by Judith Curry
The Guardian strikes back against David Rose’s Daily Mail article.
Dana Nuccitelli (of Skeptical Science) has an article posted in The Guardian entitled Why the Daily Mail was wrong to claim that global warming has stopped, with subtitle “Newspaper’s claim that ‘world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago’ is simply wrong, says Met Office” Excerpts:
The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator can be used to test this question. The trend in the HadCRUT4 global surface temperature dataset since 1997 is 0.084 ± 0.152°C per decade (although we have not yet updated the HadCRUT4 data, the GISS and NCDC datasts show a similar warming trend since 1997). While the trend is not statistically significant, the central value is positive, meaning the average surface temperature has most likely warmed over this period.
JC comment: how does this refute Rose’s argument? No statistically significant positive trend, and it makes it look like SkS hasn’t done their homework with the latest data.
The Met Office also explained that Rose is essentially trying to go down the up escalator by focusing on short-term noise while ignoring the long-term trend.
JC comment: How many statements have we seen from the Met Office and IPCC principles about the expectation from the models that there should be no plateau or cooling period exceeding 15-17 years? Nuticelli even includes this quote from the Met Office:
“The models exhibit large variations in the rate of warming from year to year and over a decade, owing to climate variations such as ENSO, the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. So in that sense, such a period is not unexpected. It is not uncommon in the simulations for these periods to last up to 15 years, but longer periods are unlikely.”
JC comment: Now for a circular reasoning alert:
Figure 4: Estimation of the observed signature of internal variability in the observed 20th century global mean temperature in climate model simulations
Rose and Curry are trying to argue that because global surface temperatures have not warmed as fast as the multi-model average in the IPCC report (0.2°C per decade), this somehow suggests the models are flawed.
JC comment: Nuccitelli argues that the models are right, and therefore greenhouse warming dominates over natural warming. I argue that climate models are imperfect and incomplete, a statement that no climate modeler on the planet would argue with.
JC note to defenders of the idea that the planet has been warming for the past 16 years:
Raise the level of your game. Nothing in the Met Office’s statement or in Nuticelli’s argument effectively refutes Rose’s argument that there has been no increase in the global average surface temperature for the past 16 years.
Use this as an opportunity to communicate honestly with the public about what we know and what we don’t know about climate change. Take a lesson from these other scientists that acknowledge the ‘pause’, mentioned in my previous post Candid comments from global warming scientists
Kevin Trenberth:
The hiatus [in warming] was not unexpected. Variability in the climate can suppress rising temperatures temporarily, though before this decade scientists were uncertain how long such pauses could last. In any case, one decade is not long enough to say anything about human effects on climate; as one forthcoming paper lays out, 17 years is required
Trenberth questions whether the Argo measurements are mature enough to tell as definite a story as Hansen lays out. He has seen many discrepancies among analyses of the data, and there are still “issues of missing and erroneous data and calibration,” he said. The Argo floats are valuable, he added, but “they’re not there yet.”
Susan Solomon:
“What’s really been exciting to me about this last 10-year period is that it has made people think about decadal variability much more carefully than they probably have before,” said Susan Solomon, an atmospheric chemist and former lead author of the United Nations’ climate change report, during a recent visit to MIT. “And that’s all good. There is no silver bullet. In this case, it’s four pieces or five pieces of silver buckshot.”
Jim Hansen:
These revelations are prompting the science’s biggest names to change their views.
Indeed, the most important outcome from the energy hunt may be that researchers are chronically underestimating air pollution’s reflective effect.
“Less efficient mixing, other things being equal, would mean that there is less warming ‘in the pipeline,’” Hansen said. “But it also implies that the negative aerosol forcing is probably larger than most models assumed. So the Faustian aerosol bargain is probably more of a problem than had been assumed.”
Judith Lean:
Climate models failed to reflect the sun’s cyclical influence on the climate and “that has led to a sense that the sun isn’t a player,” Lean said. “And that they have to absolutely prove that it’s not a player.”
Why are there no data prior to 1980 at skeptical science? Well at least we have one 30 year climate cycle to compare with itself.
“While the trend is not statistically significant, the central value is positive, meaning the average surface temperature has most likely warmed over this period.”
These are the special IPCC statistical methods that allow for us to apply “most likely” to numbers that are defined as without meaning. It sounds like 2007 all over again.
Solar magnetic cycle and the geomagnetic ripple around 2000 were fully in phase, but are currently drifting slowly out of phase. If the last 150 years long correlation holds
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
(see no reason why it shouldn’t) then the natural variability in the N. Hemisphere would suggest, as the phase difference increases, more rapid decline towards the base levels reached in the 1970s. Effect of the declining sunspot count would indicate less intense periodic upward/downward bursts. The critical factor across the decades to come is the phase difference rather than amplitude of the sunspot count.
“how does this refute Rose’s argument? No statistically significant positive trend”
That isn’t Rose’s argument at all! Rose’s argument is: Global warming stopped 16 years ago.
Why are you moving the goal posts for David Rose? Why do you defend his disinformation?
Once you get past the headline, here is the meat of Rose’s argument:
“The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.”
Now how is this refuted by the Met Office or Nuticelli?
It isn’t refuted, it is explained. The Met Office and Nuccitelli are giving the context that Rose/GWPF should have given. That context is many things: 1) You can cherrypick short periods to show whatever you like, but you can’t cherrypick the long-term trend (see the Escalator). 2) Not only the atmosphere is warming, the accumulated heat is going elsewhere too (ocean, cryosphere). 3) Natural variability is dampening the warming trend, like a Super El Niño at the start of the 10, 12, 15 year period, with La Niñas at the end of it, solar activity in a funk, negative PDO, etc.
Rose leaves all of that out, and quite on purpose I am sure, for he is engaged in ideologically driven spreading of disinformation. Or would you disagree with that? Would you maintain that journalist David Rose, who repeatedly acts as a conduit for GWPF, a libertarian pro-business-as-usual-for-the-1% think tank, is really trying to write with integrity and objectivity?
Rose is talking about the short term trend and the public statements being made about the length of a plateau in order to be consistent with climate model simulations of natural internal variability. Changing the discussion to the long term trend, without being able to convincingly explain the warming from 1910-1940 and the plateau in the 1940s-1970’s, doesn’t help your argument at all. The issue is this: attribution arguments made by the IPCC do not explicitly account for the multi-decadal natural internal variability, other than in the ‘most’ fudge factor for the attribution statement. Natural internal variability plus solar have important impacts on global climate as evidenced by the current plateau, and it is an easy next step to infer that the warming in the 1980’s and 1990’s was ‘juiced by the warm PDO and transition from cool to warm AMO.
Like I said in my post, you need to raise the level of your game to be convincing on this.
Neven
With respect you are according the gwpf far more power and influence than they process. They are not remotely the equivalent of heartland and the idea they could influence the daily mail,who used to be thoroughly warmists, is nonsensical.
It is most interesting to look at individual stations, when you will see that around one third are cooling. Aggregating them all gives a false picture of what appears to be happening which is that there has been a static or slightly cooling trend during this century in many places.
Cet is a reasonable proxy for global, or at least northern hemisphere temperatures, google ‘Hadley cet 1772’ and you will see this decline. I have been joking in this forum about the climatic disaster that has beset my tomatoes this year, this has been going on now for some years, I can’t grow the things I could in the 1990’s. There appears to be a downturn in the climate, how long it will last I can’t say, but it is definitely happening
Tonyb
How cute, the alarmists are discovering ENSO, PDO, AMO etc. It’s the alarmists/warmists who have been spreading disinformation and suppressing science for decades.
“The issue is this: attribution arguments made by the IPCC do not explicitly account for the multi-decadal natural internal variability, other than in the ‘most’ fudge factor for the attribution statement.”
No, that’s not the issue at all, because that’s not what Rose/GWPF is interested in at all. The issue is that GWPF/Rose lie by omission to mislead.
What people are taking away from Rose’s disinformation is not: “Oh right, they should improve the models so that they incorporate the off-chance that all factors of natural variability are in negative mode (after a Super El Niño) and thus in the short-term suppress the long-term warming trend”. No, what people are taking away from it – and I’ve heard with my very own ears today listening to a local Dutch radio show interviewing people on the street – is: “There’s no global warming. Scientists are stupid and in it for the money, just like we are.”
That’s what Rose/GWPF are after, and you condone that.
Neven A
“the long-term warming trend”.
The long-term trend says only 0.6 deg C warming per century as shown:
http://bit.ly/S0otl3
Not IPCC’s 2 to 4.5 deg C per century warming.
We all agree in the long-term trend. But it is not 2 deg C per century as shown by the data since 1850. It is only 0.6 deg C per century.
Thanks for this sequel Judith. I much prefer plateau to pause, for the ordinary citizen, because we all know what it’s like struggling uphill, then reaching a plateau. In using such words nobody’s claiming it’s totally flat, simply that there’s a discernable difference from the climb. The problem seems to be that climate science reached a plateau long ago in its ability to discuss such matters honestly with the general public. You’re now the one raising the game. Onwards and upwards. :)
The debate is now more about injured egos than science.
Protracted debate (“I’m right, you’re wrong”) over:
a.) Different scientific conclusions,
a.) Different religions, and
b.) Science and religion
Are childish expressions of internal insecurities, like pride, anger, etc.
I cannot communicate to those who will not address experimental data and observations, but the physical universe described by measurements [1,2] from the nuclear and space age is compatible with changes in Earth’s climate, with different religions, and with different images of God.
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1127
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1292
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1369
With kind regards,
-Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
[1] Oliver K. Manuel, Barry W. Ninham and Stig E. Friberg, “Super-fluidity in the solar interior: Implications for solar eruptions and climate,” J. Fusion Energy 21, 193-198 (2002) http://www.springerlink.com/content/r2352635vv166363/
[2] Oliver K. Manuel, “Neutron repulsion,” The Apeiron J. 19, 123-150 (2012)
http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/V19NO2pdf/V19N2MAN.pdf
Why are you only concerned with the politics of those on one side of the issue? Do you know that the libertarians are the only ones that want to cut the defense budget and stop foreign adventures? Gary Johnson wants to cut defense by 43% and get us back to 2003 levels of defense.
You probably think that libertarian means “far right” but it does not. Perhaps you should go edu-macate yourself before you start slandering groups you know nothing about.
Of course we have to remember that in the grand scheme of things the last 15 years has demonstrated an apparent *acceleration* of global warming as compared with the preceding 30 years, as the central trend 1965-1997 (or 1998 for that matter) is *less* than the trend 1965-now:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/trend
Rose is talking about the short term trend and the public statements being made about the length of a plateau in order to be consistent with climate model simulations of natural internal variability.
If you selected scenarios in models where there was a sudden 0.25C rise in temperatures like that of around 1998, how much more likely would it be that the following 15 year short term trend be at or below +0.085C?
TonyB
That is utter nonsense. Either you work for the GWPF or you need to read. Either way, you are misleading people here and that won’t do.
US and other non-UK readers should know that the Daily Mail is a favoured mouthpiece of the GWPF, which is the pre-eminent UK fake charity, corporate funded fake sceptic front organisation the.
The Daily Mail is a populist (ie sensationalist and distorting) right wing tabloid. This is the editorial environment within which David Rose is operating. The GWPF founder Lord Lawson and Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre go back a long way.
More here and here.
The GWPF is also plugged very firmly into that other bastion of the UK right wing press, the Daily Telegraph. That newspaper’s former science correspondent and now consulting science editory, Adrian Berry (now Viscount Camrose), sits on the GWPF ‘Academic Council’.
The GWPF is considerably more influential than the general public might suppose. It’s interesting that so many contrarians are so eager to claim that it is a poor, helpless little thing…
I thought that I would add some mathematical rigour to support the Skeptical Science, Met Office, Nuccitelli and Neven theory.
T = X + F
T = measured average near Earth surface temperature.
X = IPCC best temperature prediction based on 10 models and greenhouse theory.
F = all other non greenhouse climate determining factors(Fudge Factor).
For the period 1972 – 1998 F=0 and T = X a triumph for IPCC science.
For the period 1998 – 2012 F>0 and T < X another triumph for IPCC science.
If you dont immediately agree then you must be one of …..
" the old white risk-loving freemarketlibertarian males can keep on raking the money in and control what happens (ie business-as-usual über alles)."
BBD
From your own link
“Over the two months following the launch of the paper’s ‘green taxes’ campaign in late May the Mail group’s coverage of climate change dedicated a total of 2282 words of quotation, paraphrase and material referenced to the views of the GWPF.”
So thats under 40 words on average per day. Some mouthpiece!
The Mail -with this very modest output on a very topical subject, green taxes-seems to be merely reflecting the views of their irate readers which is surely what most popular newspapers do?
Against the BBC and their mouthpiece the Guardian (who retain Scott Mandia and Co) the Mails usage of the material seems very moderate so I am not misleading anyone, the GWPF is not remotely in the same league as Heartland.
You accord the GWPF far too much influence BBD. It may grow-who knows- but its miniscule at present. Even I don’t bother to read the GWPF material unless its really earth shattering-which it rarely is. They are however surely pushing at an open door with material on energy-the UK is creating a crisis for itself based on phasing out our coal fired power stations and expecting renewables to take their place.I would expect the Mail and other media to increasingly focus on this aspect of the Green debate.
tonyb
BBD
Further to my reply to you re GWPF. Here is the wiki entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation#Personnel
They are a tiny organisation who at present are a flea on the back of the Global Warming media Elephant as represented by the BBC amongst others.It is absurd to accord them the level of influence you seek to portray
tonyb
That is a transparently artificial evasion Tony :-)
The linked article you are trying to misrepresent is entitled: The Mail gives 5 times more space to the Global Warming Policy Foundation than to any other source on climate.
That conveys the sense rather better than you do. I repeat: the GWPF is considerably more influential than it – and you, and others here – pretend that it is. It is tightly connected with the mainstream right wing UK press which routinely broadcasts GWPF misinformation.
Why the attempt to deceive readers here on this point? This is getting interesting.
BBD
From your other link which referred to July 2011
“The Daily Mail’s recent re-adoption of climate change scepticism has its origins in a lunch between editor Paul Dacre and former Tory chancellor Lord Lawson.
In recent years, the mighty Mail has shown signs of joining the global warming consensus. While it could never be accused of leading the charge for decarbonisation or of being a green crusader, the tabloid’s take on the issue appeared to be that climate change was serious and worth tackling. Even columnist Melanie Phillips had found other subjects to foam about.”
So when the Mail seemed to be in favour of the science that made them ok, but reflecting growing public concern on green taxes and expressing some doubts about rising temperatures immediately then makes them beyond the pale?
By the way even the comment about the Daily Telegraph was wrong. Geoffrey Lean writes a column there each Saturday about the perils of climate change and is an arch warmist. So the right wing press has often been following the consensus and one part of it is now expressing some doubts based on increasing green taxes unreliability of renewable energy sources and that temperatures don’t seem to be doing what was expected of them.
I am not here to defend the Mail or the GWPF, but a small right wing tank is at present irrelevant compared to the Govt –who passed a legally binding climate change act with only a couple of dissenters out of 650 MP’s and the BBC.
If you believe them to be far more influential than I am aware of please cite the sources explain what influence they have and detail the changes they have managed to wrought. Incidentally I don’t know why you think that Bob Ward or the Guardian are reliable and objective sources of information any more than the Mail is likely to be.
Sorry, I am out for much of the day so won’t be able to catch up until later.
tonyb
TonyB
You say:
Systematic misrepresentation of so-called ‘green taxes’ and climate science is what puts the Daily Mail – and its chief source of information, the GWPF – beyond the pale.
There was no mistake. You are changing the subject. The Telegraph’s former science correspondent and now consulting science editor, Adrian Berry (now Viscount Camrose), sits on the GWPF ‘Academic Council’. Your misdirection – pointing to a single columnist’s short contribution once a week – is as transparent as the rest.
Let’s talk about the egregious bias and serial misrepresentations of Christopher Booker and James Delingpole their affiliation with the Telegraph. Let’s look at the bigger picture.
US readers will find this New Yorker article useful background on the power of the Daily Mail. They will better understand how the GWPF leverages its fringe views using such power. We will recall that the Daily Mail gives 5 times more space to the Global Warming Policy Foundation than to any other source on climate.
From the New Yorker article Mail Supremacy – The newspaper that rules Britain:
The real political power of the Daily Mail is routinely demonstrated in the UK. Readers here are familiar with it. This article provides further insight into what it can do.
Why are you still attempting to deceive readers here about the GWPF’s influence on the right wing press and the *huge amplifying power* of the Daily Mail?
Are you a member of the GWPF? Do you work for the GWPF? Consult? Why are you doing this? Please explain.
BBD said
“Are you a member of the GWPF? Do you work for the GWPF? Consult? Why are you doing this? Please explain.”
No I am not a member of the GWPF
No I do not work for the GWPF
No I am not a consul
In short I have no connection whatsoever with them and have never given them any more than a passing thought until the references by Neven and then yourself. To reconfirm in plain language I have little time for the organisation and even less for Heartland who you appear to be trying to equate them with.
it is very difficult to carry out a serious conversation with someone who is besides theselves with righteous indigmation BBD. As far as I can see the GWPF is a baby flea on the backs of a giant elephant comprising of the UK Govt, the BBC and the scientific establishment, plus many organisations who can see which way the wind is blowing.
Why are you trying to build them up into some great demonic force? Where is your evidence that they seem to have this great influence you believe? What changes have they managed to bring about?.
I quoted a link to wikipedia earlier. If you know somethong more than them about GWPF bring it to the table.. Illegal behaviour? Are they in receipt of large grants from secret organisations you have discovered? Cheating the taxman? Are they In substantive indepth talks with the British Govt?
Or is the Daily Mail using GWPF material (after being reasonably consensus minded) because they are reacting to concerns of their British readers who have seen a marked downturn in climate in recent years? (Although still at a historically high level)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
I can’t grow many things that flourished a few years ago
This concern over the climate is coupled with concerns over the nature of the expensive renewables that are supposed to be a substitute for coal fired and nuclear power stations that are beng phased out. Incidentally I am a fan of wave/tidal power so am not against renewables through any idealogical reason.
So tell me how the organisation I believe to be a flea (but you seem enormously concerned about) is actually much bigger, more influential and better funded than I am aware of? Thank you.
tonyb
Look to Lew’s Clues. The images projected onto the silver painted walls of the cave obscure even the shadows dancing there from where.
===================
BBD,
I would like to refer you to a paper by Steven Lewandowski regarding conspiracy theorists. Based on your comments about the GWPF it sounds fair to ask if you believe the moon landings were faked.
NevenA,
Piece of advice – you can stop reading any time you see “Dana Nuccitelli” or Dana1981. “Scooter” is one of John Cook’s favorite attack puppies amd is about as qualified as I am, maybe less so, to act like some expert in climate science.
Timg revealed:
That’s why we listen so intently to what he has to say. Timg’s a regular authoritay.
Obviously you are listening WEB.
And I don’t claim to be an authority, nor behave like an arrogant boor, as you often do.
Humility, try it sometime.
TonyB
But I’m not. You are making things up again. I’m just pointing to the facts. You are engaged in groundless and transparent denial of these facts. For comment after comment after comment. Why?
You are ignoring everything you are being shown here. Why?
Why don’t you acknowledge the many, many links provided above which demonstrate in detail that you are completely wrong about this? As for funding, the whole point of the GWPF – and all these free market-cum-denialist ‘think tanks’ is that their effects are disproportionately large compared to their funding. That’s what every comment I have made here demonstrates.
That’s what you have denied to the edge of parody.
Why?
BBD
It is you who are not reading anything you are provided with. Perhaps others are right and you are a conspiracy theorist?
Or perhaps, as you say, a tiny organisation with little money and few staff started under two years ago really has achieved the peaks of influence that you accord to them? In which case my respect for GWPF has greatly increased from a low base and I shall read their material with interest in the future.
tonyb
You have provided nothing except assertive denial. I have provided (and read) a great deal of information on the GWPF and the right wing UK press. Every single bit of which you have ignored.
There’s one other thing you have ignored. My repeated question to you – why? Why are you behaving like this? Because rational/honest people don’t behave like this.
I’m forced to draw my own conclusion about you tony, and it is not flattering.
See you around.
You mis-spelled Dana’s last name several times. It is Nuccitelli.
I believe in giving proper credit for such a vacuous attempt at refuting the Rose article.
oops :)
I suggest just going with Scooter. Easier to remember (and spell), with the added advantage of not immediately bringing a bad taste to one’s mouth.
Plame War!
========
The most glaring omission from Rose is that most of the globe’s warming is happening in the oceans and he based his statement that global warming has paused (stopped or plateaued if you will) on surface temperatures.
“The most glaring omission from Rose is that most of the globe’s warming is happening in the oceans ..”
Different time constant. The whole point of “natural internal oscillations” is that there are different time constants and settling periods. As Hansen is quoted, “Less efficient mixing, other things being equal, would mean that there is less warming ‘in the pipeline,’”
Dont get starting on omissions or we will have to talk about hide the decline
If that were the case shouldn’t it be called Ocean Warming rather than global warming?
It seems as though you didn’t read my article at all. First it’s refuted by looking at the increase in global heat content, which as Roger Pielke Sr. will gladly tell you at every possible opportunity is a better measure of “global warming” than looking at the tiny fraction of energy that goes into warming the surface temperatures. I notice you have not even mentioned global heat content in your post even though it’s central to the article you’re attempting to respond to.
Second, the importance of the slowed surface warming trend is put in context by looking at the various short-term factors which have aligned in the cooling direction over the past decade, and the fact that climate models expect these types of ‘hiatus decades’ to occur. If an event is consistent with model simulations, and you’re arguing that the same event shows the models are flawed, then your argument has problems.
Third, my article points out that Rose’s argument is a cherrypick. A cherrypick may be factually accurate, but that doesn’t make it a valid argument. So your argument that Rose isn’t factually wrong (which it is, since he specifies “global warming” and not “global surface temperature”) is a very weak defense.
I don’t question the value of OHC as a metric for warming. I question that the measurements are sufficiently accurate at this point: Read Pielke’s post discussing Levitus:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/comment-on-ocean-heat-content-world-ocean-heat-content-and-thermosteric-sea-level-change-0-2000-1955-2010-by-levitus-et-al-2012/
There is, therefore, a question about their analysis of heating since the Argo network became dense enough to provide a more homogenous analysis of upper ocean temperatures in 2003. NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory presents the analysis below which shows a muted warming in the upper 700m since 2003 as compared with the Levitus et al data.
Further, surface temperature increase is the ‘unequivocal’ statement associated with the IPCC in the context of ‘global warming.’ So you can’t simply ignore surface temperature and start talking about OHC as the main metric without some explanation, more adequate auditing and quality control of the OHC data, etc.
The 1998 cherry picking argument would be more convincing if this hadn’t been so heavily touted as the warmest year and used (nearly) as an end point in the AR4 analysis that ended at the end of the 20th century.
So, you don’t like Rose’s terminology ‘global warming has stopped.’ I don’t either, I prefer plateau. But in terms of cherry picked data, arguments, etc., IMO your piece doesn’t score any better than Rose’s.
Hmmmm.
In other words, they did it first?
I fell like I’ve seen that somewhere before.
I’m sorry but you can’t just ignore the massive heating of the oceans because the data aren’t as robust as you would like them to be.
Aside from the fact that I explicitly discussed surface temperatures at length….I need an explanation for talking about OHC? You mean like pointing out that over 90% of “global warming” goes into heating the oceans? Again, did you even bother to read my article?
Your argument that choosing 1998 as an endpoint isn’t cherrypicking is that choosing 1998 as an endpoint is cherrypicking?
Somebody needs to raise their game, but it’s not me.
What about the mixed layer in the ocean?
I guess that the mixed layer has a much greater heat capacity than the troposphere, perhaps 50 times.
But the surface temperature changes represent both the temperature changes in the troposphere and in the mixed layer. For each J heating the troposphere there are 50 J heating the mixed layer.
So if the surface temperature is not changing neither the troposphere nor the mixed layer should be heated? In other words an increase in surface temperature refers to the heating of a big part of the climate system. Is this correct?
What about the deep sea? After the surface temperature has increased and rested on a plateau how long will the deep sea go on to heat? My guess is in the order of thousand years because the deep ocean is very big. Is this correct?
Joshua
No, not “they (IPCC) did itfirst” (the sequence is immaterial).
It’s “they did it”. (use the atmospheric surface temperature record and the record year 1998 to get “their” point of rapid AGW across).
Now that the atmospheric surface temperature record no longer shows rapid AGW since 1998, but slight cooling instead, “they” abandon “their” old story and switch to OHC, where (as Judith points out) the ARGO data are inconclusive and pre-ARGO data before 2003 are so spotty and inaccurate to be next to meaningless.
That’s this issue here, Joshua – not who “did it first”.
It’s called “cherry-picking” the data series that happens to fit your story at the time.
Max
“how does this refute Rose’s argument? No statistically significant positive trend, “
Clearly
“The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.”
0.8°C/Decade is s discernible rise – in fact, quite a large one. Refuted.
Quite apart from the nonsense journalism. Hadcrut 3 had been released regularly, monthly. The “figures” that he’s talking about show more warming, not less than Hadcrut 3.
Yes Nick Stokes, 0.8°C/Decade would be “quite a large” rise. I’d be quite worried if the planet had warmed by ~1.2°C in the last two decades. It’s a good thing that didn’t actually happen!
Since the new millennium started (1/1/2001):
HadCRUT3: cooling of -0.07C per decade
HadCRUT4: cooling of -0.03C per decade
Since 1998, the trends have been very slight cooling (around -0.01C per decade)
Nowhere is there a warming trend of “+0.8C/decade”.
And there is no question that
That’s why it is called a “pause in the warming”.
Max
Nick,
I thought I just read a comment by you – perhaps it was at WUWT – saying the rate of rise for the past 15 years was 0.05 C per decade?
Yes, that was my eyeball reading from a graph. But I was simply answering Judith’s question as stated – how does 0.08°C (thanks Brandon) refute Rose. Either 0.08 or 0.05 would be a discernible rise. Neither allows you to say that warming has been “erased”.
Thanks Nick.
For the uninitiated, authors do not generally write the headlines of their stories.
What part of the headline misrepresents the text?
First sentence:
“The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago,
“
Then
“The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.”
Well, OK, maybe the headline writer is responsible for inventing the Met Office report. But the idea that the Met should make a “media fanfare” about a few months of extra data which don’t add anything to the story that was not in the long-published Hadcrut 3 data is ridiculous.
Judith Curry has asked a good question! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Personally I am aware of precisely *one* such statement … to the effect that extended pauses should occur uncommonly.
And indeed, when we take care inspect the entire MET surface-temperature dataset — to avoid the notorious “cherry-picking” fallacy! :) — that is what we see.
What is your *next* scientific question, Judith Curry? :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Do your homework, you will find lots more of these statements. In fact, read the previous post on candid comments from climate scientists, see esp statements from Trenberth and Santer.
“The plural of anecdote is not data” … is this not a fundamental principle of critical analysis, Judith Curry? :?: :?: :?:
That is why multi-author, peer-reviewed, in-context, verifiable assertions are a preferred starting-point for serious critical analysis! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
The alternative being pointless wrangling over conflicting, cherry-picked, out-of-context, anecdotal claims! :roll: :roll: :roll:
Surely *THAT* too-common brand of pseudo-critical analysis would advance no legitimate scientific purpose, eh? :!: :!: :!:
Dr Curry,
When conversing with fan, you may want to think back to when you were 14 years old to get into the proper mindset.
Well, maybe not. I can’t see you being that silly, even at 14.
fan
You might even exert yourself to look at the entire temperature record from central England of 1659 to 2011 to see how common are such fluctuations. I can visually easily count at least 15 declines of 0.5 deg in the 5 year averaged record, or about once every 24 years.
Fan
Your met office chart seems to show a ‘long slow thaw.’ now who wrote about that in this very forum and pointed out that as it could be traced back 350 years?
it would appear that both the Hadley and giss figures are merely staging posts of rising temperatures and not the starting post.
Tonyb
Fun
If you stop laughing pointlessly you may be taken more seriously. Obviously you and great majority do not understand what is the CET about:
Get your head and mind around this one
There were 350 years of no summer temps rise.
There were 350 years gentle continuous winter temps rise.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MidSummer-MidWinter.htm
Spring and autumn are mainly arithmetic transitions between two.
It would be useful if those with a science background would know a little bit more what they are talking about.
“Use this as an opportunity to communicate honestly with the public about what we know and what we don’t know about climate change.”
How about Rose/GWPF communicating honestly about what is dampening the warming trend? Like a Super El Niño at the start of the 10, 12, 15 year period, with La Niñas at the end of it, solar activity in a funk, negative PDO, etc.
That’s what is being explained in your very first ‘candid comment’ straight away: “Variability in the climate can suppress rising temperatures temporarily”.
Why is it okay for Rose/GWPF to not mention that and misinform/mislead thousands of people around the world?
Isn’t it kinda hard to find a point that doesn’t have an El Nino or la nina? 1950 did follow a dip in the mid 40s as well.
Sorry, but according to statements made about plateaus in climate models not exceeding 15-17 years, you would think that if the climate models were correctly producing the natural modes of variability, they would have large El Nino’s and La Nina events (not to mention PDO and AMO with appropriate amplitude), and then the models we be producing plateaus exceeding 17 years.
So with this kind of statement that has been made about climate model simulations from UKMO, Trenberth Santer and others, you don’t get to falsify this statement by cherry picking convenient start and end dates; this should hold for ANY start or end date for this period length. Again, as pointed out by Rose, this plateau is borderline signficant, but with no large El Nino in sight given the cool phase of the PDO, odds are high that the plateau will continue well beyond the 17 year threshold.
The climate models don’t adequately simulate the amplitude of natural internal variability at timescales exceeding 17 years. Acknowledge this, and try to do better with the climate models. No one has been paying attention to this issue other than skeptics; seems that finally the ‘establishment’ is focusing on this as a result of the plateau and with the CMIP5 decadal simulation experiments.
Oh, by all means, improve the imperfect models so that they can handle periods of Super El Niños, followed by a period that’s predominantly La Niña, has an inactive Sun and a negative PDO, and who knows what aerosols are doing.
But don’t go claiming that warming has stopped and spread that as propaganda to make sure people keep on believing there couldn’t possible be a potential risk related to AGW, so that the old white risk-loving freemarketlibertarian males can keep on raking the money in and control what happens (ie business-as-usual über alles).
Rose/GWPF don’t give a f**k about climate science or models. They just don’t want anything to deviate from their view of how the world should be and remain. And they are willing to lie and mislead for that.
Neven, your statement:
“Rose/GWPF don’t give a f**k about climate science or models. They just don’t want anything to deviate from their view of how the world should be and remain. And they are willing to lie and mislead for that.”
makes me think the same thing about you. You are attacking the person, not the argument.
“Oh, by all means, improve the imperfect models so that they can handle periods of Super El Niños, followed by a period that’s predominantly La Niña, has an inactive Sun and a negative PDO, and who knows what aerosols are doing.”
This statement pretty much summarizes why the IPCC attribution statement is overconfident, and trying to infer 21st climate from simulations that focus only on anthropogenic forcing aren’t very useful.
What argument? That “Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it”? The argument without any context whatsoever?
Am I allowed to attack liars who repeatedly “misquote” you in the process?
The context that he provides is statements made by Jones that plateaus exceeding 15 years are not to be expected. The existence of this plateau has to be explained in some convincing way. The explanation is that climate scientists have been relying too much on climate models in this regard, and climate models are imperfect and inadequate in simulating natural internal variability on time scales exceeding 17 years, and in simulating the amplitudes of ENSO events.
With regards to the misquotes, I am not interested in p***ing match re which ‘side’ is scoring points using which tactics, rather I am interested in the overall arguments and pursuing scientific truth and communicating this to the public in an honest way. So lets dig into the arguments.
The upward trend in warming is the issue. No one disputes it is warmer. The upward trend is central to the debate.
Dr. Curry, it is deplorable that neither Rose/GWPF nor anyone else is providing verifiable links and/or in-context quotations of the asserted “statements by Jones.” In what sense (if any) are these particular statements privileged about innumerable other statements regarding climate-change?
As for the claim that “the existence of this plateau has to be explained in some convincing way”, what’s wrong with “the energy imbalance appeared in rising ocean temperatures”?
Or alternatively: “ideologically-driven selection bias (‘cherry-picking’) from a large statistical universe of <climate data-sets>
<anecdotal claims>?”
The latter explanation is statistically plausible, eh? :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
> I am not interested in p***ing match re which ‘side’ is scoring points using which tactics [.]
Your last two blog posts show otherwise, Judy.
Say, Judith – have you yet “admitted” that climate models aren’t perfect?
I just happen to know that when Dr. Curry talks about natural variability contribution she is more aware and informed than most of the perennial detractors.
Neven,
Nice! Rarely does a dog actually catch it’s tail, as you managed with this one: “They just don’t want anything to deviate from their view of how the world should be and remain. And they are willing to lie and mislead for that.”
To Neven’s Yes But the Daily Mail.
We get Judy’s “Look, a simulated squirrel”.
You need to step up your game, both of you.
And acknowledge that you both have a point.
All these double standards are getting very frustrating.
Are they like this on family outings?
Willard, as you can see up-thread I acknowledge without any qualms whatsoever that “oh, by all means, improve the imperfect models so that they can handle periods of Super El Niños, followed by a period that’s predominantly La Niña, has an inactive Sun and a negative PDO, and who knows what aerosols are doing.”
But will Dr. Curry acknowledge my point that Rose/GWPF are using this to mislead the general public? I’ve asked her a couple of times now.
Actually, the GWPF writeup was purely statistical, they did not get into policy at all. What was wrong with the GWPF writeup? Rose did get into the political implications of this. Of course there are political implications of this pause, and the behavior of the scientists who dismiss natural internal variability as being of fundamental importance, with statements about 15 yrs etc., have brought us to the point where the pause has now become a political issue. Phil Jones was quite honest in his statements, whereas I see spin from Nuccitelli.
But will you acknowledge my point?
NevenA,
Indeed you did. Well, kinda. The point I had in mind was about stepping up the game. If there was a pause, there was a pause. Dana should have known better. You say there was a pause, even if you believe somebody will run with it.
First you say it is true that there is a pause. Then you make a pause yourself. You pause to make sure everyone got you just acknowledged something.
Then you say that this pause has not much to do with the price of tea. Or that the echo chamber echoes in its chamber. Or what not. My favorite is John Nielsen-Gammon’s:
> [I]n addition to a flat trend over some period of years, I’d want evidence that it was not merely a temporary flat trend. In the absence of such evidence, I’d settle for a trend longer than half a PDO cycle, or 35 years or so. With such evidence, the trend could be as short as a year, because I’d be swayed not by the trend but by the evidence.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/9411951921
It is very tough for Denizens to challenge this. This is a powerful response. The beauty of it is that it’s a canned response:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/CannedResponse
This is a work in progress.
***
So, first you acknowledge that there is a pause. Then, that Judith has a point in saying that we could do worse than to emulate people like Trenberth. After that, you do as you please. It’s then your turn.
If you do acknowledge what your interlocutor says, he might follow suit and acknowledge what you say. If that person doesn’t, that means you have to verify if that person is willing to have a conversation. There is no need to jump right into the slug fest, or if you do, you should accept the consequences.
Nevermind those who will run with what you’re saying. They will run anyway. They will use anything you say against you, sometimes in the most dishonorable way. So much the worse for them: in the long run, there are reasons to believe it won’t help them.
There’s not much else we can do, except expect the Spanish Inquisition when it comes:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/33707927431
Sorry to sound judgemental, but I see a nice opportunity here for everyone to step up their game.
Willard well said. The climate scientists should ‘own’ the pause, not pretend it doesn’t exist. If they had done this, Rose wouldn’t have needed to write this article.
Willard, I see what you mean. You are right. In fact, I’m going to read what you wrote again now.
I read your comment again and I read the links. As a reward I’d like to post the entire Nielsen-Gammon quote:
A flat trend over any time period only shows that other forcings or natural processes are canceling the warming effect of Tyndall gases over such a period. There are lots of time-varying forcings and natural processes with a variety of periods: ENSO (2-7 years plus longer-term variations), solar (11 years plus longer-term variations), PDO (50-70 years), for example. Any of those could be strong enough to cancel the Tyndall gas effect during half its phase. We know for certain that ENSO is more than strong enough to do that, but yet, over the long haul, the magnitude of global warming has recently exceeded the magnitude of ENSO variability. So, in addition to a flat trend over some period of years, I’d want evidence that it was not merely a temporary flat trend. In the absence of such evidence, I’d settle for a trend longer than half a PDO cycle, or 35 years or so. With such evidence, the trend could be as short as a year, because I’d be swayed not by the trend but by the evidence.
I totally agree with Nielsen-Gammon’s statement. Now tell that to the IPCC and other folks who believe their models and were expecting at most a 15-17 yr plateau. Nielsen-Gammon’s statement is more consistent with what the skeptics have been saying, than what the ‘consensus’ group has been saying.
“> I am not interested in p***ing match re which ‘side’ is scoring points using which tactics [.]”
Notice (once again), how conveniently “monolithic” Judith’s “skeptics” are.
But yeah – she’s not interested in pi**ing matches.
NevenA,
Thank you for reading John Nielsen-Gammon’s quote. It’s a very good one. In fact, John Nielsen-Gammon would be a very tough opponent to confront on these things.
Perhaps this explains why we have amateur climatologists entertaining us with their theories here instead of entertaining John Nielsen-Gammon. But if they do, here’s where he is:
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/
Not only is he very powerful, but there is an elegance to his writing that makes me associate him with Bobby Orr in my Climate Fantasy Draft:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Orr
Here’s Bobby Orr in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUW3ncL5UWU
Enjoy,
w
Notice (once again), how conveniently “monolithic” Judith’s “climate scientists” are.
But yeah – she’s not interested in pi**ing matches.
Judy,
I like the Guardian’s photo. I hope you do too. The colors in the glasses has a nice psychedelic tone, which is always cool for scientists to have.
Onto Dana’s points.
His first point is that the Rose’s main claim has been fabricated. His second point is that Rose’s OP went viral in the echo chamber. His third point is that focusing on the last 15 years might look like a trick. His fourth point is that the concept of warming should not be reserved to good old atmospheric metric.
Et cetera. Instead of reading the article for you, I believe the summary is a good place to start addressing Dana’s points:
I will save myself the effort to look how your OP stands to most of this, and instead suggest you to respond to all the points in a way that all your points are connected together into a comprehensive whole. That way, it would be less easy to pick the hanging fruits into your argument, and your overall argumentation will gain in modularity.
***
Oh, and I believe that Neven’s point is that Rose and the GWPF might be communicating in the most opportunistic way. They really do seem to run with talking points. I don’t think you can disagree with this, or at the very least, that Rose’s main claim does not smell right.
This concession is not that harmful: at worse, it entails you explain why you cited them somewhat approvingly, which considering your recent “Tell that to the IPCC” it should not be difficult to do.
Willard, what is OP?
Opinion Piece.
And for Latimer Adler and all those who wonder why I’m being cryptic:
This first comment took me about 5 minutes to write:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-255472
My other comments took me more than a few minutes to write, perhaps a few hours interspersed with clerical errands.
And I still prefer that first comment.
I have to agree that the photo is much better in the Guardian than the one in the DM.
Otherwise, why are we even having this thread?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/last:102/offset:0.033/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/last:102/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/last:102/offset:-0.033
I challenge anyone to demonstrate that anything in HADCRUT4 after 2006 carries a greater than 80% confidence level.
Why would anyone assert anything about over six years of data that they can be at most 80% right about?
It is 80% confidence or lower, right? Anyone? How confident are you of your facts?
John N-G makes an interesting move in the debate which should not go unoticed.
“A flat trend over any time period only shows that other forcings or natural processes are canceling the warming effect of Tyndall gases over such a period. There are lots of time-varying forcings and natural processes with a variety of periods: ”
There are actually two explanations of the “pause”, slow down, plateau.
1. Poorly understood natural processes are swamping the GHG effect.
2. The GHG effect was never there to begin with.
I believe the former but just to be logically pure the second is of course possible.
The interesting Move that he makes is an appeal to ignorance that is not unlike the appeal to ignorance that some skeptics make. Like so. When we point to the rise in temperature the “natural variation crowd” like to say that any rise we see only shows that natural processes are at work. When pressed they mumble about ocean cycles or long term process (LTP) and we chastize them for appealing to ignorance or gremlins. Goose gander.
And what if Hansen is correct? Everyone seems to be focussed on internal variability or perhaps some problem with ‘the models’. Hansen argues that it is tropospheric aerosols. Others point to a sequence of equatorial volcanic eruptions over the noughties as another potential contributory factor influencing stratospheric aerosol loading.
Then there’s La Nina, and SC24.
None of this would show up in ‘the models’ (AR4 ensemble runs) and none of it will stop longer-term warming (with the possible exception of aerosols, including deliberate deployment with all the deep questions that brings).
Steven Mosher,
I think you are being a bit unfair to N-G. He is not saying that your option 2. is not a possibility, but that a short term flat trend is not in itself sufficient to come to that conclusion.
Steven Mosher
Your logic is spot on, but I would add two small phrases to what you wrote to make it complete:
“There are actually two explanations of the “pause”, slow down, plateau.
1. Poorly understood natural processes, which were underestimated by the climate models in their estimates of natural climate forcing and/or variability, are swamping the GHG effect.
2. The GHG effect was never there to begin with or so small as to have been insignificant.”
That completes the logic sequence – and it all points back to Judith’s topic of “uncertainty in the attribution of past climate change and hence future AGW to be expected” (which is really what the whole debate is about, anyway).
Max
If Hansen and others are correct, it mostly points to aerosols actually. Tropospheric anthro emissions plus stratospheric volcanic loading.
Attribution,
She’s a bitch.
Don’t know why
Just scratch that itch.
Puff the Magic Model
Lived by the Sea, oh, too.
Nature turned and bit him
Someplace rich.
=========
willard,
You are correct, but left out the part about Neven’s point being about the size of a mole hill.
Both sides of the debate love to rip journalists who write pieces which they disagree with. It isn’t that hard to do, considering the quality of journalism today. That said, Rose’s article is not off in left field. Whether one wants to say warming has stopped or plateaued (sp?) or has slowed in rate, doesn’t change Dr Curry’s point.
> The interesting Move that he makes is an appeal to ignorance that is not unlike the appeal to ignorance that some skeptics make.
Prove it.
timg56,
Indeed, the object of the discussion is becoming less interesting than the behaviors involved. For instance, if you liked Judy’s excuse, here’s the one I could offer: had Judy took the time to acknowledge Neven’s point on the other thread and now here, &c.
Nothing new under the sun.
Another fine piece of churnalism from Rose.
Judith should beware.
BBD:
“If Hansen and others are correct, it mostly points to aerosols actually. Tropospheric anthro emissions plus stratospheric volcanic loading.”
Yes. agreed. My mistake for leaving this out. I stand corrected. The point is that these past 15 years should be consider a godsend for the science. Any time you get a patch of data that looks on the surface to be at odds with the theory, there is a good chance that some deeper understanding is required.
willard.
” The interesting Move that he makes is an appeal to ignorance that is not unlike the appeal to ignorance that some skeptics make.”
and you ask me to prove it. Simples.
I recommend that you start by reading all of WUWT. There you will find me engaged in debates with skeptics. The arguments go like this.
Moshpit. Look at the warming,
Skeptic: There are lots of time-varying forcings and natural processes with a variety of periods. what you are seeing is merely the natural process.
Moshpit: That’s arm waving not explanation, you’ve merely pointed
to the phenomena and replaced the name.
Skeptic: we dont understand the natural processes, the climate is complex.
So, schematically the argument starts with an observation and ends with one party pointing to a cause that really explains nothing.
Now John NG.
Moshpit. Look at the pasue
John NG: There are lots of time-varying forcings and natural processes with a variety of periods. what you are seeing is merely the natural process.
Moshpit: That’s arm waving not explanation, you’ve merely pointed
to the phenomena and replaced the name.
John NG: we dont understand the natural processes, the climate is complex.
If you can’t see the similarity between the arguments then I cannot help you. here is a hand.
Fascinating:
So – it seems that mosher does question the GHE after all. He believes it to be probable, but not proven. I thought that very few “skeptics” (let alone that sub-branch that w/o any consistent criteria distinguishes themselves as “luke-warmists”) doubt that ACO2 is warming the climate. We’re told that they accept the influence (and the underlying physics as ‘proven” – only doubted by lunatics), but only question the magnitude of that influence.
It’s fascinating just how often people contradict themselves in the climate debate.
“So – it seems that mosher does question the GHE after all. He believes it to be probable, but not proven. ”
huh. Of course I question the GHE, as a logical possibility. Scientifically, I consider it to be well established. Settled science.
That is NOT a statement about epistemology. Settled science, means that you would be wasting your time trying to disprove it. Logically, it is never proved. So, like all statements of science it is probable. It is probably true that E=mc^2. Its not a truth of math. Its not a truth of logic. The world could be otherwise. That is, there is a possible world in which this is not true. I would not waste my time trying to disprove it.
Get it.
> There are lots of time-varying forcings and natural processes with a variety of periods. what you are seeing is merely the natural process.
Arguing that what you see is merely a natural process would be arguing from ignorance, because nobody knows that, except perhaps Willard Tony’s crowd. But that’s not what NG says. Assuming that by natural process, we mean a non GHG induced one, let’s follow through what NG says:
> In addition to a flat trend over some period of years, I’d want evidence that it was not merely a temporary flat trend.
In other words, considering all the evidence and the theory NG accepts for now, independent and stronger grounds against which your hypothesis 2 is implausible btw, we should stick to longer signals, unless we can make sure that the actual trend is not mere temporary noise.
In a nutshell, NG states his condition to revise his explanation. He’s not proposing any explanation, he’s saying we should stick why we should stick to the best one we have so far.
No wonder why Moshpit finds it simples.
Dampening, NevenA ? it might be your tears. Try a towel under your desk.
“Why is it okay for Rose/GWPF to not mention that and misinform/mislead thousands of people around the world?”
I suppose the use the same twisted logic as those who hide the decline.
They want to keep the message clear. goose.gander
With the following JC comment as backdrop, I would like to know how long before some of the proponents would admit that perhaps it is time to reevaluate their previous positions about AGW-.”Raise the level of your game. Nothing in the Met Office’s statement or in Nuticelli’s argument effectively refutes Rose’s argument that there has been no increase in the global average surface temperature for the past 16 years.” Do you need another 10 years of the same trend line or maybe 20 years to make you pause and say well this needs to be looked at again?
I stand by what I said under the first thread on this pause. For some reason that no-one understands fully, global temperatures have been rising ever since the LIA, and we know this trend has been linear and steady at around 0.06 C per decade since around 1850. See http://bit.ly/V19Im8. There was a temporary increase in this rate of rise in the latter part of the 20th century, which was wrongly attributed to increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Whatever caused thus temporary increase (PDO?), it has now ceased, and something else is making temperatures stay flat (PDO again?). This will bring the rate of rise back to the 0.06 C per decade that has persisted ever since around 1850, and probably before that.
The situation is absolutely normal. What will happen in the future, I have no idea. If the past is an indicator of the future, and nothing particular is happening to change the global climate, then the periodic changes in rate of rise will continue, but the overall long term trend will be for the world to warm at around 0,06 C per decade into the indefinite future. If the current predictions of a possible Maunder type solar magnetic minimum turn out to be true, then this could be the force that changes the world climate pattern dramatically.
When the oceans are cold and the Arctic is frozen, it don’t snow much and albedo decreases and earth does warm and that is easy to understand.
Jim Cripwell
Good summary.
Max
Well, I expect -.06C/dec., reversing the rise which was most likely solar, modified by the putative anthro effects, aerosols and GHGs. May we glide; so glad for sol as guide.
=============
“JC comment: Now for a circular reasoning alert:”
Man I hope you have a 55 gallon drum full of industrial strength versions of these because I don’t think we’d have much public discourse without circular reasoning. Of course I should throw in the that Either/Or fallacy is also wildly popular.
jbmckim
The classical example of “circular reasoning” was used by Hansen et al. to postulate the “hidden in the pipeline” premise.
– Our models tell us it should have warmed by “X” since 1880.
– The thermometers tell us it has only warmer by “X/2” since 1880.
– Therefore, the difference (= “X/2”) is still “hidden in the pipeline”
Max
jbmckim
“Circular reasoning” is just one of the logical fallacies frequently seen.
Even more prevalent is the “argument from ignorance”.
It goes like this: “our models can only explain this observed phenomenon if we assume that…”.
The underlying assumption (and fallacy) is that this logic assumes that everything is known.
This basic logical fallacy is compounded in the IPCC analysis of the early 20th century and late 20th century warming cycles, as follows:
– Our models cannot explain the early 20th century warming period
– We know that AGW caused the late 20th century warming period
– How do we know that?
– Because our models cannot explain it any other way.
Max
It’s really quite creative. From the clay of ignorance, fashion and grave an image, glaze it with guilt, fire it with power, money, fame and religious fervor.
Meshudrack Albedo. They emerged unscathed, but this creation is crackiing in front of their eyes.
========
Max, Isn’t that just the crooked way they spin it ? Thanks for bringing it back in focus..
“Our models cannot explain the early 20th century warming period
– We know that AGW caused the late 20th century warming period
– How do we know that?
– Because our models cannot explain it any other way.”
Circular reasoning is a fallacy because it begs the question. In other words, the conclusion must be presumed in the premises. This has to be shown. Using “circular” for smugness effect does not count.
Dana does not assume that models are correct. He only points out that to invalidate them, one needs to do more than simply point out something models never precluded in the first place. Projections are not predictions, by the way, so there’s at least one sentence that is wrong in Rose’s op-ed.
If Mother Nature told you that, sometimes, avocadoes never get ripe, it would make little sense to blame her for using circular arguments to maintain her life cycles.
***
Inference to the best explanation is common in science and elsewhere:
> Uses of the inference to the best explanation are manifold. When
a detective puts the evidence together and decides that it must have
been the butler, he is reasoning that no other explanation which
accounts for all the facts is plausible enough or simple enough to
be accepted. When a scientist infers thee existence of atoms and subatomic particles, he is inferring the truth of an explanation for various data which he wishes to account for. These seem the obvious cases; but there are many others. When we infer that a witness is telling the truth, our inference goes as follows: (i) we infer that he says what he does because he believes it; (ii) we infer that he believes what he does because he actually did witness the situation which he describes. That is, our confidence in his testimony is based on our conclusion about the most plausible explanation for that testimony. Our confidence fails if we come to think there is some other possible explanation for his testimony (if, for example, he stands to gain a great deal from our believing him). Or, to take a different sort of example, when we infer from a person’s behavior to some fact about his mental experience, we are inferring that the latter fact explains better than some other explanation what he does.
http://philoscience.unibe.ch/documents/TexteFS10/PS_Erklaerung/Harman_IBE.pdf
***
Arguing that we need something more certain in science and a that this certainty must be obtained via falsifable means can easily lead to a procrustean game.
” He [Dana] only points out that to invalidate them, one needs to do more than simply point out something models never precluded in the first place. ”
Unfortunately willard there is some history here. Long ago we asked gavin what would have to happen to cause him to “pause” and reconsider the accuracy and suitability of the models.
I believe he stated 8 years of pause in the Global temperature index was required.
Please note he said nothing about OHC. Why? because Peilke Sr. owned that meme at the time. Later, the goal posts were moved to 13 years, then to 15, then to 17. RTFM.
In truth the goal post moves are good science. They are telling us we need to understand more before making definitive statements. They are telling us we need more data. Sad to say that is what some of us told them years ago. But they could not hear that message. Not from us at least. Now they get to hear the message from mother nature. She doesnt fool around..
Moshpit,
That there is an history behind all this is the best explanation we have for all this (mostly erroneous) hair splitting. For now, I’d rather stick to NG’s point, and perhaps also Dana’s points. Gavin will have to wait in line. Gavin does not make Judy do it.
As far as I can see, the appeal to ignorance and the alleged circularity argument have no merits. If I am correct, to use them as they’ve been used so far in now three threads is irresponsible. As honest brokers will no doubt think, the credibility of critical thinking itself is put at risk by supporting unsupportable claims from informal logic in pursuit of a political agenda.
Not that I endorse such appeal to a very strong version of the precautionary principle, mind you:
http://planet3.org/2012/10/12/vague-accusations-of-alarmism/#comment-11532
Willard.
First let me correct my mistake. I was wrong when I attributed 8 years to gavin. Now, onto your diversion.
“That there is an history behind all this is the best explanation we have for all this (mostly erroneous) hair splitting. For now, I’d rather stick to NG’s point, and perhaps also Dana’s points. Gavin will have to wait in line. Gavin does not make Judy do it.”
You would like to stick with John NGs point. His point is simply this.
The pause has some cause. we dont understand it yet. In short, our models don’t represent it accurately. basically Judy’s point.
Dana’s points. Well he makes so many mistakes I dont know where to start. Carrick and Lucia have tried to correct him before, but he doesnt really engage strong critics from his own side.
Lets stick with this point of his
“Rose and Curry are trying to argue that because global surface temperatures have not warmed as fast as the multi-model average in the IPCC report (0.2°C per decade), this somehow suggests the models are flawed. However, the Met Office explained to Rose (prior to the publication of his article) why this notion is incorrect.”
The met Offices comment has nothing to do with the claim being made.
The claim is pretty simple. The models predicted .2C of warming we are not seeing that. We do see that a few model runs have pauses or dips, but the frequency of pauses and dips in models and the amplitude of pauses and dips doesnt represent the natural processes we see. the models are flawed. The models will always be flawed. The question is are the suited to the purpose for which they are used.
1. They are not suited to provide evidence that AGW is true. There is better evidence. and people should stop pointing to models as proof.
2. They are not suited to giving us a picture of the next 30 years. People should stop trying to use them to back up statements like the IPCC made: we will see a warming of .2C over the next few decades.
3. They are not suited for regional projections.
4. They are not suited for attribution studies UNTIL John NGs gremlins ( natural processes) are better understood.
Dana is wrong. The models are flawed. I recommend him to issac held or tim palmer. I suggest he watch the whole cambridge series I posted. Now of course some idiots will take the phrase “the models are flawed” and they will run with it. They will run regardless. The simple truth is that all models are flawed. They are all relatively wrong. The question is what can they be used for. We have some idea what they cant be used for. Despite that people still try to misuse models. I suggest they stop.
On the other hand, we could accept John NGs suggestion that 35 years is the amount of time we need.
So if you want to use models as evidence, if you want to show short term projections, if you want to use them for attribution, then wait 35 years. See how good they do and adjust accordingly. basically, John makes the argument that the models are not fit for the purpose they are being used for. So does Dana. They just don’t realize it.
Moshpit,
You’re in my subthread, right now. You’re replying to my comments. And you have the nerve to tell me that not talking about Gavin is a diversion? Gavin has nothing to do with what I say. This is your damn squirrel!
Another squirrel is your other one about hiding the decline not far from here. Another squirrel is your old stories between Dana and the parsomatic mecca.
There are so many squirrels right now that it would take a week to hunt them down. So I won’t continue to pay due diligence to all this obfuscation.
I will note this, though:
The models are evidence because they implement data and theory. They’re projectors. If you agree that data is evidence, models are evidence too. Simples.
A quote where you can spot Dana saying that “models are right” would be nice.
***
Your reading of NG’s argument has no merit. He never appealed to ignorance. The symmetry you feel between his position and the contrarians is the product of your own very sorry reading of him.
You’re now beginning to stuff your squirrels with straw of your own making.
Here’s what an appeal to ignorance looks like:
The hiatus [in warming] was not unexpected.
But no one expected it enough to tell us that it would likely happen or that that it could even be possible to happen.
Could Dr. Curry please address the continued, strong rise in ocean heat content, and why she thinks this isn’t a far more important sign of an anthropogenic GHG-induced energy imbalance than a measurement of a 2-dimensional surface’s temperatures?
http://i49.tinypic.com/riuhaa.jpg
Well, this would be because of uncertainties in data on the ocean heat content. This is a topic for another post, but these uncertainties are widely acknowledged, I quoted one example in the main post in this statement from Trenberth:
Trenberth questions whether the Argo measurements are mature enough to tell as definite a story as Hansen lays out. He has seen many discrepancies among analyses of the data, and there are still “issues of missing and erroneous data and calibration,” he said. The Argo floats are valuable, he added, but “they’re not there yet.”
One way to raise the level of the game is do a convincing analysis of the data we have on ocean heat content (uncertainties etc) and document and explain how this relates to global surface temperature and on what time scales.
The surface temperature data, with all its deficiencies esp over the ocean, is in much better shape than the ocean heat content data.
Levitus 2012 do include uncertainties on their data, and still find strong, statistically significant ocean warming:
“World ocean heat content and thermosteric sea level change (0–2000 m), 1955–2010,” S. Levitus et al, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L10603, 5 PP., 2012
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL051106.shtml
Yes, for the past decade this relies on the ARGO data, about which there are concerns in terms of the data processing.
Re: “Concerns about data processing” — have you published papers about these concerns? As a scientist, I’m sure you know that’s where the rubber meets the road.
The most troubling aspect of today’s climate science is the way certain scientists — on both sides — have preconceived positions, and reflexively align with any findings that support them and casually dismiss (as here) anything that does not.
It’s very disconcerting. Of course, there are journalists who will give you inches. But dueling articles aren’t science, and this type of approach is ruining climate science. Historians will not look favorably on these times.
If you have reasons that the Argo data is false, present them. Vague insinuations do not stand.
David, do your homework; I’ve done mine. the Wikipedia sums it up nicely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_(oceanography):
Argo data result errors
During 2006, the Argo Network was thought to have shown a declining trend in ocean temperatures.[9] In February 2007, the author of the paper, Josh Willis, discovered that there were problems with the data used for the analysis.[10] After eliminating incorrect data, the trend to that time remained cooling, but below the level of statistical significance.[3]
Data results from year 2008 and after
Takmeng Wong and Bruce A. Wielicki published a paper on the Argo data corrections in the NASA journal “The Earth Observer, 20(1), 16-19”.[11] Josh Willis, in an article published on the NASA Earth Observatory web site states that after correcting the errors in the Argo thermometer measurements, the results show that the world’s oceans have been absorbing additional energy and have been warming.[3][10]Rebecca Lindsey (November 5, 2008). “Correcting Ocean Cooling”.
See also this article:
http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/8/999/2011/osd-8-999-2011-print.pdf
The point is that interpreting the ARGO data is a work in progress, and systematic errors cannot be ruled out.
Judith, you are referring to papers that are 4-5 years old — do you have anything recent?
In particular, do you have particular problems with Levitus 2012 and their error bars? If so, what, in particular?
Yes, Josh Willis once made a mistake. He admitted that and corrected his work. The question now is about the present, and I don’t see you presenting any scientifically valid objections except innuendo.
That 2006 error in OHC placed the OHC result at odds with other data. Once the error was identified and corrected, there is no data, that I am aware of, at odds with the corrected OHC.
Surely the corrections that have taken place in the ARGO data have all been quite small compared with the increase in OHC and small compared with the uncertainties. Sure there have been very genuine discrepancies between this and other data, but not such that one could dismiss the 21st Century OHC results completely.
David,
Spend some time at sea. Then you will understand that anyone claiming they know what is happening in the oceans is most likely delusional.
The ocean is a very large and effective heat sink. One should expect a time constant much longer (1000x, 10000x, 100000x or more) than one would see in the land and air temperature/heat trends. If any forcing changes (e.g. co2, solar, …..) then one should expect to see this first in air/land measurements and much later in the oceans.
Ocean heat content is probably still trying to catch up to the emergence from the last ice age..
Not at all, Charles. A body of water does not continue to gain heat, at a rapid rate, when there is no energy being added to the system.
Show some physics — what is the time constant? You’ve presented no science whatsoever to support your guess.
Tuggweilder hints at the 150 year range for Drake Passage fluctuations. Of course that is not the total settling time, just one of possibly more deep ocean transfer rates.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Pack_ice_slow.gif
Show some science, not Wikipedia figures.
I think it is a neat graphic :)
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/jrt9502.pdf
There are a couple of not yet published papers that will be interesting. Kira Lawrence has one I am especially looking forward to reading. It seems, “Less efficient mixing, other things being equal, would mean that there is less warming ‘in the pipeline,’” Hansen said. might be spot on looking at the Tuggweilder paper.
” The ocean’s heat capacity is about 1,000 times larger than that of the atmosphere”
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch5s5-1.html
This means ocean temps will lag changes to air (and land) temps. It is quite possible for the oceans to continue to gain heat/temp after air/land temps flat line. The air/land temp plateau can still be high enough to continue transferring heat into the oceans.
Absolutely false, Charles. Again, the heat content of the ocean is 1000 times that of the atmosphere. It lacks sufficient heat capacity to influence the ocean in the way you claim.
Your statement is entirely unphysical.
And you still haven’t justified your claims about the time constant of the ocean.
Oceans don’t have a moderating effect on land temps due to their much larger heat capacity? Air/land doesn’t experience wider temp extremes than oceans?
Land lags air temperature swings and oceans lag land temperature swings. All due to their different heat capacities.
David Appell ,
You have equated the body of water with the whole system, have you not?
I should add:
Heat flows from higher to lower temp. Heat capacity has nothing to do with heat flow.
Actually, it does. Heat flows warm to cold, but across a thermal boundary, the heat capacity of the source and the sink limits the rate of flow. Water can transfer heat to air 10 to 100 times more efficiently than air to water, so there are limits on heat flow due to heat capacity. The ability of an object to internally transfer heat to the boundary is also a limiting factor. That makes changes in surface wind velocity which varies with atmospheric oscillations an important variable.
I should have said heat capacity has nothing to do with the DIRECTION of heat flow.
“ocean heat content: given the long time scales in the ocean, it is difficult to interpret relatively short variations on the scale of 1-2 decades”
jcurry
JC
Thank you very much for saying that.
It’s sad to see the simplistic idea of “linear trend plus white noise” dominating the thinking on both sides here. Examined from the standpoint of truly long-term stochastic variablity–one encompassing multi-centennial and quasi-millenial scales–no multidecadal linear calculation can capture the truly secular trend of the process. Such calculated values prove to be very unstable in the presence of strong oscillatory components even in the case of zero secular trend.
What is needed is a determination of the actual spectral structure of the climate process, which is totally ignored in the debate. The obervational data series are simply too short to provide any definitive indications of secular trends, whereas the proxy data (e.g., GISP2) indicate that the process structure is far more oscillatory than that of red noise, whose power spectrum decreases monotonically. What so many dismiss as “short-term noise” is actually an inherent part of the highly underdetermined climate signal.
“What is needed is a determination of the actual spectral structure of the climate process,..”
Give that man a cigar!
I agree, but warmists wouldn’t play that game. Skeptics had to wrestle with the pig even though they get dirty and the pig likes it. Now, the pig doesn’t like the game anymore.
Edim, it is like any 12 step program, step one is recognizing there is a problem.
+1
Due to the non-uniformity of spatial dimensions, conventional temporally-global approaches to spectral analysis can’t handle the job. That’s where exploration went of the rails.
I enjoy this discourse because there is a possibility that even the wildest conclusions may be right (if the facts are supportive). But mostly I enjoy it because I learn about human nature.
Judith,
As you know I am not a climate scientist, my subject is cloud physics so related. I glance at this blog from time to time. The problem as has been pointed out by others is that the period we are discussing started with a very unusual event an super El-Nino. We all know the effect of this on global temperature, a warm spike that sticks out like a saw thumb. Recent years have been as warm without a super El-Nino so obviously warming has continued. This makes the Mail article misleading in my opinion.
Hi Tom, I would be more convinced by this argument if the warm event of the very large El Nino of 97/98 hadn’t been used to demonstrate the magnitude of the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century.
In other words, if the warmists want to deprive the plateauists of their start point, they must themselves forgo it as an end point?
In other words, if the warmists want to deprive the plateauists of their start point, they must themselves forgo it as an end point?
Which is fine, because no warmist ever argues for a warming trend based on trends ending in 1998.
Nope, just in 2000 (e.g. AR4), which is heavily influenced by the 1998 value near the end of the time series.
Actually they mosty go up to 2005, see for example
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-3-1.html
There are two problems with this. Firstly the “super El Nino” was a temporary spike which had no impact on the long term trend. Secondly Tom’s point does not become invalid because of what someone else may have said in the past.
Ah yes. “Mommy, mommy, they did it fiiiiiiirrst.”
Never seen that before.
Really Joshua? Do you think it clever to keep repeating this comment?
Josh,
I’ll second Chief. We all get it. You wanting to remind us of it at every post is fine. But multiple times in one post?
This was just sent by Roger Pielke Jr via email:
This is from Gavin Schmidt back in the days when I was engaged on such things around 2008, when the “pause” was about 8 years:
http://www.realclimate.org/images/trends_dist.jpg
On a time scale of 20 years it shows 1 of 55 AR4 model realizations with a trend ~0. That is well below a 0.05 threshold to suggest it beyond a reasonable doubt that the models have some problems. So if we re at 17 years right now then we are petty close to that 0.05.
What do the model AR4 “trend” results tell us about the actual climate?
The problem with anecdotal cherry-picking: Warmest September on record for globe (tie)
Hmmm … are we wrangling over a pause-in-the-past? :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Anecdote-versus-anecdote pseudo-debates shed no light on this question! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Lucia’s already been working on this, here:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/arima11-test-reject-ar4-multi-model-mean-since-1980-1995-200120012003/
Stat inference based on untenable assumptions is meaningless ignorance &/or deception artistry. Warning: Continued promotion of stat inference based on untenable assumptions is sure to result in terminal social intractability.
Another email from Roger Pielke Jr, referring to his previous post
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/07/noaa-explains-global-temperature.html
That discusses NOAA’s explanation of the slow down
Mother nature is generously giving instruction in natural variability.
“owing to climate variations such as ENSO, the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. So in that sense, such a period is not unexpected. It is not uncommon in the simulations for these periods to last up to 15 years, but longer periods are unlikely.”
But we don’t understand ENSO, ADO and PDO well enough to model them, so all we can do is put them in the model with their guessed phase and amplitude in such a position as to saisfy our predetermined conclusions!
These problems exist because the IPCC ignored the 30 years of vital evidence between 1910 and 1940, a unique event resulting in 0.45C rise, a permanent increase in heating energy for our planet. If this is included the 20th and 21st centuries of histories fall logically into place. See my website above.
It might be fruitful to have some discussion of this:
Tisdale, Bob. “Everything You Every Wanted to Know About El Niño and La Niña….” Scientific. Bob Tisdale – Climate Observations, September 3, 2012. http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/everything-you-every-wanted-to-know-about-el-nino-and-la-nina-2/
Pooh, Dixie: Thanks
If the following double-posts, I apologize, but it vanished after my first attempt and didn’t appear here when I refreshed through the blog front page.
The case for assuming that AGW matters is, in statistical terms, much like the hypothesis that broad-based stock indexes are good long-term investments. There is an upward secular trend but lots of plateaus and prolonged downturns and it’s easy to find windows that give different impressions. We know about the main external forcing, economic growth, and confounding forcings like tax and monetary policies.
The differences, it seems to me, are that the stock market has no known equivalent to PDO and the other oscillations; stock markets don’t have to worry about millennial-frequency factors; the fraction of economic output captured by earnings doesn’t vary as much as the distribution of heat across oceans, ice, atmospheric layers, land, etc.; and there is little reason to be concerned about time-varying sensitivity in the economic growth–>stock index relationship over long periods of time.
Interesting logic:
Judith says:
So Judith compares a statement that models are imperfect with a statement that models are right – not a parallel comparison.
The implication, just as in the Rose article that Judith applauded (while noting inaccuracies in how she was quoted w/o considering how someone who misquoted her might just do the same with others), is that others have said that the models are “perfect.”
Please provide a quote, Judith.
Joshua, still at it? Cognative myopia?
What is the likely best predictor of changes to globally averaged temperature across the next 10 years: +0.00C or +0.16C? If the concept of a “pause” is to have any weight it either needs to have predictive power or it needs to be of sufficient duration to undermine climate sensitivity estimates in a material way.
Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 strip out leading sources of natural variability (ENSO, volcanic eruptions and solar strength)to show that both satellite and ground based temperature systems have risen consistently at ~+0.16C/decade decade on decade for the last 30 years. The factors driving this trend produce consistent effects (whatever comprises them) and the trend is clearly up. In F&R the trend reaches significance for intervals down to ~5 years.
Don’t like F&R (or Lean and Rind)? Object to their TSI measure? Think they left out significant sources of natural variability? Question their motivations? How about a simpler trend estimate approach? Divide the monthly temperature series into El-Nino, La-Nina and neutral months. Run a regression through each. The results are the same in each case, positive trends of similar magnitude.
So the underlying trend is up as derived from observable behaviour. Does the concept of “pause” have predictive power? No, not given the consistency of this trend. Maybe we will have another couple of years of La Nina followed by Mt Fuji blowing its stack… but the point of natural variability is that it tends to range +/-0.2C about this trend and +0.2C represents only 12.5 years at the current rate of increase.
So, given a ~+0.16C/decade trend, does this undermine climate sensitivity estimates in a material way? Knutti and Hegerl 2008 show a median sensitivity of +3C. The lukewarm argument is that climate sensitivity is less than +2C. Considerations (and rubbery figures), given model mean estimates of +0.2C/decade:
1. *If* model evolution is correct but consistently overestimated: 3C*0.16/0.2 = +2.4C. Note that this is reasonably consistent with instrumental estimates in Knutti and Hegerl.
2. Suppose instead we take the lowest trending system (UAH at 0.14C) and drop it a further 0.02C for effect. This would imply +1.8C, a narrow margin at best. (Note that it’s possible that models over-estimate transient sensitivity but under-estimate the timeframe to reach equilibrium. It’s possible that +1.8C is “worse than we thought” – consider arctic behaviour. It’s very possible, given developments in shale oil and coal extraction technologies that we can more than double atmospheric CO2…)
Is model evolution likely to prove correct? Will the current underlying trend prove consistent? What percentage of the trend is due to anthropogenic forcing? How reliable are aerosol estimates? Will negative feedbacks undermine the assumptions above? These are open questions. For now let’s at least acknowledge that the underlying trend is up and broadly consistent with the AGW hypothesis. Let’s also acknowledge that natural variability of +/-0.2C is quite capable of flattening out the temperature graph for extended periods without invalidating this observation.
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011): http://www.skepticalscience.com/foster-and-rahmstorf-measure-global-warming-signal.html
Lean and Rind (2009): http://www.skepticalscience.com/lean-and-rind-estimate-man-made-and-natural-global-warming.html
Knutti and Hegerl (2008): http://www.skepticalscience.com/working-out-climate-sensitivity.html
To disabuse yourself of the notion that the present 35-year regressional slope can be linearly projected into the future, take any credible,century-long temperature time-series and plot the slope as a function of the latest year included in the calculation. You’ll be surprised by how quickly the “trend” changes.
To disabuse yourself of the notion that previous 35-year regression slopes are logical equivalents for the present try estimating the forcings involved at the time of their origin.
Seriously John, I am hoping for honest reflection here. I acknowledge many areas of uncertainty in my post. In particular “will the current underlying trend prove consistent?” Does this sound like I think linear regression can be extended indefinitely into the future? I repeat my original question: which will prove the better predictor in *ten* years: +0.00C or +0.16C?
I say 0.00 °C. Actually I expect at least -0.1 °C in the next 10 years.
A truly serious attempt to comprehend the workings of climate starts with incisive analysis of reliable obervations rather than theoretical ruminations about ill-understood “forcings.” Your question about which “trend” predictor will prove better in 10 years betrays a trust in a statistical construct that does not apply rigorously to the data at hand. In the presence of strong ultradecadal oscillations, no multidecadal trend can be relied upon.
And none of the literature you cite shows awareness of that analytic dissonance or any adequate appreciation of natural variability. Paleo data tells us that +/- 1C variations have been commonplace throughout the Holocene. That GST may have undergone a modest ~1C total change from the lows in the 1970s to more recent highs as a pure matter of natural variation remains unacknowledged by those who rely upon unproven models.
Edim
I agree
I expect a least square trend of zero for the period 2000-2030
Hi John. Ultra-decadal oscillations (for the most part) change slowly through time. As such their effect on global temperature can be approximated by linear behaviour over small time frames (consider the effect of orbital forcing over 1 decade). Their influence is effectively subsumed in the linear component of F&R. Even if natural variation comprised ALL of the underlying trend, the trend would still be a better predictor across the next decade than assuming no change.
As for “lack of incisive analysis”, “theoretical ruminations”, “ill-understood forcings” and “analytical dissonance”, F&R produces a reliable descriptor of global temperature evolution across the satellite era, the era in which we have the most reliable observations to employ. The “unproven model” F&R employed assumed ENSO, volcanic eruptions and solar influences effect temperature across short time scales, issues few would argue with.
(Disclaimer: no GCM’s were abused in this analysis.)
Ammonite:
Say what you will, regressional trends can extrapolated only when the signal is monotonically changing in the presence of uncorrelated noise. That is certainly not the case with bona fide surface temperature time series.
The whole idea that actual time series can be adequately decomposed into components due to various forcings and internal modes without any recourse to rigorous determinations of their spectral structure–as in F&R’s conceptual model–is a piece of empty puffery. For such decomposition to be valid requires that the cross-spectral coherence between the presumed forcing and the temperature signal be very high over appropriate frequency ranges. Nothing of the kind has ever been demonstrated by F&R or any other “climate science” author. In fact, there is manifest throughout that dismal.science a widespread ignorance of such incisive methods.
Sorry, I simply cannot spare more time debating those who have never seen how proper attribution is done in rigorous system analysis.
agreed
John, thank you for your time. I will take the first order approximation and accept the variance. My bet is that GST averaged across 2013-2022 is more than 0.08C above GST averaged across 2003-2012. Numerous studies indicate the globe is accumulating energy. It has to go somewhere. Reconvene in 10 years. I’ll be happy to be proved wrong.
The slope(s) that could result from doing what John S suggests depends on the error bands and such error bands would tend to become more narrow with longer data series. Hence the slope(s) would seem to be less pronounced for longer data series.
Ammonite
Good points.
However, for climate sensitivity you need to use the 0.2 deg C per decade warming for 1974-2004 compared to the long-term warming trend of 0.06 deg C per decade for 1884-2004. And this gives you:
Climate sensitivity = 3 * 0.06/0.2 = 0.9 deg C for doubling of CO2.
0.06 deg C per decade warming for the 120 years period from 1884-2004 => http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1884/to:2004/compress:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1884/to:2004/trend
0.2 deg C per decade warming for the 30-years period for 1974-2004 => http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1974/to:2004/compress:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1974/to:2004/trend
Hi Girma. If you wish to use differing time frames for the model analysis and terrestrial analysis why not go back to 1 billion BC? On that basis climate sensitivity will be zero and we can all go home.
Ammonite
I hope we agree climate sensitivity is much less than 3 deg C for doubling of CO2. I say it is about 1 deg C.
I hope your estimate is correct Girma, but unfortunately we disagree. With 0.5C added across the last 30 years alone and given the thermal inertia of the ocean and the continued rise of atmospheric GHG concentration I find the +1C target highly implausible.
Ammonite
There has not been any change in the climate pattern since record begun in 1850 as shown => http://bit.ly/S0otl3
This data shows a long-term warming of 0.06 deg C per decade.
IPCC wrongly claimed the trend has shifted to 0.2 deg C per decade.
There is no evidence long-term warming trend has changed from 0.06 to 0.2 deg C per decade.
As a result, IPCC’s Climate Sensitivity Multiplication Factor = 0.2/0.06 = 3.3
True Climate sensitivity = IPCC Climate Sensitivity / PCC’s Climate Sensitivity Multiplication Factor = 3/3.3 = 0.91 deg C for doubling of CO2.
Ammonite
There has not been any change in the climate pattern since record begun in 1850 as shown => http://bit.ly/S0otl3
This data shows a long-term warming of 0.06 deg C per decade.
IPCC wrongly claimed the trend has shifted to 0.2 deg C per decade.
There is no evidence the long-term warming trend has shifted from 0.06 to 0.2 deg C per decade.
As a result, IPCC’s Climate Sensitivity Multiplication Factor = 0.2/0.06 = 3.3
True Climate sensitivity = IPCC Climate Sensitivity / IPCC’s Climate Sensitivity Multiplication Factor = 3/3.3 = 0.91 deg C for doubling of CO2.
Girma, I could go to some length to point out that CO2 concentration is much greather now than in 1850 and is therefore exerting a greater effect in recent years, indicating your choice of comparison period is invalid. However, when you open a sentence with “There is no evidence” in the light of F&R and other analyses presented above lets agree to part company gracefully.
Warmists loved the 1997/98 El Nino, now they hate it.
Baloney. Intelligent people have always recognized that 15 yrs is too short of a period from which to draw any statistically significant conclusions — especially when autocorrelation is included. (Do the math.)
What is Phil Jones talking about then? Not intelligent?
As him, not me.
Do the math for yourself, if you’re capable. The statistical uncertainty of a 15-yr linear temperature trend, with lag-1 autocorrelation, is on the order of 0.1 C/decade, at the 95% confidence limit.
That means no slope below this (in absolute value) can ever be statistically significant. 15 years is simply too short of a time period to make statistically significant conclusions.
So, there’s no statistically significant warming since 1997.
You can’t do your own math, can you?
There’s no statistically significant anything since 1997 — it is too short of a time period from which to draw statistically significant conclusions.
Semi swag. The various oceanic Tmin temperature records indicate a consistent trend from ~1900. Tmin of course reduces a bit of the noise which is useful since the southern hemisphere SST has a few questions. That indicates that the 1945 dip was a longer term ENSO style cycle influence. Lawrence has also indicated that Antarctic bottom water temperature leads Arctic in an ENSO. style long term pattern. Teirney et al have a couple of Lake Tanganyika surface temperature reconstructions that show a consistent ~1430 year recurrent cycle very similar to Bond and D-O events. So without determining the reliability of that long term ESNO cycle, I wouldn’t care to guess at a period less than 100 years.
Sorry, not much published on the subject just yet, soon though.
So, there is no rigorous scientific basis for your claim of “100 years.” Just as I thought.
You’re presenting scattershot data, when real scientists have taken the time to collect global data and assimilate them. They find strong warming since at least 1955.
“You’re presenting scattershot data, when real scientists have taken the time to collect global data and assimilate them. They find strong warming since at least 1955.” 1955 to 2006 is 50 years. The “Strong Evidence” would easily be a part of an AMO cycle. So to incorrectly declare a trend being caused by one thing when a large portion of that trend is “riding” a natural oscillation would be a touch embarrassing.
BTW, with 60 year natural variability than may not zero out in 100 years periods, “scattershot” data is about all that is available.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1dHf8d0fkL0/UGM9eVCy4uI/AAAAAAAAD6M/eRSvSN-MWs0/s839/Cold%2520ENSO%2520or%2520Evil.png
That is a plot of Oceana Tmin from the BEST data with regressions. The “Strong Trend” there appears to be the maximum slope of a internal oscillation.
Since there are several groups working on a longer term ocean dataset and the odd shift in the diurnal temperature range shift, they will likely break the news to the real scientists.
Where is the proof it’s part of an AMO cycle?
How does the AMO affect the entire ocean? Where is all that heat coming from?
Furthermore, the period of the AMO cycle is about 60 years. That’s 30 yrs of warming, 30 yrs of cooling. So why is the ocean warming since, at least, 1955?
“How does the AMO affect the entire ocean? Where is all that heat coming from?” It is not the AMO affecting the entire ocean, it is the AMO is a result of the ocean. Event though the oceans are more in the southern hemisphere than in the northern, the average heat content of the top meter of the global oceans is nearly equal between the hemispheres. A volcano has a greater impact on the NH SST, an indication of greater NH OCH loss, and it takes longer to recharge that loss. There is no new energy, just redistribution of energy to the NH where land area amplifies the change. The “sensitivity” of the two hemispheres is totally different.
CO2 and land use among other things have an impact, but I see no good method to confidently attribute which to what without longer term data. Ocean paleo seems to be improving enough that it may provide that data, so Lawrence should be an interesting study.
You are also missing the point — the trend itself means nothing without giving its statistical significance. Nothing.
So you think Tamino is not intelligent?
I have no idea about Tamino or what you’re talking about. Can you do your own mathematics, or not? I’m guessing not….
Tamino, Grant Foster, determined that the minimum period required for a statistically significant trend was 15 years. That would depend on the “noise” level, which he included in his calculations a year or two ago. Personally, without knowing the range of natural variability, I don’t think you can assign a significance to a “trend” less than 100 years, which is a touch inconvenient since we seem to be a little short on data.
What calculation gives your “100 year” conclusion? Or is it just a SWAG?
That is a loaded question Captain.
What I can’t understand is that Lucia has done all the statistics one could want on this subject. Since the year 2000 the rise in temperature is less than <0.2 degrees per decade.
Doc, Yep, loaded question. the fun part of a problem as complex as this is that it can make a lot of folks look like idiots :)
Complex enough to make idiots look like a lot of folks.
==========================
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/j/j/global_temperatures_09.pdf
Your link proves nothing, because the issue is about the variation and statistical significance of the trend, not the bare trend itself. Do you understand what that means?
Let’s also note that your results are 3 years old. Get up to date.
(They also don’t include autocorrelation.)
No, explain it to me. When they stated that “the simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for 15 years or more” they just didn’t understand what they were doing? Just in case you mentioned being up to date regarding the temperature series involved, I am not arguing that there has been falsification yet. I’m not even sure what the ENSO adjusted trend is and the paper clearly states it must be adjusted for ENSO.
I can’t explain it all to you here. I just posted the math in another comment. You will need to read about statistical significance and autocorrelation; here’s a good introduction, by Tom Wigley:
“Statistical Issues Regarding Trends,” http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/third-draft/sap1-1-draft3-appA.pdf
No need to. A simple statement that they didn’t know what they were doing will suffice.
What dataset did they use? — their calculation is at least 3 years old. Find the data they used (it typically undergoes small revisions every month, as old data comes in), and give me a link. Better yet, calculate it for yourself.
The data set doesn’t matter. The question being is a 15 year trend of no ENSO adjusted warming inconsistent with the models or isn’t it, not has there been such a period.
Lucia’s already done the work here.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/arima11-test-reject-ar4-multi-model-mean-since-1980-1995-200120012003/
“Intelligent people”? Har har! You only want a number that will suit your quasi-religion. The emperors new clothes could only be seen by “intelligent people”. David, you demonstrate text-book examples of confirmation bias in your comments on this post. The math has been shown to you over and over, you just won’t accept it.
Let’s do the math.
For the HadCRUT4 data, I find the 15-yr linear trend to be 0.033 C/decade, with a 1-sigma uncertainty of 0.021 C/dec. The r1 autocorrelation coefficient is 0.580, meaning the effective number of data points in the series is reduced from 180 to 47.8 — not even 4 years of effective data. This puts the 95% confidence level variation of the slope at 0.080 C/decade.
That means the 15-yr slope would have to be greater than 0.080 C/dec or less than -0.080 C/dec to be statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Obviously, there are going to be periods where that is not true, due to natural variability (mainly ENSO) of about +/- 0.2 – 0.3 C in a decade.
That’s the math.
Wait, when do you think co2 AGW started?
David,
People always miss the point when they don’t accept your version of things.
“Baloney. Intelligent people have always recognized that 15 yrs is too short of a period from which to draw any statistically significant conclusions — especially when autocorrelation is included. (Do the math.)”
You are wrong. It depends upon the data series. On previous occasions intelligent people have argued for less than 15 years WRT the air temperature series. Really smart people have suggested 35 years or more. goose gander. For a long time many of us have argued that you need more data to preclude the possibility of LTP. Nonsense we were told.. 13 years is enough.. opps no 15.. opps no 17.
The pause in global warming ( part of which is due to man) is scientifically interesting because of the opportunity it presents to understand the role of “internal forcing”
What is “LTP?”
Of course the math depends on the data series. (Duh.)
We elaborated a little with graphs using HadCRUT4 data on our blog.
In figure 1 we can see from the green error bars and the two red horisontal lines that no years after 1989 had a temperature significantly different from 2011 except 1992-1994 and 1996.
http://www.theclimatescam.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Stapeldiagram-1979-2012.jpg
However, 1992-1994 were exceptionally cold due to the Pinatubo eruption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pinatubo#Global_environmental_effects
In figure 2 this cooling effect has been compensated for by adding 0.4 C to 1994, 0.2 C to 1993 and 0.1 C to 1994. The modified graph seems to show a pause beginning already in 1990, a pause of 23 year.
http://www.theclimatescam.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Figur-21.jpg
So perhaps the global warming pause is much longer than 16 years?
“David Appell | October 16, 2012 at 7:15 pm | Reply Baloney. Intelligent people have always recognized that 15 yrs is too short of a period from which to draw any statistically significant conclusions — especially when autocorrelation is included.”
So when James Hansen gave his talk to Congress in 1988, what period of warming was he referring to, to justify his arguement about global warming and how would you describe his intelligence?
Alan
I don’t know exactly what James Hansen said a quarter of a century ago, and I’m not here to defend him. I’m presenting my own thoughts, and I’ve found that, when just lag-1 autocorrelation is included, the 95% confidence level uncertainty of a 15-year trend is 0.1 C/decade or more.
You simply can’t make many statistically significant conclusions about such a short time period. Do the math yourself and tell me your results.
They have shown it to you, you just don’t accept it.
Shown where (including autocorrelation)?
Dana Nuccitelli is just another climate-sci-wannabe whose paycheck depends on there being a “climate in crisis” ©Al Gore. The Grauniad is happy to parrot his spin because it furthers their narrative. Yawn.
Really? How, exactly, does Dana N’s paycheck depend on what he writes? Please be specific, since you claim to know.
mike,
We need a poem over here!
Son and daughter dance,
Children toddling, tattling.
What sol calls the tune?
================
Careful Terry,
I think David and Scooter are buddies. Might explain David’s rather boorish behavior.
I am working on a new post: ‘Pause’: Waving the Italian Flag
For background, see these threads:
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/28/waving-the-italian-flag-part-i-uncertainty-and-pedigree/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/gg28390v311876w4/
I hope to have the new post up by noon tomorrow. Note I won’t be commenting further on this thread (will be watching the Presidential debate tonite).
(Sigh.) Blog posts aren’t science — they are little more than PR.
David is in denial, just won’t accept the math. Emperors new clothes.
This from a PR specialist.
journal articles are not science either. so what’s your point?
Absolutely scintillating thread. Blogging at it’s absolute best. Many sincere thanks Doctor C.
Judith said:
“Natural internal variability plus solar have important impacts on global climate as evidenced by the current plateau, and it is an easy next step to infer that the warming in the 1980′s and 1990′s was ‘juiced by the warm PDO and transition from cool to warm AMO.”
_______________
I agree 100%. Hence, model studies trying to find the source of this internal variability such as Meehl 2011 (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Staff/Fasullo/refs/Meehl2011etalNCC.pdf) and attribution studies that try to dissect out specific factors such as Foster & Rahmstorf 2011 (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022) are absolutely critical if we want to truly understand the scope, scale, and nature of internal variability as well as solar impacts on climate, so as to get to the core of what the actual ongoing anthropogenic forcings (positive & negative) are. This is the key issue that I have with the Rose article and others like it. Though there is truth to saying that tropospheric temperatures have flattened over the past 15 years, this is actually a very specific truth, but it is not what Rose presented. He presented what is actually a specific truth as those it was a broad and general truth about the Earth. To those of us who have studied the climate in any detail we might be able to quickly understand that he is only talking about the lower troposphere, and we know of course there are other metrics of global warming (i.e. the cryosphere and oceans) that are equally, if not more so, important as tropospheric warming. Thus, any headline that says implies the “Earth” hasn’t warmed for 15 years, certainly isn’t accurate in a general sense, but is being presented as though it is, and this is dishonest because the average reader will not understand that much more energy can be stored in other regions of the “Earth” other than the troposphere. Most importantly perhaps, (and perhaps the real intent of Rose’s article) is that policymakers are influenced directly or indirectly when such specific truths are presented as general truths about Earth’s ongoing energy imbalance. This can even slow down the critical process of identifying risks and the probability of risks to anthropogenic climate change, as many may assume that because the “Earth” is no longer warming, we don’t even need to look for risks or do risk analysis, as nothing much is a happening anyway. Our early climate change detection system…the Arctic…would strongly disagree.
I want to see some calculations — that is, some science — because this does not pass the smell test. There was been no net solar irradiance in the 1980s and 1990s (averaged over a cycle), and I absolutely do not believe that the PDO has increased the global ocean heat content this much.
The level of science being presented here is dismal — little more than insinuations and blog links. That isn’t science.
Unless the blog agrees with David’s quasi religion, of course
But would you have knowledge to understand it
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
Data: SIDC, Andrew Jackson Leeds Universit, Jeremy Bloxham Harvard University
I think you need to add the work of Swanson and Tsonis.
R. Gates: Foster and Rahmstorf made the common error of assuming ENSO is represented by an index. Their analysis failed to consider that ENSO is a process:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/revised-post-on-foster-and-rahmstorf-2011/
You agreed, in part, with my findings in the cross post at WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/14/tisdale-on-foster-and-rahmstorf-take-2/
Yet now you somehow find that paper credible. Curious.
Our early climate detection system, the Antarctic…..
EXTRY EXTRY BOB’S ELECTRONS LOOSE IN THE WORLD AND GONE WILD!!!
==================
kim, you appear to be enjoying yourself on these threads.
We immediately see that the length of the pauses in models depends on the sizes of the largest natural variations. Most agree that the largest ones are underestimated, and so therefore would be the maximum pause length. This is precisely a problem with getting trends from yearly or monthly temperature data (however they do that). Annual variability has a standard deviation of 0.1 degrees and an amplitude several times higher, and the decadal trend is only 0.15 degrees, so it is a signal to noise problem. More robust is decadal average temperatures, and comparing one decade with the next. As statisticians would know, taking a ten-year average knocks down the standard deviation by a factor of root 10 making it much easier to see decadal trends because the signal to noise ratio becomes something near 5. We see that the last decade was 0.15 degrees warmer than the previous, and however you choose decades over the past 30 years, it has been a significant warming decade to decade.
“Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
Source: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
Judith Curry writes: “I argue that climate models are imperfect and incomplete, a statement that no climate modeler on the planet would argue with.”
And the outputs of the climate models agree with you. Climate model outputs represent how the sea surface temperatures of the global oceans would warm IF they were warmed by greenhouse gases. Sea surface temperatures in climate models that are forced (forced being the key word) by greenhouse gases simulate a relatively uniform warming among the ocean basins, inasmuch as the zonal-mean trends of satellite-era sea surface temperatures are basically the same for all ocean basins:
http://i56.tinypic.com/t4wpys.jpg
While in the real world they are not similar because the sea surface temperatures are not forced to warm. The warming is process related and the primary process is ENSO:
http://i53.tinypic.com/24zf4f9.jpg
Those two graphs are from the following post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/part-1-%e2%80%93-satellite-era-sea-surface-temperature-versus-ipcc-hindcastprojections/
There is no evidence in the sea surface temperature records that greenhouse gases had any role in their warming over the past 30 years. And I’ve just posted a YouTube video to illustrate and discuss that fact:
http://youtu.be/-bugpqVan5Q
The introctory post is here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/part-2-of-we-now-control-weather-extreme-heat-events-dirty-weather-climate-disasters/
Buy Bob’s book before it sells out. I’m tellin’ ya, there is a finite number of electrons in the accessible universe.
=============
But how many electRoms in the US?
Thanks, Bob, for the links.
Deception yields short-term advantage, but long-term disaster. The path to Climategate 2009 began sixty-four years earlier, in 1945.
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1369
Now three years later in 2012, the public has lost faith in the scientific community and in world leaders for failing to address evidence of data manipulation in Climategate 2009 emails.
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/climategate-30-year-timeline/
Disaster looms ahead if world leaders and government-funded scientists continue to hide, manipulate or ignore observations and measurements that revealed the FORCE at the core of the Sun that
a.) Made our elements
b.) Birthed the world
c.) Controls climate
d.) Sustains life
e.) Extends >100 AU beyond planet Earth.
http://www.nature.com/news/voyager-s-long-goodbye-1.11348
2012 – 16 = 1986 — e.g., no statistically significant global warming since 1986. That is a testable hypothesis. Just like there has been a global cooling trend over the last 10,000 years is a testable hypothesis.
Perhaps you should retake elementary arithmetic. (Lord help us.)
Or elementary logic. Carbon dioxide and temperature went up together therefore the former caused the latter.
That’s a 1+1=3, from here.
========================
Also known as post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Yep, the Grandest, Most Socially Potent, example, yet, of that primitive fallacy.
============
So, it is a testable hypothesis, right? Or, do we need the Lord’s help?
Perhaps you should learn some manners.
Wagathon: 2012 – 16 = 1986 — e.g., no statistically significant global warming since 1986.
Typo?
Do we see insulting AGW commie dogs posting from Greece about how great life is there now or blaming their economic situation on global warming and typos? It is the capitalist in America that has been the savior of Western civilization. But, who is it that will be there to bail out America, France?
What is that about?
2012 – 16 = 1996, and you start on about “commie dogs posting from Greece”? Get a grip.
”
But, who is it that will be there to bail out America, France?
”
Who will save the savior?
Done, already. Haven’t you read the news?
Capitalism chose cheap labor and child workers long ago…
The communist Chinese own the USA lock, stock, and barrel.
Kinda ironic, isn’t it?
“I think math, common sense, and our history shows us that’s not a recipe for job growth.” ~Barack Obama
Heinrich,
careful now. You are stepping outside your knowledge zone.
The Chinese own zip, except for Treasury bonds. The US market fails those bonds are novelty wallpaper at most. And where else are they going to put their money? The Euro? Not anytime soon. Decide to take the place of the US and issue their own notes? Who will put their money into a place where the govt can change the value of their currency at a whim?
If the US falls economically, it will be self-inflicted. And anyone thinking they will be able to enjoy watching it from the sidelines is feebleminded or blinded by their love of USA bashing. What happens to us will send a tidal wave throughout the world economy.
True, true… Leftist-libs know nothing about economics and simply ignore nature when it comes to climate change because they are operating on a belief that the rest of us are stupid. So, we’ve got schoolteachers preaching MBH98 (aka, the ‘hockey stick’ graph) which is a proven scientific fraud. Nominally, it’s the Sun, Stupid. The schoolteachers are pointing to global warming models (GCMs) that cannot even predict the past!
The schoolteachers don’t stop for a moment to consider what it means that GCMs can never be verified. Instead, they take them on faith like the talismans of other superstitious crackpot religions, doomsday cults and charlatans’ flimflammery. Otherwise, the fact that any statistically significant ‘global warming’ essentially has not existed since 1998 would have some meaning to the AGW True Believers.
NOAA Explains the Global Temperature “Slowdown”
Observations indicate that global temperature rise has slowed in the last decade (Fig. 2.8a [ed.- above, caption below]). The least squares trend for January 1999 to December 2008 calculated from the HadCRUT3 dataset (Brohan et al. 2006) is +0.07±0.07°C decade–1—much less than the 0.18°C decade–1 recorded between 1979 and 2005 and the 0.2°C decade–1 expected in the next decade (IPCC; Solomon et al. 2007). This is despite a steady increase in radiative forcing as a result of human activities and has led some to question climate predictions of substantial twenty-first century warming (Lawson 2008; Carter 2008).
El Niño–Southern Oscillation is a strong driver of interannual global mean temperature variations. ENSO and non-ENSO contributions can be separated by the method of Thompson et al. (2008) (Fig. 2.8a). The trend in the ENSO-related component for 1999–2008 is +0.08±0.07°C decade–1, fully accounting for the overall observed trend. The trend after removing ENSO (the “ENSO-adjusted” trend) is 0.00°±0.05°C decade–1, implying much greater disagreement with anticipated global temperature rise.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com.au/2009/07/noaa-explains-global-temperature.html
Neven’s hissing,
Nucci’s nodding;
What, me wonder?
===========
Do you have an older brother named Alfred E. ?
Judith,
I’m sure that you must teach your undergraduates that graphs are an important part of any scientific discussion.
A plot of hadcrut3 temperatures ( and I’m sure you could use other data sets) with the application of a 10 year averaging shows, yes, there is some evidence of a ‘kink’ in the long term warming trend.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5020/5419352107_01659a31a4.jpg
Is it significant? Well I don’t think so. It doesn’t look like it to me. But you’re the climate scientist – tell me if you’re saying I’m wrong. Show me your own graphical evidence.
But Temp, when there is a kink, shouldn’t you look for reasons?
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1dHf8d0fkL0/UGM9eVCy4uI/AAAAAAAAD6M/eRSvSN-MWs0/s839/Cold%2520ENSO%2520or%2520Evil.png
If the kink is due to “natural internal variability”, there should be some indication of it in the past, possibly even where is started.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-would-you-predict-future.html
There could even be clues.
Tempterrain,
You have the gall to lecture Judith on how to read graphs and yet after being advised not to use past running averages on time-series data very many times over more than a year you still do so. Past running averages have good applications in commerce such as in showing past weekly performance levels, but not in analysing time-series data.
But Temp, when there is a kink, shouldn’t you look for reasons?
Well yes, of course. How about the lowest solar minimum for a century? That would be one factor – although there are other possibles too. A similar graph , this time with 5 year averaging, shows that warming hasn’t been at all smooth or continuous. There’s been cooling periods then periods of rapid warming.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3594/3391620722_2692a33e49.jpg
What we see now isn’t at all atypical.
True, but that is still one data set, with a limited amount of information. By dividing that data sets into the bands or regions you would dramatically increase the number of points, like in the link I posted, the global, hemispheres and regions. It doesn’t change the apparent trend, but does give you something to look into.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/joethevolcano.png
Then you could compare a few data sets with some estimated forcing to get a feel for response times.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-s2y7aRyrDAQ/UGDeqixHN4I/AAAAAAAAD2I/PtjSYxkSVt0/s512/rhythm%2520or%2520blues.png
Possibly see if the the relationship between regions is changing.
Since the heat capacity of the oceans is greater than that of the air, you could estimate that the thermal inertia of the ocean surface, would tend to drive surface temperature in the shorter term and conclude, hey, it looks like there may be a pause? I wonder how long?
:)
I’m curious if any of the people claiming the graph in the Daily Mail article was deceptive will speak up about tempterrain’s deceptive graph here.
BS,
“deceptive graph” ?
If you look at the graph you’ll see the reference for the data set used. Hadcrut3.
If you think I’ve cheated then check it yourself. You just import it into Excel and use the tools provided. But I don’t suppose you can do that, can you?
You may be unfortunate enough to have the initials, BS. You don’t have to write it though.
tempterrain, your response is pathetic. First, you intentionally call me by my initials, something I’ve repeatedly asked people not to do on this site. That could be excused by innocence except you then explicitly associate my initials with the offensiveness that bothers me.
Second, you show you have no idea what you’re talking about. I never said a word about your results being impossible to replicate. In fact, I was curious, so I checked them myself. That doesn’t mean anything. A graph can be deceptive whether or not people can make it. Everyone knows this as cherry-picking is easy to replicate but still deceptive.
Mr Brandon Shollenberger Esq.
Cherry picking is not graphically showing 60 years ( x12 for monthly) data points. Cherry picking is using particular points, like when it was particularly warm in 1998 and saying its been cooler since so therefore warming has somehow stopped.
You seem to have been so curious about the graph that you actually checked it. There seems to be an implicit grudging admission that it was all in order. But meaningless? But what you really mean is you don’t like its meaning.
It actually means that the Earth has shown significant warming in recent decades. I thought you guys accepted that. It’s all a good thing right? Everyone likes warmer weather and grapes are sweeter when its warm. Don’t you read your own propaganda?
And there’s no proof that global warming is caused anthropogenically by increased CO2 emissions. CO2 is plant food. Correlation doesn’t prove causation. Come on Mr Brandon Shollenberger. Get a grip.
Tempterrain (Peter Martin),
Peter, you are brilliant when it comes to anagrams, but rather the opposite with graphs. Here is a fairly typical graph which claims to include the same Hadcrut3 data as you did but over a longer period. (And without your inappropriate PMA smoothing method):
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/1-s2-0-s0921818112001658-gr11.jpg
I have queried you previously on whether you may have a spacial perception problem, but can’t you see that there has been a plateau since 1997?
Ah you say, it is unfair to use the 1997/8 data because it was a “super El Nino”, but have you not noticed that there was a “correction” in 1999/2000 with a La Nina, and both are part of the temperature record and in effect smooth or cancel each other out. (and the IPCC and Manna Man were very pleased to use the 1998 maximum in 3AR/2001)
It might be a bit complicated for you but this NOAA graph also supports the T plateau evidence, and also the cooling phase after 1940, and warming phase up to 1998:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
Notice BTW that the 1983/4 El Nino is somewhat similar to that of 1997/8
Bob_FJ,
You seem to doubt my ability to either read or produce a valid graph.
You say “Here is a fairly typical graph which claims to include the same Hadcrut3 data as you did but over a longer period ”
You then produce a graph which shows the data for a much shorter period.
So, the first rule of being critical, Mr Bob Fernley-Jones, is to get these simple little facts right. If you can get it so wrong about 1956 to the present, as opposed to 1980 to the present, then whatever you say about relative rates of warming afterwards doesn’t count for very much, does it?
Tempterrain (Peter Martin),
Peter, you obfuscate as usual, and failed to comment at all on some points I raised.
The context of the debate is the plateau which is evident from 1997. I hope it’s not too complicated for you but when I said that the graph I linked to displayed a longer period, I meant in the context of the plateau. Did you not remember that your two graphs ended prematurely, at full-year 2009 and 2010? My reference using monthly data up to very recently clearly shows a plateau since 1997 and is devoid of your erroneous smoothing method. (PMA ilo CMA)
tempterrain, once your response is ridiculous. You claimed your graph wasn’t deceptive because I could replicate it. I responded by providing an example of how a graph could be deceptive while easily replicable. You responded by not disputing my point, by instead discussing my example as though it is what I accused you of.
Even worse, you claim I offered “an implicit grudging admission” your graph was fine when nothing I said indicates such in the slightest. I directly rebutted your point, you failed to address my rebuttal, and instead you misrepresent me. Finally, you talk about my “own propaganda” and assign to me views I’ve never defended, much less promoted.
It is difficult to imagine a more nonsensical or misrepresentative response. Assuming you genuinely believe what you say, the phrase, “learn to read,” comes to mind.
He’s shown two graphs. One goes down and then up at the end, the other goes up and then down! You’d think that from this he might realise he’s producing meaningless nonsense.
Just a one year difference on the x axis.
Tempterrain (Peter Martin)
Peter, it’s amusing how you explained in entirety to Paul Matthews a difference between your two faulty personally contrived out-dated graphs as follows:
Just a one year difference on the x axis.
So your delinquent one year makes a difference whereas something more recent by two or three years that I cited does not?
And, did you not give other reasons in your October 17, at 12:07 am to Captdallas…, including pointedly the 5-year smoothing ILO your earlier 10-year smoothing?
temp.
Rather than covering up the change in trend with “tricks” you would do better to understand the change. How big is it? what caused it?
Of course you CAN switch topics and discuss OHC, or 25 year trends, or politic.. but that doesnt get you any closer to understanding the phenomena
Steven Mosher,
Applying a 10 year average isn’t really a trick. Its just a way of trying to separate out the noise from the signal. That happens all the time in signal processing. Anyone who’s ever used an oscilloscope or a spectrum analyser to look at noisy signals will know what I mean. Of course it’s possible to cheat with anything. If there is a signal really there which you really would prefer not to be there you can apply so much smoothing to get rid of it completely.
Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/pdf/nature06921.pdf
See why they would not bet on their forecast?
Warming of the atmosphere has slowed in the past decade or so – that much is obvious to the untrained eye. Global warming on the other hand is unabated as the ocean (0-2000 m) continues to accumulate heat: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/827/ohc02000pentadalnodcnos.jpg/, and land ice continues to melt: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/greenlandgraceicemelt20.jpg/ , http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/36/mbmlossoflandice2011.jpg/. The atmospheric response will ultimately have its say.
“Judith Lean:
Climate models failed to reflect the sun’s cyclical influence on the climate and “that has led to a sense that the sun isn’t a player,” Lean said. “And that they have to absolutely prove that it’s not a player.””
My tolerance for “sun has no effect” BS has completely expired.
This is irrefutable:
http://i49.tinypic.com/2jg5tvr.png
To fight this observation (understand that it’s an observation, not a theory) one has to argue against central limit theorem, law of conservation of angular momentum, & thermal wind.
No sensible person will.
And if the solar cycle has any effect on earth’s fields — any effect whatsoever — the beats with terrestrial cycles have to be a function of cycle length. And that’s exactly what’s observed:
http://i46.tinypic.com/303ipeo.png
+
http://i49.tinypic.com/wwdwy8.png
=
http://i48.tinypic.com/2v14sc5.gif
(slow animation of preceding pair)
(By the way: This overthrows a 300 year old modeling assumption that was never substantiated with so much as a single observation.)
If 1+1=2 cannot be acknowledged, then we have arrived at terminal social intractability.
My advice to all sensible parties:
Firmly close the door on “sun has no effect” dark ignorance &/or deception artists and make it crystal clear that they’re never welcome back.
“understand that it’s an observation, not a theory”
huh. it’s not an observation. Its a data product that results from the application of methods to observations. You’ve yet to document in a clear reproduceble manner
A) the data you use and its integrity
B) the process steps you use and a defense of them.
You chart is what it is. Colored pixels.
@steven mosher
(October 17, 2012 at 1:45 pm)
Your quantitative ignorance shines through loud & clear, as does your lack of respect & appreciation for the power & beauty of nature.
You’ve crossed a line.
Nice debate, on the whole. It will be nice to reread this in 2015.
Nice.
R Gates,
Thank you for your advice on the first “pause thread”, but it’s probably best to move over here for the continuation.
If I understand you correctly your hypothesis is that after an El Nino followed by an El Nina, the ocean surface cools and is thus capable of increased conductive heat transfer from the atmosphere.
However, according to the following NOAA graph, since 1998 there have been a series of relatively minor “boys and girls” or “red and blue” such that one would anticipate that ocean surface T’s should be plateaued, as is reflected by the plateau in the T records: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
However from the graphical T data that I’ve seen, just like with the global average where you have protested that the last decade has been the warmest on record, so too are the last decade of data the warmest for SST’s which comprise over 70% of the Earth’s surface. It would seem then that there is no basis for declaring a sacrificial loss of heat from the atmosphere into the oceans.
This is the nub over many other considerations, a couple of fundamentals being that solar insolation must be by far the greatest heat source into the oceans, and according to the IPCC/Trenberth, the greatest cooling is by evaporation, but putting such things aside, I’d appreciate your views on the above.
Global Cooling is Here
Evidence for Predicting Global Cooling for the Next Three Decades
By Prof. Don J. Easterbrook
Feel like a broken record, but there is no physical mechanism for greenhouse gasses to increase ocean heat content except by warming the atmosphere so as to recieve less radiation from the “skin”. Water is wierd. Therefore, if the atmosphere is not warming, the ocean must be being warmed by something else. It’s simple physics, wink.
IPCC AR4 statement:
Since IPCC’s first report in 1990, assessed projections have suggested global average temperature increases between about 0.15°C and 0.3°C per decade for 1990 to 2005. This can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade, strengthening confidence in near-term projections.
On the most part, a really interesting discussion this folks.
Well done to JC for repeatedly banging her head against some of the contributors here.
The more I read Rose’s piece the worse it seems to get. Let’s just take the opening few paragraphs.
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
First of all, there was actually a positive trend over that period. Yes it was a fairly weak one but as others have pointed out Rose has deliberately cherry picked his start date to minimise the trend, as it is skewed by the 1997/8 super El Nino – starting in 1995, 1996 or 1999 gives a more positive trend. Also, although he says “from the beginning of 1997” his graph actually starts in September 1997 – this doesn’t make much difference to the trend but it allows him to prominently show that the start and end points are at the same level. This is blatantly misleading because of the amount of month to month variation means it is nonsense to draw conclusions on this basis.
Further more he is implying that the updated HadCRUT4 figues have revealed something previously unknown whereas they were entirely as expected, and indeed show a trend over the period he mentions which is more positive than the previous figures showed., so one could equally make a claim that “new figures show more warming than prevously thought”. His claim that the release of the new data has “triggered debate amongst climate scientists” is flat out nonsense – it told us nothing we didn’t know already.
This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.
Firstly the warming period started before 1980 so he is already wrong on the “equal length” argument, but more importantly even if we accept that there has been something of a “plateau” in recent years it is nonsense to say that this started in 1997. Looking at the annual temperature anomalies it is pretty clear that temperatures continues to rise pretty steadily after the temporary el Nino spike in 2008 – every year from 2001 onwards except 2008 was warmer than 1997 and 2005 is still the warmest non-el Nino year. So the exact length of the “pause” is debatable – it could be said to be 11 or 12 years or arguably as short as 7 years but it certainly isn’t 16 years.
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.
Again, this implies that the Met Office tried to play down the release of the data because it contained an uncomfortable truth. Total nonsense.
This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.
Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.
Well the trend is reduced, not erased, but then this is exactly what one would expect given we have had consecutive La Nina events (which Rose does not mention).
In summary, yes the “plateau” in the surface temperature record does exist and there is plenty of interesting and worthwhile things that can be said on the subject, but Rose does not say any of them. Instead he exaggerates its length, pretends that it is somehow a “new” discovery which scientists are trying to conceal, fails to provide any proper context by discussing other signs of warming such as arctic ice melt or the increase in OHC, uses a misleading graph and misquotes at least one of his sources. Some of this might be understandable, if not excusable, if the author did not have much understanding of the subject but Rose has written extensively on climate change and has a record of misleading his readers and misrepresenting his sources, so one can only conclude he is being deliberately misleading yet again.
If someone wrote an “alarmist” article as misleading as this one and a prominent “consensus” scientist was defending it Judith would quite reasonably come down hard on the journalist and even harder on the scientist. To defend Rose in the way she is doing is, well, indefensible.
If someone wrote an “alarmist” article as misleading as this one and a prominent “consensus” scientist was defending it Judith would quite reasonably come down hard on the journalist and even harder on the scientist.
An alarmist story would continue the perceived imbalance between those who do and those who don’t take “natural variability” seriously. Whether a story has errors or not is irrelevant if it supports the campaign for taking variability more seriously.
I don’t think this is a sufficiently valid reason for supporting such stories because to some extent it attacks the strawman of monotonic 0.2C/decade and accelerating warming. But the “pause” is already resulting in a lot of focus on its reasons (and would have done without all the hype).
Unfortunately, unless and until one of the explanations is “because sensitivity is different from what we thought” we get no further, really, because accounting for the pause, the linear trend since the 1960s is about the same now as it was in 1997-8.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/trend
The “pause” is unlikely to give us an answer relating to sensitivity unless it continues for many more years. Without an answer that addresses sensitivity we are still in a position of expecting, potentially, between 0.0C (with a very fair wind) and 0.4C (with a somewhat foul wind) warming over the next 10 years depending on the way “natural variability” goes.
“every year from 2001 onwards except 2008 was warmer than 1997 and 2005 is still the warmest non-el Nino year.”
Yes, that’s what a plateau means…
Sure, I’m not disputing there is a plateau, I’m disputing that it started in 1997.
Andrew Adams,
Why?
Bob,
Because it carried on warming after 1997. Compare tems in 1997 with those from 2000-2005
If sunspots heading for the horizon means a night of cooling, then 05-06 was High Noon. How? I dunno. I just see bodies everywhere.
===============
In fact, heh, future fact, we may watch the sunspots prefer a hemisphere that is, disappear over a horizon. I had meant the visual spectrum horizon, but this I prefer.
==============
andrew,
Articles that could be classed as “alarmist” and equally misleading come out all the time, with little to no criticism from people like Dana. Far more frequently I’d wager, than those such as Rose’s piece.
Let’s not call the kettle black.
timg56,
I believe that Andrew Adams’ main claim is his last sentence:
> To defend Rose in the way she is doing is, well, indefensible.
I’m not sure how you respond to that claim.
You could say that she’s not defending Rose.
You could say that what she’s doing is defensible. Because Andrew is wrong. Or because Andrew’s argument does not show what it purports to show. &c.
You could say that what she’s doing is indefensible, but “that it does not matter”. Or that you accept Andrew’s criteria as a standard for blogging practices and wish it to be maintained for all the community and perhaps beyond. Or that Andrew’s criteria is self-defeating. Or what not. &c.
You do seem to convey that it does not matter much. But before a but, there seems to miss a yes. Acknowledging that Judy’s defense of Rose is indefensible has not been clearly stated. A simple “I don’t think what Judy does is defensible” would suffice.
What you can’t say is “I don’t care”, for your comments show otherwise.
Many thanks!
PS: Speaking of kettles, I’m not sure you’re being serious, for I will remind you that Willard Tony’s do not seem to miss much of the anti-climatic action.
willard,
I was responding only to andrew’s last paragraph.
As I’ve stated elsewhere, I don’t think the Rose article is worth defending or attacking. My assumption, based on what she has said here, is that Dr Curry is using the fact it has drawn attention to make the point that what Rose is discussing, whether completely accurately or not, is a worthwhile subject, primarily because what has been observed with tempertures the past 15 years isn’t matching up well with what models and certain organizations and scientists have been predicting (or projecting if you want – another of those silly little points of argument).
I agree with Mosher in his summary of climate models above. There is a lot they don’t get right or are not well suited for. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use them. It does mean we should skeptical in how we use them or what they tell us.
As for any defending Dr Curry is doing, that is her business and this is her site. Personally I think she does everybody a favor in pointing out how flawed Dana Nuccitelli’s attempt to counter the Rose article is. Scooter is a true believer and not a very nice one at that. He’s the kind of crusader who would have had no problem herding a village full of people into a mosque and burning it to the ground in another time.
timg56,
Thank you for your response.
While I appreciate the topics covered in her OP, I don’t you should presume what you wish is flawed in Dana’s comment, at least until we have some credible analysis on the table. Heck, I’d settle for a basic reading comprehention test: a synopsis of Dana’s points, accompanied with relevant answers.
Hoping this response won’t make you believe that I’d intend to gather anyone in a mosque to burn them,
w
PS: I did notice you forgot about my previous post-scriptum, btw.
willard,
I don’t think anything of the kind of you. Any good discussion starts with people willing to be civil as well as informed. As far as I can tell, you meet those criteria. That we may be at opposite ends of the discussion shouldn’t matter, except to provide much to discuss.
Personally I do not like seeing a lot of name calling, particularly from some of the people whose opinions or standing I’ve come to respect. Otherwise it becomes indistinguishable from sites such as Real Climate and SkS. (As a side note – those were the first 2 sites I went to in looking to become more informed. Both have played a role in firming up my belief that dedication to a cause is more central to many than science is.)
As for the PS – I was being serious in the sense that I think it useless to point out a tactic used by both sides of the debate and act like only one side does it. Andrew’s example of “misleading” articles is one. A couple of others are “cherry – picking” and “strawman”. Were it possible to do, I’d like to see a mechanism here where anyone using those type of arguments gets an automatic fine. The money could perhaps go to funding a scholarship at Georgia Tech. I’m betting Dr Curry would double the number of students working for her in no time.
I did not get the reference to Willard Tony.
timg56,
I did not feel that the “mosque” remark for meant for me. I simply wished to convey the possibility that this kind of hyperbole can easily backfire. I am quite sure you can express your distrust in SkS and its in crowd with more joyful means.
Your idea of a fine would be fine by me.
I started to use Willard Tony because Willard Tony does not seem to respect Eli’s wish to be called Eli Rabett. Tit for tat is a very robust algorithm.
As for Andrew Adams’ cherrypick, we could observe that this was Judy’s choice. Andrew is a very soft and serious commenter. Sometimes I wish I could emulate him. I hope you’ll learn to appreciate his contributions, even if they don’t come from your in crowd.
Thank you for making me feel what talking to someone feels like,
Best,
w
timg56,
Articles that could be classed as “alarmist” and equally misleading come out all the time, with little to no criticism from people like Dana. Far more frequently I’d wager, than those such as Rose’s piece.
Well I would certainly disagree that such articles are more frequent on the “alarmist” side, but I’m sure there are examples. They do sometimes get criticised by people on my side of the argument (an example being some of the stories about methane) but I’m not naive, I fully expect that people on one side of the argument will devote more time to debunking the other side’s arguments than their own and feel they have justification for doing so.
What bothers me is when people actually defend misinformation or actively disseminate it even further. Judith could have just ignored Rose’s article, that would have been fine. She could have said “this is rubbish but the “pause” is worth discussing anyway. But she has defended him and pushed his “no warming for 16 years” argument without actually demonstrating it is true.
I would also make the point that I think scientists (on all sides obviously) have more of a duty than the rest of us not to defend or disseminate unscientific claims, although we should all try to resist the temptation.
Looking at the annual temperature anomalies it is pretty clear that temperatures continues to rise pretty steadily after the temporary el Nino spike in 2008
Should read 1998 of course.
Oh yeah, pretty clear and pretty steadily… And here is the warming of the 21. century…
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2001/trend
Sure, in the latter part of the decade we had some relatively cool years, hence the negative trend over the decade as a whole. There was strong warming in the first half of the decade.
“in the latter part of the decade we had some relatively cool years, hence the negative trend over the decade as a whole.”
So, is that what “pretty clear” and (especially) “pretty steadily” mean?
The trend from 1999 to 2005 ( and also from 2006 to present) is shown here.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1999/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1999/to:2006/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2006/trend
The annual anomalies from 1996 to 2005 are
1996 0.177
1997 0.390
1998 0.523
1999 0.298
2000 0.291
2001 0.433
2002 0.485
2003 0.496 (2002/3 includes el Nino)
2004 0.438
2005 0.534
So we see the el Nino spike in 1997/8 after which temperatures dropped again and then went up in the early part of the next decade, reaching a peak in 2005, which was even warmer than 1998.
Oh, c’mon, that logic is a double-edged sword. Your opponent could claim that if there’s any upward trend since 1997, it’s only because the years 1999 and 2000 happened to be “relatively cool”. And with the “strong warming in the first half of the century” we could also claim that “there was a strong cooling in the latter part of the decade”, can’t we? I still don’t see how this all would be pretty clear and pretty steadily.
Yes, of course they can say that. And of course what may have happened in the last 6 or 7 years (or indeed the 6 or 7 years before that) is meaningless in terms of whether there is a long term warming trend or whether the warming is caused by CO2. All I’m really interested in here is the particular claim that “warming stopped in 1997” and it clearly didn’t – it got warmer.
Yes, Andrew, but the warming hasn’t warmed.
Surface temperatures were the right metric for demonstrating global warming for as long as they danced to the warmists’ tune but it was only a matter of time before they switched to OHC. So predictable. Makes one wonder why so much money has been spent on models that seek to project surface temperatures into the future.
Looks like you are all going to have to join me in the warmth of the oceans for this yarn to continue to keep the NuttyShelleys of this world happy.
@ gymnosperm | October 17, 2012 at 1:41 am | Reply
That seems to be so – http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif – not much trend in infrared in CERES with energy changes being in the shortwave as a result of cloud cover change.
The earlier data in ISCCP-FD and ERBS data are consistent – and seem to show most warming in 80’s and 80’s was the result of cloud cover change. Earthshine and the earlier satellite sources show the climate shift after 1998 as well.
Cooling in the LW and warming in the SW – http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-3-23.html
‘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.’ IPCC 3.4.4.1
It is what it is.
The idea of decadal variability is certainly well supported – but there is longer term variability as well. A pause in warming for a decade or three more seems quite likely. I wouldn’t bet against longer term cooling either.
ISCCP – ocean low cloud cover data contradict this. CC fell from the mid-1990s and remained at a relatively reduced level from 2000 – 2010.
Pick a product that suits?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=tropicalcloud.png
But we are better looking at global datasets – and at reflected SW rather than just clouds.
Thanks for the link to Climate4You. I obtained the ocean cloud cover data because the usual argument I hear is that reduction in low *oceanic* cloud cover is responsible for the warming ~1975 – ~2000. None of it makes any difference – the tropical, NH, SH, ocean and global low cloud cover data are all similar – there is a reduction from the mid-1990s which makes a nonsense of the claim that *reduced* low cloud cover was responsible for increased insolation and so increased GAT ~1975 – ~2000. As you can see, *the opposite* relationship between low cloud and GAT exists.
What if the slight increase in upwelling SW from 2000 is caused by increased aerosol loading in the upper troposphere and (perhaps) stratosphere?
Links:
VIS-IR low-level cloud latitude -30 +30
VIS-IR low-level cloud NH mid latitude +30 +60
VIS-IR low-level cloud SH mid latitude -30 -60
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zFD/an9090_SWup_toa.gif
‘The overall slow decrease of upwelling SW flux from the mid-1980’s until the end of the 1990’s and subsequent increase from 2000 onwards appear to caused, primarily, by changes in global cloud cover (although there is a small increase of cloud optical thickness after 2000) and is confirmed by the ERBS measurements. ‘
‘The overall slight rise (relative heating) of global total net flux at TOA between the 1980’s and 1990’s is confirmed in the tropics by the ERBS measurements and exceeds the estimated climate forcing changes (greenhouse gases and aerosols) for this period. ‘
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/projects/browse_fc.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-3-23.html
‘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.’ IPCC 3.4.4.1
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif
http://s1114.photobucket.com/albums/k538/Chief_Hydrologist/?action=view¤t=CERES_MODIS-1.gif
What slightly increased SW reflection?
This one.
To be clear CH, I don’t think we can say anything much using ISCCP cloud or IR/SW data. I can make a case that low cloud cover contradicts those who argue that decreased LCC caused OHC to rise etc. You can argue your schtick. It’s all weak.
More and better measurements required.
The evidence is what it is – yet you need more and better?
‘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.’
The better at any rate is supplied by CERES/Modis which I also linked to. Any trend in warming in the last decade is transitory and results from SW changes closely linked to cloud cover – as would be obvious to any but a space cadet.
And in the Dessler 2010 graph – ENSO.
Are ou sure you are not confusing low level with low latitude cloud?
Publish.
All this stuff is already out there. I quote the IPCC AR4 and Dessler 2010. What makes you think any of this is new or startling?
Here one with trend lines – goes double for webster. The guy makes things up in his head and thinks they are true. Total fantasy world. Are you a cult of AGW groupthink space cadet too?
Low level cloud data links are provided upthread.
Instead of repeatedly insulting me, why not concentrate your efforts on writing up your hypothesis?
Lame BS like ‘it’s already out there’ gets you exactly nowhere with me. As I have already said, you are challenging the scientific consensus with a novel interpretation of certain data.
Write it up, or shut up. Nobody – starting with me – takes contrarian blog bollocks seriously. If you wish to be taken seriously, then publish.
Gosh-golly … Judith Curry’s homework assignment sure is tough! :shock: :oops: :shock: :oops: :shock:
If any Climate Etc readers have found “lots more of these statements” in the peer-reviewed literature, please post quotations-with-citations!
Context and caveats should be included in quotes, of course! Because we’re striving for rational critical analysis, eh? :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Your rudeness and incompetence alike is unbounded.
http://muenchow.cms.udel.edu/classes/MAST811/Santer2011.pdf
Verbatim from Chief’s link:
It appears that Santer et al prefer 32-year smoothing, eh Chief?
And sure enough, with three-decade smoothing, the Met data show monotonic planetary warming!
This is a substantial “win” for consensus climate theory. Thank you Chief! :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
But gosh-golly … where are the quotes that verify Judith’s claims?
Oh, I say! Jolly good catch old chap! Do by all means have another one of these rather splendid smiley things :-)
I give you a Sanyer link because you are obviously such an idiot that you hadn’t known the source of the 17 year contention. Such an idiot not for not knowing but for making another song and dance of your ignorance. You then cliam the source as a vistory.
Did you expect anything else from Santer? Did you think I was linking to Santer because I was especially in favour of the proposition?
Just how are you different from a total moron?
Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.
does not mean the same as:
The IPCC and other folks who believe their models and were expecting at most a 15-17 yr plateau
because the former is about proving a positive whereas the latter is about proving a negative. There exist large grey areas between these two positions.
The quote from the paper that best relates to Judith’s quote is:
In summary, because of the effects of natural internal climate variability, we do not expect each year to be inexorably warmer than the preceding year, or each decade to be warmer than the last decade, even in the presence of strong anthropogenic forcing of the climate system. The clear message from our signal-to-noise analysis is
that multi-decadal records are required for identifying human effects on tropospheric temperature. Minimal warming over a single decade does not disprove the existence of a slowly-evolving anthropogenic warming signal.
which leaves things rather more open than the interpretation that’s been put on it.
In other words the Santer paper would have been one used by sceptics after 17 years of warming to say AGW had not sufficiently been detected. Not one that AGW people should use after 17 years of plateau.
PS. The Santer paper is not about SAT – don’t know what difference this makes.
‘Because of the pronounced effect of interannual noise on decadal trends, a multi-model ensemble of anthropogenically-forced simulations displays many 10-year periods with little warming. A single decade of observational TLT data is therefore inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving anthropogenic warming signal. Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.’
Nonethless – this is the paper in which the 17 years claim emerges. It has been widely quoted in explanation of the tropospheric temperature hiatus – to suggest a resumption of warming after 17 years at most. The pause is in the troposphere as well as in the SAT.
There is as well a widely observed multi-decadal signal in the climate record – and indeed cenntennial to millenial variation.
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.
So we are expecting negligible warming over a decade or three more – since the latest climate chaotic bifurcation of 1998/2001. I wouldn’t make wagers beyond that.
@Steve Milesworthy
And yet the temperature today is pretty much exactly the same as it was 15 years ago. But the CO2 concentration is 391 compared with 366.
Despite all the hand waving and digging up of quotes from old papers that might be interpreted to say that ‘well maybe we didn’t so much mean temperature increase as standing still’ it is self-evident that all the ‘green measures’ we have taken over the last fifteen years, all the propaganda like An Inconvenient Truth, all the money spent on climate models and the IPCC and all the predictions of imminent doom have all been trumped by Mother Nature (or Mother Gaia if you will). She has simply refused to go along with your narrative.
And that just makes the alarmists life a little bit tougher. Because – as I have had to repeat many times – the two most important things to do to gain a reputation as a good predictor is that you have to make your predictions in advance, and they have to turn out to be right. Fail on either of these and you fail completely.
The whole ‘climate change’ narrative is based on the very simple idea of ‘unusual and bad things tomorrow’. There are next to no ‘unusual and bad things today’ to discuss, so we’re asked to believe in the predictions.
And yet and yet, the predictions are shown to be wrong. We are not experiencing a warming of 0.2C per decade. We’re at least 0.15C behind that already. It is no good making post-hoc rationalisations and digging up weasel words from somewhere that cover your arses. Those are the tactics of the very dodgy insurance company when refusing to pay a valid claim. if you want such things to be brought into play, you need to stress them at the beginning of the policy not at the end.
Simply put there was a bargain between you guys in climatology and the rest of us. You guys us to trust you about climate predictions because you described yourselves as the experts. We did – and gave you all the money and tools and status and opportunities to do your job properly.
Your predictions have not come true.
Why should we trust you again?
Latimer,
And yet the temperature today is pretty much exactly the same as it was 15 years ago. But the CO2 concentration is 391 compared with 366.
Therefore you must agree that given that the trend from 1965 up to now is higher than it was 15 years ago, the higher CO2 levels mean that in the following plot, continuation of the dark blue (1997 to now) warming trend is much less likely than continuation of the much steeper purple longer trend:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/trend
And yet and yet, the predictions are shown to be wrong. We are not experiencing a warming of 0.2C per decade. We’re at least 0.15C behind that already.
No the above shows that the projections are reasonable because the long term trend is about 0.16C per decade if my eyesight is good enough to assess that purple line.
But perhaps you could remain on topic for this comment nest by digging up quotes from AGW folk alleged to have claimed that 15 years of no warming disproves AGW theory.
> And yet the temperature today is pretty much exactly the same as it was 15 years ago. But the CO2 concentration is 391 compared with 366.
Read and learn:
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2012/10/carbon-dioxide-and-temperature/
@steve milesworthy
Looked at your graph.
Utterly baffled as to what you are trying to illustrate – other than another convoluted attempt at clutching at straws. Your first attempt to pull a ‘get out of jail’ card from an obscure reference was pretty pathetic. This one to do with trends since 1965 is risible.
And in case you have forgotten , the 0.2C prediction comes form climatology’s own version of a sacred text – IPCC AR4. In the Summary for Policy Makers. The important world-influencing bit. No caveats there, no wiggle room. It’s even highlighted in a box so even the most uninterested President or Prime Minister will take it in
‘For the next two decades, a warming of about
0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES
emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of
all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept
constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of
about 0.1°C per decade would be expected. {10.3,
10.7}’
The simple fact remains. – and you can wiggle and wriggle and twist in the wind as much as you like – that the temperature today is barely changed from what it was 15 years ago. Your much-vaunted models did not predict this lack of warming. They failed at this simple hurdle. It is the equivalent of designing an aeroplane purely in theoretical terms only for the wings to fall off during its first take off.
And, if I remember correctly, is about the first and only time any such model has ever been subjected to external real-world checks. You guys have been aggressively determind to avoid any such scrutiny – and so have missed the real world developments going on right outside your window.
Finally you very conspicuously did not address my question
‘Why should we trust you again?’
which goes straight to the heart of climatology’s tattered credibility. You cannot decide whether you wish to be ‘trusted advisers’..which comes with a lot of responsibilities, political activists or a bunch of academics playing around for fun. You guys need to make your mind up. The attempt to ride all three horses has failed.
@willard
Read your link.
It seems to say two things
1. CO2 response is expected to be logarithmic, not linear.
Thanks. I learnt that from Arrhenius forty years ago. Doesn’t affect the fact that the CO2 has gone up and the temperature hasn’t
2. There are lots of things going on in climate other than CO2.
No disagreement from me there either. Pity that its taken thirty years for the convinced ‘CO2 as the control knob for everything’ climatologists to figure that simple thing out.
Were there some other things you wanted to point out?
Latimer,
You are very confused this morning. I suggest you have another cup of Earl Grey. The “obscure reference” was brought up by Chief Hydrologist. I don’t think it is that obscure, though I do think it has been misunderstood in the context of this discussion so it was relevant to discuss it.
The fact that the temperature trend has gone up since 1997 goes to the heart of the ridiculous arguments that pretend that global warm has stopped.
If I told you that in 15 years’ time (2026-2027), temperatures will be at least 0.2C more than they’ve been recently, in line with projections, what would you say? If I’d said a similar thing in 1997 I’d have been about right:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/to:2011/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/to:1997/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2011/to:2012
So given that *the* projections (not mine! Iamnotaclimatescientist) have come, roughly, true you should take the consensus view more seriously, and stop getting into a flap when the reality starts hitting home.
@steve milesworthy
No confusion here, mon brave. I think it is you who are suffering from it.
Firstly it is not a ‘ridiculous argument’ that ‘global warming’ has stopped. The GAT today is the substantially the same as it was in 1997. The globe has not warmed. That there has been no overall ‘global warming’ is self-evident and you make yourself look a fool by pretending otherwise.
What I think you might be trying to say underneath all the bluster is that ‘a warming component to changes in the climate because of anthropogenic CO2 has not stopped’. Which may or may not be true. But the fault for any misunderstanding lies squarely in the alarmist camp.
For thirty years you guys have insisted that CO2 is ‘the control knob’ for climate…that it is the numero uno factor orders of magnitude bigger than anything else. And you’ve even hijacked the term ‘global warming’ as a substitute for ‘a warming component to changes in the climate because of anthropogenic CO2’. You no doubt remember that any unusual weather conditions in UK (even cold and snowy winters) have been attributed by the Met Office as ‘sure signs of increasing global warming’. And after thirty years of constant repetition, people begin to believe it (even if unconsciously)
That the general public sees no warming and equates it to no ACO2 induced warming is entirely down to this dishonest and failed alarmist tactic, What goes around, comes around. Tough.
Your task now is to somehow unexplain the previous ‘CO2 as control knob’ story and try to re-explain that in your view while it has still been going on really there are other things that have had a cooling effect and have cancelled out the warming. Which will of course lead to unhappy and unpleasant questions about ‘so how come you didn’t tell us about all these other factors last time?’ and a whole host of associated inquisitions that you guys will not like at all.
And so to trends. Just an observation that people don’t live in trends. They don’t turn on their central heating because of trends, nor switch on the aircon. Crops don’t grow because of trends..they do so because of the climate in their very immediate vicinity
In your previous remarks you said
‘If I told you that in 15 years’ time (2026-2027), temperatures will be at least 0.2C more than they’ve been recently, in line with projections, what would you say? If I’d said a similar thing in 1997 I’d have been about right:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997/to:2011/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1996/to:1997/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2011/to:2012‘
I have studied your graph with some amazement. In 1997 the y-value was 0.35 (I assume that, though unlabelled the y-axis represents a temeperatur anomal), and in 2012 it is still 0.35. It has not changed.
There is absolutely no sign whatosever that you;d have been right if you’d predicted 0.2C rise in 15 years. You are deluding your self if you think there is…..which takes us right back to the beginning. I restate in case of difficulty:
The GAT today is the substantially the same as it was in 1997. The globe has not warmed. There has been no global warming.
Latimer, you are the one with the bluster, what with the made-up Met Office quotes and the fantasy “control knob” that is supposed to control temperature on short terms.
What I think you might be trying to say underneath all the bluster is that ‘a warming component to changes in the climate because of anthropogenic CO2 has not stopped’.
No I am not saying that! I am saying that the warming has not stopped. It is still warming! The normal ups and downs in temperature have fooled you into thinking it has stopped. But it has not stopped because the warming trend has gone up since 1997. Now given there is an apparent plateau, I can see that this may sound a little counter-intuitive. That’s why it is useful to reflect on the plot I generated.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/trend
And really! To look at my other graph and pretend that because for one month during 1996-1997 the anomaly was similar to a recent anomaly, that warming hasn’t happened is just ridiculous. Particularly coming from someone who claims to have a science background. Raise your game Mr Alder.
Steve Milesworthy
The “consensus” (ROFL) agrees that there is currently a “pause” in the long-term warming trend.
IOW, it has temporarily “stropped warming”.
Don’t be a climate “denialist”. Accept it and get used to it.
And, cheer up. It will probably start warming again in a few years (or decades rather than start to cool significantly).
[At least I hope so. We do NOT need another LIA.]
Max
Latimer Adler,
I believe the take-home message from NG’s post is this:
> If you plot other data sets, you’ll get slightly different results, but the same take-home message: there’s nothing in recent global temperatures that disproves the importance of CO2 as an agent for climate change.
I believe this take-home message contradicts the “plot” in the two sentences I underlined in your post.
@willard
And the takehome message for me i- and I’d guess 95% of the members of teh pubilc – is that in spite of all the trend plotting and squinting at graphs sideways and all the tricks and stunts you can pull to try to avoid it, the simple truth is that the GAT today is the same as it was in 1997.
There has been no warming. Which is pretty bad news for the alamists and even worse for the catastrophists.
But wait – it gets worse! The models on which you both rely for your doom-laden tales of a bad or catastrophic future totally failed to predict this phenomenon even when it was occurring in realtime just outside the office window! Spectacular credibility fail!!!!!
To paraphrase a famous TV interview (‘So Debbie, what first attracted you to multi millionaire Paul Daniels?’) we could have the Sainted Jeremy Paxman:
‘So, Climatologist, fresh from the total failure of your work to predict the recent prolonged 15 year no warming phase of the Global Average Temperature, what makes you think that we should give a toss about anything else you tell us? You screwed up on the easy stuff outside the window…why do you think your long-term work will be any better than your latest fiasco?’
Latimer,
First of all, what exactly is the basis for your claim that the global temperature is the same now as it was in 1997?
Secondly, even if we agree for argument’s sake that the temperature is the same now as it was in 1997, that’s not the same as saying “there has been no warming since 1997”.
Also, you may have seen Judith’s quote from the IPCC in the other thread which says that from 1990 to 2005 temperature trends were in line with projections (possibly a slightly overconfident statement given the timescale involved). You can extend that until 2007, it’s only once you take it to 2008 that you start to get a noticeably lower trend. It would seem therefore that it’s only in the last few years that things have gone slightly awry, and than can be explained to a large extent by recent la Nina events and a solar minimum. That’s the problem with short term trends – they are sensitive to start and end points – a couple of warm years now and things will change, you can anyway get a warmer trend by moving the start date a couple of years either way from 1997 and there is no reason they would be a worse (or better) indication of what is currently happening.
As for the models, to the extent that their projections may turn out to be reliable it will be over multi-decadal periods. Although they do reproduce the kind of natural variations which have an impact on short term tends they can’t predict their timing, but they are expected to even out over the long term. They are not expected to predict annual teperatures over short term periods so complaining they have failed to do so is pretty meaningless. I would hold up my briefly profitable but ultimately futile experience of playing online blackjack as an analogy.
@ andrew adams.
1. Hadcrut 4.
2. The temperature today is the same as it was in 1997. If you have some other way of measuring ‘warming’ other than by using some form of thermometer to tell us the temperature, please tell us.
But if I look at two identical temperature values separated in time I do not deduce any ‘warming’ between the two. I deduce that there has been no warming. Please explain why you see it otherwise.
3. None of your discussion about endpoints changes the facts above. The temperature now is the same as it was 15 years ago. 5000 days of carbon dioxide emissions, 100 times the length of ’50 days to save the planet’, endless miles of ‘death trains’, the complete extinction of the polar bears (apart from their highest recorded numbers) and abslutly no discernible difference in the only thing we are supposed to care about…the global average temperature. All the shouting and screaming all the lobbying and marching has all been a complete waste of everybody’s time. Mother Nature ain’t playing ball.
4. I think it would just be an awful lot simpler for everybody if the modellers just wrote down clearly and straightforwardly for all to see what they think their models are good for and how they propose we judge their success.
As it is they are just suffering reputational collapse inch by painful inch Every time the models fail some simple test the modellers trot out the line ‘well we never said they were any good at that’ and trawl round until they can find some obscure paper that supposedly supports it. Like some sort of a ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card in Monopoly.
Your latest addition to the GOOJF literature says, I think , that models aren’t expected to be any good over anything less than forty years or so. (‘to the extent that their projections may turn out to be reliable it will be over multi-decadal periods’).
Maybe so, but that wasn’t what they were telling us only six short years ago in IPCC AR4, when they made decadal level predictions with enough confidence to put them in a highlighted box in the SPM to ensure that Bush and Brown and Merkel and Sarkozy and all the rest saw them and took them in. No hints of 40 years there. Here’s the quote
‘For the next two decades, a warming of about
0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES
emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of
all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept
constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of
about 0.1°C per decade would be expected.’
We do not hear much of that prediction nowadays. And if the best the modellers can do is to tell us about things that are going to happen in 2050, how come they were so keen to tell us that ‘the models’ showed that the two last cold and snowy winters in England were caused by ‘global warming’?. And – in the Met Office case – that the models they use to forecast tomorrow’s weather are identical to the ones they sue to forecast the climate.
Seems to me that the climate modellers seem to be just like Teflon Tony (Blair) was accused of being. Always happy to take the credit for anything that happens to occur in line with their predictions, and very skilled at plausible deniability when it doesn’t. ‘Heads they win, tails we lose’
Latimer,
2. The temperature today is the same as it was in 1997. If you have some other way of measuring ‘warming’ other than by using some form of thermometer to tell us the temperature, please tell us.
Stating the temperature today is the same as it was in 1997 is clearly questionable. The temperature today has varied throughout the (so far) 16.5 hours (based on GMT). The temperature throughout the whole of 1997 presumably varied even more.
If you want a better way for measuring earth’s temperature, I suggest you measure it over a reasonably long period to overcome sampling errors (given we are measuring points on a 2D surface within the 3D volume that we’re interested in).
If you follow a method constructed, as best you can, within these rules (which is the norm in physics experimentation) you will find that the temperature “today” (ie. a long enough period that includes today within it) is probably (as we cannot be certain of all errors) warmer than the temperature “in 1997” (ie. a long enough period that includes 1997 within it, chosen in a consistent way with the choice for “today”).
As data is not available for “today” the example involving the last full year of data will have to suffice. For example, choose the average of the last 5 years and the 5 years running up to and including 1997. Woodfortrees is not fully set up to do this, but the following demonstrates that it has warmed about 0.29C between the period running to 1997 and the period running to 2011. Roughly in line with the model projections. Look for the squiggles in the following. See the plot description to the right to see what I am trying to do (calculate a 5 year mean). If you set it up to calculate a five year mean exactly, you only get to see one pixel.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1992/to:1997/mean:55/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2006/to:2011/mean:55
@steve milesworthy
If you don’t like the way the guys at the Met Office HADley Centre
and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia compile their HADCRU4 dataset take it up with them, not me. But they are supposedly the ‘Greatest and the Goodest’ of the climatology establishment, and all I’ve done (and all the Daily Mail has done) is to highlight the data they have published. If you believe it to be invalid, they are the people that you need to take it up with.
But your increasingly desperate arguments on this thread seem all to be based on the idea that if you look at something different..a trend or an average or a distribution, then things aren’t quite as bad for the warmist cause.
No deal. The HACDRUT datasets have been taken throughout climatology as pretty good representations of the actual values for years. Nobody until now has suggested that they have to be looked at through 5-year means or only through a smoked glass prism while holding a copy of IPCC AR4 and reciting the Nobel Prize citation or whatever daft incantation you have in mind. Once again you have to resort to desperate measures to try to avoid the simple but very uncomfortable truth that the planet has not warmed for 15 years.
I hope that in your private life you are a man of integrity and honesty.. and I have no reason to believe otherwise. But continuing your policy here of ever more unlikely reasoning to try to demonstrate that the data tells us something other than it does might cause me to wonder if you carry those same high ideals into your blogging efforts.
Latimer,
I base my arguments on the assumption that HadCRUT4 is as accurate as they say. On the basis of the HadCRUT4 data (or indeed the HadCRUT3 data and probably the GISS data – haven’t looked). The data doesn’t matter as the method for analysing it would be the same whatever.
So I do not disagree with your and the Daily Mail point: that in at least one month of 1997 the surface stations and SST measurements averaged (using the HadCRU methodologies) to a higher number than at least one month in 2012.
The question is whether that comparison is meaningful or useful. Does comparing two individual months give a good measurement of “global warming”? The answer is that it does not.
The smaller your subset of data the bigger the sampling and measurement error. To reduce the chance of being confused by such errors one can (if appropriate) increase the size of the sample by extending the range of observations one looks at.
In this case the “appropriate” judgement that has been *consistently* used is that you have to look at a reasonably long period to distinguish between climate and weather. One way of doing this is to look at long term trends. Another way is to sample observations over a wider time window.
– using trends, the trend for warming over 1970-97 is less than the trend from 1970 to now.
– using more samples, the average temperature for the period up to 1997 is about 0.3C less then the temperature for the same length period up to 2011. I pick the period up to 1997 because in the context of the discussion the question is what did we expect the climate to be like in 1997. If we expected no warming to follow 1997, then we would not have expected all the top ten warmest years on record to have been in the period following 1997.
I’m not too bothered about you questioning my integrity on this blog as either it reflects your lack of understanding of relatively basic science techniques (first year labs level) or it is evidence of a ploy to look good in front of “the denizens”. I’ve just gone and employed a chemist – so if it is the former I hope chemistry education has improved since you went to university.
@steve milesworthy
At last…you have grasped the point!
Between the two months in question, the ‘global warming’ effect has been zero. That is what the data tells us.
There…it wasn’t too hard to admit it was it….?
BTW – if your next argument is that there has indeed been a lot of warming during the period, you have also to admit that there has been an equal and opposite set of cooling factors as well. Otherwise we would not see the nett temperature change of zero.
Can you bring yourself to make this step? Having finally had the courage to make first giant leap, this next one shouldn’t be too hard…..
If so, can you quantitatively identify those cooling factors so that they can be put into the failed models to bring them a step further along the long and winding road to reality?
I hope you enjoy working with your chemist. But I fear that there may be some initial difficulties, since chemistry is an intensely practical science where the things that really matter are what Mother Nature actually does, not what various people would like, hope or expect her to do.
Observations trump theory every time. You might find this new mindset hard to adjust to. Good luck.
Latimer
At last…you have grasped the point!
Between the two months in question, the ‘global warming’ effect has been zero.
The point is not difficult to grasp. But the point is wrong. The data does not tell us that “global warming has stopped” because the data is more than two months’ worth.
there has been an equal and opposite set of cooling factors as well. Otherwise we would not see the nett temperature change of zero.
What you have not grasped is that the temperature metrics are just that – metrics. They are not accurate measures of the energy content of the earth system which is a key element of climate. If a cold month is surrounded by a lot of warm months it is suggestive that it just so happened the sampled areas had colder than average weather. I don’t know of any process that could cool and warm the whole earth by the amounts required to satisfy the day-to-day and month-to-month variations in the surface temperature metrics. Do you? I can think of processes that could cool and warm the land and sea *surface* in this way though, and I suspect these processes are included in climate models.
Here are some monthly anomalies for comparison
April 1997 0.287
April 2012 0.514
February 1997 0.323
February 2012 0.209
So if we had asked the question “has it warmed or cooled since 1997” we would have got very different answers depending on whether we asked in February or April.
Here is another one
December 1979 0.357
December 2010 0.323
So we had cooling, or at least no significant change, between 1979 and 2010. But 2010 is the warmest year on record, 1979 is the 28th warmest.
Basing conclusions on comparisons of individual months is just nonsense.
@steve milesworthy
There you go again. The true theroretician.
You can safely dismiss those pesky thermometer things since they only measure things. How grubby and experimental and unpleasant. Whereas the real important stuff is something you just ‘know’ from theory – the total energy content. No need to measure anything to determine that..you have your wonderful models to tell you what it must be and there’s an end to it. It must be increasing because theory tells you so and you don’t need any nasty little observationalist crap to come along and ruin your day.
‘just metrics’ indeed! Pathetic.
PS In a hypothetical world if somebody were to ask you to actually *measure* the total energy content, and you could be arsed to come down from your theoretical mountain in the clouds what would you use – ruler and compasses? a stethoscope? imagination? or some form of ‘thermometer’?
PPS Did you write to the HADCRUT guys yet telling them they have it all wrong? Remember to publish their reply.
PPS Did you write to the HADCRUT guys yet telling them they have it all wrong? Remember to publish their reply.
I discussed this story with a “HadCRUT guy” over a lunch-time orange juice and he was not impressed with the analytical skills of people following your line of thought.
If you have a thermostat in your hallway that accurately clicks off at 20C, what temperature is it in your lounge when the thermostat turns the heating off?
a) The temperature is less than 20C – while the heating has been on, it’s cool outside and the window in the lounge is open.
b) It’s warmer than 20C – there is a fire burning nicely in the grate.
c) The temperature is 20C – the grubby thermostat *must* be trusted. Anyone who suggests anything else is a pathetic arse.
PS In a hypothetical world if somebody were to ask you to actually *measure* the total energy content…
The question is being answered in the real world. I suggest you have a look through Chapters 3,4 and 5 of WG1 IPCC AR4 if you can bear to download them and put some effort in.
@steve milesworthy
No idea what your thermostat analogy is trying to tell me. I don’t use a thermometer in the hallway to measure the temperature in the garden shed either. But it is the climatologists who decided that we could have this idea of a Global Temperature by measuring lots of temperatures in lots of places and combining them all together. Thta what your HADCRUT guy does.
Go and ask him nicely over tea and bikkies what he thinks his data tells us if my understanding is incorrect.. And don’t forget to publish his reply. If he says that his work isn’t designed ot give a single number illustrating the GAT then we need to let WUWt, MacSteve, the IPCC, Phil Jones, Mike Mann, the Daily Mail, Obama and Cameron know asap since all of the last thrrty years have been a complete waste of time.
Note also that all the bad things that are predicted to happen are a consequence of temperature not of some other quantity. That;s teh one we’re all supposed to be interested in.
Here’s a nice lecture from a chemist at Yale about experiment and theory, Start about 7 minutes in. He’s got some interesting history and shows you why observations are fundamental to knowledge. You do not need any chemical knowledge to follow it.
http://videolectures.net/yalechem125f08_mcbride_lec01/
Latimer,
No idea what your thermostat analogy is trying to tell me. I don’t use a thermometer in the hallway to measure the temperature in the garden shed either.
So you would agree that the temperature of the land surface and sea surface temperatures does not measure the ocean temperatures below a metre or so, and is, in reality, only a reflection of the temperature taken at all the individual weather stations or by the individual ships.
Therefore HadCRUT and GISTEMP are only reflective of a small number of points, and therefore one cannot assume that they are a measure of global warming without thinking things through a little further.
That’s all I wanted you to admit really. That wasn’t too hard was it.
Steve Milesworthy,
You said
“I discussed this story with a “HadCRUT guy” over a lunch-time orange juice and he was not impressed with the analytical skills of people following your line of thought.
If you have a thermostat in your hallway that accurately clicks off at 20C, what temperature is it in your lounge when the thermostat turns the heating off?[/quote]
Steve, from your answered it appears that someone has lack of real world knowledge of what they speak about. That would be either you or your HadCRUT guy.
Thermostats commonly have a preheating coil that heats up and shuts off the heater BEFORE the room reaches the set temperature – so that what heat is “in the pipeline” does not get to overheat the room much.
Thisisnotgoodtogo
Thermostats commonly have a preheating coil that heats up and shuts off the heater BEFORE the room reaches the set temperature
It’s a slightly irrelevant technical point, but the question envisaged the thermostat clicking off at 20C without reference to the number the dial pointed to:
If you have a thermostat in your hallway that accurately clicks off at 20C…
Latimer,
I watched a bit of the lecture you linked to.
You have used presumed authority from some unnamed scientist that you may have misunderstood to claim that one month’s data is an accurate measure of “global warming” – ie. a metric for whole biosphere.
Experience, however tells us that the value goes up and down rather a lot from month to month. Logic tells us that for that to be true *and* for the measure to be a metric for the energy content of the biosphere, a lot of heat (net flow of energy) must be entering or leaving the biosphere from month to month. Since this flow of energy is not observed, one must question your understanding borne out of your faith in your understanding as obtained from this unnamed scientist or scientists.
I got that from between minutes 7 and 16.
Steve Miesworthy,
You said
“If you have a thermostat in your hallway that accurately clicks off at 20C, what temperature is it in your lounge when the thermostat turns the heating off?
a) The temperature is less than 20C – while the heating has been on, it’s cool outside and the window in the lounge is open.
b) It’s warmer than 20C – there is a fire burning nicely in the grate.
c) The temperature is 20C – the grubby thermostat *must* be trusted. Anyone who suggests anything else is a pathetic arse.”
So first,your objection to my statement is that it doesn’t matter because your statement only indicated that the thermostat shut off the heat at 20 degrees.
My objection,was that the thermostat would shut off the heating element before the thermostat itself reaches 20 degrees.
Since your multiple choice answers would lead the respondent to expect that the hallway WAS IN FACT 20 degrees at the thermostat, then the lounge would be judged as somewhat cooler or hotter than THAT. But it never was THAT.
We can add other real world problems such as the fire blazing sucks air through by natural infiltration routes of the house and therefore through the hallway and even the lounge, cooling the house itself.
Your base problem n the argument is that the thermostat is all we have, and you;re agin’ it..
@steve milesworthy
FWIW the scientist in question was J. Michael McBride from Yale. And he was teaching Lecture 1 in the Freshman Organic Chemistry Course from that institution on the topic ‘How do We Know?’. Surprised that you could not work that out from the header and supplementary information prominently displayed throughout the lecture where he, his institution and the topic of his lecture were permanently displayed. And it took just a moment to find his Yale bio through Google
http://www.chem.yale.edu/faculty/mcbride.html
But I did not suggest that you watch it because I wished to ‘use presumed authority from some unnamed scientist that you may have misunderstood’. Instead I thought it might help your understanding of some basic principles of science. It seems I failed. Perhaps you were too busy in a futile attempt to discover whether he was an alarmist or ‘denier’ (afaik he has never expressed an opinion at all about any aspect of climatology) and so whether you would be allowed to watch his lecture or not.
You then divert the attention to the grandly entitled ‘energy content of the biosphere’. Which may be hugely interesting to climatologists, but is if no interest whatsoever to the general public.
It was you guys who invented and promulgated and continue to use ‘global warming’. And what we expect from .such a term is simple…- warming on a global scale. Whether or not the energy content of the biosphere is increasing decreasing or staying the same is irrelevant, – if the temperature ain’t going up, the globe ain’t warming.
So lets review the report card of climatology as a ‘science’ in this area:
1. You had total freedom to collect and analyse your base data in any way you chose. For many years you paid lipservice to it – especially when it was giving the answers you expected – continuous slight increases in ‘global temperature’
2. You wrote some models whose predictions were used to make short term predictions like’ 0.2C per decade for the next twenty years’. And these predictions were promulgated without caveat to national and international leaders by the IPCC. they found their way into government and international policies for years.
3. You invented the term ‘global warming’ to describe the process. In many ways this was a masterstroke.. it was simple, easy to understand and affected everybody on the planet.
So far so good.
But when the data stops playing ball you guys all run a mile from the previous setup.
You rubbish the data you previously relied on (anybody remember the tree-ring divergence problem where you did exactly the same). You disown the models (‘only expected to be useful over multi-decadal timescales …or even on a century level’) and you even try to wriggle out from ‘global warming’ with ‘the energy content of the biosphere’.
So even on your own terms you guys have completely failed. and teh more I see climatologists trying to wriggle off the hook that their own data has impaled them on, the more I think that they behave like a bunch of spivs trying to avoid the consequences of their own actions. And ‘spiv’ is the most charitable word I can use when a family audience is watching.
I had hoped that McBride’s lecture might give you food for thought ..but clearly not. My opinion of climatology – never high to start with – has plummeted yet further by your individual and collective reactions to this sorry tale.
McBride is not the unnamed scientist, Latimer! The unnamed scientist is the scientist who you seem to obtain your confused understanding of what a global temperature metric is.
What I am doing is asking you to apply the correct elements of your lecturer’s methods. Namely, experience and logic. Experience combined with logic tells us that one month’s data cannot be useful. The theory though is that multiple months of data *are* useful because they obtain a statistical sample of the multi-annual and decadal flows of energy into and out of the ocean.
However, one could perhaps therefore argue that there is a continuous net outflow of energy from the ocean which is causing the warming. So one carries out further investigations into ocean heat content which, as it happens, tend to support the argument that the longer term surface temperature data (ie. more samples to reduce sampling error) *are* a good metric for global warming.
Sorry about the grandly entitled ‘energy content of the biosphere’. Mr thisisnogood pedant turned up and would no doubt have complained about heat content of the centre of the earth if I’d just said heat content of the earth system.
Climatologists were not the one who chose where and how to measure temperature in the recent and more distant past, so no they did not have “total freedom”. They continue to be limited by technical abilities and cost constraints, as well as their lack of understanding.
thisisnotgoodtogo
Since your multiple choice answers would lead the respondent to expect that the hallway WAS IN FACT 20 degrees at the thermostat, then the lounge would be judged as somewhat cooler or hotter than THAT. But it never was THAT.
The point of the exercise is to demonstrate that the chosen method of assessing temperature (thermostat/weather stations and sea surface temperature measurements) may not necessarily be good measurements of other parts of the system (lounge/deep ocean). Therefore one should not be dogmatic by saying that the measurement of land and sea surface temperature over a short period is a metric for global temperature.
Hope that explains things.
@steve milesworthy
‘The theory though is that multiple months of data *are* useful because they obtain a statistical sample of the multi-annual and decadal flows of energy into and out of the ocean’
Maybe so. But what that has to do with your flagship funding mechanism and scare the public narrative of ‘global warming’ is sufficiently obscure as to baffle the layman. The layman, using the term climatology invented and promulgated expects ‘gloabl warming’ to mean that his or her environment is getting hotter. And the temperature record over the last fifteem years shows that it is not.
If you have a theory that looking at ‘the multi-annual and decadal flows of energy in and out of the ocean’ is somehow relevant., knock yourself out. But don’t pretend that what you are doing is much to do with the generally accepted term of ‘global warming’. You cannot dismiss inconvenient data by simply saying that it is irrelevant to something else. If I say ‘Exeter City FC won the football 3-1′, it does not change things if you say,’ but I’m only interested in Reading FC’s results’. Exeter still won. Their result hasn’t changed.
Just to repeat once again…between 1997 and today the temperature did not increase. There was no warming. Accept it and deal with it. Diversionary tactics do not make this Inconvenient truth go away.
Your comments about the ‘anonymous scientist’ are puzzling in the extreme. Your whole post appears to concern the lecture I linked to. You start with ‘I watched a bit….’ and you finish with ‘I got this between minutes 7 and 16’. Inbetween you discuss ‘the anonymous scientist’. If you really meant the anonymity to refer to some other previously unknown and unreferenced guy who just appears out of nowhere, then you need remedial help in writing clear and direct English.
Tips – you could have referred to him in the indefinite ‘an anonymous scientist’, rather than the definite ‘the….’. You could have introduced the character with ‘a different…’ or ‘some other ….’. As it is you left the cleat impression that ‘the anonymous scientist’ was the guy giving the lecture, not some other amorphous and unidentified person.
And it’s a pity that didn’t watch beyond minute 16. I just reviewed it up until there. In his historical survey of the history of science, he had just abut wrapped up the ‘old ways’ of doing science….and was just about to introduce the discussion of science by experiment and observation…..shame that you missed that bit. Perhaps you will get another chance.
You say;
‘Climatologists were not the one who chose where and how to measure temperature in the recent and more distant past, so no they did not have “total freedom”. They continue to be limited by technical abilities and cost constraints, as well as their lack of understanding’.
This is a most remarkable statement. Seems to me that you are basically saying that after 30 years of an expanding and very generously funded field…just about an entire scientific generation…you haven’t even managed to get yourselves sufficiently well organised to get some decent basic data to work with ???
Surely – as I have been saying for years – observational data is the bedrock of all science. If you have poor data, you get bad science…no matter what the topic is. It is like building a house. If teh house has poor foundations it will be a shaky and weak structure. Which brings us back to McBride’s lecture. ‘How Do You Know’? And the emphasis on good observations. Without them, any theory you can construct is just garbage. Blind faith in theory is just that ..an act of faith…unless you base it on real world observations. It seems that climatology does not pay very much attention at all to this fundamental scientific principle
Please watch the lecture again…after minute 16 this time.
Latimer,
If I say ‘Exeter City FC won the football 3-1′, it does not change things if you say,’ but I’m only interested in Reading FC’s results’. Exeter still won. Their result hasn’t changed.
Your analogy is inappropriate.
If I said “Exeter City’s decline is a reflection of lack of investment in the club”, and you said “Well, Exeter City won 3-1 therefore the decline has ended”, or “At this stage of the season 10 years ago, Exeter had the same number of points as they do now, therefore the decline has ended” would you (assuming that the points situation is as you state) be right?
The answer in this case would possibly be true and possibly be false. Evidence that it was false would be perhaps if they’d just avoided relegation last season, had failed to invest in new players and had had an easy run so far this season.
The point is that the context matters.
Further, It doesn’t really matter what your understanding about how best to measure “global warming” is if it is wrong. You should understand that your simple way of assessing the warming was wrong and then move on. You might worry that lay people have been equally confused all these years, but again that doesn’t matter either. You were wrong, they may have been confused, but it doesn’t change the situation.
You are wrong. No scientists has claimed that one month’s data has the meaning you presume. Many scientists have pointed to the long term trends.
The long term trend shows that, if anything, the trend has increased since 1997, not decreased, so whatever interesting questions arise from the apparent “plateau” they do not relate to whether “global warming” has stopped or not.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1960/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1965/trend
@steve milesworthy
Wow and double wow!
I hardly know where to begin.
But let’s start with the graph. As ever, since you don’t feel the need to explain or expand upon it but present it as if it were some form of trump card, it is difficult to know what you mean. But let’s have a go.
You seem to think that it is somehow possible to gain meaningful insight into the behaviour of the GAT in the last 16 years by looking at graphs spanning 52. No idea why you think this is meaningful,. No idea why you chose 1960 as a start point rather than 1860 or 1920 or -45BC. You just magicked it out of the air without commentary or justfication.
And all your graph shows is that it is warmer now tan it was in 1960. No argument there anyway. But it is not warmer now than it was in 1997. Why this point is so hard for you to grasp escapes me, but I will try one more time.
In 1960 I was about starting proper school. I was not very tall. But between 1960 and about 1970 I grew very rapidly and attained my existing height. For the last forty-odd years I have not changed my height. My growth has stopped. I am the same height now as I was when I was 15.
Am I taller now than I was in 1960? Yes. If I calculated a trend between 1960 and today it would be positive…and if i plotted it in twenty years time it would still be positive. Does any of this show that I grew at all in the last ten or twenty or thirty years? Nope.
Is it sensible on the data presented to say ‘Latimer’s growth has stopped?’ Yes. Is it sensible to say ‘Latimer’s growth has ended?’ Nope. We do not know what will happen next. It may resume, in which case it will have ‘paused’ in the last 16 years. We do not know. And I hope I have been very careful not to say that the warming has ‘ended’ throughout our little correspondence. And neither did David Rose in the Daily Mail.
But the fact remains that the GAT 16 years ago was the same as it is today. It has not warmed. There has been no ‘warming’.
Your football analogy is also wrong. It was you guys who declared that you would measure the accumulated points total as the measure of the decline (or otherwise) of Exeter City FC. So if I point out that – on your own way of measuring things – there is no difference between this season and the same place last year – and hence no decline between those dates – you cannot suddenly pipe up with ‘well we didn’t actually mean you to look at the points total we wanted you to look at other things instead’ Your metric, you decided it, you live with it. Tough. What goes around comes around.
Your last point – that what I think or thought and how I – and the lay public – understood things was just wrong and it doesn’t matter anyway, we should just leave it to the experts (like you and your colleagues presumably) betrays a naivety worthy of a 6th former, not form a member of the real world. And is really throwing petrol on an already burning fire.
The idea that it ‘global warming’ is a continuing and relentlessly unpleasant process is now absolutely fundamental in national and international politics. Just in the UK it directly affects energy policy. environmental policy and fiscal (taxation) policy..and it is constant backdrop to work in the EU, the UN and international affairs. It is not small potatoes. Closer to home I think you will find that the funding of your own institution has been substantially increased because of global warming worries.
None of the above things come without a cost, And the cost is borne by the citizens of the various countries..the ‘lay people’ whose opinions you so decry. Those costs – directly like pounds in their pocket – and indirectly like environmental amenities – are rising and they are becoming increasingly reluctant to pay up a lot of money for what they perceive to be zero benefit. As they discover that ‘the problem’ seems to have at least stopped temporarily that reluctance will increase. And your remarks that lay people’s opinions don’t matter are arrogant in the extreme and will do at least as much harm to your cause as the excellent Daily Mail article.
Keep them coming! You make a great recruiting sergeant fro Sceptics Central.
Should I ask the Big Oil Well-Funded Denier Conspiracy (Burn the Plant Kill the Polies 2006 edition) to send your ‘Thank You’ Starbucks voucher to your place of work…or shall I take it as an introduction fee?
@steve milesworthy
I’m sure you’ll find today’s update of the Daily Mail saga fascinating
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2220722/Global-warming-The-Mail-Sunday-answers-world-warming-not.html
You would expect anything different from Ben Santer? I just supplied the source for someone who remains especially clueless.
Usually I wonder why I bother.
Working Conclusion The assertions of David Rose and Judith Curry regarding warming “plateaus” are anecdotal and erroneous, in the sense that a review of the climate science literature fails to support their assertions.
Oops … this circumstance is regrettable, :eek: :oops: :eek: :oops: :eek:
A fan of *More* discourse
I disprove you thus:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1990/to:2000/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1990/to:2000/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/to:2010
HadKrappy3, a regional surface temperature series, can only settle regional conflicts.
@AFOTBS
It is not the ‘climate science literature’ you need to review.
It is the temperature observations.
Fixed that for you.
Latimer Alder | October 18, 2012 at 11:53 am |
There are no GMT observations after 2005 that rise to any rational standard to use for comparison of trends. (Not even Bernoulli’s.)
Up to the end of 2005, what observation we have suggests strongly continuation of the sharp GMT upward spike observed since the 1980’s, if we restrict ourselves just to the weather station improvisations of HadCRU and GISS etc.
If we include all other available evidence, and look to correlations and Physics, we expect that in six years time, when we can make strong claims supported by evidence in HadCRU and GISS, then right now we are in the midst of that same ongoing upward spike.
Part of the problem in this discussion is that there are two or more definitions being used for “pause” ambiguously.
David Rose claims the GMT has stopped rising entirely. Up to 2006, he’s absolutely wrong based on the only source of evidence he cited in his article. Since 2006 is almost a full decade after the start of his claimed pause, more than half of his claimed pause, he’s simply not worth considering.
Judith Curry apparently (it’s hard to pin her down) claims like Muller that there is a pause in the speed at which GMT approaches 0.2C/decade. Well, there’s a chance Curry and Muller are right. However, if they’re right, this pause too started after the end of 2005. The odds they’re right? About one in six. And again, everything in claims of pause are adequately and entirely explained by known physical phenomena understood and set out in the caveats of the IPCC’s last report, mostly aerosols, as Muller’s BEST reports lately suggest. The particulars of how much can be attributed particulates vs ocean circulation? Too little data yet to speculate, and shame on those who show too much confidence when discussing.
The particulars of AGW due CO2E increase? That’s as strongly supported as one could reasonably demand.
@bart r
So now we play the ‘that dataset isn’t worth looking at’ card! Wonder why all the supposedly clever people at CRU and the Hadley Centre bother to compile it then?
Goes with the ‘that climate projection wasn’t meant to be taken seriously’ and the ‘that paper wasn’t published in a journal we approve of so we can ignore it’ or ‘that is just a talking point’ category of lame and feeble excuses. .Twisting and turning to try to avoid the unavoidable.
Lets do a deal. You write down all the datasets that you feel can be relied upon ahead of time…with reasoning. And decide which can’t. Also ahead of time. and publish those.
Because at the moment, climatology looks to me like a complete shambles. Either you have reliable data (remember that stuff??) to work with or you don’t. If you don’t then there is absolutely nothing for any of it to rest on. If you do, you have to go where the data leads you. What you most emphatically cannot do – and retain any shred of scientific integrity – is to pick and choose a bit from here and a smidgeon from there coz you like the results. Wither do it consistently or not at all.
Latimer Alder | October 19, 2012 at 2:35 pm |
I love it when the British whinge. They do it better than almost anyone. It’s like watching Mr. Bean.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:191/mean:193/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/last:110/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/offset:-0.07/last:110/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/offset:0.07/last:110/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/to:1865.92/offset:-0.07/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/to:1865.92/offset:0.07/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:79/mean:85/to:1865.92/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:47/mean:53/offset:-0.1/last:32/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:47/mean:53/offset:0.1/last:32/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:47/mean:53/last:32/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:47/mean:53/to:1856.75/offset:-0.1/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:47/mean:53/to:1856.75/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:47/mean:53/to:1856.75/offset:0.1/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.67/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.67/trend/detrend:0.11/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.67/trend/detrend:-0.11/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1997.67/trend/scale:0.001/offset:0.424005
Have a look at the schematic. Note what happens when we’re tempted to use 15-year trendology (the last 4 lines on the graph). Even within the simpleminded 15-year trendology, the Rose claim itself (no rise) falls to less than 1/6th likely; moreover we see the whole of the 15-year slice of pie poorly fits what our eyes suggest when we look at the graph of strong observational evidence up to 2006, and fits not at all what the strong evidence of 32-year climate length (first curve) suggests to the eye.
Sure, the eye can be fooled. We know this. We know the eye looks for patterns, for example trying to fit periodic waves (Orrsengo’s Folly) where there are none. We know the eye tries to tell us to rely on data for trends where there is not sufficient confidence in the statistics of the sample, either because the data is improvised and barely fit to purpose (which BEST addressed, confirming the fitness of GISS and HadCRUT) or too close to the unknown part of the curve (the Endpoint Problem).
So we ask critical, relevant questions. Is it likely the current temperature has dropped dramatically since 2005?
The Arctic Sea Ice extent, sea level, GRACE, Argo, UAH, RSS, droughts, floods, snowfalls and rains tell us anything but a significant rise above 2005 is unlikely enough that we can dismiss a signal of a decadal scale GMT drop since 2005. Even the CO2E levels confirm this, as a significant drop would cause CO2E to begin to dissolve into surface waters. We could use isotopic analyses (so long as we don’t fall into Salsby’s errors of ignoring prior partials) to confirm whether such a drop were due reduced human or natural emissions or due ocean absorbtion.. And we know it just hasn’t happened.
So, reasonably, the odds of Dr. Curry’s pause being real are again about one in six, even though we don’t have those six future years it’ll take to know for sure what HadCRUT4 will look like six years from now.
You ask me to list what datasets I’ll accept? I’ll accept them all, provided I have statistical inference and sufficient knowledge of the derivation of the data to apply logic to them.. but only for the span where mathematics tells me I can confidently use them for the purpose at hand.
Also, what about my comments have ever shown the least sign I cared what people thought about what I think of them? I’m actually quite admiring of the hard work of every scientist who labors to advance human knowledge. I’m sure they know when they’re turning sow’s ears into silk purses due lack of funds and poor foresight by past administrations, and they resent the effects it has, but they press on and in the end we see they have done salutory tradecraft. Though they could dress better, and some of them need to talk to a hairdresser or something.
@bart r
Yet again you wander off into irrelevancies.
The simple fact is that the global average temperature as reported is the same today as it was in 1997. It is not hotter. Ergo there has been no warming since then. Unless you have a new definition of ‘warming’ that doesn’t mean ‘getting hotter’?
All your convoluted arguments about trends and curves and all the rest of it doesn’t change it. And your desperate attempts to discredit the data because you don’t like it, or to look at it sideways and with your eyes half closed in a room lit only by an incense candle just make your scrabbling seem even more like the last thrashings of a drowning man.
Your knowledge of Mr Bean seems at fault too. The essence of his persona is that he is mute. So how he manges to ‘whinge’ has escaped me.
Latimer Alder | October 21, 2012 at 5:43 am |
Oh, I didn’t say he spoke — eloquent though his silences — I suggested it was laughable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsgJC6brhgc
And while you can compare weather on such short spans as fifteen years in a somewhat meaningful way, you can’t compare climate reliably as climate by definition is at least a 30 year span.
It’s just as absurd as claiming there’s such a thing as ‘global weather’ represented by a single figure that covers all regions. Weather and climate are not the same. You still haven’t figured that out?
GMT is a pretty much useless concept on spans of less than 17 years, and only strongly reliable on spans of 30 years or more. Sure, you can measure something called GMT for any day or month or year, but it doesn’t form part of a meaning unless you have 30 years worth of GMT. (Although with 95% confidence you can predict GMT in only 17 years.)
“JC comment: how does this refute Rose’s argument? No statistically significant positive trend, and it makes it look like SkS hasn’t done their homework with the latest data.”
This is an example of the so-called “p-value fallacy”, and is a very common misunderstanding of frequentist hypothesis testing, so it is rather ironic that JC should accuse SkS of not doing their homework.
A lack of a statistically significant positive trend DOES NOT mean that there has been a pause, just that there isn’t sufficient evidence to rule out the possibility that there has been a pause. If statistical significance is not reached there can be two reasons for this (i) the null hypothesis is true (in this case there has been a pause) or (ii) the null hypotheis is false (there hasn’t been a pause) but there are insufficient observations to rule out the null hypothesis out, given the expected magnitude of the trend and the amount of noise in the data. To rule out the second possibility, you would need to show that the statistical power (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_power) was sufficiently high that we would resonably expect the test to reject the null hypothesis when it actuall is false. Needless to say, claims about a pause in warming always seem to neglect this).
There is a good reason why hypothesis tests have this assymetry, which is that it introduces a safeguard against over-interpreting the data in favour of your theory. You start by assuming the null hypotheis (the thing you don’t want to be true) to be true and only procede with you claim if you can show that the observations are sufficiently unlikely under the null hypothesis. If you want to claim there has been a pause, then your null hypothesis should be that the warming trend has continued as before (and the apparent pause is an artefact of the noise) and then show that the observations are unlikely under that assumption. However the null Prof. Curry is implicitly using here is that there is a pause and that the trend is zero. This completely lacks self-skepticism and is against the whole idea of hypothesis testing.
Here is a practical example of why the “p-value fallacy” is a fallacy. Consider I have a two-headed coin, and you (not knowing that it is actually two headed) want to work out whether the coin is biased or not. Say I flip the coin four times, and you observe heads each time (oddly enough), what can you conclude. The normal hypothesis test would be to assume that the coin is unbiased (the null hypothesis), in which case the probability of a head = p = 0.5. You would then compute the probability of observing a result at least as extreme as that actually observed if the null were true and reject the null hypothesis if this probability is less than some threshold, normally 0.05. In this case, this probability (the p-value) is 0.5*0.5*0.5*0.5 = 0.0625, so we are not able to reject the null hypothesis that the coin is unbiased. Does this mean that the coin actually is unbiased? No, of course not, it has a head on both sides! What does the lack of statistical significance actually mean in this case? That there is insufficient data to reject the null hypothesis in this case, even when it is actually false. In statistical terms, the test lacks statistical power.
I would strongly suggest that Prof. Curry either investigates the statistical power of the test or performs a test for the existence of a pause where the null is that warming has continued at the previous rate.
Oh gee – I guess no one thought to check wikepedia for the answer. Such a complex and stunningly new approach. :roll:
I could just have easily given a reference to statistical power in a stats textbook, but the wikipedia page is more easily available. Complaining about the use of wikipedia (without being able to point out an error in the page I referenced) is just a tacit admission that you had no substantive response to the point. This sort of rhetorical evasion is sadly now ubiquitous in the climate debate, and I am not going to indulge it any further. If you have a technical response to my argument, I’ll respond; further rhetoric I’ll just ignore.
I was just complaining about the simple minded and pompous pedantry.
Today’s XKCD comic, titled “Electoral Precedent“, provides dozens of concrete examples (which are both amusing and mathematically illuminating) of denialist-style “cherry-picked” reasoning. :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Been there bought the T-shirt. http://redcube.spreadshirt.com/breitbart-you-say-right-wing-blogger-like-it-s-I12015574
I guess like these people you think with your other head.
Oh gee – I guess no one thought to check wikepedia for the answer.
http://deepeco.ucsd.edu/~george/publications/09_long-term_variability.pdf
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/shared/articles/KnightetalGRL05.pdf
Sceptic/Deniers vs Realists ?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/SkepticsvRealistsv3.gif
Temp,
If one had time to spend only on one blog, there is no contest between SkS and Dr Curry’s. One is authored by a scientist, the other is not. One has a history of editing and changing comments after the fact, one does not. One has a reputation for not allowing comments on a frequent basis and one does not. Want to take a crack at identification?
Bonus question: One features an scooter riding attack puppy and one does not.
And one is largely populated by Muppets and Numpties and the other is not!
Gee temp,
Not exactly a mature response.
Do you really want to go on record saying that:
John Cook has never altered posts and comments after the fact?
That the moderators at SkS rarely, if ever, delete comments so they don’t get posted?
That the Cook and the moderators at SkS are qualified, working climate scientists?
timg56,
One is an e-salon. The other is not.
One is a free-for-all. The other is topical.
One is a business card. The other is an amateur venture.
One has an in crowd. The other has many.
One is a ClimateBall battlefield. The other is an ensign.
One provides red meat. The other documents all the red meat.
One has an activist agenda. The other too.
willard,
hopefully temp takes notes on how to provide a mature response.
That said, to me your distinctions look rather subjective. I believe the three points I referred to above are objective.
timg56,
Thank you. I believe that saying that Judy’s an e-salon or a ClimateBall battlefield where many in crowds meet for a free-for-all is a sober description of the site. That it acts as her business card sounds like a neutral interpretation too. Besides, even if your criterias were objective, you have to pick them among other ones on a subjective basis.
But I do admit that Judy’s is more amazingly entertaining than SkS.
The Met Office strikes back against David Rose’s Daily Mail article:
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
Could this be the same Mr Rose who uncritically relied on bad sources to report on other important topics?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/may/30/Iraqandthemedia.iraq
Oh dear – Yes it is…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/dec/08/david-rose-climate-science
Maybe he’ll get the story right next time?
Hansen: “But it also implies that the negative aerosol forcing is probably larger than most models assumed. ”
So let us rid ourselves of this meddlesome aerosol that stand in the way of CO2 controls.
EPA. “SO2 Reductions and Allowance Trading Under the Acid Rain Program.” Governmental. Clean Air Markets, April 14, 2009. http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progsregs/arp/s02.html
THE PAUSE
It is not a pause. It is a decline =>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1992/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1992/to:2002/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2002/to:2012
Girma
Your woodfortrees plot of the last two decades’ temperature trends shows clearly that
a) it warmed from 1992 to 2002
b) it cooled from 2002 to 2012
c) the warming rate in the first decade was somewhat greater than the cooling trend in the second
d) as a result, the “average temperature” during the second decade was a bit higher than the “average temperature” of the first decade
Point d) is often used by those who deny that the warming has stopped as “proof” that it hasn’t – but the logic is false, as the graph shows.
Max
Pingback: Still good news: global temperatures remain stable, at least for now. « Fabius Maximus
Ths isn’t reality TV.
Aside: Sad state that so many feel so alienated from reality that it must be manufactured on TV.
Trash talking gets us nowhere. In time the truth will be obvious. What we are trying to do now is discern what that truth will be to avoid unfortunate consequences.Statistics are tools for the blind, and we are blind.The full range of possibilities between catastrophic warming and catastrophic cooling remains unconstrained.Bring on the wavelets, seed them, but remember, they are merely correlations.
The pause?
Hmm … ‘Stormy Weather’ might soon become top of the charts in the top ten un/popular song medley.
Precautionary principle list of things ter do?
* Buy a new overcoat – fur?
*Stock up on me nutritious and warming Four Leaf Clover Soup (
* Knit me nephew a four metre length Dr Who scarf.
*Take up Ice skating in preparation fer the Ice fairs on the Yarra River.
*Practise Saint Vitus Dance fer the apocalyptic terror response when
the Ice Man cometh …
Dr C
You are absolutely right about Skepticalscience. They are dragging down the level of public scientific debate in the climate field
The modus operandi of Skepticalscience is to take a skeptical/inquiring question of a *prior and existing consensus climate position* adopted by media and some scientists, cast it as though it were de novo statement (‘myth’) made by skeptics, and then proceed through the motions of ‘debunking’ such statements.
This approach puts adoptee of the technique, in the position of someone refuting claims rather than in the position of one who’s made claims and needs to back them up.
At its heart therefore, it is a propaganda technique and not part of any scientific exchange. I probably wouldn’t say that the technique was/is necessarily consciously adopted, but the end result is the same.
How convenient is it, that when you make claims and people ask inconvenient quare birthmarked by the fatal flaw. These articles are written up in a tone of false confidence containing pseudoscientific bluster about their own characterization of skeptics’ queries, and almost never address the original point.
“Hey, how come the global temperature anomaly graph is not moving upward? Waa! Look at the escalator graph”
The other outcome is that Skepticalscience has a set of boilerplate material for a range of questions. Indeed one can predict their response down to the last letter. Article by David Rose about the global temperature graph? Write one paragraph calling him names, two paragraph showing escalator graph, three paragraph showing ocean heat content graph, four paragraph with a butt-ugly bar graph about ‘climate economics’, conclude.
Have any doubts? Go to the secret back forum and secretly discuss them.
Entities like Skepticalscience contribute to the polarization of the climate debate by freezing scientists’ positions and characterizing them more definitively than the scientists themselves would on their own.estions, you call their questions ‘myths’ and pretend to be a mythbuster instead of answering the questions?
As a result, almost *all* articles in the skepticalscience database – as they call it –
Text mangled above. Stray mouse click attack!
> Go to the secret back forum and secretly discuss them.
Perhaps you mean, “conspire”, not “discuss”.
And “sneak secretly”, not “go”.
And “a set of secret boilerplate material for a range of secret questions”, not “them”.
If that’s the case, I wonder why I should sneak secretly into their secret back form to secretly see that they are conspiring about secret boilerplate material for a range of secret questions whence we can see this on their main page:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
And speaking of secrecy, could you make all your emails between you our adored Bishop?
Many thanks!
willard is back with silly “perhaps you mean…” posts
(If “willard the waffler” can’t understand what posters “mean” when they write a post, that is willard’s problem.)
Max
He’s the leading star of a fantasy sports team. Look out the window, Willard—–SNOW. Now dress warm and run outside and play. It’ll be good for your appetite.
===============
manacker,
You’re fumbling on a simple rhetorical device.
Your time thinking about these bad hominems could be better spent trying to understand the difference between predictions and projections, what is a paradigm, and perhaps also contemporary empiricism.
And I’m still waiting for that quote from Willard Romney’s book.
That said, I like this idea that when others commenters can’t get a comment, that might be because of the commenters. I’m sure Latimer will agree.
kim,
The leading star would be Vaughan Pratt, aka Maurice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a48m8M6N0k&list=LPyKer4Km4l6Q&index=10&feature=plcp
If we’re to talk about hockey sticks, a little bit of hockey history might be warranted.
Wrong video:
I give up. Search for the vid with the Hockey Game song.
Sorry, willard, your last waffle about semantics has added nothing to the ongoing debate.
“Prediction” versus “projection”? Who cares?
Meaning of “paradigm”? I’ll settle for how the dictionary (and Thomas Kuhn) define it.
You have failed after a long exchange on another thread to:
a) Cite specific empirical scientific evidence to support the IPCC CAGW “premise” (or “hypothesis”, “postulation”, “paradigm” or “conclusion”, or what ever you want to call it).
b) Tell me how this premise could be falsified.
All the rest is simply waffling to evade these two challenges, willard.
Max
manacker,
You are thick as a brick.
A prediction has predictive power. A projection provides estimates about possible outcomes. Talking about falsifiability only makes sense what talking about predictions.
If you can’t make that distinction, we should play a backgammon match together. How much can you afford to lose?
***
Paradigms belong to a scientific apparatus. If you talk about the CAGW paradigm, you fail to grasp Kuhn’s concept. But hey, go ahead with your dictionary.
***
That AGW might lead to dire impacts is illustrated in the Summary of Policy Makers:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spms3.html
You can claim that these impacts are not quantified precisely enough for your contrarian tastes, but you can’t claim that we don’t have evidence for these projected impacts, as the projections rely for the most part on the data we already have.
I really hate to step in and help here.
A fair die rolls values 1-6 with equipartition of probability of outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
A projection might include: 2, 3, 1, 6, 5, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4, 1..
A prediction might be: “I’m gonna roll a six next.”
The prediction is testable (by rolling). The validity of the prediction remains the same (1/6th probable) regardless of the actual outcome of the roll. Rolling a six proves nothing about one’s predictive power. Nor does rolling any other result.
The test for the projection is, “are the outcomes in the projection possible”? The validity of the projection remains unity, 100%, regardless of the fact that you have not produced actual rolls matching it.
See the difference?
Red Maple Cafe.
Ever’ day cornbread waffles.
Sorry you missed ’em.
===========
BartR, “The test for the projection is, “are the outcomes in the projection possible”?”
The test of a projection would be the probabilities of reality being inside and outside of the projected range or the projection is useless. So a prediction can be proven wrong, a projection can be proven useless.
Bart R
This discussion with Willard is taking place on the “Italian Flag” thread, but I’ll quickly respond to your latest post.
I have asked Willard to cite the empirical scientific evidence that supports the IPCC “CAGW” premise (Feynman), which I outlined to him, and which rests on the underlying hypothesis that climate sensitivity is high (2xCO2 = 3.2C mean).
I also asked him to tell me how this premise (on hypothesis) can be falsified (Popper).
So far, lots of words, but no direct answer.
Hope this clears it up for you, Bart.
Max
manacker | October 19, 2012 at 7:53 am |
You expect anyone to indulge the notion that anything you have ever said has cleared up anything for someone?
Barn doors, man. Barn doors.
captdallas2 0.8 +0.2 or -0.4 | October 18, 2012 at 10:34 am |
A poor craftsman blames his tools.
If you can’t figure out how to appropriately apply projections, and get frustrated trying to treat them like predictions, might I also suggest that you not use a hammer to drive screws.
willard,
it is pretty hard to read some of the exchanges between SkS moderators on their backroom forum and not conclude they;
– are committed to a cause, which isn’t being skeptical
– have some disturbing views on how to treat people with opposing viewpoints
– may have some issues with maturity
I do not require a PhD in Physics to recognize behavior patterns and how people act. One can determine what sort the folks who run SkS are by how they act and they are not the sort who, in my opinion one should put much credability in.
timg56,
You were talking about subjectivity, earlier, I believe.
But you’re right. As I already conceded, SkS sounds like an in crowd. If they ever wanted to look like an information portal, they should consider the possibility to cut comments and leave an emailing facility for more neutral contributions.
As a bonus, they would regain their lives:
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/nanny.htm
At least, theorically speaking.
1. The whole point of SkS is to rebut claims made by skeptics and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this – skeptics are under no less obligation to back up their claims than “warmists” are and there is no reason their views should not be subject to scrutiny. There would be nothing wrong in principle with skeptics setting up an equivalent website. SkS has widened its remit since it was started though – they do make the case for AGW (see for example the “fingerprints” of AGW), they examine particular topics which happen to be in the news, they have a weekly summary of recently released papers. You may not aree with them but it’s just silly to suggest that what they are doing is somehow improper. To the extent that they are contributing to the “polarization” of the debate they are no more guilty than any “skeptic” site.
The request misses a word:
> And speaking of secrecy, could you make all your emails between you our adored Bishop public?
What’s not public could very well be considered as a conspiring secret.
willard,
It is so ironic: the true beleivers celebrate and defeend the flouting and ignoring of FOIA laws regarding public and govt. employees on govt. paid time. Yet the same hypocrites have the cheek to demand that private individuals in private communication should have to divulge anything at all.
It as if they know their guys are not only breaking the law but they wish to enable them in hiding, covering up, suppressing and deceiving.
lurker,
Yes, but Climategate.
I don’t think that SkS counts as private individuals.
And by the way, I’m not demanding anything: I’m just asking politely.
And to clarify the point I’m making: this “secret” sloganeering might very well be considered repugnant ((tm) — AuditingSciences) by auditors.
> I don’t think that SkS counts as private individuals.
should read:
> I don’t think that you’re presuming SkS counts as private individuals.
That’s what happens when you don’t doublecheck the whole sentence when you reword parts of it.
It is so ironic: the true beleivers celebrate and defend the flouting and ignoring of FOIA laws regarding public and govt. employees on govt. paid time.
Examples?
For those with comprehension problems, (namely willard)
a key statement in the post above is:
“This approach puts adoptee of the technique, in the position of someone refuting claims rather than in the position of one who’s made claims and needs to back them up.”
It is the Met Office and the climate disinformation machine which has endlessly hyped every temperature ‘update’ and revision with claims and cries of ‘unprecedentedness’ that needs to explain the pause, and the reason for silently updating their series. Not Rose who’s just asking obvious questions that are on everyone’s mind, including prominent scientists’, as Curry shows above.
I suppose you think it is ok to make a prediction of impending doom and hide behind ‘I didn’t say when’? That is exactly what Skepticalscience’s elevator graph amounts to.
Yes, Shub, the “MET Office and the climate disinformation machine” makes David (oh, no “disinformation machine”, this time) do it. Over and over again. Day in, day out.
Yet again, we note the word “prediction”. Yet again, we note “impending doom”. Alarmism about alarmism.
Non nova, sed nove.
***
SkS’ elevator graph can be found here:
http://sks.to/escalator
Here’s SkS’ own rationale:
> The popularity of the graphic is probably due to the fact that (1) it’s a simple, stand-alone debunking of the “global warming stopped” myth, and (2) that particular myth has become so popular amongst climate denialists. As The Escalator clearly illustrates, it’s easy to cherry pick convenient start and end points to obtain whatever short-term trend one desires, but the long-term human-caused global warming trend is quite clear underneath the short-term noise.
http://skepticalscience.com/still-going-down-the-up-escalator.html
Accountability cuts both ways. Rose should be accountable for the desinformation he’s peddling, backed up by Judy who’s running with talking points right now instead of stepping up her game. No need to wait for Shub to do the same.
I will never understand the need for desinformation peddlers like Shub to motivate his opponents with cheap bad hominems when paying minimal diligence to their peddling plays against them.
So be it.
How is the substance of my Italian Flag post ‘running with talking points’? I have no idea what that even means. Which talking points? Look at the substance of my Italian Flag post.
Judy,
You have yet to acknowledge that NevenA had a point. Among other points, cf.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-255533
There is also Andrew Adams’, who never seems to attract much attention.
But I’d settle for this one for now, which I’ll repeat. Rose and the GWPF might be communicating in the most opportunistic way. They really do seem to run with talking points. I don’t think you can disagree with this, or at the very least, that Rose’s main claim does not smell right.
Saying “if the MET did not &c” rests on a counterfactual that is void of any empirical content: how can you verify something the MET should have not done (in your opinion) exactly? The same argument applies to “had the establishment not spin 1998, I would not be here &c”. Do you have access to a world where they did not do it?
These are just excuses, Judy. Nobody makes you do it. As I’ve learn by looking at the Fantastic Four:
> You always have a choice.
***
And since you’re talking about your Italian Red Flag, here’s something I don’t understand. A three-valued logic is a logic, i.e. it’s something used to evaluate truths. But your flag is only a way to divide a credibility (for lack of a better word for now) continuum in three bins. This evaluates credibility or fiability or whatnot.
But to say that such line of evidence L is True makes no sense to me. And to say that L2 is False is even worse, since we should fill this up with all the stuff that are void of any line of evidence whatsoever.
So I’m not sure in what way your model can have a semantics at all. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to do, but that does not look like a panacea to me. If you want a logic, you might think of hiring a professional logician.
Besides, your criterias for your three bins do seem a bit ad hoc, no? On what epistemic grounds does this tripartition rests exactly? How can this lead to improvement on IPCC’s model?
Willard, the particular piece of this debate that bores me is the propaganda strategies used by both sides, so I rarely engage in discussing that stuff. Re the Italian flag, see these posts for further clarification of the logic piece of this line of reasoning.
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/28/waving-the-italian-flag-part-i-uncertainty-and-pedigree/
http://judithcurry.com/2011/03/15/reasoning-about-floods-and-climate-change/
But even without the logic and reasoning piece, the Italian flag itself (i.e. sorting of the evidence) is better than what the IPCC does in terms of its assessment. The key issue is that the IPCC uncertainty assessment looks at evidence for and evidence against, without an explicit place for ignorance. The Italian Flag provides an explicit seat at assessment table for uncertainty and ignorance. See my uncertainty monster paper
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2011BAMS3139.1
Frankly, I didn’t find that Neven had a point? Any specific I should address?
“…but the long-term human-caused global warming trend quite clear underneath the short-term noise..”
Let forget about the brain-dead Skepticalscience claim about ‘human-caused’ for a moment. What do we have ?
“…but the long-term global warming trend quite clear underneath the short-term noise..”
If the ‘short-term’ noise includes such things as two decades worth of non-warming, who gives a rat’s ass about the ‘long-term’ warming? Such warming is meaningless in policy-relevant timescales. Even policymakers and politicians have homes and mouths to feed and need to make a living in the real world.
Do you know, at the height of the ozone scare, official governmental documents were issued that had graphs showed the rate of increase of melanoma from UV exposure …to be infinite? That’s right – the rate of increase of skin cancer was shown to become a vertical line.
By the elevator graph logic, only upward ticks are global warming, but pauses and downward slides are ‘natural variability’? Pathetic and disgraceful science from Skepticalscience. And it gets defended even!
Shub,
I thought you were a formal guy. Why are you playing these games?
Judy,
Neven’s point was the one I just paraphrased:
Rose and the GWPF might be communicating in the most opportunistic way. They really do seem to run with talking points. Or, if you prefer Neven’s own paraphrase:
> But will Dr. Curry acknowledge my point that Rose/GWPF are using this to mislead the general public? I’ve asked her a couple of times now.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/16/pause-discussion-thread-part-ii/#comment-255479
I don’t think you can disagree with this, or at the very least, that Rose’s main claim does not smell right. I’ve asked many times. NevenA asked many times. Either you defend Rose’s editorial practices, or you acknowledge that NevenA does have a point. Since you have chosen to be interviewed by him and that you’re promoting this piece, and even defend it from Dana’s critique, claiming that you have no dog in that fight is not an option anymore.
In exchange, I’ll take a look at your papers.
Regarding ‘opportunistic’, I see the pot calling the kettle black. You can interpret Rose’s statement literally, or you can read into it a clever ploy to score points for the ‘other side.’ It doesn’t matter really; both sides engage in this kind of behavior, it is part and parcel of the media and politics. I am far more interested in the public statements of scientists, and I think the exchange between me and Jones, mediated by Rose, was very good.
Judy,
Thank you for your answer. It is a tu quoque. The whole point of my intervention you +1ed was that before the “but” comes a “yes”. You begin by saying yes. With a pause. With no buts.
Et cetera.
Sigh.
Judith,
As Willard was kind enough to mention it I will repeat my question as I am genuinely interested in the answer.
I’m not sure you have actually demonstrated that there is a plateau or hiatus of the warming for the past 16 years. OK, you can plot a linear trend starting 16 years ago and get only a slight warming trend, but then you can pick start dates either side of that and get a stronger one – why aren’t they equally good indicators of the recent trent?
Now I’m not denying that a plateau, or at least a slowdown in the rate of warming exists, but I’d like more evidence before I’ll accept it started as long as 16 years ago.
Andrew the issue is this. Statements about AGW as simulated by climate models do not find such periods longer than 15 or so years (or 17 years). So ANY period of this length (whatever start/end dates) challenges these earlier statements.
Judy,
I hope you do realize that you have the power to slow down the escalation of alarmism. This lack of interest regarding it, to a point where you do seem to condone some of it.
I think this is worth the two days of effort I took.
But now I think I need a break.
Please do continue.
Willard, I am trying to eradicate groupthink (on both sides of the debate), bring the uncertainties to the forefront, and to start a rational dialogue on the topic. In particular, the climate science-policy is interface is badly broken, to the detriment of both the science and policy. Once you get this, my statements and actions make more sense (I end up leaving people on both ‘sides’ as feeling frustrated).
• Citations, please!
• Quotations, please!
• Context, please!
• Related work, please!
Without which, this class of claims generates much heat and little light, eh Judith?
For the common-sense reason, that provocative stand-alone claims — that too-commonly are accompanied by content-free directives to ‘do your homework!’ — are objectively indistinguishable from cherry-picking, eh? :wink: :smile: :grin: :lol: :!:
Step up your game, Judith. Keep your advocacy even-handed. You pay lip service to tribalism on both sides of the debate, but when given an opportunity to point out the bilateral nature of the nonsense (such as w/ Rose’s article) you strike out time after time.
Perhaps a convo with your hitting coach might help.
“Statements about AGW as simulated by climate models do not find such periods longer than 15 or so years (or 17 years). So ANY period of this length (whatever start/end dates) challenges these earlier statements.” – JC
I’ll have to second Fan on this one. Due diligence please.
My understanding is the models commonly show ‘pauses’ up to 15 or so years, but are simply *less common* over longer periods.
Judith’s “ANY” statement seems far too binary in its formulation.
Judith,
Thank you for your reply. I would make the following points.
Firstly, the trend for the last 16 years does show a discernable rise in temperature – the figure Nick Stokes mentions above , 0.08C/decade looks about right to me. The trend for the last 15 years is distinctly flatter (albeit still positive), so it is more meaningful to talk about a 15 year plateau rather than 16 years. This is still at the upper end of our expectations (although the Met Office statement says more than 15 years is unlikely not impossible) so I guess it’s reasonable to ask what it means, but “the trend over the last 16 years is relatively flat” does not mean the same as “the world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago”.
Given the dependence of picking a particular start date in order to get this flat trend, and looking at the temperature record in the years following 1997, it still seems to me that it is more of a statistical anomaly than an actual change in the behaviour of our climate over the given period. In contrast, looking at what has happened to temperatures since the middle of the previous decade there does seem to have been a genuine plateau in the intervening years, but obviously a 7 year plateau is less significant than a 15 year one.
To Whom It May Concern
Whether the “pause” was 15 years or 16 years and whether it showed slight cooling or a flat trend or even slight warming is all immaterial IMO.
At some point one has to acknowledge that an extended period of “lack of warming” despite continued unabated human GHG emissions is a falsification of the hypothesis behind the IPCC model-based 3.2C mean climate sensitivity, the IPCC model-based attribution estimates of global warming since 1950 and, hence, of the IPCC projections of CAGW.
Is that point after a “pause” of 17 years?
Or will the “goalposts” be moved, so it takes a “pause” of 20 years? 30 years? Never?
To me this is the key question regarding the significance of the “pause”.
Does this make sense to anyone else here?
Max
Max,
No.
Michael
Why not?
Max
“As The Escalator clearly illustrates, it’s easy to cherry pick convenient start and end points to obtain whatever short-term trend one desires, but the long-term global cooling trend since the Holocene Optimum is quite clear underneath the short-term noise.”
I fixed it.
Edim, the Holocene Optimum was a response to precessional (orbital) forcing. It was most evident in the NH, and it is long gone. Alluding to the HCO as if it had *any* relevance to modern warming only indicates that you don’t understand the nature of the HCO.
BBD, I think nobody quite understands the nature of the HCO. I am not talking about attribution here, only about long-term and short-term trends and the so-called ‘noise’.
Edim, you are just talking, full stop. Take a break and have a long, objective search for causes of the HCO or HTM or whatever you prefer to call it. Then get back to me when you have a clue.
BBD, I know the alleged causes of the HCO (orbital), but I’m not completely convinced that all is known about it.
Anyway, my point is not about attribution. I am just applying willard’s logic (long-term, short-term, ‘noise’) on longer-term time scales. The trend since ~10 ka BP is negative with many short-term (‘noise’) warming/cooling periods. The long-term global cooling trend is quite clear underneath the short-term noise.
A noisy climate system is by definition a sensitive one. Insensitive climate systems damp down both internal and external forcing and so do not exhibit variability/noise. They simply can’t.
If a sensitive climate system is forced, it will respond. The response to anthropogenic forcing on GAT is still only nascent, but it seems to have emerged from the noise back in the 1970s.
Judith
(My BS detector is pegged at eleven).
IMO, you contribute to groupthink on the “skeptical” side of the debate – on a regular basis. I certainly don’t think that you try to eradicate it among “skeptics.”
But I’m open to being persuaded. Could you provide a few examples of your efforts to eradicate groupthink amongst “skeptics.” Certainly, you can’t refer to Sky Dragons, because according to you (based on unquantified assertions) they aren’t part of the group of “skeptics.”
Willard,
Can you give an example of an actual climate prediction used or given by the IPCC ?
I checked the thrilling SkS site and the article by Dana was entitled “Lessons from Past Climate Predictions IPCC FAR”, but had only one mention of prediction in he entire article!
The article was apparently about projections. The one mention was of Broeker 1975, which later in the Dana article turned into Broeker 1975 *projection*.
As if SkS cannot tell teh difference between projection and prediction.
thisisnotgoodtogo,
No, I can’t. Can you?
If you can’t, asking for predictions might be problematic.
thisisnotgoodtogo,
You’re right: Dana’s title might be suboptimal.
Willard,
Dana seems to be utterl;y clueless, AND the title is suboptimal, AND SkS site uses one term for the other throughout.
Do you suppose one could be forgiven for asking why Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction even exists, if IPCC cannot use their predictions?.
Willard,
This is from the IPCC definitions page.It suggests to me that IPCC has made predictions, but somehow that remained unknown to both of us.
“Projection
The term “projection” is used in two senses in the climate change literature. In general usage, a projection can be regarded as any description of the future and the pathway leading to it. However, a more specific interpretation has been attached to the term “climate projection” by the IPCC when referring to model-derived estimates of future climate.
Forecast/Prediction
When a projection is branded “most likely” it becomes a forecast or prediction. A forecast is often obtained using deterministic models, possibly a set of these, outputs of which can enable some level of confidence to be attached to projections.
Scenario
A scenario is a coherent, internally consistent and plausible description of a possible future state of the world. It is not a forecast; rather, each scenario is one alternative image of how the future can unfold. A projection may serve as the raw material for a scenario, but scenarios often require additional information (e.g., about baseline conditions). A set of scenarios is often adopted to reflect, as well as possible, the range of uncertainty in projections. Other terms that have been used as synonyms for scenario are “characterisation”, “storyline” and “construction”.”
thisisnotgoodtogo,
Sometimes, I just get tired to play fetch. I was a bit busy earlier, and your “clueless” remark did not provide any incentive to cooperate. Besides, we should first make one distinction at a time. But since you made some effort, I’ll play along.
***
You’re right about the IPCC talking about predictions. Here’s the page where we can get all the terminology:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_glossary.shtml
Here’s the definition for 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’s the definition for 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’s the definition for 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.
***
Based on the following definition, my own rule of thumb is this: when the IPCC talks about the climate, it makes predictions, but only about their confidence in the projections. In other words, forecasts. So we should bear in mind that this meaning of prediction is better served by the word forecast.
It makes little sense to ask for a forecast to be falsified. As Michael Tobis says at Keith’s:
> If the weatherman says there is an 80% chance of rain, and it doesn’t rain, is that a falsification? Is the prediction in any sense meaningful? Would you carry an umbrella if you had to walk around town on such a day?
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2012/10/12/spreading-the-blame-for-climate-misinformation/#comment-122804
***
When I was talking about prediction with manacker, I had the usual meaning in epistemology:
> Popper makes a distinction between what he terms ‘conditional scientific predictions’, which have the form ‘If X takes place, then Y will take place’, and ‘unconditional scientific prophecies’, which have the form ‘Y will take place’. Contrary to popular belief, it is the former rather than the latter which are typical of the natural sciences, which means that typically prediction in natural science is conditional and limited in scope—it takes the form of hypothetical assertions stating that certain specified changes will come about if particular specified events antecedently take place. This is not to deny that ‘unconditional scientific prophecies’, such as the prediction of eclipses, for example, do take place in science, and that the theoretical natural sciences make them possible.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#SciKnoHisPre
This is the kind of prediction Popper had in mind, not climate forecasts. Popper had in mind a very idealized conception of science, whereby he could restrict the decision procedure so much as to portray it in deterministic terms. To show you how idealized it looks, cf. this discussion in deterministic decision theory:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/decision-causal/
You’ll see that we’re dealing with simplistic counterfactuals, lightyears away from climate forecasts.
In general, invoking Popper has little practical value, and that even when properly done. My personal hypothesis why we hear so often his name is that who he presents his ideas appeals to reactionaries. Let’s not wonder why the London School of Economics hired him.
***
All in all, and whatever the merits of the contrarians’ argument, I would welcome if the IPCC hired real terminologists and epistemologists, or, if they do not have the budget, to hire professionnal editors especially critical reviewers. But I might be biased.
Not Rose who’s just asking obvious questions that are on everyone’s mind
How is “The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago” a question?
@andrew adams
But ‘why should we pay any attention at all to climate models and modellers who couldn’t even predict a 16 year ‘pause’ in warming when it was occurring just outside their office windows?’
is a very good one….
”
the climate disinformation machine
”
I believe that you meant: “The Secret Order of the Non-Condensing Greenhouse-Gas Illuminati”.
You’re welcome.
“A noisy climate system is by definition a sensitive one. ”
Yeah right. So says the world’s foremost climate expert (expertise limited to Charney report, Hansens papers (a few) , Skepticalscience articles)
Unscrew your brain and keep it aside folks. A noisy system is a sensitive system. Better start wearing out hairshirts and building windmills now.
As usual Shub, you are confusing me (BBD) with the world’s foremost climate experts who do indeed say that a noisy climate system is by definition a sensitive one.
Understanding this concept does require a modicum of ‘climate literacy’ and a lack of naked bias, so I can see why you might have a problem here.
… you are confusing me (BBD) with the world’s foremost climate experts…
Please. There is no confusion. You are one of the world’s foremost climate experts. Is there anything about the climate you don’t know about?
All I do is go and look at the science and report back. All you do is reject the evidence. Looks like an impasse to me, Shub.
So many sensitivities, so many forcings, so much time.
==============
One physics to rule them all…
“you are confusing me (BBD) with the world’s foremost climate experts”
BBD,
Hahahaha. That’s a good one. I thought you were Rutheford B. Hayes.
Andrew
After googling for IPCC predictions, I found SkS seems to use the terms interchangeably.They just slide from one term to the other.
Can one of the fans point to a good post which distinguishes between the two ?
@thisisnotgoodtogo
A prediction is a statement that something will happen. It is much discouraged in climatology as it considered to be a hostage to fortune…it could be shown to be wrong.
But if such a disaster were to occur, the prediction somehow morphs into just a ‘projection’. The idea of a projection is that it was just climatologists goofing around and wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.
So, once again, the honour of climatology is sustained and our hero is free to fight another day.
You would not be alone in finding these two concepts rather slippery to grasp. That is exactly how they are designed to be.
Thank you, Latimer Alder.
That is my impression too. It’s why I would like one of the SkS admirers to point out where SkS could possibly be of any help on this topic
And wrong projections also cannot be wrong, because all the unstated conditionals were not met?
Who could blame a body for not including known forcings ?
I find the fight over attribution very funny at times.
I can find a MUCH higher correlation between ice cream sales and crime rates than is shown between temp increases over time and increased co2 concentrations.
And how many would seriously try and ban ice cream because of its “obvious” cause of increased crime?
Needs to be said over and over: Correlation can not prove attribution
good job climate scientists don’t attribute via correlation then isn’t it
So…you are in favor of banning ice cream then?
Must be because the only attribution to CAGW is either picking a multiple of the known 1dc/double co2 as a forcing out of a hat or saying “see…both temps and co2 are rising…it MUST be the co2 released by humans fault”
Why do people say the first thing that occurs to them.
There is this way using multiple regression – http://www.agci.org/docs/lean.pdf
There is turning off CO2 forcing in models but no one believes models have that much credibility to start with.
Seriously – what else in there but correlation as sad and misguided as it is? There is no simple causality in the Earth system. There are multiple forcings nd feedbacks that operate at a wude range of scales in time and space.
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I am commenting late on this post, but there are some aspects of the Nuccitelli article that really annoy me.
1) Anything other than the AGW signal is described as “noise”. Noise implies a random process. Often the origin of noise is in the measuring instruments not the system under study. Sometimes it refers to random processes in the environment. But it is either not real or not important. The distinction between random errors and sytematic errors is basic science. Here the possibility that there are any systematic trends in climate other than AGW is simply dismissed. A clear case of “motivated reasoning”.
2) The Sceptics/Realists graph. No, realists look at the data without drawing any arbitrary lines on it. You can fit a straight line to any dataset. That does not mean there is “really” a linear trend and the variation is just “noise”. The Hadcrut dataset (that Rose was commenting on) clearly shows that warming has plateaued.
3) Some model runs have shown this effect (And that is from the Met Office!). If you are going to make a prediction it has to come *before* the events predicted “Oh yes I’ve been able to get a model with 200 free parameters to do this” is not science.
4) Nuccitellis ocean heat graph lacks error bars, which would be quite big.
The standard of scientific reasoning here is really very, very poor. That is depressing. And the fact that so few members of the public have the scientific education to spot it is even more depressing.
Where is the catastrophic? That is what I want to know.
Cheating on the use of the term “warming”:
Like Steve McIntyre says often, “Keep your eye on the pea.” The entire issue is not over warming, of any sort or any degree, but over catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
In saying “While the trend is not statistically significant”, the article is admitting that the term catastrophic does not apply.
In bringing in “the central value”, the author is also parsing words, because the central value is the one before one looks at the uncertainties (Dr Curry’s issue), represented by the bars. If a central value moves up or down a little bit – which is what all this is about – nothing critical is happening.
This is actually a mealy-mouthed admission that the DM article’s central point is correct; it is words being parsed to spin it a different way.
Any graph in which one points out that there is no significant trend and then also talks about the central value is a graph in which nothing important/catastrophic/dangerous is happening. If they have to discuss both those in order to argue for a very slight increase, where is the catastrophe?
Steve Garcia
I agree with Gareth, just above on his point about drawing linear trend lines. I am no expert, but I’ve done quite a few linear regressions over the years, and a straight-line regression is the lamest regression there is. There are CURVED regression lines (exponential, logarithmic, power, etc.) which will almost ALWAYS represent the data better.
The game playing about starting points and ending points is nonsense, because ALL straight-line regressions depend on the choice of the starting and ending points.
I’ve NEVER understood how anyone can take a straight-line regression seriously when dealing with data from the natural world. Natural world data goes up, it goes down, it peaks and dips – and then reverses itself. Attaching any significance to straight-line regressions is silliness, in the extreme. And the people selling them as serious interpretations KNOW it is all silliness.
Anyone who believes – or tries to get anyone else to believe – that a straight-line regression can tell where a real-world data curve will be long into the future is bullsh***ing himself and his audience.
Steve Garcia
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