed) system, lets have that discussion with the non-linear dynamics experts. I’d first like to know if Maxwell’s demon exists.
BLouse79, wrong.
Don’t take this the wrong way, Sidles, but I happen to agree with you that the climate has stable states that make references to Prigogine no more than lame attempts at obfuscation. Theoretical physicists live in make-believe worlds and say some pretty bizzare things. That’s not to say climate scientists like James Hansen don’t live in make-believe worlds too. Models are models. You refer to a jumbo jet. Great. We know it flies. The classic example, by the way, is a bumblebee. Your challenge is to convince people that the climate won’t fly without actually having a crashed climate to demonstrate the point. Good luck.
Modern scientific models of bumblebee flight energetics are reasonably accurate, Dave Springer?
Just like modern climate-change models, eh? :) :) :)
Conclusion That bumblebees can fly is comparably well-understood to CO2-induced global warming. :!: :!: :!:
Bonus Science Flight video here! :) :) :)
Oops … amazing flight-control linkey! :) :)
Fan you are right, Tomas actually believes that the heat content of a closed system will spontaneously oscillate.
The guy is smart but makes egregiously bad rookie mistakes.
The smarter they are, the harder they fall.
Yeah Webby. How stupid. He probably thinks there are cyclic ocean and air currents driven by temperature gradients and Coriolis forces. How silly, huh? You da man. Yer so brainy it must hurt.
That looked like a textbook crosswind landing to me. Not the least bit crazy. Perfectly controlled. I wish I could do it that well. One time a gusting crosswind hit my little Cessna so hard I was in a 45 degree bank about 30 feet over the right shoulder of the runway. I thought my right wingtip was about to land while the left wingtip was still 50 feet up in the air and my wheels were somewhere in between. Lucky for me I was still a student pilot at the time and my flight instructor, an active duty Marine fighter pilot moonlighting as a private instructor who had far faster and more instinctive reactions than I, regained control of the aircraft and brought us in safely. He admitted that landing was a wild one even by his standards.
Springer is inconsequential, and I am going after Tomas, who actually has a sheen of respectability.
Total heat content is something that can’t spontaneously change within a closed system. Once a system has a known cumulative heat content it cannot oscillate; it can move heat from one place to another and perhaps fluctuate between local areas of thermal energy and kinetic energy, but the second law prevents any kind of cumulative spontaneous change.
What the hell is supposed to happen, Tomas, when an external forcing to the closed system occurs? Of course, if the external energy forcing is increased, such as is the case with increased solar energy or the GHG effect, the cumulative heat content can increase.
The case of heat moving around and possibly obscuring the cumulative change is negated by the fact that the heat content of both the atmosphere/land and land is increasing at the same time. There is simply nowhere for the extra heat to go.
Find me a case of a closed system where the cumulative heat content oscillates while it increases at the same time, Tomas. I really doubt that you can.
Or try to come up with a scenario where the albedo will spontaneously change giving rise to oscillations in the amount of energy received from the external radiation source. That is probably the only hope that you have, and even then it probably has a biased direction to the content change . We all know that ice/water goes the wrong way as far as albedo is concerned; in other words, that won’t spontaneously flip as things get warmer.
Clouds are the only hope you have and no one has envisioned a scenario where that is any more than a second order effect.
Web, the earth is a closed system for many things. energy isn’t one of them.
We are extracting material from within the ground with high energy content. Those are the hydrocarbons that contribute to excess CO2 when burned.
That stuff, like volcanic emissions, all contribute as a forcing function from external sources.
These crazy people think that heat content can change due to chaotic motion alone.
Webster, Tomas isn’t making rookie mistakes, you just have no understanding of fluid dynamics. Changes in surface wind velocities change the rate of heat flow significantly. Those wind changes and heat flow changes can change the current of both wind and water changing thermal mixing efficiencies. Climate is nothing but constant changes in heat and mass flows that produce different “regimes” with different time constants. The rate of flow into the deep ocean is on the scale of thousands of years per half of a degree. There is never a true equilibrium because there is never a “true” forcing constant.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/states-of-climate.html
A simple model.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/states-of-climate-ii.html
a simple example.
You really need to bone up on the basics of non-equilibrium thermodynamics.
Cap’n doesn’t believe that it gets colder when the sun goes down at night. I am beginning to think that he is deeply delusional in how he thinks about science. He treats scientific ideas more like a canvas or mixing bowl, where he can toss his latest word salad in.
A pertinent fact here is that the sunspot cycle is noticeable in the global temperature record, and that has a forcing one twentieth that of doubling CO2. Ignore it at your peril, but also ignore the sunspot cycle in that case to be consistent.
Just to round our FOMBS misleading link. FOMBS misleading? Surely not. http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242419
Bingo.
Moreover (Tmax+Tmin)/2 isn’t temperature and cannot just be plugged into classical equilibrium thermodynamic equations. Temperature has an actual thermodynamic meaning, (Tmax+Tmin)/2 does not.
err. who ever claimed it had a ‘meaning’. its an index. a simple tool to estimate the change in a very complex spatio temporal field
Hi Steven
Just came across this
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/16/8321.full.pdf
perhaps a template to follow?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law
Temperature of the Earth
Similarly we can calculate the effective temperature of the Earth TE by equating the energy received from the Sun and the energy radiated by the Earth, under the black-body approximation. The amount of energy, ES, emitted by the Sun is given by:….e.t.c.
Tomas Milanovic | September 20, 2012 at 6:17 am | Reply
“It is not only Prigogine. The whole scientific community of non linear dynamics knows that too. This insight is one of the most important insights of the last 50 years in physics.”
Yeah I know. It’s kind of a sad reflection on how little progress there’s been in physics in the last 50 years when something as obvious as Prigogine’s non-linear dynamics in far from equilibrium systems warrants a Nobel prize.
I’ve seen the self-organizaiton principle of dissipative structures he’s famous for pretty badly abused which I how I became aware of it in the first place. Some evolution fanboy tried to explain the self-organization of living systems in terms of a dissipative structure self-organizing into the most efficient configuration. Life is just a natural structure that in the big picture is a more efficient mechanism for raising the entropy of the planet rather than something which through mind-bogglingly complex molecular machinery and abstract information processing therein uses sunlight to reverse entropy and produce things as improbable in the natural universe as space shuttles. Space shuttles you see are just Prigogine-like self-organization of dissipative structures taken up a level from the self-adjusting drainage patterns rivers make on continents. Yeah boy. No great leap of logic there.
“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.” ~Harlan Ellison
Of course it’s not as bad as Al Gore getting a Nobel prize. Not anywhere near as bad. What a fine mess.
A good post but sadly few understand enough to appreciate it.
I think I would present three possible categories of climate dynamics:
1. The consensus position, which requires Markovian dynamics, with a time constant of less than 30 years, which are stationary and are dominated by a term proportional to the difference between the current state and the equilibrium; as promoted by scientists of IPCC WG1
2. Climate dominated by Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics, which are stationary and have an equilibrium, but exhibit a 1/f power spectral density, resulting in a “local” dynamics which is a poor estimator of the population dynamics at all time scales; as promoted by Cohn, Lins, Koutsoyiannis, Montanari et al
3. A non-stationary climate dynamics, as described by Tomas above
My view, based on the evidence we have today, is that we can reject (1) with high confidence. Hypotheses (2) and (3) are more difficult to distinguish and developing these further would be a genuinely interesting area of scientific research. The rejection of hypothesis (1) alone results in a system for which current predictions are indeed worthless.
Sadly, there is little motivation and little money to research one of the most interesting scientific questions of the day.
By Markovian, are you saying the response time is a damped exponential?
Well if you say yes, you are wrong. The basis of the concensus climate scientists concerns revolves around the fact that the response times are fat-tailed — they are fat-tailed for CO2 sequestration times and fat-tailed for thermal settling times. The former leads to a steady buildup in excess CO2 while the second leads to a huge uncertainty in determining the equilibrium response from the longish transient response.
The only positive aspect to this is that the two tat-tails can partially cancel each other out, as the long-term transient leading to equilibrium will mask the CO2 build up. The oceans will get more heat, but that’s how a heat sink works. The converse is that once this heats up, it’s also not going to reverse easily.
I am referring to the fact that the standard suite of statistical methods used by climate scientists are built on Markovian assumptions.
If you are saying that climate scientists (who?) do not believe the system is Markovian, then you are implicitly accusing them of incompetence or worse based on the statistical methods they use. Because the standard textbook methods most certainly have that assumption built into their core.
Spence said:
Spence confuses statistics with statistical physics. Climate scientists are not incompetent, they just model according to the physics, not according to the statistics. So for example, we can propose that the rate of sequestration is Markovian, but it is Markovian on many different time scales including that of a diffusional scale, which corresponds to the various pathways for sequestration. This leads to a response that is not even close to exponentially damped. It is in fact fat-tailed.
This also works for heat diffusion on a global scale.
I am not alone in this, I just understand what climate scientists such as James Hanson, David Archer and those who have contributed to the BERN model have done. You read up on this model, and perhaps you will understand what those very competent scientists are doing. It certainly is more comprehensive than what you and Tomas are proposing, which is empty rhetoric without even a toy model to show for it.
Wow. You are confused. In more ways than one.
Firstly, not much point in referring to me in the third person. I doubt many people are reading this far down into this thread by now. You don’t have the audience you seem to think you have.
Secondly, as I tried to explain to you (but you seem to be struggling with), whether a system is Markovian or not is an ASSUMPTION. It is an assumption about dependencies between previous, present and future states.
Thirdly, when analysing a system, you have to decide whether that assumption holds, or it doesn’t. And you don’t get to make one assumption when doing hypothesis testing, and another assumption when developing theory. Either the climate system has the Markov property, or it doesn’t. (It seems to me from your writing you are a little confused as to what the Markov property is, as distinct from the analytical consequences of making the assumption)
But I don’t consider climate scientists to be incompetent. I know they make the assumption of the Markov property in good faith. And then, like you and your friend Jim, make hand-waving statements to explain away all of the inconvenient disagreements between the model and the real world. I don’t think the medical scientists who made the assumptions that led them to disregard helicobacter were incompetent either; they were too wedded to their prior beliefs to see the wood for the trees.
Because eventually someone will make the breakthrough by applying objective measures under the flawed assumptions and realise that actually there isn’t an objective solution to the climate system under the assumptions you make. I don’t think climate science is quite ready for that yet, the politics are too bound up with it, but the writing is on the wall already.
Spence, So much projection on your part, that I don’t even know where to start. First of all, most of the issues we have in communicating would go away if you would simply reference a research article that you have written. You are the one making these assertions, so it is your responsibility to get the point across. I am not a mind reader on what you are trying to say. Jeez, I have written a book with the word “Markov” in the title, so I think I know what I am talking about, but with you clowns, it’s like pulling teeth to figure out your agenda.
Yes, and they are not interested in what you have to say either. Nice projectional framing, you idiot.
I don’t think you said that clearly. All you did was reference some work by Koutsoyiannis, who apparently can’t get his work published by any reputable physics journals. (I noticed he has a rejection letter on his web site from Physical Review Letters that he whines about, get over it losers)
You don’t seem to understand that a system doesn’t have just one uniformly distributed property, i.e. this fishy thing called the Hurst exponent. Instead, the Hurst exponent is easily explained by taking a composite of many properties, each with a variation in its mean.
You are the ones making handwaving assumptions. I actually write books on these topics, and you can criticize those (see my handle for a ref to one) instead of trying to engage in weak rhetoric. Projecting your inadequacies on lack of research publications on Jim or me is a loser strategy.
Well, that is pretty much an idealogical wrap-up, so we can clearly label you as a scientific poseur.
Why must it be an article *I* have written? How many climate science papers have *you* written?
Obviously, this is a typical non-answer by someone who doesn’t understand the content of the paper, so must attack it on different grounds. I’ve linked you to published papers by Mandelbrot, Cohn, Lins, Koutsoyiannis, and others, and you haven’t shown any sign of actually understanding what they say. I can lead a horse to water, but I can’t make it think.
You used a word in a book therefore you know what you’re talking about?
*golf clap*
I agree that, at this stage in the thread, it is pretty much a two way conversation here. The difference between you and me is that I accept that reality which is why I refer to you in the second person, not the third. Why is explaining even the most trivial concept to you like pulling teeth?
Erm, he has publications in reputable physics journal (unless you consider, for example, Physica A not to be a “reputable physics journal”), so your statement is demonstrably false. Not that you’ll ever acknowledge that. Furthermore, your observation is irrelevant to whether his work is *correct* – but since you can’t argue the actual issues at hand, you drag the discussion down to the usual drivel eco-activists lean on; who or where the publication is, rather than the content. Yawn. And you can’t even get that right. But if it’s all you’ve got…
I’ve already linked three research articles on this thread to various people, and linked perhaps a dozen in the past. You’ve failed to show an understanding of any of them.
BTW, Claes has written a book on the subject as well. You know what? It doesn’t make him right, or even more knowledgeable on the subject.
In summary, I raised a number of technical issues, and rather than addressing any of them you have so far whined about peer review, making factually incorrect statements, and boasted that writing books makes you an expert. I’m really not interested in these types of discussions; if you post another content-free response, I won’t bother answering. Childish debates about who has used what word in the name of their book doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Tomas’ response to you is the only one that makes any sense.
Reviewing this, WHT did make one technical comment, which I should address if I do not wish to be a hypocrite:
1. Yes, a system can be a composite. If that is a distinction with a difference, you should see “shoulders” in the power spectral density, and other metrics – which is what I discuss in my conversation with David Springer further down (see Mandelbrot’s text). Mandelbrot found nothing of this type; therefore this observation is either wrong, or a distinction without a difference.
2. Your statement ignores the principle of parsimony. Yes, it is possible to add kludges to a model to fix aspects which do not fit the flawed Markovian model. You end up with a model which has as many kludges as it has explanatory degrees of freedom. No scientist should ever be satisfied with this as an answer, and by applying the principle of parsimony we should prefer the kludgeless model which has the same explanatory power.
Spence sez:
I have one research paper in the pipeline concerning modeling power spectral densities of natural phenomena. My approach is gaining some traction in the engineering community, and don’t be surprised when I post something on it in the near future.
I will give you one example of a pseudo-chaotic system that shows tremendous “shoulders” (if that’s what you want to call it) in the PSD. That is the situation of gravel roads that develop washboard textures as a result of vehicle traffic. Somebody might say that this is a chaotic phenomena but it is actually pseudo-periodic with a semi-Markov disorder in the distribution of wavelengths. The size of the washboard is related to the constraints of the system — obviously the washboards are annoying for people that drive or bike on them, but they don’t grow to gigantic proportion. Energy constraints and geometry put a halt to that.
This is not much different that ripple-like capillary waves caused by strong winds agitating a water’s surface.
The periodicities are strong enough that the PSD’s show a main harmonic and often several harmonics depending on the strength of the underlying order.
I don’t understand your point about Mandelbrot. He obviously was always looking for phenomena that met his acid test for a fractal nature. I used to work at the same place that Mandelbrot worked, and actually met him in passing. Dropping names don’t impress me much.
Two perfectly acceptable approaches to parsimoniously explain deviations from Markovian probability and statistics. If you want more order, create a semi-Markov process, and I can reference standard probability textbooks by Cox, Feller, and other researchers for how to do that. If you want less order, start smearing out the Markovian distribution so that you start seeing the fractal or fat-tails. Or create a ratio distribution where this comes out naturally. For many diffusional problems, this comes out naturally.
And getting back to your knee-jerk defensiveness:
Funny, last time I checked, research journals don’t accept articles that agree with well-accepted physics. If I find something that disagrees with conventional climate science or looks at it from a fresh angle, I might. The stuff on Markov properties that I published was a textbook/reference book. Your problem is that you are arguing stuff that is 180 degrees opposed to conventional thinking. Strong assertions need a strong defense.
BTW, thanks for bringing this subject up. It will only help me in my own research as it provides interesting avenues to justify my own findings. So if you can continue working on that simple first-order model to support what you are trying to assert, I would appreciate it. ;)
Ah, more nonsense from webby…
Pointless. I can give you examples of chaotic system with “shoulders”. Tomas already has below. That such systems exist proves nothing.
What you need to understand is the fundamentals that result in such a system, and then ask the question do those assumptions apply to climate. And there is a published, peer-reviewed article in a high profile physics journal that I have linked in the past that shows it does not hold. This paper has not been shown to be wrong, by you or by anyone else.
Which makes everything else you write drivel. But while I’m at it…
Yep, that’s clear. In fact, you haven’t understood any of the physics I have presented to you – including the stuff that has passed peer review (so it is not just me, others understand it, so the problem must be *you*).
Yeah. That’s what he was “always” doing. Good grief what a stupid thing to say. Anyway, the Mandelbrot reference I linked was below in a discussion with David Springer. Mandelbrot was looking for the “shoulders” that you were talking about above. And found no empirical evidence for them.
Oh, the irony. I didn’t drop any names, I cited his research (link in discussion with David Springer below). You are the one dropping names.
It’s a shame Mandelbrot was no longer with us, he could have taught you a thing or two.
Yes they do. They do all the time. (I know you aren’t used to this, but it is quite possible to write a novel article that entirely complies with well accepted physics.)
More importantly, what I write is fully backed up with published articles, that I have linked to. Your failure to understand them is not really my problem.
Spence, you are not saying anything of any value. For some reason, I see your name and I want to put Skip in front of it. That serves to remind me of the Moby Grape dude who went crazy.
So a simple assertion on my part that should only require a first-order model to refute on your end. What is the probability that large excursions in sustained climate change of several degrees can occur without the benefit of an external forcing? Quite the simple premise, but no response on your part.
Skeptics best case is a big zero, even after over 1000 comments.
Spence_UK,
This is way outside my area of understanding. Can you provide a simple explanation for a layman.
Can you also say what is the policy relevance? For example if we knew that category 1 of climate dynamics is rejected, what does that mean regarding climate sensitivity (T2xCO2)?. If we could determine that it is category 2 or 3, what would that tell us about climate sensitivity.
From my perspective, what we really want to achieve is to reduce the uncertainty in the climate sensitivity estimates, and especially to chop of the fat tail. Would your proposed research achieve any of these? When could you provide a definitive result? That is what I want to know.
If you say: “no promises, don’t know, etc.”, then policy needs to be made on the best currently available information. In my opinion the best available information tells us, very clearly, policies should be to adapt, not mitigate. We should not attempt to implement costly mitigation strategies given what we know at this stage. Therefore, no more advocating carbon price schemes and high cost renewable energy schemes.
Peter, in short, the consequences of T2xCO2 could happen even without the 2xCO2. Basically on the timescales of interest, natural variability swamps the anthropogenic input. I frequently quote Dr Timothy Cohn in his paper, “Nature’s Style: Naturally Trendy” (link):
Policy is subjective so I don’t take a strong view on it. I would guess that adaptation over mitigation would make more sense, but different people can reasonably draw different conclusions on policy.
Spence_UK,
Thank you for your reply. That makes sense to me. And thank you for the quote and link. The quote makes the point well. I’ll read the Dr Timothy Cohn paper.
Tomas Milanovic, David Sprinter & Spence UK
Well put. The poor skill of GCMs in predicting temperature to predict temperature and spectacular inability to predict precipitation is documented in:
Koutsoyiannis, D., A. Efstratiadis, N. Mamassis, and A. Christofides, On the credibility of climate predictions, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 53 (4), 671–684, 2008
Presentations
This “lack of skill” (inability) to replicate non-linear coupled distributed dissipative chaotic systems is a major reason for dismissing warming alarmists as presenting no scientifically credible basis. Predictions of 2 C/century might possibly become credible when models improve by an order of magnitude to achieve less than 0.5 C errors over 30 years, not 6C errors.
Climate is not weather. References to Prigogine are references to weather not climate. And even them it’s still my position that with sufficient information the universe, including the earth’s weather, is predictable. Determinism has not been falsified.
I certainly agree that current generation climate models are broken. It does not follow that working climate models cannot be constructed. A large part of the problem is no one is interested in a working model unless it predicts catastrophe from anthropogenic activity. A model that predicts no change from anthropogenic influence just isn’t very exciting. There’s no room for climate heroes saving the world from the ravages of evildoers in that scenario. So they keep trying to fix broken models without taking the broken bits out of it which is an exercise in futility. Lacking verifiable models the super-hero wannabes go the political route with the big lie theory. They don’t really care about saving the world. They want to save their self-worth. They want to feel important. They want to matter.
Koutsoyiannis et al. follow up with their 2010 paper – emphasizing the importance of stochastic models over GCMs:
A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data G. G. Anagnostopoulos, D. Koutsoyiannis, A. Christofides, A. Efstratiadis & N. Mamassis, Hydrological Sciences Journal – Journal des Sciences Hydrologiques, 55(7) 2010
Tomas
Re “stationary distribution” See:
Kundzewicz, Zbigniew W., 2011. Nonstationarity in Water Resources – Central European Perspective. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 47(3): 550-562. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2011.00549.x
Chief Hydrologist | September 20, 2012 at 4:58 am |
“When something absorbs radiation it heats up. The photons of radiation can interact with matter. How they interact depends on the properties of the photon (wavelength) and the properties of the atom or molecule of matter. (At the wavelengths we are talking about these properties mainly have to do with the energy states of its electrons.) When substances absorb radiative energy they increase their thermal energy. They get warmer.”
Yeah, except for water at the boundary between liquid and gas. Kind of ironic for a guy with the nick “hydrologist” would leave out water which happens to be most common substance in the surface/atmosphere interface. Most of the surface heat budget on the outward leg revolves about latent heat of vaporization not radiation. Write that down.
There is a small amount of enthalpy conserved in ice/water transitions. The enthalpy in water/vapour transitions is constantly being released in the atmosphere. So ultimately it is all warmth in the atmosphere and radiation. It is all radiation at TOA regardless of ocean and atmospheric couplings. Write that down.
We don’t live at TOA. Well maybe you do.
Well yes – I can see that makes a lot of sense. Why don’t you write to NASA and tell them that they are wasting time with CERES and they should concentrate on the energy budget of your house. I can tell you’re a bright guy – :lol: – sorry can’t keep a straight face when I say that.
My best case is that AGW is science fiction fisics, of the fantasy kind as though dreamed up through the looking glass in a topsy turvy impossible world, and that this fantasy fisics was deliberately created to push a particular agenda, the AGW claim, by person or persons (unknown to me) who knew real world physics very well indeed to be able to create the deliberate sleights of hand tweaking of physical properties and processes necessary to create it. This fictional fisics was deliberately introduced into the general education by some to dumb down science, and therefore real world knowledge and understanding of the physical world around us, for the general population, in order to further their own agendas.
In other words, my best case is that AGW a con created by deliberate sleight of hand tweaking of real physics basics, creating an impossible world.
But, this is difficult to explain because it is a very clever illusion which can only be seen by those who have sufficient range of basic real world physics to spot the tweaks, and some knowledge of con/magicians trick techniques.
To give an example of the complexity and difficulty in deconstructing AGWSF fisics, I’ve recently posted on AGW’s sleights of hand by its use of the word “absorbed” in its meme “all electromagnetic radiation is the same and creates heat when absorbed”.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/do-greenhouse-gases-warm-the-planet-by-33c-jinan-cao-checks-the-numbers/#comment-1128781
AGWScienceFiction deliberately confuses the difference between Light and Heat as understood in traditional teaching of physics. If one can appreciate the absurdity of the AGWSF claim that the great thermal energy of Sun doesn’t reach us and instead its non-thermal energy visible light has been given the process of heating matter, then it’s easier to see how AGW tweaks real physics in its other basics.
The sleights of hand it produces to argue that their fictions are facts do not have internal physical coherence, because the object of their exercise is to create confusion, not to enlighten.
I suggest it is the alarmists that need to make their case. They are the ones making claims based on faulty models and ideological biases.
Don’t fall for this call to defend your position. It is the other side making the claims that needs to substantiate their position.
This is the scorecard of climate skeptics making their best case in the comments section:
I counted 19 commenters who are already on the list of 30+ wackos prone to making up crackpot theories. http://tinyurl.com/ClimateClowns
About 6 more crawled out of the woodwork who are also candidates for idiot tracking.
Overall Grade : F-
Respect to the cranks, they have a job to do, and are doing it well.
Webby
I have some very good news for you. You will by now have added Professor Brian Fagan to your list of crackpots for having the effrontery to use a Breugel painting to illustrate his book ‘The Little Ice age’
Now you can add a whole website!
http://www.historicalclimatology.com/bibliography.html
These crackpots seem to have used exactly the same Breughel painting as I did. Shall I tell them they are now residents in your hall of fame or do you want to do it?
I will be at the Met Office library next week and I know for sure there are some books on the shelves using Bregel paintings -and others of course who were painting in that era-.. I will keep you informed of new candidates, who I am sure you will want to add in the interests of fairness and equal opportunity
.
Your friend
Tonyb
What an elegant way of explaining webby
“Someone could ask why the temperature has to increase. Well that has to do with quantum-based statistical mechanics. Say that the earth could try to make up for the blockage of the GHG-impeded low wavelengths by emitting even lower wavelengths (which are outside the spectral notches in the GHG filter). However, these are less numerous in the QM/SM state-space and also less energetic, which is the wrong direction for maximizing entropy.
Thus the only possible mechanism is for the earth to generate more shorter wavelength radiation, which necessarily increases the body of the emitting radiation source. This is the fundamental basis to explain the 33 C increase of the earth above the naive transparent-atmosphere steady-state Stefan-Boltzmann solution. When we add more GHGs to the atmosphere, the temperature has to increase because it will provide greater filtering — logarithmic asymptotic-limit saturation notwithstanding.”
This thread has, unfortunately, degenerated into discussions that are not, IMHO, very informative. I was having a nice discussion on climate sensitivity with VeryTallGuy, when he disappeared. I argued that the effect of changing lapse rate was not a feedback; an argument with VTG indicated was correct.
What I was wondering is whether it makes a difference in what order feedbacks are estimated. Now for someone like myself to attempt to go into the nitty gritty details of climate models to find out precisely how feedbacks are estimated is an impossible task. So let me pose the question and see whether what I write makes any sense.
If change of lapse rate is not a feedback, then it’s effect should be estimated at the same time as the radiation effect is estimated; VTG seems to agree with this idea. If this is not done, then at the very least, the effect of lapse rate should be estimated first, before any other estimations are made. If the estimation of the effect of lapse rate is left to last, it’s value may be enormously underestimated.
The reason I suggest this is that other feedbacks clearly are dependent on the size of the initial no-feedback sensitivity. The larger this is, the larger the apparent feedbacks. So if other feedbacks are estimated before lapse rate, one could get an exaggerated value for these feedbacks, which would not be reduced when the lapse rate effect was finally estimated.
Does this make any sense at all?
Jim, sorry, I’m about to disappear again and don’t have the time for this, apologies. My understanding follows, but I’m not an expert and could well get some of this wrong.
Quickly, not just the lapse rate but *all* feedbacks need to be calculated in the way you describe.
The temperature profile of the atmosphere, it’s water content, cloudiness etc will all change as a result of the increased Co2.
However, these are *all* termed “feedbacks” whereas the CO2 direct effect is termed a “forcing”. The CO2 “forcing” is calculated whilst holding all these other things constant. This is impossible in reality of course.
In the same way, if insolation changes, that’s a forcing. Likewise, all these other things will respond. They are still termed feedbacks, and, to at least a first approximation, are the same for all forcings, so it allows us to compare the magnitude of different forcings.
The calculation of feedbacks is much more difficult than the forcing, as you need models for convection, aerosols, albedo etc.
The CO2 forcing is *defined* as being without these feedbacks. That’s just a definition, it doesn’t really have a physical meaning as the feedbacks are an inevitable part of the system’s response.
This is not trivial to understand and requires time, effort and textbooks. As I said before, if you want a blog interaction to guide you through that understanding, Science of Doom is the place for you. I certainly don’t have the expertise to truly help you, and the general discourse here does not encourage this real learning.
There is, of course, a more fundamental truth behind my verbiage. The experts are so-called because they have expertise. They are likely to be right, and until we do the hard work to understand their approach properly, it’s sensible to assume that they are indeed correct. We would be wise to learn from them rather than assert their ignorance, as many, even most, on Climate etc do.
Thanks, VTG
There is, of course, a more fundamental truth behind my verbiage.
Yes, Jim.
It’s called logorrhea.
IN SERVICE OF RATIONAL SKEPTICISM:
THE PRUDENT TEACHING OF
BRAESS’S PARADOX IN CLIMATE-CHANGE SCIENCE
Skeptics who seek to argue against James Hansen’s simple thermodynamic climate-change world-view — in essence, that sustained energy-imbalance from CO2 drives long-term climate-change — are over-thinking matters when they turn to high-powered birfucation theory.
Skeptics are better-advised to watch the youtube video “Braess’s Paradox”, and then read (for example) Pachina and Pachina article The Braess paradox in mechanical, traffic, and other networks (2002, on-line versions can be found), with particular attention to Figures 3 and 4.
Now ask this question: “In view of Braess’s Paradox, is it *rigorously* evident that an increased CO2 greenhouse effect *necessarily* heats the planet?” :?: :?: :?:
Answer No! :) :) :)
———————————-
Caveat This post is contributed with a view toward upgrading the level of rational climate-change skepticism here on Climate Etc.
The natural follow-on question is: “Is Braess’s Paradox likely to occur, in flows as complex as earth’s air-ocean system?”
Aye lassies and laddies … now *THAT’S* an interesting question :!: :!: :!:
For sure, Braess’s Paradox shows why James Hansen and his colleagues are prudent to call for more-and-better, gobal-scale climate-change observations. :smile: :grin: :lol:
‘If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.’
Braess’s paradox suggests that players will switch until they reach a Nash equilibrium . The relevance to climate seems strained at best.
But we can all agree that longer and better space based data on radiant flux, sulphates and clouds is better. It seems a shame to spend so much money on CERES and MODIS and ignore the results. Why is that FOMBS?
Thank you for your question, Chief Hydrologist. :!: :!: :!:
Answer Quality and scope have scientific value, effort and cost don’t.
What is your next question, Chief Hydrologist? :) :) :)
Advice Reflect more deeply about the lesson that Braess’s Paradox carries for over-simple climate-change models. :!: :!: :!:
‘There are many useful measurements that could be made from a mission to the Lagrange L1 point, but Earth’s radiation balance in not one of them.’ James Hansen
‘These same problems, the changing angular distribution of the scattered and emitted radiation fields and maintaining extreme precision of sensors over long periods, must be faced by Earth-orbiting satellites. Earth radiation budget satellites have progressed through several generations and improved considerably over the past half-century, and they provide valuable data, e.g., helping to define energy transport from low to high latitudes. The angular distribution problem is treated via empirical angular distribution models, which are used to convert measurements of radiation in a given direction into radiative (energy) fluxes.
The precision achieved by the most advanced generation of radiation budget satellites is indicated by the planetary energy imbalance measured by the ongoing CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) instrument (Loeb et al., 2009), which finds a measured 5-year-mean imbalance of 6.5 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009). Because this result is implausible, instrumentation calibration factors were introduced to reduce the imbalance to the imbalance suggested by climate models, 0.85 W/m2 (Loeb et al., 2009).
The problems being addressed with this tuning probably involve the high variability and changes of the angular distribution functions for outgoing radiation and the very limited sampling of the radiation field that is possible from an orbiting satellite, as well as, perhaps, detector calibration. There can be no credible expectation that this tuning/calibration procedure can reduce the error by two orders of magnitude as required to measure changes of Earth’s energy balance to an accuracy of 0.1 W/m2.’ Op. cit
I take it have not actually read or not understood the paper you keep relying on almost exclusively – with many excursions to irrelevant places?
This is what I was referring to in the use of argument that is true but not the whole story to downplay CERES results. The whole truth is that trends in anomalies are far more accurate and used widely to investigate climate.
For instance – the ‘missing energy’ has been found in the oceans. http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/2352-earth-missing-energy-lost.html
But of course the ‘missing energy’ was entirely in the short wave. Doesn’t that strike you as odd FOMBS? Hansen strikes me as entirely too disingenuous. You certainly strike me as entirely too disingenuous as well FOMBS – although entirely lacking in any scientific sophistication .
Best case for global cooling.
I just couldn’t resist when I saw it.
http://tinyurl.com/99jyong
The network approach to understanding climate is evolving. The need for this emerges from the understanding that the behaviour of the system as a whole is not the sum of the parts.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/guest-post-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-and-northern-hemisphere%E2%80%99s-climate-variability-by-marcia-glaze-wyatt-sergey-kravtsov-and-anastasios-a-tsonis/
The network approach to climate emerges from the understanding that the system as a whole behaves in ways that can’t be predicted from the sum of individual components. The system is global, complex, dynamic and has self-organising properties.
‘In principle, changes in climate on a wide range of timescales can also arise from variations within the climate system due to, for example, interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere; in this document, this is referred to as “internal variability”. Such internal variability can occur because the climate is an example of a haotic system: one that can exhibit complex unpredictable internal variations even in the absence of the climate forcings discussed in the previous paragraph. (The Royal Society Climate change: a summary of the science – September 2010) Although climate forcings cannot be isolated from the system and should be considered to be control variables in the nonlinear system. A small change in a control variable – such as CO2 propagates through the system resulting in large and abrupt changes in climate. Control variables are atmospheric composition and insolation changes as a result of orbital or solar variability. Responses in the global climate system are legion but include those that change the radiative budget of the Earth – clouds, snow and ice, dust and biology.
The total energy budget remains the same – complexity doesn’t overthrow the 1st law of thermodynamics although it does modulate the 2nd with flows of energy occurring in many processes. Biology is perhaps the prime example where energy is bound in matter by autotrophs.
The energy budget is simple.
dS/dt – Energy in = Energy out
ds/dt is the rate of change in energy in all forms stored in the Earth System. It approximates warming or cooling in any period. Energy out changes primarily with cloud and land use in the short and ice and snow over longer period. For instance – there is a difference of 85 W/m2 between a snowball Earth and a blue-green planet. Changes in forcing due to changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are minor in comparison. Clouds, snow and ice respond to dynamic changes in climate.
Science moves on.
Whoops – my formula is wrong
dS/dt = Energy in – Energy out
Science is self correcting.
Look at the little formula by the infant Chief. Even though it is indeed very tiny, he can’t get it right. On the left hand side, he has dS/dt which is energy per time, or power. On the right hand side he has a difference in Energy, which is not power.
So he gets the equation wrong in terms of dimensional analysis, which every competent engineer knows about.
All he has to do is change this to
dS/dt = Power_in – Power_out
and it will be more correct, FWIW.
I don’t know how many times I have pointed this out to him, but he continues to ignore the advice to clean up his act. That’s why I think he is a poseur, more interested in continuing to be belligerent and obfuscating whenever he can, than in advancing the science.
The Captain-Chief Kangaroo Hydrologist is a fake and a scientific poseur. He will never change this equation, because then he will have to admit he was wrong, and that is the death knell to a poseur.
Grade: F–
Perhaps I should remind myself of the reasons adopting the Chief Hydrologist moniker. It derives from Cecil (he spent four years in clown school – I’ll thank you not to refer to Princeton like that) Terwilliger. Cecil was Springfield’s Chief Hydrological and Hydraulical Engineer until an unfortunate run in with Bart of the Simpson variety. Cecil is of the opinion that hydrological engineering was a sacred vocation in some cultures. I think that it should be still. Water is of fundamental importance in all aspects of our lives and is the essence of climate. I have decided that the moniker suits me. It is like an old and comfortable pair of shoes. Webby has placed me in his file of climate clowns – although I have pointed out the incongruity of accusing someone who self identifies with a clown as a clown. Webby is not one for subtleties.
Let’s approach my little 1st order differential global energy equation from a different angle. The first order differential hydrological storage equation is:
dS/dt = I – Q
I have to admit that this equation fills me with wonder – and has since the first time we met decades ago. It is the abiding love affair of my life. I can solve it analytically for specific configurations of storage and numerically in 25 different ways. The initial passion of 4th order Runge-Kutta and cubic spline interpolation has faded – and we have a more pedestrian existence solving for storage volumes and pipe sizes in flood detention. Normally I would calculate for I with rainfall runoff modelling and solve for Q with the Californian Highways nomograph – or a computerised equivalent.
Inflow (I) is in m3/s as is outflow (Q). The change in storage in a reach is the difference in between the volume at one level – or stage as we say in the business – and at another. So it is in metres cubed (or an equivalent anachronistic US unit). The rate of change – dS/dt – is therefore in metres cubed per second. Flows in and out are in metres cubed per second.
The situation is this – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=Hydrographs_zpsfca79c60.png – In a storm the inflow peaks and then declines. The outflow peaks at a lower flow and later because of the change in storage. The change in storage at any time is the difference between the inflow and outflow – but the equation can be integrated over any period. The storage increases while the inflow hydrograph is higher than the outflow hydrograph and the level in the storage starts falling when the outflow is greater than the inflow.
The same goes for the energy equation – but here we can distinguish between different types of outflows in short wave reflected and infrared emitted.
dS/dt = Energy in – Energy out
The rate of change in energy storage is in Joules/second – and you may convert that to Watts if you wish but sometimes it is best not to. It is better to think of it as energy per second. Energy in and out is in Joules per second as well because it is defined as a function of time. It is the flow of energy per unit of time. Just as we define instantaneous inflow as metres cubed per second rather than just as metres cubed.
It is a way of thinking about energy. If dS/dt is positive – say both the atmosphere and oceans are warming. It means without a doubt that energy in is greater than energy out. If for instance heat is accumulating in the oceans.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=vonSchuckmann-OHC.gif
And incoming solar radiation declined in the period.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
We know the warming has to be accounted for by declining energy out.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif
And this is mostly as less reflected short wave in the period – as a result of changing cloud cover.
QED
Dimensional analysis is a trick taught to enginers to deal with the vagaries of empirical equations. But if we are dealing with differentials we need to remember that time is integral – excuse the pun.
The Chief fixes the formula with the non-standard usage of calling out E as a power instead of an energy. Chief is not too talented when it comes to math, and this is about all he can handle.
Chief Hydrologist | September 20, 2012 at 6:13 pm | Reply
“Whoops – my formula is wrong”
The whoops would be if you got it right.
Dave – you are a person with very little wit as you seem to be proving again and again.
Conceptually –
delta S = energy in – energy out : where delta S is the change in storage.
=> S1 – S2 = energy in – energy out
=> dS/dt = average energy in over a period – average energy out over a period
When I said whoops – it was a simple typo swapping the equals and the minus. But it can’t be any other way by the 1st law.
It seems that natural variability, as opposed to that attributed to human activity, may indeed be composed of internal systemic elements and of external elements. It depends on how one defines “external” elements.
It may well be that the system which provides this external element should really have been included as an “internal” component of climate in the first place.
No doubt peter, but it is impossible to get the majority of the climate scientists to understand they are estimating impacts from an unknown “equilibrium”. condition. Tomas says that “averages are irrelevant” which I would modify to averages are relative. Climate is generally bi-stable so there is some hope of reducing complexity if you can allow for the full range of natural variability. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the oceans do tend toward preferred ranges with enough thermal inertia to allow decades of better guesses.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/states-of-climate-ii.html
The problem is they can’t grasp the simplest concepts on non-linear dynamics. A smaller more realistic ocean model kicks their coupled atmosphere/ocean model’s butt.
Kyle Swanson was a graduate student of Ray Pierrehumbert. Your claim is likely nonsense.
JCH, it may be nonsense it there is another major shift, which is quite likely. The oceans though should have slower shifts and more predictable behavior than chaotic temperature changes in the lower thermal mass drier atmosphere. Compare the climate shifts that Swanson and Tsonis isolated with their network analysis to the AMO SO oscillations. That graph just compares the Gray AMO reconstruction with the Neukom southern South America reconstruction with should be a fair representation of ENSO impact on the southern oceans. You could even forecast the 1945 SST drop in the southern hemisphere.
Never ignore the obvious.
It is stipulated that Tsonis – the brains of the outfit – is on the right track. Swanson merely backtracks. This still doesn’t mean that there is broad understanding especially amongst the AGW groupthink space cadets like JCH.
Judith,
I don’t know if you read all the comments on this blog but, I would argue you do, as a climate scientist, have a responsibility to comment on scientific claims made on it.
Peter Morland has commented on the consensus position that Venus ” has a ‘runaway greenhouse’ “. Saying “This is not entirely wrong, just mostly so”.
Well come on Judith. You’ve previously written:
” My engagement in the blogosphere over the past several years have convinced me that the blogosphere has untapped potential for educating the public ”
So members of the public reading, on your blog Climate Etc , that Venus has no runaway Greenhouse Effect are being educated are they?
Its your call. Yes or no. You can’t claim everything is too uncertain to say.
I get about 500 comments per day here. I couldn’t answer even 10% if I spent all day doing so. The number of insupportable statements on this blog is quite large (a statement regarding runaway greenhouse on Venus is far from the worst). I leave it to the denizens to discuss and sort out.
That’s why the IdiotTracker and http://tinyurl.com/ClimateClowns exist. Somebody has to clean out the stalls at the end of the day.
WebHubTelescope,
An alternative could be to stop bother and let the comment section become yet another echo chamber.
But then I would not have discovered Michael Leunig.
It’s tough to know what to do for sure.
There are so many uncertainties.
Maybe I should hire a forecasting agency to help me out on this.
You know any good one?
I’m flattered to make the list and even more flattered that whoever constructed it had no actual dispute with what I say but just some general disapproval about the way I say it. Classic.
I don’t know, but I thought your theory was that the ocean surface itself provides the majority of the earth’s greenhouse effect. Is that not the case?
I could look it up now that google is back in effect on this blog.
I think everyone who recognizes the terrible unfairness of Dr. Curry’s refusal to run this blog the way they tell her to, should teach Dr. Curry a lesson by refusing to comment here, and starting their own blog to show her how it’s done.
It seems to me a bit…oh I don’t know…juvenile…to constantly whine about the unfairness of it all, all the while taking advantage of the forum she provides to pesent one’s own narrow, biased, tribal, motivatedly reasoned (yes, I know, those are all the same thing) take on the debate.
Judith,
I can appreciate that you are busy but, having made the decision to open the asylum of Climate Etc, you now do have a responsibility to the inmates. The lunatics, and sometimes I think I’m one of them for wasting too much of my time, shouldn’t be allowed to take it over or “sort it out” as you put it.
These “insupportable statements” negate your goal of educating the public. Maybe you could get some help from someone who is equally qualified as yourself to say?
I’m not sure what you mean by “worst”. Is it worse to say there is no GH effect on Earth, and you’ve rightly taken on the skydragons, or no significant GH effect on Venus? What’s the difference?
Temp, which unsupported statements are worse? The reductionists that believe climate can be assumed linear for a small range of change without knowing the natural range of change or the sky dragons?
This is a good example of a false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, etc ).
It is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option.
Temp, bummer, I was shooting for paradox :) However, if you assume that reductionism is doing a bang up job, then it would be a false dichotomy from your perspective.
Tomas, Tsonis and a few others with an appreciation for complexity seem to be on the correct path. The rest are pretenders, IMHO.
tempterrain | September 20, 2012 at 10:56 pm said: -”This is a good example of a false dilemma It is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option”
Tempterain, you cannot be a blind fanatic, like most; when you can admit that there is always a third option. That definition can only come from a person, who hasn’t being turned into a Galah – like the captain and 98% of the other commenters. (Galah is an Australian bird of parrot species – can repeat what somebody said; but they don’t know the real meaning of it)
Tempterain, because you can use your own brains; I’m challenging you: to look into ” loaded comments” I.e.
1] ”the warming for the last 30 years” – well, it hasn’t being any global warming – Because before 30y, they were massaging the data for ”Nuclear Winter for year 2000, because of CO2 dimming effect” – when is put against the data massaged for GLOBAL warming = they look different. Same as: when you squeeze one sponge and stretch another sponge of the same size – they look different (to the ignorant) Here is some:
2] ” because of the warming since the beginning of 20 century” – it hasn’t being any GLOBAL warming! BUT, If you look at old news articles; ” for the last 120y was predicted 6 times: Ice Age is around the corner, in few years – 7 times predicted GLOBAL warmings, very soon – and in the early 70’s was predicted a ”Nuclear Winter for year 2000”
Swindlers avoid those articles, that were printed at the time of predictions – instead off; they are feeding new treads / fresh posts – with freshly created ”old data” inserted, that suits the occasion; but nothing to do with the reality. Nothing more impressed me, than few days ago, somebody’s post; i think was on Anthony’s blog, it stated: ”Chinese were monitoring sunspots for the last 5000years” and ads statements about the effects from sunspots for the last millenia…
Tempterain, about sun-flares was known for a bit longer period – because they were blocking the sun by cardboard and looking at the crown of the sun. But, for the first time ever effective filter to look at the sun and see that is not same colour all over; was invented about 2005AD (7years ago) than, by 2008-9 was invented the filter that we can see clearly those sunspots. PLUS, the most important: nobody knows what’s the GLOBAL temp; comparing one year or decade with another, is sick. PLUS, avoiding the ”temperature self-adjusting mechanism / my formulas” is the ”mother of all premeditated crimes”
BUT, hardcore swindlers; knowing that: ‘their global temperature charts for the last 1000 years are complete lies” they concocted, instead / pined a chart of sunspots; against their misleading ”global temp charts” to make double proofs… it’s not coincidence… look, look the sunspots fit exactly their ”proxy temperature for the WHOLE planet”. Same as: if somebody was lying that: Cesar had machine-guns, for being so suspenseful, and superimposing photos of real machine-guns next to Cesar’s picture.
Most probably you think; if some people are so stupid, to believe in crap, so be it. BUT, your attitude is wrong! 1]Trillion $$$ have being wasted to ”prevent” the non-existent GLOBAL warming 2] creating complete nutters on the net; to actually believe in all the crap -> those nutters go on the street and do stupid things that are unrelated with climate and the phony global warmings. What I’m saying is: creating nutcases is bad for the society; makes the society unsafe – same as: any religious fanatics without common sense; are bad for themselves and for others. 3] now children in school and university are getting brainwashed to believe in those imaginary GLOBAL warmings – to believe that CO2 controls the climate; instead of improving the climate by extra H2O during storms; to be saved on dry lands.
Tempterain, creating nutters, or just succeeding to con some already created nutters – is NOT a big success; nothing to be proud of. But, if you take the wool off their eyes; so they can think for themselves.. you should do that – before, you become one of them
Whiner.
Moron
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/09/the-weatherman-is-not-a-moron/#comment-240488
“Peter Morland has commented on the consensus position that Venus ” has a ‘runaway greenhouse’ “. Saying “This is not entirely wrong, just mostly so”.”
Don’t know where Peter’s post is . But not given that Venus had a greenhouse runaway effect. Wiki says:
“A runaway greenhouse effect involving carbon dioxide and water vapor may have occurred on Venus. In this scenario, early Venus may have had a global ocean. As the brightness of the early Sun increased, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increased, increasing the temperature and consequently increasing the evaporation of the ocean, leading eventually to the situation in which the oceans boiled, and all of the water vapor entered the atmosphere. On Venus today there is little water vapor in the atmosphere. If water vapor did contribute to the warmth of Venus at one time, this water is thought to have escaped to space. Some evidence for this scenario comes from the extremely high Deuterium to Hydrogen ratio in Venus’ atmosphere, roughly ~150x that of Earth, since light hydrogen would escape from the atmosphere more readily than its heavier isotope, Deuterium. Venus is sufficiently strongly heated by the Sun that water vapor can rise much higher in the atmosphere and be split into hydrogen and oxygen by ultraviolet light. ”
So in order for Venus to have runaway effect, it needed a global ocean of water. And one is also generally assuming Venus was cooler. In other words if Venus was simply warmed from the sun and from it’s formation had 92 atm CO2, or twice as much or ten times as much CO2- then it’s not greenhouse runaway affect.
The idea that Venus had greenhouse affect, generally assumes that Venus was similar to Earth billions of years ago. There is no reason to assume this. Earth is quite different than Venus, other than roughly the same mass, there little similarity.
The most striking difference is Earth has active plate tectonics, and has 24 hour day, and Earth has a large Moon- which probably was once a larger body until it hit a proto- earth. If such a large object the the proto-earth, the newly formed planet [Earth] after such energetic collision probably was much hotter than Venus is at the present time- iron and other metals were probably an atmospheric gas- for perhaps a few years.
It is thought that most of Earth’s water came from two processes, plate tectonics, and asteroid impacts.
It is not known that Venus had plate tectonics or if it did, for how long.
Asteroid impactors of Venus would be at significantly higher impact velocity than compared to Earth- objects that close to the sun are generally going faster, and Venus is going faster than Earth.
Earth orbital velocity: 29.8 km/sec
Venus orbital velocity: 35.0 km/sec
At Venus distance one has a sun escape of 49.5 km/sec.
Which means if object coming around the Sun crossing Venus distance and is going 49.5 km/sec relative to the Sun, the object will leave our solar system, but object can travelling faster than that relative to Venus and not leave the solar system. One adds the vectors:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vect.html
And same object [at escape velocity] going pass Venus at 49.5 km/sec, would slow to 42.1 km/sec at earth distance
Anyhow, as guess object tend to hit Venus about 50% or more faster.
It said the average asteroid hits earth at 20 Km/sec and so I would say Venus would be around 30 km/sec. Comets are rare and hit at 40 or km/sec. And most space rock hitting earth are NEO [Near Earth Objects] and same type of near Venus objects would tend to have less water content, because closer to Sun and warmed up more. And there should less of these rocks, as space rocks orginate from Main asteroid belt and from Jupiter’s gravity slinging them inwards. this results more space hitting Mars than Earth, and more rocks would also hit earth as compared to Venus.
All these factors point to Venus not having a global ocean- as Earth does.
gbaikie,
You can find the post if you do a Ctrl F on : “This is not entirely wrong, just mostly so”.
Peter Morland could have perhaps added the words “in his opinion”, instead he gave us his opinion dressed up as fact. He wouldn’t be the first person to have an erroneous opinion which was at odds with mainstream science.
I’d just make the point, again, that this isn’t about starting yet another debate on whether Peter, or others who have made other unsubstantiated claims, is wrong , or whether WHT has a couple of good websites which are useful for debunking these sort of theories, its about what on earth Judith, as a professional climate scientist, is doing by allowing them to just pass by on her website. “Too busy” is just a cop-out. If that’s the case then CE should be shut down.
Its possible I’ve got it all wrong and that the Venusian surface temperature isn’t approximately 3 times its radiation temperature, that the term ‘runaway GH effect’ isn’t at all warranted, and that increased pressure is indeed the cause of the Venusian heat. If I have then I’d be grateful if someone could give me a scientific reference to show that. And, no, not from WUWT !
Observationally, the total radiative forcing from the sun has been estimated to be 7-8 times as large as the TSI Forcing over the course of a solar cycle. We can also expect that this amplification mechanism also applies to long term trends, and thus a significant portion of the warming is likely solar induced, depending on which TSI reconstruction is used.
Shaviv 2008, Marsden and Lingenfelter 2003, Kirkby and Laaksonen 2000, Svensmark and Friis-Christensen 1996, and Reis and Serrano 2009 find that (or cite papers that show) that an amplifying mechanism is needed to explain the total forcing during a solar cycle. It should be noted that the last paper claims that a decrease in Cloud Cover during a solar cycle leads to a 0.8-1.7 w/m^2 radiative forcing may be underestimating the Cloud Cover effects during a Solar Cycle, since the Cosmic Ray impact is with the Low Clouds, and Low Clouds cool the climate more than just Clouds overall (Usoskin et. al 2004).
It is well accepted that solar irradiance changes range by about 1 w/m^2 over the course of a solar cycle, so in order to translate this value, we need to account for the Earth’s albedo and geometry. We first need to divide this value by 4 to account for the geometry of the Earth, (The Earth is a sphere) and multiply this value by 0.7 to account for the Earth’s albedo.
This means that the irradiance forcing during the course of a Solar Cycle is around 0.18 w/m^2. Kirkby and Laaksonen and Reis and Serrano agree that the forcing from GCRs over the course of a solar cycle is approximately 1.2-1.3 w/m^2. This is a value that is much higher than just irradiance changes alone. To get the total forcing over the course of a solar cycle, we need to add the irradiance forcing onto the GCR forcing to get a mean value of around 1.43 w/m^2. It should be noted that the total forcing during the solar cycle, (~11 years) once this amplification mechanism is accounted for, is highly comparable to the Total Anthropogenic Forcing since 1750 (~1.6 w/m^2). To find out how much bigger the total solar forcing is compared to the irradiance forcing, we can divide the total solar forcing by the irradiance forcing to get the multiplying factor. This is nearly a factor of 8 larger than the TSI forcing alone, and the IPCC may be underestimating the total solar forcing by a factor of 8. In addition, we have various TSI proxies since the Maunder Minimum that are not in agreement with each other, so the TSI forcing from the IPCC may not be correct either.
Take Haigh 2003 which finds a 3-4 w/m^2 increase in TSI since the Maunder Minimum. TSI insolation changes need to be divided by 4 and multiplied by 0.7 for the reasons stated above. When you do so, you get a TSI forcing of 0.61 w/m^2 since the Little Ice Age. The Maunder Minimum roughly ended during the same time that the IPCC’s total radiative forcings started, so comparing the direct and indirect Solar Forcing to the anthropogenic forcing is reasonable. If TSI alone were the solar forcing, we would have a problem, since the net anthropogenic forcing is larger than the TSI forcing by a factor of 2.6. However, when we include the amplification from the indirect solar forcing, we can find that the Anthropogenic Forcing is dwarfed by a much larger solar forcing. When we multiply the TSI forcing by a factor of 8 to account for an amplification mechanism, we get a total solar forcing of nearly 5 w/m^2 (4.88 w/m^2). This is significantly larger than the anthropogenic forcing during the same timeframe by over a factor of 3. We get a solar contribution of around 75% to the warming observed since the Little Ice Age. This is highly significant.
The temperature has increased by roughly a Degree C since the LIA, so we can also roughly calculate the sensitivity of the Climate based off of this rough analysis. Since a combined forcing of 6.5 w/m^2 from solar and anthropogenic causes created a 1 Degree C increase in temperatures, we can use the 6.5 w/m^2 as a constant. The 3.7 w/m^2 forcing for a doubling of CO2 gives you about a 0.57 Degree C response, which is significantly smaller than the IPCC climate sensitivity.
The role of natural internal climatic variability also needs to be considered as another significant contributing factor to the recent warming episode, and if it is, the sensitivity to CO2 may go down even further.
Handling Uncertainty
The debate central to climate change response seems to hinge on how to handle uncertainty. The alarmists believe things might be much worse than the “best estimate” projections therefore the sky is falling; in contrast the sceptics feel that things won’t be as bad at the “best estimate” therefore no worries. It seems that both are missing the point.
Uncertainty about the problem is a given; uncertainty about the chosen solution is inexcusable. This is to say, we should be confident that our solutions are going to be effective, and the more expensive the solution the more confident we should be.
To illustrate what I mean, suppose we detect a large asteroid whose orbit will intersect Earth’s, and on best estimates there is a 1% probability it will hit earth. Clearly, we wouldn’t let uncertainty prevent us from reacting to the threat. One response might be to spend trillions of dollars to build a fleet of nuclear-tipped missiles to destroy or deflect the asteroid. Is this a good idea? Well, it depends on how certain we are that missiles will work. If there is only, say, a 5% chance, or worse we don’t know the odds, then it is time to go back to the drawing board.
In short, big responses require high levels of confidence that they will work. I am not sure our C tax meets this test.
Should we mitigate or adapt?
A C-tax or an ETS seems to be the favoured mitigation method. But this is bound to be a low-confidence response. Such schemes are wide open to rorting and rent-seeking, they have high compliance costs, the chances of the world acting together are very low, and the technology is not yet sufficiently advanced to make large reductions at reasonable cost. Nor is there a shred of evidence that C taxes or ETS’s actually work. Even if they did work, it would only be partial mitigation.
In contrast, adaptation is a high-confidence response. If we feel it is necessary to build dykes along Bangladesh coastline, we can be very confident that it can be done and what it will cost. As climate change advances, our responses can be tailored accordingly. It may (or may not) be very expensive, but we can be reasonably certain that the money spent will meet the objective.
Another important point is that every trillion spent now on mitigation (when uncertainty is high) is a trillion that can’t be spent later on adaptation (when uncertainty is negligible).
Further, early spending for mitigation raises three other problems.
1. early spending is when the knowledge base is the weakest, because science advances and we’ll understand the issues much better in the future.
2. early spending is when we can least afford it, because the world will be much wealthier in the future – consider that on past trends, global wealth will probably double in the next 20 years.
3. early spending is massively expensive in terms of opportunity costs: a trillion not spent now (and sensibly invested at 5% real return) would be worth 12 trillion in 50 years time. That would buy a hell of a lot of adaptation.
Cooling will be the best case. Nothing else will work. There’s way too much is at stake for the consensus to abandon the cargo cult ‘science’.
I generally agree with you, but it does depend on what causes it. Cooling due to a volcanic eruption? No. But if things continue about as they are and it cools significantly over the next decade, then there are major problems in the theory. I don’t think there are, and I think it’s going to continue to get hotter.
I think it’s the oscillatory behaviour of the Sun and probably planets including our planet. Solar activity is low and getting lower (longer term) and it already shows. I think the real cooling will start after this solar cycle peaks (~2013-15).
I get about 500 comments per day here. I couldn’t answer even 10% if I spent all day doing so. The number of insupportable statements on this blog is quite large (a statement regarding runaway greenhouse on Venus is far from the worst). I leave it to the denizens to discuss and sort out.
Judith I feel with you and understand quite well.
Actually reading a thread doesn’t take so much time. I have (and you certainly have) a list of names where you simply scroll through because there has been enough evidence that these particular posters will not and cannot bring something interesting.
The problem I have seen (and should have posted in the second Climate Etc year thread) is that the number of irrelevant posters has increased as compared with the first year.
This is probably due to an increased proportion of political/sociological posts which invite scientifically little litterate people to post and these then often represent a very large proportion of the posts.
I am lead to the conclusion that a well designed blog oriented on science should absolutely have an ignore function which would enable to hide the comments of selected posters.
For example on your blog I never read 2 categories of posters
– people talking exclusively politics and basically only repeating the same meme over and over (a typical example Temeparrain)
– people who seem to have some scientific training but although completely ignorant of modern physics they display this ignorance in confused posts (a typical example Webtelescope)
If we were able to remove this kind of people (not banning them just allowing an ignore function), both commenting and reading would be greatly simplified.
For instance by ignoring these categories, I was able to catch easily SpenceUK post which was for me one of the most interesting and relevant on this thread. A pity that there was not more discussion along the lines he proposed.
Ah yes and I would love that you ban posts about radiative transfer (like S.McIntyre did). These things have been known for 200 years and their QM interpretation for almost 100 years. While I find f.ex QM radiation processes in non LTE conditions or collisionaly induced spectra very interesting, all these things have really little to do with the complexity of climate dynamics.
Yet, for some obscure reason, many posters seem to revel in page long dissertations about “back radiation”, Trenberth pictures, primitive 3 box models and other trivial radiation concepts.
I am aware that this is just a personnal opinion but thought that I had to make the suggestion.
SpenceUK
Fully agree with your post. However for the finer points, I do not identify myself with your point 3.
As I explained, the question between 2) and 3) is open. If the system is ergodic, then 2) is the answer. If it is not then 3) is the answer.
As it happens I find 3) more likely but belief is not a proof.
And thanks to somebody whose name I forgot who quite relevantly reminded the Nobel and brilliant physicist Prigogine writing in his textbook :
A high-dimensional non-linear dissipative system, even with constant input, can not be assumed even to have an equilibrium, or a steady state, or even a stationary distribution.
For those who would want to meditate on this without reading the book, note that Prigogine says “cannot be assumed” where it connects to SpenceUK post.
He basically says that such systems must be either 2) or 3) in Spence’s terminology.
I did suggest to Judith that some application whereby the periodic reader and poster (like Tomas) could follow their preferred posters who have commented within the previous week or so by having some sort of scroll feature. The present one is a window showing about 20 latest posts only.
In fairness to a number of genuinely interested (as opposed to disinterested) posters who have also commented on Tomas’ post, I consider that laypeople have an important input to the climate debate, and if this blog were to become purely scientific in orientation, a lot of interesting discussions would be lost to posterity.
Peterdavies I didn’t say that lay posters were generally uninteresting.
I just observed that the number of non scientific posters increased in the second year compared to the first year.
I don’t think that Judith’s intent has been to create “fluid dynamics on line “.
So it is quite normal that there are posts about something else than what
Judith calls “technical posts.
However the point is the proportion of non technical posts. If the proportion is too high, then posters who like technical posts and discussions about physics of the climate will stop coming ot coming less often.
Tomas, You have good points and everyone is sorry about the nasty tone of some commentators. It is called a fillibuster in Congress. Just ignore themm
Tomas is a climate clown and a scientist with an agenda, in other words, not a real scientist. The fact that he cannot admit that a forcing function can invoke a shift in the steady state average thermal energy level is incredibly misguided …. or, more likely, the basis of FUD . Why do you think we call it a forcing function?
Tomas also apparently does not understand asymptotic arguments. Based on his reasoning, we may also assume that if the sun were to be extinguished tomorrow, the climate would still go through chaotic oscillations and bifurcations, merrily ignoring that the incoming energy stimulus has disappeared. After all, a forcing function does not matter, and nonlinear dynamics is all that counts. Tomas will just come up with his own imaginary Green’s function that will prove Prigogine’s vast intelligence.
What is up with these sporadic trolls? Note how all these other fake skeptics are in awe of Tomas’ lofty pretensions.
I still want to see a toy model by the great Tomas that shows how forcing functions do not matter.
Webster, “Based on his reasoning, we may also assume that if the sun were to be extinguished tomorrow, the climate would still go through chaotic oscillations and bifurcations, merrily ignoring that the incoming energy stimulus has disappeared.”
It would :) as it gradually settled to zero energy of eons, the oscillations would decrease exponentially.
Where did you study dynamics again? Auburn?
WebHubTelescope,
There is a way to force Tomas to bite your bullet:
> A forcing function can invoke a shift in the steady state average thermal energy level.
Do as the YesButClimategate circus: just post your question over and over again.
Tomas will either concede, refute, counterattack or go silent.
All of these moves will show the answer.
You don’t have to tell that answer over and over again.
Let the audience dig that answer.
You’ll gain more INTEGRITY ™ by doing so.
INTEGRITY ™ — We Only Ask Questions
There’s a good example over there:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-241716
WHT, why so nasty?
Scott
Is a professor who fails a student by wriiting a big F on an assignment or test that they worked on so hard considered nasty?
Is that professor nasty for telling someone the truth?
Is someone that calls in to a crank science radio program such as coast-to-coast AM considered nasty if he or she laughs in their face?
That last one is a trick question because they don’t allow that. But this place does, and for that I am grateful.
Still confusing climate with weather re; Prigogine. One example Prigogine offers is an inclined plane with water running down from top to bottom. The pattern of rivulets will be in constant rearrangement due to innumerable butterfly effects.
That patter of rivulets is the weather. The water running from top to bottom is the climate. There’s a difference. The difference should be obvious and because of that I’m at a loss as to why it should need explaining.
While this has become a popular meme in climate science today, no such distinction exists between weather and climate. Way back in 1969, Benoit Mandelbrot took a look at this problem and concluded the distinction between weather and climate was merely one of convenience from a human perspective, and had no physical basis. (See chapter on “Significance of Hurst’s law in geophysics”, from pg 555, of “Global Dependence in Geophysics” at this link)
For what you say to be true, weather would need to be a Markov process with a time constant close to the weather scale; such a thing would be highly visible in plots of power spectral density, etc. As Mandelbrot correctly noted, no such artefact exists. I have seen no counter to Mandelbrot’s arguments that rise above hand-waving. (That doesn’t mean evidence doesn’t exist, and as ever I’d be happy to be presented with evidence that Mandelbrot was wrong)
No Spence. The difference between weather and climate is one that runs through all manner of physical systems. It’s the difference between classical thermodynamics and statistical thermodynamics. Predictable bulk properties emerge in ensembles of unpredictable individual particles. Weather is analogous to individual particles. Climate is analogous to bulk properties. This is an extremely common theme in all kinds of sciences where the behavior of individual members in a given set (molecules, people, bonds, clouds) is unpredictable and where in large collections (usually called ensembles) predictable properties emerge.
A classic example is radioactive decay. We can’t predict when any individual atom is going to spontaneously decay but we can predict with exquisite accuracy how long it will take for half the atoms in a collection of a trillion atoms to decay. Weather and climate is just like that. We can’t predict how much rain there will be on any particular day far in the future due to butterfly effect but we can predict that there will be more annual rainfall in Seattle than in Phoenix. The butterflies average out into a predictable ensemble.
There are a number of places in the world where rainfall on decadal timecales. This includes the US where a negative PDO and positive AMO set conditons for very dry periods and vice versa. This is well known in hydrology. The probability distribution function for rainfall is very different in one period than the other. Prediciting when these shifts in rainfall patterns – and climate – occur is the problem.
‘Non-equilibrium systems are much more complex and they may undergo fluctuations of more extensive quantities. The boundary conditions impose on them particular intensive variables, like temperature gradients or distorted collective motions (shear motions, vortices, etc.), often called thermodynamic forces. If free energies are very useful in equilibrium thermodynamics, it must be stressed that there is no general law defining stationary non-equilibrium properties of the energy as is the second law of thermodynamics for the entropy in equilibrium thermodynamics.’
‘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.’
Statistical mechanics is not so simple to apply – eh Davo?
Any other questions Davo?
You will find if you paid more attention that it is the macro properties of mass and inertia that determine stream form. You will find that water goes downhill because of gravity. Classical dynamics rather the statistical mechanics of gas diffusion say.
http://www.oxbowriver.com/Web_Pages/Stream_Ecology_Pages/Ecology_Aquatic/Ecology_Helical.html
Butterfly? Here is the chaotic butterfly – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lorenz.png – it has nothing whatsoever to do with random motion of particles.
You need to be more precise in you descriptions and far less prone to making crude and misconceived analogies. Especially when talking to a hydrologist.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
David, those processes are Markovian, so the local mean converges on the population mean at increasing scale to yield the classical result.
You can prove this using statistical thermodynamics. Likewise, you can prove that climate does not converge in the same way – which is exactly what Mandelbrot does (albeit empirically; for a theoretical basis you would need to go to a more modern text).
Climate is not a Markov process, cannot be approximated by one, so what you describe does not apply.
‘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. The large-scale climate, for instance, determines the environment for microscale (1 km or less) and mesoscale (from several kilometers to several hundred kilometers) processes that govern weather and local climate, and these small-scale processes likely have significant impacts on the evolution of the large-scale circulation.’
With stream meanders the curvature is initiated by irregularities that are inevitably present. The mass and inertia properties of water ensure that helical flow emerges carving the typical pattern of streams into the landcape – or inclined plane – whatever. Are these chaotic systems? They can certainly change form – usually determined by slope and sediment load – but also with a hydrological regime change. In this case the regime change is the cause rather than anything in the stream itself.
Stream meanders will happen no matter how flat and smoooth you get the plane. In fact it gets worse the more uniform the plane. At the microscopic level molecules are bumping into each other at random in what’s called Brownian motion. Water to water, air to water, bump bump bump. This will result in microscopic differences in surface tension on the rivulets and will emerge on the macroscopic scale as ever changing patterns in the rivulets. Lots of butterflies. However, we can say with assuredness that no rivulet will flow uphill even though individual water molecules can go uphill. A predictable bulk property emerges from the chaos of individual microstates. Weather and climate are just like that.
Welcome to Probabilistic Mechanics a.k.a. Statitistical Mechanics.
Perhaps here – this threading gets a little tedious. Not to mention certain commentators.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-243141
David Springer | September 22, 2012 at 6:22 am said: ” We can’t predict when any individual atom is going to spontaneously decay but we can predict with exquisite accuracy how long it will take for half the atoms in a collection of a trillion atoms to decay”’
David, obviously you don’t even know the meaning of: ”half period of decay” – if you stick to things you know a bit about – and avoids what your knowledge is zero = you will be a smaller moron.
Half decay is, what I would say: half-> half from half -> half from quarter…
In other words; if half period of decay is 30years – it doesn’t mean that half of the atoms have decayed – and the other half will decay in the next 30years. that makes you a bit more than dumb.
Half-period of decay is: the time needed to lose half strength from those atoms / isotopes – lets say 1000 years – then for next 1000y loses half strength from the other half – then for next half-period loses half from the quarter strength – then next half-period looses half from the 1/8 then half from 1/16 and so on
lets say it, the way you can understand (i always simplify): you put a big pot of water in the yard, to cool down. First hour from 100C cools down to 50C -next hour cools from 50C to 25C next from 25C cools down to 12,5C next half-period cools from 12,5C down to 6,25C and so on… Get the picture Springer? Half of the molecules in the pot don’t cool from 50C down to 25C in ”half period” = they all lose half strength. David, the more you know, the more you are worth – go to my blog and learn the truth about the real climatic changes and phony GLOBAL warmings. Because, so-far; you always are trying to destroy opponent’s lie – by bigger lies of yours. in other words: the past phony GLOBAL warmings that you promote, are much bigger lies; than one Warmist’s imaginary global warming for 2100.
Tomas, it is always a pleasure to read your posts, I agree with what you write here. The points you make are profound but often not intuitive so not really understood by the majority. Sadly the debate is an emotive one and many replies are not constructive.
From the HOC Environmental Audit Committee which is worried about spills in the Arctic:
quote
The committee heard from several witnesses that safety standards were inadequate. Prof Peter Wadhams, an Arctic ice expert from Cambridge University told them: “If they can’t cap the blowout off, or drill a relief well before the winter, the blowout will operate right through the winter months, with oil and gas coming up under the ice.
“The oil coats the bottom of the ice, and if the ice is moving, which is often at about 10km a day, it acts like a great sheet of moving blotting paper, absorbing the oil coming up under it, and carrying it away downstream.
“You will have a trail of oiled ice floes 1,000 kilometres or more in length covering a whole swathe of the Arctic. The oil disappears into the interior of each floe, because new ice grows underneath it, so you have an ‘oil sandwich’ which lasts all through the winter.
“Then the oil rises to the top surface of the ice in the spring and summer and retains its toxicity. By now it is spread thinly around such a huge area that it is very, very difficult to … get rid of.”
unquote
Each year the oil will be recycled, amplifying any effects it might have. So, the question is, does the oil alter the freezing rates, reduce emissivity, lower albedo, reduce aerosol production? Almost certainly is my guess. Will someone please do the science… anyone… hello… hello… [chirp, chirp…]
[sigh]
JF
Julian Flood
It is worth pursuing your oil slick observations-why don’t you contact Peter Wadhams at Cambridge University (the students aren’t back for another 10 days so he may be responsive. Alternatively why don’t you ask your questions of the ‘Naked Scientists’ forum, also of Cambridge University?
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/
Do let us knw how you get on
tonyb
What we need is a new thread entitled, Webster’s Follies :)
WebHubTelescope | September 21, 2012 at 7:15 am |
Tisdale, you are a clown if you think that pressure alone can increase ocean heat content (OHC).
You are one of roughly 40 Crackpots competing with an alternate theory on this blog’s comment site. Just so you know who you are competing with. And that doesn’t consider the consensus position that heat content is increasing based on the GHE
Webster, Tsonis, Tomas, Selvam and others provide the theories, the engineering types work out the real world applications. That is why there is science and engineering.
Rule one of Thermodynamics, KISS. Engineers typically do not use elaborate models until they have enough understanding of the system dynamics to build one. Then that model will be simple, basic and expandable.
Rule 2 of Thermodynamics, Frame of Reference. Is a result in one frame is not transferable to another frame that result is not a solution.
Rule 3 of thermodynamics, Assume, which should be self explanatory.
The rules for Fluid Dynamics are similar.
Ever wonder why so many people say you are missing the point? That is because you alone in the world have any scientific insight right? :) Well good for you, now listen to the engineers saying your design don’t fly.
IPCC projection Graph => http://bit.ly/zA0a2j
IPCC projection Text => http://bit.ly/caEC9b
Comparison of IPCC projection with observation => http://bit.ly/z7cOHe
Climate Sensitivity
The question is whether the long-term global warming rate is about 0.06 deg C per decade shown below:
http://bit.ly/nEUMsQ
Or whether it is about 0.16 deg C per decade as shown below.
http://bit.ly/oEJHAk
If it is 0.16 deg C per decade, the corresponding climate sensitivity is IPCC’s value of 3. If it is only 0.06 deg C per decade, the corresponding climate sensitivity is only about 1.1 (=3×0.06/0.16)
We will find out the correct value from observation in this decade.
From the observed data in the last decade (because the short term global warming rate is –0.1 deg C per decade http://bit.ly/pMHO76 ), it appears that the long-term global warming rate is only about 0.06 deg C per decade. Therefore, climate sensitivity appears to be about 1.1 deg C for doubling of CO2.
Girma, you write “From the observed data in the last decade (because the short term global warming rate is –0.1 deg C per decade http://bit.ly/pMHO76 ), it appears that the long-term global warming rate is only about 0.06 deg C per decade. Therefore, climate sensitivity appears to be about 1.1 deg C for doubling of CO2.”
As I have pointed out many times, there is no proof that the warming you are referring to is actually caused by increased levels of CO2 in the atmopshere. Since we have had a rise of around 0.06 per decade since around 1850, it seems that this is caused by some form of naturally occurring event. The values you quote for climate sensitivity are MAXIMUM values. The fact that there is no change in trend for global temperatures gives a strong indication that, in fact, the true value of climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero.
Jim
The main point of the AGW camp is the trend has shifted from the 0.06 deg C per decade (http://bit.ly/nEUMsQ) warming to about 0.16 deg C per decade (http://bit.ly/oEJHAk) warming.
Is that true?
It does not look like it as we are having slight cooling now => http://bit.ly/pMHO76
Girma, you write “Is that true?”
No, it is not true. The trend of 0.06 C since 1850 has been going for many decades. Within this trend there is noise which, at times, makes a short term trend that is greater than 0.06 C per decade. The second graph you show is merely one of these shorter periods of noise where the trend is sometimes greater than 0.06C per decadse, (and sometimes less, even negative).
What we need to look at is the overall long term trend. And there is no sign that this has changed.
I agree.
But because of the accelerated CO2 concentration after 1970s the AGW camp assume there is a corresponding acceleration in the trend after 1970.
I believe there was no shift in the warming trend after 1970. I believe the warming from 1970-200 is mainly due to the warming phase of the Multidecadal oscillation and when this oscillation moves into its cooling phase this warming trend of 0.16 deg C per decade will reduce to the long-term trend of 0.06 deg C per decade.
Well Webster, You used calculated the diffusion rate into the oceans. Use the same math, turn the sun off and plot the temperature decay.
You should consider the thermodynamic boundary layers or stratification layers if you prefer, say 17C for surface mixing, 10C for intermediate thermocline, 4 C for the upper abysmal and 2 C for the deepest oceans.
If you are up for it, plot the NH, tropics and SH, wadda ya get?
Now reverse the process. Is warming of the oceans uniform? Would there be internal delays?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fRUWp63gTrg/UF3NCD35l9I/AAAAAAAADw4/yRGHGSfAr9I/s1600/Eastern+Pacific+bottom+temperature+with+EPICA+CO2+and+Solar.png
The oceans have oscillations with a crap load of energy Webster, the atmosphere can only contain so much of that energy. If it takes 1000 years for one tenth of a degree change in the deep ocean temperature with an 80Wm-2 change in solar forcing, how long would it take with 3.7Wm-2?
Rather than a natural mechanism that has completely escaped modern science the world over, what is most likely is that a relative known, mankind’s various activities since the mid 1700s, many of which physically interact with the climate, is responsible for the reversal of the secular cooling trend to that date.
JCH, how would you separate the two? Land use changes with centuries of agricultural expansion should have an impact on growing season length, you can spread ash of dirt on snow to speed the melt etc. but that would also be a predominately “regional” event until around 1800 when there was a natural volcanic cooling event and another natural cooling event around 1900 and the “suspected” anthropogenic aerosols circa 1950 which “supposedly” caused some portion of the cooling though the undetermined sudden dip in southern hemisphere temperatures may be natural a the result of change in measurement of SST from buckets to engine intakes even though the dip is clearly evident in southern hemisphere land surface temperature readings.
When would this begin to start sounding like BS to you?
I know I’m hip deep in BS when somebody says the warming trend since the LIA is natural, or even in part natural. We were, and are, naturally cooling, only something won’t allow it. Us.
The JCH, you should perhaps consider the dynamics of the Circumpolar current and the Thermohaline. With no obvious change in forcing, the distribution of energy in the ocean can change producing dramatic climate responses. You might find it odd, but the temperature of the bottom water along the Eastern Tropical Pacific is inversely related to atmospheric CO2 concentration. When surface temperatures warm, the bottom temperature cools in complex mixing over 100k years with roughly 20K year oscillations. Like super duper la nina turtleing all the way down until solar forcing and relative stability, (reduced mixing) allows a change of state. Damnedest thing ya ever seen!
What is really interesting, that those longer thousand year pseudo cycles appear to have shorter term harmonics totally related to internal states which impact the perceived sensitivity to external forcing. It is so complex, a guy could jump to erroneous conclusions a think that the world is coming to an end or something. That would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?
Cap’n, you don’t actually see these things. You either infer them, or in your case, you dream them up in some sort of delusional dream state.
JCH and Webster,
The oceans make one or two degree “excursions” all the time. That is the nasty internal oscillation on rather long scales. D-O events of Bond cycles, hard to tell if they are forced or internal oscillations. Likely internal oscillation because there is this tiny little data issue.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/because-it-gets-amplified.html
Since Air has a low heat capacity and air at higher altitudes have even lower heat capacity, air tends to amplify the tiniest changes in total heat capacity. Tmin helps reduce some of the issues, wetbulb temperatures, if they were reliable would really help. Since we have rather limited data, we have to be smart using what we have.
Since a 0.1C change in the tropical pacific is amplified 2 to 4 times by the Altantic which has less heat sink availability, the warmer Atlantic temperatures are amplified 2 to 4 times by the land masses. Heat capacity of the globe can be decreasing but “global” temperature increasing, which is actually a pretty common condition. Temperature is not by itself a measure of heat, just the heat that you can measure :)
Captain Cuckoo says:
Yes but they don’t make those excursions in a SUSTAINED fashion, pulling along the rest of the world with it. What a meat-head. Where the heck is the sustained heat supposed to come from, huh? The thermal energy is already at the surface, pea-brain.
What was it Tomas said – someone with some tachnical training but complete ignorance of modern physics. Or anything much else I would add. Webby is not any better.
Quite a pair, Captain Dingo and Captain Bonefish. Do you require authoritarian appellations so you feel better making all these absurd assertions?
Webster, “Yes but they don’t make those excursions in a SUSTAINED fashion, pulling along the rest of the world with it. What a meat-head. Where the heck is the sustained heat supposed to come from, huh? The thermal energy is already at the surface, pea-brain.”
The Excursions are no more SUSTAINED that a lava lamp. When there is a warmer regime, the rate of sinking of cooling surface water and the salinity of the water changes the dynamics of the layers of the themohaline current. The depth of the intermediate thermocline varies the deep ocean temperature slow moves fro 2.75C to 4.25C. In fact the Antarctic CO2 record matches the DEEP OCEAN temperature record. there is an inverse relationship of course, and not the tropical surface temperatures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pack_ice_slow.gif
I must have forgotten to show that link :)
Webster, This is the crude model that I have been tinkering with.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/06/not-forth-coming-ice-age.html
It use the freezing points of ice for a reliable reference range of “average” temperatures and nested models for moist air and dry air envelopes. It does a pretty good job of predicting the range of abysmal depth temperature. That is about all it does, but it did a bang up job.
The range from -1.9C to 0C and the changes in the sinking rate and volume of water rejected during the freezing of sea ice drives the “excursions” If you want to figure out the diffusion rate of heat into the deep oceans, you might need to consider this little system dynamic :)
Girma
For what it’s worth, Ben Santer has told us last November that a trend in the “globally and annually averaged land and sea temperature anomaly” only becomes statistically significant after 17 years.
http://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Nov/NR-11-11-03.html
We now have 180 months (= 15 years) during which the HadCRUT3 record has shown “no warming” (= slight cooling), despite the fact that human GHG emissions have continued unabated and measured CO2 concentrations have reached record high levels.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997.7/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997.7/trend
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Does this mean (if this trend continues for another 24 months) the CAGW crowd will capitulate and admit defeat for their hypothesis?
Or does it just mean that the CAGW crowd will simply “move the goalposts”?
Or will they come up with convoluted “explanations” (Chinese aerosols, temporary natural variability, etc.) to rationalize that the “underlying anthropogenic warming trend is being temporarily masked by…”?
Let’s wait and see how this develops, Girma.
Meanwhile, keep up the good work – you raise all the right questions, to which the CAGW crowd have not replied with rational answers.
Max
Thanks Max.
They have already shifted the goal post by moving from talking about trends to the “nth warmest in the record”
(The 30 years trend is decreasing to zero in the coming couple of decades)
What mechanism would take it to zero?
JCH, you write “What mechanism would take it to zero?”
I dont understand the question. You seem to have assumed that the no-feedback climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 has been proven to be about 1.2C. This is simply wrong. There is no empirical data to support this value of 1.2 C; none whatsoever. So, until we have empirical data to support this value, it is suspect; we simply dont know what the proper value is.
Under the scientific method, we always believe empirical data when it is different from hypothetical data. So if there are estimations with no empirical data to support them that suggests that the value is 1.2C, and limited empirical data which suggests that the true value is indistinguishable from zero, following the scientific method, we trust the empirical data. It is just that simple.
Jim,
think about it, if climate sensitivity were zero, that would mean that turning off the sun had no effect on the earth’s temperature.
Does that seem likely to you?
JCH
What mechanism would take it to zero?
The following:
A signature of persistent natural thermohaline circulation cycles in
observed climate
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/articles/KnightetalGRL05.pdf
Look at Figure 4.
I was asking Girma what physical mechanism would take the 30-year trend to a zero (I assume he means flat) trend.
Girma, from the paper:
[12] The quasi-periodic nature of the model’s AMO suggests that in the absence of external forcings at least, there is some predictability of the THC, AMO and global and Northern Hemisphere mean temperatures for several decades into the future. We utilise this to forecast decreasing THC strength in the next few decades. This natural reduction would accelerate anticipated anthropogenic THC weakening, and the associated AMO change would partially offset expected Northern Hemisphere warming. This effect needs to be taken into account in producing more realistic predictions of future climate change.
First, Mann has hinted on RC that he intends to do a RC article on the AMO and the PDO, which I wish he would get done.
But, partially offsetting NH warming is not going to flatten the 30-year trend.
When Keenlyside et al predicted cooling, the RC team immediately bet them a lot of money they were wrong.
VTG yoo write “Does that seem likely to you?”
I do wish people would quote what I write. I NEVER said that the value for climate sensitivity of CO2 was zero. I said it was INDISTINGUISHABLE from zero. These are completely different statements.
VeryTallGuy: think about it, if climate sensitivity were zero, that would mean that turning off the sun had no effect on the earth’s temperature.
That’s only true if the climate sensitivity is constant, independent of the state of the climate. It could be the case that, starting now, doubling of the CO2 would produce no net change in the distribution of rainfall and temperature; or perhaps a change in spatial distribution without a net increase in the global means. The proposition of a constant climate sensitivity only applies to an extremely simple model of climate.
JCH
But, partially offsetting NH warming is not going to flatten the 30-year trend.
I believe that is what we are seeing now:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2004/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2004/trend
“We now have 180 months (= 15 years) during which the HadCRUT3 record has shown “no warming” (= slight cooling), despite the fact that human GHG emissions have continued unabated and measured CO2 concentrations have reached record high levels.”
This is evidence CO2 helps cooling the Earth, not warming it. Climate modeling jesters have things the other way round. Climate models are GIGOs.
Girma
Your third graph pretty much tells the story.
– IPCC models are unable to correctly predict future temperatures, even in the short term.
– There is, therefore, no valid scientific reason to believe that they can do so over the longer term.
Max
What is Science? A person posits a model for how a natural system behaves. The model is then tested against actual observed behavior, or experiments. The model, by necessity, must have clearly testable outcomes.
It’s simply no good to have models that predict “X”, when “Y” occurs, and X and Y are not the same thing.
It really wouldn’t take much to make me a non-skeptic. A model with error bars that works over a time period that is sufficient to lend credibility the model is predicting the effect of C02 properly. Is that really too much to ask? It’s not as if with the arguable science today that China or India are going to stop investing in C02 producing coal plants.
Another way I would be convinced if some of the catastrophic consequences were to occur. Such as, islands being wiped out, massive numbers of climate refugees, etc., such that the magnitude of the effect took over my intellectual objections. In this case, I would assume a world-wide attempt to solve the problem, instead of the current situation, which is that the big C02 producers in Asia have no desire to cut down on their C02 production.
tony, no I didn’t know R L Stevenson’s father created Stevenson Screen …lol Enjoyed yer ‘kidnapped’ data )
Beth
Interdecadal 20th century temperature deviations, such as the accelerated observed 1910–1940 warming that has been attributed to an unverifiable increase in solar irradiance (4, 7, 19, 20), appear to instead be due to natural variability. The same is true for the observed mid-40s to mid-70s cooling, previously attributed to enhanced sulfate aerosol activity (4, 6, 7, 12). Finally, a fraction of the post-1970s warming also appears to be attributable to natural variability.
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16120.full
Girma, don’t be wishy washy. Just state that there has been a natural warming trend from most recently 1900 AD, due to the extended recovery time required to restore northern hemisphere ocean heat capacity that was lost due to a prolonged, multi-centennial heightened volcanic activity.
The AMO reconstruction based on North Atlantic SSTs, when compared with reconstructions of southern ocean temperature clearly illustrate the dynamic responses to the volcanic perturbations in the lightly dampened hemispherical ocean oscillations.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/states-of-climate-ii.html
Then show them some nifty graphs.
Since Girma’s metier is modeling the elastic moduli of brain & eyeball tissue, could he enlighten us as to how rising temperatures, and intercranial pressures will shape the course of future skeptical discourse ?
Russell
So you don’t like this graph => http://bit.ly/z7cOHe
Don’t blame. Blame mother nature.
A)
My reasons for NOT being in the cAGW camp.
1. Dr. David Whitehouse http://tinyurl.com/46oo7o the article that changed my mind in 2008
2. Dr. Henrik Svensmark, http://tinyurl.com/8zra7dz
3. Dr. Richard Lindzen (M.I.T.) http://tinyurl.com/e5tho
4. Dr. Roy Spencer, http://tinyurl.com/8ae7gwe
5. Dr. John Christy, http://tinyurl.com/9br2n2r
6. Steve McIntyre (engineer, mathematician), http://tinyurl.com/yh6qvwh
7. Matt Ridley, http://tinyurl.com/8rer7yh
8. Dr. Tim Ball (former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg) http://tinyurl.com/9aukn54
9. Japanese Scientists , http://tinyurl.com/9g5q247
i) They did their own paleo reconstruction and found no hockey stick and found we are currently cooler than the MWP
ii) They gave the finger to Kyoto (ironic isn’t it)
10. Russian Scientists (they never bought into cAGW)
11. Etc. Etc. Etc.
12. When the above change their minds I will
B)
More reasons for NOT being in the cAGW camp. . .
1. ClimateGate 1
2. ClimateGate 2
3. David Suzuki (CBC media darling)
4. Al Gore (politician)
5. Rajendra K. Pachauri (railway engineer, novelist)
6. skepticalscience.com (a lie in the name, no skepticism is allowed)
7. James Hansen (science activist)
How well has this thread done in achieving its objective?
The topic of this thread as stated by our hostess, was basically to provide an opportunity for “skeptics” of the IPCC “GAGW consensus position” to list the reasons for their skepticism.
This seems pretty straightforward to me.
There have been many valid “best cases” presented by several posters so far.
These have shown that there are errors, distortions or outright fabrications in the IPCC reports and, more importantly, that there is no empirical scientific evidence for IPCC’s model-based assumption on climate sensitivity or its claim that “most” of late 20th century warming was “more than 90% likely” to have been caused by human GHG emissions.
Others have addressed the many uncertainties or utter futility of attempts to change our planet’s climate perceptibly with costly “mitigation” schemes.
There has also been a lot of peripheral chatter, some of which has been downright silly and irrational.
But there have been several good “nuggets”, as well.
Some that stand out in my mind are those of
Tomas Milanovic – gives a convincing scientific explanation why AR4 WG1 is “far from the point where some semi-reliable predictions on centennial scales can be made”
Peter Lang – several posts questioning science of “C” in “CAGW”, how to handle uncertainty and on costs versus benefits of decarbonization
Girma – gives good graphical accounts of cyclical temperature trends with low overall underlying rate of warming, poor IPCC and Hansen temperature predictions
”Chief” – questions anthropogenic versus natural (hydrological, oceanographic, biological) signal, especially in abrupt climate changes
Bob Tisdale – questions ocean heat content claims
John Morland and David Springer – show absurdity of predicting a “Venusian climate” on Earth
gbaikie – questions climate sensitivity, addresses futility of long range predictions
Paul Matthews (cited in absentia by me) – compilation of many phony AR4 claims (Antarctic/Greenland ice mass loss, acceleration of sea level rise, comparison of long-term versus short-term temperature trends, attribution of past and future extreme weather events, etc.)
me (manacker) – challenges scientific validity of IPCC model-based estimates on water vapor and cloud feedbacks contributing to 2 to 4-fold increase in estimated climate sensitivity (and future temperature predictions)
David L. Hagen – questions natural versus anthropogenic forcing and climate change and proposes alternate Henrik Svensmark GCR theory
pjb253 – discusses why history and politics behind IPCC make its findings questionable
Julian Flood – proposes a new “oil slick” theory
David Springer – importance of the water cycle (rather than CO2) in our climate
Jim Cripwell – stresses repeatedly that CAGW premise is not supported by empirical scientific data (Feynman) and questions science behind “no-feedback” 2xCO2 temperature effect of 1.2°C
Roger Pielke Sr. – several topics including human forcings beside GHGs
Arfur Bryant – stresses lack of scientific evidence to support the “C” in CAGW
David Springer – explains why Milankovitch cycles do not require “high climate sensitivity”
Derek Farmer – points to clear correlation between Sun’s magnetic activity and Earth’s long-term temperature record as alternate to AGW as climate driver
John from CA – discusses “labels”, IPCC “failure by design” and circumstantial reasons to question IPCC conclusions
Girma and me (manacker) – point to flawed IPCC logic on the attribution of early-20th century versus late-20th century warming period
blouis79 – presents a logical case for the lack of experimentally verifiable CO2/temperature effect
robin – questions CAGW: “it’s been 30 years and where are the bodies?”
climate weenie – points out that Hansen’s 1988 forecasts using assumed CO2/temperature response were totally exaggerated; therefore his assumptions were exaggerated
Dave (“a physics professor”) – states that the alternate hypothesis of natural causes for past warming has not been falsified scientifically
TonyM – points out that all CO2/temperature projections have failed thereby falsifying the hypothesis
Lee L – states that the lack of agreement between climatologists means there is too much uncertainty to propose actions
captdallas2 – stresses “KISS” axiom, which IPCC models do not follow
Snowlover123 – demonstrates that solar radiative forcing is observationally “7-8 times as large as the TSI forcing” alone (as assumed by IPCC), so roughly 50% (rather than only 7%) of past warming since 1750 can be attributed to the sun
Ed Barbar – points out that models must be judged on how well they predict clearly testable outcomes, which is not the case for (IPCC) climate models
And finally, last but certainly not least:
Beth Cooper – provides deep insight into skepticism and pleasant poetic distraction
I have not listed the many response posts by posters, who apparently support IPCC’s CAGW position, some of which were simply “crank posts” and others with attempted rebuttals, since this is a compilation of the “best case” posts by skeptics.
I personally think there is a lot of “lean red meat” in there for the skeptical “tigers” on this blog, even if there is some duplication and many of the statements made are not necessarily “breaking news”.
Maybe Judith can comment.
Max
“I have not listed the many response posts by posters, who apparently support IPCC’s CAGW position, some of which were simply “crank posts””
You have a displayed a remarkable ability to accept as viable a host of crank posts (note, not “crank posts”) by the supposed ‘skeptical’ community.
Somebody upthread mentioned the lack of scientists posting in year two rather than year one, is it any wonder?
Louise you write “You have a displayed a remarkable ability to accept as viable a host of crank posts (note, not “crank posts”) by the supposed ‘skeptical’ community.”
Fair enough. Now may I suggest you pick just one topic that Max has listed, and let us discuss with you WHY it is a crank post. I would just love you to chose mine. This is what out hostess is encouraging. We, as skeptics, have stated what we think is scientific. Now let us discuss, in detail, why you think just one of these is a crank posts. Then we have exhausted that topic, maybe you would pick a second, and so on until we have completed Max’s list.
Jim Cripwell
I think you already know this, but you are barking up the wrong tree if you think Louise will discuss any of the specific skeptical “best case” arguments.
Nor will many of the CAGW “believers” here. [
I’m still hoping at least one brave soul will come out of the woodwork, but this may be lost hope.
Getting specific is not how these folks work – quite simply because they cannot do so.
Instead you’ll here waffles about “science editors resigning”, ability of others to “accept crank posts”, “that’s been falsified long ago”, “but the Royal Society believes it, so it must be right”, etc. etc. – but NO specific attempts to refute any of the points made.
Mentality: “Hey, man, there’s nothing to debate here – the “science is settled”.
Max
Max, you write “Nor will many of the CAGW “believers” here. ”
I know that. But that was why I tried to be polite, and see what reaction I got from her. Will she reply, or just ignore me? If she does reply, what will she say? I note that our hostess gave her opinion that Tomas Milancovic wrote excellent science. Does Louise disagree with Dr. Curry?
Let us wait 24 hours, and see if we get any response form Louise.
+100
Jim Cripwell
Thanks!
Thanks manacker, this is great.
Thanks so much Max.
With the exception of RP Sr just scientifically weightless pontification in blog comments. Not a single published study from the lot (again excepting RP Sr).
Only a true fake sceptic could attempt to portray this as a some kind of challenge to the scientific consensus.
And you BBD? where is your high and mighty list of published studies? (none? just what I thought, just a hypocrite)
Hypocrisy definition from wiki:
How does pointing out that there is no published and widely supported scientific argument challenging the scientific consensus on AGW make me a hypocrite?
Look around you!
BBD
As I pointed out to docrichard #comment – 244741:
Max
Manacker,
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242651
This is an excellent summary of the main points put by ‘rational skeptics’.
I think it would be great to have this posted at the top of the thread below the lead article. Doing so would make it easier for people to know who to search for to find arguments made on that topic. Alternatively, perhaps you could offer it as a lead article with the challenge to address debate the points made.
The summary is excellent and you summarised my main points succinctly:
Another point I was trying to get across is that if the CAGW alarmists are correct and AGW is leading to catastrophe, then they are advocating the wrong policies. They should not be advocating high cost, economically damaging policies such as carbon taxes, ETS, cap and trade and renewable energy. These are clearly wrong, but the CAGW Alarmists are not prepared to entertain how wrong they are. It is impossible to strike up a sensible discussion with the CAGW alarmists on these matters. They are their core beliefs.
I’ll also repeat this point:
from this comment (that drew no responses):
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242651
from this comment (that drew no responses):
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242651
Well, we wouldn’t need fleets of nuclear weapons, unless it was a large comet [which could be next to impossible to prevent- and difficult to detect in time]]. And we would act if there less than 1% chance. Chances like 1 in 600 get a fair amount of interest, though it’s always been a matter of getting more precise measurement and then that chance disappears. But if it’s solid, in terms of measurement, less 1 percent would merit billions of dollar spent- without much debate.
An interesting aspect of this global warming- if it was real threat, the first thing most Lefties would want to do was to keep a secret. Much discussion whether if in the event a space rock was known to going to hit Earth, would we want to “alarm the public”.
A beyond stupid idea, but it originates from the elitist mindset- the public are children.
gbaikie,
Thank you for the response, but you’ve completely missed the point of the comment you’ve responded to.
The point is:
But there is a lot more in the comment than just that point. Here is the link again for others: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242651
“The point is:
Uncertainty about the problem is a given; uncertainty about the chosen solution is inexcusable. This is to say, we should be confident that our solutions are going to be effective, and the more expensive the solution the more confident we should be.”
I think it a spot on way to say it.
I am fascinated if anyone had a had some serious complaint.
And the rest of it was well said. It be nice to have some FAQ
list, and include it in it.
Manacker,
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242651
This is an excellent summary of the main points put by ‘rational skeptics’.
I think it would be great to have this posted at the top of the thread below the lead article. Doing so would make it easier for people to know who to search for to find arguments made on that topic. Alternatively, perhaps you could offer it as a lead article with the challenge to address debate the points made.
The summary is excellent and you summarised my main points succinctly:
Another point I was trying to get across is that if the CAGW alarmists are correct and AGW is leading to catastrophe, then they are advocating the wrong policies. They should not be advocating high cost, economically damaging policies such as carbon taxes, ETS, cap and trade and renewable energy. These are clearly wrong, but the CAGW Alarmists are not prepared to entertain how wrong they are. It is impossible to strike up a sensible discussion with the CAGW alarmists on these matters. They are their core beliefs.
I’d also repeat this point:
from this comment (that drew no responses):
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242651
Regarding the topic next to my name, its a little incomplete. Find below a short (but more complete list of points I consider valid). I’ve discussed much of this elsewhere on this thread).
(1) Falsification of the natural variability hypothesis. Given the problems with proxy data, it baffles me how natural variability can be reliably discounted when understanding recent climate shifts.
(2) Falsification of climate models. Falsification of models seems to be a controversial and sensitive topic in climate science. Elsewhere in the physical sciences, its not. Falsification is considered to be extremely important in improving the credibility of model predictions.
I guess I could add something not quite as serious but still worth mentioning.
(3) Promoting science by opinion poll is dangerous and wrong. I’m baffled that people still put out opinion polls purporting to show that x% of scientists believe proposition y and attempt to show that this means proposition y is likely to correctly describe nature. It is meaningless. General relativity is considered a strong theory not because lots of clever believe it but because it has undergone falsification tests, time and time again, and passed with flying colours. We defend GR by mentioning the tests, eg the binary pulsar measurements, not with an opinion poll. For the field to increase its credibility it ought to clamp down on science-by-opinion-poll. This is not the X-factor. Unfortunately, its this type of hollow stunt which turns many thinking people into sceptics. The public opinion war is currently being lost by the CAGW-proponents. These proponents should look to themselves and their own behaviour as much as the “opposition” when trying to understand why this is the case.
Max, I am disappointed that you did not include my point that the satellites show no apparent GHG-induced atmospheric warming over the entire 34 year period that they have been taking data.
Clouds…
‘Cloud -puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows! flaunt forth, then
chevy on an air-
born thoroughfare:’
Gerard Manley Hopkins ..That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire..
I’m just a citizen sceptic, but this CAGW siege is killing my country, Australia, so here’s my long case.
We’re asked to accept that there’s a warming trend of large magnitude from 1850 or thereabouts to present.
But a trend must have a reliable starting point and this one doesn’t appear to have, since the tree rings proved to be unreliable as proxies for temperature after 1960, and therefore their reliability before that, for historical temperatures, where no precisely-measured real world observations are available, have to be in question. Therefore it can’t be said, surely, that there’s a scientifically reliable temperature trend.
And during the decades of more precise measurements by satellites, there was a period in the 70s where the ‘coming ice age’ alarm was all over the media,—followed by the Great Pacific Climate Shift in 1976—a phenomenon that was abrupt and of great magnitude , caused by a reduction in deep water upwelling—followed by a warming period until the warmist year in 1998—and from then, no significant warming.
[ February 04, 1989 Last week, scientists from the United States Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that a study of temperature readings for the contiguous 48 states over the last century showed there had been no significant change in average temperature over that period. ]
[ James Hansen in 1999:
‘ …in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases — in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country.’] There has been cooling since.
[ NCDC…Annual 1999-2011 Trend = – 0.69degrees Fahrenheit/decade ]
[ Phil Jones of Hadcru, in BBC interview in 2009:
B – ‘Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?’
Jones: ‘Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.]
So it’s hardly a definitive long-term warming trend—starting so cold that scientists feared descent into an ice age , and ending with an anomalously warm year with natural warming influences—hardly a reason to turn the world inside out—rejig the whole economic and geopolitical system, and destroy economies and with that the futures of whole countries .
The slight warming that there is, can surely be attributed to the emergence from the LIA—and the rise in CO2 in recent decades would in part be the lag from that warming.
The earth must always be warming or cooling to some extent, must it not—-not static?
SST is not increasing significantly, as it would if CAGW was under way.
Sea level rise is not accelerating, and in some parts of the world, it’s decelerating—-therefore little thermal expansion of the oceans.
[ Houston and Dean analyzed long-term observations (more than 60 years in length) from tide gauges installed along the U.S. coast looking for signs of an accelerated rise. They couldn’t find any — in fact, they found a deceleration. Expanding their analysis to included tide gauges from around the world produced the same thing — a recent slowing of the rate of sea level rise.]
[ In a recent paper published in Journal of Coastal Research, Professors James Houston and Robert Dean: Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in U.S. tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each time period we consider, the records show small decelerations that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of worldwide-gauge records.]
[ A paper by Holgate (2007, Geophysical Research Letters) analyzed nine long and nearly continuous sea level records over one hundred years ( 1903-2003) and obtained a mean value of SLR as 1.74mm/yr, with higher values in the earlier part of the 20th century compared to the latter part.
A comprehensive paper by Prof (emeritus) Carl Wunsch and co-workers ( J of Climate December 2007) generate over 100 million data points using a 23-layer general circulation ocean model which include different types of data ( salinity, sea surface temperature, satellite altimetry, Argo float profiles etc) and obtain an estimate of SLR as 1.6mm/yr for the period 1993-2004. A more recent paper by Wenzel & Schroter (Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 2010) analyzes tide gauge records over a period 1900-2006 and obtains a mean value of 1.56mm/yr with NO statistically significant acceleration in sea level rise. ]
Weather events like droughts, floods , cyclones and hurricanes are not increasing in frequency or magnitude as predicted , even though mainstream media warmists try to convince us that they are.
The expected hotspot has still not materialised.
From several sources , we’re told there’s been no significant warming since 1998, even while atmospheric CO2 increases— and that would be consistent with the lag.
James Hansen in the 70s:
[“….although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” ]
The Arctic ice is melting, and at least half of that is due to black carbon [ soot] , and the feedback system it generates, as the ice that’s melted [ by the heat that’s subsequently absorbed , when the deposited soot decreases the reflectivity of that ice ], leaves dark water which then absorbs more heat , and sets up a catastrophic feedback cycle —-according to peer reviewed research by a number of climate scientists.
[ ‘Washington, DC, July 29, 2010 – Reducing emissions of black carbon, the dark component of soot, could be the best – and perhaps only – way to save the Arctic from warmer temperatures that are melting its snow and ice, according to a study published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Dr. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University.
Jacobson, echoing the conclusion by several other scientists, including Dr. V. Ramanathan at the Scripps Institution at the University of California, San Diego and Dr. Drew Shindell at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says ……
‘Besides its damaging impact on the Arctic, black carbon emissions have a significant effect on the overall warming of the earth.’
For some reason, although warmists try to create great alarm about the Arctic melt, they ‘re strangely silent about black carbon, even though the researchers have said that it’s relatively easily mitigated, to slow the warming, and there’s no point in taking the drastic measures to reduce CO2 if they ignore black carbon.
Smoke from the burning of forests in Indonesia has been causing problems for Singapore as we speak—and the other major contributors—China, India, Pakistan and other Asian countries and Brazil continue to burn biomass with abandon for various reasons.
If the climate scientists really believed in CAGW, then I believe they would be raising the black carbon issue loudly and often, and the politicians would be moving heaven and earth to find ways to mitigate the worst of it— but no.
In any case, they claim that the Arctic melt is unprecedented, yet there have only been a few decades of comprehensive sea ice observation, and with the earth still emerging from the LIA, wouldn’t it be likely that there would be less ice as we go? If not, why not??
During the time frame of the so-called warming trend, the world has become a completely different place.
Since 1850, the world’s population has increased from 1.1billion to 6.6 billion, and the industrial revolution has made a huge impact.
With the burgeoning of population, came the buildings—cities—pavement and other concrete expanses—roads, airports, air conditioning—two world wars—massive land clearing, especially of forests, with much black carbon and other aerosols added to the atmosphere by billions more people heating homes with wood fires and burning wood for cooking,etc etc.
How can the huge impact of all those people and their activities alone not have changed the albedo of the earth ?
The lack of trustworthiness that has pretty much destroyed the trust that many people had in science and scientists and their lack of belief in their own science, also seems like a good reason not to believe the conclusions they demand we leave unquestioned..
Leftist governments and political parties swallow it all whole or pretend to, for their own nefarious purposes, and so, many of us have completely lost any modicum of trust we might have had in those politicians.
The Leftist journalists of the mainstream media in my country [ Australia], and the US and UK and others, think AGW belief is a good look and a leg-up for their Leftist political favorites, and see exciting disaster stories looming for their own edification—– where we ordinary folks see chaos, deprivation, the trashing of our children’s futures and loss of our sovereignty to UN overseers.
So the MSM makes sure the scam works for the careless , manipulative and corrupt among the climate scientists, and the politicians those scientists ‘advise’—by shutting down any information they can that allows the population to hear of alternative science—and by making it compulsory for politicians to pretend to believe the ‘consensus’ view, if they want to survive in their jobs.
The MSM calls all the shots—all of them. They could play their proper role in a democracy, by actually informing the people—but instead [ in Australia especially] they choose to suppress information, and supplant it with propaganda.
Without the internet, we’d be a brainwashed nation.
We can tell , from Climategate, with the refusal of FOI requests— the ‘losing’ of raw data—the fudging of graphs—the evidence of corruption of peer review….the demonization of dissent…etc , that the climate scientists don’t really believe in their science.
…and we can tell from the disgusting treatment of Douglas Keenan by Albany State on the Wang et al affair, when he rightly queried the reliability of the Chinese surface stations data on which the IPCC relied [ and relies] so heavily—rightly in the light of the cultural revolution and other wars , upheaval and general mayhem .
….and we can tell from the insults, smear, demonization, character assassination and name-calling routinely, from members of ‘the team’, whenever confronted with a respectful question from a perceived sceptic. Their refusal to engage manufactures suspicion .
And yet they still want us to swallow whole the mindless notion that at some point in the last decade [ or some say before that even]—-there came an apocalyptical moment when all that needed to be known about the earth’s climate system was suddenly known—that no further input was needed , welcome or to be tolerated—that the science was ‘over’—‘closed’—‘settled’—-that thereafter we must all just ‘believe’—put the blinkers on and deploy tunnel vision, if any alternative science should appear—lest it beggar our collective ‘belief’—and all of that furious gatekeeping going on, even while a great deal is still not known about the oceans, clouds, feedbacks, the oscillations [ ENSO, PDO, the Indian Ocean Dipole etc etc]
So trust is gone, and it will be a long time before it’s back—we don’t trust Leftist governments, post-normal climate scientists who feed them, or the MSM.
Countries will go from stellar economic performers to third world backwaters—-the toxic legacy of post-normal climate ‘science’.
metro70
Thank you for a brilliant summary.
And we share the same country, in addition to the same thoughts.
Thanks again.
metro70
WOW!
A great summary as seen from your perspective.
Thanks!
Max
The Skeptic’s best shots very much remind me of Richard Feynman’s judgement concerning the 1st generation nuclear winter enthusiasts.
In principle the greenhouse effect is simple. Gases like carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth’s surface causing some heat to be retained.
Consequently an increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases from human activities such as burning fossil fuels leads to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Thus the world warms, the climate changes and we are in trouble.
The evidence for this hypothesis is the well established physics of the greenhouse effect itself and the correlation of increasing global carbon dioxide concentration with rising global temperature. Carbon dioxide is clearly increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a straight line upward. It is currently about 390 parts per million. Pre-industrial levels were about 285 ppm. Since 1960 when accurate annual measurements became more reliable it has increased steadily from about 315 ppm. If the greenhouse effect is working as we think then the Earth’s temperature will rise as the carbon dioxide levels increase.
But here it starts getting messy and, perhaps, a little inconvenient for some. Looking at the global temperatures as used by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office and the IPCC (and indeed Al Gore) it’s apparent that there has been a sharp rise since about 1980.
The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued.
For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.
The explanation for the standstill has been attributed to aerosols in the atmosphere produced as a by-product of greenhouse gas emission and volcanic activity. They would have the effect of reflecting some of the incidental sunlight into space thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. Such an explanation was proposed to account for the global cooling observed between 1940 and 1978.
But things cannot be that simple. The fact that the global temperature has remained unchanged for a decade requires that the quantity of reflecting aerosols dumped put in our atmosphere must be increasing year on year at precisely the exact rate needed to offset the accumulating carbon dioxide that wants to drive the temperature higher. This precise balance seems highly unlikely. Other explanations have been proposed such as the ocean cooling effect of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
But they are also difficult to adjust so that they exactly compensate for the increasing upward temperature drag of rising CO2. So we are led to the conclusion that either the hypothesis of carbon dioxide induced global warming holds but its effects are being modified in what seems to be an improbable though not impossible way, or, and this really is heresy according to some, the working hypothesis does not stand the test of data.
http://bit.ly/7t37R
You have a lot of physics concepts right but muddled thru that CO2 is a GHG. Carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere absorbs some minute quantity of outgoing infrared radiation from the earth’s surface cannot cause some heat to be retained. Only H2O in the atmosphere has significant heat retained in the form of latent heat. No CO2 property can retain heat in the troposphere.
In principle the greenhouse effect is simple. Gases like carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth’s surface causing some heat to be retained.
Only in the principle of made up fisics – carbon dioxide can’t store heat. Look up heat capacity.
For ‘scientists’ you, generic, are absurdly reluctant to provide any physical detail of your ‘principle’ claims.
What does it take to get through to you who’ve bought into AGW fisics that you’re arguing from your own imaginary world and not the physical reality around us?
Show and tell, exactly how does carbon dioxide retain heat?
“You know, I really don’t think these guys know what they are talking about. ”
Richard Feynman , 4 July 1986
I’ve been concerned that there aren’t enough categorisations of AGW.
On the bottom end of the scale we have those who believe in no-AGW, then we have the lukewarmers, with their admitted but small AGW, then we leap to catastrophic with CAGW.
Max puts it quite well with his comment:
“No one is ‘falsifying AGW’ per se. It’s the ‘C’ in ‘CAGW’ that is being questioned.”
Well we can all question just what ‘catastrophe’ means in this context. The Venus effect maybe?
So I would suggest the insertion of the extra category of SDAGW or Seriously Damaging Anthropogenic Global Warming. Any other suggestions?
However many daft categories you think up, you’ll need an equal number without the attributive “A”.
tempterrain
Read what I have been writing if you want to quote me.
“CAGW” is the IPCC premise that
a) “most” of the warming since 1950 can “with more than 90% likelihood” be attributed to the rise of atmospheric GHG concentrations, principally CO2 and
b) that this represents a serious potential threat for humanity and our environment, unless actions are undertaken to drastically reduce human GHG emissions (principally CO2).
This is the “premise” allegedly supported by a majority “consensus” (of 2,500 scientists, if we want to believe IPCC director, Rajendra Pachauri).
It is also the premise of which I (and many others, it appears) are “rationally skeptical”.
There may be those who are also skeptical of the AGW theory, per se (as a part of their skepticism of CAGW), but that is another discussion, which is actually immaterial to the main question, which is:
DO YOU OR DO YOU NOT SUPPORT THE IPCC PREMISE OF CAGW AS OUTLINED IN ITS AR4 REPORT?
So let’s not try to fog up the issue with “shades of gray” nuances here, TT. The “YES/NO” criterion is pretty clear.
Max
Max,
You’ve just re-inforced my point. The IPCC refer to a “serious potential threat” ( I wouldn’t disagree with those words) and you interpret that to mean a catastrophe like a Venus thermal runaway. I believe Stephen Hawking has claimed that its enough of a possibility to give him sleepless nights but, the consensus position is that this kind of catastrophe is unlikely.
Has the IPCC ever used the term CAGW? I don’t think so. They haven’t used the term SDAGW either, I know, but that term is much closer to their meaning of a serious potential threat. Wouldn’t you agree?
There is no Greenhouse Effect.
‘Thinking is centered around slow changes to our climate and how they will affect humans and the habitability of our planet. Yet this thinking is flawed: It ignores the well-established fact that Earth’s climate has changed rapidly in the past and could change rapidly in the future. WHOI
Yet it is more correct to be a climate change catastrophist in the sense of René Thom. Let’s see if we can put Tomas in a context that is less in the language of bifurcation theory and more as physical climate processes.
Chaos theory is not a theory of climate. It is a theory of complex and dynamic systems. It says that complex systems, such as climate models, exhibit certain behaviors. Chief amongst these is sensitive dependence, dragon-kings (equivalently noisy bifurcation) and slowing down. If this behavior is looked for and found in climate – as it has been quantitatively using network models with modern data for decadal climate shifts – then we can be sure that we are dealing with dynamical complexity.
Thus we can look in the right place for answers but it tells us nothing at all about the processes in play. At this stage there are a few ideas about identifying dragon-kings and slowing down but nothing that has moved much beyond the conceptual and descriptive.
Sensitive dependence happens when the value of control variables passes a critical threshold. The control variables are solar irradiation, orbital eccentricity or atmospheric composition. At some tipping point changes start propagating through the system with changes in cloud, snow, ice, biology, dust and ocean circulation. As this stage there are extreme fluctuations as the system components adjust and readjust to the rapidly changing state – this is when climate extremes happen such as the 1998 El Niño. It is followed by a period of damped oscillation as climate settles into the new state – called slowing down – until a new climate threshold is passed and climate shifts again.
We can use terms such as phase space or strange attractors but they are simply terms for climate shifting from one more or less stable state to another. The different states have different characteristics – different temperatures, different rainfall patterns, more or less ice, changes in ecosystems, etc – and different climate averages which are not predictable beforehand. The shift may be benign or it may be utterly inimical to human societies.
Another IPCC AR4 untruth:
In Ch.3 FAQ, p.252, IPCC tells us (bold face type by me):
OK. So IPCC models expect greenhouse warming to be at a greater rate in the troposphere than at the surface.
And IPCC claims that’s what happened, too.
But did it REALLY?
As can be seen from the “most recent versions of all data sets” (back in 2005 when the data for IPCC AR4 were cut off), this does not appear to be true.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1979/to:2005/plot/gistemp/from:1979/to:2005/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/to:2005/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/to:2005/trend/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2005/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2005/trend/plot/uah/from:1979/to:2005/plot/uah/from:1979/to:2005/trend
There does not appear to be much difference in the linear warming rates, so we have to check these out for each record.
A check of the linear warming rates of the four “data sets” over the period 1979-2005 shows:
Surface:
y = 0.173x +C (GISS)
y = 0.168x +C (HadCRUT3)
y = 0.170x +C (average)
Troposphere:
y = 0.144x +C (UAH)
y = 0.176x +C (RSS)
y = 0.160x +C (average)
IOW the actually measured warming rate in the troposphere was smaller than that at the surface, not greater, as claimed by IPCC.
IPCC made a false claim, in order to support its premise, that the warming has the GHG “fingerprint” of being more rapid in the troposphere than at the surface.
Max
Max,
Max,
You’re deceiving by deliberately misquoting the IPCC report.
I would agree that the IPCC could have made their position somewhat clearer than they did but at least you should credit your readers with enough intelligence to decide for themselves by giving a correct quotation.
It should be:
“For global observations since the late 1950s, the most recent versions of all available data sets show that the troposphere has warmed at a slightly greater rate than the surface, while the stratosphere has cooled markedly since 1979. This is in accord with physical expectations and most model results, which demonstrate the role of increasing greenhouse gases in tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling; ozone depletion also contributes substantially to stratospheric cooling
There is no statistical significance to the IPCC’s observation of “slightly greater rate” for troposheric warming. In any case it would depend on which data sets were chosen. The IPCC say they’ve used all. Even the two you’ve used (cherrypicked?) only show a difference of 0.01degC ( I think per decade ?) That’s not significant either.
Stratospheric cooling is the real “fingerprint” of enhanced greenhouse vs. natural (e.g. increased solar) warming.
tempterrain
Your latest waffle on stratospheric cooling is totally beside the point here.
IPCC stated that the troposphere warmed more rapidly from 1979 to 2005 than the surface, adding that this is what models expected for GH warming.
But, in actual fact, the troposphere DID NOT warm faster than the surface (as IPCC claimed).
In fact, the troposphere warmer slightly slower, as the record shows.
So IPCC told an untruth (was it a deliberate lie or just a screw-up?).
End of story.
Max
Max,
You dishonestly edit your quote from the IPCC to exclude any mention of the stratosphere, and when I suggest putting it back in again, you claim the stratosphere is “totally beside the point”!
Even by the dubiously low standards of climate deniers, this is a bit much, don’t you think?
tempterrain
You are making yourself look ridiculous with your statement
First, to answer your question: NO. I do not think…
Now to WHY
IPCC (AR4 WG1 Ch.3 FAQ 3.1, p.252) makes a claim that “the troposphere warmed at a slightly greater rate than the surface” over the period 1979-2005 (while the stratosphere cooled markedly), adding that “this is in accord with physical expectations and most model results, which demonstrate the role of increasing greenhouse gases in tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling”..
The stratospheric cooling did occur (and nobody questions this), BUT:
the record shows that the troposphere DID NOT warm “at a slightly higher rate than the surface”, as FALSELY claimed by IPCC, but rather at a slightly slower rate.
So IPCC made a FALSE CLAIM.
I’ll not comment on WHY IPCC did this – you can make up your own mind.
And I won’t throw out any silly remarks about your “low standards”, because that would only make me look juvenile and stupid.
Max
Max,
Your problem is either that you don’t understand what the IPCC are saying or you don’t want to understand and are happy to continue to misrepresent their findings.
Just read this extract slowly:
“……..while the stratosphere has cooled markedly since 1979. This is in accord with physical expectations and most model results, which demonstrate the role of increasing greenhouse gases in tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling
Read it again and digest.
Temp, ““……..while the stratosphere has cooled markedly since 1979. This is in accord with physical expectations and most model results, which demonstrate the role of increasing greenhouse gases in tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling
Read it again and digest.”
You may have noticed that there was a rather abrupt change in the rate of Strat cooling in 1995. Oddly, there was a shift in climate not long after.
tempterrain
I have followed your advice and read the WHOLE claim made by IPCC again (not just your CHERRY-PICKED portion) and have again confirmed that
So IPCC told an untruth (was it a deliberate lie or just a screw-up?).
Who knows?
(Who cares?)
Let’s move on, TT. This discussion is over.
Max
I find the following
@@@@@
Louise | September 21, 2012 at 4:18 pm | Reply
“I have not listed the many response posts by posters, who apparently support IPCC’s CAGW position, some of which were simply “crank posts””
You have a displayed a remarkable ability to accept as viable a host of crank posts (note, not “crank posts”) by the supposed ‘skeptical’ community.
Somebody upthread mentioned the lack of scientists posting in year two rather than year one, is it any wonder?
@@@@@
I invited Louise to choose just one of Max’s points to debate. She seems to have disappeared. I suspect that this is typical of the proponents of CAGW, as Max pointed out. They do not seem to want to debate the science.
Are we going to hear from you Louise?
Jim Cripwell,
IPCC’s CAGW position ?? No, they don’t use that term. Catastrophe would be a Venus thermal runaway effect, which, as I’ve informed Max a few posts previously, is considered just about possible but unlikely.
SDAGW ( Seriously Damaging AGW) is a better description of the IPCC position.
IPCC AR4 WGIII, Section 2.2.2
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2-4.html
Peter Lang,
You should read the references you give more carefully. This one actually confirms what I was saying:
The possibility of abrupt climate change and/or abrupt changes in the earth system triggered by climate change, with potentially catastrophic consequences, cannot be ruled out
No they can’t. But, as you well know, this is not what the IPCC mean with their estimation of a likley 3 deg C climate sensitivity.
tempterrain
You are on thin ice here.
We can get into the semantics of exactly what “catastrophic” means, but that would, indeed, be silly.
IPCC has projected temperature increase from AGW of up to 6 degC by the end of this century, with all sorts of “catastrophic” impacts.
James E. Hansen has even heightened the CAGW hyperbole.
If you would like a short listing of all the “catastrophic” predictions, I can provide these.
To me it simply means that IPCC (and the “consensus crowd”, led by scientists such as James E. Hansen) posit that AGW represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment (i.e. resulting in a potentially “catastrophic impact”) unless actions are undertaken to reduce human GHG emissions (principally CO2).
This premise is “CAGW”.
If you do not support this premise, you do not support “CAGW” and the need to undertake costly measures to curtail GHG emissions.
Pretty simple.
Max
Max,
“You are on thin ice here” Caused by AGW ?
You can deny it all you like, but the IPCC ( as Peter Lang’s reference shows but he’s suffering from some degree of Aphasia, it would seem, and doesn’t understand what he’s reading) are reserving the word catastrophic for unlikely and the most extremely serious of outcomes. Like a sudden rise in sea level of several metres.
The IPCC don’t use the term CAGW, but, if they did, this would apply to these unlikely outcomes.
The IPCC use the term “bad outcomes” for the more likely possibilities, like a rise of sea levels of around a metre or so, and a rise in temperature of several degrees.
This would correspond to my suggested term of SDAGW.
The need to avoid these more likely bad outcomes, SDAGW, is primarily the reason for curtailing CO2 emissions.
TT said:
I provided references to the term “Catastrophic” in the IPCC AR4; it’s even in heading titles.
Instead of admitting he was wrong, TT says:
What a flake.
TT, is a troll. He has nothing useful whatsoever to add to any debate. He is totally driven by his ideological beliefs.
Peter Lang,
I notice you don’t actually quote yourself from your own reference as you know it only reinforces what I’m saying.
IPCC would use the term catastrophe for the possibility of thermal runaway, as I’ve mentioned, and for events such as the disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet which if it occurred, could raise sea level by 4-6 metres over several centuries.
IPCC make the distinction between a likely bad outcome and an unlikely catastrophic one as follows:
“Consequently, it could suggest that a policy which risked a catastrophically bad outcome with a very low probability might be valued higher than one which completely avoided the possibility of catastrophe and produced merely a bad outcome, but with a very high probability of occurrence.
But don’t take my word for it. Just read your own reference again, take your time, and make sure you understand what it is saying. Afterwards, read it all again just to make absolutely certain.
People are having trouble parsing the difference between “will be catastrophic” and “could be catastrophic”. The latter is what the IPCC says. The former is a strawman.
Jim D
You are splitting hairs with your differentiation between “could” (conditional) and “will” (future tense). Of course, one has to look more deeply.
Hansen, the guy whose exaggerated model assumptions resulted in the flopped 1988 warming predictions, has stated in testimony before a US congressional committee in April 2007 (bold face type by me):
“Crystallizing scientific data and analysis reveal that the Earth IS close to dangerous climate change, to tipping points of the system with the potential for irreversible deleterious effects. “
“The upshot IS that very little additional forcing is needed to cause dramatic effects. To cause…the extermination of a large fraction of plant and animal species…”
“For humanity itself, the greatest threat IS the likely demise of the West Antarctic ice sheet as it IS attacked from below by a warming ocean and above by increased surface melt. There IS increased realization that sea level rise this century may be measured in meters if we follow business-as-usual fossil fuel emissions.”
Lots of “future tense” catastrophe predictions there, Jim.
But, then again, these are likely to be just as big a flop as his 1988 warming predictions – because they are ALL based on the same flawed model assumptions on 2xCO2 climate sensitivity (which IPCC also use).
Max
TT said:
Actually, they used “catastrophic” 144 times in AR4. They used it 19 times in WG1: https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/cgi-bin/search/ksearch.cgi?terms=catastrophic&ListeUrl=%23
Peter Lang,
Show me one instance where the IPCC have used the term “CAGW” and no I don’t mean the use of the word ‘catastrophic’.
IPCC do say there could be catastrophic consequences which have low probability but which cannot be ruled out . Then there are bad outcomes with have a higher probability
Didn’t you ever do comprehension tests when you were at school? . It wasn’t good enough just to be able to read the words, you actually had to understand what they meant to get the marks. You aren’t very good at that, are you?
World’s climate could cool first, warm later
Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world’s top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter one or even two decades during which temperatures cool.
“People will say this is global warming disappearing,” he told more than 1500 of the world’s top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN’s World Climate Conference.
“I am not one of the sceptics,” insisted Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. “However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it.”
Few climate scientists go as far as Latif, an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But more and more agree that the short-term prognosis for climate change is much less certain than once thought.
Nature vs humans
This is bad timing. The UN’s World Meteorological Organization called the conference in order to draft a global plan for providing “climate services” to the world: that is, to deliver climate predictions useful to everyone from farmers worried about the next rainy season to doctors trying to predict malaria epidemics and builders of dams, roads and other infrastructure who need to assess the risk of floods and droughts 30 years hence.
But some of the climate scientists gathered in Geneva to discuss how this might be done admitted that, on such timescales, natural variability is at least as important as the long-term climate changes from global warming. “In many ways we know more about what will happen in the 2050s than next year,” said Vicky Pope from the UK Met Office.
Cold Atlantic
Latif predicted that in the next few years a natural cooling trend would dominate over warming caused by humans. The cooling would be down to cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).
Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, he said NAO cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades. “But how much? The jury is still out,” he told the conference. The NAO is now moving into a colder phase.
Latif said NAO cycles also explained the recent recovery of the Sahel region of Africa from the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. James Murphy, head of climate prediction at the Met Office, agreed and linked the NAO to Indian monsoons, Atlantic hurricanes and sea ice in the Arctic. “The oceans are key to decadal natural variability,” he said.
Another favourite climate nostrum was upturned when Pope warned that the dramatic Arctic ice loss in recent summers was partly a product of natural cycles rather than global warming. Preliminary reports suggest there has been much less melting this year than in 2007 or 2008.
In candid mood, climate scientists avoided blaming nature for their faltering predictions, however. “Model biases are also still a serious problem. We have a long way to go to get them right. They are hurting our forecasts,” said Tim Stockdale of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK.
The world may badly want reliable forecasts of future climate. But such predictions are proving as elusive as the perfect weather forecast.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html?full=true&print=true
Excerpt from interview with Latif:
Focus: But does your result not give support to those skeptics who have since long maintained that natural factors have greater influence on the climate than greenhouse gases produced by human activities?
Latif: No. Those skeptics only show that they understand nothing of the physics of climate.
Focus: Does the IPPC now have to revise its prognoses because of your new results?
Latif: The IPCC doesn’t have to revise anything at all. With the present increase of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions we have to count on an increase of global temperature of around 4 degrees Celsius until 2100, as the IPCC has indicated in its latest report. This change is much greater than the natural variability of about plus/minus 0.5 degrees in the last few centuries.
People have to feed their family. That comes first before the truth.
You can’t believe him because he’s telling you you are wrong, so instead you smear his honor.
Neven says such wildly false denialist assertions are evidence that it’s the Silly Season! :!: :lol: :!: :roll: :!: :lol: :!:
It should be noted that the rough sensitivity value that I calculated in my previous post based off of the indirect solar forcing from low cloud cover changes is VERY close to the sensitivity obtained in Spencer et al. 2007, which calculate the sensitivity to be 6.1 w/m^2/Degree C. This is highly comparable to the 6.5 w/m^2/Degree C sensitivity that I obtained in my rough analysis in my last post.
http://blog.acton.org/uploads/Spencer_07GRL.pdf
The winner of the debate between the skeptics and their opponents cannot be decided pending identification of the underlying statistical population.
Terry, the deabte will never ever have a winner while there are arguments on both sides. But the core physical science can be settled in a physics lab. Conclusively.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. Systems such as the climate that exhibit non-linear dynamics have emergent properties, that is, properties of the whole system that cannot be derived from the separate parts of this system. It follows that one cannot count on answering questions about the climate through physics or chemistry based computation but must factor observation of climatic events into the picture. Climatologists have goofed up their observational program by failing to identify these events with sufficient precision for one to know when one of them has occurred.
Terry, we don’t need to make it easier for them. Even though a system may be chaotic, there has to be some core physics at play. If there is *no* quantified thermalization of IR by an IR absorbing/emitting gas, there is no problem. If there is *nothing* that affects equilibrium temperature of a body subjected to warming/cooling cycles without changing the incident radiation, there is no problem.
Girma’s Best Case
The trillion dollar question of climate science is whether the long-term global warming rate is about 0.06 deg C per decade shown below:
http://bit.ly/nEUMsQ
Or whether it is about 0.16 deg C per decade as shown below.
http://bit.ly/oEJHAk
If it is 0.16 deg C per decade, the corresponding climate sensitivity is IPCC’s value of 3.
However, if it is only 0.06 deg C per decade, the corresponding climate sensitivity is only about 1.1 (=3×0.06/0.16).
Early observation of the last decade suggest the long-term global warming rate is 0.06 deg C per decade because it shows cooling as shown below
http://bit.ly/pMHO76
We will definitely find out in the next decade whether the long-term global warming rate is 0.06 deg C per decade or has shifted to 0.16 deg C per decade in the last 40 years.
The science is not settled. We need ONLY a decade or two to definitely find out whether a shift in the long-term global warming rate form 0.06 to 0.16 deg C per decade has occurred. Not that the multiplication factor for this trend shift is 0.16/0.06 = 2.7. If this shift is not true, then IPCC’s climate sensitivity estimate of 3 deg C for doubling of CO2 will not be true, and the true climate sensitivity will be 3/2.7 = 1.11 deg C for doubling of CO2.
And this one that compares observation with prediction:
http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/IpccProjection.PNG
Observed temperatures below commitment level!
“Observed temperatures below commitment level!”
And the politicians aren’t committing, what explains this apparent
brilliance on the part of most politicians?
Your argument assumes the existence of the equilibrium climate sensitivity (TECS) as a concept. However, in science, TECS is not a concept as: a) TECS is defined on an equilibrium temperature and b) this temperature is not an observable feature of the real world.
Introduction
In the period of two years that ended in 1980, a signal event occurred in the history of meteorology. At the start of this period, centuries of research had extended the span of time over which the weather could be forecasted, with statistical significance, to no more than 1 month. Two years later, this span had been extended to 12 to 36 months – an improvement of a factor of 12 to 36. At this point, it would be instructive and motivating for the reader to learn of the features of this model. To do so, please click here.
The factor of 12 to 36 improvement had been effected through the use of a method of model building that was new to meteorology. How could a mere switch in the method of its construction effect such an enormous improvement in the performance of a model? This question falls naturally within the context of logic.
Terry Oldberg
Very interesting!
Girma:
Thanks for the complement! In the paper that contains your quote, I describe a process that yields the best possible scientific model from the underlying facts. This model deserves the descriptor “scientific” because the claims that are made by it are empirically testable. That they are testable is a consequence from the identification of the underlying statistical population. The claims may be tested in a sampling of the observed events in a sampling of the independent events in the population. In each such event, an observable such as the global average surface air temperature replaces the unobservable equilibrium global average surface air temperature of modern climatology.
As a scientific endeavor, past global warming research is a complete and ultra-expensive failure. In the quest toward placing future research on a scientific footing, the major barrier is to get the people who have orchestrated this fiasco to admit their culpability so we can move past it.
Girma, this analysis assumes that all of the warming up to this point is anthropogenic. However, there is much evidence that a significant natural component is present in multidecadal and century scale temperature trends.
This would mean that the sensitivity to increased CO2 may be even less than 1.1 Degrees C/Doubling.
The null hypothesis will do for now.
Just a quick note. I learned early in this thread that there is an AGW hypothesis that has been around since at least 1979, to the effect that given proper conditions the oceans might absorb all or most of the heat due to the GHG buildup. This would make the atmospheric sensitivity near zero.
It appears that the models have not included this hypothesis. The question is why not, as it might help explain the satellite record? But the threat of increased extreme events, such as droughts, floods, heatwaves, etc., should go away too, as all are based on increasing atmospheric heat. An interesting puzzle indeed.
Even the simple energy balance model would show hat would lead to permanent radiative imbalance where the ocean continues to warm even after the CO2 increase has stopped. The only way to stop the radiative imbalance is for the surface to warm up, which means the ocean, atmosphere, and land, so that the longwave radiation to space can increase.
Assuming an energy balance model is appropriate, the question is if this can happen on a dec-cen scale, not forever. The issue is the lack of atmospheric GHG warming over the last three decades. If all the heat is going into the oceans how long can it continue to do so? Where is the modeling?
Also, the land can warm (and has been warming) faster than the ocean, and this ocean delay effect may exacerbate the land warming, and consequences could include low relative humidity and more droughts.
JimD, yes, but that has land use and soil moisture retention, snow melt time etc. as a major factor to consider. The issue I think is more drought duration. The “sticky” weather patterns are not a comfort in that respect. Arctic ice melt though is a good thing, but only if some of the extra evaporation is properly stored. Since folks are unlikely to give up their hard won farm acreage, retention ponds or wetland construction would be first on my list for regional mitigation.
I doubt the land is warming, since the atmosphere is not, except for the single event. The land id not a heat sink, unlike the oceans. The surface boundary layer is certainly not a heat sink.
Jim D
So what is it:
“low relative humidity and more droughts” or
“high relative humidity and positive water vapor feedback”?
Please pick one.
But back to your “ocean heat content” concerns.
WEC (2010) has estimated the remaining “inferred possible total fossil fuel resources” on our planet. Based on this rather optimistic estimate, we still have 85% of all the fossil fuel reserves that were EVER on our planet, i.e. we have “used up” 15% of the original total. (Other often quoted estimates of remaining reserves, such as Hubbert, are much lower.)
So far these 15% have resulted in an increase from an estimated “pre-industrial” CO2 level of 280 ppmv to today’s measured value of 392 ppmv or an increase of 112 ppmv.
The remaining 85% should cause an increase of 112*85/15 = 635 ppmv, bringing the absolute maximum CO2 level that could ever be asymptotically reached as a result of human fossil fuel use to:
392+635=1027 ppmv
Using IPCC’s (arguably exaggerated) mean climate sensitivity for 2xCO2 of 3 degC and the logarithmic relation, we arrive at a maximum ever possible theoretical atmospheric warming from human CO2 of 4.2 degC.
But if this “disappears” in the ocean, what temperature impact will it have there?
The mass of the ocean is 341 times the mass of the troposphere and the specific heat of sea water is about 4 times that of air, so we have:
4.2/(341*4) = 0.003 degC warming of the oceans at equilibrium when ALL fossil fuels are 100% burned up.
Much Ado about Nothing?
Max
Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges
Henrik Svensmark draws
attention to an overlooked
mechanismof climate change:
clouds seeded by cosmic rays.
Changes in the intensity of galactic cosmic
rays alter the Earth’s cloudiness. A recent
experiment has shown how electrons
liberated by cosmic rays assistinmaking
aerosols,the building blocks of cloud
condensation nuclei, while anomalous
climatic trends in Antarctica confirmthe
role of clouds in helping to drive climate
change. Variations in the cosmic-ray
influx due to solarmagnetic activity
account well for climatic fluctuations
on decadal, centennial andmillennial
timescales. Over longer intervals,
the changing galactic environment of
the solar systemhas had dramatic
consequences, including Snowball Earth
episodes. A new contribution to the faint
young Sun paradox is also on offer.
http://bit.ly/xw9MHj
The earth receives energy from the sun as a disk and emits as a sphere. That’s a 4:1 disadvantage right there. Add in that earth radiates at T^4 and there is no way the sort of additional forcing a bit of extra CO2 is going to produce will be capable of being measured agains the noise.
Hey pinhead, Knowledge comes in from all angles, and you have a head the size of a pin, so something has to give.
Alarmists and warmists are lack of sense of magnitudes in radiation energy.
They lack sense of scale in everything, beginning with their “all electromagnetic energy is the same and absorbed creates heat”.
Which deliberately takes out all the differences of properties and processes between the different wavelengths/photons/particles..
They thus have no concept of the absurdity of their principle claim that the Sun’s great thermal energy doesn’t get through the atmosphere to heat the land and ocean, postulating instead that the atmosphere is some “invisible barrier like glass in a greenhouse preventing entry” or the latest variation “the Sun gives off very little thermal infrared and we get only a tiny bit of this”, and they replace this direct beam Heat, the invisible thermal infrared from the Sun, with Light.
They offer no physical explanation how Light, their principle meme “shortwave in”, heats land and water, let alone, land and water at the equator which is heated intensely and gives us our huge wind and weather systems.
For ‘climate scientists’ they show a remarkable ignorance of elementary meteorology.
strawman
Off the top of my about 40% of the sun’s energy is in what’s called the near infrared region. No one I know of denies that near infrared is transmitted and absorbed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.png
Near infrared is the portion of sunlight in the above graph (red colored) to the right of the solar spectrum labeled visible. Some of it is absorbed by water vapor and directly heats the atmosphere while the rest reaches the surface and directly heats that. There isn’t enough power in sunlight in the near infrared to make the earth as warm as it is. Visible light is almost all transmitted through the atmosphere and impurities in the ocean absorb most of it and thermalize the water in contact with the impurities.
All photons have energy. In fact they’re pure energy. The higher the frequency the more energy. Unless you’re willing to say conservation of energy is not a law then the energy in the visible light that penetrates the ocean has to go somewhere. Where does that energy go if it is not transformed into thermal energy?
Which illustrates SamNC’s point that none of you has any sense of magnitude..
Do you know how we get our huge wind system from heating at the equator?
Do you know that water is a transparent medium for visible light?
How the heck does visible light, and AGW claims that it is predominently visible light in the “shortwave in”, heat the land and oceans at the equator to give us our winds and weather from their intense heating?
Physically, show how visible light as from the Sun, the Sun is not a laser, heats the water of the ocean.
Show and tell; show how it heats water, show how much it heats water, show how it physically raises the temperature of water.
Do you understand what I’m asking? Show and tell the physical mechanism and give empirical illustration.
In the real world water is a transparent medium for visible light, it is not absorbed, it is tranmitted unchanged.
Do you see the problem here?
AGWScienceFiction fisics has taken out the beam thermal energy from the Sun and replaced it with “shortwave in” – prove it.
This is a science challenge.
Show the physical detail of your claim.
David,
I can account for a little bit of the energy contained in the different wavelengths of the suns output for this year compared to last. It’s grape harvesting time at our place and I am happy to report that our little test vineyard has a bumper crop of grapes this year. “Where does that energy go if it is not transformed into thermal energy?” This transformation of the sun’s energy into mass (vs. thermal energy) is happening in most of the micro climates in my region of the Sierra foothills this year. Last year was a lot cooler then this year so everyone’s vineyards are doing great this year yield wise compared to last year.
I am not sure if we are adding to the CO2 level in the environment while our chardonnay is fermenting away- we do control the fermentation temperature to prolong the process to improve the varietal characteristics of the final product- as we have a couple patches of mint (green and chocolate) 5 to 20 feet from the location of the carboy that is currently fermenting. A tad of the energy available has been converted in my area this year into various foods- our pear trees also have had a great yield this year.
At this time of year in the foothills the wildlife is getting rather desperate for food (and water for certain critters). A few years ago I decided to try something new to minimize the amount of time, and money, I need to spend on irrigation repair and replacement. We have a few strategically- in theory anyway- placed water buckets around our property to provide water to the gophers, moles, voles, etc that use to eat their way through my irrigation lines to meet their hydration needs. For the last 5 years or so this approach has seemed to work fairly well. The interesting thing about the water buckets, and the pond across the street from me, is the amount of life that grows in them. All sorts of algae grown on the edges of the buckets. Per my neighbor the pond has a bit more plant life in it this year compared to last as well. The critters don’t seem to mind the slime, etc.. We obtain our water from a well and we do NOT chemically treat the water so the growth in our buckets is natural, just like the pond across the street from us. The amount of energy converted into essentially pound scum (vs. heat) isn’t much but this years mass of the stuff is greater then last years.
And yes, my wife finds the scum a bit gross to look- after awhile she deals with this visual issue by scrubbing the buckets and dumping the water/scum mix onto our compost pile. Some of the organic materials from the scum end up providing nutrition for our fruit trees and grape vines.
In any case I thought you might like to be aware of what happens to a little bit of the energy (be it extra or not) originating from the sun at our place.
One unintended consequence of our current mitigation strategy (33%RES in CA) is a future owner of our parcel may not find the value of the plant life to be worth the marginal cost of providing the energy to keep everything alive.
Some posters here (lolwot, tempterrain) have questioned the “C” in the “CAGW” designation, lolwot even suggesting that the concept of “catastrophe” from global warming was a creation and artifact of “climate deniers” who are “losing the debate” (a rather absurd suggestion, as I demonstrated to lolwot).
However, it is clear that there needs to be some clarification on what “CAGW” really means.
I think we can all agree to the general definition that “AGW” refers to the theory that human GHGs trap outgoing LW radiation, and thus contribute to the warming of our planet.
“CAGW” (as it is generally understood today) refers to the IPCC premise, as posited in its AR4 report, that
a) “Most” of the observed increase in global temperature since 1950 is “more than 90% likely” attributable to Increases in human GHG concentrations (principally CO2), AND that
b) This represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment, unless actions are undertaken to drastically reduce emissions of GHGs (principally CO2)
The “supporters of the above IPCC “CAGW” premise, might see the “C” as representing:
Consequential
Catastrophic
Calamitous
Cataclysmic , or in some cases even
Criminal
The “usual” meaning is “catastrophic” (temperature rise up to 6°C by 2100, resulting in sea level rise possibly by 2 to 12 feet wiping out entire island nations and inundating coastal regions, loss of glaciers providing fresh water for millions, crop losses in Africa affecting millions, general reduction of crop yields world-wide, increased droughts, floods, tropical storms and other extreme weather events, increase of vector borne diseases).
This all sounds pretty “catastrophic” to me (sort of like famines, floods, plagues and pestilence from the Old Testament).
James E. Hansen has even parlayed this into the “cataclysmic” category, with his frightening vision of “irreversible tipping points”, “coal death trains”, “runaway warming” and “extinction of species”.
So I’d say the supporters of the IPCC “CAGW” premise can pick their own meaning for the letter “C”, but this does not change the “CAGW” premise as posited by IPCC by one iota.
Skeptics of the “C” in “CAGW”, i.e. those who are skeptical of the IPCC premise, might see the “C” standing for:
Calculated
Computer-generated
Conjured
Cooked
Contrived
Contradictory, or maybe
Confused and
Controversial, with some even seeing it as
Corrupt
Collusional or
Conspiratorial; and a few might even classify it as
Chicken-little
Cuckoo
Cockamamie
But, whatever meaning you give to the “C”, it is simply the designation for the real and significant differentiation between the general “AGW” hypothesis per se and the specific IPCC premise as outlined above.
And that is what is being debated, folks.
Max
Mx,
That comment should put that issue to bed :)
Assuming the CAGW alarmists can accept what they don’t want to accept – i.e. it was IPCC and the climate scientists like James Hansen who argue that AGW is likely to be catastrophic – if not treated with their potion.
When Dyson joins the public conversation about climate change by expressing concern about the “enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories,” these reservations come from a place of experience. Whatever else he is, Dyson is the good scientist; he asks the hard questions. He could also be a lonely prophet. Or, as he acknowledges, he could be dead wrong.
IT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO that Dyson began publicly stating his doubts about climate change. Speaking at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University, Dyson announced that “all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.” Since then he has only heated up his misgivings, declaring in a 2007 interview with Salon.com that “the fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn’t scare me at all” and writing in an essay for The New York Review of Books, the left-leaning publication that is to gravitas what the Beagle was to Darwin, that climate change has become an “obsession” — the primary article of faith for “a worldwide secular religion” known as environmentalism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=all
Dr. Joanne Simpson
Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receive any funding, I can speak quite frankly. […] The main basis of the claim that man’s release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models.
We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system. We only need to watch the weather forecasts. […] The term “global warming” itself is very vague. Where and what scales of response are measurable? One distinguished scientist has shown that many aspects of climate change are regional, some of the most harmful caused by changes in human land use.
No one seems to have properly factored in population growth and land use, particularly in tropical and coastal areas.
[…] But as a scientist I remain skeptical. I decided to keep quiet in this controversy until I had a positive contribution to make. […] Both sides (of climate debate) are now hurling personal epithets at each other, a very bad development in Earth sciences.
http://bit.ly/QsyW8A
JC
Of greatest importance is the reduced credibility of the IPCC assessment reports, which are providing the scientific basis for international policies on climate change. Recent disclosures about the IPCC have brought up a host of concerns about the IPCC that had been festering in the background: involvement of IPCC scientists in explicit climate policy advocacy; tribalism that excluded skeptics; hubris of scientists with regards to a noble (Nobel) cause; alarmism; and inadequate attention to the statistics of uncertainty and the complexity of alternative interpretations.
The scientists involved in the CRU emails and the IPCC have been defended as scientists with the best of intentions trying to do their work in a very difficult environment. They blame the alleged hacking incident on the “climate denial machine.” They are described as fighting a valiant war to keep misinformation from the public that is being pushed by skeptics with links to the oil industry. They are focused on moving the science forward, rather than the janitorial work of record keeping, data archival, etc. They have had to adopt unconventional strategies to fight off what they thought was malicious interference. They defend their science based upon their years of experience and their expertise.
Scientists are claiming that the scientific content of the IPCC reports is not compromised by climategate. The jury is still out on the specific fallout from climategate in terms of the historical and paleo temperature records. There are larger concerns (raised by glaciergate, etc.) particularly with regards to the IPCC Assessment Report on Impacts (Working Group II): has a combination of groupthink, political advocacy and a noble cause syndrome stifled scientific debate, slowed down scientific progress and corrupted the assessment process? If institutions are doing their jobs, then misconduct by a few individual scientists should be quickly identified, and the impacts of the misconduct should be confined and quickly rectified. Institutions need to look in the mirror and ask the question as to how they enabled this situation and what opportunities they missed to forestall such substantial loss of public trust in climate research and the major assessment reports.
In their misguided war against the skeptics, the CRU emails reveal that core research values became compromised. Much has been said about the role of the highly politicized environment in providing an extremely difficult environment in which to conduct science that produces a lot of stress for the scientists. There is no question that this environment is not conducive to science and scientists need more support from their institutions in dealing with it. However, there is nothing in this crazy environment that is worth sacrificing your personal or professional integrity. And when your science receives this kind of attention, it means that the science is really important to the public. Therefore scientists need to do everything possible to make sure that they effectively communicate uncertainty, risk, probability and complexity, and provide a context that includes alternative and competing scientific viewpoints. This is an important responsibility that individual scientists and particularly the institutions need to take very seriously.
Both individual scientists and the institutions need to look in the mirror and really understand how this happened. Climategate isn’t going to go away until these issues are resolved. Science is ultimately a self-correcting process, but with a major international treaty and far-reaching domestic legislation on the table, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/towards_rebuilding_trust.html
Clear and comprehensive differentation, Max, and considering hockey stick data selection and methodology, yer could add ‘concocted’ as well.
Dr Roy Spencer
The evidence continues to mount that the IPCC models are too sensitive, and therefore produce too much global warming. If climate sensitivity is indeed considerably less than the IPCC claims it to be, then increasing CO2 alone can not explain recent global warming. The evidence presented here suggests that most of that warming might well have been caused by cloud changes associated with a natural mode of climate variability: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
The IPCC has simply assumed that mechanisms of climate change like that addressed here do not exist. But that assumption is quite arbitrary and, as shown here, very likely wrong. My use of only PDO-forced variations in the Earth’s radiative energy budget to explain three-quarters of the global warming trend is no less ‘biased’ than the IPCC’s use of carbon dioxide to explain global warming without accounting for natural climate variability. If any IPCC scientists would like to dispute that claim, please e-mail me at roy.spencer (at) nsstc.uah.edu. (two months later, as of late December, 2008, I’ve still not received a response.)
It should be noted that the entire modern satellite era started in 1979, just 2 years after the PDO switched to its positive phase during the ‘Great Climate Shift’ of 1977. Thus, our satellite data records are necessarily biased toward conditions existing during the positive phase of the PDO, and might not correspond to ‘normal’ climate conditions. Indeed there might not be any such thing as ‘normal’ climate conditions.
If the PDO has recently entered into a new, negative phase, then we can expect that global average temperatures, which haven’t risen for at least seven years now, could actually start to fall in the coming years. The recovery of Arctic sea ice now underway might be an early sign that this is indeed happening. The next few years of satellite data might provide some very interesting insights into whether the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is indeed a major force in climate change.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/
What happened to global warming?
9 Oct 2009
By Paul Hudson
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man’s influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.
They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?
During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.
Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth’s warmth comes from the Sun.
But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.
The scientists’ main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.
And the results were clear. “Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity,” said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.
He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.
He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.
If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.
OCEAN CYCLES
What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth’s great heat stores.
According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.
The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).
For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.
But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.
These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.
So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.
Professor Easterbrook says: “The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.”
So what does it all mean? Climate change sceptics argue that this is evidence that they have been right all along.
They say there are so many other natural causes for warming and cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small part compared with nature.
But those scientists who are equally passionate about man’s influence on global warming argue that their science is solid.
The UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.
In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures – all of which are accounted for by its models.
In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling.
What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.
To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.
Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world’s top climate modellers.
But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.
So what can we expect in the next few years?
Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.
It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).
Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.
One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8299079.stm
Girma
Your source states
[Reposted with corrected formatting – it’s getting late here.]
Girma
Your source states
This comes from the folks that warned us of “BBQ summers” and “snow-free winters” (which never happened, in real life).
But let’s do a quick sanity check on their latest statement
The years “between 2010 and 2015″ (if we toss in 2010) are:
2010 – colder than 1998
2011 – colder than 1998
2012 – on the path to become colder than 1998
2013 – unknown
2014 – unknown
2015 – unknown
So we already have three years (out of six) =half, that are NOT hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).
Looks like Met Office better pray for a major El Nino next year, or they will have lost yet another silly prediction.
Max
Thanks Max.
David Springer
No Spence. The difference between weather and climate is one that runs through all manner of physical systems. It’s the difference between classical thermodynamics and statistical thermodynamics. Predictable bulk properties emerge in ensembles of unpredictable individual particles. Weather is analogous to individual particles. Climate is analogous to bulk properties.
This is a very confused even if rather frequent analogy.
Consider this : http://paulbourke.net/fractals/lorenz/
It represents the dynamical orbits of an externally forced non linear chaotic system.
It is perfectly deterministic yet seems to behave randomly. It is unpredictable for this reason.
Now this orbit is computed numerically with a step, say 0.001 LTU (Lorenz Time Unit). This is clearly “microscopical”.
You may ask what “bulk property” will be emerging there.
So let’s try to make time averages at, say, a scale of 10 LTU (or 100 if you want) . This is 10 000 or 100 000 larger than the microscopic behaviour so should be large enough.
Now plot these averages. Of course you will have to wait 10 000 or 100 000 more to get enough points but then what will you observe?
Well EXACTLY the same orbits. The time averages behave exactly as chaotically as the “microscopical” states and on top stay on the same attractor.
This is actually trivial and in most text books about non linear dynamics is proven that any linear transformation of a chaotic variable is a chaotic variable. And this is resumed by the well known statement “A chaotic system is chaotic at all time scales.
So if you admit that “weather” is chaotic, then there exists a mathematical proof that any time average of “weather” is chaotic too.
How you name the time averages of “weather” is irrelevant.
Now it is legitimate to ask why statistical thermodynamics work.
But this is also understood since about Boltzmann and if you read SpenceUK posts carefully, you would see that he already answered that too.
Statistical thermodynamics works because a set of elastic billiard balls has an interesting statistical property – it is ergodic. That means that even though you cannot predict the states of the system because it is chaotic, you can predict some statistical properties in large enough sets and you can that because there exists an invariant PDF which doesn’t depend on the initial conditions. So these “bulk properties” are just a manifestation of the ergodicity.
So now to fluid dynamics which is our topic here. A chaotic system and one as we saw chaotic at all time scales.
Kolmogorov tried 70 years ago to establish a “statistical theory of turbulence” by analogy to statistical thermodynamics. He simply considered that whorls were equivalent to billiard balls of different sizes and were distributed in an isotropic and homogeneous way. In other words under these assumptions there would be an equivalent of ergodicity and thus a (kind of) invariant PDF.
Guess what?
It failed. To be fair there are domains of phase space where it approximately works. But as the spatial structures in fluid dynamics are neither isotropic nor homogeneous, it had to fail necessarily.
We are there still today. Nobody knows whether a stochastical interpretation of fluid dynamics (and à fortiori the much more complex climate system) is possible even in principle. SpenceUK explains what are the alternatives and in any case it clearly shows that there is absolutely no analogy between fluid dynamics, billiard balls and statistical thermodynamics.
And because we KNOW that ergodicity is not a given for any dynamical system, there is nothing compelling sofar to assume it for weather or climate.
If the distribution of the future states is not stationary and there are hints that it is not, then you should quite easily understand why these analogies such as you used are misleading.
Notice how when Tomas says ““A chaotic system is chaotic at all time scales.”, he forgets to add the disclaimer subject to the constraints of the system. These constraints are due to energy limits and other boundary conditions.
For example, a chaotic Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction won’t swallow the universe, contrary to Tomas’ implications.
Now, Tomas will probably reply that I am being silly. Actually, it is his refusal to come up with something along the lines of a toy model that demonstrates his views that is the real issue. A toy model of the physics is good enough, because if the toy fails, something more sophisticated will likely fail as well. That is a proven approach to solving physics problems. Apparently, Tomas can’t cut the first-order physics.
Perhaps that reaction is a good explanation of climate blogland:
> An essential aspect of the BZ reaction is its so called “excitability”; under the influence of stimuli, patterns develop in what would otherwise be a perfectly quiescent medium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belousov–Zhabotinsky_reaction
The medium is the massage.
willard,
Right, on.
Complete rubbish. No such disclaimer is necessary. If you understand the formal definition of a chaotic system, you would quickly see that it is chaotic irrespective of scale.
But then, if you believe that this is a logical implication of Tomas’ comment:
Then I can safely conclude you have not understood a word Tomas has said.
Angry and uninformed are not states of mind conducive to learning. A toy model would not help to improve your understanding at all, IMHO.
> A toy model would not help to improve your understanding at all, IMHO.
Excuses, excuses.
Willard, Tomas discusses two example models in his post, using them to demonstrate the contrasting behaviours of two types of system. Which is all toy models are good for – educational tools.
Webby creates a straw man by demanding Tomas provide a toy model that does something Tomas isn’t actually claiming. That’s never going to happen, for obvious reasons.
Spence,
Which post?
Which strawman?
Hey boys, where’s your first-order model?
Earlier you mentioned Kolmogorov, who did some early work on turbulent wave modeling. One of the nifty examples of what I am talking about concerns the disordered distribution of wave heights. Sure, all wave heights are possible (with decreasing probability as a function of wave height), yet the maximum crest is dependent on the depth of the water that the waves inhabit.
That water depth acts as a constraint on the system, something that prevents the excursions from getting too high. Same thing happens with climate; the climate sits in a potential energy well which demands energy to enable it to scale the walls of that well.
You guys can scoff, but these are nice workable assumptions that one can make to model lots of different physical behaviors. It’s your loss — quite predictable, as agendas and physics never mix well.
Willard, Tomas has made a number of statements that are scientifically accurate and have certain consequences.
If you search for “toy model” down this thread, you will see WHT demanding a toy model which demonstrates things that are not logical consequences of what Tomas has claimed. This is a simple strawman.
WHT latest post shows this. Tomas already addressed this point in his comment above. But if you don’t understand the physics behind what Tomas is saying you may not realise it has already been addressed. As I said upthread, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it think.
Webster, “That water depth acts as a constraint on the system, something that prevents the excursions from getting too high. Same thing happens with climate; the climate sits in a potential energy well which demands energy to enable it to scale the walls of that well.”
True, for a smooth wave. When the energy exceeds the depth limit, you get breakers. In all but ideal conditions, some of the wave will reflect when it reached a boundary. If the distance from the source to the boundaries are equal you get a maximum complimentary wave at the source from the reflections. A resonance chamber. When the boundaries are asymmetrical, the complimentary wave is unpredictable and called a rogue wave. The super El Nino was likely a rogue wave. The amplitude and timing of that rogue would indicate a shift in the system, the distance from the source to the limits (walls) in three dimensions, changed and/or the energy available at the source changed.
So now that you have your energy well, or saddle node, you can back calculate to find what combined or synchronized to create the rogue wave. You can even eyeball or “see” the changes in the synchronization of the waves as they approach a limit or what may be a heteroclinic cycle.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/07/there-are-no-steps-it-is-constant.html
Once you have a unique event or starting point, you can use those initial conditions to learn more about the system.
Regarding rogue waves, you need deep enough water for that too happen. You will never develop a rogue wave in a large shallow lake.
However, a rogue wave in the form of a tsunami can occur, and that is caused by a large ENERGY stimulus. Get it? The energy stimulus is caused by an exogenous event in the form of a large earthquake.
That’s what we are talking about.
To get swings in internal energy requires huge deviations from the most probable states in energy distribution. They can occur but they are highly unlikely. Statistical mechanics says that a room that is totally dispersed with perfume can repartition itself spontaneously to be twice the density in fragrance one half of the room, and devoid in the other half, but that this probability is so small as to be inconsequential. That is explained by it being just one state out of many, many more states imaginable in the way that the molecules can partition themselves. The thermal energy distribution in the world is no different. To get huge disparities, it is possible, but the probabilities are low. The average temperature calculation also has to have made mistakes, as the central limit theorem does a good job of maintaining a strong average. It is much more parsimonious to show that GHG causes the warming as an outcome solely determined by changes in energy forcing.
This can be understood from other mathematical physics angles. Random walks can also show martingale behavior of exceedingly large excursions. That is why the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck random walk process was developed, to prevent these large random walk excursions. One can look at all the proxy temperature data from paleoclimate studies and show that a strong Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process is in effect.
But this is all modern physics, Cap’n, something that you accuse me of not believing in.
I am not accusing you of not “believing” in modern physics, just not considering all of the physics.
The equatorial sea surface temperature range only varied about 1.5C over the past few million years. There has been a general downward trend in global temperatures for 30 million years or more. The system changes with time. When you do your estimate of “average” diffusion rates or “average” wind velocities you have to be aware of the longer term cycles that would impact those “averages”.
Only of the major impacts is hemispherical thermal symmetric. There is a huge difference in the “sensitivity” of the hemispheres to different forcings and feed backs. When you use a given state or baseline for “Averages”, it is the changes from that baseline that is the information, not the calculation itself.
The approach or decay curve in the SST and Stratosphere temperatures are information indicating that the system is changing and that your estimates of diffusion and wind speed will be wrong, at least for the new climate regime. You deny that that there is evidence of a decay curve. That would not be smart “modern” physics thinking, doncha know. Your denial that the “average” SST as seen by Satellites, the same temperature that would be “seen” by photons, is ~21.1 C. The “average” energy of the true surface is critical if you would care to have any accuracy when applying “modern” physics :)
Since SST has remained fairly constant for a few 100k years, there is likely an upper limit to CO2 forcing which “modern” physics should be able to estimate.
“These constraints are due to energy limits and other boundary conditions.”
Web you left Christ, out of your model. Read your Bible, the answers are in the back… all the best.
Are the questions there too?
I get a kick out of you ntwo
I get a kick out of you two.)
Pacific Ocean Showing Signs of Major Shifts in the Climate
By WILLIAM K. STEVENS
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.
If a longer-term shift has occurred, and La Niña materializes more frequently as a result, this winter’s highly variable pattern of weather in the United States would probably become more familiar.
In it, the positions of warm and cold air masses and storm tracks shift so that the eastern part of the country is often exposed to warm weather.
Then the masses drift and sudden cold hits the East.
Meanwhile, the Northwest becomes stormier.
Then the pattern repeats.
The Climate Prediction Center has forecast that La Niña will persist into the spring, then fade.
What will happen after that is unclear.
There is an additional complication just now: Atmospheric conditions in the North Atlantic have shifted in recent days to a new pattern in which the Northeast and Middle Atlantic are exposed to the likelihood of cold, stormy weather.
How that will play out over the next few weeks is not certain; but government forecasters predict that February will be warmer than normal in the southern tier of the country but colder than normal in the northern tier, with above-normal precipitation in the Northeast, Ohio Valley, Midwest and Pacific Northwest.
If the Pacific Decadal Oscillation persists in its new state, experts say, it might also portend drier weather and more frequent droughts in the southern tier.
Moreover, increased hurricane activity is associated with this phase of the oscillation, and there has been such an increase in the last five years.
Scientists believe that large-scale climatic fluctuations like the Pacific oscillation affect the global temperature.
The last time the oscillation was in its present state, from about 1945 to about 1976, a global warming trend that had begun early in the century leveled off.
Then it resumed when the oscillation flipped to its opposite state, rising in the 1990’s to the highest level ever recorded.
Since the mid-1970’s, federal scientists say, the average global surface temperature has risen at a rate equal to 3.5 degrees per century. (The world is 5 to 9 degrees warmer now than in the depths of the last ice age 18,000 to 20,000 years ago.)
The dominant view among experts is that emissions of heat-trapping industrial waste gases like carbon dioxide are responsible for at least part of the last century’s global warming of about one degree.
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/012000sci-environ-climate.html
Look at all the stations, you will find the same thing.
Girma
Thanks for posting interesting Patzert (NASA Pasadena Labs) study on “new climatic regime” bringing more La Niñas and fewer El Niños than we had in the 1980s and 1990s. (Earlier Patzert had referred to “La Nada” for this year.)
One can roughly calculate from the NASA NOAA data on late 20th century El Niño events and their temperature impacts on the SST, how much of the global warming was directly attributable to these El Niño events.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/1998/enso/10elnino.html
It turns out that one can attribute somewhere between 30 and 40% of all the observed 1976-2000 warming to ENSO (including, of course, the warmest year on record – 1998).
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3080/3120559552_7d038c13f5_b.jpg
Your study ends with the obligatory sales pitch for AGW, but I see that this has been watered down considerably from the IPCC version.
“dominant view among experts”
and
“at least part of last century’s global warming”
instead of
“greater than 90% likelihood”
and
”most of warming over last 50 years”
These subtle changes in wording tell us a lot about how the wind is blowing with regard to “uncertainty” of IPCC CAGW claims as evidence of greater impact of natural forcing (or variability) becomes evident.
(Maybe our hostess’ message is beginning to sink in.)
Max
Still going Max?
Look, the point of this thread was for sceptics to “make your best case”.
You’ve managed to cite Spencer and Braswell, on my quick search, no fewer than seven times during the discussion. So we know you want to claim that it’s an important contribution to the science.
Not once have you acknowledged that it matters that it was not only fatally flawed, but the authors deliberately manoeuvred to avoid proper peer review. The editor of the journal resigned in protest. He also said
Looks like that could have been written to you personally, does it not?
My conclusion from this: The best case sceptics can make is based on deliberately misrepresenting the flimsiest of evidence.
I know it sounds harsh, but can you explain your actions any other way? Can anyone?
Very Tall Guy
Welcome back to the land of the living!
I see you still have not taken on my challenge to back your statements with “empirical scientific evidence”, but rather to make unfounded claims that the only comprehensive analysis of CERES data on cloud feedbacks with warming (S+B 2007) is “fatally flawed” and was “deliberately manoeuvred to avoid proper peer review”. And then that an editor of a journal “resigned in protest”.
Such rubbish! (These are the same silly remarks you’ve already made.)
Bring the scientific paper that demonstrates based on actual empirical scientific data that S+B is “fatally flawed” or stop making such silly claims.
Max
Max, amongst the editor’s comments were that:
and
So, the journal that published the paper you rely on concluded it had *both* “fundamental methodological errors” and false claims
The journal then published a response: Trenberth et al Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 2051-2056; doi:10.3390/rs3092051
which provides in spades your evidence that the paper is fatally flawed.
You’re obviously knowledgeable and I’m sure none of this is new to you. Yet you continue, even with this in black and white before you, to continue to attempt to use it to justify “scepticism”
I’m sorry, but it seems impossible to conclude other than that you are quite knowingly using these “false claims” in a deliberate attempt to deceive.
And that’s your best case.
Very Tall Guy
Your waffling is getting boring.
I am not impressed one bit that “the editor” who resigned said the S+B paper “is most likely problematic”.
The Remote Sensing paper by Trenberth et al., which you mention, does not in any way present any empirical scientific evidence to scientifically refute the physical observations made from CERES satellites by S+B. Sorry. Read the paper yourself.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/remotesensing-03-02051.pdf
So let me repeat, so you understand it:
Max
VTG,
Very curious situation you describe. The former editor of “Remote Sensing” considered the S&B paper to be “…most likely problematic in both aspects [‘fundamental methodological errors’ and ‘false claims’].”
So, VTG, I’m just a “little guy”, with a hyper-active B. S. Detector, out there tryin’ my best to keep from gettin’ ripped-off by my smarty-pants betters aboard the CAGW gravy-train. And, in that regard, the statement by the former editor of “Remote Sensing”, you quoted above, just made my little, trusty, bovine-ordure buster go “beep!”.
I mean, like, it is a real curiosity, I find, that the former editor of “Remote Sensing” didn’t actually come right out and say, unequivocally, that the S&B paper suffered from “fundamental methodological errors” and “false claims”, but rather he opined that it is “very likely” the paper suffered from such flaws. IN OTHER WORDS, THE DOOFUS, FORMER EDITOR DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IF THERE WERE ACTUALLY, DEFINITIVELY, REALLY-AND-TRULY SUCH FLAWS IN THE PAPER! And instead of running to ground his suspicions that the S&B paper was “very likely problematic”–like, you know, coming up with specific examples of the paper’s “problematic aspects”–our fearless editor just let’s fly with a vague, “very-likely” by guess and by golly and then takes an I’m-outta-here powder!–resigning from his editor position!
Of course, our impulsive, dramatic-gesture-prone, in-transition editor did manage to make time in the hurly-burly of his hasty-departure to pen an abject, hit-me!, now-hit-me-again!, make-it-hurt!, OUCH!, I-mean-like-double-OUCHIE!! apology to Kevin Trenberth, of all people, who had nothing discernible to do with the whole affair. Hmmm…Some deep currents a-flow here, my “little guy” instinct tells me while leaving me wondering whether it was a carrot or a stick that sent this editor-guy histrionically packing from the journal he helped found.
And, I note, VTG, that your characterization of the S&B paper was that the journal that published it “concluded that it [the S&B paper] included *both* ‘fundamental methodological errors’ and false claims.” But, as we both know, VTG, your characterization of the matter was a rather slick, shall-we-say-a-bit-too-clever-by-half “improvement” to what the editor actually said about the S&B paper.
And it’s the difference, VTG, between a forthright, we-have-a-demonstrated-problem-here-people! statement of the matter (the tack you took in making up your “improved” version of the editor’s original, weasel-worded, possibly-panic-stricken valedictory remarks) and the editor’s actual, well-gosh-I-dunno-and-I’m-sure-not-gonna-get-into-any-tacky-detail-or-particulars-or-specific-examples-or-anything-like-that-but-I-kinda-sorta-have-this-feeling-in-my-bones-that-there’s-something-like-maybe-you-know-“very likely problematic”-with-the-S&B-paper-and-all-but-I’m-in-like-in-a-really-really-big-rush-to-get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge-and-if-you-don’t-make-a-hole-for-me-like-right-now-I’m gonna-run-you-over! parting-shot. See what I mean, VTG?
P. S. Personally, VTG, I don’t think you have a forthcoming answer with which to respond to manacker’s challenge–and you’re fakin’ it and it shows. But you could prove me wrong, VTG.
Well, that seems very clear.
You’re determined continue to rely on Spencer and Braswell even in the circumstances where it was unequivocally repudiated by the very journal that published it.
The editor even called out the very exaggeration of the conclusions you’re continuing with.
Even if the paper had stood, it would be one small piece of evidence amongst many.
A better example of denial couldn’t be had.
You have no case, only deceit. There’s no point in this “debate”. Enjoy the echo chamber.
Very Tall Guy
Thanks for your last post, in which you concede by omission that you are unable to come up with empirical evidence to refute S+B 2007.
IOW, this study and its observational conclusions of a net negative cloud feedback with warming still stand.
Max
manacker | September 27, 2012 at 10:26 am |
http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/spencer-braswell-2011-proof-that-global-warming-is-exaggerated-or-just-bad-science/
By the same standard of refutation you set, you have the same obligation to refute point by point in whole and in part entirely the contents of Scott Mandia’s summary, for example.
We look forward to you omitting nothing.
More seriously, we all know by now the old saw, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” (Box, George E. P.; Norman R. Draper (1987). Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces, p. 424, Wiley. ISBN 0-471-81033-9)
The IPCC Climate Models are all wrong. Granted. No one ought be having an argument where one premise is that anyone is seriously arguing that the IPCC climate models are the actual climate, or represent fully the actual climate. Except that this is exactly Spencer and Braswell’s premise, if one goes by their conclusion that they have found a discrepancy in sub-decadal observations compared against century-scale projections. So their paper is prima facie absurd.
Is absurdity in central argument necessarily fatal to a scientific paper before one even looks at empirical data? Well, it’s not a great recommendation, to be certain.
Further, the technique of comparing different scales on essentially the same vector (though there are other differences that Spencer and Braswell gloss further invalidating their methodology), is well-established in Chaos Theory as a means to establish the Fractal Dimension of a self-similar system. Which, while it isn’t established Spencer and Braswell were looking at with their comparisons, is another well-known case where we learn some extrapolations across dissimilar scales does not produce linear outcomes. It would be startling indeed were Spencer and Braswell 2007 to have by coincidence hit upon exactly the conditions where such a comparison did have such a linearity. Since they don’t to the mathematics in their paper to develop a foundation for their comparison, we must dismiss their work in the paper. Full stop.
Bart R
I’ve seen the Michael Ashley blurb before.
It is very nice, but it is not a scientific paper.
And it does not cite any empirical data to refute the CERES observations of S+B2007.
That’s what I requested of VTG, and he has been unable to deliver.
Max
manacker
If cloud feedbacks net negative, the climate system would be rendered insensitive both to internal and external forcing. Interannual variability would be suppressed. Interdecadal variability would be suppressed. This is clearly not the case with the real climate system, so cloud feedbacks do not net negative. Obviously.
BBD
Your logic is flawed.
One could turn it around to ” IF cloud feedback were positive, our climate would be so unstable that at some point in the geological past, we would have had an irreversible run-away condition, ending up like Venus; since this did not happen over all those eons, cloud feedback is ‘obviously’ not positive.”
See the silliness of this logic (same as yours)?
Max
manacker
Negative cloud feedback would render the climate system *insensitive* to forcings. That is incompatible with known climate behaviour. This is how we know that the climate system is not dominated by negative feedbacks (including cloud), which is why GHG forcing will cause it to warm.
Manacker
per previous, your refutation is in the response by Trenberth; you could also read Dessler in GRL
As I said, A better example of denial couldn’t be had.
Enjoy the echo chamber.
Last one was me – memo to check login before using someone else’s PC…
manacker | September 27, 2012 at 11:14 am |
Why do you have to name-call it a “blurb”?
It’s not really an accurate usage of the word, and furthermore you fail to address its contents.
Your own assertions are not scientific papers, either. Nor do they even follow any real rule of Science or of discourse. You just made up your standard, and cannot even when challenged on the simplest most straightforward question meet your own requirements.
I think we can thoroughly dismiss you now.
er. 1,124 responses to this thread. Call me idle, but I’m not trawling through them all to discover the best case. So I will set up a framework:
1) the case is that there is no greenhouse effect, or that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, or that CO2 has not increased since industrialisation.
2) It is accepted that doubling CO2 will produce warming of ~1.2*C, but that climate sensitivity is very very low.
Perhaps it might be helpful if posters could indicate whether they are propounding option 1 or option 2.
docrichard
I cannot speak for the other posters here who are skeptical of the IPCC “CAGW” premise, but I, personally, would fall into your “category 2)”, with the caveat that the magnitude of the 2xCO2 figure of 1.2 deg C is a theoretically derived estimate, for which there is no empirical scientific evidence, so it can itself be questioned (Feynman).
So I would re-word your #2 as follows:
Max
.
Max, thank you for the clarification. As I understand it, the 1.2*C figure for doubling of CO2 is a calculation based on the known physics of CO2. But let us agree on 1*C.
Climate sensitivity is the anticipated response of the various feedbacks to this initial 1*C input.
You need to demonstrate that the response will be “small”, so small as not to require a change in our release of fossil carbon. On the other hand, it cannot be so small as to deny that there will be any natural variability at all, since natural variability plays such a major role in your case. So you need to find a Goldilocks Spot.
First requirement in this opus will be to re-work all the past “warmist” papers that examined the paleoclimatological record &c, and show exactly how their calculation of climate sensitivity is in error.
Next: are we all agreed that the water vapour response to the 1*C warming is to double it, arriving at a net warming of 2*C?
If so, given that 2*C is on the borderline of what is tolerable for continued peaceful and stable human civilisation, all the other feedbacks will have to be proven negative.
Much effort has gone into trying to show that the feedback effect of clouds is strongly negative, by Lindzen and Spencer, but they have not proved robust. Meanwhile, Dessler’s work has come up with a strong case for a broadly positive feedback for clouds, so his results will have to be deconstructed somehow.
Then there is the matter of the ice albedo feedback, which is very clearly positive, though fortunately at present there is no obvious warming trend, apart from a possible decrease in 2002-4 associated with a short sharp period of warming.
Other positive feedbacks, which are not included in the models, are of CO2 releases from forest fires, warming soils and warming oceans, and CH4 releases from frozen soils and clathrates – all positive, which suggests that the models may be underestimating changes in the future.
All in all, it is going to be difficult to make a case for net negative feedback. All you have to work with is the lapse rate feedback (which can be calculated to bring the water vapour feedback down from 2 to 1.5 W/m2), an uncertain natural atmospheric dust feedback, and the Stefan Boltzmann law.
All this is going to require a great deal of detailed mathematical work in order to allow the hypothesis that CO2 will have only a trivial effect on our home planet to hold up.
docrichard | September 29, 2012 at 3:05 pm | Reply
“Max, thank you for the clarification. As I understand it, the 1.2*C figure for doubling of CO2 is a calculation based on the known physics of CO2.”
Let’s make sure we qualify that with the known physics of CO2 and an ideal black body. No water, no wind, no weather, no nothing except CO2 and a black body that is perfectly and evenly illuminated over its entire surface with no day or night or equator or pole. That’s pretty far from what we actually have especially at the surface where evaporation, convection, and condensation are the big kahuna insensibly lifting the majority of the sun’s energy away from the earth’s surface to a cloud layer where we don’t tend to have our homes and gardens. Ya know how your body cools itself by sweating? Gaia, bless her molten iron heart, cools herself that way too. At the moment she’s got a bit of a chill because it’s like the wrong end of an interglacial period to be living in unless you’re a woolly mammoth or in the Clan of the Cave Bear.
@docrichard, read Max’s excellent summary for the concise version.
manacker | September 21, 2012 at 4:12 pm | Reply
How well has this thread done in achieving its objective?
I’m going for Garth Paltridge’s “extreme ‘load-of-nonsense’ theory” option.
docrichard
I didn’t count them, but 1,124 responses does sound like many.
Up-thread (before the count got quite that high) I made a quick recap of the specific “best case” responses:
.manacker | September 21, 2012 at 4:12 pm
There was quite a bit of “red meat” in the many responses (plus a lot of back and forth posturing and some crank posts from trolls).
It tells me that many of those individuals in the blogosphere who have a basic understanding of the scientific and policy issues involved are rationally skeptical of the scientific validity of the IPCC “CAGW” premise, as it is formulated in its AR4 report.
This rational skepticism seems to cover a broad spectrum of specific claims made by IPCC, as the posts have shown.
Supporters of the IPCC “CAGW” premise may write this all off as “inconsequential ramblings of poorly informed (or intellectually constrained) bloggers”, but they are only fooling themselves if they do.
Max
PS My summary up-thread is #comment- 24898
Pardon typo. Should be #comment – 242898
1) There is no The Greenhouse Effect.
Put back the Water Cycle and it disappears.
The Greenhouse Effect is a sleight of hand con. The Greenhouse Effect is the claim that “greenhouse gases” heat the Earth and without them the temperature would be 33°C colder, from the c15°C it is.
The Water Cycle cools the Earth 52°C from the 67°C it would be without it, think Deserts.
“Greenhouse gases” cool the Earth, they don’t heat it.
Carbon Dioxide is fully part of the Water Cycle, so in that has the same residence time as water in the atmosphere, 8-10 days.
The rest of the fisics, and it really doesn’t deserve the designation physics because it’s impossible in the real world, has been deliberately manufactured to create an impression that there is real science backing for this nonsense claim “greenhouse gases warm the Earth 33°C”, yet whenever detail is requested, it is never fetched.
Instead, they all wave in the general direction of Arrenhius and claim that it has been well proved over the last century with lots and lots of experiments.
Which they never fetch.
Which they can’t find either..
They have no science backing their claim about Carbon Dioxide’s superpowers to heat the Earth, never ever fetched.
Not even once.
Those arguing 2) are arguing against CAGW’s in the same basic fictional fisics.
1) is the only logical, rational, scientific option as best case.
Moon’s temperature a meter deep into the regolith is a constant -23C all year round an then some. Two Apollo missions instrumented 3 meter deep boreholes which reported temperature back to the earth for the next 4 years. Moon and earth are made of the same rocks so absent atmosphere & ocean the earth would be the same. A meter down into the rocks on the earth at the same latitude as moon boreholes is a constant 11C.
This is where and how the 33C greenhouse number is arrived at. It’s a pretty solid number borne out by lunar experiment. It’s my contention that if we added 14psi of nitrogen and a liquid ocean to the moon that would warm it by the same amount. I think CO2 does very little if anything over a deep ocean that is free to evaporate and warm up until it produces enough clouds to so the shade balances the greenhouse effect of the water vapor.
The earth is only 70% water world and therein lies the monkey wrench that makes it less stable than water world would be. CO2 will have a significant effect over land and the dryer the land the more the effect. This is exactly why we observe the most warming in higher latitudes in the northern hemisphere at night and in the winter. Nothing works better at removing water vapor from the air and stopping the surface from cooling evaporatively than freezing weather. In politics we say follow the money. In CO2 greenhouse warming we can pretty much say follow the low humidity.
“This is where and how the 33C greenhouse number is arrived at. It’s a pretty solid number borne out by lunar experiment.”
Your conclusion arrived without substantiation.
” It’s my contention that if we added 14psi of nitrogen and a liquid ocean to the moon that would warm it by the same amount.”
Probably not! That liquid does not exist. If water were added, it would probably escape from the moon’s gravity.
“The earth is only 70% water world and therein lies the monkey wrench that makes it less stable than water world would be. CO2 will have a significant effect over land and and the dryer the land the more the effect.”
Can you explain scientifically how you arrived “CO2 will have a significant effect over land and and the dryer the land the more the effect.”
How much 400ppm CO2 energy is required to warmup the land by 1degC? Apparently you ignored land warming done by the Sun.
“This is exactly why we observe the most warming in higher latitudes in the northern hemisphere at night and in the winter.”
Really?
“Nothing works better at removing water vapor from the air and stopping the surface from cooling evaporatively than freezing weather.”
?
“1) the case is that there is no greenhouse effect, or that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, or that CO2 has not increased since industrialisation.”
You got it right that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. H2O is the only major significant greenhouse gas. No one can dispute that CO2 has increased since industrialisation.
“2) It is accepted that doubling CO2 will produce warming of ~1.2*C, but that climate sensitivity is very very low.”
You got it completely wrong on this. There is no CO2 physical property producing warming.
docrichard, regarding your two items, there are several problems. Under #1 you need to add the case where the CO2 increase is not due to human emissions. Note that there are some very distinct arguments here.
But your #2 is incoherent as the warming caused by doubling is the sensitivity. As Max suggests, you might say that there is a theoretical, no feedback, all else being equal sensitivity of 1.2 degrees, but the actual climate behavior is likely to range from that figure down to zero, or even less.
David, I am afraid you are mistaken. The 1.2*C from doubling of CO2 is the result of a calculation based on the physical properties of CO2 and the concentrations of it in the atmosphere. Climate sensitivity is the subsequent temperature change due to feedbacks.
docrichard,
” The 1.2*C from doubling of CO2 is the result of a calculation based on the physical properties of CO2 and the concentrations of it in the atmosphere.”
Care to explain which CO2 physical property has that warming effect. Can you show us the calculation?
Don Easterbrook
Global cooling looks pretty scary – perhaps even catastrophic.
What could we do to reduce the risk of global cooling?
Could what some regard as negative externalities of fossil fuels actually be positive externalities?
“Global cooling looks pretty scary – perhaps even catastrophic.
What could we do to reduce the risk of global cooling?
Could what some regard as negative externalities of fossil fuels actually be positive externalities?”
I don’t think our CO2 levels would prevent cooling by any amount, and don’t think if we somehow significantly increase CO2 levels, it would do anything to prevent cooling.
But I don’t think just the climatic variability will cause much cooling.
Basically the warming we have had, over last century has been barely noticable, and the cooling will also be barely noticeable- at least in terms a few decades of cooling.
But with say 2 decades cooling, we could other factors kick in, such lower solar activity, and we could see decade or two of lower solar activity or could be something like century or two of lower solar activity.
So if we sharp drop for decade or so, we could begin see things like glaciers advancing worldwide. Contrary to myth of glacier retreating causing less available water, glacier advancement is a storage of snow, and therefore less water will be available. But unless fall off some cliff, the glaciers aren’t going regain all all that was lost during 20th century’s glacial retreat. So we going to go back to the LIA like conditions within 2 decades, but maybe within 5 decades.
It seems large volcanic eruptions, or just series of the typical type of volcanos we have been having over last century could add to the severity. It seems a large volcanic eruption by itself could have bigger effect, than it’s affect on climate.
It seems the mostly likely result will be minor cooling over couple decades and then a return to warming trend. And so we get some debate over whether glacier are advancing, rather then stark and obvious evidence global advancement of glaciers and no really noticeable effects [other than adding the finishing touches of completely discredit CAGW].
It’s cooling, folks, how much even Girma doesn’t know.
H/T Kim.
The earth is an object in space. Reasoning about it can follow the lines that reasoning about other physical objects can take. The number of verified claims about the behavior of the atmosphere/ocean system is immense. Claims to the contrary are nonsensical.
However, it is a unique object. We can only perform one series of experimental manipulations upon it, and owing to its complexity and particularly its insufficiently specified state (especially in the deep ocean) we cannot directly attribute any output to any input with complete certainty,
Nevertheless we must make decisions.
The analogous situation is in practical medicine (as opposed to research medicine). The practicing doctor must be as informed as possible by the principles at hand, but in the end cannot resort to Popper as an excuse for inaction. It is of course the case that the doctor’s intervention will sometimes fail. Once in a while it will make matters worse. In extremes it will even kill the patient. Yet we rely on the doctor’s expertise about how human bodies work, quite in the absence of certainty, and based only on a collection of experience that is unattainable without science, but is not in any sphere covered by Popperian models of falsifiability.
Get me 25 ml of compound XYZ stat! is not science. It is a decision grounded in science.
IPCC WGI so far has made a good effort to outline the relevant science that goes into the decisions, given the difficulties of its institutional composition and the lack of social precedent for its task. Its task is not science, nor is its task to summarize science; its task is to identify and display the policy relevant science so that others may make good decisions. As a compromise document, some say it overstates the case, and some say it understates it. But what it certainly has done well to date is to distinguish between the realistic and the unrealistic. This is for input into the decision making process, not for input into the scientific process. To the extent (and this is nontrivial) that IPCC injects itself back into the process of science it is a failure.
But the decision process is not scientific. CAGW is not a hypothesis. The existence of a sensitivity, usually called S, (Oldberg of some reason calls it TECS) is a useful approximation obtained from lengthy experience with simulation systems which analogously share many of the properties of the real system. Defining S (TECS) in a simulation model is straightforward.
Whether S has an exact value in the real world is a matter of no consequence. What matters first is whether it has an approximate value, that is, whether there is a simulation of a given complexity that best approximates its trajectory. Certainly there is one, though we cannot know it in advance. Given that there is such an approximation, that gives us an estimate of how much time we have to delay “treating the patient” before various additional symptoms cut in.
It is increasingly apparent from reasoning of that sort that we are entering a situation somewhat analogous to an emergency. Any MD in the ICU who starts quoting Popper is committing malpractice.
Now the real climate situation is slow enough that we have the luxury of discussing philosophy. Fine, so be it. Talk about it all you like. But we have to start talking the philosophy of continuous estimation and approximation, not of mathematics or hypothesis testing. The fact that there is something like a TECS is already established, even if we cannot define it with precision.
In fact, we cannot even define “climate change” in any mathematically satisfactory way. But that doesn’t mean that we have the luxury of not caring about it, or that it doesn’t exist, or that we don’t know why it is happening.
Dismissing Popper contemptuously is not expressing contempt for Popper. It is dismissing someone who argues that Popper matters in a situation where decisions must be made. Oldberg’s argument, essentially, boils down to the impossibility of any medical practice beyond prayer and supplication. It’s likely that Popper did not envision his ideas being applied in this way.
mtobis:
You misrepresent the idea that I and many others call “falsifiability.” This term references the idea that when an assertion is made this assertion is refutable by reference to observed events. The logical alternative to falsifiability is dogmatism. To represent dogmatism as science would be hypocritical.
Contrary to your assertion, in medicine adherence to falsifiability does not thwart action on the part of the physician. It merely requires that the physician lay himself open to falsification of his process of reasoning.
Contrary to what you seem to believe, certainty regarding the outcomes of events is not required for falsifiability. Through the agency of two kinds of hedges, falsifiability may be preserved in the absense of certainty. First, the outcomes may be predicted probabilistically rather than deterministically. Second, error bars may be placed on the limiting relative frequencies of the outcomes. Thus, the claim can be along the lines of: “the probability that you have pancreatic cancer is 0.55 while the relative frequencies of 80% of similar events lie between 0.44 and 0.65.”
To attach Popper’s name to falsifiability and refute falsifiability by exposing errors in Popper’s argument is an error of reasoning that is akin to an ad hominem argument. Despite possible errors in Popper’s argument, falsifiability stands alone as the criterion that separates science from dogmatism.
Let us stipulate that the MD has a correct diagnosis. In that case he or she still has uncertainty regarding treatment, since each individual responds differently to each treatment because of the complexity of the system, other genetic and historical differences between the individual and the median patient, etc. For instance, a person with high blood pressure may require a different treatment for asthma than someone who does not have that complication.
Necessarily, a particular treatment is specified. And there is an outcome, more or less successful. Suppose the patient has a middling recovery. There is no way to determine whether an alternative treatment would have had a better or a worse trajectory. Thus the prescription is not in any sense falsifiable.
An incorrect probabilistic model cannot in general be falsified by a small sample set.
Now I think we are in disagreement about whether the disagreement in the case of climate is better modeled as a case of diagnosis or of prescription. I think the diagnosis is clear, and I gather that you are suggesting that it isn’t. On this matter we disagree, and that disagreement has practical consequences.
What I am saying here is that your argument about falsifiability is not dispositive insofar as policy goes, because policy is decision making under uncertainty, for which the best formal model is Bayesian.
Your so-called “CAGW” is not a scientific hypothesis; it is a policy hypothesis so-called by its opponents. In conversation with Tony Watts, I have concluded that the definition of the hypothesis is that “unacceptable consequences will be likely to occur in the future if policy response to greenhouse gas buildup is deferred indefinitely”, a hypothesis I support. But I make no claim that this hypothesis is scientific. It rests on the meaning of “unacceptable” which is a value-based social judgment, not a well-defined quantitative threshold. But let us suppose for the sake of argument that we agree on some threshold of unacceptability with each other and with practically everybody else.
Then let us propose a policy to avoid said unacceptable outcome, based on a calm, rational reading of the best present evidence.
Consider your policy A: do nothing. Or my policy B: reduce net emissions by 80% over 40 years and by 110% over 80 years (net emissions eventually becoming net sequestration). Let’s allow further that these are the only two possibilities, as a further simplification.
In either case, at time T either a catastrophe will occur or not; we presume by construction that we agree on whether a given outcome is catastrophic in the sense that it costs considerably more than the cost of policy B compared with policy A. And in any of the four cases we have no falsifiability; we only have a single sample and we need two.
Denoting catastrophe as C and no-catastrophe as C’, we have in the case of policy A outcomes AC or AC’ at time T. The outcome AC’ is the one you want us to bet on by promoting policy A, but it is contingent on time; we only know a catastrophe has not YET occurred at time T; hence the absence of catastrophe at a given time does not validate policy A. But the outcome AC does not falsify the hypothesis that decision A was better. Given A, it is possible and untestable that BC.
Similarly, the outcome BC’ does not prove that B was better, since it remains possible that
The outcome BC is the most interesting. I argue that there is a sense in which it does not invalidate the choice of policy B.
Suppose we make the effort to prevent the catastrophe and it occurs anyway. This is a genuine risk. But this is an important case to consider. Presumably in the real world it means that policy B was insufficiently vigorous, but by construction of the problem we have eliminated that possibility (say, because we agree that doing more than B is so economically infeasible that it would merely lead to an alternative catastrophe). So we instituted an anti-AGW policy and it failed to prevent an unacceptable outcome. It still might have been the right policy in the sense that it was the better choice given available information at the time of the decision.
That argument is similar to this one: if you draw successfully to an inside straight, that doesn’t mean it was a good idea to place the bet.
In any case it is clear that the outcomes AC and BC’ clearly do not absolutely falsify the decisions A or B. If we have AC, we cannot know with certainty whether BC. And if we have BC’ we cannot know with certainty whether AC’.
There is nothing odd about this. An ounce of prevention may or may not be worth a pound of cure. You can never know for sure.
The doctor has a similar quandary. Treatment A may be cheaper and have fewer side effects than treatment B for an individual patient, but treatment B may be judged more likely to avoid a bad outcome. The doctor and the patient must make the choice. The outcome does not prove the choice was correct in any case. The outcome is either satisfactory or not, but we cannot perform both treatments on the same patient. So if expensive and unpleasant B works we cannot know if A would have failed, and if A fails we cannot know if B would have succeeded.
This is just a consequence of the fact that practical medicine deals with a single patient, not a population. There is no absolute falsifiability of the decision. We have to place our bets on the information we have and live with the fact that we cannot try various outcomes. We only have one planet in the universe that can support us, though, and this argues for a certain risk-aversion.
In summary, “CAGW” is a catch-phrase of those opposed to greenhouse policy attempting to frame a policy decision as a flawed scientific hypothesis. It admittedly cannot be falsified, even if phrased as a hypothesis, because it is a probabilistic statement and the sample size is too small to prove the case. Nevertheless we are forced to place our bets.
> [W]hen an assertion is made this assertion is refutable by reference to observed events.
Not only observed events, but also inferences made from these that allow the overall theorical apparatus, without which these observed events would be inscrutable.
Notwithstanding the fact that an assertion is never refuted alone, is never refuted via some kind of mythical experimentum crucis and that once the observation clashes with the theorical framework, what to do with the “refutation” is left underdetermined:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-underdetermination/
In other words, holism wins.
***
Falsifiability is an important principle, but we should bear in mind that it is only a very general guideline. Using it to separate science from dogmatism amounts to the Popperian gambit. Either one plays the Popperian gambit and accepts the constraints it imposes, or one stops playing any kind of demarcation game:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#ProDem
Among the constaints that gambit imposes is the problem to explain how one should deal with mathematics. Since climate science relies on numbers and that number theory might not be an empirical discipline, one would be left to conclude that climate science is therefore not an empirical discipline.
Another constraint is the idea of letting go of modeling in general. That is, once we forbid any kind of modeling on the basis that it’s irrefutable, one has to adopt a very strict diet. Pierre Duhem tried it:
> The physicist who wishes to follow them can no longer use the methods proper to physics exclusively. … Here he enters the domain of cosmology. He no longer has the right to shut his ears to what metaphysics wishes to tell him about the real nature of matter; hence, as a consequence, through dependence on metaphysical cosmology, his physics suffers from all the uncertainties and vicissitudes of that doctrine. Theories constructed by the method of the Cartesians and atomists are also condemned to infinite multiplication and to perpetual reformulation. They do not appear to be in any state to assure consensus and continual progress to science. (1917, 152; 1996, 233–34.)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/duhem/#AgaCarMetMetMod
My favorite constraint is that falsifiability has yet to prove its own falsifiabilty. This asymmetry might not appeal to those who prefer to have symmetrical laws, among which I believe we can count Richard Feynman.
***
Mary B. Hesse covered the debate around the question of scientific models a while ago. Here’s an excerpt:
http://dtserv3.compsy.uni-jena.de/ws2008/allgsoz_uj/43361699/content.nsf/Pages/CED044B21842A10CC125754400423798/$FILE/Hesse_Models%20and%20Analogies%20in%20Science_57-100.pdf
mtobis
I believe you have made an unjustified logic jump:
I am not persuaded this conclusion can be drawn from what you’ve said. Just because there is a climate sensitivity value or range, doesn’t mean that the impacts of global warming are dangerous, catastrophic or even a serious problem. Therefore, I suggest you have made an unjustified leap of logic.
We need to know other parameters in addition to the climate sensitivity. We need to know the ‘damage function’. From the information we have available it seems:
1. global warming has costs and benefits
2. catastrophic consequences are unlikely
3. the net cost is insignificant for the foreseeable future (e.g. this century)
4. the proposed mitigation strategies have low probability of achieving what their proponents claim they will achieve
5. the proposed mitigation strategies would be hugely expensive, do serious economic damage (which means damage to human welfare) and have little if any beneficial impact
6. the most potentially viable solution for cutting GHG emissions are blocked by ideological beliefs (by the same groups who argue for mitigation)
7. this hypocrisy prevents progress in an economically rational way and, therefore, creates strong opposition to the proposed policies and causes (appropriately) searching questioning of the evidence supporting the case for mitigation.
Furthermore, to develop appropriate policy we need cost benefit analyses. For that we need other inputs. I’d argue that a key parameter that has received very little attention is the ‘rate of decarbonisation’. That is, what decarbonisation rate could we achieve if we wanted to and at what cost. I suspect the answer may be the world could decarbonise energy this century; and by say 50% by 2060 at near no economic cost and possible with net economic gain. That provides an economically rational solution. But it is blocked by ideology. For more on this see this comment: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-245003
Therefore, climate sensitivity is just one parameter. On its own it cannot provide the information we need for policy decisions.
I stipulate that a great deal was left out; I think the way I phrased it “reasoning of that sort” made it clear. I also stipulate that climate sensitivity is just one parameter, and that it is inadequate to decision-making without reference to what the environmental and economic consequences of any climate trajectory might be. Alas, this leaves us far from agreement because I nevertheless disagree with your points 2-5, and believe that point 6 is both overstated and confused (it politicizes in the name of depoliticizing). Point 7 is consequently moot.
Dr. Tobis, the patient’s temperature is stabilizing and her mind is clearing. She has withdrawn her consent for you to use that dangerous drug to prevent hyperthermia.
==============================
mtobis,
Thank you for your reply. You say you disagree with my points 2-5 but don’t say why. I’ve supported all those points in the link I provided. I’d be interested to hear your comments in reply to the points in the comment I linked. Here it is again:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-245003
[These statements are based on analyses such as Nordhaus (2008 and 2012), Australian Treasury and other authoritative studies and papers. I believe, overall, the conclusions are rational and pragmatic. They have not been seriously challenged and certainly not refuted so far. I hope you will give it serious consideration]
From a policy perspective, which after all is what is all the climate science work is being done to inform, I suggest it is essential we get to the bottom of the points 2 to 5 that you disagree with. Just saying you disagree is not helpful.
mtobis
The key weak point in your whole discussion is the premise that we are “entering a situation somewhat analogous to an emergency”, when it come to CAGW.
This is the position being promoted by IPCC.
For simplicity, many people (not IPCC, BTW) refer to it as “CAGW”, in order to differentiate from “AGW”, the theory that GHGs absorb outgoing LW radiation, thereby contributing to warming, that human emit GHGs, and that the atmospheric concentrations of these GHGs has increased. therefore that human GHG emissions have contributed to global warming..
The presumption of a potential “emergency” depends entirely on the model-derived climate sensitivity, as others have pointed out.
If this is around 3C, as claimed by IPCC based on model simulations, we could conceivably see 2C warming by the end of this century. Whether or not this could present a potential “emergency” is not known, but is generally posited by IPCC.
If this is 1C (or even less) as appears to have been observed from recent ERBE and CERES satellite studies (L+C, 2009/2011, S+B 2007), there is no potential “emergency” at all.
On top of this, we have now observed 15 years of no atmospheric warming (since mid-1997) despite unabated CO2 emissions and atmospheric concentrations reaching record levels, which also points to a low climate sensitivity.
So “uncertainty” is great.
Admittedly, there is never “100% certainty”.
But the physical observations are showing us that the model assumptions were wrong.
And, since it is these assumptions upon we have based the entire premise that we are “”entering a situation somewhat analogous to an emergency” (as you put it), we can discard this premise for now, regardless of what IPCC, a political body “selling” CAGW, claims.
Max
SpenceUK
Then I can safely conclude you have not understood a word Tomas has said.
Angry and uninformed are not states of mind conducive to learning. A toy model would not help to improve your understanding at all, IMHO.
I can but agree in a very general sense. The suggestion I would give you is to establish your own “ignore list” and simply avoid reading people who have demonstrably shown that they neither understand your arguments nor show a civil behaviour. This is what I did and it significantly improved and accelerated my participation on this blog.
Actually my last post had for purpose to show to David Springer why his “analogy” between thermodynamical statistics and fluid dynamics was not only confused but there was no “analogy”.
I would have been interested to read whether he agrees or not and eventually understand what kind of problem with physics have people who evoke this kind of “analogies”
Unfortunately he didn’t comment what kinda closes the case..
I do have a bad habit of answering people “in kind” – if they choose incivility, they get incivility back. It is in hope they may realise something about their own tone. So far it has not worked once. Perhaps I should learn from that.
A reasoned argument with WHT is not really possible, David Springer is far more reasonable and I agree it would be interesting to read a response.
When is the sun going to go through one of these massive chaotic bifurcations?
As of right now it goes through a change in outgoing radiation of about +/- 1 part in 1366. That seems like a “massive” bifurcation :)
Does that not seem like a massive bifurcation to you?
Why doesn’t the sun spontaneously go though one of these transitions that you predict as a result of your nonlinear system dynamics?
Could it be, could it be that it obeys energy constraints and any real change would be due to external forcing functions.
So my model of the sun for the short human-scale term is
E(t) = E0 + w(t)
where w(t) is a noise
I guess I am not reasonable because I ask the straightforward questions. Questions that apparently shouldn’t be asked.
ABSTRACT. We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using
the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs)
and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA)
outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000-
2008) satellite instruments.
…
climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 is estimated to be 0.7K
(with the confidence interval 0.5K – 1.3K at 99% levels).
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
This is gobbledegook, not science. Where is the Water Cycle??
Water has a great heat capacity and heated rises as real gas vapour taking away heat from the Earth’s surface and up into the cold heights of the troposphere where it releases this hot heat condensing back to cold water or ice, clouds, which cold water comes back to the Earth’s surface as pure clean rain which is itself carbonic acid. Rain clears the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide in this is fully part of the Water Cycle, and so with the same residence time as water in the atmosphere, 8-10 DAYS.
The Water Cycle is the Earth’s positive cooling mechanism, the ‘climate fisics’s negative feedback’ writ large, temperature would be around 67°C with our atmosphere of mainly nitrogen and oxygen, but without water – THINK DESERTS.
What is the matter with all these supposedly brilliant ‘climate’ scientists? Not even one with any sense of the physical world around us, not one with even the most basic, elementary, grasp of meteorology in the heavy, fluid, real gas ocean of atmosphere around the Earth.
And more gobbledegook ‘climate science fisics’, visible light from the Sun cannot heat land and oceans, claiming it does is physical nonsense.
If visible light is reflecting off clouds how is it heating the oceans?
Logic fail. If it is heating the oceans then it is heating the clouds.
But, again, basic, elementary, real gas physics, water is a transparent medium for visible light. Visible light from the Sun cannot heat water, it cannot heat the oceans because it is transmitted through unchanged.
AGWSF has given the property of heat from the Sun, the power to heat intensely, to visible light which cannot physically do this.
AGWScienceFiction has created a world without the direct thermal energy from the Sun playing any part in heating land and oceans. This is perverse.
This is a deliberate con, taking out the direct actual heat from the Sun, the Sun’s thermal energy transferred by radiation which we all feel as heat, which is heat, which actually physically can and does heat up matter, the invisible thermal infrared as first discovered by Herschel.., and says it is blocked by some, unexplained, invisible barrier.
Why can’t they see how absurd this is?
Direct, beam heat, thermal infrared from the Sun has the power to heat land and oceans because it is concentrated, in straight lines, intense, just as real direct concentrated heat has the power to cook your dinners.
Upwelling thermal infrared is waste heat, dissipating in all directions is doesn’t have the power to heat as work. That’s why it’s called waste heat.
Why does AGWSF say that the real thermal energy of the Sun, longwave infrared, doesn’t reach us? So that it can pretend that all measurements of thermal infrared downwelling comes from their imagined ‘backradiation heating’, waste heat of waste heat.
Please read that again..
All real physics basics have been changed to fit in with this imaginary The Greenhouse Effect. It is impossible in the REAL WORLD.
Which is why no ‘climate scientist’ can ever produce any real world empirical physics to prove their basics fisics claims. This massive fail in logic is only the beginning of the problem. How do we get these supposed experts on climate back through the looking glass to the real world?
It takes intense heating of land and water of the oceans at the equator to give us our basic, massive, huge, dramatic, wind and weather systems.
I suggest that ‘climate scientists’ first get a grip on reality by understanding the basic, elementary properties and processes possible of real gases and real electromagnetic heat and light transfer from the Sun..
..to understand the difference between Heat from the Sun and Light from the Sun as still taught in traditional real world physics, which is able to build both photovoltaic and thermal panels to capture these because real scientists know the difference between Heat and Light..
‘Climate scientists’ must get sense of scale back into their thinking. Visible light encountering matter on the tinier electronic transition level, electron, does not have the power to do the work of heating matter, it cannot move the whole molecule into the vibrational state which is necessary to heat up matter, kinetic energy. Visible light does not convert land and oceans to kinetic energy, kinetic energy is heat. The average of kinetic energy is temperature, visible light from the Sun cannot raise the temperature of matter. Physically cannot.
It takes intense raising of temperature of land and oceans at the equator to get us our powerful wind and weather systems.
All ‘climate scientists promoting AGWScienceFiction fisics, MUST, prove empirically that Visible Light from the Sun is able to do this.
And none can because it is physically impossible in the real world.
This is a Science Challenge to all Climate Scientists promoting AGWSF fisics. Prove it.
Prove empirically that Visible Light from the Sun is able to heat land and water at the equator to the intensity it takes to give us our huge wind and weather systems.
Rain also carrys away suspending solids (dusts) in the atmosphere in addition to carry away heat in the atmosphere.
Rain also carrys away suspending solids (dusts) in the atmosphere in addition to carry away heat in the atmosphere.ABSTRACT. The equilibrium sensitivity of Earth’s climate is determined as the quotient of the relaxation
time constant of the system and the pertinent global heat capacity. The heat capacity of the global ocean,
obtained from regression of ocean heat content vs. global mean surface temperature, GMST, is 14 ± 6 W
yr m-2 K-1, equivalent to 110 m of ocean water; other sinks raise the effective planetary heat capacity to 17 ± 7 W yr m-2 K-1 (all uncertainties are 1-sigma estimates). The time constant pertinent to changes in
GMST is determined from autocorrelation of that quantity over 1880-2004 to be 5 ± 1 yr. The resultant
equilibrium climate sensitivity, 0.30 ± 0.14 K/(W m-2), corresponds to an equilibrium temperature increase for doubled CO2 of 1.1 ± 0.5 K.
Stephen E. Schwartz
http://bit.ly/Nxkrgn
The resultantequilibrium climate sensitivity, 0.30 ± 0.14 K/(W m-2), corresponds to an equilibrium temperature increase for doubled CO2 of 1.1 ± 0.5
The several comments have raised important questions over the applicability of this method, especially in the context of the limited record of
reliable estimates of global mean surface temperature and
global ocean heat content and multiple time constants
characterizing climate system response to perturbations
and have led to an extension of the approach of S07 that
can identify and deal with the consequences of short-term
(subannual) autocorrelation on the quantification of the
effective climate system time constant. This further analysis
has solidified the basis for the empirical determination of
climate sensitivity and leads to upward revision of the
estimated climate system time constant by about 70% over
that given in S07, to 8.5 ± 2.5 years. This upward revision
results in an increase in climate sensitivity ls1 to 0.51 ±
0.26 K/(W m2), corresponding to an equilibrium temper-
ature increase for doubled CODT = 1.9 ± 1.0 K. …
It gets better ;-) Remember this?
Every time a ‘sceptic’ quotes a crap paper about sensitivity, an angel gets its wings… Er, no, sorry, that’s not right, is it?
I only use that blog to see the beautiful and interesting pictures of Japan!
Limits on climate sensitivity derived from recent satellite and surface observations We find the empirical climate sensitivity to be between 0.29 and 0.48 K/Wm−2 when aerosol direct and indirect radiative forcing is included.
http://bit.ly/N96tWn
Skeptics: make your best case
Life on earth has existed for hundreds of millions years. This is only possible in a climate that is stable with negative feedback where, like in a spring, the climate system opposes any external perturbations in the climate.
Not to get too bogged down in the political “resignation of the editor” brouhaha, but here is what Roger Pielke Sr. had to write about the whole story:
That’s what “science” (as opposed to “politics”) is all about
Max
PS Link to Pielke comment:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/comments-on-the-dessler-2011-grl-paper-cloud-variations-and-the-earths-energy-budget/
Negative feedback from clouds…. BVD needs to buy a clue.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2002/02_60AR.html
This is SO funny. And they call ME a denier. Obviously something puts a ceiling on SST. If not negative feedback from clouds then what?
The highest mean annual surface temperature ever observed (34.4C) is a salt desert in Ethiopia with 1-3″ annual rainfall. Moreover the record was set 50 years ago over a five year period (1960-1966) when CO2 level were much lower than today,.
If water vapor was a positive feedback why was the record mean annual temperature set in one of the dryest places in the world? If CO2 is doing all that much greenhouse warming why was the record set 50 years ago?
These are the facts. It takes a true denier to keep up with the preposterous claim that water vapor is a positive feedback.
Water vapor is a positive feedback ONLY until a balance is reached where clouds that result from said water vapor shade the surface of the ocean enough to retard evaporation and further cloud formation. Deal with it, deniers. You either recognize this as true or you’re an imbecile.
Instructive re; negative feedback from clouds
Basically Schmidt et al blows off a number of highly cited previous papers about why there’s a maximum observed SST of ~30C on this planet and why it’s an upper limit (i.e. thermostat effect of clouds). Included is a list of some of those papers in the intro.
http://gsfcir.gsfc.nasa.gov/download/authors/…/Journal%20Articles_18594
Introduction from:
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 35, L12707, doi:10.1029/2008GL033872, 2008
Effects of doubled CO2 on tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for
onset of deep convection and maximum SST: Simulations based
inferences
Y. C. Sud,1 G. K. Walker,2 Y. P. Zhou,3 Gavin A. Schmidt,4 K.-M. Lau,1
and Robert F. Cahalan1
1. Introduction
[2] Two features of present-day tropical SSTs are wellestablished.
First, the highest observed SST does not exceed
30–31C [e.g., Waliser and Graham, 1993] and second,
towering cumulus clouds emerge suddenly at around 28C
SST [Gadgil et al., 1984; Graham and Barnett, 1987;
Zhang, 1993]. Some highly cited explanations for the upper
limit of the SST are as follows. Newell [1979] suggested
evaporative cooling that increases with the SST also limits
it. Ramanathan and Collins [1991] suggested that clouds
following onset of deep convection reduce the solar irradiation
into the ocean to provide a thermostat-like control. Several
scientists [e.g.,Wallace, 1992; Fu et al., 1992; Lau et al., 1994;
Clement et al., 1996] argued that the R-C explanation was
simplistic and many other contributory processes were ignored.
Using the TOGA-COARE data, Sud et al. [1999]
identified ‘‘downdraft cooling’’ to be the key missing element
of the thermostat regulation, as well as provided a physical
basis for the onset of deep convection at 28C.
[3] Singer and Avery [2006] referred to the Sud et al.
[1999] and argued that tropical SSTs can not warm beyond
30–31C, even for doubled CO2 (hereafter 2xCO2) atmosphere.
However, Sud et al. [1999] did not imply that the
28C for the onset of deep convection and the 30–31C as
the limiting SST are rigid constraints. On the contrary, Sud
et al. had argued that outside of tropics, deep convection
occurs at temperatures far below 28C. In their data analysis,
Kleypas et al. [2008] found relatively small SST increase in
the tropics and attributed it to cooling by thermostat referring
to it as a ‘‘mysterious thermostat’’. We submit, one cannot
evaluate these inferences without examining the realism of
key processes that influence tropical SSTs and how the
above two SST limits adjust to a 2xCO2 environment and
how dire can be its consequences. The coupling between
saturation moist static energy (SMSE) at convective detrainment-
level ht {ht = cpT + gz + Lq*, where standard symbols
for enthalpy cpT, potential energy gz, and latent energy Lq*
are employed} and cloud base MSE hb help to estimate the
cloud-buoyancy energy that a cloud in ascent conserves, but
for its reduction by entrainment/detrainment of ambient/incloud
air. In addition, such an analysis also gives the
maximum attainable SSTs [Sud et al., 1999]. In the rest of
this paper we describe a) the model and simulation experiments
in Section 2, b) the key results with verification in
Section 3, and c) a brief discussion of several findings and
resulting consequences in Section 4.
Michael Tobias and Willard:
Upon review of your postings to this thread, I find that a number of your views regarding the falsifiability of model claims are false but consistent with the hypothesis that the two of you are out of date by about 40 years. It remains generally impossible for one to build a falsifiable predictive model of the outcomes from a complex system that is categorical in its predictions and that survives statistical testing. The cause of failure can be traced to information that is missing but assumed not to be missing in a categorical predictor. In a gambling device that is “fair,” information for a categorical conclusion is missing and that it is missing is apt to be discovered if and when a categorical predictor is tested.
Using existing and well tested technology that accounts for and formally deals with the missing information, it is routinely possible for one to build a falsifiable predictor of the outcomes from a complex system that is non-categorical (roughly speaking, probabilistic) in its predictions and that survives statistical testing. I’ll supply citations to this technology and to applications of it at your request.
Terry, and others tempted to engage with Michael Tobis – this is the man that told us, on this forum a couple of years back, that disregarding the null hypothesis was OK and only to be expected, since reporting a null finding, and I quote “does nothing for your cite quote”. He appears to have spend his career assiduously following this principle. The result, as I have said before, is that in his field the null hypothesis has all but disappeared behind a wall of statistics. I leave it to you to judge whether further engagement with a man who thinks like that is likely ever to be fruitful.
Rutherford said: “if your experiment depends on statistics, you should have thought of a better experiment”. I don’t believe he meant to dismiss statistics out of hand – just that they ought to be used to guide the search for the “better experiment”, not as an experimental end in themselves. In Climate “Science”, the search for a “better experiment” has been all but abandoned, years ago, in favour of endless, tendentious data-crunching aimed at saving a failed theory.
> Terry, and others tempted to engage with Michael Tobis – this is the man that told us, on this forum a couple of years back, that disregarding the null hypothesis was OK and only to be expected, since reporting a null finding, and I quote “does nothing for your cite quote”.
Having a cite or a quote would certainly not be nothing.
As if Terry was here to engage. He was just blowing up a smoke screen with multiple sleights of hands.
Terry Oldberg,
Let’s recap.
You have no idea what scientia means.
You have no idea what falsifiability entails.
You can’t provide quotes.
You have done no proper analysis.
And that’s notwithstanding the sleights of hands:
Denying having referred to some “IPCC claims”, whence you clearly did.
Shifting the burden of proof.
Proving by assertion, time and time again, like now.
Time and time again played “look, squirrel”, time and time again, like now.
***
In any case, please go ahead with your citations.
And please don’t forget to mention Shannon.
Willard:
You’ve proved yourself incapable of or disinterested in conducting logical discourse. As my purpose in being here is to conduct logical discourse, I’ll exit this conversation here.
Terry Oldberg,
You never entered the conversation, so there’s no need to exit it.
The only logical discourse you might have proven yourself able to conduct might be this:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.0389
And that would be generous, since as far as I can see, you simply came here to blow a smoke screen.
While still waiting for your citations and your quotes, I can back up everything I said in that previous comment.
> Upon review of your postings to this thread […]
Reading them would have been enough.
Quoting would have been essential to sustantiate the assertion that follows.
Yet another proof by assertion.
GIGO
Fingoism: (n) extreme denialism or deception marked especially by belligerent feigning of pseudoscientific hypothesis. cf jingoism. orig. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica 1713, Newton, Isaac & Halley, with regard to violation of Rule 4: “In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, not withstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be feigned, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.”
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David Springer | September 29, 2012 at 3:24 pm
points out some of the many factors in atmospheric physics. However in considering climate sensitivity we work by convention to a doubling of CO2 per se. That s the initial forcing, and is widely agreed to be 1.2*C. Then we move on to the effect that this initial forcing has on the many other climatic factors – H2O vapour etc. The net effect of these on climate is climate sensitivity. Many separate lines of enquiry give a value centered on 3*C. As I point out in my earlier post, the onus is on the skeptics to make a hypothesis of low sensitivity stand up. That is the case you need to make. I hope this is helpful.
You should probably be specific about what you mean by climate sensitivity if it isn’t clear in context. From Wickedpedia:
Pointedly in this thread I was discussing the change in surface temperature due to a 1W/m2 variation in TSI at TOA (doncha love three letter acronyms?) projected onto a spherical ideal black body which raises the radiant emission by about 0.04C. This will change a bit within the normal range of earth surface temperatures because of the T4 relationship between power and temperature but it’s close enough for government work between 250K and 300K in a linear relationship. But I did that calculation, or rather an online black body calculation, at 300K to 301K which requires just about 6W/m2 on an ideal black body (plane not a sphere) which projected onto a sphere only raises the temperature 0.25K thus a single watt in TSI only does 0.25/6 or about 0.04. A doubling of CO2 in a perfectly dry atmosphere on a superconducting or massless earth with a fixed albedo (discounting conduction and convection) will effectively lower the albedo of the grey body by reducing the radiation in a couple of smallish windows in the far infrared and forcing it out through more power in the remaining atmospheric window which in a perfectly dry atmosphere is a big window. In order to force out more power across the remaining window the surface temperature rises. It’s not exactly rocket science at that level and the earth is pretty flippin’ far from an ideal black body too so the worth of this sensitivity in degrees C per W/m2 at TOA in practical application to climate change is rather limited and it confuses the living bejesus out of anyone who can’t follow along with the basic physics above to know just how little value the black body physics has in the earth’s climate.
… which explains why there are dozens and dozens of alternate theories and hypotheses littered on this commenting site. Those guys don’t seem to understand the physics, and neither do they understand the fact that a few degrees change is a few degrees change.
Further to your remarks, the “few degrees change” is in the equilibrium temperature (ET). As the numerical value of the ET is not observable, when a numerical value is asserted for the climate sensitivity, this value is not falsifiable thus lying outside science. The notion that there is a climate sensitivity, then, is scientific nonsense.
> As the numerical value of the ET is not observable […]
As it’s an estimate, it would be strange if it could be the object of an observation and not an artifact of an analysis of these observations.
Here are examples of objects of observations:
– Temperature increases
– Snow cover
– Sea ice extents
– Radiation changes at the top of the atmosphere
– Droughts
– Changes in the freshwater balance of the Atlantic Ocean
– Sea level
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch3s3-9.html
But how can we directly observe sea level and temperature increases anyway?
We immediately see that this is not science stuff.
docrichard:
That Earth’s climate has a “climate sensitivity” (aka “equilibrium climate sensitivity”) is a precept of modern climatology. That this precept is true is assumed by many of those with interests in the evolution of Earth’s climate. Your post assumes it to be true. However, it is easy to prove this precept to be false.
That it is false is a consequence from the fact that the equilibrium surface air temperature is not an observable feature of the real world. The climate sensitivity, though, is a function of the equilibrium surface air temperature. Thus, when it is asserted that the climate sensitivity has a particular numerical value, this assertion is not falsifiable thus lying outside science.
David, Zackly. It is my belief that the Stefan-Boltzmann “black body” stuff is probably one of the limiting factors that stops Earth boiling over. But Ice Age variations show us that 6*C swings are possible, and you have to be absolutely sure that your low sensitivity hypothesis is not opening the door to 6*C swings.
PS I say “it is my belief” because like many here, I am not a scholar in these matters, just doing my level best to understand what the hell is going on. The one thing I am sure about is that convinced climate contrarians have got to move on from simply (and sometimes simplistically) criticising and questioning GHG climatology, and systematically, mathematically and convincingly construct and defend your case, your hypothesis that climate sensitivity is as low as you believe it to be. This is going to prove a difficult if not impossible task for you.
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The observed annual change in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has no correlation with human emission of CO2. However, it has direct correlation with the global mean temperature as shown:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/derivative/normalise/from:1978/plot/rss/compress:12/normalise
CAGW is not supported by the observed data.
One could do that experiment in a soda bottle at various temperatures. CO2 concentration in air is proportional to temperature. Dissolved CO2 provides a sink but does not determine concentration.
Man I have never read so much bullshit and wise-acring on a page this long in my life. Liars like to use specialized terminologies and imaginary concepts to base their lies on. You guys are not addressing the issue, just trying to one-up each other as to who has swallowed hook-line-and sinker the most pieces of obscure theoretical mythology.
The issue with climate change is that there is no issue. There’s TONS of evidence that the climate of the earth has changed, and this from written records, not suppositions based on strata analysis and hypothetical historical gas contents which can only be dtermind by specialized and very faulty machines. Read up on your techniques sometimes, don’t just parrot the conclusions they provide.
So, we all agree the climate changes. What is it you want? You want to say HUMAN BEINGS and their activity are changing the Earth, whereby you Earth-saving but man-stomping bleeding-hearts can find us a cure that you can sell us, maybe justify some more “taboos” on things you don’t like.
Now let’s go one step further and grant that you COULD prove that it is indeed the human activity on Earth – not just usual activity, but especially activity you don’t like like, namely smoke in all its forms and greenhouse gases (apparently you are all OK with rocket and jet exhausts, NASA launches and military movements, nuclear testings, etc.). Let’s say you can prove it. Well, what do you expect to do about it?
Now we get into the real reason for the whole psycho Al Gore Global Warming nutjob theory. Are you going to build freezers to keep the ice caps melted and the glaciers form falling? Do you want to blast on one side of the planet in the hopes the we’ll rebalance out to a weather you like in every location? No, you want to enforce regulations all to enable more bureaucracy. You want it all to be California on steroids where you need a license to piss in your on backyard. You want to regulate personal behaviors and forcefeed “green” technolgies that are themselves untested and the benefits minimal if at all.
So keep preaching to your choir and quibbling about the possibilities of knowing what the content of the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere was 10,000 years ago. You can’t even say what it ws 100 years ago.
Cain
ursheep (@ur_sheep) | December 8, 2012 at 9:37 pm said: ”So, we all agree the climate changes”
If that’s the case; why the clever Warmist gave a name to the Fakes as: ”climate change Skeptics”. and they are proud of it…==== they are ”’skeptical” if the climate can change, or not; but they believe 101% in the phony GLOBAL warmings. One cannot get more wrong, and back to front, than that….!…
They cannot recognize the truth and real proofs from me; when drops in front of their nose – but they can parrot Hansen’s, Mann’s misleading gospels, better than the Warmist’ foot solders can… join the circus
Situated at the fringe of short distance to city, Sant Ritz at
Potong Pasir (Singapore) in District 13. the glades